Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover
That's kind of the opposite of my take. Where it was just the Amu-Saaya clash that caused a reality glitch to happen in the bounds of a school full of psychics. We already know more glitches should happen over time as well, so I think it's probably a bit much to think they're all linked to people.
If I were to guess, I'd say reality is fraying as the end comes nearer and is just taking less well to abuse due to that.
Thus Saaya is catatonic because she just can't handle the world not being as she expects it to be, something I have some small experience in people some times doing in certain cases. Where they just block out their senses in hopes things go back to how they though things should work.
In which case, staying here is actually then the big mistake to make. And while it's not definitive, Lulu may well be aware of what kind of phenomenon this is, in which case her advice to evacuate immediately is then indeed probably the correct one.
[X] Escape , with Saaya. The Safe Quick Way
-- Saaya's completely out of it. She's not moving on her own. You're going to have to do it for her.
-- "My Own Heart: UNLOCK!" - You snap your fingers around the Humpty Lock, yelling the familiar phrase. Ran and Su don't appear outside much anymore - but they're not gone. They're here and nothing proves that more than a Chara Transformation. You hop, you step, you jump. You twirl, you wink, you pose. You are now pink and green. And several times more athletic than before, though maybe that's just your telekinesis at work.
-- There seems to be some kind of protective effect near to you, hard to know what but maybe it's the Humpty lock, so best not move much away from Saaya in case she gets dragged in to the madness taking hold around you
-- Quickly guess the best way of breaking down a wall quickly with out endangering anyone, be that telekinetically ripping a hole, blasting a hole in to it with something, remodeling it with honey or just punching it like Lulu suggested.
-- Once a hole has been created that is large enough quickly carry her out, possibly via:
-- "Heart Speed!" - On the day you met Nagihiko, you also found out Kukai was not the only one capable of going fast. You feel your shoes turn into the Heart Speeders, the rollerblades which let you soar through the skies as Amulet Heart and chase down that kid whose Mystery Character had given him a rocket pack. Except this time, you're not trying to chase someone else through the air. This time, the air is sucking you in and you need to get away from it, with someone else in tow.
Well there I thought it best to not stick around, I created a more stunted way for evacuating Saaya safely, if there's anything wrong with it or someone has a better idea let me know and I'll try and fix it. Or I guess, make the better vote yourself and I might adopt that one instead.
-- Saaya's completely out of it. She's not moving on her own. You're going to have to do it for her.
-- "My Own Heart: UNLOCK!" - You snap your fingers around the Humpty Lock, yelling the familiar phrase. Ran and Su don't appear outside much anymore - but they're not gone. They're here and nothing proves that more than a Chara Transformation. You hop, you step, you jump. You twirl, you wink, you pose. You are now pink and green. And several times more athletic than before, though maybe that's just your telekinesis at work.
-- There seems to be some kind of protective effect near to you, hard to know what but maybe it's the Humpty lock, so best not move much away from Saaya in case she gets dragged in to the madness taking hold around you
-- Quickly guess the best way of breaking down a wall quickly with out endangering anyone, be that telekinetically ripping a hole, blasting a hole in to it with something, remodeling it with honey or just punching it like Lulu suggested.
-- Once a hole has been created that is large enough quickly carry her out, possibly via:
-- "Heart Speed!" - On the day you met Nagihiko, you also found out Kukai was not the only one capable of going fast. You feel your shoes turn into the Heart Speeders, the rollerblades which let you soar through the skies as Amulet Heart and chase down that kid whose Mystery Character had given him a rocket pack. Except this time, you're not trying to chase someone else through the air. This time, the air is sucking you in and you need to get away from it, with someone else in tow.
Well there I thought it best to not stick around, I created a more stunted way for evacuating Saaya safely, if there's anything wrong with it or someone has a better idea let me know and I'll try and fix it. Or I guess, make the better vote yourself and I might adopt that one instead.
- Pronouns
- He
Your plan don't had any meat in it,
[X] Escape , with Saaya. The Safe Quick Way
- Location
- The Beach
This sounds pretty good right now.
I could see it either way. There could still be a link; though from rereading, the rift doesn't seem to really be reactive to Saaya's mental state?
In any case, I feel like trying to solve everything all at once (without the Exaltation to smooth over inconvenient things like reality) is a recipe for things blowing up. Even if Lulu called JP's right after she hung up, it could still take too long before specialists arrive. It's only been 2 or so minutes since the rift appeared and things have already progressed this far.
My gut says that its possible for Amu and Saaya to work together to stop the rift but I don't have a good grasp on her to gauge how to get that, I'm not sure how likely that possibility is. Getting out of dodge with Saaya in tow seems the least bad option here.
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- Location
- Laniakea
Just something of a theory - the rift reacted in some way when Amu tried to poke it with her telekinesis, causing the Humpty Lock to also do something that may or may not have been blocking a backlash from it.
Saaya currently seems to be actively extruding an effect that makes Amu prone to forgetting she's there and abandoning her. This is possibly an area-of-effect aura, that is also in contact with the rift.
It is possible that the rift feeds on psychic energy and would have latched onto Amu if not for the Humpty Lock protecting her and it currently feeding off Saaya's uncontrolled emissions.
I would actually guess its existence is linked more tightly to the demon/fairy coming out of it than Saaya herself, but that the demon/fairy is currently feeding off energy from her (and tried to do it to Amu when she used TK).
This might explain why the fight can end up being HARDER if we screw up convincing Saaya. As this might mean Saaya doesn't just not help like at present, she emits more energy for the demon/fairy to feed off.
In which case Nero's plan might possibly cut off the fuel supply to the demon, even if we fail to get Saaya lucid and sane.
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Interesting theory @PistachioCookies though if that is the case then the class evacuation in general was the right move, and if one evacuated Saaya as well they'd be entirely cut off from supply.
So long as everyone exits properly as they should then there would be no further problems and the danger level would go down. Though I guess there is a chance Amu and or any other capable person would have to race back in to save any further stragglers who are to close as well then.
So long as everyone exits properly as they should then there would be no further problems and the danger level would go down. Though I guess there is a chance Amu and or any other capable person would have to race back in to save any further stragglers who are to close as well then.
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Nero200
High Priest of Eito, Part Time Nyar.
Right, reviewing story to try and clarify my views on things.
Saaya's mind is falling apart.
Mind slipping away, passively suicidal, and thinking that she is a monster.
This work has been tagged as [Persona].
I'm reasonably sure that Saaya is, at present, experiencing something equivalent to a Shadow "You aren't me" fight from Persona 4.
(I am cheating slightly, because I know Baughn is most familiar with Persona 4 of the 3/4/5 branch, so that's what he's going to be basing things off. See his comments re: Teddy for proof.)
This is a key part of why I want to give Saaya the Humpty Lock for the moment. Her mind is falling apart and shattering, and the Lock will hold her together.
(As it once held a four-egg Amu together, through random Chara-shifts.)
-
Side note, only noticing this now, but:
-
Getting that shoved into her mind to 'fix' the damage Easter and Lulu did can't have been pleasant for her.
-
"Full of cracks".
Saaya is falling apart.
-
Moving on a bit, to the song Baughn linked.
...
Incredibly sad!
I'm not going to go line by line, because I'd be repeating myself a lot.
But going by Baughn's comment of 'every line is relevant', we can hit these key notes:
The rift started developing faster as Saaya went unresponsive.
She's already given up on the world being what she expects it to be, over the last six months.
If she was going to go that type of fugue state, it wouldn't happen just as there's a confirmation that she hasn't been going insane.
Saaya made it this far, made her accusation. She's being proven right that Amu is touching minds, that something fucked with reality is going on.
It doesn't make sense for her to go unresponsive now that things are finally starting to show themselves.
Further on this point:
She's terrified and falling apart, yes, but she's still here.
-
Saaya is linked to this rift, and she's accidentally summoning something through it.
The comparison to a Shadow Fight grows, but this is SMT in the title, so my money is on Saaya (twelve years old and choosing to die rather than try and escape) internally screaming for help as Amu taps her mind.
Whatever is answering that call for help is amused by the current state of affairs, apparently.
This is Amu, interacting with Saya's mind.
Saaya's mind is falling apart.
Mind slipping away, passively suicidal, and thinking that she is a monster.
This work has been tagged as [Persona].
I'm reasonably sure that Saaya is, at present, experiencing something equivalent to a Shadow "You aren't me" fight from Persona 4.
(I am cheating slightly, because I know Baughn is most familiar with Persona 4 of the 3/4/5 branch, so that's what he's going to be basing things off. See his comments re: Teddy for proof.)
This is a key part of why I want to give Saaya the Humpty Lock for the moment. Her mind is falling apart and shattering, and the Lock will hold her together.
(As it once held a four-egg Amu together, through random Chara-shifts.)
-
Side note, only noticing this now, but:
Himamori Dream, anyone?
-
...it occurs to me, Amu's UMI to 'fix' people is entirely a mental attack. And her opinion of Saaya?
Getting that shoved into her mind to 'fix' the damage Easter and Lulu did can't have been pleasant for her.
-
Further proving a point here.
"Full of cracks".
Saaya is falling apart.
-
Moving on a bit, to the song Baughn linked.
...
Incredibly sad!
I'm not going to go line by line, because I'd be repeating myself a lot.
But going by Baughn's comment of 'every line is relevant', we can hit these key notes:
- "Reaching for a nucular reactor" = She is reaching for the rift, and doing something likely to kill her with it.
I would imagine that she is trying to hold it in place long enough for everyone to escape. - "So faint I hear it echo; A crowd of voices growing old, Repeating on and on until it swallows me whole" = Her psionic abilities have been tormenting her for awhile.
- "Giving in, I'll leave this world for good" = She's suicidal. We knew this, but the lines associated with it have a lot of association with peace of mind, being at peace, memories tormenting, going insane.
I don't believe this is the case at all.
The rift started developing faster as Saaya went unresponsive.
She's already given up on the world being what she expects it to be, over the last six months.
If she was going to go that type of fugue state, it wouldn't happen just as there's a confirmation that she hasn't been going insane.
Saaya made it this far, made her accusation. She's being proven right that Amu is touching minds, that something fucked with reality is going on.
It doesn't make sense for her to go unresponsive now that things are finally starting to show themselves.
Further on this point:
Her mind is dissociating and blank, or not paying attention.
She's terrified and falling apart, yes, but she's still here.
-
Amu reaches for her mind again, and the rift develops a voice in it.
Saaya is linked to this rift, and she's accidentally summoning something through it.
The comparison to a Shadow Fight grows, but this is SMT in the title, so my money is on Saaya (twelve years old and choosing to die rather than try and escape) internally screaming for help as Amu taps her mind.
Whatever is answering that call for help is amused by the current state of affairs, apparently.
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Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Alright, if she's already been hit by our mega UMI laser and is still suicidal, it's time for a different approach. I don't think it's wrong morally to use UMI to save Saaya from herself if we can't get NMI to work, but I meant the first sentence quite literally.
[X] Plan: Dream Again
[X] Plan: Dream Again
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Nero200
High Priest of Eito, Part Time Nyar.
Just realised I missed pointing this out in my big long post, bit embarrassing.
Saayas mind is falling to pieces, cracked, and screaming into the void of the rift for help.
She's linked to it, 'Reaching for a nucular reactor', and seeming to be, er.
Using it as a suicide method.
Pulling her away from it is likely going to do damage to her. Her psionics are not in a state to be pulled away from something they are locked on.
(Which, again, is why the Humpty Lock is the keystone of my plan. It will help with the whole falling to pieces and psionics turned hostile-to-self issue)
Saayas mind is falling to pieces, cracked, and screaming into the void of the rift for help.
She's linked to it, 'Reaching for a nucular reactor', and seeming to be, er.
Using it as a suicide method.
Pulling her away from it is likely going to do damage to her. Her psionics are not in a state to be pulled away from something they are locked on.
(Which, again, is why the Humpty Lock is the keystone of my plan. It will help with the whole falling to pieces and psionics turned hostile-to-self issue)
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- Pronouns
- He
[X] Escape, with Saaya
-[X] Throw a desk through the nearest wall, scoop up Saaya, and run for the exit!
Sorry but I really don't want (Plan: Dream Again) to win.
As other had say before, we need to go.
-[X] Throw a desk through the nearest wall, scoop up Saaya, and run for the exit!
Sorry but I really don't want (Plan: Dream Again) to win.
As other had say before, we need to go.
- Location
- The Beach
Oh it seems I did miss some details. Hmm gonna need to think on this a bit, once I'm back at a computer.
You can vote for both things, if you want:
[X] Escape , with Saaya. The Safe Quick Way
[X] Escape, with Saaya
-[X] Throw a desk through the nearest wall, scoop up Saaya, and run for the exit!
- Location
- Europe
Switching to
[X] Nero200
If we die, we die spectacularly at least. ;-)
[X] Nero200
If we die, we die spectacularly at least. ;-)
- Location
- Laniakea
The Humpty Lock (and the Dumpty Key) in Shugo Chara canon was one of those deliberately unanswered background lore mysteries that did a lot, but never got explained. In this quest, I am as close to 100% certain as can be that they've been co-opted into something else. My current running suspicion (with zero supporting evidence) is that it's a kind of Magatama. The sort the Demi-Fiend got given in SMT3, except shackled or lobotomized or perhaps artificial. I mean, I don't think Louise Antoinne Tsukasa is going to suddenly reveal he's actually married and his last name used to be Cyphre or anything, it's just a shower thought.
However, Nero's proposed stunt with Saaya and the Lock does present an opportunity to get some early insight into it. One I'm not sure will quickly come again, at least not at a time when it has both voter supporter and comes in the face of a (relatively) easy fight.
To be clear, I am not convinced that this plan has good odds of working the way it's advertised. I don't expect it to miraculously get Saaya back on her feet in fighting condition, even if we pour every remaining ounce of Willpower into the Lock. If such an outcome is even possible, I imagine it would take multiple critical successes to happen.
I am fully expecting that if we go down this route, we will end up heading into a fight without the assistance of the Humpty Lock.
But.
This fight is only Difficulty 1. We don't need the Humpty Lock to win that. We get 6 dice with our base Telekinesis + Thrown + Strength + basic stunt. More, if Dexterity gets used instead of Strength and we cook up a better stunt. With 6 dice, that's already over 95% success rate. Even if the difficulty bumps up to 2, we still have a >75% chance of winning outright. And I don't even think we need to win outright, since with Tadase and Nagihiko right next door, I expect just a close or partial success will buy enough time for them to bail us out via an interrupt.
My inclination from the start was to fight. I don't see that choice winning outright at this point, but I do see this one leading to it anyway.
That Concrete Sarcophagus stunt won't work without the Humpty Lock rank-boosting our Illusion to tangible levels, but there's another stunt I can think of that involves a storm of glass shards and reflected illusions. That should be worth at least 1 die. The issue is if this one goes so badly pear-shaped, the upcoming fight difficulty ends up being bumped to 3 or higher, then we might be in trouble.
But weighing up what we potentially gain from pulling it off that we don't in the other options - namely, insight into the true nature of the Humpty Lock, insight on what lives in the rifts, plus shutting the rift here and now - I think it's a gamble that I'm willing to take.
So, fine.
I'm game. Let's do it.
[X] No Humpty Lock, We Die Like Arisato
[X] Nero200
[X] Plan: Dream Again
However, Nero's proposed stunt with Saaya and the Lock does present an opportunity to get some early insight into it. One I'm not sure will quickly come again, at least not at a time when it has both voter supporter and comes in the face of a (relatively) easy fight.
To be clear, I am not convinced that this plan has good odds of working the way it's advertised. I don't expect it to miraculously get Saaya back on her feet in fighting condition, even if we pour every remaining ounce of Willpower into the Lock. If such an outcome is even possible, I imagine it would take multiple critical successes to happen.
I am fully expecting that if we go down this route, we will end up heading into a fight without the assistance of the Humpty Lock.
But.
This fight is only Difficulty 1. We don't need the Humpty Lock to win that. We get 6 dice with our base Telekinesis + Thrown + Strength + basic stunt. More, if Dexterity gets used instead of Strength and we cook up a better stunt. With 6 dice, that's already over 95% success rate. Even if the difficulty bumps up to 2, we still have a >75% chance of winning outright. And I don't even think we need to win outright, since with Tadase and Nagihiko right next door, I expect just a close or partial success will buy enough time for them to bail us out via an interrupt.
My inclination from the start was to fight. I don't see that choice winning outright at this point, but I do see this one leading to it anyway.
That Concrete Sarcophagus stunt won't work without the Humpty Lock rank-boosting our Illusion to tangible levels, but there's another stunt I can think of that involves a storm of glass shards and reflected illusions. That should be worth at least 1 die. The issue is if this one goes so badly pear-shaped, the upcoming fight difficulty ends up being bumped to 3 or higher, then we might be in trouble.
But weighing up what we potentially gain from pulling it off that we don't in the other options - namely, insight into the true nature of the Humpty Lock, insight on what lives in the rifts, plus shutting the rift here and now - I think it's a gamble that I'm willing to take.
So, fine.
I'm game. Let's do it.
[X] No Humpty Lock, We Die Like Arisato
[X] Nero200
[X] Plan: Dream Again
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
...there are so many ominous loopholes in that statement.
- Location
- Laniakea
Every comment up until now from the QM was pretty suggestive that if anything were to go wrong, it would be Saaya paying the price. Rich bitch as she is, I agree that's not entirely fair to her.
The "safe" option is to grab her and run. I suspect a few other unnamed classmates would either get dragged into that rift or murked by that demon before JP's arrived, if we did that (at worst Kukai too, but I think that's unlikely for certain reasons). On the other hand, Saaya would probably survive with minimal damage depending on how linked she was to that rift, which I suspect is more a one-way vampiric relationship than symbiotic.
I maintain the "best" option is just to fight. Unnamed or otherwise, casualties are still casualties, plus there's value in staying to see what comes through when the fight difficulty is so rock-bottom low. The risk with this option is pretty clear - it wouldn't have been so much whether Amu personally could win and survive, as whether she could protect Saaya and keep her alive while doing so. At Difficulty 1, I don't see it being that bad. I don't imagine the "fairy" would be anything worse than a generic High Pixie. Even if it was some non-generic enemy like Saaya's shadow self, it's still manageable at 1 Difficulty, the only twist I can see being if the enemy were to completely ignore Amu and wholly obssess on killing Saaya. But I presume such would have been factored into the fight difficulty and I don't believe any Difficulty 1 enemy is likely to be strong enough to completely ignore Amu's combined Presence and Charisma score if she decided to taunt.
Meanwhile trying to convincing Saaya again is a high-risk option, even without Nero's doubly-risky stunt, with questionably-high rewards. We were basically told that failure would bump up the difficulty of the fight depending on how badly we failed. In the event we suceeded, there was no guarantee it would get easier, but there was implication that the fight might be averted entirely. After all, you can't really get easier than difficulty 1, except for scrapping it entirely. If the main reward (apart from Saaya in good shape) was to win the fight in advance, then there wouldn't seem to be much sense in taking a Difficulty 2 indirect route to get there when we could just take the direct approach and tackle it at guaranteed Difficulty 1.
Experimenting with the Humpty Lock adds just enough value to justify the risk of it bumping up the fight difficulty for me. I do feel bad about Saaya being the guinea pig for it.
.......It would be funny if it turned out the guaranteed success method to get Saaya to move her arse was promising to hook her up with Tadase.
Assorted unrelated thoughts:
I don't know when the Exalted side of things is going to show up, and I don't expect it to be this early, but this could be an appropriately dramatic time for an exaltation. It'd certainly be more fitting than the first opportunity offered in the original version of the quest.
In the original version of this quest, the voter justification for exalting Amu was to "save the one who cannot save herself". Her fate was to die within the opening stages of the apocalypse if she didn't exalt.
But this version of Amu has both a far more capable un-exalted baseline, and friends in high places. By the time the apocalypse rolls around, she's likely to be doing even better on both fronts. This version of Amu probably does not share the old version's fate.
I'm still expecting her to exalt anyway. Being doomed wasn't a requirement. "Booting celestial exaltation type 0, serial 60" in "In the distance: 0.1" suggests it's still a Solar exaltation, too (unless type 0 turns out to be Sidereal, which would get really weird). But man, imagine if the exaltation went to someone else, and we had to struggle through the apocalypse as a mortal.
Supposedly, this quest's version of Amu has a passive mind control aura that's been pushing everyone to like her for years. But Amu's classmates in chapter 1.6 didn't show any signs of that. Based on the behavior displayed in chapter 1.6, and QM statements about the limitations of Amu's powers, I'm going to guess it's not really a "like me" aura.
I'm going to guess it's closer to passive emotional leakage. (It might be akin to a sort of psionic "muttering", a communication she isn't aware of and doesn't know how to shut off.) From the time Amu transferred into Seiyo, what she was leaking to her classmates would have been along the lines of "No! Come back! I want to be your friend! Don't buy my front! That's not who I am!" But now, her feelings seem to be different. She's not desperate to be these people's friend any more. She's genuinely detached instead of putting up a front she longs to shed. The resulting psionic impact upon her classmates would be very different.
I'm not sure how Saaya's evaluation fits into this, though. Saaya seemed pretty sure her classmates were all wrapped around Amu's finger. Maybe her evaluation is outdated, or maybe there's more going on.
I wonder what, if anything, it'll take to fully restore Ran, Su, and Dia. I get the feeling the charas' role as characters is deliberately being minimized to conserve narrative focus for other characters and plot threads, and that makes me worry about their intended fate.
There are so many ways Plan Dream Again can go wrong. One way is that rather than helping Saaya resist mental influence, the lock might end up opening a direct channel between Amu's soul and Saaya's soul, or otherwise doing something opposite of the intended goal.
I'm fully expecting at least one of the assumptions underlying the plan to fail, and I really hope a tier-3 stunt bonus is enough to deal with whatever goes wrong.
I don't know when the Exalted side of things is going to show up, and I don't expect it to be this early, but this could be an appropriately dramatic time for an exaltation. It'd certainly be more fitting than the first opportunity offered in the original version of the quest.
In the original version of this quest, the voter justification for exalting Amu was to "save the one who cannot save herself". Her fate was to die within the opening stages of the apocalypse if she didn't exalt.
But this version of Amu has both a far more capable un-exalted baseline, and friends in high places. By the time the apocalypse rolls around, she's likely to be doing even better on both fronts. This version of Amu probably does not share the old version's fate.
I'm still expecting her to exalt anyway. Being doomed wasn't a requirement. "Booting celestial exaltation type 0, serial 60" in "In the distance: 0.1" suggests it's still a Solar exaltation, too (unless type 0 turns out to be Sidereal, which would get really weird). But man, imagine if the exaltation went to someone else, and we had to struggle through the apocalypse as a mortal.
Supposedly, this quest's version of Amu has a passive mind control aura that's been pushing everyone to like her for years. But Amu's classmates in chapter 1.6 didn't show any signs of that. Based on the behavior displayed in chapter 1.6, and QM statements about the limitations of Amu's powers, I'm going to guess it's not really a "like me" aura.
I'm going to guess it's closer to passive emotional leakage. (It might be akin to a sort of psionic "muttering", a communication she isn't aware of and doesn't know how to shut off.) From the time Amu transferred into Seiyo, what she was leaking to her classmates would have been along the lines of "No! Come back! I want to be your friend! Don't buy my front! That's not who I am!" But now, her feelings seem to be different. She's not desperate to be these people's friend any more. She's genuinely detached instead of putting up a front she longs to shed. The resulting psionic impact upon her classmates would be very different.
I'm not sure how Saaya's evaluation fits into this, though. Saaya seemed pretty sure her classmates were all wrapped around Amu's finger. Maybe her evaluation is outdated, or maybe there's more going on.
I wonder what, if anything, it'll take to fully restore Ran, Su, and Dia. I get the feeling the charas' role as characters is deliberately being minimized to conserve narrative focus for other characters and plot threads, and that makes me worry about their intended fate.
There are so many ways Plan Dream Again can go wrong. One way is that rather than helping Saaya resist mental influence, the lock might end up opening a direct channel between Amu's soul and Saaya's soul, or otherwise doing something opposite of the intended goal.
I'm fully expecting at least one of the assumptions underlying the plan to fail, and I really hope a tier-3 stunt bonus is enough to deal with whatever goes wrong.
- Location
- Laniakea
I don't expect anything close to a full success, just banking on it being enough to avoid the fight difficulty shooting up above 3. Difficulty 2 is still OK with just 6 dice. For us to have decent odds to win the fight at difficulty 3 (cumulative success of >75%), we'd need a plan that uses Amu's Dexterity stat instead of Strength and a 2-die stunt (giving us 9 dice). That might still be possible, but the moment the difficulty hits 4, we're in gambling territory.
All the assumptions behind the idea could be correct and Saaya could still just end up paralyzed by sudden overload of psionic energy or supercharged psychic senses, making her freeze up or panic more and still in no condition to run or fight. I could imagine a whole bunch of best-case scenarios including one where Saaya not only suddenly gets healthy and stronk but the demon suddenly turns out to be nice and joins us automatically, but I don't believe any of those are likely.
I'd be satisfied just with the middling case where the Lock stops Saaya from feeding the demon/rift and we get a fair fight with the thing.
If it turns out that it sucks up psionic energy or gives backlash from it like when we tried TK on the rift, we wouldn't really want to be using any of the Illusion-based attacks that the Humpty Lock enables anyway. We'd be applying conventional force, boosted by telekinesis instead.
I mentioned a theory before that the "everything's fine" effect might not be a result of an aura, but from the collective unconscious of humanity trying to cover up anomalies that don't fit in with the collective understanding of how the world is meant to work. That would carry some heavy implications for the nature of the reality Amu is currently living in.
But it's also not entirely impossible, considering Persona 2 Eternal Punishment and how the world there is one that starts falling apart the moment too many people remember the Other Side.
Nero200
High Priest of Eito, Part Time Nyar.
What Baughn is talking around here, is that this is an SMT game.
Killing someone off early to empathise the stakes is SOP.
Saaya was most likely meant to be that someone, so lets hope Plan: Dream Again works.
An important point to consider is that Amu is ignoring most of her classmates, has dyed pink hair, and looks like a delinquent.
She is going to school in Japan.
Her classmates still consider her pretty cool and jump to defend her against Saaya.
If she didn't have her passive UMI field, she would be horribly ostracized. With it, she's considered pretty cool, though not beloved.
That's a significant alteration to her classmates normal view of things, with the end result of Amu getting to not worry about how she is perceived.
Not saying someone deserves to be ostracized for that, but in the context of 'JP middle schooler social dynamics', Amu is a blatant aberration to how things normally work, and she isn't doing anything other than UMI to achieve that result.
(Now, Ami on the other hand, doesn't have most of Amu's 'negative' social aspects, and is beloved by her class. You can see the underlaying math here.)
The Chara system is designed to have the psychics absorb their Charas as they grow older and don't need the training wheels any more.
Miki is a blatant break of that system, and Amu's ability to summon Ran/Su/Dia at all is an oddity as well.
I'm don't think there's any big bad-end coming for them, they are just becoming part of the 'base' Amu.