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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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If that's how far we have to go to break her concentration, we have lost. It throws away everything that Sabrina stands for. It destroys any claim we have on the moral high ground. Hijiri could turn around and kill us on the spot and I wouldn't even say that she did the wrong thing. Sabrina is defined by being the better person, the person that refuses to compromise her ideals. That is our only claim to authority. That is the only reason that we are the person doing this. That is the only reason that we are letting ourselves do this. Every time we are forced to engage in violence it is a suboptimal outcome, a failure of our execution of our ideals, and this is several steps below even that.
defenestrator said:
@Vebyast would it be all right if you can explain this line on your plan?
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Kite her, run away so we're not on a thirty-second deadline.
 
cmwatford said:
People are concerned that gemming her would be really bad later on so I'm focusing on breaking her focus.
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I personally think those people's concerns are somewhat overblown, but even if Hijiri did have a negative psychological reaction to being gemmed, I can't imagine it would be worse than the negative psychological reaction she would have to intense physical pain.
 
Okay, so putting aside the extremities of either case, I'm kind of disgusted that people are putting political fallout over the threat of a girls mental stability. We can talk to the Pleiades and explain our reasoning. If we are gonna fuck up either way, we should be the ones to pay for it. I'm not okay with gambling with someone's soul because people might het mad at us if we don't. What the fuck, you guys? I've posted essays calling everything into question and you are doing something we can never take back because of paranoia. Has that EVER FUCKING BERN THE ANSWER IN PMAS, EVER?
 
Genrewise, this is not a politics heavy game of Exalted. This is not Worm. We are the de-facto empress of Mitakihara right now and if we are lucky we will not need to be the de-jure empress, carrying out sentences and being judge/jury/executioner.

Causing Hijiri intense pain to keep her from leaving with something like "do not confuse mercy for weakness", establishes a track record of ensuring criminals in our dominion will be brought to justice. Predictability is an important part of legal theory. It also preserves our standing with the others. We tried to be nice but now Hijiri is a criminal making a break for it. That logic would be entirely reasonable for Exalted or Worm or Gardens of Enoch or Forge of Destiny or something but this is not the genre for that logic.
 
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I'm coming from the perspective of someone who had to read the entirety of PMAS recently to get to this point. I'm beginning to forget her name now, but the antagonist from the Sendai arc, Akiko?

She ended catatonic. And you know what? Everything turned out fine for almost everyone else involved. The world kept spinning, Mitakihara was safe, Mami was happy. With that in mind, I want to evaluate the two courses of action here in that perspective:

Hijiri Escapes
1. The World Keeps Spinning
2. Mitakihara is maybe safe, if things don't degenerate because we demonstrably can't keep hold of our Clear Seeds among other problems.
3. Mami is unhappy with the stress we'd put on ourselves and the disdain the Asunaro girls would level at us.

Gem Both
1. The World Keeps Spinning
2. Mitakihara is Safe
3. Mami is unhappy with the stress we'd put on ourselves.

From that perspective, I have a clear choice.
 
AuraTwilight said:
Okay, so putting aside the extremities of either case, I'm kind of disgusted that people are putting political fallout over the threat of a girls mental stability. We can talk to the Pleiades and explain our reasoning. If we are gonna fuck up either way, we should be the ones to pay for it. I'm not okay with gambling with someone's soul because people might het mad at us if we don't. What the fuck, you guys? I've posted essays calling everything into question and you are doing something we can never take back because of paranoia. Has that EVER FUCKING BERN THE ANSWER IN PMAS, EVER?
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Good points, also this is specifically an AU of Asunaro.

What if the Pleiades are interpreted according to their actions instead of through protagonist colored glasses? What if Hijiri's right to want to skip town because, "OMG these girls are scary they have a freezer filled with dead girls! I'm outta here!"?
 
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AuraTwilight said:
Has that EVER FUCKING BERN THE ANSWER IN PMAS, EVER?
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I dunno. If we were a little bit more cautious back in Sendai, been more decisive, a little bit more paranoid about their intentions, then maybe we could've taken down Akiko's faction much earlier, didn't walk into their ambush, maybe they didn't get enough time to drag Kuvira into the fight, and maybe dozens of civilians didn't get caught in the crossfire and two people wouldn't have died.
 
defenestrator said:
I dunno. If we were a little bit more cautious back in Sendai, been more decisive, a little bit more paranoid about their intentions, then maybe we could've taken down Akiko's faction much earlier, didn't walk into their ambush, maybe they didn't get enough time to drag Kuvira into the fight, and maybe dozens of civilians didn't get caught in the crossfire and two people wouldn't have died.
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Yea and if we actually took time to solve Akikos problem instead of picking sides in a war maybe she wouldn't be broken.
 
Vebyast said:
No, actually, because Hijiri won't be catatonic. i have posted about this before.
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I'm confused with what you're disagreeing with. I'm aware taking the Gem won't stop the teleport, but from what all sources would indicate we'd still have the gem when Hijiri's body teleports (some distance) away. That's still disabling her while also adding only a little extra stress on top.

AuraTwilight said:
Yea and if we actually took time to solve Akikos problem instead of picking sides in a war maybe she wouldn't be broken.
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By the same token, if Akiko had been remotely cooperative in letting us solve her problem she wouldn't be broken.
 
Spector29 said:
I'm confused with what you're disagreeing with. I'm aware taking the Gem won't stop the teleport, but from what all sources would indicate we'd still have the gem when Hijiri's body teleports (some distance) away. That's still disabling her while also adding only a little extra stress on top.
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You mean keeping her on ice indefinitely? In that case:

Gem Both
1. The World Keeps Spinning
2. Mitakihara is Safe
3. Mami is wondering if we just sorta-killed someone
4. We have to lichbomb the Pleiades
5. People know that we're willing to gem people indefinitely

Which, uh, no thank you.
 
AuraTwilight said:
Yea and if we actually took time to solve Akikos problem instead of picking sides in a war maybe she wouldn't be broken.
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And if we took the nonexistent time to solve Akiko's problem*, there would've still been a 4-team fight in the middle of a population center, because one of those meguca teams were literally being starved for seeds into desperation.

*I mean do you even know what her problem was?
 
Vebyast said:
You mean keeping her on ice indefinitely? In that case:

Gem Both
1. The World Keeps Spinning
2. Mitakihara is Safe
3. Mami is wondering if we just sorta-killed someone
4. We have to lichbomb the Pleiades
5. People know that we're willing to gem people indefinitely

Which, uh, no thank you.
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I mean, it's ultimately fine if you disagree. In deference to the continuing discussion:

3. Mami has been lichbombed, right? It should be pretty easy to explain what happened.
4. That's incredibly stressful, you're right. Also, I believe, ultimately necessary. Neither bomb can be hidden forever, and while it isn't optimal these girls have to find out somehow.
5. To get back our Clear Seed? Seems fine.

I'm not saying this is a perfect solution that will lead to the Golden Ending for everyone. Right now I just want to put out as many fires as possible. If that means letting Hijiri turn into another Akiko, then we should take that SAN hit and carry on.
 
defenestrator said:
And if we took the nonexistent time to solve Akiko's problem*, there would've still been a 4-team fight in the middle of a population center, because one of those meguca teams were literally being starved for seeds into desperation.

*I mean do you even know what her problem was?
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We can make time, we have infinite cleansing for those people.

If you're not willing to believe we can Golden End, you don't get to pretend to be Madokas fix everything wish, guys.
 
>Lurker Reveal<

>Not really paying too much attention to discussion, just reading thread marks
>"I'm putting this quest on a mini hiatus so other people can stop focusing too much and focus on exams upcoming"
>2 fucking pages later
>"yes we need to shock the emotionally unstable little girl into submission. This has no real permanent repercussions and will entirely fix our situation and is 100% in character"

I don't understand you people, and I probably never will. I also wondered before why I don't participate in these discussions. I guess I'll stay lurking if it's like this, then.
 
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For justifying letting her go to others.

"Knowing what I know of her and her crimes, any punishment I could levy would be disproportionate to the offense."

Brief gemming = grief spiral/death
One Way trip to X = probable death sentence
Indefinite gemming = disproportionate punishment
House Arrest = Needs willingness to kill her if she tries leaving and a surveillance detail. That or a magical enforcement mechanism. She wouldn't honor it so it's a death sentence.
Execution = disproportionate punishment.

Thoughts? Anything I missed?
 
Conjured Blade said:
Genrewise, this is not a politics heavy game of Exalted. This is not Worm. We are the de-facto empress of Mitakihara right now and if we are lucky we will not need to be the de-jure empress, carrying out sentences and being judge/jury/executioner.

Causing Hijiri intense pain to keep her from leaving with something like "do not confuse mercy for weakness", establishes a track record of ensuring criminals in our dominion will be brought to justice. Predictability is an important part of legal theory. It also preserves our standing with the others. We tried to be nice but now Hijiri is a criminal making a break for it. That logic would be entirely reasonable for Exalted or Worm or Gardens of Enoch or Forge of Destiny or something but this is not the genre for that logic.
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What exactly are you arguing for here?

Keeping law and order by the controlled use of pain is exactly what would make sense in Exalted, the death world maintained by the hands of literal Great Men and Women. It makes exact sense in Worm, the death world ruled over by gang lords and ruthless consequentialists. It makes no sense in a Magical Girl reconstruction. If you're arguing for using pain based on the genre of PMAS, I think you're just wrong.

If you're arguing against using pain, there's no reason to trot out all of the ostensible benefits of hurting her. We have to crack some eggs now, in order to be a predictable authority? No, we haven't established that we're a political authority at all, and we're largely unknown; our actions are indistinguishable (to others) from any other Meguca trying to be a warlord, and punishing other people for violating her own private code of conduct.

We need to posture in order to avoid looking weak? Perhaps, but there are more ways to show strength than inflicting intense pain.

Hijiri is a criminal, so hurting her is a justified action, a good choice? I don't think so; but it's a necessary evil at best.
 
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Oh no, we might have to explain that we didn't want to torture someone to the girl who might as well be described as Kaname Madoka's long lost cousin. How would she possibly understand?

I can't believe this is what brings me out of my posting hiatus, but holy shit people, don't choose to be Evil.
 
Conjured Blade said:
Brief gemming = grief spiral/death
Thoughts?
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I don't think you're missing anything, but I'd like to posit that a grief spiral is theoretically preventable. We have infinate Seeds and cleansing capacity besides, so would you consider it reasonable that once we revive her from the brief gemming and contain the situation we might be able to therapy Hijiri out of suicide watch?

That's not a rhetorical, either. I'm wondering from both sides how likely you think it will be that we can actually help Hijiri once we get our Clear Seed back and this mess under control.
 
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