Ah... that explains a lot. Sorry for the mistake.
Well... you are at least in Japan. Do you have an insights on Japanese attitude towards religion and faith healing?
Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)
- Thread starter inverted_helix
- Start date
Well... you are at least in Japan. Do you have an insights on Japanese attitude towards religion and faith healing?
That's an innovative way to run around the problem, though they'll still obviously charge you. I mean it's probably no more resources than forging some documents, but to a large degree their society runs off grief cubes as a fuel source. There's still an energy expenditure involved in crunching those numbers. Though now that you've come up with that idea (which isn't actually something I've thought of before so kudos) I'll draw up some stats on it after I think about it for a while. (Between this and the improved dispatch version I have to think carefully about your efficiency growth.)
She doesn't know that full scope, she has some inklings though. The general SIMP population doesn't know even that much though. Kyuubey mostly just associates with Mami who can provide him the used grief cubes of all of SIMP at once. (No real need for multiple units to be assigned at present.)
It should be clear that most of Kyuubey's commentary is just stated to Mami, but yes he did mention that being used as part of an experiment and it drew oddly few comments from the players. Mami had no particular context for it though to associate that with highly advanced aliens.
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LordPanther14
The Definition of Insanity
- Location
- Land of the Free
There are some missionaries from my church I could get in contact with and ask them for an expert opinion about it if you want, be about a week till I see them again.
I myself don't have much interaction with the local Japanese beliefs, other then walking by the occasional festival they'll have going on during various parts of the year and eating some local food.
I myself don't have much interaction with the local Japanese beliefs, other then walking by the occasional festival they'll have going on during various parts of the year and eating some local food.
My ban's expired, so I'm going to ask a question. Are people here still interested in me developing the Expansionist subplot via Omakes? If not, I can come up with a new idea.
Okay, if it's not too much trouble. A primary source is always useful in helping to figure out how things really are.
Thanks for the help.
By the way, have you gotten around to watching Madoka Magica yet? Love to have your input on this quest.
I think all the players just went: "Bunny-cat's a dick" and didn't see the point to comment on it as we all already know.
I merely noted that this meant Mami now knew that Kuybey was not at all the friendly mascot she seemed to think he was before hand.
LordPanther14
The Definition of Insanity
- Location
- Land of the Free
Watched it years ago but have been staying away from anything relating to it since that latest movie came out. Didn't want to find myself hitting some inadvertant spoilers till I got around to watching it. But I don't know anywhere its streaming so that's been the situation there.
This quest ignores the existence of Rebellion anyways. So it shouldn't be much of an issue. Though this is more based on To The Stars than canon anyways since there's so little canon info on the world I'm using.
LordPanther14
The Definition of Insanity
- Location
- Land of the Free
Alright, well if that's the case then I shall get reading and see what I think of this quest.
Inverted_helix, sorry about this but could you tell me the names of the Girls we've got at the moment in your file and which ones are developed? I'm having trouble finding the data, and I want to try and develop the Expanionist subplot since I don't have a more interesting idea to develop.
Take a look at page 1 post number 3 (where the original turn 1 post was).
Oops. Sorry about that.
EDIT: Just checking, but what's the data on Kaouru Gima? If there are no details on her, she might be a prime candidate for being the Note-writer.
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Not many details on a lot of them, I don't develop them a lot myself. Though she is a candidate for becoming an Elite at some point if I come up with a suitable challenge for it (though FixerUpper's omake have made me consider Taya instead since they've been pretty touching). She has been really strong in terms of hunting.
Update is mostly done, just need to figure out just how to manage Kyouko. It's real difficult to play it right.
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Got it. Thanks.
In that case, I think I'm going, unless there are some problems, to make it that Kaouru Gima is very meek, hence why she hasn't said anything, and had a very hard life before finally being picked up by Mami's group. Her note was her taking out her anger and frustration, having been reminded of the state of magical girls outside the region. Now it's out, she argues against her own note in order to cover herself but is secretly very embarassed.
If I've missed something on her regarind this, could somebody please tell me?
On another note, if anyone has a request for an interesting Omake direction I'm willing to take it. I personally am more interested in the Expansionist plot, but I like to write Omakes in a direction people are interested in as I prefer 'colloborative' (several people writing stories in the same subplot) over just doing this by myself.
In that case, I think I'm going, unless there are some problems, to make it that Kaouru Gima is very meek, hence why she hasn't said anything, and had a very hard life before finally being picked up by Mami's group. Her note was her taking out her anger and frustration, having been reminded of the state of magical girls outside the region. Now it's out, she argues against her own note in order to cover herself but is secretly very embarassed.
If I've missed something on her regarind this, could somebody please tell me?
On another note, if anyone has a request for an interesting Omake direction I'm willing to take it. I personally am more interested in the Expansionist plot, but I like to write Omakes in a direction people are interested in as I prefer 'colloborative' (several people writing stories in the same subplot) over just doing this by myself.
ω₁
The Long Count
I think stealth would still be needed in a hospital because a) I don't think that all the magical girls are capable of healing, and b) a non-relative visiting and laying on hands might raise some suspicions (from the patient, if nothing else).
Other than that, I
I do think it would be better for Mitakihara, and indeed for everyone involved, if we were to somehow find a way to quietly and quickly purify Mitakihara's water supply. But I don't have any better suggestion for that than "ask Kyuubey to recruit a girl who's likely to make a wish for that", and that comes with its own set of problems.
In America, faith healing ceremonies are pretty commonplace, yes. The probability of detection would mostly depend on a) the probability of success of modern medicine alone, and b) how dramatic the recovery was. If we're talking something like "only 10% of people hospitalized ever regain full mobility" and/or "average recovery time of two weeks was shortened to a day for these two patients", then someone's definitely going to take notice, even in the US. If most people recover fully, and do so relatively quickly, it's not going to be an issue ...but it's also not going to be a huge morale boost.
But none of that matters, because we're not in America.
... ordinary detective work?
I'll grant you the water contamination bit, though; that slipped my mind.
a) America is, by and large, not a nation of financially secure people. More generally, the inverse correlations between religiosity and urbanity*, religiosity and per-capita GDP, and religiosity and income stability are all well-known and well-established; so too is the US's position as a notable outlier amongst the nations of the world in the second category.
* In the sense of "urban", rather than "urbane".
b) I was not able to find any inconclusive statistics. All the ones I saw were quite clear on what they measured. I am curious what you mean by that.
on that last bit. I have been able to find no evidence of faith healing being a widely accepted and practiced Shinto tradition at any time after the Meiji Restoration. (I am not a resident or citizen of Japan, just a geek who researches obscure things for fun; but on that basis alone I would still expect to have come into contact with Japanese faith-healing practices if they were widespread. The closest thing I can think of is Shinto-style exorcisms, and I am not aware of anyone taking those seriously outside of blatantly fantastic fiction.)I'll be addressing what you claim as provided citations below.
... a question to the females in the audience, if we have one. Can I reasonably apply the term "mansplaining" to this paragraph?
I'm at a loss as to how you could possibly think, given the post to which you were replying, that there was anything in here that I wasn't aware of. I can understand setting it out for the sake of clarity, but your patronizing tone is not at all appreciated.
Largely, no... but they're also not very common and, especially in the case of "Folk Shinto", their membership is strongly skewed rurally. Indeed, "Folk Shinto" isn't even a religion in the usual sense; it would reasonably be better translated "folk Shinto", as it refers to uninstitutionalized practices and superstitions typically found only in very rural Japan.
Okay, there are a couple of things wrong here.
1)
For comparison, it's far more common to claim Buddhism as one's religion than Tenrikyo: the Jōdo Shinshū sect alone comes in at 6.9 million (the Heisei 24 report again, page 73/PDF p. 87, row #5, last column). Some of that may simply be due to a custom of registering at Buddhist temples (dating from Edo-era enforcement of such) rather than deep or commonly-practiced faith. (Here is an explanation of the situation from a Buddhist perspective.)
(The Wikipedia page for Jōdo Shinshū gives a figure of 20% of Japan as identifying with it, but this is likely incorrect; I calculate the 2012 percentage as 5.4%. Note that, according to the Monbusho report, as of 2012 this is the single most commonly self-ascribed religious sect in Japan.)
2) Tenrikyo isn't actually a branch of Shinto, either theologically or organizationally speaking. Historically it was categorized as part of "Sect Shinto" (probably due to pre-WWII restrictions on religious practice), and often it's still mistaken for a branch of Shinto, but it hasn't actually been considered part of Shinto in a long time. See here; the Monbusho Yearly Reports on Religion linked above, which classify Tenrikyo under "other religions" (and have since at least 1995 = Heisei 7); here, where a self-identified practitioner of Tenrikyo personally denies it; and here, where Tenrikyo is described as having renounced the connection.
Interestingly, this thesis by Kazuya Hara (apparently a Shinto apologetic piece, although I've only skimmed it) references Tenrikyo alongside two other sects when describing Sect Shinto:
Hara presents Sect Shinto as admittedly a catch-all term, but specifically describes these three sects as faith-healing sects. Exceptio probat regulam. (In particular, searching the rest of the PDF for the word "heal" may also be enlightening.)Kazuya Hara said:
3) The Britannica article notes that "[t]he modern sect emphasizes modern medical care" anyway. The fact that it refers to Tenrikyo as being Shinto without further explanation does call Britannica's accuracy here into question, but nonetheless, there it is.
... then you'd be making a poor analogy, from which to draw poor conclusions.
Wow, no. Not at all, not in any way except possibly per-capita numbers. Shrine Shinto is best compared, if anything, to "Christmas and Easter" worshippers: the practice of showing up on major traditional holidays and not bothering with the rest of it. (Relatedly, I have just learned the wonderful term "Poinsettia and Lily Catholic".) However, it makes up the vast majority of residents of Japan (90+ million), and as such there is no particular stigmatism attached to it.
Sect Shinto, on the other hand, is a catch-all term (as Hara notes); as currently defined by the Monbusho, it has approximately 3.6 million adherents. (The only notably-sized sect appears to be Izumo Oyashiro-kyo, at about 1.2 million; Konkokyo has about 400K, and nothing else breaks 300K.) Considering it as a single monolithic entity is in this context is a poor thing to do; it would be better to analogize to offbeat* Christianity in general. (Although I suspect the groups that are more like mainstream Shinto may well have opinions more like, say, mainstream Judaism.)
Folk Shinto is basically this. Calling it a sect feels mildly ridiculous, and certainly doesn't seem helpful in this context. (The Monbusho report scarcely mentions it at all: just a passing note in an introductory paragraph.)
Granting for the sake of argument that Tenrikyo specifically commonly practices faith healing, it might still seem appropriate to compare them to Mormons based on that and numbers... but that's overlooking the fact that, in the US, faith healing is far more accepted, and not a clear differentiator between Mormonism and more mainstream Christian sects. A more accurate analogy to a Tenrikyo faith-healing ceremony might be door-to-door missionary work. (On the other hand, if faith healing is no longer particularly common or promoted amongst followers of Tenrikyo, polygamy would be a closer match.)
* Don't read too much into this word; I just couldn't think of a better antonym for "mainstream".
Well, this one I'll grant you.
I'm not sure how you could draw that bolded conclusion from anything you've cited. I think I've addressed the latter part well enough, though.
Look to the beam in your own eye.
I'll grant that, early on, what hostility we would encounter would be due to people being officious as much as suspicious; but, Akihabara notwithstanding, "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down" is still a common proverb in Japan.
What's important, though, is that we would be remembered, and any doctor aware of the miraculous recoveries of any two of our targets would think to start looking a little deeper. (Three, and it definitely wouldn't stop at "think".)
... this tangent reminds me that we should probably poke at the in-game religion "tech-tree" sometime.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
Mind-altering wishes always ends in tears.
I thought that there'd be no wish engineering in this quest. Or am I mistunderstanding the term?
BTW Fixer_Upper, requesting advice on the Omake Question. Apologies if I'm being a bit annoying, but I want to know if I'm headed on the right track to making an Omake (clarifying the Controversial Letter and starting an Expansionist Subplot) or if there's something I'm missing.
IF I'm on the right track, once I've clarified the initial writer I'd like some help kicking off the Expansionist Subplot with you writing this character talking to Taya (probably Kaoru Gimu) one-on-one about the letter. Is that alright with you? If so, thanks.
Pretty sure you're all set!
You're admittedly in a kind of awkward position given that there's been a major industrial incident in the last turn, but mischance happens all the time in real life too so it's up to you whether you want to bank the plot for when things are more stable, or just go for it now, with the letter having been written the turn before and reactions occurring the turn before. TBH though, if you want to run the two in parallel, you have to be prepared for much more resistance: it's all too easy for someone to argue that you should be putting out the fire in the kitchen before thinking creating an addition to the house.
Clarification though: Are you saying Kaoru wrote the letter or do you just want the two of them talking about it...? If it's the former, you're going to have to consult the rest of the thread, I haven't written an omake for her largely because as our only candidate elite so far she's kind of important.
You're admittedly in a kind of awkward position given that there's been a major industrial incident in the last turn, but mischance happens all the time in real life too so it's up to you whether you want to bank the plot for when things are more stable, or just go for it now, with the letter having been written the turn before and reactions occurring the turn before. TBH though, if you want to run the two in parallel, you have to be prepared for much more resistance: it's all too easy for someone to argue that you should be putting out the fire in the kitchen before thinking creating an addition to the house.
Clarification though: Are you saying Kaoru wrote the letter or do you just want the two of them talking about it...? If it's the former, you're going to have to consult the rest of the thread, I haven't written an omake for her largely because as our only candidate elite so far she's kind of important.
Pretty sure you're all set!
You're admittedly in a kind of awkward position given that there's been a major industrial incident in the last turn, but mischance happens all the time in real life too so it's up to you whether you want to bank the plot for when things are more stable, or just go for it now, with the letter having been written the turn before and reactions occurring the turn before. TBH though, if you want to run the two in parallel, you have to be prepared for much more resistance: it's all too easy for someone to argue that you should be putting out the fire in the kitchen before thinking creating an addition to the house.
Clarification though: Are you saying Kaoru wrote the letter or do you just want the two of them talking about it...? If it's the former, you're going to have to consult the rest of the thread, I haven't written an omake for her largely because as our only candidate elite so far she's kind of important.
If it's alright, I'd like a few retroactive adds to the turn before. We can then say that the subplot ended up on 'Pause' but comes up again later when the industrial accident is over with.
I was less set on Kaouru and more looking at a girl I could use. Originally I was going to have a character named Toshiko, but I hesitated to make a character out of whole cloth because I lack explicit GM permission to do so, because such a character would likely be a newbie to the group and I hoped for a character who had been there for a bit longer, and finally because the GM apparently has a list of names in a database and I don't want to change anything already 'canon', however loosely. At the very least, I would like to use a character name already established and add traits. It was Taya and the girl who actually originally wrote it I wanted to have talk.
The idea of writing a running subplot in the Omakes is one I think worth trying, and the Expansionist idea is the best one I have so far.
There won't be. I've seen it bring multiple stories and quests down in flames.
Though if you want an IC reason the most obvious reason not to is the Incubators don't even do it. Consider that one for moment. Consider how useful it would be, now consider how bad the results must be that the Incubators don't even try to do it. It would be a trivial effort for them to manipulate girls into making direct wishes against entropy, but they don't. Consider just how bad the results of wish engineering must be that the Incubators use their canon system for thousands of years instead of just orchestrating a wish to prevent entropy.
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inverted helix, what should I do regarding which Meguca to use? Apologies if I'm inadvertently being annoying here, but if the Omake is to be written I need to know.
You can feel free to create a Toshiko character. I have an incomplete list of names. I have a few slots completely blank still.
Got it. Thanks.