Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
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- puella magi adfligo systema puella magi madoka magica be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist bad decisions dating mami tomoe (tomoe mami) diabolical laughter friendship is the best ship handholding identity crises microwaving tea gets you put in the bad place names are important the body is the fursona of the soul this is not the baked goods thread we don't talk about rionna what could possibly go wrong? who in the world is azure sanfrancisco?
Crasian01
Insane Incubator
My opinion is that we need to start concentrating on something. All this "SAVE THE MEGUCAS" is nice and pretty, but we're not going to get anything accomplished unless we sit down and decide what our priorities are.
Thesis: If this quest is going to save every meguca ever, then it needs to prioritize the GriefScience.
Discuss?
Xexilf
Oblivion Sempiternum Daemonis
Madoka and homura need to be kept stable too (and that may involve keeping their surroundings like sayaka and mami stable) since they can erase us (timereset, gretchen or badly thought out infinite wish).
The fact that we don't have existential angst is actually quite interesting and worth sharing, isn't it? The out-of-universe explanation is that Sabrina is the personification of SV, but the in-universe explanation is probably something related to a wish. Or maybe the in-universe explanation is the same as the out-of-universe explanation. Somehow.
If you think about it, our wish was actually quite selfish: "I wish to control grief" means that we wanted the power to be personally responsible for solving the meguca grief issue. A more selfless wish would be more along the lines of "I wish that all grief would dissipate harmlessly as soon as it is created". And the fact that our frustration is a lower magnitude concern compared to what the others are experiencing doesn't mean that it's not worth talking about ("Don't let anyone play down their feelings as insignificant. Everyone here cares").
Part of the horror was the way in which it was revealed. Madoka threw away Sayaka's gem and then Sayaka dropped dead. Sayaka turned off her pain receptors so that she could berserk witches without regard to the horrific damage she was doing to her body.
Well, yeah, we don't want to change Entropy as such. What we want is a way to produce energy Ex Nihilo to prevent the long term implications of entropy (i.e. everything eventually decays into inert matter; all life is eventually wiped out).
It was my understanding that witches and meguca were actually a symptom of the grief of humanity and that the incubators simply came along and started harnessing the energy created by it (and encouraging it to happen more often). The best case system we can come up with (without rewriting the underlying laws of the universe) will still have witches in some form or another. But, in an ideal system we would be able to detect those witches quickly and be able to cleanse their seeds and create new bodies for them.
[X] Assist Mami with making dinner
[X] Ice Cream is good for dealing with emotional trauma, right?
[X] "I don't have any memories from before last week and I strongly suspect that I didn't even exist before then. But that doesn't really bother me. My wish was to control all grief; looking back I realize that maybe it was rather pretentious of me to want to be the solution to all of the problems that grief causes. But I've been going around trying to do just that. I keep getting frustrated when people keep wanting to fight each other over grief problems that my powers can easily solve, but at the same time I have been able to make a positive difference. I just don't know if I can make a permanent difference."
[X] Ask for help thinking up ways that we can use our grief powers.
[X] Watch the news. Check up on the aftermath of the Sendai Kerfluffle.
One random possibility, to go along with defenestrator's magical research idea, combined with the warhammer experiment.
Basically, the magic version of the warhammer was vastly more powerful than the grief version. Conceivably, grief itself is a lesser energy resource than magic (unless the nature of grief is necessary for its anti-entropy properties). So in theory, pure magic energy production would vastly outstrip the power gained from grief energy production. Any magical girl that became a witch would no longer be contributing on the magical energy side, so you'd want to avoid that whenever possible.
That would give us the "more power" + "witches bad" combo that would break the current system, although I'm not sure how Sabrina herself could properly contribute to that.
Incubators don't really understand magic, but one would assume that they'd at least try to harness the magic side if it was a viable means of energy production, so it could be that it's just not a practical solution.
Basically, the magic version of the warhammer was vastly more powerful than the grief version. Conceivably, grief itself is a lesser energy resource than magic (unless the nature of grief is necessary for its anti-entropy properties). So in theory, pure magic energy production would vastly outstrip the power gained from grief energy production. Any magical girl that became a witch would no longer be contributing on the magical energy side, so you'd want to avoid that whenever possible.
That would give us the "more power" + "witches bad" combo that would break the current system, although I'm not sure how Sabrina herself could properly contribute to that.
Incubators don't really understand magic, but one would assume that they'd at least try to harness the magic side if it was a viable means of energy production, so it could be that it's just not a practical solution.
While it's something we'll have to carefully plan out I think actually explaining to Madoka that what she thinks are problems really aren't is a far better option then creating a problem so Madoka can feel better.
Now if I remember correctly Madoka only knows about Sabrina's Amnesia and Lichdom as potential sources of emotional trouble right? I'm pretty sure she doesn't know about the whole Sendai kerfuffle and definitely doesn't know about Oriko/Kirika.
The amnesia is pretty easy to explain away. Sure Sabrina doesn't know who she was but that doesn't matter to her. She has made a new life for herself here with a bunch of great friends and an ideal to dedicate herself to. So she's not feeling the normal sensations of loss and loneliness that would drive an amnesiac to search out their past.
The Lichbomb is a bit harder since any argument for why Sabrina is fine with it is an argument for why Madoka should be fine with it...
Cannongerbil
I came here to nep at you
- Location
- Soviet Lunar Base
Now's...really not the time for this. We'll decide how to respond to that should Madoka ask us directly, but we I don't see a particular reason to come up with something to tell her before that.
Personally, I would really like it if Sabrina would take more interest in her origins. It seems really, really odd that we don't even have the slightest inclination to discover our past. I know why this is OOC (There are far more interesting and pressing issues than finding out exactly how Sabriana came into existence, plus we wouldn't really know where to start searching anyway), but it still seems like a potential venue for character development isn't being explored because, well, brain damage.
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Crasian01
Insane Incubator
That's not necessarily true. I think we should sit down and talk with Madoka and Sayaka, to figure out why they're horrified and why they want/do not want to contract. We can say something about how we think we want to understand them better or something. It'll be kinda creepy, but it is what it is.
Gadjo
Doka
I'm pretty sure Meguca and, as a consequence, witches, are a direct result of incubator interference.
Well, I mean, we are curious, it just doesn't really bother us. Not to mention, the only way to begin looking would be to ask people, and several of our suggested origins require some intense meta-knowledge, severely limiting the people we can talk to. I suppose asking Homura if she believed that we were a wish construct made by Madoka could be a starting point. On that note, if you would like to begin exploring that avenue, why not tell everyone about our suspicions right now? No time like the present, and it has some of our actual problems in it.
[X] Boonerunner.
Jackercracks
In a British accent
- Location
- England
It would be interesting to start an international enclave of Magical Girls. Easy too, the only real barrier is communication. Send out a message through the magical girl grape vine saying people can live in our city and never have to hunt again so long as they follow certain ground rules, then just have them all gather at a specific place every other day for a mass-degriefing. There can't be more than a few thousand magical girls in the world, we could honestly degrief every single one each day with reasonable logistics. A thousand people fills a surprisingly small space and our range is large. Have them meet range of Mamis place and we wouldn't even need to change our schedule to do it.
Most would stay home, or disbelieve, or not have the cash to move. There would have to be a few rich ones though who could convince daddy to buy them a flat in Mitikahara if it means their precious daughter doesn't have to risk her life every week. We don't even have to manipulate them, because they would know that
A: Keeping us alive is vital for their long term survival
B: We have the power to Witch-bomb them at will
How about it, lets start building an Empire. We could have an honour guard of badasses and it gives us access to way more powers to munchkin with. Might as well get on it soon, since it'll take a while to get going.
One last thought to throw out before I pass out for the night: Talk to the incubators about how they turn grief into raw energy... Then see if the output is as refined as it can be. Like let's say if grief is crude oil, and the incubators turn it into diesel... Can we somehow use magic to further refine it into jet fuel instead?
Do remember that those OOC reasons apply equally to Sabrina. She is personally interested helping people and is running into the problem that she just doesn't have enough time in the day. There are so many immediate problems as well as the long term ones like coming up to a solution to the Witch System.
So even if she is interesting, which I figure she is as your not the only one curious about her origins, she just doesn't have the time to start work on what will almost certainly be yet another long and incredibly difficult problem. Especially since unlike her other ones she doesn't even have a good starting point.
Edit: Also there is a difference between been curious about your origins and having problems because you don't remember anything from your past.
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What if you just directly wish to retain the same mind/personality/etc after turning into a witch?
But it's still connected, just wirelessly.
Unless the new system _requires_ that the witch system be discontinued (or competes with it for resources).
For example, "post-scarcity society with billions of magical girls" isn't an environment that familiars or witches can exist in at all. They could run one world that way and another world the normal way, but if the post-scarcity one has better yield then they're sacrificing that much yield for nothing.
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moonstne
[x] Bandwagon
[jk] "You guys are all so sad. Don't worry, I will make sure you grieve no more." *witchout*
[X] Assist Mami with making dinner
[X] Ice Cream is good for dealing with emotional trauma, right?
[X] Watch the news. Check up on the aftermath of the Sendai Kerfluffle.
The other bits seem out of place.
[X] Assist Mami with making dinner
[X] Ice Cream is good for dealing with emotional trauma, right?
[X] Watch the news. Check up on the aftermath of the Sendai Kerfluffle.
The other bits seem out of place.
There have been a few fanfics with that premise. The darker ones have the girl trying to cope with the fact that they not only get a thrill, but actively require the people around them to suffer for sustenance, and the angst resulting from that.
Xexilf
Oblivion Sempiternum Daemonis
The obvious way this goes wrong is that you may still have to feed as a witch. I dont think even kyoko would be willing to go for straight up soul eating, regardless of how dismissive she is of witches killing others. Homura is the only one who may be cold enough to consider it, but even she would hesitate. And 90% of magical girls everywhere would hunt you down.
Now if you get it right/get lucky, you may be able to feed in other ways, ideally on the corruption of others soul gems. But you beter think about that wish carefully so it dosent goes wrong. (Exact wording is IIRC not really required for incubatorwishes (you get what you mean) but you should think a bit still).
Your specific wish also dosent stop physical mutilation, and some witches are really in a mess from their bodies alone (unable to move, no/bizarre senses, really huge etc.)
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Going back to the "What is entropy?" question, I rewatched episode 9 of the series to hear Kyuubey's explanation.
We all know that the scientific term of 'entropy' doesn't really match Kyuubey's explanation. Suppose that, instead of trying to fit the explanation into the known term, we just use the term as a label for a concept that he's trying to describe, and try to understand what that concept is.
So, the 'entropy' in Kyuubey's explanation is now the arbitrary universal energy factor of E.
The purpose of the Incubators collecting grief energy is to extend the lifespan of the universe.
The energy released in burning a tree in a campfire is less than the energy it took to grow the tree.
The total energy in the universe is diminishing.
E is thus the difference in energy between what it takes to create something that can do work, and actually using it to do work.
The Incubators then searched for forms of energy not bound by the laws of thermodynamics. What does that mean? It means a perpetual motion machine. It means they want to be able to create energy without using up the universe's resources.
The Incubator civilization developed the means of turning the emotions of sentient lifeforms into energy.
The emotional energy generated by a single human exceeds the amount of energy put into its birth and growth (ie: the opposite of the earlier wood example).
"Your souls are capable of generating enough energy to overcome entropy." ==> violate the laws of thermodynamics ==> perpetual motion machine is possible
An enormous amount of energy is released when a soul gem turns into a grief seed.Given that the Incubators collect the grief seeds, I'm going to have to assume that they don't collect 'free' energy at the moment of the witchout, but rather that the energy from the witchout is stored in the grief seed. Thus they need to be hunted and collected first.
Edit: Invalid, as noted by Xexilf and others, below.
Kyuubey then talks about the number of civilizations crowded together in the universe, and how much energy they constantly use.
"Eventually you humans will leave this planet and join us. You don't want to be handed an empty, desolate universe, do you?"
Translation: Alien civilizations are using energy like Americans use oil. Do you really want to head out into the vast universe and find yourself in a Mad Max movie? We needz more oil, er, grief.
Of Note: Kyuubey never once says he's doing it to stave off the heat death of the universe. I wonder if that interpretation was a fan-based interpretation of his use of 'entropy', or if it's said somewhere else in the show?
Rather, he said it's being done to extend the lifespan of the universe. However, what is the lifespan of the universe, if not the period during which civilizations can thrive? Without sufficient energy, it's possible that by the time humans begin to leave their planet, they'd find an empty and desolate place — a 'dead' universe.
So, yes, the Incubators are the equivalent of Chevron, or BP Oil, or OPEC. They've hit 'peak oil' for natural resources, and need something that goes beyond the limits of thermodynamics in order to keep all those civilizations sustained. And now they've found a renewable resource that's even better.
We all know that the scientific term of 'entropy' doesn't really match Kyuubey's explanation. Suppose that, instead of trying to fit the explanation into the known term, we just use the term as a label for a concept that he's trying to describe, and try to understand what that concept is.
So, the 'entropy' in Kyuubey's explanation is now the arbitrary universal energy factor of E.
The purpose of the Incubators collecting grief energy is to extend the lifespan of the universe.
The energy released in burning a tree in a campfire is less than the energy it took to grow the tree.
The total energy in the universe is diminishing.
E is thus the difference in energy between what it takes to create something that can do work, and actually using it to do work.
The Incubators then searched for forms of energy not bound by the laws of thermodynamics. What does that mean? It means a perpetual motion machine. It means they want to be able to create energy without using up the universe's resources.
The Incubator civilization developed the means of turning the emotions of sentient lifeforms into energy.
The emotional energy generated by a single human exceeds the amount of energy put into its birth and growth (ie: the opposite of the earlier wood example).
"Your souls are capable of generating enough energy to overcome entropy." ==> violate the laws of thermodynamics ==> perpetual motion machine is possible
An enormous amount of energy is released when a soul gem turns into a grief seed.
Edit: Invalid, as noted by Xexilf and others, below.
Kyuubey then talks about the number of civilizations crowded together in the universe, and how much energy they constantly use.
"Eventually you humans will leave this planet and join us. You don't want to be handed an empty, desolate universe, do you?"
Translation: Alien civilizations are using energy like Americans use oil. Do you really want to head out into the vast universe and find yourself in a Mad Max movie? We needz more oil, er, grief.
Of Note: Kyuubey never once says he's doing it to stave off the heat death of the universe. I wonder if that interpretation was a fan-based interpretation of his use of 'entropy', or if it's said somewhere else in the show?
Rather, he said it's being done to extend the lifespan of the universe. However, what is the lifespan of the universe, if not the period during which civilizations can thrive? Without sufficient energy, it's possible that by the time humans begin to leave their planet, they'd find an empty and desolate place — a 'dead' universe.
So, yes, the Incubators are the equivalent of Chevron, or BP Oil, or OPEC. They've hit 'peak oil' for natural resources, and need something that goes beyond the limits of thermodynamics in order to keep all those civilizations sustained. And now they've found a renewable resource that's even better.
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aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
- Location
- Laniakea Supercluster
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I always assumed that the whole 'preventing heat death' was another technical truth. Him using nonentropic energy to power his civilization's reality tv broadcasts is going to decrease overall entropy by some amount, but he doesn't really care about the far-off inevitable end of existence. He cares about his paycheck from Incubator Gas and Electric.
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Xexilf
Oblivion Sempiternum Daemonis
Likely wrong, given that spawning gretchen fuflfills his quota, and he dosent seem to care wether shes defeated.
So the likelier assumption would be they get energy from the witchout directly somehow. As they get from the wishes IIRC. If anything wether they get anything from the handed in griefseeds may be in question (though its likely).
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Gadjo
Doka
I had that problem too, but keep in mind the level of tech the incubators are capable of; they'll probably just throw the moon at Gretchen and collect that way.
Gadjo
Doka
I just mean that we just don't know enough to make a definite statement either way. At this point, with the information we have, we can't say for sure if they get the bulk of the energy from the seed, or the actual witchout. That's a question to ask Kyubey. We are going to need to start asking him questions at some point; we'll just have to be careful with our questions and not fully trust anything he says until we've dug up some proof.
Good point. That means we do have to actually care about what energy they can harvest from the witchout itself, rather than only concern ourselves with the grief seed part of the process.
Xexilf
Oblivion Sempiternum Daemonis
This could actually be a possibility. If the system is heavily enough weighed towards the witchouts (enough that increasing witchouts by a bit would be more than what they get from seeds), if we can make a workable witch restoration we may have our new system.
Only problem becomes witch overpopulation and/or witch feeding, since they could presumably live forever that way.
However since this is somehow related to infinite energy generation, and pocket dimensions are a thing, both may be solvable.
Any particular reason you say that?
I'm pretty sure that is just entropy. It might be because of poor translation or just Kyubey dumbing it down for a 12/13 year old but that is basically a description of how entropy works as long as you add the work "useful" to the beginning of every "energy".
After all the useful energy released by a burning tree is less then the energy it took to grow because some is lost to entropy. Although the statement by itself is technically also correct since the total energy stored in the wood is less then the total energy required to grow it as some was lost in the growing process.
As @Xexilf said we have evidence that they do in fact get energy from witchouts. There are multiple reasons why they might want to collect seeds. Even if we assume that all energy produced by a Witch is automatically transferred to them 24/7 via wireless magic it would still benefit them to collect seed since that prevents the Witch from respawning. Incubators would want to keep the Witch population as low as possible to prevent Puellas dying rather then Witching out.
In fact Kyubey says:
[quote="Kyubey Episode 9]When your souls burn out in the Soul Gems and turn into Grief Seeds, they emit immense amounts of energy. It is our, the Incubators' job to collect that energy.[/quote]
Which implies the Witchout itself release large amounts of energy which fits with the massive explosion that occurs when Sayaka turns into a Witch. In fact at the very end of Episode 8 from Kyubey's perspective we see massive rings of energy emanating from the train station.