Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

[Gadjo]

Maybe we should be getting ready to rock Homura if things start to go south?

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Noooope. Regardless of circumstance I'll never vote for that.

Homura trusts us. Mami revealed one possible way that the Barriers we have created in the past might be have attracted danger. Is that enough to overturn the past week and a half of trust and cause Homura to ignore all of the good we have done and start treating us as a threat? Somehow, I doubt it. And even if that is the case, I want to hear it from her.

Operating on an assumption that Homura has gone murderface on us is not reasonable.

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I'm not saying she's gone murderface. I'm saying she's scared. Silence implies we have nothing more to say. Lets her stew in her fear. She might do something impulsive, out of that fear, that I'd prefer to avoid. Probably not killing us, but running away and breaking contact seems plausible. Or some other breach of trust.

 

[boonerunner]

She takes a deep breath, looking up at you. "Maybe it's something like a lightning rod? When y-you make a Barrier, some... Witch powers are, are, drawn in, s-somehow? L-like calls to like?"

Homura's attention shifts to Mami. Neutral, silent, barely moving. Almost a statue, for all the emotion she's displaying, and nearly as still as everything in the frozen world of the timestop.

Mami notices, frowning at Homura. "I... don't you think so, Homura? S-Sabrina?"

Click to shrink...

Here's what happened.
1. Mami brings up a possible explanation for a connection between our Barrier and "Feathers".
2. Homura is surprised by the explanation and pauses to consider it.
3. Mami asks Homura and Sabrina for their opinion.

The fact that Homura has not yet said anything about Mami's conjecture is no more telling than the fact that Sabrina has not said anything about it. The update cut off at the end of Mami's question. Homura hasn't yet had a chance to respond to it verbally.

 

[Muramasa]

Okay yeah, you have a very different (imo: wrong) interpretation of events there.

 

[boonerunner]

Okay yeah, you have a very different (imo: wrong) interpretation of events there.

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My interpretation of the events matches line-for-line with the actual update. Anything beyond that is reading something into Homura's response. Which is explicitly a neutral response.

 

[Muramasa]

My interpretation of the events matches line-for-line with the actual update. Anything beyond that is reading something into Homura's response. Which is explicitly a neutral response.

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It's a neutral response only if you knew absolutely nothing about the character. Given the suggestion that's been thrown out, do you expect Homura to react to it objectively?

 

[Gadjo]

Homura's gaze remains fixed on you, amethyst eyes fixed steadily on you. Her breaths come slow and measured, and her stance is carefully neutral.

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Yeah, I think you've made a major misread of the situation. Carefully neutral implies that one is trying specifically not to seem threatening. Homura doesn't know what to do right now, but she isn't going to glare at us; we and Mami are some of the most powerful magical girls Homura's ever met. She knows if we wanted to detain her that she's quite vulnerable at the moment.

Also? A neutral expression describes Homura's face 90% of the time. It says nothing about her mood.

 

[boonerunner]

It's a neutral response only if you knew absolutely nothing about the character. Given the suggestion that's been thrown out, do you expect Homura to react to it objectively?

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Obviously Homura is thinking a lot of things behind her neutral mask. But she is explicitly not showing any trace of what she's feeling, and I don't trust any of us to adequately divine anything of use from a neutral mask. If we want to know what Homura is thinking here, we have to give her some room to talk.

Yeah, I think you've made a major misread of the situation. Carefully neutral implies that one is trying specifically not to seem threatening. Homura doesn't know what to do right now, but she isn't going to glare at us; we and Mami are some of the most powerful magical girls Homura's ever met. She knows if we wanted to detain her that she's quite vulnerable at the moment.

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Homura was free enough with her glares around Oriko. And she has been obviously nervous and distraught several times in the past.

Also? A neutral expression describes Homura's face 90% of the time. It says nothing about her mood.

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That is exactly my point. How can you assume that you know what her mood is when her face is neutral?

 

[Gadjo]

Homura was free enough with her glares around Oriko. And she has been obviously nervous and distraught several times in the past.

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Oriko couldn't crush her soul gem with a thought or detain her without trouble.

That is exactly my point. How can you assume that you know what her mood is when her face is neutral?

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From the fact her reactions to the theories thrown around were given attention. It makes her uncomfortable. Beyond that meta observation, we have to look at the circumstances and think of what might be logical for her to be thinking right now. We can't stop and ask people for their feelings all the time; we have to be able to read them at least a little.

As it is? She has been given information that could imply that we are connected to a bigger threat than has ever been seen to Madoka. That will make her uncomfortable and unsure. Simple enough?

 

[boonerunner]

From the fact her reactions to the theories thrown around were given attention. It makes her uncomfortable. Beyond that meta observation, we have to look at the circumstances and think of what might be logical for her to be thinking right now. We can't stop and ask people for their feelings all the time; we have to be able to read them at least a little.

As it is? She has been given information that could imply that we are connected to a bigger threat than has ever been seen to Madoka. That will make her uncomfortable and unsure. Simple enough?

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Uncomfortable and unsure? Sure, that seems likely.

But the you and Muramasa have been assuming that Homura had such an intensely negative reaction to Mami's suggestion that she will be incapable of speech, and I'm not sure where that assumption is coming from. And you have been arguing that all of Homura's trust in us is broken (or nearly so) and we need to explain to her in great detail that we are on her side before she can possibly trust us again. That's the part that I disagree with because it's reading entirely too much from an explicitly neutral reaction.

 

[EtchedSteel]

Here's my thoughts. And this will sounds really contradictory but yeah:

Honestly, if Homura's starting to consider us as a bigger threat to Madoka than Walpurgis, then we can conclude she's being irrational. Yeah, we gave her many reasons to doubt our judgement. We also gave her something she didn't had before: An ally.

But again, we're talking about Homura. The girl who's so obsessed with saving Madoka she doesn't care about anything anymore. The girl who will screw the entire world if that gives her a chance to save Madoka from her fate, because she has nothing else.

She considers Mami as too fragile and ignorant to even consider her opinion. She thinks of Oriko as a "kill on sight" Because of one single timeline where she killed Madoka.

And yet, she still wonders why she fails every single time.

So yeah, is expected from her to start being irrational if we leave her to her own devices. As disappointing and annoyingly frustrating at it is.

 

[Ugolino]

Actually, factually, given the balance of hope and despair and how often she's been burned...from her POV, Sabrina the anomaly that seems too good to be true turning out to be too good to be true makes perfect sense.

Which is why we need to reassure her. Properly.

 

[Muramasa]

[] That's both plausible and... more than a little concerning. And there's no way to prove it without making the barrier and risking whatever it was that happened all over again.
[] If you're right, the best solution is to just not make anymore barriers. No barrier. No lightning rod. No feathers. No witches where they shouldn't be.
[] Until we know more, that's the best way to protect our friends. If this is my fault... No, that doesn't matter. I'm going to keep my friends safe no matter what.
[] What do you think Homura?


Taking the previous comments in mind. What do you guys think?

edit: slight tweak to the third line.

 

[moonstne]

If this is my fault... No, that doesn't matter

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This bit seems off, what is the point of that part?

What do you think Homura?

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Getting homura's thoughts seems a necessary part for tonight's vote. +1

 

[boonerunner]

[] That's both plausible and... more than a little concerning. And there's no way to prove it without making the barrier and risking whatever it was that happened all over again.
[] If you're right, the best solution is to just not make anymore barriers. No barrier. No lightning rod. No feathers. No witches where they shouldn't be.
[] Until we know more, that's the best way to protect our friends. If this is my fault... No, that doesn't matter. I'm going to keep my friends safe no matter what.
[] What do you think Homura?

Click to shrink...

This vote is a lot better than the previous one. It actually talks to Homura about Mami's question and asks for her response. If we are going to swear off absolutely all Barrier usage for the rest of the Quest, then this is a good way to go about it.

But personally, I think that Barriers are too useful, and the connection to "Feathers" has not been investigated at all, so I think it's too soon to swear off all Barrier usage. Proper supervision and careful study should allow us to figure out what's going on. Homura and/or Mami might nix it anyway, but I at least want to try.

Switching back to my original vote.
[x] It's possible, I suppose. What do you think, Homura?
[x] We could test that theory by creating another Barrier near a Witch's Barrier and seeing if there are any strange interactions between the two. What do you think, if the two of you were there to check for anything odd, would the possibility of finding out more about "Feathers" be worth the risk?

Edit: changed my vote to try other tests first.

 

[VilimL]

Earlier in the quest, we made Homura into a human being. Even Mami complimented is on that. Now, she's closing herself off again. We're definitely handling social interactions poorly recently.

So, maybe we really should just abandon the idea of barriers for the sake of our friends. We can afford to sacrifice a part of our immense battle OPness for some social-fu.
There's a chance our barriers have a hidden deus ex machina power, but it's unlikely. Even if it's true, we can probably experiment in timestop when we get cornered.

In any case,
[X] Muramasa

 

[TJSomething]

I'm okay with this one. As a sidenote, I feel like we've pushed grief SCIENCE far enough that we need better vanilla spellcraft fundamentals to make useful discoveries.

[x] Muramasa

 

[Gadjo]

This vote is a lot better than the previous one. It actually talks to Homura about Mami's question and asks for her response. If we are going to swear off absolutely all Barrier usage for the rest of the Quest, then this is a good way to go about it.

But personally, I think that Barriers are too useful, and the connection to "Feathers" has not been investigated at all, so I think it's too soon to swear off all Barrier usage. Proper supervision and careful study should allow us to figure out what's going on. Homura and/or Mami might nix it anyway, but I at least want to try.

Click to shrink...

Noooooot the time to ask for such things. This is too fragile a situation, and we don't know what kind of shit we might cause with the barriers. It'd be irresponsible to keep playing with them unless absolutely necessary. And I'd want Mami and Homura to be convinced it's necessary as well before we did it.

[X] Muramasa.

 

[Firnagzen]

Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[x] It's plausible. But it's not something I can really test.
[x] Before we go on, it's probably better to restate some facts.
-[x] 1. While possibly connected, the incident with Sayaka, the feather's appearance, and the changes in Oriko's visions are not necessarily related.
--[x] It's quite possible none of it's related, and that this is just a coincidence.
-[x] 2. If feathers is real, it's not necessarily responsible for what happened to Sayaka. It could've been giving us a warning that something... strange was about to happen.
-[x] 3. Oriko was seeing feathers long before I ever constructed a barrier. If you believe she's telling the truth, her entire motivation up to this point was to stop... whatever it is.
--[x] If that's the case, why not just go after me then? She went about an overly convoluted plot to help us fight this thing and a simple solution was right in front of her.
[x] Cleanse yourself. Offer cleansing to everyone else.
[X] You know what? *Silently ask for Mami to hand you the feather* I believe we have an enemy stronger than Walpurgisnacht incoming, and it's messing with us.
[x] Put the feather away.
[X] It doesn't matter. We can win; No. We will win. We'll beat it, just like we'll beat Walpurgis.
No. of votes: 10
Muramasa, MissingJimbo, Dirtnap, EtchedSteel, AuraTwilight, Lordsservent, Ugolino, VilimL, TJSomething, Gadjo

[x] Maybe. But I'm not the only one who makes Barriers.
[x] Straighten up and look them in the eye. It is simple. We kill all the witches.
No. of votes: 1
'Lement

[x] It's possible, I suppose. What do you think, Homura?
[x] I could test that theory by creating another Barrier near a Witch's Barrier and seeing if there are any strange interactions between the two. What do you think, if the two of you were there to check for anything odd, would the possibility of finding out more about Feathers be worth the risk?
No. of votes: 1
Skelm

[x] Let Homura respond to Mami before anything else.
No. of votes: 1
Aranfan

[X] I... Maybe. Shrug, smile for Mami. I don't know.
[X] Silently ask for Mami to hand you the feather.
[X] To both: Hear me out: This... whole thing might be just a huge coincidence, or at least this 'Feathers' thing doesn't have to be hostile; this might just be a warning, as much as it freaks me out.
-[X] Put feather away.
[X] But I don't think this was caused by my powers, nor that Oriko was behind it, or even Kyuubey.
[X] Sigh. Cleanse yourself.
[X] You know what I think? I believe we have an enemy stronger than Walpurgisnacht incoming, and it's messing with us. I believe it as much as I believe anything else.
[X] But whatever it is, we can take it. We'll beat it as we'll beat Walpurgisnacht, together.
[X] Offer cleansing.
No. of votes: 1
Onmur

[x] It's possible, I suppose. What do you think, Homura?
[x] We could test that theory by creating another Barrier near a Witch's Barrier and seeing if there are any strange interactions between the two. What do you think, if the two of you were there to check for anything odd, would the possibility of finding out more about Feathers be worth the risk?
No. of votes: 1
boonerunner

Click to shrink...

 

[Muramasa]

Yeah I'm going to change to the new version.


edit: made the change.

 

[moonstne]

[x] muramasa

 

[SaltyWaffles]

Just going to add in: Mami's theory actually has a surprising amount of merit. Not necessarily in the context that she was thinking of, true, but still. It could very well be that Sabrina's use of reality-warping/reality-bending powers either attracts/attracts the attention of/helps to facilitate influence/communication between this world and wherever Feathers is. Just because nothing happened the first time doesn't mean that this isn't the case, because if the 'lightning rod' effect was mild enough, Feathers might have only taken notice of it (or just considered it anything more than a random occurrence) when the same phenomenon happened twice in a row.

 

[Sereg]

Oriko's visions showed that "Feathers" was going to intervene long before we had any thoughts of creating anything in a Barrier and if we completely stop our Barrier research, that will do nothing to stop "Feathers". It is possible that our Barrier allows "Feathers" to act more quickly, sure, but that's pure speculation. There's no real evidence for that one way or another apart from the appearance of the Feather, which is circumstantial at best. I'll agree that it is possible that "Feathers" is connected to our barriers somehow. But if that's true, one of the primary things that means is that Barriers are our one of our best avenues of research for finding out more about "Feathers".

Click to shrink...

I disagree. We have plenty of research opportunities that we haven't tried yet that might tell us that information.

Personally, I think that the most likely explanation for the appearance of the Feather has less to do with the Barrier and more to do with Mami. She was under severe duress at the time and had come a third of the way (or more) towards witching out.

Click to shrink...

Mami has nearly witched out before. As have many other magical girls. this has more against it than barriers do.

I highly doubt that this is true. Both for reasons of practicality (i.e. sustainable farming) and for reasons of history - Humanity has grown by four or five orders of magnitude since Kyuubey first started intervening and that was about ten thousand years ago (give or take). That hardly sounds like "driving a species towards extinction". Kyuubey harvested the energy from Kriemhild Gretchen's creation sure, but an extinction-level event was not something that he had either planned for or expected.

Click to shrink...

J-species. It rapidly multiplies until it is suddenly wiped out. This happens all the time in nature. As for sustainability, Kyuubey's reaction to Kriemheld Gretchen shows his lack of caring about that and the games show that they recruit from more than just Earth.

Kyuubey says: "As the strongest magical girl, she defeated the greatest enemy. Of course, after that, she has no choice but to become the worst witch." The relationship between these two statements sounds causal, but it is not. The reason that Madoka became the worst witch was that she had a truly ridiculous potential that was so great that even Kyuubey could not measure it. He was surprised that she was able to destroy Walpurgisnacht with one shot and the magnitude of her witch took him by surprise. Madoka was not the strongest magical girl who ever lived by a little bit, barely capable of destroying the (second) strongest witch; she was way more powerful than that. Ultimate Kriemhild Gretchen was composed of all of the grief from all of the witches that had ever existed or that would ever exist from all of the timelines that were under Madokami's aegis; that's why Ultimate Kriemhild Gretchen was so powerful. And yet, Madokami was still strong enough to defeat her in one shot.

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The causality isn't the point. The coexistence is. There's no such thing as a witch that's weaker than the strongest witch they defeated as a magical girl. That's the point.

So Barriers are now in the same "NEVER TOUCH AGAIN EVAR!" as the "lets see if we can't cure the witch's mind starting with the familiars" huh?

We'll never save the MG if we keep "FEARRUNNEVERDOTHINGTHATMAYHELP" with all our grief science because of what we see as a misstep.

Click to shrink...

Trying to proceed with something clearly dangerous which has yet to prove that it will do what we want is silly when we have other options that may do the same thing more effectively only with zero risk that we haven't tested yet.

Most of the experiments that need to done with respect to Barriers can be done with an empty Barrier. The half hour delay is only an issue if we want to recreate Mitakihara or something on that scale. A small 12x12 room or something should be easily doable.

Click to shrink...

Citation needed. There's no evidence that the same thing won't happen with an empty room.

We never tested opening multiple entrances; the previous attempt (where we moved the entrance) was inconclusive because we weren't trying to create multiple entrances. And it's only direct teleportation (by opening an entrance to a different location across the city) that isn't possible (or we did it the wrong way). There are still plenty of ways for travelling ridiculously quickly within our pocket dimension that we have not tried. For instance: Muramasa's point about running into something with no time to react doesn't really apply if we're travelling within the infinite void.

The reason that the Barrier is such a big deal for me is that one of my top priorities in this Quest is to set things up so that Sabrina can cleanse everyone. But the fact that we have a 100m range makes that, perhaps not impossible but definitely difficult. The fact that the Barrier may remove or change that restriction (i.e. we were able to create an entire city) means that global cleansing may be closer than it ever was before, so deciding to drop the research on Barriers completely (like some people are suggesting) just because of a single setback (which may not have even had anything to do with the Barrier), really rubs me the wrong way.

Click to shrink...

Ooooooor we create a grief device that instantly teleports all grief on the planet to our side ... ooooorrr we create a grief device that makes our range planet wide ... oooooorrrrr we create a grief device that teleports us ... ooooorrrr we create a grief device that attracts grief to us on a planet wide scale etc. We aren't even close to running out of better options. The barrier hasn't demonstrated abilities remotely close to that anyway.

We desperately need to stop making stupid promises. Barrier generation has the potential to be extraordinarily powerful, and we've barely explored it yet.

Click to shrink...

We have other abilities with the potential to be far more powerful with zero risk.

If opening or closing a barrier does, indeed, cause us Feathers problems... have you considered that we're not the only Witch in the setting? Barriers are created and destroyed all the time.

To make a plausible case for our Barrier experimentation being a problem, not only do you have to explain why creating or destroying a barrier "lets Feathers in" (which, on its own, makes no damn sense),you also have to explain why our barrier in particular is different from all the thousands of others that are created and destroyed on any given day.

Click to shrink...

It messes with the fabric of the Universe? How does it not make sense as an entry point? Also, we're not a witch and feathers may be directly connected to us on a personal level.

Can we be absolutely certain our barriers have nothing to do with it? No, we can't. But we do know that a significant connection is ridiculously implausible. Barrier creation has proven insanely powerful just in the one brief test we've already tried.

Click to shrink...

No, it hasn't. We're capable of far more impressive stuff with our other powers. I remain unimpressed.

With a power like this, we can save people. Many people. The onus is not on me to absolutely disprove your shadowrun; as you said, no one can. It's on you to prove that your shadowrun is so plausible that we need to stop trying to save people in order to placate it.

Click to shrink...

It cannot save anyone at our current level of ability. Better to develop our other tech which could easily be superior at saving people with no cost.

(But, then again, how can I object? Look at how well that last promise worked, the one that lost us use of our precog. Homura never worried again, did she? )

Click to shrink...

It worked fine and didn't lose us the use of our precog.

The problem with this promise is that it says that we won't make any Barriers until we can prove that they have nothing to do with "Feathers". Which is something that will be extremely difficult to do without experimenting with the Barriers.

Click to shrink...

I disagree. There are many tests we can try that will help determine that that don't require barrier use at all.

Well, we'd act like a normal, sensible, person, but we know that it doesn't shoot every time, and that it's also a pocket dimension machine on top of that. What scientist would we be if a mere discouraging shock (heh, get it? The feather was a shock to us) stopped our research into something so fun useful?

Click to shrink...

Again, it's way less useful than our other abilities that may solve all the same problems more easily with no cost. Why pursue it when we have better options?


EDIT: It doesn't feel witchy, so I don't see how Mami's guess makes sense as it is, though a modification may make sense.

 

[Sereg]

[x] I suppose it's possible. If you're right, that's ... more than a little concerning. And it will be difficult to prove it without making the barrier and risking whatever it was that happened all over again.
[x] If you're right, the best solution is to just not make any more barriers. No barrier. No lightning rod. No feathers. No witches where they shouldn't be.
[x] Until we know more, that's the best way to protect our friends. I'm not going to let something like this be my fault... I'm going to keep my friends safe no matter what.
[x] And if it's something else, I'll find out and stop it.
[x] What do you think Homura?

Slight modification?

 

[Muramasa]

[x] I suppose it's possible. If you're right, that's ... more than a little concerning. And it will be difficult to prove it without making the barrier and risking whatever it was that happened all over again.
[x] If you're right, the best solution is to just not make any more barriers. No barrier. No lightning rod. No feathers. No witches where they shouldn't be.
[x] Until we know more, that's the best way to protect our friends. I'm not going to let something like this be my fault... I'm going to keep my friends safe no matter what.
[x] And if it's something else, I'll find out and stop it.
[x] What do you think Homura?

Slight modification?

Click to shrink...

I like the edits though I think the added line is a bit unnecessary. Strays a bit too far from Mami's question.

 

[boonerunner]

Mami has nearly witched out before. As have many other magical girls. this has more against it than barriers do.

Click to shrink...

In our experience, this is the closest that Mami has ever come has come to witching out. Plenty of other girls have witched out, of course, but I am operating under the assumption that "Feathers" is personally related to the main cast (probably Homucifer). If "Feathers" is Homucifer, then Mami's near witchout would be much more significant than anything we may have been doing with respect to Barriers.

I disagree. We have plenty of research opportunities that we haven't tried yet that might tell us that information.

There are many tests we can try that will help determine that that don't require barrier use at all.

Click to shrink...

You'll have to clarify. The only things that have shown any relation to "Feathers" in the past are Oriko's visions and (possibly) Sabrina's Barrier creation. What tests can we run that do not have anything to do with Barriers that are likely to give us information about "Feathers"?

There was one potential experiment that I wanted to try earlier by trying to ask Oriko to use precognition about our failure to create a Soul Gem Scanner, but that's the only thing I can remember offhand. And even if that test did show that "Feathers" was behind our Soul Gem Scanner failures, it wouldn't show anything one way or another to demonstrate the safety of the Barriers.

If you can come up with a series of tests that would prove that Barriers are safe (or unsafe) without actually creating a Barrier, then I would be happy. But I cannot think of any tests that would do this.