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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Cavalier said:
Grief Armor would be pretty ridiculous, to be honest. There's no real reason why Grief should have any extraordinary properties as armor, or enhance the strength and dexterity of someone covered in it. LOL Magic does not mean whatever flight of fancy we come up with actually works, or works with Sabrina's power-set. And usually magic circumscribes you to working within its thematic boundaries, in this case Magical Girls rather than Iron Man.

Also throw me in for wings. Don't care how much better the hoverboard in theory is, the wings of Grief are far more aesthetically and thematically pleasing.
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Er, we have (among other things) telekinetic powers limited to a specific material, but not obviously otherwise limited in force/velocity/etc. It's entirely logical to make power armor out of the material we can control, since our telekinesis can supply the "power" part of "power armor".

No different from making sand armor if we had the power to control sand.


Cavalier said:
Also throw me in for wings. Don't care how much better the hoverboard in theory is, the wings of Grief are far more aesthetically and thematically pleasing.
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Retsof said:
uhm, huge argument aside, this is my reasoning as well.
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But we've already established that rule of cool isn't a valid argument, when you were accusing us of using it.

Hell, make a jet pack that looks like wings for all I care, but flight-by-telekinesis is obviously and demonstrated better than flight-by-flapping-wings.
 
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Random832 said:
Er, we have (among other things) telekinetic powers limited to a specific material, but not obviously otherwise limited in force/velocity/etc. It's entirely logical to make power armor out of the material we can control, since our telekinesis can supply the "power" part of "power armor".

No different from making sand armor if we had the power to control sand.
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Sand won't kill you if something goes wrong and a blob of it comes in contact with your gem while you're not keeping it under control.
 
...We are all aware that large sections of the argument do boil down to "Mine is cooler than yours", right? I mean, that's the motivation for most of what's happening here. If we're going to present concrete practical analysis, it's probably best to start with:

1) Assumptions about the system.
2) Conditions given by past evidence/current scenario.
3) Analysis of evidence/scenario.
4) Conclusions drawn from analysis.
5) Reasons your analysis may be faulty.
6) Address other concerns.
 
Random832 said:
Er, we have (among other things) telekinetic powers limited to a specific material, but not obviously otherwise limited in force/velocity/etc. It's entirely logical to make power armor out of the material we can control, since our telekinesis can supply the "power" part of "power armor".

No different from making sand armor if we had the power to control sand.
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Have you ever heard of the "no limits" fallacy?

There's always someone out there who wants to munchkin around with SCIENCE! in a magical setting, so you get stupid things like "hey let's use Projection to create Anti-Matter" or "we should use our Wish power to build point-defense lasers and stick them on our shoulders."

There's no particular reason to believe Grief can be "hardened" sufficiently to be a significant armor barrier and using Grief as armor would open up some rather unfortunate associations due to the metaphor, and Magic runs on the logic of associations. If we're using Telekinesis to supply "force" to punches, it would be better to shoot Grief-swords at whatever we are fighting from, since that does not require us to get right up into the face of whatever we are trying to hit. And it simply does not suit the setting.
 
Cavalier said:
There's always someone out there who wants to munchkin around with SCIENCE! in a magical setting, so you get stupid things like "hey let's use Projection to create Anti-Matter" or "we should use our Wish power to build point-defense lasers and stick them on our shoulders."

There's no particular reason to believe Grief can be "hardened" sufficiently to be a significant armor barrier and using Grief as armor would open up some rather unfortunate associations due to the metaphor, and Magic runs on the logic of associations. If we're using Telekinesis to supply "force" to punches, it would be better to shoot Grief-swords at whatever we are fighting from, since that does not require us to get right up into the face of whatever we are trying to hit. And it simply does not suit the setting.
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Taking a power that permits you to reshape stuff and make it fly around and using it to enhance mobility isn't SCIENCE! It isn't even science. It's a simple, obvious hack, distinctly unambitious by the established leveraging-powers-in-fun-ways standards of 'baroque long-arms made of ribbons' or 'enough artillery to level a small country squirreled away in a bag of holding'. Any protection we could get out of it (and, hey, we've made perfectly serviceable cold weapons and manacles) would be a bonus.

I see no need to attempt anything along these lines at this point, but artificially limiting our long-term options in an unknown-but-unhealthy threat environment, effectively because some of them aren't pretty enough, would be exceptionally foolish. Powergaming is what you do with what's been done to you.
 
Cavalier said:
There's no particular reason to believe Grief can be "hardened" sufficiently to be a significant armor barrier and using Grief as armor would open up some rather unfortunate associations due to the metaphor, and Magic runs on the logic of associations. If we're using Telekinesis to supply "force" to punches, it would be better to shoot Grief-swords at whatever we are fighting from, since that does not require us to get right up into the face of whatever we are trying to hit. And it simply does not suit the setting.
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Um, Cavalier, did you forget about the time Sabrina blocked an attack from a giant metal scorpion without even flinching? I would understand your doubts if it has never happened before, but it has been repeatedly demonstrated that Sabrina's grief can easily be hardened enough to block attacks. I mean, sure, armour is stupid for a magical girl, but that doesn't mean Sabrina can't make it if she has to.
 
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[x] Agree to come back tomorrow
-[x] With the caveat of contacting us sooner if they change their minds. We should be able to telepath each other.
[x] Find a place to train.
-[x] Use Grief Wings
 
[] Witch out and spread the screaming of the voices in our head across the entire world.
[x] Agree to come back tomorrow
-[x] With the caveat of contacting us sooner if they change their minds. We should be able to telepath each other.
[x] Find a place to train.
-[x] Use Grief Wings
 
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Surface Tension pt. 21
  • Threadmarks
    • "Excuse me," you say loudly, cutting across the pair's burgeoning argument. Two pairs of eyes, one brown, one green, turn to look at you. "I can come back tomorrow, if it works out better for you."

    Masami nods quickly. "That would be better," she says, tossing a quelling look at Hiroko, who in turn nods reluctantly.

    You shrug. "Alright, then, tomorrow. Any preferred time?"

    "Uh..." Masami exchanges a glance with Hiroko, who shakes her head. "Around now?"

    "Sure," you agree readily. It's not like you have much else to do. "One more thing, though," you add, raising a finger. "I'm mostly pretty free, so you can contact me any time sooner if you want me to come by." You smoothly switch to telepathy, reaching out to the two of them. "We should be able to telepath each other."

    "Noted," Masami responds the same way.

    "Alright. See you, then," you say.

    "See you," Hiroko says, followed by a quick "Bye," from Masami. The door shuts behind you as you walk away, and you can hear the argument resuming.

    As you stroll out of the building at a casual pace, you keep a metaphorical eye on the pair with your other senses. By the time you're at the stairwell, they've moved over to the couch, and a few minutes later, you can feel the sheathe of magic around Masami wink out. Conserving magic? Eventually, they break up, one moving to what you guess is their study, and the other staying there on the couch.

    Feh. Domestic disputes.

    You walk into the alley beside the building and bound to the roof, wincing at the cracks you're still leaving in the walls. Once you reach the roof, you reach for a Grief Seed, and yank a tremendous quantity of Grief out, enough that your wings billow out to the twenty meter wing span. The Grief Seed is still fairly cloudy when you pocket it again.

    A powerful flap, and you lift off easily, rising from the roof top. This time, you've got a better idea on how to do this, and you flap more gently, but with a longer draw time. The flight is a lot smoother, this time, though you still wobble clumsily as you fly.

    You bank east, rapidly rising in the mid-afternoon thermals, well past the height of the skycrapers. As you cut across the city like some enormous bird, you admire the glittering cityscape laid out beneath you. Shining skycrapers in the city center, giving way to shorter, less grandiose buildings, all crisscrossed and interlinked by massive roadways twisting and looping around each other. And, of course, the occasional, nonsensical rolling swathes of greenery interspersed with housing which makes no damned sense in land starved Japan-

    You choke back the thought, simply enjoying the peace, way up here in the sky as your flight gradually smoothens out. Your wing tips describe enormous, lopsided, sideturned 'D' shapes, making your flight smoother in contrast with the jerking slams of a few hours ago.

    The flight across the city soon has you over the old industrial area, nearly deserted as it always is. You carefully avoid the few factories still operating, and the powerplant on the edge of the area, skirting around the pillars of flue gas exhausted from the towering smokestacks.

    You circle a bit, finding a nicely deserted spot, before coming in for another landing.

    ...

    You don't exactly nail it, and there's a great big rent in the side of a warehouse where your wing clipped and carved effortlessly through steel. You're intact, though, and you're in the yard of an old warehouse, surrounded by a tall, chain-link fence.

    There's a rusting tower crane nearby, should you feel the need to get up high for whatever reason, and plenty of room. A few old hulks of machinery lie about, here a tremendous internal combustion engine you guess originated from a truck with dried crusts of oil pooled underneath it, there the abandoned scoop from a digger...

    You have a little time, perhaps two hours to explore your abilities before you should head over to the hospital to find Mami and the others. What to do, what to do...

    [] Write-in

    =====​

    Today's random trivia: The proper term for a power plant's (or similar) exhaust is 'flue gas'.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [Q] Witch out for superpowers
    [x] Grab a long piece of rebar or something and immerse one end of it in grief. Let it sit for the training session, and observe it periodically.
    [x] Try to see if we can manipulate the grief wings. In particular, test if moving the grief wings also causes Sabrina to move, or if they can be detached like regular grief constructs
    [x] Throw a grief marble way beyond the 100m control range. See if it maintains it's form or dissipates.
    [x] Create a 1 to 1 scale model of the internal combustion engine. Observe how easy or hard it is to maintain it's form.
    -[x] Create more models until it start straining the limits of our grief control

    [x] Try and compress a basketball sized lump of grief into a grief marble.
    -[x] If that is possible, slowly add more grief to the marble while maintaining it's size. Get it as close as we can to grief seed densities.
    -[x] Once done, let it balloon back to it's original proportions. Stand a safe distance away while doing this.

    Feel free to expand on this list.
     
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    What about trying to compress a bunch of grief from the seed into a denser form. After all it would be hard to feed Kyuubi basketball sized grief and breaking it up into marbles and feeding him that way would take forever.
     
    1.) Create a hollow, but tough, shell made of grief. Somethijg baseball sized.
    2.) Infuse magical energy inside the shell. Maybe explodey kind of magical energy
    3.) Find a suitably durable target that no one would miss.
    4.) Launch projectile at target
    5.) Record results
    6.) Repeat, but scale *down* on further repeats.
     
    [x] Grab a long piece of rebar or something and immerse one end of it in grief. Let it sit for the training session, and observe it periodically.
    [x] Try to see if we can manipulate the grief wings. In particular, test if moving the grief wings also causes Sabrina to move, or if they can be detached like regular grief constructs
    [x]Try creating a small cloud of gaseous grief and condensing objects such as spikes out of it.
    [x] Throw a grief marble way beyond the 100m control range. See if it maintains it's form or dissipates.
    [x] Try and compress a basketball sized lump of grief into a grief marble.
    -[x] If that is possible, slowly add more grief to the marble while maintaining it's size. Get it as close as we can to grief seed densities.
    -[x] Once done, let it balloon back to it's original proportions. Stand a safe distance away while doing this.
    [x]Practice remote grief control
     
    [x] Grab a long piece of rebar or something and immerse one end of it in grief. Let it sit for the training session, and observe it periodically.
    [x] Try to see if we can manipulate the grief wings. In particular, test if moving the grief wings also causes Sabrina to move, or if they can be detached like regular grief constructs
    [x]Try creating a small cloud of gaseous grief and condensing objects such as spikes out of it.
    [x] Throw a grief marble way beyond the 100m control range. See if it maintains it's form or dissipates.
    [x] Try and compress a basketball sized lump of grief into a grief marble.
    -[x] If that is possible, slowly add more grief to the marble while maintaining it's size. Get it as close as we can to grief seed densities.
    -[x] Once done, let it balloon back to it's original proportions. Stand a safe distance away while doing this.
    [x]Practice remote grief control
     
    [x] Grab a long piece of rebar or something and immerse one end of it in grief. Let it sit for the training session, and observe it periodically.
    [x] Try to see if we can manipulate the grief wings. In particular, test if moving the grief wings also causes Sabrina to move, or if they can be detached like regular grief constructs
    [x]Try creating a small cloud of gaseous grief and condensing objects such as spikes out of it.
    [x] Throw a grief marble way beyond the 100m control range. See if it maintains it's form or dissipates.
    [x] Try and compress a basketball sized lump of grief into a grief marble.
    -[x] If that is possible, slowly add more grief to the marble while maintaining it's size. Get it as close as we can to grief seed densities.
    -[x] Once done, let it balloon back to it's original proportions. Stand a safe distance away while doing this.
    [x]Practice remote grief control

    -[x] Once done, let it balloon back to it's original proportions. Stand a safe distance away while doing this
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    That would be a nasty weapon. Shoot someone with a high speed grief marble, but make sure that it doesn't over-penetrate, then have it expand inside them.
     
    We can cut through steel with our wings purely by accident. That's more than enough of an argument to keep them for me.

    [x] Grab a long piece of rebar or something and immerse one end of it in grief. Let it sit for the training session, and observe it periodically.
    [x] Try to see if we can manipulate the grief wings. In particular, test if moving the grief wings also causes Sabrina to move, or if they can be detached like regular grief constructs
    [x] Try creating a small cloud of gaseous grief and condensing objects such as spikes out of it.
    [x] Throw a grief marble way beyond the 100m control range. See if it maintains it's form or dissipates.
    [x] Try and compress a basketball sized lump of grief into a grief marble.
    -[x] If that is possible, slowly add more grief to the marble while maintaining it's size. Get it as close as we can to grief seed densities.
    -[x] Once done, let it balloon back to it's original proportions. Stand a safe distance away while doing this.
    [x] Practice remote grief control
     
    [x] Grab a long piece of rebar or something and immerse one end of it in grief. Let it sit for the training session, and observe it periodically.
    [x] Try to see if we can manipulate the grief wings. In particular, test if moving the grief wings also causes Sabrina to move, or if they can be detached like regular grief constructs
    [x]Try creating a small cloud of gaseous grief and condensing objects such as spikes out of it.
    [x] Throw a grief marble way beyond the 100m control range. See if it maintains it's form or dissipates.
    [x] Try and compress a basketball sized lump of grief into a grief marble.
    -[x] If that is possible, slowly add more grief to the marble while maintaining it's size. Get it as close as we can to grief seed densities.
    -[x] Once done, let it balloon back to it's original proportions. Stand a safe distance away while doing this.
    [x]Practice remote grief control
     
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