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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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AuraTwilight said:
I'm not, and never proposed, that Walpurgis, Gretchen, and the like can ignore everything all the time 5ever, no matter what, to an infinite scale.
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AuraTwilight said:
Kriemhild Gretchen of timeline 4, however, will actually succeed, and is pretty much unopposable at a philosophical level because she'll exist as long as anyone else suffers.
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AuraTwilight said:
Kriemhild Gretchen is the ONLY witch that specifies that violence is effectively useless in this manner. No other witch even uses similar textual cues or prose construction. This "it's just poetic" argument is literally baseless as this is our only data point of a Witch Card being written in this manner, so by all accounts we're meant to take it objectively and literally. To argue otherwise is special pleading.
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AuraTwilight said:
If you can show me a Magical Girl with stronger than Madoka-potential and have her beat Gretchen in a fight, I'll concede the point. Walpurgisnacht, after all, canonically is implied to have a narrative causality power that guarantees her opponents are "helpless" (in more than one videogame she's straight up invincible unless certain conditions are met), so it could hypothetically be done by someone with stronger magical clout. But in Gretchen's/Madoka's case? Good luck on that, it's not happening.
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AuraTwilight said:
Walpurgis has conceptual "Fuck you, you lose magic" by Word of God and Gretchen is WORSE than her.
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Vebyast said:
The kinds of explosions Homura was leaving behind around Charlotte, anything less durable than a literal solid block of metal would've been shattered fragments after the first or second bomb.
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I think you're vastly overestimating the destructive power of hand grenades. Their explosive power can be mostly muffled by having a person jump on top of them, and the shrapnel from a frag doesn't penetrate even light body armor. And even HE grenades are only about 8 ounces of explosive material. Potent, yes, but not "all shall crumble before me" potent.

Witches are quite tough, yeah, but not as tough as you're suggesting.


Vebyast said:
Except I don't know if kyubeys splatter properly.
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They do have red stuff inside. It's not quite as fluid as proper blood, but anything will spatter if you hit it hard enough.


Vebyast said:
For example, Witches have no trouble manufacturing the physical objects (or at least simulations thereof) inside their barrier - it's one of the basic abilities - but have trouble defending from handheld explosive devices. Energy difference there is... 10, 15 OOM?
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I don't think it can be direct energy-to-matter conversion, or every MG who could summon a weapon would have enough energy to destroy a city. Maybe they can pull the material out of other dimensions or, given how everything an MG summons disappears when they die, it was only ever some sort of hard-light construct to begin with.

In the case of witches, everything in a barrier is made out of grief, rather than normal matter. Who knows how that works? If it was direct matter-energy conversion then what we're carrying around is enough energy to lay waste to the planet.


Vebyast said:
[x] Drop Sayaka off first, then telepathy with Homura on the way back to explain the keeping-Madoka-safe plan.
-[x] You agree with keeping Madoka away from danger, but she'll always want to help and she's too brave to be simply scared away, so you're giving her other - safer - ways to feel and be included.
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Should we be discussing Doka-tactics over telepathy? Kyubey will overhear anything we say and use it to develop countermeasures.
 
Torgamous said:
I figured that was because Nagisa's grief came primarily from a hospital, but you're proposing that it's because that's where her barrier was?
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Vebyast said:
As additional evidence, Oktavia's barrier in the anime starts out as mostly train tracks, transitioning into the auditorium at the center, and Oktavia attacks using train wheels.
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As Veb said, there's other data points, like the Gertrud example I pointed out. Newly created barriers, at minimum, reflect the external reality in a bleedover-like effect, and the real-world influences progressively vanish until you're totally removed from the real world, and totally in the witch's domain.

Also, to clarify, those wheels aren't train wheels; they're wooden, for starters, and are shaped like the chart wheels used to represent a lot of Buddhist mandala imagery; the cycles of karma, desire, suffering, and reincarnation are usually referenced by the turning of a wheelcart's spokes.
 
The Narrator said:
I think you're vastly overestimating the destructive power of hand grenades. Their explosive power can be mostly muffled by having a person jump on top of them, and the shrapnel from a frag doesn't penetrate even light body armor. And even HE grenades are only about 8 ounces of explosive material. Potent, yes, but not "all shall crumble before me" potent.

Witches are quite tough, yeah, but not as tough as you're suggesting.
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Homura's bombs produce ten-meter fireballs. Anime physics, yes, but that's still a lot bigger than a hand grenade.
The Narrator said:
Should we be discussing Doka-tactics over telepathy? Kyubey will overhear anything we say and use it to develop countermeasures.
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The original plan discussed it spoken out loud, and the assumption is that he can hear everything that's not in timestop or privacy.
Firnagzen said:
Sayaka makes a face. "I didn't even get up myself. Madoka woke up first. Er. Homura woke up first first and Madoka was worried because she was missing. Then she stepped on me." [...] "Nah," Sayaka says, flapping her hand at you and propping the other on her hip. "They're fine. We found Homura doing her vampire thing outside. 'Keeping watch', apparently."
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Actually, we have an opportunity to poke Homura about this behavior too. Worrying Madoka is a no-no and she should probably stop doing it.


[x] Having Madoka and Homura along to meet with Bennouna sounds great, if they want to come.
[x] But the cleansing trip... maybe once peace has settled in and these trips are routine, but right now we're not quite sure what these girls are like or how it'll go.
[x] You actually wanted to ask Homura and Madoka if they could hold the fort while the rest of the team was off doing that.

[x] Bennouna or Enchanting is probably first, though, so... everybody meet back up in an hour?
-[x] Thank the Madoparents for having you over!
-[x] Offer Sayaka and Homura rides home.

[x] Before you leave, pull Madoka aside and thank her for the sleepover. Not only was it nice on its own, the sheer normalcy of it is important. Inviting Sayaka was a particularly good idea; Madoka's a Good Friend.
-[x] Speaking of which, ask Madoka to point the friendship cannons at Homura. It'd be good for her, and you're sure she'd appreciate it.

[x] Drop Sayaka off first, then telepathy with Homura on the way to her apartment to explain the keeping-Madoka-safe plan.
-[x] You agree with keeping Madoka away from danger, but she'll always want to help and she's too brave to be simply scared away, so you're giving her other - safer - ways to feel and be included.
-[x] You also want to keep her in the loop, particularly about the current situation and your plans for keeping it under control, so she doesn't worry and feel like she needs to do something.
-[x] For example, you want to bring up the Tokyo situation at some point today and get everybody's input on it.

[x] Fly home with Mami.
-[x] Does she want to try the ribbon-wings again? ^_^


Vote-bloat, ugh. I don't see where to cut it, though; a lot of these are very, very short conversations that should only go one way. Thoughts?
 
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[X] Vebyast

Holy shit guys, can we stop this pointless arguing? Gretchen isn't going to show up in this universe because if Madoka becomes a magical girl we'll wring her neck ourselves.
 
The Narrator said:
If it was direct matter-energy conversion then what we're carrying around is enough energy to lay waste to the planet.
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But Grief apparently lacks inertia, meaning that it lacks mass, meaning that if converted directly into energy would give no energy! :V
Clearly KB isn't actually trying to stop the heat death of the universe. He's just a sadist with a fetish for overly complicated contracts. :V
 
AuraTwilight said:
Also, to clarify, those wheels aren't train wheels; they're wooden, for starters, and are shaped like the chart wheels used to represent a lot of Buddhist mandala imagery; the cycles of karma, desire, suffering, and reincarnation are usually referenced by the turning of a wheelcart's spokes.
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I'm not sure. They don't look wooden to me, and the Buddhist symbolism would work a lot better if they had eight (or 24) spokes rather than the six / occasionally twelve that they do have. Also, all the images I can find of the Buddhist wheel have projections past the rim at each spoke. And she did witch out in a train station.

I mean maybe the symbolism is still there, but they certainly look like they could also be train wheels (to be fair, most train wheels seem to be solid, but I was able to find a few pictures of spoked ones, mostly on older steam trains. And spokes make for better visuals than discs if you want them to clearly be wheels.) "Spoked wheels with smooth rims" might be a compromise between the Buddhist symbolism and train wheels. (The rims kind of look flanged too, but it's subtle and could just be me seeing what I want to see)
 
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Karnewarrior said:
Holy shit guys, can we stop this pointless arguing? Gretchen isn't going to show up in this universe because if Madoka becomes a magical girl we'll wring her neck ourselves.
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Again, whether or not it's possible to kill Walpurgisnacht is kind of relevant, seeing as how it's our major goal for this quest. If we accept the idea that Walpy has "narrative immunity", then recruiting other MGs to help fight her is pointless: they won't be able to have any effect on it anyway.
 
Vebyast said:
[x] Drop Sayaka off first, then telepathy with Homura on the way to her apartment to explain the keeping-Madoka-safe plan.
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Do we need telepathy here? No sense telling Kyubey our plans. I thought the plan was for Sabrina to bus everyone around on her Mobile Oppression Luxury Traincar specifically so we could get Homura alone with us + Mami, and this particular conversation can just as easily include Mami.
 
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Random832 said:
I'm not sure. They don't look wooden to me, and the Buddhist symbolism would work a lot better if they had eight (or 24) spokes rather than the six / occasionally twelve that they do have. Also, all the images I can find of the Buddhist wheel have projections past the rim at each spoke. And she did witch out in a train station.

I mean maybe the symbolism is still there, but they certainly look like they could also be train wheels (to be fair, most train wheels seem to be solid, but I was able to find a few pictures of spoked ones, mostly on older steam trains. And spokes make for better visuals than discs if you want them to clearly be wheels.) "Spoked wheels with smooth rims" might be a compromise between the Buddhist symbolism and train wheels. (The rims kind of look flanged too, but it's subtle and could just be me seeing what I want to see)
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I'm sure the train thing is a confluence they deliberately played off of, but the wheels usually have six spokes to refer to the Six Realms.
 
Vebyast said:
Homura's bombs produce ten-meter fireballs. Anime physics, yes, but that's still a lot bigger than a hand grenade.
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Almost no one in Hollywood realizes that, and they depict hand grenades making huge fireballs all the time. It's easier to CG than an accurate explosion.

We actually see Homura use hand grenades to produce a huge fireball in Episode 10. I think we can chalk this up to "animators thought it looked cooler and/or didn't know any better."

Kaizuki said:
The ribbon wings are literally the biggest symbol of Everything We've Done Right.
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Most romantic moment in all of PMAS, bar none. :oops:

Muramasa said:
Can we please do something about our grief build up?
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We are. We're going to build an aircraft out of it. :D
 
Attempt to see if we can destroy it. I'm not in favor of doing so but it's worth finding out if we can.

Proceed to dump a bunch of excess onto Kyubey. There is literally no reason not to, he can atleast put it to a worthy cause and we're not exactly starved for replenishing it.
 
We could always try dispersing most of it into particulate that's too small to interact with visible light? As a nifty bonus, we could then use that cloud of inert grief as a proprioceptive awareness of everything within a given range of us!
 
Muramasa said:
*recalls reading somewhere that enough mass/volume in one specific miniscule point could actually generate a black hole*
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That is exactly how Black Holes are made. When a sufficiently large star dies, its core can no longer generate enough energy to fend off its tremendous gravity. As the star collapses, you get billions of Earth-masses of material all falling inwards at relativistic speeds. As all this mass comes together in the core, it starts fusing, generating one final cataclysmic burst of energy. Some of this mass, the stuff at the very middle of the star, gets compressed by the gravity and energy of zillions of tons of fusing matter, and gets compressed past its Schwarzschild Radius. This is basically the point of compression where the escape velocity from an object is equal to c. Past this point, no-one really knows what happens. The models all stop making sense inside a Black Hole's Event Horizon.

So yeah. Black Holes are formed when you take a stupidly huge amount of matter, then compress it down into a (relatively) small sphere by exploding a collapsing supermassive star around it.

The universe is fucking hardcore.

Edit- To be clear, Black Holes can be formed by any amount of sufficiently compressed mass; the process above describes the creation of a natural Black Hole.
 
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Trying to "delete" Grief... has been on hold for so long. Some times shot down because "USELESS SCIENCE!", some times because we wanted to do other stuff. We still don't know whether we can delete Grief or not.

Godwinson said:
We could always try dispersing most of it into particulate that's too small to interact with visible light? As a nifty bonus, we could then use that cloud of inert grief as a proprioceptive awareness of everything within a given range of us!
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I don't know if Brina's multitasking is up for that... so we should test it! :V
 
The Narrator said:
Almost no one in Hollywood realizes that, and they depict hand grenades making huge fireballs all the time. It's easier to CG than an accurate explosion.

We actually see Homura use hand grenades to produce a huge fireball in Episode 10. I think we can chalk this up to "animators thought it looked cooler and/or didn't know any better."
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To be fair, she started off figuring out how to make explosives from the internet. She's been around long enough she might have modified their chemistry after figuring out how to take them apart and stick something even more volatile inside.
 
All right, gang. We've been neglecting a major issue that was bought up before the last update.
Vebyast said:
edit: We still don't know what army Sabrina plays. If it turns out that Sayaka brought her 40k minis this is of critical importance.
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Unless I have been a great big dumb and missed someone's post, all we determined was that our army'd have a My Little Pony aesthetic, not what they'd be mechanically. With Sayaka not only bringing her minis but demonstrating that she's a meming 40K nerd, this ambiguity cannot stand.

Fortunately, I have a solution.

Sabrina must have an army that reflects her. But what is Sabrina? She is the comic relief of a dark and dangerous setting, a fount of bizarre ideas and silly humor while still managing to be an intimidating badass. She produces outlandish devices like MECHA GURREN ZILLA LAGANN that function mainly by the superhuman power of her will. She is an outsize filthy xenos foreigner created by a process nobody is entirely certain about but was probably pretty nonstandard. She speaks, despite all languages generally being rendered in standard English for our convenience, in a mispronunciation-using slang. She understands that there is no such thing as enuff dakka.

Ladies and gentlethings, Sabrina plays da Boyz.

(Actually, given her stated disinterest in being bound by canon, she probably plays da Gurlz. With cute little ribbons on their heads and pony decals on the armor.)
 
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