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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Vebyast said:
I'm going to be completely frank. This logic disgusts me. If she recognized that she was committing atrocities and had led with "I'm going to get rid of them the instant I can", and if she hadn't admitted to using her power on non-meguca, I might be saying that she was salvageable. But with her current state of mind she is a dangerous liability. We cannot work with her as long as she believes that what she does is okay. She will take shortcuts, she will commit more atrocities, she will undo everything that we wanted to do. The question is no longer if we end up in a fight with her but when. And I think that our best chance of taking her is right now, before she has any idea what we can do or has time to device countermeasures. Trying to "use her" is a bad idea and falls into exactly the pitfalls that Sabrina must resist if she is going to actually do good. If we let Riona keep operating we're just the same kind of shit we vowed to stop.
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You know, my first instinct here was to defend myself, but, honestly? Fuck that.

She's a monster, yes. As several people have pointed out, we have working relationships with former slavers and one of our "Moms" has a history of killing people for things they haven't done yet, and might never do. Compromises have been made in the past, and will be made again in the future, whether we kill/cage this girl in particular or not. So, frankly, get off your white horse.

If you think she's too dangerous to keep alive and free, then that's fine and reasonable, but don't pretend we don't let people like her off the hook--Homura could still execute OriKiri if she loses confidence in us, Kyouko likely allows people to be eaten for the sake of her own survival, Oriko burned down Sayaka's house...the list goes on.

Sabrina finds people who have done horrible things, and redeems them if she can. She doesn't kill people right away, because she thinks she can help them instead. It's our fucking M.O.!

If it were just me voting? We'd probably have a pile of corpses, because of everyone who I thought was neither redeemable nor useful enough to deal with. I'm trigger-happy now, and I was far more so when I first joined this thread. Everyone always pushed to show mercy and redeem them.

Now, when we're faced with someone who could potentially do a tremendous amount of good and is willing to talk, you want to eliminate her instantly. That's not us taking the high road and doing the right thing, that's us being afraid and quickly disposing of a potential threat. I don't find that terribly objectionable, even if I think it might be a waste, but it's not really very Sabrina.
 
This will set a fun reputation for sabrina, "Oh, come to my city, but if i don't like how you lived your life as a meguca I'll just fucking kill you "
 
Godwinson said:
Y'know what? No.

We've already got people trying to minimize the shit Rionna does, and that will get worse and worse as people start convincing themselves about how "useful" her power is to have available.

No.

[X] Use grief to generate quiet sound in Mami's ear.
-[X] "Timestop, now!"

[X] Rionna's soul gem is a ring on her finger right now. Gem her by cutting her hand off and obliterating her body.
-[x] Keep soul gem in privacy sphere, to isolate from enslaved souls.
-[x] Assume she can operate while gemmed. Avoid touching the gem or hand with grief so she can't take your soul through it or get pulled into time stop.
-[x] Be prepared for either time stop or a countermeasure.
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"I am the authority on people. I decided off of a half minute conversation that their is no speaking or reasoning with a irish girl that uses spirit ghosts."

I will fight everyone in this thread that tries to make a hard morality stance on Rionna. Its frankly disgusting to me that people are making snap'conclusions based off of less than 500 words.

Step off.
 
Redshirt Army said:
[ ] Take a moment to calm down.
-[ ] Tell Riona you appreciate her being frank and upfront. You'll try to do the same.
-[ ] Ask her to hear you out.

[ ] You find her claims horrifying, for moral and practical reasons.
-[ ] You understand her actions might have felt justified before, but you're making progress towards creating a better world than that.

[ ] Explain your work and hopes to improve things.
-[ ] Standards, justice, society. And hope for freedom, from grief and from witchhood.

[ ] You believe that, if we cooperate, magical girls can do amazing things.
-[ ] But you can't accept what she's done. Taking people's Souls is wrong, even if they're bad. Ask her to stop, and restore or release the Souls she's taken.
--[ ] Offer alternatives and solutions. Jail, therapy, magically created bodies, magical research, whatever is necessary.

[ ] Ask her to give us a chance, to work with us. Everyone should have the opportunity to become better then they were. That includes the souls she's trapped, and that includes her.
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Adapting some parts:

EDIT: Updated.

[] Take a moment to calm down.
-[] Tell Riona you appreciate her being frank and upfront. You'll try to do the same.
-[] Ask her to hear you out.

[] You find her claims horrifying, for moral and practical reasons.
-[] You understand her actions might have felt justified before, but you're making progress towards creating a better world than that.
-[] Explain your work and hopes to improve things.
--[] Standards, justice, society.
--[] Free cleansing, Clear Seeds.
--[] De-Witching.

[] You want to work with her. If you cooperate, you believe you can do amazing things.
-[] But you can't accept what she's claimed. Taking people's Souls is wrong, even if they're bad. Ask her to stop, and restore or release the Souls she's taken.
--[] Offer alternatives and solutions. Jail, therapy, magically created bodies for those souls, magical research, whatever is necessary.
--[] Offer free cleansing for life, if she can agree with that. A Clear Seed, whatever better way of cleansing you can come up with in the future.

[] Ask her to give us a chance, to work with us, and do better.
-[] Everyone should have the opportuniy to become better then they were. That includes the souls she's trapped, and that includes her.
 
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Onmur said:
Attacking her could very well destroy any chance of her working together with us.
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Wrong angle. If we don't attack Rion+a is because she's a person worth working with/saving/whatever (EDIT: or because our morality compels us to), not because she's useful. If we just wanted her powers we'd just have Sayaka copy them.
 
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Filraen said:
Wrong angle. If we don't attack Rion+a is because she's a person worth working with/saving/whatever, not because she's useful. If we just wanted her powers we'd just have Sayaka copy them.
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... Yes.

I do stand by what I said, though. Attacking Riona to put her in a vulnerable state in which we can 'talk' while holding the upper hand... that might very well turn her against us, permanently.
 
Self-Requested Threadban
@Higure

Please temp ban me from this thread for a day or two. I think that if I remain able to respond to this thread I will violate site rules. I don't trust myself to keep my anger in check.
 
Why do I feel that whichever way this vote goes half the voterbase is going to quit?
 
Also, meguca will notice if others get requested to come here, and then are never heard from again.... that doesn't bode well if Sabrina gathers a reputation as the Bright Lady, all will love her and despair and all that.
 
Redshirt Army said:
If Rionna really can reverse her soul claiming, the moral calculus gets even murkier. Death is still more or less irreversible, after all...
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Occasionally, I've had similar thoughts about death and witchhood. On one hand, you can't come back from death. On the other, death probably doesn't feel like you're literally made of despair, because you are.
 
Redshirt Army said:
If Rionna really can reverse her soul claiming, the moral calculus gets even murkier. Death is still more or less irreversible, after all...
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That's a really good point. I mean, if we can really reverse Witching, we might have a chance of saving the girls she's claimed, too (even if their bodies or Soul Gems have been lost).

So, yes, killing is best kept off the table, in light of that.
 
blast flame said:
Why do I feel that whichever way this vote goes half the voterbase is going to quit?
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I don't think it's quite that bad. Several voters are (understandably) upset about Riona having slaves. The divide here is whether or not giving Riona a chance to peacable stop taking slaves and getting rid of the ones she has is worth talking to her at all. Neither side, despite any ad hominem or comparisons to evil dictators of the past aside, is willing to condone her keeping soul slaves. That one side is willing to try and work with her is a nod towards diplomacy and the implicit understanding that just because you don't phrase something as an ultimatum doesn't mean it won't become one.

What I think will happen is one of three things.
1) The Riona is evil side is right, she refuses to work with us, demands free cleansing, and threatens all of our friends. In which case, we gem her and or smash her with the help of time stop.
2) She's not a comically evil Joseph Megele expy, and is willing to work with us and has a backstory that explains why she's gone the route she does. Slaves are freed as fast as we can manage it, and Riona is "redeemed"
3) She wants to "try" but really is more interested in using us than of letting go of her personal power, in which case we end up defaulting to option one.

Really, within an update or two, it will be pretty easy to see which side is "correct" in their ultimate assumption of Riona's character, given that we only have 500 words of her and Nadia's "She's not a monster" to go on.
 
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...Does everyone realize that killing her was only being proposed by, like, one person, and at that the one person that just requested a thread-ban because they didn't think they'd be able to stay objective? Quit misrepresenting your opponents.
 
blast flame said:
Why do I feel that whichever way this vote goes half the voterbase is going to quit?
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I'm going to be frank: I'm okay with either result.

I've advocated for gemming or freezing for sufficiently heinous offences in the past, and if Sabrina decides that this is her line in the sand, and follows through on that with, say, Iowa, then at the very least it'd make the tactical considerations much simpler.

We can gain Rionna's power either way, through use of Sayaka, so the loss to our ultimate goals is fairly small regardless.

We'd be giving up on some of our principles, but I've ever been an advocate of practicality over principle, and it's not unreasonable to assume that trying to redeem Rionna is impractical.

But it'd be a change, for Sabrina. Of giving in to the mundane restrictions of the world instead of reaching for the infinite potential of Madoka's wish. For now, I'm going with the crowd for characterization and thematics reasons.

And frankly, Sabrina was always going to have to decide on a set of moral principles to follow. It's unfortunate that they won't always agree with those of everyone in the thread, but some form of decision was always going to happen eventually. Since the thread participants don't agree on moral standards, this disagreement was inevitable. Choosing not to pass moral judgement is itself a choice, after all.
 
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Vebyast said:
...Does everyone realize that killing her was only being proposed by, like, one person, and at that the one person that just requested a thread-ban because they didn't think they'd be able to stay objective? Quit misrepresenting your opponents.
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At least five. In fact, I believe it was the vote in the lead at the start.

EDIT: My mistake, that was de-gemming her.
 
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Regarding Riona, I really have to point out we barely know anything about her or the souls she has. So all the "Omg she's evil" stuff is... Bizarre, since there's no reason to believe those souls deserve to be free. I get that "slavery bad", I'm quarter dark living in America. Ultimately though, getting all aggressive about the souls when we know nothing about them accomplishes little.

Primarily, because Riona knows much more while Sabrina is just straight guessing and assuming. Pretty much anyone would be annoyed by someone ignorant insisting they know better. So while I agree with Sabrina wanting Riona to minimize or stop outright, it is not going to be easy. Both because we barely know Riona nor those souls.

We really need to confirm how her powers work, for one. Secondly, awful though it sounds, Sabrina should wait until making any serious demands about the souls. None of us know who they are, we could effectively be asking her to release people who would go to Hell or similar things anyways. Asking her to avoid claiming more and to evaluate who to release are the most Sabrina could really demand until she learns more.

Finally, there's no certainty killing her would free the souls. Honestly, the best case scenario would be they're free to do whatever as free-roaming souls or go to the natural system. Worst case, they're trapped in their unaware state or they could (de)evolve into malicious spirits. Even if Sayaka can copy her powers, Sayaka is not an instant expert. She could very well make things worse due to her inexperience, and you can't safely experiment with souls.
 
Kkutlord said:
Regarding Riona, I really have to point out we barely know anything about her or the souls she has. So all the "Omg she's evil" stuff is... Bizarre, since there's no reason to believe those souls deserve to be free. I get that "slavery bad", I'm quarter dark living in America. Ultimately though, getting all aggressive about the souls when we know nothing about them accomplishes little.

Primarily, because Riona knows much more while Sabrina is just straight guessing and assuming. Pretty much anyone would be annoyed by someone ignorant insisting they know better. So while I agree with Sabrina wanting Riona to minimize or stop outright, it is not going to be easy. Both because we barely know Riona nor those souls.

We really need to confirm how her powers work, for one. Secondly, awful though it sounds, Sabrina should wait until making any serious demands about the souls. None of us know who they are, we could effectively be asking her to release people who would go to Hell or similar things anyways. Asking her to avoid claiming more and to evaluate who to release are the most Sabrina could really demand until she learns more.

Finally, there's no certainty killing her would free the souls. Honestly, the best case scenario would be they're free to do whatever as free-roaming souls or go to the natural system. Worst case, they're trapped in their unaware state or they could (de)evolve into malicious spirits. Even if Sayaka can copy her powers, Sayaka is not an instant expert. She could very well make things worse due to her inexperience, and you can't safely experiment with souls.
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srs like, in my opinion, she kills the girl, if the soul happens to be the literal soul, and not just a copy or a shade, she already told us she only does it to murderers and monsters? i dont get the big fucking deal. and im american, i dont see it as slavery either, it realy isnt.
 
Shadowhisker said:
Occasionally, I've had similar thoughts about death and witchhood. On one hand, you can't come back from death. On the other, death probably doesn't feel like you're literally made of despair, because you are.
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Many people have argued that Witchdom is better than death, because Witchdom can potential be reversed.

I'm pretty sure at least most of us here disagree, but that's a consensus reached after many, many, many debates about it.

The thought that Witchdom is actually meguca hell and that going through that would most likely, by far, be worse than just dying, is not a strange though, however it might feel while reading this thread.

Redshirt Army said:
I'm going to be frank: I'm okay with either result.

I've advocated for gemming or freezing for sufficiently heinous offences in the past, and if Sabrina decides that this is her line in the sand, and follows through on that with, say, Iowa, then at the very least it'd make the tactical considerations much simpler.

We can gain Rionna's power either way, through use of Sayaka, so the loss to our ultimate goals is fairly small regardless.

We'd be giving up on some of our principles, but I've ever been an advocate of practicality over principle, and it's not unreasonable to assume that trying to redeem Rionna is impractical.

But it'd be a change, for Sabrina. Of giving in to the mundane restrictions of the world instead of reaching for the infinite potential of Madoka's wish. For now, I'm going with the crowd for characterization and thematics reasons.

And frankly, Sabrina was always going to have to decide on a set of moral principles to follow. It's unfortunate that they won't always agree with those of everyone in the thread, but some form of decision was always going to happen eventually. Choosing not to pass moral judgement is itself a choice, after all.
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Even if Riona disagrees with stopping using her powers evilly... we might not want a fight right here right now.

We don't actually know that we'll take her down, we're in a hotel full of people, we don't know what the Souls she's holding will do if Riona loses consciousness, we couldn't feel those souls, maybe Mami can't either, we don't know if Mami can fight them in these circumstances, we don't know if Riona can act as a Gem, we don't know if Homu trying to help in timestop will bump into a ghost and pull Riona in timestop...

I don't think we want to make this a hostage situation. We have plenty of incentives to keep talking, as long as Riona doesn't show an signs of aggression, we should keep trying to Social our way through this.

Riona cannot keep taking Souls, and must work to restore the ones she's got. That's basically the minimum we need to get.

... We don't know either where are all the Souls Riona's collected. We kind of need her help to find and help those Souls, unless we're OK with leaving them hanging until we comb the entire world looking for them.
 
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