Right,
[x] Null
edit: qm ninja'd
Because I don't particularly like any of the present options, but I'm following along and thinking about it. (And don't remember if I impulse voted yesterday morning by proxy or not... doesn't look like it, but just in case?) This is... rather a lot.
Thoughts, in no particular order:
Magical girls have no justice system, because they're too spread out. Enforcing what we feel is right ourselves is the only option available to us.
Reminder with regard to the discussion of meguca justice systems in general (not specifically at you, this is just a good quote for bouncing off in this regard), now is pretty much the moment we start building one. What we do here (as with what we do and did with Anri)
is our precedent. It's what people see and form their opinions on, the moment word gets out. After we get a good and solid detainment together for Riona here, if we want a coherent justice system, she (and Anri) are gonna be the first people subject to it. That means if we decide that perma-gemming Rionna because of her deeds is a thing, that's going to be a choice sitting in on every further discussion of treatment of prisoners. Likewise, if we wanna decide that prisoners universally have some minimum standard of rights (subject to security considerations), we're going to need to start applying those with Riona.
Wasn't a good bit more than half of the talk we had with Sayaka and co. about how we're treating Oriko and Kirika based upon the fact that
we're the ones trying to build that justice system, that magical girls don't presently have?
Yeah, it's going to be built on what we feel is right ourselves (and what our friends feel is right, prolly, since we're trying to avoid being unilateral). But every choice we make
is building that system; it's not unreasonable for people to begin considering our present course of action in that light.
... we are also going to need to draft that PR plan. Mngh. Super.
As someone who doesn't agree with 'Riona must be given 0 time to do anything whatsoever' - I believe we can deal with her anyway, the threat of Riona witchbombed Mami is mitigated by a very important fact:
Sayaka can edit memories.
If Riona were to Witchbomb Mami? Fuck it, we explode Riona's Gem because we don't have time to deal with her anymore and she willingly did that shit. We'd need to go into maximum comfort Mami mode and get Sayaka to edit the hell out of that memory because Mami can't deal with it.
I'm not saying this is the only possible course of action, but it's simple enough we shouldn't fear the Witchbomb too badly.
I'd just like to opine that, while in this specific instance memory editing is a course of action that's somewhat reasonable (because Mami has specifically and explicitly decided not to know this thing, and because it's already one hell of a situation), I will strongly object and be highly uncomfortable if the reasoning "Sayaka can edit memories" is used as rationale supporting or mitigating
any other course of action that's not actively about to kill someone, or isn't based in prior explicit consent.
On a personal level, because I'm just blanket-against memory editing basically ever, like, in the strongest possible terms, and believe that the number of ways that are acceptable to use it are kind of vanishingly small. (Informed consent cases aside.)
In a practical sense, because that's a PR nightmare waiting to happen.
Rionna's attempt at voice-of-command makes me concerned about how compromised literally everyone she's ever talked to (most notably Nadia) is, and that was only a direct "physically do this thing" kind of command. Indications she could more complexly affect non-shaded people would make me
many times more paranoid, and I
would really rather avoid giving the wider world
any sense of an idea that Sabrina is or has a brainjacker on payroll. That would not engender anything that remotely resembles trust, particularly not coupled with our power bloc as a whole, and the fact we're going to have to PR situations like the present one with Riona.
Relatedly, if it does come to that at some point, Sayaka isn't going to be feeling too great about editing a friend's mind (given Kyubey editing her parents' minds, and how things went with
that), and it's possible that Sayaka doing a pointed memory edit about the Witchbomb like this may inadvertently expose
her to the Witchbomb, and while in this case it's not like there'd likely be a better option that keeps people alive, we'll need to be ready to deal with that, too.
The only thing I've imagined which could bring back her sister would be a wish, because presumably she doesn't have her sister's shade, or she'd be trying to bring it back to life -- or so you'd think.
Well, I mean, Rionna's doing
something in Edinburgh, and I've been postulating that she's swiping and shading people for powersets that she's feeding into some kind of Edinburgh Science! Apparatus in pursuit of True Resurrection. We haven't really got any evidence that she's
not working on some resurrection attempt back home- her various sins don't actually serve to explain why we got a hit when we asked about what she's protecting back home:
"I can't tell you how to act," you say, and meet her eyes squarely. "But whatever it is you're dealing with back home in Edinburgh, I can help you with it."
Rionna blinks, something flickering across her face. That's a hit, and that's more information than you had before. Something new you didn't know before.
"My magic can do far more than just move Grief around," you say, gesturing at the privacy field around you. "And what I can't do, I've got people for - or I can find people for. Unlimited cleansing is kind of the ultimate bargaining chip."
She looks away, and coughs roughly into the back of her hand.
That says 'Science! Project' to me, in the wider context we got.
... at the very least it says something to check on basically the moment we're done here to make sure it doesn't boil over without Rionna or her powers and Shades attending to it.
Also, thing that I remembered to check:
She swallows, hard, and finally opens her mouth. "I wish you the best of luck, Sabrina. Bury me with Kirika, if you can arrange it," she says, voice shaky. "We will meet again."
I... I honestly can't tell if Oriko's wording implies anything about the consciousness of the Shades and their level of awareness versus reasoning. But- I dunno. Oriko seems to me like the sort of person who'd've said something more like "You'll be seeing me again" or something, if she were implying a one-sided encounter. So. There's that.
