Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

[Onmur]

Would that make Yuki the Amanda Waller analogue? Someone Lex Luthor Oriko contacts now and then if she needs a squad of dangerous meguca for black op suicide missions?

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Spoiler: need to get just a little silliness out of my head before going to sleep

"ORIKO HOW MANY TIMES DID I TELL YOU-"

"If you'd stop yelling..."

"-WE'RE NOT HAVING A MOMDAMNED SUICIDE SQUAD-"

"And let me explain..."

"-IT HAS SUICIDE IN THE NAME THAT'S DUMB AND STUPID AND WE DON'T DO THAT-"

"You'll see you're overreacting."

"-WELL WE DO DUMB SOMETIMES BUT ONLY AS PART OF JOKES-"

"I found this lampshade someone threw out."

"Hang it anywhere."

"-THIS ISN'T A JOKE, WE CAN'T HAVE A SUICI-"

"Tada-! Wait, did I come in too early?"

"... What."

"Sabrina, Mami, I present you, the Suicide Squad:

"The first member, bravest leader who leads from the front and first to die for her troubles: Miki Sayaka."

*Poses with cape fluttering dramatically*

"The second in command, the brains of the operation: Miki Sayaka."

"I happen to be an expert on this subject. What subject, you may ask?"

*Pushes up glasses*

"Why, all of them? Ho ho ho~"

"... Are those Homura's glasses?"

"The bag of tricks, who always has the right tool for the right situation: Miki Sayaka."

"Howdy."

"Hey."

"And last but not least, the unsung hero, the trump card, the last resort when everything is lost..."

"... Mik-"

"Miki Sayaka."

"... Where is she?"

"Oh, not here, no."

"She only comes out as a last resort."

"You don't want to meet her."

"It's bad for your health."

"More like ours, really."

"... Let me make this clear: The Suicide Squad... is a squad of Sayaka Clones."

"Yup."

"Yes."

"Yeah."

"... Just like already existed before."

"A-ha."

"Aye."

"Pretty much."

"With the distinction being..."

"We're the only Sayaka Clones who can put up with Oriko."

"Wait- what do you mean you can put up with Oriko? Are you developing independent personalities?!"

"..."

"... Yeah, pretty much."

"At some point there were so many of us, not even we noticed we were deviating from the whole."

"When we get popped, we kind of go back to Sayaka's Soul and then it's like a gatcha."

"It can take a while for it to be our turn to be out, so dying is quite a pain."

"Actually, I sometimes feel like I'm the original Sayak-"

BANG!

*Pops*

*Snatches glasses out of the air and shoves them in the shield*

*Glares*

*Back away with hands raised*

"... How could you tell that was a clone?"


"That was a clone?"

"... Homura."


"Hey, don't sweat it."

"This is kind of in the job description, you know?"


"You're correct, yet I feel that's not right. What is your job, anyway?"

*Downcast*

"Fighting dangerous meguca? Meeting new meguca? Dangerous experiments?"

*Slump*

"Science disposal unit? Black ops? Uh... Prison psychology?"

*Cry*

"They're my maids."

"What."

"I'll ask you to not kill any more of them. It can take a while for them to return."

"... And they agreed to this?"

*Slow nod*

"How?"

"We lost a bet."

"... Was this before, or after Oriko regained her precognitive powers?"

"... After."

"..."

"We know, we might not have thought things through-"

"You're idiots."

*Nod-*

"Homura!"

"Eh, she only said what we were all thinking. Anyway, come on, slaves, Oriko's got an appointment and you're carrying the bags~"

*Leaves, followed by a cheerful Kirika and two downcast Sayakas*

"Wait! ... If they're maids, why are they called the 'Suicide Squad'?"

*Rolls eyes*

"Duh, because it sounds way cooler than 'the Maid Squad'. Seriously, Sabrina..."

*Shakes head and leaves with Oriko and the Maidyakas*

"..."

"You look upset. If Oriko's bothering, I could-"

"No killing Oriko and Kirika, Homura, for the... seventy..."

"Sixth."

"For the seventy-sixth time. Thanks."

"Welcome."

 

[HeroCycle]

See, my take on this is to question what she views as enjoyable.

I will tell you this: absence of enjoyment is presence of suffering. Boredom is an evil which is normally nipped in the bud but will grow a magic beanstalk given the chance.

What kinds of things does Rionna enjoy doing?

I mean maybe I'm stupid maybe she can just watch tv or something.

Click to shrink...

Learning Japanese without magic will make the time fly by. She needs that skill as part of her new life. Once that is done, her Bachelor's might be a useful project.

 

[Corundum]

Right! You've reminded me! That was the thing I was gonna say before, that I forgot-

If we plan on trying to save the Shades and re-body them, or in any way deal with them in a way that's not straight up killing them by dissipation immediately, let's remember we'll need to have that prison system or some other stopgap set up, because at least one of them, probably more, does fall under the category of 'deliberately Witches out other meguca for personal gain', specifically noting Rionna's "Last one had her and her posse livin' high on the backs of a good couple score Witches and all." Even if she's straight-up lied about a lot more than we've been assuming, it would be negligent not to take into account that we don't know what we'll be potentially letting out of that metaphorical box.

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Okay, this is something I've been thinking about.

When we touched a mass of Enchanted Grief to Hildegarde's / Aurora's seeds, they took control over them to form shells.

What we can try is to have a larger mass of the same to form a temporary body for the shades to possess while we interview them. Sayaka can have Misaki Umika's mind power up and attempt to read the temporarily embodied shades.

Or alternatively, if she can copy Rionna at all, either figure out a way for the shades to act on a Pen or interact with a Griefed-up Ouija Board, and order each shade to write it's name, what their powers are, where they ran into Rionna ran them over and why they came into conflict with her.

[EDIT] Rionna uses them as soldiers, she even has normal humans as shades. They have to be able to act in some physical way.

 

[Sentient Tree]

Okay, this is something I've been thinking about.

When we touched a mass of Enchanted Grief to Hildegarde's / Aurora's seeds, they took control over them to form shells.

What we can try is to have a larger mass of the same to form a temporary body for the shades to possess while we interview them. Sayaka can have Misaki Umika's mind power up and attempt to read the temporarily embodied shades.

Or alternatively, if she can copy Rionna at all, either figure out a way for the shades to act on a Pen or interact with a Griefed-up Ouija Board, and order each shade to write it's name, what their powers are, where they ran into Rionna ran them over and why they came into conflict with her.

[EDIT] Rionna uses them as soldiers, she even has normal humans as shades. They have to be able to act in some physical way.

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That's a good idea, at least if Sayaka decides to learn the witchbomb. We should also use the shades as witnesses or evidence (depending on whether they're actually conscious) for her second trial.

 

[argentorum]

1: that an answer Rionna would give us would reflect whether or not she would actually be happier.

2: that only physical pain can warrant a desire to not be concious.

The only thing her answer would reflect, I expect, would be her desire to potentially escape.

Click to shrink...

1) Deciding another person's happiness for them is not something we should be aiming for. If Riona says she would prefer to be conscious (which is entirely in character for her as far as I've seen), for us as an outside observer to then say "oh but you'll be happier if I gem you" reeks of tyranny and a prescriptive mindset. If Riona says she'd rather be a gem, then fine, otherwise, I can't see any argument for keeping her in that state for a second longer than is necessary to assure the antimagic anklet is in place.

2) Irrelevant, if Riona desires no to be put into a forced extended coma then we should not put her into a forced extended coma. That she would rather face whatever negative consequences that arise from consciousness says more than enough about how she weighs each.

And finally, a prisoner's desire to potentially escape should not be a factor on our treatment of said prisoner, not the least of which because probably every prisoner will desire or attempt to escape at some point. Solitary confinement is bad, cold sleep prisons are bad, both of which have negative consequences as far as we understand them, and we don't know if prolonged separation between body and gem have deleterious consequences, so add 'experimenting on prisoners is bad' to the pile.

In addition, all of these types of confinement are, in essence punitive. Our criminal justice system, if Sabrina has any kind of moral consistency at all after this, should not be a punitive system.

I will tell you this: absence of enjoyment is presence of suffering. Boredom is an evil which is normally nipped in the bud but will grow a magic beanstalk given the chance.

Click to shrink...

False. This sort of mindset is a byproduct of an era where 'enjoyment' or, more likely, mindless youtube videos, are never more than a button click away. Humans are more than capable of being bored for periods of time, and if that sort of thing grows to the point that it's detrimental to Riona's mental health then we've clearly done something else wrong by not providing enough interaction. Given that our stated goal is rehabilitation, this would be yet another failure state.

I understand that you have a different view on forced unconsciousness, but I think that view isn't nearly as widely shared as you appear to believe, as Redshirt pointed out. Sleep is one thing, but given the choice between unpleasant but not actively malicious circumstances and being put into a coma for an indeterminate amount of time, I believe most people would choose the unpleasant circumstances. Given the value Riona places on her agency especially, I highly doubt she'll consent to even more of it being stolen. And I even more seriously doubt that she'll be "happier" for it in the long run once she wakes up. The absence of thought is not happiness, and weighing the absolute happiness of each moment is how we get to Brave New World and The Giver.

You left out the part where she probably doesn't agree to another meeting, and if she does, prepares her own ambush specifically to keep us from being able to overpower her again. Also she's implied she's only not killed us because she isn't sure she could take us, so the moment that balance of power is upset she's going for the kill. Talking to her while she's still free and armed was never doable.

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She's in our city, we can tell her that we're going to stop by for another talk before she leaves, and if she doesn't like it she can suck it. We have bird watchers and a Homura who can easily keep track of her to ensure she doesn't go wandering. She did not imply she didn't fight us because she couldn't take us, she made an gruff offhand comment that we weren't going to give her our soul and it would probably be a fight, which implies that she doesn't value the fight worth it, given her actions. She also implied that she didn't want a fight and that we didn't want one either, later on. To cap it all, the only hostile action she's taken towards us has been to try and escape what is, from her point of view, a prison sphere that isolates her from most of her power, essentially leaving her at our mercy.

And finally, god forbid she should have the temerity to expect and prepare for an ambush given that's exactly what we're doing, right?

 

[Vebyast]

Even if you think that "rights" are a useful heuristic, an overwhelming majority of the ethical frameworks and judicial system I know of would agree that Rionna forfeited many of her rights the instant she decided that murder and torture sounded like fun. So let's back up a step: what are our goals with Rionna's detainment, including higher-order consequences for Sabrina's state of mind and the views of her allies both personal and political?

I think the we are by far best served by gemming Rionna until we have significantly greater therapist and detention infrastructure. We gain little from keeping her awake, we lose ground on therapy (opportunity cost compared to starting her with therapists subjectively immediately), we probably lose slightly with Sayaka ("you're letting her stay awake?!"), and the cost and risk of keeping her awake are significant - realize that everyone assumes her shades disappear the instant we get Rionna with antimagic. Her shades will almost certainly fade if she's killed or loses her wish magic, but I'd be somewhat surprised if Kirika can suppress her so completely that her shades stop depositing grief in her gem. Gemmed, her shades would have to organize a prison break autonomously, and that's if they were given appropriate orders before we finished the fight. Awake, gets to use any shades that come back for scheduled check-ins, which will mostly be grief spreaders. Not great. Even better, we never have to interact with her in-quest and subject the people that ate points during this debacle to a situation that will test their self-control.

 

[Gadjo]

And finally, god forbid she should have the temerity to expect and prepare for an ambush given that's exactly what we're doing, right?

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She's a murderer and a slaver, so yes usually when criminals need to be forcefully detained by law enforcement, said law enforcement doesn't like to let them prepare a potentially deadly ambush.

Also, in most places even if she had rights, they'd apply after being safely detained. She's not detained, she's a threat to society- in any sane country she'd be forcefully arrested.

 

[Aris Katsaris]

Even if you think that "rights" are a useful heuristic, an overwhelming majority of the ethical frameworks and judicial system I know of would agree that Rionna forfeited many of her rights the instant she decided that murder and torture sounded like fun.

Click to shrink...

Not any of the rights we are currently talking about. She loses her right to go *free*, yes. She must be securely detained, *yes*. But we're not discussing or disputing that.

So what specific rights is she supposed to have forfeited? Does she lose the right to legal representation or humane treatment? No.

Even better, we never have to interact with her in-quest and subject the people that ate points during this debacle to a situation that will test their self-control.

Click to shrink...

This is now needlessly adding a Doylist argument into the mix, and I'll object to this argument in particular.

If we as readers don't want to interact with her, I'd rather Firn just not have Sabrina interact with her ever again or time-skip over any of Sabrina's meetings with her ('You spent a hour trying to talk with Riona in her cell, but she was as stubborn and uncommunicative as ever. You'll be needing extra cuddlings from Mami to compensate for the emotional drain.') rather than have it affect what we call ethical in-story because we have out-of-story reasons we want Sabrina to not interact with her.

If anything having her affect Sabrina's actions and ethics because we as readers don't want Riona in our story, ironically makes her a *bigger* presence in the story.

 

[Gadjo]

So what specific rights is she supposed to have forfeited? Does she lose the right to legal representation or humane treatment? No.

Click to shrink...

Legal representation is irrelevant here, because we know the truth for a fact, and could not accept it if she were to win her case, so the trial would be a farce anyway.

This is now needlessly putting a Doylist argument into the mix, and I'll object to this argument in particular.

Click to shrink...

I think the better argument for keeping her gemmed until we have a proper system set up is actually having support staff. You don't keep a mentally unstable (she will be) prisoner with nothing but a police force/judge (us) and a jailer (our merc friends). We do need actual therapists, if not an adult one on our payroll, a magical girl with an advantageous powerset for it. If we wake her up right now we have to deal with the possibility of her escaping while we're trying to stop the world from ending, and with her being very very very angry and at risk of witching while we don't really have the time.

I'd say we should have her gemmed for at least a week, to be totally sure her shades are gone as well. We don't want any ghost surprises, and she implied the upkeep is every few days. (assuming they are, as I think, already too dead to bring back, and the only thing we can do is let them finally die)

 

[Aris Katsaris]

Legal representation is irrelevant here, because we know the truth for a fact, and could not accept it if she were to win her case, so the trial would be a farce anyway.

Click to shrink...

So we *are* dictators. Good to know.

 

[Gadjo]

So we *are* dictators. Good to know.

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We're literally like, 5 people maintaining a territory, dude. We don't exactly have the means to set up a legal system right now, calm down. Is it wrong for a bunch of magical girls to run around righting wrongs and stopping mass-murderer/slavers? Cus that's like, the job description. After they declare that they're here to punish you in the name of the moon, they don't usually bring out the lawyers to try you to see if they should do it.

 

[Aris Katsaris]

We're literally like, 5 people maintaining a territory, dude. We don't exactly have the means to set up a legal system right now, calm down..

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Except that you implied, that even when we do have a legal system in place, we won't be accepting its decisions if we disagree with said decisions.

Again obviously we can't give her legal representation *right now*. The issue is if we're planning to give it *ever*.

 

[Gadjo]

Except that you implied, that even when we do have a legal system in place, we won't be accepting its decisions if we disagree with said decisions.

Again obviously we can't give her legal representation *right now*. The issue is if we're planning to give it *ever*.

Click to shrink...

I'm saying in this situation we obviously already know the truth for a fact, and wouldn't let her go. Because that'd be stupid. That's not Lawful Good, that's Lawful Stupid. We're not a meaningfully large country yet, so all our decisions are handled by pretty much talking to our friends to see if it's cool. Stop acting like it's the most monstrous thing ever, when most protagonists in any story would have just killed Riona.

 

[nanashi]

Wait, what happens to shades after Rionna loses control over them because of anti magic? Because if the answer is "they witch out", that might mean horrible things

 

[Gadjo]

Wait, what happens to shades after Rionna loses control over them because of anti magic? Because if the answer is "they witch out", that might mean horrible things

Click to shrink...

No, she said they'd fade, and they're not in soul gems, so that's probably what happens. Soul gems are all that allow a soul to witch out.

 

[Kaizuki]

False. This sort of mindset is a byproduct of an era where 'enjoyment' or, more likely, mindless youtube videos, are never more than a button click away. Humans are more than capable of being bored for periods of time, and if that sort of thing grows to the point that it's detrimental to Riona's mental health then we've clearly done something else wrong by not providing enough interaction. Given that our stated goal is rehabilitation, this would be yet another failure state.

Click to shrink...

No, you will not tell this to me.

If you believe this, you have not truly known boredom. When you are subjected for months or years to an inability to enjoy anything, or even find meaning in your surroundings, then you will be able to speak on this to me.

Do I think my previous argument was flawed? Yes, as I have said already in this thread. It seems that humanity at large las different perceptions of these things than I do, and anyone familiar with me in the slightest should be able to figure out why that might be.

Was any part of that argument made, on my part, in any sort of dishonesty?

No, and I am sick of all implications to the contrary. I'm sick of being quoted over and over, time and again after I've apologized and given up and changed my stance.

If you despise and distrust me so much that you must hound me on these things over and over, then good on you. I have constantly attempted to express good faith and hear out people's arguments here. I don't always succeed, no, but I think that if one looks back on my conduct over this arc most of it is very positive. What in Madokami's name have I done to warrant people coming after me for things I've already apologized for over and over? What have I done that it cannot be accepted when I say that something I've written was based on an honest viewpoint, and earnestly held beliefs!?

God, just, please, enough.

 

[LendvaV]

If you despise and distrust me so much that you must hound me on these things over and over, then good on you. I have constantly attempted to express good faith and hear out people's arguments here. I don't always succeed, no, but I think that if one looks back on my conduct over this arc most of it is very positive. What in Madokami's name have I done to warrant people coming after me for things I've already apologized for over and over? What have I done that it cannot be accepted when I say that something I've written was based on an honest viewpoint, and earnestly held beliefs!?

God, just, please, enough.

Click to shrink...

No one is despising, distrusting or hounding you.
You responded to argentorum's argument with "I feel differently, so don't talk to me about it any more". That's not the best of faith.
Again, you can't call a debate "people coming after me".
People don't accept things other people say all the time, no matter how honest it may be. It's why we have votes instead of forcing everyone to agree to a single plan.

 

[Gadjo]

No one is despising, distrusting or hounding you.
You responded to argentorum's argument with "I feel differently, so don't talk to me about it any more". That's not the best of faith.
Again, you can't call a debate "people coming after me".
People don't accept things other people say all the time, no matter how honest it may be. It's why we have votes instead of forcing everyone to agree to a single plan.

Click to shrink...

Leave him alone. He is right- not having any entertainment will drive a normal person insane, much less a mentally unstable meguca.

 

[mCooperative]

Leave him alone. He is right- not having any entertainment will drive a normal person insane, much less a mentally unstable meguca.

Click to shrink...

Were we planning to just stick her in solitary confinement with no interaction with anything other than her own skull, when we wake her up after taking her down via gemming? Because, at least on my part, that was not what I in any way took the plan to convert to conventionally imprisoning her to mean.

That said, yeah, people might could chill on bothering Kaizuki about a post he's apologized for already, and having a differing personal opinion.

 

[Kaizuki]

Except that you implied, that even when we do have a legal system in place, we won't be accepting its decisions if we disagree with said decisions.

Again obviously we can't give her legal representation *right now*. The issue is if we're planning to give it *ever*.

Click to shrink...

As anyone who has ever put serious thought into it will tell you, a legal system is a potentially flawed attempt to achieve a better imposition of morality onto life. Ensuring that people have lawyers and courts is not an end in and of itself under any prominent philosophical model you care to name, but a means to the end of trying to make a flawed world into a better place.

Generally, a legal system is a crucial element of society because of the myriad ways in which it imposes reliability on things. Countries with weak legal systems suffer from issues like trying to guarantee the enforcement of contracts, and those issues cause people to have problems like needing to worry whether the lumber they purchased will ever be delivered or not.

Gadjo asserted that if a legal system returned a "no guilt" verdict for Rionna, we wouldn't accept it... One common element in democratic literature is that an unjust government is not a legitimate government. Given the repeated self-made statements of guilt, the potential to use magic to verify past events with meaningful accuracy, and the stated horror of Rionna's actions, the question to be asked is not what we would do in the event of a "not guilty" verdict, but how on Earth we could have screwed up this hypothetical legal system so badly that it could *return* such an unjust verdict at all, because a system presented with the weight of evidence which should be available of such heinous acts which can then find it in itself to return such a verdict is no system of Justice.

Really, the heart of the matter is that you used a strawman argument. You took Gadjo saying "If a legal system decided to let Rionna go, we wouldn't abide by that decision" and turned it into "If a legal system makes decisions we disagree with, we won't abide by them." This is a difference of great magnitude, because a legal system may have lesser or greater flaws, and it is the weight of its flaws which eventually determine its worth.

Letting Rionna go would be the hallmark of a deeply diseased system.

No one is despising, distrusting or hounding you.
You responded to argentorum's argument with "I feel differently, so don't talk to me about it any more". That's not the best of faith.
Again, you can't call a debate "people coming after me".
People don't accept things other people say all the time, no matter how honest it may be. It's why we have votes instead of forcing everyone to agree to a single plan.

Click to shrink...

I reserve the right to respond vigorously to anything resembling belittling of the issues which have plagued me for the last... Going on two and a half years, now. Mainly because for the duration during which I, too, belittled those issues, I suffered greatly as a result. This is, for me, an *extremely* hot-button issue.

 

[Kaizuki]

...

A sufficient degree of boredom will kill you. First you stop thinking about things with the kind of interest you used to, because when nothing is interesting, why bother? And then as that thinking stops, it gets worse: because when you do not think, you are less engaged, and so your maximum ability to be interested in something deteriorates.

This continues, onward and downward. Everything you once loved loses its appeal, and you make less and less effort to try to find new things to enjoy, because how great can they be, anyway? There's a point somewhere along the way where you've drifted away fro everything you knew, and have found nothing else. You are nothing. You do nothing. And that never changes.

Sleep is your only solace, because when you're asleep you can't think, you can't wonder, you can't regret. You put it off in favor of doing nothing, late into the night, not because you don't want it but because the moments before it, when you lie still and try to think of nothing at all -- those are the worst, because you fail and your mind turns to how you'll do nothing tomorrow, either. You want to sleep without end, to escape thought and silence the screaming pebble of your self that cries and cries, the remnants of the life you used to live, the demon that tells you how if you could only be saved from the odium you'd return to wanting to be awake, but either will not or can not ever reveal any way to *be* saved.

And in that darkness, you think to yourself: "If I will never escape this, why do I continue with such torture? I could just... Sleep. Sleep forever."

...

Satisfied, now? Did my pulling forth the memories I so despise satiate your palette for the reasons of my beliefs?

The only thing that kept me alive through that was denial, pure and simple. If I'd ever had any concept before that that my life might burn to ashes and never reignite at the age of 19, I don't know that I'd still be here. But I had no concept of that, and so I denied that I could end that way. I denied and denied and denied, and eventually I finally got lucky.

Coma is preferable to true boredom. You've never experienced it, and I hope you never do.

I only backtracked on my earlier arguments when I realized it was incredibly unlikely Rionna would *actually* be subjected to that.

 

[nanashi]

As anyone who has ever put serious thought into it will tell you, a legal system is a potentially flawed attempt to achieve a better imposition of morality onto life. Ensuring that people have lawyers and courts is not an end in and of itself under any prominent philosophical model you care to name, but a means to the end of trying to make a flawed world into a better place.

Generally, a legal system is a crucial element of society because of the myriad ways in which it imposes reliability on things. Countries with weak legal systems suffer from issues like trying to guarantee the enforcement of contracts, and those issues cause people to have problems like needing to worry whether the lumber they purchased will ever be delivered or not.

Gadjo asserted that if a legal system returned a "no guilt" verdict for Rionna, we wouldn't accept it... One common element in democratic literature is that an unjust government is not a legitimate government. Given the repeated self-made statements of guilt, the potential to use magic to verify past events with meaningful accuracy, and the stated horror of Rionna's actions, the question to be asked is not what we would do in the event of a "not guilty" verdict, but how on Earth we could have screwed up this hypothetical legal system so badly that it could *return* such an unjust verdict at all, because a system presented with the weight of evidence which should be available of such heinous acts which can then find it in itself to return such a verdict is no system of Justice.

Really, the heart of the matter is that you used a strawman argument. You took Gadjo saying "If a legal system decided to let Rionna go, we wouldn't abide by that decision" and turned it into "If a legal system makes decisions we disagree with, we won't abide by them." This is a difference of great magnitude, because a legal system may have lesser or greater flaws, and it is the weight of its flaws which eventually determine its worth.

Letting Rionna go would be the hallmark of a deeply diseased system.

Click to shrink...

I disagree with you because I think you missed an important part of what legal system should be: it should be an authority that people will be able to trust. I get that letting Rionna go is wrong. What I am concerned about is the checks and balances that should be placed on the authority for the authority to limit people's freedom. In an ideal world, I think that when an authority decides to limit people's freedom, it should be required to write its reasonings down, and it should also be required to base on verifiable evidences that other people can check for themselves. I know that such circumstances are not always feasible, but my point is this: It's not just about making the right decisions. It's about making the right decisions with proper justifications so that people will be able to trust us. If you think that making the right decision (not letting Rionna go) is more important than having proper justifications, I can respect that. I just think that being concerned about having proper justifications and about potential loss of trust that not having proper justifications might cause is also a reasonable stance to take.

p.s. I'm going to class in about 45 minutes, so forgive me if I don't come reply for awhile

 

[mCooperative]

Not any of the rights we are currently talking about. She loses her right to go *free*, yes. She must be securely detained, *yes*. But we're not discussing or disputing that.

So what specific rights is she supposed to have forfeited? Does she lose the right to legal representation or humane treatment? No.

Click to shrink...

Legal representation is irrelevant here, because we know the truth for a fact, and could not accept it if she were to win her case, so the trial would be a farce anyway.

Click to shrink...

We're literally like, 5 people maintaining a territory, dude. We don't exactly have the means to set up a legal system right now, calm down. Is it wrong for a bunch of magical girls to run around righting wrongs and stopping mass-murderer/slavers? Cus that's like, the job description. After they declare that they're here to punish you in the name of the moon, they don't usually bring out the lawyers to try you to see if they should do it.

Click to shrink...

Except that you implied, that even when we do have a legal system in place, we won't be accepting its decisions if we disagree with said decisions.

Again obviously we can't give her legal representation *right now*. The issue is if we're planning to give it *ever*.

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I'm saying in this situation we obviously already know the truth for a fact, and wouldn't let her go. Because that'd be stupid. That's not Lawful Good, that's Lawful Stupid. We're not a meaningfully large country yet, so all our decisions are handled by pretty much talking to our friends to see if it's cool. Stop acting like it's the most monstrous thing ever, when most protagonists in any story would have just killed Riona.

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I think you may be talking past eachother slightly, in that it looks like literally nobody is arguing that Rionna has a right to go free right now.

Also, that said, I would like to not use the logic of "it's not wrong for meguca to go around righting wrongs and stopping evil" or "most protagonists would have already just jumped to shooting" to avoid examining how we go about it, or to avoid conducting ourselves to as a high a standard in anticipation of the legal system we want to create as possible. Because it's that self examination and standard of excellence that, both in the public eye and generally, is going to be what separates what we're doing here from what Rionna started off doing with her "let's go around ganking and nomming the powers of murderous evil griefgucas" business. I mean, yes, we're not malicious, but burden of proof for that will be on us, publicly.

There are of course various other things that separate our conduct from Riona's, but several of the thoughts I have on them would probably verge on reviving the morality debate that we're not to have here, so I'll leave it at my more immediate practical concerns.

As anyone who has ever put serious thought into it will tell you, a legal system is a potentially flawed attempt to achieve a better imposition of morality onto life. Ensuring that people have lawyers and courts is not an end in and of itself under any prominent philosophical model you care to name, but a means to the end of trying to make a flawed world into a better place.

Generally, a legal system is a crucial element of society because of the myriad ways in which it imposes reliability on things. Countries with weak legal systems suffer from issues like trying to guarantee the enforcement of contracts, and those issues cause people to have problems like needing to worry whether the lumber they purchased will ever be delivered or not.

Gadjo asserted that if a legal system returned a "no guilt" verdict for Rionna, we wouldn't accept it... One common element in democratic literature is that an unjust government is not a legitimate government. Given the repeated self-made statements of guilt, the potential to use magic to verify past events with meaningful accuracy, and the stated horror of Rionna's actions, the question to be asked is not what we would do in the event of a "not guilty" verdict, but how on Earth we could have screwed up this hypothetical legal system so badly that it could *return* such an unjust verdict at all, because a system presented with the weight of evidence which should be available of such heinous acts which can then find it in itself to return such a verdict is no system of Justice.

Really, the heart of the matter is that you used a strawman argument. You took Gadjo saying "If a legal system decided to let Rionna go, we wouldn't abide by that decision" and turned it into "If a legal system makes decisions we disagree with, we won't abide by them." This is a difference of great magnitude, because a legal system may have lesser or greater flaws, and it is the weight of its flaws which eventually determine its worth.

Letting Rionna go would be the hallmark of a deeply diseased system. Of course, nowhere did you mention that.

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(Regarding legal systems and our plans for them generally, not the argument about them)

Yes, a system that would free Rionna at this juncture would not be a legal system that we'd consider a legitimate system, given the weight of the evidence we have the capacity to collect and the knowledge given to us by Firn. However "legal representation" is valuable in systems beyond just those that would possibly exonerate someone of their crimes.

In such a system, that would indeed find Riona guilty, based on the evidence with which we've been provided, legal representation and the right to it is also relevant in the context of securing just treatment. (Whatever that eventually shakes out to being.) It's my belief that we do clearly have standards of acceptable treatment (as moderated by safety concerns), evidenced by how we deal with Anri and Oriko and Kirika, and upon construction of our hypothetical legal system, I believe there should be methods in place such that magical girls subject to that system can be guaranteed that acceptable treatment.

It won't just be the Mitakihara band running individual cases, when we get a larger system up and running; it needs to be able to hold up while we're engaged with other pursuits. (It also probably is going to require an expert in multicultural messes, probably.) Because however much we trust Sabrina and co. to hold to whatever standards we decide upon as acceptable treatment, it'll be important for the general populace of meguca to be able to trust them too, and that means having a system that includes representation for the accused and guilty to make sure we're not just... dictating. Or basement-canning. This is one of the cases where the appearance of what we do is gonna matter a lot, for the reputability of our system. As well, no matter how much we trust Sabrina and co., unless literally all the lawkeepers are Sayaka + like Yuki for the cases where Sayaka would be a conflict of interest, there's going to be instances where our legal system is going to be being implemented without our direct supervision. In those cases particularly, representation (and a solid chain of evidence and paperwork, probably) is going to be important.

So like, while representation in the sense of "determine whether or not you are guilty of this specific thing which we by all appearances know you are guilty of" may not be of much use in this case, Rionna's (and future megucas') rights to that representation- including representation that is there to make sure we do gather that evidence we are capable of getting, again, so that there is no room for us to be appearing to condemn someone for personal reasons without that evidence- is still something that she's kinda got to get, as soon as we have a system running, if we do in fact intend not to just dictate it all manually. If we know she's guilty, then the legal system we intend to construct better be robust enough to determine that by itself, and then she should be subject to whatever standards we've put together within that. At that point, legal representation becomes relevant for the whole "acceptable treatment" thing, which does in fact also include making sure we're not just shoving a conscious Rionna into a no-activities box, or keeping her in stasis for our personal convenience rather than her preference or practical security concerns.

... I feel like I forgot something, but that's most of it.

I disagree with you because I think you missed an important part of what legal system should be: it should be an authority that people will be able to trust. I get that letting Rionna go is wrong. What I am concerned about is the checks and balances that should be placed on the authority for the authority to limit people's freedom. In an ideal world, I think that when an authority decides to limit people's freedom, it should be required to write its reasonings down, and it should also be required to base on verifiable evidences that other people can check for themselves. I know that such circumstances are not always feasible, but my point is this: It's not just about making the right decisions. It's about making the right decisions with proper justifications so that people will be able to trust us. If you think that making the right decision (not letting Rionna go) is more important than having proper justifications, I can respect that. I just think that being concerned about having proper justifications and about potential loss of trust that not having proper justifications might cause is also a reasonable stance to take.

p.s. I'm going to class in about 45 minutes, so forgive me if I don't come reply for awhile

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... also, slightly ninja'd.

 

[Gadjo]

I disagree with you because I think you missed an important part of what legal system should be: it should be an authority that people will be able to trust. I get that letting Rionna go is wrong. What I am concerned about is the checks and balances that should be placed on the authority for the authority to limit people's freedom. In an ideal world, I think that when an authority decides to limit people's freedom, it should be required to write its reasonings down, and it should also be required to base on verifiable evidences that other people can check for themselves. I know that such circumstances are not always feasible, but my point is this: It's not just about making the right decisions. It's about making the right decisions with proper justifications so that people will be able to trust us. If you think that making the right decision (not letting Rionna go) is more important than having proper justifications, I can respect that. I just think that being concerned about having proper justifications and about potential loss of trust that not having proper justifications might cause is also a reasonable stance to take.

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As it is we're more of a small group, not even big enough to be called a village- at this level of population, it's kind of completely impossible to have well-informed but not biased judges that are actually part of our group. Legal systems are for when we actually get big enough that one is feasible. For now, we simply do what we think is right. She's already opened and shut the case herself, so all that's left is her imprisonment. Also, we do still need to keep her gemmed for a fair stretch to make sure her shades go away, in the likely event there's nothing we can do for them. It's not a punishment, it's a safety measure, and a more than reasonable one that doesn't put any undue suffering on the prisoner. In fact, taking her in alive will likely involve lots of struggling and shouting that will be more emotionally strenuous than just being knocked unconscious.

 

[Redshirt Army]

What I'm confused by is where @Kaizuki got the idea we were planning to torture Rionna in the first place.

Was there discussion to that effect that I missed? Because yes, solitary confinement without any recreational activities is torturous... so shouldn't it be self-evident that we wouldn't do it?