Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

[Appletank]

For our "chibi herald," may I return to the theme of not all progress requires Grief? It's 2011. ASIMO is a thing. We need to trade wisely, reprogram and add some telemetry, drape a little cosplay over it. BAM - we have a (barely) moving intercom with zero magical signature.

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Hmm, so what you're suggesting is we should totally buy a Gurren Lagann toy with audio/visual sensors, then pilot it with a bit of Grief Puppetry.

Or we could just knit a Sabrina Plush. Pretty sure we have the multi-tasking ability to Sew Good.

But man, making a Transformers robot would be damn cool for an entrance (When Optimus drives into an alley to meet Sam in the first movie).

 

[Spectral Waltz]

Thanks for giving me that bit of nightmare fuel. Someone may have taken my conscious and placed it in a construct with lord knows what, and I won't notice until something happens.
Who wants to bet that at least some meguca will be paranoid about that after waking up after who knows how long in a different city entirely in front of strangers and 30+ girls in the same situation. It will only be worse if the Soujous decieved them with niceties to get their SG. It'll be like a mini-Homu.

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Nightmare fuel for you maybe, but I can't see myself being that freaked out personally? I think we'll have to have them take it as it comes.

 

[Redshirt Army]

Nightmare fuel for you maybe, but I can't see myself being that freaked out personally? I think we'll have to have them take it as it comes.

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It's easy for us to dismiss it as "just" the lichbomb, but we're observing this with very different cultural assumptions. I don't doubt that from the perspective of at least some of those girls, they just got lichbombed subjective moments ago.

So... yeah, some will react worse than others, but it's a legitimate concern that shouldn't be downplayed.

I'm curious if the Ice girl uses her power to keep the soul gems in "stasis", sort of like the Pleiades freezer. It'd help explain how they're able to maintain their "collection".

Without that assistance, to keep 30 soul gems around at what Mami told us we're subsistence rates they'd need to go through an extra 60 grief seeds a month, which isn't really practical.

 

[SatelliteSlicker]

It's easy for us to dismiss it as "just" the lichbomb, but we're observing this with very different cultural assumptions. I don't doubt that from the perspective of at least some of those girls, they just got lichbombed subjective moments ago.

So... yeah, some will react worse than others, but it's a legitimate concern that shouldn't be downplayed.

I'm curious if the Ice girl uses her power to keep the soul gems in "stasis", sort of like the Pleiades freezer. It'd help explain how they're able to maintain their "collection".

Without that assistance, to keep 30 soul gems around at what Mami told us we're subsistence rates they'd need to go through an extra 60 grief seeds a month, which isn't really practical.

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even with our culture, I may not find the litchbomb as horrifying as the implications of it
That my body isnt really mine and I'm just controlling it like a puppet, that's a horrifying idea for me, and I'm not even being forced to live through it
And I cannot count the number of scifi horror movies/books/games built on the premise that you are killed, and then someone downloads your mind into a new body

As for how the hostages are being kept alive its possible that because they are disconnected from their body and aren't conscious they don't build up corruption nearly as fast

 

[AuraTwilight]

I mean, also a lot of people are not fully internalizing the horror of "Someone fucked with my most internal self without me consenting or knowing about it." There's a very, very strong rape allegory there.

 

[Kaizuki]

I'm going to be honest: I mostly don't believe we're currently equipped to re-embody the Soujos' victims.

Could we do it? Duh. Could we do right by them after re-embodying them...?

Obviously it depends largely on how many of them there are. But I somehow doubt it'll be just two or three.

We need an entire infrastructure for this that we haven't yet managed to put our hands on. People are getting at how these girls have probably been declared dead and whatnot, but beyond that life has likely left them behind. Depression and grief are lethal scenarios here; if we embody these girls into "here's an apartment, I'll check on you three times a day" we're liable to have one or more witch before the first check-in, and we simply do not have the resources to tag, at the depth of involvement necessary, a core member of our group to each one of... How many? How many meguca?

We are simply not equipped to properly care for what might well amount to a double digit number of individual suicide risks.

Sayaka could try, but I imagine it would be a full-time job for her for at least a week, if she could get things to work out with essentially no pre-existing infrastructure or knowhow and etc etc etc.

It could be handled as a trickle, to be sure. We could re-embody one or two at a time, make all necessary actions to get them stabilized, etcetera before moving on to the next.

Relative to our current situation, it would still be a giant time investment.

To be honest, I think it's time we began to consider how we might get some kind of organization off the ground -- especially in the context of our having just put in some time figuring out to make an anti-memory-magic enchantment.

Because, I can't help but wonder -- could we adapt that enchantment to resist Kyubey's memory wiping?

 

[arK]

About the whole "body reconstruction" thing, maybe we can see if healing magic can do something first? We do have contacts, one of whom is an already-litchbombed healer, and magical healing never cared for the biological limitations of the human body anyway. It might not be as easy as just spraying the soul gems with healing magic but if we can't retrieve the original bodies maybe it can work?

As for strategies for the Souju sisters i propose antimagic bracelets as close combat option (with the usual restriction for hethe antimagic to ignore us). Our grief should be strong enough to forcefully bend them around the Soujus limbs and neck. We keep them in hammerspace and if they try to close the distance, we rotate them in realspace as they're closing and it's too late for them to avoid it (assuming we keep up the utility fog any "witchy feeling" should be hidden by it).

 

[Redshirt Army]

Because, I can't help but wonder -- could we adapt that enchantment to resist Kyubey's memory wiping?

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I mean, Kyubey doesn't puppet people around, so our self-control enchantment probably does nothing. And the "invisible mind" enchantment only hides minds from being read - if Kyubey's method of altering memories doesn't require him to read minds, then it'll also do nothing.

So tl;dr, our current enchantments probably do nothing to QB.

 

[Kaizuki]

I mean, Kyubey doesn't puppet people around, so our self-control enchantment probably does nothing. And the "invisible mind" enchantment only hides minds from being read - if Kyubey's method of altering memories doesn't require him to read minds, then it'll also do nothing.

So tl;dr, our current enchantments probably do nothing to QB.

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Drat. Well, at any rate this whole notion should probably be thought through anyway. What could we do with individual nonmagicals who were immune to QB mindwipe?

 

[Redshirt Army]

Relative to our current situation, it would still be a giant time investment.

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I mean... since when does something being difficult stop Sabrina from doing the right thing?

Keeping those girls as jewellery because it's convenient shouldn't even be a position in this discussion - the only question is whether we can work out some system to improve efficiency or whether we'll do it the long, tedious manual way.

The first thing that comes to mind is that almost all of the girls we rescue will be in a similar situation to each other. If we put them in a housing situation where they can interact with each other - use our Shizuki connections to buy out an entire floor of a hotel or something - they'll be able to lean on each other to some degree while they're getting back on their feet. This is especially true if some of them already know each other, because they were part of the same group previously or similar.

Hiring a psychologist and/or a care worker and bringing them in on magic would be a good idea in general, but it'd be an especially good idea when dealing with a whole bunch of traumatized girls at once.

We have minions, too - for the critical first day or two we can personally be there or have Sayaka's clones keep watch, and later on we could probably get the Shiogama girls to check in on them a few times a day.

This isn't an irresolvable problem, if we coordinate our response properly.

 

[Godwinson]

Yeah, we're absolutely going to need to get an organization up and going to be able to help those poor girls. We can't do all of that ourselves, not without catastrophically overextending.

But grabbing a bunch of muggles runs into a whole host of other issues. We should probably look at recruiting magical girls who could help us out with this. A good place to look might be among some of the larger groups that have stayed stable across a long span of time? They'd have more experience at dealing with magical girls who are falling to pieces due to horrible life events, after all.

 

[Redshirt Army]

We can bring it up while we go on our grief cleansing trips - I imagine some groups that wouldn't be willing to help with Walpurgis would be willing to help with this.

The Pleiades would almost certainly be willing to lend a hand, if it came down to it.

 

[memoryofglory]

Yeah, we're absolutely going to need to get an organization up and going to be able to help those poor girls. We can't do all of that ourselves, not without catastrophically overextending.

But grabbing a bunch of muggles runs into a whole host of other issues. We should probably look at recruiting magical girls who could help us out with this. A good place to look might be among some of the larger groups that have stayed stable across a long span of time? They'd have more experience at dealing with magical girls who are falling to pieces due to horrible life events, after all.

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We may need to recruit mainly from magical girls, but we absolutely need at least 1 trustworthy mundane therapist ASAP. All magical girls need some real damn therapy, and the Soujo's victims probably need it more than anyone except maybe Homura.

 

[The Phoenixian]

With regard to the Soujo's victims having no lives to return to, one thing to consider is how long the Soujo's have been active. Decades? Years? Months? Weeks?

Those girls who they took most recently may well have families and lives to go back to, and the younger the Soujos are, the greater a proportion of their victims that will be.

As far as rebuilding bodies, it occur to me some time ago that we may have an option here for help, if a highly controversial one:

Anri.

It's questionable whether she will agree to such a thing, and we'd have to find a time and a place to remove her antimagic and trust her in doing so (though frankly, if the antimagic interferes with magic channeling? I guarantee we're going to run into that problem anyways,) but she may be willing help in rebuilding bodies and giving people a place to recover.

If we believe she can be trusted in that it's a chance for her to carry on helping people. She wished to be someone to carry on Yuuri's life, after all, and helping people as her friend once did may give her purpose. Beyond that, it's also practice: We have no guarantee our methods will bring back Asuka Yuuri's body, after all, and that is the one person she'd most like to help. And, of course, if clear seeds just need to be fed happy or resonant thoughts and experiences, her thoughts of giving other girls their lives again may well help Yuuri.

On a less controversial note: we can and should consider Fukushima's help, for both giving people a monitored place to recover and just plain advice.

Tsuruna Yuki did say she was an expert in crisis management, and this is certainly a kind of crisis.

I mean, Kyubey doesn't puppet people around, so our self-control enchantment probably does nothing. And the "invisible mind" enchantment only hides minds from being read - if Kyubey's method of altering memories doesn't require him to read minds, then it'll also do nothing.

So tl;dr, our current enchantments probably do nothing to QB.

Click to shrink...

I think we should finish testing our enchantments for real before making such assumptions, especially given our intentions in making them.

Remember: Our goal in making that enchantment wasn't for people to control their own bodies, it was to control their own minds. And we very specifically had a memory manipulator in mind when we did that. It's certainly possible we failed in our design, but hardly certain.

 

[Godwinson]

We may need to recruit mainly from magical girls, but we absolutely need at least 1 trustworthy mundane therapist ASAP. All magical girls need some real damn therapy, and the Soujo's victims probably need it more than anyone except maybe Homura.

Click to shrink...

What would be a real gold mine is if we found a magical girl who also is trained as a therapist.

 

[Redshirt Army]

What would be a real gold mine is if we found a magical girl who also is trained as a therapist.

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That would be nice, but given QB's target selection criteria and the scarcity of long lived magical girls in general, seems pretty unlikely.

 

[Godwinson]

That would be nice, but given QB's target selection criteria and the scarcity of long lived magical girls in general, seems pretty unlikely.

Click to shrink...

We could ask Nadia?

 

[Qwertystop]

I mean... since when does something being difficult stop Sabrina from doing the right thing?

Keeping those girls as jewellery because it's convenient shouldn't even be a position in this discussion - the only question is whether we can work out some system to improve efficiency or whether we'll do it the long, tedious manual way.

The first thing that comes to mind is that almost all of the girls we rescue will be in a similar situation to each other. If we put them in a housing situation where they can interact with each other - use our Shizuki connections to buy out an entire floor of a hotel or something - they'll be able to lean on each other to some degree while they're getting back on their feet. This is especially true if some of them already know each other, because they were part of the same group previously or similar.

Hiring a psychologist and/or a care worker and bringing them in on magic would be a good idea in general, but it'd be an especially good idea when dealing with a whole bunch of traumatized girls at once.

We have minions, too - for the critical first day or two we can personally be there or have Sayaka's clones keep watch, and later on we could probably get the Shiogama girls to check in on them a few times a day.

This isn't an irresolvable problem, if we coordinate our response properly.

Click to shrink...

Having them all together could help them lean on each other, but it could also lead to mutually-reinforcing spirals. It depends which way they're leaning.

 

[Redshirt Army]

We could ask Nadia?

Click to shrink...

Certainly worth asking. Fukushima too, for that matter - while finding a magical girl with formal education in psychiatry/psychology/therapy is a huge ask, I have to imagine that there's a number of talented amateurs with wishes that grant them empathy or supernatural understanding or the like.

The issue there is picking someone trustworthy, since... well, it's discount mind control, and we'd be throwing them at a large number of vulnerable people.

Worst case scenario I suppose we could just get Sayaka to copy some psychology boosting powers and have her do it, in a stunning reversal of SayakaQuest 2.

 

[Godwinson]

Certainly worth asking. Fukushima too, for that matter - while finding a magical girl with formal education in psychiatry/psychology/therapy is a huge ask, I have to imagine that there's a number of talented amateurs with wishes that grant them empathy or supernatural understanding or the like.

The issue there is picking someone trustworthy, since... well, it's discount mind control, and we'd be throwing them at a large number of vulnerable people.

Worst case scenario I suppose we could just get Sayaka to copy some psychology boosting powers and have her do it, in a stunning reversal of SayakaQuest 2.

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Honestly, we could probably ask every lichbombed group we know if they know of anyone who would be helpful here. Everyone at Sendai, Nadia, #milesgloriosus, everyone.

 

[Always Happening]

About the whole "body reconstruction" thing, maybe we can see if healing magic can do something first? We do have contacts, one of whom is an already-litchbombed healer, and magical healing never cared for the biological limitations of the human body anyway. It might not be as easy as just spraying the soul gems with healing magic but if we can't retrieve the original bodies maybe it can work?

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The trouble with healing, aside from not knowing whether we can regenerate a body ex nihilo at all, is that healing takes a long-ass time: Just fixing Kuriboh's hand took a long-ass time, while healing Sabrina's maimed leg took three people and subjective hours in time stop, and growing Oriko a new arm took the two of them days. Even with dedicated healers like Rin and Yuma, reconstructing an entire human body is likely to be a multi-day operation for a single body, while creating one via alchemy just takes a supply of raw materials, a copy of Gray's Anatomy, and likely no more than an hour a piece.

 

[The Phoenixian]

The trouble with healing, aside from not knowing whether we can regenerate a body ex nihilo at all, is that healing takes a long-ass time: Just fixing Kuriboh's hand took a long-ass time, while healing Sabrina's maimed leg took three people and subjective hours in time stop, and growing Oriko a new arm took the two of them days. Even with dedicated healers like Rin and Yuma, reconstructing an entire human body is likely to be a multi-day operation for a single body, while creating one via alchemy just takes a supply of raw materials, a copy of Gray's Anatomy, and likely no more than an hour a piece.

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I think you underestimate Rin's speed. She took... what? Ten minutes to heal Masami completely? And there's no reason to assume Yuma wouldn't be similarly fast. (It's been a while since I reread it, but IIRC she put Kyouko back together in a matter of seconds when we first met her.)

 

[Redshirt Army]

I think you underestimate Rin's speed. She took... what? Ten minutes to heal Masami completely? And there's no reason to assume Yuma wouldn't be similarly fast. (It's been a while since I reread it, but IIRC she put Kyouko back together in a matter of seconds when we first met her.)

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The speed of a dedicated healer isn't an issue, no, but it's still an open question if Yuma or Rin are capable of healing a body when there isn't anything left to start from.

Although, again, that's not an issue with Niko around, so this discussion is just academic pedantry.

 

[The Phoenixian]

The speed of a dedicated healer isn't an issue, no, but it's still an open question if Yuma or Rin are capable of healing a body when there isn't anything left to start from.

Although, again, that's not an issue with Niko around, so this discussion is just academic pedantry.

Click to shrink...

Well, even if the soul gem's mere existence can't be used to heal the body directly, it's worth considering that they're typically worn as rings.

Do you think a skin cell sample would be enough to start from?

 

[Redshirt Army]

Well, even if the soul gem's mere existence can't be used to heal the body directly, it's worth considering that they're typically worn as rings.

Do you think a skin cell sample would be enough to start from?

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Hm. The Souju's keep their collection in egg form, I'm pretty sure. Would a skin cell on the inside of the ring be carried over to the egg?

Plus, of course, there's the chance that since they collect soul gems for their aesthetic value, they'd have polished them thoroughly and thus removed any remaining skin flakes.

And a few skin cells might not be enough for Rin or Yuma's healing to work with.

There's enough potential issues that I'm doubtful it would work, which is a shame, since regenerating a body from remaining DNA would bypass the need to obtain a template for Niko through Umika's power.