Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
If Sayaka tried to copy her own powers, would she be able to create a power-copying copy of her powers?
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Thread starter Firnagzen
- Start date
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- Tags
- puella magi adfligo systema puella magi madoka magica be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist bad decisions dating mami tomoe (tomoe mami) diabolical laughter friendship is the best ship handholding identity crises microwaving tea gets you put in the bad place names are important the body is the fursona of the soul this is not the baked goods thread we don't talk about rionna what could possibly go wrong? who in the world is azure sanfrancisco?
If Sayaka tried to copy her own powers, would she be able to create a power-copying copy of her powers?
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Homuras Inner Moemura: ... hehehehe I got a nickname
Homuras Inner self: O . O *looks at inner Moemura* ... your still alive?!
Random shadowruns to mention:
The thing about raiding an entrenched position is, you really want to know what their best moves are in advance, because defenders tend to have the advantage in any game even if you're willing to take hostages and wreck things.
Homura had done a pretty damn good job of hiding her true power in canon -- but with all our abusing it for privacy and that big giant city-search in the first bit of the quest, it's unlikely that it's quite as good a secret in this quest.
All I'm saying is, just as we're preparing for them, they're going to be preparing for us. If we want to bring Homura, be ready for stupid counter tricks like putting up a mundane spiderweb or whatever.
(Honestly, I really kind of think if we're going to talk at all, we should try exactly once, with a hologram/radio/whatever projected from nowhere even close, and then just break out the sniper-rifle timestop combo >.>)
The thing about raiding an entrenched position is, you really want to know what their best moves are in advance, because defenders tend to have the advantage in any game even if you're willing to take hostages and wreck things.
Homura had done a pretty damn good job of hiding her true power in canon -- but with all our abusing it for privacy and that big giant city-search in the first bit of the quest, it's unlikely that it's quite as good a secret in this quest.
All I'm saying is, just as we're preparing for them, they're going to be preparing for us. If we want to bring Homura, be ready for stupid counter tricks like putting up a mundane spiderweb or whatever.
(Honestly, I really kind of think if we're going to talk at all, we should try exactly once, with a hologram/radio/whatever projected from nowhere even close, and then just break out the sniper-rifle timestop combo >.>)
- Location
- SomeWhereElse
The only thing I can think of when the word Homs comes up is Xenoblade Chronicles. Which in turn gives me the oddest vision of Homura shouting, "Now, it's Reyn time!" despite not being a redhead, named Reyn, or at all prone to random fits of hot blooded shouting.
Don't give Oriko a Monado
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
so this is the power of the monado
Hmm... You have a point. Might change it to "Hom-chan"; flows better.
Jonen C
F.M.D.G.
- Location
- Lincopense, Ostrogothia, Suecia
At which point it'd be pronounced Homu-chan.
- Location
- a Minecraft Rollercoaster
Firn replied to Homu-chan
=> Firn is Homu-chan
=> Firn is glasses Homura
=> PMAS is Homura's actually good fix-fic
... What did I write
- Location
- Laniakea
Hoo boy, here we go. Right, so... massive vote incoming. Don't even know whether Firn is even going to allow it, but here it is anyway. The full reasoning behind the plan comes after the huge chunk of vote text, which doesn't actually contain every reason for the plan (namely the Potentialbomb stuff we don't want Homura to know).
[X] ... You don't know Madoka as well as you'd like. You'll do it their way as long as circumstances hold, not least because they're the people who are going to be bodyguarding her and Hitomi if this somehow drags out.
-[X] Admit you do have some misgivings about starting so aggressive towards a group you only know by reputation and tell the others that if they have any misgivings about her proposals, they shouldn't be afraid to voice them since it could make the difference between stopping you from making a big mistake or not.
[X] While Mami and Sayaka are still present...
[X] Remind everyone that Kyubey has been doxxing Homura's timestop powers and if he told Kyoko he's likely to tell others - thus anybody planning to attack Mitakihara could come with a plan to counter it somehow, likely either through an instant decapitation strike or by manufacturing a distraction to occupy Homura.
-[X] Say you believe Kyubey has an external source feeding him information, since based on knowledge of previous loops it seems extremely unlikely that Kyubey caught on so early without aid, early enough that Kyoko already knew by March 30th.
-[X] Say you believe he has access to Iowa's clairvoyant or a similar magical girl (if Iowa's "clairvoyant" is Kyubey himself).
-[X] Mention you suspected it was Oriko at the time, but now have doubts - but there's an easy way to check now that Sayaka has Umika Misaki's X-File powers.
-[X] Offer Sayaka the option of getting some closure with Oriko by personally reading her memories to confirm whether Oriko is in the clear or is still malicious.
--[X] Warn Sayaka this could expose her to the deep dark secret you told Sayaka about and that saying "yes" might end up becoming a point of no return. Stress she can say "no" and give the power gem to Sabrina and let Sabrina try instead.
[X] Propose a countermeasure: If/whenever Sabrina and Mami's team are out of town, Homura could disguise herself as Sayaka and have Sayaka make a clone that looks like Homura. Since Sayaka is already known to abuse her clone power, one more copy of Sayaka hanging out with Madoka wouldn't seem abnormal and any attempted decapitation strike will by foiled by the fake Homura.
-[X] Alternatively we have "Plan: It Was Me, Homura!" - if an attempt on Madoka seems imminent or likely, Homura can disguise herself as Madoka and Madoka can disguise as Hitomi. Again, it's not strange for the two to spend time together and it is highly unlikely any assailant is going to look twice at Hitomi because Hitomi.
--[X] Only Homura personally knows Sayaka and Madoka well enough to pull it off. Not even Sabrina has that kind of intimate knowledge necessary.
--[X] Homura-as-Madoka could also try borrowing Niko's Memory Field to dampen the feel of her Soul Gem if necessary.
--[X] Homura could also attempt to learn to make clone doubles of herself like Mami in lieu of Sayaka's clones, though admittedly this could take time they may not have.
--[X] In order to make the fake Homura more convincing to anyone who can sense Soul Gems, Sayaka could hand it a power gem she's not planning on using (or can easily recreate) and hope it feels enough like a Soul Gem to pass.
[X] Conclude that we really ought to investigate Kyubey's mysterious source, especially if it isn't Oriko, and that you have a proposal for Homura you need to discuss alone with her.
[X] Talk alone with Homura before leaving timestop...
[X] Tell it to her straight: You want to try baiting the Incubator's and its source. You have a plan.
-[X] We're going to orchestrate the one thing you are 99.99% certain the Incubator would never allow, even more than de-Witching experiments.
[X] Homura needs to contact Kanna Niko from the Pleiades Saints (the group who, from your knowledge, was able to achieve partial success at de-Witching) and arrange a secret meeting under timestop. The topic: research into de-Contracting magical girls. Being able to reverse the contract and turn Magical Girls back into normal girls.
--[X] In theory, if it is possible to rip the soul out of the body and stuff it into a gem, it should be possible to rip the soul out of the Gem and stuff it back into a body.
-[X] Kanna Niko has personal motivation to pursue this line of research due to her relationship with Kanna Hijiri, a girl whom she didn't want to have contract. Even if Hijiri cannot be forced to accept, Niko being able to offer Hijiri the option a non-Magical Girl life would doubtless be of interest to her.
-[X] We are offering Niko the opportunity to experiment on one of Sayaka's power gems and access to the Soul Manipulation capabilities that Sayaka took from Rionna.
-[X] In addition, we will also supply as many Clear Seeds as Niko needs/wants access to for the duration of the experiments.
-[X] And, subject to clearing Oriko and Kirika's trustworthyness and their consent, access to a unique test subject who has had her Soul (Gem) undergo drastic changes brought by her rejection of wish.
-[X] With Homura's help, Niko will also have access to an unprecendented amount of time with which to conduct her work.
-[X] In exchange, Niko needs to come to Mitakihara and set up a blacksite laboratory here to conduct the research. The reason for coming here is threefold:
--[X] Firstly, Niko needs a disposable location. Because we're trying to bait out the Incubator, it will probably come under heavy attack when Kyubey makes its move and sends in its muscle. Having her home lab trashed (again) would be inconvenient for her.
--[X] Secondly, all transportation of anything to and from the blacksite will need to be done under timestop. Homura will be responsible for moving all supplies and people into the hidden lab both initially and everything else they find they need afterwards and she can only conveniently do that within Mitakihara.
--[X] Thirdly, we're not just trying to bait out Kyubey, we're hoping to pre-empt Kanna Hijiri as well. In fact, you expect that one of the first people Kyubey might direct to investigate the blacksite would be either Souju or Hijiri. While Niko is in Asunaro, Hijiri is unlikely to come after her, but she might be willing to show herself and open up to negotiations if Niko were "alone" in Mitakihara. The possibility of meeting Hijiri again should be of interest to Niko. And if Hijiri were to try and attack Niko in Mitakihara, Homura would be able to respond in a much more timely fashion.
-[X] Homura needs to choose the location for the site. In a single day, all under Timestop, she and Kanna will need to transport all the necessary equipment to the chosen location and set it up, as well as erect defensive measures like Memory Fields all around the secret location.
-[X] Possibly set up the same defences at multiple other dummy locations, depending on how paranoid they're feeling and whether they think any backup sites are necessary.
-[X] She should NOT tell Sabrina where these locations are. Sabrina is going to meet the Tokyo Council and tackle the Iowa Group and may end up face-to-face with mind-readers. If her mental protections fail during these meetings and Sabrina is aware of the location, Homura and Niko's operations will be completely blown.
-[X] Only she and Niko should know the exact location of the blacksite and anybody they need to bring in ought to be brought blindfolded and under timestop. Homura will have to use her discretion as to who, when and whether it is necessary to bring anyone else on-site.
[X] You don't expect much, but if the research DOES bear fruit, we will end up with an unassailable, system-breaking trump card that will render even the worst-case event of Madoka contracting a non-issue, since we can then simply turn her back.
[X] Realistically though, you're expecting to be attacked before getting too many results from the research.
-[X] The real aim is to capture any assailants alive and interrogate them in order to follow the trail of where their information came from. From previous talks Kyubey claimed verbatim "I do not give detailed information on the movements of magical girls to each other", so unless he's lying about it, any information on the blacksite's exact location wouldn't directly come from him - it would have to come from whichever magical girl(s) he's directly working with, hopefully the ones supplying him with information.
-[X] If Kyubey doesn't make his move after a specified amount of time and we also don't get any genuine results, there's a plan for that too. It involves stirring the pot by releasing fake results of our success.
[X] Even if it turns out the supposition about Kyubey having a source is wrong and he somehow gained his information through personal capabilities he's been hiding, this plan still gives us an advantage, in a sense; the blacksite will be a threat he absolutely cannot ignore. It will force him to direct his attention towards it and thus make Kyubey somewhat predictable in where he's going to strike.
-[X] If you were Kyubey, and you were out to murder Sabrina or otherwise ruin everything, Iowa is exactly the kind of thing you would use to do it if the Homura's blacksite wasn't involved...
--[X] ...And you would do it by first directing them at Fukushima. Specifically, the Group's HQ. Knowing that we have a mutal defense pact, you would have attempted to divide and conquer the enemy by forcing Mitakihara to uphold its end of the pact to send reinforcements there, leaving Mitakihara itself open for another force to move in and strike in however they pleased, causing damage in any number of ways.
--[X] But if he knows the blacksite exists, we know at least one place where the hammer on Mitakihara will fall, even if Kyubey somehow does manage to cause a distraction to lure us outside. It's a galvanic anode, a lightningrod for an impending assault. And we can prepare for it.
--[X] Even Homura can't truly be everywhere at once, which is exactly the reason as why you're trying to do fewer things personally. Kyubey's tactics against Homura were designed to make people doubt her; against you who already have so many allies, it would probably would seek to overextend, overburden, and eventually erode away those allies in order to isolate you, possibly also through the same fear that makes people refuse to take clear seeds even now.
--[X] Exposing the blacksite and spreading word about it being bad news would be something you could also see it doing, which is another reason why Homura ought to be the one doing this. The blacksite ought to be difficult to obviously tie to you. Sabrina and Mami are by now the public face of Mitakihara - they need to maintain their alliances. Mami can't lie about what she doesn't know. Homura is not a public face, she can afford to undertake this kind of work from the shadows. She has decades of experience in it and no matter how much she might denigrate herself, that's still decades more experience than Sabrina and Mami.
-----[X] Really, she could make SHIELD look like a bunch of wannabes.
[X] Finally, you might've said before that you don't personally expect too much out of the project... but you DO think there IS a slim chance it is possible. Because Madoka's wish in the previous loop wasn't "I wish there was somebody who could fix everything" but "I wish everything could be fixed". Which in the broadest sense of the phrase means that "everything can be reversed". That includes Witching, entropy... and even Contracts too. So even if it was truly utterly impossible before..... it might, just maybe, be possible to achieve this time around.
...Plus whatever else anyone wants to add. There's still the vote on what to do next I didn't address.
Whew. Now for the details of the plan itself. Feel free to suggest any modifications or changes or improvements that might occur to you, it's still a work in progress.
Without further ado, let me introduce....
Operation "(R)Atbey(t)"
What We Gain:
There's 2 immediate benefits we will achieve if we can get this plan into motion.
1) We take the edge off the Potentialbomb in advance. If Homura believes there's a way to turn MGs back into NGs, Madoka's karmic potential won't even matter - since her contracting is no longer considered an automatic losing proposition.
...That, and I have a personal suspicion about the Potentialbomb itself. My suspicion being that if Sabrina DID actually soak up some of Madoka's karma from last loop, Kyubey will reveal it and declare that Homura has already "lost" because Sabrina has already contracted and will eventually turn into the most powerful witch in the world - and that the only way to stop her witch is for Madoka herself to contract.
But if this is the case, the impact of this too will also be cut off at the legs given the existing possibility that Sabrina could de-Contract herself.
2) We put the screws on Kyubey, hard. He'll be rushed and pressured to tip his hand.
We will win if he does nothing and we start getting results. We will win if he acts, because whether or not he has any source to expose, he will be forced to waste time and divert resources otherwise spent on something like coercing Madoka or attacking our allies in order to raid our blacksite.
A completely disposable blacksite which Homura can fully dismantle and instantly pack away anything of import into her shield in the literal blink of an eye, under timestop.
The chances of an attack actually working and impeding our operation with Homura around is probably not even very high, but he has to do it anyway. He might not know if it is possible to decommission a Magical Girl, but he absolutely cannot afford to take the risk and he knows it.
Because if we succeed, we've broken his system over our knee and he'll be completely stuck up shit creek.
Just the possibility is going to make him sweat like a pig.
Longer-Term Gains:
- Drawing out Hijiri Kanna. If we can find a way to win over her support, her ability - assuming it's the same as what it was in Kazumi Magica - would be supremely useful. Like Mami, her power is based around connections (she uses threads instead of ribbons). Unlike Mami, her power allows her to connect other people's powers together, combining power effects. If there's anyone who could make Rionna's Soul Manipulation work towards de-Contracting a magical girl, it could well be her.
- An extra magical girl in Mitakihara for when Walpurgisnacht hits, assuming Niko stays that long. If she does, she'll also likely pull in the rest of the Saints with her. We'll also have access to the tech she brings with her for the duration of the time she's in town, including stuff like her Memory Field and potentially fresh-grown clone bodies. For Soul Gems we find without a body (*cough*Souju*cough*).
- Homura getting some stress relief and personal satisfaction in recommending Oriko as a guinea pig. She also gets to feel useful and cathartic masterminding the operation of all operations to make Kyubey squirm.
- Research into mechanics of how Soul Manipulation/Soul Gems work that we don't have to spend our own time trying to puzzle out. Delegating is a thing. If Homura finds out anything about karmic potential in the process, it could further take the impact off the Potentialbomb when it drops.
- The possible, slim chance that the experiments are actually successful. The benefits of this don't need to be stated I think.
The Bad News:
It does hinge on Niko's cooperation for the most part. We can still fake a blacksite and try to leak fake research without Niko's support, but making any headway into the actual research would be doubtful if Niko refuses to participate and we'll have to go back to the drawing board.
That said, I feel Niko is very likely to bite. Offering access to Sayaka's power gems, Soul Manipulation, Oriko, more Clear Seeds and Homura's Timestop is tantalizing enough, but Niko additionally has a personal stake in the project's nominal goal of decomissioning girls because of Hijiri. Not to mention, it is also very likely that she would like to be able to save the other Pleiades Saints from their eventual Witchy fate.
The other issue is that there will likely need to be at least one more person who knows the location of the blacksite - whoever gets assigned as Niko's caretaker, as the girl is liable to burn herself out to the point of exhaustion if left alone in a locked room all by herself. Homura will need to ask Niko if there is anyone she can recommend that can be trusted, or else Homura will have to do the disciplining personally, which is not a great idea since Homura herself has a highly unhealthy work ethic.
Finally, there is the chance that Kyubey may start spreading rumors about it to other girls around as a scare tactic. But apart from Mami having deniability - depending on how we play this, she might really end up not knowing anything about it - it's also a double-edged tactic for Kyubey. It might cause us some trouble, but will also allow us to glean insight into which girls have been Witch/Lichbombed and which ones haven't simply by the fact that those who are in the know will almost certainly be more ambivalent towards the idea of de-Contracting than those who aren't. Even the ones who aren't could probably be convinced that having an option to retire ought to be a good thing. And depending on how we disseminate information about the nature of our research, it could also give some insight into what Kyubey can and can't spy through.
It would be interesting if he somehow knew that we were conducting de-Contracting experiments before a single word of it escaped a Timestop.
How The Plan Works:
Our actual active involvement operation is actually very minimal - mostly because Homura and Niko will be doing all the heavy lifting.
It's really just a glorified honeypot trap.
Create a secret base in Mitakihara, preferably somewhere further away from populated areas to limit casualties when the heat comes on. Let there be science.
Wait for the rat to come sniffing for the poison.
The key is to keep the location of the site secret such that Kyubey knows it exists but is unsure of where. The fewer people who know the real location, the better. Optimally just Homura and Niko, realistically Homura + Niko + their babysitter. Ideally, not even Sabrina knows where it is.
Multiple dummy/backup locations that all are physically inaccessible to Kyubey himself are well worth setting up to achieve this (it is possible to physically Kyubey-proof a location, the Pleiades Saints did so with The Freezer in Kazumi Magica canon). Leaking fake locations on the internet might be worth doing too. The actual location should, obviously, be Kyubey-proofed too.
Whatever else happens, he will be forced to send someone to investigate.
In the best case scenario, the first agent he sends will be the same girl who has been providing him with information thus far. This is also very unlikely.
More likely, the first comers are going to be either Hijiri or Souju. Either one of them works to our advantage. They both have pre-existing reasons for being there, so it is unlikely we'll get much in the way of Kyubey's source from them, but Hijiri has a chance of being swayed to our side and capturing Souju is a net gain for us - she's walking around carrying a free supply of disembodied Soul Gems for us to peruse at our pleasure upon dealing with her. Furthermore Souju herself makes an interesting specimen for experimention due to how she has 2 Soul Gems attached to 1 body.
However, it's the ones that get sent afterward that are our real targets of interest. There's currently no known group with a clairvoyant apart from Iowa who has any reason to attack Mitakihara, so if someone suddenly zeroes in on the blacksite when even Sabrina isn't aware of the location, there's really only one party that could have orchestrated it - Kyubey, or his direct proxy.
This hinges on the fact that Kyubey proclaims not to disclose detailed movements of magical girls to each other, so unless he is lying, the only way for him to orchestrate an attack is to command a magical girl or group to independently find out the location of the hidden blacksite and then convey it to the attackers (or else carry out the attack themselves).
If such a girl who can immediately do so with precision exists, she is likely to be the information source who leaked Homura's capabilities. If can then take the attacking group(s) alive, we can scan their memories with Umika Misaki's X-File and find out who exactly it was.
In the case that Kyubey doesn't actually have a clairvoyant-like source, it will also be imminently obvious, because instead of a pinpoint surgical decapitation strike on the precise location - which is what he will effectively needs to do to prevent Homura from absconding with everything there - he'll be forced to go for the shotgun approach and will have to send assailants after all the dummy sites instead of/as well as the actual blacksite (or have girls running around Mitakihara just looking if he doesn't even know where those are).
This is also a positive outcome for us, because even Kyubey only has so many favors he can burn to call in girls on short notice and if he needs to keep throwing resources just to figure out where our secret research facility is located, he'll be unable to direct them at causing trouble elsewhere.
He'll be forced to centralize all the action around Mitakihara, our seat of power and where our strength is at its peak, what with the whole army we're raising against Walpurgisnacht and the defense treaty we have with the Fukushima Group.
If Kyubey makes no move against us for say, a whole week, and we're also not getting much results with the research (nothing promising enough to rile him up that we can leak) - we can further up the ante.
We can instruct Niko to release a clone of Rionna implanted with the memories of the real Rionna using X-File and tell the clone that her Contract with Kyubey has been rescinded before dumping her on the street (under heavy surveillance of course). As a clone, she will indeed be uncontracted and won't have her magic.
Once the clone starts screaming out in public about her magic being stripped from her, heads are going to turn. If this apparent success at de-Contracting "Rionna" doesn't get Kyubey to make a move, I don't know what will.
The Process Of Research:
Some of these ideas might be worth mentioning when/if Niko agrees to play along. Though considering the human-experimentation subject nature of the whole thing, it would also probably be better for Sabrina's sanity if the gritty details of the thing were left up to Niko and Homura (or just Niko) and the topic avoided as much as possible. Until she's asked for permission to do something, anyway.
As mentioned in the vote, the idea behind the de-Contracting basically boils down to a few simple things.
1) Souls are attached to bodies.
2) Kyubey can strip souls out of bodies and encapsulate them in Soul Gems, which then attach to bodies.
3) Rionna could strip souls out of bodies OR Soul Gems (and maybe even Grief Seeds) and have them function as disembodied wraiths.
4) It should thus be possible to strip souls out of Soul Gems with Rionna's power and then attach their still-functioning disembodied forms back to a body somehow.
If I were solely in charge of the experimentation, the first step I would start with is figuring out how to attach Clear Seeds to bodies. Why Clear Seeds? Because Clear Seeds are the closest thing we have to a "normal" girl's soul. No Grief, so it's not a Witch. No magic, so it isn't a Magical Girl. Which ought to make it... an ordinary girl.
In theory, if a Clear Seed were successfully attached to a body, you should essentially end up with an ordinary girl except with a soul that isn't spread out through her nervous system (or however it's usually meant to be shaped) but instead condensed into a seed. And if some way of attaching a Clear Seed-shaped soul to a body is discovered, the method can possibly be reused also for attaching a "free-form" soul ripped out of a Soul Gem or Clear Seed back into body.
So the second, iffier step, would be trying to rip souls completely out of Clear Seeds and reuse the attachment method. It's bit more difficult to guarantee safety for anything in this step, which is another reason why Sabrina best be left not knowing about the failures and instead leave it up to Homura and Niko to deal with.
At this point, if a soul can be successfully ripped out of a Clear Seed and reattached to a body, it should be mostly safe to rip one out of a Soul Gem and reapply the same method to attach it back to a body.
In theory.
It probably won't quite work that way in practice, which is why I believe the chances of succeeding are iffy at best. Even with the parting comment about Madoka's wish to Homura.
But if it does, well. You know.
[X] ... You don't know Madoka as well as you'd like. You'll do it their way as long as circumstances hold, not least because they're the people who are going to be bodyguarding her and Hitomi if this somehow drags out.
-[X] Admit you do have some misgivings about starting so aggressive towards a group you only know by reputation and tell the others that if they have any misgivings about her proposals, they shouldn't be afraid to voice them since it could make the difference between stopping you from making a big mistake or not.
[X] While Mami and Sayaka are still present...
[X] Remind everyone that Kyubey has been doxxing Homura's timestop powers and if he told Kyoko he's likely to tell others - thus anybody planning to attack Mitakihara could come with a plan to counter it somehow, likely either through an instant decapitation strike or by manufacturing a distraction to occupy Homura.
-[X] Say you believe Kyubey has an external source feeding him information, since based on knowledge of previous loops it seems extremely unlikely that Kyubey caught on so early without aid, early enough that Kyoko already knew by March 30th.
-[X] Say you believe he has access to Iowa's clairvoyant or a similar magical girl (if Iowa's "clairvoyant" is Kyubey himself).
-[X] Mention you suspected it was Oriko at the time, but now have doubts - but there's an easy way to check now that Sayaka has Umika Misaki's X-File powers.
-[X] Offer Sayaka the option of getting some closure with Oriko by personally reading her memories to confirm whether Oriko is in the clear or is still malicious.
--[X] Warn Sayaka this could expose her to the deep dark secret you told Sayaka about and that saying "yes" might end up becoming a point of no return. Stress she can say "no" and give the power gem to Sabrina and let Sabrina try instead.
[X] Propose a countermeasure: If/whenever Sabrina and Mami's team are out of town, Homura could disguise herself as Sayaka and have Sayaka make a clone that looks like Homura. Since Sayaka is already known to abuse her clone power, one more copy of Sayaka hanging out with Madoka wouldn't seem abnormal and any attempted decapitation strike will by foiled by the fake Homura.
-[X] Alternatively we have "Plan: It Was Me, Homura!" - if an attempt on Madoka seems imminent or likely, Homura can disguise herself as Madoka and Madoka can disguise as Hitomi. Again, it's not strange for the two to spend time together and it is highly unlikely any assailant is going to look twice at Hitomi because Hitomi.
--[X] Only Homura personally knows Sayaka and Madoka well enough to pull it off. Not even Sabrina has that kind of intimate knowledge necessary.
--[X] Homura-as-Madoka could also try borrowing Niko's Memory Field to dampen the feel of her Soul Gem if necessary.
--[X] Homura could also attempt to learn to make clone doubles of herself like Mami in lieu of Sayaka's clones, though admittedly this could take time they may not have.
--[X] In order to make the fake Homura more convincing to anyone who can sense Soul Gems, Sayaka could hand it a power gem she's not planning on using (or can easily recreate) and hope it feels enough like a Soul Gem to pass.
[X] Conclude that we really ought to investigate Kyubey's mysterious source, especially if it isn't Oriko, and that you have a proposal for Homura you need to discuss alone with her.
[X] Talk alone with Homura before leaving timestop...
[X] Tell it to her straight: You want to try baiting the Incubator's and its source. You have a plan.
-[X] We're going to orchestrate the one thing you are 99.99% certain the Incubator would never allow, even more than de-Witching experiments.
[X] Homura needs to contact Kanna Niko from the Pleiades Saints (the group who, from your knowledge, was able to achieve partial success at de-Witching) and arrange a secret meeting under timestop. The topic: research into de-Contracting magical girls. Being able to reverse the contract and turn Magical Girls back into normal girls.
--[X] In theory, if it is possible to rip the soul out of the body and stuff it into a gem, it should be possible to rip the soul out of the Gem and stuff it back into a body.
-[X] Kanna Niko has personal motivation to pursue this line of research due to her relationship with Kanna Hijiri, a girl whom she didn't want to have contract. Even if Hijiri cannot be forced to accept, Niko being able to offer Hijiri the option a non-Magical Girl life would doubtless be of interest to her.
-[X] We are offering Niko the opportunity to experiment on one of Sayaka's power gems and access to the Soul Manipulation capabilities that Sayaka took from Rionna.
-[X] In addition, we will also supply as many Clear Seeds as Niko needs/wants access to for the duration of the experiments.
-[X] And, subject to clearing Oriko and Kirika's trustworthyness and their consent, access to a unique test subject who has had her Soul (Gem) undergo drastic changes brought by her rejection of wish.
-[X] With Homura's help, Niko will also have access to an unprecendented amount of time with which to conduct her work.
-[X] In exchange, Niko needs to come to Mitakihara and set up a blacksite laboratory here to conduct the research. The reason for coming here is threefold:
--[X] Firstly, Niko needs a disposable location. Because we're trying to bait out the Incubator, it will probably come under heavy attack when Kyubey makes its move and sends in its muscle. Having her home lab trashed (again) would be inconvenient for her.
--[X] Secondly, all transportation of anything to and from the blacksite will need to be done under timestop. Homura will be responsible for moving all supplies and people into the hidden lab both initially and everything else they find they need afterwards and she can only conveniently do that within Mitakihara.
--[X] Thirdly, we're not just trying to bait out Kyubey, we're hoping to pre-empt Kanna Hijiri as well. In fact, you expect that one of the first people Kyubey might direct to investigate the blacksite would be either Souju or Hijiri. While Niko is in Asunaro, Hijiri is unlikely to come after her, but she might be willing to show herself and open up to negotiations if Niko were "alone" in Mitakihara. The possibility of meeting Hijiri again should be of interest to Niko. And if Hijiri were to try and attack Niko in Mitakihara, Homura would be able to respond in a much more timely fashion.
-[X] Homura needs to choose the location for the site. In a single day, all under Timestop, she and Kanna will need to transport all the necessary equipment to the chosen location and set it up, as well as erect defensive measures like Memory Fields all around the secret location.
-[X] Possibly set up the same defences at multiple other dummy locations, depending on how paranoid they're feeling and whether they think any backup sites are necessary.
-[X] She should NOT tell Sabrina where these locations are. Sabrina is going to meet the Tokyo Council and tackle the Iowa Group and may end up face-to-face with mind-readers. If her mental protections fail during these meetings and Sabrina is aware of the location, Homura and Niko's operations will be completely blown.
-[X] Only she and Niko should know the exact location of the blacksite and anybody they need to bring in ought to be brought blindfolded and under timestop. Homura will have to use her discretion as to who, when and whether it is necessary to bring anyone else on-site.
[X] You don't expect much, but if the research DOES bear fruit, we will end up with an unassailable, system-breaking trump card that will render even the worst-case event of Madoka contracting a non-issue, since we can then simply turn her back.
[X] Realistically though, you're expecting to be attacked before getting too many results from the research.
-[X] The real aim is to capture any assailants alive and interrogate them in order to follow the trail of where their information came from. From previous talks Kyubey claimed verbatim "I do not give detailed information on the movements of magical girls to each other", so unless he's lying about it, any information on the blacksite's exact location wouldn't directly come from him - it would have to come from whichever magical girl(s) he's directly working with, hopefully the ones supplying him with information.
-[X] If Kyubey doesn't make his move after a specified amount of time and we also don't get any genuine results, there's a plan for that too. It involves stirring the pot by releasing fake results of our success.
[X] Even if it turns out the supposition about Kyubey having a source is wrong and he somehow gained his information through personal capabilities he's been hiding, this plan still gives us an advantage, in a sense; the blacksite will be a threat he absolutely cannot ignore. It will force him to direct his attention towards it and thus make Kyubey somewhat predictable in where he's going to strike.
-[X] If you were Kyubey, and you were out to murder Sabrina or otherwise ruin everything, Iowa is exactly the kind of thing you would use to do it if the Homura's blacksite wasn't involved...
--[X] ...And you would do it by first directing them at Fukushima. Specifically, the Group's HQ. Knowing that we have a mutal defense pact, you would have attempted to divide and conquer the enemy by forcing Mitakihara to uphold its end of the pact to send reinforcements there, leaving Mitakihara itself open for another force to move in and strike in however they pleased, causing damage in any number of ways.
--[X] But if he knows the blacksite exists, we know at least one place where the hammer on Mitakihara will fall, even if Kyubey somehow does manage to cause a distraction to lure us outside. It's a galvanic anode, a lightningrod for an impending assault. And we can prepare for it.
--[X] Even Homura can't truly be everywhere at once, which is exactly the reason as why you're trying to do fewer things personally. Kyubey's tactics against Homura were designed to make people doubt her; against you who already have so many allies, it would probably would seek to overextend, overburden, and eventually erode away those allies in order to isolate you, possibly also through the same fear that makes people refuse to take clear seeds even now.
--[X] Exposing the blacksite and spreading word about it being bad news would be something you could also see it doing, which is another reason why Homura ought to be the one doing this. The blacksite ought to be difficult to obviously tie to you. Sabrina and Mami are by now the public face of Mitakihara - they need to maintain their alliances. Mami can't lie about what she doesn't know. Homura is not a public face, she can afford to undertake this kind of work from the shadows. She has decades of experience in it and no matter how much she might denigrate herself, that's still decades more experience than Sabrina and Mami.
-----[X] Really, she could make SHIELD look like a bunch of wannabes.
[X] Finally, you might've said before that you don't personally expect too much out of the project... but you DO think there IS a slim chance it is possible. Because Madoka's wish in the previous loop wasn't "I wish there was somebody who could fix everything" but "I wish everything could be fixed". Which in the broadest sense of the phrase means that "everything can be reversed". That includes Witching, entropy... and even Contracts too. So even if it was truly utterly impossible before..... it might, just maybe, be possible to achieve this time around.
...Plus whatever else anyone wants to add. There's still the vote on what to do next I didn't address.
Whew. Now for the details of the plan itself. Feel free to suggest any modifications or changes or improvements that might occur to you, it's still a work in progress.
Without further ado, let me introduce....
Operation "(R)Atbey(t)"
What We Gain:
There's 2 immediate benefits we will achieve if we can get this plan into motion.
1) We take the edge off the Potentialbomb in advance. If Homura believes there's a way to turn MGs back into NGs, Madoka's karmic potential won't even matter - since her contracting is no longer considered an automatic losing proposition.
...That, and I have a personal suspicion about the Potentialbomb itself. My suspicion being that if Sabrina DID actually soak up some of Madoka's karma from last loop, Kyubey will reveal it and declare that Homura has already "lost" because Sabrina has already contracted and will eventually turn into the most powerful witch in the world - and that the only way to stop her witch is for Madoka herself to contract.
But if this is the case, the impact of this too will also be cut off at the legs given the existing possibility that Sabrina could de-Contract herself.
2) We put the screws on Kyubey, hard. He'll be rushed and pressured to tip his hand.
We will win if he does nothing and we start getting results. We will win if he acts, because whether or not he has any source to expose, he will be forced to waste time and divert resources otherwise spent on something like coercing Madoka or attacking our allies in order to raid our blacksite.
A completely disposable blacksite which Homura can fully dismantle and instantly pack away anything of import into her shield in the literal blink of an eye, under timestop.
The chances of an attack actually working and impeding our operation with Homura around is probably not even very high, but he has to do it anyway. He might not know if it is possible to decommission a Magical Girl, but he absolutely cannot afford to take the risk and he knows it.
Because if we succeed, we've broken his system over our knee and he'll be completely stuck up shit creek.
Just the possibility is going to make him sweat like a pig.
Longer-Term Gains:
- Drawing out Hijiri Kanna. If we can find a way to win over her support, her ability - assuming it's the same as what it was in Kazumi Magica - would be supremely useful. Like Mami, her power is based around connections (she uses threads instead of ribbons). Unlike Mami, her power allows her to connect other people's powers together, combining power effects. If there's anyone who could make Rionna's Soul Manipulation work towards de-Contracting a magical girl, it could well be her.
- An extra magical girl in Mitakihara for when Walpurgisnacht hits, assuming Niko stays that long. If she does, she'll also likely pull in the rest of the Saints with her. We'll also have access to the tech she brings with her for the duration of the time she's in town, including stuff like her Memory Field and potentially fresh-grown clone bodies. For Soul Gems we find without a body (*cough*Souju*cough*).
- Homura getting some stress relief and personal satisfaction in recommending Oriko as a guinea pig. She also gets to feel useful and cathartic masterminding the operation of all operations to make Kyubey squirm.
- Research into mechanics of how Soul Manipulation/Soul Gems work that we don't have to spend our own time trying to puzzle out. Delegating is a thing. If Homura finds out anything about karmic potential in the process, it could further take the impact off the Potentialbomb when it drops.
- The possible, slim chance that the experiments are actually successful. The benefits of this don't need to be stated I think.
The Bad News:
It does hinge on Niko's cooperation for the most part. We can still fake a blacksite and try to leak fake research without Niko's support, but making any headway into the actual research would be doubtful if Niko refuses to participate and we'll have to go back to the drawing board.
That said, I feel Niko is very likely to bite. Offering access to Sayaka's power gems, Soul Manipulation, Oriko, more Clear Seeds and Homura's Timestop is tantalizing enough, but Niko additionally has a personal stake in the project's nominal goal of decomissioning girls because of Hijiri. Not to mention, it is also very likely that she would like to be able to save the other Pleiades Saints from their eventual Witchy fate.
The other issue is that there will likely need to be at least one more person who knows the location of the blacksite - whoever gets assigned as Niko's caretaker, as the girl is liable to burn herself out to the point of exhaustion if left alone in a locked room all by herself. Homura will need to ask Niko if there is anyone she can recommend that can be trusted, or else Homura will have to do the disciplining personally, which is not a great idea since Homura herself has a highly unhealthy work ethic.
Finally, there is the chance that Kyubey may start spreading rumors about it to other girls around as a scare tactic. But apart from Mami having deniability - depending on how we play this, she might really end up not knowing anything about it - it's also a double-edged tactic for Kyubey. It might cause us some trouble, but will also allow us to glean insight into which girls have been Witch/Lichbombed and which ones haven't simply by the fact that those who are in the know will almost certainly be more ambivalent towards the idea of de-Contracting than those who aren't. Even the ones who aren't could probably be convinced that having an option to retire ought to be a good thing. And depending on how we disseminate information about the nature of our research, it could also give some insight into what Kyubey can and can't spy through.
It would be interesting if he somehow knew that we were conducting de-Contracting experiments before a single word of it escaped a Timestop.
How The Plan Works:
Our actual active involvement operation is actually very minimal - mostly because Homura and Niko will be doing all the heavy lifting.
It's really just a glorified honeypot trap.
Create a secret base in Mitakihara, preferably somewhere further away from populated areas to limit casualties when the heat comes on. Let there be science.
Wait for the rat to come sniffing for the poison.
The key is to keep the location of the site secret such that Kyubey knows it exists but is unsure of where. The fewer people who know the real location, the better. Optimally just Homura and Niko, realistically Homura + Niko + their babysitter. Ideally, not even Sabrina knows where it is.
Multiple dummy/backup locations that all are physically inaccessible to Kyubey himself are well worth setting up to achieve this (it is possible to physically Kyubey-proof a location, the Pleiades Saints did so with The Freezer in Kazumi Magica canon). Leaking fake locations on the internet might be worth doing too. The actual location should, obviously, be Kyubey-proofed too.
Whatever else happens, he will be forced to send someone to investigate.
In the best case scenario, the first agent he sends will be the same girl who has been providing him with information thus far. This is also very unlikely.
More likely, the first comers are going to be either Hijiri or Souju. Either one of them works to our advantage. They both have pre-existing reasons for being there, so it is unlikely we'll get much in the way of Kyubey's source from them, but Hijiri has a chance of being swayed to our side and capturing Souju is a net gain for us - she's walking around carrying a free supply of disembodied Soul Gems for us to peruse at our pleasure upon dealing with her. Furthermore Souju herself makes an interesting specimen for experimention due to how she has 2 Soul Gems attached to 1 body.
However, it's the ones that get sent afterward that are our real targets of interest. There's currently no known group with a clairvoyant apart from Iowa who has any reason to attack Mitakihara, so if someone suddenly zeroes in on the blacksite when even Sabrina isn't aware of the location, there's really only one party that could have orchestrated it - Kyubey, or his direct proxy.
This hinges on the fact that Kyubey proclaims not to disclose detailed movements of magical girls to each other, so unless he is lying, the only way for him to orchestrate an attack is to command a magical girl or group to independently find out the location of the hidden blacksite and then convey it to the attackers (or else carry out the attack themselves).
If such a girl who can immediately do so with precision exists, she is likely to be the information source who leaked Homura's capabilities. If can then take the attacking group(s) alive, we can scan their memories with Umika Misaki's X-File and find out who exactly it was.
In the case that Kyubey doesn't actually have a clairvoyant-like source, it will also be imminently obvious, because instead of a pinpoint surgical decapitation strike on the precise location - which is what he will effectively needs to do to prevent Homura from absconding with everything there - he'll be forced to go for the shotgun approach and will have to send assailants after all the dummy sites instead of/as well as the actual blacksite (or have girls running around Mitakihara just looking if he doesn't even know where those are).
This is also a positive outcome for us, because even Kyubey only has so many favors he can burn to call in girls on short notice and if he needs to keep throwing resources just to figure out where our secret research facility is located, he'll be unable to direct them at causing trouble elsewhere.
He'll be forced to centralize all the action around Mitakihara, our seat of power and where our strength is at its peak, what with the whole army we're raising against Walpurgisnacht and the defense treaty we have with the Fukushima Group.
If Kyubey makes no move against us for say, a whole week, and we're also not getting much results with the research (nothing promising enough to rile him up that we can leak) - we can further up the ante.
We can instruct Niko to release a clone of Rionna implanted with the memories of the real Rionna using X-File and tell the clone that her Contract with Kyubey has been rescinded before dumping her on the street (under heavy surveillance of course). As a clone, she will indeed be uncontracted and won't have her magic.
Once the clone starts screaming out in public about her magic being stripped from her, heads are going to turn. If this apparent success at de-Contracting "Rionna" doesn't get Kyubey to make a move, I don't know what will.
The Process Of Research:
Some of these ideas might be worth mentioning when/if Niko agrees to play along. Though considering the human-experimentation subject nature of the whole thing, it would also probably be better for Sabrina's sanity if the gritty details of the thing were left up to Niko and Homura (or just Niko) and the topic avoided as much as possible. Until she's asked for permission to do something, anyway.
As mentioned in the vote, the idea behind the de-Contracting basically boils down to a few simple things.
1) Souls are attached to bodies.
2) Kyubey can strip souls out of bodies and encapsulate them in Soul Gems, which then attach to bodies.
3) Rionna could strip souls out of bodies OR Soul Gems (and maybe even Grief Seeds) and have them function as disembodied wraiths.
4) It should thus be possible to strip souls out of Soul Gems with Rionna's power and then attach their still-functioning disembodied forms back to a body somehow.
If I were solely in charge of the experimentation, the first step I would start with is figuring out how to attach Clear Seeds to bodies. Why Clear Seeds? Because Clear Seeds are the closest thing we have to a "normal" girl's soul. No Grief, so it's not a Witch. No magic, so it isn't a Magical Girl. Which ought to make it... an ordinary girl.
In theory, if a Clear Seed were successfully attached to a body, you should essentially end up with an ordinary girl except with a soul that isn't spread out through her nervous system (or however it's usually meant to be shaped) but instead condensed into a seed. And if some way of attaching a Clear Seed-shaped soul to a body is discovered, the method can possibly be reused also for attaching a "free-form" soul ripped out of a Soul Gem or Clear Seed back into body.
So the second, iffier step, would be trying to rip souls completely out of Clear Seeds and reuse the attachment method. It's bit more difficult to guarantee safety for anything in this step, which is another reason why Sabrina best be left not knowing about the failures and instead leave it up to Homura and Niko to deal with.
At this point, if a soul can be successfully ripped out of a Clear Seed and reattached to a body, it should be mostly safe to rip one out of a Soul Gem and reapply the same method to attach it back to a body.
In theory.
It probably won't quite work that way in practice, which is why I believe the chances of succeeding are iffy at best. Even with the parting comment about Madoka's wish to Homura.
But if it does, well. You know.
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- Location
- Somewhere up the tree
Do we actualy know if pulling a soul out of a soul gem will do anything? For all we know the soul gem is just the phylactery and the witch/magic system is something else entirely, in fact I'm pretty sure about that doe magic, since incubators can't directly do anything with magic, so its very very VERY unlikely that it will stop people from having magic powers if we just shove their souls back into their bodies
- Location
- Laniakea
We don't, but then that's what all the experimentation is for.
It's also possible that while the soul is "properly" attached to the body, the magic is locked up and they just can't access any of it whether or not they have it. And that Kyubey "unlocks" access to it when he compresses the soul in the Soul Gem.
If they are unable to use it if the soul is outside the Gem/Seed it works just as well.
It's also possible that while the soul is "properly" attached to the body, the magic is locked up and they just can't access any of it whether or not they have it. And that Kyubey "unlocks" access to it when he compresses the soul in the Soul Gem.
If they are unable to use it if the soul is outside the Gem/Seed it works just as well.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
Well
I think that magic is partly the manifestation of suffering the Guca feels during the forceful separation of her body and soul
And the Potential, mechanically, might mean the capacity to suffer and inflict suffering
Normally, ingested Grief causes some horrific damage to human body, but what it does to a Soul Gem is on another level altogether
That's my interpretation of the source material tho, since I vocally disapprove of calling the bullshit that happens in the anime "The Balance of Hope and Despair".
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
I'm... really not a fan of the proposed vote plans. Here's my take.
[X] ... You don't like keeping secrets, but you don't know Madoka that well. You'll defer to their judgement and do it their way.
-[X] As for Iowa, you'll try to gather more information before committing to any plan. After how Rionna went, you'd like more details before assuming the general hearsay about someone's accurate. You're hoping the American IRC group you're in touch with might have some insights.
--[X] Say bye to your friends.
[X] Head home.
-[X] You told #nyantokanyaru you'd be in touch around 1 PM - follow through.
--[X] Be gentle, they seem skittish. Try to reassure them that you don't mean any harm, offer references with the University Group, Ishinomaki. Mention your offer to Tokyo.
---[X] Ask if they'd like you to visit. You're free next week, and if it's scheduled for the afternoon Mami Tomoe can come with you. (Hopefully Mami's reputation as a do-gooder can help you get a foot in the door.)
[X] While on IRC, confirm meeting times today with:
-[X] The Shiogama Refugees. (To check their mental health, warn about the Soujus, and check their witchbomb status).
-[X] Oriko and Kirika. (To check on Oriko's soul, and update them about Tokyo Politics and the Iowa situation).
[X] Contact the Animators, let them know about the Soujus.
[X] ... You don't like keeping secrets, but you don't know Madoka that well. You'll defer to their judgement and do it their way.
-[X] As for Iowa, you'll try to gather more information before committing to any plan. After how Rionna went, you'd like more details before assuming the general hearsay about someone's accurate. You're hoping the American IRC group you're in touch with might have some insights.
--[X] Say bye to your friends.
[X] Head home.
-[X] You told #nyantokanyaru you'd be in touch around 1 PM - follow through.
--[X] Be gentle, they seem skittish. Try to reassure them that you don't mean any harm, offer references with the University Group, Ishinomaki. Mention your offer to Tokyo.
---[X] Ask if they'd like you to visit. You're free next week, and if it's scheduled for the afternoon Mami Tomoe can come with you. (Hopefully Mami's reputation as a do-gooder can help you get a foot in the door.)
[X] While on IRC, confirm meeting times today with:
-[X] The Shiogama Refugees. (To check their mental health, warn about the Soujus, and check their witchbomb status).
-[X] Oriko and Kirika. (To check on Oriko's soul, and update them about Tokyo Politics and the Iowa situation).
[X] Contact the Animators, let them know about the Soujus.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And I don't think they've met Sayaka yet.
Madoka has her usual potential:
And Oriko referred to the actual potentialbomb:
And that's just not that bad. We're not going to get into a situation where our choice is a Madowish or witching. We can cleanse ourself, other people can cleanse us, and in the worst case our Soul Gem can be destroyed. Kyuubey's just not going to be able to paint Dedolere as inevitable.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
That actually implies that either True Grief Cleansing is a drop in the eternally vast bucket that is Madoka's Potential, which is probably correct
Or that Sabrina is "sharing" the Potential with Madoka, which is what makes it weird to Kyubey
I mean
Madoka is tied with karmic strings of fate with other Madokas or some such nonsense
But it doesn't prevent her from tying someone else to her
On the opposite
She seems to have done exactly that in the end of the series with every dead Meguca, ever
*Sabrina is secretly French intensifies*
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
on hon hon, je suis une baguette
- Location
- Laniakea
If Homura was in any sort of a rational, logical mindset when it happened, she would realize Kyubey's Potentialbomb means nothing whatsoever since as everyone knows, Kyubey would've contracted Madoka whatever her karmic potential was.
The fact that Homura's going to despair when told about it anyway means one of two things (or both): that she won't be thinking rationally at the time or that the Potentialbomb involves something worse than what we know about. And if Homura isn't thinking rationally when it happens, it would be plenty possible for Kyubey to paint Dedolere as not just a possibility for her, but a probability.
Because I need to point out that it isn't, in fact, completely impossible for Sabrina to Witch out. The main antagonist of the Suzune Magica manga (who doesn't currently exist yet in this quest since Tsubaki Mikoto is still alive) turned herself into a Witch on purpose via hacking her own brain and delivering so many traumatic sensations into herself that her Soul Gem instantly overflowed with Grief.
Sabrina has been shown to be just as vulnerable to mental intrusion. If there's anyone with that kind of emotion/mind manipulation power, it would be possible for them to turn Sabrina into a Witch by mindraping her strongly and quickly enough.
And I can tell you right now, there's at least one person currently in the quest who has shown the capability to induce sensations of trauma in a Magical Girl on touch - Kyubey himself. He did it to Sayaka when explaining the Lichbomb to her in canon.
I admit having missed Firn's affirmation about Madoka's potential - but Madoka still having her usual potential makes it even more suspicious that Kyubey doesn't seem to have been showing up very much to go after her and it still doesn't preclude Sabrina being so powerful, the only person who could stop her Witch would be Madoka.
I don't suppose there any chance you'd share your misgivings? I'd like to be able to improve on any future plans I come up with.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
Ceci n'est pas une baguette
AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
Considering that Sabrina's potential doesn't match her Soul Gem capacity, and her soul gives Sayaka a 404 error, the answer is probably something more like...
Our potential is being directly loaned from Madokami herself.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
Well, first and foremost I think that 2000 words is way, waaay too long for a vote.
Beyond that, your vote goes into a ton of detail explaining an intricate plan of action that is questionably necessary and is based on a few suppositions that are either entirely unverified or actively untrue. It relies on taking one of Kazumi's friends, who is already in a precarious mental state from the Hijiri revelations, and basically locking her up away from her support group to do research for us.
It also inherits a bunch of issues I have with Kaizuki's vote, which basically boil down to "I don't think that contrafactual thought experiment will actually improve Homura's mental state".
