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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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jmcdavid said:
-[X] Telepathy "If Iowa revealed any sensitive truths about being a Meguca, think you can keep them to yourself for now? Not everyone in our group is aware of certain facts right now."
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This is in timestop, so telepathy is unavailable, and it's going to slightly suspicious if we try to pull them aside away from everybody else.

We can try to talk to them away from unbombed members of our group with the excuse of dealing with trauma but I'm not sure how well that would work
 
So. I have a question for everyone.

I can guess that we will go mainly for gemming the group, once we're there. Will try diplomacy, raiding is bad and you should feel bad, we give you Clear Seeds if you f**k off into a more civ life, and so on and so fort, and when that fails we gem-grab them, using our Grief to block all attacks, fighting alongside our allies. But. I do have to ask...

If Iowa somehow manages to damage someone in our group... Do we give them the Moe Treatment? Because my brain starts screaming something about blood, and skulls, and thrones when I think about that possibility.
 
I'm going to be honest, my increasing feeling is that if Iowa wanted mercy or diplomacy, they should have offered mercy and diplomacy to all the people they've fucking murdered and witched.

E: Like, okay, look. The average meguca kind of at minimum tries to not be a complete murdering jackass. Iowa clearly has decided that it is their business to be complete murdering jackasses. That says a lot about the difference in mentality. A lot a lot. Enough that I think they pretty well fail by default my standing litmus test of "If offered the option of ceasing harm in exchange for a shot at a future where they don't have to harm, would take it." And my rule is that anybody failing that test goes down.
 
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Kaizuki said:
I'm going to be honest, my increasing feeling is that if Iowa wanted mercy or diplomacy, they should have offered mercy and diplomacy to all the people they've fucking murdered and witched.
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Yeah. Though so.

It's just- When I think of them, I inmediately think of Syndrome.

"Too late! *amount of years it's been working* Too Late"

I'm an incredibly vindictive person, and I feel that being encarceled is too little for them.

As for the Soujos...

They die. No funny comment or anything. The first step to being helped is accepting that help, and those maniacs will first try to flashcook us than accept anything.
They don't even deserve to suffer. Just a sabot of Grief straight throught the Soul Gem, and we dispose of them. No unnecesary suffering, no time to process it and be scared. That's the maximum I'm willing to give them.

Edit: Redshirt i saw that big F in the chat
Edit2: giv link plz
 
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I'm not even gonna lie, somebody said something that shook my belief that we couldn't, like, lose Mami or Sayaka here, and I just ain't going to be seeing that happen in this quest, thanks.
 
Kaizuki said:
I'm not even gonna lie, somebody said something that shook my belief that we couldn't, like, lose Mami or Sayaka here, and I just ain't going to be seeing that happen in this quest, thanks.
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I can, and I will, drink to that. Mercy is for the people that deserver it. 'sides, I don't think nobody will begrudge us if we fall like a ton-o-bricks over Iowa.
If they didn't want that, they shouldn't have started raiding, and killing people.
 
Also, uh. Btw, turns out we are actually pseudo-tied for the vote atm... What I mean to say is, the tally reads 7-7, but there's, like, a guy who voted "Kazuki" or something and then a bunch of other random one-line differences and shit.

We really should not be running the abeyance, that shit is not good. Can we get a couple more votes in here?
 
[X] Express that you're worried:
-[X] Some part of you is pretty sure that you won't just get to wipe Iowa out from timestop.
-[X] You are, in fact, actually new to being a magical girl and aren't certain how to evaluate the risks involved in fighting Iowa, who you know so little about specifically, at various levels of preparation.
--[X] You want these people crushed. They smell like a legitimate threat to everything you know and love, and for all that you make a rule of trying to see all Magical Girls as victims first, you really haven't found a lot of sympathy in yourself for Iowa. If they weren't almost assuredly in a population center, you actually might consider throwing some terrajoules at them from orbit. Heck, you are considering doing that, just intentionally missing and using the whole thing as a distraction -- a nice, thousand-ton chunk of rock doing mach fifty-six turns out to be incredibly hard to ignore. As-is? You've been going over exactly what it means for you to stop sandbagging as a team for this. Repeatedly. In different variations. Enchanted grief and infinite magic present a lot of options, and which specific ones to go with is something to talk about once you've got everyone rounded up. And if you have to escalate, you will, because these people are going to be trying to kill you.
--[X] But you'd expected to do a lot more intel-gathering on Iowa before fighting them, and part of you is saying that you could just... take an orbital flight path in timestop at 20-Gs to the last place Iowa is known to have been, find someone to ask about their capabilities. If anybody has a notion of how to find Magical Girls in a city without leaving timestop for more than a tiny bit at most, that might be a really good idea. And if we could come up with a way to let Oriko or Sayaka scry Iowa's specific location, outside whatever interdiction they have, from timestop here in Japan, maybe that would be smart too. Otherwise it's plan A: get everyone, do planning, sit down at maximum scrying range, look at where Iowa is, do more planning, then attack them.
[X] Listen to your friends. If anybody comes up with a clear idea of how to find someone who has previously fought Iowa, or it proves viable to scry Iowa's specific location from Japan, just do those things without breaking to voting.

There we go.
 
SRLYWHYTHO said:
So. I have a question for everyone.

I can guess that we will go mainly for gemming the group, once we're there. Will try diplomacy, raiding is bad and you should feel bad, we give you Clear Seeds if you f**k off into a more civ life, and so on and so fort, and when that fails we gem-grab them, using our Grief to block all attacks, fighting alongside our allies. But. I do have to ask...

If Iowa somehow manages to damage someone in our group... Do we give them the Moe Treatment? Because my brain starts screaming something about blood, and skulls, and thrones when I think about that possibility.
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Actually, I'm in favor of going in guns blazing, then giving them the diplomacy speech and clear seed offers while we're reattaching their severed limbs. We're also avoiding gemming because much of our coalition hasn't been lichbombed.

Part of the problem with our previous diplomacy efforts is that we come off as naeve and weak. People don't really grasp that we're being kind because we are powerful enough that we can afford to be kind. And that misunderstanding got a couple people killed in the collateral damage when the opposition thought they could out-escalate us. This time, I want to be absolutely crystal clear by utterly crushing Iowa before we bother trying to tell them how naughty they've been.
SRLYWHYTHO said:
Yeah. Though so.

It's just- When I think of them, I inmediately think of Syndrome.

"Too late! *amount of years it's been working* Too Late"

I'm an incredibly vindictive person, and I feel that being encarceled is too little for them.

As for the Soujos...

They die. No funny comment or anything. The first step to being helped is accepting that help, and those maniacs will first try to flashcook us than accept anything.
They don't even deserve to suffer. Just a sabot of Grief straight throught the Soul Gem, and we dispose of them. No unnecesary suffering, no time to process it and be scared. That's the maximum I'm willing to give them.

Edit: Redshirt i saw that big F in the chat
Edit2: giv link plz
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We've actively avoided destroying Soul Gems and are likely to continue to do so. When it's possible to disconnect someone and just leave them disconnected until such a time as we've got a proper justice system up and running, permanent solutions like that lose a lot of their appeal. It might be possible to give the Soujos sufficient punishment and therapy that they'll eventually become fit to rejoin society, and since magical girls are effectively immortal, we can take a wait and see approach.

I'll own up to the fact that I'm a pretty vindictive person too, but I also recognize that Sabrina has never deliberately taken a life before, and that's a pretty big deal for her. It isn't so much about what the other party deserves as it's about Sabrina continuing to try and be Superman in the face of the grimdark world she's living in.
 
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Nerevar said:
Actually, I'm in favor of going in guns blazing, then giving them the diplomacy speech and clear seed offers while we're reattaching their severed limbs.

Part of the problem with our previous diplomacy efforts is that we come off as naeve and weak. People don't really grasp that we're being kind because we are powerful enough that we can afford to be kind. And that misunderstanding got a couple people killed in the collateral damage when the opposition thought they could out-escalate us. This time, I want to be absolutely crystal clear by utterly crushing Iowa before we bother trying to tell them how naughty they've been.

We've actively avoided destroying Soul Gems and are likely to continue to do so. When it's possible to disconnect someone and just leave them disconnected until such a time as we've got a proper justice system up and running, permanent solutions like that lose a lot of their appeal. It might be possible to give the Soujos sufficient punishment and therapy that they'll eventually become fit to rejoin society, and since magical girls are effectively immortal, we can take a wait and see approach.

I'll own up to the fact that I'm a pretty vindictive person too, but I also recognize that Sabrina has never deliberately taken a life before, and that's a pretty big deal for her. It isn't so much about what the other party deserves as it's about Sabrina continuing to try and be Superman in the face of the grimdark world she's living in.
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I absolutelly agree on the Iowa point. It's basically the only way I can see that encounter not ending up with unnecesary deaths (bar the bystanders because i have a feeling they won't give a damn about collateral)

Not to undermine you, or anything, but from my point of view, leaving them as a Gem is going to end up being something almost permanent, which to me comes as more cruel than killing them. 'sides, every person needs a reason for redemption.

Miss. I'm-a-bad-game-antagonist is in the right path towards redemption because we stopped her, and we're working towards something she desires, therefore helping us is beneficial for her. Even if i have my doubts that story is going to have a happy ending.
And Soul-guca was gemmed because she has a (possibly justified) murderous grudge towards all Grief-benders. So she's going to stay a gem until we can actually Sabrinaplomacy her into not attacking us, and we'll see from that point onwards.

The Soujos? Chances are, they know perfectly well how Soul Gem and Grief works, and they still see them as a pretty souvenir. They're mentally damaged, either because of their Wish, or because they went through a lot of shit, but at this point, they're basically rabid and will end up as a dangerous almost no matter what.
I don't have any problem with Gemming them and trying to get them help, i just don't believe it'll be possible to help them. After all, they're councious of what they're doing, wich to me speaks of a broken mind that tried to fix itself and ended up borked. If we Gem them, there's a good chance they'll stay like that, and I don't like that.

I feel like killing them is almost a mercy, for them, and for everyone. They'll disagree, but to that I can only say "Too bad."

My point is basically, they'll end up being permantly gemmed, which is basically a single level over dead.
 
The issue is that permanent means something different when you're looking at a timescale with the knowledge that magical girls are effectively immortal.

We've existed for less than a month at this point, but we've got ambitions for radically transforming magical girl society. When those transformations kick in, we'll be able to provide things like actual therapists, jails, juries. The sort of things that will mean we won't have to decide in the heat of the moment whether someone is too dangerous to be left alive.

We're holding those gems in keeping for the day that we have those resources. Yeah, it's likely to be a while, but from the prospective of the disconnected girls, no time will have passed. Assuming we don't grab one who's learned the trick of staying conscious and functioning as a gem.
 
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Nerevar said:
The issue is that permanent means something different when you're looking at a timescale with the knowledge that magical girls are effectively immortal. We've existed for less than a month at this point, but we've got ambitions for radically transforming magical girl society. When those transformations kick in, we'll be able to provide things like actual therapists, jails, juries. The sort of things that will mean we won't have to decide in the heat of the moment whether someone is too dangerous to be left alive. We're holding those gems in keeping for the day that we have those resources. Yeah, it's likely to be a while, but from the prospective of the disconnected girls, no time will have passed. Assuming we don't grab one who's learned the trick of staying consious and functioning as a gem.
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The problem with that, is that the psyche of the Soujos is comparable to a Laticello (that pretty colored glass in a church's window. looks like is a single piece, but is actually a lot of fragments of colored glass that make a picture) That can't be fixed, because from a certain point of view, it's not broken. That's how they are, in the same way we can't fix Ono for the simple fact she only thinks she needs help with the Meguca stuff.
At that point, if we gem them, they'll end up being just a rock decorating our home, because every single time we try to help her, they go "gimme yur gem plx"
Even if we manage to turn her into Kirika 0.5, we'll have to keep watch almost constantly over her to make sure she doesn't go back to "shiny rock collector" mode again. That makes the "inmortal" part of the meguca package look pretty awful.

There's nothing to discuss, really. Is basically what I believe. And there's a good chance i won't be changing that anytime soon.
 
Right, so the fight hit me in a really bad place and I've been a bit of a wreck because of it, let alone in any state to work on votecrafting, but I'll see if I can't lay out my thoughts on the broad order of operations.
  • Pre-Fukushima and Pre-Asunaro: Intelligence gathering, such as can be done, preparatory odds and ends. Those who don't have anything to add to those should focus on figuring out how work together, as per @Godwinson.

  • Post-Asunaro meetup: Getting on the same page, relaying information, forming a cohesive strategy, and focused efforts to work together well. If we feel our intelligence is insufficient, this is where the decision to head to Thiruvananthapuram should be made.

  • Optional: Reaching Thiruvananthapuram: Bring locals into timestop (carefully,) offer cleansing & partially cleared seeds, then ask if they're willing to talk. Get intel from them. Revise plans accordingly.

  • Reaching Myanmar & Iowa: Final scouting/final revisions.
 
The Phoenixian said:
Pre-Fukushima and Pre-Asunaro: Intelligence gathering, such as can be done, preparatory odds and ends. Those who don't have anything to add to those should focus on figuring out how work together, as per @Godwinson.
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What does this actually mean, because I haven't come up with anything that fits that. The rest of this pretty much yeah.

Like, if you thought any of what you just laid out except that bit I quoted was something I didn't see us doing then I was communicating something incorrectly.
 
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For what it's worth, while I agree with rendering Iowa into a geological exhibit before negotiating, Sabrina is no executioner. It's one thing to use HM06 in self defence or by accident. It's another entirely to cold bloodedly decide another being doesn't deserve to exist. Not to mention it raises all sorts of issues with our whole attempt to build a new world order. We're trying to be better than the pseudo-feudal society that exists amongst magical girls at the moment. We've already got one on ice indefinitely, it's better to add to our paperweight collection than to damage our psyche, even with those broken beyond repair. That's just my opinion though.
 
SRLYWHYTHO said:
So. I have a question for everyone.

I can guess that we will go mainly for gemming the group, once we're there. Will try diplomacy, raiding is bad and you should feel bad, we give you Clear Seeds if you f**k off into a more civ life, and so on and so fort, and when that fails we gem-grab them, using our Grief to block all attacks, fighting alongside our allies. But. I do have to ask...

If Iowa somehow manages to damage someone in our group... Do we give them the Moe Treatment? Because my brain starts screaming something about blood, and skulls, and thrones when I think about that possibility.
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Because I think this needs to be made very clear...

Simply: No.

Brutality is not the answer and, if your brain is screaming when you think of a certain course, then following it is simply satisfying the desire for cruelty instead of actually solving problems. Even if no one dies from employing that brutality. This is a fight, and we are the aggressor. No matter how good our reasons are, it would strike me as disingenuous --- to ourselves and what we stand for, if nothing else --- to act in revenge for a conflict we started. Yes, even if we're arguably just doing unto them first before they did unto us, we were planning this fight well before they spooked us.

I disagree with the assumption that we'll "mainly go for gemming" too. If we do not specifically need to gem them, then we shouldn't. And we have ways of making it so that we do not need to gem them; That's why we asked for Kirika's help here. Those methods will either work or they won't. Just as much as gemming itself will either work or it won't.

Lastly, on the subject of Moe, I'll note we have her and her teammates here with us and so I very much doubt acting now as we did then would do us favors towards that relationship.
Kaizuki said:
What does this actually mean, because I haven't come up with anything that fits that. The rest of this pretty much yeah.

Like, if you thought any of what you just laid out except that bit I quoted was something I didn't see us doing then I was communicating something incorrectly.
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Before now I'd point to the first bit as well, basically the vote in abeyance. Maybe with some changes if I'd been in the mental state to write them. To the latter sections, my position has probably moved as I've been away. I'm just... too damn overwhelmed, even now, to go over it all and the vote itself, and it's probably too late besides.

I thought I was better after some time away, but talking in this thread has made it quite clear that I still can't fully trust myself to work calmly instead of dissolving into an emotional, spiteful mess.
 
Ugh, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to delay the update again. Slept horribly, been barely functional today as far as productivity goes. Doesn't help that I'd misinterpreted the vote and needed to rewrite most of it (but then again, the part I removed will be going into the next update instead, so hey).
 
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The Phoenixian said:
it would strike me as disingenuous --- to ourselves and what we stand for, if nothing else --- to act in revenge for a conflict we started.
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Forgive me for saying so but 'conflict we started' my ass. They were the ones who started raiding, looting, and perpetuating cruelties long before we so much as existed.

They started this when they choose to become a threat in the first place, we're just finishing it, one way or another.
 
Kaizuki said:
We can win this fight without gemshattering anyone. Bodykills, though -- that's my big question.
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Oh we can definitely do bodykills. We just have to use appropriate inspiration while they're being patched up...



A little difficult if we're dealing with a severed head maybe, but yeah, barring chunky salsa or egregious levels of dismemberment, we can probably sell that they were only mostly dead. Or at least, well enough that we can delay any resulting lich-bombings to a time when we're not hilariously under the pump and can do it with appropriate care and support.
 
Spectral Waltz said:
Forgive me for saying so but 'conflict we started' my ass. They were the ones who started raiding, looting, and perpetuating cruelties long before we so much as existed.

They started this when they choose to become a threat in the first place, we're just finishing it, one way or another.
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And if it weren't for our ideals, if we were a worse person, we could easily have made a show of force to make them think twice or maybe even bribed them, depending on their exact character. We made the choice to fight because we thought it was the right thing to do, because we thought it was just, because it was part of how we wanted to change the world, but that does not mean it was not our choice.

And hearing this argument, I think I need to say: Downplaying our part in this, our decision to go out and enact change, doesn't make it more righteous and accepting it doesn't make it less so. Being the one to go out and Act here doesn't make us the villain and we shouldn't justify our actions by saying that we were only reacting to a broken world.
 
The Phoenixian said:
We made the choice to fight because we thought it was the right thing to do, because we thought it was just, because it was part of how we wanted to change the world, but that does not mean it was not our choice.
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We made the choice to fight them in southeast Asia instead of Mitakihara. That's not quite the same thing as, say, Sendai, where we genuinely didn't have any skin in the game until we stuck our nose in it.
 
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