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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Hmm, could what she wants be to strengthen her karmic connections?
Magical strength in this setting is at least partially based on one's karmic connections, the more power to influence things you would have had via your connections and person power as a muggle the more power you have as a magical girl.
But magical girls are frozen in a snapshot of what would have been at the moment of contract. But what if she isn't?
And we're planning and able to change the world so we're a big karma target (something that maybe helped Sayaka?). Maybe by gaining some measure of power and control or just influence over us or connection to us she also enhances her magical abilities?

Officially joining her group would have, of course, given her the biggest power boost at all. But really anything that forms a long term connection with us, getting us to regularly consult her or whatever rather than just making a one time deal and then leaving, could boost her significantly.
 
Frankly, I think memory manipulation magic is a violation of human rights and decency not to be accepted for any reason whatsoever, and if it does turn it they've been using that to maintain control I will push from immediate removal from power.

It is a crime equivalent to -if not worse than- rape. Full stop. No exceptions
 
Iowa is a hard one, ethically speaking, because while their actions were deplorable and our response justified, there's not actually an authority we're operating on other than "because we can." Which sets a bad precedent.

You could argue that they were violating the spirit and letter of widely accepted international law, and that we merely took action to correct an injustice the countries involved weren't equipped to even notice, saving real human lives that were at risk at that very moment, because no one else could.

Oh, but even if we decide on politics and the source of authority and how to ethically detain pirates in our secret basement and stuff, other magical girls might very well outvote us. We can try to provide a more appealing alternative than, oh, rule by the authority of an empress, and in that specific example we can probably deliver, but this is 2011 Japan, and we're dealing with teenagers. Different life experiences (I mean, probably. I don't know what y'all do in your free time), different mores, different ideas, different global circumstances. We can agree to whatever anarchist utopia we want but that doesn't mean everyone else won't set up a, freaking, Post-Classical Bonapartist Oligarchy on the Pyrite Standard or something (sue me I wasn't paying attention to most of 2011, and especially not the underground witch-fighting Japanese youth counterculture scene).
 
Angrygenius said:
Oh my god. I'm not alone.
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People took that into an Among Us direction, but my first thought was--

Believe me-- no one is alone!
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Into the Woods production with the Madoka cast? I'm super unsure about the casting. I almost feel we have to do it backwards, going by -- like, we can't give Madoka _or_ Mami a role where she dies, because come on. I kind of want to have one of Madoka, Mami or Sabrina sing No One Is Alone at the end- but Sabrina really needs to be the Witch, for the joke as well as "I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right" is such a Sabrina mood (though we try otherwise.) Kyouko is Little Red, of course, that one barely needs consideration. The all-female cast leaves a funny note around the Baker and her Wife, since why exactly is the witch cursing them so they can't have kids? Just for fun, leave that one completely unremarked, like "of course" the only reason two girls can't have child is because of an evil curse. I'd say Baker is Homura, because No More is such a Homu energy, but as said there's no way we can kill Madoka. Maybe we can rope in Madoka's mom?
 
Spectral Waltz said:
Frankly, I think memory manipulation magic is a violation of human rights and decency not to be accepted for any reason whatsoever, and if it does turn it they've been using that to maintain control I will push from immediate removal from power.

It is a crime equivalent to -if not worse than- rape. Full stop. No exceptions
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Uuuugh. I don't like delving into morality debates but we are talking about the witch bomb. You know the thing that 9 times out of 10 eventually causes you to go off the deep end if you're not remotely prepared for it and not only put yourself in great danger of self destructing in the worst way, dying and being condemned to suffer for pretty much eternity, but also causing the people around you to be put in just as much risk of something horrific happening to them.

If you're put in that kind of situation and you have very little time to stop it, then I'm sorry, memory manipulation to prevent that kind of thing from happening is reasonable.
 
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Spectral Waltz said:
Frankly, I think memory manipulation magic is a violation of human rights and decency not to be accepted for any reason whatsoever, and if it does turn it they've been using that to maintain control I will push from immediate removal from power.

It is a crime equivalent to -if not worse than- rape. Full stop. No exceptions
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Your repeatedly-stated position is extremely absolute, well beyond the point of being useful, in a way that's disconcertingly similar to the discourse that Sereg used to kick up, and all the flame-wars that resulted from that. I'm sorry if this topic is one that you have serious issues with, but the way that you seem to be willfully blind to the way your protests and arguments might affect others, with you quite blithely throwing unwanted thoughts into their brains, has left me with remarkably little sympathy for you indeed. You claim, in your words, that "there is no such thing as a valid justification for [memory modification]", and that it is as bad as, or worse than, rape. By that logic, making someone remember a pink elephant instead of a blue one is as bad as rape, correct? This is an utter trivialization of the matter, and I don't appreciate it. Beyond that, there is a massive difference between suppressing a memory in order to save someone from eternal torment, and brutalizing and violating another for your amusement, and your professed inability to distinguish between the two says far less about the severity of the crime you're railing against than it does about your disregard for the topic you have chosen for your point of comparison.
 
Muramasa said:
Uuuugh. I don't like delving into morality debates but we are talking about the witch bomb. You know the thing that 9 times out of 10 eventually causes you to go off the deep end if you're not remotely prepared for it and not only put yourself in great danger of self destructing in the worst way, dying and being condemned to suffer for pretty much eternity, but also causing the people around you to be put in just as much risk of something horrific happening to them.

If you're put in that kind of situation and you have very little time to stop it, then I'm sorry, memory manipulation to prevent that kind of thing from happening is reasonable.
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Godwinson said:
Your repeatedly-stated position is extremely absolute, well beyond the point of being useful, in a way that's disconcertingly similar to the discourse that Sereg used to kick up, and all the flame-wars that resulted from that. I'm sorry if this topic is one that you have serious issues with, but the way that you seem to be willfully blind to the way your protests and arguments might affect others, with you quite blithely throwing unwanted thoughts into their brains, has left me with remarkably little sympathy for you indeed. You claim, in your words, that "there is no such thing as a valid justification for [memory modification]", and that it is as bad as, or worse than, rape. By that logic, making someone remember a pink elephant instead of a blue one is as bad as rape, correct? This is an utter trivialization of the matter, and I don't appreciate it. Beyond that, there is a massive difference between suppressing a memory in order to save someone from eternal torment, and brutalizing and violating another for your amusement, and your professed inability to distinguish between the two says far less about the severity of the crime you're railing against than it does about your disregard for the topic you have chosen for your point of comparison.
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Imminently witching out with no survivable alternatives is a bit of an outlier as far as scenarios go since in most cases there are other ways to resolve that. I suppose making such absolute statements was a bit hypocritical of me all things considered.

If memory manipulation was the only way to prevent a witch out I'd accept it, but using it for expediency when expediency would make no difference to survival would still be criminal. And I would see it as a temporary solution only, a means of preventing immediate crisis so that the information can be revealed more carefully and in better circumstances.

Thus, I can accept that it might not be completely horrifying in short term limited use, but maintaining long term memory blocks for no other reason than it being easier to block the memories in perpetuity than to ease people into that knowledge and help them stay stable is still sickening to me.

I know you meant to suggest that some violations are too minor to matter with your suggestions of petty changes but frankly violation is violation, no matter how small or large. A minor change may be less vile, but it is still vile in the end.

I find the idea of someone reaching into my mind and modifying it in basically any way to be viscerally horrifying. To the point that you could probably call it a phobia. Even if all they changed was something insignificant, the very fact that they were capable of that would be grounds to end that relationship immediately and stay as far away from that person as possible for the rest of my life. This entire notion fucks me up on a very primal fear level.

I suppose that doesn't excuse my outburst, so I am sorry, but just... Yeurgh.
 
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a large part of being a good person is having the power to be able to make good choices. this is a privilege our OC was afforded by being given enough potential to make a game breaking wish that actually worked...

its also a big reason i read stories like this, to escape into the fantasy of having the power to make the world better. i really like roleplay games because they allow for you to make perfect choices, to keep trying until the outcome is as ideal as the system permits, to be triumphant. we live in a society (tm) where agency is in short supply.

toshimi or whatever her name is is strong (in the japanese sense) but sabrina is magnitudes stronger and can thus afford to behave closer to her ideal play. we are all just apes. we do have freewill, but we also have a cocktail of pressures influencing our descision making. some of those forces are real strong.

sorry for going off on a big tangent, but as an adhd, asd, person with cptsd anxiety and depression, trapped in a bad situation, agency is a very important topic to me. we are responsible for our actions, but some of us are deslt very difficult cards...
 
I mean if I could pay someone to sandblast some bad memories from my brain I'd love to do that.

Mind manipulation powers don't even have to be bad.

Edit: heck I'd pay a subscription for someone to make me clean house.
 
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JIMI94 said:
I mean if I could pay someone to sandblast some bad memories from my brain I'd love to do that.

Mind manipulation powers don't even have to be bad.

Edit: heck I'd pay a subscription for someone to make me clean house.
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Mental Manipulation and Social Skills fall under the same umbrella for me: It's all Power in the end.
 
Aranfan said:
if that were true, then it wouldn't be the poor who give the biggest tips at resturants.

Like, there have been studies. Power turns off empathy.
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the studies on this arent binary, as there is a sliding scare of economic strength, its like how infinite money doesnt net u infinite happiness, but there is a living comfortably/ in dignity threshold where if u dont yet meet it, more money will give u more happiness. our system rewards cruelty with power, and the keys to further power are locked away from kind people. that is very much by design, even if that design is purely immergent. some human ideas are organisms unto themselves, ones that face adaptive pressures that favour self perpetuation.

kindness in the face of adversity is however a evolutionary survival strat we have developed and its pretty based if you ask me. nothing to lose but your chains is baked into our neuro-biology and its beautiful

JIMI94 said:
I mean if I could pay someone to sandblast some bad memories from my brain I'd love to do that.

Mind manipulation powers don't even have to be bad.

Edit: heck I'd pay a subscription for someone to make me clean house.
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consent though innit, i do understand how memory manipulation can be deeply disturbing just in principle alone, because its not the content of what you do, its thr vulnerablity, its what you could do, and thats anything. all that said, if i were sabrina, memory manipulation by itsself wouldnt be enough to make me go defcon. there are things that would but that, though deeply disturbing, is something i could forgive.

Unaligned Player said:
Mental Manipulation and Social Skills fall under the same umbrella for me: It's all Power in the end.
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if you understand someone well enough, you dont need special powers to manipulate them 👀.

manipulation is always bad, but something being bad doesnt mean that one cant find reasons to justify it. inthoery those could be good reasons even. ew philosophy. i dont like doing highly abstraxt and ideal theory stuff, much prefer more grounded and material things, easier to stay consistent

so id read something recently about how willpower is just having your needs met/ being in good health and i guess it stuck with me. i will eat the multipost warning.
 
prof_Chemical said:
manipulation is always bad
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I've always found this a weird sentiment in anybody that doesn't like the current state of affairs, whatever that may be. Changing things, changing people, no matter the method or how you dress it up is manipulation plain and simple. To say that change is Immoral has always confused me. Every action anyone takes, no matter how isolated or unintentional changes things, changes someone no matter how slight. You affect someone and something.
 
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I think the point is that memory manipulation is like magical gaslighting.

Edit: if used without consent for hostile purpose
 
And shooting someone with a gun changes their mind into slurry.

Yes, it is a violation, but to take something less serious than murder and pretend there are no situations it applies is a strange sentiment in my eyes.

JOJOBRN said:
If there are no new exciting problems to come once the other groups arrive, putting a clear seed into a building seems like a good enough solution if properly managed.
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If. If is bad.

Godwinson said:
There is no "right to rule" -- it is only ever seized and maintained by force or threat of force, regardless of how many intermediate layers of obfuscating bullshit you put in the way. After all, it's telling how it's control over scarcity of grief seeds that's supported Toshimichi's power in the first place, and threat of death from privation is one of the broadly accepted methods of force for the maintenance of a society in modernity. Rule is in and of itself a fundamentally unjust concept that humanity has been slowly and painfully trying to rid itself of for the past three centuries, only to fail at each turn due to expediency and the allure of personal power.
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Would you prefer anarchy?

That is an honest question, I have no idea how else you would think to dispense with the concept of authority entirely.

As for this case, we are in really no position to judge when, despite our hilarious over the top resources, we have already imprisoned people.

Now, if she has done so through questionable means not justified by the situation...

Caliburn0 said:
Those are the only real options I can think of, please contribute if you know another possible solution
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You forgot the "is bluffing and has no idea, but wants us in a false sense of security" option, also it is unlikely.

Angrygenius said:
Kyuubi kinda sus ngl
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No I saw genius vent don't trust him!

prof_Chemical said:
so id read something recently about how willpower is just having your needs met/ being in good health and i guess it stuck with me. i will eat the multipost warning.
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Why not just edit them?
 
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Burned_Cookie said:
Would you prefer anarchy?
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Yes?

Anarchism is a perfectly valid basis to build a society on - especially a society that is already primarily composed of small groups who stick together through voluntary association.

In a lot of ways well-meaning anarchy with mutual agreements would be a simpler system to implement in the magical girl world (which is currently in a lawless and self-devouring state of predation) than trying to impose a strict hierarchy.

Note also that Constellations response to the Iowa Group (isolating them from the community, with the intent to provide assistance to help them rehabilitate, with the goal of peace, not vengeance) is entirely in line with anarchist writings on the topic of violent crime.
 
Firnagzen said:
Random fact: I had this one planned wayyyyy in advance, and if you hadn't gone all in on Iowa, they'd have shown up over Mitakihara practicing exactly that. With their, y'know, gunboat. :V
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I literally can't imagine just how horribly badly that would have gone for them.

As much as Sabrina is inclined towards mercy and minimal force, when there is literal magical battleship run by serial killers floating right above Mitakihara and threatening to fuck with you and your loved ones in the worst ways possible, well...

Homura would, PTSD absolutely flaring and there being absolutely nothing Sabrina could do to alleviate that (what with the battleship floating right there), beg Sabrina to go all out and eliminate the threat in its totality, as swiftly and absolutely as possible. And Sabrina would probably be too inclined to agree with that sentiment to put up a serious effort to persuade Homura otherwise (not that a serious effort would be effective).

And then...well, the Iowa Group would find out in visceral fashion that the awesome power of a magical battleship has nothing on the awesome power of a 100-meter-in-diameter sphere of razor-sharp Grief blades churning like a non-euclidian chainsaw and the fury of a demigoddess simply mulching everything in its path. Stealth can only go so far when you can't even get within 50 meters of your opponent without instantly being turned into a fine red mist, soul gem included. Trying to shoot into that ball of annihilation would simply result in the shot being deflected and absorbed by the maelstrom of grief blades.

It's important to keep in mind that Sabrina's power does not merely lie in her fine control or multitasking capability. Her telekinesis (so to speak) with Grief is strong, and it seems to be able to scale with magic expenditure. And since she can continuously cleanse her own Soul Gem without effort, that means that, when sufficiently motivated and determined, she can probably exert an absolutely terrifying amount of force just through the telekinesis of the Grief alone. We actually saw this in action when we took down the Iowa Group--Sabrina was just casually tearing the battleship apart in a variety of ways, constantly, without much effort, limited far more by her maximum control radius than anything else.

Sabrina turning into a 100-meter flying ball of annihilation-by-instant-evisceration would be a terrifying thing to see.
 
Guys, the whole talk about "right to rule" and "legitimacy" and "authority" is putting the cart ahead of the horse. By about a mile.

We are literally in our first meeting with the Tokyo...group? Confederacy? Whatever. We don't even have a preliminary picture of what the situation seems to be. And, frankly, even the people in charge that we've just talked to have made it clear that they are not hard-set in their ways or unwilling to negotiate. So--shelve that stuff for later, when it might actually have relevance.
 
Burned_Cookie said:
Why not just edit them?
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neurotic reasons (can i say that? is that ableist?)

also anarchy; an - archy, no rule/ rule of no-one
used in common language as s psuedonym for chaos or lawlessness.
used by anarchists to mean... well it depends on what school of thought you ascribe to, some might use it to mean a stimmergic order that arrives when there is a conscious rejection of hierarchical authority, others might use it to mean a formal system of law and order sans rulers and/or hierarchy.
 
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