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Puella Magi Imperatrix Mundi, or: Wherein Half Of Japan Tries To Kill You

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Echo said:
The mechanics of how that would work were discussed a few pages back. The important point here is that Yui needs something to hijack, either the Witch's Kiss or the body/soul gem connection. A disconnected body is just a corpse and she can't do anything with that.



It's worth noting that at this point in the story, only Maiko (and Kyubey too, I guess) has any idea just how much Yui is capable of. Asami's seen the raw power in action and Yumi's started to realize that there's more to this kid than just brute force, but nobody really has the full picture.

If you want to lay your cards on the table and see what Yumi thinks, you can. Especially since you have Kyubey here to vouch for you if Yumi is skeptical about the details.
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Given we were able to perceive the witch through its connection to its puppets, I had an awesome (and potentially morally repugnant) idea.

We follow the connection between a gem and a magical girl in our captivity, and then overwhelm and take control of their gem.

We then burn away any remainder of who they once were.

If it works, we'd potentially gain more magical POWAH, as well as maybe also obtaining a second soul gem.
 
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redzonejoe said:
A good start. I don't want to deal with Yumi's concerns right this second, we still have foreigners to deal with. I think. Did everybody leave?
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Rio, Fuuka, and Kiyomi are nearby, having wrapped up whatever they were discussing. You'll be talking to them next unless you vote otherwise.

Aya and Suzume left to go somewhere else. You probably won't see them again today.

Kaede and Naoko are both gemmed.

Maiko is nearby, listening in. Tomo left to go do Tomo things.

Minami is in her secret base. Asami is off to do her thing and might be meeting up with Natsuki soon-ish.

Shinobu went home. Koharu is still grounded. Chou is still Chou.

Kaede's dog is sad.

I think that covers almost everyone? :V
 
I think the approach to take here is to argue that Yumi is operating under incomplete information and incorrect assumptions and that, given our situation and goals, our idealism is in fact appropriately pragmatic.
  • Our Allies
  • Our mind-blowing combat capabilities
  • Empire-building, not just territory
  • Our Wish and its implications long-term
 
Echo said:
Rio, Fuuka, and Kiyomi are nearby, having wrapped up whatever they were discussing. You'll be talking to them next unless you vote otherwise.

Aya and Suzume left to go somewhere else. You probably won't see them again today.

Kaede and Naoko are both gemmed.

Maiko is nearby, listening in. Tomo left to go do Tomo things.

Minami is in her secret base. Asami is off to do her thing and might be meeting up with Natsuki soon-ish.

Shinobu went home. Koharu is still grounded. Chou is still Chou.

Kaede's dog is sad.

I think that covers almost everyone? :V
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Alright thanks, that was pretty helpful.

Vebyast said:
I think the approach to take here is to argue that Yumi is operating under incomplete information and incorrect assumptions and that, given our situation and goals, our idealism is in fact appropriately pragmatic.
  • Our Allies
  • Our mind-blowing combat capabilities
  • Empire-building, not just territory
  • Our Wish and its implications long-term
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Yeah, I generally agree. However, I also want to make an argument that not only is our idealism pragmatic, we're also capable of being pragmatic in our idealism. There's a difference.

Ugh, I'm not sure what to argue right now. Do I come up with a response to Yumi? But part of my response is delaying our response to deal with the immediate situation.

So... Really long vote? Two-part vote? Intentionally crafting a vote to be held for next update?
 
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NeverDies said:
Given we were able to perceive the witch through its connection to its puppets, I had an awesome (and potentially morally repugnant) idea.

We follow the connection between a gem and a magical girl in our captivity, and then overwhelm and take control of their gem.

We then burn away any remainder of who they once were.

If it works, we'd potentially gain more magical POWAH, as well as maybe also obtaining a second soul gem.
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Aside from the part where that's definitely not morally acceptable to Yui, if that worked at all it would almost certainly fail on the "burn away who they were" step and the end result would be less "power up GET!" and more "OUR NAME IS LEGION FOR WE ARE MANY".

In other words, an express ticket to do-it-yourself brain damage and/or becoming a larval Walpurgisnacht.
 
H-WhAaat! Unlimited power isn't accessible through idle thoughts! IMPOSSIBLE I SAY!

:p
 
redzonejoe said:
Ugh, I'm not sure what to argue right now. Do I come up with a response to Yumi? But part of my response is delaying our response to deal with the immediate situation.
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Keep in mind that Yumi already said she's going to stick around until the immediate situation is resolved, and overall she doesn't seem to be in a hurry to leave. As long as you don't make it sound like an empty stalling tactic, she'll probably be fine with talking about it later.
 
Echo said:
Keep in mind that Yumi already said she's going to stick around until the immediate situation is resolved, and overall she doesn't seem to be in a hurry to leave. As long as you don't make it sound like an empty stalling tactic, she'll probably be fine with talking about it later.
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Yeah, the problem is that talking to Yumi is a concern that's on everybody's mind right now, and I want to purpose my own method of doing so.

Yet, my actual vote wouldn't include addressing Yumi's concerns, were I to craft it the way I want.

So how do I balance those conflicting goals? I think I'm going to crack open my laptop and write up a 2k word vote. I really hope I'm kidding.
 
redzonejoe said:
So how do I balance those conflicting goals? I think I'm going to crack open my laptop and write up a 2k word vote.
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Make sure to edit it a couple times so that the bandwagoning ends up spread across several minor variations, that way we can have more novel-length vote tally posts! :V
 
Echo said:
Aside from the part where that's definitely not morally acceptable to Yui, if that worked at all it would almost certainly fail on the "burn away who they were" step and the end result would be less "power up GET!" and more "OUR NAME IS LEGION FOR WE ARE MANY".

In other words, an express ticket to do-it-yourself brain damage and/or becoming a larval Walpurgisnacht.
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I'm... not seeing the issue?

(JK. But in seriousness, I do like the Six Paths of Yui idea, and I'd like to see if we can manage it at some point.)
 
Echo said:
Keep in mind that Yumi already said she's going to stick around until the immediate situation is resolved, and overall she doesn't seem to be in a hurry to leave. As long as you don't make it sound like an empty stalling tactic, she'll probably be fine with talking about it later.
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Well, we also kinda sorta owe her six seeds too. I don't think she'd leave without us paying her back either.
 
Vebyast said:
Yeah, that vote didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Should've accepted disconnecting Aya and Suzume too and disconnected Naoko sooner rather than later. And especially should have had language in the vote to not engage in conversation. I was expecting Naoko to have five or ten seconds to shout pointlessly at Yui's back, not a entire minute to monologue. What a colossal fuckup. :/
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Yep.

Should have just let Yumi kill her.
 
...Well this could have gone better. But I have a feeling that it could have gotten a lot, lot worse.

Still unsure on the whole killing her thing. Its IC for us not to want to, but Yumi probably would have been fine with it. Our other allies, if they found out though...
 
Am I the only one who doesn't think the vote turned out that badly?

I mean, yeah. Naoko's a bitch. News at 11. Yumi had concerns regardless of Naoko. And at least we made some inroads with Suzume. Aya's cleansed, if upset. We can work on that.


edit: ironically, the one I kinda feel bad about is Kaede. She didn't really do anything to warrant a disconnect. Also, poor dog.
 
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Muramasa said:
Am I the only one who doesn't think the vote turned out that badly?

I mean, yeah. Naoko's a bitch. News at 11. Yumi had concerns regardless of Naoko. And at least we made some inroads with Suzume. Aya's cleansed, if upset. We can work on that.
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Yeah, I don't think this went that badly. It's just that Naoko speaking makes the result of anything look 10 times worse than it really is.

That said, sad to see Yumi leave. And we do need to end up building an ability to actually take a life if we need to. I don't like it, and we should try and strive for a peaceful solution instead of just "See 'evil' nuke it", but we're going to have to do so one day, or Yumi's right.
 
I think Yumi's correct. The idealism could well get us killed...

But regardless we should ask her: "If I reduce the idealism and have Naoko killed, would you stay?"
 
Fuck. I took too long. My earlier ideas have faded into foggy suggestions, and I'm plagued by doubt over every word. I talked the talk and now i'm too nervous to walk the walk.

The only part I'm at all satisfied with is this:

[] Look, Yumi, I think you've got a couple misconceptions about me. we need to have a real, one-on-one talk soon so I can set the record straight.
-[] But while you're correct in that I wouldn't be satisfied with 'merely coexisting', as you said, I think your assessment of your options is a bit off.
--[] Anyways, that something we can discuss later. I'll want to confer with my allies first, and we still need to settle things with those three, and uh... deal with these bodies.

And I'm even starting to doubt that now that I've declared confidence in it. Halp.

That short dialogue with yumi would be followed up by

[] Talk to Rio, Fuuka, and Kiyomi. Get everything with them in order, and ask them to contact us at their convenience once they've had some time to think things over.

[] Help Maiko move the bodies. Oh god that's gross.
-[] Figure out what to do about Kaede's dog. We can't just let it go wild, and we should probably do something more than just dropping it off at the local pound.

And then

[] Time to arrange a meeting for team Yui.
-[] Asami might be busy, so talk to Minami and Maiko over at HQ
[] Topics for discussion: Yumi, Naoko and Kaede, other junk.


Like I said I've lost confidence and run out of steam and I just want to get what little this is out there for consideration before I delete this like all the other things I changed my mind about.
 
Why?

She's right, killing mass murdering Naoko and Kaede will allow us to save more girls down the line. If only because there's only a finite number of witches and plenty of more deserving girls to give grief seeds to, but also because they are likely to backstab and take up valueable time and attention.
 
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Nice job making all choices have drawbacks, Echo. It's like a metaphor for PMMM-style magical girlhood!

Although you would think that rather than getting blocked and having to push Naoko away (and cause internal injuries to let Naoko gloat more), Yui would be strong enough to just wrap her hand around Naoko's gem and ignore all her attempts to get it back, or fast enough to get around her when she's untransformed.
Echo said:
Whether getting slightly better immediate results while making Yumi and/or Maiko worry that you're becoming a loose cannon would have been preferable to the actual results, I'm not sure.
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You're a loose cannon, Yui! Giving these bad magical girls all these second chances... I've had it up to here with your reckless disregard for convention! Turn in your soul gem and magical girl wand at the front desk.
 
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Fair Letters said:
I think Yumi's correct. The idealism could well get us killed...
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I partially agree. I think it's important to keep a degree of idealism, but we shouldn't let it affect our chances of success or survival.
But regardless we should ask her: "If I reduce the idealism and have Naoko killed, would you stay?"
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I strongly disagree. We might bring up the fact that her death is still a possibility, and use it to argue that we're not as bad as she seems to think, but I really don't think we should be using that as a bargaining chip.
 
Vindication!

Man, I feel smug. I mean, I hate to say I told you so, but... wait, I love to say I told you so!

Yeah, Yumi isn't going to be won over by pure idealism, putting off carrying out the only practical choice is just hesitation, and I did tell you people that not killing them would more likely than not lose us Yumi.

Anyway, for the vote, we should stress that we haven't decided not to kill them, just that we decided not to kill them then and there. In fact, we're leaning towards killing them. Because I trust we are, having learned from our closest ally telling us we're being dumb for not doing so.
 
redzonejoe said:
I strongly disagree. We might bring up the fact that her death is still a possibility, and use it to argue that we're not as bad as she seems to think, but I really don't think we should be using that as a bargaining chip.
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I wasn't thinking of it as a bargaining chip, just wanted to know whether she would. Phrase as necessary to get the information without suggesting bargaining?
 
redzonejoe said:
[] Figure out what to do about Kaede's dog. We can't just let it go wild, and we should probably do something more than just dropping it off at the local pound.
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Have Maiko keep it. She could use the company, in all likelyhood.

Fair Letters said:
Why?

She's right, killing mass murdering Naoko and Kaede will allow us to save more girls down the line.
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No, she's not and no, it won't. and if "I'll be less happy and also kill this person you don't like" is enough to make her change her mind she's not the kind of person I want around. Anyone who would find us killing someone to be a plus for sticking around is not someone I want around.

Equable said:
Vindication!

Man, I feel smug. I mean, I hate to say I told you so, but... wait, I love to say I told you so!

Yeah, Yumi isn't going to be won over by pure idealism, putting off carrying out the only practical choice is just hesitation, and I did tell you people that not killing them would more likely than not lose us Yumi.

Anyway, for the vote, we should stress that we haven't decided not to kill them, just that we decided not to kill them then and there. In fact, we're leaning towards killing them. Because I trust we are, having learned from our closest ally telling us we're being dumb for not doing so.
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Did you miss the Part where Echo said that the vote didn't actually effect Yumi's decision?
And stop being a smug ass, especially when you haven't actually been proven right.
 
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