Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
So a democracy then? I approve.
Puella Magi Imperatrix Mundi, or: Wherein Half Of Japan Tries To Kill You
So a democracy then? I approve.
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Himari: Y'arr, time to plunder some booty! *eyebrow waggle*
Haruka: ... *slow facepalm*
Maiko: How on earth are you less mature than the 13-year olds.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
No democracy. Empress Yui reigns supreme!
... A democracy would have killed Kaede and Naoko. Maybe Konno. I'm not sure we're ready for democracy.
FelOnyx
Love and Peace!
- Location
- Gunsmoke
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Speaking seriously it wouldn't be the worst model for a MG organization of our current size. Small and fairly simple, spends a lot of time fighting, equitable division of plunder, (seeds) democratic but with clear command structure and division of crew between specialized tasks.
Direct democracy would, elected Dread Captain Yui could make that call herself with the trust of her subjects. Which in a way she is, in that pseudo-democratic sense of a bunch of people who combined have the power to beat her up and put someone else in charge have instead willingly elected to defer to her judgement.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
Eh, don't wanna get too political here, so final comment is that the more democratic we are, the more chance for buying votes via blackmail/favors/bribery, creates opportunies for politicking, intrigue and backstabbing.
I'm not opposed to democracy in general, but the shoe doesn't fit all sizes.
Obviously, I'm totally in support of heeding expert advice and ruling with the mandate of the ruled. Keep our constituents happy.
I'm not opposed to democracy in general, but the shoe doesn't fit all sizes.
Obviously, I'm totally in support of heeding expert advice and ruling with the mandate of the ruled. Keep our constituents happy.
- Location
- Here
I think Sae (calligraphy girl) could probably get a ship to operate without any seas at all, given sufficient motivation and resources.
With regards to democracy, the average meguca is brutal and looks out for herself because there's no one to trust. Yui disagrees with that, and wants to do things differently, so democracy isn't a good fit.
In my view, one of the critical functions of government is to consistently get trustworthy people to make decisions affecting the whole group (apart from direct democracy, and even then you have organizations to execute policy). At the current group scale, the most effective way to do that is to handpick people, and have them handpick other people, or something close to that. We get consent of the governed when they join and keep it by treating them well.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Although, it's worth noting they do that by eating people, who have souls, so there might be conservation of souls there.
But you do have a point about races reproducing ad infinitum rather than hitting a soul limit.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Strange Cabbits hiding on windowsills distributing Soul Gems is no basis for a system of of government!
FelOnyx
Love and Peace!
- Location
- Gunsmoke
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Given current scale, I see "democracy" as something of a formality, basically being "should Yui be in charge, aye or nay." Which I think we've more or less already done? I recall getting everyone together and having them agree that Yui is in charge with no major voice to the contrary, so that's our democracy taken care of. Of course Yui is already the clear leader for our organization and as a matter of the quest format that's probably not changing so the whole point is pretty academic. Anything that might actually get us ousted in a vote or otherwise is a likely fail state anyway.
(Which to continue justifying the comparison because it's fun, that is pretty much the extent of democracy on a pirate ship. The captain is elected, and their word is then close to absolute unless the crew decide the captain is a huge asshole and pick a new one.)
Any voting beyond that like you're worried about is impractical for such a small-scale group. Most matters of dispute can be reasonably settled by informal discussion between people who personally know and mostly don't dislike each other, and everyone agrees Yui is the final authority. Nice and simple, no fluffing about with overengineered institutions meant to govern millions of strangers rather than a couple dozen friends.
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Olivebirdy
mook.
The memorial wall sounds like a good opportunity to get Maiko to talk about her issues, but it's a bit too grim for me to want to be present for.
Plot stuff that Minami can do... Look for Memoir, Despair and the original, watch the borders, spy on neighboring meguka, monitor Yui's sleep schedule, hang out with Yumi, practice The Reveal speech, find useful people to bribe or blackmail, verify Tomo's identity, check in on Chou and Shinobu to make sure they're okay.
There's a lot of stuff that Yui needs to do, but we don't need to watch her do it all. Echo suggested she hunt Witches while we follow along with Minami's viewpoint. I'd be happy to watch Echo auto-piloting Yui through more important stuff, as I think it'll be interesting and/or funny, but I'd understand if other people don't want to take that risk. Skipping one of Yui's school days in favor of one of Minami's is easy, and while I would rather watch as Yui does the paperwork for starting our company, it's not important enough that we can't skip it.
Speaking of, while Himari would chafe at being an office drone, we could probably make our company more exciting. Give her a cool codename, a suit and a gun, she'd probably be happy. We could have a Mad Science division. In Asunaro.
Plot stuff that Minami can do... Look for Memoir, Despair and the original, watch the borders, spy on neighboring meguka, monitor Yui's sleep schedule, hang out with Yumi, practice The Reveal speech, find useful people to bribe or blackmail, verify Tomo's identity, check in on Chou and Shinobu to make sure they're okay.
There's a lot of stuff that Yui needs to do, but we don't need to watch her do it all. Echo suggested she hunt Witches while we follow along with Minami's viewpoint. I'd be happy to watch Echo auto-piloting Yui through more important stuff, as I think it'll be interesting and/or funny, but I'd understand if other people don't want to take that risk. Skipping one of Yui's school days in favor of one of Minami's is easy, and while I would rather watch as Yui does the paperwork for starting our company, it's not important enough that we can't skip it.
Speaking of, while Himari would chafe at being an office drone, we could probably make our company more exciting. Give her a cool codename, a suit and a gun, she'd probably be happy. We could have a Mad Science division. In Asunaro.
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Kemayo
A Certain Cheerful Tone Of Voice
- Location
- Missouri
Jesus, Maiko.It's, uh, not something she has cause to use often. It's also only the second-most disturbing bit of soul magic she has available.
...I guess there might be some reasons she was the shadowy boogiewoman of our predecessor's group.
If you intend to rule half or more of Japan's magical girls eventually, well, maybe there aren't millions of them?
But you're going to be well past what's practical for informal solutions.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
This is true. And as much as it pains me to admit it, having all our friends in charge just because they live near us isn't the best solution either.
But as long as magical girls are kyubey-fied, I'm not too keen on letting them vote on leadership or policy.
Bureaucracy it is!
- Location
- Here
I think Echo has meguca carrying capacity under normal conditions in urban Japan at around 1 per 100,000 normals, Nagamioka proper being a city of 3-4 million supporting 30-40 meguca. More with organization for efficiency, such as having the most efficient hunters do all the hunting. And consequently roughly 1000-1500 meguca in Japan and ~70,000 in the world under the same scaling. Numbers subject to significant variations depending on the details of witch/familiar ecology.
Expanding beyond Nagamioka is probably the natural point where the mode of governance must be adapted, should we get that far. Maybe earlier, depending on what arrangements we work out with the Soulicon Valley collective, which is apparently large and well-organized.
A campaign to retake Tokyo would be interesting, and add a lot of temporary and ongoing carrying capacity. Now that I mention it, Tokyo would be a significant part of the carrying capacity of Japan if not for the ultra-witch death zone. So Japanese meguca population is probably surprisingly low compared to overall ecological trends for that reason. I wonder if Shanghai/New York/etc have similar phenomena?
It occurs to me that as we get close to Nagamioka carrying capacity, any new contracts will be a big deal, since we'll be in a position to significantly reduce normal meguca mortality. Getting Kyuubey to contract less, somehow, not clear if it's possible, would be good. Otherwise getting together with Soulicon Valley for some directed mad science would be good to get started sooner rather than later. We could make a treaty organization based on the principle "We have >100 meguca in stable living conditions and want to keep it that way, let's share scienceguca and other resources to fix the malthusian trap"
Real world governments, democracies not excluded, constantly struggle with regulatory capture problems even without there being any particular incentive to starve people so your clique can be well-fed.
In the very long run, I kind of like an immortal tyrant solution, as part of a system of checks and balances, at larger scales of governance. Find some responsible, thoughtful person who doesn't owe anything to anyone, and let her build a small supervisory bureaucracy around herself. She grooms successors and staff with similar characteristics. If she can take her time doing so (because she expects to hold her position for hundreds of years or more), she can be quite certain of her successor's trustworthiness, or keep the office indefinitely, with the successor never being required to step up. This office would run alongside other, more churning branches of government. I'm not sure what the right scope of powers would be.
I think this discussion of governance should be clear about the scope. So start with how we want the Nagamioka group with 40 meguca to run. We've got a significant portion of those already.
- Location
- Can't read map
Imagine masquerade being broken and name being official, being used in official media.
"Today scientists at Soulicon Valley have performed first transplantation of soul from 100 year old Japanese women into cloned body..."
"A new ethical concerns were raised as leading scientists of Soulicon Valley says current state of meat factories is necessary for corruption removal. Organizations for animal rights meanwhile state..."
Kyubey: Ok.
Everyone: That was surprisingly easy...
*by end of year all witches were caught and their seed overfilled as much as anyone dares... everyone starts witching out due starvation*
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- Location
- Here
Nah, the only way meguca population is as high as it is is that familiars are responsible for about 20% of all deaths in Japan. That's how I got 1 meguca per 100,000. Not that it's better that in the long run meguca are effectively people-eaters.
In the short-ish run, several decades I think? There are a lot of hibernating witches like the one Chou found in the park. You could kill all active witches and familiars for a while and get away with it. In the long run:
Something like that.
"Soulicon Valley startup Abyssal Jellyfish Princess Corp. (ABYS) announces sea trials of artificial Witch fishing platform"
"New hybrid of rice and frog knows only suffering! Will these new transgenic crops revitalize Japan's agricultural sector?"
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
Come at this from a normie's perspective though. You've got an alien which can grant reality-altering wishes and gives you superpowers. Sure there's the whole witch thing, but many people would leap at the chance even knowing all the details. Who are we, those who have made wishes, to tell those who have not that they can't? Why can our superpowered clique decide for everybody else that alien magitech is no longer wanted or needed?
Even if Kyubey was okay with no more contacts, I don't think regular people in the know would be. It's a little bit like being told Hogwarts is closed forever because voldemort is a bit of a dick, sorry all you muggleborns guess you're stuck being muggles.
Even if Kyubey was okay with no more contacts, I don't think regular people in the know would be. It's a little bit like being told Hogwarts is closed forever because voldemort is a bit of a dick, sorry all you muggleborns guess you're stuck being muggles.
- Location
- Here
The relevant context for such a restriction is if we're in a position where "Any new meguca cause a high likelihood that someone's going to witch out". It's definitely unfair, and not just because of the "luck" of who has potential in the first place. Minami contracted without a problem because she got in early...
So it's exactly that unfair, yes. The best way to implement it would be to ensure that potentials didn't even get the offer. That's not obviously possible, though.
The way out is to find a corruption sink that can keep up with the new contracts. Several possibilities have been brought up in thread. Hence my interest in getting together with the Soulicon Valley group to put together some sort of task force to work on the problem. I feel like getting Maiko to work with them might already be a high point in the history of organized magic science.
So it's exactly that unfair, yes. The best way to implement it would be to ensure that potentials didn't even get the offer. That's not obviously possible, though.
The way out is to find a corruption sink that can keep up with the new contracts. Several possibilities have been brought up in thread. Hence my interest in getting together with the Soulicon Valley group to put together some sort of task force to work on the problem. I feel like getting Maiko to work with them might already be a high point in the history of organized magic science.
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Find a boat, slap a tag that says 陸 on it. Boat now sails through solid ground, no problems.
Sae's primary wish magic may be of limited use in combat, but it's certainly effective.
Well, qui tacet consentire videtur I guess? Yui just kinda declared herself to be in charge, backed by Kyubey and Maiko recognizing her claim, with everyone else just kinda going along with it. A few of the older newbies might be dubious about Yui's age and the former locals might think someone Momoko trained should be in charge, but they're all willing to defer to Maiko.
...Minami may be kinda sketchy but she wouldn't actually watch Yui sleep!
But seriously, hmm. The purely observational stuff is kinda enh, because either nothing significant happens in which case I'd be writing a lot of words that wouldn't impact anything, or something important does come up in which case it's probably time to call Yui and Maiko regardless. Maybe? After a bit of thinking about it I probably could do something with looking into the missing emotion dolls and their creator, at least.
At any rate, it's really up to you guys? There's some stuff I won't want to autopilot Yui through, but in general if you want to sacrifice a timeslot of Yui actions while Minami isn't already occupied with something else to control her, go for it. I probably won't add that as a default vote option, but feel free to suggest it.
Those numbers are approximately correct, yes. 1 per 100k is average-ish for urban areas in general, but varies considerably based on multiple factors. The maximum is generally about 1 per 50k; beyond that point, factors that would otherwise increase capacity just result in more conflict between Witches and higher chances of really nasty conglomerating Witches popping up.
Nagamioka is around 3mil population, but tends higher than average for capacity, so it could support 40-ish meguca under normal circumstances (solo or allied in small stable groups, frequent but minor skirmishes).
Tokyo proper is both large and dense enough to be hitting the 1 per 50k level overall, with the outer areas generally being quasi-stable at slightly over-capacity because of Witch migration and the inner sections being the whole ultra death zone thing discussed previously.
All high-density cities tend in that direction, but Tokyo is one of the worst
Generally speaking every city of that size has the potential to end up like Tokyo, but most don't.
This name continues to amuse me.
Why go to the effort of finding someone who will serve the desires of her constituents when you can make your own! Just reassemble the mystery soulguca, get her to focus on "benevolence" and "good judgement" while shaving a fraction of a percent off the soul of every meguca citizen, then smush all the fragments together into one person and put her in charge. It's like direct democracy and benevolent dictatorship rolled into one!
Hmm, maybe not decades, plural? Witches also drift around, and consistently over-hunting an area will tend to make Witches leave. It's something Yui plausibly needs to consider for long-term planning, but probably not relevant within the timeframe of the quest itself.
Because you're making human magitech available instead? "Mundane" people are perfectly capable of using magic, just at a fraction of the power level a meguca has access to, and pervasive magitech would go along way toward equalizing that.
- Location
- Here
Inadvisable business venture #42: Refit cargo ships for land movement. Exploit either shortcuts or partial independence from port infrastructure.Find a boat, slap a tag that says 陸 on it. Boat now sails through solid ground, no problems.
As a bonus, I believe the hypothetical Princess Sibyl System would be able to create Unfamiliars for staff? Unfortunate from those who've had all the benevolence and good judgement sucked out of them, but...Why go to the effort of finding someone who will serve the desires of her constituents when you can make your own! Just reassemble the mystery soulguca, get her to focus on "benevolence" and "good judgement" while shaving a fraction of a percent off the soul of every meguca citizen, then smush all the fragments together into one person and put her in charge. It's like direct democracy and benevolent dictatorship rolled into one!
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Nah, that's the soulguca's wish magic and unless she contributed a much larger chunk than anyone else, the conglomerate meguca wouldn't inherit her power (or any of the other girls').
Of course, if the amount of contributed soul bits is large enough, she could keep the soulguca on staff in order to divide her up for multitasking day-to-day work and recombine her for major decision-making.
...hm, if a composite meguca were made out of hundreds of soul fragments from other meguca, I wonder what color her Soul Gem would be? Pure white? Solid gray, opaque rather than translucent? Opalescent, with all the colors jumbled and blurred together but still separate? Prismatic, with literal rainbow magic for maximum mahou shoujo-ness?
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Sounds like what you'd get if Minami wrote fanfic.
Okay technically Psycho-Pass shouldn't exist in-universe yet since it came out in 2012 but whatever, it's 110% Minami's kind of thing and I don't mind fudging dates on when stuff came out. Also I suppose the show's writer would've been a bit less busy around the beginning of 2011 in this particular universe, heh.
- Location
- Plato's Cave
I've always had the headcanon that Hong Kong is an internationally-renowned giant-ass clusterfuck of constant fighting and Witch density that it's honestly worth extra money for any international-traveling Meguca to not route through the airport because there are about even odds of getting ganked just from sitting in the terminal doing a layover.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
Sounds like what you'd get if Minami wrote fanfic.
Okay technically Psycho-Pass shouldn't exist in-universe yet since it came out in 2012 but whatever, it's 110% Minami's kind of thing and I don't mind fudging dates on when stuff came out. Also I suppose the show's writer would've been a bit less busy around the beginning of 2011 in this particular universe, heh.
IIRC, Psycho-Pass only happened because the other main person involved saw PMMM. This kind of stuff is always the stickiest bit of popular fiction set in the real world. Lucky Star started to run into it too, near the end of it's run. Konata had become such an Otaku Icon that her being unable to react to and reference Lucky Star was causing issues with how to characterize her.