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Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)

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Simon_Jester said:
Evil societies don't deliberately drag their own members and those they wish to recruit through the parts of themselves that are most likely to spawn rebellion. They propagandize, they misdirect, they minimize, and they are aided in all of this by the very human tendency to just not think about the bad stuff.
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I'd like to add to that: the average Onogoro member, if dragged through the reserve, is also likely to say that this is a great evil that should be stopped, but also that the people behind this have too much power of influence to be safely stopped, or that there are laws destined to stop the most horrying of abuses and they can't believe that those laws aren't being respected.
allmightytoaster said:
get them to honestly believe that Ongoro, dawn of fire, fighting pits, decadent nobolity and all, are the actual good guys.
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The Cures all live in Japan. A country which, while not persuing literal slavery right now, is ruled by an ossified political class with regular cases of corruption and often ties to literal cults, as well as behind a steadfast ally of the US (although it's not really something that they can refuse) and refusing to recognise their past war crimes. (Most of the political class is often literally descended from the people who did those war crimes).

Like, people gloss over a lot of bad shit their governments do. Most of Onogoro isn't the concentration camps for youma, it's civilians, who will probably have a slave working in their bakery, but look she's not beaten up all the time and she eats two meals a day and smiles sometimes and she'll get to free herself if she works hard enough or some shit. And trying to violently free her will leads to no good but you can start a legal organisation for emancipation and be a reformist.

And that's how they get the Cures to ally with them; even if the Cures aren't 100% okay with them they'll have the knowledge that trying to fight the entire government will lead to worse (whether that knowledge is actually true or not is not something Onogoro's interested in) and the "you can change things from within" will also help pacificy them despite the fact that it's not something that really works IRL.
 
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StarSingerBlue said:
The Cures all live in Japan. A country which, while not persuing literal slavery right now, is ruled by an ossified political class with regular cases of corruption and often ties to literal cults, as well as behind a steadfast ally of the US (although it's not really something that they can refuse) and refusing to recognise their past war crimes. (Most of the political class is often literally descended from the people who did those war crimes.
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If enough people who have lived their entire life in the Ongoro propaganda bubble can realize something is fucked to form a revolutionary party, someone specifically selected for the goodness of their heart raised on modern standards probably can too.
 
jwolfe_beta said:
Yeah, there is a reason Naru's existence and what her blood can do has been kept under very tight wraps. The microsecond Onogoro finds out about her they are going to completely and utterly lose their ****.

She will be seen as the single biggest threat to their Japan's safety in all of existence.
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I am not worried about Onogoro finding out.
I am very worried about whatever monster is running Russian Masquerade squad finding out.

Remember that slavery is not local to Japan and that Onogoro is considered a backwater.
 
allmightytoaster said:
If enough people who have lived their entire life in the Ongoro propaganda bubble can realize something is fucked to form a revolutionary party, someone specifically selected for the goodness of their heart raised on modern standards probably can too.
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It's not revolutionary, it's reformist. It's exactly the same scenario I outlined above.

Also "modern standards" are a lot less moral than you think they are.


Like, the Cures will probably think something is fucked. Most people also think that stuff like neoliberalism is kind of fucked, but they don't go actively fight it even when they have the opportunity. And when they do so it's often under the aegis of reformism (aka not actually fighting it)

Onogoro isn't the Dokutsu Zone or Labyrinth or Naitomea, where a villain arrive and starts whaling on civilians with a baseball monster, it's one that mostly seems okay and where most of the people doing evil shit are doing it out of sight.
 
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StarSingerBlue said:
It's not revolutionary, it's reformist. It's exactly the same scenario I outlined above.

Also "modern standards" are a lot less moral than you think they are.


Like, the Cures will probably think something is fucked. Most people also think that stuff like neoliberalism is kind of fucked, but they don't go actively fight it even when they have the opportunity. And when they do so it's often under the aegis of reformism (aka not actually fighting it)

Onogoro isn't the Dokutsu Zone or Labyrinth or Naitomea, where a villain arrive and starts whaling on civilians with a baseball monster, it's one that mostly seems okay and where most of the people doing evil shit are doing it out of sight.
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If thats the only thing that can be revolutionary for you, then fine, I'm not talking about an actual revolutionary party.

But the fact remains that this:
Lunaryon said:
"Then again, I don't even know why I should be surprised. Dimitri thinks that letting all the Yokai free of their bonds would just end in bloodshed and war, death and suffering... And like... That's dumb." Tsubasa says waving her hands about, not really motioning in any particular way.

"Like... Like... I don't have proof, I know that." Tsubasa continues, "But the fact is that MCAT's boss lady is a Yuki-Onna. And like, they've got Tengu in their ranks, and a wolf demon, and none of that is for hurting people. Because at the end of the day, hurting people is," the girl coughs, "Well... Bad." There is something almost adorable about how Tsubasa seems almost embarrassed to say it like that. "Just... There's the Far End, working to buy up contracts and sell them back to the Yokai, freeing them. There's the Pretty Cure, facing threats that want to hurt people because they are good. The Senshi wanting not just to protect everyone from getting hurt, but to teach everyone how to protect themselves." The girl is passionate about what she is saying.

"Dimitri... Dimitri believes that the strong are inherently better than the weak. And like... That's dumb. Dumb, and wrong. Like the Ministry. The ministry says that every yokai is out to get everyone. The ministry says that the only reason that we are safe is because they are standing between the innocent people and the deluge of horrors that want to kill us all."If anything, the way that Tsubasa says that makes it clear that she has dismissed that thought entirely.

Usagi shakes her head, huffing at the thoughts that the girl is mentioning, and Tsubasa lights up, a smile on her face. "Yeah, exactly. That's just dumb. Yokai are people. Simple as that. And people... People are good. Sure, they can be dicks sometimes, they can be cruel and mean if they think that will help them... but at the end of the day, when they are in their own homes, sleeping in their own beds... Everyone has family. They have friends. They want what is best for their families and friends, and that means that they are good. In the depths of their hearts, most everyone is good. That's just how the world works, even if they can be convinced that being bad is good sometimes."

...This... this might be the first time that Usagi has heard someone all but repeat her own core beliefs back at her. Tsubasa doesn't even know who Usagi is, and yet she gets it. She gets the most important thing.
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Is an actual faction leader within the True Equality Party, someone with enough people behind her saying "this one speaks for us" that she gets to make speeches at the same importance as the other leaders.

It might take an extremely innately compassionate person to see through Ongoros bullshit from that angle, but those people exist. And I do believe that the Precure recruitment pool would heavily favour that kind of person.

As for modern standards, they don't need to be perfect. They don't even need to be good. But they are undeniably better than Ongoros.
Even in this time period, Japanese media generally treated slavery, when depicted, as bad. Usagi was pretty clearly brought up with those values, after all.
 
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allmightytoaster said:
Is an actual faction leader within the True Equality Party, someone with enough people behind her saying "this one speaks for us" that she gets to make speeches at the same importance as the other leaders.
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Tsubasa, it bears noting, is also the most maverick of the leaders in question, and the one coming at the issue from the mot outside-context angle within Onogoro culture. Because her clique within the TEP is heavily influenced by the sudden appearance on the scene of all these magical girls that have been popping up within the last three months. I don't know what Tsubasa was like six months ago, but I get the feeling that she was a lot less influential, a lot less outspokenly radical, or both.

I'm really not trying to misrepresent your point, but your point sincerely seems to me to be "no one as morally virtuous as a Pretty Cure could be co-opted by a society that does evil things to an underclass," and, uh.
 
allmightytoaster said:
Is an actual faction leader within the True Equality Party, someone with enough people behind her saying "this one speaks for us" that she gets to make speeches at the same importance as the other leaders.

It might take extremely innately compassionate to see through Ongoros bullshit from that angle, but those people exist. And I do believe that the Precure recruitment pool would heavily favour that kind of person.
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I don't think you understood what I was trying to say. (Also, that speech is "treating people with compassion and kindness is good and Onogoro's propaganda on youkai is wrong" which isn't particularly revolutionary by any definition of the word, nor is it actively fighting against Onogoro)

Hypothetical Precure allied with Onogoro (not that there's going to be any of them in-quest at the rate things are going) would have a similar relationship to that of say, Emiya Shirou and the Clocktower, which is "I've made contact with these people who gave lots of useful tips and help, and after awhile I realised the government they belonged to is pretty sucky (they're pretty obviously not privy to the reservations or to the worst cases of a slave being abused). I'm not going to suddenly start slugging all Onogoro officials in the face, especially not the people who've I befriended, but it would be nice if there were nicer people in positions of power that could pass laws helping youkai".

Like, the only reason we can properly fight Onogoro in the first place is that we've been networking with not only many other heavy hitters, but with also a potential actual succession government.
 
Simon_Jester said:
We see the possibility of such a thing prefigured in what happened to the 'Fair Remedies' in England; they became magical girls with a very standard Pretty Cure origin story, but the local Masquerade-observing magical power structure rapidly scooped them up, co-opted them, helped carry them to the finish line, and then let them retire in peace to never speak of their adventures again.
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And then there's the one who didn't retire, and decided to get a job working with the English magic enforcers. By the sound of it, the only reason she's not actively opposing Irish independence right now is that she's not good enough to be worth sending.
Grue said:
Technically speaking our first impression wasn't those two idiots, it was that one Ongoro doctor trying to discretely cure DK victims.
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The one who demanded a cure for our healing spell, yes. Still not a super encouraging first impression.
allmightytoaster said:
Any and all reformers trying to change Ongoro, where especially the moderates are still holding positions of some importance
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No, those are key. The way states defuse dissatisfaction with all the other things you listed is by making sure that well-meaning people have a "right way" to try to change things. Get Mr. Ten Percent In A Century talking to them about how obviously all that other stuff is bad, but rocking the boat will just hurt more people, and they don't really want to try to rebel against a legitimate government because that way lies chaos and them becoming the tyrants they sought to destroy or whatever fearmongering is popular in Onogoro these days. And then get the Cures to write their congressman, or get out the vote, or whatever mechanism Onogoro has to bleed off energy from agitated do-gooders.
 
StarSingerBlue said:
I don't think you understood what I was trying to say. (Also, that speech is "treating people with compassion and kindness is good and Onogoro's propaganda on youkai is wrong" which isn't particularly revolutionary by any definition of the word, nor is it actively fighting against Onogoro)
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I already conceded the point on what you do and do not call revolitionary.
It does however, show that you can be brought up under Ongoro and not fall for their propaganda on yokai.

Also, you were the one responding to my post about how the Precure would not see a fully honest Ongoro as the good guys. Everything about fighting or trying to replace them has been entirely something you brought in.

If that is what you wanted to talk about then yeah, sure they wouldn't gear up for full on fight. I'm just confused as to why you would quote that post if thats what you wanted to argue.

Torgamous said:
And then get the Cures to write their congressman, or get out the vote, or whatever mechanism Onogoro has to bleed off energy from agitated do-gooders.
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They don't officially have one is the problem. The closest is the T.E.P, which is semi-secret and being actively sabotaged.
 
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allmightytoaster said:
It does however, show that you can be brought up under Ongoro and not fall for their propaganda on yokai.
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I never disputed that.
allmightytoaster said:
Also, you were the one responding to my post about how the Precure would not see a fully honest Ongoro as the good guys. Everything about fighting or trying to replace them has been entirely something you brought in.
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You were saying they wouldn't ally with them under any circumstances because their pure hearts would never accept the slightest bit of evil, or that they'd never see them as good guys.

I was saying that it would be fairly easy for Onogoro to get them to at least ally with them by obscuring their worst aspects, going "well you don't want to rock the boat and send everyone overboard" on the ones they can't and generally rely on inertia and the fact that the Precure need help to maintain at least a semi-funtional alliance with them.
 
Torgamous said:
And then there's the one who didn't retire, and decided to get a job working with the English magic enforcers. By the sound of it, the only reason she's not actively opposing Irish independence right now is that she's not good enough to be worth sending.
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British government mages do not go to Ireland to do conspicuous things. When Ireland notices, Ireland eats them. Not the Irish, just... Ireland.

It's why Sailor Venus confronted Shakoukai effectively alone the first time around. Q Division couldn't send meaningful backup to do meaningful things even if they wanted to ignore any legal issues. Because Ireland would have eaten the backup, whereas it has no particular grudge against the planet Venus or a talking space alien cat.
 
StarSingerBlue said:
The Cures all live in Japan. A country which, while not persuing literal slavery right now, is ruled by an ossified political class with regular cases of corruption and often ties to literal cults, as well as behind a steadfast ally of the US (although it's not really something that they can refuse) and refusing to recognise their past war crimes. (Most of the political class is often literally descended from the people who did those war crimes).
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Well, in this setting those cults probably are, or are in the process of being coopted by, actual magical enemies we can punch in the face, so given the setting that particular thing isn't something the Magical Girl population is likely to ignore from their government, if they find out about it.
 
StarSingerBlue said:
I was saying that it would be fairly easy for Onogoro to get them to at least ally with them by obscuring their worst aspects,
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This point.
This right here.
Is why you aren't argueing against a point I actually made.
Because that is not a fully honest Ongoro. That is not an Ongoro trying to genuinely use reason to get the Precure to see things their way. Which is the actual thing I actually said would never work.
 
allmightytoaster said:
They don't have one is the problem. The closest is the T.E.P, which is semi-secret and being actively sabotaged
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They do, we just haven't seen it because our exposure to the TEP has been heavy on theory and light on praxis. We can guess some of the Progressives' praxis, since they're our and MCAT's designated collaborators. That can only be all they do if they're new and formed in response to us, but let's assume that's the case. Orochi, likewise, could plausibly be working entirely outside the system as the yokai Black Panthers.

But what the fuck are the Moderates and Freedom For All doing to convince themselves that they're helping, if Onogoro doesn't have a vestigial lever for them to pull to feel like they're helping?

Something being semi-secret and actively sabotaged doesn't mean it isn't also using state-approved mechanisms to aim for limited reforms.
Simon_Jester said:
British government mages do not go to Ireland to do conspicuous things. When Ireland notices, Ireland eats them. Not the Irish, just... Ireland.

It's why Sailor Venus confronted Shakoukai effectively alone the first time around. Q Division couldn't send meaningful backup to do meaningful things even if they wanted to ignore any legal issues. Because Ireland would have eaten the backup, whereas it has no particular grudge against the planet Venus or a talking space alien cat.
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Oh. So what Troubles were they asking about her being sent to?
allmightytoaster said:
This point.
This right here.
Is why you aren't argueing against a point I actually made.
Because that is not a fully honest Ongoro. That is not an Ongoro trying to genuinely use reason to get the Precure to see things their way. Which is the actual thing I actually said would never work.
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Onogoro has never been fully honest in its entire history, so I don't see why it'd start with the Precures.
 
memoryofglory said:
Well, in this setting those cults probably are, or are in the process of being coopted by, actual magical enemies we can punch in the face, so given the setting that particular thing isn't something the Magical Girl population is likely to ignore from their government, if they find out about it.
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I think it's worth noting we're in 1992; IRL there was a huge amount of interest in the occult in Japan around that time, notably in onmyoudo and fortunetelling. Happy Science and Aum Shinryoko are competing against each other for memebership, and the subway sarin gas attacks haven't happened yet.
allmightytoaster said:
It is, and always has been, about how hard it would be to actually take a Pretty Cure and get them to honestly believe that Ongoro, dawn of fire, fighting pits, decadent nobility and all, are the actual good guys.
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allmightytoaster said:
Which is the actual thing I actually said would never work.
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You have absolutely no idea how most societies work or of the entire concept of the banality of evil.
Or that purity of heart is an extremely relative concept that doesn't seem to apply to every Cure anyway.
 
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Hm, I just had another thought.

If some of the people in the IMO are putting things together, they may already be starting to think that the Sailor Senshi are the vanguard of an invading alien force. (and they aren't exactly wrong).

But, given that going to Mercury to look into defrosting the cryochambers there is on our list of things to do this turn...
Well, it is a line of thinking that may get boosted to higher and higher levels of worry if a slowly growing number of Ancient Mercurians start showing up out of nowhere....
 
Torgamous said:
Onogoro has never been fully honest in its entire history, so I don't see why it'd start with the Precures.
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Because that is the premise under which I said they would never succeed at using reason (not trickery) at getting people like the cures on their side, a statement I made half jokingly for how blindingly obvious it is, yet had to defend from some "pissing on the poor" level reading comprehension and flat out disagreement ever since.
Torgamous said:
But what the fuck are the Moderates and Freedom For All doing to convince themselves that they're helping, if Onogoro doesn't have a vestigial lever for them to pull to feel like they're helping?
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Presumably the Moderates, like their leader, are less terrible members of the nobility trying to do good with the power they were born with. Ongoro is feudal. There are levers of power, they are just mostly assigned at birth.

StarSingerBlue said:
You have absolutely no idea how most societies work or of the entire concept of the banality of evil.
Or that purity of heart is an extremely relative concept that doesn't seem to apply to every Cure anyway.
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This is a magical girl setting.

If I was argueing about the average everday person, you would have a point about the banality of evil. But in every real life story about the banality of evil, you will find that there were, in fact, people who recognized what was happening as evil. Thats how it started to be recognized as evil. Societies don't change all at once out of thin air. Someone has to be first.

And when the selection mechanism for a pretty cure starts scouring the globe for a group of girls with the sole criteria of being good and having strength of character, I expect it to find those sorts people.
 
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allmightytoaster said:
Because that is the premise under which I said they would never succeed at using reason (not trickery) at getting people like the cures on their side, a statement I made half jokingly for how blindingly obvious it is, yet had to defend from some "pissing on the poor" level reading comprehension and flat out disagreement ever since.
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I mean, if your idea was really that Onogoro telling a Precure everything about Onogoro and expecting that to end well wouldn't work, and anything less than absolute full disclosure is base trickery and not what you're talking about, then sure. That's a weird thing to be this insistent about, but okay.

But...
allmightytoaster said:
This is a magical girl setting.

If I was argueing about the average everday person, you would have a point about the banality of evil. But in every real life story about the banality of evil, you will find that there were, in fact, people who recognized what was happening as evil. Thats how it started to be recognized as evil. Societies don't change all at once out of thin air. Someone has to be first.

And when the selection mechanism for a pretty cure starts scouring the globe for a group of girls with the sole criteria of being good and having strength of character, I expect it to find those sorts people.
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You sure seem to be talking about something that you believe charts to real life, which means states using trickery. No state, in the entire history of nation-states, has ever not employed trickery.

So cool, congratulations, you're right. Onogoro could never suborn a Precure team without trickery. Do you want to have a conversation about how Onogoro could suborn a Precure team, or do you just want to end the conversation with a declaration of victory?
 
Simon_Jester said:
I'm really not trying to misrepresent your point, but your point sincerely seems to me to be "no one as morally virtuous as a Pretty Cure could be co-opted by a society that does evil things to an underclass," and, uh.
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I'm saying a Pretty Cure is, by nature of the selection mechanism, in the 0.001% of "nicest people walking the earth". I am saying that such a person, having grown up in a relatively modern society with values like "chattel slavery bad" and "you have rights, actually" would not be easier to sway to Ongoros side of "nececcary evil" than someone who has grown up inside their bubble and eaten their propaganda about how "being nice to youkai is dumb, actually" her entire life.
The fact that there is an entire faction of people who think Youkai Slavery Not Nice, to me, puts a hard limit on how much evil a Pretty cure can see and explain away before she stops being the kind of one in 100.000.000 person who tops the good girl charts enough that a global selection mechanism says "that one is the goodest of them all".

Torgamous said:
So cool, congratulations, you're right. Onogoro could never suborn a Precure team without trickery. Do you want to have a conversation about how Onogoro could suborn a Precure team, or do you just want to end the conversation with a declaration of victory?
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I want neither of those things
I want people to stop looking at this:
allmightytoaster said:
I mean, they aren't wrong about probably not convincing anyone. Sure it's less about being immune to reason and more about Ongoro being both ignorant and, from a modern perspective, flat out evil. But they aren't wrong about probably not convincing anyone who got chosen by the good of heart criteria.
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and try to fight me about a statement I made with the intent of comedically stating the obvious.

I don't want to talk about how they actually could be suborned. That is not a discussion I ever made any arguments for, despite repeat attempts to twist my words otherwise.

I do not want people to debate me of they do not have any problems with that original statement.
 
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I can't help but feel a little sympathy for the Onogoro. These people have grown up in a supernatural world that is legit deadly and dark. They are used to being the first and last line of defense of Japan and its people from monsters for centuries, and their entire perspective is based on that. They have lived through an age of dying Gods, of men, not heroes, fighting monsters, and of established seemingly stagnant magic. But now the genre has shifted radically over the course of just a few months.

Things are going to get worse, and things are going to become so much better, but it's so sudden and so against their ingrained culture that they are left on the back foot constantly trying to catch up. The Precures are like heroes out of stories, and the Senshi like legends out of myth, and the Onogoro can't imagine that all that power can be used in way that's entirely beneficial to humanity and other innocents. Because that hasn't been the case for them over the centuries. It's like playing Dark Souls for 300+ years before somebody suddenly switches out games and now everyone is playing Hi-Fi Rush. The tone of the story is so drastically different it would be so unexpected and overwhelming.

They are so used to 'Making the Hard Decisions' that it does not occur to them that they never did make the hard decisions. It's easy to just treat all of the Yokai like the man-eating monsters the worst of their kind were. Easy to just say that their clan head's know best and no one else does. But if they had actually tried to break with tradition and try treating the Yokai with respect for their personhood, that would have caused discontent in their ranks. It would have had to make them rethink their policies and beliefs. And both of those would have been actual difficult decisions to work through. Putting complicated thought and work into doing the right thing is the Hard Decision that is so often derided as the 'soft' or 'emotional' answer, and thus not the right one.

Their world is coming crashing to the ground, and it's all because of their own choices and actions, but also because they can't find it in themselves to believe that's another way.
 
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