Trying to stay positive is a good thing. And if you read, you'll notice I'm actually against Darth and act as the voice of reason much of the time instead of being a suck-up like you seem to think I am. I still remember you saying I was one of Darth's fanboys
First. Rhaka. Shut up. Second. Darth. Why does Atlas send the MGs a warning about the impending attack? The reason they jump ship is because the figure out that the Senshi and the rest of the Alliance have the ability to prevent the World's Destruction. Until they notice that all is not as it seems, they will be working with the Association.
As I recall they jumped ship originally because their calculations said that the Alliance had a greater chance of stopping the end of the world than they did. They got that data and did a Heel Face Turn right then and there without even needing to see Usagi in action.
For the love of Befriending would you all bring your attention to me! Thank you. Can we please cut the aggressive side of this argument? What will help is debate. What will hurt is personal attacks and flaming. If you really want to help, and are not just a troll you will resist the urge to be antagonistic. Find another way to express your dislike of an idea, as this clearly isn't getting us anywhere. ---------------- Ok we seem pretty split on killing or not killing people. And I still see no good reasons why Usagi can't IN CHARACTER, just retcon things. Yes it's a stupid plot device, guess what, she's got it in spades. It's the price of having her in this project. So we don't get to use character death unless we can figure out why she, or one of the others are not pulling random plot devices out of their asses to save the day. Hell at least a few of our OC's should be able to pull shit too. I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it there, and simply wanting it not to be isn't helping. --------------- Or we could find good, compelling alternatives to character death. There are more ways to do things then killing some, or many characters. ----------------- Also kindly stop suggesting "nobody dies" or "lots die and then retcon" or "some die and no retcon" are retarded ideas. Frankly, any of them could work if done right. Though I would like to see other options, since these seem so charged. ---------------- Let's try to be constructive here. We want this to succeed and be awesome.
Except they have no reason to run those numbers. To the Association as a whole, which Atlas is a part of, The MGs are nothing but a group of first generation magi who broke the Masquerade. They have no reason to suspect otherwise and would not use their Laplace's Demon Magic to predict the odds of the Alliance being able to prevent the World's Destruction.
My opinion about this: 1) There's absolutely no buildup towards the decision to defect. 2) There's no conflict whether Atlas should defect or not.
Actually, Atlas would because it wants to save the world. That's its entire purpose. They would at least take a look at the possibility. As it won't let me requote and copy/paste, here's my response to biodude... We can make one.
They do need to acquire information about the Alliance, though. It would be easy enough for the alchemists to handle the intel-gathering and divine the best attack methods for the Enforcers and have someone in their ranks notice tons of signs that the magical girls aren't 1st-generation magi. Once they become objects of interest it would be only natural to see how they register to Lapace's Demon simply because they're a new variable to plug into the equation. Cue some young alchemist crunching the numbers, stopping, doing a spit-take, and calling upstairs to his superiors ("Sir? I think you need to see this!").
Atlas is a branch of the Magus Association. Magecraft as they understand it is a cumulative force gained over many generations. The idea of a First Generation Magi being able to prevent the World's Destruction would be regard in the same way as a person saying that a paleolithic society was capable of creating nanomachines that do anything and were made out of air. EDIT@ Darth. Problem being is that the MGs are in a lot of ways first Generation Magi. Additionally, Atlas is focused more on research and study. Situations like this fall under the Clock Tower's domain more than Atlas. While a situation like this would attract attention, without something big happening, they have no reason to consider the possibility that the girls can stop the World's Destruction.
Well with the higher tier girls like the Senshi and the Cures the MA underestimating them means they have no chance of harming them in the first round if they are transformed. Seriously some of the stuff they get put through makes a lot of the shit freaking Shirou Emiya gets hit with seem tame by comparison. And that is really saying something considering what happens in some of the Bad Ends. Not all of it mind you there are still plenty of things from Fate that Shirou went through that could seriously hurt if not outright kill the girls (Noble Phantasms for one), but even throwing Berserker(Heracles) at them and letting him go to town with physical blows are something the higher tier girls can shrug off because they have endured much much worse. The MA does not know that they need to bring out the really good stuff to harm such individuals. Fragarach is one thing that could really hurt them, but it is a situational weapon because Bazette only has so many of them, it takes time to make more, which is time she does not really have, and for full effect has to use it against an opponents strongest attack, and she would not necessarily know what her opponents strongest attack is. The point is that since the MA does not know the limits of their enemies, and due to the arrogance of the Old Blood families running the organization, they will think that they don't need to break out the big guns to take down these "amateurs". That will cost them. At first, later on when they realize that they require heavy artillery to take out the oppositions best forces they will bring it out. Of course this only affects higher tier girls and possibly the Nanoha crew as they draw upon a well researched magical system, which while it likely will not be able to keep up with all of the tricks the MA can pull out will definitely have some form of defense against kinetic weapons and "basic attacks" such as elemental spells that are not city busters. I can really see the Wolkenrietter doing well in a direct confrontation with an Enforcer group as they are literally "made" to be soldiers for combat against other magic users. Add in the fact that the Belkan magic system was used to enforce the rule of an empire that spanned a significant portion of the Dimensional Sea and you have to admit they likely have some interesting tricks to pull when they are not holding back and are fully willing to kill their enemies. Really one major thing the "let's have character death" people are ignoring is that while not every girl is a heavy hitter they deal with all kinds of different issues and at times very different powers to deal with such threats. What may effect one group might not harm another. If a magical girl is geared towards fighting a group that uses mass mind control and "purifies" a group of people under MA control then the MA is fucked if their "victims" remember who put them under control and report it to the Police. Afterall they don't have ways around computerized "No Fly" lists and other means of letting people know who they are, other than deleting the information, which will throw up all kinds of red flags if they do so. Members of the MA are still human and don't have all the defenses of a transformed magical girl. A Magical Girl might be able to shrug off a sniper round or an exploding brick of C4, an MA member if they don't see it coming probably won't as they don't consider modern technology a threat and would not have prepared defenses against it. Really there are so many different power sets that the MA will likely be in a bind as they have no idea what is truly effective against the girls they might come up against. Dammit once again I type up to much and it will likely come off as a rant. The point I am trying to make is that there are so many different groups of Magical Girls out there with such varied levels of power and an incredibly diverse set of abilities to draw upon that the MA can't possibly realize what is truly effective against all of them. For example they certainly don't know that Sailor Saturn is a planet buster, or that the TSAB's magic is far more advanced in some regards than any of theirs, such as wide scale teleportation. The MA just doesn't know what they are dealing with and will work on what information they have and assumptions made from that. It will backfire horribly in some cases, but not against all of the groups they go against even if they are weakened. Especially if they are weakened and manage to get away as then the MA will base their assumptions on what they could do then and just scale it up in their minds, which still equate the girls with "first generation amateurs". Without Fragarach coming into play a Cure or Senshi could curbstomp Bazette. In canon she might be able to fight Servants, but then she at least had some idea of what she was dealing with and planned accordingly leaving Fragarach as an option. With Cure Black and White whose physical strength and endurance at the end of their adventures are equal to if not greater than a Servant...... not so much. Both the MA and the Magical Girls are an Out of Context Problem to the other. There done. I sincerely apologize for the massive size of this post. But these are things that have to be considered in a confrontation between the MA and the Proto Alliance.
"Malign influences" should be "stuff I don't like". Your sweet spot of claiming founder rights without actual project lead responsibilities (which is when you have the right to claim things like "protecting your baby") is idiotic and doesn't help one bit. Just here, you go against one of his critics by chastising him for not being positive, while treating Darth's tantrums with kiddie gloves, telling him that in a conflict both sides are at fault. I stand by my opinion. Why? Despite everything, I have a point: BFP suffers from horrible worldbuilding and information retention. All attempts to do so were droned out long ago by pages full of screams of AWESOME and general apathy towards the wiki. And now you're stuck having already written yourself into a corner as soon as the (still excellent) first arc is over, thanks to bloat and because nobody can get the thing organised anymore. It just seems I need to hammer this in again and again because it's convenient to forget that making a round robin involves actual grunt work. Here's a novel idea: in an attempt to cut the head off the snake, the newly-revealed magical super-ninjas kill Usagi. And only Usagi. Sure, she will reincarnate in time as all Senshi do, but that hits the MGA where it really hurts, removes the damocles sword of her revival-ex-machina, and asks the pointed question if the first steps into a new golden age of cooperation and peace were worth the loss of the utopia that would have been the Neo-Silver Millenium. "Is it really worth it" is also a theme explored in Magical Girl stories, and one that should be brought up.
I'm the editor of the final draft, that's responsibility enough on its own. And "founder rights" amounts to "I'm going to argue against anything that goes against my vision for the project and if enough people disagree with me they'll ignore me and do whatever they want anyways", case in point the continued presence of the Persona characters. It's not quite as cushy a spot as you seem to think and all of my "power" amounts to me being vocal and trying to persuade people that my ideas are the best way to go. But I've said as much before and you didn't listen then either, so honestly I don't give a shit if you think I'm being immature or whatever. In your opinion. And your opinion stopped mattering a while back. In a lot of ways that matter, they're actually more like sorcerers. Every girl who can demonstrate teleportation is violating the laws of magecraft in big and important ways.
Well Rhaka, I was going to tell you to shut up because you only ever seem to come around to harass the Project in general and never offer anything of value, but the last bit of your post actually qualifies as useful input. Usagi being the only one to die does show the threat that Association is while simultaneously showing that, yes it is possible for the MGs to die and that things wont work out perfectly. As far as I know, no future Arcs depend on Usagi in any way and the only thing we had planned for her was leading the Alliance until Arc 3 were events convince her that she is not fit to lead. So killing her doesn't change our future plans in any significant way. It also removes the need to explain why the Silver Plot Hax isn't an issue in any future problems. Convincing people to actually do it is probably going to be impossible though. This is a rather neat solution to our current problems, but nobody is going to go for it.
No, I'm not. Then what is the theme of the second arc? Beyond 'Villains are ebil and get their asses kicked by good guys'. Because with the masquerade broken they aren't exactly hiding those things? Because Magical Girls don't take many steps to hide their identities besides 'magic'? Because you already put this enormous assassination attempt in the plot, and there's no point to using it instead of something else if the assassins don't kill people? Truth, comfortable lie, or my motivation for trying to improve this project? Then why are you having them do this enormous, climatic assassination attempt with super experienced magical Ninja Wizards when all of the characters are tired and drained? And does Prisma Ilya add anything to a story already absurdly bloated with characters? Scrap her if she doesn't add something truly great. They are agreeing with me because I have a point, Darth. This is perfect.
Usagi won't die because people will be pissed off as you said Nervaqus. But one of the other Senshi is possible. Hmmm...... I would say Neptune or Uranus, as the remaining member of their relationship suffering from loss will drive home the tragedy of it to the rest of the girls, and it will really piss of Saturn. I don't think the Enforcers have anything that can deal with an enraged Soldier of Silence. Pluto is to important to kill as she guards the Time Gates, a literal tear in the fabric of Time And Space. But I really don't think we can get anyone to agree on this one. Honestly I don't like this whole "character death" thing even if on some level I recognize it as necessary. One good point we could use is someone trying to kill Hikari or Hikaru and the Queen of Light or Dark King manifest their power through them to make their "displeasure" over the situation known. That would also cause Atlas to sit up and take notice.
Point. We really do need to start organizing the timeline better. It is a possibility. But there again requires us to prevent anyone else from bringing her back. --------------- As much as it might hurt us I think dropping the Arc two MA plot might be necessary. That or limiting who they go after. Saying they just go after one or two groups in Japan with their elites, and having their mooks go after everybody else would greatly reduce the chances of having to kill anyone, while still letting them be injured. We can also alter the MA's attack. Why are they out to wholesale kill the MGA in the first place? Wouldn't they have any reservations about attacking hundreds of girls without even telling them why? Assuming they are magical police wouldn't they attempt to arrest them first? And again can we come up with other ways to do this WITHOUT killing anyone? Or alternatively can we come up with something better then a war with the MA? And if we have the MA can we have another such group decide to help the MGA? I was thinking about MGifying the Council ala BTVS. They wouldn't have the numbers or scale to rolfstomp anything, but they would give us a nice group to back up the MGA. and more importantly an excuse as to why the MGA can form as quickly as it does.
Pissing off Darth, who WILL and HAS gone on a multiple-page rant that will derail the project until we come up with a solution is not the way to go. You were around when we were arguing PMMM and why that took so long. Nobody wants a repeat of that Rhaka unless it leads somewhere constructive. As this is going nowhere fast, I'm challenging Darth over this. As for the second one, it's the perfect compromise.
I think we need to take a big step back and take a good long look at who we're including again... AngryDesu's snippet involves MGLN and an OC. Dan-Heron added Black Rock Shooter. Gamlain has brought in Sailor Moon, Sailor Nothing, Pretty Sammy, and I don't remember everything else but it's been a lot. But nothing that seems to conflict sharply with the rest. Darth, I think, wants to bring in the Pretty Cure girls - I don't really know anything about them and the rules of their universe, though. Lord Archive brought in CLAMP - and the rules of the CLAMP verse are utterly incompatible with at the very least Sailor Moon, since one of them is "no resurrections". He left, declaring what he wrote void - do we really want to bring Sakura back into this despite the rules incompatibility? Or can we just leave her out? Another universe which everyone seems dead set on including is the Nasuverse, in the form of Kaleid Liner Prisma Ilya. This is another huge can of worms, since the Nasu-verse is huge and complicated and some people insist on bringing in more and more of it. If the Mage Association existed and had the policies they seem to have, they'd have tried to eliminate some of the previous magical girls for risking exposure. Also, they're grimdark, which we had decided we didn't want, right? (Not to mention all the other stuff, like the Types, the Dead Apostles, and other various cosmic horrors). If we really want to keep Ilya, then by all means do. But does this mean we have to keep the Mage Association as a global conspiracy to prevent anyone from learning about magic, or can we trim it down to something more likely to grudgingly coexist with the MGA? Keep it to what's actually *in* the KLPI manga rather than all the external materials? Another thing to consider is that we don't need to write everything that all the characters are doing. The bus is a powerful tool - buses come and go, and the passengers can send postcards. Once the introductory arc is done, and there's a consensus among the characters that something like the MGA needs to be set up, elect a group to hash things out while the rest of the girls go home, or with some of their new friends, etc. Not everyone is going to hang around headquarters, or be interested in running things. I can imagine several of the groups saying "count us in, call us if you need us and we'll do the same" after the initial fracas is over.
Goblin. First of all, The Magus Association is concerned with exactly Two things. The advancement of the study of Thaumaturgy, and maintaining the Secret of Thaumaturgy. As long as a mage is doing the above the Association doesn't give a flying fuck what you are doing. If you break the Secret, they kill you. End of discussion. The only reason Enforcers would want to take anyone alive is if they are given a Sealing Designation by the Magus Association. It would be far, far kinder to simply kill them instead. Also, the Council from Buffy. Really? Because we don't have enough characters running around already?
@Goblin The MA are mostly comprised of complete and total bastards. They slap Sealing Designations on people who have unique abilities or develop new and innovative ideas. That means at best that they are forcibly locked "for their protection" as the MA does not want to lose such a valuable research asset. At worst they vivisect the poor bastard to find out what makes them tick. I move for a Hijacked by Ganon (Goyan) move wherein the MA are moving into a position to eliminate the girls, and have already struck at the main group in Japan, but then Goyan decides that they might be in his way of searching for the last fountain and "takes care" of the problem. Either that or he tries to form an Alliance with them and seeing that they don't really have anything he could use blows up the Clock Tower sending the rest of the MA into a panic as they try to reinforce their positions and strike back against Dark Fall. By the time they regroup the Splash Star Girls are about to engage in the final battle against Goyan, after seeing what happens Atlas defects and the remnants of the MA are left in disarray once again, making them easier to take out as whatever leaders remain descend into infighting over control of the organization. Hell we could have the MA piss off the wrong Dark Kingdom (or Dark Kingdoms) and come under assault for trying to put them down in order to reestablish the Masquerade. In fact once they realize that the MA is a large organized force trying to take them out most of the Dark Kingdoms are liable to go after them on general principle. Honestly I like that idea, possibly with Goyan pulling the strings by approaching other kingdoms and telling them about the "threat" of the MA using the confusion caused by this three sided war to give Dark Fall time to find the last fountain. Remember his goal is to provoke the Splash Star Cures into calling upon it's power so that he can find out where it is. This situation could potentially lead to such an outcome as they would be forced to deal with even more enemies (MA, and other Dark Kingdoms). Goyan would not give a damn how, he just wants to get to the fountain, and it is in character for him to set something like this up in order to cause as much suffering as possible before he ends everything. I really like this last idea. Anyone have any other thoughts regarding it?
I also brought in MKR. As for the rules, we already decided on altering most of that to fit with what already existed. The 'no resurrections' rule is something based on the limitations of their magic.
This. Edit: though you forgot me adding H2O, and I coulda swore we had more verses then that. Ahhh. Thanks for the clarification. Now my vote is switching towards "Can we PLEASE find something better then the MA for arc two!?" And no, not really. Characters will appear in the main arc when needed, but most will be in the extended universe. The council was only supposed to be for groundwork for the alliance and for support against the MA. That and every canon verse we bring in means less time we have to work on OC's. Considering we want 100s to low 1000s of MGs in the MGA eventually bringing in the council helps us. Not that I'm really going to fight for it. An MGified council while cool would mean adding two more high tier players. I would like to see it but I will only argue for it if we keep the MA. Otherwise it would drop from important to "meh would be cool" and could be axed. @Kage: Huh. That's a good idea. I like it.
The theme of the second arc is "things change" if you can sum it up in a few words like that. This is the arc where people start reacting to the idea that magic is real. Not just the magical girls finding each other like in the first arc but mundane people as well. This is where it sinks in for the common man that monsters from another dimension might lurk on any street corner disguised as humans. This is where the world governments realize that Britain and Japan are absolutely serious about this magic business. This is where the various military forces of the world realize that they are powerless to stop demonic invasions without magical assistance. And this is where the magical girls begin to realize that they have kicked over the mother of all anthills in their attempts to save each other, and now the world is going into a collective panic state because people are just now beginning to realize that they've been under siege by the forces of hell for the length of human history, and they still are. The Reveal at this point has caused far more trouble than the problems it solved if you assume that the magical girls could save the world on their own just fine (few people know the full story behind Akiko's business with the Nightmare Factory). Most people would say that throwing the world into chaos is not worth saving the lives of a few girls. The Association has more selfish reasons than that but they're the only ones in a position to do something about the chaos that the Alliance has stirred up apart from the Alliance themselves. At this point there are only two ways to get things under control: move forward, or move backwards. Moving backwards is what the Association wants to do, put the world back under the Masquerade and make everyone forget that magic ever existed. This is futility thanks to things like recorded media, and that's the point. You can't go back to the way things were. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. You can only move forward and make the best of what you have. The end of the arc sees the Alliance become a formal international organization charged with protecting the world from magical threats. The Arthra hangs out in dimension space when it orbits an unadministered world. Even with the masquerade broken nobody outside the Alliance would know it was up there. Rhetorical question. Because that's how they'd react. Arc 2 as I've outlined above is about people reacting to the reveal. The Association would react violently and as previously-mentioned they already are in arc 1. It's that simple.
Hmm, the idea of removing Usagi for the time being sounds good. Sure, people will cry asspull and such, but that doesn't change the fact the Senshi revive on their own or when it's more convenient for plot, and she can come back later on. It also shows the MA as competent enough to actually get a kill without having to use crack ideas, like the whole Shiki and Arc thing, to get things done.
Killing Usagi would have extremely unusual effects on Chibi-Usa's development in the next few arcs. I want to rage, I really do, but for once I think I'll wait until some serious discussion starts going about this. Depending on how much of Usagi reincarnates and how much is just an OC with "Usagi's reincarnation" stamped on her I might be okay with this.
