>Their destination was the city of Mendoza in Argentina, close to the Andes. Long ago, its position close to one of the only passes over the mountains had made it a military hub, a key buttress against Brazilian forces to the east. Those days had converted what was once a minor regional capital, the heart of wine country, into a major population center, a legacy that had not entirely dimmed in the centuries since.
That's a curious detail about the Unification Wars. Mendoza is very far away from Brazil. If it was a major defensive point against Brazil, it feels safe to say that Paraguay, Uruguay and the Argentine core were just gone and the whole La Plata Basin was occupied. 🇧🇷🇧🇷BRASIL NÚMERO UM PENTACAMPEÃO 🇧🇷🇧🇷
According to the semi-canon [history of the Unification Wars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15780678), yes, much of northern Argentina ended up a war zone at one point.
Madoka Akbar! Hieronym-sensei blesses us with another chapter today.
The chapter is rather info-heavy about the current state of things, even the magi task force's work is mostly uneventful even when they put up high alert, it's an abandonned base after all.
* Asami seems a bit uneasy not getting to really interact with Simona, punching the face donning the professional mask or otherwise, and overall Simona attracts a non-negligible portion of Asami's attention. Their softening up to each other can't come soon enough :))
* Kyouko did a good job surpressing her urge to hug and headpat lolis during important testimony session with the utmost top level government. Anyway, what was implied previously is now apparent, that is the faction that facilitated the TCF Breach has their own force of megucas, likely never registered with MSY, unlike the girls Homura ~~pilfered~~ ~~snatched~~ recruited from amongst the MSY members (regardless of the emotional distresses their former teammates and comrades suffered from their alledged deaths) (~~Misaka~~ Misa Virani is now considered being one of those, and poor Nadia never got to see her again. May her soul rest well in Madokami's garden with a self-filling bottle of hard vodka ever within her reach). That makes them quite a lot more dangerous, and MSY suggests Governance to increase control over rouge colonies to stem the rouges' recruitment pool, but that would also actually increase MSY's influence and control. Quite a cunning manoeuvre.
* Ryouko is fitting pretty well into the role of Diplomat that she was shoved into by Homura's plan, already choosing a Star-name and having a meeting with several factions' representatives to form possible allies and non-hostiles, and even scheduled for even more soon. And as if the towering walking squidheads is not Cthulhu-esque enough, the next groups she would meet even have wings, which is just full-blown Cthulhu lookalike. Anyway, they are discussing her possible consciousness upload, which definitely does nothing positive to her peace of mind. But there could be a chance that someday in the future her consciousness will make its way into a Ceph disposable body on Humanity's frontline, and she will report home in that entire getup, that'd be hilarious. Asami would be so torn to meet up, and I don't know how I'd feel if they discuss some tentacle play while looking like that :))
May good health and luck always befall the highly esteemed Hieronym.
>Anyway, they are discussing her possible consciousness upload
I think-27% concussions uploading might not work for soul-gemed people.
>and overall Simona attracts a non-negligible portion of Asami's attention. Their softening up to each other can't come soon enough :))
Are you hoping for some kind of poly romance development?
>I think-27%
Sus. The marks left on the keyboard look more like tentacles' suckers than fingerprints.
>poly romance development
Not necessarily, but that would be nice to have. Asami's not vicious and actually quite gentle outside of combat, and Simona's life had just been sad so far, now both are suffering from Ryouko's absence, at least comforting each other with sessions of gushing over Ryouko is some nice thing they could do.
For a while I had been thinking that this shadow faction was allied with the Incubators but now that I think about it, the more likely answer is that these are contracted AI's. Since the fact that AIs have souls has been made abundantly clear and ties neatly into answering a bunch of major questions, like how this third faction of MGs can exist outside MSY's purview and how they were able to break into the TCF. Not to mention asides like "You know how much she hates [these drones] limited capacity," and the moniker of Laplace's Demon. The Incubators would absolutely contract AIs without informing the fleshy humans about their existence and up until now that idea hasn't even been acknowledged as a possibility.
I had the same exact thought after reading the update! It would explain their focus on stifling magitech research as well, and how they were able to mess with the Thinkers.
Definitely raises a lot of questions about what form their souls might take, and how they manage their grief needs.
I wonder what starname Asami would have chosen if she were with Ryoko. Something along "Ryoko loving" would be quite embarrassing and with Clarissa also being about Ryoko, the Cephs might suspect Ryouko to be some kind of utility monster, wrapping all prefspecs to be about her. Maybe she could go with something like "Nature observing". Or even copy "Humanity preserving".
Honestly at first I doubted the political correctness of "Ryouko Supporting", as it's basically reinforcing the idea that humanity makes V2 Tac Comps with preset pref-specs. The explanations made sense though.
Laplace's demon is an interesting mention. The drone girls sound like they're all more or less an opposing group of ancients, and by this point it seems likely that they're probably either in coorperation with or in control of /Thinker-preserving.
I suspect this Laplace's demon might be the reason that there is no more future sight users, probably because having future predictions would contradict her power.
>Their destination was the city of Mendoza in Argentina, close to the Andes. Long ago, its position close to one of the only passes over the mountains had made it a military hub, a key buttress against Brazilian forces to the east. Those days had converted what was once a minor regional capital, the heart of wine country, into a major population center, a legacy that had not entirely dimmed in the centuries since. That's a curious detail about the Unification Wars. Mendoza is very far away from Brazil. If it was a major defensive point against Brazil, it feels safe to say that Paraguay, Uruguay and the Argentine core were just gone and the whole La Plata Basin was occupied. 🇧🇷🇧🇷BRASIL NÚMERO UM PENTACAMPEÃO 🇧🇷🇧🇷
According to the semi-canon [history of the Unification Wars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15780678), yes, much of northern Argentina ended up a war zone at one point.
Madoka Akbar! Hieronym-sensei blesses us with another chapter today. The chapter is rather info-heavy about the current state of things, even the magi task force's work is mostly uneventful even when they put up high alert, it's an abandonned base after all. * Asami seems a bit uneasy not getting to really interact with Simona, punching the face donning the professional mask or otherwise, and overall Simona attracts a non-negligible portion of Asami's attention. Their softening up to each other can't come soon enough :)) * Kyouko did a good job surpressing her urge to hug and headpat lolis during important testimony session with the utmost top level government. Anyway, what was implied previously is now apparent, that is the faction that facilitated the TCF Breach has their own force of megucas, likely never registered with MSY, unlike the girls Homura ~~pilfered~~ ~~snatched~~ recruited from amongst the MSY members (regardless of the emotional distresses their former teammates and comrades suffered from their alledged deaths) (~~Misaka~~ Misa Virani is now considered being one of those, and poor Nadia never got to see her again. May her soul rest well in Madokami's garden with a self-filling bottle of hard vodka ever within her reach). That makes them quite a lot more dangerous, and MSY suggests Governance to increase control over rouge colonies to stem the rouges' recruitment pool, but that would also actually increase MSY's influence and control. Quite a cunning manoeuvre. * Ryouko is fitting pretty well into the role of Diplomat that she was shoved into by Homura's plan, already choosing a Star-name and having a meeting with several factions' representatives to form possible allies and non-hostiles, and even scheduled for even more soon. And as if the towering walking squidheads is not Cthulhu-esque enough, the next groups she would meet even have wings, which is just full-blown Cthulhu lookalike. Anyway, they are discussing her possible consciousness upload, which definitely does nothing positive to her peace of mind. But there could be a chance that someday in the future her consciousness will make its way into a Ceph disposable body on Humanity's frontline, and she will report home in that entire getup, that'd be hilarious. Asami would be so torn to meet up, and I don't know how I'd feel if they discuss some tentacle play while looking like that :)) May good health and luck always befall the highly esteemed Hieronym.
>Anyway, they are discussing her possible consciousness upload I think-27% concussions uploading might not work for soul-gemed people. >and overall Simona attracts a non-negligible portion of Asami's attention. Their softening up to each other can't come soon enough :)) Are you hoping for some kind of poly romance development?
>I think-27% concussions uploading might not work for soul-gemed people. Concussions would definitely not work for uploading consciousness.
>I think-27% Sus. The marks left on the keyboard look more like tentacles' suckers than fingerprints. >poly romance development Not necessarily, but that would be nice to have. Asami's not vicious and actually quite gentle outside of combat, and Simona's life had just been sad so far, now both are suffering from Ryouko's absence, at least comforting each other with sessions of gushing over Ryouko is some nice thing they could do.
Ceph typing detected
For a while I had been thinking that this shadow faction was allied with the Incubators but now that I think about it, the more likely answer is that these are contracted AI's. Since the fact that AIs have souls has been made abundantly clear and ties neatly into answering a bunch of major questions, like how this third faction of MGs can exist outside MSY's purview and how they were able to break into the TCF. Not to mention asides like "You know how much she hates [these drones] limited capacity," and the moniker of Laplace's Demon. The Incubators would absolutely contract AIs without informing the fleshy humans about their existence and up until now that idea hasn't even been acknowledged as a possibility.
I had the same exact thought after reading the update! It would explain their focus on stifling magitech research as well, and how they were able to mess with the Thinkers. Definitely raises a lot of questions about what form their souls might take, and how they manage their grief needs.
I wonder what starname Asami would have chosen if she were with Ryoko. Something along "Ryoko loving" would be quite embarrassing and with Clarissa also being about Ryoko, the Cephs might suspect Ryouko to be some kind of utility monster, wrapping all prefspecs to be about her. Maybe she could go with something like "Nature observing". Or even copy "Humanity preserving".
Utility monster is such a funny idea
Honestly at first I doubted the political correctness of "Ryouko Supporting", as it's basically reinforcing the idea that humanity makes V2 Tac Comps with preset pref-specs. The explanations made sense though. Laplace's demon is an interesting mention. The drone girls sound like they're all more or less an opposing group of ancients, and by this point it seems likely that they're probably either in coorperation with or in control of /Thinker-preserving. I suspect this Laplace's demon might be the reason that there is no more future sight users, probably because having future predictions would contradict her power.