Battle Fantasia: Idea Discussion Thread

For submitting and talking about story ideas. Idea submissions must be at least five paragraphs long, and include plot points, summaries of which characters are involved, and, for fanfiction, how it differs from canon. Both original and fanfiction ideas welcome. Though original works should have more development. Replying posts must give actual commentary, no "GREAT IDEA" or "THIS SUCKS".

Battle Fantasia: Idea Discussion Thread

Postby Comartemis » Fri Mar 04, 2011 1:01 am

It was strange that the only thing she could think about as the elevator rose was the question of if her mother had read her will yet. She had posted it through her parent's letterbox only an hour or so ago before she had gone and caught the train to central Tokyo. She wondered if her parents had even bothered to read the letter... or if they had simply tossed it aside like they had with her - their delinquent daughter.

She had quite a while to think on the subject as the elevator took a long time to reach it's highest floor. Hardly surprising given it was located a good three hundred feet off the ground, half-way up the as yet incomplete Tokyo Sky Tower. She had chosen this place because it was prominent and being under construction meant that at this time of the day it was relatively abandoned. Admittedly she had needed to use every bit of her skill to sneak into the place to begin with but once inside she had been able to avoid most of the workers as they were clocking off for the evening.

Eventually the lift came to a stop and she was forced to walk the rest of the way up because the next lift was a construction one she couldn't work out how to use. The stairs would take her another three hundred or so feet up and were she a normal person she would have likely collapsed of exhaustion half-way.

But she wasn't normal - that was why she was here.

It didn't take her too long to reach the upper floors of the tower, not when she was capable of leaping up whole staircases in one jump. Even so she was panting heavily when she reached the top and the chained door which led out onto the sky high construction site that was building the tower ever higher. The chains and locks were pretty easy to get though and within moment she was standing outside on a vast ledge looking out over the city so far below.

Carefully she reached into a pocket and pulled out a pink cellphone. Staring out at the horizon she dialed a number and held the phone to her ear.

“Hello? Tokyo Police Force?” She said with a false cheer that simply did not match her dead-seeming eyes. “I'd like to report a suicide jumper. Yes, that's right. Uh-huh. Where?”

She sniffled slightly. “She's at the top of the Tokyo Sky Tower.”

The call finished she closed her phone and raised one arm to wipe at her eyes with her sleeve. Then she opened her phone again and dialed in a new number.

“Is this the Japanese News Network? I'd like to report a story in progress...”


* * * * * * * *


It wasn't long until she heard the helicopters approaching, a quick check of her cell told her it had taken almost fifteen minutes. She smirked darkly at that, had she been here for the reason she had called them then they would have come too late... but she needed them, needed the cameras the news helicopter carried.

It was hard to explain why she hadn't just gone through with things, why she was putting on the big production she had in mind... but in the end it came down to the fact that she needed to be seen, needed to let everyone know.

It was the only thing she could do now.

She stood up from where she had been sitting against a wall, face buried against her knees. Picking herself up she took a few unsteady steps towards the edge of the ledge and wiped at her eyes and face with a now terribly damp sleeve. She winced slightly as both helicopters let loose with floodlights to illuminate her and a good chunk of the building she stood on.

She tried hard not to cringe in fear - she remembered the last time she had been blinded by bright lights like this... it was not a pleasant memory.

The police helicopter was yelling something to her over a speaker but she ignored it in favor of glancing down at her cellphone, which she had already set to pick up the Japanese National News broadcast.

Though tiny it was easy to make out that what was on the screen was a live feed from the news camera.

The future, one way or another, was here.


* * * * * * * *


It was broadcast upon television sets all over the country watched by hundreds, thousands, millions of people.

Just as she had wanted.

She stepped forward, putting the edge of the ledge and the horrifyingly long drop beyond it literally an inch from her feet. The height didn't scare her as she had enough things she feared already, rather it represented an end to her fears - one way or another.

She twitched her fingers in preparation of her next move.

All around the country people watched as a young seeming girl stood above a lethal drop. They took in the way her long black hair and baggy casual clothing whipped about in the high winds caused by the two helicopters hovering nearby.

They watched as she took a deep breath.

“My name,” she yelled out, far louder than should have been possible, “Is Yamaguchi Akiko!”

Reaching out in front of her with one hand the girl, Akiko, concentrated for a brief moment. Almost immediately points of light seemed to spark up all around the girl where they hung for a moment before being drawn towards her outstretched hand. There they seemed to join together and mix into a shining mass which stretched itself into a thin shape before suddenly bursting outwards and fading into nothingness. What remained was a short silvery metal staff topped with what looked from a distance like a simple golden egg but up close appeared like a set of golden petals curled protectively around something.

“And I am a magical girl!”

Closing her eyes Akiko threw the staff-holding arm out to one side and, muttering under her breath, slowly swung her arm up and around to scribe a circle in the air with the end of it... As she did so her staff left a shining trail of light purple sparkles that was dense enough to appear as a solid line from a distance. Once the circle was complete the drew back her hand and staff before reaching out again and gently tapping the staff against what had previously been the empty air within the circle.

Only now it wasn't empty air anymore, instead it was a thick mass of purple lines and script packed so tightly together that it seemed like an almost solid wall of color. Pulling back once again the girl spared a moment to wipe at her eyes with her free hand... then viciously stabbed the end of her staff through the center of the circle - it stretched outwards as if made of rubber before the staff pierced through it.

The gold petals opened, a shining jewel revealed from within them that pulsed with light before letting out a bright flash which prompted the purple circle to return to it's original shape - albeit with the staff poking through the middle. Then the wall started moving, hitting the girl only to stretch and deform around her body. Finally it appeared to have stretched too much and it seemed to pop like a bubble.

People watching the news report gasped at the sight of the girl. They marveled at how her hair was no longer loose but done up in a tight pigtail that looped around her neck. They gasped at the fact that her clothes, previously a baggy sweater and sweatpants, had vanished only to be replaced with an elaborate purple and black costume that looked like it had come from a child's imagination.

And these people numbly realized - she really was a magical girl and she really had just transformed on live television.

“Born within the empty night,” the girl continued, sniffling slightly, in a voice that was quiet yet somehow still overcame the noise of the helicopters. “To guard until the return of the light, my name is...” the girl's voice hitched as she seemed to suddenly choke up. “m...my name i-is... ma-magical guh-girl...” She froze and shook her head from side to side quickly before looking forward once more. “Magical girl,” she yelled out, “Star Reverie!”

The news camera zoomed in then and for the first time people around the country got a good look at the girl's face - and the tears that ran down it.

“I became this when I was eight years old!” She'd been so happy that day, when a rabbit named Miteo had told her that she had been blessed with magical powers, that she was the one chosen to protect the world from the Church of Eclipse.

It was rather pathetic that the happiest day of her life had also marked the end of her happiness.

“I have been fighting evil alone every day since then!” She thought about the fights she had gone through, the endless almost daily battles... the injuries she had taken and the many sleepless nights lost to patrolling... the results of that constant fighting, being dropped from school for skipping so many lessons in order to save the world... being accused of delinquency, of drug taking and street fighting because of her constant injuries...

And in the end, being abandoned by her own parents - unable to keep putting up with her ill-deserved reputation and the rumors everyone seemed to be spreading about her.

“And I...” she choked up again, ducking her head and screwing her eyes shut in pain. “I... I'm not strong enough... to keep doing it anymore.” she whispered, the magic she had cast right at the start enough to ensure even this quiet speech was clearly heard.

“I've lost everything I ever had, everything I ever cared about... and it's never stopped.” fresh tears rolled down her face as she thought about the joy and relief she'd had when the Church had finally fallen. She cried as she remembered the despair that had run through her when the Bloody Carnival had risen to takes it's place with fresh plots and more vicious monsters... and how it had happened all over again when her final victory simply heralded the emergence of the Nightmare Factory.

“It never stopped! Do you hear me!?” The girl screamed at the helicopters, “Every day! I thought it was over when I won and it wasn't! They just wouldn't stop! They wouldn't stop and I was all alone for seven years! Seven! Years!” She threw her staff around as she screamed, the end of it crackling with energy as her magic reacted to her emotions. “I can't take it anymore! I can't take how much it scares me! I can't take how much it hurts me! I can't take any of it!”

Around the country people watched, silent, as a magical girl simply broke down - but there were many who looked on in horror for reasons of their own.

“I just...” the girl continued, sniffing loudly and calming down as she wiped at her face with one bare arm. “I just want it to stop.”

She looked up at the helicopters, straight into the cameras of the news crew.

“I... I want...”

She clutched her staff in both hands now, her knuckles visibly tight as they gripped the metal shaft.

“I want someone to save me

The girl edged forward slightly, until her toes were over the edge of the brick ledge.

“Because if there is no-one,” she whispered, “If I am truly alone...”

Her arms fell to her sides and her head dropped.

“Then I... I just... I just can't anymore.”

One foot was lifted and time seemed to slow down for everyone watching.

“If there is anyone else... then please...”

The foot swung forwards and started to come down as if taking a step into open air.

“... please... save me.”

And then, she fell.


* * * * * * * *


“Nanoha!” Fate yelled as her friend practically hurtled from the hotel room they had been sharing. Nanoha's family had been treating their daughter to an overnight visit to Tokyo and Lindy, being her current guardian had insisted on paying them to allow Fate to join their trip. Possibly she was fed up of how she and Chrono had been at each other's throats lately, or maybe she just wanted her to see the sights she had never been able to see before - she didn't really know.

What she doubted the Admiral had expected, however, was the live broadcast of a girl - a magical girl - throwing herself off the top of the tallest building in the city.

Nanoha, naturally, had decided she was going to save her but there was really no way for the girl to get there in time with her flight speed.

Fate made a decision.

“Nanoha!” she yelled, rushing out of the room herself, and heading straight towards the stairs leading to the roof of the hotel. “I'm faster than you! Bardiche!”

Barrier Jacket. Sonic Form.

* * * * * * * *

Within minutes the story hit national Japanese news networks.

Within hours the story had been passed around video-sharing sites all over the internet.

Within a day the story was being broadcast on international news in almost every major country.

By the end of the week sceptics had done their best to try and disprove that they saw on the tapes - they were still trying.

Somewhere along the line so-called 'experts' had shown up out of the woodwork to comment on the story, what it meant, what the politics would do, what the military views were and all sorts of other concerns and issues that filled the radio, the television and the newspapers.

But for Yamaguchi Akiko this was all meaningless.

Someone had saved her, and that was all she needed to know.

* * * * * * * *

To say that Fate T Harlaown was in trouble was an understatement. She was in a lot of trouble, so much so that terms to describe how much trouble she was in had yet to be invented. She was in such trouble that she had already given up calculating how long she would be grounded after she realized that the earth's sun would likely burn itself out before she was a free girl again.

This was assuming she didn't get imprisoned as well. Her limited legal experience meant that she knew the TSAB actually had sentences in place for potentially immortal criminals - life sentences even.

There was a very good chance that what she'd done might rate one.

Did she regret the actions that were going to land her in all this trouble? If she was honest with herself then no, she didn't. There was a girl back on the bed in her room who was alive because of her. Alive because she had just broken every god damn rule in the TSAB handbook - at least the bits she had read so far - in order to snatch her out of the sky some three hundred feet above the ground.

In public.

On camera.

On live camera even, so the TSAB couldn't even perform basic information control as the entire damn country had just seen her grab a self-confessed magical girl out of mid air. In hindsight she probably should have left immediately but the girl had clutched onto her like a life preserver and that had made a quick exit difficult. Instead she had floated upwards to land back where the girl had made her original dive from. Said girl had turned out to be almost hysterical, not in fear but in sheer relief at not being alone, at having had someone hear her plea for help and likely also at having not just died horribly.

It had taken a while to calm her down, during which the camera had been filming non-stop.

Things had only gone downhill when Nanoha had caught up with her... and had apologized, apologized to the camera for taking up so much of their time and that she and Fate really should be taking this girl somewhere safer. That she had been flying all the while as she did this, with those massive pink wings of her flight spell obvious to everyone, had only served to make an already unsalvageable situation even worse. The two had quickly left after that, the girl named Akiko held between them as she apparently had no flight power of her own. The helicopters had tried to follow but it had been fairly easy to lose them by dropping into a nearby park and hiding in it's vegetation for a while before heading home. Since then Nanoha had been checking on the girl while she had been in the kitchen making soup and listening to the news reports of 'the magical girl event' with ever growing horror.

She heard a familiar cough behind her and winced.

Maybe if she was really lucky that would not be admiral and sort-of adoptive mother Lindy Harlaown standing behind her and instead be someone less likely to ground her for all eternity - the very devil himself perhaps.

Turning around she looked up into the face of Lindy and took a moment to curse whatever force guided the universe as she really, really would have preferred the devil.

In the year 2005, the world changed forever. The transformation and attempted suicide of the magical girl Star Reverie live on national television along with her subsequent rescue by Fate Testarossa revealed the existence of magic to the world, and along with it the otherworldly creatures that threaten our very existence on a daily basis. While some were skeptical at first, claiming an elaborate hoax, the media was not so skeptical, and as support for the young girl flooded into and across Tokyo, the existence of more such girls, the powers they wielded, and the creatures they fought slowly but surely came to be accepted as an incredible but indisputable truth.

As surprised as the "normals" were to learn of the existence of magical girls, however, the existence of other magical girls came as a tremendous shock to the girls themselves. Forced to operate under intense secrecy to protect their friends and loved ones from attack by their enemies, the girls had also inadvertently hidden themselves from potential allies who might have made their burdens that much lighter. As the world reels in shock and shadowy figures make revenge plots and contingencies, the young heroes and heroines come to an inescapable conclusion: this state of affairs cannot continue. For the sake of girls like Yamaguchi Akiko, for whom their gifts have become a curse, the magical girls and boys of the world must unite under one banner, so that no soldier of love and justice will ever be alone ever again.

For more information, go here.

By the way, none of those three snippets I linked together are mine. They're the work of AngryDesu, one of the regular posters in the above-linked thread.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Ellen Kuhfeld » Fri Mar 04, 2011 8:04 am

I really hope this is continued - by whomever.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Ellen Kuhfeld » Fri Mar 04, 2011 11:16 pm

When I think -- this story is very like Nightelf's The Thin White Line, which is probably the finest short, dark Sailor Moon fanfic I've read.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Muramasa » Sat Mar 05, 2011 12:48 am

Th....th....the potential! :shock:







THIS. NEEDS. TO. BE. WRITTEN.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Comartemis » Sat Mar 05, 2011 3:37 am

Th....th....the potential! :shock:







THIS. NEEDS. TO. BE. WRITTEN.

IT IS.

Here's another snippet which Gamlain wrote and has expanded on in the last page or two:

Himei didn't think very much about her highschool days, for very good reasons. The sceene on tv..brought it all back. Painfully.

But it also made her -think-. She was good at thinking with pain.

It was probably why she was still alive.

Thinking about things like, 'where are the knives' and 'will anyone notice if' and 'where are the bandages' were long past her except for a mothers knowing where the bandages are. Of which there were...less than there should be.

Substantially. Of course, Hikari might have taken more than she needed, as her much more rambunctious little girl was getting into fights left and right at sch -

The woman who's married name was still Shoutan Himei - her husband had, in a moment of /something/ insisted on taking her name instead - had to abruptly sit down.

Nine years old. Hikari was -nine years old-. Good grades. Liked running and teasing people and shouting as loud as possible (very). Had been, up until about...four months ago? Not -exactly- a model child - this nail stood up and dared hammers to break - but a beloved one. And happy.

Fights at school, well, there'd been one or two. Or three. Or five. Even before this. Hikari didn't put up with bullies.

Scratches and bruises every other day was too much. The conclusion that the school had just stopped -reporting- the bullying that the counselor had assured her of...didn't hold up.

...they were the wrong kind of scratches anyway.

She was halfway out the door with a knife tucked into her coat before she knew where she was even going, and halfway -there- before she even knew where it would be.

What she found in Hikari's favorite park was...more or less what she expected to see.

Nothing. Oh: A lot of happy children. But no Hikari. Hikari was - that way. (She shouldn't be able to -do- this anymore a small part of her was yammering. Another part of her was stuffing things like fear and horror of what had happened before and what might be happening now, right under her nose, into a small box to be dropped in an ocean somewhere.)

That way turned out to be a walk or three - it'd been some time since she'd been getting serious regular exercise beyond what it took to keep her figure, but Himei refused to let it have any effect.

" - Chiea-san, dodge - no!" Hikari's voice and another child's scream and a /thing/.

It wasn't a Yamiko. It was....sort of like a melted cake. Or an ambulatory brownie. With teeth. Lot's of teeth, which were chomping on a little girl's arm -

A pulse of light hit it and the other girl bounced, crying and bleeding, but alive, and Hikari tried to face it down with something like a star held in one hand, dressed in white.

Half covered in dirt and blood herself, but dressed in white. "I'll...stop y-" Her daughter was saying and then Himei felt herself move.

"My name is Shoutan Himei and I am /very tired of this kind of thing/." She said, and an arm came up filled with something that shouldn't have been there as the blob-monster turned at her and charged.

"Nothingness." Someone said, but the voice was not - could not be -hers.

What met the creature's head on charge was a black that was less 'darkness' and more 'a hole in the world'. Not even dust - not even a scrap of one tooth reached the other side.

"Hikari." Himei said gently as she swept off her coat to use as bandages for the other girl, and got a bug-eyed "un?" in response.

"Grounded. Call an ambulance."

And for the record, it's not all darkness and angst. Besides Nanoha we also have Sailor Moon, CCS, Magic Knights Rayearth, Devil Hunter Yohko, Prisma Ilya, Madoka Magica (INCUBATOR MUST DIE! is practically the thread's second catchphrase after "You are not alone.", so you know we'll be doing fun things with that one), as well as Mai-HIME, Kekkaishi, Venus Versus Virus, Kampher, possibly Arcana Heart, and of course Sailor Nothing, along with a handful of OCs and other characters like the Materials from Nanoha Aces. It's glorious, and it's barely gotten off the ground.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Muramasa » Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:25 am

It.... it brings manly tears.. ;_;
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby bissek » Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:37 am

Not all angst, and you're including MKR? In the anime version, the Dragon of the second season was the physical manifestation of Hikaru's self-loathing after what she had to do at the end of the first season. Also, there's no evidence that they can use their powers in our world for anything other than transporting to Cephiro.

One potential long term implication of that last snippet was that Sailor Truth published a book about the Yamiko War. And there is now evidence that is really is non-fiction like she claimed, with the main characters possibly ready to step forward. I also have a feeling that Himei is going to make her daughter read a copy of Mahou Shoujo.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Comartemis » Sat Mar 05, 2011 11:22 am

bissek wrote:Not all angst, and you're including MKR? In the anime version, the Dragon of the second season was the physical manifestation of Hikaru's self-loathing after what she had to do at the end of the first season. Also, there's no evidence that they can use their powers in our world for anything other than transporting to Cephiro.

There's no evidence they'd go back to being magical girls just yet either, there's been talk of the depowered magical girls taking on advisory roles, as well as one guy who suggested having Nova pop up out of nowhere and side with the Dark Magical Girls (not evil, just more self-interested than their lighter sisters. Their leader is Material-D with the personality she has in Material Days), possibly leading to a re-emergence of the Knights' magic by some handwavium or something.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Pale Wolf » Tue Mar 08, 2011 4:06 pm

Hm. Well now, I've been meaning to respond to this for a couple of days, but got sidetracked.

Can't really comment on what's going on in the thread, so what I say will be mostly based on the core idea (ie, magical girl SRW). I'm honestly tempted on taking it in another direction, myself.

First thing that strikes my mind is that the various monsters and such will generally need to be tuned up from the usual, or the military and/or police would be able to do the job for the magical girls. They'd want to (this is their job, they're certainly not gonna be comfortable with kids doing it), but if they're capable of it, then the magical girls actually get what they want - to sit at home while the adults take care of it. Not much of a story in there. Or at least, not the kind of story this idea is aimed at.

Second thing that comes to mind is that one would need either a lot of other-national (and probably OC) magical girls to balance out the massive amount of Japanese ones, or to come up with a core reason why Japan is so important and has so many (which is entirely workable - hell, it's a potential story hook right there). The latter is probably preferable, because too many OCs will bog down the story - though a few is fine, this is SRW after all.

Third, related to Himei's appearance - one would also need to work out why it's all happening now. And it pretty much has to be that, because if the magical girl demographics were the same throughout history (or even throughout the last few decades), the magical girls will be outnumbered by magical women, who bring in the same problem that the military/police do in point #1 - they're already good at this, and the kids can sit at home and let the adults handle it.

Fourth, it'd be a bit cruel to leave out the normals entirely. Whether or not they can fight, there's plenty of other support that they can do, and would have if they'd known. And they are the people getting defended here - it is entirely seemly that they repay the favour. And that they have the chance to do something in their own defence.

Fifth, the TSAB... To be honest, heavy TSAB involvement breaks this idea. This comes back to points #1 and #3 - the professionals. The TSA has planets worth of resources that it could potentially bring to bear given how bad things can get. One would need to pull them mostly out of the game somehow.

Sixth, the experience differentials. This mostly comes in in the question of series with multiple seasons (post-StrikerS Nanoha is a very different proposition from early season one Nanoha, suffice to say), though even with one season, end-series characters will generally be a lot more capable. This isn't to say avoid experience differentials, but it'd be fairly important to minimize them - if you get one or another character/group with a lot more capabilities than most of them, or no current enemy, then it'd simply turn into a curbstomp while the rookies stand at the back and cheer 'em on. After all, if Captain Takamachi can handle it, why should the kids have to risk their lives?

Really, the basic key to this is that most magical girls don't want to do it. Since the idea of them doing it is central, it's important to force them to do it - since they're not the only one anymore, you need to arrange things so that the various people who could otherwise do it for them (the military, magical girl parents, more seasoned magical girls) can't, for whatever reason.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Comartemis » Tue Mar 08, 2011 5:58 pm

Pale Wolf wrote:Hm. Well now, I've been meaning to respond to this for a couple of days, but got sidetracked.

Can't really comment on what's going on in the thread, so what I say will be mostly based on the core idea (ie, magical girl SRW). I'm honestly tempted on taking it in another direction, myself.

First thing that strikes my mind is that the various monsters and such will generally need to be tuned up from the usual, or the military and/or police would be able to do the job for the magical girls. They'd want to (this is their job, they're certainly not gonna be comfortable with kids doing it), but if they're capable of it, then the magical girls actually get what they want - to sit at home while the adults take care of it. Not much of a story in there. Or at least, not the kind of story this idea is aimed at.

That's one of the first things we thought of, and since we're using so many different series and different monster types we decided to lump all the villains into one of several power tiers. Let's see... where's that index... aha!

Dark Minion Power Scale:

Mooks: The lowest of the low, mass-produced faceless cannon-fodder. Will go down with basic magical attacks and mundane massed firepower.

The Drained: Victims of "energy draining" attacks (exactly what is being stolen varies from one Dark Kingdom to the next, and sometimes is not energy at all). Generally, these are the people magical girls are most immediately interested in protecting, but there are cases of the Drained being forced to attack their would-be rescuers.
The Drained tend to ignore non-crippling levels of pain and injury, but can otherwise be subdued even by nonmagical humans. They are most dangerous to magical girls who lack adult-level strength or a nonlethal means of disabling their opponents.

The Darkened: Humans who exhibit a pronounced behavioral shift as a result of exposure to so-called "negative energy." Aggression, cruelty, selfishness, and other similarly negative traits are enhanced, resulting in acts of harrassment, theft, vandalism, abuse, and assault. Most Darkened gain a very slight level of protection against purely physical harm, while those who have experienced long-term and/or high-level exposure to negative energy exhibit increased physical and mental capabilities. Low-level mystical abilities sometimes emerge, but these are almost always the result of a pre-existing affinity for such things being awakened by the Darkening.
Normal Darkened can be nonlethally subdued by normal humans with some form of combat training. "Enhanced" Darkened are more problematic, and mystically-empowered ones even more so, but since they retain all normal human weaknesses, nonlethal measures such as tear gas and tazers remain viable solutions. Magical girls treat them as faster, more aggressive versions of the Drained.

The Corrupted: Humans who have sold out to a Dark Kingdom in exchange for protection, material compensation, or the kind of power available to enhanced and/or empowered Darkened. Act as eyes-and-ears, disposable field commanders, and infiltrators within existing power structures; the latter act to conceal the existence of Dark Kingdoms and magical girls alike from the general populace, and derail any projects or organizations that might pose a threat to their masters' agenda.
Between the enhanced abilities and active magical powers, a normal human usually cannot defeat one of the Corrupted without resorting to lethal measures, although exceptional humans sometimes can. Even the weakest and most inexperienced of magical girls is usually at least as powerful as a Corrupted human in a direct confrontation; in addition, the magical reinforcement that makes the Corrupted so dangerous to normal humans can often be counteracted by a magical girl's attacks, with little or no permanent harm to the Corrupted individual himself.

MotW: The Monster of the Week. Fairly unique, intelligence level slightly higher than the previous. Has better attacks and maybe some low grade powers. Usually One Trick Ponies. Ludicrous amounts of mundane massed firepower, or magical attacks needed.

UMotW: The Veteran to the MotW's greenhorns. For some reason a MotW gets a boost in IQ (not much, but then there was little enough to begin with) and has higher power, a bit of EXP, and the instinct to actually DODGE. This would be the ones that either survive encounters or get lucky. Goes down same as MotW.

Officers: Personal servants to General-level monsters, these beasts survive long enough to become personally useful, and as such are generally much smarter than their weaker cousins by virtue of simple natural selection. While no more powerful than any other monster of the day, they are far more likely to stage successful ambushes, use tactics in battle, and retreat if defeat seems to be imminent. An example of this rank would be Tethys -- servant to General Jadeite -- or the Ayakashi Sisters -- servants to Rubeus -- in the first and second seasons of Sailor Moon.

Generals: Generally the most powerful servants of the boss monster, Generals are the tactical heads of a significant portion of the dark army and serve as powerful recurring enemies. They are far stronger than any monster of the week and some can require a team effort just to hurt, much less defeat. Examples of General-class foes include Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoicite, and Kunzite, the four Generals of the Dark Kingdom.

Mid-Boss: While not part of the general command structure, Mid-Bosses are generally ranked above Generals on the overall threat scale on account of one fact: politics. Namely that they don't take part in them. Generals, for all their power, spend much of their time jockeying for political favor with their Glorious Leader, and as a result rarely work together. Mid-Bosses, on the other hand, most frequently work in teams and so are that much more dangerous to fight against due to their use of group tactics; a very common trick is Divide and Conquer, a terrifyingly effective tactic to use against groups who rely on teamwork and coordination. Use of overwhelming force is strongly advised.)

Boss:As the name suggest, Bosses are the leaders of the various Dark Kingdoms that are active on Earth. They command colossal armies and can gift their favored servants with new powers. Monsters who have reached this level possesses immense power and superb intellect, surpassing even the most dangerous team of Mid-Bosses by a large margin. They are imprevious to any sort of damage that are not magical of nature. Bosses are foes that requires both solid teamwork, excellent tactics and great magical powers to defeat. Most of them rarely fight in the frontlines, prefering to leave the fighting and dying to their mooks and generals. A Dark kingdom can never be truly destroyed unless the Boss is killed first, as the Boss can easily create new soldiers. Some Bosses seems to answer to the commands of a more powerful dark entity, some pursue their own agendas, while others appears to be completely uninterested in the war against the humans.

Examples of Bosses: Prince Phobos, Queen Beryl and Material-D better known as 'Yami'

Puppet Master: The power behind the throne. The Manipulator, String-puller, and root of it all. Ludicrous power levels.

BIG BAD: The summoned god-like evil entity, the PM's Final Ultimate Form.

Normals can handle anything up to a General-class monster, but it requires progressively more ludicrous degrees of firepower to put them down, to the point where you're sending tanks after monsters of the week and wrecking city blocks trying to take them down. Magical Girls are just that much more effective at it and are far less likely to suffer casualties than a squad of marines or whatever mundane forces you could send after it. Some monsters also have mazoku-like traits that make them completely immune to non-magical attacks because that thing you're shooting at is just a shell it's projecting off the astral plane (or wherever).

Second thing that comes to mind is that one would need either a lot of other-national (and probably OC) magical girls to balance out the massive amount of Japanese ones, or to come up with a core reason why Japan is so important and has so many (which is entirely workable - hell, it's a potential story hook right there). The latter is probably preferable, because too many OCs will bog down the story - though a few is fine, this is SRW after all.

We're looking into that as well. There's been talk of shifting a few series around into different countries (like CCS into France for some reason) but we're looking into shows like W.I.T.C.H. and H2O for non-Japanese magical girls as well as making up a fair few OCs, though those will mostly be appearing in side-stories.

Third, related to Himei's appearance - one would also need to work out why it's all happening now. And it pretty much has to be that, because if the magical girl demographics were the same throughout history (or even throughout the last few decades), the magical girls will be outnumbered by magical women, who bring in the same problem that the military/police do in point #1 - they're already good at this, and the kids can sit at home and let the adults handle it.

A fair point.

Fourth, it'd be a bit cruel to leave out the normals entirely. Whether or not they can fight, there's plenty of other support that they can do, and would have if they'd known. And they are the people getting defended here - it is entirely seemly that they repay the favour. And that they have the chance to do something in their own defence.

That was one of the very first points to be brought up in the discussion and it's turned out exactly as you say.

Fifth, the TSAB... To be honest, heavy TSAB involvement breaks this idea. This comes back to points #1 and #3 - the professionals. The TSA has planets worth of resources that it could potentially bring to bear given how bad things can get. One would need to pull them mostly out of the game somehow.

Planets which they can't bring to bear because they're stretched thin covering their own territory. I believe someone mentioned that Earth told the TSAB to buzz off, though I can't remember the reasons behind that decision. The Asura is still hanging out in orbit for a while after the series starts and serves as a temporary HQ until the girls get settled somewhere else.

Sixth, the experience differentials. This mostly comes in in the question of series with multiple seasons (post-StrikerS Nanoha is a very different proposition from early season one Nanoha, suffice to say), though even with one season, end-series characters will generally be a lot more capable. This isn't to say avoid experience differentials, but it'd be fairly important to minimize them - if you get one or another character/group with a lot more capabilities than most of them, or no current enemy, then it'd simply turn into a curbstomp while the rookies stand at the back and cheer 'em on. After all, if Captain Takamachi can handle it, why should the kids have to risk their lives?

Really, the basic key to this is that most magical girls don't want to do it. Since the idea of them doing it is central, it's important to force them to do it - since they're not the only one anymore, you need to arrange things so that the various people who could otherwise do it for them (the military, magical girl parents, more seasoned magical girls) can't, for whatever reason.

A good point. I've brought this up for deliberation.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Ellen Kuhfeld » Tue Mar 08, 2011 6:28 pm

Even if the magical girls are forced to do it -- they might not have to fight the canonical enemies. Why should the Sailor Senshi bother with the second-season Cardians when Sakura is around? And Princess Punie (of Dai Mahou Touge) would make the average youma quiver in fear -- but only when it was too late to escape. (But she seemed such an easy target!)

As for Magical Women, there are some anime built around this concept, like Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo. The Mano clan is up to 108 generations of Devil Hunters, with granny teaching Yohko the tricks of the trade.

Going beyond anime and manga, we can start bringing in magical girls like Raven (of the Teen Titans) or magical women like Zatanna. Perhaps they could be reserved as Horrible Surprises for the Generals or the Bosses.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Pale Wolf » Tue Mar 08, 2011 6:56 pm

Magical Girls are just that much more effective at it and are far less likely to suffer casualties than a squad of marines or whatever mundane forces you could send after it.


The thing is, even if that squad takes casualties... they're willing to. This is their job, they volunteered for it, they underwent training for it, and seeing a thirteen-year-old girl forced to fight is an offence to the very being of a soldier.

Hm. Mind if I take a poke at it independently? I suspect a chunk of my ideas are incompatible with the way the thread seems to be running.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Comartemis » Tue Mar 08, 2011 7:46 pm

Pale Wolf wrote:The thing is, even if that squad takes casualties... they're willing to. This is their job, they volunteered for it, they underwent training for it, and seeing a thirteen-year-old girl forced to fight is an offence to the very being of a soldier.

Hm. Mind if I take a poke at it independently? I suspect a chunk of my ideas are incompatible with the way the thread seems to be running.

Feel free. I'd suggest following the thread, though. You're overthinking how much most of these girls want to get out of the business, most of the ones we're using don't want to get out of it, even if only because they'd be leaving friends behind to fight without them.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby Mitchell » Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:00 am

Actually that would be an interesting point. Wolf's point about the soldiers having trained to fight, etc and such, and willing to protect the world etc is a good one. However if Comartemis's point is brought home, with every single victory coming with blocks worth of collateral damage at the VERY LEAST, or bringing in more than a single tank to fight anything above a monster of the week, not to mention the paranoia of 'turned' individuals and the possible witch hunts that would arise because of the darkened, the corrupted, people are not going to like it.

Say you did spread it out, a number of countries around the world so it’s not just Tokyo or so in Japan. Still after the fifteenth monster attacked this week, with a couple hundred soldiers rushing in, unloading rocket launchers, machine guns, tanks, and doing so much damage, not to mention the casualty reports, and then people look over to the one where a single squad of magical girls not only defeated the enemy with no casualties, but only minimum structural damages, and possibly ‘purified’ a mind controlled human…

I'm not pretending that the magical girls, untrained as they are, are better than an elite team of special forces or such who would be sent to fight these monsters. I'm just saying that unless there is a media blackout, and with something this new in the middle of crowded suburbia or the downtown of several major cities, people are going to SEE that difference. People are going to be placing unfair demands both on the magical girls and the military here. “Why isn’t your magic enough to heal Little Billy’s arm? Why aren’t you military brutes helping the magical girls who could save Little Johnny from being mind controlled without breaking both his legs and one of his arms?”

I seem to have gone a bit of track here. What I am trying to say, is that for all the changes, the military wanting to step up and do what they see as their job, the girls dealing with suddenly having people who understand them, there is going to be a lot of societal upheaval, and that’s something to bring to bear.

More how would the military react? Sure they go fight the monster of the week but you can bet that scandal and controversy would be surrounding that particular avenue. The first time a soldier or such is being mobbed and causality arises…expect a media blitz. I don’t mean to look down on the soldiers in question. Undoubtedly thye are finely trained men and would the elite but still this is a pretty messed up situation, at least in the early days when people are being picked from a range of services just so the military has something on hand to FIGHT these things. Not that I expect magical girls are going to be completely free of this, but unless the military is hiding a really large secret they probably don’t have magic to heal people or in the worst case (and some EXTREME examples bring them back from the dead.)

I mentioned before about the witch hunts but that’s one is going to be interesting. Without having a magical girl or such to go ‘yes this man has dark power’ how do you TEST for something like that? And do you dare discount the fact that somebody important in power could be serving some unimaginable THING from some other world? What do you DO in such a government/corporate world. Sure magical girls are going to be working with the government etc (at least eventually) but still there are going to be controversy and disbelief when they, or the military or whoever eventually CAN test for it, and ‘clear’ or ‘detect’ such energies in a person. “General Blue is working for the Dark Kingdom?” “What do you mean Evil Senator Bob is actually just an asshole and not secretly sacrificing children to the dark gods?!” In a world where you can ring up a number and instigate that somebody in power might secretly be working for the bad guys, what do you do?

I guess you could at first have magical girls around all the most important parts of the nation but that’s going to probably cause people to be suspecting some kind of takeover, which lets face it people are going to be suspecting when they realize all these magical girls who can collectively flip the bird to what the world currently knows about the laws of reality are banding together. Once the nations themselves actually have a reliable way of detecting things like this, or such it might be safer. However then you have peple who DIDN’T get magical powers and were just serving well because.

Also remember not every magical girl is an idealist youth, and with the potential for ‘Magical Women’ and probably ‘magical men/boy’s as well your pretty much getting together all these people with magical power in one place. A ‘Magical Elite’ or whatever you want to call it. I doubt ALL of them are going to be putting this alliance together out of the goodness of their hearts. Your going to be dealing with more than a few people (fanon luna etc) who are going to want to turn this alliance to its ‘proper coruse’ aka serving the great kingdom of ‘Serenity/Blah/Blob’ etc.

Also don’t forget the budget as well. How do you allot funds for ‘fighting Eldrich Horrors’ into the budget, especially when the frequency that they are appearing is getting more and more common.
If these monsters became aware of the magnitude of this slip and started getting global (at least partly)…what is the international arena going to look like. If the world suddenly gets a call or rumor (such and such is secretly working for Such and Such dark kingdom)…how do you prove otherwise, and is it worth it blowing them up to prevent them doing things that could end human life?

In truth actually fighting the villians would, I think, be less interesting than the societal upheaval that this threatens.
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Re: Battle Fantasia: Dawn of the Great Magical Girl Alliance

Postby ckosacranoid » Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:35 am

to make a comment about this treadi have a couple of storys that do bring up points in this subject.

the first one if the sailor scouts become known around the world and work with the govement.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/45006/etj4Eagle


and now fomr something that is really, really funny in a dark sence..when magic girls go bad how do you deal with them...
http://www.improfanfic.com/mgh/
and now for magic girl hunting.....

the game setting the started the magical hunter thing called magical world...its been around for a number of years for sure.
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