Puella Magi Madoka Magica

I personally think the "Quota" comment was another half truth. Technically Kyubey had reached the "quota" but that doesn't mean that that itself was enough to make him leave. But when facing off against Krimheld Gretchen, he probably thought that if humanity was doomed anyway "at least I got my quota."

Kyubey left the planet under extremely unusual conditions. It apparently couldn't imagine why Madoka would have such potential with the life she's led, so fate lines connecting to one person from other time axes has probably never happened before. The witch system couldn't have been planned with that in mind and it's probably not standard policy.

As for time loop technology, it seems to involve Homura jumping into an alternate universe that may be offset by 46 days from the previous or something. It might be difficult to impossible or mathematically the morality can't be balanced or it's just not sufficient to cannibalise other universes for their own, and the coobies are more interested in saving the universe than just fleeing a universe that's being destroyed to save only themselves.

I would agree that humans would normally be able to flee the planet before they were overrun by witches. Afterwards, if witches can't affect animals, then soon nature would reclaim the planet and Earth would begin its path of recovery from the wounds we've inflicted on it (though hopefully we would have started reversing the damage by then), and perhaps the witches would starve and Earth might one day even become inhabitable again. Even if some animals are affected, there are many non-animal species in the world, but the ecosystem would probably not be as well-off as otherwise.

Well I don't see any reason why would kyubey tell that to Homura...unless the incubator wanted for Homura to despair and collect even more energy.

edited 4th Oct '12 9:14:12 AM by asellus111

Why not? Homura was a pretty impressive Magical Girl even if she couldn't beat WPN on her own. If Homura wasn't a time traveler Kyubey leaving meant no one could wish for a solution for KG. The world would be destroyed and there was nothing humanity could do about that. For anyone else that would be total despair.

edited 4th Oct '12 9:18:23 AM by RhymeBeat

Well the immense power gained from time loop technology was able to effect all universes. If Homura tells the Kyubeys in the new universe about the massive potential of time travel, they'd probably quickly jump off the inefficient wraith/demon/whatever bandwagon and work on exploiting this to its maximum potential.

edited 4th Oct '12 9:18:16 AM by Moth13

Come to think of it, Kyubey never said it was actually going to leave. If humanity is destroyed, that's not its problem, but it might still stick around and offer contracts to people who still want to fight. It predicts Gretchen will destroy Earth in ten days, but it could theoretically be possible that Gretchen is somehow stopped, and it has no objection to that either.

That was more of a karmic potential thing, but if they could find a way to exploit it, I suppose they'd try.

edited 4th Oct '12 9:22:50 AM by greedling

But without witches that's no longer a possibility, because Madoka wish affects all timelines past, present and future.

edited 4th Oct '12 9:25:43 AM by asellus111

More karma means more powerful wishes and magic, though, and that could mean the darkness from their soul gems are more valuable or something, or the wishes/magic have some inherent value to them.

Without the witch system, I don't think more powerful magical girls would be inherently valuable to Incubators since they can't influence girls' wishes.

However, overpowered girls might help in two ways. First, they might make more dramatic wishes that would result in a larger human population (e.g., wishing to end world hunger). Second, they would probably kill more wraiths, more efficiently, with fewer girls needed.

Yeah but the way I see it Madoka Karma grew because Gretchen grew, the stronger her witch the greater the karma she started in a new loop. This no longer an option in the new world.

edited 4th Oct '12 9:31:38 AM by asellus111

greedlin why would they care? The one reason we have to think that they might is their fairness towards humanity. However, most of that fairness comes across as unavoidable.

They weren't willing to literally force Madoka into the contract but the whole planet dying is fine with them? Individuals don't matter to them so why would they be concerned about individual rights? They didn't make their actions public so their also going behind humanities back.

Directly forcing a contract by something short of mind control, would get wishes like "I wish for you to die" (no literal genie) or "I wish you'd all die" (If their powerful enough).

The inkyubeytors might not have mind control.

Why they didn't just snipe Homura is a mystery. By the end Kyubey clearly wanted her dead. That's why he rubbed it in her face that it was all her fault.

It's the other way around IMO. The power of the witches equals the power of the magical girl. Why would the power of the witch determine the strengh of a MG if not all M Gs will become witches?

That's only in Madoka's case, due to Homura's time travel.

That doesn't adress any point I was actually making.

supermerlin, not sure what you're responding to, exactly. If you meant the Kyubey possibly not leaving thing, there are plenty of reasons to want a potential resource to survive even if you don't predict needing it any more. It's also not like I'm saying Kyubey's going to interfere significantly; it's just possible it's going to give humanity a chance, or if not then at least take advantage of a dying resource to make as many future witches as possible. Alternatively, its kind places a certain amount of inherent value on sapient species, even if it's not exactly a high value.

And why is it so strange to imagine that not forcing contracts is part of their value system or something? They presumably developed a sort of respect for choice when interacting with each other. Coobies have no emotions and so wouldn't make selfish choices, so it's fine for them.

Kyubey didn't really want Homura dead for its own sake. It would have benefited if she became a witch, but that's hardly a personal thing. Also maybe it can't keep its hypotheses to itself because science is meant to be shared.

I assume that the coobies can't really rip the girls souls without the wish or maybe not, hard to tell with the incubators.

The way supermerlin was using it, forcing contracts still required the girl to make a wish in that scenario, so that's not exactly relevant.

They don't have to tell people its a contract though. They could just go "pssst hey little girl want some ice cream? Just say 'i wish for ice cream'"

And then the girl would have ice cream. BUT IT WOULD BE RUM RAISEN!!!!

Even to save the universe, that would be unnecessarily cruel :(

Oh yeah...I must be tired so off to bed.

Toshino Kyouko would be happy.

edited 4th Oct '12 10:10:19 AM by asellus111

Post 34799. They don't need to respect each others choices, because they don't have individual goals. They were surprised that human could live in something like harmony despite this. Yes they said individual emotions, but it is clear that differing goals is how that would be a problem.

aueless... I'm still waiting on an actual response to the point.

Fun Fact:

Carry on.

Do we also have to keep calm?

Anyway, that's a neat little factoid. I like it when fictional birthdays are assigned like that.

That's quite an interesting way to effectively-randomly determine an important in-story date.

edited 4th Oct '12 11:05:03 AM by MarqFJA