Mobius strips of death
Alternative title: “Why I think Kyubey should find a new job.” This post is going to be one huge spoiler, so don’t read on if you haven’t watched up to episode 9 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
I’m sure the latest episode has blown a few minds here and there. I thought it was an interesting development, but I always feel that trying to stick a half-baked science-y explanation onto what is essentially a standard fantasy setting tends to open the writing to unnecessary critical analysis that distract from the actual storytelling. And as much as that is a bad thing, people like me can’t help but run with it. So here’s my take on the subject.
Entropy
Entropy is one of the basic tenets of modern physics and chemistry. Often called the “arrow of time”, it embodies the irreversible passage of time.
Water goes down, vapour goes up. Never a miscommunication.
The general idea is that all chemical and physical processes in the universe have a natural tendency to become more disordered over time. Order and complexity such as stars, planets and life require energy to sustain against the flow of entropy, and the total mass-energy in an isolated system (i.e. the whole universe) is constant but entropy is increasing continuously.
Eventually, the universe goes into heat death unless someone/thing figures out how to either reverse entropy or introduce a source of energy that exists beyond our universe, both of which are improbable within the frameworks of modern physics.
Isaac Asimov, one of my favourite authors ever, wrote a thought-provoking short story about entropy titled “The Last Question” in which he imagined humans of near and distant future pondering the question of entropy as each successive generation draws closer to the universe’s final deadline.
The Loli Solution
In Madoka Magica, the solution to the ultimate question is pubescent girls, whose oestrogen-fuelled emotional turmoils apparently draw upon energy from a source that lies outside the universe. Dozens of physicists commit mass suicide because the ultimate solution to one of the greatest questions of science apparently lies in Twilight novels.
Kyubey can be thought of as the intergalactic equivalent of an oil field surveyor. Magical girls are precious resources, more literally than lolicons think. The battle between Puella Magi and their elder counterparts can be seen as a refinery process in which the full energy potential of crude emo is realized after being subjected to pressure and heat.
Madoka Magica is really an allegory for the monolithic energy industry and its apparent contempt for, and inability to comprehend, all things good and pure. But I digress, if that is even possible in an analysis such as this one.
They should figure out how to harvest tsundere energy
In any case, Kyubey’s people aim to combat entropy not by reversing it but by introducing energy from an unspecified plain of existence (“emoland”) and the gateway to this magical energy happens to be (emo) little girls.
The Other Solution
However, at this point in the story it is quite clear that the technology to travel back in time is apparently within the capabilities of Kyubey’s people. I say this because Homura travelled back in time and this was performed by either future Kyubey or one of his peers. (If he has any. FOREVER ALONE.)
The problem with travelling back in time is that it defies the natural progression of entropy, which is to say that it suggests (or perhaps requires) that entropy can in fact be reversed.
Given that Kyubey’s people have the ability to travel back in time, it should be possible for them to reverse entropy without the need for an extra-dimensional source of energy. In fact, directly addressing the problem in this manner should prove to be much more effective than using little girls like AAA batteries.
Alternatively, just use magnets
We know for a fact that the extra-dimensional energy produced by each Puella Magi is of a certain finite amount because Kyubey is constantly on the lookout for new recruits. This means that the net amount of energy Kyubey can generate at any time is limited by the total population size of human lolis and those of other suitable alien species.
If however entropy can be reversed, then unlimited energy is one of the guaranteed outcomes. For example, a suitable star can be harvested for energy and returned to its prior more-energetic state for as many times as required.
If such local reversal is not possible, then instead of sending a little girl back in time, Kyubey’s people can construct giant hydrogen bombs capable of creating stars and send them back in time, then harvest the resulting stars for energy to create twice as many giant hydrogen bombs and send those back in time again. This should be possible given that the feasibility of sending matter back in time has already been proven. And if they can also create wormholes, then a more direct radiation-based energy feedback loop can be used in lieu of the matter medium.
The Power of Wishes
In my brainstorming of this subject, it was suggested to me that perhaps Kyubey’s people are not actually capable of time travel but merely possess the unspecific “power” to grant wishes. My immediate feeling is that this is a cop-out since it basically goes back to the “a wizard did it” explanation which defeats the point of even coming here, assuming that such a point exists somewhere in the space-time continuum.
On QB’s planet, this is their version of Where’s Waldo?
After some thought, my refined conclusion is that Kyubey’s people are not capable of granting wishes; they merely possess advance technology capable of performing deeds that fulfil the requirements of the wishes requested by the girls.
For example, they have the ability to remotely manipulate matter, which they used to provide medical treatment to Mami and that guy whom Sayaka likes. They also have a sufficient understanding of human neurology to brainwash people into listening to Kyoko’s father speak.
Therefore, they must already be in possession of time-travelling technology or they would not have been unable to grant Homura her wish of having hawt yuri sechs with saving Madoka in the past.
The reason why I came to this conclusion is very simple. If their wish-granting ability were truly magical, omnipotent and capable of accomplishing deeds they themselves are not capable of performing, then it ought to be trivial for them to convince a random pubescent human girl to wish for a device capable of reversing entropy at the operator’s will or a truly limitless source of extra-dimensional energy. QED.
The Farm
Finally, if for some really good explanation I cannot think of there is a perfectly rational reason why harvesting lolis is a more effective solution than my proposed alternatives, then it stands to reason that it should be conducted in the most efficient and organized manner possible.
I am, of course, speaking of loli farms. Think Matrix but with arrays of lab-grown lolis instead. This can be done at a far lower unit cost than having Incubators finding and harvesting lolis in the wild, as demonstrated by humanity’s early and rapid transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer to agricultural and finally industrial societies.
An artist’s depiction of such a loli farm
Conclusion
The solution employed by Kyubey and his advanced intergalactic civilization, which I estimate to be at least Type III on the Kardeshev scale, appears to be ad hoc, rudimentary and a mismatch to the level of technological sophistication they have demonstrated.
Instead of addressing the issue of entropy directly, the use of extra-dimensional energy merely delays the eventual inevitability unless the supply of energy is limitless. Given that the nature of this mysterious energy source is unknown, it is entirely possible, if highly improbable, that this is true, in which case the solution may in fact work indefinitely with continuous eternal maintenance.
But if such is the case, reliance on a ready supply of young pubescent girls is nevertheless dangerous due to falling birthrates, erratic biological behaviours that may lead to species self-destruction and unpredictable cosmological extinction level events.
If alkaline batteries had feelings
It is recommended that Kyubey’s people explore a non-biological long-term solution based on the exploitation of either localized reversal of entropy or the feedback nature of time travel that is within their scientific capabilities. Should a biological solution be unavoidable due to other circumstances, a more scalable and systematic industrialized loli farm would be a more suitable alternative to insure against market fluctuations and sudden spikes in demand.
I submit this to the Internet for its kind consideration. Please forward any honorary doctorates and Nobel Prize nominations to my email. Thank you.
Reminder: this series is fiction, any similarity with reality is just coincidence.
For the fun of it, you could make quasi-plausible arguments for some of QB’s physics by drawing on polymath David Bohm’s three world architectonic: world 1 = intentionality space, world 2 = stochastic space [(dy/dx) = -yx], which obviates the Schrodinger’s cat paradox since only one state is objectified. [His argument was: what if a quantum event probability is not 0.5 but 0.000001? Why postulate 999,999 redundant universes?], and world 3 = one objectified space [where you are]. Next, factor in Bohm’s short-lived infatuation with Krishamurti, which suggests his familiarity with the old Greco-Indic mentalistic, vitalistic, and physicalistic meta-forming forces. Then recall the vitalistic was postulated as the source of will, particularization, and emotions. And voila: what else could serve better as virtually unlimited sources of raw will and emotion, which some advanced civilization could then use to reconfigure Bohm’s world 2 and thereby reverse entropy trends in world 3, than groups of dis-empowered lolis with personal agendas? QED
BTW in your dissertation, try reworking the Standard Model to reflect this new information, lol
Actually, I find myself in the “only when granting wishes” camp on time-travel. For one thing, if ‘granting wishes’ was under the aliens’ control they’d be able to shut down wishes that were counter-productive to their goals, which both Homura and Madoka seem to be evidence against. Once we get to ‘wishes’ and time-travel, it’s entirely possible that wish-granting is fueled by an initial release of magical energies. To wit, the normal powers of Kyubey’s civilization are not capable of granting time travel, at least not without harvesting human souls, at which point you’re back where you started.
But more, the point of the story IS that a wizard did it. Specifically, that human souls basically have magic powers fueled by emotion and advanced aliens that don’t understand magic or emotion are doing their best to harvest them (it’s why the energy lets them avoid entropy costs in the first place).
That is to say, it’s not a setting with advanced aliens OR magic, but a setting with advanced aliens AND magic.
Furthermore, it seems generally implied that they don’t completely understand either humans or the very process they are using a couple times during the series (though observation has led them to some “doing A usually equals B” rules of thumb). In the long run, turning Madoka into a witch is rather like killing the golden goose, for example.
Ah, a couple more points, since I’m nothing if not long-winded and pedantic. Worst of all, after writing this I realized you I’m using points from episodes you might not have seen when writing this, but that’s where some of the best evidence (though it’s all circumstantial based on the dialogue of unreliable people) lies.
You’re right, of course, that a farm would be more effective than ‘the wild’. But that’s where the statement that Kyubey’s people have been managing human civilization comes from. While they do seem more hands off than optimal, it’s supposedly no accident that humans have managed to reach the top of the food chain, overcome repeated obstacles to their growth and reach a state where the population is continually growing. The fact the aliens really don’t seem to understand things like why human teenage girls are the best source of magical energy (though really it probably has to do with hormones and inexperience) means that they probably weren’t originally aiming their farm at cultivating those specifically but humans in general while they determined what worked. That said, suboptimal, I will grant you.
As for why it’s aliens and magic rather than aliens or magic, I like to think of it as the results of a thought experiment: “if magic existed, and trumped all physical laws, what are some of the high order things it could be used for that would interest people(aliens) that didn’t have it?”
What if Earth IS the suggested “loli farm”, and the conditions here are created (or at least manipulated) to be ideal for creating young girls with hopes and dreams that can be easily fulfilled with the technology available to Kyubey’s people?
Who’s to say that finding and harvesting energy from young girls is harder for Kyubey than it is for humans to harvest eggs (or wheat)? What must his perception of time be if he is immortal? Even if a girl takes years to sign a contract, that’s peanuts compared to the time until the eventual heat-death of the universe, which Kyubey and his civilization obviously care about.
Perhaps the parralell between Kyubey’s emotion harvesting and the energy industry goes further. Perhaps loli energy is like fossil fuels, in that the main reason a different energy source isn’t being used is that the infrastructure for loli energy already exists. Changing to another method of harvesting would drain resources from an already existing practice, possibly for long enough that the net gain isn’t enough to do so. Perhaps, again like fossil fuels, the alternate dimension’s energy is not unlimited, and Kyubey will only change to another method of collection once there are no more girls to harvest?
“Perhaps there are more efficient ways to collect energy, but why not take advantage of this one while it lasts? I’ve already started: Why fix what’s not broken? If your species ends because of it, I, like the universe and will be rather indifferent.” ï¼äººâ—• ‿‿ ◕人＼
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Or you can just accept the fact that they have the technology to tap into power they have no ability to access themselves. Madoka’s wish did reshape the universe.
Also, Kyubey states their ethics preclude suggesting wishes. So it’s not unreasonable that someone could wish to abolish the entropy limitation. The issue is finding someone at that age who would think to make such a wish themselves.