How they compare: The Queen of Tears (Princess: The Hopeful)

You will forgive the lack of pictures this time, I hope. Princess: The Hopeful is a fansplat for a tabletop game and as such there's not many pictures for it.

Millenia ago there was a magical world of great wonder and nigh-utopian virtue, a world attuned to the light, the metaphysical force of that which is good which easily held at bay all darkness of the world. The kingdoms of this world were ruled by great and powerful noble beings called queens who came to represent differnet ideals of goodness. One of these the gentle queen of cups, who accepted all into her domain, all those outcasts who never quite fit in anywhere else, showing universal acceptance and adjusting herself to help any wayward soul who came her way, encouraging self-discovery. All the queens had difference in ideals and with the darkness seemingly gone, a spirit of pride fall over the people of the light, a sense that their ideal of good was the only correct one. 

This was the trap that the darkness set, taking advantange of the strife of those of the light to invade, overwhelming the world of light. Great death and destruction followed the forces of the darkness, with even the world itself being turned into a wretched dark world and even queen dying to the darkness. The poor queen of cups who loved her subjects so, in desperation was willing to do anything to protect them. This was the fall of the queen of cups and her transformation into the queen of tears, one of the three twilight queens; living broken queens from the time of the fall. 

In the heart of the darkness lies a great bubble within is the city of Alhambra maintained by the wisdom of the ever-flowing queen, the queen of tears. She lives now in a great despair, always crying, and when she deigns to speak, her whole court falls silent to listen to her soft broken voice. The people there do horrific deeds to maintain their little bubble, for such is the way of the queen; her invocation as she fell, "I will do anything to protect the ones I care about." That bubble of dim light in the darkness, the bubble of despair in the bleakness of emotional deadness, the emotional torture that shows one they are still alive...these are what emotions Alhambra represents, and if one is willing to fight for it forever against the horrors of the dark, then it will grant sanctuary to the ones you love. Would you do anything to protect the ones you love?

Power-wise the Queen of Tears has one of the most prominent feats in Princess the Hopeful: She created a bubble reality holding her city of Alhambra safe for millenia despite being in the heart of the dark world. She's probably also similar in power to the Twilight Queen of Storms whose lightning is stated to tear mountains in half which suggests a similar level of strength. In terms of speed, princesses with the Aria invocation can get a 1 dot charm to move at the speed of lightning. While the ever-flowing queen is not associated with Aria, the sheer difference of power between a queen and a princess, let alone a 1 dot charm, strongly suggests she scales to at least this level of speed.

All queens are speculated as being essentially abstract entities, with the queen of storms being used as evidence for this, and the queen of tears herself being suggested to somehow being the animating spirit of Alhambra and to embody the laws and principles as the invocation of Lacrima. All the queens are fundamentally tied to their magical invocation with Tears' being Lacrima. The Queen of Tears is potentially an abstract entity and as will be mentioned below can turn into intangible things regardless. 

Lacrima is an invocation of the emptiness where once things were, the invocation of the desperate and those who have lost. It manipulate darkness and silence, the void and the distant astral plane. The ever-flowing queen is the invocation of such manipulation. Her astral manipulation is strong enough that she allows ghosts to manifest within her city to the point that 80% of her populace are ghosts, showing that she has city level soul manipulation.

The basic power of Lacrima is to drain; it drains light, and energy, and hope itself. The queen has drained the light from the mortal world across the millennia to preserve her kingdom, a horrid act that breaks her spirit, but done because it need be done.  

Lacrima can be used for a wide variety of abilities. It can be used to tell when the target is lying or gather basic information from a target. It can create a line which tells the caster if someone crossed it, and can cast an enchantment on a target allowing the caster to always tell if the target has been hurt. Lacrima has been used to see the astral plane, and to know things from it. It can null emotional pain in the face of harsh necessity, and can be used for stealth purposes of hiding someone from the darkness and making them become silent.

Offensively, Lacrima is most commonly used to induce sorrow and despair in the target, a form of emotional manipulation. With the charm "Queen's Sorrow" for instance she can drown a target in her sorrow. This has been used for other abilities such as the charm "Quoth the Raven" which creates an enchanting song which drains the willpower of the target and lulls them to sleep or No Choice, No Hope which drains the hope of those who hear her voice, bringing them under her control. She can use Darkling's treasure to turn a thing into a trap for the forces of darkness, making it irresistable to them but damage them on contact and she can use "Long May She Reign" to bind a soul to the physical realm even if it would normally reincarnate keeping the fallen princesses of tears around as ghosts to defend Alhambra. She can use the charm "Salted Wounds" to massively increase the pain of all wounds on a target and she can channel Lacrima through her Naginata to drain life energy at melee or at range. Perhaps most impressively offensively, she can use the charm "The Old Allegiance" to control the fates of many people to force them to serve Alhambra although this ritual takes longer and may be impractical in combat.

The empress of the ravens can also use "Empty Heart" to become a manifestation of the void itself or "Shadowmask" to become a living shadow. She can use "Memento Mori" to summon ghosts to fight or heal her. With her version of "Barrier Jacket" she can create an armor that creates a foreboding sense of doom to intimidate enemies and she can can use "Sheltered by her Hand" to create a forcefield, and it is in fact this very invocations she uses to protect their bubble reality, though the technique causes the user despair to maintain the powerful shield. Finally of her Lacrima charms she has "Ferryman's Shroud" which allows dimensional travel to Alhambra and implied out of it if she wanted.

Outside of Lacrima, the Queen of Tears can warp her bubble reality, as it is implied that the eternal rain of Alhambra is caused by the queen's tears, which is why that rain is slightly salted. As she used to be the queen of cups it's possible she could also use the old charm of Fulmine for lightning manipulation if need be, although it's possible the fall caused her to lose her old abilities, especially as most technology doesn't work in Alhambra as they don't have the power for it which you'd think she could provide if she had too. As a noble she also has access to the general powers of a princess such as tranformation, light emanation, enhanced physical abilities, intellect, and social abilities. She would also have sensitivity, the ability to better feel the emotions of those around her, which is intense enough that a newly blossomed princess can be completely overwhelmed by just the amount of suffering and malevolence possessed by people around her normally. 

The Queen of Tears is a massively intelligent and skilled individual, having lived millenia and fought to protect her city that entire time. The princesses of diamonds note with concern just how much developments in the field of magical study seem to come from defectors from the queen of tears, suggesting that they have by far the most knowledge of magic and its ways. Her strongest weapon may be her ability to get others to join her, not neccesarily out of manipulation, but just because her despair and her sorrow run so deep and can be so overwhelming that even the hardest of hearts of the princesses are moved to want to help her. This may partially be due to their sensitivty and ability to actually feel the queen's despair, but almost any character with emotional sensing and is not pure evil is in danger of defecting to her side out of sheer empathy.

In terms of weaknesses, Lacrima as an invocation, the dark magic of despair and the void, is dangerous as it wears and damages one's soul and spirit to use, however this restriction doesn't apply when one is truly desperate, when one is fighting to defend the lives of the ones most dear to them, and when one is is the underworld or Alhambra which would pretty much always apply to the ever-flowing one. Queens are noted to almost never go against their invocation as it weakens that invocation and the Queen of Tears would be weaker outside Alhambra but again these would rarely come up.

Her biggest weakness by far is her sheer lack of will coming from her massive depression. Nobles have a belief score, representing their convinction and confidence in themselves, with starting characters having a score of 7 and reaching 0 causing one to become soul-dead or a monsterous dethroned. The Queen of Tears has a belief score of 1. She is dangerously on the brink of collapse, her psyche overwhelmed by grief and with basically no willpower to fight a difficult fight. In fairness to her though, the reason she is that way is that she was a gentle queen forced to use a despair-causing forcefield for millenia, protecting her city surrounded by all sides by a literal world of darkness. The fact that she hasn't broken completely yet is honestly quite a remarkable feat. She is the hope of the hopeless, the last strands one clings onto before giving up completely, the despair that one feels to keep from being completely dead in ones heart.

Name: The Queen of Tears, the Ever-Flowing One, Lady of Alhambra, the Last Empress

Origin: Princess: The Hopeful

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical and Mental Capabilities, Potentially Abstract Nature, Reality-Warping, Life, Energy, and Hope-Draining, Soul Manipulation (City Scale), Emotional Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Sleep Inducing, Summoning (Ghosts), Darkness/Void Manipulation, Stealth, Enhanced Senses, Forcefield Creation, Transformation, Light Manipuation, Fate Manipulation (Possibly not Combat Applicable), Dimensional Travel, Possibly Lightning Manipulation

Weaknesses: Weaker outside Alhambra, can't go against her nature, massively depressed and low on willpower

Destructive Capacity: City Level

Range: Inter-Dimensional (Grants access to Lacrima across dimensions)

Speed: Massively Hypersonic (Faster then relatively weak Princesses of Spades who can move at the speed of lightning)

Durability: City Level

Stamina: Cosmically high, maintained a barrier for millennia

Standard Equipment: Her Naginata "Ever-Dutiful"

Intelligence: Vast, possibly the most skilled spellcaster in Princess: The Hopeful, far above most Graces who are extremely good manipulators, has fought for millenia

So how well would the Queen of Tears repel threats from other series?

In the DCU, the Ever-Flowing one would either do really incredibly well or would be stopped instantly without much in-between. This is because the verse is filled with entities vastly stronger than her, and with a fair number who can actually affect her even if she is a concept. The problem comes that a lot of characters are emotional sensers in DC, and as mentioned her greatest ability is her ability to convince people she's in the right via her sheer depression, it's not like a power one can resist or anything it's just feeling how broken she is. Kryptonians, Daxamites, and Tamaranians, all distantly related, can emotionally sense. Martians can emotionally sense. Azarathians can emotionally sense. Lanterns can emotionally sense. If a bunch of the big name characters were convinced of the rightness of her cause, it would cause massive chaos for the verse.

Even worse is the fact that her invocation is an archetypal power that would probably interfere with the Sphere of the Gods which could make her ludicrously powerful, like approaching a god tier powerful. This is especially because she has really good control of souls for DC, with each soul in DC being able to create their own platonic reality for their afterlife. If she's not stopped really quickly, which is very possible, then she probably becomes a massive threat on par with like a Trigon invasion.

However there is a group that I think would be uniquiely suited to dealing with her. In Princess the Hopeful: the Queen of Tears is opposed by the twilight queen the Queen of Storms, embodiment of all-consuming rage and hatred and her follows can uniquely resist the despair causing effects of the princesses of tears despair because it makes their rage stronger. I think the Red Lanterns would likely be able to stop the Queen of Tears using their inter-dimensional travel and rage based abilities especially given that the Queen of Tears very low willpower means she would have no resistance to the red light's mental effects and the Red Lanterns can arguably hit conceptuals as lantern lights can affect the electro-emotional spectrum entities.

In Marvel Comics, the Queen of Tears performs kind of similarly although she's much safer at the start and can't grow in power nearly as quickly making it a far less risky and rewarding verse. There are also plenty of emotional sensers in Marvel Comics, in particular the vast amount of psychics running around. 

Unlike DC the Queen of Tears doesn't have an easy access to cosmic power in Marvel, but on the other hand ability to hit conceptual entities is much more devoid from almost every universe in the multiverse. While none of her offenses individually would be that broken in Marvel, the sheer fact that almost every psychic on the planet would go into a depressive state obsessed with helping her or uncouncious from her presence would be cause massive difficulties. 

However the verse has a really good counter in the Hulk. The Hulk is empowered by sheer rage and not only can effect intangible things when enraged enough but outright absorbs dark magics tried to use against him meaning Lacrima would just be absorbed if the Queen of Tears tried to use it against him. Even if she tried to escape, he can simply punch through dimensional barriers to BFR her where her power is heavily limited. 

In the most famous tabletop RPG D&D the Queen of Tears would fit in well as a high level enemy, scaling to dragons who can create city-scale stoms and high-level adventurers who are able to lightning-time. Her abilities are actually pretty normal in the verse with most being able fairly easy to replicate spellls for high-level spellcasters save for possibly her fate manipulation and her city-scale soul manipulation. Even her possibly abstract nature isn't that big a deal as in D&D magic is a conceptual force that can even affect the true natures of beings from the outside realms which are conceptual in nature.

She could potentially be a danger if she encounters a powerful psychic race being able to convince them of her suffering into serving her end, though a lot of the strongest psychic races at this tier like Mind Flayers or Beholders are evil to the extent that they would not really be swayed by such despair, and would only perhaps feel demotivated to their usual causes. In general the Queen of Tears would be viewed as about as strong as a single high level spellcaster with perhaps some odd but not broken abilities.

In Yuki Yuna-verse, the Ever-Flowing one would be an immense and nearly unstoppable threat. While the Heroes could resist all her physical powers, their fairies explicitly can't stop the soul and fate manipulation of the dark queen, and she's as strong as their base state and faster too. Even in their Mankai form, and even if she's not abstract she would be able to avoid them by turning into a shadowform, which they can't affect.

Generally it would take the Shinju to stop her, but the problem comes from the Shinju is extremely liable to sympathize with the Queen of Tears, someone who also maintains a small world in a greater world of darkness, forced to allow for horrible deeds to take place to maintain the world. 

However the verse has two possible counters to her. It's possible the heroes could seal the Queen of Tears' soul if she is not physical, although they would be in danger while doing so as they can't resist her abilities. The other possible counter is Sonoko who seems to have a mild toonforce. Not enough to do most broken abilities, but enough that she can effect characters when they're undergoing a special effects loop and pull them out of it. Given that the Queen of Tears power is the power of despair and the reason Sonoko can use this toonforce is her optimistic bubbly nature, toonforce being the the power of optimism, it would make sense for her to beat the ever-flowing one via it.

In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the Queen of Tears....would basically just be a witch. She's a magical girl who fell to despair, transformed and created a city-sized dimension which she warps with her psychological state that can drive mortals into a horrendous suicidal despair. The Puella Magi-verse is uniquely suited to fighting these type of enemies. I made this blog specifically because I noticed the weird similarlity, like even the stats are about right.

Technically the Last Empress does have better soul manipulation then normal witches, but soul manipulation doesn't work normally on a Puella Magi as their soul is in their soul gem, not their body, which she would have no way of knowing. She does have a few more abilities that might be threatening in the verse but Pre-Akuma Homura is the I think the absolutely best counter to the Queen of Tears I've seen.

Homura is easily above most witches, putting her above the Queen of Tears, and can easily counter most of her arsenal. She has time stop, a power that works even queens and keeps her from escaping through dimensions. The Ever-Flowing one may be able to steal the light, the hope, the energy from people but Homura has the same but enough to work on a conceptual entity defeating even the Queen's abstract nature. Even the Queen's despair would not work for Homura is a character defined by her willpower that transcends time and which gave her the resolve to withstand the mental anguish of life after life of losing Madoka. This willpower is described as creating a miracle, a power that defies even fate and inevitability, showing that Homura would defeat even the Queen of Tear's fate manipulation. 

It's honestly quite the interesting the court of Tears lists Homura as its inspiration when Homura is such a perfect counter to its queen. While the queen's lack of willpower is her weakest quality, Homura's willpower is arguably her strongest, and would allow her to turn the queen's greatest strength against her, because Homura has faced the same despair the Queen has across these countless timelines facing darkness, and in doing so doesn't need to feel bad for the ever-flowing one, instead feeling assured in the rightfulness of their goals. Both are defined in their willingness to sacrifice anything to protect the one they love and so just as Homura knows she is willing to sacrifice herself to the darkness of constant struggle to save Madoka, she also knows she's willing to destroy the Last Empress.

Explaining the 10 Magical Girl Subgenres

 

So I am a long term fan of the genre known as the "Magical Girl" genre, a genre of fiction where in the main character is mahou shojo, or magical girl, a girl with distinctly feminine magic or magiclike powers. This genre has a lot of subgenres that I don't think people know so I'm going to here explain quickly the 10 subgenres of MG as far as I see it. These really break down into 5, which break down into 2 each. The two that are together can be pretty easy melded and works in one can incorporate elements of the other easily. Taking elements from subgenres outside the clusters also happens, but a bit more rarely and with more effort with one of the subgenres usually being dominant.

1: Magical Girl Warrior: The Magical Girl warrior subgenre is what you probably think magical girls all are if you never watch anything from the genre because it is the most popular genre, and the one Sailor Moon belongs to, ie the most popular work in the genre. It's also the cluster I know the best. This breaks down into:

1A: Sentai Magical Girl: Started by Sailor Moon, a team of magical girls transform to fight an escalating hierarchy of villains after transforming into a set of similarly uniformed magic based superheroes. It shares much in common with the Sentai genre. Sailor Moon is here as well as a very large amount of the most popular magical girl series ever made including things like Pretty Cure and Tokyo Mew Mew.

1B: Solo Magical Girl Warrior/Magical Girl Champion: This is somewhat similar to the above but follows the exploits of a single magical girl warrior and is usually though not always a bit more adult and darker. As a general rule the magical girl is also usually a slightly less idealized heroic figure as its not meant to be a role model to children. If the above is Super Sentai, this is Kamen Rider. Examples include things like Codename: Sailor V, Cutie Honey, or Kill la Kill.

2: Classical Magical Girl: This is the old style of magical girl series that typically revolved around a magical girl solving domestic problems with magic or her charm and personality, and didn't really focus on fighting or violence. The first magical girl series were based on live-action sitcoms like Bewitched.  They're not as popular nowadays but do still show up. 

2A: Cute Witch: The cute witch typically involves a girl for whom magic is normal, and very often involves her going to the mundane human world to pass a test to be queen or to learn to use her powers. Her magic is usually unrefined at the start of the series and causes episodic hijinxs. The first magical girl anime, Sally the Witch, was one of these as was Star versus the Forces of Evil and Magical Princess Minky Momo.

2B: Magic Item: This subgenre has a young girl get a magical item that grants her magic powers, usually after she demonstrates some noble quality like compassion or courage, and which she uses to live out wish fufillment or learn life lessons, based around whatever the magic is. I'd argue Cardcaptor Sakura qualifies as a Magic Item series but beyond that all the Pierrot Magical Girls are Magic Item series and the first magical girl manga Himitsu no Akko-chan was one of these.

3: Slice of Life Magical Girls: Very closely linked in a cluster with the above category to the point that you could argue they're in the same cluster, Slice of Life MG is a take on the classical magical girl formula which typically doesn't have as much a focus on the goal that the prior does. In a Cute Witch series it's usually something like becoming queen of the magic world, and in Magical Item series it's usually some goal they're trying to accomplish with their item. Really you can think of these two subgenres as modifiers on the last subgenres.

3A: Magical Idol Singer: A particular type of Magic Item series where the girl transforms to become an idol singer specifically, a specific type of wish fufillment common for young girls. The pierrot series Magical Angel Creamy Mami and Magical Stage Fancy Lala as well as the non-pierrot Full Moon series are probably the most well known examples. 

3B: CGDCT MG: CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things) is a specific genre in itself of just enjoying watching an idealized fun depiction of young girls doing cute fun activities, and sometimes overlaps with the Magical Girl genre, most often with one of the two above subgenres. A Cute Witch CGDCT would be something like Little Witch Academia. 

4: Dark Magical Girl Series: This goes back way further then casuals seem to think, magical girls have always had darker takes on the genre since the 70s. Typically aimed at an older audience for obvious reasons, with heroines that are signifigantly more flawed then normal. It's kinda hard to say where the distinction starts example with the Sailor Moon manga arguably as dark as the Madoka anime, but generallly the darkness of a magical girl series can be categorized by the age group one can show it too.

4A: Dark Action: The dark equivalent of the magical girl warrior subgenres, this is a genre in which magical girls fight, very often other magical girls. At least one of the characters always uses a gun as their weapon. Can seem quite similar to Magical Girl Warrior at times but can generally be differentiated by how much or little success the magical girls have compared to their enemies. Examples include Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Yuki Yuna is a Hero and Daybreak Illusion.

4B: Occult Girls: The dark equivalent to Classical or Slice of Life Magical Girls, this genre also primarily focuses on a girl's daily life, although usually has a more cynical less cutesy depiction and brings up "dark" subject matter. Note the magical girl herself is often as friendly and positive as any other subgenre, and it may even happily, but it usually has signifigantly more tragic undertones. Fighting still happens in these happen but is often far more stylized then Dark Action MG. Examples include Princess Tutu, Corpse Princess, and Uta Kata. Shamanic Princess straddles the line between this and Dark Action.

5: Parodic Magical Girls: A non-serious take on the genre that's usually not meant to be an actual magical girl series and more so a spoof of the genre, but still technically qualifies under the definition. Very often but not always has meta jokes about magical girls as part of the joke "ah these girls are insane and immoral, this isn't what magical girls are supposed to do!"

5A: Magical Girl Parody: A straightforward example of the above, basically series that are magical girl in aesthetics but whose primary focus is comedy and playing around with expected tropes. This is the only subgenre where I think you could argue non-female protagonists could still qualify for a magical girl series since very often that is part of the joke. Examples include Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Is this a Zombie, or Super Pig. 

5B: Adult Magical Girls: So this is for the Ecchi Magical Girls, or indeed the more explicit stuff. I don't usually consider these when thinking about Magical Girl series but they do qualify for being magical girl, so this is roughly the subgenre they belong too, where they are parodies of magical girl series but whose purpose is primarily titillation rather then comedy. Examples of Ecchi Magical Girl Series include Papillion Rose or Vividred Operation. 

Beryl vs Saphir

 

So Sailor Moon is a series with a pretty dramatic power creep, with almost anyone in one arc being massively stronger then characters in a prior arc. One of the few exceptions to this is the first and the second arc which has at least nebulousness with how exactly they scale powerwise. So to give my thoughts on how they should compare I wanted to make a blog on who'd win between a very definitive High Tier of the first with a very definitive Low Tier of the second.

For a quick background on the two, Beryl was an Earth witch back during the Silver Millennium. She fell in love with the Prince of the Earth only to discover he was in a forbidden romance with the Princess of the Moon

The Goddess of Darkness Metaria stirred this envy in her, offering her rulership of the Earth and the Prince if she would lead the Earth people against the Moon, bestowing dark power on her

The Black Moon Clan are the descendants of a people who left Neo-Queen's Serenity reign in the future, decrying the immortality granted by the Silver Crystal as heresy against God. Saphir is the belabored supergenius scientist younger brother of the crown prince of the Black Moon Clan, Demande who demands great things from his brother and threatens him when he questions his orders

Unable to hate his brother, Saphir transfered the blame in his mind to Serenity, the woman whose interference with the Earth in his mind threw human history off its proper course.

Scaling in power between arcs is always tricker in Sailor Moon due to the lack of neutral comparison points with the Senshi usually getting an unexpressed amount stronger between arcs. That said I think I can make a pretty convincing profile for how Beryl and Saphir would compare in terms of raw power.

First off I should address whether Saphir is in fact a low tier of the second arc. After all he seems to be depicted as high ranking in the Black Moon Clan. That said, assuming this is Saphir without Wiseman's power, that is quite honestly the only argument for him to be stronger, an argument that doesn't really hold up when there's several more direct points showing that he's actually relatively weak by the standards of the Second Arc as well as there being more reasons why he would be high ranking rather than raw power such as his raw intelligence, his importance as chief scientific engineer, or the fact that their leader is his older brother.

Saphir calls the energy droids use to time travel "tremendous"

He relied on two of his droids to restrain Usagi in her civilian form instead of being able to do it himself and was planning to kill her using a Black Crystal Shard suggesting he couldn't do it with his own raw strength

Compare for instance the fact that a single droid was threatening civilian form Makoto 

Now granted Makoto was sick during this act from Petz's disease, weak to the point of collapsing

However not only was Usagi weakened by being on Nemesis where her power was being drained

But you're also comparing Usagi, arguablly the physically weaker Senshi with Makoto the strongest. It seems like a fair comparison but there's more things to cement it. The Droids not only can threaten civilian form Senshi, they in groups can at least somewhat threaten transformed Second Arc Senshi.

In the second scan you can see that even though multiple droids are in the process of attacking Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus only one each are physically affecting them at that moment and it still seems like they are causing at least a mild threat. In general Droids, even though they are fodder are at least somewhat of a physical threat to people like the second arc Sailor Senshi while Saphir has no feats of that or any reason to think he would be as the Black Moon Clan's tech guy.

So establishing the relationship to the Senshi is important because they are for the most part the only shared fighters between the two arcs which brings up a statement that's very helpful for this particular scaling. Luna says at the beginning of the second arc that she can strengthen them because the moon castle was restored to how it was back in the Silver Millennium

This is often read as meaning that as of the second arc, the Guardian Senshi have the same power as they had back in the Silver Millennium. Combined with the fact that when Sailor Venus killed Queen Beryl via the Holy Sword, Metaria wonders if this means if the people of the Moon Kingdom have grown stronger

that this would mean Queen Beryl is stronger then the second arc Senshi. Now in fairness, the first statement doesn't neccesarily mean that the Guardian Senshi haven't grown stronger then they were in the Silver Millennium. It could just mean that the Silver Millennium Senshi were being strenghtened by the Moon Castle, the Guardian Senshi eclipsing that power-up but not eclipsing the power-up so dramatically that having that power added onto their own would not make them notably stronger.

However I think that interpretation is inconsistent with how its presented. It's not like it's a vague energy being added to their existing powers, it's a new henshin and described as a stronger power that they can utilize with Rei exclaiming her power "overflowing"

It's treated like that this power is replacing their old power that they sacrificed against Metaria and is definitely superior. As such I think the most reasonable interpretation is that with the rebuilt Moon Castle the Senshi can access their old Silver Millennium powers.

Now in fairness, I can totally understand the argument that these gaps might not be as large as one might expect, particularly if you use Endymion scaling.

Back in the Silver Millennium, Prince Endymion was the strongest of anyone before Metaria granted Beryl dark powers.

yet upon considering the possibility that Endymion had turned evil, Sailor Venus suggest that he would be a difficult opponent to beat. 

Now while this does support Endymion being stronger then the Guardian Senshi, Minako doesn't seem to think it would be impossible for them to beat him. It's possibly she is considering outwitting him somehow, Minako is known for being a bit of a trickster who beats opponents by guile, that said it doesn't suggests the difference between them is astronomical. This is supported when they actually fight Dark Endymion, Endymion given dark power by Metaria like Beryl was, stated by Beryl to be the greatest warrior of the Dark Kingdom

While Dark Endymion is clearly stronger then the Senshi, they are able to somewhat block his attacks 

Suggesting the difference between them is more likely factors then it is orders of magnitude. 

After Metaria's influence is expunged from Mamoru, he would still have the power of Endymion yet he actually suggests he's dramatically weaker then the Senshi in the early second arc. However this seeming paradox can be resolved if one recognizes the point of the scene is to show Mamoru is underestimating the powers within him and is being overly humble as the Heavenly Kings point out

This would however also support that Endymion isn't massively stronger than the Silver Millennium/Second Arc Senshi, who in turn are not massively stronger than the First Arc Senshi. 

Beryl fits in her as stronger then the Second Arc Senshi and likely relative if not stronger then base Prince Endymion as she killed him in the Silver Millennium 

Although again the gap between her and the Senshi might not be THAT dramatic as she called Dark Endymion the greatest warrior of the Dark Kingdom, suggesting she thought he was stronger than herself, and the first arc Senshi were able to somewhat survive Dark Endymion's power. 

If you imagine all of those characters in a cluster, droids are mild threats to Second Arc Senshi, the semi-mid tiers of that cluster, and Saphir is weaker than then droids as he called the energy of time travel that they withstood to be tremendous. Queen Beryl in the second arc hierarchy is probably closer to one of the Ayakashi Sisters, an actual special agent of the Black Moon Clan, then their tech guy. 

In a bloodlusted enraged brute force battle Beryl shoots a magic blast which vaporizes Saphir, the same way a second arc guardian senshi, weaker then Beryl, can fire attacks that can destroy multiple droids, each stronger individually than Saphir by a good margin

Now in all fairness to Saphir, a bloodlusted brute force battle is the opposite of what he would do if forced to fight. Saphir is an intelligence based fighter and it shows so it's more interesting to consider an in-character confrontation between te two. I do this mostly as a showcase of what the scaling between the first and second arc looks like for Sailor Moon as well as to give the impression of the sheer gap in power between these two.

So with that I think it's important to go over what these two characters skills and abilities are. I'll start with Beryl as her abilities are generally easier to sum up. Beryl is a skilled witch who demonstrates several magical abilities some classic witch abilities such as using a crystal ball to see distant events

semi common witch abilities like being able to fly and then things that are more unique to the Sailor Moon universe like being able to survive in space

as can also be seen here she can also entangle weaker enemies in her hair as a form of binding, a witches hair typically being viewed as a locus of her power.

Queen Beryl can also teleport, and in Sailor Moon Crystal approved by Naoko Takeuchi she is also seen teleporting other people alongside her

However Beryl's most feared ability is her curse that allows her to control the bodies and minds of others across the cycle of reincarnation 

Given that Beryl essentially created the Heavenly Kings' new bodies, it is very likely she bestowed on them their powers and as such its very possible she could replicate those same abilities which would give her access to far more magical powers.

Saphir in contrast has actually no magical abilties whatsoever while not controlled by Wiseman. He relies entirely on his own technology, his superhuman intellect, and the natural physical capability his people possess from having lived generations on planet Nemesis. Unlike the other members of the Black Moon Clan he does not even adorn the Black Crystal Earrings given to them by the Wiseman, as Saphir was suspicious of Wiseman's motives the entire time, keeping him from using the flight, teleportation and mild spacetime warping and energy draining provided from them. 

The Black Moon Clan due to their natural physical development can withstand being on Planet Nemesis, a planet compared to a black hole with immense gravity that traps even light with intense radiation and negative energy coming from it, that absorbs all nearby matter-energy to make itself grow 

and the Black Moon Clan are tough enough to tank being on its surface and make their base there. Now any level of raw durability this would give Saphir, Beryl just scales above, but it does show his level of resistances.

Saphir was able to somehow invent technology that could siphon off the immense energy of Nemesis for Black Moon Clan technology, particularly the creation of the droids and time travel

These droids are beamed down from Black Moon Clan UFOs to anywhere in spacetime the Black Moon Clan can transmit too

These spaceships being faster than the senshi and able to beam people up like an episode of Star Trek

Saphir also creating a monitor to watch over any transmission of any energy through time

The Black Moon Clan have also developed numerous highly advanced weapons and technology capable of absorbing and emitting cosmic levels of energy like bombs capable of threatening the second arc Guardian Senshi

or reactors whose meltdown can threaten even Prince Demande and make all of Nemesis break out into massive fire

Saphir has created all of this technology along with his two personal droids, Aquatici and Veneti which resemble ghosts

showing the scale and breadth of Saphir's intelligence.

So going over a hypothetical battle, truth be told it's pretty hard to make a compelling argument for Saphir. You have to really lean in to his intelligence being able to defeat Beryl, which is already somewhat questionable while he's obviously vastly smarter scientifically and is far more rational and tactical not only is Beryl a skilled witch whose magic is somewhat that would defy scientific explanation, she's also a better manipulator, so it's not even like Saphir manipulating Beryl is a good strategy.

Saphir could try using bombs but it's unknown if they could kill Beryl and even if they can, Beryl can probably avoid them like second arc Moon and Venus did. The Reactor Meltdown would easily be able to kill her since it could kill Demande, but that only applies if they're fighting at the Reactor on Nemesis and even if they are Beryl can teleport away from the danger and Saphir has little means of escaping outside beaming away on a UFO.

Speaking off, if Beryl tried to bind Saphir with her hair, it's reasonable to think he could escape via a UFO beaming him up, so that's not a viable tactic for Beryl. That said Beryl could pretty easily kill Saphir at any time for superior speed, enough AP to one-shot, or via her curse. At most you could say Saphir might have some level of resistance to matter manipulation from being able to withstand Nemesis but he's never shown mental resistance. Saphir could maybe summon droids in to try and stop Beryl but things like teleportation or just vastly greater power and ability to control them means this isn't a tactic that's super helpful. And all this is assuming Beryl can't use the powers of the Heavenly Kings. If she can use Zoisite's technopathy, she can quite literally shut off all of Saphir's powers. 

Truthfully the most likely situation if the two were to get into a fight is that Beryl blitzes and vaporizes Saphir in one attack, boring as that is. The second most likely is Beryl, teleports behind him and binds him with her hair like she did to Sailor Moon. Saphir, realizing he's overpowered beams aboard a UFO and flees back to Nemesis, faster then Beryl can react and outside the range of her crystal ball. From there he can come up with a plan to defeat her, which would probably suceed giving his tactical acument. It's a clear example of losing the battle to win the war, although a neccesary part of that is to lose the battle, as this scenario involves Saphir fleeing from Beryl. So in both scenarios Beryl is far likely to win a battle with Saphir, it's just that in the latter Saphir survives the loss and uses prep time to win the war. 

You could also use the period Saphir was controlled by Wiseman if wanted. This version had powered up Black Crystal Earrings and the Death Hands technique. This version reliquinshes all of Saphir's intelligence since he's basically a mindless thrall of the Wiseman but given the fact that he overpowered late Second Arc Sailor Mercury and Sailor Mars making them stronger then Early Second Arc Sailor Moon (as they were not damaged signifigantly from the Evil Eye that knocked out earlier Sailor Moon) which would be far above Queen Beryl. That said that doesn't really feel fair as this version of Saphir is basically a different character and it's moreso Wiseman acting through Saphir vs Beryl which is really not fair given that Wiseman is just a massively stronger character.

Overall I just wanted to make this blog to give an impression how the late first arc of Sailor Moon compared to the early second arc in terms of power and hax through two characters.