Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-26025032-20160119021526/@comment-27634103-20160120170551

Here's my analysis of it. First, basic premises. 1) Penny has been exposed to a magnet before (Never Miss a Beat) so we know that a simple magnet isn't going to "wipe her HD".  Modern HDs are rather robust and actually contain a strong magnet already for the purpose of wiping and re-recording data and who knows if Remnant technology even has the same issues.  2) Monty's whole attitude towards the show is "don't reinvent the wheel". He had them watch certain shows/Anime as "homework" because he fully intended to "cheat like mutherfuckers". So if there's a go-to solution to a situation, they'll grab it. 3) Penny has an Aura, ergo, Penny has a Semblance.  4) Penny had a "plan to stay at Beacon". 5) Penny is almost ALWAYS happy and positive.  She got knocked to the ground by Weiss (The Stray) and her first reaction, before even getting up, was saying hello and introducing herself, etc.  So I highly doubt that the situation would be "scarring" for her in any way.

Now, the analysis: I can see the situation resolving in one of two distinct ways. Possibility 1 is that, when Ruby rushes out to the stage, being all sad and distraught, Penny will "wake up" and be all happy and positive despite her situation; maybe even offering words of praise at Pyrrha's skill. She will explain that she shut down temporarily to run a diagnostic and basic self-repairs, but full repair will require returning to Atlas. I'd say there's about a 10-15% chance of this outcome. Possibility 2 is that Penny's plan involves transferring her program either to a spare body or, possibly, some other digital system. Essentially, if this is the way things play out, I predict that her Semblance is the ability of the Omega AI from RvB, that she can "jump" from host to host. There are three sub-forms of this possibility. 1) She uses the CCT to send herself back home to Atlas where her "father" can prepare a new body, possibily digitally fighting Cinder's virus along the way.  2) She has a spare body aboard the ship that Roman and Neo have commandeered and will use that body to take the ship back. 3) She will send herself into Roman/Neo's ship's computer and control it from the inside.

That's my take on the situation.