And on the Third Day did Kurkistan implore the Mind of the Hive one last Time, begging them to reconsider their Hubris.
Yeah I don't really have much hope for convincing people to just reject leadership at this point. I'll try one last time though, I guess. Nothing better to do at the moment.
What is the point of this next update? What do we hope to achieve? How does the Hive Mind providing Hazou with a plan (and I do think our current plan is fairly solid, to be clear) help us achieve that hope?
To armchair-psychologize here, I think that we've fallen into a fairly common trap of focusing on problem-solving rather than decision-making. We like optimizing things and laying out hyper-detailed plans. Attempts to move towards a more high-level approach to voting have failed. Most updates are left fairly open-ended, encouraging detail and pulling us away from simple sets of choices. In this case, though, the update ended with a very clear choice: Decide between insisting that Nara lead or leading ourselves; only if we picked Hazou leading would there be any necessity for some detailed plan. We of course dashed after the crunchy optimization problem like a starving man after a Christmas ham.
The question is what it achieves.
In a world where Hazou leads:
Let's say all goes perfectly. We beat up all the other ninja and take all of their stuff and then roll over the finish line with 100+ seals each and no real injuries on our side: huzzah. Let's say it goes mediocre: we beat up a fair number of other ninja and take some of their stuff and then limp over the finish line with 90+ seals each and a few minor injuries on our side: huzzah. Let's say it all goes absolutely horribly: we get our asses handed to us and the bad ninja take our stuff and then we crawl over the finish line with 0+ seals each and maybe a fatality or a maiming or two on our side: boo.
Now let's say that Nara leads:
I think it fair to assume that things will go at least mediocre in this world. Both in-game and narratively there's no reason to think that Nara will lead us to utter disaster. So the floor is pegged at mediocre. Note that I said "huzzah" for both the perfect and mediocre outcomes: this because in the scale of things we (or at least I) give a damn about they're comparable outcomes. Hazou loses a bit of reputation from not being the Fearless Leader that lead Leaf to Glory, gains a bit back for not having an ego, and we all go about our regularly scheduled Chunin Exams without death/maiming.
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To go back to psychologizing, Let's say that the QMs gave us two choices:
A) Auto-succeed the last part of the "Swamp of Death".
Results:
Small reputation gain among Leaf genin, commanding performance by entire Leaf contingent. Small chance of injury, minimal chance of death.
B) Roll the dice on the last part of the "Swamp of Death".
Results: (chance of injury/death scales with quality of performance)
-30%: Massive reputation gain among Leaf genin (possibly further), godlike performance by entire Leaf contingent.
-60% Moderate reputation gain among Leaf genin, commanding performance by entire Leaf contingent.
-10% Abysmal failure: Loss of all previously-earned reputation in Leaf, possibly ejection from the Exams.
Oh look the QMs gave us two choices:
1=>High Risk, High Reward
2=>Low Risk, Low Reward
But in this case the "Low Reward" still likely includes "doing very well in this part of the Exams" and "probably not dying". I feel that we'd have a much more robust discussion about the risk vs. rewards given a probabilistic choice-spread, rather than diving straight down the rabbit-hole for option B. I wouldn't be shocked if we went with 'A', given the thread's historical aversion to risk of life/limb. High Risk, High Reward involves the ever-crucial "High Risk" bit, after all.
