Dragon Ball: After the End

Gore17 said:

1) And if it's not possible/safe, it'll be brough up.
2) Again, power suppression. Mental Defences. The fact that we rarely sleep.
3) Now, this I feel is a legitimate concern. I think that has low odds of happening, because the dragon is psychic, not magic, but it is something to be aware about.
4) Because it would be built into the Seal!
5) We're going to have openings in the seal anyway, if we want to interrogate/study him. Which would be the main reason the other SSJ's keep him alive. And how do you propose us damaging the seals?

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1) Yes, but there's this... pretense that the risks are negligible, and I object to that. I'm hearing these breezy, confident assurances that "it's totally possible and reasonably safe," and I'm like "you cannot possibly know that!"

2) We sleep sometimes. Notably, we often go on vision quests in our sleep, which is pretty blatantly the ideal time for the dragon to take over, if the dragon CAN take over, or can find a way to hack past our security measures during literal decades of chances to do so.

3) Are we actually sure the dragon has no magical properties? I'm not. The dragon may not be an active sorceror in the sense you or I use, but that's not the same thing. In any case, I don't want to gamble Kakara's life on the dragon being permanently seal-able. If the dragon is sealed in an external object, and breaks free, we can always beat it to within an inch of its life again; we'll be stronger in the future than we were today, and we were able to beat the dragon despite it having tactical surprise this time.

4) How the heck do you know that just because it's built into a seal of a new and untried variety, it'll work with high enough reliability to stop an unknown and extremely powerful entity? Just, seriously, how do you know?

5) Granted that this is true. On the other hand, if the dragon is sealed in an external object we are FAR more likely to have security on hand (i.e. other royals) when we DO interrogate it, and Kakara herself won't be personally injured or incapacitated instantly by the seal breaking. By contrast, if the dragon is sealed inside Kakara there is more risk of that 'speaking tube' being opened up without adequate external security. And worse yet, no amount of external security can prevent Kakara from being harmed by a containment breach because she's the thing the dragon breaks out of. So in the event of a breach, instead of just having a dragon to fight (again), we have a dragon to fight and Kakara is likely to be at best incapacitated if not outright dead.

1) No, but it's evidence. On the sealing thing, we've also seen the Elder Kai sealed into the sword.
2) Um, what? Why did you go "oh, so you have OoC info" when I supplied where the idea came from? I didn't even create the idea.
3) Kurama hated Naruto, Naruto hated Kurama, much grief, Naruto eventually befriended and redeemed Kurama.
4) *throws up hands* We're going to be getting their opinion the way this vote is going. If there's a problem with the idea, it'll come up then.

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1a) The "evidence" that aliens and robots can absorb other beings without harm or significant personality change is not good evidence that Kakara can do the same. I mean, Namekians can regenerate severed limbs; that doesn't mean Kakara should chop off her arm as a party trick.

1b) A sword is an inanimate object, so many of the problems with absorbing a powerful and malicious entity inside oneself do not arise from the point of view of a sword. The only real risk is that the sword will be broken, and this is admittedly a risk, but there are various ways to avoid or mitigate it.

2) Because your confidence that this will work and is safe either is, or is not, based only on the information known to the bulk of the thread. In the latter case you are abusing OOC information; in the former case you have far too little information to justify your apparent degree of certainty.

3) I'm hoping to skip the "much grief" step, and I'm none too confident in the "happy ending" part.

4) We will, but even when we do, we face the reality that they don't know the full magnitude of their own ignorance. Especially given that we can't trust anything Dandeer says and she'd be unlikely to give us the best-grade advice even if we could.

More "any partial failure will likely result in total failure". So either it can be safely sealed, in which case Kakara is viable, or it's not, in which case it won't matter any which way.

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See above. There are many scenarios in which a seal is 'imperfect' but it doesn't matter if the dragon is sealed in an inanimate object, and many scenarios in which the dragon breaks containment but we defeat it again, so long as we are not incapacitated by the dragon breaking out of us.

Simon_Jester said:

See above. There are many scenarios in which a seal is 'imperfect' but it doesn't matter if the dragon is sealed in an inanimate object, and many scenarios in which the dragon breaks containment but we defeat it again, so long as we are not incapacitated by the dragon breaking out of us.

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Pretty sure that if the dragon unexpectedly broke its containment, and tried to kill us, it could, regardless of whether the container was us or not.

I dunno.

Firstly, the dragon may be weaker on exiting the seals than it would be normally.

Secondly, if we keep a watch on the seals we may have at least SOME advance warning of the breakout, if only the few minutes it took us to gather the royals and make a stand against the dragon this time.

Thirdly, the dragon may not break out for decades, so we may be much stronger, have Jaffur's help, et cetera, by that time.

But none of this will matter if the first thing that happens on the dragon escaping the seal (US) is that it hijacks our body or bursts out of our chest or something similarly ghastly.

Insufficient tickles. Apply more tickles.

[X][ACTION] Fight him into submission before you do anything else.

[X][RESOLUTION] Consult the sorcerers for their opinions on magic solutions (next update has a vote on the various options the sorcerers present).
-[X][RESOLUTION] Interrogate him.
--[X][RESOLUTION] Use telepathy to transmit the sensation of the revelation you've just experienced into his head. Maybe that will help to reform him.
---[X][RESOLUTION] Try to secure his cooperation with your decision on what to do with him.

If we're honestly using Naruto as the example here, we're being delusional. Naruto's seal was the end result of the greatest seal master ever to live in that universe working on it for a long period of time, with knowledge of other examples to draw on. It still killed him to perform, and Naruto only got power from Kurama because the seal was designed to do that - and Kurama only agreed because Naruto's death would kill him too? (I never quite got that bit, too many holes.) No, we'll be lucky if our seal works as well as Gaara's faulty one (and even that wasn't invented in a few minutes, just by someone not quite qualified.)

For those unfamiliar, until protagonist talking magic happens Gaara is insane, unable to sleep at all (and if he did manage Shukaku would take over) and convinced he has to kill people because Shukaku whispers that to him literally non-stop. Shukaku is also not psychic.

I think asking the sorcerers to do this will have a much higher DC than just using a rice cooker, with worse results for failure. I am unwilling to gamble for a dodgy powerup we don't need. We're already in a much better position than we were before the fight, and even if we succeeded I think this would have negative repercussions on our shiny new reputation.

Insert tally

[X][ACTION] Try one last time to talk him down before fighting.

[X][RESOLUTION] Consult the sorcerers for their opinions on magic solutions (next update has a vote on the various options the sorcerers present).
-[X][RESOLUTION] Interrogate him.
--[X][RESOLUTION] Try to secure his cooperation with your decision on what to do with him.

[X][RESOLUTION] Interrogate him.
-[X][RESOLUTION] Consult the sorcerers for their opinions on magic solutions (next update has a vote on the various options the sorcerers present).
--[X][RESOLUTION] Try to secure his cooperation with your decision on what to do with him.
---[X][RESOLUTION] See if he is a wish-granting dragon and, if he is, coerce one from him. (x1.25, from, "Ambitious")

[X][RESOLUTION] Consult the sorcerers for their opinions on magic solutions (next update has a vote on the various options the sorcerers present).
-[X][RESOLUTION] Interrogate him.
--[X][RESOLUTION] Use telepathy to transmit the sensation of the revelation you've just experienced into his head. Maybe that will help to reform him.
---[X][RESOLUTION] Try to secure his cooperation with your decision on what to do with him.

[X][ACTION] Try one last time to talk him down before fighting.

[X][RESOLUTION] Consult the sorcerers for their opinions on magic solutions (next update has a vote on the various options the sorcerers present).
-[X][RESOLUTION] Interrogate him.
--[X][RESOLUTION] Use telepathy to transmit the sensation of the revelation you've just experienced into his head. Maybe that will help to reform him.
---[X][RESOLUTION] Try to secure his cooperation with your decision on what to do with him.

Deathbybunnies said:

For those unfamiliar, until protagonist talking magic happens Gaara is insane, unable to sleep at all (and if he did manage Shukaku would take over) and convinced he has to kill people because Shukaku whispers that to him literally non-stop. Shukaku is also not psychic.

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Gaara is also convinced the thing talking to him is his dead mother.

While, obviously, that's not a danger we face per se, given, particularly...


... I consider their to be a non-trivial risk of Dazarel being able to infiltrate our thoughts in a manner that we do not identify as foreign. (even aside the RP spoilers, he's a powerful psychic. This is not a hard guess to make) Which would, suffice to say, be bad.

I mean, in real life schizophrenics have a really bad time with a voice/voices they know aren't real. We're really not going to enjoy a hostile one that is.

We have had a lot of spoiler boxes needed for this vote. Perhaps, moving forward, we might tone that down a notch.

Why are so many people voting to fight him? The fight is over. He cannot harm us or anyone else. There is no point in beating him up before talking to him. This is fighting the scout all over again, reversing character growth for no good reason.

Andres110 said:

Why are so many people voting to fight him? The fight is over. He cannot harm us or anyone else. There is no point in beating him up before talking to him. This is fighting the scout all over again, reversing character growth for no good reason.

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It would be a shame if all we did with all this power was glow menacingly, and we've already tried diplomacy twice.

Thriceboiled said:

It would be a shame if all we did with all this power was glow menacingly, and we've already tried diplomacy twice.

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But if it fails we'll fight anyway - this is yet another example of "may as well try, there's no drawbacks."

It basically gives us an extra communications roll with a high DC to start.

Deathbybunnies said:

Naruto's seal was the end result of the greatest seal master ever to live in that universe working on it for a long period of time, with knowledge of other examples to draw on. It still killed him to perform, and Naruto only got power from Kurama because the seal was designed to do that - and Kurama only agreed because Naruto's death would kill him too?

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That's because he used a sacrificial technique. Others have done it without such things, and this isn't Naruto.

Deathbybunnies said:

I think asking the sorcerers to do this will have a much higher DC than just using a rice cooker, with worse results for failure.

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I'm 90% sure it's going to be raised when we consult with them. I presume if they say the risks are not significant, you would be more okay with it?

Deathbybunnies said:

I am unwilling to gamble for a dodgy powerup we don't need.

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I disagree with both the "dodgy" and "don't need" bits.

Terrabrand said:

... I consider their to be a non-trivial risk of Dazarel being able to infiltrate our thoughts in a manner that we do not identify as foreign. (even aside the RP spoilers, he's a powerful psychic. This is not a hard guess to make) Which would, suffice to say, be bad.

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He was only able to infiltrate our thoughts before when we didn't have any defences, and he still bungled it.

Gore17 said:

That's because he used a sacrificial technique. Others have done it without such things, and this isn't Naruto.

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'it's going to have the awesomeness of being a Jinchuuriki without the suck parts'.

Either the entire comparison is invalid, or none of it is. Shooting down only the parts negative to your position is... problematic.

I don't recall who first raised it, but unless you have specific things you wish to point to for why we should expect this to be 'like Naruto, but without the bad stuff', dismissing the potential problems highlighted by the comparison point is... Not helpful.

Either you can point to something in Dragonball materials that leads you to believe there is precedent for the option (and points to specific likely risks) or else you admit we know too little to judge potential risks... pretty much at all.

Gore17 said:

I disagree with both the "dodgy" and "don't need" bits.

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We have no possible value for a ki increase when SSJ2 is forbidden because we can't handle that level of power in a single person wards wise.

And you keep arguing he will have his psychic abilities neatly turned off for our convenience, so you can't possibly expect me to think we'll get his psychic might.

Unless you seriously wanna say 'we'll get all the good points of him being psychic and none of the bad points', in which case I have to wonder why you are surprised at others thinking you are downplaying or ignoring the risks. No plan survives contact with the enemy, we can't assume no unfavorable complications will occur.

Maybe we should get the Sorcerers opinions first?

That is the plan that is currently winning right they might have a better idea than us plebeians.

Who knows maybe if binding him in us is impossible we can stick him in a lamp or something.

Andres110 said:

Why are so many people voting to fight him? The fight is over. He cannot harm us or anyone else. There is no point in beating him up before talking to him. This is fighting the scout all over again, reversing character growth for no good reason.

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Literally the last thing we did in the update is ask him to surrender. He said, and I quote, "Never!" Now I believe that that shows that in spite of our latest power-up, he still believes he can beat us. And I doubt talking at him will change his mind. The problem with using the threat of overwhelming force is that it loses all effectiveness if the other party refuses to be cowed by it.

And remember, his stated goal here is to kill and eat us. There's not much negotiational compromise to be had in that situation. What, are we going to offer to only let him eat half of us?

So negotiations might be practically impossible. And sure, you could say:

Deathbybunnies said:

But if it fails we'll fight anyway - this is yet another example of "may as well try, there's no drawbacks."

It basically gives us an extra communications roll with a high DC to start.

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But talking is not a free action, and if we do manage to convince him that we can make the fight go badly for him, he might try a sneak attack on literally anyone else while we are delivering our "give up or else" pitch. And if he does it in such a way that we don't notice/can't stop in time... Well, I'm not normally for blaming anyone but the perpetrator, but in this case it would totally be on us.

To say nothing of if he telekinetically grabs someone and tries to use them as a hostage while we are pontificating.

And of course, the most obvious gambit: pretending to agree to stand down and then sneak attacking us the moment our guard is lowered.

Look, I'm all for talking things out with our friendly neighborhood dragon, but I'd much rather it be after he's waking up from being knocked unconscious and we've already conferenced with the sorcerers to have a plan in place to deal with him.

While I don't really count our surrender demand as an attempt at diplomacy as such, I do think that physically stopping the dragon takes priority over continued negotiations.

Kakara is a protector, not a pacifist, now. Protecting Garenhuld takes precedence over her own reluctance to fight. Dazarel can almost certainly sense ki, he has to know he's outgunned by the raw power of Spirit Saiyan. If he's still refusing to surrender, he's basically demanding that we physically overwhelm him in battle before he'll acknowledge the reality right in front of him.

Given that Spirit Saiyan is a technique with a timer, so to speak, I don't think we can justify standing around talking when he clearly doesn't realize or won't acknowledge just how profoundly the situation has changed.

[X][ACTION] Fight him into submissionbefore you do anything else.

[X][RESOLUTION] Consult the sorcerers for their opinions on magic solutions(next update has a vote on the variousoptions the sorcerers present).

Terrabrand said:

'it's going to have the awesomeness of being a Jinchuuriki without the suck parts'.

Either the entire comparison is invalid, or none of it is. Shooting down only the parts negative to your position is... problematic.

I don't recall who first raised it, but unless you have specific things you wish to point to for why we should expect this to be 'like Naruto, but without the bad stuff', dismissing the potential problems highlighted by the comparison point is... Not helpful.

Either you can point to something in Dragonball materials that leads you to believe there is precedent for the option (and points to specific likely risks) or else you admit we know too little to judge potential risks... pretty much at all.


We have no possible value for a ki increase when SSJ2 is forbidden because we can't handle that level of power in a single person wards wise.

And you keep arguing he will have his psychic abilities neatly turned off for our convenience, so you can't possibly expect me to think we'll get his psychic might.

Unless you seriously wanna say 'we'll get all the good points of him being psychic and none of the bad points', in which case I have to wonder why you are surprised at others thinking you are downplaying or ignoring the risks. No plan survives contact with the enemy, we can't assume no unfavorable complications will occur.

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To be fair, in Naruto Jinchuriki have been seen to be manipulated sealed etc. without the usage of sacrificial magic. Still, I definitely think that it is very difficult to speculate on this. For all we know, the only way that it would be stable is with the energy of a powerful ki user. The level of speculation going on seems unwarranted. There is a reasonable case for this being idiotically dangerous, but scenarios also exist where it is worth the risk.

Simon_Jester said:

While I don't really count our surrender demand as an attempt at diplomacy as such, I do think that physically stopping the dragon takes priority over continued negotiations.

Kakara is a protector, not a pacifist, now. Protecting Garenhuld takes precedence over her own reluctance to fight. Dazarel can almost certainly sense ki, he has to know he's outgunned by the raw power of Spirit Saiyan. If he's still refusing to surrender, he's basically demanding that we physically overwhelm him in battle before he'll acknowledge the reality right in front of him.

Given that Spirit Saiyan is a technique with a timer, so to speak, I don't think we can justify standing around talking when he clearly doesn't realize or won't acknowledge just how profoundly the situation has changed.

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I agree with the sentiment, specially the last sentence, however, I want to make a minor add on. Even with him being able to sense ki, the nature of the spirit bomb and spirit saiyan mean that our PL should not feel any higher so of the two, it is more likely that he doesn't realize how outgunned he is now. Of course, that means he has no reason to listen to any attempt to get him to surrender, which means we have to beat him first to prove our point.

Edit: Actually, come to think of it, did we ever figure out what was the HIDDEN DETRIMENT that Kakara had when we chose her? We already knew her distate for fighting and that she was socially isolated.

[X][ACTION] Fight him into submission before you do anything else.

[X][RESOLUTION] Consult the sorcerers for their opinions on magic solutions (next update has a vote on the various options the sorcerers present).

Not to change the subject, but...

Is anyone else surprised at how much longer year 5 has been than the rest of the quest? I mean, we spent about 1 IRL year to get from the beginning of the quest to year 5, and it has been about six IRL months since then and we're still not out of said year.

Not, I hasten to add, that I'm complaining. This quest is so well written that I didn't even notice this until I looked at the dates on the threadmarks a second ago. And then it was all "We've been in year five for HOW long?"