[X] Plan Talk To Keiko and Ino
- Sit down and have a discussion with Keiko
- We need to discuss the Seventh Path, and your views on it.
- Specifically, what your exact objections to our previous stance was. We were under the impression that your displeasure was due to the increased suffering and death caused by our selling weapons, not the act of selling weapons to the Pangolins in and of itself.
- Go through our plan with Keiko's exact stance in mind. Is there anything that can be salvaged?
- Making use of noncombat seals, perhaps?
- Do you have similar objections to selling combat seals to the Toads?
- You are entitled to have the final word in all decisions regarding the Pangolins. We'd appreciate a chance to discuss whether there are better options than just cutting them off cold turkey, though.
- We should consider ways to present it to them, such that the damage to your relations with them is minimized. Perhaps we could blame the decision on Leaf, now that Jiraiya's not in charge?
- We've not followed up on several money-making ideas that we should probably look into now
- Salt Empire
- Ice transport
- Go meet Ino.
- Ask Mari for advice on a flower bouquet of mourning.
- Intended meaning should be "we do not know what we have lost and that makes the loss all the greater".
- Go ask to see Ino.
- If she is not taking visitors, leave the bouquet for her with our name attached.
- If she is taking visitors, offer the bouquet and offer to commiserate.
- It's true. Hazou doesn't know what she's lost.
- He can only speak to knowing that he loved Ino absolutely.
- But Hazou would like to know what we did lose.
- If she's up to it, we can talk shop.
- Who are the Yamanaka - or really, the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi - supporting for the Hat?
- Is there anything else we can do to help?
- Can she introduce us to the diplomatic corps?
- Thank her for her time.
I really like the Keiko scene you present. I feel like its key points are not mutually exclusive with the Keiko scenes of other plans, or with giving her some time as we deal with Ami and other immediately relevant topics, so even if you lose I'd like to see this come back in a couple plans since it's a really well-constructed way to approach Keiko's objections in my opinion.
[x] Action Plan: Impure World Domination
Wordcount: 398
- Aftermath:
- Talk to Keiko. Reaffirm you're still family.
- CCnJ: There were better ways to handle it on both of your parts. Hazou shouldn't have tried to override her after it was made clear she thought her decision through. Keiko shouldn't have presented us with an ultimatum; she should've trusted us enough to discuss it in advance, to at least consider other options.
- Suggest salvaging Keiko's relations with the Pangolins by claimingHazou ordered to end the deal.
- Talk to Mari. Admit your mistake in trying to override Keiko. Thank her for intervening. Reaffirm your full responsibility over any actions she takes to protect the clan.
- Amend your order: "protect the members of the clan". "Clan" means nothing if we treat it as an abstract ideal and allow its members to come to harm.
- "Clan" includes her: her well-being matters.
- Consider acquiring intel on the Hagoromo's internal politics, perhaps by covertly fishing for information in bars. Considering your disguise skills...
- ... or lack thereof. How do you wear a wig again? Or appear older? Or feminine? Practice with mirror.
- Do you have IN movements for putting on disguises? Reflect on the last time you used them. Something is... off.
- It's been off for weeks, since your entire team inexplicably lost disguise kits mid-Exams.
- What about spotting disguise? Logically, if you suspect an infiltrator, you should check their height, weight... but instead you're inclined to hit them? And Noburi too...
- Meet with Kagome and Mari (secure room).
- Describe your disguise-related freakout.
- Mari, an infiltration specialist: Did you notice anything wrong? Has Hazou gone mad?
- Kagome: any idea what happened?
- Discuss the topic in-depth. Figure out whether you or the world is crazy; pin down how exactly.
- Meet with Ami. Secure room at the compound: Anti-Hyuuga seals, Silence Mines. Yuuichi waits outside.
- Accept her previous terms: no social games, clear exchange of information and commitments.
- If investigation into disguises bore fruits:
- You possess novel information of major importance to infiltration specialists. Likely unique information.
- You're willing to reveal it for a favour.
- Don't answer any questions about it unless she accepts.
- Spend favour(s):
- First: "Work with me to maximize my personal influence on Leaf politics."
- Whether by elevating the Gouketsu, helping Mari become Hokage, taking down the Hyuuga, introducing cultural changes, or otherwise.
- Second (if available): "Maximize my social competence over the next half-a-year".
- Non-binding suggestion: IN social training.
The Keiko section here services to patch up everything we need to patch up in the immediate, so I'm cool with it. The antimemetics section is cool and will definitely make for a cool update. The Ami section... I'm not so sure about the Ami section.
While 'maximize' style requests are a sure-fire way to get effort out of Ami exactly equal to what she feels she owes us, leaving the favour as generalities instead of specifics means the interpretation of the favour is up to Ami, who may not perfectly understand our hopes (or take an implementation of our hopes that's more convenient for her, spending favour-effort on that) and therefore introduce inefficiencies greater than what we save with the 'maximize'.
In particular, I can see Ami looking at the second favour and deciding what we want isn't for her to haggle with Ren to get approval for Iron Nerve Socials, but for her to stick around in Leaf and personally tutor us (the fact that this keeps her close to Keiko having
nothing to do with it). In this case, the effort necessary for Ami to stay in Leaf for six months becomes deducted from the value of our favour even though we never intended for the bulk of the favour's value to go towards that.
While in a vacuum abstract maximization functions are the way you achieve the theoretical maximum value for your input, clear object-level functions are how you maximize
clarity of your input and minimize misalignment. Asking for Iron Nerve Socials means that Ami can either get it for us or tell us that's too big a favour, without as much risk that Ami will misalign from our intentions.
On the first favour's side of things, 'our personal influence' can be claimed from a variety of sources. It could mean we gain influence over people in swing votes or Hiashi's bloc and thus a measure of control over the political climate of the Hat. It could also mean that Ami turns her focus on suborning ISC to the Goketsu so that we lead the Goketsu/ISC bloc. While it would be useful to have such influence over the ISC, it is decidedly less useful than pulling strings against Hiashi's bloc and swing candidates even if it is a full use of the favour in good spirit.
In that light, I'd suggest two re-phrasings of the favours:
- Assist the Goketsu against the Hyuuga bloc.
- Arrange permission for Hazou to learn the social techniques of the Kurosawa.
Now, the downside to object-level asks is that it's possible for them to fail. If Ami thinks Iron Nerve Socials is too big an ask, the favour is not spent and we need to not let this slip. It's thus worthwhile to have the more abstracted maximization function-style favour as a backup if the object-level ask fails:
- Assist the Goketsu against the Hyuuga bloc. Barring that, just maximize Hazou's influence over Leaf politics.
- Arrange permission for Hazou to learn the social techniques of the Kurosawa. Barring that, maximize Hazou's social competence over the next half-year.
Or somesuch.
Lastly, I've previously expressed that I feel like Ami is already likely inclined to assist the Goketsu/ISC bloc against the Hyuuga bloc, and thus there's less marginal value of spending a favour on asking her to do this. Further, our ability to negotiate a second favour is dubious, both because our investigation may not come to fruition and because Ami may outplay us in a way that gets her the information without owing us a favour.
It's hard to know if either of those concerns are likely to end up true, but I think it's worth consulting Mari on which order is best to ask these favours in. If Mari thinks the politics favour won't affect much then we can run the socials favour first, and vice versa if she thinks it'll matter, and if she thinks we can't pull off the second favour she can advise us on which one is more pressing.
[x] Action Plan: Impure World Domination
As big a wall of text as I gave you, I think this plan's got quite a lot of merit, and I'd like to see it win.
