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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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For the Ruri side of things, it's worth considering, 1. we might not want to tell Ruri all the details, plausible deniability goes deep, and 2. this seems like the sort of thing Ami will turn into drama.

I've been thinking about this for a few minutes and I think the best solution might be to tell the Hokage, and get him to tell Ruri to tell the Condor rebellion not to be stupid. The argument would be that the Hokage has a good reason to want two of his summoners to stop fighting each other, Kei has an excuse that she told the Hokage nothing specific except that she was going on a mission, and anyway she's subservient to the Hokage who is running a war so didn't have a choice to tell him that much, and Ruri can't pass on anything too specific.

Ideally long-term we'd find some higher impact thing we can do for the Condors that's inspecific to Kei, which we can then trade for Kei's noninvolvement.
 
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faflec.paranoia

What are the odds that Mari will subtly manipulate our plan for telling Mari in a way that causes Kei to fail her objective (keeping the Resistance cell from attacking and getting slaughtered)?
 
Edits made to reflect changes in the other plan. Shame about the total wordcount, but I'm sticking to agreements on it.
MMKII said:
[X] Action Plan: Hope For the Jashin, Plan for Disappointment
Word Count: 438
  • Experiment time. If Hazou lacks the time, have a Shadow Clone do this or assist in prepwork.
    • You won an incredibly improbable amount when facing off with Hidan. Something's strange.
      • Is Jashin real?
    • Spend ten minutes meditating/focusing your thoughts towards Jashin in a quiet, private, and secure place.
      • Bring the symbol, but keep it out of sight.
      • In fact, don't do anything outwardly Jashinist at all, in the slightest. Keep it purely mental.
    • Hello, can you tell me where I can go to figure out where the Otter scroll is? Thanks.
    • Make a quick table that corresponds varying locations on an EN map to dice results.
      • Draw and label a grid with squares of roughly searchable size.
      • Roll dice several times and note the results + the locations down.
    • Do not take the results as fact, only as data. Conclude nothing.
  • Nara
    • Discuss Otter/Sand strategy with war advisors.
    • Sand False Flag Operation:
      • Hazou thinks it's a bad idea.
        • If ploy fails, Sand might join Rock instead. Additionally, we're weakening a weak ally further.
      • Instead of committing false flag against Sand, try performing false flag against Rock, posing as Sand?
        • If ploy fails, operation is still valuable because it weakens our enemies. If successful, we can retreat into Wind Country to bait Rock into invading.
        • There's less risk of turning an ally against ourselves.
      • Preferably, no false flag at all. Jutsu and clan techniques are distinctive and would identify us as Leaf. Similarly, it's challenging imitating another village's signature abilities. To get Sand to deploy, we could offer food deals or money. The Scroll, even.
    • Otter Hunters - Stealth Option
      • Necessary roles (some may overlap):
        • Two Combat Specs.
          • Suggestions: Yuno, Akane, a Summoner like Kei or Ruri
        • Social Spec/Infiltrator, for coaxing info from locals without giving away ninja-ness.
          • Suggestions: Mari, Yamanaka
        • Tracker/Scout/Anti-Ambush, for locating the Scroll and any useful locations our intel gives us.
          • Suggestions: Hazou (if he can acquire Summons), Inuzuka
        • Hyuuga or Sasuke for detecting the Scroll's chakra signature.
          • Suggestions: Neji, Motokazu, Sasuke
        • A Summoner.
          • Suggestions: Hazou, Kei, Neji, Ruri
      • Possible concerns:
        • Inuzuka dogs, Hyuuga eyes, Aburame glasses, Summon Scrolls are all distinctive. Perhaps team could be granted ANBU masks to hide byakugan?
      • Additionally:
        • Hazou or Mari should stay to help run Goketsu, don't send both.
      • Mission Outline
        • Travel to Summoner's last known location.
        • Retrace his journey north.
        • Collect local intel.
        • Locate Scroll.
  • Ruri
    • Optimize with Mari, Shikamaru, Asuma (if Shikamaru approves)
    • Pass on Kei's messages.
      • Subtext: Pangolins visiting Condor is a trap for Condor resistance and their informants may be compromised/fed false info. They can't know Kei passed it along.
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Shrooms said:
[X] Action Plan: Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst
Word Count: 298
  • Nara
    • Discuss Otter/Sand strategy with war advisors.
    • Sand False Flag Operation:
      • Hazou thinks it's a bad idea.
        • If ploy fails, Sand might join Rock instead. Additionally, we're weakening a weak ally further.
      • Instead of committing false flag against Sand, try performing false flag against Rock, posing as Sand?
        • If ploy fails, operation is still valuable because it weakens our enemies. If successful, we can retreat into Wind Country to bait Rock into invading.
        • There's less risk of turning an ally against ourselves.
      • Preferably, no false flag at all. Jutsu and clan techniques are distinctive and would identify us as Leaf. Similarly, it's challenging imitating another village's signature abilities. To get Sand to deploy, we could offer food deals or money. The Scroll, even.
    • Otter Hunters - Stealth Option
      • Necessary roles (some may overlap):
        • Two Combat Specs.
          • Suggestions: Yuno, Akane, a Summoner like Kei or Ruri
        • Social Spec/Infiltrator, for coaxing info from locals without giving away ninja-ness.
          • Suggestions: Mari, Yamanaka
        • Tracker/Scout/Anti-Ambush, for locating the Scroll and any useful locations our intel gives us.
          • Suggestions: Hazou (if he can acquire Summons), Inuzuka
        • Hyuuga or Sasuke for detecting the Scroll's chakra signature.
          • Suggestions: Neji, Motokazu, Sasuke
        • A Summoner.
          • Suggestions: Hazou, Kei, Neji, Ruri
      • Possible concerns:
        • Inuzuka dogs, Hyuuga eyes, Aburame glasses, Summon Scrolls are all distinctive. Perhaps team could be granted ANBU masks to hide byakugan?
      • Additionally:
        • Hazou or Mari should stay to help run Goketsu, don't send both.
      • Mission Outline
        • Travel to Summoner's last known location.
        • Retrace his journey north.
        • Collect local intel.
        • Locate Scroll.
  • Ruri
    • Optimize with Mari, Shikamaru, Asuma (if Shikamaru approves)
    • Pass on Kei's messages.
      • Subtext: Pangolins visiting Condor is a trap for Condor resistance and their informants may be compromised/fed false info. They can't know Kei passed it along.
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Okay, I updated my plan a bit @MMKII if you want to copy and paste some stuff
 
I'd actually like to state a preference in favour of Anko going, or, at least, further interactions with her.

She's fun for the QMs to write (EJ, at least), she might eventually be a great anti-Oro ally, we need ties to the Kei as well as the KEI who aren't Kei, she's powerful, she might be good for Mari, and we have every reason to believe that she thinks that civilians are worth treating like real people.

Besides, when has hanging around a social-spec jonin ever gone badly for us?
 
Its less than five hours to the vote deadline by my count.

E: <3 minutes to the arbitrary "yo dont have too many edits after this point" deadline tho lol
 
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[X] Action Plan: Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst

Don't know why I didn't think of this earlier for the false flag, but we could implicate Rock in screwing over Sand by leaving a few booby trapped MEW bunkers in Sands western borders. Taking some inspiration from Rock style architecture from the Sealing facility assault would help sell this. A few documents or scrolls indicating that Sands NW is vulnerable to smuggling, that Rock's coaxing Mountain, Fang, and Claw to encroach there, or that they want to turn Sand into a protectorate or neutral party would also add legitimacy to the lie.
 
[X] Action Plan: Hope For the Jashin, Plan for Disappointment

Looking over the Jashin section, it seems pretty watertight in preventing negative outcomes - the only possible problem that came to mind is the experiment being too successful and, like, Jashin's unholy light surrounds us or something, but if something like that happens I'd probably be happy because it means we might have a shot of getting Hidan's S-Rank tricks. Meanwhile, even if the experiment is fruitless I like Hazou reflecting on the absurd probabilities that were at play back then.

Only quibble is that 'Is Jashin real?' might not be the sort of question an EN native asks. Like, I kinda get the vibe that religion in the EN sort of follows the 'we worship this god but there are plenty of other divine existences off thataways' approach, and sealmasters in general are familiar with the concept of abominable formless horrors from beyond reality. If both of those are true, Hazou probably would've just taken Hidan's claims about Jashin's existence at face value, and the more appropriate question would be "Does Hazou really have Jashin's favour?" or something along those lines.
 
To be honest, one of the reason i'm not that invested in Jashin plotline is that, well, if Jashin exist and can empower Hazou...the endpoint of that reasoning is "Kill people in Jashin name" or "Execute defensless captives in Jashin rituals", and i really don't like what that would do to Hazou's characterization, to murder so casually, or to literally murder people for power.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Only quibble is that 'Is Jashin real?' might not be the sort of question an EN native asks. Like, I kinda get the vibe that religion in the EN sort of follows the 'we worship this god but there are plenty of other divine existences off thataways' approach, and sealmasters in general are familiar with the concept of abominable formless horrors from beyond reality. If both of those are true, Hazou probably would've just taken Hidan's claims about Jashin's existence at face value, and the more appropriate question would be "Does Hazou really have Jashin's favour?" or something along those lines.
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Notably, Tsunade doesn't think He is real either:
Tsunade said:
The cultists screamed and charged.

Their coordination was terrible; they were coming from 11 and 1 instead of getting a proper 9-3 split the way they would have if they were competent warriors trained in working together instead of insane maniacs ready to die for their nonexistent god.
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Lord Marshal said:
To be honest, one of the reason i'm not that invested in Jashin plotline is that, well, if Jashin exist and can empower Hazou...the endpoint of that reasoning is "Kill people in Jashin name" or "Execute defensless captives in Jashin rituals", and i really don't like what that would do to Hazou's characterization, to murder so casually, or to literally murder people for power.
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See I think you are wrong. If Jashin is real and has intervened to help Hazō then he obviously doesn't exclusively want murder. During the dice game our roles where favored to save people not kill them. In our fight to the death with the cultist Jashin intervened to make sure we could have him live. Clearly Hidan's understanding of Jashin is incomplete
 
Lord Marshal said:
To be honest, one of the reason i'm not that invested in Jashin plotline is that, well, if Jashin exist and can empower Hazou...the endpoint of that reasoning is "Kill people in Jashin name" or "Execute defensless captives in Jashin rituals", and i really don't like what that would do to Hazou's characterization, to murder so casually, or to literally murder people for power.
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Yes, Jashin has some bad habits and hangs out with some wrong people, but... We can fix Him.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Velorien on Jan 12, 2022 at 7:49 AM, finished with 222 posts and 21 votes.
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Voting is closed.

 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Only quibble is that 'Is Jashin real?' might not be the sort of question an EN native asks.
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Orochimaru seems very dismissive of the notion of spiritual or supernatural entities as well.

Personally, I'm much more open to the idea now, actually. I think our priors as a playerbase are more closely aligned with other hypotheses for MfD worldbuilding stuff, but I don't think we've actually done enough tests (we literally don't do science in this world, I think we've done maybe a handful of quick experiments on random jutsu and that's it)to say anything about anything.

Speaking of, we should have Noburi try to use VD to see if he can pick up on [Insert someone] throwing out killing intent at Hazou while they're submerged in water/mist.
 
MMKII said:
I don't think we've actually done enough tests (we literally don't do science in this world, I think we've done maybe a handful of quick experiments on random jutsu and that's it)to say anything about anything.
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This. We literally have a potential way to do necromancy with just Noburi's barrel, but instead of doing a bit of science we're to take the much longer and harder (albeit more useful) sealing approach.

Edit:
Specifically, using Noburi's chakra water like a defibrillator to restart recently deceased people who's bodies are in good shape. There was some talk about it after Akane was brought back after basically being dead from chakra exhaustion, but we seem to have pretty much forgotten about it after the chunin exams.
 
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Sentient Tree said:
This. We literally have a potential way to do necromancy with just Noburi's barrel, but instead of doing a bit of science we're to take the much longer and harder (albeit more useful) sealing approach.

Edit:
Specifically, using Noburi's chakra water like a defibrillator to restart recently deceased people who's bodies are in good shape. There was some talk about it after Akane was brought back after basically being dead from chakra exhaustion, but we seem to have pretty much forgotten about it after the chunin exams.
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How would we test? Trying to rez beasts after killing them with drain?
 
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