Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Velorien · Jun 1, 2023

Sir Stompy said:
@Velorien @Paperclipped @eaglejarl
There's been some discussion in Discord about travel times. Based on Tokushima time we have sunrise and sunset times of approx 7am and 5pm in early January.

TA is assigned their mission at 12PM on Jan 5. That means any spy that hears the leak has 5hrs of daylight to get to the border. The border is approx 150 miles away from Leaf. That means at full ninja speed they'd still need to travel 50+ miles in the dark.

Quick correction: Fire's border to the north is ~80-100 miles away from Leaf. While Rock is to the west, Canvass has indicated that the attacking team entered to the north.

Now realistically, it probably takes them at least an hour to hear the leak and get outside of Leaf. So we're looking at 70 miles in the dark.

Hazou knows that ninja can sustain travel for 8 hours at 20 mph. And Vel said that he thinks they can go 5-10 mph in rough country in the dark depending on lighting levels.

Note that it's not dead-dark immediately after sunset. Additionally, that region to the north has rivers and flatlands, which are not the most impassable terrain type.

Does Hazou know how bright the moon was that night? On 5 Jan 2023 it was almost a full moon in Tokushima

It was a waning gibbous moon. It was not cloudy.

Does Hazou know if there are any major roads out from Leaf in that direction? There are no cities that way. So no need for major roads IMO

There are no major roads in that direction.

Does Hazou think it possible to push harder than 20 mph for 8 hours?

Not unless you want to run the risk of running into a chakra beast or border patrol while chakra exhausted and unable to fight. Still, ninja have been known to make longer, harder runs in times of great need.

Say the possible spy ran 4 hours at 20 mph during the day and 14 hrs traveling at 5mph that night to make it to the border by 7am Jan 6. Is that something a ninja could do? Or is it impossible to push for that kind of speed at the expense of being useless for a few days.

With the above factors in mind, it is possible that a ninja could have reached the border to the north before full nightfall on the 5th. No comment on whether it is likely.

faflec · Jun 1, 2023

Shrooms said:
i think this a new extreme for 'extremely minimal bit of trivia debated out of fear of catastrophe' for us not gonna lie

I am perfectly willing to retain my title as the paranoid lunatic if it keeps preventable catastrophes away.

Oneiros · Jun 1, 2023

So after the exam are people up for at least doing a week or so time skip?

Black King · Jun 1, 2023

Nah, I'm sure some ES deal or some money thing will come up to slow us down.

FaintlySorcerous · Jun 1, 2023

Oneiros said:
So after the exam are people up for at least doing a week or so time skip?

I'd like to make sure that the Conclave wouldn't particularly benefit from our attention, but yeah, that seems fine to me.

I think that we'll probably need to be involved in the Conclave, tho, as I expect that freeing a Condor is going to have fairly immediate repercussions.

Sir Stompy · Jun 1, 2023

faflec said:
Do not do this until said grift has no chance of being perceived as a bribe or otherwise inappropriate

FTFY

Also I see no post-interaction survey. Tut tut

faflec · Jun 1, 2023

[X] [Conclave] The Crimson Sunrise
Word Count: ???

Optimize with Mari, Kei, and/or Noburi when appropriate.
Rats:
- Immediately approach that nearby Rat trade rep with advisor-suggested tributes. Be polite; introduce ourselves.
- Express moderate embarrassment over letting Condor escape. Some overt fakeness is fine, but deflect any especially politically difficult questions while everyone is still calming down.
  - Imply that further, less public conversations with Hazou MIGHT get some answers to these questions.
- Segue into mentioning Hazou has heard of their ideology in passing, and he wants to know more.
  - Discuss Uplift and what Goketsu has accomplished so far. Ask Rats for opinions on how it could be improved.
Otherwise, do enough damage control to keep the Pangolins from doing something drastic in retaliation (eg kick Kei out, mass cull Condors).
- Have Trio follow up with any Pangolin guards who were involved in the Condor incident.
  - Have Kei, in an imperious but concerned way, verify that they are not being punished for doing what they were supposed to.
    - Kei offers to bring any concerns to Pantsaa should they feel as if they're being mistreated by the Taxiarchos.
    - Hazou and Noburi spam Rapport rolls and help Kei out. Hazou is gracious they acted to protect him despite their history. He finds that very honorable.
    - Provide some sort of gift Kei deems appropriate (Earthshaped (Pre-ES50) jewels and fineries, exotic foods, spider silk capes, etc.)
- Check in on any Pangolin merchants (and any other merchants) whose goods were damaged in the scuffle and reimburse them (also lets us show off our wealth). Hazou apologizes for accidentally provoking the Condor.
- Determine from these talks any other relevant leaders involved in the Conclave under the Taxiarchos' authority that could be buttered up to shield the Trio a bit, especially now that he's snapping at his underlings out of anger.

coldcutconvict · Jun 1, 2023

Timeskipping is impossible without wrapping up the hanging Conclave thread.

RandomOTP · Jun 1, 2023

[X] [Conclave] The Crimson Sunrise

FaintlySorcerous · Jun 1, 2023

faflec said:
I am perfectly willing to retain my title as the paranoid lunatic if it keeps preventable catastrophes away.

It's worth noting that:

QMs have confirmed on Discord, in thread, and in conversations I've had with them privately that they often do not find sanity checks fun. (QMs, please let me know if I'm misrepresenting your words/feelings: I am specifically stating that you often do not find them fun and am not commenting on whether or not you think there are better ways to write plans, whether you think they're a good idea generally, etc.)
In a similar vein, I would be surprised if sanity checks were unlike antibiotics in that they become less effective over time and lead to superbugs which are resistant to sanity checks. This is particularly troubling because if we rely too heavily on sanity checks (IMO we do) then when we run into the superbugs we won't have other tools - we'll just try to sanity check harder and harder to no effect.
While the Five Monkeys experiment never happened, the parallel here is pretty clear.

I'd also like to point out that if we'd properly sanity-checked the telescope thing, we wouldn't have our telescope deal with the Aburame, we wouldn't be friendly (perhaps even friends?) with Shino, and we wouldn't have had a facilitated meeting with Hinata to discuss the whole gemstone deal.

My personal opinion is that we're starting to run into superbugs (e.g., Hazo spilling the beans about ES to Ino despite what we thought was an appropriate level of checking in the plan) and that we need to come up with alternate solutions.

I think the thread as a whole would benefit tremendously from keeping in mind that sanity checks are not costless and are best used in specific, targeted manners which are commensurate with the potential risks.

In this case, ignoring the fact that the original wording would have had Hazo offer no gift if Mari didn't approve of a gift, the reasonable worst-case scenario was Hazo offering a gift to the examiner, who interpreted it as a bribe. They'd report it to Asuma and we'd need to have an embarrassing conversation. Optimal? No. World-endingly bad? Also no.

While I recognize that there was a degree of hyperbole in the original statement, it bears noting that paranoid lunacy is vice, not a virtue.

RandomOTP · Jun 1, 2023

If Sanity checks stop working, then we'll just have to have meetings about the meetings more often

faflec · Jun 1, 2023

FaintlySorcerous said:
I think the thread as a whole would benefit tremendously from keeping in mind that sanity checks are not costless and are best used in specific, targeted manners which are commensurate with the potential risks.

In this case, ignoring the fact that the original wording would have had Hazo offer no gift if Mari didn't approve of a gift, the reasonable worst-case scenario was Hazo offering a gift to the examiner, who interpreted it as a bribe. They'd report it to Asuma and we'd need to have an embarrassing conversation. Optimal? No. World-endingly bad? Also no.

And I would argue that this is an ideal universe where we can accurately predict the consequences of our worst-case scenarios. My opinion of the "reasonable worst-case scenario" is that people (the Hagoromo, other anti-Goketsu) find out about the bribe, spread malicious rumors, and Hazou gets a nontrivial reputation dip as a result of it. Asuma may or may not as well, since he gave the instructions to let him sit the exam in the first place.

World-endingly bad? Still no. Something we should want to avoid and can do with minimal change in the plan? Yes, at least in my opinion. Make sure this is above-board with Mari, who would know if it's a good idea or not; or just...don't give the gift. Side note: Why are we doing this gift in the first place?

Paperclipped · Jun 1, 2023

Lysbeth Succubus said:
<jk>How dare he.</jk> We should probably ask our good friend the Condor Summoner about that some day though.

Oh that's going to end on engravings. So packed with symbolism.
This is genius. "I'm slipping it past ya, but from now on the best you can hope for is a claim of being unfit for duty"
Bards of old were believed to hold the power to kill if they insulted you with enough intent. They were known for whispering words to the ways of the world, being supported by deities, and, of course, bearing news of huge import. Hazō has The Speeches, rewrites reality with seals, is maybe-perhaps supported by Jashin, and brought news of the Great Seal.
If this one works, we could dub Hazō the Bard. Jiraiya would be proud.

It really was a nice set-up in the plan.

Oooooooh.

First we're going to set some bait
By their own nasty trap and wait
When they come a-sniffin' we will
Snap the trap and close the gate!
Delay the genocide, save all the Condors,
Delay it for 90 years, and then a bit more!

Always stopping just short of blasphemy as far as Pantsā's concerned, huh.

She's... very careful about what she says and doesn't say

THE MORI VOICE IS ESCAPING IN BETWEEN WORDS IN HER VOICE AIIIEEEE

Confute confides conflagrations in confabulation between the confident confederates and the conferrers of conformity are confusing, and conflates the members of confluences in this conflict.
But if it helps her not be convicted, I'm convinced these convolutions can help us convene on this: breaks to convention are convenient.

Why use your skills for evil?

I mean, factually true. I'm the usual mix of annoyed for the heroes and excited for the story that things don't go as smoothly as they could, but this Pangolin is probably not being contrarian for the sake of it. Sense of duty is not a bad thing per se and sticking to it is fine. In most contexts. But I don't think the Seventh Path (or the Human Path really) has good enough sensibilities in the context of "genocide bad." Obviously I'd hate that Pangolin for aiding it (though of course, psychologically speaking, "someone else assumes responsibility and that's how the chain of command works" would make most if not all people agree to participate in horrors) but different world etc. Not that this means we shouldn't try to stop it. We should.

Wait. The gestalt field has a translation for "ministry" but on our Path the word "ministry" was created by Mari out of the verb "minister," is that it?
I love how convoluted this is.
Or I'm overthinking this and they're different words in Elemental-Nationsese anyway that both just happen to translate to "ministry" in both cases.
Noburi is excellent, by which I mean congratulations on writing this, love the drama, love the quick thinking, love the playing on insecurities of a little mammal who's just so out of its depth.
Now the only issue is that Toads are allies of Pangolins.

Fun thing: prior to Mari, the Ministry of Doctrine was mentioned on the Seventh Path. Unclear if Hazou or Mari ever heard the term before.

Is "treason" usually a word in sign talk? or do team Uplift just need that word so often? Anyway, can't help but fear for Kei.

I imagine it's not a standard symbol. It's absolutely necessary for Team Uplift, though.

Fine, I'll vote for a plan that asks Ruri for help on that front.

I'm not crying. I'm not.

Weren't they already angry at him personally for the Pantokrator's Eyes-

MWAHAHAHAHA

With respect, it was in the path to get to you, which was only needed because of your incompetence, beakface. With respect, of course. Beakface.

He really said "I will destroy you. Fuck you. Peace ✌️"

Thank you as always for the reaction post, +1 XP to a PC of your choice.

FaintlySorcerous · Jun 1, 2023

faflec said:
Side note: Why are we doing this gift in the first place?

Because it's fun and pro-social. We need to actually do things if we want to integrate into Leaf. This is a thing.

'why do this when it could end badly' is the sort of line of thinking that leads to us doing nothing interesting ever.

In an equally-likely hypothetical, the examiner loves the gift dearly and becomes a good friend who helps us out politically the next time we actually get in trouble.

Oneiros · Jun 1, 2023

@eaglejarl @Paperclipped @Velorien

SC XP for ch 598

Hazō: 3 * 1.8 = 5.4XP
Kei: 3 * 1.7 = 5.1XP

faflec · Jun 1, 2023

FaintlySorcerous said:
Because it's fun and pro-social. We need to actually do things if we want to integrate into Leaf. This is a thing.

'why do this when it could end badly' is the sort of line of thinking that leads to us doing nothing interesting ever.

In an equally-likely hypothetical, the examiner loves the gift dearly and becomes a good friend who helps us out politically the next time we actually get in trouble.

OK now see this is helpful information that could lead to actual optimization of the goal "make friends"no comment on "because it's fun". When I'd asked previously, I got a response that it was a polite thing to do so we should do it.

My response, therefore, is that we can do other things (ie not do a gift) that still accomplishes the goal. Like delivering reasonable praise that is within the bounds of the examiner's specialty (eg praising them for their work on XYZ Sealing breakthrough), or something similar.

I would have made commentary on wanting to get to interact with them (Leaf Sealmasters) more, but that is pushing my bounds on what could and not constitute bribery (making connections) so will leave that stuff off there.

Noumero · Jun 1, 2023

Shrooms said:
i think this a new extreme for 'extremely minimal bit of trivia debated out of fear of catastrophe' for us not gonna lie

I'mma add to the pile. Why are we doing the song-and-dance with making gifts and aiming to impress? It seems like a losing status-game move — as in, after the exam, the examiner would walk away respecting us less for that.

Hazou is the best sealmaster in Leaf, and knows it. The exam is a formality. Being respectful instead of acting entitled? Sanity-checking whether there are any customs we need to avoid violating? Yes, obviously we should do that. Specifically aiming to impress, as if we're particularly anxious about that person's informal approval, beyond the minimal required to pass? Bringing gifts, as if we're uncertain of our skill and want to slightly bribe him beforehand? Those read as social non-sequitur to me, perplexing and vaguely, uh... pathetic?

If read at face value, we're implicitly bowing down to the examiner's authority more than we have to, for no reason at all. If not, it looks like we're staging some weird social ploy, and my model of the examiner doesn't get it, but is vaguely annoyed by it.

I dunno, I imagine it and it doesn't feel right to me at all.

Eh, I guess all plans have Mari screen it, so it's fine.

Oneiros · Jun 1, 2023

FaintlySorcerous said:
I'd like to make sure that the Conclave wouldn't particularly benefit from our attention, but yeah, that seems fine to me.

I think that we'll probably need to be involved in the Conclave, tho, as I expect that freeing a Condor is going to have fairly immediate repercussions.

coldcutconvict said:
Timeskipping is impossible without wrapping up the hanging Conclave thread.

The conclave is happening in non-linear time already. Since it already has happened we are free to move as far ahead as we want in the current time

FaintlySorcerous · Jun 1, 2023

Oneiros said:
The conclave is happening in non-linear time already. Since it already has happened we are free to move as far ahead as we want in the current time

What is the actual timeline? How far back is the Conclave?

My concern is that the Conclave is X days back, and we play out those X days, only to get to a position where we're not dead or dismembered or whatever, but we really need to be present and doing stuff.

If they're two completely separate timestreams then...I think I'd actually prefer to shift focus to the Conclave for however long it takes to re-align the timelines and then vote in a timeskip to avoid further divergence.

Noumero · Jun 1, 2023

Re: the examiner thing, the wording I would like is something like "try to leverage the exam into developing a social/professional connection with the examiner, should an opportunity arise". Like, if the exam involves analysing some open problem, and Hazou's Sealing allows him nontrivial novel insight into it, and so he and the examiner get nerd-sniped by it and trade ideas into the evening? That sort of thing seems like a better way to accomplish it, and we should be able to trust the Hazoupilot to take whatever opportunity arises. @faflec, @FaintlySorcerous?

faflec · Jun 1, 2023

Noumero said:
Re: the examiner thing, the wording I would like is something like "try to leverage the exam into developing a social/professional connection with the examiner, should an opportunity arise". Like, if the exam involves analysing some open problem, and Hazou's Sealing allows him nontrivial novel insight into it, and so he and the examiner get nerd-sniped over it and trade ideas into the evening? That sort of thing seems like a better way to accomplish it. @faflec, @FaintlySorcerous?

I approve.

FaintlySorcerous · Jun 1, 2023

Noumero said:
If read at face value, we're implicitly bowing down to the examiner's authority more than we have to, for no reason at all. If not, it looks like we're staging some weird social ploy, and my model of the examiner doesn't get it, but is vaguely annoyed by it.
[...]
Specifically aiming to impress, as if we're particularly anxious about that person's informal approval, beyond the minimal required to pass? Bringing gifts, as if we're uncertain of our skill and want to slightly bribe him beforehand? Those read as social non-sequitur to me, perplexing and vaguely, uh... pathetic?

I think that the face value read is 'hey, we appreciate that this is time out of your day that you're spending because of us, here's a small token of our appreciation for doing so, you're busy and it was cool of you to do this although you probably didn't have a particular choice in the matter'. The words 'token of appreciation for their time' are in the plan (or will be shortly).

I admit I don't really care about impressing them: we just need to pass and that's likely a forgone conclusion, although if there's a calligraphy component I get a little nervous. We're going to impress them no matter what, most likely.

(Also the gift is explicitly after the fact so there's no way it can be taken as a bribe.)

Noumero said:
Re: the examiner thing, the wording I would like is something like "try to leverage the exam into developing a social/professional connection with the examiner, should an opportunity arise". Like, if the exam involves analysing some open problem, and Hazou's Sealing allows him nontrivial novel insight into it, and so he and the examiner get nerd-sniped over it and trade ideas into the evening? That sort of thing seems like a better way to accomplish it.

Yeah sounds good.

Oneiros · Jun 1, 2023

FaintlySorcerous said:
My concern is that the Conclave is X days back, and we play out those X days, only to get to a position where we're not dead or dismembered or whatever, but we really need to be present and doing stuff.

That actually makes it more advantageous to time skip. Since we won't have anything scheduled during those days it's means that if we have to spend time at the conclave it's not interrupting anything important

Noumero · Jun 1, 2023

FaintlySorcerous said:
I think that the face value read is 'hey, we appreciate that this is time out of your day that you're spending because of us, here's a small token of our appreciation for doing so, you're busy and it was cool of you to do this although you probably didn't have a particular choice in the matter'. The words 'token of appreciation for their time' are in the plan (or will be shortly).

I admit I don't really care about impressing them: we just need to pass and that's likely a forgone conclusion, although if there's a calligraphy component I get a little nervous. We're going to impress them no matter what, most likely.

Yeah, there are ways to execute that well. I'm just responding to the idea of going into it with the mindset of "aiming to impress"; that's what seems off to me.

(Also the gift is explicitly after the fact so there's no way it can be taken as a bribe.)

Oh, didn't parse that part properly, sorry.

coldcutconvict · Jun 1, 2023

Oneiros said:
The conclave is happening in non-linear time already. Since it already has happened we are free to move as far ahead as we want in the current time

A week is barely a timeskip. It is one research cycle with prep. Want to do longer timeskips but feels uncomfortable when writing nonlinear time. Hard enough writing meaningful results from nonlinear plans without threading needle to stay meaningful when ignored for 50 days. Behhhh, words not coming out.

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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