@eaglejarl@Velorien@Paperclipped Did Ch. 599 take up the whole day after all? I think we've held off on doing SC XP since it didn't seem the day was complete, but just wanted to check since we're also not supposed to do the SC XP after an update has passed
This plan requires a lot of Earthshaping from Hazou. I don't think that's a good idea for a couple of reasons
1) ES is a public jutsu and we don't want to bring attention to it. Doing lots of really cool things with it publicly is probably not a good idea
2) Hazou is a very busy man, this requires lots and lots of his time. We really want to be focusing on FOOMing, seal research, and Clan Head stuff. We're already cutting into FOOM time balancing seal research and Clan Head stuff. This plan is adding a lot of additional work for Hazou at a time where he is stretched thin.
I think most of these things should be cut. We're richer than God now, let's hire it out. We can still have the things, but without Hazou's personal efforts.
We really don't need ES-reinforced walkways and the like. It's a cool idea, but ultimately something we can live without.
It creates a beautiful estate that blends various other design elements from other clans, pays homage to Leaf's architectural styles (wooden facades and incorporating nature/gardens), honors Leaf's heroes (lamppost statues), is pretty defensible, and highlights our Clan's gimmick: seals and Summons
I'm not sure it's a good idea to take inspiration from other clans for our architectural design; it signals desperation to fit in, and will make us stand out all the more as it will substantially deviate from norms. I like much better the idea of using statues and decorations to signal our links and loyalty to leaf. From the outside, the design can be modern and appealing to the more general public (ie, civilians), but inside we can provide "subtler" signals to our guests (a Yamanaka-designed garden, etc..).
I think showing off (our wealth and contributions to leaf) is a good idea. ES-made precious metals is a good way to do so for wealth. I wouldn't overdo it, though, as we don't want to attract attention on ES's potential. Though, if we are going to be established in the jewel/gold/silver market, we should definitely show off at some point. Clans would expect us to. Showing off that we are the clan with the most summoners and possibly the best seal makers sounds good too. How about painting frescoes on our estate walls? We could totally build our narrative like this, in an awesome way.
For the monument, do you mean Goketsu and non-clan civilian losses? I'd vote that. There's already a monument for Ninjas, but not for civilians AFAIK?
I expect Ami to have put a lot of thought into killing them already, and if she hasn't mentioned it thus far despite her A-Day plan, then it's probably infeasible. Still, it's still a good idea to have a clearer understanding of the obstacles so that we can eventually plan around them.
If you ask him his route, Enma tells you that he went from Monkey to Pangolin to Leopard, and then south into Hornet. He couldn't get into Cat from Hornet, so he bent southwest into Crow, west through Raptor, then grabbed a boat to Squirrel before passing through Kangaroo and finally reaching Arachnid.
The Squirrels are uninterested in speaking with other clans' emissaries at this time. The Arachnid emissary will have had time to speak with the Kangaroos by now and should be back soon.
Any news on the Kangaroo and maybe even the Squirrels? Enma talked to us about both of them in Chapter 322 and 323.
He mentioned to be on good terms with the Kangoroo Boss Kanga. So I figure he would have a quick talk with both Clan Bosses about the whole "Maybe Dragons are real and maybe talk to Kumokogo" situation.
Does Hazo think densified corundum is strong enough to make for ninja-capable armor? As some sort of ablative armor piece like those bulletproof vests. Real life bulletproof ceramic vests use alumina discs or some other ceramic like silicon carbide with a backing of a softer material like metal or polymer (e.g. fiberglass). Hazo can either make fully corundum chestpieces glued onto clothing or some sort of fiber reinforced resin backing.
"Summoner," Nezesari said, stepping aside and gesturing Hazō into the ambassadorial quarters. "How may I help you?" He settled into one of the low stools that the tailed races of the Seventh Path favored. Hazō took a seat opposite him as the rat began fiddling with tea things.
"I wanted to revisit our prior conversation, sir," said Hazō. "At the time, I was so taken aback by what you said that I didn't know quite what to say. The more I thought about it, the angrier that made me."
Nezesari cocked his head. "Angry? At your lack of an immediate response?"
"Yes, and at your words."
The amassador of Rat blinked. "You are angry at my words?"
"Yes, sir."
"May I ask why might that be?"
"If I may ask, sir, which do you consider the top priority in a negotiation: the spirit of an agreement or the letter of it?"
"Both are important."
"A very political answer, which means it's not an answer. Only one thing can be the top priority and there's only two options, sir: if the precise words of a contract are the most important part then people can exploit loopholes in order to get the other person to do things they didn't intend. If the spirit is the most important part then good faith and cooperativeness are assumed throughout the negotiations and the contract is void if good faith is found not to have been there. Personally, I'm in the second camp, and so is every serious human politician. What I want to know is whether or not you are. No mealy-mouthed political answers, please. The spirit of an agreement is what matters, yes or no?"
Nezesari studied him closely. "I am unaccustomed to being spoken to in this fashion."
"And I'm unaccustomed to being called untrustworthy. I guess it's a day of firsts for everyone. Would you please answer my question, sir?"
Hazō controlled his face as hard as he possibly could. Mari had insisted that this was the approach. She had laughed when he asked if she was insane, and then again when he asked if she was trying to actively sabotage his efforts at the Conclave. He had then spent twenty minutes mediating between Kei and Mari until the former had eventually and very reluctantly agreed with the latter.
"The spirit of the deal is useless without the words that define it," Nezesari said. "If the two parties lack mutual understanding then what agreement exists?"
Hazō nodded. "My advisors told me this would be your response. I believe the exact words were 'no politician will ever take a position they could be criticized for.' I suppose I was naïve for hoping otherwise. Fine, I won't make you actually take a stand.
"Here's the deal, sir. The Gōketsu made a trade agreement with the Pangolins. We knew they were militant but we didn't realize they were genocidal. We knew they were having issues with the Condor Clan but we thought that the Condors were equally as militant—something like the Leaf versus Rock situation on the Human Path. Our two villages raid, we threaten, we spy, but we don't actively try to wipe each other out.
"We agreed to sell the Pangolins what we thought of as a defensive seal. They took that seal and abused it in some way that still isn't clear to me. Whatever they did, they managed to defeat the Condor Clan and then started erasing their culture.
"That wasn't the bargain we had struck, not as we understood it. Our understanding of the agreement was that we were selling them a defensive seal with which to protect themselves against a rival, not an offensive weapon with which to commit slavery and genocide. They perverted that purpose, thereby demonstrating that the bargain had never been struck in the first place—they deceived us, exploited our ignorance.
"Since the Pangolin Clan did not deal in good faith, no deal was ever struck under a 'spirit of the contract' view. As such, the Gōketsu would have been more than justified in doing whatever we liked in response." He snorted. "Even under a 'letter of the contract' view, there are a thousand ways we could have acted against Pangolin. The bargain said we had to provide skytower seals, but if we are playing rules lawyer then the deal said nothing about the effectiveness of the seals. We could have delivered seals that functioned for a few minutes and then collapsed, or exploded. We could have provided seals that worked but emitted blazing light and deafening sound so as to attract enemy attention and render the users helpless.
"All of that would have been entirely justifiable under either a spirit or letter of the contract view. At an absolute minimum, I could have unilaterally ended the deal without warning and left the Pangolin to twist. Instead, I gave them a month's warning and delivered extra seals in the final payment. I did that because I wanted to ensure that no one could say we had acted inappropriately.
"I put it to you sir: you call me dishonest and say that I can't be trusted? I have shown more integrity in my dealings with the Seventh Path than I have received in return. You may think me untrustworthy, but that is your mistake, not my actions. I can absolutely be trusted to keep a bargain that was made in good faith, and even when it wasn't I will still do my best to end the bargain fairly. Not because a faith-breaker deserves it, but because my integrity demands it.
"Now, perhaps this doesn't fit with what the Seventh Path—or at least the Rat Clan—regard as honorable. If that's the case then I think it's your failure and not mine, but I will acknowledge and do my best to work with your beliefs. I hope you can at least see my side of events?"
Nezesari pursed his lips. "You have definitely been clear in your statements, yes."
"Excellent. What would you regard as good evidence for the truth of those statements? I would like to ensure that you accept them instead of merely understand them."
"I...shall need to get back to you on that, Summoner." He shrugged thin shoulders. "At the end of the day, a man's word is trusted based on his actions, not on pretty logic or tablets of attestation. I shall talk with others of my Clan about what to do with what you have told me."
Hazō nodded. "Thank you. I'm hoping that I can cooperate with the Rat Clan, and with other Seventh Path clans. Especially when it comes to existential threats, which you are currently facing."
"Ah, yes. Your...Dragons."
Hazō's eyes narrowed. "Sir, allow me to be plain: the Dragons exist and are a threat. A condor confirmed that already, as have numerous other Summoners, as will Lord Enma as soon as he arrives. They are a threat to your world, not mine." He shrugged. "Or, at least, we have seen nothing that suggests they are capable of crossing into my world in order to threaten it.
"I have been working very hard to get this Conclave to recognize its own best interests and make an alliance in order to stop the Dragons. Thus far I've been sneered at by a Taxioarchus, attacked by a junior guard, and now an ambassador who recently accused me of untrustworthiness is taking a tone that suggests the Dragons don't exist. I have friends in Dog, and my brother has friends in Toad, who would be in danger if we simply left you all to twist, which might be the only reason I'm still putting in the effort to make you people work together to save your own lives."
Nezesari smiled slightly and one ear flicked. "I note that you did not mention your sister having friends among the Pangolin Clan."
Hazō sighed. "Kei's relationships with the pangolins are com—" He paused, shook his head, and started over. "Kei's relationships are complicated, full stop. The ones with the pangolins are extra complicated. I respect every one of her contractees and I like many of them as people, but things get tanglesome quickly. My friendships among the Dogs, and Noburi's among the Toads, are much more straightforward and untouched by difficulty."
Nezesari finished the tea preparation and poured out two cups. He lifted one and offered it to Hazō with both hands. Hazō took it without comment; on the Human Path, handing a ninja a cup of tea was a threat or a statement of superiority, but here on the Seventh Path it was a gesture of hospitality.
"I am curious," Nezesari said, inhaling the aroma rising from his own tea cup. "The words you speak to me are very forthright and unlikely to be found pleasing in the ears of any Pangolin officer. I have no intention to pass them on and I think that doing so would likely work counter to the interests of Rat. Nonetheless, I am curious: are you not concerned what their reaction would be, were they to discover that you believe they cheated in your negotiation?"
Hazō sighed and allowed himself to lean forward, elbows on thighs, the tired frustration showing on his face for a moment. He took a breath of the tea and allowed the warm, moist vapor to waft across his palate.
"This is a lovely tea," he said. "Thank you." He forced himself to take a sip, ignoring years of training screaming at him not to drink from a cup that had been handed to him by a stranger.
"You are welcome," Nezesari said. He waited patiently, whiskers twitching as he studied Hazō's face.
"Have I thought about what the pangolins would say if you told them my position?" Hazō asked. "Of course. We are negotiating right now, sir, and what you do with this conversation will tell me how to handle the Rat Clan in the future. Can you be trusted to hold private conversations private? If not then in future the Gōketsu need to treat Rat as non-violent hostiles. Will you be forthright enough to ask me what my thoughts are on this issue, or will you assume that you already know? If the latter then we need to be careful to spell out every single detail of every discussion because otherwise you will inevitably misunderstand us. Will you lose your temper when I speak more plainly than you are accustomed to? If so, is your temper driven by personal narcissim or is it likely to be a broad cultural trait?"
Nezesari's smile had grown wider. "That's a very open statement of what normally remains understood and unspoken."
"Yeah, well, I'm not a politician even though I'm stuck with the job. With respect, sir: I care about getting shit done, not about the forms. Being open about all this thinking is a gesture of trust and a sign that I actually have some competence at this." Or, at least, that he was the beneficiary of good staff work.
Hazō knocked his tea back and set the cup gently on the tray. "Moving on: I didn't instruct the Pangolin Clan to commit genocide, but they did it on the back of my seals and thus I have an obligation to clean up the mess if I can. I want to get all the Clan Bosses to go to Arachnid and work together to kill the Dragons. I want Conjura to be part of that, both because her combat power will be sorely needed and because it would generate enough good will that she could then demand freedom for her people. With the other Bosses backing her up, the Condors could relocate to the island of the former Archeopteryx Clan and never need to interact with the Pangolin Clan again. I'm hoping that you'll help me in that."
"You think that Conjura and her people would abandon the territory they have held since the creation of the world?"
"If it's relocate or have my entire culture and possibly my entire species wiped out, I would relocate. If the Condor feel differently, that's their decision. I simply want to help create the opportunity for them.
"I'm hoping that you'll help me," Hazō continued. "Throw the weight of the Rat Clan behind the idea of the Bosses teaming up to fight the Dragons. Support me in getting Conjura brought in as part of that alliance. Perhaps or perhaps not the most important point: update away from the idea that I am untrustworthy. I will return faith for faith, sir. I did not break an agreement with the pangolins, they broke one with me."
He pulled a paper from his pocket and unsealed an elegant box made from cherry wood and brass. "In Leaf, the Nara clan are regarded as some of the wisest and most intelligent among us. I have here several monographs written by various Nara on what they call 'the theory of games'. The name sounds frivolous, but it's quite serious. It's about how people can best work together, how to align incentives so that cooperation makes sense, and related ideas that I found quite useful. I don't want to push something on you that you don't want, but if you find the idea interesting then I'd be happy to give you this." He tapped the box. "If nothing else, it will provide illumination on the nature of humans."
"Thank you, Summoner," Nezesari said. "That is very kind of you and I would be fascinated." He held out his hands and accepted the box with appropriate gravity when Hazō passed it over.
Hazō smiled and bowed slightly to his host, then stood up. Nezesari also rose, clutching the box to his chest.
"I have enjoyed our conversation, Ambassador."
"As have I, Summoner. It's been illuminating."
There was nothing more to say to that, so Hazō simply bowed and disappeared from the Rat Clan's universe. Say what you like about being a Summoner, it let you get away with amazing exits.
XP AWARD: 4
Brevity XP: 1
"GM had fun" XP: 1
This update covered 1 day. Offscreen you asked around after Convei (the condor who saw the Dragons); you were given some mealy-mouthed responses and it's unclear if she's being sent for or not. You also talked with Enma, Ma, and Pa about what to do next, and you spoke to Kabuto and Asuma about borrowing Dragon parts and bringing them to the Conclave. We'll get back to you on what they said as soon as we figure it out.
Oh I could feel the Uplift Seething backed up by the years of Intellectual Seething from the Mist days. They bled from every word he flared out, Well! Done!
Offscreen you asked around after Convei (the condor who saw the Dragons); you were given some mealy-mouthed responses and it's unclear if she's being sent for or not.
Lol not good enough. We need her, personally, here. Immediately. If Pantsaa is personally convinced the Dragons are a threat, then there's frankly no excuse.
Lol not good enough. We need her, personally, here. Immediately. If Pantsaa is personally convinced the Dragons are a threat, then there's frankly no excuse
Hazō controlled his face as hard as he possibly could. Mari had insisted that this was the approach. She had laughed when he asked if she was insane, and then again when he asked if she was trying to actively sabotage his efforts at the Conclave. He had then spent twenty minutes mediating between Kei and Mari until the former had eventually and very reluctantly agreed with the latter.
Is Hazō wondering how the Pangolins so comprehensively defeated the Condors using only skytowers, as we wondered, or does he mean something else by 'abused'?
Hazō's eyes narrowed. "Sir, allow me to be plain: the Dragons exist and are a threat. A condor confirmed that already, as have numerous other Summoners, as will Lord Enma as soon as he arrives. They are a threat to your world, not mine." He shrugged. "Or, at least, we have seen nothing that suggests they are capable of crossing into my world in order to threaten it.
"I have been working very hard to get this Conclave to recognize its own best interests and make an alliance in order to stop the Dragons. Thus far I've been sneered at by a Taxioarchus, attacked by a junior guard, and now an ambassador who recently accused me of untrustworthiness is taking a tone that suggests the Dragons don't exist. I have friends in Dog, and my brother has friends in Toad, who would be in danger if we simply left you all to twist, which might be the only reason I'm still putting in the effort to make you people work together to save your own lives."
Is Hazō wondering how the Pangolins so comprehensively defeated the Condors using only skytowers, as we wondered, or does he mean something else by 'abused'?
A reminder that your two goals at the Conclave were: 1) Convince people of the Dragon threat so that they'll honestly advocate for their Bosses' presence when Enma arrives with his message, and 2) Find a way for Conjura to be a party to the Conclave when the other Bosses arrive.
The Rats were the important ones because they are seen as reasonable by pretty much everyone and will probably swing anyone that's on the fence. Asuma got the Otters, Neji the Turtles, and Minami the Porcupines, so we're actually in a decent spot. The Leopards have not yet been spoken to (and are also enemies with the Dogs, and mad that Hazou didn't let the Pangolins conquer their enemies the Hyenas.) The Mara have not been spoken to but Asuma said steer clear since F is their summoner. The Capybara also have not been spoken to, and are supposedly only here to make sure no one allies against them, so they're mostly a neutral party.
Also, though Asuma said he'd get Tsunade and Oro to send their bosses, neither of them have arrived yet to our knowledge.
Toss one more on the pile of 'not technically a lie': we haven't seen anything suggesting that, we heard it.
Unrelated, but I keep wondering how Rats comport themselves. They clearly manipulate objects with deftness that suggests use of forelimbs (though I cannot call them "hands" per se), and I am aware that standing bipedal is easy for even normal rats, but do the Rats typically prefer a bipedal or quadrupedal stance? Unlike humans they could easily move around on four limbs, though it would deprive them of the deft forelimb usage that they sometimes demonstrate. Do they simply stay bipedal the majority of the time, or do they switch between bipedal and quadrupedal as the situation suits them? Inquiring minds want to know!
A reminder that your two goals at the Conclave were: 1) Convince people of the Dragon threat so that they'll honestly advocate for their Bosses' presence when Enma arrives with his message, and 2) Find a way for Conjura to be a party to the Conclave when the other Bosses arrive.
Further clarification question for Paper or anyone else who knows the answer: is the goal that once Enma arrives, the representatives will then be convinced their bosses should show up, or that we convince them now that their bosses should show up to hear Emma's message? If the later, do we actually have enough time for the bosses to make the trip before Enma gets here?
The Collapse was not an attempt at extermination, it was a targeted attack against specific elements of Leaf's military and government. Whomever pulled it off (coughRockcough) didn't try to drop the entire city, only specific groups and facilities. Likewise, when Asuma had his momentary breakdown and called for Rock's extermination, his people talked him down in about two minutes.
