Necromancy plans want Kakuzu busy elsewhere. Pay him to fetch that crystal from the magic cave?
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Action Plan: All You Billiard Balls
I think an explicit priority in the list of priorities should be getting them out of Leaf - at the very least, Asuma will appreciate it and probably expect that we act as such.
Related: what do we think Asuma wants out of this conversation, other than 'Kakuzu and Hidan out of his village this fucking instant'?
I'd like to ask about Hidan's adventures in Rock - both to get any information on his capabilities as well as to put them in a frame of mind wherein they're thinking about Rock and going and doing violence there.
I think an explicit priority in the list of priorities should be getting them out of Leaf - at the very least, Asuma will appreciate it and probably expect that we act as such.
Related: what do we think Asuma wants out of this conversation, other than 'Kakuzu and Hidan out of his village this fucking instant'?
- Location
- Yes.
To not die, probably.
Better yet, the squirrel scroll. Hire Kakuzu to hunt down the squirrel scroll.
It's farther away, we want it more, and tracking/locating it could take a lot of time.
Justify not going ourselves with how busy we are with DragonWar.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
How much do you think a Scroll is worth? Do you think that Goketsu have that much ready cash? Kakuzu isn't going to take a mission to retrieve an object without knowing what it is.
We'd need to pay him for his time as well as the priceless artifact we're retrieving. The sapphire money hasn't come in yet. More to the point, Kakuzu attacking the Eastern continent to steal a significant chunk of their military power is effectively a declaration of war between AMITY and the East.
Let's please, please try hard not to do anything with potentially-significant geopolitical implications that we're improvising on the fly.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
I am also interested in Rock... but I'm not sure how to bring it up without risking a confrontation with Hidan, or at the very least souring the mood. Since he kind of, it seems like, failed to do the task we've assigned him? So by bringing it up, we'd be basically accusing him of that. On the other hand, if we take care not to be accusatory, we risk appearing wishy-washy. It's also unclear how it'll all interact with Asuma, since it's possible that Hidan did do something, but we weren't informed because OPSEC, so we'd be (1) informing Hidan that we're not being informed of things, (2) going around Asuma right in front of his face.
I'unno, the whole thing seems like a huge conversational landmine.
How does this look?:
Well, he presumably actually cares about finding out who targeted Akane. Beyond that, I think mostly nothing?
Getting intel on them, well-disposing them to Leaf, pointing them away from Leaf and towards its enemies, et cetera, are probably things he'd appreciate, but I don't think he'll be particularly optimizing for any of this this conversation.
That probably distracts him for a week at the most. We need them distracted for months.
- Location
- Texas
If we want the squirrel scroll, we should send Mari, Yuno, and Haru to go get it. Mari will get the job done and maybe even do it without undue killing.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, we kinda don't need them distracted right now. We need them to be distracted when we actually start doing the necromancy shit. We don't have the research done. The distraction strategies can wait imo
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Asuma hasn't yet told us if he's willing to have Akatsuki involved in the dragon war. I disrecommend mentioning it for that reason, without Asuma's go-ahead.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
[X] Action Plan: All You Billiard Balls
It's a minor change in framing, but I would suggest "Potential topics" instead, to more convey that Hazou is willing to take the conversation in this direction if circumstances allow. I would also recommend a line somewhere in the plan to the effect of "Pay attention to Asuma's cues, stop if he indicates you should stop". In absence of high-bandwidth communication where we can explain our intentions to each other and reach agreement, we have to rely on low-bandwidth communication and the implicit premise that Asuma's goals for this conversation have substantial overlap with ours. If he indicates we should stop, we are either about to make a mistake or are otherwise making his goals harder to accomplish, which is good indication that we should at least stop long enough to watch what he does next.
In general I think this plan could probably better adapt to the expectation that Asuma will try to take point when possible, but I don't know exactly what that would look like as of yet. The only thing I can pin down right now is that we should actively keep communication between us and Asuma open so that he can help us optimally execute our halves of the conversation.
I am not part of this conspiracy, but thanks for the consideration. In return, I will note that your vote uses a lowercase chi instead of an X and will not be counted as a vote unless you swap that out.
I think this is at risk of coming across as "Things Hazou wants to actively bring up" which imo might run afoul of "Asuma decides he does not want this topic to come up" and lead to troublesome friction between us in the middle of the conversation.
It's a minor change in framing, but I would suggest "Potential topics" instead, to more convey that Hazou is willing to take the conversation in this direction if circumstances allow. I would also recommend a line somewhere in the plan to the effect of "Pay attention to Asuma's cues, stop if he indicates you should stop". In absence of high-bandwidth communication where we can explain our intentions to each other and reach agreement, we have to rely on low-bandwidth communication and the implicit premise that Asuma's goals for this conversation have substantial overlap with ours. If he indicates we should stop, we are either about to make a mistake or are otherwise making his goals harder to accomplish, which is good indication that we should at least stop long enough to watch what he does next.
In general I think this plan could probably better adapt to the expectation that Asuma will try to take point when possible, but I don't know exactly what that would look like as of yet. The only thing I can pin down right now is that we should actively keep communication between us and Asuma open so that he can help us optimally execute our halves of the conversation.
- Location
- Pacific standard
and my axe!
[x] Action Plan: Tell Hidan What Asuma Did to Isan (Also Minato Seals Afterwards)
[x] Action Plan: Tell Hidan What Asuma Did to Isan (Also Minato Seals Afterwards)
EJ, is this you talking directly into the camera? Because if so, what do you expect us to do? Sealing is black-boxed, and AFAICT we don't have any leads other than the minato notes. Should we vote for 'Hazō does rift research pursuing whatever approach he thinks is best'? Is that a good idea?
Damn you Hidan, interrupting our Kagome time like this!
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Yeah, the reason we don't go with Hazou's ideas for things more often is because we don't, exactly, have a sensible way to go "What does Hazou think about X" without it coming across as "Hey QMs solve our problems for us"
- Location
- Pacific standard
I suppose we need to write in trying the doping method for Charming
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Oh wow, we have one of those. It will be literally one of the first non-adopted Gokētsu ninja, together with whoever else he is "one of" of. Why on earth does Hazō not know his name? Who is training the little rascal in extracurriculars, the way that Hazō literally proved to the Hokage to be the advantage of Clan children?
Seriously though, how much does Orochimaru care about Jiraiya. We never actually found out.
- Location
- Europe
[x] Action Plan: All You Billiard Balls
Unless Hazou can play his emotions about Isan getting nuked off, he might give away that Leaf did something a lot worse than kill and steal some secrets.
I mean, we could just try to buy information on summoners and summoning scrolls. And Itachi and Hidan just sat casually on the Porcupine scroll and gave it to us to communicate:
There is also no reason not to mention the Dragons in some form.
Yeah, Itach than got pissy and we are prettenting that he genjutsud us (Asuima obviously knows). But the meeting is important.
Unless Hazou can play his emotions about Isan getting nuked off, he might give away that Leaf did something a lot worse than kill and steal some secrets.
I mean, we could just try to buy information on summoners and summoning scrolls. And Itachi and Hidan just sat casually on the Porcupine scroll and gave it to us to communicate:
There is also no reason not to mention the Dragons in some form.
Yeah, Itach than got pissy and we are prettenting that he genjutsud us (Asuima obviously knows). But the meeting is important.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
[x] Action Plan: All You Billiard Balls
Why? Why would we turn Akatsuki's attention to the genocide Leaf committed in violation of AMITY? Gods, why?
Asuma was able to send someone for Hazō. I sure as hell think he also sent someone for Naruto to be on standby. And maybe also Ami and Orochimaru.
Hidan's just weird, but no way does Kakuzu believe for a second that Asuma doesn't care all that much and just goes along with a young Clan Head's request to hire Akatsuki on a revenge Quest for his dead lover out of sympathy. These people personally killed several of Asuma's close friends. Either Asuma also cares a lot, or he is being pushed into it somehow through politics.
...
Why? Why would we turn Akatsuki's attention to the genocide Leaf committed in violation of AMITY? Gods, why?
Do you expect Hidan to have a jutsu that checks for fertility? Or that he will think that Jashin has forsaken us if we claim to be trying but aren't getting results?
If you want Hazō to only bring up certain stuff while going with them/without Asuma, can that not be included in the plan? Or would the only way to do that violate the ban on if/then planning?
Especially for something like this. Kagome won't feel upset that the latest mind control victim of the Sage of Six Paths doesn't want him to have one of the best jutsus ever.
One more topic worth mentioning. Or, more precisely, a topic we should send a subtle nudge to Asuma about so that he can mention it if he thinks it valuable. Dragonwar.
Rain and weaker nations getting roads instead is wholly compatible with both Uplift and Jashinism. Don't know if Asuma will be happy about this, though. He will very likely consider the revelation about Nara numbers an OPSEC violation costing Leaf a vital first mover advantage in the only form of warfare still legal under AMITY.
Spector29
It Only Gets Worse From Here
I don't think I ever mentally recovered from Jashin being characterized as a literal sex god. Both of those things sound entirely reasonable to plan around.
- Location
- Europe
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Thinking about Kagome. He's grieving, he's hurting, that much is obvious. He's probably lashing out at Hazou in the same sort of way Hazou lashed out at Lee earlier. And that's, you know, it's not great, but it's understandable. It's normal for the negativity you're feeling from one source to affect the negativity you feel from another source.
On the face of it, some of Kagome's complaints don't really mesh with each other very well. He's upset that Hazou's going to take the credit, but he's also upset that Hazou isn't doing it fast enough? It would make sense to be upset about one and merely irked about the other, but surely if you're genuinely truly upset that Hazou isn't doing it fast enough, you wouldn't be more than irked by the fact that he's going to do the hardest parts of the project?
Of course, there's a seed of truth in both of these complaints. Kagome is getting sidelined here, already by Ami who prefers to talk directly with Hazou, and when necromancy goes public it's not likely to be Kagome's name everyone talks about. He's right to not be happy about that. Who wants to slave away on something genuinely important only to get none of the recognition for it? Who wants to be cut out of the strategy meetings and only looped in to talk about progress on the sealwork? And then on the other side of things, Kagome has indeed watched us leave necromancy progress stagnant for extended periods of time as we put out fire after fire. I don't know how much time has been spent in-universe on those crises, but every day Kagome wakes up and works on necromancy and most of those days he looks at Hazou not doing the same. It makes sense to not be happy about that, even if you know why Hazou's so busy. After all, when you care enough you make time, right? It's indisputable that when push came to shove Hazou put necromancy somewhere other than #1 on his priorities list. You understand why, of course, but it's easy to feel bad about it, to feel like surely a Hazou that cared more would have made the time for it.
Yes, there are very valid reasons to be at least irked at Hazou here. And he never mentioned it before because he's very conscientious and wouldn't want to hurt Hazou over them. He brings them up here because he's grieving and hurting and that makes every annoyance and frustration so much worse, just like when Hazou shouted at Lee over something only mildly annoying.
But there's more to it, I think. Both of those complaints had an emotional core in common, one that resonates with his grief over Akane. Kagome feels helpless. He can't do Technique Hacking, so he's useless for the later Minato notes. He isn't the better sealmaster, so he can't take point on the rift-opening seals. He isn't allowed into the strategy meetings. He can't stop Hazou from getting caught up in another crisis that sucks up more of his time. He can't do much more than sit at home and work on seals that Hazou could do just as quickly.
He couldn't do anything to save Akane.
He's blaming himself, his own limitations and inadequacies, and it's making the hurt cut deeper and deeper. I'm sure he's been thinking to himself that if he only had better perimeter seals, Akane wouldn't have been ambushed. Or maybe if he had better combat seals, Akane would have won the fight. Or maybe if he paid more attention, listened to his concerns instead of letting others shush him for being paranoid, he would've stopped Akane from going on that mission altogether. Stuff like that. And then he looks at how he's sidelined from the necromancy conversation, and he feels useless there too. And he looks at Hazou's grand adventures that take up ever so much of his time, and he feels useless there too. And it still hurts, seeing his helplessness in one area only reminds him of his helplessness in other areas.
So he's upset. At himself, at Hazou, at the world. And he's lashing out, because conscientiousness only goes so far. He can ignore a little wounded pride, but not when it reminds him so keenly of how much he's failed to protect the people he loves. In times to come, when Kagome's grieved more and we've gotten people back, I don't think he'll care about these complaints all that much anymore. It was only ever a little bit of sore pride, after all. He cares much more about the actions and the results, and getting his family back is reward enough. We don't need to treat this as a fundamental loss of trust from Kagome, or a great injustice and callousness from us. He's lashing out, after all, not because the complaints are that large but because he's hurting.
But yet, at the same time, he wasn't wrong with both of those complaints. We can and should keep him in the loop more, and we should do our level best to keep the necromancy train going full speed. In the end, especially for Kagome, it's our actions that will speak the loudest. It'd be easy to just say things, that we are going to make a greater effort to include him and keep our schedule clear, but Kagome's always been most receptive to the clear simplicity of just getting it done and letting the results speak for themselves. In this case, that would be including him in future strategy meetings and actually succeeding at keeping our schedule clear-ish. The latter is harder than the former, of course, but we can make our best effort, and maybe even if things do heat up we can still find time to squeeze in a cycle here and there. But think of it less as a Solution to the Problem and more a recognition of the flaws that Kagome has spotted and a common-sense effort to rectify them now that they're known to us. Of course Kagome should be part of these strategy meetings, after all! Of course we should be stealing away every chance we can to progress the necroseals!
At the end of the day, Kagome never wavered once in that conversation about his commitment to necromancy. He's not suffering a crisis of conscience or a doubt in our skills, he's just aware that we're making mistakes and being a bit caustic about telling us. And even that, it's because he's hurting and the hurt makes the irritation feel worse, harder to keep a lid on out of conscientiousness. The respectful thing to do is acknowledge his advice and match him in necromantic commitment. Show him that we're taking this as seriously as he is, that we'll take his advice and improve our approach, and then keep going until the job is done. And then the hurt will lessen, because the wrongs will have been made right.
On the face of it, some of Kagome's complaints don't really mesh with each other very well. He's upset that Hazou's going to take the credit, but he's also upset that Hazou isn't doing it fast enough? It would make sense to be upset about one and merely irked about the other, but surely if you're genuinely truly upset that Hazou isn't doing it fast enough, you wouldn't be more than irked by the fact that he's going to do the hardest parts of the project?
Of course, there's a seed of truth in both of these complaints. Kagome is getting sidelined here, already by Ami who prefers to talk directly with Hazou, and when necromancy goes public it's not likely to be Kagome's name everyone talks about. He's right to not be happy about that. Who wants to slave away on something genuinely important only to get none of the recognition for it? Who wants to be cut out of the strategy meetings and only looped in to talk about progress on the sealwork? And then on the other side of things, Kagome has indeed watched us leave necromancy progress stagnant for extended periods of time as we put out fire after fire. I don't know how much time has been spent in-universe on those crises, but every day Kagome wakes up and works on necromancy and most of those days he looks at Hazou not doing the same. It makes sense to not be happy about that, even if you know why Hazou's so busy. After all, when you care enough you make time, right? It's indisputable that when push came to shove Hazou put necromancy somewhere other than #1 on his priorities list. You understand why, of course, but it's easy to feel bad about it, to feel like surely a Hazou that cared more would have made the time for it.
Yes, there are very valid reasons to be at least irked at Hazou here. And he never mentioned it before because he's very conscientious and wouldn't want to hurt Hazou over them. He brings them up here because he's grieving and hurting and that makes every annoyance and frustration so much worse, just like when Hazou shouted at Lee over something only mildly annoying.
But there's more to it, I think. Both of those complaints had an emotional core in common, one that resonates with his grief over Akane. Kagome feels helpless. He can't do Technique Hacking, so he's useless for the later Minato notes. He isn't the better sealmaster, so he can't take point on the rift-opening seals. He isn't allowed into the strategy meetings. He can't stop Hazou from getting caught up in another crisis that sucks up more of his time. He can't do much more than sit at home and work on seals that Hazou could do just as quickly.
He couldn't do anything to save Akane.
He's blaming himself, his own limitations and inadequacies, and it's making the hurt cut deeper and deeper. I'm sure he's been thinking to himself that if he only had better perimeter seals, Akane wouldn't have been ambushed. Or maybe if he had better combat seals, Akane would have won the fight. Or maybe if he paid more attention, listened to his concerns instead of letting others shush him for being paranoid, he would've stopped Akane from going on that mission altogether. Stuff like that. And then he looks at how he's sidelined from the necromancy conversation, and he feels useless there too. And he looks at Hazou's grand adventures that take up ever so much of his time, and he feels useless there too. And it still hurts, seeing his helplessness in one area only reminds him of his helplessness in other areas.
So he's upset. At himself, at Hazou, at the world. And he's lashing out, because conscientiousness only goes so far. He can ignore a little wounded pride, but not when it reminds him so keenly of how much he's failed to protect the people he loves. In times to come, when Kagome's grieved more and we've gotten people back, I don't think he'll care about these complaints all that much anymore. It was only ever a little bit of sore pride, after all. He cares much more about the actions and the results, and getting his family back is reward enough. We don't need to treat this as a fundamental loss of trust from Kagome, or a great injustice and callousness from us. He's lashing out, after all, not because the complaints are that large but because he's hurting.
But yet, at the same time, he wasn't wrong with both of those complaints. We can and should keep him in the loop more, and we should do our level best to keep the necromancy train going full speed. In the end, especially for Kagome, it's our actions that will speak the loudest. It'd be easy to just say things, that we are going to make a greater effort to include him and keep our schedule clear, but Kagome's always been most receptive to the clear simplicity of just getting it done and letting the results speak for themselves. In this case, that would be including him in future strategy meetings and actually succeeding at keeping our schedule clear-ish. The latter is harder than the former, of course, but we can make our best effort, and maybe even if things do heat up we can still find time to squeeze in a cycle here and there. But think of it less as a Solution to the Problem and more a recognition of the flaws that Kagome has spotted and a common-sense effort to rectify them now that they're known to us. Of course Kagome should be part of these strategy meetings, after all! Of course we should be stealing away every chance we can to progress the necroseals!
At the end of the day, Kagome never wavered once in that conversation about his commitment to necromancy. He's not suffering a crisis of conscience or a doubt in our skills, he's just aware that we're making mistakes and being a bit caustic about telling us. And even that, it's because he's hurting and the hurt makes the irritation feel worse, harder to keep a lid on out of conscientiousness. The respectful thing to do is acknowledge his advice and match him in necromantic commitment. Show him that we're taking this as seriously as he is, that we'll take his advice and improve our approach, and then keep going until the job is done. And then the hurt will lessen, because the wrongs will have been made right.
[x] Action Plan: Oh Thank Jashin
- Allow yourself to feel the relief that we're finally moving forward on this.
- Hey, Hidan. And Kakuzu, good to meet you.
- Pass Hidan some peppermint tea.
- Tone: Teasing: You say I didn't write, but you haven't even butchered the Rock warhawks yet. For shame.
- But never mind them, I have a more personal target in mind now. Someone killed Akane — you remember Akane? — and I figure turnabout is fair play. If I get you a sample of her blood, can you find who did it? It even counts as work, since her death was an AMITY violation.
- While we're on the topic of killing, do you think you could get Akatsuki's summoners to gatecrash the conclave so we can get to ripping those dragons to shreds already? I'd be moving much faster on more interesting things if I wasn't wasting so much time having meetings with ambassadors who don't want to listen to me.
- And how is my darling distant cousin? Pulled himself together yet? I hear he and Ami got into an argument.
- Should probably get Sasori working on 3D sealing, by the way. Oro and I are having to reinvent the whole discipline on our own, and we're going to need it to stop the dracopocalypse. Anything you lot can tell me about the Nagi island machine, while we're on the topic? Any secret forbidden lore that might be relevant?
- [anything else?]
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Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Never use quotes. It has never turned out good for us to.