Guys.
This is assuming, of course, that the Uchiha Massacre happened, and that Itachi didn't just lock his clan's rebelliousness up in Kotoamatsuki using Shisui's eye.
Some more questions, somewhat relevant to this:
1) Is the sharingan as stupidly overpowered here as in the series? And is it as easily transplanted? (he asked, for no particular reason)
2) Is the rinnegan a thing? What about Kaguya?
3) Is Akatsuki a thing?
4) What is known about the tailed beasts? Is the juubi a thing?
5) What are the relations between the countries of the elemental nations?
6) Who are their best known kages?
7) Who are current kages?
8) Who are their best known ninjas and what do we know about them?
9) Did Hashirama Senju found the village-system? Did Uchiha Madara defect, very publically?
10) Am I mixing my in-character questions and OOC-questions too much here? Will we still get answers OOC if we don't know something IC?
11) Is Tobi a good boy?
So if there was no Uchiha Massacre, there is pretty much 0 point of trying the seduce Sasuke strategy. Hell, they might even go out of their way to kill us if they think we have a shot of actually reproducing the Sharingan outside of Konoha.
Also, the whole Danzo vs. Sarutobi clash of wills was probably ended one way or another years ago. It makes 0 sense why a Hokage would allow some underling to be so condescending and outright rebellious in his actions. If I were to rationalize the Naruto universe a rational Hiruzen Sarutobi would just straight up kill Danzo for some of the shit he pulled, in addition to ending Orochimaru before he even escaped (or even as early as he learned of the human experimentation/vivisections). Remember, Hiruzen Sarutobi was called a "God of Shinobi" back in his hey-day.
And we decided to camp out in his backyard.
Or: a rational Danzo would not be as stupidly antagonistic and actually either pretend to cooperate or actually cooperate a bit more. Root might still be a thing, Danzo might still toe the limits of what Sarutobi will condone, if so, this necessitates Danzo being not quite as fanatical about Konoha as he is sometimes depicted, but instead simply willing to do what is necessary, while not engaging in all-out treason.
If he doesn't over-stay his welcome and Sarutobi trusts him, and he is choosing correctly in trusting him, I can see Danzo being in place.
If both Danzo and Sarutobi are more intelligent, they probably never had a massive clash of wills anyway. Probably just a bit of a tiff about methods, with Sarutobi being not happy, but seeing the necessity of it, while also potentially not knowing about all of it.
It basically boils down to: Sarutobi trusting Danzo. Danzo being worthy of the trust.
A rational Orochimaru might've escaped under his own power(well-prepared for likely consequences of discovery) instead of being allowed to escape as well.
