[X] Protoplan: The Dawn's Demise
Could you add a line where Hazo asks the team to brainstorm and/or set up some sort of deadman that Hazo isn't fully aware of? Even if they end up doing nothing, the belief that they could have done something would be valuable. If Mari is our only failsafe and she's coming to the meeting too, if Orochimaru is somehow able to affect us through our clones (like Orochimaru's cannibal seal, previously), having something else in place, even if only as a hypothetical possibility, could make the difference. and it should only take like, a handful of words honestly.
 
Do NOT mention TRs or Rift Runes
I expect Orochimaru to ask about Rift runes and I don't like having zero plans for that. Can you add something like 'discuss Rift runes if asked'? I don't think he's going to be (grievously) offended and acting like we didn't try and having minimal output at the same time seems like a recipe for disaster. Having the second-layer deception ('we worked on Rift runes but didn't want to bring them up for risk of offending you') might help defend TRs, too.

Simultaneously: how bad does our output actually suck? In the counterfactual world where we didn't develop TRs, is our output impressive? 'Sorry it's so little' might just come off as being self-effacing, but it might trigger suspicion, too.
  • Hazou doesn't actually have the reserves to Summon Cannai. Under ordinary circumstances we would never ask for this, but Hazou suspects Orochimaru has a bioseal to improve chakra reserves. Would he be willing, under these circumstances, to apply it to Hazou?
Unless we're going to specify a lot more 'under normal circumstances we would never ask' could be taken a lot of ways, including 'we would normally never trust you but we're desperate' which seems likely to be offensive. I'm in favour of simply asking if he can augment our reserves and perhaps acknowledging that we'd owe him a debt if it was permanent.
 
Are we seriously considering adding "arrays" as a genre of sealing that Hazo simply never thought about before now? That really undermines the identity of Runes as a era-defining accomplishment. Leaf has many Sealmasters (who we saw consulting with Hazo on the Great Seal). Why haven't they put together a force dome for the village?

It could be that arrays are suited for single activations, but not extended use. So the Runic force dome could last a month while the array lasts only a few moments. But... a few moments would be enough to weather a barrage of explosions while Naruto + Sunny skywalk up and kill Deidara (or whoever). With a force dome array, why did Naruto need to order Hazo to go missing?

It could be instead that arrays involve a lot more work to produce the same duration as a Rune. But in that case, the relevant consideration would be stalling Akatsuki for as long as possible. So why would Naruto send up red flags by telling Hazo to go missing?

It could be that there is some nebulous definition of "power" for the effects of paper seal arrays that Runes ignore. But that limit would have to be precisely calibrated to be high enough to be relevant against Hazo + Cannai and also low enough that Hazo never once considered an Array as an approach to the Rift, the war against Dog, the Dragons, the war by Pangolin, embargoing Isan, or any of the other problems that we have been grappling with that have no easy military solution.

Even if there is a completely worldbuilding-compliant conception of sealing arrays, it sure takes a lot of the shine off of Runes for me if they are just a step up the power / scaling curve rather than opening up a qualitatively new kind of effect that is otherwise inaccessible to Sealmasters.
 
Naruto got mindfucked through an SC in the Basement. In case you forgot.
Adding onto this, it's my theory that the cannibal seal Orochimaru made was specifically designed to hijack the control mechanism of the Shadow Clone jutsu (as part of a failed endeavor to create cognitively-independent ones, I'd guess), the one that absolutely forces the clone to obey the caster (note how Naruto Pepperoni disobeyed a direct order from Prime, as if that part of the jutsu had been disrupted somehow).

I personally would not at all be surprised to find that Orochimaru has a seal that hijacks SCs to command absolute loyalty instead. Or just, like, fully general subservience to anyone who orders them around. If that fleeing-Akatsuki interlude is real then Orochimaru is intimately aware of the scenario where your shadow clone gets subverted and pumped for information, so it's easily something he might think to replicate in his own projects.

I agree, caution is super important if we're sending in a SC and aim to still have secrets by the end of this.
If he questions our lack of offense, say that we focused on defending Leaf from Deidara and Konan first and ran out of time working on additional offensive runes.
imo the better angle is what we ourselves were told about the topic: damage is easy, delivery is hard. Most of our non-damaging runes here are in service of trying to limit the Akatsuki's options in various ways, which is a much more expansive task than simply building a TN high enough to kill them (which we did).
How much time does Orochimaru think we have left?
We can probably scrap this question in particular. Orochimaru already told us what he had observed and that he would wait a "reasonable amount of time" before proceeding. I don't think we can expect to get new information by asking this (and if Oro has to explain that he already told us he's going to get annoyed), and the related question of "when do you intend to strike?" should come up naturally by the time we have a game plan.
 
[X] Protoplan: The Dawn's Demise
Generally like this, but I have a couple of comments. (May think of more later.)

Do NOT mention TRs or Rift Runes
As @FaintlySorcerous said, I think we should tell Oro about the Rift runes we researched if he asks.

Noburi enables refilled SCs of S-Rankers on our side. Like during the Dragonwar.
Bear in mind this doesn't quite work as it did during Dragonwar. SCs pop when you move Paths. If Noburi is with us, he can refill the SCs but he can't get more chakra from Leaf. If Noburi is in Leaf, he can give us chakra on the Seventh Path but he can't refill anyone after they cast SC. During Dragonwar, this wasn't an issue because the battle was being fought (and SCs were being made) on the Seventh Path.

(We really need a second Wakahisa. Literally one in Leaf would let us shuttle chakra through Kei Ruri to Noburi to us and avoid this whole issue.)

Ask Mari to quietly set up the EM Nuke dead man's switch
Not a huge fan of this, but since we don't seem to have many other options …
 
Scheduled vote count started by eaglejarl on Dec 1, 2024 at 7:34 PM, finished with 171 posts and 22 votes.
Huh. So if I exercise QM privilege to reject a lore update vote, Armageddon Initiative wins?
 
Bear in mind this doesn't quite work as it did during Dragonwar. SCs pop when you move Paths. If Noburi is with us, he can refill the SCs but he can't get more chakra from Leaf. If Noburi is in Leaf, he can give us chakra on the Seventh Path but he can't refill anyone after they cast SC. During Dragonwar, this wasn't an issue because the battle was being fought (and SCs were being made) on the Seventh Path.

(We really need a second Wakahisa. Literally one in Leaf would let us shuttle chakra through Kei Ruri to Noburi to us and avoid this whole issue.)
I was thinking we'd take like 200 genin and use them as chakra batteries.
 
I don't think he means using the mega genjutsu, just a regular one with the implication being that the mega one may have been used to obfuscate things even further.
Yeah, not arguing for actual TLitF use, just some ordinary "misremember barely-relevant details" genjutsu.
Still seems like unnecessary layers of complication. K.I.S.S.
It's about as simple as it can be, for a plan intended to make someone like Orochimaru look at it and think "too complicated, not gonna bother meddling with all that." Don't need to actually build the implied labyrinth of double-blind contingencies, but we DO need to make sure it passes the sniff test. Being able to say "I deliberately had some of my memories of the contingency planning modified," and have that read as true through crap Deceit skill, is a more costly (thus more credible) signal of the stratagem's legitimacy.
If Oro were in Hazo's position, would he let a genjutsu / social-spec screw around with his own mind for anything less than a perfect, final, absolutely-necessary capstone of an elaborate multilayered plan for how to survive confronting several unfriendly S-rankers in rapid succession? Doing so as a bluff, while neglecting more basic (but less visible) precautions, would just be insanely stupid, and he's probably not thinking of Hazo as that particular kind of fool.
 
deliberately had some of my memories of the contingency planning modified
Yeah but what I'm saying is that you can skip the genjutsu step and just not have those memories in the first place. You don't need to have false memories implanted or memories deleted, you can just... not be included in the planning. That's much simpler and still passes the sniff test. No fancy magic needed.

"Some very smart people figured out some contingencies that would bite you in the butt if you try anything against me." Is every bit as effective as 'I figured out some contingencies and then had my memories of those contingencies erased so you couldn't get them from me' without the weird magic step in the middle.

Oh btw @Sir Stompy could you respond to my previous post? even if just to say no. Feels bad to be left hanging.
Could you add a line where Hazo asks the team to brainstorm and/or set up some sort of deadman that Hazo isn't fully aware of? (+ other stuff snipped to highlight the actual request)
 
Oh btw @Sir Stompy could you respond to my previous post? even if just to say no. Feels bad to be left hanging
Sorry missed this.

In principle, but the QMs detest this sort of "make the NPCs solve our problems for us" I can do it, but it will probably negatively affect our XP rate and probably not actually result in a tangible dead man's switch. So I am hesitent.
 
It is a shame we can't tell then you do this, but when just having the team tell Hazou "yes absolutely, we'll put them in place" such that he believes it would be most of the defense. And in the background, nobody has any idea what those measures are and they're scrambling to figure something out without letting on to Hazou.
 
That said, we have multiple unsolved problems
  • Hazou still cannot produce substrate, if runes need to be mass deployed we would need Orochimaru to make more for us
Please send Oro a message via Gamahebigai asking him to make and seal 10000+ units of substrate while we travel to the randevous point. It could save a lot of time.

Hazou doesn't actually have the reserves to Summon Cannai. Under ordinary circumstances we would never ask for this, but Hazou suspects Orochimaru has a bioseal to improve chakra reserves. Would he be willing, under these circumstances, to apply it to Hazou?
No bioseals no bioseals no bioseals.

I like your plan overall, but I can't vote for a plan with this in it, sorry.
Don't let untrustworthy people install unknown systems in your nervous system.

At minimum, please explicitly sanity-check this and don't do it if everyone tells us we're crazy.

Bear in mind this doesn't quite work as it did during Dragonwar. SCs pop when you move Paths. If Noburi is with us, he can refill the SCs but he can't get more chakra from Leaf. If Noburi is in Leaf, he can give us chakra on the Seventh Path but he can't refill anyone after they cast SC. During Dragonwar, this wasn't an issue because the battle was being fought (and SCs were being made) on the Seventh Path.
Bring a bunch of Chunin/Jounin with us. Mobile chakra sources.
 
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

As far as I know, the question "can Hazou carry a RER2.0 blank while moving between the paths?" is unanswered.

This question is fairly time-sensitive, as it affects tactics for the riftwar. (massed RER2.0s is chakra prohibitive if we need to make the blanks on-site.)

I belive we've been told that Hazou can carry between paths roughly "about as much as he can deadlift".
We don't know Hazou's deadlift, or more specifically, if a RER2.0 blank is within that limit.

Thanks.
 
Ask Mari to quietly set up the EM Nuke dead man's switch
What are you planning on telling Oro about this? Because if it is nothing then that defeats the point of the deadman's switch, but the more details we give him the more he can fuck us with ease later.
Remote Explosive 1.0/2.0,
I saw some thread chatter about not giving that away yet.
Hazou doesn't actually have the reserves to Summon Cannai. Under ordinary circumstances we would never ask for this, but Hazou suspects Orochimaru has a bioseal to improve chakra reserves. Would he be willing, under these circumstances, to apply it to Hazou?
I'm against this. Why are we even bothering with a deadman's switch if we are willing to give him root access to our very being?
 
What are you planning on telling Oro about this?
We should say nothing about this unless he threatens us. There's a careful balance to be struck, but we certainly don't want to mention it at our first meeting. If he moves against us he'll capture and interrogate us. That sounds like an okay time to bring it up.
 
I saw some thread chatter about not giving that away yet.
That was mostly me. It was based on the assumption that teaming up with Leaf for Essierush didn't synergize well with RER bombardment.
This turns out to be a mixed bag: on one hand getting spotted mid-setup would be disastrous, on the other, exploding their sealmaster fortifications is probably significantly easier than breaching&clearing.
We should bring the runes up for discussion.
 
[x] Action Plan: Meet Orochimaru
To avoid Armageddon initiative
Voting is currently closed, so this wouldn't actually work.

(Don't worry, the QMs won't actually enact Armageddon Initiative. They'd technically be within their rights to since it was the winning non-interlude vote, but since we clearly voted for Lore Update partly in order to prevent Armageddon Initiative from winning, and since the actual consequence would be a. the destruction of a decade's worth of worldbuilding and b. a large fraction of the playerbase (me included) throwing up their hands in disgust and walking out, it won't happen.)

I'm against this. Why are we even bothering with a dead man's switch if we are willing to give him root access to our very being?
Point of order - it's not root access. If Oro could arbitrarily edit people however he liked just by doing surgery on them, he'd already rule the world. Heck, if he could apply any kind of significant mind control that way he'd probably already rule the world.

I'm not sanguine about the possibility that he might apply a kill switch or the like that we'd have no way to spot until we learned biosealing ourselves, but we're going to need to go under his knife one way or the other or else Hidan will spot us the second we get in blood-sense range. (Even if it needs him to check, it would be too much to ask for Jashin-luck not to make him check at any point during our setup time.) That probably doesn't require a persistent bioseal, though, and Noburi can probably check for those so it should be relatively safe; it's the chakra-reserves thing I'm split on.

Thought - we could ask Oro if he has a way to temporarily expand our chakra reserves? That would mean he wouldn't be leaving active bioseals on us indefinitely, and also might appeal to him because it means it doesn't look like we're trying to get free augments out of him.
 
Why are we even bothering with a deadman's switch if we are willing to give him root access to our very being?
The plan is to learn biosealing (which was already on the docket) to dismantle Orochimaru's bioseal and make our own version of it.

We just don't have time right now and need to be able to Summon Cannai.
 
[X] Protoplan: The Dawn's Demise
Couple more thoughts. First, could I get a bit added to the effect of:
  • Suggested default plan: Multi-RE(R) alpha strike, followed by max-range Air Leadener and subsequent shots to pick off slowed essies, followed by Essieclone/Boss Rush if needed?
Second:
Keep in mind that Orochimaru does not like people. Be direct and to the point (and polite of course).
I think this might be overly pessimistic? Orochimaru doesn't like people in general, true; but he got along quite well with us when we were teaching him, and he went out of his way to include us in the assault. I think this would be better phrased as something like "Tone: Allies cooperating on a mutually beneficial goal. Cover all the points but be concise and don't extend the conversation unduly."
 
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