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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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AGFarb said:
Can someone explain how it's believable that the team wouldn't know about runes after months of travelling together? Is the assumption from Oro that Hazou just didn't talk about them and did the tests out of earshot and sight for them?
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Orochimaru doesn't have teammates, he has minions. He doesn't have equals, he has assets. Hazou has proven himself similar to Orochimaru in certain ways (to the point where we-the-playerbase meme about it), and Orochimaru, himself, has observed that Hazou is "not like most girls people."

I suspect it's just faulty reasoning/blind spots on Orochimaru's part. Which means that all we have to do is maintain the veil that Orochimaru's already put over his own eyes, rather than lie to Orochimaru, directly. And that's far less difficult.
 
Sir Stompy said:
What a good idea! I'll do that with the next round of edits
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Would you consider linking to the substrate math? That sounds like something they might care about, too.
RandomOTP said:
I suspect it's just faulty reasoning/blind spots on Orochimaru's part. Which means that all we have to do is maintain the veil that Orochimaru's already put over his own eyes, rather than lie to Orochimaru, directly. And that's far less difficult.
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I expect that Orochimaru is extremely sensitive to anything that seems like it could end the world. His ambition is immorality and we have no idea how close he is to achieving this goal. For all we know he's currently going to live forever unless he dies a violent death.

Given this sensitivity, I expect he'd regard the proliferation of runecrafting as a very serious issue. With very minimal effort we created a citykiller. Granted, simple knowledge that runecrafting is possible is pretty safe to share ('you can make better seals out of magic rock') but it's still a risk, especially if the people in question know anything about how to find that magic rock.

Does he not read intelligence reports? He knows we got our first batch of substrate from the Honey Cave. Doesn't he also know Team Gai looted it?
 
Sir Stompy said:
[X] Action Plan: Under the Knife
Word Count: <399
Intended Duration: Up to the surgery
  • Orochimaru
    • Hazou thinks we should involve Leaf. We stand better odds against all of Akatsuki, fully prepared, than most of Akatsuki, with less preparation.
    • Is Naruto's contribution that useful? He's incredibly vulnerable to Itachi, and there'll be many clones present. Noburi can't even safely drain him. It may make sense to leave him behind to throw off Akatsuki.
    • What's the recovery time of the surgery?
      • Hazou has been regularly overdrawing his coils attempting to Summon Cannai, could that cause complications?
    • Ideally, we could use a couple of days to preshape runic blanks and grind veterancy for the assault. This could coincide with recovery from surgery, if it's not too invasive.
      • We'd ideally use 25+ metric tons of substrate, can you make that much with the available chakra? We'd make Noburi available for redistribution.
    • Since bioseals do not copy to SCs, would SCs have Hazou's blood for purposes of Hidan's blood-tracking?
      • All of our proposed attack plans involve using Hazou SCs to infuse runes. So if that's the case we could skip that bioseal.
    • Debrief Orochimaru on the nature of the Great Seal's degradation, just in case.
    • Set a rendezvous for the surgery and dispel the SC
  • Team Uplift
    • Summarize the meeting.
    • Orochimaru doesn't know that you're aware of runecrafting. He must not infer this. Behave as such.
    • Mari, thoughts on Endou's viability as a contact? She might be sympathetic, although it could have been a act.
    • Sanity-check the rest of the plan with the team
    • Noburi, after hearing the description of the bioseal, do you think it will negatively interact with overcharge? Are you willing to disclose overcharge to Orochimaru for his opinion?
      • Hazou is asking only because it's a relatively niche application of the VD, if you say that you're confident in your answer or that you don't want Orochimaru knowing period, we trust you completely and respect your decision.
  • Cannai
    • Go to the Seventh Path, tell Cannai the proposed timeline for the Riftwar.
    • We can stop sequestering Dogs who have contact with Hazou, and soon end the oaths regarding refusing to pass information to Hazou.
    • Ask if he knows of other powerful Dogs that might agree to fight in the Riftwar. Some of Kakashi's Summon perhaps? One fought against the Dragons.
    • Is Cannai willing to approach them on our behalf, or take us to meet them?
      • If he is, take him up on it, try to make a good impression, be frank about the risks (Itachi's soul-stealing sword etc.)
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Updated plan, I went up to 399, still needs a bit of trimming.

@_The_Bomb you asked for a ping

EDIT: just realized I forgot to attempt the Summoning or ask Oro what he thinks the odds are
 
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_The_Bomb said:
@faflec doesn't Orochimaru already know this?
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Paperclipped said:
"I'll take my time and consult with my clan before I make any final decision," Hazō said as Orochimaru returned. "After all, it's not like I'm actively doing runic research, as I mentioned."

"So, your clan also knows about runecraft?" Orochimaru asked. "Interesting.

"Regardless, you will take every effort to prevent Akatsuki from discovering anything about runecraft. Is that clear?"

"I have no interest in letting them find it out either, Lord Orochimaru."
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Yes. @eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
 
[X] Action Plan: Under the Knife
Sir Stompy said:
Since bioseals do not copy to SCs, would SCs have Hazou's blood for purposes of Hidan's blood-tracking?
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I think a cleaner way of saying this might be "Will Hazou's SCs also be safe from Hidan's blood-tracking?" The leadup will imo be obvious to Orochimaru, and the nature of Orochimaru is that anything obvious will annoy him.
Hazou has been regularly overdrawing his coils attempting to Summon Cannai, could that cause complications?
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We'd ideally use 25+ metric tons of substrate, can you make that much with the available chakra? We'd make Noburi available for redistribution.
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Both underlined segments here give bad vibes from my Oro.exe. The first one feels like it should be more "succinctly stating relevant information" and letting Orochimaru draw the obvious-to-him conclusions himself. The second one feels like Hazou would phrase it wrong, and Oro would feel as if Hazou felt he was doing Oro a favour, which would offend Orochimaru on account of us clearly not taking the severity of this situation seriously. That is to say, it would be better if we made it more matter-of-fact, affirming Orochimaru's expectation that Noburi's available to help.
Ideally, we could use a couple of days to preshape runic blanks and grind veterancy for the assault.
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Do we actually need more than one day? I'm under the impression that every day counts here, and if we can get all the regular rune blanks prepared in one day then we should aim for that.
 
I think we should consider whether TR are going to be an effective combat buff for long-range combat. But unless we know the answer to that question, I'm not sure we should offer it to Orochimaru.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped Alas, I have additional runecraft questions, above.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Do we actually need more than one day? I'm under the impression that every day counts here, and if we can get all the regular rune blanks prepared in one day then we should aim for that
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It depends on if Hazou is comfortable timeladdering RER 2.0s.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

Is Hazou comfortable timeladdering up the RER 2.0 ES check?

He no longer benefits from prep, but it makes the shapings take drastically less chakra. He is going from rolling a 54 effective ES (50 ES - 6 (Timeladder) + 10 (prep)) to a 44 effective. Note that he only has to do 5 shapings before it's effectively a 44 check again.

Would Hazou prefer to Invoke the first two shapings to get past 54 effective for another margin of safety? We may want to buy some FP
 
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Paperclipped said:
Forms a dome by shooting a jet of invisible chakra vertically out of the rune, which, once it reaches a fixed radius, spreads outwards to form a functionally unbreakable dome. It takes around 1 minute to form.
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Pinging also @eaglejarl @Velorien

Would the FD being underground stop it from forming? Basically, is this invisible chakra jet going to be blocked by the ground?

What about if it's just a few meters of earth, would it punch through?
 
Sir Stompy said:
It depends on if Hazou is comfortable timeladdering RER 2.0s.
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Ah. I was about to respond with "but we don't need to make those until we reach O'Uzu", but I recalled your mention of building veterancy. Yeah, taking a day to ensure we won't cause a runic failure with our most difficult rune makes sense.

(Well, I suppose it doesn't make things any better if we trigger the runic failure here instead of there. If memory serves you don't get Calligraphy veterancy credit unless you go through with the infusion, so it's only more safe to practice here if we can pad out our safety margins more here than at O'Uzu. If not, then it's probably best to not roll the dice more times than we have to, to conserve FP.)
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
Does he not read intelligence reports?
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Consider the following exchange:
Paperclipped said:
"At that rate, could it be better to attack the rift just ourselves? It doesn't take a lot to notice that Naruto is out of the village, given that he's perpetually running a dozen shadow clones across the village. If they're using Seventh Path communications, going to Leaf first would basically destroy any advantage of surprise."

"The Fox does so?" Orochimaru asked. "How inefficient."
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He didn't even know Naruto had a habit of highly visible SC use, despite the fact that, by definition, it's a highly visible habit of Naruto's. You can see it all over the village, apparently... And Orochimaru had absolutely no idea.

I'd thought all the memes about him sitting in his basement 24/7 were just that, memes; that he actually kept his hand on the pulse of the village using official reports and Kabuto's updates. But no. He really doesn't touch grass much.
 
Noumero said:
Consider the following exchange:

He didn't even know Naruto had a habit of highly visible SC use, despite the fact that, by definition, it's a highly visible habit of Naruto's. You can see it all over the village, apparently... And Orochimaru had absolutely no idea.

I'd thought all the memes about him sitting in his basement 24/7 were just that, memes; that he actually kept his hand on the pulse of the village using official reports and Kabuto's updates. But no. He really doesn't touch grass much.
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Oro continues to be based. Imagine how much research we could do if we didn't touch grass.
 
So, thoughts on blowing up an underwater cliff to cause a tsunami to wreck the rift site for us?
 
Cariyaga said:
So, thoughts on blowing up an underwater cliff to cause a tsunami to wreck the rift site for us?
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Theoretically doable, but I'd question the logistics on locating such a cliff and exploding it.

I would argue that detonating an EM Nuke Rune to generate a hurricane that wrecks the rift site would be more plausible. Or, well, just nuking the rift site.
 
faflec said:
Theoretically doable, but I'd question the logistics on locating such a cliff and exploding it.

I would argue that detonating an EM Nuke Rune to generate a hurricane that wrecks the rift site would be more plausible. Or, well, just nuking the rift site.
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This is a method that's not easily replicable to make a scaling nuke, for one, and for two we can leave locating such an underwater cliff to Oro. If he thinks it's not doable, that's fine.
 
Cariyaga said:
So, thoughts on blowing up an underwater cliff to cause a tsunami to wreck the rift site for us?
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How does that help us, exactly? It's less likely to kill some of them than a RER alpha strike, they're going to scatter afterwards such that trapping them in a Force Dome becomes impossible, and they'd know they're under attack (and so doing a RER alpha strike afterwards becomes impossible).

Causing a tsunami to distract Konan by messing up the geopolitics is a good idea; causing a tsunami to directly attack the rift site is, I feel, the sort of clever idea that's self-defeating.
 
Noumero said:
How does that help us, exactly? It's less likely to kill some of them than a RER alpha strike, they're going to scatter afterwards such that trapping them in a Force Dome becomes impossible, and they'd know they're under attack (and so doing a RER alpha strike afterwards becomes impossible).

Causing a tsunami to distract Konan by messing up the geopolitics is a good idea; causing a tsunami to directly attack the rift site is, I feel, the sort of clever idea that's self-defeating.
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Well, the thing is, tsunamis are a natural phenomenon. It's not something they will, necessarily, immediately assume is enemy action.

This isn't really intended to take them out so much as get intelligence. They'll have to react to it, and that will tell us things about how many jounin they have, or what Akatsuki are there.

For instance, if the tsunami is stopped in its tracks, then Kisame is probably there.
 
Sir Stompy said:
[X] Action Plan: Under the Knife
Word Count: 397
Intended Duration: Up to the surgery
  • Orochimaru
    • Hazou thinks we should involve Leaf. We stand better odds against all of Akatsuki, fully prepared, than most of Akatsuki, with less preparation.
    • Is Naruto's contribution that useful? He's vulnerable to Itachi, and there'll be many clones present. It may make sense to leave him behind to throe off Akatsuki.
    • What's the recovery time of the biosealing surgery?
      • Will Hazou's damaged coils (Moderate Consequence) present a complication?
    • Ideally, we could use a few days to preshape runic blanks and grind veterancy. This could coincide with recovery from surgery, if it's not too invasive.
      • We'd ideally use 25+ metric tons of substrate, can you make that much with the available chakra? Noburi is available for chakra redistribution.
    • If the bioseal is applied to Hazou would Hazou's SCs have Hazou's new blood?
      • If that's not the case, we could potentially skip that bioseal -- all our plans rely on Hazou SCs.
    • Debrief Orochimaru on the nature of the Great Seal's degradation, just in case.
    • What does Orochimaru think of our odds, overall?
  • Team Uplift
    • Summarize the meeting.
    • Orochimaru doesn't know that you're aware of runecrafting. He must not infer this. Behave as such.
    • Mari, thoughts on Endou's viability as a contact? She might be sympathetic, although it could have been a act.
    • Sanity-check the rest of the plan with the team
    • Noburi, after hearing the description of the bioseal, do you think it will negatively interact with overcharge? Are you willing to disclose overcharge to Orochimaru for his medical opinion?
      • Hazou is asking only because it's a relatively niche application of the VD, if Noburi says that he's confident in his answer or that he doesn't want Orochimaru to know, Hazou understands
  • Cannai
    • Go to the Seventh Path, tell Cannai the proposed timeline for the Riftwar.
    • We can stop sequestering Dogs who have contact with Hazou, and soon end the oaths regarding refusing to pass information to Hazou.
    • Ask if he knows of other powerful Dogs that might agree to fight in the Riftwar. Some of Kakashi's Summon perhaps? One fought against the Dragons.
    • Is Cannai willing to approach them on our behalf, or take us to meet them?
      • If he is, take him up on it, try to make a good impression, be frank about the risks (Itachi's soul-stealing sword etc.).
  • After the Moderate clears, and only if it's not a substantial biosealing complication, attempt to Summon Cannai.
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Okay the final version, includes most of what I wanted to include, and it's below 399 words.
 
Cariyaga said:
So, thoughts on blowing up an underwater cliff to cause a tsunami to wreck the rift site for us?
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You plan to use an RER for this? I doubt they'll work underwater. Requires LoE, and I would guess that water is enough obstruction for them to misfire. Also requires that we:

1) Find a suitable underwater cliff. How? We don't have any aquatic Summons. How do we even know what's suitable? Hazou is no geologist, for all he enjoys a good rock.
2) Set off a tsunami with good enough timing to capitalize on the aftermath. Just seems like we have no idea how to predict this.
 
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