I should stress that those were just my phrasing objections. I feel like across the board, structurally and in terms of presentation, Noumero's plan has a better grasp of Orochimaru and is liable to achieve better outcomes with less risk of fumbling. For instance, Noumero's plan does an excellent job of expressing why we have reason to believe Orochimaru might wish us ill without sounding even slightly like we're stereotypically afraid.

I approve of making edits about the phrasing, but Noumero's plan is still simply the better plan right now.
 
Depends on the scenario. If we're taking Naruto then we can do it before attacking. If we're not, then we should do it after taking the Rift.

It sounds like we need 2 different strategies* based on whether there are 6 S-rankers at the Rift or there's a split of 4 there and 2 in Leaf.

*calling the plans of attack strategies instead of plans as to not get them confused with action plans

Can't lie, I don't see Orochimaru using Bio-sealing to kill Hazou and I'm not sure why they think he would. If Orochimaru wants Hazou dead, he can leisurely take a walk to our location at any moment and solostomp our entire team. We're not exactly his peer in combat.

We, the hivemind, know that Orochimaru could waltz into our camp and murder us, but Orochimaru has absolutely no idea what we have defending us. However, he knows about runes' inability to move quickly so he does not mind meeting Shadow Clones on neutral ground. My read is that he is playing cautiously trying to tempt Hazou into a location where Orochimaru has the advantage and then he will do unspeakable things to Hazou once his paranoia is satisfied that no one will be able to stop him.
 
@FaintlySorcerous @Noumero The thought occurs to me that if we Summon some Dogs and have them stay with Team Uplift, they could provide an early warning signal on how the conversation with Orochimaru is going. Have like 5 Dogs out, and pre-generate some signals for likely scenarios based on how Orochimaru will interact with Hazou.

EDIT: "By desummoning certain Dogs", forgot to say that.
 
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This is the old version.
[X] Action Plan: Negotiating as Men
Word count: <400
  • Uplift
    • Hidan's blood-sensing range beats our runes' ranges. Without a bioseal, setting up runes is impossible. Five villages almost lost last time: failure is guaranteed without every single advantage.
      • We don't see any other way. The Akatsuki are an existential threat. We can't bank on Hidan's absence. Taking two seals is just as risky as one but gains us Cannai.
      • We're not just rolling over and dying.
        • Stress-test the 'Orochimaru' section with everyone. Ensure it's logically sound and consistent.
        • His attitude towards us has shifted substantially since we developed runecrafting. He's no social spec; this may be genuine.
    • We're all taking risks here - huge risks. This is ours.
    • We love you.
  • Orochimaru:
    • Arrive as Prime.
    • Tone:
      • Respectful but firm. Negotiating as men.
      • Motivated by rational self-preservation: not unthinking fear or morality.
    • His bioseals offer tactical advantages but significant strategic risks. Our incentives are aligned now, but what about after the battle?
      • He's the world's greatest biosealer. We expect he could malignantly seal us during the procedure.
      • Our death reduces the risk of runic proliferation and leaves him the world's sole runemaster, with uncontested Rift access.
    • What would he do in our position, and why?
      • Tsunade could theoretically observe the surgery, but she probably lacks the biosealing skill to notice a kill-seal. Could she examine us afterwards to detect anything untoward?
      • Will he give her his word not to give us malicious seals? We'd feel safer with a public (e.g., to someone he respects) commitment on his part.
      • If Naruto reinstated us as a Leaf nin, would he be bound by his previous commitment?
    • We see two other avenues to increase trust:
      • Enrich our model of him:
        • Are there rational arguments we can verify against his implanting malignant seals in us?
        • What are his plans for the Rift? Are they compatible with ours (reviving Jiraiya)? Explain our scrying ritual, the results, and the Toad Sages' confirmation.
      • Enact deterrents:
        • Would he swear oaths in front of Summons?
        • We've enacted deadman switches but would prefer a more collaborative approach.
          • Refuse to discuss any details of the switches.
    • Conditional on Orochimaru offering some assurance, accept the seals.
      • After all, cowardice and ambition are incompatible, and we want the Akatsuki and death defeated.
This is the new version.
[X] Action Plan: Negotiating as Men
Word count: <300
  • Uplift
    • Hidan's blood-sensing range beats our runes' ranges. Without a bioseal, Rune infusion isn't viable. Five villages almost lost last time: failure's guaranteed without every single advantage.
      • We don't see any other way. The Akatsuki are an existential threat. We can't bank on Hidan's absence. An extra seal incurs no extra risk but secures Cannai.
      • We're not just rolling over and dying.
        • Stress-test the 'Orochimaru' section with everyone. Logic and consistency with Kei/Snowflake, tone and pacing with Mari.
    • We're all taking huge risks. This is ours.
    • We love you.
  • Preparation:
    • Uplift holes up somewhere and doesn't return until Hazo gives the all-clear. If we don't signal in a few hours, we're dead or compromised.
    • Privately to Mari: if that comes to pass, you know what to do.
  • Orochimaru:
    • Arrive as Prime.
    • Tone:
      • Respectful but firm. Negotiating as men, not quibbling over details.
      • Motivated by rational self-preservation: not unthinking fear or morality. We're agents with misaligned goals, not volatile humans.
    • His bioseals represent tactical advantages and strategic risks.
      • Presently, we're a runecrafting-infosec risk and Rift access competitor. Eventually, as a runemaster we may grow to threaten him.
      • He could implant a delayed-action kill-switch into us, alongside the other bioseals, or give us a lethal disease. This is arguably optimal for him after the Akatsuki are defeated.
    • Will he swear an oath to do us no harm in front of Summons?
    • Alternatively, are there rational arguments we can verify against his implanting malignant seals in us?
    • Conditional on him offering some assurance, accept the seals.
      • If he refuses, reveal that we have one or more deadman switches in place in case of our death. Refuse to discuss their specifics. Accept the seals.
      • Cowardice and ambition are incompatible. We want both the Akatsuki and death defeated.
I'm now pretty tired of looking at this plan. Ping me here or on Discord if you have suggestions but if you don't have plug-and-play wording then you're rolling the dice on my implementing it even if I agree with it unless it's extremely brilliant.
 
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"Orochimaru, while I believe your straightforward intentions in assisting me, my team has advised me and I do not disbelieve that it is probable you will use the opportunity for surgery to exploitative ends, most likely by implanting an additional bioseal, that will directly or indirectly control, influence or limit my actions.

"I believe the stated plan is good for both of us, and am willing to take justified risk to save the world, but I refuse to overrule good faith advice on how to do it from my team, especially when meritful. I would not expect you to take risks like this either, although I can't imagine you not to have effective defenses against this that I lack.

"In order to move forward, would you be voluntarily willing to commit to penalties that make such interference dispreferable to you? I am interested in mechanisms that are robust to false positives, such that they can be extreme enough to be reliably effective without making them costly in a world where you operate honestly, and reliable enough that despite your great skill and many undisclosed abilities I could trust that the defense is successful.

"The principle of this is such that it would involve the threat of terrible things by anyone's measure, and we would be obligated and willing to follow through even if the consequences were disastrous for us as well, under the understanding that there is no real risk to either of us if the deal is followed faithfully. I hope you agree why stopping Akatsuki would justify such extreme measures to achieve greater coordination.

"While I could not tell you the rules and limits of biosealing, I am sure at least that it involves chakra, and we have many means at least of detecting the presence of that, beginning but certainly not ending at the Byakugan. While I am more interested in your takes as domain expert, here are my initial thoughts about detecting more subtle hidden or combined effects..."
 
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Honestly.

[x] Action Plan: You Are Not Serious People
Word count: <400
  • Hazou questions his team's judgement.
    • First, please drop the unthinking-horror act. Orochimaru is not literally an incomprehensible abomination. As humans go, he's potentially the most monstrous person in the world. He can nevertheless be understood and interacted-with as a human.
      • He craves company and stimulating social interaction. He's starved of it, and seems to feel sentimentality towards Tsunade and Jiraiya.
      • He seems to genuinely respect Hazou as an intellectual peer, in some domains. That may not stop him from killing Hazou (Hazou respects Orochimaru, yet wouldn't hesitate to kill him), but that feeling is present. It's a factor influencing Orochimaru's judgement.
      • Hazou doesn't believe Orochimaru would bother faking that. He's not a social-spec.
      • This is Ami all over again. Everyone (except Kei) was so sure she's a psychopathic manipulator, that Hazou fraternizing with her would lead to ruin. Where did that actually get him? Hazou, frankly, doesn't trust them to see past reputations and stereotypes here.
      • Mari, you especially. This is your job to understand the people we interact with, you're a world-class specialist at this. Yet you seem too terrified of Orochimaru to think past instinctive responses and build any detailed model of him whatsoever.
      • So, do they actually think Orochimaru-the-person will do all of these specific awful things? If yes, Hazou agrees it's not implausible! He's eager to hear clever ideas regarding manipulating Orochimaru-the-person out of that/mitigating risks.
    • Second, Orochimaru doesn't need to install bioseals into Hazou to kill him. He can walk up to him immediately after Riftwar and tear off his head. What's anyone going to do? It'd likely be easier than making a complicated surgery even harder.
    • Third, have they no appreciation of the stakes? Not deploying runes, or getting noticed by Hidan, makes losing at O'Uzu nearly certain. That would lead to the world's destruction, or transformation into some living nightmare. If averting that required Hazou to die, he'd do it. Anything less would be a betrayal of all our ideals.
  • Hazou's willing to listen to any actual counter-arguments they have. But if what they've said is their best, he's strongly inclined to ignore that and keep coordinating with Orochimaru. They'll have to kidnap him if they want to stop this, and then we'll all die anyway a few months later, after the Akatsuki find us or Pain ends the world.
 
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Second, Orochimaru does not need to install bioseals into Hazou if he wants to kill him. He can walk up to him immediately after Riftwar and tear off his head. What's anyone going to do?
In Team Uplift's defense, having a killswitch of some sort on Hazou would save Orochimaru the time to hunt him down if Hazou runs away, and installing such a killswitch probably would cost Orochimaru little to add.
 
In Team Uplift's defense, having a killswitch of some sort on Hazou would save Orochimaru the time to hunt him down if Hazou runs away, and installing such a killswitch probably would cost Orochimaru little to add.
Would it? He implied that working against the IN would be challenging if all he had to do would be to implant additional chakra coils. To do that, and change Hazou's blood, and now add a kill-switch bioseal? He might've been lying about the difficulties, obviously, but I think it's very plausible that it dramatically increases the problem's complexity (going off our own sealing experiences). It might legitimately be easier to not do any of that, and just hunt Hazou down afterwards.
 
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  • The others can get behind this, or leave, or perhaps kidnap Hazou and drag him around the wilderness against his will for a few months until Hidan finds us or we all die to whatever ritual Pain sets off. Their choice.
I am surprised how eager you are to unilateralist this. Especially when Orochimaru is indeed motivated and the kind of person to install a bioseal in Hazō adversarially. I predict this plan goes badly in several costly respects.
 
Would it? He implied that working against the IN would be challenging if all he had to do would be to implant additional chakra coils. To do that, and change Hazou's blood, and now add a kill-switch bioseal? He might've been lying about the difficulties, obviously, but I think it's very plausible that it dramatically increases the problem's complexity. It might legitimately be easier to not do any of that, and just hunt Hazou down afterwards.
While I would expect the complexity to increase significantly, I also do not think it would become sufficiently difficult for Orochimaru to prefer to give up instead. Remember that Orochimaru does not like to be disturbed and go about doing things unless they are absolutely necessary for his goals, and having to take the time to hunt down Hazou later would certainly qualify as being more annoying than making a bioseal sequence even harder.

Also if it's that hard he could unstagnate in biosealing.
 
[x] Action Plan: You Are Not Serious People
I'd love to see a non-canon chapter of this, like the time Hazo said 'fuck it I quit being a clan leader, figure this shit out yourselves I'm gonna go do research'*

I wouldn't even be entirely against this being a real chapter, except that I don't really want to devote a vote cycle or significant screen time to it if doing so would delay the actual rift war. I kinda just want to get this shit done with, everything's in place, I'm ready to stop having meetings about meetings and get to the action.

*It might have been a daydream in a canon chapter? I don't remember, point is it didn't really happen that way despite how tempting the idea was.
 
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I am surprised how eager you are to unilateralist this. Especially when Orochimaru is indeed motivated and the kind of person to install a bioseal in Hazō adversarially.
I mean, see points 2 and 3? He doesn't actually need to do that, and even if he does, fine, it's arguably worth it.

I'm not completely onboard with this approach – I like your write-up above, and this is roughly the tone I'd like my first plan to strike – but I do think we have no leg to stand on unless we bring in speculative hypotheticals like "Orochimaru turns the world into a torture-dungeon if he's allowed to monopolize runecrafting". (You say "I refuse to overrule good faith advice on how to do it from my team", Orochimaru replies "they are being irrational and fail to appreciate the stakes, surely you understand that? Make your minions fall in line, this isn't my problem." And then what?)
 
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According to Jiraiya, Leaf is enlightened enough to only use volunteers for suicide missions... though, with Orochimaru's Funnel being a thing that would take those numbers, that may have changed.
Those are suicide missions for people to "useless" for proper suicide missions, due to being cripples and "skinwastes" and the like. They get cajoled and socially and financially pressured into it, but it still counts as volunteering at the end.

  • I don't think we should be telling him about the scrying ritual. It's irrelevant, eats word count, and even without it we'd obviously want to raise Jiraiya.
I disagree. I also don't think we should care all that much about word count. This is the climactic finale for a massive chunk of the narrative of the last few years. The gains of being detailed far outstrip anything that single digit XP gains bring to the table.

  • We shouldn't end with "cowardice and ambition are incompatible", because our main motivation here isn't ambition. It's rational self-preservation.
If it was just self preservation, we could have joined Akatsuki a long time ago. And defeating a mortal enemy with flashy techniques is ambitious and uncowardly.
Given recent events, I think that I'd prefer stronger language about what Team Uplift's role in this discussion is supposed to be.

I'd love to get Mari to optimize our language choices and Kei to look through our logic and conditionals to see if it could be improved, but I'm concerned that we're just going to get a long scene where they try to shut us down instead of improving our odds of the plan we're going to execute anyway.

That second bullet point especially seems like it's going to result in a lot of our team telling us we're wrong or misguided.
I think I'll second that. They should know that Hazou has decided on this course of action, even if it is suicide. They are now to optimize his sacrifice.

...Hmm. Is reiterating that Noburi is our heir appropriate? Or will the QMs allow us to "write a will" in post if we die?
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped if we die, can we vote on a last will and testament retroactively? Can we do so even if we zeroed out on Fate Points?
These S-rankers will pose just as much of an existential threat to Orochimaru as Hiruzen, Jiraiya, Hashirama, Tobirama, and Minato ideally will all come back.
All of those either tolerated his existence or died long enough ago that they will have to defer to the more modern Leaf leadership when it comes to current geopolitics (and yes, whether Orochimaru lives is a geopolitics issue). Also, every major non-Leaf Kage has wanted Orochimaru dead. Pain has wanted Orochimaru dead. Lo and behold, he still lives. Nukes are a different type of threat than S-Rankers.
Conjura probably shouldn't be involved in the actual fighting, but might be worth including to reduce transit times. If spacetime jutsu can get Tsunade and friends from Leaf to the staging area for the fortress assault faster than Kisame and Itachi can play telephone-tag, that gets us a full strike force AND the element of surprise, best of both worlds.
Fair. As long as Ruri and Tsunade are up to date on Conjura's potential allegiance issues. Which they should already be.



Edit: Also, why not?

[x] Action Plan: You Are Not Serious People
 
[x] Action Plan: You Are Not Serious People
Would it? He implied that working against the IN would be challenging if all he had to do would be to implant additional chakra coils. To do that, and change Hazou's blood, and now add a kill-switch bioseal? He might've been lying about the difficulties, obviously, but I think it's very plausible that it dramatically increases the problem's complexity (going off our own sealing experiences). It might legitimately be easier to not do any of that, and just hunt Hazou down afterwards.
Delayed killswitch could be a secondary function of one of those other seals, disguised as an inherent maintenance requirement. For example, the blood modifier could be designed to modify in ways that gradually change over time, and which will tip over into causing massive allergic reactions unless periodically reset. Capacity-boosting graft might incorporate some subtle flaw that'd spread necrosis to Hazo's native chakra coils and "make it look like an accident."

I don't think it's particularly likely that Oro actually will do that, but it'd be foolish to assume he can't if he wanted to.
 
Can't lie, I don't see Orochimaru using Bio-sealing to kill Hazou and I'm not sure why they think he would. If Orochimaru wants Hazou dead, he can leisurely take a walk to our location at any moment and solostomp our entire team. We're not exactly his peer in combat.
My concern is not about killing specifically, it's about control. And I don't necessarily mean in a blatant mind control sense, it could be some guard rails to make it the rational choice not to oppose Orochimaru's goals or methods in the future. Paralysis on trigger, subtle nudges like a toned down version of the cannibal seal, etc.

I know there were some in the hivemind who wanted to subvert or kill Orochimaru in the future. Maybe not so much now, but dumping time into learning biosealing to remove a backdoor, or Hazo committing sudoku so that he can be retrieved from the rift without bioseals is unideal.

I recognize arguments that this will be necessary to avoid an even more unideal outcome of Akatsuki winning. But Orochimaru actually does have incentives to put in place an insurance policy for reducing the risk the only other runecrafter in the world poses to him when a convenient opportunity presents itself. This is different from straight up murdering Hazo now or even right after rift war. It's like the fantasy for Mari to have just subverted Orochimaru when he consented to genjutsu.

Orochimaru behaves generally civilly when given the right incentives, but is fine with abandoning civility if incentives blow the other way. In the past, Hazo both provided goodies and erected barriers that made it more trouble than it was worth to outright dissect him. If we are serious about taking bioseals, then at least put up rudimentary barriers and provide the correct incentives to avoid trivial sabtoage, as the leading plans do.
 
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... Okay, fine, arguably, the following...:
  • If they can't offer satisfactory counter-arguments, proceed on coordinating with Orochimaru as per the previous plans.
    • The others can get behind this, or leave, or perhaps kidnap Hazou and drag him around the wilderness against his will for a few months until Hidan finds us or we all die to whatever ritual Pain sets off. Their choice.
... might be best softened to:
  • Hazou's willing to listen to any actual counter-arguments they may field, but he's strongly inclined to coordinate with Orochimaru in direct refusal of their advice. They're going to have to kidnap him if they want to stop this, and then we'll just all die in a few months after Hidan finds us or Pain ends the world.
This would eliminate the (faint?) possibilities in which the plan is interpreted as Hazou going totally bananas. This is, IMO, a more palatable plan to vote-in.

But also this is more wishy-washy, and I know the target audience of this plan would want to be firmly done with the topic.

Thoughts?
 
[X] Action Plan: Negotiating as Men
Word count: <300
  • ...
  • Preparation:
    • Uplift holes up somewhere and doesn't return until Hazo gives the all-clear. If we don't signal in a few hours, we're dead or compromised.
Small thought: We don't know the duration of the surgery and this could really bite us in the ass if it turns out it takes 'a few hours' and then during recovery we have to not cast anything (like summoning to send a signal).

Though i suppose Noburi is coming along to provide chakra so probably not a issue in practice.
 
Small thought: We don't know the duration of the surgery and this could really bite us in the ass if it turns out it takes 'a few hours' and then during recovery we have to not cast anything (like summoning to send a signal).

Though i suppose Noburi is coming along to provide chakra so probably not a issue in practice.
We can also hit them up on the Seventh Path before we go under.
 
I think this would be interesting to read, not offend Orochimaru, and it still has us accept the bioseals.

[X] Action Plan: Negotiating as Men
Word count: <300
  • Conditional on him offering some assurance, accept the seals.
    • If he refuses, reveal that we have one or more deadman switches in place in case of our death. Refuse to discuss their specifics. Accept the seals.
Requesting clarification: "in case of our death at his hands." or "in case of betrayal.". I like the second one more.
We should make it clear that we are not a idiot, and the switches do not go off if Akatsuki just ganks us.
 
(You say "I refuse to overrule good faith advice on how to do it from my team", Orochimaru replies "they are being irrational and fail to appreciate the stakes, surely you understand that? Make your minions fall in line, this isn't my problem." And then what?)
Orochimaru stirred, irritated. "They are being irrational and fail to appreciate the stakes. Make your minions fall in line, this isn't my problem."

Hazō paused, puzzling it out. "Do you mean to say there is some straightforward argument that you wouldn't take actions beyond those in the stated agreement? I would be interested to hear so. It would surely be the simplest solution, and I am prone to making easily corrected misjudgements of temperament.

"Though perhaps you simply fail to imagine that I have as much preference in my own agency as you have in yours, or think I lack enough naïve confidence in my own abilities to try to win handicapped. If so, take this as a correction. I haven't achieved what I've achieved by not believing in myself, and I fully intend the dragons and the Akatsuki to be a minor footnote in my legacy to come. That is who I am and the bet I have made.

"I want to win here, but I want to win for me, as you want to win for you. I have stated my preferences as honestly and straightforwardly as I am able. I am open to argument, I am always open to argument, but I don't care whose problem you think it ought be. Make choices that make sense for your goals as you see them, in the world as you see it. That is all any of us can do."
 
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