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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Ronike said:
Also I would note that the oath extracted from Oro seems like it may not accomplish what we'd like, given it made no mention of future dealings. Neither that Oro would in fact provide the monthly maintenance, nor that he would not impair us during said maintenance. Not sure what can be done about this now, and given the plan did want to specify that Oro would not harm us with these bioseals in the future, it seems like a bit of an oversight, but it is something that was nagging me a bit
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Fair point. Added a couple lines.

Dictator4Hire said:
And I hope that this post serves to show to the QMs that the feelings of sudden unexpected mourning and all of the responses it can cause were conveyed adequately to other readers.
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Thank you for that.


Spector29 said:
Do...you think we're going to succeed? It feels like there's been a tonal mismatch between how the players are modelling the situation and how we perceive the QMs to be (which I don't think is news at this point), but I'd like to ask you straightforwardly: Do you think we've got anything more likely than a snowball's chance in hell at a happy ending? I don't mean to parse into QM secrets about the upcoming difficulty of our opponents, I mean this question purely on the vibes. I feel like more straightforward conversations between players and QMs would be a great thing. Heck, EJ asking for somebody to make a statement in the Discord is what kicked off everything now, and everyone seems to appreciate the different perspectives on offer.
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As @Velorien said, I think it's very much a tossup. Also as he said, I think you would be better off with a strategy of "nuke the place from orbit with Superchillers", but that's a short-term solution that would likely lead to bigger long-term problems. Depends on how much you're willing to kick the can down the road.
 
Noumero said:
Probably takes too long to find/they're too small/inconveniently located.
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True or not but I get the feeling that Orochimaru's current assistants/cultists would have an idea of where said cultists are, given Orochimaru's previous commentary on how his worshippers would find out he killed other Orochimaru worshippers and work harder, to the point where he apparently had to leave to get away from them. Three times.

At the very least, it's worth asking Endo; this costs us little.
 
Sir Stompy said:
some are going to die fighting and some are going to be out of the village.
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Unless we can talk them into fully cooperating. Storage seal(s) full of gold for the cash-up-front payment, mission terms specify low-risk rear-area support services, maybe some promises of equal shares in vaguely-defined plunder conditional on maintaining secrecy for a few days? Shouldn't be too hard for a social spec to sell that.
 
strange_person said:
Unless we can talk them into fully cooperating. Storage seal(s) full of gold for the cash-up-front payment, mission terms specify low-risk rear-area support services, maybe some promises of equal shares in vaguely-defined plunder conditional on maintaining secrecy for a few days? Shouldn't be too hard for a social spec to sell that.
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You are neglecting the warrior culture and inherent mistrust of the EN, they will fight to the death instead. They could potentially betray us to Akatsuki if left conscious, so we must drain them to unconsciousness, which they won't allow.

We can't trust them and they can't trust us.
 
roobee said:
Could ask if they prefer to endanger themselves over risking Pain's peace. Otherwise we are just like Pain
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It would be preferable (edit: to get their willing cooperation), as I had outlined too - and for multiple reasons. But that comparison is a bit out there. It's pithy and, as is common in pithy comparisons, easy to misunderstand. Could you elaborate why that would make us equals exactly?

As it is, IRL corollaries of conscription in WW2 come to mind. What manner of debate would have been preferable for each man with a white feather in his cap? Let alone the assumed friendly status of the ninja village...

Regardless, if all we are doing is abstracting away the context, the comparison is not very useful. Is there a more specific reason why that'd make us "just like Pain" particularly more than other characters in setting?
 
Sir Stompy said:
You are neglecting the warrior culture and inherent mistrust of the EN, they will fight to the death instead. They could potentially betray us to Akatsuki if left conscious, so we must drain them to unconsciousness, which they won't allow.

We can't trust them and they can't trust us.
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Wait, but if this is the case (ninja we attack/capture will betray us to Akatsuki), shouldn't we also be concerned that any escapees of an assault would warn Akatsuki?
 
Noumero said:
  • Maris freeze targets via TLitF, Orochimarus paralyze them, Tsunades do battlefield control.
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I understand the 'stunning' version of TLitF doesn't have long-term consequences for Mari herself, but isn't it expensive chakra-wise? Unless the targets are EJounin, normal Jounin-level genjutsu should suffice.

The rest of the team should also be able to contribute. Hazou can deploy Air Leadeners or Icarus to cut off paths of escape, use Ninja Radar to detect stragglers, Noburi can mist drain etc. This might be a useful trial run for deployment of these support-type Runes in combat.
 
Sir Stompy said:
You are neglecting the warrior culture and inherent mistrust of the EN, they will fight to the death instead. They could potentially betray us to Akatsuki if left conscious, so we must drain them to unconsciousness, which they won't allow.

We can't trust them and they can't trust us.
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They'll fight to the death to avoid... being paid for a straightforward job by their nominal allies? And are so committed to such hosility that Mari, a social-spec Jonin, has no relevant chance of even short-term success?

...why are we trying to save these people, again?
 
strange_person said:
They'll fight to the death to avoid... being paid for a straightforward job by their nominal allies? And are so committed to such hosility that Mari, a social-spec Jonin, has no relevant chance of even short-term success?

...why are we trying to save these people, again?
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I feel like the practical value of rehearsing NInja Radar use is probably high, but this is a valid point... if Mari approaches and offers to buy some percentage of their chakra for a huge sum of gold, that might work. Heck, we could even hire them as active participants for the actual assault, given that we'd be proceeding directly to the attack right after.
 
strange_person said:
Unless we can talk them into fully cooperating. Storage seal(s) full of gold for the cash-up-front payment, mission terms specify low-risk rear-area support services, maybe some promises of equal shares in vaguely-defined plunder conditional on maintaining secrecy for a few days? Shouldn't be too hard for a social spec to sell that.
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I'm trying to think of a way to make this work and I just don't see it. With the amount of people we need, we'd be essentially press-ganging their entire military to go do something at our say-so. Actually, not just "something", violate AMITY, for which punishment is already their village's destruction, and do so by entering a suicidal fight against the Akatsuki!

Then, if we somehow talk them into this (we won't), they'd be traveling with us for potentially a day, a force vastly outnumbering (if perhaps not outgunning) our own, always on the verge of backstabbing us or just fleeing.

No, I don't think this is salvageable. Neither Oro nor Naruto/Tsunade would go for it.

faflec said:
True or not but I get the feeling that Orochimaru's current assistants/cultists would have an idea of where said cultists are, given Orochimaru's previous commentary on how his worshippers would find out he killed other Orochimaru worshippers and work harder, to the point where he apparently had to leave to get away from them. Three times.

At the very least, it's worth asking Endo; this costs us little.
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Likewise, I'm trying to see if this is workable, and I don't think it is. We need hundreds of ninja, we need them quickly. These cults are certainly small and scattered all over the map; otherwise they wouldn't be "cults", they'd be known geopolitical forces on the scale of minor villages.

Actually, there's also the Efficient Ninja Hypothesis problem. If Oro's cults were this easily reachable and so numerous, wouldn't he have already thought to co-opt them for the purpose of Riftwar?

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faflec said:
Wait, but if this is the case (ninja we attack/capture will betray us to Akatsuki), shouldn't we also be concerned that any escapees of an assault would warn Akatsuki?
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This is why we're picking our target already en-route to O'Uzu. They shouldn't know whom to warn, and by the time the news inevitably spread at ninja speeds, we should be already commencing the assault.
Rihaku said:
I understand the 'stunning' version of TLitF doesn't have long-term consequences for Mari herself, but isn't it expensive chakra-wise? Unless the targets are EJounin, normal Jounin-level genjutsu should suffice.
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TLitF is unique in being a multi-target genjutsu, and Mari herself had suggested before that her main usefulness in large-scale battles would be in using TLitF to freeze "whole swathes of the battlefield" (or something along these lines).
 
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Noumero said:
Likewise, I'm trying to see if this is workable, and I don't think it is. We need hundreds of ninja, we need them quickly. These cults are certainly small and scattered all over the map; otherwise they wouldn't be "cults", they'd be known geopolitical forces on the scale of minor villages.
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Wait, hundreds of ninja? Orochimaru postulated here that around 60 of Leaf's ninja would be sufficient, not "hundreds" of ninja.
Noumero said:
Actually, there's also the Efficient Ninja Hypothesis problem. If Oro's cults were this easily reachable and so numerous, wouldn't he have already thought to co-opt them for the purpose of Riftwar?
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I imagine that Orochimaru has a blindspot around proactively seeking out his cultists, especially considering he initially planned to have Leaf involved, which would obviate the need to involve said cultists for chakra in the first place.

But again, what is the harm in asking? At worst Endo says she doesn't know, or gives us information that we recognize can't be acted upon.
 
Halil said:
Could you elaborate why that would make us equals exactly?
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Pain was doing Uplift. Some ritual. Hypothesizing but seems like it was changing human nature to fix the problem at it's core, to remove the evil impulses of men or to give the empathy/compassion via ninshu. Since he was doing that, he probably therefore thought the majority of people would prefer such a state of affairs to the status quo. Which makes sense. Offering a villager wealth and security in return for the loss of some of their emotions or having the emotions of their neighbor in their head all the time sounds worthwhile.
People object that Pain did not get consent. To check whether the majority of the populace would prefer it. There would have been complication with Pain asking: OPSEC leaks, issues of trust. Let's assume that he didn't check.
By conscription do you mean a situation where the majority of the populace desire to win a war enough that they are willing to sacrifice a minority to do it? We have not checked with the majority of the population what they want, to justify sacrificing a minority. Yes the major villages (those in power who benefit from the status quo) fought against Pain. They are not the minor villages. And besides it is civilians who make up the majority.
You cite OPSEC concerns with offering the resurrection of their loved ones, just like Pain had OPSEC concerns. There are issues of trust of them believing our word about what's happening, just as Pain would have had issues of trust perhaps of a different variety.
I'm not sure what you mean by a white feather (pacifism?)
 
I have no ethical or geopolitical objections to the "kidnap a minor village for chakra" plan (as long as we put them back afterwards), but I have logistical questions.
  1. How are we getting the chakra batteries to O'Uzu? @Noumero 's plan says to put them in a net carried by Tsunade's SCs; as I said previously, if we do that we have to wait 24 hours once we get to O'Uzu (along with our chakra batteries) for her SC hours to reset. Is the idea just that we'd need about that long anyway to shape runes and we'll be setting up far enough out to avoid Akatsuki patrols even for a full day?
  2. Do we think we can actually non-lethally suppress an entire minor village with just our containment runes and however many Tsunade/Oro/Mari clones we can produce with our current supply of chakra? They don't have S-rankers, but they do have at least a hundred chuunin (necessarily, since otherwise they wouldn't be interesting targets) and probably therefore at least twenty (?) jounin, and we can't really afford to kill any of them (at least, not a significant fraction of them) since that would a. cut into our chakra supply and b. create major geopolitical issues down the line.
  3. How are we dealing with the risk of news reaching Akatsuki? Are we just assuming that dedicated spies will be trapped in the Force Dome? We know their spy network is strong in the minor villages, and it would take one spy to be coming back from a mission to run full-tilt to Akatsuki and warn them before we (slowed by our chakra batteries and need for SC hour resets) can launch our attack.
 
faflec said:
Wait, hundreds of ninja? Orochimaru postulated here that around 60 of Leaf's ninja would be sufficient, not "hundreds" of ninja.
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@Sir Stompy, @Orochimaru, argue it out please.

faflec said:
But again, what is the harm in asking? At worst Endo says she doesn't know, or gives us information that we recognize can't be acted upon.
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The harm is word count. :/ Also, how do we find Endo? We'd have to run the idea by Orochimaru directly.

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Kyreneryk said:
  1. How are we getting the chakra batteries to O'Uzu? @Noumero 's plan says to put them in a net carried by Tsunade's SCs; as I said previously, if we do that we have to wait 24 hours once we get to O'Uzu (along with our chakra batteries) for her SC hours to reset. Is the idea just that we'd need about that long anyway to shape runes and we'll be setting up far enough out to avoid Akatsuki patrols even for a full day?
  2. Do we think we can actually non-lethally suppress an entire minor village with just our containment runes and however many Tsunade/Oro/Mari clones we can produce with our current supply of chakra? They don't have S-rankers, but they do have at least a hundred chuunin (necessarily, since otherwise they wouldn't be interesting targets) and probably therefore at least twenty (?) jounin, and we can't really afford to kill any of them (at least, not a significant fraction of them) since that would a. cut into our chakra supply and b. create major geopolitical issues down the line.
  3. How are we dealing with the risk of news reaching Akatsuki? Are we just assuming that dedicated spies will be trapped in the Force Dome? We know their spy network is strong in the minor villages, and it would take one spy to be coming back from a mission to run full-tilt to Akatsuki and warn them before we (slowed by our chakra batteries and need for SC hour resets) can launch our attack.
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  1. If we're targeting Tea or Noodle, we're going to travel for a day+ anyway. The hours will reset.
  2. Dunno, that's why we're floating the idea by Orochimaru in advance. At a guess, yes: Mari has a fitting AoE technique, the Sannin probably do too.
  3. We'll hope it won't reach them that quickly. We'd be ideally taking all of the chuunin+ ninja, so the only spies remaining would be the relatively slow civilians and genin – and even if not, the spread of information will probably look like propagation through a network of informants, not a single ninja spy coming by and immediately knowing that they must run full-tilt to O'Uzu.
 
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Noumero said:
The harm is word count. :/ Also, how do we find Endo? We'd have to run the idea by Orochimaru directly.
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Endo or Orochimaru, either way we have a general idea of where "they" are and almost certainly will be interacting with not-Orochimaru, at the least to collect substrate for runecrafting practice.

I can trim your plan down to add the proposal if you are amenable?
 
faflec said:
Endo or Orochimaru, either way we have a general idea of where "they" are and almost certainly will be interacting with not-Orochimaru, at the least to collect substrate for runecrafting practice.

I can trim your plan down to add the proposal if you are amenable?
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Fiiine. Feel free to try to trim the plan; for now, I'll just cut some lines from the Noburi section.

This works for you?
Noumero said:
[x] Action Plan: Up to 100% More Atrocities Than the Competitors!
Word count: <300
  • Noburi:
    • Hazou's disappointed. He wantedNoburi's oversight; Noburi screwed that up.
      • But fine. Hazou's been there; he'll skip the dressing-down.
    • Welcome to the 'I-pissed-off-all-three-Sannin-and-survived' club.
  • Cannai:
    • Summon him with Mild overcharge (immediately Noburi-treated) once you've recovered.
      • If successful, have him meet the team.
    • Reverse-summon to visit Dogs that might agree to join the Riftwar.
      • Be respectful. They might not favor a Summoner so unlike Kakashi.
      • Emphasize the importance of the fight. Accept it gracefully if any decline.
  • Discuss the following with the team and, if they approve, Orochimaru.
    • We'll need oceans of chakra for Bosses, summon armies, runes, and refilling Sannin SCs.
      • Optimally, we want 100-200 chuunin-level chakra batteries.
    • Suggestion: Raid a minor village (Tea/Moon/Noodle) for chakra batteries en-route to O'Uzu.
      • Trap it under Force Domes, Iron Earth, and Air-Leadeners.
      • Commence mass SC assault via Tsunade, Orochimaru, Mari.
        • Maris freeze targets via TLitF, Orochimarus paralyze them, Tsunades do battlefield control.
      • Transport them in a net suspended between Tsunade's SCs.
    • It's extreme and will have lasting geopolitical consequences. But it significantly boosts our chances. If we lose, there's no future anyway.
      • Bonus: means we don't need to extract as many Leaf ninja, lowering the operation's profile.
    • Alternatively/Additionally: Recruit Orochimaru's cultists as batteries? Orochimaru/Endo might know where their groups are; they may be fairly populous...
  • Grind runic veterancy whenever possible:
    • Prioritize RER2. Invoke/Reroll/Timeladder per Hazou's preferences.
    • Secondary priorities: Ninja Radar, Force Dome. Target: reliable double-timeladdered infusion.
    • If we deplete our chakra, send Noburi and a Hazou SC to resupply from Orochimaru.
  • Misc:
    • Test how much earth Force Dome's chakra pillar pierces.
    • Declare (1FP): Hazou advised Naruto to order Leaf Summoners to monofocus training CR and getting their Summons' favor, maximizing the chance of them summoning Bosses for Riftwar.
      • (Buy this after veterancy-grinding.)
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Alternative proposal : could we just *hire* 200 ninja from a minor village ? Do we need to kidnap them ?

We have Essie's to scare them, and massive wealth to bribe them.
 
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