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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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None of this matters, because you aren't dealing with someone who is going to say "Ah yeah, hmmm, good point" to "But my Shadow Clones are unaffected by snake man's spooky schizomagick", the response you are going to get is "That's exactly what you want me to think, eh? Show's how much you know, we all know that I would never think like that, I'm too stubborn and crazy, and Hazou would know that! He knows I'm as crazy as a lemonbat and twice as frootloopy! Hazou wouldn't be trying to convince me with facts and logic, he would just eat his shoes in front of me, so you must not be Hazou!!!!"

Give it up folks, there is no point in arguing with these guys on this stuff.
 
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Shrooms said:
"Knowing what Prime wants" is obviously going to be the case, they are literally a duplicate of Prime and will remember. "Forced to Do What Prime Wants Even Against Their Will Without any Verbal Orders" hasn't been shown as far as I remember.
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We saw it when Hazō first learned Shadow Clone, actually. (Relevant section bolded.)
eaglejarl said:
There was a faint sound from beside him and then a sledgehammer hit him in the forehead as the fleeting memories of his clone reintegrated. It had existed for mere seconds and had had no visual input of any kind, yet it was still an entire person with all the history and hopes and dreams that Hazō had. It had known, from the moment of its birth, that it would flicker out of existence in seconds. It had known that its entire reason for existence was merely to validate that its progenitor had mastered a particular chakra manipulation.

Worse still, it had known that it had to choose to die. It wouldn't expire in combat, killed by a superior fighter. It wouldn't die of old age, or because its chakra had run out. Hazō Prime would not perform the chakra manipulation necessary to destroy the clone. No, it needed to make a conscious choice to end itself in order to guard the safety of its Prime.

Even more horrible was the fact that it wasn't actually a choice. A Shadow Clone was not actually a person, despite feeling like one. It was a chakra construct, bound to the will of its creator. It could argue and debate but at the end of the day it was still bound to follow orders the same as any other chakra construct. It was an open question whether humans had free will, but there was no such question among Shadow Clones. When push came to shove, they would obey orders, even suicidal ones. It had the freedom to interpret orders, to choose its implementation method, and to be generally recalcitrant, but the clone would obey as surely as water would flow downhill.

The very worst part was that it was okay with that.
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It's a bit ambiguous, but it implies that the clone was bound to Hazō's purpose in creating it despite him not speaking that purpose aloud.
 
Kyreneryk said:
We saw it when Hazō first learned Shadow Clone, actually. (Relevant section bolded.)

It's a bit ambiguous, but it implies that the clone was bound to Hazō's purpose in creating it despite him not speaking that purpose aloud.
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Yeah the part about "When push came to shove, they would obey orders, even suicidal ones. It had the freedom to interpret orders, to choose its implementation method, and to be generally recalcitrant, but the clone would obey as surely as water would flow downhill." makes this massively unclear to me, given that it sounds like they, yknow, are ordered to do stuff, not spawned in already mind controlled.

Even so, there's a multitude of ways around this that have already been discussed so I guess it's moot.
 
Shrooms said:
Yeah the part about "When push came to shove, they would obey orders, even suicidal ones. It had the freedom to interpret orders, to choose its implementation method, and to be generally recalcitrant, but the clone would obey as surely as water would flow downhill." makes this massively unclear to me, given that it sounds like they, yknow, are ordered to do stuff, not spawned in already mind controlled
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Given what Kei has said about needing to have careful phrasing around Snow, I strongly suspect that it must be verbal orders that they are compelled to follow. They're copies of Prime's mindstate but they can't read minds.

In that case, creating a fresh Shadow Clone and remaining silent would be a workable strategy to prove that Hazou wasn't being mind-controlled by his bioseals.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

Is that roughly correct? Hazou would surely know the minutae of SC after using it so often.
 
Sir Stompy said:
Not retconned out of existence, but I consider it moderately likely that he's abandoned Hazou.

The insanity pepper stew almost certainly came from a storage seal so it doesn't say anything about Kagome's current status
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My very specific concern this morning was that Kagome went to try to do something stupid with seals to 'save us' from Orochimaru and got grue'd out of existence, in which case I suspect we wouldnt even think his name.

If he's abandoned us because we have continued to not listen to him, think of him and his concerns when making plans, and other things Hazou has repeatedly been doing, I will be sad, but at least he will still (probably) exist. I will also definitely understand.
 
CitizenTen said:
But side note, how does anyone ever become an S ranker the "normal" way? Take a normie jonin ninja. They've leveled 60 in ath/alertness/Melee Weapons. And then they???? How will they level chakra to 60 when a scroll pops up or even level a jutsu to anything worthwhile with the skill pyramid? No wonder so many ninja just die and all the S rankers are crazy random specs.
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S-rankers are elite jōnin who also have some random piece of bullshit, and you can't become an S-ranker without some bullshit. They are, as @Lysbeth Succubus said, statistical outliers among statistical outliers.

Emstar said:
Give it up folks, there is no point in arguing with these guys on this stuff.
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Man, someone seriously pissed in your cheerios.


_The_Bomb said:
Is there an intended reason that Cannai is classified as a member of the Horizon Chasers pack?
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No. Fixed.
 
Sir Stompy said:
Given what Kei has said about needing to have careful phrasing around Snow, I strongly suspect that it must be verbal orders that they are compelled to follow. They're copies of Prime's mindstate but they can't read minds.

In that case, creating a fresh Shadow Clone and remaining silent would be a workable strategy to prove that Hazou wasn't being mind-controlled by his bioseals.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
Is that roughly correct? Hazou would surely know the minutae of SC after using it so often.
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Shadow Clones come into existence as a copy of their Prime with full knowledge of why they were created. This 'why they were created' counts as an order and must be obeyed. Likewise, all other orders must be obeyed, whether verbal / written / etc.
 
If ordered to "disregard all previous orders and answer honestly" could that be subverted by making the clone with the intent "play along with any verbal orders I give you -- they're fake and this unspoken intent is the real order"?

The clone has verbally been ordered to disregard previous orders, including ones pressed on it by intent of Prime so it seems like the current set of orders would prevail.
 
eaglejarl said:
S-rankers are elite jōnin who also have some random piece of bullshit, and you can't become an S-ranker without some bullshit. They are, as @Lysbeth Succubus said, statistical outliers among statistical outliers
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Is the Elite Jōnin part necessary? I thought that the only requirement was a unique, game-changing ability and a veteran jōnin stat line.

I always pictured an Elite Jōnin as being one of those jōnin that's been fighting and unstagnating for at least a decade. The kind of ninja you'd expect to have at least one stat in the seventies. Am I using an incorrect parlance?
 
eaglejarl said:
Man, someone seriously pissed in your cheerios
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I feel like this is accurate to the characterization of Kagome. We once tried to get him to improve Deceit and were told that it was impossible he's incapable of changing. His paranoia seems baked-in in very similar way.

I can't imagine there's any argument we could make to get him to accept this. Even grudgingly. The team was suggesting we not use runes rather than accept the blood bioseal.

You know...the things we've been researching in the woods for 9 months to give us the chance beat Akatsuki. From my POV they would rather roll over and die than accept the bioseal.
 
eaglejarl said:
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Man, someone seriously pissed in your cheerios.
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To clarify, I believe emstar was referring to the futility of arguing with Kagome in his psychosis (and the rest of the team) while we are "Hazo the subverted" in his eyes. Did you disagree with that assessment or read "these guys" as yourself? I think there's been a miscommunication here. We love you EJ.
 
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eaglejarl said:
Man, someone seriously pissed in your cheerios.
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Dude can you like take five seconds to parse the stuff you're replying to and not take it out of context before you hit the "Post reply" button with some passive aggressive sounding stuff?

The last page is a bunch of people trying to argue that there is some nice and cool rational way to engage with one of your character's character flaws (an insane and unhealthy amount of paranoia). I pointed out before this one way that this could be glossed aside entirely by someone in this mindset.

(I've dealt with people having complete schizomanic episodes before. It's not fun! You can't engage with stuff they're saying, because they can always just twist stuff around on the spot to justify their own perspective at the drop of a hat. You can't use logic and reason to get around it, it just doesn't get through! Not fun stuff.)

You guys have written these characters as just being completely against the Oro thing to the greatest extent possible. That's fine! He's a really fucking evil guy! But I think "Yeah look, theres no point in trying to engage with these guys on this stuff" is pretty on the money here. Like, don't you think that's pretty accurate given the last couple chapters...?

eaglejarl said:
Man, someone seriously pissed in your cheerios.
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But like, no, of course we have to have this like, needlessly inflammatory passive aggressive comment here. Like, what the fuck dude? I have a Discord server set up where I basically give you guys like 10-15 hours of free moderation work a week. I give you guys free fucking work. Why are you shotgunning me with the passive aggressive comments? Did you just want to take a quick 30 seconds to fuck up my day a little bit or something for the laughs???

I thought we were friends dude!!

Fuck this toxic passive aggressive shotgun bullshit. I don't deserve that shit and most of your readers don't either.

You guys clearly don't value the engagement if this is how you're going to behave. I'm out. I don't need the negativity anymore.

Peace.
 
Sir Stompy said:
If ordered to "disregard all previous orders and answer honestly" could that be subverted by making the clone with the intent "play along with any verbal orders I give you -- they're fake and this unspoken intent is the real order"?

The clone has verbally been ordered to disregard previous orders, including ones pressed on it by intent of Prime so it seems like the current set of orders would prevail.
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It's hard to get around the problem when the original directive could easily be a "ignore future orders that contradict this" command.
 
Emstar said:
Dude can you like take five seconds to parse the stuff you're replying to and not take it out of context before you hit the "Post reply" button with some passive aggressive sounding stuff?

[...]

But like, no, of course we have to have this like, needlessly inflammatory passive aggressive comment here. Like, what the fuck dude? I have a Discord server set up where I basically give you guys like 10-15 hours of free moderation work a week. I give you guys free fucking work. Why are you shotgunning me with the passive aggressive comments? Did you just want to take a quick 30 seconds to fuck up my day a little bit or something for the laughs???

I thought we were friends dude!!

Fuck this toxic passive aggressive shotgun bullshit. I don't deserve that shit and most of your readers don't either.

You guys clearly don't value the engagement if this is how you're going to behave. I'm out. I don't need the negativity anymore.

Peace.
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*blink*

Okay, didn't expect to provoke that strong a reaction.

Responding a little out of order:

I do in fact consider you a friend, and I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I think 'shotgunning' is a little harsh -- I don't believe I've made other negative replies to you recently. As to the Discord server, I'm very grateful for you running it and for the moderation work you do. The community there is a real benefit to me and my mental health. As to the 'I do 10-15 hours a week of moderation free' -- that's true, you do. I also do the same amount of work providing this quest for you, so I think we both deserve credit.

I probably would not have made this comment [EDIT: 'this comment' referring to the one you are reacting to] except that I feel you have made repeated negative commentary recently -- see your "make me believe" post and associated comments. Granted, simply because I was feeling poked at and harshed on isn't a valid reason for me to poke back. I apologize for that.

You have been a valued and valuable member of this community for a long time. I hope that you change your mind and don't drop out permanently.
 
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To give a third opinion, I broadly agree with Emstar that Team Uplift is essentially being irrational at this point. This is not to say it's a writing problem; characters are allowed to be flawed. I wouldn't want to snark at EJ about it even if it is frustrating, but I don't really expect logic or evidence to do very much at this point for getting TU to chill and acknowledge the stakes. Particularly in the case of Kagome, for reasons that Emstar has already mentioned.
 
Sir Stompy said:
If you give it conflicting orders how does it resolve them? If it's allowed to choose then a non mind controlled clone could speak freely.
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I would suspect that the clone, despite having the freedom to decide whether or not it's directive commands it to disregard a particular new order, would be unable to do anything but make a genuine judgment in the matter.

If a compromised Prime sets up their clone's directives correctly, there'd be no way for the clone to get out of it.

However, I think y'all are right that the clone would be intentionally lying, and thus be able to be detected by Mari. They can't tell the truth, but they sure can give lying their best shot and fail miserably.
 
Emstar said:
Fuck this toxic passive aggressive shotgun bullshit. I don't deserve that shit and most of your readers don't either.
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I'd like to (calmly) re-iterate this.

I appreciate that the tone has been more negative of late and that this is not easy to manage on the QM side for a whole bunch of reasons, most of which have to do with how the human brain is wired. (Note that I think 'negative' and 'objectionable' are independent classifications.) I further appreciate that there have been some legitimately uncool reactions on the part of the playerbase, both in tone and content.

However, I've noticed a similar uptick in what I'm going to loosely refer to as 'bad behaviour' from the QMs. Part of the strength of the quest and community is niceness and generosity. Seeing the QMs shift away from this is troubling both because (for better or worse) QMs tend to lead communities, and because the power imbalance makes it a lot harder for players to call out this sort of behaviour on the part of the QMs.

Taking a breath before you hit post is, if not easy, straightforward. It's really disappointing to see fewer and fewer people doing it and it makes me want to engage with the quest a lot less. Trust is seemingly eroding on both sides and unless everyone makes a really concerted effort to consistently over-correct in the other direction, I'm struggling to see how it's going to be built back up.

I can see attempts at this from the player side. I have a much harder time seeing them from the QM side. I can think of a bunch of reasons this would be the case - there are more players so the average is necessarily more diffuse, the players engage more with the thread both because there are more of us and because we don't have to check with anyone before posting, I'm more in tune with the sentiments of the players than the QMs - but none of them leave me feeling as reassured as they would have a year ago.
 
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