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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Kyreneryk said:
Contrastingly, if we did not wipe out Moon but instead returned them all alive and relatively unharmed, that would be a very strong signal that despite our power we were not inevitably an existential threat. Yes, they would know it was us; yes, they might complain to AMITY; but if we bribed them sufficently well after the fact (sincere apologies, gold, some good jutsu/seals, promises of alliance) they might be hesitant to go through with that.
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Big doubt. Everything we've seen, geopolitics-wise, has shown that the EN is cutthroat and revenge-drunk. Mist, Rock, Leaf, all of them.

Better to just kill the witnesses and hide the evidence. Leaf is safe that way.

Though, I suppose if we decide we don't want to go back to Leaf, and don't care what happens to them, then we can spare the Moon ninja. Might need to leave this entire side of the planet to survive the Hazou Hunt, but people have been talking about doing that for a while.

And it would definitely mean we'd have to level out combat stats, since the chakra beasts out there aren't being regularly culled by ninja! ^.^
 
Kyreneryk said:
The argument you linked was that they should trust us upfront, which I agree with others is very unlikely to work. I was suggesting that we forcibly abduct them as planned, but then afterwards bribe them to not go to AMITY, which means that the risk is about the aftereffects and not the success of the mission itself.
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Reparations afterward hit differently if they were given an actual opportunity to cooperate up front. Establishing a firm precedent for "ask politely, then pay fair rates afterward, even when we'd have been fully able to roll in and take it for free AND we had cause to be in a hurry" means future incidences of asking politely won't be automatically interpreted as weakness by the rest of the EN - other side's diplomat will, on some level, always be worrying "is this phase one of the playbook they used on Moon? If it is, how hard can I push back without them proceeding to phase two?"
 
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RandomOTP said:
Better to just kill the witnesses and hide the evidence. Leaf is safe that way.
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I don't see how. Since this happens at the same time as Leaf is assaulting Akatsuki, and we're almost certainly not going to be able to stop all of them from escaping (even if it's just to the seventh path), everyone is going to be able to reason out that it was Leaf that assaulted Moon.

The differences are if they learn that Leaf assaulted Moon and killed everybody, or didn't kill everybody. There is no hiding evidence. Leaf is not safe that way.

I posit that the international community won't be as aggressive if we didn't kill an entire hidden village out of nowhere.
 
eaglejarl said:
  • Tsunade et al showed up and you briefed them; the QMs haven't discussed it in detail but ponwog90 everyone is fine with the general 'go capture all the Moon ninja and kill anyone who gets in our way' plan. Expect the attack to be next chapter unless there's an interlude
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Is anyone in a hurry? Because I really don't want to gloss over this part, story and character wise. Tis is not just Tsunade who is coming. There are likely to be a couple of Clan Heads and other characters we know. All of them having thought (or still thinking? I don't know) that Hazou et al are the worst of the worst, the never seen before double missing nin. Most of them also know naught of Runes, but Tsunade does. Meaning that even if they were told by Naruto (or Tsunade), verbally or just in writing, that all this was a ruse to have us research in peace, they have no clue as to what we were researching and may even remain in the dark due to OPSEC concerns.

I also want to see what it means for them to be fine with wiping out Moon for chakra. How they talk about it, how they justify it to themselves, how they quip about our lack of "Uplift" or commiserate about the grave necessity. I want to see how Kei interacts with Ruri who may have had to succeed her in keeping the KEI together, how Tsunade perceives Noburi as they focal point in the destruction of innocents, how Kurenai is eager for vengeance even in face of the costs, how random KEI jonin mention what happened to their (former?) friends among Goketsu adoptees.

Honestly, even if I am off about all of this (and I likely am off about most of it), glossing over this seems wrong to me. Stories, even Quests, live off of characters and meeting Leaf members after all this time (Orochimaru really doesn't count) is a pivotal and monumental occasion. I know people (QMs and players) are eager to get to the climax of this very difficult story arc, but that can't come at the expense of ignoring the actual major beats because the in between at times has felt like a slog.

Now, if the QMs are adamant and unanimous that they don't want to write anything that touches on anything of the above, so be it. The muse does what she does and sometimes the well is just dry. Or maybe all they can think of right now is unfun. But if any of this is up to the vote then I urge the player base to slow down just a bit and ask for this in my honest opinion very important chapter to be written out.

[X] Continue previous chapter.


P.S.: Posting this without having read any of the post chapter discussion. Sorry if all of this has already been addressed.
 
Rafin said:
There are likely to be a couple of Clan Heads and other characters we know.
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Surprisingly less likely than you would expect, as Clan Heads are, by their very nature, public individuals whose disappearance will be noticed by Leaf's population, and therefore by Akatsuki. Most of who will be disappearing will be lower-level Chunin with reserves above the average, and Jonin whose expected value is worth the risk of their disappearance being noticed.
 
eaglejarl said:
"Ah, the optimism of youth. So touching. I look forward to reading the no doubt highly detailed and well-researched plan you have for how exactly you intend to locate one individual in a world that is likely at least as large as the Human Path and could well be infinite. One individual who has no expectation of rescue and therefore is not raising smoke signals or providing other location assistance. Oh, yes. And doing all this while having no chakra and therefore moving at the snail's pace of a civilian."
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Rune of Tracking (more amusing name pending)​

This rune is intended to serve as a tracking device over long distances. To operate the rune, provide a sample that can clearly distinguish a person. Hair, blood, scent, etc. The rune will then physically turn and point in the direction of the individual identified. The range is extremely large/limitless.

Design goals in order of priority:
  1. The rune can locate a person across a very large distance.
  2. The rune works in a way that permits tracking individuals inside Naraka.
  3. The rune is possible for Hazo to research.
  4. The rune operates in a way that clearly indicates the direction of the target.

Suggested downsides or limitations for balancing sake:
  • The range of the rune is proportional to the amount/variety of samples provided. A couple hairs might not even reach a mile, while larger quantities would reach further.
  • The rune requires consent from the target to work.
  • The rune alerts the target that they are being tracked. Glow emanating from them, sudden sensation of being watched, etc.
 
faflec said:
Surprisingly less likely than you would expect, as Clan Heads are, by their very nature, public individuals whose disappearance will be noticed by Leaf's population, and therefore by Akatsuki. Most of who will be disappearing will be lower-level Chunin with reserves above the average, and Jonin whose expected value is worth the risk of their disappearance being noticed.
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Kurenai is a Clan Head, right? Can't see her sitting this one out, for various reasons. Roughly how old is her baby now, anyway?

But yeah, she might be the only one, if there hasn't been a Clan Head death among the Minami or the Kei.

Sir Stompy said:
It's not up to a vote. Personally, I agree with what you said and I was surprised there was no desire to write the reunification scene.
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So even with the caveat that interlude votes can be ignored by the QMs, "[X] Interlude: Team Uplift + Snuncle meet up with Tsunade et al" is not a valid vote?
 
Okay but am I correct in remembering that Velorian is the 'character' writer of the QMs? So maybe EJ left that scene out specifically so Vel could tackle it and give it the quality it deserves.

Talking about reuniting with Tsunade & Leaf if that wasn't clear.
 
Taking Moon is (likely) a bad idea because at that point we've made ourselves a stationary loot pinata surrounded by people who have credible reason to be pissed off at us. We're basically guaranteed to have at least a few potential traitors in our midst which gives whoever wants us dead/disabled/kidnapped a great way to bypass our runic defenses.
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
Taking Moon is (likely) a bad idea because at that point we've made ourselves a stationary loot pinata surrounded by people who have credible reason to be pissed off at us. We're basically guaranteed to have at least a few potential traitors in our midst which gives whoever wants us dead/disabled/kidnapped a great way to bypass our runic defenses.
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You mean ruling over Moon? Yeah I agree with this, I don't think it was a serious proposal. There are just way too many problems with it.
 
Sir Stompy said:
You mean ruling over Moon? Yeah I agree with this, I don't think it was a serious proposal. There are just way too many problems with it.
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Hazo personally ruling over Moon was a joke, yeah.

But stationing a few ninja there to look after the civvies once the Moon ninja are gone might not be a bad idea. That'd be entirely up to Naruto and his take on the geopolitics of the situation though, I'm just trying to be optimistic about minimizing the scale of the tragedy involved.
 
Huh, exterminating Moon makes it look a lot more likely that Hazou/Leaf did Issan. It proves we had the capability and willingness to completely wipe out small villages, leaving no survivors. And who'd believe "no, I only invented Runecrafting right after Isan vanished, it couldn't possibly be me".

Interesting case of right conclusion, wrong reasoning.
Yes, there wouldn't be a motive, but capability still puts us at the top of the suspect list.
Yes, Hazou will say he didn't figure out runes, he just suddenly invented a half-dozen "sealing arrays" of unprecedented power that he refuses to let anyone look at. Not very convincing, given that he very publicly treated learning Runes as existentialy important, then suddenly stopped pursuing it.
 
Just kill all the chakra beasts on the island too afterwards. Commission a mass-extermination mission every 3-12 months or so.
 
Left-Hand Mutant said:
Huh, exterminating Moon makes it look a lot more likely that Hazou/Leaf did Issan. It proves we had the capability and willingness to completely wipe out small villages, leaving no survivors. And who'd believe "no, I only invented Runecrafting right after Isan vanished, it couldn't possibly be me".
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This is why we kill them all -- so there are no survivors to tell the EN that we did it.

It could be Akatsuki for all the rest of the EN knows, they were attempting some ritual to resurrect Pain. Moon is such a backwater that it could be literal years before anyone knows they're gone. It's not like they go to the chunin exams.
 
Sir Stompy said:
This is why we kill them all -- so there are no survivors to tell the EN that we did it.
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We're inviting 40+ leaf Chunin.

Even if they don't get to see the exact details, they'll know they were deployed for chakra for a mass Summon/Essie rush right by Moon, on the day Moon disappeared. They'll do the maths, and that secret won't hold.

Edit, also, we'll need their help dragging the Moon ninja to the rift.
 
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Left-Hand Mutant said:
We're inviting 40+ leaf Chunin.

Even if they don't get to see the exact details, they'll know they were deployed for chakra for a mass Summon/Essie rush right by Moon, on the day Moon disappeared. They'll do the maths, and that secret won't hold.

Edit, also, we'll need their help dragging the Moon ninja to the rift.
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Why the fuck would they be spilling classified details of this hyperclassified mission to foreign powers? They'll be quiet. Or at least quiet enough that runes will likely leak some other way.
 
@Velorien @Paperclipped @eaglejarl

Does Hazo have any idea what the behavior is if two Force Domes overlap?
Possibilities I've thought of/suggestions:
  • They merge together, forming one contiguous interior space without internal walls.
  • They don't interact at all, so you just get two domes and walls between them like a venn diagram.
  • Undefined behavior (runic failure)
 
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