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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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I just had a brain blast regarding Substitution. Not the usual nuke kind either, this one is a clever use of combinations of things we have access to.

Substitution has this line, right?
You cannot swap with a living being unless that being is one of:
  • A ninja who has previously "granted you permission" by attuning their chakra to yours. Such permission typically expires over the course of a few days (at most) and can be revoked as a free action.
  • A physical clone (elemental, shadow, bug…) of a ninja for whom you currently have substitution privileges.
  • Your own physical clone.
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So: You can use being able to substitute with someone's clone (most effectively, given range considerations, shadow clone) as a way to transfer a single bit of information over long distances, because they (the person on the other end) can revoke permissions at any time, and this propagates to their clone. This has great use in signalling, and may be important in our fight ahead.

e: Naturally, if you have multiple people on the other end, you can get powers of 2 number of bits of information, too.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped Wanted to run this by you.
 
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Cariyaga said:
I just had a brain blast regarding Substitution. Not the usual nuke kind either, this one is a clever use of combinations of things we have access to.

Substitution has this line, right?


So: You can use being able to substitute with someone's clone (most effectively, given range considerations, shadow clone) as a way to transfer a single bit of information over long distances, because they (the person on the other end) can revoke permissions at any time, and this propagates to their clone. This has great use in signalling, and may be important in our fight ahead.

e: Naturally, if you have multiple people on the other end, you can get powers of 2 number of bits of information, too.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped Wanted to run this by you.
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While this is very cute, if you're already using Shadow Clones, I think it would be much easier to just dispel an extra clone at the sender's end. Making one extra SC will only cost 25 CP, and Substituting costs 14 CP per attempt, so making an extra SC is cheaper if you try to check for a message before it's been sent even once and also lets you send much larger volumes of information. (For that matter, you could just dispel the receiving clone, which costs no chakra, also sends one bit of information, and doesn't create complications with having to check by Substituting with the clone every so often.)

That said, whether Sub privilege revocation carries over to clones is an interesting question in itself. I'd kind of expect that it doesn't? The wording read literally says it does, but it's a small difference. (Also, presumably SCs are able to autonomously revoke Sub privilege; does that carry over to other clones/Prime?)
 
Kyreneryk said:
While this is very cute, if you're already using Shadow Clones, I think it would be much easier to just dispel an extra clone at the sender's end. Making one extra SC will only cost 25 CP, and Substituting costs 14 CP per attempt, so making an extra SC is cheaper if you try to check for a message before it's been sent even once and also lets you send much larger volumes of information. (For that matter, you could just dispel the receiving clone, which costs no chakra, also sends one bit of information, and doesn't create complications with having to check by Substituting with the clone every so often.)

That said, whether Sub privilege revocation carries over to clones is an interesting question in itself. I'd kind of expect that it doesn't? The wording read literally says it does, but it's a small difference. (Also, presumably SCs are able to autonomously revoke Sub privilege; does that carry over to other clones/Prime?)
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This is usable by people that do not have shadow clone, though, ie some random genin. e: It's also opsec secure, because the genin does not need to know why this is being done.

We could use this as the signal to, for instance, bombard Orochimaru/Tsunade's location with additional RER blasts.
 
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Cariyaga said:
This is usable by people that do not have shadow clone, though, ie some random genin. e: It's also opsec secure, because the genin does not need to know why this is being done.
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True - but as you point out, then range (actually, duration for elemental clones) becomes an issue. Elemental clones only last ten minutes, so in order to use this you have to create the clone, then have the clone run to the receiving site (or yourself run back to the sending site), and then hope that you get the signal before the clone expires. Plus, again, the sender could just dismiss the elemental clone and that provides the same information without the need for the receiver to regularly try Substituting with the clone to see if their privileges have been revoked.
 
Kyreneryk said:
True - but as you point out, then range (actually, duration for elemental clones) becomes an issue. Elemental clones only last ten minutes, so in order to use this you have to create the clone, then have the clone run to the receiving site (or yourself run back to the sending site), and then hope that you get the signal before the clone expires. Plus, again, the sender could just dismiss the elemental clone and that provides the same information without the need for the receiver to regularly try Substituting with the clone to see if their privileges have been revoked.
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Oh, I was meaning for someone with a shadow clone to be there, the genin attempts to substitute with them once a round, and when it doesn't work, Hazou knows to nuke where Oro is.

e: But it'd maybe work for elemental clones too; ninja combat doesn't last long.

Point on just dismissing them, though!

e2: Ooh, and you could communicate a *lot* of information by dismissing a specific number/position of elemental clones, too.
 
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Kyreneryk said:
Plus, again, the sender could just dismiss the elemental clone and that provides the same information without the need for the receiver to regularly try Substituting with the clone to see if their privileges have been revoked.
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I believe a key difference is that privileges can be regiven if you have a clone of theirs to attune to, so constitutes a channel.

It's a bit of a painful process as-is, but if you made a seal that detected a specific tuning of chakra, perhaps its own, this should allow Morse-like communication at no chakra cost. This isn't even limited to communication with another party; you can just as well use it to talk between clones. The potential seems quite high to me.
 
Cariyaga said:
e2: Ooh, and you could communicate a *lot* of information by dismissing a specific number/position of elemental clones, too.
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We don't actually know if you can dismiss specific elemental clones, AFAIK? The rules says they last ten minutes or until destroyed/dismissed, so it is possible to dismiss them, but it's not clear whether you can dismiss individual clones or if you have to dismiss the entire group.

Actually, @eaglejarl @Paperclipped @Velorien , what are the rules on dismissing elemental clones? Possible responses include:
  • As with Shadow Clones, you can dismiss individual clones at will, though you don't automatically know what they're currently doing and can't dismiss them based on that.
  • You have to dismiss all the clones from a given casting at once, but you can dismiss different castings separately.
  • You have to dismiss all of your active clones produced by a given technique at once, even if they were made in different castings.
I don't think it's ever come up - Hazō can only make one Earth Clone per casting and practically never has reason to use multiple castings, and Noburi hardly ever uses Water Clone.

Veedrac said:
I believe a key difference is that privileges can be regiven if you have a clone of theirs to attune to, so constitutes a channel.

It's a bit of a painful process as-is, but if you made a seal that detected a specific tuning of chakra, perhaps its own, this should allow Morse-like communication at no chakra cost. This isn't even limited to communication with another party; you can just as well use it to talk between clones. The potential seems quite high to me.
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True, but we don't know how long the attunement process takes - and again, elemental clones only last ten minutes. Might work with SCs, though.
 
Cariyaga said:
This is usable by people that do not have shadow clone, though, ie some random genin. e: It's also opsec secure, because the genin does not need to know why this is being done.

We could use this as the signal to, for instance, bombard Orochimaru/Tsunade's location with additional RER blasts.
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Why not just use SC for this? Oro/Sunny leave an empty clone with Hazou as a spotter, they can call in strikes as their clones pop.

The Sub chain just seems unnecessarily complicated and fragile. Earth/Water Clones only last 10 minutes and they literally have no brain. This is the kind of idea that sounds better in principle than practice.
 
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Sir Stompy said:
Why not just use SC for this? Oro/Sunny leave an empty clone with Hazou as a spotter, they can call in strikes as their clones pop.

The Sub chain just seems unnecessarily complicated and fragile. Earth/Water Clones only last 10 minutes and they literally have no brain. This is the kind of idea that sounds better in principle than practice.
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Uh, largely because I don't expect the fight to last longer than 3 minutes at most, and SC are very expensive.
 
Cariyaga said:
I just had a brain blast regarding Substitution. Not the usual nuke kind either, this one is a clever use of combinations of things we have access to.

Substitution has this line, right?


So: You can use being able to substitute with someone's clone (most effectively, given range considerations, shadow clone) as a way to transfer a single bit of information over long distances, because they (the person on the other end) can revoke permissions at any time, and this propagates to their clone. This has great use in signalling, and may be important in our fight ahead.

e: Naturally, if you have multiple people on the other end, you can get powers of 2 number of bits of information, too.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped Wanted to run this by you.
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I thought it was a longish process to grant permission. It also takes a while to wear off (which is why we accidentally motorboated Ami that one time), so I'm not sure you can revoke in a relevant timeframe.
 
_The_Bomb said:
I thought it was a longish process to grant permission. It also takes a while to wear off (which is why we accidentally motorboated Ami that one time), so I'm not sure you can revoke in a relevant timeframe.
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You can explicitly revoke Sub permissions as a free action, instantaneously.
Known Jutsu said:
A ninja who has previously "granted you permission" by attuning their chakra to yours. Such permission typically expires over the course of a few days (at most) and can be revoked as a free action.
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However, while it's not stated in the rules how long attuning chakra takes, I also had the impression it wasn't a few-seconds thing.
 
Can someone remind me if we ever finished the substitution seal we had started working on? I feel like it was either underwhelming or unfinished, but I can't remember which.
 
Halberdier said:
Can someone remind me if we ever finished the substitution seal we had started working on? I feel like it was either underwhelming or unfinished, but I can't remember which.
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We finished it.

Paperclipped said:
Two seals are paired at infusion time, like with ARS/MARS. The seals must be attached to different objects, then are primed for activation. The seals may be activated any number of times while primed. After an hour primed, they burn out.

The two objects the seals are attached to instantaneously (to the degree that people at this tech level can measure 'instantaneous') switch their positions and velocities (that is, objects retain their initial velocity like with the substitution ninjutsu) when either of the paired seals is activated. The objects must be within the same Zone or adjacent Zones, have a clear, straight line to one another, and be below 100kg in mass and 1 m^3 in volume. The seals burn out without activating if one of the objects is more than double the mass of the other.

Unlike the substitution ninjutsu, the seals allow substitution through the air where there isn't normally a valid path for the substitution ninjutsu, but a path must still exist – you can't swap a padlock off a door, or a log through a brick wall.

Also, unlike the usual specification for objects, substitution seals can work on objects with trace chakra (i.e. objects with seals on them). It still doesn't work on living things, or anything that contains more than trace chakra. It may get wonky if there are too many seals on the target objects – Hazou isn't sure exactly where that line is, but low single-digit seal numbers are probably fine. Jiraiya's notes suggest that making it work on objects with more than trace chakra is a dead end.
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It's pretty niche. But useful in some hypothetical situations.
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
It's a risk we need to run. Not much more to say about it.
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Hazō always goes Pretty Damn Far to do what needs to be done.
  • Making a model of the Great Seal for Leaf sealers to study to save the 7th Path.
  • Selflessly debriefing Leaf on the rift.
  • Loyally bringing Elemental Mastery to Asuma.
  • Risking his life crossing Hyena to gather the Conclave.
  • Teaching Orochimaru Primordial Sealing to stop the Dragons.
Resonates with a missing nin mindset. Holding nothing back when every decision is life or death. Nothing more important than stopping Pain.

Hazō's trolley problem punch card hangs by a thread with how many free rides he is owed.
 
coldcutconvict said:
Hazō always goes Pretty Damn Far to do what needs to be done.
  • Making a model of the Great Seal for Leaf sealers to study to save the 7th Path.
  • Selflessly debriefing Leaf on the rift.
  • Loyally bringing Elemental Mastery to Asuma.
  • Risking his life crossing Hyena to gather the Conclave.
  • Teaching Orochimaru Primordial Sealing to stop the Dragons.
Resonates with a missing nin mindset. Holding nothing back when every decision is life or death. Nothing more important than stopping Pain.

Hazō's trolley problem punch card hangs by a thread with how many free rides he is owed.
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Separately from discussions of Hazō's overall character, I feel like you're trying to spin these events to show something they do not. As I recall,
  • Hazō had nothing to lose by making a model of the Great Seal for others (since the possibility of runecrafting wasn't on his radar at the time)
  • Hiding the rift from Leaf wasn't an option
  • Hiding Elemental Mastery from Asuma wasn't an option (and Hazō tried anyway, via Shikamaru's influence)
  • Hazō concluded that Orochimaru was going to crack Primordial Sealing anyway and wanted the benefits of selling it first
 
Velorien said:
Separately from discussions of Hazō's overall character, I feel like you're trying to spin these events to show something they do not. As I recall,
  • Hazō had nothing to lose by making a model of the Great Seal for others (since the possibility of runecrafting wasn't on his radar at the time)
  • Hiding the rift from Leaf wasn't an option
  • Hiding Elemental Mastery from Asuma wasn't an option (and Hazō tried anyway, via Shikamaru's influence)
  • Hazō concluded that Orochimaru was going to crack Primordial Sealing anyway and wanted the benefits of selling it first
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Potato, potahto. 🗿
 
Cariyaga said:
Potato, potahto. 🗿
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I respectfully disagree. This quest has a problem with revisionism. MfD is extremely long, and people who aren't @faflec naturally start to forget past events, then remember them in distorted ways and pass that distortion on to others in posts like that one. That's a problem in itself, for many reasons, but it's also extremely frustrating for the QMs, who do not like having things we wrote being erased and things that never happened being attributed to us instead, and then having that warped lens being used to interpret what we write in the future. (I speak for myself, but I very much doubt @eaglejarl or @Paperclipped would disagree.)
 
Velorien said:
I respectfully disagree. This quest has a problem with revisionism. MfD is extremely long, and people who aren't @faflec naturally start to forget past events, then remember them in distorted ways and pass that distortion on to others in posts like that one. That's a problem in itself, for many reasons, but it's also extremely frustrating for the QMs, who do not like having things we wrote being erased and things that never happened being attributed to us instead, and then having that warped lens being used to interpret what we write in the future. (I speak for myself, but I very much doubt @eaglejarl or @Paperclipped would disagree.)
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Oh, that was a shitpost. I do agree.
 
Velorien said:
I feel like you're trying to spin these events to show something they do not.
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I agree with this. Some of what's discussed could be argued under the heading of 'pretty damn far', such as re-inventing an ancient sealing tradition with nothing more than a single example and a good feeling about some glowing rocks we saw one time (there were easier but less complete solutions available, like HOWS). 'No half measures' is probably a pithy way to put it - if we do something, we go all out.
 
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