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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Winged_One said:
I think we can all appreciate a break from rule discussions and talk about what is really important to all of us. What unites us all together on long moonless winter nights. What brings joy to world-destroying maniacs and Uplift proponents alike. That is to say, how to munchkin yet another standard defensive seal to ridiculous extents. After a lot (but frankly not enough) of work, I present to you:

From farming to rockets: technology explosion for dummies​
While both Air Domes and Five Seal Barrier seals have received extensive review and analysis in both theoretical and experimental literature, ending in production of Skywalkers and Skytowers respectively, Force Wall seal has so far evaded the ever-burning eye of science. This paper seeks to correct that deficiency, and provide the fundamental analysis of industrial uses of a Force Wall seal. Full text of the paper can be found here.

1. Introduction​
Force wall seal represents one of the fundamental capabilities in the toolbox of any competent sealmaster. It's main purposes are twofold, but ultimately center around construction of defensive perimeters:first, it can be used to block movement from a certain direction by creating an impassable flat plane of force, and second, it can be used as a trap to cut hostiles in half. However, it's usage outside of combat is sadly poorly researched. In this paper we propose several uses of force wall in industry applications. Furthermore, we propose a way to enable movement of the force wall seals and estimate its feasibility from an engineering standpoint.

1.1 Description of a force wall seal set​
Force wall seal pair consists of two seals. Each seal is of a standard size and moderate infusion complexity. When both seals are infused and positioned properly, an immovable invisible barrier made of force 4 by 4 meters in size is created between them. To be positioned properly, seals have to be placed 4m away from one another facing one another in parallel with very tight tolerances. If either of the seals is moved or rotated out of position, barrier fails. If any significant object is situated in the space allocated for the barrier at the time of activation, activation fails.

It is important to note that while seals create the barrier, they are not attached to it in the conventional sense. Imagine a wall supported by two columns on the ends. If force is exerted on the wall, wall transmits that force to the columns, which transmit it to the ground underneath the columns, which transmits it to the planet as a whole. However, If any force is exerted on the force barrier, that is not the case. Such force is then not transmitted to the seals "supporting" the barrier, and is instead (presumably) cancelled out by the omnipresent chakra field. That allows the barrier to withstand any amount of force exerted on it, despite the supporting seals being quite flimsy.

Such an unusual property also allows the barrier to be used for various interesting industrial applications. Uses for a stationary force wall mainly rely on it's incredible sharpness, which allows the barrier to be used as a perfect cutting tool. On the other hand, if mobility of force walls is experimentally proven feasible, then they can be used as nonlinear mechanical elements. Any displacement exerted on the seal pair results in the same displacement of the force wall (no matter what is behind the force wall at the time), which is effectively equivalent to an infinite force multiplier. Furthermore, since force wall (presumably) relies on the interaction with the chakra field to balance itself, movable force wall can be used to create systems which appear to violate conservation of momentum (due to unaccounted momentum flow into the chakra field).

Another property of force walls that deserves mention is their heat insulating properties. Since force walls are perfectly rigid, any atom that impacts the wall bounces back with the same speed, and thus heat conduction and convection through the wall is impossible. Radiant heat transfer, however, is uninterrupted.

1.2 Thickness of the force wall​
Since feasibility of so many uses of a force wall relies on its thickness, it is important to estimate its upper bound. It is known that if a ninja were to attempt to climb over the wall by grabbing the edge, they would be left without fingers. This fact can be used to estimate its maximum thickness.

Suppose that a physically healthy ninja grabs the edge of the wall with both hands. In that case, his weight would be suspended from the fingers of his hands, or, more accurately, it would be supported by the thin sections of his fingers in contact with the upper edge of the wall. It is hard to estimate the pressure necessary to cut human fingers, but it seems reasonable to assume that it would be in the same order of magnitude as tensile strength of bone (approximately Sigma=130 MPa) that composes those fingers. As skin has a significantly lower tensile strength, it shall be ignored for the purposes of this calculation.

Total area of fingers under that stress is relatively small. It is equal to the thickness of the force wall (s) multiplied by the total width of supporting finger bones (1 centimeter per finger, 8 fingers, total h=0.08 meter). Total supporting force then is equal to Sigma*h*s. On the other hand, it is equal to the weight of the ninja-approximately 400 Newtons, assuming a young genin. Equating the two and deriving s we get s=38 microns, or about the edge width of a very sharp knife. Other methods of estimation produce larger values, so 38 microns will be taken as the "safe" value for thickness of the wall-if it's less, then everything described in this paper is even easier.

2. Industry applications of stationary force walls​
One of the simplest applications of the force wall is using it as an industrial knife. By pushing an object into the edge with sufficient force object can be cut, and extremely low thickness and lack of edge taper of the force wall facilitates this use extremely well. Here are some of the possible uses of the cutting power of the force wall:
  1. To effortlessly cut logs in the forestry industry. Logs are dropped from a certian height (careful calculations show that 1-5 meters is sufficient) onto either a single vertical force wall or an array of them. This causes the logs to be cut, with type of the cut depending on which orientation the logs had during the drop. If they were dropped horizontaly, this can be used to effectively saw logs into smaller chunks. If they were dropped vertically, this can effortlessly turn logs into boards.
  2. As an extremely efficient lathe knife for turning machining operations. If force wall is created near a lathe, it can be used to cut various objects to a smooth cyllindrical shape. By moving the lathe radius of the cutting can be changed.
  3. For fine metal machining. Current technology doesn't allow for extremely fine machining, such as that possible after the industrial revolution. However, with the assistance of a Force Wall that can change. Suppose that you are attempting to make a 1 centimeter thick cut in an iron part, such as a gear billet, a rod, or any other part since thicker cuts can be performed in sequential steps. Knowing the thickness of the force wall and the yield strength of iron, we can easilly calculate the force needed to push the part into the force wall. Multiplying the cross-sectional area of the cut (1cm by 38 microns) by the yield strength (here assumed to be 400 MPa) we get the value of 152 newtons, or about 15 kilograms of force. Such a low value of force is perfectly within the capabilities of civilian workers. Gears produced with this method should be significantly cheaper and finer than those produced with more conventional methods (i.e. casting) and as such improve civilian production methods.
Other applications of the force wall exist, but they will not be provided here as they do not seem to present any significant economic improvement over civilian methods. One use that deserves mention, however, is mirror casting. First, force wall is placed in a horizontal position very close to the ground. Then, a "wall" of fireproof clay is made on the wall, forming a circle perhaps 5 centimeters high and 3 meters in diameter. Finally, rest of the wall is covered in sand in order to keep the wall in place. In order to produce mirrors liquid metal, such as silver or steel, is poured into the circle and left to cool. After solidifying, bottom surface of the metal casting (one in contact with the wall) will have a perfect mirror-like smoothness, since force wall is that smooth. Since mirrors produced with this method are extremely large when compared to contemporary examples, have no geometric aberrations and posess a perfectly smooth mirror surface, they can be sold for extreme amounts of money as luxury items.

Overall, it seems clear that even stationary force walls allow for an intriguing industrial use.

3. Design of the movable force wall​
In this chapter we analyse the feasibility of movable force walls from an engineering perspective. It is assumed that basic force walls can be moved in principle, but seal alignment problem and non-obviousness of combat usage prevented ninja from achieving that effect in practice until now. Seals are assumed to be already attached to kagome-produced wooden disks approximately 10cm in diameter and 0.5 cm in thickness.

3.1 General design concept​
Simplest design of a movable force wall consists of two parts: a rigid beam the length of the force wall, and two force wall seals attached to the ends of it. After activation, beam keeps the seals aligned, and thus force wall can be moved without any issue. In this paper we will assume that the beam has a square cross section (while not optimal, it is easiest to calculate and manufacture), is held in the middle (as this generally seems like the most convenient way to attach our hold it) and is loaded with a distributed force (gravity, or inertial load from an accelerating ninja). Loading acceleration will be assumed to be 2g (either as gravity or as sideways acceleration), side of the cross-section to be 0.12 meters.

3.2 Deflection, stress and fatigue analysis​
The critical property of such a system is, obviously, the degree to which cross sections at the ends of the beam rotate in relation to one another, as that determines wherever the seals will stay aligned or not. Since beam is symmetric relative to the middle, we can calculate rotation of either of the end points as if it was a beam of half the length attached by one endpoint. From the Euler-Bernulli beam theory rotation of an endpoint of the beam under such load is:
.​
Distributed force is defined as:
,​
where "a" is acceleration of the beam, rho is density, and A is the cross-sectional area
Moment of inertia of a square cross section is:
.​
Taking it all together, and multiplying for 2 we get total deflection angle between seals:
.​
It is important to check wherever the maximum stress in the beam is within the acceptable limits for the material. Maximum stress in our case is:
​
While number of cycles is estimated in the paper for fatigue considerations, it will not be provided here since all designs satisfy it with decent safety margins.

3.3 Critical deflection analysis​
Obviously, to judge the validity of the design we need to know what angular misalignment between the seals is allowed before the force wall fails. Unfortunately, this is also quite probably the hardest factor in this paper to estimate. The only known statistic is that a single ninja can set up one force wall in under a minute, which means aligning two seals to face one another and activating them, but how much better ninja eyes are than normal human eyes isn't known. Furthermore, data on how good normal human eyes are at noticing angular difference between almost-parallel lines at a distance is scarce at best. We will attempt to estimate it by drawing lines with an angular separation and the same scale factor of length to distance as the seals. Pictures 1 and 2 show pairs of lines with 1 and 5 degree angular separation respectively. Authors of this paper can not see it in either of the pictures. Picture 3 shows two lines with a 10 degree angular separation, and it seems just barely visible to the naked eye. As such, we will charitably assume that a normal person can see approximately a 5 degree misalignment in two 20 centimeter long objects situated about 4 meters apart.
https://puu.sh/ypt7T/184dc482a3.png
https://puu.sh/ypt26/c90e431cc2.png
https://puu.sh/ypsZ3/88d5ee4439.png

There is a variety of factors that change how difficult it would be to estimate angular misalignment between seals compared to misalignment between two sharply contrasted lines on a computer screen. Here we provide some of these factors which can contribute to the setting up time, both in the positive and negative direction, and attempt to estimate the maximum allowed angular misalignment.

Positive factors:
  • Ninja have extremely good senses. Their eyesight, for example, is well above normal. Unfortunately, this seems to be the only factor making the setup easier.
Negative factors:
  • Lighting. Currently known examples of force walls being set up happen in forests, which do not have optimal lighting even during the day, and usually also happen in the evening or close to night time.
  • Unknown conditions of the terrain. Since earth in every particular set up place is going to be slightly different, it is impossible to accurately predict in advance how much of a springback effect is to be expected after the wooden disk with the seal is stuck into it.
  • Uneven terrain. Since terrain is rarely going to be flat, and there are no known jitsu for quick terrain cleaning, it can be generally assumed that it is not going to be perfectly flat and ideal for seal placement.
  • Small size of seals. It is easier to notice angular misalignment between larger objects, and seals are relatively small.
  • Shape of seals. It is easier to notice misalignment between long, thin objects, and seals are closer to square in form.
  • Distance between seals. Relative to the size of seals, distance between them is extremely large. Since it is easier to see misalignment between things that are close, this factor also contributes to the difficulty of aligning seals.
  • Wind. Since seals are set up in the wild and can not be covered (as any covering will prevent the wall from forming), natural wind would cause slight shifts in the seal alignment.
Overall, it seems that there are multiple factors that make aligning seals difficult, and not a lot of factors making it easier. Even if ninja vision is twenty times better than that of a normal human, and all other factors only make the task twice as difficult, we will still get a maximum alignment accuracy of about 0.5 degrees. That will be the value we will use for our beam displacement calculations. Plugging in this value as well as various material rpoperties into the above described formulas, we get deflection values of 0.09 (cast iron), 0.21 (bronze), 0.12 (Ash wood) and 0.48 (fried clay, approx). As we can see, both wooden and steel beams satisfy the imposed disallignment constraints. Furthermore, if need be thickness of the beam can be increased fairly significantly and cross-section can be optimised for minimisation of bending and weight (like any of these cross-sections). As such, keeping the seals alligned shouldn't present any unsurpassable problems.

3.4 Manufacturing of a movable force wall​
Methods of manufacture obviously depend on the material selected. Indeed, there is no reason to settle for only a single material-different materials will be optimal in different circumstances. Here possible methods of manufacture for both wooden and metallic beams will be described.

Let's begin with a wooden beam. Starting material in this case would be a moderately straight (doesn't have to be perfect, just with no significant bends) section of a tree approximately 6 meters in length. Manufacturing device consists of two parallel force walls positioned about 20 centimeters apart.

First, tree is pushed into the pair of walls lengthwise, producing a 20 cm thick board of wood. It isn't pushed all the way-approximately 30 centimetres in the back remain in order to insure the safety of fingers of the pusher and to pull it back after the cut is made. Board is then rotated 90 degrees and pushed into the wall again. Finally, both ends of the fabricate are sliced off with a force wall. This produces a square beam about 5.6 meters in length. Beam is pushed perpendicularly to force walls, and is slit into a 4.5 meter segment, a 20cm cube and a 0.9 meter segment. 0.9 meter segment is then used to make another 20cm cube. Rest of the wood is used for easier rotation of the fabricate during slicing operations and as a safety gap between the wall and fingers. Cubes are then glued to the beam to turn it into a very wide U shape and seals are attached to the cubes. Since all slit surfaces have perfect smoothness, alignment of the seals is insured.

Alternatively, a thicker tree can be used. First, a 4.5 by 0.4 by 0.4 meter beam is produced. Then, force wall is inserted length wise into it at the height of 0.2 meters until it pierces the beam completely- this produces a 4m long cut along the beam. Such a cut can be made longer if necessary by then pushing the beam sideways into the wall. Finally, beam is slid off the wall, and pushed against it perpendicularily in two spots to create cuts ending in the previously made cut. This cuts out a section of the beam, and produces the same beam shape as the previous manufacturing process, but without having to glue parts together. On the other hand, it's harder to insure sections of the beam that later have seals glued to them are parallel, and as such this method might require adjusting the surfaces with a chisel.

Let's now consider metallic beams. Primary method of manufacture of metallic items of this size is casting, primarily sand casting due to large size of the beam. As is known from historic sources, at this level of technology casts of this size have been possible and were used for sculptures. Furthermore, blast furnaces have already been in use, so even high-quality steel, not to mention pig iron, should be available on the market. Chakra-infusion should be used for steel if possible, to increase strength of the beam, therefore decreasing deflection and therefore allowing for thinner beams/higher accelerations, though analysis of strength of chakra-infused steel will not be performed in this paper.

4. Industry applications of movable force walls​
In this chapter we further expand on the industry applications of force walls, now considering possible uses of movable force walls. As could be logically expected, such applications are much more numerous. Without going into too much detail, movable force walls can be used for forestry (tree cutting, branch removal, saving, transportation of logs by piling them onto the force wall), transportation of objects that can't be stored in storage scrolls due to either size or delicateness (by putting that object in a big box that rests on a force wall), for energy production (either by creating potential energy by moving a heavy thing uphill or through application of reactionless drives), for reactionless drives (if a spring is put between the beam and the force wall, acceleration can be produced out of thin air.), and for quick plowing or reaping in farming. Details on these applicaitons can be found in the full paper. Two uses that deserve extensive mention here are excavation and metalworking press. We shall start with the former.

Force walls can be effectively used for sped up excavation and quarry mining. Force wall is lowered into the ground diagonally to some desired depth, then ninja holding the wall sprints forwards(in the direction force wall was lowered). This allows the ninja to extremely quickly move earth aside, process which looks approximately like this. Assuming ninja runs at 15 kilometers per hour and force wall wedge throws a cubic meter of earth 2 meters to the side for every meter they pass, they can move about 2880 cubic meters of earth 10 meters from the dig site per hour. On the other hand, a trained digger can move about ⅓ a cubic meter in the same time. Assuming that a trained digger makes about ⅕ of what a skilled laborer makes per day, and consulting Radvic's economy analysis, we see that a ninja employing such a digging method should be capable of earning about 1728 times the salary of a skilled laborer per day, or approximately 260000 ryo per day. Given a four person team can use this method simultaneously, this comes down to slightly higher than average B-rank mission pay per day per team. Even if a merchant is only willing to pay 10% of that (because why wouldn't merchant try to save on expenses while boosting digging speed?), this is still an extremely effective way of boosting efficiency of economy while saving that merchant enormous amounts of money on digging expenses and finishing the project much faster.

As for the metalworking press, it funcitons like this. One stationary horizontal force wall is placed in a desired location, and a metal ingot (wherever solid or molten) is placed on top. Second movable force wall is positioned above the first one, and lowered downwards. Metal will yield and deform, no matter how tough that metal is, since force walls push atoms with no resistance on the seals. This can be used for production of sheet metal that has an incredible yield strength due to work hardening.

As a corollary to that metalworking method, it can be used for production of even higher-quality mirrors. Melt glass, drop some of it on top of a force wall. Compress it with a movable force wall and you get a perfectly flat sheet of glass that is as thin as you can accurately move the movable force wall. After glass solidifies, melt silver, drip it on top of glass, compress it with the movable force wall again. Since melting point of silver is well below the melting point of glass, glass serves as a rigid bed to the silver. Silver can be pressed out into a flat sheet of almost arbitrary thinness over the glass. Taken together, this process produces enormous scratch-resistant mirrors of incredible quality that do not go dark with age and are also relatively light per square area. This kind of mirrors are well beyond the technology of the age, and as such can be sold for enormous sums of money.

Finally, while there is some unique military use of movable force walls, at present it apprears to be rather underwhelming and as such will not be mentioned outside of the complete paper.

5. Novelty analysis​
An understandable question arises after the previous chapters: if force walls have so many effective industrial uses, why aren't they already used in such a capacity? It certainly seems that such a fundamental invention would have already changed the world, for the better or worse. Nonetheless, authors of this paper do not consider it improbable that such an event were to occur.

First, consider the total number of people familiar with the force wall enough to be capable of considering the possible uses of it. Ordinary ninja consider even simple explosive tags to be inordinately expensive, so it is only actual sealmasters that would have access to enough force wall seals to experiment with. But how many of those are there?

Total ninja population of the elemental nations is hard to estimate, but a value of perhaps 30000 seems to be a reasonable guess. Out of those, perhaps 1%- around 300- are sealmasters. Because of inherent dangers of sealing research, sealmasters are highly disincentivised from attempting to learn as many seals as possible. Furthermore, since even a passing familiarity with sealing (enough to draw and infuse an explosive tag) produces inordinately high monetary returns, there is little monetary incentive to master the seal craft beyond the basics. Let's say that only around 20% of sealmasters are familiar enough with the force wall seal to infuse it. This leaves only around 60 people at any time that are capable of experimenting with the force wall seal pair.

However, people careful enough to still be alive after researching such a complex seal are exactly the kind of people to not want to experiment with it much. Most mundane uses of a force wall-e.g. mirror production and machining- are either non obvious themselves or produce non obvious monetary returns, and either way rely on "mundane" uses of sealing. As such, sealmasters are much more likely to experiment with the force wall in the more (surprisingly enough) conventional ways, which is sealing research. One such improvement to the force wall seems blindingly obvious-making the wall movable for the purpose of using it as a shield in combat.

However, base force wall is entirely useless for this purpose, even if it could be moved. First of all, it is too large-a 4 by 4 meter shield is useless, since it prevents you from attacking, is incredibly bulky, and can be easily avoided by going around it at ninja speed. Furthermore, seals can be attacked from both sides of the barrier, meaning that even if you were to use it as a shield it would only take one thrown kunai from your enemy to entirely disable your shield. Perhaps most importantly, using seals in such an exposed position is just asking for a lethal sealing failure after a random drop of water (or an enemy justu. Or an explosive tag. Or another destructive force so prevalent in chakra-assisted combat) lands on the seal. As construction necessary to keep seals aligned during movement would take significant time (a couple days at the least, and possibly up to a wekk), almost all sealmasters would be likely to decide it isn't worth their time to try. Therefore, in order to use force walls in combat, sealmasters would have to research an alternative seal design which would likely only use one seal in the center of the circular force barrier. Researching such a seal (if it is even possible) has all the regular risks of sealing research, explaining why it hasn't been done by now.

6. OPSEC concerns​
Given all the various industrial applications of force walls, espionage is an understandable concern. Since most tricks can be replicated extremely easily if the secret were to get out, following principles of secret keeping are proposed:
  1. For any significant industrial application of the force wall, approval from the hokage would be required. As such, hiding the idea from Jiraya is pointless and it should be mentioned to him as soon as possible, in order to see if there are any significant issues with the presented ideas.
  2. As mentioned above, this application of the force wall is extremely vulnerable to espionage. As such, no physical notes can be taken on the application.
  3. Any discussion of the idea has to be postponed until return to Leaf and it's moderately secure discussion rooms.
  4. Corollary: no discussion of this idea can happen in Mist.
  5. When presenting products resulting in the application of the idea, no mention of seals or other ninja arts can be made. Rest of the world has no business knowing how we can produce perfect mirrors.
  6. Unless absolutely necessary, there is no reason to mention this idea to the rest of the team or to kagome. They are provably not secure in terms of information.
  7. Necessity of information security makes certain applications presently impossible, most notably farming and forestation. These uses would have to be postponed until such a moment when the secret will inevitably leak to other nations.
  8. Secure underground facilities will have to be manufactured for other applications of the force wall. Design of such facilities can presumably be taken from clan compounds that have to be secured against hyuga spying.
7. Conclusion​
As we have shown, industrial applications of the force wall are numerous, and produce significant opportunities even if mobility of the force wall is impossible. Despite the OPSEC concerns, authors of this paper believe that it should be possible to use force walls to significantly increase the net worth of Leaf and Goketsu clan, and further investigation into this phenomenon should be performed.
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Mind taping this to your post somewhere? I think it makes a good submodule to your proposal.

It's a research plan for using mobile force walls to make basic drone platforms. Also, it has pretty pictures.
 
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Omake: "Defensive" Seals
  • Apocrypha
    • "Defensive" Seals​

    He had the same sense of giddiness as the last time he'd presented a world-changing seal to Jiraiya. Fortunately, this one had less imminently-destructive uses (That he had thought of, a little voice whispered in the back of his head), though it would require a similar level of secrecy. And, come to think of it, he'd need to hide the fact from public awareness that he was turning so many otherwise-defensive seals and techniques to other uses.

    Who knows what other people would come up with if they got the thought in their heads that seals could be used for things other than their intended purpose? The thought had him shuddering.

    Thirty minutes later in a Jiraiya-assured-private room, the man himself entered. It took Hazou a moment to extricate himself from the sheafs of paper that surrounded him, and to organize them for his presentation.

    Jiraiya looked on with an eyebrow slightly cocked, his face a rictus of poorly-disguised amusement. "You ready, then, kid?"

    Scrambling to his feet, Hazou nodded. If someone had managed to get past Jiraiya's defenses, they had bigger problems than a little opsec leak. "Alright, so. You know how me and Kagome figured out how to use Five-Seal Barrier and Air Domes -- imminently defensive seals, to create other things? I figured out another one."

    "What is it this time, kid? You figure out how to power ninjutsu with Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier? Make a Tunneling seal with Tunneler's Friend?"

    "Actually, I had given thought to that last one, but no. So, Force Barriers. I did some experimentation with them a while back, while were still -- out. Not sealing experiments, just figuring out how it works. It's pretty damn sharp, immeasurably thin, and -- this is one of the two kickers -- it doesn't transfer force back to its seals. I haven't researched the seal myself, so I can't say why, but Kagome-sensei confirmed it." He took a breath before continuing, "The other thing, something I think a lot of people that use it haven't realized, is that the seals continue functioning so long as they remain facing each other at a sufficiently-precise angle -- they aren't required to be stationary by the functioning of the seal as Five-Seal Barrier is."

    Jiraiya's eyes widened slightly. So he didn't realize that -- Hazou wasn't wasn't surprised, things would look very different, he was sure, if Jiraiya had. "Now, ordinarily, this would just be a quirk of its functioning -- how could you use something that required to be so precisely aligned? But, of course, you can easily create a seal brace like so:" He passes over a diagram depicting an elongated-U-shaped brace with seals on the vertical portions.

    "This isn't something that allows ninja to do something particularly unique in offensive capacity, though -- sure, it'd be useful, but no more of a change than explosive seals were -- don't let Kagome hear me saying that, by the way."

    "Your secret's safe with me. Wouldn't want you to have to go through remedial training with Kagome -- I'm pretty sure he's putting together a book on the basics of properly paranoid sealcraft. Three hundred pages so far, I've heard. I think I already see where you're going with this. You want to use this for infrastructure, right? Logging, farming, etcetera? There would be significant operational security concerns there."

    "Right, I've already thought that through -- if you'll give me a moment." He flipped through several pages, before passing several over. "OpSec concerns are here, industrial and economic applications and implications here -- there is particular use in metalsmithing, and particularly in making mirrors."

    Jiraiya blinked. "Mirrors?"

    Hazou scratched the back of his head. "Ah, well, I'd been trying to get a telescope for long-range reconnaissance for a while when we were out and about, and did some research into how they were made -- apparently, a perfectly smooth surface, as Force Barriers are, is particularly useful in the creation of mirrors. Also, they're hideously expensive. Which... is good in this context."

    The sannin shook his head. "Hazou, remind me to get you all the defensive seals we have later. Are there any you haven't broken as badly as those board games you play?"

    "Um, there's... no, wait, I was working on wandguns with Lesser Barrier Formation. So civilians could use seals and get around the merchant council's injunctions. There's... oh! I haven't broken Earth Domes yet, do they count?"

    "I'll give you half a point for that one."
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • faflec said:
    You should clarify your statement as figurative or literal. Or both.
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    Either. Point is, if the world is rendered no longer hospitable to human life, then all t he ninjas will die, resulting in the immediate end of ninja power over civilians. Thus is Uplift achieved.
     
    Cariyaga said:
    "Defensive" Seals​

    He had the same sense of giddiness as the last time he'd presented a world-changing seal to Jiraiya. Fortunately, this one had less imminently-destructive uses (That he had thought of, a little voice whispered in the back of his head), though it would require a similar level of secrecy. And, come to think of it, he'd need to hide the fact from public awareness that he was turning so many otherwise-defensive seals and techniques to other uses.

    Who knows what other people would come up with if they got the thought in their heads that seals could be used for things other than their intended purpose? The thought had him shuddering.

    Thirty minutes later in a Jiraiya-assured-private room, the man himself entered. It took Hazou a moment to extricate himself from the sheafs of paper that surrounded him, and to organize them for his presentation.

    Jiraiya looked on with an eyebrow slightly cocked, his face a rictus of poorly-disguised amusement. "You ready, then, kid?"

    Scrambling to his feet, Hazou nodded. If someone had managed to get past Jiraiya's defenses, they had bigger problems than a little opsec leak. "Alright, so. You know how me and Kagome figured out how to use Five-Seal Barrier and Air Domes -- imminently defensive seals, to create other things? I figured out another one."

    "What is it this time, kid? You figure out how to power ninjutsu with Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier? Make a Tunneling seal with Tunneler's Friend?"

    "Actually, I had given thought to that last one, but no. So, Force Barriers. I did some experimentation with them a while back, while were still -- out. Not sealing experiments, just figuring out how it works. It's pretty damn sharp, immeasurably thin, and -- this is one of the two kickers -- it doesn't transfer force back to its seals. I haven't researched the seal myself, so I can't say why, but Kagome-sensei confirmed it." He took a breath before continuing, "The other thing, something I think a lot of people that use it haven't realized, is that the seals continue functioning so long as they remain facing each other at a sufficiently-precise angle -- they aren't required to be stationary by the functioning of the seal as Five-Seal Barrier is."

    Jiraiya's eyes widened slightly. So he didn't realize that -- Hazou wasn't wasn't surprised, things would look very different, he was sure, if Jiraiya had. "Now, ordinarily, this would just be a quirk of its functioning -- how could you use something that required to be so precisely aligned? But, of course, you can easily create a seal brace like so:" He passes over a diagram depicting an elongated-U-shaped brace with seals on the vertical portions.

    "This isn't something that allows ninja to do something particularly unique in offensive capacity, though -- sure, it'd be useful, but no more of a change than explosive seals were -- don't let Kagome hear me saying that, by the way."

    "Your secret's safe with me. Wouldn't want you to have to go through remedial training with Kagome -- I'm pretty sure he's putting together a book on the basics of properly paranoid sealcraft. Three hundred pages so far, I've heard. I think I already see where you're going with this. You want to use this for infrastructure, right? Logging, farming, etcetera? There would be significant operational security concerns there."

    "Right, I've already thought that through -- if you'll give me a moment." He flipped through several pages, before passing several over. "OpSec concerns are here, industrial and economic applications and implications here -- there is particular use in metalsmithing, and particularly in making mirrors."

    Jiraiya blinked. "Mirrors?"

    Hazou scratched the back of his head. "Ah, well, I'd been trying to get a telescope for long-range reconnaissance for a while when we were out and about, and did some research into how they were made -- apparently, a perfectly smooth surface, as Force Barriers are, is particularly useful in the creation of mirrors. Also, they're hideously expensive. Which... is good in this context."

    The sannin shook his head. "Hazou, remind me to get you all the defensive seals we have later. Are there any you haven't broken as badly as those board games you play?"

    "Um, there's... no, wait, I was working on wandguns with Lesser Barrier Formation. So civilians could use seals and get around the merchant council's injunctions. There's... oh! I haven't broken Earth Domes yet, do they count?"

    "I'll give you half a point for that one."
    Click to expand...
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    Also, I feel like we can make hovercraft with them via @Jello_Raptor's thing?
     
    Cariyaga said:
    Shhh, it's part of our master plan to make eaglejarl's head explode!
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    Explosives.

    Cariyaga said:
    Alright guys, the market on scientific analyses is clearly becoming saturated; we got any poets? Maybe some musicians?
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    You mean that you want @Winged_One's paper set to music? Maybe I should try to rap it?

    faflec said:
    WRITE SOME FUCKING STORIES ABOUT SUFFERING FOR FUCKS SAKE
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    Ok. Here you go.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    When the alarm didn't go off, @faflec overslept. That's why when he woke up he wasn't terribly surprised to notice that the light was different than it usually was. "What time is it...?"

    He was a bit more surprised to find that he was not in his comfy bed. He was actually lying on rock-hard...huh, was that water? How could water be hard?

    As he got to his feet, he saw three men with forehead protectors standing on the water. Another was sitting on the back of a rat the size of a small car.

    "Oh," he said. "How did I get to the Elemental Nations?"

    Unfortunately, he never got an answer to his question. The guy on the large rat said something (which Faflec couldn't understand, but assumed to be in EN-Japaneses) and Faflec suddenly found himself surrounded by tens of rats the size of Golden Retrievers.

    One of them was wearing steel-rimmed glasses. It stepped a bit closer and began to speak.

    "Hi! I'm Whapsidoodle, and I'm your local ENway representative. By signing up under me, you can begin to earn money while you sleep from our unique multi-level-marketing model..."
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    That's two levels of suffering right there! You-in-the-story getting pitched by sentient rats, and you-in-real-life reading this garbage! You're welcome.
     
    Last edited:
    So if we want mechanical guns blunderbusses are the best starting point. Flintlocks dramatically reduce the reliance on steel, required only for the frizzen and technically only iron is needed for that, the tolerances are within acceptable bounds for late medieval periods, and the only thing really needed to make them a reality is black powder. People overloading them may be a problem at first but that can be corrected. Hand held matchlock cannons are the historical beginning of small arms but iron and steel are needed in high quantities and qualities for them. Frankly I don't trust most forms of folded steel not produced with modern power hammers to bear pressure. One void in the layers creates a weak point that makes it an easy path for an explosion.
     
    Cariyaga said:
    "Defensive" Seals​

    He had the same sense of giddiness as the last time he'd presented a world-changing seal to Jiraiya. Fortunately, this one had less imminently-destructive uses (That he had thought of, a little voice whispered in the back of his head), though it would require a similar level of secrecy. And, come to think of it, he'd need to hide the fact from public awareness that he was turning so many otherwise-defensive seals and techniques to other uses.

    Who knows what other people would come up with if they got the thought in their heads that seals could be used for things other than their intended purpose? The thought had him shuddering.

    Thirty minutes later in a Jiraiya-assured-private room, the man himself entered. It took Hazou a moment to extricate himself from the sheafs of paper that surrounded him, and to organize them for his presentation.

    Jiraiya looked on with an eyebrow slightly cocked, his face a rictus of poorly-disguised amusement. "You ready, then, kid?"

    Scrambling to his feet, Hazou nodded. If someone had managed to get past Jiraiya's defenses, they had bigger problems than a little opsec leak. "Alright, so. You know how me and Kagome figured out how to use Five-Seal Barrier and Air Domes -- imminently defensive seals, to create other things? I figured out another one."

    "What is it this time, kid? You figure out how to power ninjutsu with Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier? Make a Tunneling seal with Tunneler's Friend?"

    "Actually, I had given thought to that last one, but no. So, Force Barriers. I did some experimentation with them a while back, while were still -- out. Not sealing experiments, just figuring out how it works. It's pretty damn sharp, immeasurably thin, and -- this is one of the two kickers -- it doesn't transfer force back to its seals. I haven't researched the seal myself, so I can't say why, but Kagome-sensei confirmed it." He took a breath before continuing, "The other thing, something I think a lot of people that use it haven't realized, is that the seals continue functioning so long as they remain facing each other at a sufficiently-precise angle -- they aren't required to be stationary by the functioning of the seal as Five-Seal Barrier is."

    Jiraiya's eyes widened slightly. So he didn't realize that -- Hazou wasn't wasn't surprised, things would look very different, he was sure, if Jiraiya had. "Now, ordinarily, this would just be a quirk of its functioning -- how could you use something that required to be so precisely aligned? But, of course, you can easily create a seal brace like so:" He passes over a diagram depicting an elongated-U-shaped brace with seals on the vertical portions.

    "This isn't something that allows ninja to do something particularly unique in offensive capacity, though -- sure, it'd be useful, but no more of a change than explosive seals were -- don't let Kagome hear me saying that, by the way."

    "Your secret's safe with me. Wouldn't want you to have to go through remedial training with Kagome -- I'm pretty sure he's putting together a book on the basics of properly paranoid sealcraft. Three hundred pages so far, I've heard. I think I already see where you're going with this. You want to use this for infrastructure, right? Logging, farming, etcetera? There would be significant operational security concerns there."

    "Right, I've already thought that through -- if you'll give me a moment." He flipped through several pages, before passing several over. "OpSec concerns are here, industrial and economic applications and implications here -- there is particular use in metalsmithing, and particularly in making mirrors."

    Jiraiya blinked. "Mirrors?"

    Hazou scratched the back of his head. "Ah, well, I'd been trying to get a telescope for long-range reconnaissance for a while when we were out and about, and did some research into how they were made -- apparently, a perfectly smooth surface, as Force Barriers are, is particularly useful in the creation of mirrors. Also, they're hideously expensive. Which... is good in this context."

    The sannin shook his head. "Hazou, remind me to get you all the defensive seals we have later. Are there any you haven't broken as badly as those board games you play?"

    "Um, there's... no, wait, I was working on wandguns with Lesser Barrier Formation. So civilians could use seals and get around the merchant council's injunctions. There's... oh! I haven't broken Earth Domes yet, do they count?"

    "I'll give you half a point for that one."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    "Oh, wait. Earth domes would be great for explosives testing. They dispel when hit with a consistent amount of force, no matter the size. So you can put an explosive with a timer in the center, nest a whole pile of domes, count the sets of shredded seals when the outer remaining domes dispel."

    "Damnit Hazou."
     
    Raxner said:
    Explosives.


    You mean that you want @Winged_One's paper set to music? Maybe I should try to rap it?


    Ok. Here you go.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    When the alarm didn't go off, @faflec overslept. That's why when he woke up he wasn't terribly surprised to notice that the light was different than it usually was. "What time is it...?"

    He was a bit more surprised to find that he was not in his comfy bed. He was actually lying on rock-hard...huh, was that water? How could water be hard?

    As he got to his feet, he saw three men with forehead protectors standing on the water. Another was sitting on the back of a rat the size of a small car.

    "Oh," he said. "How did I get to the Elemental Nations?"

    Unfortunately, he never got an answer to his question. The guy on the large rat said something (which Faflec couldn't understand, but assumed to be in EN-Japaneses) and Faflec suddenly found himself beset by tens of rats the size of large dogs.

    As he bled out from multiple gnawing wounds, he had the chance for one last thought. "I did ask for suffering, I suppose."

    ===============================================================================

    That's two levels of suffering right there! You-in-the-story being eaten by sentient rats, and you-in-real-life reading this garbage! You're welcome.
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    Guys, we got in trouble with mods last time someone wrote a story about another thread participant dying horribly. While I understand it wasn't meant maliciously, I'm going to ask that you at least spoiler this, and recommend that you strongly consider deleting it.
     
    OliWhail said:
    Guys, we got in trouble with mods last time someone wrote a story about another thread participant dying horribly. While I understand it wasn't meant maliciously, I'm going to ask that you at least spoiler this, and recommend that you strongly consider deleting it.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Fixed. Enjoy the bowdlerized story of @faflec in the Elemental Nations.
     
    faflec said:
    Um...

    Are we talking about the same Kagome here?
    Click to expand...
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    No, see, it's perfect, the civvies can't blow themselves up because they can't infuse it!

    e:

    @eaglejarl @OliWhail @Velorien I understand if this is a flat "no" kind of thing, but I had a thought on a way that Hazou could use his seal-copy bloodline spookery: He can copy any seal/blank he sees after a few seconds of looking at it, right? Can he determine whether he's copied that seal or seal blank before and remember when/where he did? More accurately, does he have mental access to when he performed a given action?

    If yes, we could start up the Civilian Sealing Corps with Hazou at their back, spending just a few seconds to look over every seal blank they create and determining which are good by comparing it to the accurate-seal he has in his memory.
     
    will408914 said:
    I doubt that the proposal for movable force walls will work (although, admittedly, I only skimmed it). The idea of attaching the seals to a movable object is fruit low-hanging enough and useful enough that, even with a low population of sealmasters, the efficient markets hypothesis applies.

    Also, if somehow self-propelled at relatively high speed and positioned horizontally at low altitude, it becomes a potential weapon of mass (civilian) destruction, invisibly slicing through anything in its path. At least it probably can't be turned into a bomb.
    Click to expand...
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    I have a whole chapter on novelty analysis, actually. TL;DR it's not nearly as useful as you may think. As for civilian destruction, that is 1) kinda irrelevant since you can just use explosive tags 2) won't work since seals and the beam stick out from the barrier and will catch on things.

    eaglejarl said:
    When I saw the title I was simultaneously excited and aware of an incipient headache. Having read it, both of those feelings have intensified.

    Have an XP.
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    Muahahaha. You should check out the full paper-it's about 25% longer, and has some extra ideas I didn't consider important enough to note in the forum post. Also, I'd like your opinion on wherever the idea for moving force walls works-I had some more half-baked ideas on their use, but don't want to spend more time on them if the base premise won't work out. There is nothing world-destroying in those ideas that I can see.

    Cariyaga said:
    Alright guys, the market on scientific analyses is clearly becoming saturated; we got any poets? Maybe some musicians? :p
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Is the music of science not pleasant enough to your ears?

    Jello_Raptor said:
    Mind taping this to your post somewhere? I think it makes a good submodule to your proposal.

    It's a research plan for using mobile force walls to make basic drone platforms. Also, it has pretty pictures.
    Click to expand...
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    Wow. Those are some nice pictures. How did you make those?

    I added a link to your analysis. I have some isues with it-mainly that adding a spring would impose an acceleration on the beam, and not a force-but overall it seems fine.

    Cariyaga said:
    "Defensive" Seals​

    He had the same sense of giddiness as the last time he'd presented a world-changing seal to Jiraiya. Fortunately, this one had less imminently-destructive uses (That he had thought of, a little voice whispered in the back of his head), though it would require a similar level of secrecy. And, come to think of it, he'd need to hide the fact from public awareness that he was turning so many otherwise-defensive seals and techniques to other uses.

    Who knows what other people would come up with if they got the thought in their heads that seals could be used for things other than their intended purpose? The thought had him shuddering.

    Thirty minutes later in a Jiraiya-assured-private room, the man himself entered. It took Hazou a moment to extricate himself from the sheafs of paper that surrounded him, and to organize them for his presentation.

    Jiraiya looked on with an eyebrow slightly cocked, his face a rictus of poorly-disguised amusement. "You ready, then, kid?"

    Scrambling to his feet, Hazou nodded. If someone had managed to get past Jiraiya's defenses, they had bigger problems than a little opsec leak. "Alright, so. You know how me and Kagome figured out how to use Five-Seal Barrier and Air Domes -- imminently defensive seals, to create other things? I figured out another one."

    "What is it this time, kid? You figure out how to power ninjutsu with Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier? Make a Tunneling seal with Tunneler's Friend?"

    "Actually, I had given thought to that last one, but no. So, Force Barriers. I did some experimentation with them a while back, while were still -- out. Not sealing experiments, just figuring out how it works. It's pretty damn sharp, immeasurably thin, and -- this is one of the two kickers -- it doesn't transfer force back to its seals. I haven't researched the seal myself, so I can't say why, but Kagome-sensei confirmed it." He took a breath before continuing, "The other thing, something I think a lot of people that use it haven't realized, is that the seals continue functioning so long as they remain facing each other at a sufficiently-precise angle -- they aren't required to be stationary by the functioning of the seal as Five-Seal Barrier is."

    Jiraiya's eyes widened slightly. So he didn't realize that -- Hazou wasn't wasn't surprised, things would look very different, he was sure, if Jiraiya had. "Now, ordinarily, this would just be a quirk of its functioning -- how could you use something that required to be so precisely aligned? But, of course, you can easily create a seal brace like so:" He passes over a diagram depicting an elongated-U-shaped brace with seals on the vertical portions.

    "This isn't something that allows ninja to do something particularly unique in offensive capacity, though -- sure, it'd be useful, but no more of a change than explosive seals were -- don't let Kagome hear me saying that, by the way."

    "Your secret's safe with me. Wouldn't want you to have to go through remedial training with Kagome -- I'm pretty sure he's putting together a book on the basics of properly paranoid sealcraft. Three hundred pages so far, I've heard. I think I already see where you're going with this. You want to use this for infrastructure, right? Logging, farming, etcetera? There would be significant operational security concerns there."

    "Right, I've already thought that through -- if you'll give me a moment." He flipped through several pages, before passing several over. "OpSec concerns are here, industrial and economic applications and implications here -- there is particular use in metalsmithing, and particularly in making mirrors."

    Jiraiya blinked. "Mirrors?"

    Hazou scratched the back of his head. "Ah, well, I'd been trying to get a telescope for long-range reconnaissance for a while when we were out and about, and did some research into how they were made -- apparently, a perfectly smooth surface, as Force Barriers are, is particularly useful in the creation of mirrors. Also, they're hideously expensive. Which... is good in this context."

    The sannin shook his head. "Hazou, remind me to get you all the defensive seals we have later. Are there any you haven't broken as badly as those board games you play?"

    "Um, there's... no, wait, I was working on wandguns with Lesser Barrier Formation. So civilians could use seals and get around the merchant council's injunctions. There's... oh! I haven't broken Earth Domes yet, do they count?"

    "I'll give you half a point for that one."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Can't atually make telescopes, I am afraid :(- it needs curved mirrors, and you can't make those with vanilla force wall.
     
    Last edited:
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