Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[hYGP]

I missed this, sorry. Yes, yes, and yes.

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For the record, I would like to note that if I was a clan head trying to get concessions from the Merchant Council I would very publicly express my disapproval and privately negotiate for monopolies in exchange for redirecting the Kage's and other actually hostile clan's attention.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

This was more or less what I was referring to, or alternatively applying pressure on Pangolin merchants to keep them from buying human realm goods we're importing to the summon realm (selling our goods to individual consumers would be immensely time-consuming, much better to sell to a distributor or reseller). Again, I agree this shouldn't be too much of a problem as long as we do things intelligently, ramp up the trade slowly and arrange deals with the most powerful economic players so that they will benefit from the trade as well. Additionally, we could sell stock/shares of our import/export business to mid and low-level economic players.

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There's a pretty simple solution to this, which is just to start our own Pangolin shop and hire employees. Who needs a distributor or retailer when you can just make one? Human Goods 'R Us here we come.

As for the merchant council in Leaf, they don't have jurisdiction over economic activity in other countries or planes of existence. As for activity inside of Leaf territory, they can't complain about ninja buying their goods, so that's half the equation taken care of.

As for selling goods, the merchant council exists to make sure ninja don't use their powers to outcompete existing merchants. Which merchant exactly is already importing goods from the summon realm? Nobody, that's who. There's no competition for unique goods that only we can provide. That argument doesn't apply to arbitrage on common commodities like gold and jewels, but if it comes to it we can always just sell those elsewhere or hire a merchant to work through as our distributor to make the merchant council happy.

 

[faflec]

...you know, RL Pangolins have poor vision. Maybe we should sell them glasses? Or telescopes when using Skytowers?

 

[Cariyaga]

...you know, RL Pangolins have poor vision. Maybe we should sell them glasses? Or telescopes when using Skytowers?

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Only if we get a telescope first, dammit.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

...you know, RL Pangolins have poor vision. Maybe we should sell them glasses? Or telescopes when using Skytowers?

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Their vision probably can't be improved with glasses. It's not like they're nearsighted or something, their eyes just aren't very well designed. Telescopes are a definite possibility though. They're a high value good that doesn't weigh much that'd have lots of demand, it's practically a perfect thing for interdimensional trade.

 

[Emstar]

There's a pretty simple solution to this, which is just to start our own Pangolin shop and hire employees. Who needs a distributor or retailer when you can just make one? Human Goods 'R Us here we come.

As for the merchant council in Leaf, they don't have jurisdiction over economic activity in other countries or planes of existence. As for activity inside of Leaf territory, they can't complain about ninja buying their goods, so that's half the equation taken care of.

As for selling goods, the merchant council exists to make sure ninja don't use their powers to outcompete existing merchants. Which merchant exactly is already importing goods from the summon realm? Nobody, that's who. There's no competition for unique goods that only we can provide. That argument doesn't apply to arbitrage on common commodities like gold and jewels, but if it comes to it we can always just sell those elsewhere or hire a merchant to work through as our distributor to make the merchant council happy.

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I think this is unlikely to work since at the moment the relationship between Keiko and the Pangolins is mostly one sided. They can demand all they want within reason and we are sorta forced to capitulate to their demands lest they "renegotiate the terms of the summoning contract" or whatever bs they keep spouting. This changes once Keiko is strong enough to punch Pantsaa in the face and tell him to sit down.

Honestly the members of their senior command structure seem unreasonable. Im sure that clans like the Snakes or the Sharks are worse but it would be nice to deal with other summons that dont have all this quasipolitical /psuedoreligious bullshit propaganda business going on 24/7.

 

[Sentient Tree]

Edo Tensei is a passable effort but its existence (or relative failure to do what its intended to do,in my eyes) is more of a discouragement against research towards such a technique.

I dont think anyones ever really considered as much truly desperate out of the box thinking as we have. I just dont really think that the people and culture of the EN are optimized for it.

Example: Jiraiya has been sitting on seals that, after a modicum amount of thought and effort, would allow one to walk across the sky as easy as blinking. Legendary ninja he is, he never bothered ro consider trying to use his current toolset in unorthodox ways to try to get as much as possible out of it.

His reaction to Skywalkers was "Nonono, it CANT be that easy! It just CANT BE!!"

(Perhaps people like the Nara are a bit of an exception, but we're given reason to believe theyre relatively unique.)

This just doesnt lend well to any progress on "anti-Death" research, especially when the problems get stupidly hard and require amalgamation of various ninja disciplines to tackle.

Factor in an innumerable amount of other culture rhings (wars every generation, ninja being combat optimized, not getting enough funds for this sort of thing, people not being sufficiently edicated, etc.) and its no wonder nothing gets done.




Hmm, that is possible. We might be more uniquely suited for this task then.



This is also incredibly likely.

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For the Wakahisa solution to death, there may be another reason that they never learned how to bring people back from the dead. If they were going to do research on such an important thing, they would probably ask the Mori for help, and would probably request village resources and stuff as well. So the Mizukage would find out about it.
Who is the first person a village is likely to resurrect once they have the ability to? The first person would be their last Kage. So if the Mizukage found out that the Wakahisa were planning to research how to bring back the dead, he might see that as bringing back the competition, and squash that project like a bug.

Edit:

Regardless, this is all strict post-game. Clearly world domination and the annihilation of all adversaries and enemy world powers needs to come first before a truly massive and concerted effort can be underway.

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And this sort of thinking is also why it hasn't been done yet.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

I think this is unlikely to work since at the moment the relationship between Keiko and the Pangolins is mostly one sided. They can demand all they want within reason and we are sorta forced to capitulate to their demands lest they "renegotiate the terms of the summoning contract" or whatever bs they keep spouting. This changes once Keiko is strong enough to punch Pantsaa in the face and tell him to sit down.

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You don't think being a source of useful goods, including military assets like telescopes, continues to give us more leverage just like the sky towers did?

 

[Emstar]

You don't think being a source of useful goods, including military assets like telescopes, continues to give us more leverage just like the sky towers did?

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Not really. The immediate truth is that the Pangolins are far too useful for us to not have, so if they say jump we have to jump, at least a little bit.

This will likely change down the road, but they do seem a bit set in their ways and bigheaded about themselves. Theyve been that way since we got the contract.

 

[MadScientist]

Once Kei can subdue the entire clan single-handedly a la Itachi then we're good.

 

[faflec]

Once Kei can subdue the entire clan single-handedly a la Itachi then we're good.

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I'd rather not pull an Itachi, if nothing else because of the parallel. Extremely intelligent Leaf genius slaughters half of their own Summoning clan in response to a serious disagreement?

 

[TaliesinSkye]

Not really. The immediate truth is that the Pangolins are far too useful for us to not have, so if they say jump we have to jump, at least a little bit.

This will likely change down the road, but they do seem a bit set in their ways and bigheaded about themselves. Theyve been that way since we got the contract.

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If the Pangolins made themselves no longer useful to us then there'd be no reason for us not to burn their summoning contract, would there?

They have way less leverage than you think they do.

 

[ContextBot]

Leaf genius

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Ren: Mist genius.

 

[Erolki]

The last negotiation went pretty well, too - it's been fairly bluntly stated that the big issue was a mid-level bureaucratic asshole, not the Pangolins as a whole disrespecting her.

 

[faflec]

If the Pangolins made themselves no longer useful to us then there'd be no reason for us not to burn their summoning contract, would there?

They have way less leverage than you think they do.

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Apart from the moral imperative to keep them from mass murdering the other Clans, and the intrinsic value of having access to another dimension...

Eh, I'm sure we can handle it.

 

[Adept_Woodwright]

I present to the audience:
"silent sound cannon"

Note that this is an approximation of physics that does not take into account non-linear acoustics.

Spoiler: Effect

- Only bats, mice, and underwater mammals can hear a 100kHz tone. To everything else, this is silent.
- A death region that extends in a cone from the opening, out 2 m distance and .4 m radius, then approximately elliptically capping that cone out to a maximum distance of 4 m
- A Moderate Consequence region (surface level skin burns, busted ear-drums) that extends approximately conically out to 4 m, 1.6m radius, continues almost cylindically to 8m, 1.6 m radius, and elliptically caps off at 10m maximum axial distance
- A pain threshold region that extends out (approximately) to 14 m at 5.6 m radius, then elliptically to 18 m and 3.5 m radius, and elliptically caps off at a maximum axial distance of 20 m
-likely resembles a blow torch near the orifice, as the high local power intensity causes a small region of plasma-air

Spoiler: Construction

-A hollow metallic cylinder that is capped on one side. External hole is 1 cm in diameter.
-The metallic cylinder is at least wrapped in a secondary material hand-guard (wood, leather), to prevent sound transmission from hurting the user's hand through high frequency vibration. --The two materials must be sufficiently different in sound transmission coefficient to achieve this (multiple, non-uniform wrappings may be needed, but this does not really matter so long as it is accounted for through testing). Rubber, leather, or wood are likely materials.
- A noise generating seal is produced and attached to/embedded in the cylinder, which generates a pure 100 kHz tone at 192 dB, with initial dimensions such that it fills, but does not exceed, the metallic cylinder. There must be some mechanism to activate the seal, ideally discretely from the handguard. Works if you have a time-delay banshee

Spoiler: Math

Helpful sites
Transducer Beam Spread
Beam Characteristics | Olympus IMS

For half-angle equivalent to dB loss of 6 and 20 dB:
FAQ: What factors influence the beam spread of an ultrasonic probe in the far zone?

For absorption coefficient
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Atmospheric_sound_absorption_coefficient_2.svg

For hearing ranges of animals
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Animal_hearing_frequency_range.svg

For damage guidelines
Guidelines for the Safe Use of Ultrasound: Part II - Industrial and Commercial Applications: Safety Code 24

## Damage Geometry ##
The absorption coefficient for a pure 100 kHz tone in standard atmosphere is between .5 and 4 dB/m depending on humidity. Use 3 dB/m to reduce spoon count.

The half-angle of the beam spread equivalent to a 6 dB loss is
half_theta_6dB = arcsin ( .56 * V / ( D* F) ) = 11 degrees
V = 343.2 m/s (speed of sound in air)
D = .01 m
F = 100e3 Hz

For 20 dB loss it is
half_theta_20dB = arcsin ( 1.08 * V / ( D* F) ) = 22 degrees

For the diffraction limit
half_theta_lim = arcsin( 1.22 * V / (D*F)) = 25 degrees (the maximum beam-width. beyond this cone, there is no substantive effect)

According to damage guidelines, eardrums likely burst and thin regions of skin may burn at ~160 dB. Death is likely at ~180 dB. Pain is somewhere around 130 dB. From these guidelines, and the previous loss mechanisms, determine the geometry of the death, consequence, and pain regions.

Along the axial direction of the cylinder
Death = 4 m (192 - 4*3 = 180 dB)
MC =10 m (192-10*3 = 162 dB)
Pain = 20 m (192-20*3 = 132 dB)

Along the 6dB half angle
Death = 2 m (192 - 2*3 - 6 = 180 dB). Radius = tan(theta)*2 = .4 m
MC = 8 m (192 - 8*3 - 6 = 162 dB). Radius = 1.6 m
Pain = 18 m (192 - 18*3-6 = 132 dB). Radius = 3.5 m

Along the 20dB half
Death - not possible
MC = 4 m (192 - 4*3 - 20 = 160 dB), 1.6 m
Pain = 14 m (192- 14*3 - 20). Radius = 5.6 m

## Heating Limit ##
The initial power flux coming out of the orifice is
Pref = 1e-12 W/m^2
P (192 dB) = 10^(19.2) * Pref = 1.58e7 W/m^2
With an orifice diameter of 1 cm, this corresponds to 1244.7 W emitted from the exit of the device

This should pose no problems to the atmosphere over the time scales this device would be activated. Note that the solar pressure at the surface of the Earth is approximately 1e3 W/m^2.

The device likely resembles a blow torch in the vicinity of the orifice.

 

[Erolki]

Also, the bit about how the Crows are so weird for having sages lead them instead of war leaders implies a lot of the other clans have notable cultural overlap with the Pangolins (though we don't know how religious/nationalistic the others tend to be).

 

[Emstar]

I'd rather not pull an Itachi, if nothing else because of the parallel. Extremely intelligent Leaf genius slaughters half of their own Summoning clan in response to a serious disagreement?

Click to shrink...

We dont need to slaughter the clan, only beat the top brass up a bit.

That or get the Rinnegan.

If the Pangolins make themselves no longer useful to us then there's no reason for us not to burn their summoning contract, is there?

They have way less leverage than you think they do.

Click to shrink...

Right but we would never do that regardless of how useful they are because the contract is a priceless artifact and of incalculable worth, regardless of whether or not we're getting utility out of it at the moment.

Summoning is too much a cornerstone of our toolkit anyway, for us to endanger that by trying some mercantilism to screw them over.

I present to the audience:
"silent sound cannon"

Note that this is an approximation of physics that does not take into account non-linear acoustics.

Spoiler: Effect

- Only bats, mice, and underwater mammals can hear a 100kHz tone. To everything else, this is silent.
- A death region that extends in a cone from the opening, out 2 m distance and .4 m radius, then approximately elliptically capping that cone out to a maximum distance of 4 m
- A Moderate Consequence region (surface level skin burns, busted ear-drums) that extends approximately conically out to 4 m, 1.6m radius, continues almost cylindically to 8m, 1.6 m radius, and elliptically caps off at 10m maximum axial distance
- A pain threshold region that extends out (approximately) to 14 m at 5.6 m radius, then elliptically to 18 m and 3.5 m radius, and elliptically caps off at a maximum axial distance of 20 m

Spoiler: Construction

-A hollow metallic cylinder that is capped on one side. External hole is 1 cm in diameter.
-The metallic cylinder is at least wrapped in a secondary material hand-guard (wood, leather), to prevent sound transmission from hurting the user's hand through high frequency vibration. --The two materials must be sufficiently different in sound transmission coefficient to achieve this (multiple, non-uniform wrappings may be needed, but this does not really matter so long as it is accounted for through testing). Rubber, leather, or wood are likely materials.
- A noise generating seal is produced and attached to/embedded in the cylinder, which generates a pure 100 kHz tone at 192 dB, with initial dimensions such that it fills, but does not exceed, the metallic cylinder. There must be some mechanism to activate the seal, ideally discretely from the handguard. Works if you have a time-delay banshee

Spoiler: Math

Helpful sites
Transducer Beam Spread
Beam Characteristics | Olympus IMS

For half-angle equivalent to dB loss of 6 and 20 dB:
FAQ: What factors influence the beam spread of an ultrasonic probe in the far zone?

For absorption coefficient
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Atmospheric_sound_absorption_coefficient_2.svg

For hearing ranges of animals
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Animal_hearing_frequency_range.svg

For damage guidelines
Guidelines for the Safe Use of Ultrasound: Part II - Industrial and Commercial Applications: Safety Code 24

## Damage Geometry ##
The absorption coefficient for a pure 100 kHz tone in standard atmosphere is between .5 and 4 dB/m depending on humidity. Use 3 dB/m to reduce spoon count.

The half-angle of the beam spread equivalent to a 6 dB loss is
half_theta_6dB = arcsin ( .56 * V / ( D* F) ) = 11 degrees
V = 343.2 m/s (speed of sound in air)
D = .01 m
F = 100e3 Hz

For 20 dB loss it is
half_theta_20dB = arcsin ( 1.08 * V / ( D* F) ) = 22 degrees

For the diffraction limit
half_theta_lim = arcsin( 1.22 * V / (D*F)) = 25 degrees (the maximum beam-width. beyond this cone, there is no substantive effect)

According to damage guidelines, eardrums likely burst and thin regions of skin may burn at ~160 dB. Death is likely at ~180 dB. Pain is somewhere around 130 dB. From these guidelines, and the previous loss mechanisms, determine the geometry of the death, consequence, and pain regions.

Along the axial direction of the cylinder
Death = 4 m (192 - 4*3 = 180 dB)
MC =10 m (192-10*3 = 162 dB)
Pain = 20 m (192-20*3 = 132 dB)

Along the 6dB half angle
Death = 2 m (192 - 2*3 - 6 = 180 dB). Radius = tan(theta)*2 = .4 m
MC = 8 m (192 - 8*3 - 6 = 162 dB). Radius = 1.6 m
Pain = 18 m (192 - 18*3-6 = 132 dB). Radius = 3.5 m

Along the 20dB half
Death - not possible
MC = 4 m (192 - 4*3 - 20 = 160 dB), 1.6 m
Pain = 14 m (192- 14*3 - 20). Radius = 5.6 m

## Heating Limit ##
The initial power flux coming out of the orifice is
Pref = 1e-12 W/m^2
P (192 dB) = 10^(19.2) * Pref = 1.58e7 W/m^2
With an orifice diameter of 1 cm, this corresponds to 1244.7 W emitted from the exit of the device

This should pose no problems to the atmosphere over the time scales this device would be activated. Note that the solar pressure at the surface of the Earth is approximately 1e3 W/m^2.

The device likely resembles a blow torch in the vicinity of the orifice.

Click to shrink...

Do you do much work with accoustics IRL? Ive noticed youve written two (or more if ive missed) analysises on sound based weaponry in the past few weeks.

 

[Adept_Woodwright]

We dont need to slaughter the clan, only beat the top brass up a bit.

That or get the Rinnegan.


Right but we would never do that regardless of how useful they are because the contract is a priceless artifact and of incalculable worth, regardless of whether or not we're getting utility out of it at the moment.

Summoning is too much a cornerstone of our toolkit anyway, for us to endanger that by trying some mercantilism to screw them over.



Do you do much work with accoustics IRL? Ive noticed youve written two (or more if ive missed) analysises on sound based weaponry in the past few weeks.

Click to shrink...

None. I am in aeronautics, on the computational side, so the link is there if tenuous. Saw people keep asking what the damage effects of the banshees would be, so started research to answer the question / help the QMs. Saw potential for more, so kept researching.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

Right but we would never do that regardless of how useful they are because the contract is a priceless artifact and of incalculable worth, regardless of whether or not we're getting utility out of it at the moment.

Summoning is too much a cornerstone of our toolkit anyway, for us to endanger that by trying some mercantilism to screw them over.

Click to shrink...

If the Pangolins ever messed up the relationship so much that we couldn't summon them anymore, destroying the scroll to prevent it from falling into anyone else's hands becomes a smart move. It's not like we lose anything by it. Meanwhile the Pangolins forever lose any chance of having influence on the Human path through a summoner, a massive, massive strategic loss.

That's why the Pangolins can't afford to piss us off too much.

As for upsetting them with interdimensional trade, do you not realize that we'd be making everyone we traded with rich in addition to ourselves? Trade happens because it's good for everyone involved. We'd be providing commodities cheaper than they can get them anywhere else and providing goods that they simply can't get at all anywhere else. That's a huge benefit. Once they find out what we can provide they'll want us to keep doing it. We could get all sorts of concessions by offering something like a steady supply of telescopes for military use to go with the skytowers.

 

[Cariyaga]

Incidentally, if we made our mercantilism valuable enough to Leaf, they wouldn't want to send us out on missions, which is a win in my books.

 

[faflec]

If the Pangolins ever messed up the relationship so much that we couldn't summon them anymore, destroying the scroll to prevent it from falling into anyone else's hands becomes a smart move. It's not like we lose anything by it. Meanwhile the Pangolins forever lose any chance of having influence on the Human path through a summoner, a massive, massive strategic loss.

That's why the Pangolins can't afford to piss us off too much.

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"Most summon clans aren't really interested in trading with humans," Jiraiya said. "Like I said, they're pretty much all somewhat xenophobic; we look and smell weird and off-putting to them and there's nothing they absolutely need from us. It's hard for summons to use most human jutsu and seals are, as Keiko already heard, looked on with suspicion. They don't like the idea of their jutsu getting out on the Human Path, and trading physical goods is hard because you're limited to what the Summoner can carry back with her. Having a Summoner is useful to them, but it's not essential."

"Makes sense," Mari-sensei said, nodding. "Four hundred years the scroll sat in Mountain, and in all that time the Pangolins never said to the Toads or any of their other allies, 'Hey, would you mind taking a look around for our scroll? Thanks.'"

Click to shrink...

 

[TaliesinSkye]

I don't think they properly appreciated what they were missing. Now that they've found out about the war changing skytowers they'll be wondering what else they've been overlooking. And there are high value to weight ratio physical goods suitable for interdimensional trade, like telescopes and gold.

 

[Kiba]

But Keiko is a summoner with a brother, father, and an uncle who specialize in sealing! They can make load and load of storage seals!

E: We need to find a telescope supplier.

 

[Emstar]

If the Pangolins ever messed up the relationship so much that we couldn't summon them anymore, destroying the scroll to prevent it from falling into anyone else's hands becomes a smart move. It's not like we lose anything by it. Meanwhile the Pangolins forever lose any chance of having influence on the Human path through a summoner, a massive, massive strategic loss.

That's why the Pangolins can't afford to piss us off too much.

As for upsetting them with interdimensional trade, do you not realize that we'd be making everyone we traded with rich in addition to ourselves? We'd be providing commodities cheaper than they can get them anywhere else and providing goods that they simply can't get at all anywhere else. That's a huge benefit. Once they find out what we can provide they'll want us to keep doing it.

Click to shrink...

Its worth looking into at some point to get some regular income but i dont really think we're going to have much time in the near future to become filthy rich if we're research WMDs and doing all the other stuff on the to do list.

I dont think this would necessarily be a get rich quick scheme either. They have odd value systems and their economies might not really be the same as ours as far as worth of specific goods. If you try to trade them gems they might pay you in buckets of fire ants or something.