"In the future" = "Not in time for the tournament"
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
"In the future" = "Not in time for the tournament"
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
One thing we can do to convince people to stay is offer them access to the Scions of Jiraiya Goketsu. We can dangle the fact that we are an avenue of political influence on the Hokage as bait to convince people to interact with us. Also we could offer to have sparring matches with ninjas from every village
Well, by analogy to Paths of Civilization, the Chūnin Exam are the Games. You can also add a component to it, that is the Artisan Games, which is basically an expo for craftsmen.
A culinary competition is simply a nascent component of an artisan expo, and it doesn't have to be ninja.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Honestly I still think that we shouldn't commit to any course of action till we find out if J, Hanna or Ami have any plans to teach us stuff.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Ooh! Encouraging culinary tourism among civilians, which leads to missions leading ninja into others' territory (or trading off at the border), thus by necessity lowering tensions. I like it!
I was thinking more about trading food in storage seals.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
That doesn't bring in as much money as leading civilians around does. Also it runs afoul of the MC.
- Location
- Potato land
I think time spent in Mist, making diplomatic inroads with our former clans, may be a lot more valuable than tournament preparation. Frankly, as long as we get into the tournament by completely trashing the final event, our actual performance in it is not that important. At least not relative to helping Jiraiya make the alliance work. Back home, the clan heads will care about the latter a lot more than whether Hazou finished 1st or 8th.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Youre not taking into account how us doing relative to Hinata in the finals may impact Leaf politics and how a victory may look on the international stage for our career, but otherwise yeah
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Making it to the exams in the first place is an endorsement. After all, villages want to send their best and brightest, so if you got sent that means they think you're among the best.
Making it to the tournament is very impressive. Out of hundreds of contestants, already creme of the crop of their own villages, only sixteen make it that far. Among the best and brightest of the new ninja generation, you're the best and brightest of those.
And the winner of the tournament is supreme, of course. Out of all the Genin in the entire Elemental Nations, they show themselves to be the strongest, the smartest, the most resourceful.
Always aim for the top, of course, but getting to the tournament in and of itself makes us the best of the best and if what we're looking for is the ability for Jiraiya to brag about how great we are and how it was such a good idea to adopt a group of missing nin, that'll do quite handily.
Making it to the tournament is very impressive. Out of hundreds of contestants, already creme of the crop of their own villages, only sixteen make it that far. Among the best and brightest of the new ninja generation, you're the best and brightest of those.
And the winner of the tournament is supreme, of course. Out of all the Genin in the entire Elemental Nations, they show themselves to be the strongest, the smartest, the most resourceful.
Always aim for the top, of course, but getting to the tournament in and of itself makes us the best of the best and if what we're looking for is the ability for Jiraiya to brag about how great we are and how it was such a good idea to adopt a group of missing nin, that'll do quite handily.
- Location
- Potato land
Yes, I know. But the most important immediate goal we have is making Jiraiya keep the hat. Looking good in the tournament helps that, but not nearly as much as securing the alliance and possibly Mist's help in looking for Akatsuki. Us being powerful helps in various ways, but recall that Hiashi's argument against Jiraiya was that he simply wasn't fit to be Hokage. To that end, when evaluating his success, the clan heads won't look at our tournament performance; they'll look at the alliance terms, the trade agreements, stuff that Jiraiya accomplished in his capacity as (provisional) Hokage.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Personally think we need to goad Team Kurenia into attacking us next round. Keep them from even making the tournament
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Just leave that to ISC.
- Location
- Yes.
Reposting:
Also pinging @Velorien How is Team Kurenai's score 'secure' based on their performance in the Second Event (the Swamp Event) if their score was significantly below top tier (we scored 49/49/50; top teams scored 80s or 90s)?
- Location
- The state of Paranoia
We can split the party? Keiko trains to win the tournament and does any necessary pangolin/Ami diplomacy type stuff, Noburi makes friends with the other exam participants and trains some, while Hazou does seal research (focusing on anything that could help Keiko) and helps Noburi with the friend-making.
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
I completely disagree here. Not only is that simply not the case (just imagine the fuel Hiashi would have with rankings: Hinata, ISC, Rando, Gouketsu), but Leaf isn't the only village we would gain to impress. "Easily top of their cohort -- no contest" is very different from "made Chuunin by the skin of their teeth, even if it was their first year."
Put another way, if you continuously exceed all expectations, people will start to wonder where your limits really are. Merely "well above average" doesn't get you that level of awe and respect.
Not saying we should train to the exclusion of other opportunities -- we can certainly take time to lay groundwork for future politicking -- but I strongly disagree with the notion that some free time to socialize in Mist now is worth anywhere near as much as the opportunity to shine in the exams.
Do you imagine even people of middling importance like Ami would even bother to give us the time of day at present? Sure, we can sow inroads with younger generations or work in the background with the Yakuza, but that can only get us so far without an inordinate amount of effort. Effort that could be spent furthering our reputation such that eventually, maybe, instead of having to be crafty and continuously work hard to even be taken seriously, we are invited to partake in negotiations, and people expectantly look to us for our input as a matter of course.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
If we can make sure the top 3 spots in the tournament are all Clan Gouketsu...
That's the start of people looking at us as the next sannin.
e: Also, incidentally, it takes people's attention off of the idea of "What did they do to get adopted into Jiraiya's clan" and more toward the idea of "Holy crap that's why he adopted them"
That's the start of people looking at us as the next sannin.
e: Also, incidentally, it takes people's attention off of the idea of "What did they do to get adopted into Jiraiya's clan" and more toward the idea of "Holy crap that's why he adopted them"
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
I don't think this is actually true. It would do wonders for getting it into people's minds that we have potential, but that's a far cry from actually being revered as some sort of legend.
Maybe that's actually what you're trying to say here. I just want to ensure we collectively have realistic expectations.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Really? After going against 3:1 odds in the fifth event, and coming out on top of the tournament? I'm not so sure.
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
Disagree. At minimum, we can spend xp on Awareness, investigate the competition, get a fresh seal loadout (maybe convincing Jiraiya to give us some fun toys to play with), and ensure Keiko, Noburi, and ISC (in that order) can also gobble up their low-hanging fruit. All of these are conventional strategies and all of these should have relatively outsized effects.
After that we hit diminishing returns, so I'd be more amenable to spending time elsewhere or pursuing higher variance strategies..
SC farming + multiple very promising seals won't pay huge dividends? Strobe Light seals make us tankier, casino seals (which you're all for getting) give us more godstat, increased capacity storage seals and macerators give us more DPS and let us do tricks with flooding the arena to let Noburi steamroll opposition. None of these seals should be particularly difficult: we should be able to squeeze them all into the break, even accounting for a week in Mist. If the SC farm works then we can count on an increased XP gain as well, so it's well worth setting that up as soon as we can.
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