Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Emstar · Aug 20, 2018

faflec said:
Why can't we just ask him in the Summoning Realm? Don't we have a check-in at sundown (which is when the Fifth Event ends)?

Okay, will do that.

I'm kinda...no, on this one, since I'm pretty sure us doing this will fuck us for the tournament (read: for getting into the tournament). Is this really necessary?

We have reason to believe we're already in the finals without word halves taken into account. The math demands it, unless the QM's have retconned some scores or event 4 was worth a ludicrous amount of points more than we thought. With that in mind:

Why is this risky then?

And thank him for his aid in the most recent Events. *cough*more presents*cough*

Oh for sure. Can we think of anything?

Also suggestions: Make Mist-style cuisine (with raw ingredients) + a cookbook; Mist-exclusive woodstuff for carving.

We could bring back a pile of Mist food and a cookbook and spices and whatnot for him to use.

Inferno Vulpix said:
We can talk securely on the Seventh Path, and if it is possible then we want to get on it as fast as we can, since we don't know how long Naruto's got left. We can also directly ask the Toads what they know about summon scroll mechanics and get their opinion on its viability.

How do we communicate this to Keiko then? Hand signs? Seems risky with the stakes at play. I'll think on this.

Oneiros said:
Personally I think you could add it to the talk with Downfall. Just tell Shin that we are open to talking to the Kurosawa clan in the future

Is that true? I thought Hazou hated these guys

Noumero · Aug 20, 2018

MMKII said:
Word Halves:

Giving Team Kurenai only one-third is risky:

Pessimistic estimate says that only word-halves of the people still in the running count. Which means we have 72-2x9 = 54 word-halves. In this case, if we give Team Kurenai 50%, they'll need to be worth ~30 points each, to propel Team Kurenai into the tournament. If we give them one-third, then they will have to cost ~50 points or so.

Granted, they could just give all of them to Hinata, in which case a cost of 16 points will be enough. Maybe decide on exact distribution with Shikamaru's input?

MMKII said:
I basically don't want to bring this up until Leaf. Is Jiraiya not coming back with us?

Probably not. Mention it to Keiko, have her suggest in the Summon Realm.

faflec said:
I'm kinda...no, on this one, since I'm pretty sure us doing this will fuck us for the tournament (read: for getting into the tournament). Is this really necessary?

No it will not. It's not necessary, but would be pretty good.

Noumero said:
I think we should give two-thirds of our word-halves to Team Kurenai to get them into the tournament. It's a win-win for everyone involved in all realistic worlds:

The attempt makes us look good: Improves our relations with Team Kurenai itself, shows that we in particular and our clan as a whole still values cooperation.

If they make it into the tournament: Everyone who matters knows that it was done solely because of our actions. The Hyuuga don't look good: they're now in debt to us. Leaf dominates the tournament.

If they don't make it: Oh well, nothing lost.

Can we vote for that? Or ask Jiraiya's opinion, then do as he says?

Edit: Also:

If they make it and we beat them: Absolute political domination.

If they make it and beat us: Acceptable. (And implausible.)

Noumero said:
I'm confident that there's mathematically no possible way of distributing the word-halves such that it pushes us out of the tournament. We've won too hard.

We have... How many word-halves do we have?

Let's assume that word-halves count if they were stolen from ninja who were in the running at the moment of theft. (E. g., if we stole someone's word-half in the Swamp, and this person later was disqualified, we get the points, but if we got a word-half of a disqualified ninja after the disqualification, it doesn't count.) We have personal word-halves of everyone in the running except ISC's Blue Team and our R1 teammates, i. e. 57. Let's further assume that half of everyone who was disqualified lost their word-halves. That means we have (57 + (~300-72)/2) = ~171 word-halves (upper estimate).

We currently occupy fourth/fifth/sixth places in overall rankings. That means Team Kurenai will have to propel thirteen people to above us.

Let's assume there was a non-Kurenai team with 600 points. They clearly weren't one of our or ISC's teammates, which means they just lost 500+ points. Our score: 141+445 = 586. Their score: 600-500 = 100. We still have ~500 points of advantage.

Let's further assume that there were thirteen people with 600 scores prior to the Fifth Event. Team Kurenai evenly distributes the word-halves between them, giving them 13 word-halves each. For them all to overtake us, each word-half must cost ~40 points, assuming that we gave Team Kurenai all our word-halves aside from our own and assuming that there's no penalty for losing your own word-half.

Note that there's no less than three impossibilities assumed, and we're still fine if we don't give up all our word-halves.

Further, I don't think Team Kurenai will do that.

They want to get into the tournament too.

Distributing word-halves makes it unlikely that they'll help anyone, as per calculations above.

Political implications are horrible. We tried to help them, and they betrayed us to other villages? It'll be a political suicide for the Hyuuga.

As such, I think we should give them as many word-halves as possible, to ensure that they have good chances of making it even if the rewards for having them are low. Not all, but two-thirds seems sensible.

Noumero said:
Hmm. Assuming that word-halves cost 10 points (reasonable given everything that happened, in my opinion), we'll need to give Team Kurenai... 87 word-halves (1), assuming we want to ensure that all of them get into the tournament. This is about half of my upper estimate... okay, I agree.

1. Pessimistic math: They lost 630 points, had 600 points, there's thirteen people among the eighteen of our teammates who had ~300 points going into the Fifth Event. (300-40) - (600-630) = ~ 290 score difference; 290 points x 3 people / 10 cost = 87 word-halves.

faflec · Aug 20, 2018

MMKII said:
We have reason to believe we're already in the finals without word halves taken into account. The math demands it, unless the QM's have retconned some scores or event 4 was worth a ludicrous amount of points more than we thought. With that in mind:

Why is this risky then?

Noumero said:
No it will not. It's not necessary, but would be pretty good.

I looked at your math, and I state that I am confused.

Let's further assume that half of everyone who was disqualified lost their word-halves. That means we have (57 + (~300-72)/2) = ~171 word-halves (upper estimate).

I understand that we've gotten 57 word-halves from this Round, plus a small handful comprising our own word-halves and one or two from the Swamp Event/directly after it...but where is the rest coming from? I don't see it.

tl;dr I'm confused on the math and will hold off until discussed.

MMKII said:
Oh for sure. Can we think of anything?

I wish. I'm terrible at gifts

MMKII said:
We could bring back a pile of Mist food and a cookbook and spices and whatnot for him to use.

That's a good idea.

Tua · Aug 20, 2018

@MMKII

Why do you want to give ISC any word halves to begin with? They don't need the points and someone like Shikamaru has clearly shown he doesn't care about empty nice gestures with his pragmatic outlook. He will know and understand why we don't give them word halves but want to give Team Kurenai some.

Emstar · Aug 20, 2018

faflec said:
I looked at your math, and I state that I am confused.

I understand that we've gotten 57 word-halves from this Round, plus a small handful comprising our own word-halves and one or two from the Swamp Event/directly after it...but where is the rest coming from? I don't see it.

He's calculating an upper bound for total word halves possibly still in play I think.

tl;dr I'm confused on the math and will hold off until discussed.

Relevant portion:

Basically, since Round 1 undid our Event 4 more or less, and we were leading before that, we are now right behind ISC as of Round 1 end.

Round 2 gave us an additional ~200 points and further put most everybody else (who was not ISC, our R1 Team, our R2 Teammates, or theirs) in the hole.

We should be firmly in second place.

On the other hand: Even if Team Kurenai had like, 600 points going into Event 5, they just lost about 630. So they should have negative points. If I'm reading the calcs done in the last few pages right.

Basically: There should be serious doubt as to how the hell they're getting into the finals. There should be a solid 6-8 teams above them, pessimistically. Unless Event 4 was worth significantly more maximum points to give them way more than the 600 going into Event 5. But we know their score for Event 2, and we know they didn't do as well as us or ISC in Event 3, so this seems like a stretch.

I wish. I'm terrible at gifts

That's a good idea.

Aight I'll think on it.

FUCK EDITING BBCODE IN THIS EDITING WINDOW BY THE WAY! STUPID TEXT COLORS KEEP DANCING EVERYWHERE!!!!

Emstar · Aug 20, 2018

Tua said:
@MMKII

Why do you want to give ISC any word halves to begin with? They don't need the points and someone like Shikamaru has clearly shown he doesn't care about empty nice gestures with his pragmatic outlook. He will know and understand why we don't give them word halves but want to give Team Kurenai some.

I know that ISC don't care, and I know we don't care. But this may look weird to Team Kurenai depending on how its done.

(I was also worried about possibly excluding them accidentally and sending the wrong poltical message. Might not apply )

If they are present at all and are just sort of sitting there, it sorta looks like we are giving a weird political gift to Hinata et al (WHICH WE ARE! but I want this to come across as "For greater Leaf interests we are giving these to y'all in the spirit of a Leaf dominated tournament, hail the Will of Fire." and all that jazz.)

Noumero · Aug 20, 2018

faflec said:
I understand that we've gotten 57 word-halves from this Round, plus a small handful comprising our own word-halves and one or two from the Swamp Event/directly after it...but where is the rest coming from? I don't see it.

tl;dr I'm confused on the math and will hold off until discussed.

Initially, there were ~300 contestants or so; three fourths of them were disqualified. However, I'm assuming, half of them managed to lose their word-halves before getting disqualified.

I'm further assuming that all word-half-thieves were crushed by us during the Fifth Event, meaning that we have their personal word-halves and all word-halves they stole. Hence 54 from the people in the running plus 114 from the ones who were disqualified, in possession of whose word-halves the 54 victims were.

In any case, it's a pessimistic upper estimate. The less word-halves we have, the more secure our position is. For example, maybe word-halves of everyone who is not in the running anymore don't count.

MMKII said:
Unless Event 4 was worth significantly more maximum points to give them way more than the 600 going into Event 5

Nope, that's an upper estimate actually (I'm a pessimistic-estimate type of person). They got around 200 points for Event 4, and it assumes that they did approximately as good as us during Event 3 (fourth place or so) and as good as possible during Event 2.

Inferno Vulpix · Aug 20, 2018

MMKII said:
How do we communicate this to Keiko then? Hand signs? Seems risky with the stakes at play. I'll think on this.

We could also meet Jiraiya in one of the secure meeting points that the Leaf delegation has access to. There's no way that Jiraiya doesn't have anywhere where he can talk about sensitive topics. We just need to hint to him that the topic is sensitive and he'll find us a place.

Dissonance · Aug 20, 2018

MMKII said:
If I fit anymore then @Velorien might complain about being tired of writing social, and then him and @eaglejarl will swap polarity for a bit and then @faflec hears and I'll hear him screaming across whatever physical distance in atomspace separates us.

Velorien said:
character development and comedy (the two things I enjoy writing most)

Idunno, I think Velorien wouldn't mind more social writing, from my reading of this. Might make a good change of pace from casting punch.

(Fun fact, SV saves multi-quotes between browsers, neat)

Tua · Aug 20, 2018

MMKII said:
I was worried about possibly excluding them accidentally and sending the wrong poltical message.

Then maybe ask Jiraiya about whether they would be offended or not when ask him what to do with word halves. Because I have a feeling Jiraiya is just gonna roll his eyes at us and ask us why we would want to hand points to the top scoring team otherwise.

Some more comments:

MMKII said:
Families:

Suggest everyone spend some time with families if they wish to.

Don't press if they do not wish to.

I thought about this some more and I think Noburi should be the only one talking to his family since he was really cagey when Yamanaka Neira asked him about his family. He is still attached to his sisters and he probably parted the most amicably with his family of us all so while I agree we shouldn't press him, we could gently suggest that he does this.

If Hazo wants to do so after talking to Hana, then he should with her tagging along. But I have a feeling Hazo is just going to follow his mother's lead here and only go if she suggests it.

MMKII said:
Hazou spends time with Hana

Talks about and asks for advice on Akane thing

Ask her to give honest advice

Maybe add a "Hazo talks to her about whatever he wants, keeping OPSEC in mind" since that is supposed to be his time. Micromanaging the Akane thing is fine since he is utterly clueless about it, but aside from that I think the hivemind should stay out of it.

MMKII said:
Misc:

Apologize to Nakano for the rough treatment

Will get him a medic in Leaf

This looks somewhat patronizing. What does it even mean we will get him a medic? Every Leaf ninja has access to them and us phrasing it like this makes it look like we a) have no clue what we are talking about and b) think we are somehow better than him. I would strongly recommend to drop this part.

MMKII said:
Team Uplift has a short conversation with Team Downfall

Sorry, underestimate us at your own peril.

No hard feelings?

Try to part amicably.

Noburi keeps wisecracks to a minimum.

The bolded bit conflicts with the rest in my opinion. Like, we want to stay on good terms on one hand but on the other hand we taunt them about how much better we are? They already know this so why are we rubbing this in?
Also would make a note that we do not split up like last time. Lets keep it everyone in the same room to avoid any manipulations.

Enjou · Aug 20, 2018

MMKII said:
As far as they're concerned this should come off as a friendly gesture.

You're talking about how it humiliates the Hyuga. The act can be done in a way that is a friendly gesture, or it can be done in a way that's humiliating. It can't be both.

MMKII said:
If we give them 1/2 of the word halves then it literally doesn't matter how they distribute them mathematically: it won't change our spot in the finals.

Each word half could be worth +1000 points and they still couldn't boot us out of the finals with that. It simply doesn't matter as far as the math goes. As long as we don't give them a majority share in word halves (>50%) then we're fine.

Perhaps we can share slightly under 1/2 and get away with it, if you find this sufficiently not paranoid.

Also its all up to J's discretion anyway.

I don't see the point in taking the risk of giving them so many. Last we heard from Shikamaru is that our plan would barely get us in, so I'd rather not take unnecessary risks. Just giving them back their word halves should be sufficient to get them in anyways - they were near the top of the rankings due to their performance in the fourth event, and if they're one of the few groups not dinged something like 100 to 200 points for losing their word halves then they should be good. And if they aren't, they frankly don't deserve to be in the tournament anyways.

MMKII said:
Yakuza:

We should thank the Oyabun for his assistance so far.

This is a relationship we want to continue.

Ask him politely to have his agents spread rumours of our flawless victory in Event 5 throughout bars and taverns in Water.

Intent: Pre-empt the nations rumour mil to our advantage. Build up our general fame and notoriety. Lay the foundation for further such manipulations.

Subtly underscore: It would be beneficial to both of us in this relationship if we were ninja of great repute.

Politely suggest: Occasional comparisons to Leaf's last legendary trio: the Sannin.

Pay them with a portion of the (unused) explosives we received from Kagome.

Jiraiya helps us word everything correctly.

Jiraiya told us not to talk to the Oyabun ourselves anymore. Plus it takes time to get an appointment with him.

Noumero · Aug 20, 2018

Enjou said:
I don't see the point in taking the risk of giving them so many. Last we heard from Shikamaru is that our plan would barely get us in, so I'd rather not take unnecessary risks.

I do not see where you're getting it from. During the collusion, he directly stated that we will be at the very top of the rankings, directly below ISC. The most similar statement —

OliWhail said:
"Wait, does that leave space for us to get into the tournament?" Noburi asked, concerned.

"...barely," Keiko answered distantly after a moment. "Between Chinin, Kongou, Mugiwara, and the number of solidly performing teams from Mist, I am confident the only way we send nine Leaf nin to the tournament involves making Nara's plan work.

— is made by Keiko, and it concerns our ability to send three Leaf squads into the tournament, not the Gouketsu's chances of making it.

All of this is consistent with my calculations.

Emstar · Aug 20, 2018

Noumero said:
Nope, that's an upper estimate actually (I'm an pessimistic-estimate type of person). They got around 200 points for Event 4, and it assumes that they did approximately as good as us during Event 3 (fourth place or so) and as good as possible during Event 2.

@faflec Yeah so ^^^

Maybe something to be addressed:

@eaglejarl @OliWhail @Velorien

So in character, Shika has told us that Team K was set for the finals. By @Noumero 's math however (with some fairly pessimistic estimates) this is heavily in doubt. Maybe doublecheck the math (if you have it around) on your end?

Noumero said:
Yes. A summary:

Top six tournament spots are reserved for ISC and Team Uplift respectively: we gained no less than 400 points over everyone, neatly nullifying all advantages non-ISC top-scorers got after the Fourth Event (we lost 200 points during it, top-scorers gained ~200, now they lost relative 400+).

ISC remained an unharmed top-scorer, and got a +60 points advantage over us.

Then there's three other tiers:

1. Six squads who scored between +35 and -40 points for this event. (Uplift's R1 teammates, and ISC's R1/R2 teammates.)
2. Two squads who scored -235 points. (Uplift's R2 teammates.)
3. Fourteen squads who scored between -555 and -795. (Everyone, well, else.)

Accounting for Team Kurenai: By my calculations, they lost 465 points at best1 and 630 points at worst2. This means they have no less than ten squads far above them: two squads with 230 points advantage, six squads with 425+ points advantage, and two squads with fuck-you points advantage. Disregarding us and the two second-tier squads, and assuming that half the ninja remaining drop out, Team Kurenai still has nine contestants above them. Since the people who won't drop out likely had fine scores prior to the Fifth Event (e. g., 200 points to contrast Kurenai's max 600)...

I think Team Kurenai still could get into the tournament. Everything is possible in theory.

Edit: I will miss this statistics stuff I got to do these Exams.

1. -300 points for R1. R2: were paired with R1 teammates of ISC: 3 x -55 = -165. Sum up.
2. -300 points for R1. R2: weren't paired with R1 teammates of ISC: 6 x -55 = -330. Sum up.

Noumero said:
[x] Interlude: Zabuza reacts to our performance in Exams

Well, that happened.

Final scores analysis:

("Usquads" and "Isquads" are Team Uplift and ISC's R1 teammates respectively.):

ROUND ONE
(+185) Red1:Uplift, Usquad1, Usquad2
(-495) Red2:RMook1, RMook2, RMook3
(-495) Red3:RMook4, RMook5, RMook6
(-495) Red4:RMook7, RMook8, RMook9

(-300) Blue1:BMook1, BMook2, BMook3
(+320) Blue2:ISC, Isquad1, Isquad2
(-225) Blue3:BMook4, BMook5, BMook6
(-225) Blue4:BMook7, BMook8, BMook9

ROUND TWO
(+185) Red1:ISC, BMook4, BMook7
(-495) Red2:BMook1, BMook5, BMook8
(-330) Red3:Isquad1, BMook2, BMook9
(-330) Red4:Isquad2, BMook3, BMook6

(-300) Blue1:RMook1, RMook4, RMook7
(+260) Blue2:Uplift, RMook5, RMook8
(-150) Blue3:Usquad1, RMook2, RMook9
(-150) Blue4:Usquad2, RMook3, RMook6

Alternatively, if ISC's R2 opponent included one of Usquads:
ROUND TWO
(+185) Red1:ISC, BMook4, BMook7
(-495) Red2:BMook1, BMook5, BMook8
(-330) Red3:Isquad1, BMook2, BMook9
(-330) Red4:Isquad2, BMook3, BMook6

(-225) Blue1:Usquad1, RMook2, RMook9
(+260) Blue2:Uplift, RMook5, RMook8
(-225) Blue3:RMook1, RMook4, RMook7
(-150) Blue4:Usquad2, RMook3, RMook6

(Relative to Team Uplift's score (+445), ordered in descending order. Assumed alternative 2, because it's more probable and also matters little.)

isc = 320+185-445 = +60
uplift = 185+260-445 = 0

usquad2 = 185-150-445 = -410

isquad1 = 320-330-445 = -455
isquad2 = 320-330-445 = -455

bmook4 = -225+185-445 = -485
bmook7 = -225+185-445 = -485
usquad1 = 185-225-445 = -485
__________________________
rmook5 = -495+260-445 = -680
rmook8 = -495+260-445 = -680

bmook6 = -225-330-445 = -1000
bmook9 = -225-330-445 = -1000

bmook2 = -300-330-445 = -1075
bmook3 = -300-330-445 = -1075

rmook3 = -495-150-445 = -1090
rmook6 = -495-150-445 = -1090

bmook5 = -225-495-445 = -1165
bmook8 = -225-495-445 = -1165
rmook1 = -495-225-445 = -1165
rmook2 = -495-225-445 = -1165
rmook4 = -495-225-445 = -1165
rmook7 = -495-225-445 = -1165
rmook9 = -495-225-445 = -1165

bmook1 = -300-495-445 = -1240

Our calculations for highest-scoring team before Fifth Event estimated 600 as max score: ~100 (swamp) + ~290 (courier) + ~200 (party). As such, the line represents cut-off point. This event effectively wiped scores of everyone except ours, our teammates', and two Blue Team mooks.

Yes, I forgot about ISC sparing Team Kurenai, but it doesn't matter much. They were BMook1, BMook2, or BMook3, all of which lost more than 1000 points relative to us. These -165 they're spared affect nothing; Team Kurenai may very well be out of the tournament, depending on pre-Event5 scores of BMook4 and BMook7.

gg no re

(@Adept_Woodwright, does that seem accurate?)

I vote we stay in Mist for waifu nonsense (Ami, Anna, Akane, Tobi):

It's commonly known that Marked for Death is, at its core, a romantic comedy. Why would you run away from our date with Ami?

We need to resolve our narrative arc with Team Downfall. We probably won't meet them in the tournament.

Something something Hana, something something Akane.

Most importantly, we've longed for a telescope for years. Do we really want to miss what could be our only chance? We live in a dangerous world, full of hungry Grues and sealing failures. We don't know whether telescopes would still exist tomorrow.

Determine which of us is more likely to win against opponents they're likely to meet in subsequent fights, then have the less-fit one surrender immediately? Alternatively, do that, but instead of surrendering show-off in ways that don't expose our non-revealed tricks or vulnerabilities.

Note: Some of the above math may also be contributed by @Adept_Woodwright . Don't remember.

Tua said:
Then maybe ask Jiraiya about whether they would be offended or not when ask him what to do with word halves. Because I have a feeling Jiraiya is just gonna roll his eyes at us and ask us why we would want to hand points to the top scoring team otherwise.

Note that this is in crimson font, so Jiraiya can change this or not have us do this as he wishes.

I thought about this some more and I think Noburi should be the only one talking to his family since he was really cagey when Yamanaka Neira asked him about his family. He is still attached to his sisters and he probably parted the most amicably with his family of us all so while I agree we shouldn't press him, we could gently suggest that he does this.

I don't really wanna single the guy out and be like "Do you wanna talk to your family?". Is there a more diplomatic way to do this without making it appear like we are targetting him for it?

Maybe add a "Hazo talks to her about whatever he wants, keeping OPSEC in mind" since that is supposed to be his time. Micromanaging the Akane thing is fine since he is utterly clueless about it, but aside from that I think the hivemind should stay out of it.

Can do. Will do so later.

This looks somewhat patronizing. What does it even mean we will get him a medic? Every Leaf ninja has access to them and us phrasing it like this makes it look like we a) have no clue what we are talking about and b) think we are somehow better than him. I would strongly recommend to drop this part.

We presumably will pay for a good medic and spot him on any medical bills for getting this treated to get the Deafness and whatnot done away with faster.

The bolded bit conflicts with the rest in my opinion. Like, we want to stay on good terms on one hand but on the other hand we taunt them about how much better we are? They already know this so why are we rubbing this in?
Also would make a note that we do not split up like last time. Lets keep it everyone in the same room to avoid any manipulations.

Last time we tried to have an earnest conversation with these guys, they laughed in our face. Shin pretty much said "You are too weak and inconsequential to be saying such things, Hazou."

I am 100% going to remind them of this folly.

Enjou said:
You're talking about how it humiliates the Hyuga. The act can be done in a way that is a friendly gesture, or it can be done in a way that's humiliating. It can't be both.

It depends on your point of view. On the surface we are doing nothing but giving them free stuff. This free stuff opens up an opportunity later where we will be able to beat them on the international stage (much more humiliating relatively because this definitively shows that we can defeat the Hyuga Heiress in combat, as opposed to her not getting to the finals, which leaves the question open.)

I don't see the point in taking the risk of giving them so many. Last we heard from Shikamaru is that our plan would barely get us in, so I'd rather not take unnecessary risks. Just giving them back their word halves should be sufficient to get them in anyways - they were near the top of the rankings due to their performance in the fourth event, and if they're one of the few groups not dinged something like 100 to 200 points for losing their word halves then they should be good. And if they aren't, they frankly don't deserve to be in the tournament anyways.

But it doesn't matter as long as we have more. If we have X points and they have Y points, and we split it down the middle, we are still above them by the exact same amount regardless of if the word halves are worth 10 points or 10,000,000 points each. There is no getting around this.

As noted above, some of us are raising concerns as to the validity of some of the statements to the effect of "XYZ will get into the tournament" or "ABC is the only way we could get Teams 1,2 and 3 all into the tournament.". Simply put: The numbers don't add up. So either the characters are incorrect, the QM's did an oopsy on the math, or theres information that we're missing/incorrect on. As we're being pretty pessimistic as far as I can see, that doesn't seem likely.

Jiraiya told us not to talk to the Oyabun ourselves anymore. Plus it takes time to get an appointment with him.

We can send him a message. It's also in crimson, so he's free to object.

MadScientist · Aug 20, 2018

REN: Now! For the last effing time! Don't. Group. Up!

SHIKAMARU: (ignoring REN) Hey Hazou, wanna group up?

HAZOU: You betcha!

REN: ... I need a drink.

Emstar · Aug 20, 2018

MadScientist said:
REN: Now! For the last effing time! Don't. Group. Up!

SHIKAMARU: (ignoring REN) Hey Hazou, wanna group up?

HAZOU: You betcha!

REN: ... I need a drink.

In which ISC + Uplift win the day with some semi-passive aggressive assistance from Team Kurenai. Huzzah, STL!

(I only wish Team Guy were still in the game. They're the best.)

MadScientist · Aug 20, 2018

MMKII said:
(I only wish Team Guy were still in the game. They're the best.)

On the bright side, we have acquired a Neji.

Emstar · Aug 20, 2018

MadScientist said:
On the bright side, we have acquired a Neji.

Don't forget to feed your Neji!

Should I add this in? I don't want it to die. I had this pet rock once....

Cariyaga · Aug 20, 2018

Team Gai were the only Leaf team threatening to us in the tournament, so it's good that they're out tbh.

faflec · Aug 20, 2018

Team Kurenai will have gotten <100 points for the Second Event; <300 points for the Third Event; <300 points for the Fourth Event. That's a total of <700 points, and yes I'm highballing it for argument's sake. HOWEVER, during the Fifth Event, they will have scored -720 points from geting whalloped (note: I assume we didn't turn in their documents to cost them an additional 75 points), netting them -20 points overall. Word-halves are not going to save them. Ever.

Noumero · Aug 20, 2018

MMKII said:
So in character, Shika has told us that Team K was set for the finals. By @Noumero 's math however (with some fairly pessimistic estimates) this is heavily in doubt. Maybe doublecheck the math (if you have it around) on your end?

I'm thinking it's one of the two:

It assumed that we'll cooperate with Team Kurenai more (don't stomp them, etc.).
It assumed that we won't manage to catch all Red Teams i. e. we'll have acquired less points.

Check my reasoning though, @eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail:

Part 1: Team Kurenai's score

Event 2:

eaglejarl said:
"Seals will not be distributed evenly," Keiko replied. "Teams will have been taken out and looted by stronger teams. Some of those teams will in turn have been taken out by yet-stronger teams. It is reasonable to believe that the top three to five teams have acquired on the order of fifty percent of the available pool. That is two thousand seals divided among twelve to fifteen people, or approximately one hundred and seventy seals each. It is likely that at least half of those will have been acquired on the first day, before anyone knew that they would expire. In that case they are now expended, reducing the likely total per person to only eighty or ninety each, or perhaps even as low as seventy. Regardless, we need to do some looting of our own."

Assume that Team Kurenai is too awesome to predict. They get +100 points for it.

Event 3:

eaglejarl said:
"As an example of a different kind of success, I would like to compliment Team Asuma of Leaf. They did not come in first in the event—first, after all, is a position that draws the attention of every eye. Neither did they come in second, a position that draws the attention of those wise enough to realize that the second runner must dodge far fewer kunai yet still has every chance of victory. No, they came in third, even going so far as to earn exactly two hundred and ninety-nine points so that they wouldn't seem so threatening as those who had scored above three hundred.

Assume Team Kurenai took the fourth place. +298.

Event 4:

OliWhail said:
"We of course want to recognize those who actually pulled out performances that were something other than utterly contemptible and deserving of nothing so honorable as being turned into worm shit. For example," he began, grinning maniacally, "Aburame Shino and Hyuuga Hinata of Leaf, and Sakamoto Shiina of Waterfall, for garnering over two hundred points.

This one is a bit less certain, since the proctor said "over two hundred points". But they were consistently mean to Leaf, so let's assume it's "around" 200 points, i. e. +250.

Best possible total: 100+298+250= 648 points. Note that this is the highest possible score anyone could have had going into Event 5.

Event 5:

Noumero said:
1. -300 points for R1. R2: were paired with R1 teammates of ISC: 3 x -55 = -165. Sum up.
2. -300 points for R1. R2: weren't paired with R1 teammates of ISC: 6 x -55 = -330. Sum up.

Either -465 or -630.

Current total: Either 183 points or 18 points.

Part 2: Others' scores

Noumero said:
Top six tournament spots are reserved for ISC and Team Uplift respectively: we gained no less than 400 points over everyone, neatly nullifying all advantages non-ISC top-scorers got after the Fourth Event (we lost 200 points during it, top-scorers gained ~200, now they lost relative 400+).

ISC remained an unharmed top-scorer, and got a +60 points advantage over us.

Then there's three other tiers:
1. Six squads who scored between +35 and -40 points for this event. (Uplift's R1 teammates, and ISC's R1/R2 teammates.)
2. Two squads who scored -235 points. (Uplift's R2 teammates.)
3. Fourteen squads who scored between -555 and -795. (Everyone, well, else.)
Accounting for Team Kurenai: By my calculations, they lost 465 points at best1 and 630 points at worst2. This means they have no less than ten squads far above them: two squads with 230 points advantage, six squads with 425+ points advantage, and two squads with fuck-you points advantage. Disregarding us and the two second-tier squads, and assuming that half the ninja remaining drop out, Team Kurenai still has nine contestants above them. Since the people who won't drop out likely had fine scores prior to the Fifth Event (e. g., 200 points to contrast Kurenai's max 600)...

More estimates.

We know that we and ISC are above them, meaning that they're at best seventh/eight/ninth place. Further, they lost no less than 465 points for Event 5, and we know that six squads aside from us lost less than 40 points for it. They're above Team Kurenai by 425 points at least, meaning that, for Team Kurenai to advance to the tournament, of the eighteen people above them and below us, 11 should either drop out or have had scores at less than 648-425 = 223 points going into the Fifth Event.

This is implausible: the ones who had the lowest scores will drop out, the ones who had good scores before Event 5 would be unlikely to. Team Kurenai, as it is, advances only in the implausible situation where everyone who had more than 223 points drops out.

This is made even more implausible by the assumption that they had 648 points going into Event 5, instead of something reasonable like 500 or so. (In which case everyone should have less than 75 points.)

Kiba · Aug 20, 2018

@MMKII Don't forget to do last minute grocery shopping. I am sure our clan + Hana will appreciate the taste of Mist at home.

faflec · Aug 20, 2018

Yeah, OK. I buy to an extent that we can give some word-halves to Kurenai without us getting fucked by the tournament, assuming we check things over with Jiraiya to be sure and also don't get fucked by a massive stash of word-halves being held by other people. But I don't think it's going to help Kurenai. At all. They're fucked.

Emstar · Aug 20, 2018

faflec said:
Team Kurenai will have gotten <100 points for the Second Event; <300 points for the Third Event; <300 points for the Fourth Event. That's a total of <700 points, and yes I'm highballing it for argument's sake. HOWEVER, during the Fifth Event, they will have scored -720 points from geting whalloped (note: I assume we didn't turn in their documents to cost them an additional 75 points), netting them -20 points overall. Word-halves are not going to save them. Ever.

I think -720 is a bit high. Its either -630 or -450something. We "spared" them so I dont think they lost points for consequences. Likewise, they will lose less if they were paired with ISC R1 Teammates, who were also spared a thumping.

Kiba said:
@MMKII Don't forget to do last minute grocery shopping. I am sure our clan + Hana will appreciate the taste of Mist at home.

I will make edits tonight when I am able to.

faflec said:
Yeah, OK. I buy to an extent that we can give some word-halves to Kurenai without us getting fucked by the tournament, assuming we check things over with Jiraiya to be sure and also don't get fucked by a massive stash of word-halves being held by other people. But I don't think it's going to help Kurenai. At all. They're fucked.

It depends on how badly everyone else did: they got walloped harder. Theres a possibility they could barely make it, especially if we give them the word halves.

Noumero · Aug 20, 2018

faflec said:
Yeah, OK. I buy to an extent that we can give some word-halves to Kurenai without us getting fucked by the tournament, assuming we check things over with Jiraiya to be sure and also don't get fucked by a massive stash of word-halves being held by other people. But I don't think it's going to help Kurenai. At all. They're fucked.

Ironically, I'm now less sure of that. Event 4 was pretty devastating, many people got negative scores for it. Maybe everyone who was not destroyed by us during Event 5 (i. e. our teammates) had ~200 points before it, since they were chosen from the bottom of the rankings. But I wouldn't be confident about it, and again it assumes that Team Kurenai was the literal best possible team. And even in this case we are absolutely not threatened by them or anything; we're in ~300 points total lead over everyone still.

Citrus · Aug 20, 2018

Points may also help determine tournament seeding - it would be nice for us to be clustered together at the top

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