Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Reader mode
Briefvoice said:
Why should we care? Because I don't care.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The point is: If there actually was a mistake there it effects the seeding. Which means we might not be facing Sand losers in the first round of the finals, instead we would probably be facing team hotsprings.
 
@faflec
@eaglejarl

There are 24 teams going into Event 5.
This is how I parse Shikamaru's statement regarding the end state of affairs in the collusion chapter:

"Gōketsu will defeat the rest of the alliance and place them in cells. The Gōketsu will then supply Team Asuma with the seals, pangolins, and chakra necessary for us to take out the other three sites. The six of you"—again the gesture to Gōketsu's allies—"and the six that I am currently teamed with will have your documents destroyed but will otherwise be spared, and will be given all the word halves of your blue-team compatriots, bumping you up the rankings yet again."

Spare our Round 1 allies as much as possible, and everyone else is as malused as possible - even Kurenai getting spared was a post-agreement change (though, given we gave each ally one free "spare" card that they abstained from using, I think an argument can be made that ISC used theirs)

Round 2 Blue Teams:
  • Uplift - RT2S1 - RT3S2
    • has documents + 24 prisoners, 6 wounded: 140
  • RT1S2 - RT4S2 - RT3S1
    • no documents, no prisoners, 6 wounded (3 spared): -150 (-75 if against ISC)
  • RT1S3 - RT2S3 - RT4S3
    • no documents, no prisoners, 6 wounded (3 spared): -150 (-75 if against ISC)
  • RT4S1 - RT2S2 - RT3S3
    • no documents, no prisoners, 9 wounded: -225 (-75 if against ISC)
Round 2 Red Teams:
  • ISC - BT3S1 - BT4S1
    • ISC - turned in docs, 6 wounded, 6 in cell: -145
    • BT3S1, BT4S1 - 6 wounded, 6 in cell: -330
  • Kurenai - BT2S2 - BT4S2
    • no docs, 6 wounded, 3 in cells: -240
  • BT1S2 - BT2S3 - BT3S2
    • no docs, 6 wounded, 6 in cells: -330
  • BT1S3 - BT3S3 - BT4S3
    • no docs, 9 wounded, 9 in cells: -495
--
Every time I go back and read the collusion chapter, I reinforce on my interpretation

collusion chapter said:
Nara shrugged. "First, the six of you will be spread as widely as possible among the blue teams tomorrow—I assume I don't have to explain why—so you and Haga are unlikely to be working with anyone else here tonight. That means that, even if we betrayed all of you, you would only be down another fifty points over what would happen anyway, so your risk is minimal. Second, it would not be to our advantage to do so. The Nara focus on the long term; the short-term gain from betraying you would be negligible given Team Asuma's current standing and it would poison our clans' reputations. In all the stories of the Nara clan, when have you ever heard of us betraying an ally?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Nara assumed that the teams would be broken into two's, spread among the three teams, and that in the event they decided to actually betray them (which he then promised not to do) they would only lose the 50 points for consequences (2*25). That is to say: Nara says that the only way they have the malus from negative consequences is if they decide to betray them.

I legitimately cant imagine how the other interpretation is correct, given the above.

--
ISC defecting against their Round 2 Teammates is, on the other hand, not a betrayal of anything ISC agreed to. They were placed together in a down-selection tournament, and so long as ISC doesn't, even once, make claims to the contrary, they are free to defect against their assigned partners under the rules of trying to get a leg up in the competition.
 
Last edited:
Alright, so recalculating on the assumption that @Adept_Woodwright is correct on the whole thing...
  • Doigama, Fukai, and Haga get +75 points due to them not getting Moderate Consequence'd; their score is 426 (Doigama)//220 (Fukai)//214 (Haga).
  • The Sand Team gets +165 points due to not getting Moderate Consequence'd or being jailed; their scores are 480//481//493.
This means that Doigama goes above the Hot Springs team in score, and the Sand Team goes above both. Fukai gets the 16th slot.
  1. Nara Shikamaru
  2. Yamanaka Ino
  3. Akimichi Chōji
  4. Gōketsu Hazō
  5. Gōketsu Keiko
  6. Gōketsu Noburi
  7. Fujioka Hikoro
  8. Ikeda Tsukiko
  9. Kawaguchi Hanako
  10. Doigama Daiki
  11. Kashiwagi Noriko
  12. Kotsuzui Kenji
  13. Minawa Ichirō
  14. Aburame Shino
  15. Hyūga Hinata
  16. Fukai
Note: It is absolutely possible for Hinata's team to have members of ISC's R1 allies (the Sand team is the only one that matters, mind; the Claw team ff20'd). If this is the case then Kurenai's score goes up by 165 as well (463//463//261) and that ISC-affiliated team's score goes up by 90. Thus:

  1. Nara Shikamaru
  2. Yamanaka Ino
  3. Akimichi Chōji
  4. Gōketsu Hazō
  5. Gōketsu Keiko
  6. Gōketsu Noburi
  7. Fujioka Hikoro
  8. Ikeda Tsukiko
  9. Kawaguchi Hanako
  10. Aburame Shino
  11. Hyūga Hinata
  12. Doigama Daiki
  13. Kashiwagi Noriko
  14. Kotsuzui Kenji
  15. Minawa Ichirō
  16. Inuzuka Kiba
So...yeah. These are the only two possible ways this thing can resolve given the above assumptions, since everyone else's score is too low to get close to tournament seeding.

HOWEVER. I will point out that this a) does not take into account word-halves, which we gonna give to Goketsu R1 allies to make up for losing their documents (this might put Fukai and Haga high enough to make it, depending on how much we're doing).

It ALSO does not account for the 24 people in cells thing, which I still do not agree that ISC would put their R2 teammates into. Since my model of ISC would not have done this even knowing that the plan would fail.

Edit: Also, there was this thing about giving Kurenai word-halves, did that make it through voting?
 
Last edited:
eaglejarl said:
Jiraiya glanced around to be sure no one was paying attention, then leaned in close so that he was speaking almost directly into her ear. "I know that I cannot replace Shinji, but I will do my best to be a good father-figure for Hazō, and I definitely want you to be there too. You guys raised a great kid, and I consider myself lucky to have him in my clan." He started to pull away, his words finished, but then thought of something else. "By the way: If you want to become a Gōketsu, it can be arranged."

Hana raised an eyebrow, leaning back enough so that she could see his expression. He seemed serious. How could he possibly be serious about that? Changing villages wasn't a casual thing that could be offered on a whim. Bloodline theft had literally started wars in the past.

Still.

This was the man who had brought missing-nin in from the cold and rehabilitated them. Something that had never been done before, something utterly unthinkable, was suddenly thinkable. It would change the face of the Elemental Nations; once the word got out, missing-nin would be discreetly contacting Leaf, probing to find the possibility of acceptance. There weren't a huge number of missing-nin in the Nations, but there were enough to notice. No one would want the strongest village to suddenly grow even stronger; they would either need to go to war immediately so as to very visibly punish Leaf's transgression against the natural order...or they would need to start doing it themselves. And, of course, if you were willing to accept missing-nin then that meant that moving from one village to another was but a polite fiction away.

Mist was the village that pulled grieving mothers into dark rooms to be interrogated. Mist was the village of secret police and whisper campaigns intended to clear the next spot up the rank ladder in one's career. Suppose ninja could simply...leave? Suppose they could decide they didn't want to be interrogated, threatened, killed, and that they would rather go to Leaf instead? Or Cloud, or Sand? If villages had to compete for ninja like tradesmen for wheat contracts, would the world break? Any political system would allow only so much change, and only so fast. To go too far, or too fast, would be disastrous. Less so with Ren in charge, though; she lacked Yagura's power, and his psychosis.

"I'll think about it," Hana said, smiling.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This part was an especially delightful read, thank you :)
 
I spent like a month arguing that ISC should do pretty much exactly what I think they ended up doing (though I thought they would partner up with their R1 allies, to boot) - just as a declaration of bias on my part.

The entire premise was on the fact that Shikamaru explicitly wanted a particular end-state, and didn't care exactly how to go about getting it.

Edit: @faflec , don't forget that Hot Springs would lose like 365 points, in keeping with the declaration that was made.

Why wouldn't they put them in cells? What promise, other than Mist arbitrarily putting them on the same team, would ISC be breaking?

They still end up with more points than every team but Uplift in that Round, and they know they have hundreds more points than Uplift so they'd still get first-third, if they even cared about getting first-third rather than 4th-6th.
 
Last edited:
faflec said:
Alright, so recalculating on the assumption that @Adept_Woodwright is correct on the whole thing...
  • Doigama, Fukai, and Haga get +75 points due to them not getting Moderate Consequence'd; their score is 426 (Doigama)//220 (Fukai)//214 (Haga).
  • The Sand Team gets +165 points due to not getting Moderate Consequence'd or being jailed; their scores are 480//481//493.
This means that Doigama goes above the Hot Springs team in score, and the Sand Team goes above both. Fukai gets the 16th slot.
  1. Nara Shikamaru
  2. Yamanaka Ino
  3. Akimichi Chōji
  4. Gōketsu Hazō
  5. Gōketsu Keiko
  6. Gōketsu Noburi
  7. Fujioka Hikoro
  8. Ikeda Tsukiko
  9. Kawaguchi Hanako
  10. Doigama Daiki
  11. Kashiwagi Noriko
  12. Kotsuzui Kenji
  13. Minawa Ichirō
  14. Aburame Shino
  15. Hyūga Hinata
  16. Fukai
Note: It is absolutely possible for Hinata's team to have members of ISC's R1 allies (the Sand team is the only one that matters, mind; the Claw team ff20'd). If this is the case then Kurenai's score goes up by 165 as well (463//463//261) and that ISC-affiliated team's score goes up by 90. Thus:

  1. Nara Shikamaru
  2. Yamanaka Ino
  3. Akimichi Chōji
  4. Gōketsu Hazō
  5. Gōketsu Keiko
  6. Gōketsu Noburi
  7. Fujioka Hikoro
  8. Ikeda Tsukiko
  9. Kawaguchi Hanako
  10. Aburame Shino
  11. Hyūga Hinata
  12. Doigama Daiki
  13. Kashiwagi Noriko
  14. Kotsuzui Kenji
  15. Minawa Ichirō
  16. Inuzuka Kiba
So...yeah. These are the only two possible ways this thing can resolve given the above assumptions, since everyone else's score is too low to get close to tournament seeding.

HOWEVER. I will point out that this a) does not take into account word-halves, which we gonna give to Goketsu R1 allies to make up for losing their documents (this might put Fukai and Haga high enough to make it, depending on how much we're doing).

It ALSO does not account for the 24 people in cells thing, which I still do not agree that ISC would put their R2 teammates into. Since my model of ISC would not have done this even knowing that the plan would fail.

Edit: Also, there was this thing about giving Kurenai word-halves, did that make it through voting?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We did exactly 0 word half stuff at all. Kept it all to ourselves.
 
Last edited:
Adept_Woodwright said:
I spent like a month arguing that ISC should do pretty much exactly what I think they ended up doing (though I thought they would partner up with their R1 allies, to boot) - just as a declaration of bias on my part.

The entire premise was on the fact that Shikamaru explicitly wanted a particular end-state, and didn't care exactly how to go about getting it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
TBH I feel like you're pushing the "ISC KOs their R2 teammates and makes them prisoners" in order to fit the 24-person in cells statement. Which IMO would be more likely to just be retcon'd than anything else. It just makes no sense from my point of view for ISC to act in that manner. Even if it was a scratch squad with no official obligations as you say, surely they would want to be honorable enough to not do that if they were scared of a reputation for betrayal...
MMKII said:
We did exactly 0 word halve stuff at all. Kept it all to ourselves.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
But that would be betraying our part of Shikamaru's agreement (to give our R1 team word-halves)?

IDK this whole thing is a headache and I would just as quickly pretend that ISC decided that they were 'betrayed' and go rampage solo. Their seeding is 1st either way.
 
eaglejarl said:
That was the design intent, yes.


In other news, it is time to reveal:

The top 16 are:

1 ISC Nara Shikamaru
2 ISC Yamanaka Ino
3 ISC Akimichi Chōji
4 Uplift Gōketsu Hazō
5 Uplift Gōketsu Keiko
6 Uplift Gōketsu Noburi
7 BT3S1 Kashiwagi Noriko
8 BT3S1 Kotsuzui Kenji
9 BT3S1 Minawa Ichirō
10 RT1S3 Doigama Daiki
11 BT2S3 Fujioka Hikoro (F)
12 BT2S3 Ikeda Tsukiko (F)
13 BT2S3 Kawaguchi Hanako (F)
14 Kurenai Aburame Shino
15 Kurenai Hyūga Hinata
16 BT4S1 Ito Airi (F)

Notation:
BT3S1 = "Blue Team 3, Squad 1". Squads were kept together through both rounds and kept the same designation in both rounds despite being on the other team next time. In the second round Red Team 1 consisted of ISC + BT3S1 and BT4S1.

(F) and (M) are gender indicators because I don't easily recognize Japanese names so when I generated these I wanted a reminder.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm confused, Is there a reason Ikemoto, Kato, and Gomi have <-9000 points? Like, by my counting up the sheet, they have ~400 points, solidly putting them into the tournament. It looks like they just go -10000 points for some reason. Is that supposed to indicate them choosing to drop out of the tournament? Same with BT2S2?
 
faflec said:
TBH I feel like you're pushing the "ISC KOs their R2 teammates and makes them prisoners" in order to fit the 24-person in cells statement. Which IMO would be more likely to just be retcon'd than anything else. It just makes no sense from my point of view for ISC to act in that manner. Even if it was a scratch squad with no official obligations as you say, surely they would want to be honorable enough to not do that if they were scared of a reputation for betrayal...

But that would be betraying our part of Shikamaru's agreement (to give our R1 team word-halves)?

IDK this whole thing is a headache and I would just as quickly pretend that ISC decided that they were 'betrayed' and go rampage solo. Their seeding is 1st either way.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We were stated to have paid for all the word halves in our possession (i.e. the whole damn lot) as of Round 1 end with seals.
 
faflec said:
TBH I feel like you're pushing the "ISC KOs their R2 teammates and makes them prisoners" in order to fit the 24-person in cells statement. Which IMO would be more likely to just be retcon'd than anything else. It just makes no sense from my point of view for ISC to act in that manner. Even if it was a scratch squad with no official obligations as you say, surely they would want to be honorable enough to not do that if they were scared of a reputation for betrayal...

But that would be betraying our part of Shikamaru's agreement (to give our R1 team word-halves)?

IDK this whole thing is a headache and I would just as quickly pretend that ISC decided that they were 'betrayed' and go rampage solo. Their seeding is 1st either way.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm pushing ISC KOs R2 teammates because it is consistent with the end-state that was presented in the collusion chapter, in which all Red Teams other than ISC's Round 1 partners are in cells.

Kurenai is a departure from that, sure.
 
The obvious solution is one I think most everyone in thread will accept without much argument:


Shikamaru is a lying jerkface. :p


Edit: But actually, that Shika was a bit of an unreliable narrator as far as things go is probably the least painful solution
 
Last edited:
Radvic said:
I'm confused, Is there a reason Ikemoto, Kato, and Gomi have <-9000 points? Like, by my counting up the sheet, they have ~400 points, solidly putting them into the tournament. It looks like they just go -10000 points for some reason. Is that supposed to indicate them choosing to drop out of the tournament? Same with BT2S2?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Correct, that was how they marked people who dropped out of the tournament after round 5.
 
Adept_Woodwright said:
I see the humor, but I am trying really hard to not present my position with accusatory tone. I can't see anything good coming from this.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I understand where you are coming from (since technically that is the end-state he presents) but either I see it as "Shikamaru was not fully truthful about that." and we have the Finalists as is modulo some seeding error, or we have it as you have stated it and the finalists are incorrect (Hotsprings shouldn't be there).

If its the later, I think you would have to actually do the line by line breakdown explaining how that effects the points differential and why the finalists actually change, in addition to justifying why this was the cause of action taken. Which you have sort of done for the most part, just spread over a few posts. I don't think anything other than crystal clear clarity would be convincing on that front.
 
@faflec
Put another way:

Imagine an alternate universe in which ISC does not think their score is secure, particularly against a known top-scoring team. They get placed in the same Red Team, and it is fairly certain that this is the last scoreable event. They have the means to ensure they get another +185 points advantage over the team they're not sure they are beating.

The only reason they even have to consider not screwing the other team is that Mist (a group that has been opposing their progress from the start) has put them together.

They have made no declarations that they will support their current team, though a possible assumption is that they will.

I would not consider it a betrayal for that ISC team to defect against their scratch team. It is the logical move in their situation.

Similarly, in the real fictional universe, ISC defecting against their scratch team is one of many possible logical moves, not betraying any agreements that ISC has entered into. On the other hand, leaving a top scoring team without the additional malus makes it explicitly less likely to achieve the stated end-goals in an agreement that ISC did make.
 
Did nobody really notice it yet? Oh. Oh my.

Look at the scoring results again. Specifically, on the scores for individual events.

See, Katou is the social specialist. Someone who barely qualifies as a ninja, but is so good at deceiving people and playing roles that his village sent him to the Exams. Now look at the scores for Event 4. Order by highest-to-lowest. It basically looks like this:
  1. 6 people with access to bullshit bloodlines: ISC, Team Kurenai. (Scores: ≥550; Kiba: outlier, 385.)
  2. Our good friend Ikemoto (306).
  3. Katou (298).
  4. 3 people with access to a bullshit bloodline: Team Gensou. (Scores: ≥225.)
  5. Everyone else. (Scores: <150.)
Katou is min-maxed for social, and Ikemoto the "taijutsu user" from our Red Team scored on par with him in a social event, with no bullshit bloodline or a team with a bullshit bloodline to carry him.
Ikemoto said:
"I'm Ikemoto Sō. I use taijutsu, and I have a hedgehog jutsu that wraps me in chakra-construct needles. It's nearly impossible to punch me without sticking yourself, but when I punch you, you end up looking like a pincushion."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes, I'm sure that's all you are, Ikemoto.

Next thing we know, he turns out to be Itachi or Zabuza or something.

Edit: It's so bad we don't have full information on everyone's scores for all events. I could've done so many fun things with all that data.
eaglejarl said:
When Keiko came home from meeting you, she was wearing an expression that I have not seen since the war.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Inconsistency, I think? Keiko didn't come home from meeting her, she proceed straight to the Swamp of Minor Inconvenience.

And thank you for releasing the scores, @eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail. It was very interesting.
 
Last edited:
@faflec
@eaglejarl

Changed Scores

This is the old document, with the scores I presented a couple posts back updated in Event 5 Round 2.
The updated ranking accounts for the case: if ISC does in fact allow Round 2 partners to be imprisoned (as I believe their original agreement entailed), and all original Round 1 partners were spared to the extent allowed by the super-goals (ISC turns in docs).

1. Nara Shikamaru
2. Yamanaka Ino (F)
3. Akimichi Choji
4. Goketsu Hazo
5. Goketsu Keiko
6. Goketsu Noburi
7. Fujioka Hikoro (F)
8. Ikeda Tsukiki (F)
9. Kawaguchi Hana (F)
10. Aburame Shino
11. Hyuuga Hinata (F)
12. Doigama Daiki
13. Inuzuka Kiba
14. Fukai
15. Haga
16. Sakamoto Shiina (F)

Team Hot Springs drops out.
Invisigirl crawls in, and faces Shikamaru in round 1.
The rest of our partners from Round 1 who wanted in, get in.

If Fukai x/or Haga were against ISC (both cant be), then they lose 75 more points and "Oroka Hina" climbs into 16th place.
 
Last edited:
Huh. ISC rekt it.

Guys...

...We absolutely have to get Ino to marry into the Gōketsu clan. We're already sort of getting Shikamaru via Keiko. (Well, close enough.) There is no way we can conscionably pass up this opportunity.
 
4th event: Bodyjacked a proctor for all information except secret roles. Got 46 secret roles. Lost 40% of their points to being outed.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Aaaargh of course! I'm so dumb, I was wondering how they did it and it's so simple.

Vecht said:
Huh. ISC rekt it.

Guys...

...We absolutely have to get Ino to marry into the Gōketsu clan. We're already sort of getting Shikamaru via Keiko. (Well, close enough.) There is no way we can conscionably pass up this opportunity.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Soo, HazIno, ShiKeiko... I guess we should get Chouji too for the full set.
 
Anderkent said:
Soo, HazIno, ShiKeiko... I guess we should get Chouji too for the full set.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Chouji is our Noburi; useful, sure, but does he really belong in the same class as the others?

It definitely wouldn't help to marry them. What would that accomplish? If Hazou does get married to Ino, at least we could get him together with Hyuga. Neji is a much better catch anyway.
 
Last edited:
1234qwerty said:
Woooo! Look forward to looking at this more in depth at a reasonable hour. Outstanding job!

For now, here's this. At 10 ryo to the USD, total of 10224 points among top scorers in the 3rd test, multiplied by 1000 to get back to ryo, divided by 3 for simplicity to account for score being shared among teams, means Mist shelled out ~3,408,000 ryo = $340,800 minimum to pay for goods we were supplied to sell, disrupting the local economy by artificially keeping them out of circulation for reasonable certainty to have everything ready for the exam. Nothing like a totalitarian state, eh. Wondering where the money came from, I don't think Yagura will be too happy with the state of his piggy bank if we ever rescue him.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I appreciate you doing the calculations. Eh, $340K is a lot of money, but it's also not a lot of money. Not by the standards of a government. Military spending too, since this is all in pursuit of their ninja development program by giving the kiddies a full life scale exercise simulating a mission.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top