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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Sigh If you want something done right do it yourself

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[X] Action Plan: A calm and reasoned response

  • Calmly Read the scroll Again and toss it to Kei
  • While Kei is reading tell her about your meeting with Ami.
    • Use CCnJ for this conversation
    • Stress that this was under Jiraiya's direction to find out more of her motivations
      • Tell both her and Noburi the gist of the discussion
      • Keep in mind OPSEC
    • Ask Kei if she has any insight into why Ami would do this
      • Is it possible this is a counterfeit?
      • Is there any significance to it being sent by a Mori messenger
    • Make sure to underscore how this is completely out of left field
    • There was nothing that could be taken as a Marriage proposal
      • The tone of this conversation is to be nonchalant with hints of confusion
        • Hazou is confused but not panicking
  • Head out to give this to Jiraiya
    • Follow as much OPSEC precaution as Hazou thinks is reasonable
    • Report to Jiraiya as soon as he's free
      • Speculate on why we think Ami would do this
        • It's a continuation of the meeting in being a calibrated test and a warning in one. Ami believes we can deal with the fallout of this, and she's demonstrating how meeting with people in private can be exploited.
        • It's a dare. She's essentially handed us a promissory note on the marriage. Given the circumstances, it's even more costly for her to renege than it is for us. So if we want it, we can take it. But will we?
        • It's an offer for Jiraiya. And if we don't show it to him, it's going to be blackmail material. But I think Ami expects that we will, and we probably should do so. The offer is Ami's support for the alliance in return for... something, not sure what.
 
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Fine, you've convinced me. We bring this to Jiraiya.

I think swearing on Shinji's grave is a good idea though. It's a similar level of "sacred family bond, now lost forever" that Kei feels for Ami, and that signals that we understand how serious a matter this is to her.
 
Ok, having gotten the memes out of my system, here's a bit of serious analysis. I believe this move serves several purposes:

1. It's a continuation of the meeting in being a calibrated test and a warning in one. Ami believes we can deal with the fallout of this, and she's demonstrating how meeting with people in private can be exploited.

2. It's a dare. She's essentially handed us a promissory note on the marriage. Given the circumstances, it's even more costly for her to renege than it is for us. So if we want it, we can take it. But will we?

3. It's an offer for Jiraiya. And if we don't show it to him, it's going to be blackmail material. But I think Ami expects that we will, and we probably should do so. The offer is Ami's support for the alliance in return for... something, not sure what. Pessimistically, for sharing Skywalkers with Mist and making the alliance unprecedentedly close.

With that, I bid you farewell and head to sleep.
 
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Whatever plan we go with, when we explain to Keiko that we did not propose marriage to her sister we should at all costs avoid phrases like 'It's not what it looks like, Ami is just fucking with me.' that might be misinterpreted.
 
[JOKE] ROMCOM CHICKEN
- You have no chance of out-plotting Mori Ami.
- Given that this is the case, write the most overly besotted flowery acceptance letter possible.
- Post it in a high-traffic area.
- Die mysteriously.
 
[X] Action Plan: Priorities
  • Dispel
    • If we are in a genjutsu, start palming implosion tags and Youthenizers.
  • Keiko/Noburi
    • This letter was out of the blue.
    • We did not propose.
    • We need J-man, nownowNOW.
  • J-man
    • Find him now.
    • Show him the letter and explain what happened.
      • Emphasize that we did not, in fact, propose.
    • Do what he says.
 
[] Plan Segment: From here to the door
  • Frantic thoughts:
    • Is this actually from Ami?
      • Check for identifying characteristics.
    • Is Ami serious, or is this like her attempted seduction?
      • She sprung that uplift favour on you without your permission, is this something similar?
    • Would Ami risk Jiraiya holding her to this?
  • CCnJ with Keiko, stat.
    • We met with Ami earlier today to gather information on her diplomatic faction for Jiraiya.
    • We did not propose to Ami or do anything that could conceivably be considered a proposal.
      • Nor did Ami react as if we had.
    • We have no idea what this is about and we intend to go straight to Jiraiya to get it sorted out.
  • Go straight to Jiraiya to get this sorted out.
 
This is where the maxim 'there are no stories "with" AI' feels very appropriate. Not getting bogged down in ratific canards about simulationism (because if we can't get past rationalised narrative formation in our memories we sure as hell aren't getting past them in our stories), but once you put in a metautilitrarian optimiser within an environment, by its very nature it'll dominiate the environment until either it or the environment have ceased to be.

I wonder what Ami is optimising for? It seems she's got around the Mori voice problem (flag for S rank there I think, jailbreaking around bloodline flaws) by basically becoming a Chinese room with no self for the Mori Voice to drive towards ego death. It's already happened, in a way. Maybe she has a model of 'what Ami pre-optimisation' would want and is steering towards that. Might explain her expectation of a short life span, if she can't retroactively alter her meta-goals.
 
ContextBot said:
Not sure if we are poisened or if this is real life, next we have to survive the Pangolin summoner.
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Excellent point, we could be hallucinating or having a vivid nightmare due to whatever the hell we ate. Maybe we should rule that out.

will408914 said:
[X] Action Plan: Excuse Me, What the Fuck

Can't hurt.
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It genuinely took me a while to click 'funny' on your post because I was laughing too hard to accurately aim my mouse cursor at it.

MadScientist said:
MARI: (sitting in a pew in the front row of the temple) I can't fucking believe Hazou is getting married before us.
JIRAIYA: I'm getting to it, woman!
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This is a golden opportunity for a double wedding, clearly. It'd be romantic, but also save a lot of money on holding the ninja village equivalent of two royal weddings.

(I'm joking. I think. Honestly I'm not sure of anything anymore.)

So in review of the plans posted so far, I like:
  • CCnJ with Keiko to tell her we did not propose to Ami, and that we need to inform Jiraiya right now because we're not sure what's going on.
  • After we get Keiko and Jiraiya up to speed, speculating about whether Ami means it for any of the purposes mentioned in the thread so far (forging alliance, seeing and protecting Keiko while keeping her away from the other Mori, making herself too important for other elements of Mist to dispose of, all of which would be consistent with her making it clear she was putting a lot of work into optimizing her interactions with Hazou) or if she's just screwing with Hazou again to see what happens. Keiko and Jiraiya should be able to help us get to the bottom of what the heck is going on. I know we're woefully unprepared to do it ourselves.
We dispelled five minutes ago and we were checked out by a medic, so we're probably not in a genjutsu or hallucinating from weird food poisoning. But I guess it doesn't hurt to check when we have time.
 
TaliesinSkye said:



Gotta hand it to the QMs, they found a good way to troll us. There must be pages of laughter in their chat after finding ways to fit the lighthouse reference and the Ami marriage proposal in one update. I'll bet they took finding a way to make it something the hivemind would not want as a personal challenge.

So. Screaming for Jiraiya before Keiko overcomes her confusion long enough to murder us, then? Or should we ask Keiko how best to deal with Ami's practical jokes and then scream for Jiraiya, on the theory that Jiraiya wouldn't arrive soon enough otherwise?

Edit:

Some realizations occurred to me. If this is a real move and not a joke (i.e. she's already told everyone and their cousins about our 'proposal') it might be a maneuver to make herself too critical to foreign relations to be disposable. And it might be difficult for us to turn down. So we could be looking at some sort of faux engagement as a political farce situation.

Or maybe Ami is doing it primarily as a way to get herself back in Keiko's life without dragging Keiko back to the Mori. It's a clever means of accomplishing that, I have to admit.

Or, and this is more likely than either option alone, it's both.
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Like she was actually in danger of dying within the next month, and this is effectively buying her time as she's now theoretically under Jiraiya's protection in name or something like that (if we play along)?
 
Citrus said:
Like she was actually in danger of dying within the next month, and this is effectively buying her time as she's now theoretically under Jiraiya's protection in name or something like that (if we play along)?
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Yes. Also, if she becomes critically important to foreign relations then she becomes much less disposable.
 
I hope that unlike most thread responses Hazou will remain calm in this situation. We need to think and talk with Keiko and Jiraya and get more information. We do not need to panic. In fact one of the big things about dealing well with unexpected (social or otherwise ) situations is remaining calm and able to give considered responses.
 
Origami Clock said:
Can the QMs not, please. Like I know gaslighting is basically an in thread meme at this point, but it's getting psychologically unpleasant to read this quest now. It's just not fun.
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We are sorry for the issues with Kagome and the timing of the letter - those were genuine mistakes resulting from an editing-reducing time crunch. I am sad that they have caused you distress.

Noumero said:
Is it another clerical error, or...?
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Ye. Fixing.
 
[X] Action Plan: A calm and reasoned response

I agree that we need to take this slow, explain whats going on, and get help from our family.
 
Oneiros said:
  • There was no romance involved by either party
    • The tone of this conversation is to be nonchalant with hints of confusion
      • Hazou is confused but not panicking
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This may be bad to have in here as-is, given that Ami did use seduction techniques on Hazou. I'm worried that Hazou would consider himself to be lying if he said this, with potential side-effects of compromising the authenticity of the CCnJ.

The other, more minor concern is OPSEC with Jiraiya. We don't need to go underground and stuff to show him the letter, but we do if we want to speculate about Skywalkers. It's probably a good idea to either specify full OPSEC or be circumspect about Skywalkers.

Other than that, I like the plan. It addresses everything we need addressed and keeps Hazou outwardly calm, collected, and thoughtful.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
This may be bad to have in here as-is, given that Ami did use seduction techniques on Hazou. I'm worried that Hazou would consider himself to be lying if he said this, with potential side-effects of compromising the authenticity of the CCnJ.

The other, more minor concern is OPSEC with Jiraiya. We don't need to go underground and stuff to show him the letter, but we do if we want to speculate about Skywalkers. It's probably a good idea to either specify full OPSEC or be circumspect about Skywalkers.

Other than that, I like the plan. It addresses everything we need addressed and keeps Hazou outwardly calm, collected, and thoughtful.
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made edits that changed the no romance to nothing that could be considered a marriage proposal
Also removed mention of skywalkers and added Hazo using whatever OPSEC precautions he thinks is appropriate
 
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