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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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I've been thinking about the spine and jounin aura problems, since they seem strongly related to me. I know there's some interest in utilizing the jounin aura mechanism not only for defense against hostile auras, but to project safety and belonging in the way that Hiruzen did.

The primary problem with this, as I see it, is that Hazou doesn't actually believe this deep down. When Jiraiya chides him for only being interested in weaponizing things, there's a grain of truth to that. Hazou, for all his social radicalism, has a very traditional (and, I would even argue, rooted in the Kurosawa "by darkness unmoved" frontliner motto) conception of what a ninja should be. Oh, he'll make all the speeches about using jutsu to build walls for villages, but whenever that happens, I always recall that one desk Chuunin in Leaf who didn't seem to have any injuries, and whom Hazou immediately mentally labeled a "skinwaste" - one of the nastier slurs to appear in the story thus far. Just because the poor guy decided to serve his village by not killing things.

This is, of course, rooted in our desire to become powerful S-rankers eventually, because what's the point of a battle wizard setting if you're not going to do that? But in a way, that goal is somewhat opposed to the uplift goals, at least in spirit. You can see it in the way we're almost excited for the upcoming great war, so we can finally cut loose and deploy all of our cool WMD designs. And it's not particularly surprising that this tension is also reflected in Hazou, the character. Hazou himself doesn't notice it, but other characters definitely do.

Coming back to the idea of the jounin aura and the spine, it occured to me that one way to crystalize our intent would be to forswear the S-rank path, and focus on constructive uplift projects. Reject the idea of a ninja as a mercenary killer, and instead be a builder and nurturer.

If you will recall, Jiraiya promised us an opportunity to try and resist his aura. The only way I can really think of achieving anything there, is to give up the fight. Accept that we can never beat Jiraiya, and focus on the fact that it doesn't matter. We don't need to beat him, or Itachi, or anyone else. And that's not how people's worth should be measured.
 
Roomba said:
I've been thinking about the spine and jounin aura problems, since they seem strongly related to me. I know there's some interest in utilizing the jounin aura mechanism not only for defense against hostile auras, but to project safety and belonging in the way that Hiruzen did.

The primary problem with this, as I see it, is that Hazou doesn't actually believe this deep down. When Jiraiya chides him for only being interested in weaponizing things, there's a grain of truth to that. Hazou, for all his social radicalism, has a very traditional (and, I would even argue, rooted in the Kurosawa "by darkness unmoved" frontliner motto) conception of what a ninja should be. Oh, he'll make all the speeches about using jutsu to build walls for villages, but whenever that happens, I always recall that one desk Chuunin in Leaf who didn't seem to have any injuries, and whom Hazou immediately mentally labeled a "skinwaste" - one of the nastier slurs to appear in the story thus far. Just because the poor guy decided to serve his village by not killing things.

This is, of course, rooted in our desire to become powerful S-rankers eventually, because what's the point of a battle wizard setting if you're not going to do that? But in a way, that goal is somewhat opposed to the uplift goals, at least in spirit. You can see it in the way we're almost excited for the upcoming great war, so we can finally cut loose and deploy all of our cool WMD designs. And it's not particularly surprising that this tension is also reflected in Hazou, the character. Hazou himself doesn't notice it, but other characters definitely do.

Coming back to the idea of the jounin aura and the spine, it occured to me that one way to crystalize our intent would be to forswear the S-rank path, and focus on constructive uplift projects. Reject the idea of a ninja as a mercenary killer, and instead be a builder and nurturer.

If you will recall, Jiraiya promised us an opportunity to try and resist his aura. The only way I can really think of achieving anything there, is to give up the fight. Accept that we can never beat Jiraiya, and focus on the fact that it doesn't matter. We don't need to beat him, or Itachi, or anyone else. And that's not how people's worth should be measured.
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I'll play Gandhi if and only if we play the Civilization version.

Nukes ahoy!!
 
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Since unless anything dramatic comes up we should be discussing how to best approach Mountain with Kei and Noburi next update. What all would y'all like to be included in the plan? How should we go about persuading both of them to support our goals?
 
Oneiros said:
Since unless anything dramatic comes up we should be discussing how to best approach Mountain with Kei and Noburi next update. What all would y'all like to be included in the plan? How should we go about persuading both of them to support our goals?
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Framing it as helping Takahashi out via cementing his position and strenghtening relations with HM through our clan.

Figuring out what a reasonable end goal is. Suppose we have control of Hidden Mountain, what do we do with it?
 
I really want more data points on the Jounin Aura before I come to any conclusions about it. Pretty much the sum total that we have is Jiraiya's perspective, wrapped up in his personal philosophy, and Keiko's nonspecific rebuke of Jiraiya's perspective. If we find out what other ninjas generally think about it then I'd be more willing to make decisions with respect to it.

I also wouldn't be quick to label what could easily be an ingrained response from a lifetime of propaganda as a clear signal that Hazou doesn't truly believe in his ideals. After the initial reaction, the 'skinwaste' then went on to basically live up to the stereotype ingrained in Hazou's head. The lack of eradication of that ingrained stereotype would still say something about Hazou, of course, but I still wouldn't jump straight to Hazou not believing in Uplift deep down (more like that he just needs to do more introspection until he's reevaluated as many of these things as he can find).
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
I also wouldn't be quick to label what could easily be an ingrained response from a lifetime of propaganda as a clear signal that Hazou doesn't truly believe in his ideals. After the initial reaction, the 'skinwaste' then went on to basically live up to the stereotype ingrained in Hazou's head. The lack of eradication of that ingrained stereotype would still say something about Hazou, of course, but I still wouldn't jump straight to Hazou not believing in Uplift deep down (more like that he just needs to do more introspection until he's reevaluated as many of these things as he can find).
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I don't mean that Hazou doesn't believe in uplift, though I don't think his belief has a lot of depth. What I meant, was that projecting an aura of safety and belonging requires making those things an important part of their one's identity.

Look at Tsunade. I wouldn't be surprised if she can't do the Hiruzen aura, and she's objectively one of the world's greatest humanitarians.
 
Roomba said:
Coming back to the idea of the jounin aura and the spine, it occured to me that one way to crystalize our intent would be to forswear the S-rank path, and focus on constructive uplift projects. Reject the idea of a ninja as a mercenary killer, and instead be a builder and nurturer.
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Mostly the problem I have with this is that it doesn't matter much what we do if Hazou gets killed in combat before any lasting progress is made. Also, we don't really get much say in the matter if Hazou gets assigned to a mission. We can make ourselves valuable in other regards, and we do have the Hokage's ear, but ultimately that's not our decision (unless we want to defect from Leaf).

Costly signals don't mean shit if you can't actually afford to pay the price.
 
Roomba said:
What I meant, was that projecting an aura of safety and belonging requires making those things an important part of their one's identity.
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I dont think Hiruzen had a problem with murdering the shit out of people that were going to cause Leaf harm. Even if they were Leaf shinobi or citizens.

How do you think Danzou died? Certainly wasn't a chakra beast attack.
 
MMKII said:
Figuring out what a reasonable end goal is. Suppose we have control of Hidden Mountain, what do we do with it?
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I'd mostly like them to work as mostly an economic engine. Somewhere away from the merchant council where we can integrate ninja abilities with modern production capabilities. Start making a ton of money to fund all of our political goals. Potentially be able to buy out the pangolin blood money we have acquired.

I'd also like to get them working on our sealing projects. Use them to slowly grind out new seals for us. Of course I'd want to have Kagome running this project to keep death as low as possible

Eventually I'd like to recruit some of the more talented individual to run part of our spy network. That's a ways down the line though and would be more individual vetting than turning the whole village into operatives
 
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Oneiros said:
I'd mostly like them to work as mostly an economic engine. Somewhere away from the merchant council where we can integrate ninja abilities with modern production capabilities. Start making a ton of money to fund all of our political goals. Potentially be able to buy out the pangolin blood money we have acquired.

I'd also like to get them working on our sealing projects. Use them to slowly grind out new seals for us.

Eventually I'd like to recruit some of the more talented individual to run part of our spy network. That's a ways down the line though and would be more individual vetting than turning the whole village into operatives
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Ooh. Yeah I am totally down with enslaving an entire village and effectively overwriting their culture and economy through well-intentioned but ultimately disruptive experimentation as a means towards furthering our goals of uplift using our unique personal and political leverage to negotiate a vassal state relationship between Mountain and Leaf, providing them with political protection in exchange for favorable trade agreements and establishing an arena to test out our economic and sealing ideas free from outside interference.

Why didn't you just phrase it that way to start?
 
You're asking Kagome to do a very big thing (and probably unwise) for him, probably alone.

But I do acknowledge Kagome progressing away from some of the more damaging aspect of his paranoia.
 
Kiba said:
You're asking Kagome to do a very big thing (and probably unwise) for him, probably alone.

But I do acknowledge Kagome progressing away from some of the more damaging aspect of his paranoia.
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At least have him set up the safety precautions that they use in the labs. We don't necessarily need to have him as the director of research in Mountain. Though he would be ideally suited for that task.
 
Roomba said:
I've been thinking about the spine and jounin aura problems, since they seem strongly related to me. I know there's some interest in utilizing the jounin aura mechanism not only for defense against hostile auras, but to project safety and belonging in the way that Hiruzen did.

The primary problem with this, as I see it, is that Hazou doesn't actually believe this deep down. When Jiraiya chides him for only being interested in weaponizing things, there's a grain of truth to that. Hazou, for all his social radicalism, has a very traditional (and, I would even argue, rooted in the Kurosawa "by darkness unmoved" frontliner motto) conception of what a ninja should be. Oh, he'll make all the speeches about using jutsu to build walls for villages, but whenever that happens, I always recall that one desk Chuunin in Leaf who didn't seem to have any injuries, and whom Hazou immediately mentally labeled a "skinwaste" - one of the nastier slurs to appear in the story thus far. Just because the poor guy decided to serve his village by not killing things.

This is, of course, rooted in our desire to become powerful S-rankers eventually, because what's the point of a battle wizard setting if you're not going to do that? But in a way, that goal is somewhat opposed to the uplift goals, at least in spirit. You can see it in the way we're almost excited for the upcoming great war, so we can finally cut loose and deploy all of our cool WMD designs. And it's not particularly surprising that this tension is also reflected in Hazou, the character. Hazou himself doesn't notice it, but other characters definitely do.

Coming back to the idea of the jounin aura and the spine, it occured to me that one way to crystalize our intent would be to forswear the S-rank path, and focus on constructive uplift projects. Reject the idea of a ninja as a mercenary killer, and instead be a builder and nurturer.

If you will recall, Jiraiya promised us an opportunity to try and resist his aura. The only way I can really think of achieving anything there, is to give up the fight. Accept that we can never beat Jiraiya, and focus on the fact that it doesn't matter. We don't need to beat him, or Itachi, or anyone else. And that's not how people's worth should be measured.
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Personally, I'm still waiting for @MMKII's effortpost on "Be" as the core of a Jounin Aura that he promised :V
 
Roomba said:
I've been thinking about the spine and jounin aura problems, since they seem strongly related to me. I know there's some interest in utilizing the jounin aura mechanism not only for defense against hostile auras, but to project safety and belonging in the way that Hiruzen did.

The primary problem with this, as I see it, is that Hazou doesn't actually believe this deep down. When Jiraiya chides him for only being interested in weaponizing things, there's a grain of truth to that. Hazou, for all his social radicalism, has a very traditional (and, I would even argue, rooted in the Kurosawa "by darkness unmoved" frontliner motto) conception of what a ninja should be. Oh, he'll make all the speeches about using jutsu to build walls for villages, but whenever that happens, I always recall that one desk Chuunin in Leaf who didn't seem to have any injuries, and whom Hazou immediately mentally labeled a "skinwaste" - one of the nastier slurs to appear in the story thus far. Just because the poor guy decided to serve his village by not killing things.

This is, of course, rooted in our desire to become powerful S-rankers eventually, because what's the point of a battle wizard setting if you're not going to do that? But in a way, that goal is somewhat opposed to the uplift goals, at least in spirit. You can see it in the way we're almost excited for the upcoming great war, so we can finally cut loose and deploy all of our cool WMD designs. And it's not particularly surprising that this tension is also reflected in Hazou, the character. Hazou himself doesn't notice it, but other characters definitely do.

Coming back to the idea of the jounin aura and the spine, it occured to me that one way to crystalize our intent would be to forswear the S-rank path, and focus on constructive uplift projects. Reject the idea of a ninja as a mercenary killer, and instead be a builder and nurturer.

If you will recall, Jiraiya promised us an opportunity to try and resist his aura. The only way I can really think of achieving anything there, is to give up the fight. Accept that we can never beat Jiraiya, and focus on the fact that it doesn't matter. We don't need to beat him, or Itachi, or anyone else. And that's not how people's worth should be measured.
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Almost sounds like rather than trying to force our will out, we let ourself flow through another's aura unperturbed, like a secret zen path you attain by not becoming an unhinged, elite murder wizard. I would be all for that.

Potential power paths aside, I do agree with a lot of your points and we should do more to develop Hazo into that mindset better so that it isn't as shallow in some areas. Maybe the experience of war is what will really open his eyes to what exactly he's done, making so many advancements to warfare as he has.
 
Roomba said:
I don't mean that Hazou doesn't believe in uplift, though I don't think his belief has a lot of depth. What I meant, was that projecting an aura of safety and belonging requires making those things an important part of their one's identity.

Look at Tsunade. I wouldn't be surprised if she can't do the Hiruzen aura, and she's objectively one of the world's greatest humanitarians.
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I sort of get it. Hazo wants to have that kind of aura, he wants to be that kind of person, but that doesn't seem to be how it works. Hazo wants to do good and it does feel genuine but there are times it feels less like a genuine love of helping people and more of....not really a messiah complex, not quite a martyr complex but somewhat close to that kind if mindset.

Though what exactly do you mean by spine? maybe I'm just forgetting something but I can't think of what.
 
What I want out of Hazou's JP is like... the assertion that he and everyone around him will be better than they were yesterday.
 
How many ninja are in Mountain again, 80? How many sealmasters?
 
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