Noumero
Omit Needless Words
That's what it means to become family: learning to accept and support each other's megalomaniacal inclinations.
Last edited:
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
That's what it means to become family: learning to accept and support each other's megalomaniacal inclinations.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Keiko can become the OmniKage if we get to ascend to godhood and defeat Death in a very literal yet cosmic-scale back alley knife fight.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
We only have so many active players!!!
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Yet. Growth mindset.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Not sure, I feel this would be too on-the-nose. Actually...
Is Mari not handling that, inasmuch as it needs to be handled? She gave the Inuzuka a death gift, for example.
Perhaps we should make a donation to the... whatever official mourning ceremony Leaf is planning? Or start working on the monument to the fallen with Chouza, as I believe we wanted a few cycles ago.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Something like that, but maybe shelve that for next update.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
You mean as we have done for the past four updates and has been done in-character for a number of days so far?
- Location
- UK
I'm kind of regretting letting the thread's recent negativity put me off finishing this update 'till now. Honestly, that went pretty well.
I'm not too hot on the winning plans, but I don't see why they'd go all that badly. Some quick opinions:
- Keiko doesn't need chastising right now. At some future point, sure, then, but not now.
- Nobody seems to be taking any object-level actions or considerations here; "how do we make this go as reasonably as possible?"
- "protect the members of the clan" feels like it misses the point, which is just as vague a claim in my head.
- Henge metagaming is ultra lame, and I hope it fails hard.
- "Ask Keiko to invite Ami to the compound ASAP" sounds like a footgun; wait until after the discussion and confirmation, maybe? Also don't be vague about things to Keiko.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Maybe ping the plan creators that these critiques belong to?
- Location
- USA
Anyone else get really strong Littlefinger "I told you not to trust me" vibes from Nara Shikamaru's talk about the five minutes thought, about how dependent we were on the younger generation's support?
Like, I continue to be immensely skeptical that Hiashi is going to be ok with 5 Mist ninjas getting a vote that is exactly equal to his clan, which is a pillar of the Leaf. Or with 2 one-man-clan votes, one belonging to a woman who cannot bear to be in the village for a second longer than she has to, and the other a Jinchuuriki of uncertain mental health. There is a really big danger of a coup.
Earlier I was saying that it might be better for us to work out a deal with the conservatives, see if they could be persuaded to be magnanimous in victory, but now I'm worried that that is basically Shikamaru's plan.
Like, it hangs together a disturbing amount. We are a concession that the moderates can make without hurting themselves, and I'm worried that they will totally throw us under the bus. The people in our crew who matter to the Leaf (Keiko, Kagome) have handles on them that can be used to insure their good behavior even if something happens with the rest of us.
I'm probably paranoid, but the last time I was worried I said
So I'd feel really crummy now if I didn't speak up about a worry. Can some of the action planners take a sec and consider the plausibility of the Shikamaru=Littlefinger scenario? I'm sure there's a reason that couldn't happen, but it feels to me like we are demonstrating a childish faith in the idea that people who play board games with us can never betray us.
(On another note, I think Amy is just here to weaken the leaf by causing internal dissension between clan and clanless nin, and the favors are just her way of hypnotizing the hivemind, but that doesn't seem like a battle I'll be winning.)
Like, I continue to be immensely skeptical that Hiashi is going to be ok with 5 Mist ninjas getting a vote that is exactly equal to his clan, which is a pillar of the Leaf. Or with 2 one-man-clan votes, one belonging to a woman who cannot bear to be in the village for a second longer than she has to, and the other a Jinchuuriki of uncertain mental health. There is a really big danger of a coup.
Earlier I was saying that it might be better for us to work out a deal with the conservatives, see if they could be persuaded to be magnanimous in victory, but now I'm worried that that is basically Shikamaru's plan.
Like, it hangs together a disturbing amount. We are a concession that the moderates can make without hurting themselves, and I'm worried that they will totally throw us under the bus. The people in our crew who matter to the Leaf (Keiko, Kagome) have handles on them that can be used to insure their good behavior even if something happens with the rest of us.
I'm probably paranoid, but the last time I was worried I said
So I'd feel really crummy now if I didn't speak up about a worry. Can some of the action planners take a sec and consider the plausibility of the Shikamaru=Littlefinger scenario? I'm sure there's a reason that couldn't happen, but it feels to me like we are demonstrating a childish faith in the idea that people who play board games with us can never betray us.
(On another note, I think Amy is just here to weaken the leaf by causing internal dissension between clan and clanless nin, and the favors are just her way of hypnotizing the hivemind, but that doesn't seem like a battle I'll be winning.)
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
In order:
- I don't do that.
- Maybe?
- "Protect the members of the clan" is much more in line with what we wanted; the Goketsu Clan in the abstract would be much better off with the Pangolin Deal, but I think there's a fair argument that "protect the members of the clan" would preclude attacking members of the clan; you may have a point though.
- I don't do that.
- I don't do that.
You have a strong point.
On the other hand, those two one-person clans are Leaf's only two proper S-Rankers remaining, and make up an easy 20-40% of Leaf's remaining combat power, on top of a social-spec/taijutsu/genjutsu jonin named the "Heartbreaker", which probably contributes about 2-5% of Leaf's combat power, on top of one Leaf's few remaining sealmasters capable of making skywalkers - in fact, due to Hazou, the one sealmaster has effectively double the skywalker production rate, and skywalkers are one of Leaf's few remaining competitive advantages.
Like, Hiashi could try, but he'd probably die trying thanks to Naruto; the key factor is that Hiashi cannot start the coup. If he starts the coup and Naruto kills him for being a traitor to Leaf, Naruto wins the image battle. It's possible the ISC could throw us under the bus, which is why I want to start feeling out the ISC's actual opinion, starting with Ino instead of just assuming Shikamaru is on our side.
This, of course, ignores our ultimate trump card: packing up and leaving.
- Location
- Academy City
- Pronouns
- They
You're not being paranoid insofar as the thought of pulling this probably went through hiashi's head, but he can't actually coup us unless we fuck up and have concerted effort against him. Him getting the hat is one thing, but if we get it his attempt of taking it off us by force would flop unless he's been hiding some serious planning skills, resources, charisma, and gets a healthy dose of luck. It's even less plausible if we don't get the hat directly but instead have a more legitimate candidate like Asuma.
In a very real sense, we are able to militarily take on the Hyuuga currently, even discounting Tsunade. Sure, naruto is out of it, but so is Hiashi, and just by the numbers the Hyuuga can't realistically have more than 1-2 Jonin aside from him. We have 2 Jonin and (for the moment) the ability to get more via Keiko's summoning, a fortress manor trapped by Kagome, and 4 chunin level (about the best the Hyuuga can field as well) combatants who can support that. The Hyuuga can probably negate some of this via timing and sneak attacks, but realistically naruto clones are probably a factor, Tsunade could interfere, we have lots of allies (including chouza, another elite jonin, and probably maris friends like anko), etc.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
I'm of the mind that events like this should be either fully meta or fully IC. Either there are tangible consequences or there aren't, and trying to play both sides of the situation just ends up with the worst of both worlds, insisting that the event has consequences that can be interacted with but inexplicably refusing any interaction with said consequences.
Once the event happens and it's ruled to be an IC event rather than a meta event, it exists in the world and can be interacted with. It may be hard to interact with, such as an antimemetic effect making it hard to observe and even harder to remember, but you still have to put your foot down that there is a real antimemetic effect that exists in the world placed upon the event.
The QMs have already stated that the Grue was an IC event with IC consequences, and characters have already noticed and talked about the consequences, so to play it by halves would damage the fourth wall and consequently my respect for the integrity of the quest. Maybe Hazou can't spot the dissonance, the inferential distance being too high. Maybe Hazou figures it out but Kagome doesn't clue us in. Maybe Hazou learns the truth but forgets it as soon as the scene ends because antimemetics. All of those are fine, because they'd be treating the grue as a real event with tangible consequences rather than a half-real half-meta event poking a hole through the fourth wall.
- Location
- Academy City
- Pronouns
- They
Wow, you won't let me destroy our sworn enemies with these, but a few of our opponents coup leaf and suddenly it's fine? Geeze, these double standards are ridiculous.
- Location
- UK
I only mean the snark mildly, but yeah, my lack of enthusiasm with your plan is at least in part that it doesn't do very much. The "Reflections" section is time-sensitive enough that one should really consider an "Actions" section instead, and TBH I just don't care about Ino right now, which only leaves the Mari section and my unhelpfully vague misgivings therein.
- Location
- USA
I...that's just not true, right? Like, if we had even one WMD we could have used it to win the....gah, never mind.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Jiraiya specifically asked us not to think about them in-character.
That doesn't stop us out of character.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
- I don't disagree, but the thread seems interested in doing it now. I'm willing to remove it (the CCnJ section) if at least half of my voters give it a go-ahead.
- Not clear on what you mean here. Where/when/in what circumstances Hazou should/should not execute parts of the plan?
- I suppose so. What about this?:
- "Clan" includes her: her well-being matters. She shouldn't take actions which would damage her self-image even further, cross new lines.
- Metagaming in itself, or the particular way in which I'm nudging Hazou in that direction?
- I'll clarify regarding conditions. Not sure about vagueness — Keiko is free to request to elaborate?
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It is very much true.
- Location
- UK
The metagaming here is very blatant and feels unsimulationist. I don't mind it applied very lightly, or in ways that mesh more cleanly with worldbuilding (eg. optimizing stat distributions), but this doesn't feel like that.
I'll respond to the rest tomorrow.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
We don't actually have seven WMDs that we can use on a moment's notice. We have, if I've kept track properly, one strong WMD we can set up in an afternoon, one strong WMD we can set up in less than a year, and one weak WMD we can set up in an afternoon (that Leaf can probably counter)
The weak WMD is skywalking up and dropping rocks from storage seals to bombard Leaf. It probably won't work because the ninjas will grab their own skywalkers and kill us.
The strong WMD that takes less than a year is Elemental Mastery. At level 40 or so it liquifies air, which means - effectively - a humongous torrent of liquid nitrogen that sucks in more air that turns into more liquid nitrogen so it's an unending stream of liquid nitrogen that lasts for seven hours. Easily a city-killer. Unfortunately, grinding it up to level 40 will take months of effort, so we can't use it now.
The strong WMD that we can set up in an afternoon is the one and only Stacked Implosion Nuke. Implosion seals function by sealing up a ton of air, getting destroyed by the violent influx of air created by the vacuum, and then unsealing the air so it rushes out in an explosion. If you can protect the seal from getting destroyed by the vacuum, you can stack a bunch of prepped Implosion seals on top of each other and detonate them all at once for a pressure wave capped in size only by the number of seals we use. Given an afternoon I feel pretty confident we could build a bomb that could destroy Konoha.
Now don't get me wrong, we've come up with tons of WMD ideas. Most of them don't work, however, or the rules got changed because they were too easy to discover so everyone would have it (looking at you substitution nukes), but these three the QMs have distinctly not shot down, and their methods are obscure enough that we're quite plausibly the first to discover them.
As to why Jiraiya didn't use them... you know his complex about the Watchers killing anyone who uses a big enough bomb, or does anything too fancy with seals? It's probably that. He could probably guess that we had WMD ideas ready if he asked, so he probably didn't want to use them is all.
- Location
- Australia
How do you to propose to do this?