I am telling you the reality of how the ninja economy work right now as best I could remember. Is it dumb? Yes, Jiraiya acknowledged it as such. Is it stable? Most likely not.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- 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
I am telling you the reality of how the ninja economy work right now as best I could remember. Is it dumb? Yes, Jiraiya acknowledged it as such. Is it stable? Most likely not.
This is another solution I could get behind(in theory, as I am largely a lurker), though that would come with the understanding that we'd owe Shikamaru personally a favor and possibly the Nara in general. (and the further understanding, of course, that if Shikamaru approved the entire thing then he could properly represent the Leaf vs Summons side of the argument well and judged it worthwhile).
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Would it be practical to just handwave this as a relatively recent development due to ninja-village system being recent, world wars sparking every two decades, and a large amount of ninja manpower being constantly expended to either fight back the dangerous chakra beasts that threaten to eat up their land or to patrol the comparatively large borders?
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Given that the village system has only existed for about a hundred years and we've already had three world wars, I would definitely not be surprised if the Kages looked at the idea of infrastructure investment and decided that it wouldn't pay out soon enough to be relevant.
Also, it's quite possible that the Kages did decide to invest in economic enhancement and decided extermination of chakra beasts was the best avenue for that, because a chakra beast infestation killing a village deals more harm to the economy than any of the other options increase it, and it also helps your ninja gain combat experience prior to actual fights against enemy ninja.
- Location
- [REDACTED]
Keep in mind that the status quo, such as it is, is like 4-5 generations old at most. Most of the ninja labor that isn't devoted to Malthusian arms race bs is devoted to protecting merchants from chakra beasts so moderate to long distance trade is even possible and keeping agricultural villages from being whiped out by chakra beasts. The biggest two bottle necks in the ENs economy are probably "chakra magic isn't being used to boost productivity" and "the amount of active agricultural land relative to total arable land would be much smaller than historical analogues due to chakra beasts".
Also scorch squads may or may not be a thing.
Edit: what infernovulpix and MMKII said.
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
@eaglejarl and everyone that is willing to tackle the seal economy problem:
Regarding the value of seals, the following has been established:
Regarding the value of seals, the following has been established:
- Kagome and Hazou create enough seals to have hundreds of the basic ones available at any given time.
- The average sealcrafter may have a lower output rate than our two, but not by an order of magnitude IIRC.
- All seals, once mastered, take about the same amount of time and money (for paper and ink) to craft.
- Clanless ninja can not afford to frivolously use explosive seals. Many of them don't even own a single storage seal.
- Clan genin, for whatever reason, also do not excessively use seals. Ino-Shika-Cho are an exception to this. Possibly due to one or multiple of them having competent sealmasters in their clans.
- The Tower buys a certain amount of seals for deflated prices.
- Despite seal output, Gokētsu still isn't swimming in money. Sealmasters in general do not seem to form some kind of obscenely rich upper class that focuses solely on their metaphorical money printing talents.
- There recently has been a development that makes sealing cheaper. Something regarding sealing grade paper for instance. For whatever reason this fact has not yet reached genin or clanless ninja in general. Other sealmasters may or may not soon show their annoyance at us for flooding the market with seals.
- The Hokage Tower has a general monopsony or other form of heavy tax for all seals that are sold within its borders. It is in fact a large part of Leaf income, comparable to the one from missions. Seals being sold to Leaf clans may be somehow exempted or at least less burdened, but clan ninja still limit frivolous seal use because burning money makes commoners mad. This would require a retcon of our sealing license. Black markets may become a future issue.
- All mentions of ninja being amazed at our seal output get grued away, or at least diminished. Everyone remembers even clanless genin "actually" having depicted an amount of seal use comparable to our own.
- There is a relatively widespread high chūnin/low jōnin level stunt that allows seal disruption. There is another, more expensive one that counters said stunt. The existence of these two stunts mean that seals are less valuable for people not specialized in them outside of genin battles.
- Making a seal is actually much slower for an ordinary non-Kurosawa. Kagome sunk a lot of xp into speeding the process up to ludicrous levels. All seal prices get raised to reflect that. Gokētsu's fears regarding money are grued away. The Mist Kurosawa clan are proud idiots.
- Clanless genin are really really poor. Almost every clan actually has a sealmaster or two. The market is lacking outside of war.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Yep. I think it's worth owing him a favor for this, though. Alternatively, we might be able to frame it as something he can do for his Beloved Wife, since the Nara don't have any summon scrolls.
- Location
- UK
Don't do this unless you can guarantee that the Pangolins can't verify, which I think they can, eg. by asking for a meeting with the relevant Leaf members.
These sealmaster economics issues are giving me déja vu
. @Rihaku's approach is how I'd have done it, and his numbers look better than anything I would have managed, so that's promising.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
That's why we get Shikamaru to order her to stop shipments.
Rihaku
The Internet
Sure, chakra beast extermination raises field productivity from .1 to 1 on average, then chakra industrialization raises it from 1 to 10. Thus, the marginal gain of chakra industrialization is 10x that of beast extermination under such assumptions: (.1*10*10) vs (.1*10+.1*10). It's all a matter of what numbers you plug into the equation; one fully operational modern field might be hundreds of times more productive than ten feudal-era fields of the same area, etc.
There are plenty of practical hurdles to such exploitation on an individual level, of which time scales are the most pressing, but if financialization exists then this is not as great a problem.
Similarly, any Kage whose sealing policies are draconian enough to engender substantially less seal production than the market clearing rate will (all else equal) find his forces outcompeted on a per-capita basis by their better-supplied rivals, so it is very much in the interests of the Kages to prefer sealing policies that strongly incentivize production. Of course, this incentive basket may not be wholly economic in nature - perhaps sealmasters or sealmaster associations are afforded cultural cachet or political status beyond their effective rank, etc.
- Location
- UK
I don't get your thinking here, there aren't enough seals for that.
So, for making our contract breaking less bad looking to the Pangolins, we need to give reasons for it that are sensible and make it look like we're not intentionally being dishonorable. I mentioned some of these before (but they did not make it into the update) so to mention them again...
1. Jiraiya's death has cost Goketsu one of its three sealmasters. This has reduced the clan's ability to fulfill orders while also maintaining its own stockpile of seals.
2. Jiraiya's death has cost Goketsu a large chunk of its military power. This has necessitated adopting more members into the clan, all of whom must be kitted out with a sufficient number of seals, which exacerbates item 1.
3. Jiraiya's death and the deaths of a large number of Leaf's elites has caused a rise in demand from the Tower. Leaf is weakened, and requires more seals in order to protect itself from a war that is looking to be inevitable.
4. All of this has also revealed that the long term sustainability of this deal is impossible, as the death of the Goketsu could easily result in the Pangolins finding themselves to be suddenly without seals after conquering even more territory. If they think what's about to happen is bad, imagine how much worse it would be if they had kept up their conquest for another year and were suddenly cut off?
Further, we might offer some forms of compensation. Possibilities:
1. Goketsu will give up claims to the Pangolin Scroll, and will grant it to the Nara Clan (whom Keiko has married into) permanently. The Nara are famous for always keeping their word, so the Pangolins will be in good hands as far as future summoners are concerned. (Though we might also want to spin the marriage as a reason we can't keep the deal either - maybe the Nara will no longer allow it? Could be good to talk to Shikamaru about this.)
2. If Keiko and Akane are okay with it, maybe give the Pangolins the Elemental Mastery jutsu.
3. Obviously, the last month's delivery of seals will be free.
4. Perhaps some guarantee that we'll deliver some seals in the event that it looks like the Pangolins will end up conquered or destroyed in the next few years. Just enough to ensure they'll be saved, but not a consistent supply that they can use for conquest.
1. Jiraiya's death has cost Goketsu one of its three sealmasters. This has reduced the clan's ability to fulfill orders while also maintaining its own stockpile of seals.
2. Jiraiya's death has cost Goketsu a large chunk of its military power. This has necessitated adopting more members into the clan, all of whom must be kitted out with a sufficient number of seals, which exacerbates item 1.
3. Jiraiya's death and the deaths of a large number of Leaf's elites has caused a rise in demand from the Tower. Leaf is weakened, and requires more seals in order to protect itself from a war that is looking to be inevitable.
4. All of this has also revealed that the long term sustainability of this deal is impossible, as the death of the Goketsu could easily result in the Pangolins finding themselves to be suddenly without seals after conquering even more territory. If they think what's about to happen is bad, imagine how much worse it would be if they had kept up their conquest for another year and were suddenly cut off?
Further, we might offer some forms of compensation. Possibilities:
1. Goketsu will give up claims to the Pangolin Scroll, and will grant it to the Nara Clan (whom Keiko has married into) permanently. The Nara are famous for always keeping their word, so the Pangolins will be in good hands as far as future summoners are concerned. (Though we might also want to spin the marriage as a reason we can't keep the deal either - maybe the Nara will no longer allow it? Could be good to talk to Shikamaru about this.)
2. If Keiko and Akane are okay with it, maybe give the Pangolins the Elemental Mastery jutsu.
3. Obviously, the last month's delivery of seals will be free.
4. Perhaps some guarantee that we'll deliver some seals in the event that it looks like the Pangolins will end up conquered or destroyed in the next few years. Just enough to ensure they'll be saved, but not a consistent supply that they can use for conquest.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Or we just leave it to Shikamaru, Keiko's new clan head with authority over her and a vested interest in her mental state...
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Honestly, I'm starting to suspect that the currency of choice between high level ninja isn't currency, it's techniques.
This lets us hold a lot of preconceptions, better enable the survival of high-ranking ninja, and not accidentally invent fractional reserve banking in order to come up with enough phantom money to pay S-Rank ninja.
This lets us hold a lot of preconceptions, better enable the survival of high-ranking ninja, and not accidentally invent fractional reserve banking in order to come up with enough phantom money to pay S-Rank ninja.
And why should we just leave everything up to him? You think he'll appreciate us just dumping this on him when we're telling the Pangolins that it's Hazou who is ending the deal? Hell, in that case, if we're not doing a damn thing to mitigate the damages then why should he care?
I'm fine with consulting him, but this is a mess that we're causing by taking the blame, so us not taking any responsibility for it isn't going to fly.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Uh. That's not what I'm saying? I'm saying, either we sweet talk him into taking responsibility for ending the deal for Keiko's sake, or we owe him a favor/hours for doing so.
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
Suggestion:
The Tower purchases Skywalker seals for the stated price, but also issues bonds for N ryu, paid out 10% per year. Additionally, the bonds may be redeemed for any state-owned equipment deemed valid use for missions, exchanged for equivalent market value of said equipment at time of exchange. Naturally, not using expendable equipment on the mission requires returning it to the Tower, and failure to do so is treason.
This has the benefit of more heavily incentivising Skywalker production while not bankrupting the Tower and not immediately making us the richest mofos in the EN.
The Tower purchases Skywalker seals for the stated price, but also issues bonds for N ryu, paid out 10% per year. Additionally, the bonds may be redeemed for any state-owned equipment deemed valid use for missions, exchanged for equivalent market value of said equipment at time of exchange. Naturally, not using expendable equipment on the mission requires returning it to the Tower, and failure to do so is treason.
This has the benefit of more heavily incentivising Skywalker production while not bankrupting the Tower and not immediately making us the richest mofos in the EN.
And if he's not willing to take the responsibility for it?
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Then we search out other solutions???
You mean... like the ones I was just talking about?
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I mean, I'm pushing my idea because I have yet to get a "That sounds like a good idea maybe we'll put it in the plan" or a "that sounds like a bad idea here's why" from anyone.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This comes up a lot, and I figure Hazō will have worked it out by now through looking at Jiraiya and the products of other sealmasters' efforts: Kagome is not terrifying. He's an average sealmaster who spent ~15 years living in the wilderness thinking about explosives.
- Location
- Yes.
But that is terrifying?