Have been busy with own projects so haven't been as active here lately, but setting the whole retcon business to one side, a couple things stand out to me:
1) It's good that you got confirmation that Hiashi's election is not an instant death knell for the Leaf section of the quest, since IC elements were selling it as life or death. However, the text of the update and the circumstances of his election make it clear that he is politically the weakest Kage ever, unable to take potentially destabilizing actions like Killing You with Missions, because:
2) Not only did Hiashi have eight clans opposing him - with an unambiguous majority, nine,
opposing him had the S-rank Jinchuuriki and foundation of the Village's national security policy been given a voice -
he didn't even actually win the election. He's only Hokage because Asuma voluntarily stepped down into a #2 role and everyone knows it. Every single other Kage in the history of Leaf has been a high-tier S-ranker of extraordinary power and renown. Hiashi is nowhere close to their stature. This is as close to a 'coalition government' as one can get given Kage politics, hence Hiashi is forced to make noises about unity, etc nonstop.
3) Situations like this enforce a Schelling Fence where both sides can take 'unifying actions' but are unable to take 'disunifying actions,' the alternative is cold (bureaucratic, economic) or hot (civil) war. No one wants that so no one is incentivized to rock the boat politically. If Hiashi wants to be anything but a Kage In Name Only he can only take actions that are clearly for the overall good of Leaf, and the costs of said actions must be visibly borne at least in part, ideally more, by members of his coalition, lest he be de-legitimized.
4) Therefore, at least we can say
the players achieved this: Hiashi is the politically (and physically) weakest Kage in history with the most politically powerful Jounin Commander in history who is ideally positioned to usurp him at the first sign of de-legitimization. By every metric (including 'who would win in a fight,' since he has access to the action-economy-breaking Summons), Asuma is actually the more legitimate candidate: he's the son of the God of Shinobi, the longest-reigning Kage of all time, he got more votes, his voters were more committed while Hiashi's were wafflers, etc.
5) So
what benefits does this achievement grant?
A. The Meeting - To resolve the many practical questions & implementation details of their new alliance and the new administration in general, the two factions (or at least their leaders) will almost certainly have a meeting shortly (~1 day?) after the election. Their factions were opposed for good reason, now they need to make peace and bind the alliance together. This probably means concessions from the winning party to the loser (blunt the sting), graft, favorable contracts, and betrothals.
I doubt he would go for Noburi, but it's quite likely that Naruto (if he agrees) will end up being Boruto's dad once more, if you know what I'm saying... and Naruto would not agree to join the Hyuuga so Hinata would be marrying into the Uzumaki Keiko-style.
This alone would afford enormous protections to Naruto's friends and family. Even if this didn't happen, Asuma's not dumb, he'd going to get baseline defensive concessions for his bloc as a matter of course, assuming that Tsunade hasn't already gotten that for the Goketsu because:
B. Tsunade - There is no fucking way that Tsunade would elect a Kage who intends to, or even risks the intention to,
kill the family of Jiraiya, her closer-than-a-brother teammate of 40+ years and recent martyr who saved the world, especially since Akane is a Goketsu and her apprentice.
"There will not be even the remotest hint of a possibility that you the Kage or the Hyuuga clan will, directly or indirectly, by action or negligence, by your own hand or through intermediaries, cause harm to befall Jiraiya's family, and I don't give a fuck whether you think they're legitimately his family or not, it's what he would have wanted so I'm going to protect them" should be one of the foundational components of her agreement with Hiashi, and it would also explain why Tsunade found it tolerable to hose Naruto on the vote. In her mind she's already protected you, so she's just being chauvanistic, not betraying her teammate's memory.
C. Respect - This depends on whether Hiashi esposes his "ability = worth" philosophy as a rationalization for his gut feelings or he actually believes it. In the former case he will always dislike you and is merely unable to move against you because of his honor and political realities. In the latter case, your efforts having politically driven him to the absolute brink, he may feel like you were worthy opponents and thereby a worthwhile clan, especially in the post-victory flush of magnanimity.
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On a meta-level,
@eaglejarl , I think the quest would run smoother if you guys appointed a Head GM. Decision-making is just so much faster when you have the throughput of the human brain instead of relying on lossy text communication! Hierarchy is annoying but I think the costs would be worth the gains.
The Head GM would only have one power:
1. Can approve things without consulting the other two GMs. Everyone understands that things approved may be retconned later for any reason.
From what I've seen, the amount of times you would actually have to retcon would be very low, maybe 2% of cases, whereas the amount of time saved on all fronts (coordination discussion etc) would be orders of magnitude greater. You could pass around the Head GM role to whoever has the most time / energy for a given period. And since everyone understands the tradeoff (slight inaccuracy vs vastly higher approval speed), the 'political' cost of retconning would be virtually nil.
