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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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So, there's a hell of a lot to unpack here.

World War is speculated to start up in about a month; everyone has at least one S Class ninja at their disposal with Rock being the most dangerous and the most warmongering. Either we need to contact the Akatsuki, like, right now (maybe by having the Pangolin contact their summons and bring the message of world peace to get them to contact us?), or we need to prepare to decisively defeat Rock and project enough force to ensure the other villages don't see Leaf as an easy target. I prefer option one, but both are doable.

On Yuno, the whole situation is a clusterfuck. For her to not flip to the Hyuuga (and thus have us essentially abandon Isan to them) Noburi has to be a summoner. The only person who can verify that for him (besides maybe Tsunade) is Kabuto, and we are currently playing chicken with him about the Basement. We'll almost assuredly have to give up some sort of concession on that point in order for him to vet Noburi.

Isan is also essentially revealing itself before the world stage right before a giant world war, and is making itself a target that has a shit ton of natural reasources but no S class ninja to defend itself, so good fucking luck lol.

Great Update @Velorien
 
Eeeeeeeeeee! I'm just so happy for Noburi!

Hope he wouldn't fuck up his second chance.

Also, nuking the Stone and dealing with watchers later seems more and more compelling
 
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Hoo boy lots of curveballs here. We might even need to delay the Forbidden Lore a chapter while we sort this out.

Spy network has to be delayed until we either finish the war or otherwise have another month or so of time we can afford to spend away from the village.

Isan is now a high priority with Yuno showing up out of nowhere with a quest for us. That means we should probably call Keiko over ASAP and do what we need to head out to Isan. Luckily for our interests, Takahashi hasn't de-religion'd the village so we still have a strong foothold if we can control the narrative. Should we bring Mari with us?

And with war on the horizon, contacting Akatsuki is even higher priority. As such, I propose the following two actions at the front of our plan:
  • Call Keiko over:
    • Send a message to the Akatsuki through the Seventh Path and make it look like their idea to contact us.
    • Explain the Isan situation and do what needs to be done to ship out to Isan and establish control.
Anyways, we have to spend XP now. See, the QMs introduced a Stunt called Apprentice Earthshaper that's required to learn jutsu like MEW, and Hazou not having it is a contradiction in his build so per Oli statements on the discord we should fix that ASAP. And with recent updates and OOC awards we just now have enough XP to get it (I've kept track).

[X] Training Hazou: You force my hand, I force the earth
Purchase Apprentice Earthshaper for 44 XP
 
Forbidden Lore: A Rigorous Approach​
  • Discussants: Team Uplift only (+ Yuno?). Security level: high. Topic: global outside-context problems. Format: a series of meetings, 1-3/week.
    • Keiko's presence is moderately important. Adjust schedule for her availability.
    • Don't take written materials on the topic beyond anti-Byakugan seals.
    • Bring cake.
  • Subtopic 0: Groundwork.
    • There's evidence of actors playing at a level higher than the Kages', and reasons to believe that their actions are directly related to the fundamental mysteries: the nature of chakra, the Sage, and reality. Identifying said actors, and solving the mysteries, should be one of our priorities.
    • Rationale:
      • Politics and Uplift hardly matter if some eldritch abomination — or another Rinnegan-wielder — comes around and lays waste to everything within a decade, or a century. If it's probable, we should make anticipating and preventing it our main long-term goal.
      • Getting access to the resources of this magnitude would be immensely useful. If we rediscover the Sage's lost arts, Uplift would be all but trivial.
  • Subtopic 1: Concrete evidence.
    • - Akatsuki:
      --- Rinnegan, capable of resurrecting people and summoning abominations.
      --- The bird summon Ren slew.
      --- Their reality-altering plan, whatever its nature.
      - Tailed Beasts.
      - Summoning Scrolls: Describe Hazou's experience. Not just a hallucination: gave insight into sealing.
      - Whirlpool's disappearance.
      - Bear (possibly).
      - Sky Squids: In relation to Subtopic 2.
      - Chakra chameleons.
      - Sealing failures and Out.
      - Chakra in general.
    • Questions:
      • What is known about the Six Paths?
      • Any other weird historical, or modern, incidents?
      • What is known about Bear?
      • Are there other chakra-dense locations (see: Swamp of Death)?
    • Background task: Look for additional evidence, add to the list.
  • Subtopic 2: Kagome's claims
    • Write their summary beforehand, for Noburi, Akane, and Keiko.
    • Kagome: Did he update/re-evaluate any of that? Or recalled important details he'd missed before?
    • Evaluate their veracity (optimize the approach with Mari beforehand).
      • We believe they're based on reality, but Kagome's certainty that he's eliminated all misinformation, and made no errors, is... baffling, given that we're apparently dealing with conspiracies of demigods stretching back millennia. Sealmasters are good at finding patterns, but sometimes we simply don't have access to enough information; and in absence of it, tend to invent false assumptions and connections. He himself taught that.
        • And some of his predictions were provably wrong: Leaf doesn't seem inclined to deploy lupchanzen against us, and even Kagome didn't act as if Jiraiya'd been replaced by the Sage upon becoming Hokage.
      • Ask him to give detailed information about his sources, and how he arrived at his conclusions. Even if it's dangerous — it'd be even more dangerous to proceed blindly, or on possibly faulty assumptions. Like infusing a new seal with no safeguards because you're sure you got it right.
    • Consider designating this information a clan secret. Announce the decision before the meeting's end.
    • Background task (if Kagome agrees): Break down Kagome's claims and evaluate their plausibility one by one, cross-referencing with their sources. Identify the most likely ones, at least.
  • Subtopic 3: Pain and Akatsuki.
    • Share the BotG briefing. Points of interest:
      • RESURRECTION TECHNIQUE. And the "Outer Path" abomination.
      • Pain's goal and nature.
      • "The Five are still sealed after a thousand years of sacrifice".
      • The bird summon — an archaeopteryx?
      • Fate of the lost bijuu.
      • Detailed description of the ritual site and Akatsuki's machine.
    • Ask for Kagome and Keiko's interpretations specifically
    • Ask Kagome for Akatsuki's book's summary.
  • Subtopic 4: Theories and information gathering.
    • Theories:
      • TBD [things like that; heavily dependent on what we uncover discussing the previous subtopics].
    • Prospective information sources:
      • - The Nara/Mori. Shikamaru and Ami in particular.
        - The Seventh Path. Ancient Boss Summons and the Library.
        - Akatsuki.
        - Tailed Beasts. Leaf sealmasters' information on how to seal them.
        - The Basement and Oro's organization: perhaps he knew something too.
        - Bear.
        - The Swamp of Death: very chakra-beast-dense, perhaps there's something interesting at the core?
        - The Nagi Island. Sealing arrays. (Ren could've downloaded them.)
        - Moudoku Village.
        - Isan. Yuno.
        - High-rank individuals and sealmasters. Sealed/classified records.
        - Whatever is beyond the ocean.
        - Religious organizations?
  • Subtopic 5: Response & Exploitation.
    • TBD [heavily dependent on what we uncover discussing the previous subtopics].
 
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Oh fucking hell this is just going to end with us pissing more influence and goodwill up the wall isn't it.
 
Incidentally, I've updated the Plan Cache to keep on top of all the things we're juggling right now, so make sure to glance at it to refresh yourself on what we hope to get done soon or soon-ish.
Inferno Vulpix said:
Plan Cache:
  • Contact Akatsuki and make it look like their idea.
  • Bring Keiko up to speed on Yuno and Isan and prepare a response.
  • Forbidden Lore.
  • Figure out the Adopting Naruto question.
  • Talk to Lee about adoption.
  • Teaching KEI members:
    • (Overarching goal: Look for overlooked (due to personality traits, the Academy's biases, etc.) promising students to adopt/apprentice.)
    • Coordinate with Kagome on teaching Sealing Theory. Don't teach practical sealing unless Kagome approves.
    • Suggest teaching Medicine to Noburi.
    • Is Naruto a technique hacker? Would he be willing to teach too?
    • Apply for guest lectures at the Academy.
  • Look into Orochimaru's, Bakushin's, and Goemon's notes.
  • Convene Goketsu Gaming Mondays. Invite Naruto and KEI specifically.
  • Scale up Salterns.
  • Clear the land we bought.
  • Find, rebuild, and re-key Jiraiya's contacts/network.
    • Use guerilla civil engineering as cover.
    • Make sure to look into the Yakuza.

Past Major Plans:
Sealing, Talking, Teaching by faflec

Rules of the Plan Cache:
  1. Get Support. The Plan Cache is for ideas that already have support of a sizeable chunk of the playerbase, not for ideas that someone wants to advocate later. For a benchmark, your idea should have enough support to be in one of the major plans of a cycle if there was room in the plan.
  2. Short-term. The Plan Cache is for ideas that we intend to implement in the next few updates, or more loosely within the same rough story arc. If you have an idea beyond that temporal scope, I have another post storing those ideas so ask me to put it there instead of cluttering up our short-term storage.
Sometimes when we're making a plan we have a good idea that's just outside the temporal scope of the update, but we don't want to cut it from the plan because we might forget by the next cycle. This adds unnecessary words that could have been spent fleshing out the rest of the plan, and may outright cost XP in the worst cases.

This plan cache will hold these subsections so they don't fall into the void between planning cycles. Just ping me with the subsection and, unless it's wildly unreasonable, I'll edit it into the post. I'll keep them there for a while until they either make it into a winning plan, fall out of favour, or the context significantly changes. Depending on circumstances, they might end up in my Side Project Cache, or they might be dropped, and I'll make sure to be transparent about what I'm doing.

I'll do my best to quote this post after every update, so that planmakers can get an easy reminder about what we never quite got to last cycle.
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Goals:
1: Stabilize Isan and set it up as a client-state of Leaf.
2: Make a show of force. Don't wipe out Rock - that is the kind of force that gets you treated as a bijuu-level threat. Demonstrating something scary on Isan's 'prophet' might be the way to go here.
3: In the greater scheme of things, going to war in the first place is a loss.


Notes:
In case you forgot, Madara Uchiha is the crow summoner. Trying to negotiate with Akatsuki through the person responsible for the Uchiha Massacre is going to be... diplomatically problematic, let's put it that way.
 
Further Thoughts:
- Orochimaru's organization likely reports to some other member of Akatsuki now. Akatsuki isn't just going to let all of old snakey's cults go to waste, and he's probably shared some portion of his resources with him.

- We are the literal inheritors of Orochimaru's work. (See: The Basement.) If we can't leverage that against a snake cult, we don't deserve to win.

- Our religious control of Isan through Keiko is an additional one-two punch, but definitely should not be relied on - Azan is clearly not stupid, and will have a contingency in place for her return.

- We should not be relying on support from Takahashi here.

- Marrying into Hidden Mountain is a strong signal that we're going to care about its welfare. Noburi needs to be asked, obviously, but there are major benefits to him marrying Yuno, both in the short and the long term.
 
You know... if we were willing to delay SC... Prophet of the Out has some interesting narrative effects.

I'm not saying it's a wise descision, but I am saying that bringing a bodhisattva to a religious leader fight seems like a good way to win.
 
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Possibility: Azan is angling to steal the summoning contract from Keiko. Note that "aggressive xenophobia" fits the Pangolin M.O. to a T, and Keiko is... not exactly the best summoner the Pangolin have ever had.
 
MadScientist said:
You know... if we were willing to delay SC... Prophet of the Out has some interesting narrative effects.

I'm not saying it's a wise descision, but I am saying that bringing a bodhisattva to a religious leader fight seems like a good way to win.
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I agree. With the war so close, and with SC investments having almost no short-term utility especially in comparison to PotO, and with even more politicking falling into our lap, I'm fully in support of grabbing it now.
 
Evenstar said:
Possibility: Azan is angling to steal the summoning contract from Keiko. Note that "aggressive xenophobia" fits the Pangolin M.O. to a T, and Keiko is... not exactly the best summoner the Pangolin have ever had.
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I very much doubt that Keiko is a bad Summoner for them, the Skytower deal was very good for them and Summoners are mostly Mercenary/Diplomats for them anyway.

Also:

Velorien said:
"Azai Rindō is in charge of breeding and training the tapirs," Yoshida went on as if nothing had happened. "He is a determined isolationist who thinks our village is the only bastion of civilisation in a benighted world. He's never lost family for lack of medic-nin.

"Aida Rin serves as our religious leader, and thinks you six are a direct threat to our faith. She's not wrong, but compared to ignoring the outside world the way we've been doing, you're definitely the lesser evil.

"Takahashi Saburō, whose son you've met, is our ninjutsu master. He is passionate about his art, and I will sway him in time, as long as you do your damnedest not to look like a threat, such as by breaking the shoulders of children.

"Inoue Rika" – Inoue-sensei did not react – "is the lorekeeper. It is a revered position, with implications I wouldn't expect you to understand. She has the most influence on the council, and is the loudest voice against you.

"Finally, we have Azai Shūsuke. He is Rindō's cousin, and a complete waste of space. He will vote whichever way Rindō votes, and doesn't have a thought of his own otherwise."
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We should question Yuno on their history/mythology, if there is any evidence that the Tapir summoner was involved we are back in business with the Pangolin (even without Skytowers!)
 
Hazou himself is unlikely to end up on the front lines. He's a sealmaster, and even Hiashi shouldn't want to risk losing him right now. Ditto for Kagome. Kei, Akane, and Naruto (and probably Mari, "retired" or not) will definitely be put on the front lines as much as possible. Possibly Noburi too, definitely once he becomes the Toad summoner.

We need to find some way to keep our combat spec's safe once the war starts. Defensive seals/jutsu just became a priority.
 
MMKII said:
finally send a series of teams to snip any low hanging fruit plot threads up to and including Joutarou's nephew, the blademonster rift in Iron that we've left chilling there based on NPC opinion that has been Apropos-of-nothing implied by Velorien to be related to spooky worldbuilding details, Ami's effective takeover of 1/5 to 2/5ths of the world's superpowers, Akatsuki --THEY ARE STILL OUT THERE FOR FUCKS SAKE FOLKS!!!-- the nefarious organization of underground missing-nin we never got into, the Yakuza and their connections to said underground/Akatsuki, Isan and whatever horrible nonsense has almost assuredly happened there, Bear, the Condor summoner not being happy with us, and about five dozen secret forbidden lore nuggets that Kagome has hinted about throughout the course of the text
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Velorien said:
One or more of these things is real and will impact the future of the quest depending on how you handle it.
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Ah.

Alright. We should be prepared for the Condor summoner to be hiding in the privvy.

When do we send the scout force to Bear??
 
Velorien said:
"Raiyoke?" Hazō asked.

"Cloud's Mori. Ingenious, but utterly lacking in curiosity. Spend most of their time sitting in mountaintop monasteries rehashing centuries-old religious debates. They are supposed to shell out some brilliant insights, but you have to prod them hard.

"Seriously, though. No curiosity. Wandering the continent looking for pleasure. That's the kind of world we live in."

"It really is," Hazō said wearily. "So what's number five?"

Mari apparently got his meaning.

"Sand's Yodomi. They're not the ones who invented the puppets—I think—but they're the ones who optimised them into unstoppable war machines. With that kind of technological advancement, you'd think Sand would be ruling half the world by now.

"I vaguely remember hearing somewhere about the power of technology to change the world," she added thoughtfully. "Never mind, I'm sure it'll come to me.

"Anyway, they're inflexible. You give them the thing, and they'll do the thing, but they're not going to innovate. Where the Mori find it hard to generate new ideas to begin with, the Yodomi will come up with new ideas but then go, 'Eh, what we've got is good enough.'"

Hazō had discovered the exact antithesis of his personal belief system. No matter what humanity already had, it was never good enough to stop looking.
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So we finally know what/where the other two thinker bloodlines are. Hazō and a couple of Yodomi have absolutely got to meet up at some point for a joint brainstorming session. And add in Keiko and Shikamaru for even more braininess.

Velorien said:
and the best friend always by her side.
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Me: "Wait, wut?"
*2 seconds later*
Me: "Oh, that best friend." 🗡

Velorien said:
"No," Yuno said bitterly. "Turns out none of us did. Until the day he became High Priest, his name was Azai Shūsuke
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Who was that again?

Velorien said:
"That's when the High Priest revealed himself. He told us that now that we'd fulfilled Akio's mission, we'd proved ourselves worthy of following Ui Isas himself. He said he was having visions of Ui, receiving wisdom and guidance on what to do next. Of course we listened to him." She smiled ruthfully. "He was charismatic, and everything he said did sound wise… and what else were we supposed to do?

"Isan's not the place you remember. The High Priest defanged the Clan Council, demoted them to advisors. He told us we needed to modernise. He sent out spies into the outside world, gathering weapons and scrolls for us to study. You won't know, but the mountain is very rich in mineral deposits. We just never had anyone to trade with.

"The smiths are working night and day. The Yoshida have been pushed into adopting those who can learn sealcrafting. The High Priest even wants to recruit missing-nin. He says that if one group of missing-nin managed to help us fulfil our original purpose—with a lot of guidance—then we should be able to find more for our new one. He's made an alliance with a group called the Sacred Spiritual Seekers of the Scaly Sage.

"The biggest thing is unity. The High Priest keeps talking about unity, and how Ui had called upon him to unite the people." Yuno's voice rose in anger to the point where Akane shrank back. "And do you know what uniting people means? It means turning them against everyone who won't fit in! It means making them feel good about themselves by pushing out loners, and people who 'refuse to be happy', and people who are 'unclean'!"
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Other than the whole 'uniting people' thing, I don't really see how this is a bad thing? This is more or less what I expected the secularists to do, just under the guise of religion. If Leaf can make a treaty with them, they'll soon be a powerful ally. Trading with them would also prove quite lucrative. As long as we can protect Yuno it sounds like a good thing? And Yuno should be fairly well protected if she marries either Neji or Noburi.
 
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