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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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2BR02B said:
Re Orochimaru: The main thing I'm worried about with him becoming clan head isn't our safety (there must be some sort of legal punishment for killing clan members, or at the very least the income loss is a disincentive). I think the major con is the intense lack of agency. Can anyone imagine Psycho Snake Uncle letting us pursue our goals in good faith?
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Hi! Nice to have new posting people around!

Also, this part summarizes my pov pre-last-chapter almost entirely. After the latest chapter I just want to kill the arrogant prick :(
 
faflec said:
There is a very elegant solution which solves all these problems.
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Murdering the protagonists on Halloween seems a bit too... obvious? Then again, double bluffs.
Noumero said:
@Velorien,
  • Would you be willing to do the Forbidden Lore interlude next update? You've previously stated your interest.
  • If yes, would it be acceptable to specify the topics we're asking Kagome about (e. g., his sources, his interpretation of the Akatsuki mess)?
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A lore update? On Halloween? When the characters were last seen in the middle of interacting with Orochimaru? Ahhahahahaha.
 
Velorien said:
A lore update? On Halloween? When the characters were last seen in the middle of interacting with Orochimaru? Ahhahahahaha.
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Is that a "You idiots think I'll write a lore update when the stars are this aligned!?" laugh or a "Ooh yes, I can have so much fun with lore update" laugh?
 
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Jello_Raptor said:
Hmm, I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to get cleaned up and push harder on Orochimaru in the next in-game hour or so. After meeting with the clan.

I know the thread tends to be pretty risk averse after an event like this and at the very least it's going to cost us more mental consequences, but I think it bears serious consideration.
  • The longer we let Orochimaru have free reign without getting some form of agreement, the more room he has to fuck us over.
  • We're interesting to Orochimaru right now, but that won't last long, and we'll lose that opportunity to engage.
  • We need to convince Orochimaru to cooperate, because he's going to become a gigantic liability (to Leaf as a whole more than just the Goketsu) after the war. The only checks on his power will be Tsunade and Naruto and if he falls back into old patterns then the only real option is for them to kill him, and that's going to cause a ton of damage on its own.
  • I'm rather convinced that we're the only party in Leaf that can cooperatively disagree with Orochimaru. Kabuto isn't going to disagree and everyone else can only cooperate with Oro by getting out of his way.
Basically, Orochimaru needs to be leashed and there's no way to do that with just power. Strength can only ever contain him and that containment is mostly going to be flawed in ways that allow him to cause serious harm. Especially since any useful containment is going to be adversarial in nature.

We need to convince him that being awful is not in his best interests. Being in a position of weakness is actually rather useful for that, since it gives Orochimaru control and agency without compromising our ability to manipulate him.

But being in a position of weakness isn't sufficient to manipulate Orochimaru. We also need him to engage with us, to want to hear us out. We need to be sure that we are interesting to him and that we stay interesting to him. The more interesting we are to Oro, the less expendable we are. I don't want to lose that leverage unless it's too costly to too keep and that leverage is cheapest right now.

Mind, this isn't an argument to go all in on manipulating him. It's an argument to try making ourselves interesting but not expendable to Orochimaru in the immediate future. (i.e. After, we chat with other clan members but before we go to bed)

In general, we need to bring Orochimaru into the power structure of Leaf rather than letting him act independent of that power structure. I think the only ways to keep him from repeatedly trampling over that power structure are to manipulate him or kill him.

Edit: I think we might need to make an actual psych profile for Orochimaru, anyone here know how to do that?
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That's an argument I can behind more than the prospective gains from becoming Orochimaru's apprentice. I argued that joining him will alienate us from our political powerbase, make it all but impossible to sincerely promote Uplift as an ideology, and cause major discord within the clan. With that said, Orochimaru can really put us in a bind regardless. If he starts to abduct clanless ninja for experimental subjects, he'll make himself an enemy of KEI (and likely Naruto), while Hiashi will be content to watch from the sidelines. So it's not unlikely that we're going to get sucked into this even if we decide to cut ties with Oro himself - except this time, we'll be forced to oppose him. Your plan could help us avoid that situation. I'm not completely opposed, if you honestly think you can swing it. But it's going to be a very high stakes game. Saying the wrong thing to him may very well lead to either Hazou or one of our clan members dying.

I will say that I think this chapter puts the "Snek Uncle" meme to rest. Oro is not our uncle, appears to hold little to sentiment for us, nor does he respect us in the slightest. We're a slightly more interesting worm to him. He doesn't even have any special interest in having us grow and succeed, which would at least be the case for a literal Sith Apprentice. Any and all interactions with him should proceed from an antagonistic mindset. He's an obstacle and a potential enemy, and should be treated as such.
 
I mean, as regards going in to see him in an hour, we do have Jiraiya's package to deliver.
 
Roomba said:
Any and all interactions with him should proceed from an antagonistic mindset. He's an obstacle and a potential enemy, and should be treated as such.
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A word of warning: Hazou is not a master of withholding his true opinions, so if he's internally adversarial to Orochimaru then he will be externally adversarial to Orochimaru in ways that Orochimaru, being Orochimaru, will be able to pick up on. Staying at least neutral to him in Hazou's mind is a matter of our own safety, whatever else we choose to pursue with respect to him.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
A word of warning: Hazou is not a master of withholding his true opinions, so if he's internally adversarial to Orochimaru then he will be externally adversarial to Orochimaru in ways that Orochimaru, being Orochimaru, will be able to pick up on. Staying at least neutral to him in Hazou's mind is a matter of our own safety, whatever else we choose to pursue with respect to him.
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Yeah, I meant that insofar as our planning is concerned. We should view Orochimaru adversarially, like an Ami that can actually hurt us, rather than just mess with Hazou's head. The mindset of our PC will need to be carefully managed through this, so that he remains believable at whatever we need him to do.
 
Roomba said:
Yeah, I meant that insofar as our planning is concerned. We should view Orochimaru adversarially, like an Ami that can actually hurt us, rather than just mess with Hazou's head. The mindset of our PC will need to be carefully managed through this, so that he remains believable at whatever we need him to do.
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The trouble here is that there appears to be some bleedover between thread ideas and Hazou ideas. I think the QMs said that Hazou doesn't hear anything other than the plans, but he's come up with ideas that we've never put into plans (like EM liquid air, which he hinted at once) so it's plausible that the QMs model Hazou's thinking as running along the same lines as the hivemind to the point where us thinking a certain way about something is good evidence that Hazou would in the same context.

And if our opinion of Orochimaru ends up adversarial, then I worry that the QMs will pick up on that and, for the same reasons we ended up believing that, model Hazou as ending up adversarial to Orochimaru.
 
Snake Uncle only mildly traumatized us, I think we're his favorite nephew!
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
The trouble here is that there appears to be some bleedover between thread ideas and Hazou ideas. I think the QMs said that Hazou doesn't hear anything other than the plans, but he's come up with ideas that we've never put into plans (like EM liquid air, which he hinted at once) so it's plausible that the QMs model Hazou's thinking as running along the same lines as the hivemind to the point where us thinking a certain way about something is good evidence that Hazou would in the same context.

And if our opinion of Orochimaru ends up adversarial, then I worry that the QMs will pick up on that and, for the same reasons we ended up believing that, model Hazou as ending up adversarial to Orochimaru.
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I don't really care. The QMs will do what they will, but I'm certainly not going to censor myself in this thread based on the off-chance that I might influence Hazou's mindset. That makes for an awful environment for discussion in my opinion, and I'd probably stop posting at all instead.

Besides, it worked really well with Ami. Hazou had very little idea as to why we had him act the way he did while interacting with her.
 
[X] Plan: Duty to the Clan

  • Clean up and then gather Team Uplift + Naruto
  • Things didn't go that bad, actually. We got through like four topics before we annoyed him, and having a seizure against his KI probably interested him more than annoyed him.
  • Debrief on what happened.
  • Before anything else, announce that Orochimaru won't be clanhead unless the rest of the clan actively wants him.
    • Affirm that the clan is a family first, political organization second.
    • Those who are under our protection or followed us deserves protection too.
    • Hazo briefly lost sight of that.
    • Orochimaru seemed entirely disinterested in Hazo's clan other than how they could benefit him.
  • Naruto
    • "Do you want to be our Clan Head? The position is yours if you want it, because Jiraiya wished for us to be a family."
    • Possible to use the Uzumaki compound and ground as temporary housing until something can be worked out?
  • Delegate and Actions
    • Have a "branch member" gets guests out within thirty minutes.
    • Get ALL ninja, civilians, and their belongings packed up & ready to move ASAP. Ask Keiko to plan logistics.
    • Kagome will make seals to facilitate the logistics.
    • Figure out camping location if we hadn't already: Forest of Death? Training ground? Urban unused farmland?
    • Mari will work on getting our money back. Idea: Could we gain leverage with a broadsheet about Orochimaru's return?
    • Send agents to scout for locations that the clan could buy such as unsold estates and properties adjacent to the pub, either as public housing and/or new clan compound.
    • Kenta will organize craftspeople to help rebuild. Make sure we have enough money to do so.
 
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roobee said:
If you have 1-6 you could argue that the transmitted message is your best shot at knowing morality, so long as the message didn't become completely random noise. Besides that I agree
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Sure. I'd even agree that, if you grant all of 1-6, then what you have is the best shot at having an objective morality. I simply don't believe that it's reasonable to grant 1-6. Also, since 7-8 matter, I also don't agree that the theists get to claim that they do have an objective morality.

2BR02B said:
Wowza. I remember skimming this thread a couple years ago, but I only just got caught up. Holy shit, this is an incredible quest, and generally just amazing storytelling. Awesome job, QMs.
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Thank you! It's been a lot of work but also a lot of fun.

Inferno Vulpix said:
The trouble here is that there appears to be some bleedover between thread ideas and Hazou ideas. I think the QMs said that Hazou doesn't hear anything other than the plans, but he's come up with ideas that we've never put into plans (like EM liquid air, which he hinted at once) so it's plausible that the QMs model Hazou's thinking as running along the same lines as the hivemind to the point where us thinking a certain way about something is good evidence that Hazou would in the same context.
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For the record, we try not to do that. The goal is that Hazō's personality is defined solely by actions and thoughts resulting from what's actually in the plans. Sadly, we are only human1​ and therefore we sometimes fail at that.

[1] So far as you know, anyway.
 
eaglejarl said:
For the record, we try not to do that. The goal is that Hazō's personality is defined solely by actions and thoughts resulting from what's actually in the plans. Sadly, we are only human1 and therefore we sometimes fail at that.

[1] So far as you know, anyway.
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Mmm, I think the better version of my point there is that, by this point in the quest, Hazou is in a lot of ways almost an embodiment of the hivemind in the way that he thinks, what he values, etc. Not identical, but close enough that if we make X choice given Y information then given Y information it's decently likely Hazou will also make X choice, independent of us but for the same reasons.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Not identical, but close enough that if we make X choice given Y information then given Y information it's decently likely Hazou will also make X choice, independent of us but for the same reasons.
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Give Hazou is nearly identical to us if we make X choice, but switch to not X because of OOC circumstances (aka not wanting to influence hazou) than hazou will still choose X because he does not have access to those OOC circumstances.
 
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