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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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I find 1) most likely - Rock basically sent their previous C team who are now their A team, whose purpose is to make it seem like Rock still has ninja to spare long enough that no one gets any ideas.

2) is possible, but the timing and method is a bit strange, when they could have struck immediately after the initial attack and effectively ended Leaf as a village.

Oh, and 3) isn't quite so easily dismissed. The trick is you have to frame it as "Came by to effectively reduce Leaf to a minor village client state of theirs by making Leaf dependent on their aid and good will in this time of destruction." It's more or less what Hiashi was planning to do to Sand.

Cariyaga said:
4) Akatsuki nuked everyone and Rock is making use of the opportunity to pretend to have not been nuked and snag some fertile territory.
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Possible, but unlikely to last longer than a couple weeks before spy reports get read through. A false display of strength seems a pretty reasonable idea for Rock at this time. It engenders actual good will towards them while they are down while also allowing them to assess surviving Leaf assets.
 
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My thought is the following:
- Rock knows too much about the attack and their timing is too convenient. They are >90% responsible, and want us to know or at least suspect it.
- Rock does not want an all-out shooting war. Shooting wars between ninja are bloodbaths for both sides, and if Leaf is outright conquered much knowledge and expertise will be lost, not to mention valuable ninja that could be pressed to service.
- Rock is also vulnerable in the current political climate. Everyone needs to get stronger so as not to look an easy target.

Conclusion:
Soften up Leaf by destroying Clan assets in a low-risk high-distance attack, then do a hostile takeover (in the corporate sense) of the remaining ninja who are hopefully too weak to survive on their own anymore. A one-two punch of deniable military deployment followed by hostile negotiations, with the objective being to force Leaf into a "partnership" where they are clearly the junior party.
 
Evenstar said:
- Rock knows too much about the attack and their timing is too convenient. They are >90% responsible, and want us to know or at least suspect it.
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Unless they were hit at the same time in a different way, and dispatching teams to all the other major villages was their response (Perhaps whatever hit them didn't leave wreckage to comb through for survivors. Or survivors within the area of effect at all. The Akatsuki have serious firepower at their disposal.) It's a good way to gain information while pretending you haven't just been crippled.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Does the timeline make theoretical sense here? Has it been long enough for Rock ninja to encounter people leaving, go report back to their village, and then be sent over for this?


Specifically, this line implies that these are forces sent by Rock itself, and not a group that happened to be nearby taking initiative.
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"We just happened to be escorting a merchant in the area, and we got our shit together very quickly and decided to spend valuable ninja time lending aid to our geopolitical enemies in the middle of a major world crisis" is so unlikely as to be laughable, IMO.
 
Evenstar said:
"We just happened to be escorting a merchant in the area, and we got our shit together very quickly and decided to spend valuable ninja time lending aid to our geopolitical enemies in the middle of a major world crisis" is so unlikely as to be laughable, IMO.
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I mean, if I just got trashed and assumed that all of my rivals also got trashed (which is what we did), I would either focus on stabilizing myself or take the gamble of trying to vassalize one of my rivals while they are weakened.

Considering that Rock had multiple backup Kages, they likely didn't have the lack of leadership like we did and thus were able to take such a decisive action.
 
Raichu1972 said:
Considering that Rock had multiple backup Kages, they likely didn't have the lack of leadership like we did and thus were able to take such a decisive action.
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Or they threw together a plan after they got hit so hard it didn't even leave rubble to comb through.

But yeah, I'm going 60-40 Akatsuki-Rock, now. I still find it more likely Akatsuki did this than Rock, simply because there were easier things to do in the immediate aftermath of the attack if they wanted Leaf gone, as Rock does.
 
roobee said:
Realized I've been reading the real life times instead of the Mfd times. It's been bout 3 days since the game night.
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From what I recall of the world map and estimates of ninja speed, it would be just possible for a ninja force from Rock to get here overland in that timeframe. Could someone please check this for me?
 
If they were hit by an Akatsuki attack, why didn't they use it as an argument to establish trust and sympathy?

"Oh we were also hit, but not as bad as you, we want to help you"

I still think Orochimaru scared them off and triggered their attack prematurely. That's why there is no attack squad. Nobody wants to fight an annoyed Orochimaru. To many weird things killing you, no better to just stab yourself.
 
Byzantine said:
Or they threw together a plan after they got hit so hard it didn't even leave rubble to comb through.

But yeah, I'm going 60-40 Akatsuki-Rock, now. I still find it more likely Akatsuki did this than Rock, simply because there were easier things to do in the immediate aftermath of the attack if they wanted Leaf gone, as Rock does.
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I think "complete annihilation" would be near-suicidal diplomatically in the current geopolitical climate.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Does the timeline make theoretical sense here? Has it been long enough for Rock ninja to encounter people leaving, go report back to their village, and then be sent over for this?
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In theory. It's under 200 miles from Leaf to Rock, meaning about 8-9 hours at ninja speed. Remember, the EN is *tiny*. Fire is about the size of Oregon, the Western continent is roughly the size of Texas, and
he entire map fits into the Southwest USA.
 
Byzantine said:
Why? Sand basically isn't a force. Cloud has no love for Leaf. Mist is crippled and pretending they aren't.
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If you make it clear that your enemies can expect no quarter or mercy, nobody else will want you around in case you're their next enemy. Pursuing an aggressive campaign of complete destruction in a destabilized geopolitical situation like this will naturally make others wonder if they're next.
 
Kiba said:
How many days since the strike.
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3.

Evenstar said:
If you make it clear that your enemies can expect no quarter or mercy, nobody else will want you around in case you're their next enemy. Pursuing an aggressive campaign of complete destruction in a destabilized geopolitical situation like this will naturally make others wonder if they're next.
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I think that's always been the assumption of Ninja warfare, though.
 
Evenstar said:
My thought is the following:
- Rock knows too much about the attack and their timing is too convenient. They are >90% responsible, and want us to know or at least suspect it.
- Rock does not want an all-out shooting war. Shooting wars between ninja are bloodbaths for both sides, and if Leaf is outright conquered much knowledge and expertise will be lost, not to mention valuable ninja that could be pressed to service.
- Rock is also vulnerable in the current political climate. Everyone needs to get stronger so as not to look an easy target.

Conclusion:
Soften up Leaf by destroying Clan assets in a low-risk high-distance attack, then do a hostile takeover (in the corporate sense) of the remaining ninja who are hopefully too weak to survive on their own anymore. A one-two punch of deniable military deployment followed by hostile negotiations, with the objective being to force Leaf into a "partnership" where they are clearly the junior party.
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On the other hand, their new Tsuchikage was described as a warhawk. And this doesn't strike me as the kind of strategy a ninja deathworld warhawk would employ. Shikamaru himself discounted Rock as the perpetrators because the immediate followup attack strategy is so obvious. I do agree that this is a very smart move, it just doesn't seem like the kind of smart that people in this setting would come up with.

There's also the question of why Rock doesn't rule the world if they can just destroy key infrastructure at long range without being detected. It's not like this is the first great ninja war. And this is definitely something new, given how Leaf had no countermeasures available.

Actually, now that I think about it, other villages finding out Rock can blow up their key infrastructure without them being able to do anything about it essentially puts them in a Whirlpool-like position. They seriously need to worry about all the other villages banding together and crushing them. And it's also a very reasonable reaction for Leaf to now silently send out a demolitions squad clad in Skywalkers to drop the most powerful explosives we have on Rock. If this was actually them, they've basically made WMD use acceptable, the idiots.
 
Evenstar said:
If you make it clear that your enemies can expect no quarter or mercy, nobody else will want you around in case you're their next enemy. Pursuing an aggressive campaign of complete destruction in a destabilized geopolitical situation like this will naturally make others wonder if they're next.
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Mari expected a battle.
 
Their mission into Leaf could have been genuine and their orders could have been updated after their own Village got hit through summons (there have to be summons specializing into fast travel to carry communications surely even if none of the current Rock ninja nside of Leaf are summoners themselves).

In fact, the very first thing we would do is figure out whether other Villages got hit as well. Once you accept that theory, then extrapolating that their Kage died at the same time as ours did isn't difficult at all, hence the not-so-subtle probing question. And building on this, I'd also be curious whether Rock's calamity was caused by fire instead of earth based jutsu.

I am not sure what we, as people who control Hazou, could do here. The number one priority would be to gather more intel on the other Villages - something Leaf's leadership surely has thought of by themselves. If they haven't heard back yet then the next step would be to buy time. Which is what Shikamaru is doing right now and Hazou barging into that restaurant - while potentially humorous and/or fatal for him - would not help.

I am more concerned about how Keiko confirmed that she is wary of us and that doing something suspicious could end up with us dead by her hand.
 
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Note: You may assume for planning purposes that Keiko sent you a briefing, as well as the official one. You're okay to use anything in the update aside from Keiko's personal thoughts about stuff other than the Rock ninja.
 
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