- Location
- Europe
Does it?
This doesn't sound like they're escorting lumber merchants to your village but to Leaf, we don't need lumber.
Maybe question them in a way that would reveal mistakes? Or just stall them?
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- 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
Does it?
This doesn't sound like they're escorting lumber merchants to your village but to Leaf, we don't need lumber.
Maybe question them in a way that would reveal mistakes? Or just stall them?
Tua
鸡肉面条汤
- Location
- شوربة الدجاج المعكرونة
How about we send Mari to report to Sarutobi with an offer to check out the merchant the Rock ninja supposedly sent over? If she can determine that their mission was genuine then that's a pretty big clue by itself.
Where is the contradiction? They escorted a merchant to Leaf from Rock to buy lumber and would have presumably escorted him back again if things were normal. I'd be very, very surprised if this wasn't common between the respective Villages not just for trade but also as an accepted way to do some above the board espionage.
@Velorien: You posted the chapter as 203 instead of 303.
Where is the contradiction? They escorted a merchant to Leaf from Rock to buy lumber and would have presumably escorted him back again if things were normal. I'd be very, very surprised if this wasn't common between the respective Villages not just for trade but also as an accepted way to do some above the board espionage.
@Velorien: You posted the chapter as 203 instead of 303.
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- Location
- London
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
[X] This is none of our Sage-damned business.
________________________
Supplementary idea: Start a petty squabble* with some other Clan Head who is not involved in negotiations. Tie them up with something, so that Asuma, Shika and Keiko have one person fewer to deal with from within, while managing Rock from without.
*e.g. primary access to a particular well, or stock of blankets, something we can immediately abandon without consequence later
- Leave it to Shika and Keiko.
- Keep managing cleanup and recovery.
________________________
Supplementary idea: Start a petty squabble* with some other Clan Head who is not involved in negotiations. Tie them up with something, so that Asuma, Shika and Keiko have one person fewer to deal with from within, while managing Rock from without.
*e.g. primary access to a particular well, or stock of blankets, something we can immediately abandon without consequence later
- Location
- Why would this be required?
See, she's been planning to kill us since she knew about it, I called that shit-wait.
o-oh....
- Location
- Why would this be required?
Oh, also Leaf is fucked
- Location
- Why would this be required?
Isn't there the possibility that their plan is
A)hit Leaf as hard as they could with a coordinated earth jutsu/explosives
B) try to get into the village with the excuse to assist and gauge Leaf's reaction
C) check to see how bad off the village and it's ninja are/prep for a full scale invasion and the viability of said invasion
They completely lost the element of surprise.
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- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fixed, thanks.
Yes, it being first thing in the morning. She may or may not depart to do Mari things after breakfast unless you talk to her.
- Location
- Yes.
...If we're running on the assumption that Akatsuki was responsible for the attack and they did the same to all the major Hidden Villages, it may be the case that Rock acted so quickly because they recognized the attack as being caused by the Akatsuki (read: by Deidara). If true, it makes sense that they'd try to go after Leaf, since their mountainous terrain does not lend itself well to fertile soil and Leaf has the best nearby land for that (save Sound, which is a massive pile of nightmare to invade). This is ther way of bluffing and trying to make the most of their bad situation, since they're liable to starve soon now that their military power is probably on par with some of the weaker villages, and they don't have the food that's needed to sustain such power.
I mean, the relief force deliberately didn't introduce themselves as being sent by the Tsuchikage, that's an interesting way to proceed if you're an officially-sanctioned relief force.
Did I mention how the Shirogane clan is supposed to be the Yondaime Tsuchikage's clan, and part of the warhawk faction? Why would they be even pretending to be offering assistance to Leaf?
I mean, the relief force deliberately didn't introduce themselves as being sent by the Tsuchikage, that's an interesting way to proceed if you're an officially-sanctioned relief force.
Did I mention how the Shirogane clan is supposed to be the Yondaime Tsuchikage's clan, and part of the warhawk faction? Why would they be even pretending to be offering assistance to Leaf?
We could call their bluff. Some thoughts on what we might want to do:
- Offer them charity. Do they need food?
- Stage a squabble in cooperation with one of the clan head over blankets.
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- Location
- Yes.
I'm still thinking on whether or not it's worth calling their bluff. Right now there's one of three likely possibilities:
- Akatsuki's responsible for the Leaf attack, and they also devastated Rock in a similar attack. Rock recognized that the Akatsuki is responsible (likely because Deidara, a Rock missing-nin, was a major part of the bombings), and is trying to annex part of Leaf before news of their destroyed villages reaches Leaf.
- As above, but Rock was able to mitigate a non-trivial portion of the damage because they knew what Deidara was capable of, and planned accordingly. Rock wants to annex Leaf as you would expect, but because of the damage that was done to their village they don't want to overaggress and leave themselves open for an attack by the minor villages or Akatsuki.
- Rock was actually responsible for the attack. They haven't done a full-scale invasion, either because they want to compromise with their anti-warhawk faction, or because they found out Orochimaru's in town and don't wanna tussle with him and all the other Leaf-nin who survived the attack, or because their alliance with Grass (or whatever minor village they got the treaty to go through) isn't as strong as they want so they want to avoid a full-scale attack.
And you know, if Rock is going to have starvation... getting some renumeration for helping Leaf would be a good method of delaying that problem. After all, Fire has tons of food to spare. And it just so happens Leaf itself has granaries galore.
Tua
鸡肉面条汤
- Location
- شوربة الدجاج المعكرونة
Just to nip getting trialed for treason and/or stabbed in the face by Keiko in the bud: we shouldn't be offering anything to foreign ninja. Any dealings we may want to do should go through Asuma as the acting Hokage (?). We may certainly offer suggestions that Mari can then bring to Asuma but that's about it. Hazou shouldn't be going anywhere close to foreign ninja right now because he is woefully outclassed in socials in general, not counting the negative mods from having Mental Consequences.
Let's also not undermine whatever plan Keiko and Shikamaru are coming up with right now.
And finally: How does offering them food call their bluff? They'd be stupid to say yes. Some food now is worse than more food in the future by annexing some land.
What is the purpose of this? Showing anyone that Leaf is not united is a bad idea in general.
- Location
- Yes.
*nods* Whatever the actual situation is, this is why Rock is doing this. They don't want a war (for whatever reason) but also want to get enough food to avoid the inevitable famine that's going to hit them, so this is their way of doing it without losing much, if anything.
Or if you're in the "Iwa did it, they're going to invade", this is their way of offering the obligatory olive branch. Why they're doing this given the relative benefits of invading outright instead of doing this...well, I dunno.
Do people really think hazo would just do this directly to a foreign nin? This is silly.
Tua
鸡肉面条汤
- Location
- شوربة الدجاج المعكرونة
If we voted it in like that? Yes, absolutely.
- Location
- Yes.
@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail The time between the most recent update and the next-most one is approximately 12 hours or so (whatever dusk to dawn is here). Would it be appropriate to assume that Hazou wrote/drafted the letters during the offscreen time, but didn't send them since he needed Mari's approval?
Is this appropriate to calculate planet size from?
- Location
- Yes.
HAZOU: We already know what the planet's size is, it's o̸̧̧̢͙̟̟̻̠͔͎͎̞̹̜̳͍̙͍̔̑͜͝ͅͅv̷̡͔̪̝̼͓̞̞͎͈͎͂̓̑̃̋͌͛̄̊͒̓̑͘̕̚e̷̢̙̦̻̝̝͎̰̗̹̙̯͔̫̗͙̥̮͌́͑̂͐̃̚̕ͅͅͅŗ̷̡̭̺̼͚͍̮̭̗̱͕̄͆͑͜͜ ̴̧̮̩͍̰́̅̃͐̎̚̕9̷̛̗̪͎͙͌̈́̽̾͌̽̽̄̐̆̄̋̑͊̀̎̀̚͘Ö̶̡̨͎̱̤̺̳̩̣̦̙̟̓̄z̴̨̢̨͙̹͉̲̟̝̜͈̗͍̼͕̘̜͖̼͍̈́͒͛͆̀̀̃̇0̷̧̨̡͙̙̱̭̝̦̝͙̫̟͎͇͔̪̞̽͐̔̾̑͐̈́͜ͅ *starts seizing*
KEIKO: Oh dear. Excuse me a minute. *pulls out kunai*
I'm sorry this this is a late response and a reply rather than an informative vote, but I did want to say something.
The most unpleasant regularly occurring thing in this quest is this cycle of:
1. The voters make a plan they think is reasonable.
2. The QMs decide it's some stupid shit.
3. The in-world quest reacts to the stupid shit and calls out the protagonist for doing stupid shit.
4. The players then have to put together a plan to have Hazou bow and scrape and apologize for doing stupid shit.
Maybe it doesn't happen as often as I think and it's just my perception... but to me it feels like it happens over and over. Often the consequences aren't actually that bad, but it's kind of stomach-wrenching to be called out in character for doing stupid shit and then have to make plans to grovel to fix it. Who enjoys that?
See, bad things happen in quests sometimes, but usually they happen because the players decided to take a risk and then the dice turn against them and the bad outcomes of the risk hit. Hey, that's the game.
I just want Hazou to stop doing stupid shit that's auto-fail. If players decide to do something that's stupid, at least fall back on the dice.
This thing with pissing off Naruto for instance... you decided to have Naruto react without even rolling. You could have decided...
Naruto is definitely not going to like this, but will Hazou realize that in time?
And then as Hazou starts his explanation, give him an Empathy roll to realize that Naruto is not reacting well. If Hazou succeeds, then give him a Deception roll to ABORT, ABORT and pretend he was "only joking" or "that's what I'd like to say if only it wasn't treason, hah-hah" or in some other way salvage the situation. hell, even if Hazou fails you could give him a Deception roll at a much higher difficulty to explain why the stupid shit he just said was totally being misunderstood.
Something like that, so that when the players decide to have Hazou do some risky social shit there's at least a chance to talk his way out of it.
EDIT: Or alternately, just disallow plans where Hazou is going to do auto-fail stupid shit and tell players to try again with a different vote.
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- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We are currently in a fight for our very survival. It is time to stop holding back and instead do every thing we can to empower our home
Word count: 285
[X] Action Plan: A call for unity
Word count: 285
[X] Action Plan: A call for unity
- Discuss everything with the clan before enacting
- The toad scroll
- Currently the toad scroll is sitting on a shelf helping no one
- We don't even know if Noburi will be able to use it
- With Noburi's permission Hazou would like to use it to empower leaf
- Offer to loan the scroll to the most powerful Leaf Nin who can use a summon contract
- If they are clanless try to convince them of adoption
- the terms of the loan would be they would keep until 2 years after Noburi becomes a Jounin or upon their death
- Offer to loan the scroll to the most powerful Leaf Nin who can use a summon contract
- Jiraiya Sealing research
- Go to Shikamaru, Shino and, Hinata to let them know that you are starting a project open to all chunnin plus sealmaster to work on researching Jiraiya's seal liberary
- Kagome will be in charge of the project
- Research notes will be shared with everyone in the project
- Go to Shikamaru, Shino and, Hinata to let them know that you are starting a project open to all chunnin plus sealmaster to work on researching Jiraiya's seal liberary
- Clanless Jounin
- Inform all clanless jounin that we have non ablative armor jutsu and other goodies that we will teach them if they are willing to be adopted
- there will be no clan obligations except to keep the jutsu secret
- Inform all clanless jounin that we have non ablative armor jutsu and other goodies that we will teach them if they are willing to be adopted
- Naruto
- Inform him of all the pangolin jutsu we can teach him if we adopt him
- Naruto Knowing these might be vital to keeping him + Leaf safe
- Push him to take the Hat. Let Mari do most of the talking
- He is the only Ninja who has a chance to keep Orochimaru in check
- Asuma + Keiko
- Tell Asuma about your past dealing with the pangolins for jutsu
- We would like to recreate these negotiations with every allied summon clan to obtain Jutsu to benefit all off Leaf
- Of course we would make sure that no genocide plus war crimes happen
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- Location
- Finland
Okay, from what I read into the Rock approach, I'm pretty confident they were behind it.
To organize and send a relief force to Leaf in 3 days after the event happened, they basically had to know about it in advance. I find it very unlikely that if they were hit themselves, they'd be able to organize both a scouting effort to see that Leaf was also hit and a relief force to go 'help' Leaf in such a short time even if we make the assumption that they would want to do that, which I find doubtful. If they knew of the attack beforehand, the most likely cause is that they were behind it. And, well, it was a sinkhole attack, they're literally called Rock.
Now as for why they didn't just attack us outright - I am assuming they could not possibly bring an invasion force close enough to Leaf without being noticed to attack right after the initial strike. Thus, Leaf would be prepared for an attack anyway, so the element of surprise wouldn't be that strong. And even if Leaf has been hit heavily in recent times, they started out as by far the most powerful village, and still have people like Orochimaru around. Going for annihilation would be costly. And if Rock takes heavy losses invading Leaf, they will not be able to benefit from the invasion since Cloud will wreck them if they try to actually take too much Leaf territory and threaten hegemony.
So I feel this 'relief mission' has the goals of figuring out how badly Leaf was hurt (they probably don't know the results of their attack very well) and attempting to pressure Leaf into harsh terms without having to waste blood for it, which would empower Rock as the leading village without resulting in everyone ganging up on them. And, well, obviously they can still invade if it looks like Leaf is weak enough to not put up much of a fight.
So what can Leaf do about this? A couple things:
1: Don't show weakness. Leaf cannot hide the fact that they've been heavily damaged, but they can and should do their utmost to look as powerful as possible as a deterrent.
2: Negotiate like their lifes depend on it, because they do. Rock's goal is to take long-term strategic advantages from Leaf now that they have the short-term superiority in strength, Leaf could attempt to present enough of a deterrent for violent action to force Rock to negotiate and then play their cards as sparingly as possible to lose as little as possible.
3: If Leaf could launch a spoiling attack on the Rock contingent that'd cause enough destruction to eliminate their ability to invade, that'd obviously resolve the situation in the best way for Leaf - this is very risky, but if it works, Rock is humiliated and Leaf presents a strong front to all the other circling vultures. Skywalkers and really big explosions would work very well in this sort of operation.
4: If the negotiations go badly and Rock gets too much of the pie, try to ally with Cloud to take Rock out before they grow into the new leading power.
To organize and send a relief force to Leaf in 3 days after the event happened, they basically had to know about it in advance. I find it very unlikely that if they were hit themselves, they'd be able to organize both a scouting effort to see that Leaf was also hit and a relief force to go 'help' Leaf in such a short time even if we make the assumption that they would want to do that, which I find doubtful. If they knew of the attack beforehand, the most likely cause is that they were behind it. And, well, it was a sinkhole attack, they're literally called Rock.
Now as for why they didn't just attack us outright - I am assuming they could not possibly bring an invasion force close enough to Leaf without being noticed to attack right after the initial strike. Thus, Leaf would be prepared for an attack anyway, so the element of surprise wouldn't be that strong. And even if Leaf has been hit heavily in recent times, they started out as by far the most powerful village, and still have people like Orochimaru around. Going for annihilation would be costly. And if Rock takes heavy losses invading Leaf, they will not be able to benefit from the invasion since Cloud will wreck them if they try to actually take too much Leaf territory and threaten hegemony.
So I feel this 'relief mission' has the goals of figuring out how badly Leaf was hurt (they probably don't know the results of their attack very well) and attempting to pressure Leaf into harsh terms without having to waste blood for it, which would empower Rock as the leading village without resulting in everyone ganging up on them. And, well, obviously they can still invade if it looks like Leaf is weak enough to not put up much of a fight.
So what can Leaf do about this? A couple things:
1: Don't show weakness. Leaf cannot hide the fact that they've been heavily damaged, but they can and should do their utmost to look as powerful as possible as a deterrent.
2: Negotiate like their lifes depend on it, because they do. Rock's goal is to take long-term strategic advantages from Leaf now that they have the short-term superiority in strength, Leaf could attempt to present enough of a deterrent for violent action to force Rock to negotiate and then play their cards as sparingly as possible to lose as little as possible.
3: If Leaf could launch a spoiling attack on the Rock contingent that'd cause enough destruction to eliminate their ability to invade, that'd obviously resolve the situation in the best way for Leaf - this is very risky, but if it works, Rock is humiliated and Leaf presents a strong front to all the other circling vultures. Skywalkers and really big explosions would work very well in this sort of operation.
4: If the negotiations go badly and Rock gets too much of the pie, try to ally with Cloud to take Rock out before they grow into the new leading power.
- Location
- Yes.
We don't know that they have a relief force. We only know that they sent a squad of ninja to Leaf, who claim to have a relief force.
For that matter, the 'relief force' isn't in Leaf, it's on the other side of the border. Or so they claim.
Well, we would if the plan we'd voted for had been implemented - @eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail, since it was voted on do we have an answer on this from Kabuto yet?
Telling people who may not end up joining that we have one of the holy grails of ninja combat... that has a lot of potential to go wrong. It's essentially telling people we don't know we can trust a clan secret, if not how to use it, without any guarantee that they'll keep their mouths shut about it if they don't join.