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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Pharos said:
Can we have Hazou copy the notes on the jutsu by hand, then destroy the copy he wrote, so that he remembers how to write out the jitsu notes via muscle memory of his hand moving?

This way Naruto would still have the only copy that we've given him. Naruto can't begrudge us for remembering what we've seen out of the notes we decoded ourselves after all.
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Do we really need to? Jiraiya techniques won't save our lives, aside from some overpowered ones like the Rasegan variants and we are on extremely thin ice with Naruto. He completely expect us to keep those jutsu for ourselves, so not doing so is the exactly the kind of surprising behaviour we need to show him who Hazou really is.
FOOM,Jutsu and Sealing make all but some jutsu pretty irrelevant, all things considered, in the medium-long term.
 
I'll consider keeping Jiraiya's techniques when we find one that doesn't need to be leveled up to [Main Stat Level] to be effective :p
 
Agreed. We're on thin ice with Naruto, someone who's political, physical, and magical power far dwarfs our own. Right now, his blind distaste for us has been shaken, a little bit, by Hazou's "fuck you" rant. Now let's follow that up with actions. Jiraiya's will says that the jutsu goes to Naruto, so the jutsu should go to Naruto. All of it. With no hidden motives or layers. Let's not fuck up Jiraiya's last will and testament like that. Later, once Hazou's proven that himself to be the well-intentioned, loyal Leaf ninja that he is, then we can see about trading techniques.

faflec said:
forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Naruto reimagined as a deathworld without most of the canon plot holes.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
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*sips tea*
Ah, yes. This is wholesome.
 
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Yeah, I'm inclined to give Naruto the jutsu without copying it in any way (I expect Naruto could see through Hazou-level deception on it) as well as giving him the biju seal notes, again without copying them for ourselves. (though I might recommend he makes copies of those for the Hokage's office to hold in trust, just in case something happens and it's necessary to replicate the seal, but leave it to his judgment)
 
Enjou said:
[...] as well as giving him the biju seal notes, again without copying them for ourselves. (though I might recommend he makes copies of those for the Hokage's office to hold in trust, just in case something happens and it's necessary to replicate the seal, but leave it to his judgment)
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I'm a little less sure about giving Naruto the bijuu notes. While he's the jinchuuriki, we don't know if Naruto knows anything about fuuinjutsu. I'd rather either keep them or submit them to Asuma. I'm sure that knowledge about how to work Leaf's nuclear option would count as a state secret (but I also want to find out what it says, because that has the glitter of Forbidden Lore).
 
CC: @faflec, @MMKII, @Inferno Vulpix.

First, I agree with @Inferno Vulpix that telling Keiko only part of the information would lead to her quickly figuring out the rest.

Second:
Velorien said:
"Hazō," Keiko looked him in the eyes, seated uncomfortably within the Air Dome some distance from the Shimura compound (she had tried pacing nervously, but there really wasn't enough room). "Tell me, what would you do if it was necessary to betray one person's trust to save another?" [...]

"All else being equal, obviously I'd betray the trust," Hazō said. "Trust is something you can rebuild. I don't know what 'saving' someone might mean, though I have some guesses, but it tends to be something permanent. That, or failing to save someone will result in something permanent. For example, Uplift means saving the world. The difference between a world that's been saved and a world that keeps going as it is is so huge that yes, I think I'd betray all kinds of trust if I was confident that it was the only way."

Keiko nodded, apparently unfazed by what some might have taken as a disturbing admission from a close family member.

"That is very you, Hazō. You spend the overwhelming majority of your time as a radical idealist perpetually walking into trees concealed within the fog of your own wilful ignorance, yet when a decision must be made that weighs others' feelings, livelihoods, or even lives against the importance of your objective, you display remarkable pragmatism. Your interest in cooperating with Orochimaru, appreciating the scale of the gains to be made despite the awareness that he would never completely cease human experimentation, is a convenient example of such uninhibited rationality, as is your choice to re-evaluate it once it became apparent that there would be a cost to the clan beyond tacit approval of Orochimaru's experiments. [...]

"Hazō, there is… There is something I wish to say to you. [...]

"You should speak to Ami. She may have insight into your condition that others do not."

No.

"Keiko, are you saying…?"

"I have already said too much," Keiko said. "Even to raise this subject in relation to her is an unforgivable breach of trust. I will accept any punishment she chooses to dispense. If she wishes to sever ties entirely, that would be entirely reasonable."
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Keiko is going to proactively tell Ami everything about FOOM the moment Ami is under threat of execution/being essie'd again, or maybe immediately after we tell her. Look at it from her perspective. We don't want Ami to know because we don't trust her, and for meta-game reasons. Keiko trusts her absolutely. If we were in her place, Ami would be the first person we tell: it would massively empower a major ally, shore up her main weakness, and reduce the chance that our favourite character would die. She would be desperate to find a reason to tell her, and the slightest push would be enough to tide her over. The only cost would be Hazou's trust, and even if it weren't hypocritical of him to object given the quoted exchange, she's nothing if not self-sacrificial. (It would also involve breaking law, but when did Team Uplift ever really care about that?)

If we want to tell Keiko, I suggest we just skip all that and tell Ami directly, in exchange for her hand in marriage a mountain of major favours and a lifetime commitment to not mess with our plans her hand in marriage.
 
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eaglejarl said:
  • Twin Repulsion Seals: When both are active, they repel each other when they get too close.
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*Drinks coffee for the purpose of spitting it out.*

*Realizes they are out of coffee.*

*Is sad, but only briefly, because this seal is awesome*

WHAT? This is incredible. Even if we can't edit it to toggle on and off and get a sealtech engine, this is incredible. Does it follow an inverse square law? What sort of distances can we get with it?

Actually, does this toggle on and off? Then all we need is a reusable trigger seal and we have an engine!

Even if it can't be toggled under any circumstances, this seems like it could be useful for shock absorption on vehicles and the like. Or just make a badass floating statue.
 
eaglejarl said:
Turns out that there already was one, so I added it there: Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Note that Lightning Lash, as a jutsu, belongs to Naruto and not you. Do you keep a copy?
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No. Heck, Mari would be the only lightning element user that could learn it and not immediately be found out. Give it to Naruto.

MMKII said:
Well, it is worth thinking about, sure. I'm not sure its worth doing, is the thing.

I don't object at all to us giving a recommendation a la "I respect your incredible and respectably-sized bastion of willpower. May I suggest you consider prioritizing it in your training because of unexplained Hazō reasons? When have my training plans ever failed you btw?" so that she is ready to go when we're ready to go / we have our own pile of god-candidates half-baled already, for sure. This minimizes lag on her part after maximizing opsec for us.

I do think that having her over to actually do shadow clone training is a bit of a non-starter for a long while in any case, at least because of the logistics issues? We haven't even worked out how we're going to be doing this secretly, anyway [1] nor have we really taken steps to prepare for it. Likewise, Noburi and Hazou should be pretty busy themselves for a while. We need the koi stuff figured out too.

[1] I'm inclined to do an underground bunker of some sort. We could probably construct one in a week's worth of time, right?
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*Laughter in Urahara*

eaglejarl said:
Demographics & Promotion Rates
@Inferno Vulpix's calculations are now officially canonical:
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To clarify something, when the tables talk about death, is that actual death, or just generally the "removed from service" list? Like, would a chunin that was too injured to be a functional Ninja anymore, but
 
Noumero said:
CC: @faflec, @MMKII, @Inferno Vulpix.

First, I agree with @Inferno Vulpix that telling Keiko only part of the information would lead to her quickly figuring out the rest.

Second:

Keiko is going to proactively tell Ami everything about FOOM the moment Ami is under threat of execution/being essie'd again, or maybe immediately after we tell her. Look at it from her perspective. We don't want Ami to know because we don't trust her, and for meta-game reasons. Keiko trusts her absolutely. If we were in her place, Ami would be the first person we tell: it would massively empower a major ally, shore up her main weakness, and reduce the chance that our favourite character would die. She would be desperate to find a reason to tell her, and the slightest push would be enough to tide her over. The only cost would be Hazou's trust, and even if it weren't hypocritical of him to object given the quoted exchange, she's nothing if not self-sacrificial. (It would also involve breaking law, but when did Team Uplift ever really care about that?)

If we want to tell Keiko, I suggest we just skip all that and tell Ami directly, in exchange for her hand in marriage a mountain of major favours and a lifetime commitment to not mess with our plans her hand in marriage.
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This is decently compelling, as prior to now I have been largely assuming that Keiko would be willing to keep the secret and was merely concerned with whether she'd be able to effectively.

Now I am considering cutting her out of the loop entirely so as to prevent Ami from learning of it. As always, there can be no half measures here. Either we bring Keiko into the loop fully, or we pretend FOOM isn't a thing when it comes to her build. Anything in the middle will beget the worst of both worlds.

edit: the counterpoint is that Keiko telling Ami does not actually help Ami, unless Ami can get her hands on Shadow Clone. Keiko is of course capable of teaching Ami Shadow Clone, but there we move beyond mere 'betraying trust' to 'giving strategic weapons to enemy villages', which I figure will weigh on Keiko's head differently as it impacts her new loyalty to the Nara.
Halberdier said:
To clarify something, when the tables talk about death, is that actual death, or just generally the "removed from service" list? Like, would a chunin that was too injured to be a functional Ninja anymore, but
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I have just now resumed work on the expanded doc that accounts for this, but the currently available analysis does not account for crippled stay-at-home ninja.
 
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I got bored, sue me. Probably incomplete, but that's because I got bored again.

List of (non-S rank) Jōnin of Hidden Leaf:
  • ANBU Snake
  • Gouketsu Mari
  • Hatake Kakashi (†)
  • Hyūga Hiashi (†)
  • Inuzuka Gaku
  • Kei Haruka
  • Kei Minori
  • Kei Suguru
  • Kiyomoto (†)
  • Maito Guy (†)
  • Nakamura Dai
  • Nara Shikaku (†)
  • Nara Shuji
  • Sarutobi Asuma
  • Yakushi Kabuto
  • Yūhi Kurenai
Notable Special Jōnin:
 
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Inferno Vulpix said:
I have just now resumed work on the expanded doc that accounts for this, but the currently available analysis does not account for crippled stay-at-home ninja.
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73% fatality rate, and an unknown, non-trivial number of the 27% are permanently injured? Oof. Makes sense because death world, but oof. We really have been lucky so far, even accounting for skill and initial advantages.
 
Noumero said:
If we want to tell Keiko, I suggest we just skip all that a
nd tell Ami directly, in exchange for her hand in marriage a mountain of major favours and a lifetime commitment to not mess with our plans her hand in marriage.
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"Yes, I'll take 'How Hazou dies' for 200." But in all seriousness, I'm not sure if we can trust Ami with this. We don't know what her motives are, and while she's been generally benevolent and moderately approval of Uplift, that only extends insofar as it doesn't go against her own Ultimate Goal. I say we keep this in pocket until we learn more about Ami's Ultimate Goal.

KaGoGoGadgetMe said:
It's not like we're short on cash, we could just ask him if we can buy it, if we want it so bad.
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Even if he'd be willing to trade with us, I'm not sure if Naruto needs the money. His home is full of "rich finery, long gone out of style" but we don't know if that's a result of him wanting to maintain some sort of material connection to his parents or financial struggles.

Inferno Vulpix said:
Now I am considering cutting her out of the loop entirely so as to prevent Ami from learning of it. As always, there can be no half measures here. Either we bring Keiko into the loop fully, or we pretend FOOM isn't a thing when it comes to her build. Anything in the middle will beget the worst of both worlds.
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While I'd like to think that Keiko can keep it a secret, her responsibilities to Ami and the Illuminati Forbidden Five make that an unfortunate grey area. Whenever we talk to Keiko about anything of significance, we now have to weigh whether it'll spread beyond her and whether or not we can afford that. We can't wholly trust Keiko anymore, not in the same way that we can trust Noburi or Akane. And... now I've made myself sad. :cry:

Edit: WAIT, maybe this can be resolved with FULL OPSEC procedures and some CCnJ?
 
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Halberdier said:
73% fatality rate, and an unknown, non-trivial number of the 27% are permanently injured? Oof. Makes sense because death world, but oof. We really have been lucky so far, even accounting for skill and initial advantages.
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Rather, some unknown non-trivial number of the 73% are permanently injured. Or something like that, I'll figure out where the numbers change as I get there.
 
Immortal Lurker said:
*Drinks coffee for the purpose of spitting it out.*

*Realizes they are out of coffee.*

*Is sad, but only briefly, because this seal is awesome*

WHAT? This is incredible. Even if we can't edit it to toggle on and off and get a sealtech engine, this is incredible. Does it follow an inverse square law? What sort of distances can we get with it?

Actually, does this toggle on and off? Then all we need is a reusable trigger seal and we have an engine!

Even if it can't be toggled under any circumstances, this seems like it could be useful for shock absorption on vehicles and the like. Or just make a badass floating statue.
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Hell, replicate an internal combustion engine with these as pistons, then upgrade LBF to switch between on and off each time something passes between the two rather than just be a one time seal.

Now we have perpetual motion engines.
 
Immortal Lurker said:
Even if it can't be toggled under any circumstances, this seems like it could be useful for shock absorption on vehicles and the like. Or just make a badass floating statue.
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If you fiddle with it to make an improved one with a long duration and wiggle your fingers and say "Shadow Clones times twenty" and "FOOM" enough, it'll even let us make a maglev train system!
 
[] Plan Snippet (freel free to steal):

Answering the Dog Problem:

Our solution is three-tiered. Run by Canoe (let her know when you'll be summoning her for this; no need to be rude) to be sure there's no cultural/pride things we'll run afoul of in our suggestions, if Hazou's training is not sufficient for him to know)
  1. First, most fast to deploy: Saddlebags sized for dogs with pockets for pups.
    1. Pros: Quick to get for them, effective at distributing puppies without harming their necks, or straining their caretakers' mouths, may be stored in storage seals
    2. Cons: Doesn't actually help them go any faster for the number of puppies they'd carry
  2. Second, basic sleds, pulled by dogs in quick-release halters
    1. Pros: No need to move pups between bags when their caretakers need a break, moderately faster movement, may be stored in storage seals
    2. Cons: Lower comfort due to no shock absorption, difficulty with non-prairie terrain
  3. Third, more complex, potentially sealtech constructions
    1. Pros: Faster, higher comfort levels, less exhaustion on caretakers' part
    2. Cons: Dependent on more complex constructions; difficult to replace, sealtech means more dependence on Hazou and dogs that can activate seals, as well as additional failures.
 
Cariyaga said:
[] Plan Snippet (freel free to steal):

Answering the Dog Problem:

Our solution is three-tiered. Run by Canoe (let her know when you'll be summoning her for this; no need to be rude) to be sure there's no cultural/pride things we'll run afoul of in our suggestions, if Hazou's training is not sufficient for him to know)
  1. First, most fast to deploy: Saddlebags sized for dogs with pockets for pups.
    1. Pros: Quick to get for them, effective at distributing puppies without harming their necks, or straining their caretakers' mouths, may be stored in storage seals
    2. Cons: Doesn't actually help them go any faster for the number of puppies they'd carry
  2. Second, basic sleds, pulled by dogs in quick-release halters
    1. Pros: No need to move pups between bags when their caretakers need a break, moderately faster movement, may be stored in storage seals
    2. Cons: Lower comfort due to no shock absorption, difficulty with non-prairie terrain
  3. Third, more complex, potentially sealtech constructions
    1. Pros: Faster, higher comfort levels, less exhaustion on caretakers' part
    2. Cons: Dependent on more complex constructions; difficult to replace, sealtech means more dependence on Hazou and dogs that can activate seals, as well as additional failures.
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May I interest you in this image?
 
firestorm440 said:
Is there a way to communicate w/ her without summoning her? Or do we mean a quick summon to make an appointment for a longer summoning later, in which case, we want to have our presentation ready for the first summoning anyway in case she says "well I'm here now, may as well show me"
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Linear-time speaking, we haven't yet left the summon realm. Could do it before we go as a courtesy.
 
We don't know where Canoe is; she went off after telling Hazou where to find Cannai.
eaglejarl said:
Canoe stopped at the edge of the trees. "Cannai is within. Good hunting, Hazō of Clan Gōketsu."

"Good hunting to you, Canoe of the Grassy Hills pack."

Canoe turned and loped off, her effortless speed making clear just how much she had been holding back for Hazō's convenience.

Hazō studied the trees for a moment, then squared his shoulders and walked into their shade.
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