Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[Buggy]

I'm certain that this is too obvious not to have been thought of previously, so there must be some flaw, but quantifying chakra seems reasonably straightforward.

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This all sounds good too. Much more chakra and time intensive, though, so we should check if other strategies are viable first.

However, I'm a little unclear as to the benefits of doing this, other than increased IC knowledge of game mechanics. That's always welcome, but this is a project that is going to take nontrivial resources as it requires repeatedly exhausting Noburi's barrel.

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It has lots of useful implications for training/education:

• Objective measurement of the cost of techniques, useful for training/strategy
• Objective measurement of progression of someone's chakra storage, useful for optimizing training
• Objective measurement of the relative cost of techniques, allowing for technique refinement or optimization of technique loadouts
• Advancement of medical science, which is a boon in itself and for Tsunade Points ™

All of which can then be wrapped up with a bow and handed to Asuma, to be filed under "reasons not to killbox Hazo".

Welcome! Lovely to have you. How did you find out about us?

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I was more-or-less going down the list of rationalfics, and this is the... fourth? Fourth rational Naruto fic. And the last one i haven't read, i think, or at least the last one which is well regarded by the community.

 

[Shrooms]

I'm certain that this is too obvious not to have been thought of previously, so there must be some flaw, but quantifying chakra seems reasonably straightforward.

We find shinobi A and have them cast MEW to exhaustion - it turns out that this is n casts. We wait until their reserves have refilled (tomorrow) and we then have them perform the same experiment, but Noburi refills them after each cast. We continue until their reserves are exhausted and Noburi's barrel is exhausted - this is m casts. The capacity of Noburi's barrel is then (m - n) MEWs. We can now do this with any jutsu - cast to exhaustion one day for x casts, cast until they've exhausted their reserves and the barrel another day for y casts. We now know how much chakra that jutsu consumes in terms of MEWs: (y-x)/(m-n). We can eventually find the jutsu which consumes the least chakra and then declare that one unit and work from there forevermore.

We'd run into problems where Noburi's barrel can't support an integer number of casts of a jutsu (if someone casts Huge Fireball three times, and that exhausts them, and with Noburi's help they can cast it seven times but they don't quite exhaust, then all we know is that Huge Fireball costs somewhere between 25% and 20% of Noburi's barrel) but if we pick low-cost jutsu initially, then that gets us a baseline, and we can eventually have them cast the expensive jutsu as many times as they can and then the lowest-cost jutsu as many times as they can after that to quantify the remainder.

If this becomes a large project, it is important to make sure that we periodically confirm the capacity of Noburi's barrel (to account for his sinking points into CR) as well as the capacity of our subjects (to account for the same) but if we perform the initial run of tests over two weeks with strict instructions for our subjects not to train, then that's a short enough time that we can probably establish a baseline.

I suppose another flaw here is that this doesn't work with jutsu which have formulaic costs - for example, if something has a startup cost and then an ongoing cost, then we've only quantified the cost of that jutsu run for some duration - but I think that we can then figure that out once we have our initial experimental results, and, again, restrict ourselves to simple jutsu initially.

However, I'm a little unclear as to the benefits of doing this, other than increased IC knowledge of game mechanics. That's always welcome, but this is a project that is going to take nontrivial resources as it requires repeatedly exhausting Noburi's barrel.

Click to shrink...

It's hard to prove everyone casts a jutsu equally efficiently, or even the same person casting it equally efficiently every time they use it. Same goes with Noburi's barrel, it might not store exactly the same amount of chakra every time/your body may not absorb it exactly evenly every time. The spreadsheets abstract this away but narratively I would expect many factors that make it harder to pin it down. Especially since chakra itself is weird and it might not actually be a statistically consistent amount every time. Maybe you really do vary your "chakra points" by a bit day to day. Consider that in canon chakra is nearly as spiritual as it is physical. Things like "willpower" are kind of hard to quantify too

 

[FaintlySorcerous]

It has lots of useful implications for training/education:

• Objective measurement of the cost of techniques, useful for training/strategy
• Objective measurement of progression of someone's chakra storage, useful for optimizing training
• Objective measurement of the relative cost of techniques, allowing for technique refinement or optimization of technique loadouts
• Advancement of medical science, which is a boon in itself and for Tsunade Points ™

All of which can then be wrapped up with a bow and handed to Asuma, to be filed under "reasons not to killbox Hazo".

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Of these reasons, the only one which appears particularly compelling is the last. Hazo can already optimize training and loadouts. Perhaps it's possible that making the knowledge public would result in greater training efficiency for everyone, but my suspicion is that those sorts of projects are below the QM's desired level of abstraction. How would you model the impact of every ninja in Leaf's training becoming 20% more efficient? How would you determine how much more efficient it would make training?

I suspect that loadouts are already optimized; everyone has a rough intuitive sense of how many times they can cast each jutsu they know as well as the linear combinations thereof - at least, I assume. If this weren't the case, then everyone would always be surprised when they reached or approached chakra exhaustion, and that's not what the world looks like IMO.

It's hard to prove everyone casts a jutsu equally efficiently, or even the same person casting it equally efficiently every time they use it. Same goes with Noburi's barrel, it might not store exactly the same amount of chakra every time/your body may not absorb it exactly evenly every time. The spreadsheets abstract this away but narratively I would expect many factors that make it harder to pin it down. Especially since chakra itself is weird and it might not actually be a statistically consistent amount every time. Maybe you really do vary your "chakra points" by a bit day to day. Consider that in canon chakra is nearly as spiritual as it is physical. Things like "willpower" are kind of hard to quantify too

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Yeah, this is another concern. I think that there are some pretty straightforward ways to quantify chakra use and capacity to approximate values. If there were utility in doing so, I suspect that someone would have done it already, and I'm skeptical of the marginal value of more precision knowledge...or investigating the relationship between system mechanics which are likely abstractions for the convenience of the player base (CP) and in-universe reality.

This is an interesting thought experiment, but I'm having a difficult time convincing myself that the return on investment even with solid experiments that have minimal cost would be positive. Given a clear motivation, I think we could design experiments to accomplish that goal, but absent that, I think we're a little hamstrung.

 

[Shrooms]

There seems to be some corroboration on this from Pein:

Now, granted, it's not 100% certain that 'since the Sage's failure' and 'a thousand years of sacrifice' are directly connected, but it's a fair bet. More relevant is the potential that Pein simply drew from the same lore that Hashirama spread around rather than having any deep knowledge of his own. Still, it's not nothing.

Once Akane reaches capstone Resolve, she'll need to at minimum level a 40 to 50 and a 50 to 60, which will allow for Resolve to reach 70. Let's call this Minimum Viable Detour. For her that means <one of Alertness, Athletics> raised to 50 and Taijutsu raised to 60, or <one of Alertness, Athletics> raised directly to 60, leaving Taijutsu at 50.

If we so choose, though, we could reach even further down the column and pick a lower level stat to elevate and sub in for one of the above stats. The pool is limited though in that whatever we raise has to be something we want at level 50+, and while this costs some extra XP over Minimum Viable Detour it's not much of a big deal next to having the optimal column ordering.

If we want to raise other stats in the process, the detour is as good a time as any to do so (though I'm pretty sure the math wouldn't say it's better than doing so outside of detours).

For Kei it's a similar situation: we need one 40 raised to 50 and one 50 raised to 60. In her case MVD would be RW 50 and Athletics 60, since she doesn't have any other free 40's or 50's. As before, if we wanted to do something like raise Alertness up to 50 instead of RW, that would be possible with only a minimum of extra XP.

Overall though, the main considerations for detours are 1) getting the columns into the ordering that we want, and 2) whatever the heck we want to dump XP into. Plans for it are likely to be very personalized and a sort of returning to the old understanding of training plans where we talk about combat effectiveness and stuff instead of FOOM efficiency.

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Don't we need to get some other stats up before we get 60s? Not for pyramids, but because they will get recruited as Jonin when they break that barrier?

Also, is the plan to have Akane raise FA and EM to 40 before bumping up those 50s and 60s?

 

[Buggy]

As far as "why to experiment with chakra reserves", Kabuto had expressed substantial interest earlier:

Chapter 149: Laying Foundations​

...

"I was wondering if there had been any experiments done on quantifying chakra."

Dr Yakushi's eyes narrowed slightly. "Pray elaborate."

Hazō's heart beat a little faster. Dr Yakushi wasn't dismissing the idea the way Jiraiya did virtually everything Hazō ever suggested. Was he... being taken seriously? By a professional?

"I've been thinking how there seems to be a lot of consistency to how much chakra it takes to use a given ninjutsu between people with similar skill and reserves. Suppose that in reality, it always takes the same amount of chakra to achieve the same effect, and that it costs one arbitrary unit of chakra to use the Water Whip Technique. If Noburi can use ten Water Whips before he gets exhausted… actually, Noburi's the worst possible example, but never mind. Anyway, in that case, we can say that his chakra reserves are ten units large. If we then teach him, say, the Water Bullet Technique, and he can use it five times before getting exhausted, then we know it costs two units of chakra. By accumulating a catalogue of ninjutsu costs for common techniques, we can eventually deduce any given ninja's reserve size. We might even be able to monitor how those reserves grow, and develop scientifically-proven optimal training methods."

Hazō could feel himself getting more animated as he recalled more possibilities.

"We could identify the most efficient techniques for a given task and discard the rest, and make sure new techniques we developed were as efficient as possible. We could find patterns between the costs needed to create different effects, and draw conclusions about the fundamental workings of chakra. We could find the exact threshold between ninja and civilian, and see what can be done to cross it."

"Magnificent," Dr Yakushi said. "This is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that our discipline needs in order to advance. Not merely new objects of study, but new approaches to the structure of scientific study itself. Subjectivity, Gōketsu, is the bane of our work. 'How much chakra does it cost to activate your Bloodline Limit?' 'Oh, a fair bit.' 'How much do these Akimichi pills accelerate your chakra regeneration?' 'Uh, quite a lot?' 'Do you have enough chakra to complete this extremely sensitive experiment?' 'Durr, probably?'"

The gormless idiocy Dr Yakushi put into the answering voices—with remarkable acting skill—convinced Hazō of the strength of his feelings better than any amount of descriptive language.

"To the best of my knowledge, there are no hidden village researchers who have accomplished the task you describe. The difficulties, which I suspect you underestimate, are great, while the rewards are not intuitively obvious to the laypeople on whom we rely for funding. And of course, it takes an exceptional individual to so much as imagine imposing a coherent cognitive structure on the apparent chaos of the physical world, never mind apply the rigor and dedication necessary to force that mental map to accurately correspond to an uncooperative territory."

"If you wish to take on this herculean task, Gōketsu, I will happily support it. Provide me with a research proposal, offer a course of experimentation, and I shall ensure that it reaches the right eyes with my endorsement."

"Thank you, sir!" Hazō exclaimed. "That's great.

...

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We might not even have to do any of the funding/experimentation ourselves, if we come up with a viable path for investigation and provide it to him. Obviously if any plan involves the cooperation of a Wakasha, Noburi will have to help them, but otherwise we could pass it to Kabuto and get points for that alone. And investigating it ourselves would likely earn us even more goodwill.

(also, goodwill with Kabuto might have decent exchange rates with "Oro plz don't dissect us" tokens)

 

[Inferno Vulpix]

Don't we need to get some other stats up before we get 60s? Not for pyramids, but because they will get recruited as Jonin when they break that barrier?

Also, is the plan to have Akane raise FA and EM to 40 before bumping up those 50s and 60s?

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If we raise Akane's Taijutsu up to 60 in detour 1, it's decently likely that she'll start being considered for Jounin or Special Jounin yeah, both of which would put her in the realm of much more dangerous missions. I think a little while ago I suggested keeping Tai 50 until detour 2 and then jumping it up to Tai 70 so she's a good Jounin instead of a beginner Jounin. But yeah, we'll need to have conversations like that when we get to the detour.

Insofar as detour 1 is concerned, we don't need any new 40's. We might want Flame Aura/EM 40 at that time for its own sake, or for the sake of having more 40 support stats for when we reach the higher detours, or to help lay foundation for a second main column, but we don't strictly need to. Still, we've gone long enough without actualizing EM nukes, so I'm inclined to work this into detour 1 for its own sake.

 

[RandomOTP]

IIRC, the daily chakra pool of a ninja fluctuates based on many unknown/esoteric factors. EJ made a post somewhere that, should we try to create a set unit of chakra, the lunar phases of the moon would be but one of the many things we would have to take into account.

 

[Lailoken]

That's tricky, but not necessarily a dealbreaker. Maybe he could try and scoop out some of his barrel water, and see if the amount of chakra in it 'feels' right?

edit: unless the amount of chakra in his barrel doesn't depend on the amount of water, either. That would probably be a dealbreaker... but i guess he could fill it completely with water and chakra and it might still be workable. Depends on specifics.

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He and his entire bloodline use similar barrels to contain chakra-infused water indefinitely, including specialized jounin, so at the very least the maximum saturation limit must be pretty high. There also might be some issues with his barrel seal wearing out. Gee, if only somebody had thought about how he could have his sisters come visit as part of a goodwill student exchange program with a new alliance or something...

Noburi's chakra water can hold however much chakra he wants, from 0 to [his maximum]. When giving chakra to someone, he puts the chakra he wants in 0.5L water, which he then gives to the other person to drink.

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Okay, now you're just blatantly trying to piss me off.

If he scooped water straight from his barrel without deliberately moving chakra around, would the water take chakra with it?

My thinking here is that since we can't measure chakra directly, we should tie to to a physical property we can measure. If we can create a repeatable situation where water holds a consistent amount of chakra, we can use that as a measure.

Its clear that in some sense, Noburi needs water to store chakra - if his barrel leaks, for instance, he loses some/all of his chakra. On one hand, it might just act as some sort of catalyst or have some other unusual relationship. But on the other, if this relationship is linear, then likely the chakra is literally stored in the water on a volumetric basis - X cups of water store Y chakra, if he lost half of his water at that moment he'd lose half of his chakra, etc.

Since he can't judge the amount of total chakra he has objectively, the two clearest points to judge from would be no chakra (useless), and maximum chakra. If chakra is stored in a linear-volumetric relationship, it stands to reason that his maximum capacity is determined by total water * innate maximum water chakra receptivity (which may or may not vary depending on other factors).

If all that holds true, we have a way to measure objective amounts of chakra, and then we can work outwards from there.

Since the first thought of 'see how much water he doles out' doesn't work, maybe there are alternatives?
If he can't measure a objective amount of chakra into water, he can scoop directly from the barrel and have him judge if it's about the same, or have participants drink it immediately and try to tell when their coils feel 'overcharged' as has been mentioned in the past.
And if we can't scoop directly from his barrel without disrupting it, we can have him empty most of his water, fill chakra to his new (lower) max, and then see if he has enough left chakra to 'fill' someone or not.

edit: And even if we can't do any of that, we could almost certainly have him dole out enough chakra water for one person, and then have a different person drink that water, and so get a relative assessment of how much chakra those two people are missing.

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A major problem is that control is an issue which affects usage efficiency.

Fortunately, Hazou is a sealmaster. He has personal experience with a very simple seal which amounts to, "shove a predetermined amount of chakra into the pocket universe until it stops accepting more and stand back to watch the pretty lights." Given how easily mudfoots can use seals despite not even being trained in tree or water-walking the investment should be pretty consistent across test subjects, and I'd wager that Kagome knows a few things about quantifying chakra given that he's an expert in using tweve-dimensional math and trivial amounts of chakra to hack the fabric of the universe into explosions.

Welcome! Lovely to have you. How did you find out about us?


*shudder*


Yeah, you'll fit in great.

*increases the monthly aspirin order*


Thank you for this. :> Dehumanization = bad.


Snerk.

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Are the shipments of chilled human blood not arriving? I need to have a word with the courier.

 

[Buggy]

Fortunately, Hazou is a sealmaster. He has personal experience with a very simple seal which amounts to, "shove a predetermined amount of chakra into the pocket universe until it stops accepting more and stand back to watch the pretty lights." Given how easily mudfoots can use seals despite not even being trained in tree or water-walking the investment should be pretty consistent across test subjects, and I'd wager that Kagome knows a few things about quantifying chakra given that he's an expert in using tweve-dimensional math and trivial amounts of chakra to hack the fabric of the universe into explosions.

Click to shrink...

That does remind me of something odd - where do seals get their chakra (after being manually infused)? From some of the info we got recently because of the Great Seal, they seem to draw and channel chakra from the environment around them. But prior to that, most of the info we got seems to indicate that chakra specifically doesn't occur naturally outside of living things. See: Rain's rain having chakra being a Big Deal, a offhand quote during a breathing exercise to the effect of "But Mari, there is no chakra in the air!", etc.

Do they suck it out of nearby living things? Could we make a literal bomb of death seal just by making a seal that does nothing but intake and use a bunch of chakra?

 

[Oneiros]

Investigations into chakra capacity are a bad idea because it makes it more likely that people discover FOOM. This is a project that we need to let die

 

[_The_Bomb]

I was more-or-less going down the list of rationalfics, and this is the... fourth? Fourth rational Naruto fic. And the last one i haven't read, i think, or at least the last one which is well regarded by the community.

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Waves Arisen is number one, but what are numbers two and three?

 

[Sir Stompy]

• Noburi can judge how much chakra water someone needs to drink in order to have 'full' chakra
  • It doesn't matter if he knows how he does this, so long as he can do it reliably and on-demand.
• Noburi has a maximum amount of chakra he can store in his barrel at any moment.
  • The maximum does not substantially change in the short term.
  • Nor does the current amount, if it is not actively being used by techniques.
  • Noburi can tell when it is full.
• The amount of chakra stored depends on the amount of water and is stored in the water.
  • Chakra is evenly distributed in the water; there's no notable variation in chakra concentrations throughout.

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I think this has been covered, but your first two assumptions are good, Noburi can sense how much chakra someone needs to refill fully and at his level of Reserves he has a reliable maximum of 1250 cp.

The last one is not a good assumption, Noburi can concentrate an arbitrary amount of chakra in 500 mL amounts. IIRC he also has to portion the water out. Knocking him out and drinking from his barrel won't do anything. We could only use Anna's barrel during the Chunin Exams because Noburi was there to portion it out.

• A technique takes a constant or reasonably straightforward amount of chakra.
  • MEW, for example, might always use the same amount of chakra. This is very straightforward.
  • Alternatively, MEW might use a linear amount depending on the size of the wall. This is also pretty easy to work out.
  • MEW might also have a random factor of how much chakra it takes, or depend on the type of stone created, or have a quadratic relation with the size of the wall created, or depend on how tired a person is when they use it, or whether they've eaten bread in the past seven days, or depend on the phase of the secret invisible moon on the seventh path, etc etc.
  • Chakra seems to be tied to biology, and biology is hideously complicated. Linear or simple relationships in biology are rare and only mostly hold true under specific bounds and circumstances, and we should be wary of expecting anything less from chakra.
• 'Refilling' from chakra water is essentially the same as normal rest.
  • It doesn't give you 'special' or 'foreign' chakra which is used less efficiently, or leaks out of you, etc
  • The 'cap' of chakra does not vary between normal rest and refilling. If you get a good night sleep to fill up, you have the same amount of chakra as if you got the right amount of chakra water as judged by Noburi.
• Noburi's total chakra storage does not change over the long term.

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MEW does not always use the same amount of chakra, it costs 33(31 with elemental source) cp for 1m^3 and then 4 additional cp for each additional m^3. It can also be cast reflexively (supplemental action, chakra construct, only lasts a few seconds) for 25(23) with the same size progression. The progression is based on the Effect MEW is cast at, this is based on the skill level of the jutsu.

What I'm trying to say is that MEW might not actually be the best choice for this. Although instructing everyone to cast it at the smallest level with an elemental source should be fine

Refilling from chakra water is exactly the same as natural regeneration, no weird conversions. Reserves stay the same unless you spend XP to increase them.

 

[TigerBoyd]

Waves Arisen is number one, but what are numbers two and three?

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I don't know his list, and ratfic is hard to define, but Time Braid (Mother of Learning happens to Sakura) is probably one. Velorien made a different one (which he hasn't finished) called lighting up the dark, which is also good. I can think of a few more

 

[Shrooms]

Waves Arisen is number one, but what are numbers two and three?

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I don't know his list, and ratfic is hard to define, but Time Braid (Mother of Learning happens to Sakura) is probably one. Velorien made a different one (which he hasn't finished) called lighting up the dark, which is also good. I can think of a few more

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Naruto: The Need To Become Stronger is another.

Also, I enjoyed it but I'm not sure I'd consider 'Time Braid' rational....

 

[_The_Bomb]

Naruto: The Need To Become Stronger is another.

Also, I enjoyed it but I'm not sure I'd consider 'Time Braid' rational....

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Time Braid[\I] is well written, internally consistent, and thoughtfully worldbuilt. Many people consider that to be enough for a 'ratfic.' I do not, but enjoyed the story nonetheless (minus a few parts).

 

[TigerBoyd]

Naruto: The Need To Become Stronger is another.

Also, I enjoyed it but I'm not sure I'd consider 'Time Braid' rational....

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Yeah, it's probably not. Some fics, it's hard to differentiate between "it's rational" and "you made a consistent world with smart characters." I heard both claims about TB

 

[Shrooms]

Time Braid[\I] is well written, internally consistent, and thoughtfully worldbuilt. Many people consider that to be enough for a 'ratfic.' I do not, but enjoyed the story nonetheless (minus a few parts).

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This is mostly my opinion as well, although....

Yeah, it's probably not. Some fics, it's hard to differentiate between "it's rational" and "you made a consistent world with smart characters." I heard both claims about TB

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I actually think that's a decent enough description for ratfic, it is just my opinion that TB doesn't always fit that description. The world didn't feel super cohesive to me at all times, but it wasn't too egregious.

 

[Buggy]

Waves Arisen is number one, but what are numbers two and three?

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I read Need To Become Stronger, Waves Arisen, and Lighting Up the Dark in that order before finding MFD. I haven't heard of Time Braid, so i'll put that one on the list, thank you @TigerBoyd.

(if i had to rate them, i'm not sure what order i'd put them in. Need To Become Stronger is definitely at the top, but i'm not sure about the rest, and it's kinda hard to put MFD in the same bracket because a quest is a very different sort of beast.)

 

[Shrooms]

I read Need To Become Stronger, Waves Arisen, and Lighting Up the Dark in that order before finding MFD. I haven't heard of Time Braid, so i'll put that one on the list, thank you @TigerBoyd.

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I hope you enjoy lots of s e x

(if i had to rate them, i'm not sure what order i'd put them in. Need To Become Stronger is definitely at the top, but i'm not sure about the rest, and it's kinda hard to put MFD in the same bracket because a quest is a very different sort of beast.)

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I'm caught up with NTBS and it's very well written/cohesive, but it honestly kinda struck me as excessively grimdark, which I wasn't very fond of. It's like the walking dead effect where it felt like a bunch of characters die attempting to evoke emotional reaction but it actually just desensitized me to it instead, and made it feel cheap. I guess that's sort of the point? It's trying to sell you on a needlessly cruel deathworld etc. but my enjoyment of the story suffered for it. MfD sells the idea of a cruel deathworld without feeling like doomer porn to me.

Jiraiya's death in MfD and even in the original canon was upsetting to me, because the narrative had the emotional capacity to carry it. But in NTBS by the end of

Spoiler

Sand's forces killing a bunch of characters

I was mostly just rolling my eyes rather than being moved by it.

I may be being too harsh on it, but that's just how I felt experiencing each version of Naruto, can't really control how you feel

 

[Gev]

All the other villages just copied that calendar? Didn't we just meet some funny isolationists? What does Yuno have to say about this?

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Warning! Memetic hazard detected: calendars
Recommendation: purge before timezones and leap seconds are discussed.

 

[Velorien]

I actually think that's a decent enough description for ratfic, it is just my opinion that TB doesn't always fit that description. The world didn't feel super cohesive to me at all times, but it wasn't too egregious.

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To be honest, I found Time Braid to be a letdown. I loved it at the start, but I steadily enjoyed it less as it developed similar problems to canon--power creep, the protagonist becoming ninja Jesus, and new worldbuilding that threw in more and more supernatural elements to the detriment of the story and setting that had originally drawn me in.

 

[Lailoken]

That does remind me of something odd - where do seals get their chakra (after being manually infused)? From some of the info we got recently because of the Great Seal, they seem to draw and channel chakra from the environment around them. But prior to that, most of the info we got seems to indicate that chakra specifically doesn't occur naturally outside of living things. See: Rain's rain having chakra being a Big Deal, a offhand quote during a breathing exercise to the effect of "But Mari, there is no chakra in the air!", etc.

Do they suck it out of nearby living things? Could we make a literal bomb of death seal just by making a seal that does nothing but intake and use a bunch of chakra?

Click to shrink...

Well, we know that the ink used to create the blanks needs to be imbued with a completely trivial amount of chakra not even worth tracking through a bronze stylus but it apparently can't absorb or retain it if it isn't aren't made from carbon ink, then there is the infusion of another trivial amount of chakra, then there is usually, but not always a chakra activation trigger for them to perform.

My working estimate is that chakra is an ambicausal relationship with the weilder's net long-term effect on history as interpreted by a Tiplerian being at the cumulative end of existence which is wielding its ability to observe events into reality into empowering those it has collectively selected as ambassadors in a recursive relationship.

 

[Buggy]

I hope you enjoy lots of s e x

I'm caught up with NTBS and it's very well written/cohesive, but it honestly kinda struck me as excessively grimdark, which I wasn't very fond of. It's like the walking dead effect where it felt like a bunch of characters die attempting to evoke emotional reaction but it actually just desensitized me to it instead, and made it feel cheap. I guess that's sort of the point? It's trying to sell you on a needlessly cruel deathworld etc. but my enjoyment of the story suffered for it. MfD sells the idea of a cruel deathworld without feeling like doomer porn to me.

Jiraiya's death in MfD and even in the original canon was upsetting to me, because the narrative had the emotional capacity to carry it. But in NTBS by the end of

Spoiler

Sand's forces killing a bunch of characters

I was mostly just rolling my eyes rather than being moved by it.

I may be being too harsh on it, but that's just how I felt experiencing each version of Naruto, can't really control how you feel

Click to shrink...

I didn't really get that impression from NTBS, but I did sorta get it in Waves Arisen, like when

Spoiler

two major characters die offscreen when they're poisoned in jail, with no buildup or warning

. But Waves Arisen is weird yet good in that it didn't strike me as well written, but looking back on it, it was a thoroughly rational work that realistically displayed the realities of ninja life like that - death is sudden, unexpected, and rarely preceeded by a dramatic last stand.

Well, we know that the ink used to create the blanks needs to be imbued with a completely trivial amount of chakra not even worth tracking through a bronze stylus but it apparently can't absorb or retain it if it isn't aren't made from carbon ink, then there is the infusion of another trivial amount of chakra, then there is usually, but not always a chakra activation trigger for them to perform.

My working estimate is that chakra is an ambicausal relationship with the weilder's net long-term effect on history as interpreted by a tiplerian being at the cumulative end of existence which is wielding its ability to observe events into reality into empowering those it has collectively selected as ambassadors in a recursive relationship.

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That's more elaborate than my interpretation, which was pretty much just agreeing with Kagome that chakra is something the sage made up for some purpose or another, via admin privs on a post-singularity singleton AI.

Seals fit in to that a bit weirdly, though. Would make sense for it to be from the same source, especially since it still involves chakra, but it still seems to be a separate thing. Maybe its sort of a exploit? But the whole separate paths, etc is very elaborate; if AI-theory is correct, those would probably be simulations that the AI shuttles summoner/summonees to and from. But why are those there? Those couldn't be the result of a simple unintentional exploit.

Its definitely all artificial; seals/chakra are clearly anthropocentric systems (and originate from such), and if they were natural features of the world extant since the beginning, things would look very very different. For one, evolution would probably have discovered sealing and either tiled over the universe or destroyed it. And much else. But the specifics are hazy.

 

[FaintlySorcerous]

Warning! Memetic hazard detected: calendars
Recommendation: purge before timezones and leap seconds are discussed.

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While off-topic for the thread, leap seconds may become a thing of the past due to climate change. We may even require negative leap seconds.

(The initial quoted tweet is somewhat inaccurate in its analysis of why but it's definitely a thing and quite a concern for precise tools.)

 

[MrRobot]

Correct. You can't use EM on an area until the effects of the previous one have worn off and the area has returned to its natural temperature. Please don't ask about "Well, but what if we cast it on SURROUNDING zones and how does the thermal transfer work and what sort of atmospheric effects do you get at the boundary and exactly how big is a zone and..."



Leaf was founded in 1000 AS (After Sage) and it's currently 1070. One might ask if the Sage actually lived exactly one thousand and seventy years ago but when he founded the city Hashirama said that it was the year 1000 so who are we to argue?

Also, rightly or wrongly, there is at least one person around who is more than 70:


Point of interest: Evidence points to the idea that the average lifespan was much lower in the IRL 12th century than it is today, but that was the average lifespan when you included the enormous amount of infant mortality. If you only included people older than 5 in your average then the average lifespan looked much like it does today.

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Ok this just reinforce my point 70 year ago (not 200 sorry) ninja clan were responsible to track history, anyone can figure the bulk of the scrolls are ethiers lost or the vilager did not bothered to track it down because iner politics.