Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
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- naruto rational 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 open voting
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't think a lore update is a particularly good idea - for one, our next plan is going to be meetings one way or another, and EJ hates that. For another, after those meetings, there's going to be some sort of throwdown, and EJ loves those. Either we're going to need to offset a full week to maximize QM happiness, or we're going to have to not optimize QM happiness, and therefore sacrifice XP.
I think that we've talked most of our options through. I don't think that we can come up with plausible explanations for the phenomena Orochimaru observed. That means that any solution which isn't dealing with the problem head-on is just kicking the can down the road - I think that we should send Orochimaru to Isan, if we can, but that buys us a week or two at most (I think?). Our being dispatched to Mist on a diplomatic mission is plausible, but it isn't guaranteed and we have to travel there, giving Orochimaru a brilliant opening.
Buying ourselves a few more (real-life) days to discuss this problem doesn't seem like it's going to help - I'm not convinced it is, at any rate.
This plan focuses on maximizing our chances of securing Naruto and Tsunade's support. It sanity-checks a voluntary vivisection with someone who will a) take it seriously and b) know enough to give us a good answer on whether or not it's actually viable. It also heavily features Kei, Snowflake, and Ami, which is a bonus when Vel is writing. It also takes a hack at narrowinig the Kei-Mari gap in ways I think might well work; getting both of them to recognize each other's pain.
[X] Action Plan: Hesitation Is Always Easy but Rarely Useful
Word count: <400
I think that we've talked most of our options through. I don't think that we can come up with plausible explanations for the phenomena Orochimaru observed. That means that any solution which isn't dealing with the problem head-on is just kicking the can down the road - I think that we should send Orochimaru to Isan, if we can, but that buys us a week or two at most (I think?). Our being dispatched to Mist on a diplomatic mission is plausible, but it isn't guaranteed and we have to travel there, giving Orochimaru a brilliant opening.
Buying ourselves a few more (real-life) days to discuss this problem doesn't seem like it's going to help - I'm not convinced it is, at any rate.
This plan focuses on maximizing our chances of securing Naruto and Tsunade's support. It sanity-checks a voluntary vivisection with someone who will a) take it seriously and b) know enough to give us a good answer on whether or not it's actually viable. It also heavily features Kei, Snowflake, and Ami, which is a bonus when Vel is writing. It also takes a hack at narrowinig the Kei-Mari gap in ways I think might well work; getting both of them to recognize each other's pain.
[X] Action Plan: Hesitation Is Always Easy but Rarely Useful
Word count: <400
- Meeting:
- We'll petition Tsunade protection and support.
- We're going to talk to her and then Orochimaru with her. He's too smart to think he can just kidnap us. Either he's crazy or there's been a miscommunication.
- Kei, Snowflake, Shikamaru:
- Orochimaru's interested in hacking the Frozen Skein.
- In addition to threats to personal safety, this seems Extremely Bad: you can't caldera Orochimaru.
- We'd like to delegate getting Naruto to support/protect Kei to this group.
- We're requesting resources, coordination, and optimization of the below plan. Loop in Ami?
- The plan:
- Approach Tsunade. Buy 15 minutes of her time, somehow.
- Detail our interactions with Orochimaru and our conclusions: he will kidnap/experiment on Hazo/Kei.
- Are we misreading the situation?
- As far as we can see, if he kidnaps us, either he defects and Leaf is defeated, or he remains and civil war breaks out.
- We can't fight him or avoid him forever, and we can't invent compelling explanations for seal memorization/cognitively-independent SCs.
- Do you see it another way? Do you have solutions?
- We want to have a conversation with him where he actually talks to us.
- He's too smart to think he can kidnap us and get away with it.
- Was he very awkwardly asking us to volunteer?
- Does he just not care?
- We think cooperation is possible. We have some goals in common: immortality research (although we find his methods repulsive), we want his help with the Great Seal, and we want to know more about our bloodline.
- Is voluntary vivisection at Leaf General with witnesses and a guarantee we won't be harmed viable? Would he go for it?
- Is Orochimaru someone we can work with, period?
- We want to understand, but if we can't understand him, it closes the door on our voluntary participation in his research, and the involuntary sort will bring the village down on his head.
- We'd also like to establish that he can't successfully threaten us. He's absolutely powerful enough to do whatever he wants to us, but that doesn't mean we have to kowtow.
- He's too smart to think he can kidnap us and get away with it.
- Is any of that sane?
- What's your price for accompanying us?
- Talk to Tsunade, given Thinker approval, sufficient QM spoons.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
While I agree with your post, I don't think Velorien likes them either. On the other hand, EJ just wrote one, so it's Velorien's turn on the cross
[X] Action Plan: Hesitation Is Always Easy but Rarely Useful
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- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I would hooope that he's reasonably tolerant of meeting plans that center characters he enjoys writing, but that might be stubborn optimism.While I agree with your post, I don't think Velorien likes them either. On the other hand, EJ just wrote one, so it's Velorien's turn on the cross
[X] Action Plan: Hesitation Is Always Easy but Rarely Useful
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I hate to inform you of this, but when elder gods beamed the contents of the QM secret docs into my brain meat I came to understand that there is a code controlling the timers of various doomsday circumstances, and every meeting increments the timer faster, and it can't be disabled
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Can we please not? The Mori would love to deprive the Nara from stealing their bloodline, enough to act on it in some way or another. And even if we were sure enough that Ami can prevent that, Asuma is not. All this does is make us look like an idiot who doesn't notice when words that anyone who doesn't know him would interpret as disloyal.
If the Nara have been weakened too much by the Collapse to keep Kei safe in their compound then maybe the Akamichi who still have a top jōnin can help by hosting her for a while.
Edit:
I mostly like it, but I don't think we can in good conscience give Mari a week off starting right now, during WWIV, right as Hazō is doing his best to have no one be vivisected. We could have her stop doing the peripheral social/economic engineering I guess.
[X] The First and Last Resort is Honesty. The Second Resort is Voluntary Vivisection.
[X] Kei Does Not Use the Joestar Secret Technique
I can live with these as is, but would prefer Hesitation Is Always Easy But Rarely Useful if we didn't again try to handle family drama for the upteenth time while the world crumbles.
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- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
fuck it let's just keep writing plans
[X] Action plan: outside context solutions
[X] Action plan: outside context solutions
- prepwork
- Meet with Ami and fill her in on the situation
- Ask her to help you convince Asuma that if he let's Oro murder either of you there is no way that she will be able to prevent Mist from breaking the alliance
- The meeting with Asuma
- Points to hit
- Hazou is the niece of the Mizukage letting him get murdered when you need Ren to not declare war on you is a bad look
- Kei is Ami's sister. Asuma knows how competent Ami is. He can do the math
- Orochimaru might be an S-ranker but Mist has more firepower than Oro.
- Those ninja can either help Leaf continue to exist or they can help Rock and Cloud
- Ami doesn't care how but the Hokage will do his duty to keep all of the Goketsu safe
- so start being an adult and brint that murdering psychopath in line
- If Asuma tries to object point out that there is no way he could cover this up
- Being the Hokage means making hard decisions and frankly it was idiotic that he thought he could win a war on 3 fronts
- Points to hit
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Ah, the good old "threaten the Hokage" plan. We should ask Naruto to come along. Maybe he can loom or something.
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- Location
- UK
I'll be frank here: I don't get why people keep trying to do these aggressive things like decide to get dissected in one update, then plan a face-off with Oro in another. I have given an example plan where we just communicate with Orochimaru in a restrained and non-aggressive way, and clearly people don't like it because there has been no uptake nor any attempt to do the same in other plans, but I don't get why.
Why not just talk to Orochimaru and be helpful in appropriately cautious but otherwise normal ways, like the Hokage suggested? What is the driving motive to keep running to extremes?
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yup, these are the logical consequences of Asuma letting us get murdered. There's no way this has a happy ending for Leaf
I don't expect anyone to vote for this but just want to continue to expand the solution space not shrink it
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- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm potentially open to taking this out. However, I don't think it's likely to kick up new dust. They had probably their most positive interaction in months. I'd like to capitalize on it. We know that right now, Mari is not going to pursue any sort of conflict. If we order her to tell Kei what's going on then at least we're putting facts in her face, and I think that if we order Mari to actually think about Kei's grief, then she'll at least say, 'that is awful and I understand I hurt you'. Can you articulate your concerns?
I think that giving her the week off is largely symbolic - if Asuma needs her, he'll tell us and we'll put her in the field, and he probably doesn't want to field-deploy someone with a Medium consequence anyway. If Mari wants to spend her week off manipulating Leaf's economy, then I think that's up to her.
I encourage you to fork my plan and remove that section - I'll vote for it, at least.
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Same.
Orochimaru got annoyed with Hazo over not being able to share the pangolin Jutsu with him and hasn't pressured us since.
So, he does respect some boundaries.
I'd rather molify him by giving those away to be honest. That should be worth enough for him to look away for time being.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Actually, Hazō threatening the Hokage is perfect. As a repeat offender Asuma will have "no choice" but to finally execute him. Orochimaru can then be selected as the official executioner and in exchange make concessions like actually helping with the Great Seal problem and keeping his hands off of Keiko (the explanation of it being a mind impairing bloodline that makes her SCs unique should be much more mollifying as he digs around in his consolidation prize with official sanction). Noburi can then accept being the Clan Head of a broken Clan under micromanagement of the Tower in exchange of the continued survival of his family. Sure, it sets bad precedent for what can be done to Clans. But let's be honest, the Gokētsu can easily be spun into being "not a proper Clan" without threatening anyone but maybe the even younger Kei Clan with the implications.
This really does neatly solve a lot of problems. For Asuma.
I don't think the "and now apologize to each other, kids" stuff will actually do anything to help anyone and at worst lead to triggering negative emotional or cynical remarks. And mandating Mari to open up about her damage to Kei right now might sound like a good idea, except that we don't know the extent of said damage (Mari is now thrice shattered), so I'm worried it might backfire into another breakdown.
Symbolic holidays that everyone involved knows to be meaningless seem almost as bad as trying to push through actual holidays to be honest. If you want you can mandate self care I guess. Though does Hazō know Mari enough to know what activities are emotionally healthy coping mechanisms that facilitate healings and what activities are stuff that Mari claims is good and fun for her but actually hurts her? And even if he did, can he convince Mari that he's right?
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Then Mist goes to war an leaf burns cause they are fighting a war on three fronts. Like this is actually an incredibly dumb decision by Asuma
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I would be disappointed, but I suppose it would be better than ending up with a plan that's underspecified or otherwise half-baked.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
[X] Action Plan: Hesitation Bad Minus The Mandatory Hugging
Word count: 304
@FaintlySorcerous
After deleting the offending section I noticed that there's a part whose purpose I don't know and I don't know what to do with it.
Then again, if the war goes badly enough then Mist should genuinely think about joining the fight against Leaf regardless of what happens to Hazou, Kei or Noburi.
Word count: 304
- Offscreen:
- Advocate Orochimaru heading the Isan mission - he's a Summoner, powerful sealmaster and medic. Kei's banished and can't go.
- Meeting:
- We'll petition Tsunade and Naruto for protection and support.
- Kei, Snowflake, Shikamaru, Ami:
- Orochimaru's interested in hacking the Frozen Skein.
- Threats to personal safety aside, this seems Extremely Bad: you can't caldera Orochimaru.
- We're requesting resources, coordination, sanity checks, and optimization of the below plan.
- The plan:
- Approach Naruto and Tsunade.
- Detail our interactions with Orochimaru and our conclusions: he will kidnap/experiment on Hazo/Kei.
- Tsunade: are we misreading Orochimaru? Suicide techniques to prevent research on our corpse?
- This would end the Will of Fire - either he defects and Leaf is defeated, or he remains and can kidnap anyone.
- Do you have solutions?
- The Tower won't intervene.
- We can't invent compelling explanations for seal memorization/cognitively-independent SCs.
- We can't fight him or avoid him forever.
- Do you have solutions?
- We're going to lay the situation out for him and refuse to be intimidated.
- Offer compromises - consensual experimentation which does not harm us after the war.
- Tsunade: is voluntary vivisection at Leaf General with witnesses and a guarantee we won't be harmed viable?
- But we have bigger things on our plate right now. If he tries this, he's going to eat the consequences eventually. We know he knows that and isn't stupid.
- This sounds a lot more compelling with your backing. Name your price for your support.
- Naruto: we're begging for your help. We understand you hate (?) us. We wouldn't be asking if we could see any other way. Simultaneously, we're doing this with or without you. We will protect the Will of Fire. Next option is destructive suicide.
- Tsunade: Offer clerks - you run an international aid organization. The GED produces literate/numerate civilians. You can never have enough clerks.
- Offer compromises - consensual experimentation which does not harm us after the war.
- Execute the plan, given Thinker approval.
@FaintlySorcerous
After deleting the offending section I noticed that there's a part whose purpose I don't know and I don't know what to do with it.
Why is this separate from the Thinker Clan exclusive meeting? Who participates? Is is supposed to be something beyond telling the Goketsu family members that we're gonna ask Naruto and Tsunade for help? Are they supposed to do anything to help?
Why? Because the traitor missing-nin Hazou got himself executed? I'm pretty sure Asuma can find some kind of reparation for that.
Then again, if the war goes badly enough then Mist should genuinely think about joining the fight against Leaf regardless of what happens to Hazou, Kei or Noburi.
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
Honestly...
doubt.jpg.
I think the issue is...we need something to stop him from killing us, just in case. Mari is compromised, Kagome will jump to fight, Kei is...kinda gloomy and useless in her ability to quantum leap to conclusions, and Hazou's been fried for months now. So without outside help, Orochimaru can steamroll everyone. I'd say get Naruto and/or Tsunade and then just talk to Oro and make it clear why it's better to be friends/allies than to be constantly threatened when he wants something.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
I haven't been following the discussion too closely, but, uh, why are we sending Hazou to secure Naruto's assistance? Instead of Ami, his probable crush, or Kei, his actual friend? We need him to protect Kei and Hazou, I get that, but I don't see why the ask for their collective protection has to come specifically from the person he hates.
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- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
No because Ami Mori's brother or sister got
Killed and Leaf is already fighting a losing war
They have two essies. Oro isn't a god so he wouldn't be favored in that fight
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
I'm kind of interested in how that would go, actually. Oro presumably has offsite backups. Depending on their limitations, he could theoretically just keep coming back, inflicting S-class damage in each suicidal attack, until he kills their essies one by one and the entire village is in rubble. He could potentially solo the entire EN, in the long-term, unless they develop some sort of global-scale surveillance seals and track down all his labs (which is implausible, see Chakra Diffusion Problem).
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- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I've updated my plan.
A summary of the changes:
A summary of the changes:
- I've grudgingly removed the section where we try to get Kei and Mari to talk.
- I'm now trying to have Tsunade enable a conversation where we talk to Orochimaru and explain that...
- We don't understand what he's doing - the path he was treading down would destroy the village, and he's too smart not to realize that.
- We'd like to help with his research in a way that doesn't harm us.
- If he insists on attempting to compel us, we won't cooperate, and we're back to square one.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well I personally think we are overselling Oro's abilities. Plus if anyone could figure it out the Angel Without Mercy is a good bet to. Someone who considers overkill to be a paupers word is a man after my own heart