Evidence towards Bear being dangerous
Maybe chakra metal isn't that useful. Which could explain their scarcity in ninja villages.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
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- 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 open voting
Maybe chakra metal isn't that useful. Which could explain their scarcity in ninja villages.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Hm, the QMs did mention that they wanted a writeup of what we think ninja war looks like - so! @eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail
I notice that I am confused.
Let's start with that. There's something about the way the Ninja World Wars have been conducted and are conducted that confuse me.
To explain, I should explain my expectations of how states should behave in a period where every state hates each other and is ready to throw down in continent spanning wars, multiple times.
I start with this: I am using International Realism (slash neorealism but i'll explain the difference in a bit) to analyze this system of states.
Grand Strategy
Under a IR framework, I think these States (the Hidden Villages/whatever Iron was doing) have basically two objectives:
1. State survival
2. Whatever other ideological projects each state has.
Under sufficiently intense survival pressure*, any state that does not successfully execute objective 1) dies, and is absorbed into another state or outright eradicated. This means in wartime most ideological projects are either dropped or, well, lead to defeat, either limited or total.
So I assume that these states must be prioritizing their survival. I further assume that the greatest threat most states face - the way most of them will collapse - is if they lose too much military force to survive as a coherent entity in the constant state of medium grade conflict. (If a fresh patrolling Grass nin squad spots a wounded Mist nin squad, my bet is that the Grass patrol won't hesitate to finish the job, though I think my conclusions still hold even if we assume that Grass safely escorts the Mist nin out of the conflict zone).
So what counts as "military force" in this setting?
We've pretty much got explicit QM confirmation that the only things that really count are "things with chakra", i.e ninja, jutsu, and seals. As in, "one genin vs an army of trained but chakra-incapable soldiers is a matter of time, not chance" level disparity.
So - under this setup - all states must survive. This means all states must be able to match or overmatch their neighbors/threats with military force.
However, State A making itself more secure (by increasing its own military force) necessarily makes State B more insecure - which means that State B must increase its own military force to keep up.
So every state, absent either the guarantee of a hegemon (one state sufficiently powerful to defeat all challengers with only moderate effort) or an actually effective international body of law (lol. lmao.) is in this state of interstate anarchy, where they must secure more military force or risk death by their more powerful neighbors.
(Note that states wanting to be stronger is not the same thing as actually becoming stronger - a lot of states can just be very bad at becoming stronger!)
Okay, so we're in a situation where everyone's getting stronger all the time and it's making people nervous. We still need to answer one very, very, very important question:
Why do people go to war?
Or rather, what wargoals are these states fighting for?
(These wargoals, by determining the ends of the war, also dictate the means!)
Your ideal wargoal is "destruction of a threat", or on the flip side, "surviving a state-threatening assault". This is the wargoal of complete eradication (not preferable) or absorption/subjugation (somewhat preferred, increases your own military power maybe**).
But then unless we assume that ninja villages are just fucking awful at trying to determine other village's rough comparative strength, no peer would ever go to full-scale war with each other - a war to the knife against even a weaker peer would exhaust both villages and let village C, D, E, F, etc. etc. conduct a joint operation to eradicate both. You could try to ally with other ninja villages to take down a village, but you'd never be able to trust that your nominal ally wouldn't decide "y'know what, I'd really rather not be sharing a border with your newly empowered state, I'm backstabbing you for balance of power reasons".
Because all of the strategists know this (if they're not just outright colluding as the Five Thinker Clans), no peer opponent should be launching a war to the knife against a peer opponent.
(Actually, in MfD history, we only really know of two wars-to-the-knife - the war in Iron, and the war against Whirlpool. Something to consider.)
So, then, what are villages fighting for?
Well, either state survival reasons or ideological reasons.
That gives us a few more wargoals: 1) Make our enemies weaker somehow, 2) Make ourselves stronger, 3) Spread our ideology, or 4) satisfy our powerbase at home.
Moreover, the pace of ninja warfare generally means that the more immediate the benefit/detriment, the better - since that's a lot less time for your gains to be eaten by chakra beasts or "chakra" "beasts" (read: enemy ninja).
And here's where we run into problems.
Remember how we said, all the way up there, that the only worthwhile sources of military strength were 1. Ninja, 2. Jutsu, 3. Seals, in that order?
Where are all the other foreign ninja?
It's an easy wargoal to tack on - "give me one of your genin or chunin". The enemy village loses an immediate and long-term asset, your village gains an immediate and long term asset, you're happy, they're not.
But we don't seem to see this. Somehow, Leaf was the first to bring in missing-nin in from the cold. Somehow, the Goketsu defecting is a monumental and norm-breaking thing.
That confuses me.
What confuses me more is the wargoal most ninja villages seem to have, which is...seizure of farmlands, territory, and trade deals???
Like, these are all wargoals that make these ninja villages wealthier. But the thing is, wealth doesn't convert to military force all that well. You can't really buy your way into more jutsu. You can't really buy new sealing innovations, though you can try to buy more seals - but you're probably already running your sealmasters at maximum capacity, so you might just be jacking up the price you're paying. You could buy more ninja tools, but the effectiveness of that drops off pretty rapidly after the tenth kunai brace for every ninja on the force. (actually, production limitations on ninja tool and weapons capacity is an interesting possibility, but probably not one that survives into the long term because frankly ninja warfare is just getting too lethal even barehanded).
But what if you could buy ninja?
Or, at least, buy ninja missions.
Here's my hypothesis: villages can and frequently do purchase high-level ninja missions from other villages. This allows you to convert wealth into (temporary) military force and thus give you security.
War declaration effectively means that they will not be accepting your ninja missions and are starting a concerted effort to destroy your ninja power by committing reserves, so it is beneficial for attacking states to conceal a state of war, while it is neutral to beneficial for defending states to declare a state of war as soon as possible.
(I am assuming an environment of constant raids of opportunity and violence at pretty much any given moment, so a sizable commitment to a strike force means something somewhere is going undefended).
I think this makes a reasonable amount of sense given the world; buying missions from other villages explains the minimal but extant diplomatic contacts we see, explains why so many wargoals are for money, and explains why genin across the Elemental Nations are taught international cooperation as a vital skill at the Chunin Exams - because chunin on up are sent on missions for other villages.
Given this assumption + "most villages are actually somewhat bad at increasing their strength", I think we arrive at a reasonable approximation of the world as is presented.
The immediate implications are: ninja in wartime will preferentially target enemy ninja, strongpoints, or trade caravans. This is because as an attacker your goals are 1.) Kill enemy ninja, 2.) Weaken the overall enemy state, 3.) Get money, in that order.
As such, no real point burning down villages - why would you burn down the sources of the wealth you want to take in the peace negotiations, anyway? - but some reason to stealing from merchants/daimyo tax collectors - "lots of money and frankly replaceable", and lots of reasons to try and hunt down stray ninja patrols.
(If you can detonate a nuke in the enemy capital , every Kage in the Elemental Nations would be pushing the button before you could get done explaining the costs)
Furthermore, what you'd hold in strongholds is effectively tax documentation, or the time-sensitive blackmail material you use to control the local area. You might potentially also have research into seals or jutsu, depending on what gets left behind - but it's more likely for that stuff to get shipped back to the capital at the first opportunity. However, don't expect to find much in the local strongholds - there's not much reason to hold anything that'd really hurt in there unless someone got supremely lazy.
So, TL;DR:
I think it makes sense for Villages to commission high-level missions from each other. I think this means that attacking ninja will prioritize killing defending ninja, attacking strongholds, and trade caravans, in that order. I think this means that strongholds contain information about how to control the local area, but do not contain more significant information unless by chance.
(*It's at least possible that the 70 years since the Village system was established doesn't count as sufficiently intense to weed out inefficient practices!)
(**Definitely possible that there's a strong norm against accepting other ninja as part of main force for risk of infiltration/corruption. I'm not going to say it's impossible, just pings me as strange when the Amerindians had captive warfare as a big part of how they conducted war.)
I notice that I am confused.
Let's start with that. There's something about the way the Ninja World Wars have been conducted and are conducted that confuse me.
To explain, I should explain my expectations of how states should behave in a period where every state hates each other and is ready to throw down in continent spanning wars, multiple times.
I start with this: I am using International Realism (slash neorealism but i'll explain the difference in a bit) to analyze this system of states.
Grand Strategy
Under a IR framework, I think these States (the Hidden Villages/whatever Iron was doing) have basically two objectives:
1. State survival
2. Whatever other ideological projects each state has.
Under sufficiently intense survival pressure*, any state that does not successfully execute objective 1) dies, and is absorbed into another state or outright eradicated. This means in wartime most ideological projects are either dropped or, well, lead to defeat, either limited or total.
So I assume that these states must be prioritizing their survival. I further assume that the greatest threat most states face - the way most of them will collapse - is if they lose too much military force to survive as a coherent entity in the constant state of medium grade conflict. (If a fresh patrolling Grass nin squad spots a wounded Mist nin squad, my bet is that the Grass patrol won't hesitate to finish the job, though I think my conclusions still hold even if we assume that Grass safely escorts the Mist nin out of the conflict zone).
So what counts as "military force" in this setting?
We've pretty much got explicit QM confirmation that the only things that really count are "things with chakra", i.e ninja, jutsu, and seals. As in, "one genin vs an army of trained but chakra-incapable soldiers is a matter of time, not chance" level disparity.
So - under this setup - all states must survive. This means all states must be able to match or overmatch their neighbors/threats with military force.
However, State A making itself more secure (by increasing its own military force) necessarily makes State B more insecure - which means that State B must increase its own military force to keep up.
So every state, absent either the guarantee of a hegemon (one state sufficiently powerful to defeat all challengers with only moderate effort) or an actually effective international body of law (lol. lmao.) is in this state of interstate anarchy, where they must secure more military force or risk death by their more powerful neighbors.
(Note that states wanting to be stronger is not the same thing as actually becoming stronger - a lot of states can just be very bad at becoming stronger!)
Okay, so we're in a situation where everyone's getting stronger all the time and it's making people nervous. We still need to answer one very, very, very important question:
Why do people go to war?
Or rather, what wargoals are these states fighting for?
(These wargoals, by determining the ends of the war, also dictate the means!)
Your ideal wargoal is "destruction of a threat", or on the flip side, "surviving a state-threatening assault". This is the wargoal of complete eradication (not preferable) or absorption/subjugation (somewhat preferred, increases your own military power maybe**).
But then unless we assume that ninja villages are just fucking awful at trying to determine other village's rough comparative strength, no peer would ever go to full-scale war with each other - a war to the knife against even a weaker peer would exhaust both villages and let village C, D, E, F, etc. etc. conduct a joint operation to eradicate both. You could try to ally with other ninja villages to take down a village, but you'd never be able to trust that your nominal ally wouldn't decide "y'know what, I'd really rather not be sharing a border with your newly empowered state, I'm backstabbing you for balance of power reasons".
Because all of the strategists know this (if they're not just outright colluding as the Five Thinker Clans), no peer opponent should be launching a war to the knife against a peer opponent.
(Actually, in MfD history, we only really know of two wars-to-the-knife - the war in Iron, and the war against Whirlpool. Something to consider.)
So, then, what are villages fighting for?
Well, either state survival reasons or ideological reasons.
That gives us a few more wargoals: 1) Make our enemies weaker somehow, 2) Make ourselves stronger, 3) Spread our ideology, or 4) satisfy our powerbase at home.
Moreover, the pace of ninja warfare generally means that the more immediate the benefit/detriment, the better - since that's a lot less time for your gains to be eaten by chakra beasts or "chakra" "beasts" (read: enemy ninja).
And here's where we run into problems.
Remember how we said, all the way up there, that the only worthwhile sources of military strength were 1. Ninja, 2. Jutsu, 3. Seals, in that order?
Where are all the other foreign ninja?
It's an easy wargoal to tack on - "give me one of your genin or chunin". The enemy village loses an immediate and long-term asset, your village gains an immediate and long term asset, you're happy, they're not.
But we don't seem to see this. Somehow, Leaf was the first to bring in missing-nin in from the cold. Somehow, the Goketsu defecting is a monumental and norm-breaking thing.
That confuses me.
What confuses me more is the wargoal most ninja villages seem to have, which is...seizure of farmlands, territory, and trade deals???
Like, these are all wargoals that make these ninja villages wealthier. But the thing is, wealth doesn't convert to military force all that well. You can't really buy your way into more jutsu. You can't really buy new sealing innovations, though you can try to buy more seals - but you're probably already running your sealmasters at maximum capacity, so you might just be jacking up the price you're paying. You could buy more ninja tools, but the effectiveness of that drops off pretty rapidly after the tenth kunai brace for every ninja on the force. (actually, production limitations on ninja tool and weapons capacity is an interesting possibility, but probably not one that survives into the long term because frankly ninja warfare is just getting too lethal even barehanded).
But what if you could buy ninja?
Or, at least, buy ninja missions.
Here's my hypothesis: villages can and frequently do purchase high-level ninja missions from other villages. This allows you to convert wealth into (temporary) military force and thus give you security.
War declaration effectively means that they will not be accepting your ninja missions and are starting a concerted effort to destroy your ninja power by committing reserves, so it is beneficial for attacking states to conceal a state of war, while it is neutral to beneficial for defending states to declare a state of war as soon as possible.
(I am assuming an environment of constant raids of opportunity and violence at pretty much any given moment, so a sizable commitment to a strike force means something somewhere is going undefended).
I think this makes a reasonable amount of sense given the world; buying missions from other villages explains the minimal but extant diplomatic contacts we see, explains why so many wargoals are for money, and explains why genin across the Elemental Nations are taught international cooperation as a vital skill at the Chunin Exams - because chunin on up are sent on missions for other villages.
Given this assumption + "most villages are actually somewhat bad at increasing their strength", I think we arrive at a reasonable approximation of the world as is presented.
The immediate implications are: ninja in wartime will preferentially target enemy ninja, strongpoints, or trade caravans. This is because as an attacker your goals are 1.) Kill enemy ninja, 2.) Weaken the overall enemy state, 3.) Get money, in that order.
As such, no real point burning down villages - why would you burn down the sources of the wealth you want to take in the peace negotiations, anyway? - but some reason to stealing from merchants/daimyo tax collectors - "lots of money and frankly replaceable", and lots of reasons to try and hunt down stray ninja patrols.
(If you can detonate a nuke in the enemy capital , every Kage in the Elemental Nations would be pushing the button before you could get done explaining the costs)
Furthermore, what you'd hold in strongholds is effectively tax documentation, or the time-sensitive blackmail material you use to control the local area. You might potentially also have research into seals or jutsu, depending on what gets left behind - but it's more likely for that stuff to get shipped back to the capital at the first opportunity. However, don't expect to find much in the local strongholds - there's not much reason to hold anything that'd really hurt in there unless someone got supremely lazy.
So, TL;DR:
I think it makes sense for Villages to commission high-level missions from each other. I think this means that attacking ninja will prioritize killing defending ninja, attacking strongholds, and trade caravans, in that order. I think this means that strongholds contain information about how to control the local area, but do not contain more significant information unless by chance.
(*It's at least possible that the 70 years since the Village system was established doesn't count as sufficiently intense to weed out inefficient practices!)
(**Definitely possible that there's a strong norm against accepting other ninja as part of main force for risk of infiltration/corruption. I'm not going to say it's impossible, just pings me as strange when the Amerindians had captive warfare as a big part of how they conducted war.)
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- Location
- United States
Now that is what I call an exciting title. Fingers crossed we actually learn something about Sage Mode.
We're starting with the Toads? They're all but guarenteed to know everything under the sun about Sage Mode, but I could have sworn that RandomOTP left them off this plan with the intent of going to them next update once we (hopefully) had in-universe confirmation that Sage Mode exists. I wonder why we're seeing them now.
I swear there are more quotes about how Noburi is trying to become the next Jiraiya, but for the life of me I cannot find them.
Anyhow, the point I want to make is that this is part of the way that Noburi is processing his grief over him. His feeling towards his biological family are very complicated but his relationship with Jiraiya was not. He bonded to him strongly and his death hit Noburi hard. As far as coping mechanisms go, emulating Jiraiya is a pretty healthy option.
Jiraiya was a jōnin for over fourty years. Even if it takes us more than two years (while constantly FOOMing) to resurrect him, he'll still be on a totally different power level than all of us. Paper's FOOM paths lay out our timeline pretty thoroughly. Assuming we take my preffered route with Hazō where we focus on sealing ability and use survival skills as our columns, it'll take us a little over two years to start working on kage level seals (we'll have a safe TN of 80). That might be around his level, or it might be a good amount beneath it.
I understand now why you had to adjust the XP and skill system so that he wasn't an absolute setting-breaker.
You know, if/when we bring him back, the Toads will abandon Noburi as a summoner before we can blink.
Ah, this isn't going to be Noburi asking the Toads the questions in our plan. It's going to be him making an offhand comment and us getting a free lore drop because of it. Nice.
Wait, what? I could have sworn Noburi asking the Toads wasn't in this plan. Huh, oh well. Let's see how this pans out.
Is this meant to read "Empathy?"
Also, I just got real nervous that a lot of the lore we're after might be locked behind Hazō improving his socials. Barring exceptional circumstances, of course.
Boom! We got confirmation of a powerful, nature chakra based technique/powerup.
That's already a bit of a victory in my books.
Sage mode requires having "chakra for days" and being "built like a brick." The first one requires us to raise our CR (which might mean Noburi could never do it, possibly something to ask them about). The next one requires us to raise our Physique (and possibly our Athletics).
Also, the requirements are so high that Jiraiya wasn't ready for a while despite the fact that he acquired the Toad Scroll as a jōnin. It may take a long time before we have the required levels to use Sage Mode safely.
Watch Hazō get the full story. I mean, it's not going to happen, but it's nice to at least imagine it.
Has anyone ever noticed that Kumo sounds a lot like Yoda?
(also Hazō's "I might need to know this for the Great Seal" argument was very weak)
It occurs to me that we were only able to have Cannai transport us that one time because we had designed him the saddle to carry pups in. You know, the one we were riding in.
We were totally treated like a puppy.
I actually almost suggested this since Hazō's clearly stressed, but I decided that it probably wasn't a good match for the serious questions Hazō is about to ask. Interesting that Hazōpilot either didn't agree with that or decided that he was so stressed that he wanted to do it anyways.
Holy shit does Cannai have a fast reaction time. Lightning may not travel at the speed of light but it's still moving at around 270,000 mph. We should assume that Cannai has spotted and will continue to spot all of our facial reactions that we don't preemptively kill with the Iron Nerve. Seriously, it doesn't matter how fast we hide it if he can see fast enough to notice lighting travel from the clouds to the ground.
An interesting philosophy. Fitting, perhaps, for an immortal that has watched many generations of his kin live and die. It'd be nice to think that they're all still living on through him.
Huh. I had forgotten about that. Intereting that Out!Hazō 'independently' came up with the same idea as Cannai, who has an inherent awareness of what I assume is the paths and how they interact with the veil. Perhaps there's more to this idea than just a grieving immortal. Perhaps this is a philosophy that comes from the Out. Hmmm.....
Side note: We should ask Cannai that question again to see if it truly is an infohazard to Hazō or if was only forgotten due to the influence of the Great Seal. That chapter was weird.
Also, it's intresting how Hazō brought himself back. First, by thinking about his romantic connection to Akane, his beacon of morality. Next, by thinking about his element of earth (very grounding) and then the sun. Finally, by reminding himself that he has a fixed position in time and space to reality. Almost as if that is an anthical concept to the Out.
Maybe this philosophy really is connected to the Out....
Interesting that Cannai initally assumes that "the king of hell" was the one who ressurected people instead of Pain, despite Hazō directly saying so. I'll also note that Cannai was extremely intrested in this information (as much as he tried to distract us with a bad pun) and specifically asked about the ressurection.
Cannai apparenly also wanted to know about this in-detail. Hazō explicitly had to tell the story in "Cannai-approved levels of detail" which took many hours.
Then afterwards he decided that this story was important enough that it absolutely had to be passed down as part of the oral tradiation.
I mean, a lot of this interest can be explain by this being such a world-shaping event, but I think Cannai might have additional reasons for his intense curiosity. Perhaps it has something to do with the ressurection, since he seemed to be intrested in that when he asked for the story. I can certainly see EagleJarl combinging two of his favorite things to write (the dogs and resurrection), especially since it means we'll go back to Cannai for more hints. He garentees that he gets to write both things he loves in a single update.
Anyhow, I think there's more to this than first meets the eye.
What does Cannai know about Icha Icha? Also, you're trying to make us reread that chapter again, aren't you? Was there something else there that we missed? Is there another apocolypse hidden in that chapter that I didn't spot? It was the slighly open black portal, wasn't it?
"You're lucky to have survived all of this."
We know.
Seems like you're saying something here.
Sighs.
At least this makes it easier to investigate The Five without her noticing and being stuck in an awkward position? In all seriousness, this is very bad. I'll reiterate that we shouldn't deal with it right now, but it bears thinking about.
You liked the Ma and Pa scene more than the Cannai scene? Huh, we'll have to try and get more of those. I always was a big fan of them myself, with all the Jiraiya references and the incredible amount of lore they seem to know.
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- Location
- United States
Yayyyyy!
Also yay!
Huh, so that's where that came from.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Pre-empting an obvious counter-argument to this: taking enemy genin/chuunin as spoils of war can easily be a severe OPSEC risk if some of them learn as much as they can and then defect back to where their true loyalties lie (deniably, of course), but you do not need to take ninja assets post-propagandization.
Rather, in addition to genin/chuunin, other options include Academy students, chakra-capable children expected to enter the Academy, and wholesale civilian populations, in increasing order of cost to manage but decreasing order of risk of infiltration. A six year old shipped from Rock to Leaf is not going to be a hardened infiltrator-spec, and the six years they spend in Leaf's Academy having the Will of Fire preached to them non-stop is very likely to rid them of old loyalties. If you take from even further back, the loyalty problems become even easier to manage.
While there may be difficulties in taking already trained genin and chuunin captive, it is, I feel, implausible to say that taking de facto ninja manpower is categorically unviable, and thus it remains surprising if this is not an observed phenomenon.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Cannai's hivemind: dude this kid knows some of the Forbidden Lore we never got outta our predecessor! Come on come on let's ask him about it!
- Location
- United States
Is it possible to learn a Seventh Path Element such as Metal if we meet all the other conditions?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's unclear but from what little we know I don't think so. Why wouldn't any of the other Summoners be using weird 7th Path Elements if it were possible? It is possible we just somehow have never seen it happen but they all do know some, but it seems more likely that you can't do it at all unless you're using nature chakra or something.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Boss Summons are nearly godlike within the bounds of their Territory.
I wonder if Kakashi ever read Icha Icha to Cannai?
ninja villages actually seem to have a fair amount of cooperation. in addition to the examples you mentioned there was the demilitarized hot springs zone (although dunno if anyone got punished when we brok that), the belief that exterminating a village would provoke international retaliation (although rock doesn't seem to have been punished for the collapse), Hiruzen might have been on good terms with Grandmaster F.
a war to the knife could exhaust both villages. but it could prevent the enemy from getting stronger in the future and causing a more expensive future war. Also, you mention that village cooperation on weakened states is the disincentive for war to the knife. But you also mention village backstabbing preventing the workaround for that. So unclear the direction of the net effect
Hefty Evidence for constant warfare being the case is the death rate statistics of ninja. But a single strange counterevidence was that Naruto feared kidnapping an enemy ninja to save kagome from the block sealing incident might lead to a war.
Jiraiya thought that using jutsu for economic industrialization would cause (let's say Leaf) to become so powerful that other villages would gang up on Leaf in fear. Although he might have been humoring Hazo's ideas in order to bond with him. But the hivemind thought the ideas would work.
You hypothesize that villages value survival/military over wealth. And that gathering wealth would mainly be used for converting to force. Under that chain of thought, why would villages give away their military force for wealth via missions?
Hiruzen was able to usher a long period of peace/stability (for ninja standards) with strong Leaf power, and alliances. Perhaps the alliance culled its weaker enemies, or threatened to cull them if they were discovered to have increased their power. In order to maintain the grip.
We've heard rumors of scorch squads, seen Leaf destroy the Liberator to prevent political changes, saw Rock/Cloud attack a weakened Leaf.
Also, if states don't weaken their opponents preemptively and have survival as their main goal. Why is there so much conflict? Why would Rock and Cloud risk their ninja lives on farmland, even on a weakened Leaf? Shika at least said that Rock ninja might be hungry (which was a surprise). But Cloud doesn't have that excuse. And why doesn't Leaf just give the land to Rock/Cloud and stop fighting them?
I don't see the logic causing buying missions from other villages to cause wargoals to have revenge motivations
- Location
- United States
Requiring both access to and the ability to safely handle nature chakra as prerequisites is an interesting idea. It would explain the lack of prevalence (though that can largely be explained due to low sample size of summoners and summon ninjutsu often requiring missing body parts) and would forces us into learning about (and possibly gaining) Sage Mode before we can do it.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
- and how many of those violations have been punished?
None?
Yeah, that's about right. It's near-total interstate anarchy in this thunderdome baby!!!
Net effect is absolutely not moving in the direction of "peer conflict makes us, in purely military terms, more secure". You can't fight to the knife against peer villages without paying ruinous costs, and you can't form alliances to spread the ruinous cost around because your alliance partners will either refuse to pay the cost or join your enemy to keep the balance of power relatively close. Under no scenario can you fight wars to the knife against peer opponents - the only time you can afford to fight wars to the knife is against significantly weaker opposition, and that's a maybe.
Because money from Village A to pay for a Village B mission can help Village B pay for missions from Village C. Plus, like, my going assumption is that these are fucking highway robbery prices, kept bounded only by the presence of missing-nin mercenaries and competition from other villages.
(You're right that the overall system doesn't seem like it'd spring up if the EN sprang into existence yesterday, but I'm thinking it basically stabilizes at any given amount of missions or prices accepted for missions from other villages - I'll definitely have to think about this critique).
States do weaken their opponents preemptively all the time - the Elemental Nations are in a constant state of low-level grey zone conflict that occasionally goes extremely hot in the World Wars. I've laid out my reasons as to why I think there is so much conflict (keeping other states weak).
Rock and Cloud are risking their ninja lives on two things: one: weakening Leaf, and distantly second, potentially profiting. Weakening Leaf is the primary objective of this war, not the farmland. One way or another, Rock and Cloud will try to make this war as painful as possible for Leaf because that's the point of the war - if Leaf tries to give up farmland as concessions the next thing that's going to happen is Rock and Cloud demanding more until either Leaf is forced back into the war or giving up all that land is as painful as fighting the two-front war.
Yeah, that was bad wording on my part.
Chakra golems brainstorming
- Location
- United States
SIDE NOTE: Chakra Golems and the Endgame of Marked for Death
According to Itachi, a single chakra golem could easily kill all but a few of the strongest S-Rankers ever to be mentioned in-story. There are likely many chakra golems roaming beneath the surface of the Elemental Nations. They occasionally surface and cause what Hidan's colleague calls "horrific damage."
The existence of chakra golems has disturbing implications for what Marked for Death will look like in its endgame.
In the beginning of the quest, the biggest danger to the main characters was always the flora and fauna of the Swamp of Death. This falls into a category of conflict known as Man vs. Nature, where the danger stems from animals or forces of the environment. These adversaries cannot be negotiated with, only fought, escaped from, or survived. In contrast, much of the conflict after escaping the Swamp of Death has been Man vs. Man, where we are pitted against other characters who have their own motivations that run contrary to our interests. Unlike fighting a mindless animal or force of nature, it is often much better to respond to human opponents by bargaining, negotiating, threatening, or just convincing them of something. That's why Marked for Death has shifted so much away from the "punching and fighting" that EagleJarl loves; in most circumstances, there are simply more effective and less risky solutions to deal with Man vs. Man conflicts then with fighting.
It is important to note that, despite a longstanding focus on Man vs. Man conflict in the main storyline of Marked for Death, Man vs. Nature has always been a theme of the story. Every few chapters there will be some lines of dialogue that remind us that the flora and fauna of the Human Path are unspeakably dangerous to its inhabitants. Everything from the grass to the sheep in the Elemental Nations can and will cause a horrific death. (Interestingly, the Seventh Path is not like that, implying that there's some major lore affecting things from behind the scenes, potentially related to nature chakra and/or the Animal Path.) The true reason why the lives of civilians are so horribly and why human ninja arts are exclusively focused on combat is that the Human Path is a deathworld. The main characters may have had only a few Man vs. Nature conflicts since they grew stronger and started avoiding particularly dangerous settings, but chakra predators still routinely massacre civilians and occasionally kill ninja, like Neji's cousin, outside of our line of sight. At the very least, deadly nature will always be a concern of the players in the capacity of Uplift, even though the main characters have long since grown too strong for it to threaten them directly….
It is at this point that chakra golems screw things up. Chakra golems are a naturally occurring phenomenon. They cannot speak or be negotiated with, only fought, escaped from, or survived. Chakra golems are an opponent more akin to a walking force of nature than a man and they are most definitely powerful enough to threaten the main characters. As chakra golems remind us, Marked for Death is not done with Man vs. Nature style conflicts, it is merely in the stage where most of them are either beneath our notice or powerful enough that we stay far away from them.
Naturally, this stage is drawing to a close. Just as chakra metal incentivizes us into conflict with chakra golems, other rewards beckon us to brush against other unspeakably dangerous forces of nature. Sealing, for instance, is a constant battle against horrific sealing failures and uncontrollable Out entities. The more interesting the seal we try to make, the harder the target number we need to meet and the worse the consequences for failure. And there are some very interesting seals that the thread wants Hazō to eventually pursue. Similarly, Project Necromancy will undoubtedly pit us against some truly terrifying things when we attempt to cross over into the Naraka Path to yank a few souls back to the world of the living. The more tempting the reward, the more dangerous the challenge the QuestMasters can justify having us face in order to acquire it. Once we start pursuing the truly good stuff, the only things that we are going to face will be forces of nature that cannot be negotiated with; only fought against, escaped from, or survived.
In fact, we are already fighting against these sorts of things. There are walking/swimming/flying memetic-hazards called Dragons that have escaped from their prison in the Out and are threatening to destroy the paths. There is quite possibly an open portal to what can only be described as a Zetsu-dimension full of tentacled plant roots that were only contained because they appeared mere feet from a scythe-wielding S-Ranker with the power to literally summon Death. Even now, the plant is tunneling through the granite box containing it and will promptly take root and begin growing and consuming exponentially should it ever escape confinement. We do not know much about the Tailed-Beast, but we do know that they are the remnants of a force so threatening that the Sage himself could not destroy it, only seal it away. From what little we know about them, The Five appear to be exactly the same. One only needs look at Kei's horrified outburst to see that:
Marked for Death is filled to the brim with existential threats and we are increasingly forced to fight against them. Whether it is due to our desire to obtain rewards or because an uncontrollable force of nature slipped its leash, it makes no difference. Once again, the quest will enter a stage we must regularly go against creatures that cannot be bargained with, only fought against, escaped from, or survived. Whether or not we accomplish any of those depends entirely on how well we prepare for when that day comes.
According to Itachi, a single chakra golem could easily kill all but a few of the strongest S-Rankers ever to be mentioned in-story. There are likely many chakra golems roaming beneath the surface of the Elemental Nations. They occasionally surface and cause what Hidan's colleague calls "horrific damage."
The existence of chakra golems has disturbing implications for what Marked for Death will look like in its endgame.
In the beginning of the quest, the biggest danger to the main characters was always the flora and fauna of the Swamp of Death. This falls into a category of conflict known as Man vs. Nature, where the danger stems from animals or forces of the environment. These adversaries cannot be negotiated with, only fought, escaped from, or survived. In contrast, much of the conflict after escaping the Swamp of Death has been Man vs. Man, where we are pitted against other characters who have their own motivations that run contrary to our interests. Unlike fighting a mindless animal or force of nature, it is often much better to respond to human opponents by bargaining, negotiating, threatening, or just convincing them of something. That's why Marked for Death has shifted so much away from the "punching and fighting" that EagleJarl loves; in most circumstances, there are simply more effective and less risky solutions to deal with Man vs. Man conflicts then with fighting.
It is important to note that, despite a longstanding focus on Man vs. Man conflict in the main storyline of Marked for Death, Man vs. Nature has always been a theme of the story. Every few chapters there will be some lines of dialogue that remind us that the flora and fauna of the Human Path are unspeakably dangerous to its inhabitants. Everything from the grass to the sheep in the Elemental Nations can and will cause a horrific death. (Interestingly, the Seventh Path is not like that, implying that there's some major lore affecting things from behind the scenes, potentially related to nature chakra and/or the Animal Path.) The true reason why the lives of civilians are so horribly and why human ninja arts are exclusively focused on combat is that the Human Path is a deathworld. The main characters may have had only a few Man vs. Nature conflicts since they grew stronger and started avoiding particularly dangerous settings, but chakra predators still routinely massacre civilians and occasionally kill ninja, like Neji's cousin, outside of our line of sight. At the very least, deadly nature will always be a concern of the players in the capacity of Uplift, even though the main characters have long since grown too strong for it to threaten them directly….
It is at this point that chakra golems screw things up. Chakra golems are a naturally occurring phenomenon. They cannot speak or be negotiated with, only fought, escaped from, or survived. Chakra golems are an opponent more akin to a walking force of nature than a man and they are most definitely powerful enough to threaten the main characters. As chakra golems remind us, Marked for Death is not done with Man vs. Nature style conflicts, it is merely in the stage where most of them are either beneath our notice or powerful enough that we stay far away from them.
Naturally, this stage is drawing to a close. Just as chakra metal incentivizes us into conflict with chakra golems, other rewards beckon us to brush against other unspeakably dangerous forces of nature. Sealing, for instance, is a constant battle against horrific sealing failures and uncontrollable Out entities. The more interesting the seal we try to make, the harder the target number we need to meet and the worse the consequences for failure. And there are some very interesting seals that the thread wants Hazō to eventually pursue. Similarly, Project Necromancy will undoubtedly pit us against some truly terrifying things when we attempt to cross over into the Naraka Path to yank a few souls back to the world of the living. The more tempting the reward, the more dangerous the challenge the QuestMasters can justify having us face in order to acquire it. Once we start pursuing the truly good stuff, the only things that we are going to face will be forces of nature that cannot be negotiated with; only fought against, escaped from, or survived.
In fact, we are already fighting against these sorts of things. There are walking/swimming/flying memetic-hazards called Dragons that have escaped from their prison in the Out and are threatening to destroy the paths. There is quite possibly an open portal to what can only be described as a Zetsu-dimension full of tentacled plant roots that were only contained because they appeared mere feet from a scythe-wielding S-Ranker with the power to literally summon Death. Even now, the plant is tunneling through the granite box containing it and will promptly take root and begin growing and consuming exponentially should it ever escape confinement. We do not know much about the Tailed-Beast, but we do know that they are the remnants of a force so threatening that the Sage himself could not destroy it, only seal it away. From what little we know about them, The Five appear to be exactly the same. One only needs look at Kei's horrified outburst to see that:
"You imbecile!" Keiko's hands slammed against the table between them, knocking over cups of half-drunk tea. "Do you not understand!? A monster is sealed because it is too powerful to slay! Too powerful to be defeated! Every seal is a recognition of surrender by the human race, a delaying action fought against inevitable extinction! Do you not imagine we would have destroyed them if we could, a thousand times over? Even the Sage—"
Marked for Death is filled to the brim with existential threats and we are increasingly forced to fight against them. Whether it is due to our desire to obtain rewards or because an uncontrollable force of nature slipped its leash, it makes no difference. Once again, the quest will enter a stage we must regularly go against creatures that cannot be bargained with, only fought against, escaped from, or survived. Whether or not we accomplish any of those depends entirely on how well we prepare for when that day comes.
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- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Hmmmm, I just had another idea that might be a potential wargoal that seems consistent with reality: give land to allies.
Like, Leaf's an ally to a bunch of the minor villages near it, right? Maybe Rock et al. did lose land in the aftermath of their wars, but to minor villages instead of Leaf. It's a bit of an odd choice on paper, but if it's easier to stomach Grass getting some of Rock than Leaf getting some of Rock then Leaf can press for it more easily in the peace deals, and Rock is weakened all the same.
The natural end-state of this would be Leaf's enemies among the Big 5 slowly dwindling until they're not all that much stronger than the minor villages surrounding them, increasing Leaf's proportional advantage over any one other polity. If Leaf remains allied to said minor villages then Leaf's alliance would control enough of the power on the western continent to create something approximating Pax Konoha, and if the alliances sour in proportion to the dwindling threat of the rest of the Big 5 the minor villages will be divided and fractious and unlikely to muster enough of a coalition to seriously threaten Leaf and what minor villages still side with it.
Supposing Leaf is following this game plan and supposing Leaf carries through with it to the end, Leaf either ends up the King in a court of Dukes or the only big fish in the pond, and either way its survival is all but assured. It's not inconsistent with what we've seen (though we might expect more and tighter alliances between Leaf and the minors than what we presently see, so idk) and makes plausible sense as a strategy to weaken Leaf's main enemies while strengthening its own faction, so as a theory I'd say it's a competitive option.
Like, Leaf's an ally to a bunch of the minor villages near it, right? Maybe Rock et al. did lose land in the aftermath of their wars, but to minor villages instead of Leaf. It's a bit of an odd choice on paper, but if it's easier to stomach Grass getting some of Rock than Leaf getting some of Rock then Leaf can press for it more easily in the peace deals, and Rock is weakened all the same.
The natural end-state of this would be Leaf's enemies among the Big 5 slowly dwindling until they're not all that much stronger than the minor villages surrounding them, increasing Leaf's proportional advantage over any one other polity. If Leaf remains allied to said minor villages then Leaf's alliance would control enough of the power on the western continent to create something approximating Pax Konoha, and if the alliances sour in proportion to the dwindling threat of the rest of the Big 5 the minor villages will be divided and fractious and unlikely to muster enough of a coalition to seriously threaten Leaf and what minor villages still side with it.
Supposing Leaf is following this game plan and supposing Leaf carries through with it to the end, Leaf either ends up the King in a court of Dukes or the only big fish in the pond, and either way its survival is all but assured. It's not inconsistent with what we've seen (though we might expect more and tighter alliances between Leaf and the minors than what we presently see, so idk) and makes plausible sense as a strategy to weaken Leaf's main enemies while strengthening its own faction, so as a theory I'd say it's a competitive option.
Tbh if Hazou, Keiko, and Akane (sorry Nobs) can make S-Rank in ~5 years, they will be 33% of the fighting strength of Leaf. At that point Leaf can start dictating terms to the other villages.
The Dragons and Tailed Beast, maybe can be bargained with. We aren't confident of their motivations, sapience/intelligence, etc. The Five sound smart, so bargaining sounds difficult. But dogs managed a mutually beneficial relationship with humans. The sheer alienness of the Five could make bargaining difficult.
We should tell Asuma/Nara about that plant rift. They might be able to do something about it. Hazou doesn't know what the Hyuuga saw about the root worming through, but could chalk it up to sealing best practices to notify and monitor sealing rifts.
We should tell Asuma/Nara about that plant rift. They might be able to do something about it. Hazou doesn't know what the Hyuuga saw about the root worming through, but could chalk it up to sealing best practices to notify and monitor sealing rifts.
- Location
- United States
- Location
- how about no
What's your criteria for a mission to be considered "high-level"? I have a hard time believing any village would outsource missions to tomorrow's rivals that are vital to that village's security.
This is exactly why I am in favor of selling/sharing FOOM: so we have additional trusted allies capable of standing with us against existential threats.
I would prefer to have Hazou as the ideological leader of thousands of Jiraiya-level combatants supported by thousands of Tsunade-level medics. Even the Sage himself with all of his personal power and few companions could only delay many existential threats.
If one Sage was inadequate then hopefully thousands will succeed together where he failed alone.
I have no problem sharing FOOM when Hazou is already S-Rank, although thousands of S-Rankers is never going to happen. But I bet we could get dozens, maybe a hundred. The problem is that without overwhelming might first, Hazou is not going to lead these ninja. He will simply be brushed aside by whoever can take him. That's how these things always go. Sharing FOOM like that virtually guarantees someone like Orochimaru will end up outscaling Team Uplift. That would be vastly worse than not sharing it at all.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
I think it makes sense for villages to commission up to A-Rank missions from each other, at least in the form of "take out a hit on X target not-an-S-Ranker-or-jonin-squad". The goal is to convert money into dead or neutralized enemies somehow, and taking out hits isn't individually necessary to state survival but adds up in the long term - a perfect candidate for monetization.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Moreover I stand by my position that we have yet to make FOOM actually look enticing. If you look at our growth we've actually slowed down as we dropped everything to grind FOOM stats, and we have only a hunch in-character that mental fortitude can grow without limit and allow us to reach absurd XP rates.
If we share FOOM now (never mind that it's useless in the timeframe of the current war) odds are Asuma will tell us he'll keep an eye on our progress and recommend it to Leaf's jounin if it turns out well. If we wait until the end of detour 1 we can make a stronger case that it's actually value (we'll only have about broken even at the end of detour 1 so we won't have skyrocketed in growth but we'd be able to assemble a much better pitch) and if we wait until the end of detour 2 it should be clear that FOOM is a game-changer, but if we sold it at the earliest possible opportunity (i.e. right after WWIV ends because, again, FOOM is useless in the timeframe of this war) I don't think we could convince Asuma of anything more than 'sounds impressive if everything goes as you say, keep me in the loop'.
- Location
- Italy
So, if FOOM!Asuma decides to murder Rock to the last ninja, what are we going to do?
EDIT: Or Cloud too, if he decides to feel extra angry that particular day.
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- Location
- United States
Reminder that the Toads know about the Dragons (or were just prancing Jiraiya). We should inform them of the Great Seal situation and ask for any relevant lore or actionable information.
Try to talk him into just murdering the jounin and up. Then offering the rest of their ninja passage to the eastern continent. I suspect we could get away with that. Tbh I ain't too sorry about it either. The leaders of Rock deserve it, and the younger ninja didn't choose this war, but we can't trust them not to make trouble later.