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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Hypothesis 2: Survival pressures are actually fairly light – most states can survive with deeply suboptimal military arrangements so long as they can maintain political stability. Prioritization of political stability in weak autocracies drives distributional statebuilding and war goals.

Basically: None of the villages really fear for their life, every village state is a money pinata for the clans, and weak dictators means that all the Kage are buying clan loyalty/effort with cash.

We assume that one way or another the vast supermajority of effective political power is concentrated in the clans or other key decisionmakers in each village. We then assume that if a Kage fails to deliver sufficient bribes or displease the clans or Organizations enough, Kages can be forced to alter their policies or be outright replaced.

We make a further simplification that there is only one real good that a Kage can deliver, which is state resources. State resources can be accumulated in several ways; legal, pecuniary, or military, but we'll collapse them all into "state resources" to make the logic simple.

Each Kage is selected as a representative of their clan and has total control over state resources. However, to stay in power, they must assemble a sufficiently broad coalition to keep the rest of the clans in line. To do that without bankrupting their own clan, the Kages must distribute state resources. Since a Kage candidate would not be picked by their own clan without favoring their own clan, there is an implicit own clan favoritism, and an explicit alliance clan favoritism with state resources.

Clans that did not support the leadership bid will naturally receive some amount of resources from the Kage, but it will be less than if they had supported the Kage to begin with.

Thus the implicit bargain is struck; the Kage gets to rule the state if and only if they can keep their support base placated with sufficient state resources.

Under this logic, the reason most states will go to war with each other is fairly simple – the more resources you can win in the aftermath of a war, the more resources you as a Kage have to placate your component clans, and thus the more comfortable your own political situation.

(We should note that this model does not, strictly speaking, require transfers of power, but the absence of such, ahem, """willing""" transfers of power is probably a bad sign for this hypothesis.)

Consequences of Hypothesis 2:

Different from Hypothesis 1, enemy ninja will prioritize luxury items first, taxation and daimyo loyalties second, enemy ninja third, and burning down fields or other infrastructural sabotage as a distant fourth (extra effort and risking death for a purely destructive purpose).

This model cannot explain why any village would choose to detonate a nuke or cause a Collapse.

Second order implication: the lack of optimization pressures means that this war might actually be a lot closer than it might at first appear, precisely because lack of optimization pressures means that there's a good chance that military-enhancing optimizations are readily available so long as the political will exists to seize them. The Nara may in fact be sitting on many of them.

So this whole thing is based on all the major villages feeling basically no selection pressure, no real threat to their survival. One possible explanation is hidden collaboration between the Five Thinker Clans to kill and systematically defang everybody not in the Five Thinker Alliance System while guaranteeing the survival of the villages that the Five are attached to.
@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail, thoughts?
 
_The_Bomb said:
I must be tired because I do not understand the implication here.
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I think the implication is that the questions "Can humans use Nature Chakra on the Seventh Path" and "Can humans use Nature Chakra on the Human Path" have different answers, and Ma and Pa intend to treat unspecific questions as the former and answer accordingly without clarifying.

Then, Noburi will continue to ask after it, thinking there must be value there, bringing bribes to Ma and Pa to hopefully earn enough goodwill for them to finally spill the beans, and they'll happily take all the bribes but what they're waiting for is for Noburi to ask the right question.

But then, this is Velorien making a joke in the thread rather than a WoG or anything we've seen in-story, so it should not be treated as a reliable statement on what's really happening.
 
[X] Action Plan: Being Useful, and Being Kind
Word Count: 286
  • Check plan with Mari.
  • Meet with Asuma:
    • Scribe and deliver skytowers and skywalkers.
    • Orochimaru situation is hopefully resolved.
      • Orochimaru psychically attacked Mari and she shouldn't be deployed for a week.
      • Explain if requested, don't mention Shikamaru's ultimatum or Mari-Kei split.
    • How can Hazou be most useful in the war?
      • Make more strategies and tactics like Zoo Rush?
        • If so, access to recovered intelligence would help.
        • Hazou can make more "creative" plans with more information access, so there's better odds that one of them is good.
      • Train the candidate for the Arachnid Summoner?
        • Hazou, injured, is the least useful Leaf Summoner and knows the Arachnids personally
        • Home-front Noburi could as well.
      • Coordinate Gouketsu for seal production?
    • If Mist allies with us, a home-front Wakahisa could chakra-fill a summoner, then Noburi can retrieve that chakra from the Seventh Path and distribute it to summoners anywhere in the EN.
      • Allows a summoner to have all their summons out at once and still fight at full capacity.
      • Works with Noburi and Wakahisa flipped.
      • OPSEC concerns?
  • Spend some time with Ino and Akane:
    • See how they're doing, especially with the war.
    • Be supportive, but also let yourself be supported.
  • Attend Kei and Tenten's Commitment Ceremony:
    • Ask the Arachnids and Dogs if they know any especially pointy objects for a gift.
  • (offscreen) misc:
    • Arrange a birthday gift for Akane.
      • Have clan members paint designs on flowerpots for her garden, possibly of things that remind them of her.
      • Follow strict OPSEC.
    • Ask Cannai to send a diplomat to Hornet and Hare to ask if they have a Scroll.
      • Hazou would also like to personally thank the Hornets for their sacrifices.
    • Kei + Noburi: Get to know Leopard and Rat representatives. Goal: information on scroll.


Since we don't have a plan yet, figured I'd put something up that moves the plot forwards on a couple axes. Feedback very much appreciated! Well below word count currently, so there's lots of room to flesh things out.
 
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Paperclipped said:
Meet with Asuma:
  • Orochimaru situation is hopefully resolved, for now.
  • How can we be most helpful in the war effort?
    • We can work more on strategy and tactics like the assault on the fortress.
      • If so, we'd appreciate having access to all the recovered intelligence.
      • Generally, the more information we have access to, the more creative plans we can create, and the better the chance that one of them is any good.
    • We can train the candidate for the Arachnid Summoner
      • We're likely the least useful Summoner in Leaf with our injuries.
      • We know the Arachnids personally
    • We can produce lots of skywalkers or skytowers.
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I think we should mention Summon Army 2.0 again. That's the version where we field deploy Noburi and he refills through the Seventh Path. That allows huge buildups of Summons pre-assault. It requires a second Wakahisa, but the war has now significantly increased in scope.
 
Sir Stompy said:
I think we should mention Summon Army 2.0 again. That's the version where we field deploy Noburi and he refills through the Seventh Path. That allows huge buildups of Summons pre-assault. It requires a second Wakahisa, but the war has now significantly increased in scope.
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This is assuming Mist actually agrees to ally with us. We might should ask if we can help with that. Securing their alliance is pretty crucial
 
Sir Stompy said:
I think we should mention Summon Army 2.0 again. That's the version where we field deploy Noburi and he refills through the Seventh Path. That allows huge buildups of Summons pre-assault. It requires a second Wakahisa, but the war has now significantly increased in scope.
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is that douchebag wakahisha ambassador who got us the seals still in the state/leaf? we could strong-arm him into working for the Leaf-mist alliance.
with the support of Asuma to prevent treason, Bla, bla.
 
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Can someone link me to where the Defensive Summon Swarm is explained/sent to Asuma? I'd like to add it to my ROCKWAR TACTICS effort post, just to try and keep the information consolidated.
 
Eisenhelm said:
is that douchebag wakahisha ambassador who got us the seals still in the state/leaf? we could strong-arm him into working for the Leaf-mist alliance.
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Does the koi veterinarian have the VD? That would make at least 3 Wakahisa in Leaf for Asuma to draft into the war effort. I doubt he'd do it (revealing Leaf's war tactics to foreign nations), but it'd be possible.

Or maybe Rin will "volunteer" the Wakahisa in question as a way of building trust, building political debt, and avoiding conscription. It'd be a brilliant Ami-esque move, which (ironically) makes me doubt the Mizukage will do it.
 
roobee said:
Are you willing to explain why you believe this?
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He's the leader of the Pangolin Clan with absolute legal and military authority over them. He is immortalish, giving him complete freedom in which Pangolins he promotes to positions to authority. It's not like modern democracies where each administration inherits their predecessor's mess. Therefore the shape the Pangolin state takes is largely due to his choice and he is largely responsible for their genocide and murder.

Even now he has enough power to curb their excess with a word, but he glories in the humiliation of his foe instead.

The Clan Boss largely sets the tone for the Summon Clan, there can be exceptions (and from the lore we've got there are) but that should be the starting assumption. Just look at how the Dogs/Bears/Arachnids treat Hazou compared to how the Pangolins treat Kei. Two of those Clans aren't even his Summons!
 
An intresting conversation on discord, copied to the thread with permission from @RandomOTP and @Shrooms.

_The_Bomb: Is Mari currently deployed?

shrooms: no
shrooms: and has clan head mandated week off
shrooms: Asuma can override of course but he would probably speak to hazou first and hazou would say "bruh she just got aura blasted her head's not in the game rn"

RandomOTP: "You abandoned us to Orochimaru. Fuck off, Mari's taking a minute."
RandomOTP: Good thing Asuma gave us a break, because otherwise we'd take one

_The_Bomb: "Mari's retirement was an explicit condition of our initial trade of skywalkers to Leaf. This was a deal made with Tower. If you want to renege on that deal and drag the widow of your predecessor out of retirement, fine. We can't stop you. But at least give her a weak to recover from the psychic attack your uncontrolled monster unleashed on her while she was buying Kei and I enough time to run for our lives."
_The_Bomb: @Velorien @eaglejarl
_The_Bomb: How to Get KillBoxed 101

RandomOTP: To be fair, that was the unspoken/unknown agreement Hazou made when getting Mari the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Now, we asked Mari, who likely knew what getting access to the Shadow Clone Jutsu would cost her, but she still chose to learn it.
RandomOTP: Asuma didn't force Mari out of retirement (though he probably would've after Rock declared war), Mari chose to be reenlisted

_The_Bomb: She wasn't exactly of sound mind when she made that choice and we didn't know about the implications until only a few chapters ago.

RandomOTP: We didn't, but it's an S-rank, secret jutsu. It's an "if you know this, and go missing, Leaf won't stop until you're dead" level jutsu. It's a bit obvious in retrospect, and I suspect Mari caught on immediately.
RandomOTP: But yeah, Mari definitely wasn't in a place to be making those kinds of serious decisions. But we didn't catch the implication, so it was left to her.

_The_Bomb: Incidentally, Asuma clearly receives intelligence on us and our activities. He knew about our relationship with Ino (and the strategic implications of not being able to trust mindwalks performed on us) within only a day.

RandomOTP: To be fair, Ino probably told people
RandomOTP: And Akane
RandomOTP: We didn't exactly try to keep it a secret

_The_Bomb: There are also other reasons to suspect that he's keeping an eye on us.
_The_Bomb: Anyhow

RandomOTP: also, the love life of Goketsu Hazou is probably a favored topic for the Leaf Gossip Mill

_The_Bomb: Asuma definitely knew about Mari's mental state.

RandomOTP: ...
RandomOTP: yeah
:zeldasad:

_The_Bomb: And he probably had a good idea that we wouldn't understand the implications.

RandomOTP: Yeah, I can't wait until we have an S-ranker in the clan. It'll mean people can't do shit like that to the Goketsu. They'll actually have to work with us, rather than manipulate us

_The_Bomb: I like Asuma.
_The_Bomb: As far as military dictators go, he's probably one of the best we can hope for.
_The_Bomb: He's still our military dictator.
_The_Bomb: And right now he's not strong enough to be kind.

RandomOTP: ...yeah.
RandomOTP: "Compassion/Mercy is the luxury of the strong" and all that. Still sucks, though

_The_Bomb: "I am not my dad," were his exact words.

RandomOTP: I wonder how much it hurt for him to admit that

[End of Conversation]
 
Sir Stompy said:
He's the leader of the Pangolin Clan with absolute legal and military authority over them.
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We know the pangolins have a military hierarchy but do we know how absolute it is? Even for ninja, where in theory the Kage has absolute power. In practice we've seen they have limits. Granted, it seems that past Kage have had more influence (Hiruzen, Yagura) than current ones.
Although given how many unknowns there are for seventh path stuff, be wary of using ninja examples as a reference.
 
roobee said:
We know the pangolins have a military hierarchy but do we know how absolute it is? Even for ninja, where in theory the Kage has absolute power. In practice we've seen they have limits. Granted, it seems that past Kage have had more influence (Hiruzen, Yagura) than current ones.
Although given how many unknowns there are for seventh path stuff, be wary of using ninja examples as a reference.
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If you consider that he's immortal enough that all of his rivals for power are long dead and replaced with his supporters, the answer is more absolute than any human state to ever exist. Including Stalinist Russia, and Louis the XIV.

Consider the courts of monarchs that reign for long enough that their support base is unimpeachable (as Pantsaa's is), nobody can ever tell the monarch anything they don't want to hear, even when it would be in the state's best interest to do so. Like Frederick the Great and his refusal to ever touch a woman or train an heir. That caused Prussia great deal of grief after his death.
 
_The_Bomb said:
_The_Bomb: "I am not my dad," were his exact words.

RandomOTP: I wonder how much it hurt for him to admit that
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if Hazou and Noburi are having insecurities for not measuring up to Jiraiya (whom they only knew for a year or so) imagine being Asuma, the second Hokage of his bloodline, the second to have the Monkey summoning scroll, the second to have to deal whit Orochimaru and team uplift's nonsense and find himself falling short on all of those. his father lived through three world wars and not only survived but ensured leaf supremacy through all those, And Asuma is struggling to fight against a mere war on two fronts. the guy deserves a break.
i generally support giving him enough strength up to be able to suplex an S-ranker on his lonesome, so long as we have enough strength to chokehold a Biju. (metaphors are not my strong suit).
 
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