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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Oneiros said:
Yeah but your field repair is actively making the problem worse in my opinion. We have time now to actually work on fixing the problem. Fundamentally Akane needs to figure out what she believes. How does she justify the nature of being a ninja. We need to respect her agency as much as possible so we can't force her to change. We need to get multiple people to ask her what she believes.
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It might sound dumb to ask, but why are we so focused on respecting Akane's agency? She doesn't crave it like Keiko does, and Akane will not get nearly as offended if we do violate said agency. And even then, if we think violating her agency will significantly raise her chances of survival, shouldn't we do it anyways?

This reminds me of the argument over whether or not a person should enter a suicidal friend into a psych ward against their will. Do suicidal individuals have the right to end their own life?

As someone who has lost friends to suicide, I bitterly wish that I'd done more at the time instead of respecting their agency -- even knowing it would have been against their wishes and they would have hated me for it. But Akane probably isn't mentally ill, so I suppose we have even less justification to intervene than otherwise. (Also I didn't mention this for pity so please don't, it's simply relevant. If the topic of suicide is particularly sensitive for anyone, I'll delete this.)

[X] Action Plan: Seeking Wisdom from Kagome too
 
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Paperclipped said:
Cannai:
  • We'd like advice.
  • Explain the situation with Akane's latest mission.
    • Answer questions honestly. Give context where needed.
  • We can't betray our pack or find another pack.
  • We will one day be powerful enough to stop playing the game.
    • But we aren't now. How do we help Akane? How do we make those impossible choices?
    • Our death solves nothing, but our life isn't worth much if we're just a tool.
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CANNAI: She is a monster and you should have her executed for this. *Alpha intensifies*
Paperclipped said:
Kagome:
  • Sensei, remember when we were discussing joining Leaf and you warned that they might make us do awful things?
  • Well, that happened. To Akane.
  • Explain Akane's mission in full, and how she feels.
  • We don't know what to do, but maybe you could go and talk to her?
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KAGOME: Leaf is horrible and we need to all leave right now. *knocks out Hazou so he doesn't try to stop him*
 
Sentient Tree said:
That sounds like a good idea. Cutting off transportation routes between towns and Rock itself would starve Rock more, incentivize town civilians to move to Leaf's towns (they'll be able to more easily sell their produce, buy other goods, and commission Chakra Beast killing missions as well as Till 'n Fills).

Actually, Till 'n Fills are an excellent selling point by themselves. No other country has them, and if we spread word of them being a thing in Leaf we can sell Leaf as a sort of promised land. Like America used to sell itself as, you leave your poverty-stricken, war-torn homeland and find a new home in this fantastic land of wealth and opportunity. Just like people immigrating to Leaf it wasn't all sunshine and roses, but the perception of America being better drove tons of people to migrate. It will do the same for migrants from Rock. People will go through a LOT of hardship and danger to get to a place they perceive as being better for them and their families. If irl is any indication this approach could even get people to continue immigrating once Rock starts terrorist attacks. Especially because just like in America, life in Leaf will legitimately be better for many of them (more food, etc).

If we get lucky it may even force Rock to start offering Till n Fills and trying to make life better for their civilians, in order to convince people to stay and even bring over some Leaf civilians. From there it becomes a race to the top as well as the already existing race to the bottom. Which is better than things are right now.

@RandomOTP Here's a plan section I think should be added to the Asuma convo:
  • Ways to encourage immigration:
    • Cut off transportation routes between towns and Rock.
    • More heavily target other infrastructure, leave civilians alive to increase strain on the system
    • Rumors: Sell Leaf as a promised land
      • Till 'n Fills
      • More food, fertile soil
      • Lower taxes (if approved)
      • Safety (MEW walls)
      • Better access to chakra beast extermination
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Keep in mind the other major issue I see which is getting the Earth Country civilians to emigrate to Leaf. How are we getting the word out, how are the civilians going to take "pack up everything you own to go to a country that your ruling class demonizes", and how easy is it really going to be when migrant convoys start going through Earth and Grass Country?
 
ContextBot said:
And what kind timeframe are you thinking here? Because spreading rumors takes a while (and they get distorted anyway), and most people aren't just going to leave their homes because of some rumors about good living in a foreign country they have only heard bad things about their whole lives. Even if their homes are destroyed, they are plenty of other places to go to first.

Civilians also have to travel slowly and carefuly. This isn't going to cause some economic collapse immediately.

That's why I was talking about "convincing", at least that might get large groups of people going, but just rumors? It's definitely not going to be a "mass" migration.

But if we want just to cause some chaos? Sure that would probably work, espacially if our facless infiltrators run around anyway.
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Not really sure on timeframe. Out of character my hope is that it will continue after the war ends, minus the genocide. That would set up a race to the top where both countries are forced to improve things for their civilians in order to not be depopulated.

Convincing sounds like a good idea. Any ideas how that would work? Maybe having social specs convince town leaders to have their towns emigrate en mass?

Causing chaos would definitely be a nice side effect in the short term.

ContextBot said:
That's just one of the better scenarios, for all we now Rock just sends a properly prepared kill squad and we loose a bunch of people, including the special jonin/jonin we commited.

Those checkpoints searching for "infiltrators" just seems totally useless. Again, why would they hide among the civilians? Rock knows we have a bunch of sensors, that's why they targeted multiple Leaf clans during the Collapse in the first place.
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Hopefully the squad we have their will be able to withdraw upon noticing a more powerful team. They're supposed to be hidden, so it should be at least as feasible as retreat during any normal mission where this happens.

The checkpoints are in part legitimately to catalogue incoming civilians and direct them to the correct town, and in part as decoys to make enemy ninja focus on destroying the wrong target or sneaking past the wrong post. They know we have sensors, but if we give them a place that we obviously want them to be they'll sneak past that and think they're safe. Humans are lazy, if they think they've outsmarted us they usually won't bother to 'look underneath the underneath.'

ContextBot said:
We could also just think ahead and not try to destroy another country?
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That would be nice, but we can't convince Asuma to not do that, since not trying to destroy Rock gives Rock the advantage.

ContextBot said:
First we have to settle the immigrants, help them build up, clear the land, hope they don't get murdered and then maybe we get some food and money.

That's not going to aid the war unless this one takes another few years, which is why I said that this whole idea is a Post-War thing.
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It is fair that a lot of the benefit will be post-war. However, it's something that we can only start during a war, since it's an explicitly hostile move. Doing it in normal circumstances would start a war, but right now we don't have to worry about that. This will allow us to continue weakening Rock after the war if it ends in a tie. And that sounds like something Asuma would like.
 
faflec said:
Keep in mind the other major issue I see which is getting the Earth Country civilians to emigrate to Leaf. How are we getting the word out, how are the civilians going to take "pack up everything you own to go to a country that your ruling class demonizes", and how easy is it really going to be when migrant convoys start going through Earth and Grass Country?
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The idea is infiltrators will spread the word while on missions to find enemy ninja. When convoys start going through Earth and Grass we can hopefully set up a treaty with those countries to allow safe passage.

Honestly not sure about how to counter the demonization. Any ideas?
 
Sentient Tree said:
The idea is infiltrators will spread the word while on missions to find enemy ninja. When convoys start going through Earth and Grass we can hopefully set up a treaty with those countries to allow safe passage.

Honestly not sure about how to counter the demonization. Any ideas?
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I don't see how infiltrators spreading the word will get people moving, unless the plan is to have them spend significant amounts of time actively threatening the civilians to get their asses moving to Fire Country. What tangible incentives are going to convince them, beyond the incentive of "not pissing off the demigod who can and will punt your face through your ass if provoked"?

As for the demonization, you're talking entire lifetime's worth of propaganda and multiple World Wars in which Leaf 100% performed atrocities against Earth Country citizens to harm Iwa's war effort. There is no question in my mind that these townsfolk are going to be xenophobic and terrified of anyone not in their in-group.
 
faflec said:
I don't see how infiltrators spreading the word will get people moving, unless the plan is to have them spend significant amounts of time actively threatening the civilians to get their asses moving to Fire Country. What tangible incentives are going to convince them, beyond the incentive of "not pissing off the demigod who can and will punt your face through your ass if provoked"?

As for the demonization, you're talking entire lifetime's worth of propaganda and multiple World Wars in which Leaf 100% performed atrocities against Earth Country citizens to harm Iwa's war effort. There is no question in my mind that these townsfolk are going to be xenophobic and terrified of anyone not in their in-group.
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The idea is that the infiltrators will be pretending to be other Rock civilians, so the information about life being better in Leaf, a lot of people already moving there, and how to do it themselves will come from a seemingly credible source. At the population and technology level we're talking about, most people believe what they hear from neighbors and other seemingly credible sources, not what they see with their own eyes. If we can get the rumors going, a decent amount of people will believe them when they start hearing them from friends and family.

As for tangible incentives to migrate, they're in an active war zone, oppressed, often hungry, and chakra beasts are a thing. These are similar conditions to the ones driving migration to America/Europe in real life. As long as we give them hope that things will be better over here, they will come.

As for the xenophobia, I'm honestly not sure how to fix that. That being said, a lot of people tried to leave Eastern Europe during the Cold War, and lots of people still try to leave North Korea for South Korea. A lot of people will still come, even with the propaganda.
 
Sentient Tree said:
The idea is that the infiltrators will be pretending to be other Rock civilians, so the information about life being better in Leaf, a lot of people already moving there, and how to do it themselves will come from a seemingly credible source. At the population and technology level we're talking about, most people believe what they hear from neighbors and other seemingly credible sources, not what they see with their own eyes. If we can get the rumors going, a decent amount of people will believe them when they start hearing them from friends and family.
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eaglejarl said:
"That put us on the mainland. Going to any of the smaller nations would have left us camping right next to a ninja village, and even the minor villages would be able to take us out if they wanted to. Wind is huge, but it's mostly flat and they have a ton of scouts that fly around on gliders; too easy to get spotted from the air. We couldn't blend in with the population in Earth, and Lightning puts us back in the 'cold weather survival' problem."
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Sentient Tree said:
As for tangible incentives to migrate, they're in an active war zone, oppressed, often hungry, and chakra beasts are a thing. These are similar conditions to the ones driving migration to America/Europe in real life. As long as we give them hope that things will be better over here, they will come.
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Except there is no support structure in place to support migration, given the lack of supplies or wealth by most of our target demographic which would allow them to actually migrate. Nor is there a communications system in place which would allow these (poor, isolated) villages to actually genuinely believe that migrating to Fire would be a good idea.
Sentient Tree said:
As for the xenophobia, I'm honestly not sure how to fix that. That being said, a lot of people tried to leave Eastern Europe during the Cold War, and lots of people still try to leave North Korea for South Korea. A lot of people will still come, even with the propaganda.
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This emigration was possible despite the propaganda because of the communications system of the 20th and 21st centuries, which don't exist here in our 12th century hellhole. Without it, they don't have sufficient motivation to emigrate (unless we do the ninja method).
 
I dunno if I'll get the time to produce a plan tonight, but my idea would go along the lines of:

1. Get Akane off the mission roster asap by talking to Asuma. This should be straightforward, we just tell the truth - Akane is heavily traumatized and there's high risk of losing her in the field. Make whatever concessions necessary.
2. Tell Akane we love her, and this won't change. She can leave the clan, disavow Uplift, take up Jashinism, doesn't matter. Don't let her push us away.
3. If she wants to talk, good. If not, Hazou can talk at her, about his own struggles with doing the right thing, the balance of effectiveness and humanity, and all the times he's failed at this.
4. Don't argue with her about her failure, and accept it as such. It's not just the system that did this, she made a choice as well, and has the right to feel guilty.
5. Don't leave her until something changes.
 
RandomOTP said:
  • Meeting with (Asuma? Shikamaru?)
    • Idea: set up and encourage mass civilian immigration from Rock to Leaf
    • Rock will obviously send infiltrators
    • Create immigration checkpoints, forcing infiltrators within range of hidden Hyuga
    • Kill infiltrators elsewhere so Rock doesn't get savvy
    • Benefits:
      • More civilians for Leaf, less for Rock
      • Dead Rock ninja ^_^
    • Gōketsu will take full responsibility for making new civilians productive for Leaf
  • If Asuma approves, begin preparations:
    • Buy unoccupied land
      • Must be feasible to clear of chakra creatures (no mines fiasco)
      • Must be arable or otherwise potentially productive
    • Make productive via summons, fertility jutsu, MEW
    • Find civilian to run town
      • Ex Daimyo? GED graduate?
      • Make taxes lower than normal, supplement with Gōketsu funds
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This entire section has not been sanity checked by Mari and finance-sanity checked by Gaku/anyone. It desperately needs it. How are we going to purchase such land? We no longer have the finances of a Major Clan. This is exactly a situation where that matters. We will most likely need Tower support to finance such a thing.
 
Paperclipped said:
[X] Action Plan: Seeking Wisdom from Kagome too
Word count: 294
  • Cannai:
    • We'd like advice.
    • Explain the situation with Akane's latest mission.
      • Answer questions honestly. Give context where needed.
    • We can't betray our pack or find another pack.
    • We will one day be powerful enough to stop playing the game.
      • But we aren't now. How do we help Akane? How do we make those impossible choices?
      • Our death solves nothing, but our life isn't worth much if we're just a tool.
  • Kagome:
    • Sensei, remember when we were discussing joining Leaf and you warned that they might make us do awful things?
    • Well, that happened. To Akane.
    • Explain Akane's mission in full, and how she feels.
    • We don't know what to do, but maybe you could go and talk to her?
  • Gaku (offscreen):
    • We need stone samples.
    • Provide reasons and specifications. Describe the Great Seal's stone and the surrounding area.
      • Please reach out to merchants, geologists, anyone you think could help.
    • Please collate as much geometry and geology knowledge as reasonable without seriously denting the budget. Have summaries written if possible.
    • Does Tsunade run an aid organization? If so, where does she get clerks? Would she like more?
      • Could we encourage (subsidize/enhance wages?) excellent GED graduates to work for her, or increase GED output and direct them to her?
  • Offscreen:
    • Continue work on Air Tunnel Seal.
    • Ask Kei to speak to Pangolin engineers/masons - have they seen similar material? Samples of 7th path stone?
    • Experiment with anything we can earthshape.
      • What materials are best? What properties are easiest to modify? What are the tradeoffs (smoothness lowers density, etc.)?
      • Can we create or work with obsidian, diamond, or other gems?
      • Can we increase the transparency of quartz?
    • Check in with Kumokugo about Skyslicer teams.
      • Report skyslicers are vulnerable to dragonfire.
      • Ask about Arachnid Skyslicer training progress.
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Would you add something like 'end plan before Akane leaves' to make sure that we don't gather all this insight and wisdom only to find out that she's already gone? My read was that she didn't have much time before she was being deployed again, and there's a fair bit of content in here.

I have significant concerns about both the logistics of importing many Rock citizens (the checkpoints need to be manned by sensor-nin and fixed long enough for civilians to reach them; that's a nontrivial resource requirement during wartime and a pretty soft target for Rock, to say nothing of civilians who have been given sheafs of explosive seals and told that they should rip them in half upon passing the checkpoint or any other number of equally-terrible outcomes) and the actual utility in terms of benefit to Akane. Maybe I'm modelling her wrong, but 'look, you saved all these people!' doesn't seem like it's going to help her feel better, especially when her involvement in the actual saving is somewhat tenuous. She isn't well-suited to managing a mass exodus, she didn't come up with the idea, and it's unlikely that she's going to be manning a checkpoint given that she's repeatedly demonstrated that she's a highly effective combatant. 'Don't worry, the lives you take are being offset by saved lives elsewhere' is a strictly rational consolation. You can't do rationality at feelings - not very effectively, at least.

This really, really feels like yet another instance of Hazo running roughshod over her agency because he had a clever idea. We need to ask her what she wants and then respect it. The very least we can do is discuss the idea with her and her only first and get permission to do this in her name.
 
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[X] Seek Not The Painful Truth But The Plausible Lie
Word Count: 389
  • Speak with Mari.
    • Problem: Akane is traumatized from the Shirogane mission, to the point where she was injured while gardening; Hazou express concern that Akane won't survive her next mission.
    • Goals: Hazou wants Akane to survive (Priority 1) and to build her internal self back up (Priority 2). Hazou wants these things accomplished without inflicting physical harm to Akane and minimizing violations of her agency.
    • Path 1: Is Hazou overreacting? As the premier social-spec, Mari is well-placed to determine if Akane's mental state is likely to cause her death while on the mission.
    • Path 2: Is getting Akane off the mission roster until her situation is fixed plausible; and what concessions would be needed to make it happen?
      • Phrasing the situation in terms of mission failure may be likely to work on Asuma; explaining how Akane's entire worldview was upended in the previous mission thus making her doubt herself in combat situations could help Asuma emphasize with Akane more.
    • Path 3: Is helping Akane work through her issues before she leaves plausible? Explain what Hazou's already done and the results from that.
      • Would you, Kagome, Ino, or someone else talking to Akane help? Either for additional thoughts, or for helping Akane directly?
      • ...For that matter, what is Kagome doing?
    • Implement plans to help Akane.
  • Gaku:
    • We need stone samples.
    • Provide reasons and specifications. Describe the Great Seal's stone and the surrounding area.
      • Please reach out to merchants, geologists, anyone you think could help.
    • Please collate as much geometry and geology knowledge as reasonable without seriously denting the budget. Have summaries written if possible.
    • Does Tsunade run an aid organization? If so, where does she get clerks? Would she like more?
      • Could we encourage (subsidize/enhance wages?) excellent GED graduates to work for her, or increase GED output and direct them to her?
  • Offscreen:
    • Continue work on Air Tunnel Seal.
    • Ask Kei to speak to Pangolin engineers/masons - have they seen similar material? Samples of 7th path stone?
    • Experiment with anything we can earthshape.
      • What materials are best? What properties are easiest to modify? What are the tradeoffs (smoothness lowers density, etc.)?
      • Can we create or work with obsidian, diamond, or other gems?
      • Can we increase the transparency of quartz?
    • Check in with Kumokugo about Skyslicer teams.
      • Report skyslicers are vulnerable to dragonfire.
      • Ask about Arachnid Skyslicer training progress.
 
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FaintlySorcerous said:
Would you add something like 'end plan before Akane leaves' to make sure that we don't gather all this insight and wisdom only to find out that she's already gone?
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Done.
Paperclipped said:
[X] Action Plan: Seeking Wisdom from Kagome too
Word count: 299
  • Cannai:
    • We'd like advice.
    • Explain the situation with Akane's latest mission.
      • Answer questions honestly. Give context where needed.
    • We can't betray our pack or find another pack.
    • We will one day be powerful enough to stop playing the game.
      • But we aren't now. How do we help Akane? How do we make those impossible choices?
      • Our death solves nothing, but our life isn't worth much if we're just a tool.
  • Kagome:
    • Sensei, remember when we were discussing joining Leaf and you warned that they might make us do awful things?
    • Well, that happened. To Akane.
    • Explain Akane's mission in full, and how she feels.
    • We don't know what to do, but maybe you could go and talk to her?
  • Gaku (offscreen):
    • We need stone samples.
    • Provide reasons and specifications. Describe the Great Seal's stone and the surrounding area.
      • Please reach out to merchants, geologists, anyone you think could help.
    • Please collate as much geometry and geology knowledge as reasonable without seriously denting the budget. Have summaries written if possible.
    • Does Tsunade run an aid organization? If so, where does she get clerks? Would she like more?
      • Could we encourage (subsidize/enhance wages?) excellent GED graduates to work for her, or increase GED output and direct them to her?
  • Offscreen:
    • Continue work on Air Tunnel Seal.
    • Ask Kei to speak to Pangolin engineers/masons - have they seen similar material? Samples of 7th path stone?
    • Experiment with anything we can earthshape.
      • What materials are best? What properties are easiest to modify? What are the tradeoffs (smoothness lowers density, etc.)?
      • Can we create or work with obsidian, diamond, or other gems?
      • Can we increase the transparency of quartz?
    • Check in with Kumokugo about Skyslicer teams.
      • Report skyslicers are vulnerable to dragonfire.
      • Ask about Arachnid Skyslicer training progress.
  • End plan before Akane leaves.
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Hazo just doesn't have enough life experience to give comprehensive moral guidance to Akane, we should leave that to someone older and wiser, like uncle Oro.
 
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