- Location
- Yes.
Also Haru.
Related: @eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail Could we have his character sheet updated? It hasn't been changed since Chapter 490.
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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- 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
Related: @eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail Could we have his character sheet updated? It hasn't been changed since Chapter 490.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Is Hazou still in charge of his training? Arguably we shouldn't see it anymore if Mari is managing his training now
Chapter 504: The Ministry of Agriculture, Reinvigoration, and Infrastructure
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 504: The Ministry of Agriculture, Reinvigoration, and Infrastructure
"My Lord Hokage, Lords and Ladies, good morning," Mari said, spreading her smile across the Council chamber. "Thank you for inviting me. A quick summary so you know what to expect: I'm going to tell you a lot of things that you already know about the problems that Leaf is currently facing. I'm then going to tell you a bunch more things that you already know related to how Leaf's institutions work. Once all that groundwork is laid, I'm going to move on to the sexy stuff, like how we can triple Leaf's ninja population in ten years, spread the Will of Fire across the Elemental Nations, and make everyone at this table richer than Koresus."
It was amazing how nuanced a snort could be. Lord Hagface was capable of one that clearly conveyed what an idiot Mari was. Lady Inuzuka's was amused at Mari's hard-charging optimism and humor. Tsunade's was doubtful and impatient.
Hazō watched Mari with carefully-suppressed glee. A quick glance around the room showed that the snorting had been positive overall. Clan Heads who had been looking bored or reaching for their tea were now intrigued, and the Clan Heads who had been moderately hostile were now less so. (The Clan Head who had been outright hostile hadn't visibly changed his position except to lean back in his chair and cross his arms like a petulant child. By the Sage, how did that guy end up the head of a voting clan?!) The KEI representative was clearly unsure what the impact of such ninja growth would be on his organization.
"With your permission, Lord Hokage?"
Asuma sipped his tea with one hand and made a 'the floor is yours' gesture with the other.
"Thank you, sir." She smiled and nodded, then turned to face the table as a whole. "As promised, let's do the bad parts first.
"We learned yesterday how badly Leaf's ninja forces have been mauled by the war and the various events of the last two years. Now, the clans will restore themselves in time," she said. "Likewise, the membership rolls of the KEI will grow in the normal course of events. Unfortunately, I'm sure that Lord Nara can confirm that recent events have not only reduced our current ninja population, they have reduced the rate at which our ninja population will increase."
She looked around in exaggerated search for eavesdroppers, then leaned forward and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "If you examine the record, it turns out... Ninja are mostly born to ninja." She straightened, chuckling. "Knowledge drop, I know. Still, it's important. The majority of ninja in Leaf were born to clan ninja, because the children of ninja/ninja pairings are essentially always ninja. A ninja/civilian pairing produces ninja children more often than not. Civilian/civilian pairings only very occasionally produce children with chakra systems that are capable of supporting a ninja career. This is a problem, because Leaf's ninja forces have been decimated several times over. Not only does that mean fewer ninja on the front line to defend the nation, it means fewer ninja to sire and bear the next generation of ninja children.
"That's leaving aside the institutional memory and experience that has been lost," she continued. "It's not enough to have children capable of being ninja, we also need to have people who can train them in the ninja arts and imbue them with the Will of Fire. Without the training they cannot function as ninja. Without the Will of Fire they won't function as ninja. That means our education and training systems are critical.
"Until now, ninja training has been stratified. Students go to the Academy, which is geared for a few hundred students per year. After they leave at the end of the day, they go home. The clan children train with their family members. The clanless children help their parents with their jobs, squeezing out practice time where they can find it."
The KEI representative and Lady Kei shifted in their seats, mouths tight in annoyance.
"After graduation, new genin are divided into squads based on their Academy achievements." And on who their families were, but that part was not to be said aloud. "The squads made up of the very best students receive jōnin leaders who stay with them up until they are promoted to chūnin. The rest of the squads receive chūnin leaders.
"This system has worked extremely well for Leaf up until now," Mari said. "Indeed, this is the system that built Leaf into the most powerful of the Ninja Villages, as evidenced by the fact that we hold essentially all of the best land on this continent.
"The problem is that it's based on a set of assumptions that no longer apply. It was laid down in a time when the Academy generally matriculated 500 to 600 new students each year and graduated around 250. There were 50 or 60 jōnin and 400 chūnin, meaning that every Academy graduate could be confident in having an assigned sensei.
"That no longer applies. We have fewer than a dozen jōnin and only 243 surviving chūnin, some of whom are on medical stand-down and some of whom are required for home-front duties such as teaching at the Academy, seal or technique research, handling of deeply classified documents, and so on. We simply don't have the staff to be giving each squad its own instructor anymore, especially not if we're going to be growing at the rate we want. That's leaving aside the fact that the Academy was destroyed, along with most of the teaching resources and some of the senior teachers and administrators." She looked soberly around the room. "We want to rebuild our numbers as quickly as possible, but even if we had an unlimited number of possibles—hold that thought, because we're coming back to it—even if we had unlimited inflow of students, the Academy couldn't handle that many students and we couldn't mentor them afterwards.
"We just create larger squads," Lord Hagoromo said impatiently.
"It's possible that could work," Mari said, in a voice that made it clear that it wasn't possible. "However, the reason we use teams of three is because it provides a good balance between having enough combat power on a squad to render the squad survivable while also having enough squads to let Leaf project force to multiple places at a time. Increasing squad size feeds back into the problem I was mentioning earlier of stratified instruction: A ninja instructor can only handle a small number of students at a time. It's a question of focused attention. The larger the squad, the less individual training each member receives.
"Right now, clan children receive more training than clanless children simply because the clan children have adult ninja around them at all times from whom to learn. Clanless do not have that extra cadre and thus they receive fewer hours of instruction over the course of their time in the Academy. Receiving fewer hours of training means that clanless ninja have a higher death rate. Each of those deaths is a tragedy to their friends and family. Each of those deaths is a loss to Leaf's military power. And every single one of those deaths is one less potential parent for the next generation, one less potential trainer to pass on their experience."
She paused, waiting to see if he was going to continue the debate, then nodded and moved on.
"That's the military side of things. Let's move on to the domestic. A lot of our civilians have been killed, thereby reducing the production of basic resources such as lumber, charcoal, and metals, as well as access to finished products such as repairs to our houses, heat for our homes, and kunai for our soldiers."
"My lovely wife does seem to go through the things quickly," Shikamaru added drily, shooting an amused glance at Kei who sat to his right. She raised one eyebrow at him and failed to look amused in turn. In fact, although an outsider would have seen only the regulation Mori/Nara stone face, Hazō knew her well enough to recognize the storm of emotions she was having at simply being in the same room as Mari. Hazō could only speculate what the conversation must have been like at the Nara residence this morning.
"Beloved wife, Mari will be presenting to the Council this morning. I expect you to be at my right."
"Beloved husband, although nothing gives me greater pleasure than to sit at your side while gazing with adoring cow eyes upon the handsome radiance of your countenance, I plead that you not force me to this task, because the presence of That Woman upsets me in ways that are beyond what can be sustained by such a fragile flower as myself."
"Although I care deeply about you, my tasty little sweet potato, and I understand your completely reasonable and well-considered rage and betrayal at a loved one putting herself in major risk, and you in very slight risk, in order to prevent the almost-certain death of the brother for whom you have repeatedly placed yourself at risk by fighting beside him, and yes I recognize that the grammar of this sentence renders it appropriate for immediate execution, yet still I must insist. I recognize it as a great sacrifice on your part to act like the grownup politician that a Clan Lady has a responsibility to be, yet I have great confidence in your ability to suspend your ridiculous yet simultaneously adorably quirky snit for an hour or so. You are my heir and it is important for you to learn how to be in a room with someone you loathe without attempting to terrify and/or murder them. You know, just in case you ever need to take my seat at the Council table."
"Schnookums, don't say such awful things! The only way I should be called upon to take your seat would be for you to...to...alas, my tongue can barely form such horrific words! The only way for me to take your seat would be for you to die and, were this incredibly unlikely event to occur, then lo, my heart should break and I would race after you through the tunnel of darkness and behind the dark veils of death within that darkest day of darkness! Nay, within the very hour would I follow thee!"
On second thought, the conversation had probably been nothing like that.
Also, if he was being fair then Kei's risk had been higher than 'very slight' and her reactions, while emotional and not entirely reasonable, weren't completely unwarranted either. Regardless, Kei was here and not throwing knives or making the air feel cold, so he would call it a win.
Mari smiled and nodded acknowledgement to Shikamaru without making eye contact with Kei.
"As do most of our forces," Mari continued smoothly. "With military and domestic addressed, let's turn our gazes abroad. This new 'AMITY' venture that Mori created is presenting us with some opportunities alongside the restrictions. On the one hand, we are prevented from taking military action against Rock in repayment for the harm they've caused us.
"Of course, we're not going to let Rock get away with what they did, right?" Grim nods went around the table. "If this new effort succeeds and brings peace to the entire Elemental Nations for the first time in history, we can take advantage of that. We can strangle their economy and leave them as starving paupers dependent on our good will. While we're doing that, we can spread the Will of Fire into their nation until their civilians and even their ninja decide to move to Leaf."
She paused for the startled laughter, then bared her teeth in a most unfriendly smile.
"My Lord, My Ladies, you should not laugh. I am deadly serious. Mori Ami was able to convince two Kage to let her renationalize from Mist to Leaf. That precedent is now set and we should be sure that everyone attending the AMITY is quietly made aware of it. Oh, they'll cluck like startled chickens and wag their fingers. They'll probably even say that we're terrible people, or morally depraved, or...I dunno, some damn thing." She shrugged at the unimportance of it all.
"They can fuss all they want, but think what the effect will be once the word spreads to all the ninja of their home villages: Leaf is better than the other villages. We are so much better that Mori moved the heavens and the earth in order to come here. Having done that, she is not being locked in some basement somewhere, carefully surveilled by ANBU. No, she is being treated with respect and placed in a position of honor and importance. She is, in short, being allowed to earn her place, treated no better and no worse than anyone else."
The quality of the silence changed.
"The Seventh Path trade network that Hazō created gives Leaf access to goods that are available nowhere in our world, the spider silk being only the latest example. Not only does it provide us a monopoly on these goods, but it allows us to effectively teleport messages and goods across the continent in seconds, giving us a much shorter command-and-control loop as well as the ability to quickly take advantage of economic opportunities that others couldn't. Imagine: Rock sends a merchant and a ninja bodyguard to Cloud at the same time as Leaf does, except our ninja is a Summoner. Both merchants sell what they brought and then they look around to find out which goods are selling well and which are selling poorly. Armed with that information, the Rock team needs to go home and assemble a cargo. The Leaf merchant simply relays a message through the Seventh Path and within the hour they have a stack of storage scrolls filled with valuable products. Two weeks later, the Rock merchant returns to find that they have no market for their goods because Leaf already made those sales.
"Once we have strangled Rock enough, once enough of their people have learned about Leaf's superior lifestyle and philosophy, what will happen? Their ninja will start quietly approaching us, asking to immigrate. Oh, it won't be for years and it will be a trickle at first, but it will grow.
"Obviously, these people will need to be vetted thoroughly. Imagine what happens if we do it gently—we bring them into Leaf, we give them comfortable quarters while the vetting happens, perhaps we even let them take some supervised trips around the city." She mimed at being a first-time visitor to Leaf, gazing around in wonderment. After a moment she dropped the act and shrugged. "Yes, some of them will be false, sent as spies. We should not kill them. We should—"
"We are familiar with Jiraiya's principles," Lady Amori said sharply. "Enemy spies are treasure and should be treated as such. Keep them, give them posts within the bureaucracy, and use them to feed false information to their masters, etc etc."
Mari shook her head. "With respect, Lady Amori: no. In this case it is far better to send them home. We don't want them passing bits of carefully-curated military information that disappears into the enemy equivalent of the Tower archive. We want them walking the streets of Cloud and the tunnels of Rock, talking about what marvels they saw during their time in Leaf. Talking about how friendly and respectful her people were. How much cleaner and more beautiful and richer the city is than theirs. They'll be back eventually, this time for true. The more often that happens the more sincere applications we will have and the more the Tsuchikage's heart will marinate in helpless rage."
Laughter had shifted to sharp interest.
"So," Mari said, clapping her hands. "Let's recap: Leaf is short on ninja. Our replacement rate is reduced because we don't have enough people to serve as parents and squad leaders. Our training systems, while excellent within the paradigm they were created for, are now being faced with a set of challenges they weren't intended to handle. The AMITY, if it works, will give us military cover so that we can utterly destroy Rock and quietly subsume the rest of the Elemental Nations over the next ten or twenty years—but only if we have the economic power and vision to take advantage of the opportunity. How do we resolve all this?
"Let's talk about a new organization: the Ministry for Agriculture, Reinvigoration, and Infrastructure."
"What does 'ministry' mean?" Hazō had asked, the night before when Mari was using him as the audience for her briefing slash practice session.
"It's a made-up word. When you minister to someone it means you're taking care of them, usually because they're sick. Right now, the Land of Fire is sick and we are going to minister to it."
"You just needed to make the name work, didn't you?"
She looked down her nose at him and sniffed. "I have no idea what you mean." After a moment she gave up the pretense and grinned. "Yes. It's blatantly obvious and self-aggrandizing and normally I wouldn't do it. Honestly, I expect that it will work against us. Still, this organization has a lot of purposes, and one of them is to make it harder for Ms Psycho to follow through on trying to kill us the next time she decides to uncharitably interpret our interactions with Kei. Naming it like this is a direct challenge to her and I want her to know it."
"Seems like a lot of effort just to send a signal."
"Like I said, many purposes. Wealth, power, Uplift, intelligence gathering, the ability to squeeze the life out of the Hagoromo or anyone else who pisses us off—well, I suppose that last one is covered under 'power', but it bears mentioning. Anyway, lots of different things."
"The Ministry is directed by myself and my co-Ministers," Mari said, gesturing to the two civilian men who bracketed her one step back. A giant easel stood behind the three of them and a large sheet of paper, faced away from the Council members, leaned up against its front legs. Most people who needed to talk to the Council but weren't on it would have stood at the foot of the table where it was easy for everyone to see them. Mari and her cohort were standing on the west side of the table, the one closest to the door. The Council members along that side had needed to turn their chairs around to see her.
"Good morning," said the man to her left, bowing deeply. "I am Sugawara Aito." Hazō recognized him; he was the one who had sold the Gōketsu his iron mine on the border of River.
"And I am Tanaka Kiyomoto," the other man said. He was the Master of Chambers for Leaf's Merchant Council, one of the few civilians that even the most conservative clan head needed to treat well.
"So. What do we do?" Mari asked. She looked around the room, letting the problem hang over their heads for an instant. "Answer: We increase the population of Fire in order to increase our ninja forces, we evolve the way we provide ninja training, and we shift our focus from military conflict to economic conquest."
"Lady Gōketsu," Shino said carefully. "When you say that we increase the population of ninja, it sounds like you are suggesting a ninja breeding program such as Mist was rumored to have. Are you about to say that female ninja should be removed from the field and encouraged or required to have as many children as possible?"
Mari shook her head and raised both hands in preemptive surrender. "Absolutely not. Not only are there moral issues with that but the result would be to stratify women into an underclass, coddled pets who cannot be allowed to take any risks. That would reduce women to nothing but their reproductive abilities. At that point, why should they be educated? Should they be restricted to the clan compound at all times, allowed out only under male escort?" She gestured around the table at the multiple Clan Ladies at the table. "I think if you look at the people around this table, you'll find that Leaf's women have a great deal to contribute in every field. As soldiers, as politicians, as artists...as terrifyingly grouchy yet inspirational legends." The last came with a nod and a small smile to Lady Tsunade, who grunted in response. "No. I am absolutely opposed to anything that looks like a breeding program."
"Then what is your suggestion for growing the rate at which Leaf's ninja population grows?"
"Simple. We grow the civilian population."
Everyone blinked. Shikamaru leaned forward, elbows on the table and fingers interlaced. Tsunade went "Hah!" and slapped the table in approval.
"Civilian/civilian couples produce ninja at a very low rate," Mari continued. "What is the rate? No one knows. I tried to figure it out by using the tax rolls as census data, then crossing that with the Academy's admission intake for the last ten years. Unfortunately, the Academy records are not available due to Rock's..." She struggled to find a word that would encompass her feelings, then gave up and shrugged. "Rock's attack. Still, let's guess. Perhaps one in a hundred civilian children have the potential to become ninja? One in fifty? It's hard to say. Leaf does not aggressively recruit from the hinterlands of Fire so we don't know how many are born but go unnoticed."
"Do you really think it's one in fifty?"
"Heck no. Honestly, I'll be pleasantly surprised if it ends up being as high as one in a hundred. Doesn't matter, because the people in that room aren't going to know either. By starting with one in a hundred and then going up to one in fifty they will subconsciously take away the idea that one in a hundred is the pessimistic figure and that it's likely higher than that."
"Lords and Ladies, there are over 300,000 civilians in Fire. Most civilians in the countryside have a child every year, because they need workers on the farms and they know that more than half of their children will die before they can walk. That's roughly 150,000 births each year. If 1 in 100 of them are potential ninja, that's 1500 genin candidates every year. At the height of its power, Leaf had 1500 ninja total."
"You're suggesting that we fill Leaf's ranks almost entirely with clanless born in the countryside?" Lord Motoyoshi asked, lips pursed. "The clans would be rendered irrelevant." He carefully ignored the cat-with-creamy-whiskers smile of the KEI representative down the table.
"No sir. I'm suggesting that we grow both the KEI and the clans. First, we invest in the Will of Fire through an aggressive policy of securing the life and health of the civilian population. This will lead to a population explosion and, as the number of civilians increases, so will the number of new civilian-born ninja candidates."
She nodded to Kei and then to Naruto, the two KEI Coordinators in the room. "This is going to have serious impact on Leaf's political structure. It's rude to say it that bluntly, but Leaf is facing too large a crisis for us to be less than forthright with one another as we jointly work to fix things. On the one hand, the KEI will be receiving an enormous number of new members. On the other hand, we need to regrow the clans as well, and that means adoptions. There are two opposed forces here; on the one hand, the Clan Heads are going to want to adopt only the best and the brightest, causing a 'brain drain' away from the KEI. That's bad; the KEI is too important to be treated like that.
"My suggestion would be to tweak Hazō's adoption-ticket system: if a clan would like to have a ninja join their clan then they need to get the person's consent in advance and spend an adoption ticket. The difference is that the KEI becomes the source of adoption tickets, not the Tower."
Asuma's eyebrow went up. "Excuse me? That—" He broke off and cocked his head in thought. "Hm."
"Asuma?" Tsunade asked.
"I started to object and then I realized I had no need to," Asuma said. "The Tower has a right and a duty to ensure that its ninja are treated well, that they are well trained and fit for service, and that their skills and their lives are used in the best possible service to the Will of Fire. Nothing in that says that we need to care which clan a ninja belongs to or doesn't belong to."
"Wait, you seriously think he'll go for that?" Hazō demanded. "He's not going to want to set the precedent of giving away pieces of the Tower's authority. Plus, if he tries it then the clans will take him out behind the woodshed."
"So, what, if we want to adopt a candidate who wants to be adopted, we need to get the approval of this...organization?" Lord Kurusu said.
"Pretty much," Mari said cheerfully. "Even if you're adopting from another clan to your own, even if someone is marrying from one clan to another, you still need a ticket. You could buy an existing one from another clan or you could pay the KEI to create a new one for you, either way. They would have the right to print as many additional tickets as they want and sell them for whatever rate seems best. Kei, Naruto, if you'd be willing to take a suggestion: have training hours be part of the price. The clans can send their jōnin down to train appropriate students twice a week, or add one of your members to a squad run by one of their chūnin, or whatever. Be creative. You will be in prime position to implement new educational initiatives, so do it."
"Lord Hokage, surely you aren't seriously considering this?" Lady Amori asked, appalled. "I have no objection to the KEI as an organization, but giving them the right to essentially veto any adoption or marriage between clans is madness!"
"It does seem a bit extreme," Asuma said slowly. "Although I believe the issue can be resolved simply by requiring that the KEI distribute a certain number of tickets to each clan at the start of the year and then setting up rules to ensure that the sales are fair and unbiased." He nodded thoughtfully. "Yes. There's a lot more work to be done on this topic but the basic idea is sound and what's left is details. I'm not committing to it either for or against, but I want to think about it. Let's table it and move on. Lady Gōketsu?"
"He'll go for it like Kagome for chocolate. Why wouldn't he? It gets some paperwork hassle off his desk and it builds up the power of the KEI so that they can serve as a meaningful counterweight to the power of the clans. Asuma has a very weak mandate among the clans, but he's popular with the KEI ninja in general and with the KEI coordinators in particular. Anything that builds them up is in his favor." She made a moue. "Granted, it might also build up Ami's power, but by very publicly claiming the idea and championing it I can blunt the impact of that."
"It 'might' build up her power?"
"Yeah, might. Asuma could, if he wanted to, steal the KEI out from under Ami. He keeps her busy running around the countryside on AMITY business while he welds the organization more firmly to him. If he does that then she gets marginalized. If he doesn't then Ami's power will increase alongside the power of the KEI.
"On the other hand, the KEI have now been publicly called out to improve the educational system. That puts Ami, Kei, and Shikamaru in prime position to fix things with Leaf's schools. Kei will know to talk to Kagome for an expert opinion that is also an outside perspective, so that makes him happy and brings her back to the family a little bit more, gives us more of a chance at mending things with her. Asuma gets an improved school system but the Tower has none of their own credit tied up in it. If Ami tries something—either her own idea or something he suggested—it's on her and not him if it backfires. Which, granted, is another of those two-sided things. I'm giving her more influence over Leaf's ninja education, which increases her power. On the other hand, I'm also putting her under a spotlight where any underperformance or mistake will be highly visible, and setting her up for confrontation with the Clan Heads. They're not going to enjoy having to go, hat in hand, to a woman much younger than them in order to get the ninja power that they desperately need. Especially not when she's a foreigner, which is going to rub the Hags up like a wire brush on the taint."
"Can't she fob that off on Kei or Naruto? Or set up some kind of bureaucracy?"
"Eh." She waggled her hand. "Setting up a bureaucracy will handle the day-to-day stuff, but if Lord Hagface wants a ticket and is told no then he's going to demand to speak to a Coordinator. From what I've seen, Naruto doesn't have the temperament for that kind of deskwork on the regular. Not yet, anyway. It's one of the reasons he wasn't ready to be Hokage at the last election. Kei has the temperament but she's likely to get steamrolled by some of the pushier Clan Heads. You know her—she's good at wheeling and dealing when everyone is playing fair, but she gets rattled when the other person isn't working in good faith, and the only people who are going to end up negotiating for tickets with a Coordinator are the ones who aren't working in good faith. In a situation like that, she'll either give away too much value or she'll do something that gives the frustrated customer the right to go to the Hokage for redress, which takes away the moral authority of the KEI. Ami will know all that as well as I do and will try to keep Kei away from it for the most part. No, Ami will pass most of it off but it will still tie up a few hours a month."
She shook her head. "There's definitely pros and cons to this. It will make her more powerful, which means more capable of sticking a knife in one of us the next time she decides we were mean to Kei. On the other hand, she'll need to spend at least some of her time on deskwork, as well as creating and watching over school programs to ensure that they're working smoothly and there's no teachers messing about with the kids or anything like that." She shrugged. "Not sure it's a win overall, but we'll see. Plus, it really will be good for Leaf."
"Yes, My Lord. All right, moving on. We've talked about the end goal: increasing the number of ninja in Leaf and finding a way to ensure that both the clans and the KEI benefit from this. Let's talk about how we get there.
"Civilians die for a number of reasons. Dangerous flora and fauna. Starvation and thirst. Bad weather. Disease. We can solve most of these problems very easily." She gestured to Tsunade. "Lady Tsunade once remarked that the best way to help civilians would be to build walls. So, the Ministry hired out the creation of a new technique. Aito?"
"Thank you, Madam Minister," Aito said, struggling and failing to hide his nervousness. "Lords, Ladies, several months ago the newly-formed Ministry hired Chūnin Haruhisa to create the Earth Element: Massive and Rapid Infrastructure technique. We would like to formally and publicly state in front of all of you, and in front of the KEI Coordinators in particular, that Chūnin Haruhisa did a superb job and we...uh, the Ministers are extremely pleased with the results." The poor man was floundering; there were small beads of sweat around his temples despite the cool temperature in the room.
"Cute name. Another signal?"
"No, this one was in fact a bit of self-aggrandizing whimsy. I'm allowed to be a hypocrite occasionally."
"This technique is derived from the Earth Element: Multiple Earth Wall. We can, uh, use it to construct walls for villages."
"Aito, if I may interrupt for just one moment," Mari said. "I should probably mention that the technique has significant differences as compared to its ancestor. The Multiple Earth Wall can produce walls at any angle from any surface that is stone or Earth Element. In particular, it's possible to create a Multiple Earth Wall on top of another Multiple Earth Wall in order to build arbitrarily high. It can generate walls quickly enough to be useful in battle. On the other hand, it generates a relatively small amount of wall per casting.
"The Massive and Rapid Infrastructure technique generates much larger walls—three meters above ground, five meters below, one meter thick. The walls are always vertical regardless of the slope of the ground on which they are created. They must be cast atop stone or Earth-Element material, but not atop material created by itself, meaning that it can't be used to make walls higher than its design, although it can be used to make them thicker. It is also quite slow to operate and causes splitting headaches if terminated improperly. On the other hand, it can create hundreds of yards of wall per casting if given sufficient chakra."
"What."
"What?"
"What the fuck?"
"Sorry, not with family."
"You just went and...hired it done."
"I mean...yeah?"
"Without talking to me?"
"Would you have said yes?"
"Well, obviously, but..."
She shrugged. "Then what's the problem?"
Hazō felt like there were so very many problems, but he couldn't quite figure them out. "What even made you think of this?"
"What do you mean 'what made me think of this'? You, you dimwit. Half of what the Ministry is doing is stuff that you've been talking about on and off since we met. You've just been a little busy so I decided to do it for you."
"Using this technique will allow us to quickly place walls around every civilian village in Fire, including their fields," Tanaka said. "After speaking with a few recent immigrants, we expect that this will cut rural deaths by somewhere between twenty and forty percent."
"That is a large variance," Shikamaru noted.
"It is, but it's difficult to get good data. Most of the farmers are illiterate and innumerate. Getting actual data out of them required paying them to provide the names of everyone in their village, then detail which ones had died and of what. Obviously, there's a lot of points of failure, starting with the person's memory."
"Have you tried comparing different people's information regarding the same town?" Lady Inuzuka asked. "Our trackers do that."
Tanaka nodded respectfully. "Ma'am, we have. That's why I'm confident enough to say that it's twenty to forty percent instead of ten to eighty."
"Hm."
"Once the technique was created," Tanaka said, "we found three Leaf chūnin with the Earth element and reasonable chakra reserves. They agreed, in principle, to a series of missions building walls around Fire's civilian villages." He grimaced. "Unfortunately, all three of them died in the opening weeks of the war. Fortunately, we found a replacement, Gotoda Bunji. He was able to learn the technique on his rest days."
"We also surveyed a series of Leaf villages and chose one as a prototype for advanced development," Sugawara said. "The Ministry plans to do basic development across all of Fire as quickly as possible. That means putting a wall around the village and its fields, ensuring that they have an adequate water supply—we hired the development of a dowsing jutsu for that—coordinating with the Nara Future Foundation in order to bring in teachers and tradesmen to offer education, and organizing regular till'n'fill missions and trade missions."
"We will also be conducting a thorough census while we do this," Mari said. "If we put a Hyūga in each of the missions then we'll be able to locate every ninja candidate in the Land of Fire. That will increase class intake at the Academy and increase tax revenue come harvest time."
"Which brings us back to the prototype concept," Sugawara said. The small man had clearly braced himself; his speech was firmer and he was making more eye contact. "Lords and Ladies, the single most important thing Leaf could do to grow the civilian population would be to reduce taxes and provide discretionary funds for local development."
"I thought the goal was to grow Leaf's economy?" Shino asked. "How are we supposed to do that if we're reducing taxes? We won't have the goods to trade."
"My Lord, I am a hill daimyo from the border of River, as was my father and my father's father and his father before him. Every year, 95% of what we produce beyond basic subsistence is taken in tax. We have enough to eat, barely, but there is never enough extra to do anything with. For example, we make most of our money on nut flour, but we need to hull the nuts and grind them by hand and there aren't enough hands in the village to grind the entire crop of nuts before they go bad. With a proper waterwheel we could install an automatic mill which would allow us to enormously increase our output. That would mean more nut cake, nut candy, and nut flour for Leaf, but it would require us to have the money to buy what we need."
"So approach one of us for a partnership," Lady Inuzuka said. "That's the way it works. That's the way it's always worked, and Leaf is rich and successful for it."
"It does indeed work," Mari said, nodding. "But there are some inefficiencies in the system. It's limited by the number of meetings that the Clan Heads can take, by the amount of our assets that are liquid at any given time, and the ability of the local lord to travel to Leaf in order to make the pitch. Suppose that Aito had simply had the money in his pocket ten years ago? He would be rich and we would be richer. Leaf would have massive amounts of very tasty nut flour to use in our own bakeries with plenty left over to sell to other nations as a way of getting our ninja inside their walls to surveil the place."
"Hm." Lady Inuzuka leaned back, rubbing her lip and thinking.
"Putting it more bluntly," Mari said, "if we reduce the tax rate, I expect that we will see total tax revenues go up."
Cries of "What?!" went around the table.
"Mari, that makes no sense," Asuma said. "If you decrease taxes then you get less taxes."
Mari turned to the easel and lifted up the huge sheet of paper, placing it on the stand so that everyone could see it.
Hazō froze. "Mari," he said, his voice very calm. "Why do you have one-third of a Rafu selector on that sheet?"
"A what now?"
Chills went down his spine. "That diagram is the lower third of a common seal element known as a Rafu selector. It's missing some very important parts. Why do you have it?"
She looked at the drawing in surprise. "Huh. Didn't know that—well, obviously, since I know squat about sealing. Nah, this is just a prop to make my point that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered."
"Aren't pigs and hogs the same animal?"
"It's a metaphor, Hazō. Work with me."
"This is a visual aid," Mari explained, pointing to the design. "It's not intended to convey specifics, merely the basic concept. This vertical line represents various potential tax rates. This horizontal line represents the actual amount of tax revenue collected, and the curved line represents how the two map to one another. For example, if the tax rate is zero then obviously we collect no taxes." She pointed to the lower-left corner where all three lines came together, then slid her finger up to the top where the curved line and the vertical line met again. "Of course, if the tax rate is 100% then we also collect no revenue, because all of the farmers starved to death the previous year.
"Right now we take 95% after subsistence and we get this much." She slid her finger along the curve, moving down and to the right. "On the other hand, Aito already explained that if we reduced taxes slightly then his people would be able to generate far more." She moved her finger farther down the curve, indicating the decrease in tax rate and increase in revenue. She smiled at the room, making eye contact with various people in turn. "I'm sure that everyone here has, at some point, stolen something off their mother's cooling trays. We all know that it's better to get a slice of a very large pie than all of a very small tart. Yes, there is a point at which lowering taxes reduces revenue instead of increasing it"—she pointed to where the curve trended inward again—"but that point is nowhere near where we are.
"We want to be right here." She put her finger on the dot at the outermost point of the curve and smudged it around a bit. "I don't know what the exact numbers are, but I feel certain that we can figure it out."
"Okay, fine, it's a metaphor. If it's not a Rafu selector then why does it look like an unrealistically giant breast?"
"Because most of the Council are men, and men get stupid and compliant when they're thinking about boobs."
"The Ministry had intended to use Kushida Crossing as our initial prototype community," Tanaka said. "Unfortunately, it was eradicated by those Rock bastards in their opening attack." His jaw clenched but he forced himself to relax. "Fortunately, we found another choice.
"The village of Stone Faces was named for some local rock formations that look vaguely like faces when seen from the proper angle. It was a large and successful community that was targeted by Rock at the start of the war. 75% of the buildings were destroyed and half the population was killed, leaving 103 survivors, of whom 41 are able-bodied and of working age. The village had a wooden palisade but it was burned down. The Ministry plans to make the following investments:
"First, we will hire a mission to have Gotoda and two genin replace the palisade with a large stone wall via the Massive and Rapid Infrastructure technique. This will likely take three to four days, given the chakra demands, hence why we are sending two genin as backup for when Gotoda is chakra-depleted.
"Second, the Ministry will send a basic development package of goods including food and supplies, along with a team of civilian experts and Nara Future Foundation experts to help rebuild and improve the village while also providing those who live there with skill training.
"Third, we intend to provide a modest stipend for every member of the community regardless of age or ability to work. This will give them the discretionary resources to invest in waterwheels, or whatever else they might need, without needing to trek back to Leaf and seek an audience with a Clan Head. It will also incentivize having children, which means more ninja going forward.
"All of this will be paid for from the Ministry Investment Fund and will not cost anyone here anything.
"Finally, we ask the Tower to forego taxes on Stone Faces this year and to reduce their taxes to 50% for the next 10 years."
"We are so confident that this will work that we're willing to bet on it," Mari said. "We've gone through the tax rolls and figured out the average tax revenue generated by Stone Faces from 1060-1070. If the Tower is willing to offer the tax relief that we've requested then the Ministry will ensure that the Tower loses nothing from it. In years where they generate less than the average, the Ministry will make up the difference from the MIF. In years where they generate more, the excess will go into the MIF to be spent on covering the Ministry's costs and developing other towns."
"...covering the Ministry's costs?" Hazō repeated. One eyebrow rose. "Care to offer some specifics?"
"Salaries and profit sharing for the Ministers, to start. I'm not doing this purely out of the goodness of my heart. I intend for the Gōketsu to get stinking rich off it."
"You sound very confident," Hinata said, breaking her silence for the first time.
"I am," Mari replied. She looked around at the audience, then glanced at the ceiling as she riffled through her mental presentation notes. Finally she nodded. "This concludes our presentation on the Ministry of Agriculture, Reinvigoration, and Infrastructure. Lord Hokage, your thoughts?"
Asuma has nothing to lose and much to gain, so he's going to say yes. The question is how enthusiastic he is. Let's find out.
Mari, Presence: ? + tag "Thoroughly Prepared" + tag "The Merchant Council Is Convinced" + invoke ? + invoke ? - 3 (dice; 1 FP spent on rerolling a -6): ?
Asuma, Presence: ??? - 3 (dice): ?
Mari, Presence: ? + tag "Thoroughly Prepared" + tag "The Merchant Council Is Convinced" + invoke ? + invoke ? - 3 (dice; 1 FP spent on rerolling a -6): ?
Asuma, Presence: ??? - 3 (dice): ?
Asuma studied the chart for a moment, drumming his fingers in thought. "All right," he said at last. "The census and identification of ninja candidates makes sense. Till'n'fill missions to build walls for all the towns makes sense. We'll do those. As to this tax business...I'm not convinced but I'm not disbelieving either. The experiment with Stone Faces is inexpensive but won't be completely clear for years. We don't have years. We need to get out in front of whatever the AMITY ends up accomplishing."
He fell silent for a moment, then nodded. "This year and next, the tax rate across the Land of Fire will be 85% after subsistence."
Quiet sounds of horror went around the table as various Clan Heads foresaw their income taking a hit.
Asuma raised a hand, looking down the length of the table. "Yes, this means less money to divide between Tower and clans. I will be investing my personal funds and Tower discretionary funds to cover the lost revenue so the clans don't get pinched. Each of you has a choice: you may receive your full stipend or you may choose to forego some of it. If you do, it will be treated as an investment. Three years from now, if the total tax revenue across Fire has been higher than the average, the extra money will be divided per stirpes among those who invested, up to five times the money lost from your stipends."
He turned back to Mari. "None of this happens until after the war is done, however. I'm not having our ninja running around the country in penny packets on non-essential missions and spending days chakra-exhausted while out in the field."
She bowed deeply. "Thank you, Lord Hokage."
Author's Note: The graph that Mari used for her display is, of course, the Laffer curve, named for the economist Arthur Laffer. In most economics books it's drawn with tax rate on the x-axis and revenue on the y-axis so that the curve goes up, but when Laffer invented it he was a professor. He drew it as described here, with the curve going to the right, specifically (quoting from distant memory) "because it makes my male students pay attention."
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It is now about 11am. You are back at the Gōketsu estate with Mari and the rest of the family.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, March 16, 2022, at 12pm London time.
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- Book Fort
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ScholarMari and UpliftMari, by their powers united!
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In collaboration with whichever Maris subscribe to "I will not be upstaged by a goddamn Mori"
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- United States
>tfw Uplift will be achieved not by spreadsheets, but by social specs getting in a dick measuring contest with each other
- Location
- Liverpool
Someone's dropping the naming gauntlet I see.
Tsunade is having a not good day. Though as a medic with actual deep caring for people in general during a time of war, that's still doing better than expected.
I mean, she's not wrong. Some of it is stuff we totally could have, and arguably should have, been doing. But I'm glad Mari was keeping busy with something constructive. Not talking to Hazou about it though I have more mixed thoughts on. That said, we should totally learn MaRI at some point.
I AM concerned how many other things Mari has been doing that we have no idea about though.
*Laughs in Economics Student*
These poor poor feudal lords.
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lets do some social combat babyyyyyyyyy
(Shikamaru scene is not necessarily essential, Cannai's poem is just a hook I want to explore and that EJ wants us to pursue too. Imo the Kabuto scene is necessary bc if we don't do anything Orochimaru will show up again to take our stuff.)
[X] Action Plan: Reject Clan Council, Return to Forbidden Lore
Word Count: 299
(Shikamaru scene is not necessarily essential, Cannai's poem is just a hook I want to explore and that EJ wants us to pursue too. Imo the Kabuto scene is necessary bc if we don't do anything Orochimaru will show up again to take our stuff.)
[X] Action Plan: Reject Clan Council, Return to Forbidden Lore
Word Count: 299
- Optimize with Mari
- Shikamaru
- Prep: Ask Cannai, Kumokogo, Shima and Fukasaku about the Sage's band of five. (Names, abilities, stories, appearance/descriptions, symbols)
- Recount Cannai's poem.
- Tread CAREFULLY. Discover aspects with Empathy regarding our brother-in-law/friend for tags. Invoke aspects involving Uplift, Dragonslaying, and worldsaving for Rapport.
- The Great Seal situation has Hazou concerned about more existential threats the Sage left behind, intentionally or by wards crumbling in his absence.
- "Seven locks for seven rocks". There's supposedly 7 paths, the Great Seal is a lock. Are there six more Great Seals to deal with, somewhere?
- Is there legend of something similar on our path?
- 'Flow of fire' could be lava, 'mighty waves' are presumably the sea, etc. Could these verses correspond to real-world locations? Where could we learn more?
- Why would Shade be dangerous? Do you know who is singing?
- "Seven locks for seven rocks". There's supposedly 7 paths, the Great Seal is a lock. Are there six more Great Seals to deal with, somewhere?
- Does the band of five info line up with anything Shikamaru knows?
- Kabuto
- (Confer with Asuma, get official backing for this arrangement.)
- Bring Mari/Noburi
- Goketsu wants to make some Dragon parts publicly available for study. Would you be willing to host them in a lab? Our compound isn't properly equipped for thorough investigation.
- Provisions:
- Goketsu maintains ownership of these Spoils of War. Any purchasing will be negotiated independently, approved by the Tower.
- All research findings belong to the Tower, to be accessed by whomever the Hokage approves on request.
- Provisions:
- Should more parts be necessary, there are 5 more specimens on the 7th Path... (Subtext: Can you nudge Orochimaru again)
- Misc (Offscreen)
- Ensure Ami gets Isan dossier
- Throw Mari a celebration for MARI
- Ask Mari if SSSSS adoptions are still a concern.
- Research ARS (LBF/Chakdar inspired Seal that activates a paired Seal when activated)
- Ask Cannai to keep the largest Dragon pieces in Dog territory
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Incidentally, details are available for the Massive and Rapid Infrastructure jutsu, and for the Dowsing jutsu. Both are stunts, cheap to learn, and no need to level them. Dowsing is cheap to cast, MARI is quite expensive if you're building a wall for an entire village.
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Kagome's security over on the estate was enough to impress Hidan. Offer his services?
[X] Action Plan: Reject Clan Council, Return to Forbidden Lore
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To Shikamaru or to Kabuto?
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- Yes.
...So can it be used to detect underground enemies?
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To Asuma, to secure the building from Orochimaru just taking it. It'd provide another barrier in his way... Not stop him from being able to take it for his personal use, just increase the energy threshold for doing so.
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- Texas
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the laffer curve is pretty interesting because, while it is of course technically true that too much taxation will lead to depreciated economic growth and hence lower tax revenues in the long term, the place where this happens is at like 70% and it is additionally true that this works in the opposite direction as well - when taxes are too low, lower spending leads to significantly depreciated economic growth, leading to revenues that are lower than what you would naively assume. also good lord i dont understand how anybody in the land of fire can eat. only keeping 5% of every harvest is less than 1/6 of what even the greediest daimyo's were taking in feudal japan - for most peasants its probably closer to like 1/10th. i... actually dont think thats enough to feed a group of people.
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their harvests might be much bigger than those in real life, or the crops they grow much more nutritious. They'd better be since it sounds like they try to kill you while you grow them
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I figure if we make them available to look at he won't need to take them at all, which is why I propose making them publicly available for research... Feels like if we tried to securely store them he would snake his way in, probably literally
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Makes sense... Chakra could make food more nutritious.
I low-key worry that Orochimaru will just take it, anyway... But I suppose that there's really nothing we can do to stop it. :<
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- Yes.
*holds up explosives*
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Didn't Oro explicitly survive this at the BOTG?
Dude got fucking atomized and shrugged it off