Hazo can propose the deal to Asuma.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
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- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
Hazo can propose the deal to Asuma.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
[X] Then she comes back, demonstrating it is in fact safe
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
ASUMA: So you want to establish contact as a Leaf representative with a minor unaligned ninja micronation?
HAZŌ: Yes, but only with your prior approval and possibly guidelines.
ASUMA: Good, you're learning. What are we looking for?
HAZŌ: I want to enlist their help in retrieving a Summoning Scroll that they lost, for ourselves.
ASUMA: And you don't think they'll stab you in the back after you get them closer to it?
HAZŌ: Oh they're just a couple genin, it's safe.
ASUMA: The minor nation?
HAZŌ: No, the ones we're striking the deal with. The village doesn't know we have them, though they might have suspicions it's Leaf-nin, since they hate us so much. They won't go back there.
ASUMA: *rubbing his temples* So you just want information from them? Why not extract it and kill them to cover your bases?
HAZŌ: Oh, I thought it was more humane to maim them, gouge their eyes, and offer them a job in your administration.
ASUMA:
HAZŌ: In exchange, we'd give their village-tribe the Scroll back after a generation.
ASUMA: The village-tribe that hates us?
HAZŌ: Yes.
ASUMA:
HAZŌ: Sir?
ASUMA: Giving them the Scroll back?
HAZŌ: Yes?
ASUMA: Incidentally confirming we had their artifact, killed their tribesmen, and simultaneously losing us a Scroll and empowering them in the way known to synergise best with their capabilities and culture?
HAZŌ: Exactly.
ASUMA: Congratulations, Hazō. You've convinced me.
HAZŌ: We are striking the deal?
ASUMA: No, you have convinced me of the existence of lupchanzen. Guards, summon Orochimaru to the Tower, he'll want to see this. And Kagome, we'll need his help.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Kill the genin, and carry on the mission. We won't be able to convince them to help (we killed their family members in front of them, and we're not a social spec S-ranker). We aren't going to be able to research a necromancy seal in any viable time frame. Kei was skeptical at the idea of marooninf them, and Mari outright laughed at the notion of trying to convince Asuma to keep the Neck Genin alive.
Tell them about necromancy, tell them to search for a beach with white sand, and then make it a quick death.
We're on a Scroll Hunt. Let's go Hunt for the Scroll. It's been a week since the Banshee Siren and nothing has happened, so Neck will be lowering their guard. And if we decide to kill the genin at the Rift Scar, then that'll be even more time for Neck to lower their guard.
Just kill them and continue the mission.
Tell them about necromancy, tell them to search for a beach with white sand, and then make it a quick death.
We're on a Scroll Hunt. Let's go Hunt for the Scroll. It's been a week since the Banshee Siren and nothing has happened, so Neck will be lowering their guard. And if we decide to kill the genin at the Rift Scar, then that'll be even more time for Neck to lower their guard.
Just kill them and continue the mission.
- Location
- Yes.
I genuinely do not think that folks on the ground can see, much less decipher, a 100 sqft Skytower (?) located a half dozen miles or more in the air. This is anecdotal based on my experiences but may be wrong.
Depending on how on the margin of threshold of visibility it is. Ninja sight could be better and push it past that
We can ask Mari how hard it will be for her to figure out how leaf "tortures" people. And the political capital we would spend if she got caught in the worst case
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
This has not been determined. The question is in QM chat and will likely be answered sometime tomorrow.
I'd also like to stress: this is our best shot at necromancy right now. In my mind, necromancy is far more valuable a quest than the Scroll Hunt (not that we're even really passing the Scroll Hunt up, Neck will still be there when we're done), and our two plans for it atm are "Try this quick test with the Neck genin, which gets us immediate access to Naraka if it works" and "Hope that months or years down the line we find something useful in Minato's notes."
This is a huge opportunity for us, and we owe it to our ambitions to at least try it. If the Genin refuse we can always kill them simply and cleanly, but there's just no sense in wasting huge potential to progress the main questline just so that we can resume a sidequest a little sooner.
- Location
- Yes.
If you believe that ninja eyesight makes them skilled enough to make out humanoid figures from miles in the air, that's fine. But I don't believe, and won't believe it unless there is evidence otherwise.
You're gonna have to explain the chain of logic that led you to wanting Mari to figure this out. Why do we need to know this?
If they refuse we kill them at the rift anyway and maybe they change their mind when dead. It doesn't harm them more than killing them on the sky tower
If leaf "torture" people isn't that bad, as suggested by jiraiya quotes, then returning them to leaf t&i is more of an option
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
I think that if we notice there's something weird in the sky a few days after people in our family vanish directly following the use of powerful techniques and a visual signal... There's 50/50 chances we'd go check it out, regardless of humanoid status, based on "that's not normal" alone. That's if we have no one with farsight, scouting, or flying abilities who can just go and check in a few minutes, otherwise we'd do it right away.
But we can move in order to always be behind clouds anyway, leaving the chances of being detected like that quite slim, and only findable by less normal means of dubious existence
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Could ask the Yamanaka about mindwiping them. It carries a risk of damage but I mean if it's that or death...
Send them stumbling back home completely oblivious and the Squirrel tribe would likely surmise they were genjutsu'd, drugged, or similarly mind whammied. Doesn't really indicate Leaf specifically, especially since they have a pretty inaccurate grasp on the powers the west possesses
Send them stumbling back home completely oblivious and the Squirrel tribe would likely surmise they were genjutsu'd, drugged, or similarly mind whammied. Doesn't really indicate Leaf specifically, especially since they have a pretty inaccurate grasp on the powers the west possesses
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
HAZŌ: the instructions were pretty clear. How did they mess it up?
KEI: I think you're just forgetting something obvious.
HAZŌ: They didn't have to do much, and of course they knew how to operate a seal!
KEI: Oh, you're just ranting, not trying to figure it out. Nevermind. Keep trying to open the rift on your side and when you do, you'll get it.
[6 months later]
HAZŌ: Finally! We'll know how they managed to fail at th-
HIROTORA: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
TOMOTSUNE: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
HAZŌ: Oh.
KEI: Yup.
HIROTORA: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
TOMOTSUNE: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
HAZŌ: This is the rift where-
KEI: Yup.
HIROTORA: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
TOMOTSUNE: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
HAZŌ: And like Daizen, they just...
KEI: Yup.
HIROTORA: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
TOMOTSUNE: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
HAZŌ: Right over the acid sea, every time.
KEI: If you wish to keep using that location, you should board that up or something.
Skywalkers will be discovered by the East continent in time. If the information is public, no problem with leaking it. What is Asuma expecting? To use skywalkers in an operation against the East continent before enemies know about them? What would be gained? Waiting too long risks other countries scooping the opportunity. Spreading existence of skywalkers can secure Eastern allies and trip a trap on first Western country to try to exploit them.
- Location
- Yes.
Chakra diffusion law nixes the farsight or scouting abilities, but flying abilities!? You understand that the invention of Skywalkers was a holy grail so impossibly hard to get that Jiraiya's response to us offering them in exchange for repatriation was "Alright, anything else?", right? Literal generations of ninja have failed to attain true flight.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
You're milking a very vague idea of what chakra diffusion means for all it's worth and then some, but for the flight thing: that's for peasant technique hackers and jutsu researchers. Other ways exist. Skywalkers' revolution was making the flight mass-produced and easily usable by genin. You may remember Kei faced a ninja that was both airborne and faster than light by riding a Condor. Though we have yet to meet one on this Path as far as I can remember, a bloodline ability, unique artifact, or other flying Summon that would grant a single other ninja 3-dimensional movement is to be treated as a rarity, but a possibility when going near powerful groups of ninja.
Again, all we know about chakra diffusion is it prevents "ultra long range ninjutsu" and thus point defences. We don't have anything definite about how far a signal can go, whether effects of chakra rather than chakra itself can determine a signal, whether sensory jutsu on longer ranges gets fuzzier first or just cuts off... and the interpretation that it would prevent any sort of telescope-like effect (despite the Byakugan and its sister bloodline being known to do that) is a huge stretch.
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- Location
- Yes.
*starts grabbing quotes explaining how chakra diffusion is being used in the context of Skywalkers' vertical distances*
*realizes I don't actually care about this argument*
Forget it, believe whatever the fuck you want to believe.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
If you don't actually care I'd rather you stop being aggressive at me regularly over it, if that's all the same to you. Even if you believe I'm mistaken, it comes off much more as an attack directed at me for a reason I don't know than an actual point of playing the game. I really hope we're not in an "if I dislike how you understand the fictional world I want you out of it" place.
- Location
- Yes.
Then I apologize for insulting you and will attempt to explain things below:
Super-long-ranged ninjutsu are prohibited due to chakra diffusion, and you need some mechanism of concentrating it over long distances. Hazou explicitly compares it to light from a lantern, which I find to be an apt comparison to how chakra works; and he explicitly considers the vertical distances of a Skywalker to be "incredible", which suggests that at Skywalker heights, chakra diffusion becomes a massive issue.
I recall vaguely that the last time this conversation happened there was argument because Hazou was considering the idea of hitting Skywalking ninja from ground-level (presumably), and therefore the chakra diffusion problem was only applicable to super-long-ranged offensive ninjutsu. I find this reasoning to be nonsensical, because the quality of the ninjutsu (offensive vs scouting vs whatever) shouldn't meaningfully affect the constraint of chakra diffusion. This is where I gave up last time, because the argument made no sense to me and I didn't care enough to point that out.
I do not believe the Squirrel-folk (or any other folk in the area) have access to flight or a related technique, on the grounds of its rarity, the fact that we haven't seen any use from counter-patrols searching for its missing ninja, and the fact that our prisoners have shown no signs of believing rescue could even be possible.
I do not believe the Squirrel-folk (or any other folk in the area) have access to a scouting or sensory technique capable of finding us from ground level, due to the chakra diffusion problem. I further argue that even if the above was false, we have no way of knowing this (beyond interrogating the prisoners to a significant level, which is not something Hazoupilot will do), that we would have been identified long before now (IE: OPSEC is FUBAR), and therefore because of the low likelihood of this mattering the optimal play would be to act as though it isn't true.
I hope this reasoning makes logical sense, even if you disagree with it.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Regarding the Rift Seals that you want to give them, Vel has said on Discord that "If not, it'll need QM discussion, but I think two weeks would be unlikely."
But beyond Vel's PONWOG statement, I'd like to state the following:
- I am very doubtful that we can research a Rift Seal in any meaningful timeframe. And Kei was skeptical that we could even maroon the genin while we did so.
- Further, this assumes that seals that are transmigrated with a soul into the afterlife are even functional. This is a big assertion, and one that this entire idea hangs onto. We have no proof that this is so, and the most-similar thing that we have encountered to this are Shadow Clones, and a Shadow Clone's Summoning Scroll is not functional as a scroll. It is my belief that seals will be the same way.
- It has been mentioned that, since chakra networks within the body are carried over to the afterlife (though they leak, and do not regenerate), another option is that we could learn how to engrave seals via chakra, directly --and learn to do so via Minato's journals. The idea being that we infuse it onto their chakra coils, directly.
- I find this idea to be plausible, but I believe that it would take even more time than researching the Rift Seal.
Don't misunderstand, I think that this sort of dialogue is worth having. We have extra days to discuss more ideas, and to test them against each other for feasibility. I just don't think that this, particular, idea is feasible and would rather discuss a different one.
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- Location
- Yes.
We can't just keep them tied down while we do the mission, and return once Kagome's finished?
Actually, are we even doing the mission? I am honestly confused on that point.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
The issue in that reasoning in my opinion lies in that we don't know if there's anything for which chakra diffusion could not be a problem (e.g. fires can spread past the range of a fire ninjutsu, what do we know about signals, if someone has an enhanced sonar thing or whatever), be bypassed (e.g. something done long ago established a connection between them and there, and the link functions more as light from a laser, diffusing a lot less), or be irrelevant (another effect grants the same bonus, e.g. Byakugan lets one see better far away even if the user doesn't have any means of sending chakra up to where they can see, because they don't need to. A telescope does essentially the same job without sending anything anywhere). Shikaku himself assumed it was possible to overcome, bypass, or somehow render moot that issue for "point defences", that is, a fully operational counter at extreme long range for Skywalker-enabled suicide attackers instead of dismissing the idea entirely, back when the concept was first introduced.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I just had a thought. Are overthinking Neck's reaction to the missing party? They were on a chakra beast mission, and sent up a flare. They returned, and found lots of fire (one or more of their party were fire-spec ninjutsu users). The Banshee was loud and short enough (ninja combat) that Neck may not have been able to track down the original direction.
I could see Neck believing that the ninja died by chakra beast, and that the Banshee Siren was something else entirely. After all, it was broadcast over all of Neck, and then some. Other tribes of Neck ninja surely lost ninja at the same time, will they think the noise is connected? What about after a week+ of nothing happening?
We don't have Noburi to drain them safely. I guess we could leverage drugs to put them into a coma, but (according to Noburi) even Medic nin find it hard to measure dosages out (weight, underlying issues, etc) and that the side effects can be gnarly. I don't think we'd be able to safely administer them without severe long term side effects or straight-up death.
And the mission is to recover the Squirrel Scroll. We're on a Scroll Hunt.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
But, again, we don't know that seals copied/pasted over to the afterlife even work. The only other example of seals being copied/pasted are Shadow Clones, and we know that Shadow Clone seals are nonfunctional.
So, even if we are able to keep them imprisoned for the (currently arbitrary, but PONWOG at least >2 weeks ) amount of time that Kagome needs to research the Rift Seal, it's unlikely to work.