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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Noumero said:
I don't see the issue.
  1. "Armageddon is looking better and better" — It is factual that as technology increases, so does the risk of irrecoverable states of dystopia or eternal mass suffering. An omnicide is a strictly preferable outcome to a genuine hyperexistential catastrophe. In-story, this theme is represented by Orochimaru, whose continued growth in power beckons a future in which the whole world is his Basement. Therefore, "Armageddon is looking better and better". Despairingly rational.
    1. An alternative reading is that this is a reference to the common [x] Armageddon Initiative plan proposal, which involves cleansing the world of all our enemies by unleashing an unstoppable deluge of WMDs upon it, so as to allow us to finish our research and apotheosis in peace, undisturbed. Orochimaru was also a known proponent of this approach. "As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero," the saying goes, and boy do we have a lot of social situations to solve. "Armageddon is looking better and better"? Terrifyingly rational.
  2. "Damn you, Kishimoto". An actual rationalist, as opposed to a Straw Vulcan, is in tune with their emotions, and allows themselves to feel the full scope of them as long as they are justified. And Kishimoto has committed crimes, crimes worthy of passionate condemnation. Exemplarily rational.
  3. "Explosions everywhere". A factual statement. A rationalist should keep one's eye on the object-level reality first and foremost, on the Truth, instead of losing themselves in meta-cognitive navel-gazing or social maneuvering. This tag is a symbolic reminder of this virtue: there are, in fact, explosions everywhere. Commendably rational.
  4. "Explosions solve everyone". I refer you to Vaarsuvius' Rule quoted under point 1.1. Self-explanatorily rational.
  5. "If in doubt, surrender to the mercy of Zabuza". I concur with @MadScientist, this does not belong here, and I commend you for prompting me to look critically on the tenets of this community, as they do appear to be flawed. In doing so, I exercise non-tribalism and an ability to change my mind. I am being eminently rational right now.
  6. "It seemed like a good idea at the time". Hindsight is 20/20, and it is a common human folly to condemn others for not spotting something that seems obvious in retrospect, when no-one, including the speaker, have actually spotted it prior to the fact. Vindictively rational.
  7. "Looks like a really bad case of being a jounin". An uncertain statement diagnosing someone's unusual mental state by employing idiosyncratic jargon no-one outside our circle will understand. Very characteristic of rationalists. However, "looks like" is a very vague quantification of one's uncertainty; should probably be replaced with a probability estimate. Passably rational.
  8. "My God. Where does the lore end?". The quest for Truth is never-ending and the revelations one uncovers along this path may shock one to the very soul, but we must keep on, for we are strong enough to bear it. Electrifyingly rational.
  9. "Naruto". There is, in fact, a Naruto here. Maybe even more than one. Yet another factual statement. Casually rational.
  10. "Precommitting is the winning plan". Imagine that you plan to blackmail someone. Person A is known to be careful and reasonable — they know they can't always win everything in life, that sometimes one must accept a defeat to keep living. Person B, on the other hand, is known for flying off the handle and trying to kill anyone who pisses them off, no matter how counter-productive and risky this is. After a very brief consideration, you pick A to blackmail.
    • But how can that be!? Person A is sensible, Person B is insane — why is insanity suddenly an advantage?
    • Person A is running the Consequential Decision Theory, which states that in every situation, one must make choices that result in the best outcomes. That, however, is naive. As demonstrated above, this policy is very manipulable, in the sense that they can be made to do anything by arranging the circumstances a certain way.
    • To solve this issue, to ensure that one's rationality is never a detriment, we turn to precommitments, and decision theories that allow them. "To precommit" is simply to make a rational resolution to act in an "irrational" or "insane" fashion in certain situations, in order to ensure that you never get in such situations to begin with — as adversaries such as the blackmailer above would accurately judge that you would not cooperate with extortion, and so would not choose to try to extort you.
    • Rationality is a study of winning, and precommitment is indeed how one wins. Fascinatingly rational.
  11. "Rational", "rationalist": False modesty is not rational; accurate self-modeling is. If you have ample reason to believe yourself to possess a favourable trait, it is no affront to self-describe as such. Unapologetically rational.
  12. "Romance". Just like with emotions, there is absolutely nothing irrational about romance, and you shan't let the anti-intellectual propaganda in media convince you otherwise. Wholesomely rational.
  13. "Screaming in Kagome". The only rational response to a world such as ours. Gravely rational.
  14. "Screw the rules, I have explosives". It is often the case that the "barriers to success" stopping people are imaginary ones. Munchkinrily rational.
  15. "Something bad might still happen". This is factual. "1 is not a probability and you are not safe, never safe." You must always be ready for things going wrong, always have contingencies prepared. Anxiously rational.
  16. "Sometimes you gotta sociopath". In certain situations, one must consider engaging in monstrous acts in order to navigate to better outcomes. Sadly rational.
  17. "Stabby Zabby". Another factual observation. Zabby indeed is, or was, stabby. Mundanely rational.
  18. "Subsection C of Paragraph 9 should include..." A self-deprecating joke about our tendency to compile exhaustive lists. Nothing to do with rationality per se, but there's nothing irrational about jokes either! Exceptionally rational.
  19. "We can weaponize this so hard". Weapons are a way of acquiring material power, and power-seeking, as we know, is a central instrumental goal of almost every possible effective agent. Convergently rational.
I absolutely do not see the slightest issue.
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This was hilarious. +2 XP to a PC of your choice, chosen by 1d4 if you don't pick in 24h.
 
Paperclipped said:
I don't think the alternate way would be that slow. ??? -> 20 (Sub? Emp? Rap?) Callig 29 -> 30, ES -> 40.
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If we're doing it the slow way, I think we would need a couple of skills leveled to 10 first?
  • 2 [0-9] skills leveled to 10s (Substitution, PEA)
    • 18-8-4-4-3-1-0
  • 2 [10-19] skills leveled to 20s (Empathy, Rapport)
    • 18-6-6-4-3-1-0
  • 1 [20-29] skill leveled to 30s (Calligraphy)
    • 18-6-5-5-3-1-0
    • Side note: Our Calligraphy should be 2/3 Sealing, correct? So at effSealing 62, our effCalligraphy should be ~42, ie Calligraphy 39.
  • 1 [30-39] skill leveled to 40s (Earthshaping)
    • 18-6-5-4-4-1-0
  • 1 [40-49] skill leveled to 50s (Earthshaping)
    • 18-6-5-4-3-2-0
 
faflec said:
If we're doing it the slow way, I think we would need a couple of skills leveled to 10 first?
  • 2 [0-9] skills leveled to 10s (Substitution, PEA)
    • 18-8-4-4-3-1-0
  • 2 [10-19] skills leveled to 20s (Empathy, Rapport)
    • 18-6-6-4-3-1-0
  • 1 [20-29] skill leveled to 30s (Calligraphy)
    • 18-6-5-5-3-1-0
    • Side note: Our Calligraphy should be 2/3 Sealing, correct? So at effSealing 62, our effCalligraphy should be ~42, ie Calligraphy 39.
  • 1 [30-39] skill leveled to 40s (Earthshaping)
    • 18-6-5-4-4-1-0
  • 1 [40-49] skill leveled to 50s (Earthshaping)
    • 18-6-5-4-3-2-0
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You just need 1 20s, then raise Callig and ES at the same time, I think.

6/4/4/3/1
? -> 20
5/5/4/3/1
(partial) Callig -> 30
5/4/5/3/1
(partial) ES -> 40
5/4/4/4/1
Then you're free to do ES -> 50
5/4/4/3/2

Re: Callig levels, I made this spreadsheet for what Callig level you need to match your Sealing level, assuming you don't use prep days as @Inferno Vulpix 's post indicates is fastest. You need your Callig level higher than your Sealing level, thanks to SSA, at least for now.
 
Paperclipped said:
You just need 1 20s, then raise Callig and ES at the same time, I think.

6/4/4/3/1
? -> 20
5/5/4/3/1
(partial) Callig -> 30
5/4/5/3/1
(partial) ES -> 40
5/4/4/4/1
Then you're free to do ES -> 50
5/4/4/3/2

Re: Callig levels, I made this spreadsheet for what Callig level you need to match your Sealing level, assuming you don't use prep days as @Inferno Vulpix 's post indicates is fastest. You need your Callig level higher than your Sealing level, thanks to SSA, at least for now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Calligraphy will almost certainly end up being our last 40 for detour 0
 
Paperclipped said:
You just need 1 20s, then raise Callig and ES at the same time, I think.

6/4/4/3/1
? -> 20
5/5/4/3/1
(partial) Callig -> 30
5/4/5/3/1
(partial) ES -> 40
5/4/4/4/1
Then you're free to do ES -> 50
5/4/4/3/2

Re: Callig levels, I made this spreadsheet for what Callig level you need to match your Sealing level, assuming you don't use prep days as @Inferno Vulpix 's post indicates is fastest. You need your Callig level higher than your Sealing level, thanks to SSA, at least for now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oohhhhhhhhhh, level Calligraphy and ES at once, that makes sense.
 
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Cave of Somewhat Mild Peril, Part 2
  • Apocrypha
    • Cave of Somewhat Mild Peril, Part 2
    An AU where the team does ratfic things.
    Unexpectedly Part 2 of 3 if I don't decide otherwise.
    wen road​

    Ninja dress light, but this is paradoxical. The majority of fights, and especially most battles against chakra beasts, are fought of limb, kunai, and fang. All three are significantly impeded by armour, and more so by armour of greater heft. Blows against even a decently-padded standard-issue combat vest are far less likely to be lethal than those directly against flesh. It is far too common to know a ninja personally who attributes their unexpected survival to some knick knack or other they had by chance stored away in a front pocket. The statistical trends that would have to underlie that observation are existentially terrifying even in approximation.

    "Thus it is only logical," said Zabu, "and I say this with the expertise of the one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, who wields the Kubikiribōchō, the greatest sword, so great that by all accounts, and my own entirely unbiased estimation, it must outweigh a fully-grown Akimichi, and as ninja that has fought more at the basin of the ocean than the surface of the land, and can be accused of no error of judgement therein;—it is but a trivial tautological necessity that we brave this minor channel within, specifically, this large, clumsy, unmaneuverable, definitely-breakable wood-and-wire half-dome shell monstrosity, and wielding these crude, long, shockingly fragile, and insensibly-restricted pointed wooden sticks. Any inability to corroborate this argument is logical cowardice."

    Zabu flourished his monstrosity.

    "Great Sage," Zinnia sighed. "Put it away."

    "Petition to change Zabu's call sign back to Detonate," said Prism.

    "Yes, please," said Hydrangea.

    "And then we detonate him?" nodded Crystal. "A fitting end."

    Zabu shook his head. "I must decline. Although I am honoured by your leniency, I must take my punishment duty with utmost seriosity, and it can be no fault but my own if I failed to respond to my previous call-sign before. If I must suffer a name so gripping and horrible that it could not fail to jump to my attention—well, it is not a burden I can deny... and since the bloodied flesh sponges above have already shared their stances, the vote totals four to four, in favour of the status quo."

    "Don't bring the flesh-packets into this," Hydrangea complained. "And stop messing around before we burn through most of our fresh air seals. I don't want us suffocating, or worse, getting ambushed by more of those genjutsu bugs, because we're busy playing elaborate pranks on each other. Some of these could hurt us for real. What's the true plan?"

    "The cage is not a joke," Prism said. "Unassisted movement in combat will be impossible in these conditions regardless. None of us have suitable jutsu for water movement, and it is challenging to run and dodge on this ground effectively already without chakra adhesion. It will be worse when we're submerged.

    "Combat underwater is not like fighting on the surface. Most jutsu will not work. My ranged attacks will barely function. Chakra beasts do not care how fast you think you can swim. The only way to fight underwater is by cheating, and the only way to know what that is like is to live through it. We are lucky to only be facing injured cavefish."

    "Yes," Zabu said. "We shouldn't treat this like it's a fair fight, because it isn't. Instead we go into this like it's a Mist academy hazing pool. Against metal plate, a ninja has fire, or lightning, or explosives. A ninja can substitute past a wall, or swim through the earth beneath it, or, you know, explosives. That doesn't matter now. A cavefish will just rush you with its horn."




    As they waded down, their poorly-fitting, water-suitable clothing didn't do much to stop the cold. Their masks, already uncomfortable before, had been swapped out for heftier, water-resistant leather masks that wrapped tight around their heads, designed in hope of keeping the waterproofed seal dry for extended periods. The moment they crossed the waterline, bubbles streamed out of it, mostly where they were meant to, but not uncommonly in front of their faces, distracting their vision. They were cramped inside the cage he had unsealed and assembled, a clunky grid of wooden pieces, wrapped, tied, and criss-crossed with ninja wire, and each wooden crossbar was wrapped with torn metal sheet and shards, such that even with having left Zinnia and Prism behind, they felt it might shred their faces if combat went poorly. Their arms were overbooked, holding onto oddly-positioned spears, just about combat-usable against the resistance of the water, and tasked to handles set shuffling the cage along the rough and angled floor.

    None of that was the worst. The water was filled with blood, bait, and insect bits. The murk stung their eyes and cut their vision low. Their protective shell was decorated with insect bodies, and their spear tips smeared with blood, both to ward off the surviving fish that had learnt their lesson from the day before, and to camouflage themselves, to every sense, against all the other piles of sacrificial gore they had continually oversaturated the water with. That was the worst.

    lol no

    <I regret everything. This is horrific.> Zabu signed, the word for <Genjutsu torture> filling in the missing one for <horrific>.

    <Your plan sucks.> Hydrangea signed. (This is a single hand sign.)

    <Fish!> Crystal gestured, tracking the direction with her fore-facing spear, toward a loose shadow weaving through the musty waters.

    They came to a stop, and with some awkward wrangling, took deep breaths and shut off their air supplies. The bubbles drained towards the sky, the steady stream slowing to a crawl, as only the pressure of their breath and the tilt of their heads now kept the seal inside dry.

    Hydrangea turned around as she assumed rearguard duty, trusting them.

    The shadow wavered, flickering in the dark waters, lit only with flickers of light from glowing plants and seals outside.

    <Go?> Zabu gestured.

    <Hold.> Crystal signed.

    Cavefish don't have great sight, if sight at all, but they can sense the smells and movement of the water. There was no guarantee their distraction worked.

    Their spears continued to track the shadow.

    Zabu gently emptied a pile of earth and sand onto the earth surface, and spread it around.

    A tap on his shoulder. He almost jumped.

    <Fish,> Hydrangea signed. Just one more, though.

    <I need air,> Zabu replied. Not yet, but soon. He glanced back towards the other target. It was close.

    <Ready for combat,> Crystal signed. <Air in two.>

    Simultaneously, they reached into their masks.

    The cavefish struck the moment the air went on, rushing their defences from both sides.

    Akane caught the first dead-on, the spear embedding itself deep into the cavefish, which tore away with it, writhing.

    The other rushed the front, and with their limited movement, Zabu missed, and Crystal only barely caught it in the side, the spear snapping under the horizontal shear. She pulled the remaining half back to ward it off, but the angle was awkward, and allowed it to ram into the shell, its face cut in squares by the ninja wire on impact, but its horn almost reaching Hydrangea, barely blocked by Zabu dropping his spear to deflect it.

    With one herculean movement, Akane took the butt of her spear, stabbed it into the cavefish's mouth, and rammed it away. A moment later, a thunk, their Pangolin's Conditioning Jutsu all simultaneously failed, and the back of the cavefish had blown out in a large cloud of blood—a highly directional explosive, only just plausibly safe enough to risk using this close in the water.

    <Jump!> signed Crystal. She and Hydrangea threw off the cage. They were out of spears, and had no idea how many other fish had survived the poison. These two had seemed less than dead. They needed to go.

    Multiple Earth Wall!

    A granite block shot out of the grit beneath them, at a steep angle, aimed where it seemed like the far shore, and as they had practised the move in the air, it drove them forward at speed. The jutsu seemed unimpeded by the water, and so they bent their legs, shooting forward into a flattened dive position with an acceleration even cavefish would struggle to match, trying to ride the intense induced currents as straight as they could.

    —Hydrangea reoriented out of her tumble, and, after figuring out where she was, threw her kunai as best she could at the surface. She fumbled, and the (waterproofed) Poor Man's Yellow Flash spit out not too far above her. She substituted upward regardless, to better scan the horizon for Kei's—

    There! Kei was at the surface with two targets!

    Hydrangea popped out the top, settling on the water surface next to her. She looked for Zabu…

    And saw him, there, spinning in the water… Zabu is Prime!

    Substitute!

    Zabu popped into the air in her place uncontrollably. He almost tumbled back in, had Snowflake not caught him. "Where's… ah." He followed her finger to where he saw Hydrangea urgently swimming to the surface. Crystal held out the other substitution target in case of a last-minute attack. Zabu breathed heavily, tense.

    "Bwah," Hydrangea said, breaching the surface as Zabu pulled her up. "I regret to say I now know what fighting underwater is like."

    "Oh, thank the Sage you're safe." Zabu said. "That was terrifying."

    She grinned. "I'm just a Shadow-Shadow Clone, Mr. Prime-Shadow."

    "Don't say that!" he said, wrapping her in a hug. "I was terrified."

    "Hmm?" She hugged him back. "Terror and terror? You do have a romantic way with words. Now let's retrieve Zinnia before she gets jealous of all the action she's missing out on."

    "You brought the line?" he asked, taking the ninja wire from her. "Thank you. I can pull the rope through if you want to scout. It's pretty, you'll like it."
     
  • Apocrypha
    • Since we are rapidly approaching being an S-rank faction, (largely do to Mari FOOMing and Hazou becoming the worlds greatest seal masters) what moves do we want to do to prep for when we are able to make major changes to the setting? And what are some of the first big moves that we want to do?
     
    I don't know how much FOOMing Mari helps us aside from giving us much needed security. She'll made things far easier, but our priorities(Dragons and Necromancy) are quite not something in which a S-rank lite Mari would help. On the other hand, we really need the security to keep growing, so it's a bonus that while passive, i really welcome.

    Also, while i don't want to be pessimistic, i want to note that(especially after the clarification of how S-rankers are made), in the short-term Mari will become at best a Zabuza, not a "real" S-ranker, reminder of what normalish S-ranker have as shinies:

    Hidan: "I ignore consequences/ do not die + probably goodish regeneration" + "I inflict a consequence/stress and you die" + "I can sense you everywhere once i have your blood"
    Konan: "I can dissipate in paper to evade damage" + "I can use paper both as attack and defence" + " I can fly" + "I can activate explosives seal without touching them"

    Those are the people scared of fighting Chakra golems, not the "I soloed a Chakra Golem when i was young" top tiers like Jiraiya.

    TL;DR S-rank shinies are absolutely insane, even if Mari will get close, and genjutsu is useful against a lot of S-rank shinies, real "OP pls nerf" S-rank is not easy to obtain. A super Mari will be useful, but we are not yet in the "Orochimaru strolls in the Tower and takes what he wants" territory.

    EDIT: This said, in the short term(From the next update onwards) i would like to try to obtain Hiruzen TH notes. Also MInato's TH notes, but i feel Minato's notes(Both Sealing and TH) could be really badly organized and therefore not that useful
     
    Last edited:
    Lord Marshal said:
    TL;DR S-rank shinies are absolutely insane, even if Mari will get close, and genjutsu is useful against of lot of S-rank shinies, real "OP pls nerf" S-rank is not easy to obtain. A super Mari will be useful, but we are not yet in the "Orochimaru strolls in the Tower and takes what he wants" territory.
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    Yes but, this is why it's not just Mari being super strong. It's her being super strong plus Hazou being an S-rank seal master. We literally have the tools to make the insane S-rank shinies
     
    Oneiros said:
    Yes but, this is why it's not just Mari being super strong. It's her being super strong plus Hazou being an S-rank seal master. We literally have the tools to make the insane S-rank shinies
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    I'm more doubtful of these because i don't remember the current discorse having other S-rank shinies ready to research aside from "Make more MARS compatible seals", but this brings an interesting question, do we have a super-seal to research with our new Sealing level? MARS is good, so adding another seal on the same level would be pretty useful to keep everyone alive.
     
    Lord Marshal said:
    I'm more doubtful of these because i don't remember the current discorse having other S-rank shinies ready to research aside from "Make more MARS compatible seals", but this brings an interesting question, do we have a super-seal to research with our new Sealing level? MARS is good, so adding another seal on the same level would be pretty useful to keep everyone alive.
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    Maybe. Depends how good S-rank sealing is at making super-seals. At the very least, we can probably steal Sasori's trick with storing and redirecting enemy attacks.
     
    Lord Marshal said:
    I'm more doubtful of these because i don't remember the current discorse having other S-rank shinies ready to research aside from "Make more MARS compatible seals", but this brings an interesting question, do we have a super-seal to research with our new Sealing level? MARS is good, so adding another seal on the same level would be pretty useful to keep everyone alive.
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    We will be able to research anything we want to with S-rank sealing. So we are only limited by our imagination. If we want to start copying an essie's tricks we can just do that by grinding on it for a while.
     
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