Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Eh, mostly because we have Pangolin to teach us that stuff. No need to derive it ourselves! Although, to be fair, their traditions are probably quite different.
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
Anyone else getting the feeling that Yagura will try to use Ami as a hostage against Kei when we reveal ourselves as the masterminds behind Hidden Heaven?
We really need a teleport-evac seal to deal with this shit.
We really need a teleport-evac seal to deal with this shit.
- Location
- Yes.
Who cares about Ami, what about our mommy!?
- Location
- Atlanta
Well. Keiko does.
- Location
- Portland
The real world doesn't tend to have serious threats solvable by torture either. Terrorists don't actually get a hold of nukes, hide and prime them to detonate in a few hours, then get captured by law enforcement. Superweapons don't get hijacked, set to attack, then locked behind a password.
The real world also doesn't have magic that allows you to sense truth, magically binding oaths, or any other ways fiction can make torture actually verifiably provide information (although in such cases, there are probably better ways of doing that. Magic that outright prevents lying, or forces you to tell the truth? Mind-reading would be better used by simply asking relevant questions.)
There are many things that are horrible in real life that might be different in fiction. I think genocide is horrible, but against the zerg? Tolkien Orcs? Is there really any other option to dealing with "always evil" races?
Part of my interest in speculative fiction is due to how changes in reality (whether magical abilities or Minovsky particles) change how societies function. Most works purposefully change as little as possible. Usually by banning AI and transhumanism in Science Fiction. In Fantasy, it's usually done by limiting the number or power (either actually limiting power or making magic useless against humans) of magic users, or simply creating a "masquerade" separating mages from muggles.
But when writers actually go into how their additions change things, that's when I get interested. How does magic change the economy? How do the existence of Geas or magical oaths change civilization? What does a society running on necromancy or blood magic look like? In science fiction, does A.I. end up governing humanity, or enslaved by them? What are the ethical ramifications of reprogramming such a being? If humans are uploaded to machines, can they prune their own personality?
I'm not a fan of censorship. If a work of fiction portrays all brown people as evil, or atheists as satan worshippers, bad reviews and not purchasing sequels is what I consider the appropriate response.
Works claiming to report facts are a different story.
It would be weird for certain grimdark settings like Game of Thrones to lack torture, or for torture to never provide actual results. But false confessions should also crop up.
As for people being influenced by it, I've rarely seen a scene with torture that seems like it would convice people we should use it today. Usually it's quite the opposite. I suppose 24 is an exception, but again, it has absurd situations.
I am not a fan of censorship either, since it is so often abused by those in power.
It doesn't matter how plausible it is to you or I, only that people starts believing it or changing their opinion on that basis.
If people start believing Jack Bauer interrogation techniques actually work, then Twenty-four is a harmful series. If books continuously reinforce the ideas that torture is reliable, then we may consider that potentially harmful.
All of this get to the heart of a dangerous myth that people uncritically duplicate from one stories to another, helping it reinforced the idea as a cultural truth.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
...So do ninja actually know that torture is an ineffective interrogation technique, then? @eaglejarl @Velorien
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I suspect ninja know that torture is ineffective, however they build up the reputation so civilians and ninja who don't know better just cave in immediately. If they think that torture works and they will break eventually they might just want to skip that step.
- Location
- Yes.
So um, I know its a while before the deadline, but I really would like some critiques on the plan.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Make note that this plan is to take no more than a day (assuming that's what you desire), and maybe we should ask Mari if she thinks she can disable traps and retrieve the scroll personally while we run interference of some form instead of the reverse, because we aren't certain that we could safely retrieve the scroll without making a lot of noise about it.
Also discuss what sorts of genjutsu she can run -- if she can, for instance, make someone sleepy and get them to go for a nap, then release them from the genjutsu, it would be a lot easier to handle only one guard for the scroll.
These guys are professionals; they aren't going to be giving out sensitive information to random strangers they've just met. Mingling will give us info about their cover story at best, no more.
Trying to be their room-cleaning service is worth a shot, but if they've trapped the room I can guarantee they're not letting room service in, since room service would set off any traps. And if they do let room service in, it wouldn't surprise me if they checked for Henge's and/or chakra.
For Genjutsu + search, I really doubt that they will ever travel alone with the scroll. You're exposing us to a lot of risk with minimal possibility of a reward.
And as for confirming whether or not the boy or woman have chakra; your plan is not good enough to insure we'll get that information successfully, and even if we do confirm, so what? We already know both of them are a threat to us due to their ability to call J for help. This information is of minimal value, and is not worth spending an update to figure out.
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Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I'm a bit dim today, can you explain why I should be cackling maniacally as well?*cackles maniacally*
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Much as I loved this, why didn't we get Pangolin Lore instead? Is there a list of flashbacks you want to write, and Pangolin Lore is further down, or what?
[X] Keiko Research: Combat Motivation
Funny as that sounds, I'd like more context.
Likewise.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
It was a surprise to see as a lore update, but at the same time, it does provide a lot of context for Kei's issues, so personally I'm quite enthused about this one. We should ask for lore updates more often when we're not in the middle of missions.
Omake: Kagome Lies
- Location
- USA
Very poor deception skill, thy name is Kagome. I had this idea pop into my head after being reminded of a very poor phishing attempt over steam.
Kagome talking to a target: "So do you have any brothers?"
Target: "Weird way of asking about my family, but yeah I have an older brother."
Kagome: "What does he look like?"
Target: "Uh, about yay tall, more of a nose than me and more of a paunch than I've got."
Kagome: "Ok." Walks a few feet away and henges into a poor rendition of the target's brother still in view of the target.
Kagome walks back as Target's Brother: "Hey its me, your brother. I need the scroll."
Kagome talking to a target: "So do you have any brothers?"
Target: "Weird way of asking about my family, but yeah I have an older brother."
Kagome: "What does he look like?"
Target: "Uh, about yay tall, more of a nose than me and more of a paunch than I've got."
Kagome: "Ok." Walks a few feet away and henges into a poor rendition of the target's brother still in view of the target.
Kagome walks back as Target's Brother: "Hey its me, your brother. I need the scroll."
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Ahahaha! Oh, that's hilarious.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
A suggestion from someone on reddit without an account here:
"Kei is really good at criticizing her team's plans, but bad at making plans of her own. As a step to help begin remedying that, could she try adopting the perspective of an enemy, poking holes in their current strategies or defensive arrangements? Sort of reverse Red Teaming things."
Not something I'd thought of, but it might help her get a better handle on the pessimism her bloodline espouses.
e: (as an aside I'll probably be relatively unresponsive for the next few days as the muse has struck for the first time in ever and so I'm writing)
"Kei is really good at criticizing her team's plans, but bad at making plans of her own. As a step to help begin remedying that, could she try adopting the perspective of an enemy, poking holes in their current strategies or defensive arrangements? Sort of reverse Red Teaming things."
Not something I'd thought of, but it might help her get a better handle on the pessimism her bloodline espouses.
e: (as an aside I'll probably be relatively unresponsive for the next few days as the muse has struck for the first time in ever and so I'm writing)
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Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
If each of those nodes had a central seal, with the four supporting seals on connected nodes, then the entire pentagon would be invincible and float where we put it.
We could just build those pentagon (or any number of other lattices), lay planks and dirt on top, and build our floating city on the sky.
The pentagon is just the minimal viable structure. We'd probably want a different lattice to provide a larger base that won't instantly fail if one node fails due to internal chakra bullshit.
Sorry about being vague, I was running low on time and figured that there was enough information there.
Issue is that building an impenetrable structure with these would be incredibly difficult, and you'd need to leave an opening to get in and out anyway. (Though maybe this is part of how tailed beasts are sealed before they were stored in people?) There also presumably exist methods to break the central seal without messing with the peripheral seals, but in most cases, why bother?
That said, they would make incredible support structures for large buildings, but the economic base for skyscrapers doesn't exist.
- Location
- America
If MARKED FOR DEATH is the place where we invent tessellating pentagrams, I won't even be mad.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I still think we should try running an "Uzumaki Prince" scam on people. Who knows, we might get a few takers!
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- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Strictly speaking, not true. I remind you of Morino "even my combat ninjutsu is torture-themed" Ibiki, and also the collection of horrible torture scars he keeps beneath his head covering.
Please put this into a plan. I would love to write the scene where Hazō proposes it.
Hazō doesn't know. T&I deliberately keep their exact methods secret in order to terrify the population and also prevent anyone from coming up with individual countermeasures.
Very nice, but I'm afraid it wouldn't work. The support seals have to be equidistant from the central seal and from each other.*cackles maniacally*
Something like that. There was, I believe, exactly one "vote" for Pangolin Lore, and I wanted to do something that didn't involve dumping a huge bunch of OOC exposition on you or forcing @eaglejarl go through my update with a fine-tooth comb for lore consistency before I could post it. Maybe another time.
To say that they're similar is misleading. For practical intents and purposes, there is no actual difference except the name, the loss of the foreign intelligence portfolio, and the changes any government organisation would undergo over twenty-five years (including having one of their own as president/PM for the last sixteen).
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I mean, I'd be willing to vote for an omake with that, but I think I'd rather vote for Lore Updates than omakes. Sorry, friend.
e: Can we vote for coincidence? I mean, if Hazou has a journal with his notes that uses the team's cipher (or otherwise stripped of actionable information), I wouldn't mind Keiko finding his idle musings on the question of if Mist had done any experiments with bloodline-crossing (he probably wouldn't know clan politics, not having been in one properly).
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zap lunch
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