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
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Uhhhhh no, hold up. Our course is not set for necromancy yet. Quite a few of us do not want to bring back Pain. Imo that's something we need to discuss with Kagome. And yes it's a meeting but like we need to figure out how we're going to Deal With The Akatsuki without potentially dooming the world.
- Location
- Yes.
Kagome can be bought off with lies about a sealing failure brought about by some idiot underling, like what happened with Norifumi. As for Yuno...
We don't have to lie to Yuno if she's dead.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You're saying 'we've done something'. What do you think we did?
We had zero options - zero pull, zero nothing. Our reasons did not convince Asuma, we had and have insufficient leverage over him to have forcibly changed his mind, and we lacked the martial abilities to kill him in a way that doesn't immediately result in our deaths and the deaths of our loved ones.
The thing that we did was take the only option which preserved our lives - notably, pretty valuable to the universe as a whole given that no one else is going to figure out the Great Seal and the Dragons.
The point of failure was being insufficiently cautious when testing EM initially. Everything after that has flowed.
No one is happy that a thousand (?) people are dead. But let's not act like this was a failure of moral bravery on our part. This was a failure of caution.
Maybe we won't make that mistake again.
We shouldn't do anything, Shika implied that we might have a year before anyone notices Isan is gone. Let's let it lie for now.
Plus Yuno might not be the most upset that her home village is dead. They did cast her out to die in the wilderness.
Threnodist
occupying Haudenosaunee & Osage land she/her/hers
- Location
- Pittsburgh
I think choosing to do nothing is still a choice. And yes we can rationalize (heh) our actions to justify what we did and there are a lot of very smart people in this thread so I'm sure we'll come up with some good reasons but I still don't think that negates that we made a choice that led to an entire people being wiped out.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't think that choices made when there are no viable alternatives are choices. We made a forced move.
The choice that we made was to test EM in the first place without adequate caution. Everything from that point onward was effectively predetermined.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And likely prevented the whole world from getting wiped out. (Well, by EM anyways)
And then Hazou can probably easily figure out that EM nuke effect is caused by temperature, and any sufficiently strong temperature jutsu would cause it. And if Hazou can figure it out so can others. And then where does that leave Shikamaru and Asuma? Not gonna lie that would be satisfyingly vindicative scene, and probably also cause Shikamaru to get an aneurysm, and it's probably a terrible idea for many other reasons. But still
Pretty oof update, in an emotional way.
- Location
- Liverpool
... We were just complicit in killing Kagome's girlfriend, weren't we?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
These guys still think spirits create ice. I don't think anyone is going to intuit this themselves without also having an EM variant to work with and even then Isan had it for hundreds of years and never noticed.
The worry is that a jonin would've leveled it to 40 for its area denial uses and stumbled upon a nuke. I don't think we've ever seen another Fire jutsu that can lower temperature rather than raise it, and I don't see them figuring this thought process out without it.
I also don't see it making Shikamaru and Asuma feel bad because EM was by far the fastest, easiest, and most uncontrollable way to achieve the effect. I'm not saying it's impossible someone else comes upon a similar technique but it doesn't invalidate their preventative measures to slow down the end of the world.
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
Nah. Because everyone dying is a hypothesis backed by nothing and opposed by literally all of Isan's history and existence.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
It just kind of struck me, with this line, how much of an actual shadowy conspiracy the anti-EM crew is. Gathering behind closed doors, we discuss a goal the rest of the world knows nothing about, cannot be allowed to know anything about, and we manipulate the world on scales great and small to achieve it. Arranging for someone's death is not only possible for us but a footnote, a matter of course as the world keeps turning and we discuss what must yet be done for our goals to become reality.
It's chilling, but also really cool in its own right. This is what it's like to be on the other side of that equation, without a shred of irony or comedy.
...and the reason why is as clear as it's ever been. We've known that civilization is on a downwards trend since near the beginning of the quest, from trends in agricultural records, but seeing it straight from Nara Shikamaru is another beast. This is the full picture, made with all the informational resources of Leaf and the deductive mind of a genius. You could quibble with the numbers but not, I think, truly disagree with them. Staring us right in the face, undeniable, are the long long odds we need to overcome to win our happy ending. The world has no obligation to be kind, and we cannot afford to hold back if we want to match it trial for trial. That is why our shadowy conspiracy exists, because it must exist if humanity is to have any hope at all. Because no matter how thoroughly the Sage ruined the world when he held it in the palm of his hand, we'll do whatever it takes to save humanity. On this, Asuma and Shikamaru and Hazou all agree without reserve.
And yet, quite the contrast here. It was our ambition that discovered the true potential of Elemental Mastery in the first place, our hand that set all this into motion. For all our lofty ideals, Isan would still be alive right now if it weren't for our singleminded obsession with surpassing limits, breaking rules, and making the impossible possible. We never have anything but the best of intentions, but now there's a frozen crater where humans once lived.
But yet our shadowy conspiracy exists. We could have collectively chosen to forget about Elemental Mastery, do nothing and let nature take its course. The reason why we didn't is obvious: given the state of the world, nature would not be merciful. We are no safer for our ignorance, and we cannot shirk moral culpability by feigning ignorance (indeed, the very concept of "moral culpability" sounds so academic when the question is the survival of humanity. Even if one chose to call this an evil of the highest order, unmitigated by any good intentions or mitigation of existential risks, to do nothing could only be counted as suicidal, and a profoundly selfish one that drags everyone down with you at that), so we-who-know gather the resources we have and do the best we can, for everyone's sake. We can only call ourselves fortunate for having the means to act in the first place, for having discovered the threat early enough to make a difference.
I quite like how this comes across. It's something I've talked about before, where the flaw with "greater good" logic isn't structural - that one shouldn't in fact seek the greatest good they can - but procedural - that one might fail to accurately determine what the greatest good is in the first place. In particular, the stereotypical failure mode is a shortsighted leader who becomes numb to the costs, who forgets how much he sacrifices and becomes willing to drastically overpay for what he gains. A leader who feels no imperative to seek better alternatives, because they fail to see how the price might be made lesser than it already is. A leader who would throw countless to burn, valuing them as nothing, in exchange for infinitesimal gain towards his goal, which he counts as everything.
But the flaws here are all procedural, not structural. If you never forget the costs you pay, if you never overinflate the value to be gained, if you never stop looking for alternate options, if you make no flaws at all at any step of the process, it remains true that one should pursue the best outcome, the course of action with the greatest expected good. Choji knows this, and so he trusts Shikamaru, but he also knows the limits of his own mind, and how he cannot unconditionally trust his own value assessments. So, knowing the cost of this failure mode, he trusts in his intuition, his gut feeling, as failsafe. If he ever forgets the value of a life in his conscious calculations, his intuitions will remind him, and he will avoid making a tragic mistake.
It's a good way to look at it, and I very much like how Choji (and, by extension, Paperclipped) can articulate it from a position of impressions and emotions rather than cerebral logic. It's one thing to list the systems and processes that align the various incentives, it's another thing to hear it as a simple truth that resonates on a deeper level, that demands nothing but a bit of wisdom to understand.
And lastly, I just have to remark that Elemental Mastery, in its full capacity as a weapon of mass destruction, has such a fascinating and unique aesthetic. A dreadful cold wind that heralds the end, violent and energetic despite being cold beyond belief. It's not a simple thing of heat or force like mundane WMDs, and even cataclysmic magics across various settings tend towards the graceful, an expanding wave of power inflicting its change upon the world as the threshold of the spell claims more territory (when it's not simply an instantaneous effect, blink-and-you-miss-it). This is a roiling turbulent chaos, more than a blizzard in every possible respect. You feel its presence as it begins to appear, the heat already seeping away from you before you know anything is amiss, and by the time you lay eyes on the source it's already far too late. I don't think I've seen an apocalyptic weapon quite like Elemental Mastery, and I'm loving the sheer style these descriptions of it exude.
All in all, an absolutely fantastic chapter. It's about such a grim topic, and in some ways more of a defeat than a victory, but I'm pretty sure when I look back and tally up my favourite chapters this will be up there near the top. It's definitely fitting that it's our 600th chapter, a defining milestone in the quest. Isan's been part of the quest for so long, and now the world will never look quite the same again.
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[x] [Estate] Links
???/300 words
- Kei/Mari/Gaku check all:
- Design
- Blend design elements from other clan compounds to represent the links to Leaf we have so far:
- Uchiha, representing Hazou's ancestors.
- Nara, representing Kei's marriage to Shikamaru.
- Senju, representing Jiraiya's teammate (and Noburi's maybe-apprenticeship, but that's still early days).
- Orochimaru's compound (he might feel slighted if we ref Tsunade but not him).
- Sarutobi, representing Jiraiya's sensei.
- Yamanaka, representing Hazou/Akane's relationship with Ino.
- Aburame, representing our budding business relationship.
- Architects are also encouraged to invent creative and modern design elements — we're a research clan, after all.
- Hire Shikamaru-recommended KEI-architects from NFF.
- Blend design elements from other clan compounds to represent the links to Leaf we have so far:
- Construction
- Hazou creates quartz for highlights.
- ES to add gold filigree to important buildings.
- Mosaics where appropriate.
- Details
- Hide Koi pond for FOOM OPSEC training.
- Bathhouses.
- Add waterslides.
- Great Hall suitable for larger (1000+ person) events.
- Decorate with huge dragon skeleton carving.
- Relief carvings of the summon clans we're contracted with.
- Cafeteria.
- School/library.
- Clinic/Mental Health Offices
- Connect up the aqueduct we built, and the sewers in preparation for when they're ready for deployment.
- Gardens/Greenhouses for Phytosealing Botanical Gardens to come (phytosealing intentions are kept secret — as far as the architects are concerned, it's a normal botanical gardens).
- Statue of Hashirama with unique plants flourishing from his ninjutsu.
- Add fruit trees to supplement food supply.
- ES relief carvings that resemble 2D/3D sealing on surfaces to hide real seals in the noise.
- Subterranean complex.
- Civilian evac shelters.
- Lampposts.
- Statues holding daybright seals?
- Monument to the Lost [Temporarily in Another Path].
- Statues.
- Jiraiya colossus.
- Other Gouketsu VIPs (incl Gaku, hehe)
- Hazou's Uchiha ancestors pre-Kurosawa split (ask Sasuke for help).
I wasn't (entirely) joking about this. We should vote in an estate plan before we do a timeskip, and doing so now would be a decent way to make it appear that everything is normal and that Hazō is a loyal Leaf ninja who is not contemplating treason.
- Location
- Yes.
Wouldn't that just make us more suspicious, given that it's Hazou?
If we confuse them enough with mixed signals, no one will be able to tell what's going on.
Enact plans for a long-term clan compound. Start stockpiling paper, ink, food, and other supplies necessary to make a getaway. Enter into more trade deals with Leaf clans. Recklessly insult some others with no regard to the future.
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Hazou's current pet projects are not a good predictor of how long it will be until he next commits treason.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
(For clarification of the first-person pronouns: @Paperclipped wrote these answers and I'm posting them.)
The actual difficulty assessment is "jōnin-level".
Having a blank of the seal
Having an IN download of the seal
Having research notes for the seal
Having someone that knows the seal actively guiding your research
Oops, my bad. The difficulty assessment is supposed to be before the TN reduction from research notes, but I gave the difficulty assessment from after having access to the notes.
The actual difficulty assessment is "jōnin-level".
We will not be publishing any exact discounts. Instead, in rough (i.e., not exact) order of how useful it is to Hazō, going from least useful to most useful:
Having a blank of the seal
Having an IN download of the seal
Having research notes for the seal
Having someone that knows the seal actively guiding your research
[x] Action Plan: Record Scratch
- Hazou has a horrible thought: what if the hellstorm isn't caused by EM? What if wind spirits just hate being cold?
- Research a seal capable of producing an effect that mimics that of Akane-level extreme cold in a small area. With Asuma's permission, test it somewhere safe to do so, turning off the seal if any of that weird cold liquid shows up.
- Uh-oh.
- "Sir, we may have a problem…"
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Do these bonuses stack or do they replace each other? Also are they flat discounts or do they scale to the TN of the seal? (Feel free not to answer if that's too much information)
Obligatory inb4 every other hidden village already knew about the EM nukes and decided against genociding anyone because they did better math, and also they have progressed to using EM to power Stirling engines and industrialize.
That or the secret was already out and the Isan genocide just accelerated its use for more genociding
That or the secret was already out and the Isan genocide just accelerated its use for more genociding
Iris-Iven-Ibis
Interested-Idiot-Immortal
- Location
- You know