- Location
- Liverpool
The arachnids also have Dragon parts, yes? Could we get Kagome (or Hazou) to borrow one from them instead of Oro? Might be safer.
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 open voting
The arachnids also have Dragon parts, yes? Could we get Kagome (or Hazou) to borrow one from them instead of Oro? Might be safer.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
My reading of this is that Hazou got all the recovered parts.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Maybe they found one later, maybe they kept one.
It also sounds like exactly the sort of thing you spend a Fate point for.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Okay okay okay, I have an idea regarding what we can do.
We gotta cancel Pantsaa.
We've just spun up a narrative that the Pangolins are oathbreakers, and fed it to the Clan that's plausibly the Seventh Path authority on the matter of the theory behind oaths.
Now the QMs are (on Discord) looking through our past statements, and are suggesting that our beautiful narrative is somehow dubious. Because it, like, contradicts what actually happened or something. Pfah! As if anybody cared about that!
Fear not, however. The modern world has taught me exactly what to do in such situations.
The core of this is simple. The Summon Clans seem to place a great deal on their credibility. We're going to double down on our statements, and paint the Pangolins as chronic oathbreakers. We'll also pick our statements such that the natural avenue of getting out of this, for the Pangolins, will be blaming everything on Pantsaa, the Pangolin Boss That They Had No Idea Was So Treacherous Behind Closed Doors Oh My Pantokrator We're Clutching Our Pearls So Hard Right Now. Then they depose him, and, uh, and we maneuver things so that the next Clan Boss is more amenable to us.
There's a bunch of specific moves we can make here, evidence we can "bring to light":
And this is just the first draft. Imagine what Mari and Ami and Ruri can do with this as the base. Just imagine!
The best outcome would be convincing the Pangolin society that their top brass actually consists of oathbreakers, potentially sparking internal tensions. But I can't optimize over those dynamics, because I don't think Kei ever told us anything about the movers and shakers of the Pangolin society. What other powerful actors are there? Who would be interested in toppling Pantsaa, be a fit replacement for him, and be friendly to us afterwards?
I'd suggest having a Mari + Kei + Ami + Ruri meeting, and outlining this idea. They'd be better-positioned to pose the right questions to Kei regarding the Pangolins' internal dynamics, she'll outline them, then we finalize the plan based on that.
We gotta cancel Pantsaa.
We've just spun up a narrative that the Pangolins are oathbreakers, and fed it to the Clan that's plausibly the Seventh Path authority on the matter of the theory behind oaths.
Now the QMs are (on Discord) looking through our past statements, and are suggesting that our beautiful narrative is somehow dubious. Because it, like, contradicts what actually happened or something. Pfah! As if anybody cared about that!
Fear not, however. The modern world has taught me exactly what to do in such situations.
The core of this is simple. The Summon Clans seem to place a great deal on their credibility. We're going to double down on our statements, and paint the Pangolins as chronic oathbreakers. We'll also pick our statements such that the natural avenue of getting out of this, for the Pangolins, will be blaming everything on Pantsaa, the Pangolin Boss That They Had No Idea Was So Treacherous Behind Closed Doors Oh My Pantokrator We're Clutching Our Pearls So Hard Right Now. Then they depose him, and, uh, and we maneuver things so that the next Clan Boss is more amenable to us.
There's a bunch of specific moves we can make here, evidence we can "bring to light":
- Our own testimony. That the Pangolins abused our good faith with the skytowers...
- ... plus we can probably loop in the incident with Confute somehow (the Pangolins being incompetent then trying to cover it up, as we've made it sound).
- ... plus whatever's going on with Convei. If they're really withholding intel on the Dragons, hoo boy, that's not going to be a good look.
- The Condors' testimony. Through Ruri, we can contact them, feed them the lines we want them to say. Then either they contact one of the other Conclave clans (but not the Dogs or the Toads or any other Leaf-affiliated clan!), or come to the Conclave themselves (if we've maneuvered the situation such that the other Clans have put their foot down and demanded the Condors be allowed)... and they present this massive case that the whole Condor/Pangolin conflict involved numerous cases of the Pangolins being treacherous and going back on their word.
- Bonus points for Conjura confirming the Dragons' existence, then pointing out that the Pangolins also know (via Convei) but are deliberately hiding that from the Conclave. Why is that, hmm? Maybe because they want the Dragons to rampage around and kill off a few more of you, hmm?
- Some other Clan's testimony. Ours and the Condors' testimony is obviously going to be looked at with suspicion, since it's deeply in our interests to put the Pangolins down. So what we're going to do is find a Clan with a bone to pick with the Pangolins, ask them about their past interactions with the Pangolins, and then work with them to paint one of these interactions as the Pangolins being treacherous. There would be no lying on this Clan's part involved, just creative reframings that would nonetheless support the vibe that the Pangolins are no good very bad stinky.
- A Pangolin's testimony. It would be stellar if we could find some destitute Pangolin schmuck that's willing to do anything, dress them up in regal clothing, drag them to the Conclave, and have them say something in support of this whole narrative we're paining. The other Clans probably have no clue as to the Pangolins' internals, they're not going to be able to say that this is just some random schmuck, not e. g. a former high-ranking military official that's been unfairly disgraced because they couldn't stand the systemic treachery among the Pangolin ranks et cetera et cetera. And the Pangolins' credibility should already be in shambles at this point, so that their word that this is just some schmuck isn't going to be taken at face value either.
- Panjandrum, maybe? Not sure he's that far gone to go along with this. But he'd be a very good pick. He's big therefore respectable, and IIRC actually was a renowned warrior.
- We don't actually have to get him onboard with our ploy, too! It's enough that he is heard saying some things that sound like they support our narrative. We can trick him, or e. g. manipulate him into letting out a frustrated drunken rant.
- Note also how this synergises with the Confute debacle.
- Panjandrum, maybe? Not sure he's that far gone to go along with this. But he'd be a very good pick. He's big therefore respectable, and IIRC actually was a renowned warrior.
- The Rat Clan's theorizing; the clincher. Rather than painting the Pangolins as outright disregarding-the-contract treacherous, we're going to paint them as systematically exploiting the contracts via the use of loopholes or misunderstandings, which the Rats are going to confirm is still very bad.
- (The Rats don't have to be in on all of this, more of what we've said to them should be enough.)
And this is just the first draft. Imagine what Mari and Ami and Ruri can do with this as the base. Just imagine!
The best outcome would be convincing the Pangolin society that their top brass actually consists of oathbreakers, potentially sparking internal tensions. But I can't optimize over those dynamics, because I don't think Kei ever told us anything about the movers and shakers of the Pangolin society. What other powerful actors are there? Who would be interested in toppling Pantsaa, be a fit replacement for him, and be friendly to us afterwards?
I'd suggest having a Mari + Kei + Ami + Ruri meeting, and outlining this idea. They'd be better-positioned to pose the right questions to Kei regarding the Pangolins' internal dynamics, she'll outline them, then we finalize the plan based on that.
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That's not going to work I think, for the simple reason that we don't have the social stats for that.
If we had Mari's social stats then maybe we'd be able to get away with pulling this kind of bullshit, but even then I doubt it would be enough.
Mind you we might be able to try and pull off this level of chicanery once Hazou gets S-rank social stats in a few more in-game years.
As things stand now, the plan would fail miserably the first time Hazou needs to make a social roll.
Charty chart. Decided one acre feeds four + ten percent added land for buildings, rough power rule for settlement size + number. Every walled settlement is a square.
Did not think ahead, so red numbers ignored for totals, other columns multiplied by settlements.
Unconfirmed, past 300 days of casting 4 MARI gives 1.200 casts to distribute. Safer place to live attracts more people. More people come, need more walls. 1, residences + farms are walled. 2, land inside is used for new residences, farms moved outside. 3, wall new farms. Informative link. Notes on Medieval Population Geography
| Settlements | People | Acres | MARI |
| - | 300.000 | 82.500 | 320 |
| 1 | 30.000 | 8.250 | 100 |
| 3 | 10.000 | 2.750 | 60 |
| 10 | 3.000 | 825 | 32 |
| 100 | 1.000 | 275 | 18 |
| 1.000 | 100 | 27,5 | 6 |
| >10.000 | <100 | - | - |
| Total - 1.114 | 290.000 | 79.750 | 8.400 |
Did not think ahead, so red numbers ignored for totals, other columns multiplied by settlements.
Unconfirmed, past 300 days of casting 4 MARI gives 1.200 casts to distribute. Safer place to live attracts more people. More people come, need more walls. 1, residences + farms are walled. 2, land inside is used for new residences, farms moved outside. 3, wall new farms. Informative link. Notes on Medieval Population Geography
Feels like the under 100 people communities compare to the uncounted, untaxed in Fire. 200 to 600 people died in the first EM test. Low populated area of Fire, 450 to 500 square miles. Not sure if chakra beasts make people group together more or spread out?
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Nope, pretty sure we don't need the social stats for any of that, much like we didn't need to roll anything to convince the Rats, or how we only needed Resolve not Deceit to counter Zabuza. Picking arguments good enough circumvents the whole social-combat system.
And if dice are going to be rolled, it'd be on the overall plausibility of our high-level narrative, which abstracts over the details of how HNK execute every individual interaction and only takes into account the broad strokes of the plan... which is going to be optimized by Mari/Ruri/Ami, and would use their dice if anybody's. (See an Orochimaru interaction here for a precedent.)
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
We really need to stop waiting around on getting her to the 7th Path
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Note that this is how the update went down:
EJ: Dum de dum, the plan says the pangolins deceived them by not saying this was for conquest and that matches what's in my cheese-based brain so there's no need to roll. Dum de dum.
Update: is published
Other QMs: Hey, our brains are not made of cheese and therefore we remember that it's totally a lie. The Pangolins were very clear from the start that this was all about the conquest. There should totally have been a roll.
EJ: But, but... The plan! And my cheese-based brain!
Mountains of evidence showing that it was a lie: are provided
EJ: Oh. Yeah, should have had a roll.
More seriously, especially good arguments might provide a tag that gives you a bonus, but they won't bypass the system unless the one dealing with them has a brain made of cheese and thus forgets to use the system.
Also, a roll has been made and will be added to the update. The outcome is not revealed so this doesn't actually tell you anything.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
For the record, as a French person I am obligated to defend the honour of cheese. Cheese brain means delicious brain
Do we get to see how we rolled? If we rolled a +6 there are different vibes than a -6.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
For what it's worth, the playerbase is also cheesebrained and misremembered the context of the Pangolin Deal.
Totally believable and a human thing to do. It wouldn't be a lie if you genuinely believe it. Self serving? Absolutely.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
Which makes Hazō cheesebrained and therefore he didn't lie
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Nah, I figured that's how it went down. My point is that if it weren't a deception, then convincing the Rats would not have required dice. The plan I just suggested, likewise, minimizes the extent to which HNK need to convince their interlocutors of falsehoods via face-to-face interactions. We either have other people lie for us, or place people in situations where they'd say things we want without lying, or engage in broad-scale framing that doesn't involve us emitting actual falsehoods, or re-use our past lies.
Hmm. I'd like to note that my actual Rats plan didn't actually argue that we didn't know the Pangolins would use the seal offensively, because I also re-read the Kei Negotiates With Pantsaa and the surrounding updates and realized that's not true. The plan only says that "[we] didn't expect the Condors to be innocent, rather than as militant as the Pangolins; for it to be a war of unilateral subjugation and genocide", which I still think is true. We were fine with the Pangolins conquering Condor lands, but mainly because we thought both polities were militant assholes, the Condors an enthusiastic participant in that war. We didn't know the Pangolins were uniquely militant and the Condors didn't want any of this. Genocide, likewise, was genuinely unexpected: Hazou's claim that based on Human Path priors we only expected territory grabs, not attempts to wipe the Condors out entirely, I think is still true.
Buuut I didn't really make that clear in my plan's wording, and the prevalent thread narrative was "we though the seal will be used defensively", so that's arguably on me.
Still, I'm not sure characterizing the whole thing as a lie is fair, either.
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Marked for Death is groaning under the weight of its own complexity. No one can remember what is going on.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
except faflec. stinking cheater bloodline
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think this is very well argued and would be interested in the QMs' thoughts on it.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
To elaborate, the following perspective from Inferno Vulpix is, I believe, the correct characterization of the thread's actions (and Kei's actions?), and what I'd tried to gesture at with my plan's wording:
My plan has a self-serving bent that omits our not doing due diligence, but an argument that "you had to do due diligence" is already premised on the idea that the Pangolins would strike a deal with us while lying to us, so I think the core of "the Pangolins operated in bad faith" is still preserved.
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- Location
- United States
Therefore, Hazō also misremembered. No Deceit roll necessary @eaglejarl!
- Location
- Pacific standard
Also, in the human path, conquering a people's land means far far less than it does in the 7th. It's still a desecration, but not one directly bound to their personhood.
And it took us learning some pretty deep Need to Know lore to understand that.
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Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Wait a moment.
Hoo boy, do I have news for you, Taxiarchos. The Pangolin leadership is lying to the Pangolin society. They do, in fact, make claims to their citizens that the Condors are treacherous warmongers. Here's what Pandaa believes:
This is probably all bullshit. Which means:
- More evidence of the Pangolin leadership being untrustworthy, to be presented to the Conclave. They're even lying to their own!
- More ammunition for generating discontent within the Pangolin society. If they knew how much of the propaganda was a lie, they'd be both unhappy with Pantsaa and unhappy about the war itself.
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