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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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If hazou does kill people I'd like hazou to secretly take the jashin amulet off so it doesn't do any voodoo stuff. Although it's a risk if hidan notices
 
[X] Deliberately trigger a sealing failure and pray to Jashin it kills Hidan.

I'm down to play Russian roulette with a mostly loaded gun.
 
Lysbeth Succubus said:
I think a lot of plans that hinge around shutting the massacre down (which is a good thing) ignore that Hidan like, specifically said that his whole schtick is that he does not contain himself or stop himself from any urges to kill unless there's a very good reason. If we give him cause to think we reject Jashinism at all or aren't fit for the job, the survivability drops a lot. And Game Over for us means Game Over for the world, unless Sasori can get Pain back and somehow Pain's right and his plan functions.
I notice that the quest evolved from "this is a deathworld where murder is common and always on the table and even if it sucks we gotta suck it up" to "how do we prevent murder as much as we can?" and while it's commendable I believe that from the point we established that we were going to save the world and there are none outside of us who are both able to do it and willing to do it (the Thinker clans are willing but not able, all nerfed that they are, and every single individual with the actual power to change things is not into bettering the world)
Perhaps I'm a pessimistic voice. Perhaps I'm justifying things, etc.
Also, remember what Jiraiya said: the Will of Fire means Leaf ninja only kill to protect. Does Hazō believe that these deaths can protect anyone? If not, whose deaths could protect them? If we're forced to kill, we could still choose to accompany Hidan to kill someone we want to do away with. Or, as suggested, play the "quota" card - it's disturbingly close to eugenics, but if we "prune" only those who don't add to the production value of the town, we won't be harming Uplift as much. Hell, could we look for yakuza to take out? I dislike moral value relativism as much as the next person, but Haru didn't get in much trouble and a blow to their power is always nice. Could even be an in to get back in the local ones' good graces, if we pretend it's not us, but we heard about it, can we do anything to help,
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I was thinking about re-writing my plan to prod Hidan on this.

People are already slaughtering each other into extinction even though most need a justification to do so, we've seen numbers from a Thinker clan, we know Pain acknowledged civilization failing, and we know just how benign the 7th path is compared to the deadly human path. Hidan shouldn't scorn the fact that people hold themselves to the trappings of civilization, he should be shocked at how badly it's not working.

When it comes to worshipping Jashin, what's the point in building a temple or getting more followers in his name when they're supposed let loose their urges? What Hidan's endorsing isn't balancing the scales of life and death at all, its already tipping over firmly onto death, he's just speeding the process up by promoting naked hedonism.
 
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[x] Action Plan: Oh Boy, Here I Go Killing Again
  • …nah.
  • Let's go find someone I actually want to kill, yeah?
  • Know anyone who's putting an acceptable target on their back?
    • Bandits?
    • Yakuza?
    • The kind of biosealer who doesn't who doesn't ask consent first?
  • Killing's no fun if you feel bad about it. Lord Jashin wants both ends of life to be "as fun as possible", right?
  • Let's get killing!
 
Okay... this situation Hazou is in? It's terrible. Hidan is an S-ranked ninja with the hard power to force us to do what he wants, or he kills us. Hidan's also a part of AMITY, which is the group enforcing the (tentative/unstable) world peace that the Elemental Nations has reached. Meaning if Hazou displeases Hidan, then that displeasure could negatively tinge Hidan's judgement if there ever came a time where Leaf needed AMITY's intervention (like right now, with investigating Akane's murder).

Hazou, with his social stats and his combat stats, is nowhere near S-rank. He's, at best, a chuunin in that regard. So there goes the idea of social combat or physical combat.

So what does that leave? A social plan that tries to manipulate Hidan so carefully that it doesn't come down to rolls.

We can't outright lie, because our Deceit stat is shit, and Hidan has proven unnerving insightful when he wants to be (which makes since, given that Hidan is the Head Priest/Pope of a religion)...

So we need to hack our own thought processes, that way Hazou isn't outright lying. We try to get Hazou-the-character into a mindset that he doesn't care about the civilians, even if we-the-playerbase do. We lean on eldritch forces (Hazou's SSA that hurts him), disassociate, regress Hazou's mindset into an extreme instrumentalist framing --the sort of mindset that Hazou has had a whole character arc growing out of --whatever it takes to try and get these civilians free.

Hazou has stood up to Hidan in the past, and Hidan liked it. Hidan isn't unilaterally opposed to disagreements or conflict. Hidan won't pull an Itachi, and kill us for merely disagreeing with him.

Which gives us a chance. One chance.

We know Hidan's levers: Jashin. And Jashin has been seen to favor Uplift. Jashin has been seen to favor Hazou. Hidan's care for Hazou is strictly because of these things.

So we lean on them. We spin it however we can, and maybe we can save these people. Maybe.

But Jesus fuck, this hurts.
 
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As metagamey as it is, given the recent concerns about getting mod'd for atrocities and stated author preferences for Please Don't Do Atrocities, I doubt we're being immediately put into situations where mass murder is our only reasonable option.
 
[X] Action Plan: The Lord of Balance
Word Count: 297
  • Counter Arguments:
    • Hidan briefly mentioned that Jashin was the Lord of Balance and that he scorned people upholding the trappings of civilization. Shouldn't he be happy that it's not working? The scale is tipping firmly towards death, so there's no need for a temple or followers. Pain was right and humanity is projected to go extinct within the century.
    • Sparing the villagers might be morally good, but it's also hard economic practicality. MaRI was a hard sell and slaughtering these people would be a big set back foa short term boon. It's like he said, most ninja don't care about civilians and that's why Uplift's been so slow to catch on. What they do understand is that "cash is king", and you have a feeling that Jashin approves of exchanges and transactions like this.
    • Hazou will take this hard path, like Pain mentioned before he died, of actually evening the scales.
      • Why else'd Jashin chosen Hazou, whose ideology is as far from Hidan's modus operandi as it gets? Why'd he favour Hazou so blatantly it made Shikamaru freak out?
  • Alternative solution:
    • Make the case that MaRI getting an endorsement from Hidan, Kakazu, and AMITY leadership would allow him to more effectively spread Uplift and the will of Jashin, wrangle the conclave, repair the Great Seal, and kill more Dragons.
    • Send mail to him often on Uplift's progress
      • Send him Peppermint tea.
    • Inform him that summoning Death is taboo on the 7th path. Slaughtering for Jashin's boons and embodying death might conflict metaphysically with being a summoner.
 
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Orisha91 said:
I was thinking about re-writing my plan to prod Hidan on this.

People are already slaughtering each other into extinction even though most need a justification to do so, we've seen numbers from a Thinker clan, we know Pain acknowledged civilization failing, and we know just how benign the 7th path is compared to the deadly human path. Hidan shouldn't scorn the fact that people hold themselves to the trappings of civilization, he should be shocked at how badly it's not working.

When it comes to worshipping Jashin, what's the point in building a temple or getting more followers in his name when they're supposed let loose their urges? What Hidan's endorsing isn't balancing the scales of life and death at all, its already tipping over firmly onto death, he's just speeding the process up by promoting naked hedonism.

Maybe
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If we want to get literal, "naked hedonism" is probably the part that helps the world not die.
More seriously, it seems Jashinism relies on indiscriminate slaughter to some extent, sure, but not unintelligent slaughter. Instrumentality plays a role. Intent plays a role. Planning plays a big role, as it turns out.
Hidan is not just a powerful crazy or whatever, he's a clever and very skilled ninja who happens to follow a bonkers concept - which might well be a true god. Dude made it to stupid levels of everything, so he's not just talented, he also has a solid head on him to optimise himself. Faith notwithstanding and "infosec can't hurt me because nothing can hurt me" notwithstanding, I don't recall him doing anything stupid - he even has good emotional intelligence.
Which bothers me about how some plans seem to treat him as a "literal genie"-type. He's not a Taskmaster episode where clever wordplay or twisting the light does the trick, he's a guy with an idea in head who wants us to Jashinise the civilians.
When he says "conviction" he doesn't mean "trust in your ideals," he means "trust in Jashin's and that includes a lot of killing."
I will probably end up voting for a plan that involves killing, and ideally not these civilians or at least the lowest number of them we can get away with, but right now my feelings are "if we piss him off he may have second thoughts on our chosenness and kill us" and "if we die or lose the Resurrection Race in another way it's also Game Over." IMO the worst way to view it is "these civilians are a sunken cost," the best way to view it is "we can protect them at the cost of others, and will be able to bring back whomever dies now eventually which we may or may not do depending on the target," and that's for the ways that let us outlive the event, which I fear the kind of flat-out refusal some plans suggest, even with the best explanations, will not.
I've been wrong before, and I hope I am, especially if we do end on a flat refusal plan.
 
Lysbeth Succubus said:
If we want to get literal, "naked hedonism" is probably the part that helps the world not die.
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It's worth noting that Hazou helped pass a law that grants Consorts legal protections. And that the law was deliberately written to be gender neutral, so everyone can take part. That's pretty hedonistic, will increase birth rates, and allow for more people to experience suffering (as is in line with Jashin's will).
 
HIDAN: hmmmmmm Alright! You've convinced me! Instead of a death quota, you now have a life quota! Better go get Yamanaka and Mori pregna--

MOD POST: Tell us what Hidan did wrong so that we know you understand.
 
RandomOTP said:
It's worth noting that Hazou helped pass a law that grants Consorts legal protections. And that the law was deliberately written to be gender neutral, so everyone can take part. That's pretty hedonistic, will increase birth rates, and allow for more people to experience suffering (as is in line with Jashin's will).
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I'm not sure the takeaway of that line should be "they must suffer to please Jashin" lol - he said "if it can't suffer, it ain't worth puttin' out of its misery" which I understood as being about sentience or, if we're being a lot more charitable, ending suffering.
Very good point about the consort law


DanZapman said:
As metagamey as it is, given the recent concerns about getting mod'd for atrocities and stated author preferences for Please Don't Do Atrocities, I doubt we're being immediately put into situations where mass murder is our only reasonable option.
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We're being put through difficult situations, where we're supposed to be horrified - which, regardless of what happens eventually, we already are. No one is pro mass murder in general here and that's great, I think most differences in the approach are only based on how our models of Hidan differ - how much of a "no" can he take, how much of a delay will he accept, how much of a size reduction can be fine, etc. Or in other terms, how directly are we being "held at gunpoint" by that death wizard? Some of us are more terrified than others, some of us think we have more leeway than others. No one wants mass murder.
 
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Lysbeth Succubus said:
I'm not sure the takeaway of that line should be "they must suffer to please Jashin" lol - he said "if it can't suffer, it ain't worth puttin' out of its misery" which I understood as being about sentience or, if we're being a lot more charitable, ending suffering.
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Jashin is a bodhisattva who sends his priests to benevolently massacre suffering beings from desire realms.

JASHIN: oh good, you died and left your miserable life as a peasant! maybe next life you can be a monk and escape samsara :)
[PEASANT reincarnates as a PEASANT]
JASHIN: wait
JASHIN: wait no
JASHIN: Hiiiiidaaaan! Get over here!
 
Kiba said:
I am tired of being dictated to by an S-ranker.
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I am as well! May I interest you in an exciting solution marrying sealtech and decision theory into a horrifying whole?:
Noumero said:
Discuss with Kagome and Mari (maximum-security, under Air Domes and anti-Hyuuga seals).
  • We're routinely forced to interact with elite jounin and S-rankers, and we're not powerful enough to feel safe. If Orochimaru decides to kill us, we won't be able to do anything.
  • You have a horrible potential solution. Kagome: you're really not going to like it, but it's to protect the team, and we won't do it without your approval.
  • SINs larger than twelve cause sealing failures. Speculation: each additional seal after the twelfth will cause an additional failure. First twelve seals fill up all free space, then the remaining seals try to unstore and independently fail.
  • Horrible idea:
    • Build a 112-SIN. Publicly announce our new invention, stating that we'll always carry it on ourselves and will detonate it if we're facing death.
    • You doubt even Orochimaru would be willing to chance 99 simultaneous sealing failures at zero-range.
    • Best-case scenario: it scares Rock off from starting the war.
  • Preliminary design (see below).
    • Prerequisite: A 24-hour timer seal which explodes if it isn't reset. How difficult it'd be to research?
  • Obvios issues:
    • Accidental activation. Shouldn't do it if the chance of that is greater than one-in-ten-thousand.
    • N-SINs only ever causing one failure. Let's just never check that.
    • Foreign-village agents killing us to blow Leaf up. Shouldn't be a concern: 99 simultaneous failures isn't something you want to happen on the same planet as you.
    • Watchers. They don't exist, do they?
  • If the project's approved, start production. Take a short outside-Leaf mission if necessary.
    • Build one real one, and several decoys for every Team Uplift member.
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We did wipe out a Squirrel-folk ninja squad, didn't we? Shouldn't that count? Hazō was even thinking of Jashin at the time (end of chapter 537) even though he didn't kill Tomotsune and Hirotora himself
 
Lysbeth Succubus said:
More seriously, it seems Jashinism relies on indiscriminate slaughter to some extent, sure, but not unintelligent slaughter. Instrumentality plays a role. Intent plays a role. Planning plays a big role, as it turns out.
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Yeah, but the eventual conclusion leads to feeding his urges. He's not even abiding by the balance thing; he's killed way more people than he saved. And AMITY doesn't count since it came about indirectly.
 
Haven't caught up on the thread yet, but—
Left-Hand Mutant said:
I don't expect this to be persuasive to Hidan. Even with humanity collapsing, these particular people don't matter to Hidan as much as getting Hazou Jashin-buffs so he can do uplift better and spread the word of Jashin.
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This is a good point. Here's a modification addressing that:
Noumero said:
[x] Action Plan: Jashin Take the Wheel
  • Mindset: Prepare yourself to slaughter these people.
    • Your theological arguments won't work if Hidan thinks they're a rationalization. You can't deceive him. If you want to avoid a massacre, you need to be genuinely willing to commit it.
    • Put on extreme-utilitarian glasses. Recognize these people's global unimportance compared to your agenda. Imagine Akane's killers in their place. Commit to resurrect them. Recall how much of the world's brokenness stems from people's own choices; everyone, including those villagers, is complicit. Dip into Out to see them as meatsacks. Whatever works.
    • If your ploy fails? Yup, go slaughter them.
  • Thus resolved, start a theological argument. Not because you want to save these people; let go of that desire. Do it because you think Hidan is failing Jashin.
    • He said Jashin's all about balance. The world is not in balance. Humanity is projected to go extinct within the century, and then there'd be no more birth nor deaths, just the suffering-incapable beasts.
    • Hidan's unaimed slaughters are a contributing factor. Those buffets may please Jashin short-term, but they're like eating the seeds while the whole crop's failing. What needs killing are the weeds threatening civilization: those defecting against it, the warhawks, monstrosities like the Dragons.
    • Why else'd Jashin chosen Hazou, whose ideology is as far from Hidan's modus operandi as it gets? Why'd he favour Hazou so blatantly it made Shikamaru freak out?
    • If Jashin governs life and death — well, Hidan fills the High Priest of Death slot's pretty well. But his Life counterpart seems missing. Your spot, maybe?
  • Which's all just speculation, of course. Hidan refused to explain the metaphysics; but you're refusing to do things just on his say-so.
    • If Hidan's just being an essie and wants to make you kill people for funsies, all the talk of "Jashin" a rationalization? Okay, that tracks.
    • If Hidan wants to actually serve Jashin? He better convince you this slaughter is net-beneficial.
  • Play it by ear from there.
    • Don't resurrect your desire to save these people; don't rationalize reasons why Jashin won't want this slaughter.
    • Genuinely determine whether it's what benefits Jashin. Accept whatever conclusion emerges.
    • Perhaps Jashin's mechanically restricted: only able to empower its disciples for killing. If so, you're willing to do it — but it without harming Civilization. Let's go kill some bandits.
    • Dip into Out to have better insight into alien mentality.
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