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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Left-Hand Mutant said:
I agree that Hidan is a monster. Sorry if I gave you the impression I had forgotten this.

My model of this monster says that he would respond acceptably to being told "no thanks, but we'll kill some other people"
Do you disagree?
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As you point out, he's impulsive and impatient. That's something I'm also acutely aware of.

Because of this, I think he'll need some very good justifications for why we need to run around looking for some other people to kill, instead of slaughtering these ones, who are sitting right here. Also, he'd just said that all people are equal, so we'll also need a justification as to why that isn't true.

I also expect him to become very impatient with Hazou for repeatedly refusing to contemplate slaughter based on moral grounds, and offering half-baked objections to that. We need to not just hold our ground; we need to go on the offensive.
2 of the 3 times we've met him, Hidan has used the phrase "theological question" to mean "boring question I don't feel like thinking about", then defaulted to "just massacre more humans" as the answer.
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Agreed. That's why my plan's tone is so combative, why I attempt to question his devotion to Jashin. Rile him up, make him engaged.

Also, while he's easily bored, he does have some interest in the esoteric questions. He seems to have intricate lore on Jashin, he'd previously been convinced by the Uplift arguments, plus his whole shtick at O'uzu.
Shrooms said:
I agree with this and don't mind that, I'm more concerned with establishing precedent now so Hidan doesn't keep bringing us to more peasant villages.

Hazou is Jashin's chosen, so inherently all of his reasoning has to do with Jashin. Your plan uses this approach, even, which I approve of. Jashin chose Hazou, despite his ideals seeming to be quite different from Hidan's. Jashin also greatly admires conviction (according to Hidan it is literally the #1 virtue), so inherently, he must not want Hazou to drastically change from what he already believes, he should want Hazou to believe it more. So yeah, Hidan will realize why we don't want to kill these specific people ('seen every matter of bleeding heart') and we can argue that's why Jashin chose Hazou.

He seems to think we do, given that the last couple times we saw him, he asked Hazou for guidance on who to target, and from his point of view, Hazou's choice was really good, leading to AMITY.

So like, Hazou's benefited from a mysterious hand guiding him (see: clutch mechanical rolls, the seance, the divination roll locating the Otter Scroll, arguably Hidan showing up personally in Leaf when we prayed for help regarding Akane) enough at this point that imo what he lacks compared to Hidan isn't Jashin intervention, it's Faith that the intervention is due to Jashin :V

I think the best approach there is what I said a few lines up. Hazou isn't the one questioning Jashin's choice, Hidan is. Jashin chose Hazou, knowing what he's like, and admires conviction. To please Jashin, Hazou needs to hold true to his beliefs, even in the face of Hidan. Hidan is helpful as an advisor, but ultimately he is not the voice of Jashin himself. Hazou has a kill list already, some of which has already been acted upon a la Hidan, and it turned out well for Uplift, leading to AMITY. Jashin doesn't choose wrongly, so Hidan should have faith in Hazou.
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Solid points, I may reframe the plan somewhat to better suit them.
FaintlySorcerous said:
I get nervous around what I suspect will be interpreted as 'Hazo should say this, literally'.
  • If Jashin governs life anddeath, Hidan has Death covered, but who preserves life?
    • Implication: maybe you?
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Done.
If you have space, asking Hidan if he (Jashin or Hidan) has ever had a disciple like Hazo, and if not, why he's treating Hazo like all the other disciples, might be an idea.
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I'll think about it.
 
Noumero said:
Guys, much like Jashin is not a God of Holding Onto Your Ideals, Hidan is not some sort of... quirky uncle who goes a little overboard sometimes but ultimately means well, or whatever. He is, in fact, a complete monster and one of the worst people in the setting, with the likes of Orochimaru and Pantsaa as his only competition.
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Noumero said:
You know the first thing he'll actually do if we refuse him here? Slaughter the village himself. Because he'll enjoy doing that, and because it's his way of serving Jashin, and to say fuck-you to Hazou for refusing him and to ensure our refusal doesn't actually accomplish our goals. Maybe then he'll kill Hazou as well, if he feels like it.
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I think there's good odds he'll slaughter the village anyways, but I don't think this is a very good model of why. Hidan strikes me as very serious about his religion, and about his belief that Hazo has some special role in Jashin's Plan. He stepped in to stop Itachi from killing Hazo, he went on a slaughtering spree through Rock vaguely on our orders, he's personally stepping in to handle Akane even if Kakuzu is insisting on payment. One of the major problems in dealing with Hidan is that we have only the vaguest sketches of what his religion is.

Jashin is obviously not only about Holding To Your Convictions but it does seem to be a virtue:

Velorien said:
"Gotta practise what I preach, or I'm a damn hypocrite. And Lord Jashin's only got one fate in store for hypocrites.
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Paperclipped said:
"The civilians hate the ninja, but they don't have the power to stop the abuse, so they just take it. And the ninja have all the power in the world, but they can't use it without justifications. They gotta tell themselves that usin' power is right, instead of just doin' what they want."
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If we kill a village here because Hidan insists, we're not doing something we want, we're not acting in accordance with our beliefs or even our words. This may or may not be anywhere in Jashinite theology but it's pretty clearly what Hidan respects in people.

The last time he showed up with this slaughter-a-village BS we managed minimal casualties because when we set ourselves against Hidan to protect the village Jashin intervened on our side. If he wants us to ignore the most obvious interpretation of Jashin's interventions that we've seen he can teach us enough theology to explain in more detail why it's wrong. But in the absence of that it seems like Jashin supports us in not killing our own villagers.
 
Made some tweaks, @Shrooms. Made "don't be boring" an explicit goal, @Left-Hand Mutant.
Noumero said:
[x] Action Plan: Jashin Take the Wheel
Word count: <400.
  • Mindset: Prepare to slaughter these people.
    • Your theological arguments won't work if Hidan thinks they're a rationalization. You can't deceive him. Avoiding the massacre requires becoming 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, slaughter them.
    • Conviction is the greatest virtue.
  • Thus resolved, start a theological argument. Not because you want to save these people; let go of that. Do it because you think Hidan is failing Jashin.
    • Guideline: don't be boring.
      • Be dynamic, passionate. Field arguments proactively, don't get stuck on details.
      • Dip into Out for better insight into alien mentality.
    • Hidan 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 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 so far from Hidan's modus operandi? Why'd he favoured Hazou so blatantly? Does Hidan think Jashin chose wrong?
    • If Jashin governs life and death... Hidan has death covered. But who preserves life?
      • Implication: your role?
  • Which's all just speculation, of course. Hidan refused to explain the metaphysics; but you're refusing to do things on his say-so.
    • If Hidan's just being an essie and wants to make you kill people for funsies, all talk of "Jashin" a rationalization? Makes sense.
    • 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 the conclusion.
    • Perhaps Jashin's mechanically restricted: only able to empower its disciples for killing. If so, you're willing to do it — but in serviceof Civilization, not by harming it. You have your own kill list.
      • (If Hidan wants short-term targets: suggest hunting bandits.)
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[x] Action Plan: Jashin Take the Wheel

seems good
Noumero said:
Why else'd Jashin chosen Hazou, whose ideology is so far from Hidan's modus operandi? Why'd he favoured Hazou so blatantly? Does Hidan think Jashin chose wrong? Jashin knew what Hazou's ideals were when he chose him. Conviction is the greatest virtue; Hazou should believe his ideals more, not less.
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If I were to change anything else, I'd perhaps add something like this, but I think it's still fine as-is. Hidan can (probably) put 2 and 2 together
 
Shrooms said:
If I were to change anything else, I'd perhaps add something like this, but I think it's still fine as-is. Hidan can (probably) put 2 and 2 together
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Yeah, I'd also like to be a bit more explicit, but it's counterweighted by the following considerations:
  • We don't want to be too verbose and particular about our arguments. Let the Hazoupilot handle it, adapt them better for the context.
  • We don't want to tread around the same point for too long. Short bombastic statements or rhetorical questions, not involved explanations.
 
downzorz said:
Still taking in plans, but if we slaughter a village - or even a significant portion of one - under the current circumstances we might be in really deep shit when getting home. Last time we were caught by surprise, got out discreetly, and managed to stop most of the killing, in a remote village that nobody powerful cared about. This time we were walked out of the kage's office publicly, strolled around the village escorting Hidan, who was loudly discussing Hazo's Jashinism, and then followed him out to a village with a lot more eyes on it, given that we have an uplift project in progress. This would be impossible to cover up and a direct blow to the Kage's authority - sure, intelligent people who reason carefully might understand everything that went down, but what everyone else makes out of it will be a long the lines of "our Kage invited/approved of the Akatsuki member here to do evil slaughter (probably featuring dark (and worse, heretical) rituals) with a clan head" or "our Kage is too weak to stop the Akatsuki and rogue clan heads from slaughtering villages".

Maybe we can avoid execution if everyone agrees to blame Hidan, but that seems like it'd damage AMITY; maybe I'm off on how cynical ninja leadership is, but if the supposed enforcers are slaughtering villages, not just in remote areas of the world that it's difficult to tax anyways but right under their noses, that seems like a problem!
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I agree with at least half of it - we will be in trouble with Asuma if we "just do it" and don't save as many as we can/redirect the bloodlust. On the other hand, part of the point of AMITY is that no Kage at all can stop the Akatsuki from doing what they want.
The reputational blow would be bad though.
If we want to sway him, I believe we should aim for "Asuma will kill us if we kill these" and "these civilians dying specifically would harm Uplift, can't just keep going against our own goals and saying Jashin will pick up the pieces, there are people whose death will aid Uplift and those I'm fully on board with eliminating for Jashin, alongside Jashin."
Hazō has already shown he's not averse to the death penalty for gruesome crimes (such as the instructor that molested his students), which I personally dislike but it suits the MfD world in general and Hazō's ideological needs right now.
 
Shrooms said:
This just leads to Hidan killing Asuma imo (I mean, some people may want that but I think it's pretty much impossible to salvage our rep after that lmao)
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I'm not sure it does, but I agree that's something we must take steps to avoid. We can lean on "Jashin helps those that help themselves." This village is an investment of Leaf into Uplift. Destroying it harms Uplift and makes us an enemy of Leaf, which is counter-productive not only to Jashinism's development in Fire but also to us serving Jashin: we would be going against a project Hidan admitted Jashin likes. We'd be making it fail, because the Leaf involvement (and later, worldwide involvement) into Uplift that is needed will depend on what happens to these villages they committed to protect for observation. Take a leaf from Kakuzu's book: it's not glamorous, but it pays dividends. Let's ask them if anyone gave them trouble and kill whomever tried to attack the village and ruin the project or something.
 
Crunbum said:
Oh no. Anyway.
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Not our reputation with the Clans of Leaf or with Will of Fire devotees or whatever. Our reputation with civilians and everyone who stands to gain from Uplift. Hell, our reputation with our family will suffer. I guess Kei will feel reinforced in her new post-Isan genocide worldview.
Noumero said:
I also expect him to become very impatient with Hazou for repeatedly refusing to contemplate slaughter based on moral grounds, and offering half-baked objections to that. We need to not just hold our ground; we need to go on the offensive.
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Speaking of non-moral grounds, what about the obvious argument that Asuma isn't a Jashinist or an Upliftist and that we can't defeat Asuma and take over Leaf and also don't want to go missing-nin or throw out all our plans we are working on in Leaf. Plans like convincing Asuma that villages like this one are good for Leaf.
 
MadScientist said:
So what're we doing when Hidan takes one sip of Akane Blood, says "brb", and returns twenty seconds later with Shikamaru's severed head (with half a spinal cord dangling underneath it)?
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Me, I'm laughing in unrestrained glee.
Noumero said:
All I see is an opportunity to forcibly extract the Nara forbidden lore by bringing this to Asuma combined with our speculations of the Thinkers' ongoing collaboration and conspiracy to cover up existential threats. If Shikamaru did this, they've been doing this systemically, ever since Leaf's conception. The whole clan will look rotten in Asuma's eyes, and we can crack it open like an egg.

Delicious, delicious forbidden lore~
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MadScientist said:
So what're we doing when Hidan takes one sip of Akane Blood, says "brb", and returns twenty seconds later with Shikamaru's severed head (with half a spinal cord dangling underneath it)?
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Act very shocked and complain to the rest of AMITY/Akatsuki? While internally weighing the probability that Shikamaru is the murderer vs the probability that Hidan is completely bonkers wrong vs the probability of some third as of yet unforeseen option?
 
Noumero said:
Because of this, I think he'll need some very good justifications for why we need to run around looking for some other people to kill, instead of slaughtering these ones, who are sitting right here. Also, he'd just said that all people are equal, so we'll also need a justification as to why that isn't true.
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Because we already put the effort of building MARI walls for this group, and killing them undoes all the work we did for Jashin growing the numbers up. We want each action to advance Jashin, not cancel them out. Good harvests take time.
 
Adhoc vote count started by eaglejarl on Jun 25, 2023 at 11:11 AM, finished with 178 posts and 29 votes.
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Voting remains open for about 1h45m.
 
Harvesting this town doesn't just put us back by one town that we invested in, it puts us back far further due to ruining our own proof of concept to an officially unproven project. It also more generally makes people reluctant to accept and aid our projects. And this is one of the closest villages to Leaf. It may well be the exactly worst peasant village we could possibly be harvesting, minus maybe the ones we've shown personal interest in.
 
acidshill said:
Not voting for any of the plans because we're doomed regardless.
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Jashin will preserve us. I have faith, as a true believer. Jashin believes in conviction over all else, and Resolve is literally our top stat.
This is truly what it means to test the limits of our resolve. Thank you Hidan, for the opportunity to test our mettle. Truly we are blessed. Keep calm and praise Jashin
 
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