- Location
- USA
Hazou is rusty in economics, as it has been over a year since he caused an economic disaster.You know, since Kei has a Leadership domain, can Hazou develop an Economics domain?
Hazou is rusty in economics, as it has been over a year since he caused an economic disaster.You know, since Kei has a Leadership domain, can Hazou develop an Economics domain?
He could also choose to be taken out by the rune, whatever that would mean in context ^_^FYI for this plan, this involves casting ES at Effect 6 (to dope a material) and then breaking it intentionally. That means Hazou will take 8 (Effect:6+2) physical stress. This will roll over hos 3-box stress track and inflict a Moderate and a Mild Consequence on him.
Although there is the possibility that the PCJ and GS can soak the damage from ES breaking. Can we get a ruling on that @eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped?
IMO this is a bad trade for something that probably won't work. A Moderate would significantly slow FOOM and sealing research. I suggest trying to infuse it normally and only attempting this if Hazou thinks that breaking the jutsu painfully is the only pathway to success.
I know you're kidding, but would this still be a social role, just more Merchant-leaning? (Merchant of death maybe...)You know, since Kei has a Leadership domain, can Hazou develop an Economics domain?
Is this what you're talking about?Sprinting to ES 50 because we thought that would unlock 3D Sealing (but that's a whole separate beast that I.V. has a rather eloquent post on, somewhere).
If so... well, yup. Even if we keep getting burned, as long as Earthshaping looks like our best bet we have no choice but to pursue it. Personally, here's hoping we don't need to level it any further and can unlock runes with the doping technique.Yeah... yeah. My instincts are screaming at me not to throw good money after bad, because that is what it feels like by now. It felt like that back at ES 40 and it feels like that even more at ES 50, a carrot dangled in front of our faces with never a guarantee we'll ever get it. The sensible thing in most contexts would be to give up.
But there are infinities in this equation and they have a habit of playing havoc with things. The Dragonwar cannot be lost, no matter the cost. There is no world where we can afford to give up on it, where we can stop searching and leave reality to be devoured.
If there are other leads that might bring us to 3D Sealing, we should pursue the most promising one. If we can pursue multiple leads simultaneously (e.g. one involves doing a mission while the other involves leveling a skill), we should - must - do both. There's no such thing as a bad gamble when the price of not playing is guaranteed oblivion.
If the carrot wasn't still in front of our face, if Hazou didn't seem to genuinely believe this was still our best lead, maybe I'd say our best gamble involves focusing our attention elsewhere. When we have a better alternative lead, or the carrot finally vanishes, we'll finally be able to say that Earthshaping isn't our most likely bet. Until then... nothing to do but keep sinking that cost. Everyone's counting on us.
Is this what you're talking about?
If so... well, yup. Even if we keep getting burned, as long as Earthshaping looks like our best bet we have no choice but to pursue it. Personally, here's hoping we don't need to level it any further and can unlock runes with the doping technique.
Something along these lines keeps gnawing at me too. Is the 3D Sealing unlock supposed to be simple to reach after we hit a qualitative threshold and test it out (like we did with ES 50)? Is it locked until we make a truly impressive deduction/guess on the player-side? Even when so much of Sealing is inscrutible technobabble by design? The part of me that worries about worst-case-scenarios is fretting that the QMs want us to do a deep dive into the bare metal wires of the simulation but we've been conditioned towards learned helplessness by the technobabble explicitly designed to keep us from interacting with Sealing on any level other than the abstract.
And so that part of me is trying its best to gain some kind of model of the bare metal wires of the simulation here, but it's still 99% blackboxed and the remaining 1% doesn't even seem to make sense (i.e. Hazou implying in one chapter that most seals involve brushstrokes that touch each other and Velorien saying just now that seal brushstrokes never touch each other and that it doesn't even really matter which in the end because Sealing is supposed to be technobabble). I don't mean that as a dig or anything, but the part of me that worries we're expected to engage on this level feels like it's playing a game of Getting Over It.
Twinstars earlier suggested getting the chakra pathways stuffs to work by doping the seal, and that's a really good idea that I want to try. But it's one of those ideas that's engaging with the mechanics close to the bare metal wires of the simulation and I don't know where to put my hopes anymore. Are we just wasting our time trying little tricks like this when it'll just auto-unlock at ES 60 or something? Are we going to find out years down the line that we just needed to do something like this, and no amount of XP grind was going to cut it until we guess the one trick teetering on the edge of the black box? It's stressful to think about.
This was your post that I was thinking about, but I've edited the megapost to include links to both, since the one you linked also gets to a point that I've been feeling.
Sage, I wish I could break open Hagoromo's mind and see what she really thought when she was assigning that mission.
I haven't been following the thread extremely closely, but did this get clarified at any point?I thought we didn't know who assigned the mission because the Tower didn't keep a record of it?
Dead, I think that's pretty clear.He could also choose to be taken out by the rune, whatever that would mean in context ^_^
Hmmm I don't think so, jutsu backlash isn't nearly as dangerous as sealing backlash. I bet it'd just permanently scar our chakra coils. Not too bad.
I don't think it's entirely accurate to present the new mechanics as existing solely to encourage players to do different things- as the mechanics post noted, they also explain why for example Kakuzu isn't a god after a hundred years of frequent strife when a few years of freuqent strife have made genin Hazo into current Hazo. Plus, realism. I for one am happy to have it made a certainty that random S-rankers and other massive threats are not omnipotent, and if it also incentivizes us to do different things then that's a useful side effect.I want to repost some points that were raised on Discord:
- Obviously if the QMs want us to try this new mechanic out, we're willing to give it a good faith effort. "The mechanics exist to represent the narrative" has always been a thing.
- More and more heavily-developed rulesets that are designed to force risky behaviors are like trying to solve the AI alignment problem by putting increasingly complicated rules the AI has to follow. It's a losing game, it's not solving the underlying problem, and the actual result is going to be increasingly complicated subversions of the rules.
- Just look at the laws of any modern country. They're a spaghetti dinner of stipulations for specific ways that you're not allowed to be a dick, because just asking the entire nation to "not be a dick" doesn't work. That's where we seem to be headed.
- But we don't need to, because asking people not to be dicks can and does work here.
I'm definitely on board with testing the doping strategy at our earliest possible convenience. Maybe not this update because we've already had Velorien out and say that it's too big to be done in one plan and has a very short time horizon where we do a bunch of socials in rapidfire sequence, but heck I'd be willing to do this before we reconvene with Kagome to figure out what else we need to research before opening the rift.@Noumero @Inferno Vulpix @RandomOTP
Put your trust in me, for a scene. We can try without locking in the ES chakra and see what Hazōpilot thinks. The opportunity cost is very low, just an hour or so of Hazō's time, and potentially 1 xp.
If it would help if I wrote the previous process out in as few words as possible to put in the plan itself I can do that, but I think linking to a full description of the process could work as well. I'll head back to my previous post and make it safer in a moment here.
@Velorien @Paperclipped @eaglejarl do any of you have any preferences for formatting testing this idea?
Okay. I'm going to continue being obnoxious about this because I don't want us to get complacent and forget, but I'll chill until the next voting cycle lol.I'm definitely on board with testing the doping strategy at our earliest possible convenience. Maybe not this update because we've already had Velorien out and say that it's too big to be done in one plan and has a very short time horizon where we do a bunch of socials in rapidfire sequence, but heck I'd be willing to do this before we reconvene with Kagome to figure out what else we need to research before opening the rift.
Err... that does sounds important? We don't have to release the notes etc... immediately. We probably should talk off-screen to our sanity council, making sure this is actually not a bad idea.It gets nothing to share Orochimaru's personal affairs, but it could cost immensely if this somehow pisses Orochimaru off.
Do we have a list of previous hypotheses and results of experimentation? If there are other strategies we could test, we might as well include them in the future plan.I'm definitely on board with testing the doping strategy at our earliest possible convenience. Maybe not this update because we've already had Velorien out and say that it's too big to be done in one plan and has a very short time horizon where we do a bunch of socials in rapidfire sequence, but heck I'd be willing to do this before we reconvene with Kagome to figure out what else we need to research before opening the rift.
That's a good point. I'll fork the plan with a few changes and Shikamaru replaced with Ami. I'll still endorse both plans.It might be wise to update Ami on the events that have unfolded, if she's around, before engaging with the Greater Kittensphere.
Doubtlessly a different plan entirely, but it seems more appropriate given her current plans and our involvement therein.
Good catch, will add.We probably want to ask after any Jashin-related lore that abducted Isanese loremasters might know.
I think the plan is already doing that? It's supposed to, at least.Maybe add a section about having the group from the meeting come up with additional questions for Hidan? And also for them to screen oue questions.
I expect that to make Shikamaru and Kei even less likely to share anything they know.I sort of want to include Kagome, Yuno, and Noburi to the earlier meeting
@Noumero you may want to dis-invite Shikamaru from the meeting. Shikamaru isn't as invested in Hazou as Kei is, and Kei has access to the same lore that Shikamaru does. We can more easily persuade Kei than we can Shikamaru. And if we ask something that Kei doesn't know, she'll be more likely to convince Shikamaru than we will.
As to the other parts of the plan, I don't see why we need to involve Shikamaru in this. Just Kei and Snow provide most of the value he contributes, since he isn't going to share anything, he does not do that.
Plus there are very real downsides to including him. Half the thread thinks he ordered Akane's murder. Does that seem like the kind of person to take council from? He might decide Hazou is too close to Jashin and find a caldera. Kei would never do that.
As to rousing suspicion by excluding him. Just ask Kei not to mention it, that we'd like to play Jashin close to the chest. That is the normal ninja thing to do. It sure as shit isn't like he shares information with us. Kei has meetings at the Goketsu estate all the time. It isn't unusual for her to talk to Mari and Hazou (see every sanity check ever). So nothing out of the ordinary is happening.
@Inferno Vulpix outlined a large chunk of my reasoning here: this makes Shikamaru less likely to kill us, this specific situation may force him to be open. In addition:I have slight preference against including Shikamaru. The Hivemind is very divided over his potential involvement in Akane's death, which sounds to me like we shouldn't provide ammunition to someone who might kill us next...unless Shika's substantially improve the plan, or we trap the ammunition.
Noted, I'll remove this line specifically.- the exceptions feature a lot to unpack. Just "Synthesize the information. Put it into larger/historical context. Form models" seems like it crams hours of QM cognitive effort into eleven words with little guidance.
That's what the Hierophant line is about.We should ask Hidan about the Five and the Tama. There's circumstantial evidence that one of the Tama worshipped a deity that sounds like Jashin.
Will do.Plus Hidan blabbered about the Seedling, he seems like he might just tell us everything he knows about the Five if we ask him.
As @Inferno Vulpix pointed out, doing it this cycle is probably not a good idea. Ping me next cycle and I'll mirror your votes for this?Please include a line for attempting to create a 3d seal, or rune, via a doping method. Even a throw away line is super appreciated in case the QMs saw this idea being bounced around and are just waiting for it to end up in a plan.
[x] Action Plan: Due Diligence
Word count: <300.
- Meeting: Kei, Shikamaru, Snowflake, Mari.
- Topic: Jashin. Shikamaru told us to keep away. That ship's sailed...
- ... and was never a good approach. Shikamaru didn't know Jashin was real. Unknown threats of this scale are apocalyptically concerning, as "the Eaters" taught us.
- We need to investigate the threat, not ignore it. What if it's also about to break free?
- Preparations:
- To Mari: You suspect the others, Shikamaru especially, may conceal information. Watch for that. Don't raise suspicion.
- (Refresh her on your Thinker-conspiracy inferences.)
- Review the ANBU transcript of your Hidan conversations. Anything you don't remember?
- Request the extracted Isan lore. Anything Jashin-related?
- Keep a live transcript. Periodically review it.
- Pool ~all relevant knowledge.
- Priority: Your Orochimaru Q&A. You followed a strict list, then "forgot" about Jashin, apparently repeating yourself.
- An antimeme?
- Everything Hidan said about Jashin. Balance, conviction, death and birth, quotas, dreams...
- Particulars:
- Some alleged interest in humanity's prosperity and non-extinction.
- "'They' cut out Jashin's tongue."
- Jashin making the Sage bleed.
- Jashin's symbol. Recognizable?
- Events at O'uzu and Bakuchioka.
- Jashin's powers. Probability-manipulation?
- Hidan's powers/blessings.
- Potential Hierophant connection.
- Relation to "summoning Death"?
- Omit your afterlife-viewing and Scroll-locating experiments.
- Do they know anything?
- Shikamaru told us none of such remaining entities are friendly to humanity. Very specific. Whence such confidence?
- You're uniquely well-positioned for get more information from Hidan. Prepare for that.
- What are the highest-priority questions to ask?
- (This justifies Mari's presence: she's to figure out Hidan's psychology, best approaches for questioning him.)
- Meet Hidan (with Asuma's permission). Express interest in finally learning theology.
- Follow the prepared questionnaire, plus:
- What is Jashin's ideal world?
- How is Jashin connected to the Five? (Conceal this from everyone but Mari.)
- Justifications (if needed):
- Clearly your insight's useful.
- If you start a Jashinism branch, you'll need to know what to preach.
There is no line about the Hierophant in the Hidan section. It's not clear you plan to ask both the Thinker meeting and Hidan about the Five. If you want to ask Hidan about the Five, IMO you need to make that clear, this plan has a lot of detail and Vel probably isn't going to read the fine print. Or indeed, do a close reading at all, he's basically said as much already.
Does this work for you?There is no line about the Hierophant in the Hidan section. It's not clear you plan to ask both the Thinker meeting and Hidan about the Five. If you want to ask Hidan about the Five, IMO you need to make that clear, this plan has a lot of detail and Vel probably isn't going to read the fine print. Or indeed, do a close reading at all, he's basically said as much already.
In addition, asking about the Hierophant is not the same as asking about Hidan's opinion of the Five. Or his knowlege of the Five, maybe he only sees Tama's relationship with Jashin as tangentially related to her membership in the Five, and their descended clans.
I don't want to directly ask "what are the Five?". Oro decided to be difficult when we asked him that, basically told us to go ask Kei. Better pretend we already know and optimize the inquiry so that it's easy to fill in the blanks.Meet Hidan (with Asuma's permission). Express interest in finally learning theology.
- Follow the prepared questionnaire, plus:
- What is Jashin's ideal world?
- How's Jashin connected to the Five? What's His view on them? (Conceal this from everyone but Mari.)
- Justifications (if needed):
- Clearly your insight's useful.
- If you start a Jashinism branch, you'll need this knowledge.
I dearly love Kagome and value his input, but having him at this meeting is madness. Dude has been ranting about he's NOT working on Minato seals for months. If we bring him he'll be telling everyone who looks at him that Hazou is NOT a Jashinist. Which is........not a good plan given Hazou's recent appearances alongside Hidan.
Yeah but Oro is an asshole and Hidan is a cool guy. I think that if he expresses confusion about our close relationship with Kei just say that she was cut off from her clan at a young age and doesn't know much (all true by the way!), we're not close with Shikamaru and he isn't the sharing type.I don't want to directly ask "what are the Five?". Oro decided to be difficult when we asked him that, basically told us to go ask Kei. Better pretend we already know and optimize the inquiry so that it's easy to fill in the blanks.
He did also mention Hazou's fiance though, and unlike Kei, Ami was not kicked out early. In fact as a jonin she likely knows most of the sauce if not all of itYeah but Oro is an asshole and Hidan is a cool guy. I think that if he expresses confusion about our close relationship with Kei just say that she was cut off from her clan at a young age and doesn't know much (all true by the way!), we're not close with Shikamaru and he isn't the sharing type.
Counterpoint, he's met Ami and he knows that asking her about the Five will get the Ami.React and no actionable fucking information. We just want the deets unbiased by the Thinker Clans self-aggrandizing bullshit.He did also mention Hazou's fiance though, and unlike Kei, Ami was not kicked out early. In fact as a jonin she likely knows most of the sauce if not all of it
"Ask your fiance."Counterpoint, he's met Ami and he knows that asking her about the Five will get the Ami.React and no actionable fucking information. We just want the deets unbiased by the Thinker Clans self-aggrandizing bullshit.
I'll consider it.Yeah but Oro is an asshole and Hidan is a cool guy. I think that if he expresses confusion about our close relationship with Kei just say that she was cut off from her clan at a young age and doesn't know much (all true by the way!), we're not close with Shikamaru and he isn't the sharing type.
Intimidation:5"Ask your fiance."
"But she's annoying."
"Facts, my nephew, facts. I recommend trying to scare it out of her."