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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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acidshill said:
  • Asuma
    • Update him on our progress with PS
    • Chakra crystals from Honey cave are infusable
      • Could you (or someone you trust) TH a jutsu to generate infusable material or make stone infusable?
        • Enma can probably help, using landsense
        • Lend him chakra crystal if necessary
      • Might be worth assigning a mission to grab some from Honey
        • The cave-organism is a valuable source of data, we'd prefer it not be destroyed entirely
    • The Swamp of Death is also a highly chakra-rich environment, maybe something similar could be found there
      • Would you consider authorizing a mission?
      • Gouketsu might want to do it
    • Ask him to keep our progress on PS secret from Orochimaru
      • We want to explore PS before Orochimaru to make sure it's not so powerful he can't be allowed to have it
      • Once we know what PS is capable of, we'll know if it's safe to share with him
    • We've finished MS8
      • Further progress requires us to decipher the notes
      • Please get us a hacker to collaborate with and attempt to decipher them
  • Meet with Asuma's chosen THer (offscreen?)
    • Collaborate with them to try to understand minato's notes
    • Hazou explains/describes sealing stuff, hacker explains/describes TH stuff
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I don't want to do this before Hazou buys the "Earth Infusion" stunt. I think there are a couple of unknowns that we should have answers to heading into this conversation. Like:
1) How does Sealing boost PS?
2) How does SSA interact with PS?
3) Do we get SSA Consequences when researching with PS?
4) Is prep the same with PS?

I think that 1) is the big question, and matters a lot. IMO 2) No 3) No 4) Yes, but it would be nice to know for sure.
 
Sir Stompy said:
I don't want to do this before Hazou buys the "Earth Infusion" stunt. I think there are a couple of unknowns that we should have answers to heading into this conversation. Like:
1) How does Sealing boost PS?
2) How does SSA interact with PS?
3) Do we get SSA Consequences when researching with PS?
4) Is prep the same with PS?
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I thought we already knew that we could apply 1/3 of our sealing skill to PS rolls, and this section from the recent interlude:
Paperclipped said:
Thankfully, he didn't need the Pangolin Scroll memories at all in order to make progress. The mental focus needed to study the Great Seal was exhausting in only the normal ways, not the ones that made it feel like people from beyond the veil were trying to claw their way out of his skull. In fact, for all its help in analogizing the Great Seal to his conventional sealing knowledge, Hazō had found that eldritch insight to be occasionally counter to the reality of three-dimensional seals. He was now confident that, had his confidence convinced him to infuse that single-stroke seal on the day when he'd discovered the crystal's potential, he would have caused a sealing failure of unknowable proportions. This ancient style of sealing was unimaginably different from ordinary sealing. It made him feel like he'd barely scratched the surface.
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suggests that SSA won't work with PS.

Moreover... why do you think we need to have answers to these things before having this conversation? I don't get it.
 
Left-Hand Mutant said:
Thanks for linking and explaining again. I still disagree.

Even accepting your model I have disagreements:

Right now, the best contender Hazou has for "a vector so esoteric that Orochimaru can't defend against it" is Primordial Sealing. Teaching him PS makes it significantly more likely that he can defend against PS effects.
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Primordial Sealing isn't a vector in the same way that sealing isn't a vector. Specific seals are vectors, and specific primordial seals are vectors, and what determines our victory here is how those specific vectors behave. Certainly, Primordial Sealmastery will likely provide some opportunity for Orochimaru to patch up some vulnerabilities in his immortality, but that's not a generalized "defend against Primordial Seal effects". I am also of the opinion that Orochimaru has already plucked most of the low-hanging fruit and will only get marginal gains to his immortality suite from Primordial Sealmastery. Overall I do not feel like we forfeit our shot at killing Orochimaru in the long term by doing this, and I again remind you that he will figure this out anyways, all we can do is delay it some. Those improvements to his immortality suite are as good as his already, there is no world in which he does not obtain them unless we immediately hard-spec into Oro-killing tech and it proves fruitful enough that we can kill him before he discovers PS. But frankly, that's not what we're going to vote for, so he's getting those improvements one way or another.
Everything I know of sealing research indicates that progress is determined by the skill of a single sealmaster. Teaching Oro PS won't speed up the great seal research.

Oro's main usefulness for the dragon war (besides combat) is as a backup sealmaster, in the event of Hazou's death.
The less we tell Oro, the more the project is delayed in the event of our death.

Redundancy is a decent reason to share with Oro, but I personally don't find it sufficient. Reasonable people could disagree.
It would be prudent to prepare some encrypted notes for Mari to turn over in the event of our death.
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This was very much something I covered in the effortpost I quoted for reference. The vast majority of our sealing research has, in part or in whole, come with help from other sealmasters. Not just Kagome looking over our shoulder and helping us out, but we've been following in Minato's footsteps for the last few months now. When Orochimaru researches a seal, that's a seal we can research that much more quickly, and vice versa. Two S-rank sealmasters developing the same discipline will absolutely work faster than one alone. And that's not even getting started on the benefits (or avoided penalties) we could obtain from having each other's theory-work. We take it as granted that paper sealing is a mature discipline with books and books of theory published for sealmasters to just learn as they please, and I would very much not be surprised if the QMs decide that us pioneering Primordial Sealing means that we have to hack through the jungle instead of following a cleared path. If the QMs go that route, my expectation is that even just the shared theory-work between Hazou and Orochimaru will significantly speed up our solo research progress.
 
acidshill said:
I thought we already knew that we could apply 1/3 of our sealing skill to PS rolls, and this section from the recent interlude:
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As @Shrooms says, that's just speculation.
acidshill said:
suggests that SSA won't work with PS.

Moreover... why do you think we need to have answers to these things before having this conversation? I don't get it.
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I want answers because they'll give us a good idea of how fast we can research with PS vs. how fast Oro can research. Which, in turn, tells us how much of a head start we'll need if he ever figures it out.

EDIT: We'll probably be able to buy PS with the XP from this upcoming update. So I'm asking to delay this action plan by one voting cycle at the most.
 
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Sir Stompy said:
I want answers because they'll give us a good idea of how fast we can research with PS vs. how fast Oro can research. Which, in turn, tells us how much of a head start we'll need if he ever figures it out.
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So you don't trust Asuma to let us keep it secret from Orochimaru and want the option of not telling him? Please spell it out, I don't see exactly how it follows from what you said that we shouldn't have this conversation with Asuma now.
 
acidshill said:
Draft action plan for next cycle, figured I'd post it early if anyone wants to give feedback. Main objectives are (a) update Asuma because I'd prefer to act in good faith with him (b) ask him to TH something in case Ma and Pa can't/won't, or just as a backup (c) get him to possibly get some crystals for us (d) get the ball rolling on a possible swamp of death mission (unstagnation + research + narratively-significant combat to help Noburi impress the Toads) (e) try collaborating with a technique hacker to decode MS9 just in case that's an alternative to learning TH ourselves. The sealing section is obviously going to depend on how much progress we make in the next update.

[] Action Plan: Delegating Upwards (DRAFT)
Word Count: 294
  • Optimize with Mari+Kei+Snowflake
  • Offscreen
    • Ask Cannai and Kumokogo: Any convenient combat missions we could take? (to remove stagnancy)
    • Instruct ex-KEI clanmates to teach their KEI jutsu in jutsu exchange
    • Send note to Orochimaru
      • We replicated the Great Seal material with ES, it turns out to be mundane stone, there must be something else that makes it a seal substrate
      • Include storage seal with several tons of GS-style stone
  • Asuma
    • Update him on our progress with PS
    • Chakra crystals from Honey cave are infusable
      • Could you (or someone you trust) TH a jutsu to generate infusable material or make stone infusable?
        • Enma can probably help, using landsense
        • Lend him chakra crystal if necessary
      • Might be worth assigning a mission to grab some from Honey
        • The cave-organism is a valuable source of data, we'd prefer it not be destroyed entirely
    • The Swamp of Death is also a highly chakra-rich environment, maybe something similar could be found there
      • Would you consider authorizing a mission?
      • Gouketsu might want to do it
    • Ask him to keep our progress on PS secret from Orochimaru
      • We want to explore PS before Orochimaru to make sure it's not so powerful he can't be allowed to have it
      • Once we know what PS is capable of, we'll know if it's safe to share with him
    • We've finished MS8
      • Further progress requires us to decipher the notes
      • Please get us a hacker to collaborate with and attempt to decipher them
  • Meet with Asuma's chosen THer (offscreen?)
    • Collaborate with them to try to understand minato's notes
    • Hazou explains/describes sealing stuff, hacker explains/describes TH stuff
  • Sealing
    • Use Hazoupilot's best judgement
      • Do not research everything if insufficient FP
    • Prime SSA: Reusable Rocket Boots
    • SC SSA: MS8 Latching Variant
    • SC: 4FSoP, Dampeners, Substitution, Electrocution, Twin Repulsion
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I'm against every part of this plan besides the bottom where we TH and seal. Telling Asuma about PS is suboptimal. It's a secret we wish to keep until it's ready to go and no one can make us do anything we don't want to do. I'm talking 50-60 in it at least.

I also don't want to talk to Orochimaru about anything even tiptoeing near PS or ES. Like nothing at all.

FaintlySorcerous said:
There will be no sealing: I'm tight on words as is. Maybe a little as a treat, but not another ten days.
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And this is unacceptable IMO and makes the entire update completely worthless.
 
Black King said:
And this is unacceptable IMO and makes the entire update completely worthless.
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Your feedback is noted and ignored.

I flatly don't want your vote and would be a little concerned about the content of my plan if I got it.

This isn't to say that I'm not willing to hear feedback about whether or not I should add some sealing and what it should be from anyone else: I'm just really, really not interested in interacting with you as you are right now.
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
I'm just really, really not interested in interacting with you as you are right now.
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Damn suck to be you then. To ignore feedback because it came from a source you don't like is peak ignorance and the sign of a lack of wisdom. Some of the worst, not-so-smart people I know have offered good feedback and advice from time to time. It's a pity to take such a low-vibrational stance.
 
Hey, let's all stop now, before it devolves.

New topic of conversation: what do we want to do next update?

Because we've just been told our Clan is rolling in cash right now. I say we use it to buy a THer's time, and try to get more shinies for our clan.
 
Shrooms said:
Hmm. Do we have a plan for when he inevitably finds out we did successfully figure it out and didn't tell him?

"Sorry, hate the game not the player" ?
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HAZOU: You decided, the first time you met me, to kick me out of the Clan Compound, almost kidnapped and vivisected my sister/possible lover, made me shit and piss myself and faint on the floor. But them we became friend, i still remember the day when you tried to steal clan secrets from me with your Jounin Aura, then tried to kidnap my sister and me, with a little in-between of making my not!mom cry blood.
Did you remember when you lied to my fucking face about it? No? Then you remember when you cleaned your desk in exchange for corpse of the mount of goddamn Sage in person? Or did you expect me to just go "Oh, he cheated me, but you know, i needed it, so me being taken advantage of doesn't matter?"
But let's ignore that, let's instead talk of the moment in which you almost killed me if it wasn't for Enma saving my goddamn ass from your seals. Incidentally, did you kidnap my Aunt or not?
ORO: I can still Aura you, or...
HAZOU: Sure, piss off even more the one guy that showed that knows more about you about sealing, that did the thing you couldn't, kill him, you're a big boy, i'm sure you can figure it out yourself.
ORO:...
HAZOU: Or maybe you'll kidnap or aura me again, because that will really convince me to help you. Face it, i'm the only person that you can have a conversation with in this place, and you also need me to stop Dragons from eating your happy warcrimes basement or just learn Primordial Sealing. So please, do go on and piss me even more.
ORO: So, what now?
HAZOU: Now you get the lesson that being a dick has consequences, and this is why i didn't tell you about the crystal, Idiot. If you want to talk more, i expect at least some birthday present, Hidan is currently finding out who killed my girlfriend, and he's not even my uncle.
ORO: Fi...What is this?
HAZOU: A spreadsheet, write the answers to my previous lore questions, in a understandable way, then we'll talk Sealing.


EDIT:
Woah, Oro is really a dick, now that i went back and re-read all the stuff he did to us.
He literally almost killed us absolutely no reason.
Also that was really cathartic.
 
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acidshill said:
So you don't trust Asuma to let us keep it secret from Orochimaru and want the option of not telling him? Please spell it out, I don't see exactly how it follows from what you said that we shouldn't have this conversation with Asuma now.
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Yes, I consider it somewhat probable that Asuma will order Hazou to share everything as a result of this meeting.

I also want us to have all of our ducks in a row regarding claims we're making. I don't want Hazou claiming that he's figured out 3-D sealing without actually having done so and bought the stunt. It's possible we'll get more information that we'd want to share with Asuma as a result of buying the stunt and I don't want to repeat this meeting.
 
Sir Stompy said:
Yes, I consider it somewhat probable that Asuma will order Hazou to share everything as a result of this meeting.
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Asuma was previously understanding re: Orochimaru and our concerns about 3D sealing.

I think that he'll be cool with our taking a while to confirm this.

We could and possibly should let him know where we keep our notes in case we bite it.

Also we should get into poetry.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
The model I've been operating under is that we have two reasonable outcomes:
  1. Primordial Sealing is so powerful Orochimaru would become an existential threat with it. Fortunately, this means if we unlock it first we might be able to develop a way to kill him before he unlocks it too. We enter a race against time trying to scrape together enough power to stop Orochimaru from learning Primordial Sealing.
  2. Primordial Sealing is not quite that powerful (it most likely isn't. It'd take a lot to take Orochimaru from "Sannin" to "could solo the entire Akatsuki without risk") and we want him to know Primordial Sealing.
As mentioned, I think we're most likely in universe 2. Staying covert for now makes us safe even if we're in universe 1, which means it's worth it until we have the means to discern which universe we're in.

But there's no middle ground here, as you say. There's no universe where we just keep trucking along in quiet and let Orochimaru do as he wills without our help. If our incentives don't say "fully cooperate with Orochimaru" then it's because they say "kill Orochimaru before it's too late" and vice versa, with no in-between.

What I expect to happen, my best guess for our actual future, is that we'll unlock PS before Orochimaru, we'll verify that it's not "Orochimaru could beat all of Akatsuki without risk"-strong, and then we'll immediately do a 180 and reveal Primordial Sealing to Orochimaru. We'll need a little work to conceal that we were hiding it from him in the interim, and we may or may not have an opportunity to ask for stuff in return (hey, we'd be offering up some of our precious time to tutor him for the stunt! If nothing else, we'd deserve compensation for that), but our desired end-state will become "Orochimaru knows Primordial Sealing and is working on establishing the fundamentals of the discipline with us."

(as digression, we obviously don't share any super cool combat buffs we invent, and naturally he would withhold the same, but there's plenty of room for us to share intermediate seals and reams and reams of theorywork with each other in a way that would assuredly hasten both of our progresses in the field.)

But the important part is that this isn't a question of keeping our shinies safe, or any other kind of normal OPSEC situation where secrecy is the goal in and of itself. This is a binary situation where the answer is either "kill Orochimaru before it's too late" or "actively help him unlock it" with no middle ground. Our current urge for secrecy is borne purely from the fact that it's useful for universe 1 outcomes, but the urge for secrecy is useless - no, counterproductive - in universe 2. Once we know what universe we're in, the only thing to do is take decisive, conclusive action corresponding with that universe's imperative.
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It's worth noting that, if SSA is anything to judge it by, any of his sealing-based hacks for boosting Sealing won't do much for him for PS... and he probably has less relative-XP gain than we do because he's combat-stagnant and will remain so, so we'll always be ahead of him.
 
btw, regarding, Oro, if we leak PS to him, we are going to make him pay his absolutely everything for it, right? With Asuma's help, of course. (Another reason why i would prefer to say nothing until we have the stunt).

EDIT: None of that "cleaning his desk" stuff, i want the real Shinies, and Asuma will probably help because, honestly, it's Orochimaru.
 
Lord Marshal said:
btw, regarding, Oro, if we leak PS to him, we are going to make him pay his absolutely everything for it, right? With Asuma's help, of course. (Another reason why i would prefer to say nothing until we have the stunt).

EDIT: None of that "cleaning his desk" stuff, i want the real Shinies, and Asuma will probably help because, honestly, it's Orochimaru.
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We'd have to teach him, right? Demand one of his clones do what we want while one of our clones teaches him.
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
We'd have to teach him, right? Demand one of his clones do what we want while one of our clones teaches him.
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What? No, he short-changed us for the Dragon, he pays in full for this, with interests too. He has a lifetime of jutsus and secrets, he won't deal with this by having a Shadow Clone giving us some time in which he won't do his job because he's an arrogant idiot.
 
I'm a little leery to base our plans on our metagame understanding of XP mechanics since they're more an attempt to describe how things already work than the foundation of how things work. I personally agree that Primordial Sealing couldn't only have been reached the exact way we did. Considering it's likely to happen anyway, I'd rather cooperate. If it'd make him an existential threat, then given that he's already progressing I'd rather discuss his assassination with Asuma instead of assume he can be safely ignored as long as we don't clue him in.
 
Lord Marshal said:
What? No, he short-changed us for the Dragon, he pays in full for this, with interests too. He has a lifetime of jutsus and secrets, he won't deal with this by having a Shadow Clone giving us some time in which he won't do his job because he's an arrogant idiot.
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We'll take what we can get and be happy tbh. Or be unhappy.

But we're not gonna be the ones to set terms. That'll be Asuma, and Orochimaru.
 
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