Point out that our main goals were:
  • To not get Itachi'd.
  • To give a sufficiently-good reason to decline without being Itachi'd.
  • To get as much information on Akatsuki's short- and long-term plans without being Itachi'd.
Done.

We wanted to
  • Not get killed by Itachi
  • Give a sufficiently good reason to decline without getting killed
  • Get information about Akatsuki's short and long-term plans without getting killed
 
effortpost to sum up my views on current events (probably little in the way of new insights here, mostly just me thinking out loud):

I favor either joining Akatsuki, or establishing Akatsuki-Leaf collaboration on Necromancy, or making Necromancy an AMITY affair. I would like Hazou to continue being significantly involved in Necromancy.

I disfavor any plan that reads like 'give up on participating meaningfully in Necromancy' or 'reject Itachi's offer, then come up with some way to flip the table on Akatsuki and murder them all before they can murder us'.

------- WHY WE CAN'T JUST FLIP THE TABLE ON AKATSUKI AND BE DONE WITH IT:

Leaf versus Akatsuki, as it stands right now, is unwinnable.

Leaf + all other villages vs Akatsuki is theoretically winnable, sure, maybe. But it also ends AMITY and ensures Leaf's slow partition by its neighbor states over time in the future.

Leaf + Akatsuki alliance is the only reasonable way forward, especially because that's what we already have, in the sense that AMITY is currently a load-bearing defense for Leaf, as Itachi has pointed out. Akatsuki may or may not need Leaf, but Leaf needs Akatsuki to survive, right now. If Leaf goes after Akatsuki, whether or not Leaf wins that fight, Leaf is already toast, because it's expending resources on destroying its own protection.

We need Hazou to be demonstrate that he represents a true asset to the project, not just a loose end whose ideology is mildly sympathetic to Akatsuki. We need both Tsunade AND Itachi to buy into this, in order for any effective alliance to form. But we have to form the alliance, because any other outcome destroys Leaf.

(It sure is a bad time to have a Severe Consequence from fucking up a seal infusion, which both prevents us from demonstrating our full potential and represents extremely visually salient evidence that we're not hot shit.)

Having Leaf and Akatsuki work together on this strengthens AMITY, which both Leaf and Akatsuki want. In fact, it's practically the ONLY thing they can agree on, at this point. I enthusiastically support the idea of making this whole Necromancy business AMITY affairs. This is what peace between factions who don't like each other looks like- unhappy negotiated compromises that nevertheless keep people alive and not fighting or plotting first-strikes against each other.

Also, I think we'd get along with Pain. What we saw of the guy in his climactic battle interlude made him sound like a guy with whom we agree on pretty much every ideological particular?? Pain's world does not sound that awful, and having Pain around to enforce AMITY would be on balance preferable to a world where Pain's not around, in my view.

Seriously, like, Itachi is literally the only person who's listened to the things we've said and actually approved of them, in a way that isn't just 'oh, how naively idealistic, but we'll humor you, you sweet summer child'. Guy's stating as straightforwardly as possible, 'you and I are ideologically aligned'. For the same reason that Akatsuki sees destroying Leaf as a waste, I would consider unilaterally destroying Akatsuki an equivalent waste. Literally nobody else in the entire setting has humored us! Shikamaru comes closest to taking our Uplift ideology seriously as an outsider, that's basically about it.

------- WHAT HAPPENS IF WE REFUSE AND STAY IN LEAF:

In the world where we stay in Leaf, we will need to debrief to Tsunade what just happened, and then one of two things is going to happen: Tsunade is going to tell us to drop Necromancy as Itachi ordered us to, or Tsunade is going to scoff and order us to push and contest the rift on our end.

If we push and contest the rift, that locks us into trying the various first-strike-against-Akatsuki ideas floating around. To reiterate myself: Even if we win, it's the end of Leaf. If Akatsuki goes, AMITY collapses, and Leaf immediately gets eaten by the circling hounds. (And if we lose, of course, Leaf is over, and we in particular are double mega over.)

If we just drop it, on the other hand, we stay safe and sound as a near-pariah clan lord of Leaf, and get to continue to doddle along on our path of doing mostly nothing while simply waiting for Akatsuki to win everything. We effectively declare 'I'm cashing out' and leave the table, giving up on the big prize that we've worked so hard for.

(And we sure do that a lot, don't we? We keep coming up with real nice shinies only for various S-rankers and jonin to show up, declare 'you can't be trusted with that, give it to me', and then we just roll over and give it to them because there's nothing we can do about it!)

Not only does giving up like this feel unsatisfying, but it also more or less guarantees we'll never ever get Jiraiya back- there is absolutely no chance Pain is going to just give Leaf an S-ranker back for free. Not even Konan would be so foolish as to suggest it.

This is why I continue to feel that the third way forward is the only reasonable way forward. Do the difficult thing and cooperate! It's especially difficult right now, given the whole Asuma and Kakuzu thing, but if Leaf blows up Akatsuki, Leaf goes next, and getting everyone involved to understand and accept this is critical. This is what peace looks like! Peace is when nobody gets to fully win and everyone has to settle for an irritating compromise that they don't like but have to grudgingly accept! Unilateral overwhelming violence being the first resort is what we ought to be trying to maneuver away from.

------- THINGS WHICH I DO NOT THINK WILL WORK AT ALL 1: UNKNOWN HAZOUWEAPON X

I guess we could also win in such a way that Leaf somehow becomes the new top-dog. Like, idk, maybe it turns out that with Lithosealing you can build the Literal Fucking Death Note in a month. In that case I guess Leaf would be safe. That, or every village unites to crush Leaf immediately before Leaf can zap all of their leadership and jonin and effectively conquer the world.

I'm not putting too much hope into this one, not just because I am skeptical that we can actually beat Akatsuki even if Hazou goes full Oppenheimer mode, but also because I am not convinced that Pax Konoha is qualitatively superior to Pax Nagato.

------- THINGS WHICH I DO NOT THINK WILL WORK AT ALL 2: STEAL THE RIFT SOMEHOW

Or we execute one of the various 'steal the rift' ideas floating around. I am also skeptical of this idea. It seems spectacularly unlikely that Akatsuki will let us near the rift again. I would not put it beyond Akatsuki to have just parked someone on the rift permanently, at this point. Maybe Konan. Definitely Sasori. Seriously, the guy's apparently studying ways to reopen that rift, it's implausible to imagine that he's doing that without access to the rift. I straight up expect that if we go there we'll find a fresh new minecraft-style wooden shack constructed out of local materials, sealed up to the teeth, with one Sasori sleeping inside and like five sasorillion puppets on patrol outside.

I also do not think this plan is particularly plausible or workable.

------- THINGS WHICH I DO NOT THINK WILL WORK AT ALL 2.1: SO JUST KILL SASORI THEN

Okay, sure, we drop (Unknown Sasori-Killing Weapon X) on Sasori, which kills him instantly.

We still die. The rest of Akatsuki is still kicking. They come after us and Leaf, game over. Any first-strike plan which does not take out ALL of Akatsuki at once fails. Even with success, AMITY ends and Leaf is left protected by nothing but the Akatsuki-killing / Sasori-killing weapon we developed and whichever S-rankers remain after the clash with Akatsuki. These things may not be sufficient to protect Leaf; we're basically just back at scenario 'UNKNOWN HAZOUWEAPON X'.

------- THINGS WHICH I DO NOT THINK WILL WORK AT ALL 3: UNCLE SNAKE SAVE US PLEASE

And, god forbid, we hand Lithosealing and/or Necromancy to Orochimaru, in order to get his apprenticeship, to get him onboard with whatever wacky anti-Akatsuki plans we come up with? Please Jashin no. A universe in which Orochimaru has sole ownership of the rift will be hellish. The guy will be able to reuse his test subjects! He'll escalate unstoppably in power! It'll be a humanitarian crisis, and ALSO simultaneously nobody will ever be able to stop him!

Seriously, any plan that considers handing those to Orochimaru is a complete nonstarter. By far better to just let Pain win.
 
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@MMKII I am calling in one of the vote vouchers you owe me.
Okeydokey. The lucky 7 get two vote markers each from yours truly. Ping me some reasonable timeframe before voting closes (so roughly between "A day before" and "The thread will get grumbly if edits are made after this point" ) with your requests, or what have you.

@Cariyaga : 2
@Taijutsu_ : 2
@TarzanNn :2
@Noumero :2
@Loony + @Dissonance : 4
@MadScientist :2
@roobee :2
I want you to vote for buggy's action plan, Action Plan: Not Actually A Fleshed Out Action Plan
I dunno how often they checks sufficient velocity. So could someone on the discord ping them too and reply here that they've done so?
 
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Something I was thinking about (and I don't think anyone else brought it up): the pure lands seem to drain people's memories away. Pain has been dead for as long as Jiraiya, and by the time Akatsuki is able to pull him out he might already be pretty cooked. If Akatsuki controls the rift, they'd be able to leverage it into world domination regardless, but without Pain at the helm their rule would look quite different.

So if we join them and help work on necromancy it's quite possible that Pain doesn't effectively retake control of Akatsuki and we have to figure out how to influence the existing members, which seems frustrating and difficult.
Pain traded himself to bring his friends back. Orochimaru described it as a "market." Very possible his soul dissipated entirely or he sold himself to some dangerous someone down there with power over the domain of the dead.
 
[X] Yes
[X] Action Plan: Not Actually A Fleshed Out Action Plan
[X] Action Plan: No, but Yes
[X] An Interview With Akatsuki
[X] Marry Ami for the Forbidden Lore. Divorce Ami when she refuses to give Hazou the Forbidden Lore.

Dang.

1. We can say btw am I in a Genjutsu? You mind if I Dispel?
1.1 It'd be hilarious if Kurenai Genjutsu'd us when we went and visit her. Or Mari before we talked to Shika
2. Really wanted to have Ami in this conversation. If/once we join we'll have Ami on site, I guess
3. Maybe we can beg Kagome to come with us and stay a recluse in Arachnid until we're done with resurrection. It'd be painful to him (loneliness, no contact with Honoka, presumed dead). I strongly suspect he will not accept staying with just Hazou in enemy territory (even if he might hit it off with Deidara, OTP)
3.1 If we take him with us we can reveal we killed his letters girlfriend. Sorry, Kagome
 
@acidshill
Should we share Lithosealing with Tsunade? Or provide a demonstration of earth infusion?

I'd like to get her to give Nobs another shot at an apprenticeship.

Might also get her to optimize how best to sell this to Oro as well.
 
I want you to vote for buggy's action plan, Action Plan: Not Actually A Fleshed Out Action Plan
I dunno how often he checks sufficient velocity. So could someone on the discord ping him too and reply here that they've done so?




Let this be a lesson to ye
 
In the world where we stay in Leaf, we will need to debrief to Tsunade what just happened, and then one of two things is going to happen: Tsunade is going to tell us to drop Necromancy as Itachi ordered us to, or Tsunade is going to scoff and order us to push and contest the rift on our end.
Tsunade isn't going to be in charge for much longer.

If we just drop it, on the other hand, we stay safe and sound as a near-pariah clan lord of Leaf, and get to continue to doddle along on our path of doing mostly nothing while simply waiting for Akatsuki to win everything. We effectively declare 'I'm cashing out' and leave the table, giving up on the big prize that we've worked so hard for.
I think we can still be relevant and do interesting things, actually. Give us a few years for FOOM and the seal research train to chug along and we'll be pretty powerful. Relative to what we'll be able to do in a few years, people are still underestimating us.

This is why I continue to feel that the third way forward is the only reasonable way forward. Do the difficult thing and cooperate!
Have you seen my proposal to convince Naruto to let us cooperate with Akatsuki? I do want to do that, and I think we can do that, just not right now.

I've mentioned this as a possibility, but I feel like no one else is considering it: in a few weeks, Leaf will have a new Hokage, very likely Naruto. Naruto seems persuadable by Ami, and also generally sensible enough to recognize a good argument, that he might be willing to let us cooperate with Akatsuki on dragonwar and/or necromancy with the aim of securing some influence for Leaf in the new world order.
 
@acidshill
Should we share Lithosealing with Tsunade? Or provide a demonstration of earth infusion?

I'd like to get her to give Nobs another shot at an apprenticeship.

Might also get her to optimize how best to sell this to Oro as well.
I don't see the point in sharing lithosealing with her when she's going to be out of office in a few weeks. How do you propose to convince her to give Noburi another shot? She's made her position pretty clear. Sell what to Orochimaru?
 
I didn't see that. They. Can you vote for it now? If not, that's a dick move. And makes people less willing to trust your word in the future.
You didn't edit your original post and you didn't apologize. I think 'you have shown a sufficient lack of respect for me that I no longer feel inclined to honour promises made more than three years ago' is a perfectly reasonable stance which will not impact their social standing in this community.
 
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I'll call in my vote marker for the same, MMKII!

(I ran this by them elsewhere to make sure it wouldn't bother them, just 'cause it seemed like the kind of thing that might.)
 
(Note: my previous preference ordering holds. If it doesn't look like something with a hard oppose-Akatsuki commitment is going to win, I'm likely to vote for joining Akatsuki.)

[x] Action Plan: I Am Once Again Asking For Your Deicidal Support
Word count: <600.
  • Regretfully decline. You're more needed for the Dragonwar.
    • If Itachi decides to kill you: calmly reassert your importance for the Dragonwar. You've already been crucial for stopping fast degradation (HOWS). Last resort: reveal lithosealing.
  • Immediate debriefing with Tsunade: Share everything except what's necromancy-related. Itachi apologized, attempted recruitment based on supposed ideological compatibility, you escaped by arguing Dragonwar needs.
    • Schedule another meeting a few hours later. You have ideas regarding why Akatsuki wanted dimensionalism.
    • Insist on needing time to prepare, to run some preliminary analyses. Otherwise the whole thing'll sound incoherent.
  • Top-security meeting with Kei, Ami, Mari.
    • Brief them on everything, including lithosealing.
    • Three options:
      1. Let Akatsuki win. Unfortunately, you don't really trust that Pain's utopia isn't a hellscape, and that he won't try another ritual.
        • The fact that Hidan was his dear friend doesn't cast him in a good light. And Pain was nothing if not persuasive — so Itachi believes whatever Pain wanted him to.
      2. Try to out-race them. May still be viable: if you can crack rift-moving, you can steal it and replace it with a different one (say, the blade-horrors one). If done covertly, they may not even realize there's been foul play: just the universe being cruel.
        • ... but you're not sure moving rifts is possible.
      3. Try to kill them. Lithosealing should allow novel superweapons, or global tracking tools (for defeat-in-detail). With that, plus Leaf's S-rankers and spy networks, plus assassination squads tailor-designed for each Akastuki member, assembled from the best esoteric-ninjutsu specialists pooled from all Leaf-aligned Summon Clans? Should be doable.
        • But it shouldn't look like a battle. It should look like us waiting until they'd split up into groups of 2-3 people, and we know where they are, then smashing each group one-by-one, quickly enough that they can't communicate and alert each other.
        • AMITY response: tricky, but should be ultimately manageable. Do it covertly enough, or manufacture a pretext post-factum, or (if our new superweapons are powerful enough) just own it.
    • However, options two and three require:
      1. You to recover faster. Requires Tsunade and/or Orochimaru's focused attention.
      2. Leaf's buy-in. Can't kill Akatsuki without Leaf's S-rankers, and likely can't covertly steal the rift either (they likely placed guards/spies there).
      3. Your focused attention over a multi-month period. It's nontrivial: you have a natural tendency to switch between a myriad projects, and Clan Head duties and random smaller disasters (Hagoromo, suspicions about your culpability) don't help.
        • Ami: Can she handle that? Ensure over the next half-a-year minimum, you'd be solely focused on beating Akatsuki, with at most Dragonwar as distraction. Not to the extent of social isolation, that'd degrade your performance. But ensure there aren't fires only Hazou can put out, and act against Hazou's own natural distractability.
        • As part of that, Hazou may temporarily step down as Clan Head in favour of Noburi.
  • Meet Tsunade again. Optimize with Mari/Ami/Kei, take some of them along if that'd help.
    • Debrief her on the necromancy research, the implications of Akatsuki taking it, and lithosealing.
    • Outline your anti-Akatsuki options, and what you and Leaf would need to succeed.
    • If she's furious we haven't shared necromancy before: we weren't sure it'd even work, wanted a working prototype first (Rift Seal 0).
    • If she insists we destroy the rift: Agree it's a sensible precaution, and you'd develop a seal to for that, to use as a last resort if Akatsuki'd win otherwise... but plead with her to give us the chance to try.
(Non-binding suggestion: Skip the clan meeting, jump directly to the second Tsunade meeting.)
 
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I'll call in my vote marker for the same, MMKII!

(I ran this by them elsewhere to make sure it wouldn't bother them, just 'cause it seemed like the kind of thing that might.)

Alrighty, sounds good! Thanks for the hyperlink to make it easy.

[X] Action Plan: Not Actually A Fleshed Out Action Plan

E:

Well, this looks good too.

[x] Action Plan: I Am Once Again Asking For Your Deicidal Support
 
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I agree that I trust MMKIII to honor their word when they're approached politely.

[x] Action Plan: I Am Once Again Asking For Your Deicidal Support
 
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[] Action Plan: Not Actually A Fleshed Out Action Plan
[X] Action Plan: No, but Yes

@Buggy Typeing is difficult for me, but I'd be delighted to make a Discord call to workshop your plan.

Beyond that, I'd like to politely ask @Inferno Vulpix or @FaintlySorcerous to post refinements for (Not Actually A Fleshed Out Action Plan), if they have the time and spoons. I expect they'd have a lot to contribute.
 
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Staff Notice: In the future, please be more considerate about acknowledging pronouns used by other users.
You didn't edit your original post and you didn't apologize. I think 'you have shown a sufficient lack of respect for me that I no longer feel inclined to honour promises made more than three years ago' is a perfectly reasonable stance which will not impact their social standing in this community.
They never asked me to do either. But sure I've edited my original post.
As for an apology, apology is a very vague concept that different people define differently and I don't know which type they would want.
I wish I had not used those pronouns, and don't plan to do them again (if I remember).
And I agree that it's better to call people by the pronouns they like.
Also...that's now how your word works. If you only follow your word with people you like then there's no point to it.
edit: and i acknowledge that (edit2: purposefully) calling people differently from their preferred pronouns (which i did not do) is wrong

Alrighty, sounds good! Thanks for the hyperlink to make it easy.

[X] Action Plan: Not Actually A Fleshed Out Action Plan
I guess that works. Although I do want an apology from you. Defined as where you acknowledge what you did was wrong.

I agree that I trust MMKIII to honor their word when they're approached politely.
You aren't afraid of accidentally saying something impolite causing them to betray their word?
 
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[x] Action Plan: I Am Once Again Asking For Your Deicidal Support
  • Schedule another meeting a few hours later. You have ideas regarding why Akatsuki wanted dimensionalism research.
  • Insists on getting the time to prepare. You need to run some preliminary analyses, or the whole thing'll sound ridiculous.
Tsunade will order us to share this information immediately. Even if it sounds ridiculous, the fact that Hazou believes it enough to want to check it is enough for Tsunade to be appraised of the reason.
Try to out-race them. May still be viable: if you can crack rift-moving, you can steal it and replace it with a different one(say, the blade-horrors one). If done covertly, they may not even realize there's been foul play: just the universe being cruel.
  • ... but you're not sure moving rifts is possible.
I find it impossible that Akatsuki would not have people monitoring the rift 24/7 (inb4 Hidan got saddled with the task as punishment duty). I would recommend making a mention of this.
Your focused attention over a multi-months period. It's nontrivial: you have a natural tendency to switch between a myriad projects, and Clan Head duties and random smaller disasters (Hagoromo, suspicions about your culpability) don't help.
Also: Dragonwar/Conclave. That's something that takes away from lithosealing.
 
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