- Location
- United States
One of the reactions has henged into a fish
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
No, that's a new one, it must be a fish clone. Kisame's on to us.
EDIT: And now we've got pentagrams. Is Jashin creeping up on us too?
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- Location
- Yes.
:jashin:
- Location
- Texas
So you're saying we should level Sealing instead of Punching. Did EJ do something to upset you recently?
- Location
- Yes.
[X] ES 60So you're saying we should level Sealing instead of Punching. Did EJ do something to upset you recently?
It's a sign of who's going to hunt us first, Akatsuki's best tracker and their best sensory spec.
Updated this again due to mostly-successful dragonwar
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped
Is it possible to timeladder sealing research in the way we timeladder sealing infusions and or calligraphy rolls? In this case we'd take it a step up the timeladder reducing the investment from 4 training blocks to 1 training block, allowing us to get 4 rolls on the same seal each day in exchange for a -AB bonus on all of them.
Not all things can be timeladdered up, so I wanted to double check that sealing research was one of them before seriously pursuing this munchkin
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There is some narrative justification for it - he learned the HOWS seal almost immediately while instructing Harumitsu
Scalable Air Dome
Paper Seal
N-element air dome. Every element beyond the second one increases the air dome's stability, durability, and size. Seal elements can be in any place within the air dome as long as they are within <chakra diffusion range> of each other, and at least log2(N) elements touch the inside diameter of the dome.
Mechanics for N elements:
Evolving Fortress Rune
Rune
N-element runic air dome created from the same school of thought as the previous seal.
Mechanics for N elements:
The inside space of the barrier becomes esoteric when the number of elements exceeds 100.
Paper Seal
N-element air dome. Every element beyond the second one increases the air dome's stability, durability, and size. Seal elements can be in any place within the air dome as long as they are within <chakra diffusion range> of each other, and at least log2(N) elements touch the inside diameter of the dome.
Mechanics for N elements:
- Durability: 1 + log2(N)
- Duration: N days
- Maximum radius: N meters
Evolving Fortress Rune
Rune
N-element runic air dome created from the same school of thought as the previous seal.
Mechanics for N elements:
- Durability: 6 + sqrt(N)
- Duration: N months
- Maximum radius: 50*N meters
The inside space of the barrier becomes esoteric when the number of elements exceeds 100.
(Non-Canon) Chapter 649: The Message
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Ready for infusion?" Hazō asked.
Kagome-sensei nodded grumpily. The man still wasn't entirely keen on this newfangled 'rune' business and it was getting to him in a big way. There had been at least four separate occasions where he had opened his mouth to say something, presumably a rant about safety and lack thereof, but then shaken it off without a word. It was disturbing. Still, he was going along.
Hazō nodded and turned his attention back to the glowing crystal in his lap. It was a novel idea, and an important one: a rune that would modify the ambient chakra in an area along various predefined axes. If it worked, and if it worked like Hazō thought it would, derivate runes could do a wide variety of useful things such as helping ninja regenerate chakra more quickly, making it harder to manipulate chakra in an area, and even blocking chakra-based sensory abilities. Of course, the one that really mattered was the "regenerate chakra faster" version. It was necessary if he was going to keep using Shadow Clones for rapid training after going missing. If he went missing. It was also one more thing:
A marker for himself. For his future self.
The challenges they faced were too large. Resurrection? The degradation of the Great Seal? Akatsuki, with their desire to resurrect Pain and somehow rule or transform the world in likely unwanted ways?
He needed help, and his dream last night had given him the answer. In it he had stood in fog, the center of a line of Hazōs that stretched out of sight in both directions. Looking over his shoulder, he recognized the clothes of the ones behind him; they were the clothes he had worn yesterday, the day before, the day before that, in a steady line back as far as he could remember his sartorial choices. So, about a week.
If the ones behind him were his past selves, what about the ones in front? The fog grew thicker faster, his other selves becoming blurry, their exact positions indistinct. Still, they were there. They were there, and when he called out to them their heads turned in surprise, looking back to him.
He had jerked awake, the dream shattering before it could progress to anything useful. Still, the basic idea was there: what if he could leave a message for a future self, and a future self could call an answer back?
This rune was his attempt at that. He knew every detail of it, inside and out, having poured his soul into the crafting. Communication with a past self would undoubtedly be a chancy thing, so this rune would serve as a marker in time, a signpost that could be used to navigate a message. A message that he promised himself to send to himself once he had the ability, which he promised himself he would develop.
He pushed the thoughts away and focused on the infusion. He needed to remember every detail.
He took it slow, sweating every tiniest detail even more than he normally did. Finally, the final moment came; he poured in the last drop, twisted his chakra into the final loop, and tied it off. Many things happened at once.
Futures crashed against one another, million or billions of them vaporizing in an instant.
Wars raged through Potentialities, possibilities blowing to and fro on the winds of fate and chance as 'perhaps' strove to become 'is'.
And, least impressively but perhaps most importantly, a packet of unassuming off-white paper appeared in midair and fell atop the rune with a faint 'plop'. It overbalanced and slipped from there to the ground.
Hazō blinked. His trained mind flickered across lists and tripped along flowcharts, checking to see whether this should be considered a seal failure. Tentatively, he decided it did not so he bent down and lifted the papers.
He turned the packet this way and that in his hands, considering. It was good paper, heavy and rich, with even color and thickness. Paper suitable for a sealmaster. It had been tri-folded, the edges sealed with wax to form an envelope. An envelope that bulged and was heavy enough to contain a large number of pages.
He turned it over and the blood drained from his face at the words written on the front. Written in his own hand, above a wax seal with the Gōketsu family crest pressed into it.
Bonfire! 50 miles, any direction! Go go go!
"Bonfire!" he shouted, shoving the packet into his shirt and Substituting away to where Kagome-sensei waited behind the first barrier. He grabbed the older man, repeated the Gōketsu family escape code, and dragged him away.
They ran. Two, perhaps three hours of pounding feet that required all his training to lock away the screaming pain from exercising his still-burned back. There was insufficient breath to spare for sharing the details with a steadily more nervous teacher who knew better than to demand answers.
Finally, Hazō came to a halt. Kagome-sensei slowed beside him, still not speaking. They were no longer at the research facility but Hazō was still the SSO and did not need distraction.
Hazō produced the packet, broke the wax that sealed it shut, and tipped the contents out into his hand. It was not, as he had expected, loose sheets of the same heavy paper. It was one page that was thin, painfully thin, so thin he needed to handle it with care, and then another packet made from moderately heavy paper with the edges sealed shut and the words READ THE LETTER BEFORE OPENING THIS on the outside. He slid the packet back inside the outer packet for safekeeping and read the loose sheet.
Dear past self,
I think Kagome-sensei was with you when you did this, right? Sage, I miss him so much. You lucky asshole, getting to stand there with him and listen as he calls you a stinker and talks about your face-on-fire stupid ideas. Were the others there too? I don't remember, which is an extremely bad sign. Was Kei there or had she already...never mind. No, wait, I talked to her yesterday. I think? Yes, she was in on the planning for this. Wasn't she? Gah, stupid Twinings. Maybe a full Redaction, or Counterredaction? Whatever, not now.
Finish reading this letter before you show it to anyone else. I honestly have no idea if sharing it is stupid or essential, but make sure you have all the information before you decide.
Oh, be careful about going back to wherever it was that we infused that rune. It might be sitting there humming to itself perfectly happily or it may have gone critical. Depends on whether the shrillings found this Counterredaction point.
We did it this time. Cracked time like an egg with our clever little stunt. Kagome-sensei was so pissed. (He was there! Hah! Did I remember that before a moment ago or was that a Counterredaction? I don't know. He's such a kidder.)
If this works at all then I'm going to be very limited in how much mass I can send. I'm also going to be limited in the number of times I can do this: once. Why only once? Because either sending this message wipes me and my reality from existence (please let it be so!) or it doesn't work at all. Or, worst of all, it works but I—you—am too stupid or too slow to fix everything. Well, and because I'm blowing a hole through the gestalt field and consuming a massive amount of chakronic potential. That probably doesn't mean anything to you. Put it this way: sending this message required literally uncountable versions of us to die, along with everyone in their universe, so that we could concentrate all the chakra in those universes in order to punch a hole through time. And when I say 'punch a hole', I mean that literally. Not just time, either. I had to
Never mind, that's a tangent. The key point is Don't do this again. Doing it once is going to cause major problems for every potentiality in the cosmos. Doing it twice would almost certainly cause a cascade failure.
Huh...I wonder...I can't be the only Potentiality that thought to do this. Maybe one or more of the others are doing it and the
Wait, should I say that? What if knowing that is the thing that...no, fuck it. I'm not second guessing myself. We talked about it and agreed that this much should be acceptable. There are limits, and this should be within them.
It's important that I not shape your actions too much. Why? You'll figure it out. Or maybe you won't and I'm about to spend six hours failing to infuse this damn thing. Or maybe they'll finally get through the doors, or I'll lose focus and the scraping will— No, focus. Focus, Hazō! I am myself! I am not you, so shut up! No, I won't write that, shut up shut up shut up!!!
Shit, I'm wasting so much paper and there isn't much. Okay, focusing.
I/you decided that I/me would use that rune as a marker to send a message back. Congratufuckinglations, it worked. Don't do it again you shithead. But thank you for doing it once.
This message includes six sealed packets, nested one inside the next like the disasters that you set in motion you absolute fucking moron. So arrogant, thinking that you could run a mission to a resort without murdering millions, or break pieces off a guardian in a cavern without destroying most of a continent. Hah! Fuck that, it was small potatoes in the end. Killing the bigger guardians, that was the problem. Millions of dead and they're on you, Hazō. You, you absolute fucking shit-for-brains careless asshole, skipping gaily through life without thinking about anyone else or the consequences of anything, of how your stupid clumsy feet—
Sorry, the scraping is getting loud. It wants me to die, thinks that will throw us into disarray. They (it? we aren't sure) aren't that bright. It's mostly Kei who runs things, when she exists. Anyway, the disasters aren't your fault. Our fault. Well, a little. I contributed, I guess. It's really me more than you, except you are me and your choices made me so it's your fault too! Hah! I'm not alone! I don't carry all of it!
Sorry.
There are problems coming. You—I—have done things that caused them, or at least contributed. Skywalkers killed the Third and set off WWIV. And maybe V and VI, depending on how you count and whether you're in a Potentiality where AMITY came into existence/survived the Crush. Killing the Dragons unwove the protections and allowed the Great Escape. Killing the Horned One united the warring factions. Ousting Cannai— Stop. Don't let it get to you, Hazō. Ignore it. Breathe, focus. It can't reach you unless you let it. Focus on the page.
Wait, I actually wrote that? Damn, hands are writing by themselves again. That can't be good.
Okay, I'm burning paper. Past-Hazō, there are things you need to know and things you need to do to ensure that me and my family and my friends never existed. Do NOT FAIL ME! Please, make it never have been.
At the same time, I can't tell you too much. Not all at once. I know, I know, now I'm becoming one of the lore forbidders. Sorry. There are reasons.
Like I said, there are six envelopes inside this one. Each contains a letter with information / instructions, an event description, and the next envelope in the nesting. DO NOT OPEN THE INNER PACKETS UNTIL THE TRIGGER EVENT HAPPENS. I know it will be tempting, but don't do it. Consider this to operate on seal-research protocols and I'm the SSO. Seriously, DO NOT FUCK ME ON THIS YOU LITTLE... Sorry, my head is getting loud again.
Instructions: Keep the family with you. Mari, Akane, Noburi, Kei, and Jiraiya. Wait, no. Jiraiya and Akane are dead now for you. Or maybe it was only one of them? One of them got captured, I think. Or maybe that got Redacted so that they died? Or Counterredacted? No, that's stupid, why would we have Counterredacted them dead? Fuck. Never mind. If either or both of them are dead then you'll have to rescue them, and the other four. You must.
We were thinking about going missing back now for you. Analysis suggests that either path might work and we aren't sure which would be better. Whatever, just ensure the family stays together.
Thing you need to know: The Dragons weren't trying to destroy the Runic Mount—wait, I still called it the Great Seal back you-now. Whatever. They weren't trying to destroy it, they were trying to keep it from breaking down and releasing all the other Dragons. That's why they rarely left the butte. Don't worry, they still needed to die, it just means the timetable accelerates. If I remember right then it was twelve years from when I originally did this little time-traipsing stunt to when the Mount shattered. You might have ten years, or five, or two. Or six hours, who the fuck knows? The whole point of this is to change things.
You aren't strong enough for what's coming, so I've included something to help. Specifically, fifteen jutsu that Reo created for specifically for this effort. Also, I am including some theory notes for the next rift-opener rune that will hopefully be enough to let you get ahead of Sasori. Wait, Reo had joined the clan by your time, hadn't he? He must have. There's no way that I wouldn't have snatched up the greatest jutsu creator in the world...except why didn't anyone else? It must have been early days for him. Did he start studying after joining, or did I recruit him because... Whatever, not important. They're all his jutsu, ones that I had him specifically design for the me, Mari, Akane, Kei, and Noburi of then. Each of you (us) gets an attack, defense, and evasion technique. I considered not sending anything back for Noburi because he keeps stealing the last slice of bacon at breakfast and then not leaving the pan in the sink instead of handing it to the washing golem, but I guess I should be the bigger man. The jutsu are about negative forty years old as of the time you're reading this and he regards them as his masterwork. Do not share these jutsu with anyone and do not let Reo know about them! It's critical that he not invent these before he invented them. I think there's still enough chakra for you to use them even if he hadn't put so much work into efficiency, but as it is they should work for me-then / you-now regardless. Of course, maybe you aren't reading this because the whole enterprise failed. Kagome-sensei would have scolded me so hard and told me what a face-on-fire stupid idea this was.
No, wait. Not 'would'. Did. Twenty minutes ago, right? He Counterredacted himself after the... Shut up, Hazō! Shut up, shut up, shut up!
Ugh, my hands are writing by themselves again. There's no time to recopy it.
Trigger event for next envelope: Completion of reading this letter.
Hazō swallowed nervously and opened the next packet. Sure enough, there were more sheets of the incredibly thin paper and another envelope.
He gave the first few sheets a quick glance, just enough to verify that yes, they were jutsu instructions, before going on to the final page. It was short.
Trigger event for next envelope:
- The date is no earlier (earlier! not later, earlier!) than August 7, 1071 AS (you're still using AS, right? Whatever. The 71st year after Leaf was supposedly founded.) AND
- The entire family is standing in the cave with the chakra water that Orochimaru told us about.
Author's Note: Okay, a whole lot of post-chapter stuff to get through here. Please read carefully because it's all important.
@Paperclipped is going to write the rest of the plan for Thursday, so voting remains closed.
XP AWARD: 35 This update covered 11 days.
Brevity XP: 10 (Brevity XP caps at 10.)
"GM had fun" XP: 10 I would award more but we're trying to avoid XP inflation and the others will likely be grumpy with me for awarding this much. Still, the time manipulation thing was super fun. I just wish I'd had the juice to get to the rest of it, but nope.
Mechanics Change: Fate Point Purchase Costs Revised
Background:
The rules have always included the ability to buy Fate Points for 10 XP each. Lately there has been a push to purchase gobs of FP solely for the sake of doing rune research, instead of simply buying up your stats. FP are something we are already a little uncomfortable with from a simulationism perspective, so this makes us nervous. We don't want to shut down access to them but we also want to discourage "sniping", which is where a plan involves buying just enough FP to remove risks from an activity in the plan. Also, given how many sources of free XP have crept into the game (Shadow Clones, PCJ, Yamanaka jutsu, lootboxes...) we are excited about the idea of anything that causes some XP deflation.
FP now cost 20 XP each, except in the first plan of each month, where they cost the normal 10. This allows you to stock up so as to have them around in general but prevents sniping.
Mechanics Change: Revisions to the Jutsu Design Rules
We are implementing two changes in the jutsu design rules: the elimination of Strain and a reduction and standardization of Durability costs.
When we designed the Fated to Die jutsu creation system we wanted to be able to have granular costs, so we had jutsu elements cost Strain which then got divided by 5 to calculate the chakra cost. Turns out, this was a mistake. Basically everything ended up being a multiple of 5 regardless, so we are getting rid of Strain, fixing the few things that aren't multiples of 5, and doing things directly in terms of chakra.
The cost of Durability was one of the few things that wasn't a multiple of 5. It went +47, +82, +128, +183, +249 etc, which is weird and annoying. We've simplified it to be essentially a regular skill, meaning that it costs an additional N chakra to buy level N in Durability. Thus:
- Durability 1: 1 CP
- Durability 2: 3 CP (1 for the first point + 2 for the second)
- Durability 3: 6 CP (1 + 2 + 3)
- Durability 4: 10 CP (1 + 2 + 3 + 4)
- ...etc
Phew, that was a lot!
And now, the thing that you have been waiting for with bated breath...
The Gifts of Future Hazō
FutureHazō wrote in his crosstime missive that he was mass-limited. He also rambled wildly and included a lot of unnecessary junk, some of which I did not bother to mention in the text. A partial list:
- A set of design notes for a rune that can re-open rifts such as the one on O'uzu Island (okay, this is actually pretty good). On the other hand, he also said that Sasori is going to crack the rift in another three months, so you should probably get on that
- (Probably as a gift for Kagome), nine packets of insanely hot ground pepper
- Rambling diary entries regarding days during which nothing interesting happened
- Into the Fire, Senju Hashirama's lost book. Only the first two pages, unfortunately
- Literal laundry lists. Not "wash the laundry" but "wash the green shirt, and the two blue socks, and the red pants"
- Five stanzas of an attempt at creating a national anthem for the Land of Fire
- Opining on the Political: One Man's Journey Through Government. It's a title page to a book that maybe could have been fascinating if it had an author's name or, you know, a book
- Orange pulp in a small paper sachet with a note saying "some of the rune stuff gets stinky"
- Lunar azimuth tables for different locations throughout the EN on 1073-04-03, 1074-04-02, and 1079-04-01
Rift Opener Rune
Things that you can get from a quick skim of FutureHazō's notes about the rift opener rune:
- It's going to be jōnin-tier effort to create.
- The rift will only stay open for a limited time; he's not sure how long but it will be dependent on various astrological influences and also somewhat on luck
- Each Opener rune is only going to work once, so each time he wants to re-open a rift he will need to make a new rune
- It's going to require a lot of chakra to infuse. He can't tell how much exactly, but he's unsure if his chakra reserves will be sufficient
- The rune has a long startup time, although Hazō can't tell exactly how long. It's definitely more than a few hours and it's probably not more than a few days
- It requires a massive amount of runic substrate, something on the order of 1,000 points worth. (Recall that a normal explosive rune requires 25 points.)
The Jutsu
Yes, there are fifteen jutsu in the packet, three for each member of the OG Team Uplift. They are going to be truly top-tier stuff, as good or better than what Orochimaru gave you.
We are normally fairly cagey about what happens behind the curtain, but I'm going to peel it back just for a moment to compliment my fellow QMs. The decision to go with this next plot arc and, more importantly, to give the team the power-ups necessary to play in that plot arc, was a long time in the making. Yes, introducing time travel is a big thing. Yes, randomly handing over powerful jutsu and a "clear the obstacles away and advance the plot"-button of a rune is leaning hard on the "no longer simulationist" line. To be honest, I owe @Velorien and @Paperclipped an apology for this; I was
Being the excellent friends they are, they spent a lot of effort talking me off the ledge. This process involved some 'what if' brainstorming and, once I came in off the ledge, I started pushing hard for the things they had suggested as possibilities to actually happen, and then for the necessary scaffolding to actually happen as well. I think they actually came around to the idea of liking the backstory/plot arcs that we came up with, but it's possible that they are in fact just humoring my little tantrum and being too British to admit it. Regardless, they are great people to collaborate with and I'm excited enough about the Time War arc and getting to power up the team that I'm going to take the win.
We are still designing the rest of the jutsu, but here's the first one:
Gōketsu Clan Secret Technique: Blast Shell
The one Orochimaru gave us – Geode Coffin – was decent at a bunch of things, but it wasn't super good at anything. Reo spent almost three years hacking this one up specifically so we could send it back to you. You're welcome. Should be obvious, but just in case: when someone attacks you, you put this up around yourself, take a few seconds to get ready, then blow it up and kill all the bad guys. –FutureHazō, in the letter that he sent back in time| Type | Attack | Chakra Cost |
| Element | Earth | |
| Effect | 1 to 2 x AB | +1, 3, 6, 10, 15… |
| Duration | 1 minute | +12 |
| Durability | Effect + 2 | +6, 10, 15, 21, 35… |
| Range | -2 (self only) | -8 |
| Casting Speed | Supplemental (Reflexive) | +25 |
| AOE | Melee | +8 |
| Weapons | 2 | +12 |
| Advantage | Reflexive casting | +6 |
| Advantage | Attack Bonus: ceiling(+2.5 * Effect) | +15 |
| Advantage | Special: Hyperefficient chakra structure | -50% cost |
| Totals | ½ * (70 + 7, 13, 21, 31, 50…) |
The user causes a black crystal geode to erupt around themself and up to one person within Melee range of them. The geode is permanent if it was created from the ground, construct crystal if created in water / air. It is egg-shaped and completely encloses the caster (i.e. it is not open on the bottom).
The intent of the jutsu is to let the user put a defensive structure around themself at the start of combat in order to buy time for buffs / escape. The structure can subsequently be used as an attack in order to preserve action economy.
Targets who do not want to be enclosed in the Shell can roll Athletics vs (Blast Shell + ceiling(2.5 x Effect)) to escape before it finishes forming. If for some reason the caster chooses to dive out of their own shell before it finishes forming then the jutsu fizzles but the chakra is still spent.
The Shell has a Durability of Effect+2, meaning that if cast at Effect 4 the Shell will have a TN of 60 to damage it and 6 stress boxes that must be filled before the shell is destroyed.
At any point after the caster's initiative of the round after casting Blast Shell, they can terminate the jutsu while they are inside it. Doing so causes it to explode, which is a (Blast Shell + ceiling(2.5 x Effect)) attack against everyone in the zone except those who are inside it. This represents flying shards of crystal, so it can be defended against via anything that can normally defend against Ranged Weapon attacks. The crystal shards are so ridiculously sharp that they serve as Weapons:2.
The Shell does not block jutsu that allow moving through earth, such as Hiding Like a Mole. Anyone passing through the Shell will cause it to implode, then explode. This is the same as above except it also attacks those inside the Shell unless they are underground.
This technique can be cast as a Reflexive Supplemental, which means that if you have a Supplemental action available at the start of the turn then you can cast it ahead of your own initiative, the same way you can use Substitution ahead of your initiative. NOTE: You can only reflexively cast this as a defense against an attack that would affect you, not against attacks against others or the simple appearance of enemies. In other words, you may only cast this reflexively if:
- Someone specifically attacks you with a targeted attack (e.g. fireball, thrown kunai, punch, etc); OR,
- An AOE effect goes off that would catch you in the area. This would include things like explosions, wide-area fireballs, Water Dragon Bullet targeted at someone in Melee with you, etc. The attack must have AOE of Melee or higher for this to apply.
...Aaaaand, yes, this entire update was an April Fool's. @Paperclipped will be writing the actual plan for Thursday and almost nothing in here is canon. Blast Shell is not real and the mechanics changes aren't actually being discussed, I simply dashed them out to seem a little bit ridiculous. I do think that getting rid of Strain would be a good idea, but that would involve converting all the existing jutsu over and that would take a lot of time and effort that I don't think any of us want to do.
Also, to be crystal clear: the bit about the behind-the-scenes stuff is all malarkey, except that Velorien and Paperclipped are both in fact good people, good friends, good collaborators, and British. I have been enjoying the quest lately and have never threatened to walk off.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it even if it was an April Fool's. Happy April, everyone!
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- Location
- Texas
[X] Wash the green shirt, and the two blue socks, and the red pants.
- Location
- U.S.
Noooo! Our awesome jutsu! The cool seals!
My anguish can only be quenched through one way...
Fish reactions!
Aodyssey
The glass will not protecc you
- Location
- Chaldea
This is the part I'm most grumpy about
Damn you, FutureHazo! The *one* thing I need from a future version is confirmation of which of the difficult choices I need to make is better
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Realistically, I should've expected something like this. At the Kaiju rate we've seen so far, of course any Hazou sufficiently advanced that he could send back time travel information will be knee-deep in about twenty new kaijus we haven't even begun to imagine, and his instructions to us would almost certainly be focused on trying to head them off at the pass. An ounce of prevention and all that. Still, if those kaijus were to happen anyways, better to be armed with knowledge than not. It's also interesting to see that FutureHazou seems to have picked a fight with the Grue itself, seemingly inventing Counterredaction to undo or alter the changes to reality that the Grue creates, inevitably blurring the line between truth and fiction, history and fantasy, like Kagome but without any of his mental protections. It sounds bizarre and confusing to keep up with, but certainly a most tantalizing story conceit.
Incidentally, I'm so proud of our OPSEC leading up to this. We had the idea to do this time travel precommitment thing about a month ago (still a serious idea, I do endorse giving it a real try), but then collectively realized that it'd be so much funnier to align it with the upcoming April Fools update, regardless of whether it actually works out or not.
And it was like magic. We put the idea in the plan, debated back and forth about it on thread and in discord, and there was not a peep about the upcoming date. Like clockwork, everyone who remembered that past conversation kept quiet through the whole thing. The only person who broke OPSEC was a sharp thinker who pieced it together all on their own, and even that we got cleaned up in short order. However the plan actually turns out on Thursday, I'm incredibly proud of our community for being able to work together this effectively.
Now, anyways, it is important to remind everyone that everything in this update must be considered, not true, not false, but epistemically void. I am sure that at least one of those big reveals is actually legit, but perfectly cloaked among its false-information peers. Trying to figure out which is true and which is false will be an exercise in futility, a Sisyphean task. But just as we cannot trust any one of them to be true, we cannot trust any one of them to be false. I must admit I will not be able to resist the tantalizing call of "what if this one line was actually secretly true", but for the sake of good epistemics I must aspire to overcome that. If I let the April Fools update shift my priors, then I truly become the April Fool.
- Location
- U.S.
Sharp thinker is perhaps a strong compliment, but I suppose I could see myself as a butterknife. A lot of discussion makes more sense now, though.
Now, I don't know if that's quite true, but its also certainly not so trivial as simply sorting through a pile for true reveals vs false ones.
A truth reveals something. A lie reveals something about the person who told it. We may not be able to trust anything in the update at face value, but that doesn't mean it provides no insights.
- Pronouns
- Male, He, Him
I've been tricked backstabbed and quite possibly bamboozled.
Well done, didn't register it was April Fools until the end.
Well done, didn't register it was April Fools until the end.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I agree!
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
nothing here is canon yet. There's nothing stopping Paper from posting the same chapter, but without the disclaimers!
Pfft. Now that you've said this, surely he won't do that.