52 KiB
[RT] Chapter 16 of Lighting Up the Dark, a rationalist Naruto fanfic
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Author: u/Velorien *
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9311012/17/Lighting-Up-the-Dark
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Score: 29
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Created: 2015-10-19T14:33:16
Post:
Comments:
u/Jiro_T [+15] (38 minutes later)
I am reminded of an episode of Merlin where Arthur "passes a test" by showing that he is willing to sacrifice himself by choosing to take both cups (one of which is poisoned) in order to save Merlin.
My reaction to this was "wait a minute, Arthur is a potential king, and is extremely valuable to the country. Merlin is at this point a nobody. I could just as easily argue that Arthur is making the wrong decision by deciding to die honorably rather than sacrifice his honor to benefit his country (by not killing off a king).
If Naruto is exceptional, he could legitimately claim that he'd be better off saving himself rather than saving multiple bystanders. And he has every reason to believe that he is exceptional; he knows he's very intelligent and he has the fox inside him.
(Of course, deciding to save himself instead of other people is very prone to motivated reasoning, but it's not inherently motivated reasoning under all circumstances to believe that you are more valuable to the village than other people.)
Naruto could also reason that sacrificing himself is harmful to his team and that since he is supposed to be especially devoted to his team, he should save himself. In fact, if the loss of efficiency from making his team get another member up to speed is large enough to statistically cause the team to fail to save enough people, it may be a better idea, period.
(Also, you'd think Naruto would figure out that this is a genjutsu, even though it's harder for him to figure it out than for us. Since sacrificing himself to take out the threat would prove that he has the traits that ninjas would obviously test for, having it turn up at just the right time is unlikely if real but likely in a simulation. So he's in a simulation. I am reminded of a sci-fi story where a character is given a lecture about how unlikely it is for a meteor to hit the spaceship, but what to do if it happens. All of a sudden it's announced that a meteor has hit the ship. He stays in his seat on the grounds that if having a meteor hit the ship is unlikely, having it hit the ship right when they would test people's knowledge of meteors is doubly unlikely.)
u/None [+7] (53 minutes later)
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u/Jiro_T [+8] (an hour later)
I think a lot of people, while preferring survival over dying, would also have a strong aversion to the idea of living the rest of their lives with a self-identification as someone who sacrifices lots of innocents in order to preserve their own life.
Yet in standard Naruto, Itachi killed his whole clan on Konoha orders. Being a killer of your own clan has got to be at least as damaging for your self-identification, and it was still expected of him.
And in the moment where he is forced to decide between self-sacrifice and survival, he is in no position to analyse the situation on that abstract a level.
True, but while that makes Naruto's decision a right decision (since it's the best that can be expected from him given the circumstances), it doesn't make that decision the only right one. Does the grading guide for the test say "oh, also pass anyone who refuses to sacrifice themselves but gives a rational reason why that refusal helps the village"? I guess that's possible, since we haven't seen the grading process yet, but that would make this fanfic very unusual compared to pretty much every piece of media that contains such a test.
Although it would be interesting to see someone refuse to sacrifice themselves, based on rationality, and fail the test simply because they are smarter than the test writer, something that happens to children in real life too. Incidentally, this also shows the folly of having a test that you can fail based on a single question; that's pretty much always a bad idea because someone's performance on that test can be affected by unpredictable factors.
(Then we could have Naruto thinking that having to sacrifice himself is not a test because if it was a test, it's obviously a poorly designed one....)
u/None [+3] (3 hours later)
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u/Jiro_T [+5] (4 hours later)
I imagine that a low-rank soldier acting against orders because they thought they knew better would be condemned even if they were right.
If the test consisted of a superior saying "sacrifice yourself", refusing to do so would be disobeying orders. But if the test consists of "sacrifice yourself when the circumstances are right" and the test writer mistakenly believed that the circumstances were right, but you know otherwise, refusing to sacrifice yourself would be following orders, not disobeying them.
If your superior tells you "shoot the guy in the front", because he has bad vision and mistakes a tree for a soldier, shooting the actual front guy is not disobeying orders.
u/None [+2] (6 hours later)
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u/Jiro_T [+5] (7 hours later)
I think that's fighting the hypothetical. Assume that the superior just told the soldier that order and didn't give him any more information, not even nonverbal information such as pointing.
The key idea is that the order inherently contains a demand for observation and interpretation. Not only is it not disobeying orders, it isn't second-guessing your superior either. You're not thinking "my superior asked for X, but if he had known what I had known he wouldn't have asked for X" . You're doing exactly what was asked of you.
And the test is supposed to test that the ninjas will sacrifice themselves when appropriate. The test writers are not telling them what situations are appropriate; it's something they require the test takers to figure out for themselves. A test-taker who correctly figures out that sacrifice is not appropriate therefore has passed the test. It's stupid to pass someone who sacrifices himself when inappropriate and fail someone who only sacrifices himself when appropriate.
(If a ninja is told to deliver 2+2 shurikens, and the person asking believes that 2+2=5, but doesn't indicate that belief in any way, is the ninja second-guessng his superior if he only delivers 4?)
u/JackStargazer [+1] Primordial Apologist (7 days later)
Does the grading guide for the test say "oh, also pass anyone who refuses to sacrifice themselves but gives a rational reason why that refusal helps the village"?
It must, because Gaara is still here.
You cannot expect me to believe that either a) Gaara is put into a scenario where he could sacrifice himself or b) even if he was, that he would choose to do so.
That suspends my disbelief all over the floor.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (11 hours later)
Well, I must be dumber than Naruto because I certainly didn't think of the possibility of genjutsu.
u/JackStargazer [+2] Primordial Apologist (7 days later)
Also, you'd think Naruto would figure out that this is a genjutsu, even though it's harder for him to figure it out than for us.
Even thinking from within the universe, the moment they mentioned the Clone Dispersal Technique, a perfect counter to the thing everyone in the know understands is Naruto's main way of Taking the Third Option or being creative which had heretofore never been mentioned and was even mentioned directly to him, it was obvious that this was a Genjutsu.
u/RandomDamage [+1] (12 hours later)
It's the sort of reflex that kicks in when you don't have time to think.
You just suddenly notice that you've done something, and hope that you chose correctly.
u/blazinghand [+13] Chaos Undivided (3 hours later)
This was a really good last chapter to the story! It was good that everyone got a little bit of closure before they all heroically died.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
This. Considering this is a [RT] fanfic, we should get a nice epilogue now.
And maybe, why not, a "sequel" for those not happy with how this ended.
u/AugSphere [+14] Dark Lord of Corruption (41 minutes later)
Poor indoctrinated children, throwing their lives away for the sake of utterly inconsequential NPCs like that. On the other hand, it's probably the right answer exam-wise.
u/None [+13] (57 minutes later)
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u/AugSphere [+5] Dark Lord of Corruption (7 hours later)
Obviously it's called the military because that gives it legitimacy. What it is, in point of fact, is a band of murder-hobos who don't actually own any allegiance to the people whose interests they nominally protect. At least that's what I've always got from Naruto universe. Perhaps it's different in this fic, although I can't quite see how it can be.
Civilians are producers of food and breeding stock for ninjas, nothing more. Any "will of fire" feel-goods were always limited to fellow ninjas.
u/None [+6] (18 hours later)
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u/Sophronius [+5] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
It would be much easier for them to function as a military dictatorship that controls the entire country and its resources, with the same bureaucratic toolset as the one currently used by the Daimyo.
Why would this be easier than letting some civilian handle all of that bureaucratic mess for them? As long as the Daimyo knows that they will be assassinated if they mess up, everything works out perfectly for the ninja. They get paid just for existing! Oh sure, gennin have to do worthless missions for PR purposes/to build character, but they're only gennin.
Of course this breaks down for the Wind Daimyo, who indeed would have been assassinated instantly... unless, of course, he's powerful in his own right. This is a rationalist fiction. Why are you assuming that the ability to perform landscape redecoration makes you more powerful than the most capable politician in your entire country? You can fix this by saying that the Daimyo has his own personal ninja army that is loyal to him and him alone, which is not too far from canon given the existence of the Land of Fire's 12 ninja daimyo bodyguard (who even tried to stage a coup against the Hokage if I recall)
No, the real problem with Naruto canon is the fact that a few individuals have the power to destroy entire armies. There isn't even any point in having armies if that is the case. But if you even things out a little, everything else can be made to work.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
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u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (2 days later)
Two reasons. First, the Daimyo have different priorities. They may choose policies that indirectly go against the interests of the ninja (say, heavy investment in vocational training that ends up reducing the number of potential new ninja). And attempting to enforce fine-grained policy control just with the threat of assassination is inconvenient to say the least.
It's not optimal, sure, but neither is having to do it all yourself. If you had to choose between becoming the dictator of a country yourself, or being paid to lead the military, which would you prefer? I think the latter would be a nicer job, myself. It makes sense if you think of the Daimyo as a figurehead, and given the fact that Danzo at least mind-controlls the Daimyo with Koto-amatsukami, that's not an unfair assumption.
Yes, the wind daimyo and people being incompetent is a valid counter argument. But in a rationalist fic there's nothing stopping you from just boosting people's rationality until this is no longer a problem.
This, of course, runs into its own problems. For example, where does he recruit his elite ninja bodyguard? Is it from the village he needs protection from? Or worse, from another country's ninja village? Are they trained outside any village, and if so, how can they hope to stand up to professionals with generations of expertise behind them?
Primarily from their own ninja village, I would think. But why would this be an issue? The Hokage also depends on his own ninja to not kill him.
I feel like you're arguing this by looking at the Naruto world and pointing out all the things that are nonsensical, while forgetting that you can do the exact same thing with the real world. In the US, congress is run by incredibly insane/incompetent people with an approval rating of approximately 2 (two people, that is), and yet they maintain power over the military despite not having any military ability themselves. Any ninja from the Naruto world would find that completely unbelievable if they read about it in a story. They would throw away the book in disgust and mock the author for writing something so patently unrealistic.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (2 days later)
In the US, congress is run by incredibly insane/incompetent people with an approval rating of approximately 2 (two people, that is),
Hey! That's unfair. According to polls, the average US Congressperson has an approval rating of anywhere from 5 to 9.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (3 days later)
And yet, only 16% approve of congress as a whole, and a whopping 75% express clear disapproval. I'm guessing this is a case of motivated reasoning: Nobody wants to admit that their own congressperson is terrible (in the same way that people defend their own crappy little band), yet everyone acknowledges that the end result is awful (in the same way that people admit crappy little bands in general are crap).
To be fair, a lot of politicians acknowledge that the political system is crap, for example the money-driven aspect of it, but not enough to actually change things (nobody is willing to actually stop begging for money).
u/eaglejarl [+1] (3 days later)
woosh
u/Sophronius [+1] The Need to Become Stronger (3 days later)
Oh, you were just continuing the joke. I thought you were pointing out the paradox that individual members of congress do indeed get ratings of 5 or 6 out of ten on average.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
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u/Sophronius [+4] The Need to Become Stronger (2 days later)
You're right, we've drifted a bit, also because I think I was partially arguing against AugSphere in the end there. I'll summarize my understanding of the matter instead of arguing:
The Leaf in canon is for a great deal self-centered and self-serving, with a good deal of corruption (danzo etc.) and with the Daimyo being portrayed as weak and mostly inconsequential. The ninja villagers literally never act on behalf of civilians unless they're being paid to do it, so I can't call them a military. On the other hand, the Leaf is also portrayed as mostly idealistic and wanting to protect civilians (much like they would want to protect children), but this is much less the case for other countries.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (2 days later)
No, the real problem with Naruto canon is the fact that a few individuals have the power to destroy entire armies
As someone who has been writing a rationalist Naruto fanfic for a while now, let me say that the above is far from being the major problem with Naruto. :>
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (2 days later)
Ok, I'll bite. What are the most major problems? Not saying there aren't any, just curious.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
Tech levels. I have a whole screed about this in chapter 17 of Team Anko, but I'll cut and paste the most relevant bits here:
The tech level in the Naruto-verse is bizarre, and it's a big enough mess that I figure I better explain what I'm doing to make it make sense.
If you [...click this link...] you'll see part of an interview with Kishimoto (the creator of Naruto) where he states that "Actually, the world of Naruto doesn't differ very much from our present time. TV, refrigerators and air conditioners exist in the world. The only exceptions are weapons and explosives, which I've decided to set in a much earlier era. That's why you don't see firearms."
Among the things we do see are: TVs, VCRs, wireless headset radios, references to cell phones, computers, and satellite dishes. And yet, no firearms or non-chakra explosives.
This is baloney. Technology doesn't work like that; you can't drop out part of virtually every scientific field, wave your hands around, and say "well, no one thought of it." Even if you could, it wouldn't work: if you have satellites (for the satellite dishes) then you must have rockets. Rockets are effectively giant bombs that go off slowly, so if you have rockets then you have explosives. Even if you never got into space development and so you never came up with rocket fuel, if you understand science enough to build things like batteries for cell phones then you understand it enough to make high explosives.
In a world where ninja are a thing and go around intimidating and assassinating people, civilians are going to look for an equalizer, and if explosives are a thing then non-ninja are going to weaponize them for their own protection, so guns and explosives will exist. If guns and explosives exist, ninja would carry them—sure, jutsu and explosive tags let them do the same jobs without the equipment, but (a) there don't seem to be any jutsu with the same kind of range that a sniper rifle gives you, (b) guns don't require you to burn your own chakra, and (c) a chakra sensor ninja or those with various bloodlines can spot an explosive tag by its chakra signature. Landmines and IEDs have no chakra signature. Since sealing scrolls are a thing, there's no reason each ninja wouldn't be carrying an entire platoon's worth of heavy ordinance, just in case it was useful.
Then you run into issues with the economics. Start with the fact that the currency doesn't make sense.
Move on to the issue of earnings. As far as I can tell, Konoha makes its living purely from the money from ninja missions. My understanding is the money gets paid from the customer to the Hokage's office and then a part of it is paid to the ninja in question -- basic taxation. All good, makes sense.
Here's the thing: you want to make money? There are better ways than getting a fraction of a percent of your population to get hired to kill people. Off the top of my head:
- Storage seals
These are little scrolls that work like portable holes. Put lots of stuff in them, it weighs no more the scroll itself. Ninja run ridiculously quickly -- I've seen estimates that some of the more powerful are traveling much faster than sound. How much money could you make just shipping goods around at high speed?
- Summoning
Ninja who have signed a summon contract can summon that kind of animal. (Toads, dogs, slugs, hawks...) You can choose the specific animal you want to summon (e.g. Gamabunta, Gamaichi, etc). If that animal isn't available, they can send another of their kind or a group in their place. Summons can carry gear. The animals can also summon their summoner. I can't find the reference right now, but my understanding is that when a summon is released it goes back to where it was.
Okay, great. We now have a teleportation system. Here's how:
- Anko is in Konoha. She summons a snake (call him Bob) and leaves him there.
- Anko goes to, e.g., the Fire Daimyo's court. She summons Bob, gives him a message, and unsummons him; he appears back in Konoha and gives the message to the Hokage. The Hokage wants to reply, so Bob summons Anko, gives her a message, and then she bamfs back to the Fire Daimyo's court.
This combines really well with the storage-seal cargo-transport mentioned above.
- Fuinjutsu traps
A storage seal can't store people, but a fuinjutsu trap can. Lovely! Now we can ship tons of people around using our summon-based messaging and cargo transport.
- Civilian missions
There are jutsu which, e.g., create hundres of gallons of water in few seconds, or create elaborate structures. These could probably be used for irrigation and construction as well as face-stabbing. How much does it cost to build a large office building or temple? Totally making up a number, let's call it 50 million ryo to pay for a crew of laborers for weeks or months. Suppose the Hokage said "Hey, for 5 million ryo we can have the outside of that up for you by tomorrow." A few million ryo is the price of an S-rank mission, which are incredibly dangerous and likely to kill some of those very expensive and hard-to-train ninja. Why do crazy hard missions when you could just build stuff?
Long story short: there's no reason Konoha should be making money from military missions. There is way more money to be had in commerce.
This is all off the top of my head. Point is, nothing about the Naruto universe makes sense. Their economics are broken, their currency is broken, their politics are broken, their technology is broken, and so on and so on.
EDIT: Typos.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (2 days later)
Oh wow, you've thought about this. Fortunately, so have I :>
On technology: Ok, yes, you're right, Naruto tech makes no sense. But I can still defend it a little bit: In a world where ninjas exist, there's less demand for weapons amongst the powers-that-be. In the roman empire, they invented the steam engine but never used it because they already had slaves, and when the calculator was invented the initial reaction was that there's no point because people can do math in their heads anyway. To add to this, going from "no modern weapons" to "modern weapons that can kill ninja effectively" takes several steps, which means that every intermediate invention will be regarded as useless much more quickly. So while Naruto tech levels are silly, it's not entirely baseless.
My understanding is the money gets paid from the customer to the Hokage's office and then a part of it is paid to the ninja in question -- basic taxation. All good, makes sense.
No, they are funded for a large part by the Daimyo, as evidenced by the Kazekage complaining about having his budget cut. In other words they get money from civilians for free, and then charge them again before they'll so much as lift a finger to help. Pretty sweet deal, and what you would expect from an entire village of godlings.
Storage seals Only certain ninja can create this, causing a limited supply, which means that only the most powerful people will have access to them: i.e. other ninja. Perfectly realistic.
Summoning Fair, but to be honest summoning was always pretty vague. What does it mean to go back to your place of summoning, anyway? Is it the space you occupied before being summoned, or the natural place of your existence? But your argument works regardless.
Fuinjutsu traps Pffff filler.
There are jutsu which, e.g., create hundres of gallons of water in few seconds, or create elaborate structures. These could probably be used for irrigation and construction as well as face-stabbing.
Yes, but only elite ninja can do those, and those might be more valuable if employed to kill other elite ninja. And heck, who's to say that this isn't being done regardless? The great ninja villages have 5k-10k ninja each, but we never see that many. So it could well be the case that at any point of time 80% are away on 'missions' to do precisely this, and the story focuses on the rest.
Almost everything can be explained in such a way as to make the Naruto universe mostly work. Ok, tech levels have to be tweaked, but it's mostly workable. But a single ninja like Madara being able to single-handedly defeat every ninja army in the world at the same time?
Destroys any ordinary setting you might come up with.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
On technology: Ok, yes, you're right, Naruto tech makes no sense. But I can still defend it a little bit: In a world where ninjas exist, there's less demand for weapons amongst the powers-that-be. In the roman empire, they invented the steam engine but never used it because they already had slaves, and when the calculator was invented the initial reaction was that there's no point because people can do math in their heads anyway. To add to this, going from "no modern weapons" to "modern weapons that can kill ninja effectively" takes several steps, which means that every intermediate invention will be regarded as useless much more quickly. So while Naruto tech levels are silly, it's not entirely baseless.
I can't agree with you here. Modern weapons are simply too useful outside of combat. Let's review:
- Explosives: clear a stump on your farm; cut through a ridge to build a road; logging; building demolition to clear the way for new construction
- Firearms: God's gift to hunting for all those rural types. Also, since the entire world seems to be full of bandits, merchants who can't afford / don't want to pay for ninja escorts will probably want to have some reasonable self-defense option. Also, the Daimyo might well fund it so that he can equip an army that has even a remote chance against ninja, just in case they ever try something.
Modern weaponry would develop for civilian purposes and later be adapted to combat against ninja.
My understanding is the money gets paid from the customer to the Hokage's office and then a part of it is paid to the ninja in question -- basic taxation. All good, makes sense.No, they are funded for a large part by the Daimyo, as evidenced by the Kazekage complaining about having his budget cut. In other words they get money from civilians for free, and then charge them again before they'll so much as lift a finger to help. Pretty sweet deal, and what you would expect from an entire village of godlings.
Okay. Doesn't really affect my point -- there is far more money to be made in the civilian economy than the military one. They can take their Daimyo budget and made more by irrigating fields etc.
Storage sealsOnly certain ninja can create this, causing a limited supply, which means that only the most powerful people will have access to them: i.e. other ninja. Perfectly realistic.
This was exactly my point. Give ninja some storage scrolls, have them use those scrolls to transport cargo. Although, since you bring it up, is it ever shown what the limiting factor is on making storage scrolls? My impression is that it's the time of the maker -- the materials are relatively cheap and available. Is that wrong? If not, storage scrolls should be a major export, especially if they can produce them in various sizes and maybe come up with a variant that only works a certain number of times..
EJ: There are jutsu which, e.g., create hundres of gallons of water in few seconds, or create elaborate structures. These could probably be used for irrigation and construction as well as face-stabbing.
S: Yes, but only elite ninja can do those
Do you have a source on that? Because the wiki lists the Wild Water Wave and the Earth Shore Return as a C-rank jutsu, up only one class from Academy level techniques like the Body Flicker aka Shunshin. Even Earth Style Rampart and Earth Style Wall are only B-rank.
According to the wiki:
C-rank techniques "[are typically] techniques intended for ninja of the chūnin level. C-rank techniques are often one of the first techniques a ninja will learn that require some amount of training."
B-rank techniques "[are typically] techniques intended for ninja of the jōnin or chūnin level. B-rank techniques are typically useful and can be learned relatively easily with enough time"
Neither of those sound like they can be done only by elite ninja.
u/Sophronius [+1] The Need to Become Stronger (3 days later)
I can't agree with you here. Modern weapons are simply too useful outside of combat. Let's review: Explosives: clear a stump on your farm; cut through a ridge to build a road; logging; building demolition to clear the way for new construction Firearms: God's gift to hunting for all those rural types.
Well, let's look at the historical evidence. How many thousands of years did China have gunpowder and rockets without turning them into guns? I'm not actually sure, but it was a really long time. So clearly it can happen (Yes gun technology was suppressed in order to keep the samurai dominant, but I imagine the exact same thing would happen in the Naruto world for the exact same reason)
Okay. Doesn't really affect my point -- there is far more money to be made in the civilian economy than the military one. They can take their Daimyo budget and made more by irrigating fields etc.
But if we say that ninja get enough money to get whatever supplies from the civilians they need, what benefit does more money get them? Money is only as valuable as the things you can buy with it. The most valuable thing in the Naruto world is military power.: A country of ninja that spends time irrigating would get instantly crushed by its neighbor that spent its time practicing combat techniques instead. (I'm assuming here that you can't just turn any civilians into ninja) Of course every individual ninja would benefit from selling its services purely to enrich themselves, but that's why all the succesfull countries punish leaving the village without permission by death.
Do you have a source on that? Because the wiki lists the Wild Water Wave and the Earth Shore Return as a C-rank jutsu
Fair enough. Creating a certain amount of water or earth walls seems like a pretty common ability. But the point I made above still stands I think: Irrigation or swift construction of mud houses is not enough to get you out of a military race to the bottom.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (3 days later)
How many thousands of years did China have gunpowder and rockets without turning them into guns?
Not really relevant. Ancient China was a bunch of uneducated farmers with rudimentary technology, whereas the Elemental Nations feature civilians with motorboats, refrigerators, and cell phones. That implies a really impressive level of mass education, technical sophistication, and mass production ability.
Militarily effective guns are easy to make if you have access to a machine shop and some decent explosive material for the propellant. The Elemental Nations definitely have access to the former. The only reason they don't have access to the latter is "because Kishimoto says so." As soon as you posit a rational EN, that excuse goes out the window. Suddenly there are explosives and therefore there are guns.
Irrigation or swift construction of mud houses is not enough to get you out of a military race to the bottom.
Point of order: although those are called 'Earth whatever', the pictures show that some of them are actually stone. Hardly mud houses.
Primary point: The real world has somehow been neither a military race to the bottom, nor a single mass war for all of history. In fact, many times it's been the countries that focused on civil and political development that out-bred the military ones. Look at Rome -- it's debatable exactly why they were so successful, but some candidate reasons are:
- Religiously and politically tolerant, so people and even nations frequently petitioned to join
- Science and technology development were rewarded
- Excellent road network, allowing for fast movement of trade and ideas. [1]
- Excellent health and hygiene, greatly reducing deaths to plague
They also had some kick-ass soldiers, but so did the Persians and various other nations. Despite all sides having strong military they were not all locked in constant war.
[1] The Roman roads were de iure military (built to allow rapid movement of soldiers) but de facto civilian as they were used far more often by civilians than soldiers.
u/Sophronius [+1] The Need to Become Stronger (3 days later)
Militarily effective guns are easy to make if you have access to a machine shop and some decent explosive material for the propellant.
Fair enough. Like I said, you can argue that weapons technology in the Narutoverse would lag behind, but I agree that the sheer extent of the tech difference makes it impossible.
the real world has somehow been neither a military race to the bottom, nor a single mass war for all of history.
No, but there have been plenty of local situations where this has been precisely the case. The warring states era is a fair example I think. If as a country in such a situation you transform your military into irrigation services, it won't end well for you.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (3 days later)
Why would you need to "transform your military into irrigation services?" Nowhere have I said that ninja can't keep training in combat arts, just that the (as far as we can see from canon) complete absence of civilian-side missions is ridiculous.
u/Jiro_T [+2] (4 days later)
Start with the fact that the currency doesn't make sense.
I think that the comments in that thread cumulatively resolved that:
- A mission is normally carried out by a team of 4 so you need to divide by 4 to find out how much money the ninja actually gets from one.
- The village probably takes a big cut of the gross in taxes (rebuilding villages is really expensive)
- It is unlikely there are enough D rank missions for a ninja to be able to do a constant stream of them, and available statistics show orders of magnitude fewer missions than 200 a year
- It is not true that low rank missions all take a day or less
- Even if 1 ryo = 10 yen or 10 cents, the value of 10 yen or 10 cents depends on cost of living and isn't constant (and Tokyo has one of the highest costs of living of anywhere, so thinking "what would 10 cents buy me in an average US state" would lead you to overestimate how rich ninjas are)
u/AugSphere [+8] Dark Lord of Corruption (20 hours later)
I agree with all of that. But the fact that Naruto canon doesn't make sense is nothing new.
It would be much easier for them to function as a military dictatorship that controls the entire country and its resources, with the same bureaucratic toolset as the one currently used by the Daimyo.
That's what would make sense. Some kind of feudal system, where the top of the hierarchy consists of super-powered warlords, perhaps.
Second, if the military exists to exploit the civilian population, they are terribly inefficient about it. They obtain money from "ninja missions" and the civilian government rather than direct taxation.
Kishimoto can't into rational world-building. He wanted battle-wizards for hire and that's what we have. Doesn't change the fact that there is absolutely no leverage to compel ninja to work for the benefit of civilians.
Sand having to revise their entire recruitment and training policy after the Wind Country Daimyo cuts their budget.
How in the world does a Daimyo impose their will on people who can reshape the landscape with minimal trouble and assassinate him equally as easily?
u/None [+10] (20 hours later)
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u/AugSphere [+5] Dark Lord of Corruption (21 hours later)
That's a classic race to the bottom, though, isn't it? The first village (or a coalition of clans within a village) to permanently stop with the bullshit missions and dedicate all the resources to war preparations is going to out-compete everyone else. Then someone else will follow suit, lest they be annihilated, and so on.
The system is not stable in the least, and, given that we're talking about ninjas here, someone would have jumped down the slippery slope long ago. The threat of mutual annihilation in Elemental Nations is supposed to be realised by each village having a biju on hand. And yet that doesn't stop world wars from happening every generation. Some measly tradition of waiting for civilians to come begging for protection, instead of simply taxing them, is not going to stop these people.
But if you look at it as a conscious choice of moral ideals over practicality, it might just be believable.
We're talking about the same people, who raise child soldiers to die following the orders of the village as a matter of course, right? Conscious choice of moral ideals over practicality seems right up these guys' alley.
u/None [+9] (21 hours later)
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u/AugSphere [+6] Dark Lord of Corruption (23 hours later)
Fair enough. The system as depicted still strains my suspension of disbelief. Surely this would not extend so far as to allow some Daimyo to bully a ninja village to an extent that it would seek a war against a long time ally just to alleviate the economic damage?
u/None [+5] (56 minutes later)
I'm curious, what's the justification for the "classic ninja running posture" in this particular AU? I think the real reasoning was that it's just easier to draw and animate, so it's a bit out of place in this otherwise rationalish world.
Also, great chapter, though it's very obviously a genjutsu, come on.
u/None [+9] (an hour later)
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u/None [+8] (3 hours later)
There's no way this isn't going to end with a flying Naruto
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (an hour later)
No. It's pretty obviously a test, though not certainly- but i wouldn't make my test a genjutsu- too easy to have countermeasures. I'd make it look far more dangerous than it is, instead- assuming this is a simulation. I'd think someone would break the genjutsu, and change the test accordingly. instead, it's a technique that isn't dangerous, though it looks identical to one that is- or the civilians are trained ninja- or something like that. I could be wrong.
u/Dykster [+1] (a day later)
Another point against a genjutsu:
Choosing a very unlikely but devastating event like a village invasion isn't well thought out. Suppose that a third of all applicants fail at this stage(we have many more applicants than final round contestors, so many have to be sorted out). Next time the village is invaded for real, many of the failed genin will think "Oh, this is just some big genjutsu again, let's just fuck around or sacrifice myself at the first possible moment."
Suddenly a big chunk of the villages genin are NOT helpful in the event of a real invasion.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
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u/eaglejarl [+2] (2 days later)
Why would this be a genjutsu? I was assuming it's just a bunch of Leaf nin dressed in costumes and makeup. The village and its civilians are getting a dress rehearsal of their evacuation procedures, the ninja are getting a Chunin Exam. Everyone wins.
u/Jiro_T [+2] (4 days later)
That would be a bad idea, because the exam candidates don't know it's a trick and think they are fighting for keeps, so they'll probably end up killing some of the Leaf ninja in the costumes (some might even sacrifice themselves in order to kill one of the Leaf ninja).
u/eaglejarl [+2] (4 days later)
Valid point. Still, so far they've seen exactly one enemy ninja. They're all genin, testing for chunin. If that's a jonin, he's not at any real risk. Shoot, the Hokage (aka "God of Shinobi") might enjoy getting out there and playing tag with the young 'uns for a bit.
u/Sceptically [+9] (11 minutes later)
First phase of the exam, passed.
u/LordSwedish [+5] Q Continuum (6 hours later)
If this wasn't such a good fic I would actually be okay if it just ended here.
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (a day later)
Agreed. My first thought was... it ends here? oh well, that's an anticlimax. it was a good run while it lasted, though.
u/mavant [+7] (an hour later)
Hahahah and then they all died, the end.
u/None [+8] (3 hours later)
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u/Nevereatcars [+3] The Greatest Is Behind (4 hours later)
I'm very excited for you to kill Smart!Lee.
u/None [+3] (10 hours later)
Oh My God Smart!Lee Oh My God Smart!Lee
drooling
u/diraniola [+3] (10 hours later)
So how are you handwaving the Sharingan, explicitly activated here, not seeing through the genjutsu?
u/Nevereatcars [+10] The Greatest Is Behind (11 hours later)
Descartes' Demon. His sharingan isn't active. He tried to activate it, but couldn't because he was in a genjutsu, but the genjutsu altered itself so that it would look like the normal world would to somebody with an active sharingan.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
What genjutsu? That's probably just a guy in a robe with some makeup on.
u/Elhokar [+2] (27 minutes later)
Am I right in understanding that this is gonna be updated weeklyish from now on?
u/None [+6] (29 minutes later)
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u/None [+5] (10 hours later)
I'm really sorry that your life went astray this former year.
Is it morally wrong to wish someone happiness and luck because you want them to finish the beautiful and awesome rational HPMoR-inspired Naruto fanfiction they are writing?
u/None [+3] (18 hours later)
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u/None [+1] (a day later)
Well fuck, I will acknowledge my responsibilities!
u/NotAHeroYet [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (a day later)
No. It may be morally less right than wishing them it just because they're a person, and deserve to have good things happen to them- but not all people can be that sincere, and wishing good things to people is rarely morally wrong. most situations where it is involve kill switches or codewords.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
It was a joke. But, nice.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
Hey, really cool that you're writing again! And nice to see the plot picking up its pace again.
Though, if you would like some constructive criticism for the previous chapter especially: You could work on setting the scene/mood etc. more during scenes. Right now I'm getting the feeling that the story jumps a bit too much between scenes, making it feel disjointed. Esp. w.r.t. character viewpoints shifting (You should never show what's in anyone's head other than the viewpoint character, and it should always be clear who the viewpoint character is.) Just my two cents.
Anyway, I'm very interested in seeing where this is headed. Can you believe that the thought that all of this was a test didn't even cross my mind until after reading the comments? I must be tired...
u/eaglejarl [+2] (2 days later)
Before reading any of the comments, I'm putting my prediction-stake in the ground. Last chapter I was 60% confident that this was a test, now I'm up to 80%. Evidence:
- A member of Akatsuki...
- was injured to the point of death but not actually dead, yet no one was pursuing him...
- ignored a group of genin and civilians on first glance...
- when he finally did decide to attack, it was with a slow attack that would have been useless in a ninja battle.
This is a test. I'm just surprised they're bringing the civilians in on it, but I guess it makes a good drill.
u/Nevereatcars [+3] The Greatest Is Behind (2 days later)
Those aren't civilians. They're shadow clones of Anko.
o.O
u/eaglejarl [+2] (2 days later)
Can Anko do the shadow clone? [...googles...] Only in the video game?! That doesn't count! ;>
(NB: Check the wiki and search for 'Anko')
u/Nevereatcars [+3] The Greatest Is Behind (2 days later)
Naruto taught it to her in an alternate universe, and then she traveled to this universe. But in order to travel across dimensions she had to sacrifice all her chakra. That's why her shadow clones are civilians.
u/None [+2] (3 days later)
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u/Nevereatcars [+2] The Greatest Is Behind (3 days later)
But they'll be shadow clones of a civilian Anko. Not much of a threat.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
I dropped this story at chapter 4 at the bath spying scene. For a supposedly rational fanfic the one in a thousand chance? of dispelling a transformation seemed way too much of a coincidence. Why was he naked anyways when the transformation was dispelled anyways? It never worked like that in the original story, it makes no sense. The entire scene was just comedic relief fluff.
My question is does it get better? Can anyone tell me if things get more serious and rational in the coming chapters. If your going to call your story rational it better be rational and not filled with comedic nonsense like this. You've already primed me for a rational story, which increases my expectations and as such I'm harder on the story when it betrays the expectations I've set. I'd love to know that this is a one time thing so I can continue reading.
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (2 days later)
I don't remember the bathing scene, but the silliness remains throughout. I share your preference for rationalist fiction that takes itself more seriously: It's just harder to have rational solutions to problems when the story is not designed to be realistic, but an author writes what he wills.
(One story that does this really well is The Waves Arisen, which manages to almost seamlessly transition from silly to exciting to emotional and back again. I recommend it to you if you haven't read it already.)
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+1] fear of last pages (2 days later)
It never worked like that in the original story, it makes no sense. The entire scene was just comedic relief fluff.
I was trying to wrap this same complain into a form of constructive criticism that would not sound insulting to the author. Too many stories that are being featured here suffer from this same thing: they start ok for the first several chapters, and then there are suddenly all these silly irrelevant “comedic relief” scenes that could be entirely cut out without any harm to the remaining story.
If your going to
(Also, “you're”)
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
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u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+1] fear of last pages (2 days later)
There are several instances when the gag is being stretched for far too long (or can be even entirely cut out). For example the protagonist does something, and we get 3-5 bits of reactionary dialogue from the vague crowd; or that one part where a whole paragraph was dedicated to listing all the rumours that were circulating about the bridge battle post factum.
There were also scenes like the already mentioned bath one, where extremely unlikely events were happening in attempt to make the story funnier. Another such scene was how Naruto and Hinata not only fell on each other cliché anime style, but also somehow kissed while doing that (and the whole section that followed with Naruto explaining the situation to a doctor as well).
but by then the story had advanced too far to credibly do something about it
Eh, bringing the same HPMoR that you've mentioned earlier as an example, its author was prone to changing various parts of the story when the community was pointed out to him the problems. It, for example, would’ve been a much more crackier story with scenes like the ghost busters one left intact.
p.s. In A\N you’ve mentioned a literary summer program of sorts. Can you elaborate what it was about and how can I find similar\relevant cources\articles online?
u/sir_pirriplin [+1] (3 days later)
comedy scenes you can think of that could be cut without harm to the remaining story?
The incident in the baths did serve a purpose however. It allows readers familiar with the original series to realize an important difference between Kyubi and Kyubei: The Kyubi grants physical resistance to injury and absurd regeneration powers, while the Kyubei only makes the natural healing of the human body more efficient.
u/None [+0] (2 days later)
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u/None [+1] (2 days later)
Ah I didn't realize that he used the clone when he was naked, that makes sense then. That brings up the question of why didn't he make the clone when they were discussing the plan earlier, so it would have clothes. I am kind of against comedy in general (aside from black comedy) so that's mostly my bias. I just don't like unrealistic situations coming up so that jokes keep happening. The one in a thousand chance thing is in my mind sacrificing plot for comedy whereas I'd prefer if comedy happened along with the plot. In my mind it would be more interesting if the girls broke the clone and the transformation and then they tried to find out who was spying on them (which could lead to them suspecting the totally wrong person leading to more plot relevant comedy). But that's me.
I'll read some more chapters and tell you what I think. I will tell you that your story is well written, I'm just harsh when it comes to these things.
@Sophronius I've already read The Waves Arisen and loved it, thanks for the suggestion though.
u/abcd_z [+1] (9 hours later)
What next?! GFD, WHAT NEXT?!
Pseudo-edit: Oh, it's genjutsu. Well, don't I feel silly now.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (10 hours later)
YEEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!