We’ll just agree to disagree so the thread will not derail. 
That will be a tall order, for not only does it harvest your blood and kill eventually, it also makes sure to do it as gruesomely as possible. I agree with @cascat07 in that I’m pretty sure my helot character fears being gruesomely harrowed much more than dying in battle or being assassinated.
Nostalgia among the other classes, maybe, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon among the helots and drudges.
It could possibly happen in a generation or two depending on a lot of variables in their descendants particularly if the Hegemony fractures and/or the successor state is weaker but freer (like Russia during the Yeltsin years), given just how horrid the Hegemony is I don’t really see it getting off the ground till most people who have actually lived it begin to die off. A lost “golden age” myth also needs some time to form.
The very fact that my character is a man with absolutely nothing to lose (and potentially everything to gain) is what makes him a radical and there will inevitably be good and bad sides to that as no ideology survives the brush with reality unscathed.
So you agree with old Hobbes then?
Life in the underclasses of the Hegemony is already characterised by a state of perpetual terror, pain and humiliation, so I’m very curious how you are going to pull that of. The only way I can see is if there are constant famines, which is why avoiding those (for the most part) is a high priority for me.
I’m actually trying to go for a medium anarchy strategy since I actually need a certain amount of anarchy (fog of war) if my character is to have any hope of certain gambits off.
I think it is a safe bet that all the various tiers of anarchy have a chance at succeeding they are just going to come with different challenges. In general I’d say the more anarchy you create the firmer hand you’ll have to take to coalesce a new order, likely around the MC cult of personality style. Truly disruptive movements require an anchor normally that is found in the person of a great leader to prevent total xaos… I mean chaos.
This is true, however within the confines of the game you’ll likely need a charisma focused character to pull of the cult of personality, which means I’ll need a slightly different strategy.
You might can get by. I don’t think most would consider Stalin, Saddam, or Assad particularly charismatic. You need a core of loyalists that owe everything to you personally and then the will and ruthlessness to make an example of your enemies. Your problem is that you probably don’t want a state that is ruled by fear and/or religious fervor, and that is going to be an interesting challenge when combined with burning existing society to the ground…
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Yep, that’s my character’s conundrum in a nutshell.
Incidentally, part of why I think my character needs at least some anarchy is to be able to pull of a “comrade card index” gambit under the noses of his “allies”.
“And were the rebels to win the United States would be saddled with a regime that would make the Ayatollah look like Mary Poppins.”
An excellent prediction…
@Havenstone
Since you’re already a published author, will you release XoR under your real name?
Regarding the prologue, is it assumed if the MC is a “traditionalist” aristo that you wouldn’t choose the “The intensity of the Hegemony’s violence to its lower castes” path? I just noticed that the MC has to feel like he betrayed the helot rather than feeling like “I did my duty and reported the runaway.”
I am trying to craft a new MC that is essentially content with the system but gets thrust into rebellion by events outside their control. Is this a path you would support? Essentially, not trying to change anything but return to the Hegemony’s good graces perhaps with a bit more power for themselves.
You might easily not care about the helots, but I really don’t think the game is meant to support a MC being essentially content with the system.
I guess not content with their place in it is what I am talking about, but you are right which is why I’m asking. It’s certainly not in it now, but the idea popped into my head to play this way regardless.
Yeah, I get that. And I understand the impulse as a kind of change of pace, but it seems like it would be outside the scope of what could be reasonably accommodated.
In a broader sense, of course, you can kind of aim for that simply by not trying to rock the boat too much. Aim for the support of the higher classes, the nobles and one or both of the priesthood or the merchants, don’t aim to change too much, and you’d probably end up with something like that. System not meaningfully changed, just more power for you.
@Havenstone one more thing why can’t we throw Radmar too? The MC clearly suspects they might be the traitor as well. Better safe then sorry tell them both to go kick rocks.
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I going for why can I fake that Breden poisoning Radmar and then Hang her? I won’t send her away from me alive, that’s nonsense approach. Breden HAS TO DIE DIE BREDEN
Haha well consider this: he/she started a rebellion at the cost of at least one theruge’s life and then failed to infiltrate it and it is now spreading uncontrolled through and agriculturally significant district.
I don’t think Breden’s Karagon masters are going to be too pleased with that outcome and they aren’t famed for their mercy…
I don’t care Karagons mercy, I wana her DEAD I don’t care about if that means my death She has to die by my hands or by my people stones. Like Emma. So annoying helot ape… who are so rude and fake coward… I hate you BREDEN
Regarding “a lost golden age,” I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot of Iraqis right now who wanted to resurrect Saddam Hussein. There are a lot of Syrians who want to go back to the days when Assad had control of his country and Aleppo wasn’t halfway to smoking ruins. So wishing for the good old days when all you had to worry about was your inevitable gruesome Harrowing isn’t unlikely at all.
I really, really doubt that the Helot PC’s father is entirely atypical among helots.
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Except that’s far from all that the helots have to worry about. Besides the harrowing there is also the constant pain and humiliation, which Kalt can describe in more detail, if you ask him.
That said I’m under no illusions that progress in the Hegemony isn’t going to be an incredibly hard and painful task. However I still think that for any helot, including the MC, it is an absolute necessity, in order to have any chance at a better future, to smash the existing caste system to bits, otherwise we can only win a Pyrrhic victory, at best.
If its back to being a slave afterwards then we have really won nothing at all, except an entirely pointless regime change, whether the exact lot of the (former) helots after the rebellion is going to be slave, serf, or sharecropper doesn’t really matter all that much in the end. Yet that’s all that is achievable if you leave the existing caste system that views helots as sub-human (largely) intact.
It’s almost like people don’t understand what being oppressed is. Being overlooked by people that are supposed to protect you. Threats, abuse, constant arguments. Being scared to leave your house. Being told by better-off people that you’re just not worth it, because of something you can’t control.
Told by the authorities that demanding anything more of the world is just being disrespectful, and you should “put up with” being physically and emotionally assaulted in a public place, because “being who you are, that’s just something you’re going to have to get used to”. Having to rearrange and build your life and aspirations around what is safe for you, not what could be possible.
Being constantly scared, not because of death, but how hard it is to keep going and how much responsibility is put on you to stay alive, to be there for your family and people like you. It could be so easy.
Eventual, predictable death is kind of a godsend, in my opinion (but that could be because I’ve also got clinical depression ((but, in hindsight, I got it because of those reasons…))).
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@idonotlikeusernames
If the rebellion causes very high anarchy, all the pain and humiliation suffered by the average helot might stay on the same level or even increase. I’m sure that warlords and bandit gangs can be as cruel as the nobles.