Sure. Napoleon instituted change at almost all levels of society beyond what the revolution propagated. The Napoleonic Code is one of the world’s most influential reforms of old feudal laws across Europe. There were border changes and he even dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. He also reorganized the revolutionary era departments and territories and he even sold vast lands to other nations like the Louisiana Purchase of the US.
He reformed the way political office was chosen and held and how the military leaders were also.
Then it is just deceptively simple, like I said. I had that perception because in XOR I hardly ever look at my character’s stat screen, generally doing what feels natural to me and letting the narrative provide the feedback to said actions.
I’d argue that skepticism did far less to drive French young men into signing up to die for the Revolution than a fierce sense of modern nationalism that hinged on the revolutionary idea that they were citizens, and not subjects. “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” as the French say.
I’d also argue that skepticism is more of a tool than an alternate belief system. Erasmus used it to defend the Roman Catholic Church against Martin Luther’s contention that the truth was individually knowable. And taken to an extreme, skepticism can be highly reductionist, leaving its most zealous adherents with a belief in nothing at all, because nothing is truly knowable with complete certainty. Personally, I’ve always found Pascal’s Wager to be a particularly interesting way for a skeptic to approach belief since in probabilistic terms the expected value of belief is higher than the expected value of non-belief, ie. there is much more to gain if you’re right, than to lose if you’re wrong.
@WulfyK When Boris Yeltsin first rallied the Russian people against the Soviet Union, he invoked Russian nationalism. And yet, he also encouraged Ukrainians, Georgians, and the other subject peoples to declare independence from Soviet domination as well. They were all similarly oppressed as far as he was concerned. It was only later when parts of the Russian Federation, most notably Chechnya, attempted to not only secede but launch violent revolutions in neighboring Russian territories that public sentiment turned inside of the Russian Federation on the subject, enabling the rise of Putin, a strong man who put a stop to Russia’s humiliation at the hands of its former subject peoples. Putin thus rode a more chauvinistic, less inclusive strand of Russian nationalism into power, and after term limits forced him to temporarily step down, he finally discarded the trappings of democratic reform and embraced the most xenophobic nationalistic elements that he had previously been keeping at arms length in order to create a more permanent power base.
As @Zolataya points out, the French Revolution was complicated and I’d argue that it doesn’t lend itself well to a Nationalist/Cosmopolitan opposed stat, as Napoleon rode French Nationalism into power, but he wasn’t xenophobic, and what he ultimately offered to the subject peoples of his neighbors, the ability to become “citizens” instead of “subjects” of the nation in which they lived, with him at its head to guarantee their enfranchisement, was a seductive call. He did not rule as a French chauvinist, let alone a xenophobe. He was very cosmopolitan in his rule. On the nationalism front, Napoleon is my model for what I’d like to pull off in XoR.
So it’s possible to be nationalistic without alienating other nationalities. It’s all about showing them some respect too. Leadership needs to be very careful not to encourage xenophobia among its followers, and do what it can to encourage fraternity with other subject peoples of the Hegemony, not just Shayardenes. As a result, blatant xenophobes who might alienate the Whends and others need to be sidelined as quickly and quietly as possible.
It is certainly possible to walk a tightrope on nationalism and cosmopolitanism, much as I must walk a tightrope with the faith and the caste system. I also agree that not all highly nationalistic outcomes conflict with cosmopolitanism.
Horion’s vision of Shayard as primus inter pares in a great Koinon neatly allows for both. Indeed the way my character sees it the main flaw of Horion’s Koinon is that it is just going to be a toy for a noble elite (and some yeoman bureaucrats) that would do very little for the (former) helots. Well and the fact that the subject nations/provinces of the Hegemony as they currently stand are simply too big and badly need to be subdivided until there are at least 20 of them.
Regarding Shayardene nationalism specifically however, I would much rather leave Shayard’s past dead and buried, rather than attempt to revive a pale imitation of it, but that’s mainly because the narrative of Shayardene nationalism we’ve heard so far does not really fit into really fit into my character’s vision for the future.
There’s going to be no monarchical restoration and there are not going to be any nobles, or yeoman, or helots for that matter. Nor is the Shayardene version of the Xthonic faith going to be revived as the state religion. Though the ideal of the stalwart family farmer yeoman is the highly attractive aspect of Shayard’s past it is also, unfortunately going to practically impossible to return to that agricultural and economic model.
So, in short, the aspects that my character doesn’t like about old Shayard are the ones that might possibly be restored in some form by a highly nationalistic rebellion, while the part he likes cannot be restored anymore due to practical and economical considerations.
Of course, at its core nationalism is nothing more than an imagined community with a shared narrative and set of values and in time it is fully possible to build our own version. The downside is that such an endeavour tends to take a couple of generations if you’re trying to start from scratch. Which, incidentally is another reason my character is going to need some sort of state wide educational system, to inculcate that new narrative.
Oh, thanks for asking yes I still working on my game I have more than 75,000 words on it However , like nobody cares I just don’t bother in update my threads anymore. And in the small Mara storyline I missed the 10,000 words I wrote last year because a sd card got corrupted. And about French revolution it was started by idealists that turned themselves into bloody monsters. A terrible regime so similar to North Korea. The state religion was totally stupid same as calendar so confusing that nobody knew how in hell was the time to cultivate the land causing. Freaking famine.
EDIT If Napoleon was so great with other races ajd nationalities I am THE EMPEROR OF CHINA. He was a butcher who destroyed any other person who did not serve him. He personally killed entire already submitted cities with only childs and older people on it. Ask for his respect to Russian Polish and Spanish people who were slaughter.
“…then all we need to do is institute a 5-year plan to industrialize the country, create mirrored party structure at every layer of government to ensure stability and preempt counterrevolutionary forces, and round up and reeducate or eliminate recalcitrant former nobles and yeoman. Easy day…”
Nationalism will automatically lead to fighting over borders. (It can, but it doesn’t have to)
Cosmopolitans will sign up to fight. (In the real world they don’t, they avoid the military like the plague. Look at how limp the EU is compared to the US, and how in the US, the most cosmopolitan areas produce the fewest troops despite their often greater populations)
It’s possible to get -all- of the nobles to side with the rebellion. (Dream on.)
Some nobles fighting against the rebels is a bad thing. ( Where do you think I plan to get the land from to give to the helots?)
I’d argue that the single biggest issue regarding whether or not the other archonties throw in with the MC’s rebellion is a combination of how desperate they are (people facing the harrowers are inclined to be very desperate) and your odds of success (the bigger your rebellion in Shayard, the more you look like a decent bet, and nationalism will make that initial rebellion bigger). As long as you don’t go out of your way to alienate the other nationalities, their helots are going to be to looking at your rebellion as a source of hope and a ticket to a better life. Their yeoman will look at your rebellion as an opportunity to throw off the oppressive taxes and confiscations of Karagond and perhaps expand their holdings, and the same will go for many of the nobles who are out of Karagond’s favor and are nursing grudges as a result.
Hey! pre-empting and weeding out dangerous counterrevolutionaries is important work you know.
I’m also assuming that if we get our magic stat all the way up we don’t really need to rush industrialisation that badly.
The first (couple of) five year plans (though another number may come more naturally in the game world) would have to be focused on agriculture, infrastructure and education with industrial development only where needed to support those three.
What I can see is a relocation of (surviving) existing industry out of Karagond proper in order to distribute it among the other parts. Incidentally I believe that only Karagond proper is industrialised to any significant degree due to the Hegemony’s extreme reluctance to both share and let their subject peoples produce Techne themselves.
It is also important to remember that while my character’s revolution will have some, or even many socialist characteristics its main goal is overthrowing the abominable caste system and making sure it stays dead. While that, by necessity means breaking up the noble estates and expropriating most, or all of, the Xthonic faith’s worldly holdings, I’m not out to dispossess the yeoman or the merchants per se.
Given that he needs the support of what passes for the middle classes the economy would likely end up looking very differently than was the case for our USSR. If anything, given the merchant guild structure, syndicalism might be a slightly better fit, but it is far more likely to be something unique to the game world instead.
Besides why are you so against fighting for a principle “that all men are created equal” that even the US pays at least lip-service to? Of course, for my character’s version we’d need to replace "“men” with “people” and ditch the whole creator nonsense that comes immediately after, but still…
If anything ever needed something like that badly it’s the Hegemony.
Breaking the caste system that divided people into classes based on material accumulation seems like pretty much the point of Marxism…
What happens when the merchants and yeoman resist your “liberation” of them because even though they are lower than the mages they are above the helots??? What happens to the helots that defend their lords privilege out of loyalty to their master’s family? What happens to the fervently religious masses when they are told “Your imaginary friend isn’t real, and is a tool of your oppressors”?
Personally I think the same thing that has happened in every socialist revolution to date… I mean you’re a lawyer. What is the legal definition of insanity???
But hey this time it’s gonna be different! This time you are in charge! Don’t let me stand in the way of your dreams Chairman…(I know you won’t because that calls for “reeducation”)
@P_Tigras while your example shows how nationalism can incite rebellions by multiple peoples in an empire, it also proves me right that it will create conflict between these nations. In case of Shayard, Horion named several disputed areas like Aveche, the Veldrine Hills and Steswick, and a rebellion driven by nationalism will lead to conflict between the Shayardenes and Whendish and Erezzine over the posession of these lands. Cosmopolitan revels would care less about this and even if such problems arise, they would be more likely to negotiate an agreement. Another important group are the nobles who have mostly adapted Karagon culture and language, an overly nationalist rebellion might drive more of them to the fight against the rebels.
Concerning religion, both a religious and a skeptical MC rally people against the dominant faith, and skepticism seems to be somewhat widespread. Note that the a religious MC attracts a bit more people than a skeptical and a nationalist gets more than a cosmopolitan. However, all these outcomes look justified to me as the MC’s band operates at the border between Shayard and Wiendj. As they will move into Shayardene heartland, nationalism and religion should lead to more new recruits, and if they reach other archonties, cosmopolitan and skeptical MCs should get more support there.
@Havenstone
I have noted a contradiction. When a nationalistic MC gets reinforcements, they are all stated to be children of people who fought and died 45 years ago, while their leader Bethune is described as young. S/he would be at least 45, that’s definitely not young.
@poison_mara
I’m glad to hear that. Why do you say that nobody care? I’m sure many people will play and doscuss your WIP if you provided an updated demo.
No socialist revolution to date has revolted against something so revolting as the Hegemony. The Hegemony makes the Japanese occupation of Korea seem cute and cuddly and Tsarist Russia a liberal paradise in comparison.
Obviously you have to be insane to be(come) a rebel, knowing what happened to our illustrious predecessors in that occupation, in the first place, so the exact definition doesn’t really matter here.
But since my character has rebelled total revolution is the only forward way now, everything else would end in a Pyrrhic victory for him and his fellow helots, at best.
If you really want to know leaving Hegemony trained Ecclesiasts in charge of what passes for the “justice” system really ought to be a legal definition of insanity, at least in the game-world, imho.
Except that this caste system is more like the Indian one during its darkest days, even the poorest, dumbest noble is worth infinitely more than the smartest and richest merchant. With everybody being worth more than the helots, personal merit be damned.
Ah, but that’s the beauty of it and an ace up my character’s sleeve that our socialist revolutionaries did not have, everyone with a modicum of intelligence can become a mage in the game world, it has nothing to do with ancestry or “divine favour” it is a learned skill. Letting more people from the yeoman and helot caste learn magic is, in and of itself, a blow to the fundament of the caste system and the Xthonic faith.
And the only way my character can remain free, let alone in charge of anything, is by breaking the caste system. He certainly isn’t going to roll over and meekly serve some noble brats, who likely hid in their estates for the duration of the rebellion, as a slave and blood-cattle ever again.
A Pyrrhic victory is one that comes at such a high cost it might as well have been a defeat.
The concept is named after an ancient king who beat the Romans in battle but as such a cost he ended up losing the war.
@idonotlikeusernames being a doctor is a learned skill and yet the vast majority of the population would be terrible doctors. Even many of the ones that are in fact “doctors” today deserve the quotation marks… I presume in this socialist paradise that those not able or willing to be mages will enjoy complete equality with those who are and their precious, precious blood will remain in their bodies as the Xaos storms rage.
Alright I’ll stop picking on you comrade. Death to the imperialist pigs!!!
Mostly true, except in the Hegemonic caste system you’d be showing the faithful and oppressed masses that a class of people the propaganda, for generations has always painted as unable to even become “doctors” can in fact become doctors. Not only that but that some of them can even become as good as their best doctors, the people they’re taught whose excesses must be tolerated because they are divinely ordained “paragons of virtue”, or else they wouldn’t have been able to even become “doctors” in the first place.
Moreover having a significant volume of these people will mean that the phenomenon cannot easily be dismissed as most people and more to the point most helots will know someone like that. Unlike now where they can easily paint my mc and any other self-taught people, not ordained by their ecclesiasts as “abominations”.
As for the rest, you know as well as I do that no state is perfect and some corruption always, inevitably, creeps in. Still I don’t think it’s that much of a challenge to be more fair, free and equal and less corrupt than the Hegemony is, or then a new Shayardene empire would be.
I suspect that quite a bit of this is for game balance reasons. @Havenstone made these things opposed stats, so he’s going to feel pressure to create successful paths for people who simultaneously go anti-nationalist and anti-religious as well, despite realistically speaking, their odds of success being far, far lower unless they can find some other ideology for their supporters to believe in as an alternative to god or country, something like @idonotlikeusernames’s communism.
The obvious solution here is to to split up the Hegemony’s five provinces into more manageable chunks of territory.
There are some fault lines in the existing Shayardene and most likely in the other nationalities that could be played up for this. Shayard, for example clearly, has a more Anglo-Saxon and a more French part. There may also be some smaller groups in both the Anglo Saxon and the French parts of Shayard comparable to our own Scots, Welsh and Breton people who would also be eligible for their own provinces under the new system.
As for Avezia it would most likely become the new capital and as such get its own territory (and the future canal zone too) belonging directly to the new central state instead of either Shayard or Erezza.
I neglected to mention this earlier, but your thoughts align with mine on the subject of partition. Just as Caesar partitioned Gaul and Napoleon “reorganized” France, you want your provincial governors too busy competing for your approval, and the additional resources that approval brings, instead of thinking they’re the heads of nation states and doing something dangerous like seceding.
To all partition planners: When in Game 4 or 5 the (Anglo-Saxon-esque) Rim and Westriding demand that they get a major corridor to the sea, annexing part of the (Franc-esque) Southriding or Coast, are you going to give it to them or let them stay landlocked and partitioned along the traditional ethno-regional lines?
Or did you pull a Stalin and make your provinces mixed Anglo-Franco from the outset anyway, to keep them too riven by internal rivalries to resist your imperial control?
I’m sure many people will play and doscuss your WIP if you provided an updated demo.