@P_Tigras being cosmopolitan doesn’t necessarily make someone a pacifist. American and European liberals are not eager to fight because they don’t feel opressed or even threatened by someone now. If there is a threat, this attitude would change, look at how enlistment rates in New York increased massively immediately after 9/11. Or look ar the foreign volunteers in the Spanish civil war, French foreign legionaires and 17h century Caribbean pirates. All these people were renown fighters but adhered cosmopolitan and not nationalist ideals.
Anyways, the nat/cos and rel/ske stats seem to be less about motivating the people opresst by the Hegemony to rebel, but more about having the join the MC’s rebellion. If the MC is not nationalist enough for some Shayardenes they will join Jac Cabel or the Laconnian pretender instead, and if the MC is not very cosmopolitan, the rebels from other archonties won’t accept them as their leader but start an own rebellion.
One question: the full playthrough of Rebels up to now goes to the summer, right? When your character chooses to fight the local forces, or evade them through the woods or separate the group?
Are you by any chance related to this guy, I swear he must be one of Putin’s fellow time travelers, because his appearance doesn’t make me very inclined to believe what that webpage says about his age.
[quote=“WulfyK, post:4092, topic:1601, full:true”] @P_Tigras being cosmopolitan doesn’t necessarily make someone a pacifist. American and European liberals are not eager to fight because they don’t feel opressed or even threatened by someone now. If there is a threat, this attitude would change, look at how enlistment rates in New York increased massively immediately after 9/11. Or look ar the foreign volunteers in the Spanish civil war, French foreign legionaires and 17h century Caribbean pirates. All these people were renown fighters but adhered cosmopolitan and not nationalist ideals. [/quote]
A lot of those “cosmopolitans” suddenly became nationalists. People rallied around the flag, as American flags suddenly were flying everywhere in NYC for many months after 9/11. People wanted to strike back, and it wasn’t the world military that was going to retaliate, it was the American military. That’s why Bush had such an easy time getting a green light for Iraq less than 2 years later, his administration took advantage of that big uptick in nationalistic fervor, and all of the major media outlets, including a lot of normally left wing ones were suddenly caught up in the drum beat of war. So did those “cosmopolitans” suddenly stop being “cosmopolitans” when they got caught up in the nationalistic fervor and started wearing American flags on their clothing and started waving American flags in the air?
[quote]
Anyways, the nat/cos and rel/ske stats seem to be less about motivating the people opresst by the Hegemony to rebel, but more about having the join the MC’s rebellion. [/quote]
I disagree on this point. I think that many helots are up against a hard enough wall that anything that will give them the slightest bit of hope will be sufficient to motivate them. The merchants, the yeoman, and most of all the nobility, have far more to lose however, and will need motivating to risk their lives and the lives of their families on the chance that the rebellion might succeed. Cosmopolitanism isn’t going to convince them to risk their lives for you, I’m sorry.
I don’t have an issue with what you’ve just said here, but neither do I see nationalism and cosmopolitan as mutually exclusive. It really depends on the strain of nationalism and the strain of cosmopolitanism.
Pan-nationalism actually makes a lot more sense as a motivator than cosmopolitanism since Karagond’s language and culture have had long enough to take root to create a shared sense of identity among a big chunk of the populace across the territory. I’m reminded of the way that Egyptians, Syrians, Iraqi’s and most other middle-eastern nations have been so thoroughly Arabized that they now all share that same strong sense of Arab pan-nationalism.
Right but they also have enough unique national identity to make past efforts at pan-arabism a overall failure. Doesn’t have to go that way for this game though. If Nasser had a bit more astute a politician or been more “cosmopolitan” an Arabia that spans all of the Middle East and parts of North Africa might exist today.
I’m just saying while the term in its modern context probably isn’t the best representation in its original Greek context it was pan-Greek nationalism. So in this context while it might confuse some readers I think it overall sounds better than “pan-Koine speaking nationalism” as a stat title.
One of the interesting things about the Arab example is that it demonstrates the ability to be both an Egyptian nationalist and a Pan-Arab nationalist at the same time, although if you’re overly chauvinistic in your Egyptian nationalism you could alienate Pan-Arab nationalists in other Arab nations.
I think the value of being cosmopolitan is caring enough not to set off cultural minefields, assuming you’re sufficiently familiar with the culture in question. If you aren’t sufficiently familiar with a particular culture you won’t know where those minefields are however, and it won’t matter how cosmopolitan you are, as you just don’t know enough about that particular culture to avoid potentially disastrous misunderstandings. So I think “cosmopolitanism” is a useful trait for leadership of a heterogeneous group, but insufficient as a motivator for people to fight and die.
I have to agree with you. Cosmopolitanism is unlikely to get active support out of the people who do the dying (though, consider that it might get some intellectuals on your side - “intellectual” possibly including rogue Theurges, as well as certain varieties of noble) - to the extent that it does, it’s because it involves making a conscious effort to welcome everyone. Fortunately, it has other uses, and you have other arguments in your quiver to get various groups on your side, both stat-based and not.
However, for one reason, I disagree that Shayardene nationalism isn’t necessarily chauvinistic, at least in appearance and practice. Once your rebellion gets out of the outlaws-and-helots phase and actually starts to threaten the Hegemony, you’re going to have to start deciding exactly what you want to replace the Hegemony with, and a restored Shayardene Kingdom is not going to have too much appeal outside of Shayard. Meanwhile, preaching for a koinon is not going to impress the guys who want a Laconnier on the throne of a “free Shayard.”
How about a restored Shayard that in order to ensure it is never defeated again leads a koinon? although it wouldn’t be referred to as a “koinon” in meetings consisting purely of Shayardene nationalists. Think NATO that extends into the realm of governance, with Shayard taking on America’s role, as Shayard is the largest, and most powerful of the pre-Hegemonic states.
I’m reminded of how American nationalists became convinced by two World Wars that they couldn’t afford to ignore Europe and became internationalist as a result. It can be even more poignantly argued that Shayardene nationalists can’t afford to ignore their neighbors if they want to prevent Shayard from being conquered all over again. Shayard doesn’t have two large oceans serving as protective barriers. Furthermore, because Shayard is far closer to the other occupied territories than America is to Europe, it makes sense for it to be part of not just a military alliance, but also a political and economic union that is designed from the start to underpin Shayard’s security, the elder brother in a band of brothers if you will. I thus believe that the majority of Shayardene nationalists can be brought on board to the idea of a Shayard-lead union. It certainly is possible to thread the needle, especially when none of the formerly occupied states will have a functioning national government and you have a murderous greatly feared common enemy that will butcher you all if it isn’t smashed. After the Hegemony is smashed, you’ll have to deal with secessionists either way, regardless of how cosmopolitan you are, and that’s where I’d be inclined to apply partitioning to maintain unity, ironic as that idea may be. The Church will also be extremely helpful in reducing the amount of support secessionists receive from the populace.
@Havenstone Will the later chapters allow for a MC who isn’t particularly interested in expanding his rule beyond Shayard’s borders?
If my MC makes it that far, then I suspect he’d be far more interested in stabilising his rule within Shayard than committing his fledgling army to a risky and potentially catastrophic invasion of another province.
The way I’m looking at it, after a Shayardene exit (“Shexit”), the Karagonds will presumably still need our grain to feed their cities and, if they can’t reconquer the province, they’ll need to reach a trade agreement to buy it. After all, this is essentially what happened after the American Revolution.
If I’ve understood you correctly, it sounds as though Shayard has an agricultural surplus and Karagond forms the most natural market. If the Karagonds can’t accept that and keep trying to invade then we’ll fight then off and wait until starvation and civic unrest bring them to the negotiating table.
If the other provinces want to rebel then, well, good luck to them.
I think your option should be attemptable, but I see two issues with it’s potential success:
Karagond alone with its secrets of blood theurgy will be more than a match for a newly independent Shayard if some way to equalize that imbalance isn’t found.
Even without blood magic, Karagond plus the other occupied states together could crush newly independent Shayard if they were willing to engage in a scorched earth campaign, and Karagond -is- brutal enough to put entire cities to the sword (or throw them into a harrower) in order to win.
If those two issues aren’t decisively dealt with, I fear it’s only a matter of time before a newly independent Shayard is conquered yet again.
If the rebellion spreads to a point where the MC has liberated Shayard then it seems likely that they’ve already faced theurgy on the battlefield and found an effective counter. (Perhaps by finding their own magical support).
If I remember correctly, @Havenstone has told us that the Karagond Empire is already a declining power, which is what gives the MC’s rebellion a chance to succeed in the first place.
If their initial attempts to reconquer Shayard are unsuccessful then pulling resources away from their other provinces is a risky strategy, because it risks new rebellions breaking out there too. And if the military resources to reconquer Shayard aren’t there (or civic unrest in Karagond brought about by grain shortages presents a more immediate threat to their rule) then no amount of ruthlessness is going to bridge the gap.
The Roman and Byzantine empires were amply ruthless, but they were both forced to come to accommodations with breakaway provinces once they’d passed their prime.
I’m not saying that the Karagonds would give up easily, just that their practical circumstances might eventually force them to bite the bullet and accept an independent Shayard.
If I were on the Thaumatarch’s Council and we were speaking freely, I’d point out that in any situation where the Thaumatarchy had to accept an independent Shayard, it would be time to grab as much blood and portable wealth as possible and see about buying retirement homes in Halassur or the Abhuman Federation. If the Hegemony retrenches and cedes valuable helotry when they’re already spending unsustainable amounts of blood, they just collapse that much faster.
How about clever partitioning?
You, yourself said it best, we want our governor underlings to compete for our favour, not get it in their heads that they could be the leaders of independent nation-states.
There simply won’t be one Shayard in my plans, there will be at least six of them, indeed the only region deliberately set-up to be functional as an independent nation would be the new capital province based around Avezia and the (future) canal-zone. All the other ones would be set up so as the make independence a not particularly attractive proposition.
There are already fault-lines in the nationalism of the existing provinces that we could exploit for this and regions like Karagond proper and the Reach will simply be split-up without any input from them at all.
Good luck with that, but even if the narrative of Shayardene nationalism wasn’t quite so unfavourable to my character’s interests I’d still need Erezza too, both to gain access to the mineral resources needed for eventual industrialisation and to gain Avezia as the new capital and have the potential for a future great canal.
As it stands there’s no way he is going to “serve” a restored Shayardene monarchy as a slave and blood-cattle as that would be the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.
I also agree with @P_Tigras that leaving Karagond proper free and independent is probably too great a danger to us as, it’s advantages in blood magic aside, it is the only region that is industrialised to any significant degree and it would simply take too long for us to catch up.
Then again my main aim is to create a new order across all of the territory of the former Hegemony as all the regions have something I find attractive. Nyral has the best soldiers and skepticism, Karagond itself has the Industry, Wiendry most likely has lumber and some additional mineral resources, Shayard, as we already know, has both most of the fertile and the most fertile land.
Independent Shayard would have limited potential compared to all of that. Besides I’m not gonna have the new capital be in a noble stronghold like Shayard City.
Economically speaking, breaking up the Hegemony into independent states, without some greater union, or Koinon. would only worsen the economic prospects of all the successor states as the current Hegemony, much like the old Austro-Hungarian Empire seems to be set up as one economic unit with autarkic characteristics. All the parts are dependent on one another and even the merchants have little experience in trading and negotiating between independent states as trade with both the abhumans and Hallassur seems to be both marginal and primarily conducted by Hallasurq and Abhuman merchants to begin with.
Of course, my character also has very little faith in a Koinon of the kind Horion envisages, as he perceives it as being little more than a toy for a lucky few nobles and some yeoman bureaucrats.
Are you that old yourself???