Choice of Rebels: Stormwright (XoR2 WIP)

[Havenstone]

@Dreamer44

What is today my country faced decades and decades of many territories, groups and classes fighting each other over how to organize themselves, over which lands and under which rule. If you could call it a Civil War, it lasted at least 30 years, and its causes kept making trouble for a few decades more.

I clearly need to read more about the aftermath of Latin America’s independence wars, because my current understanding of it is really superficial, and it sounds both fascinating and like a rich source of Games 4-5 material. Thanks!

[Dreamer44]

To give you an example: the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata (how the colonial regions that would become Argentina called themselves back then) and the Empire of Brasil (yes, Brasil was a monarchy until the end of the 19th century, something else that set the portuguese ex-colony apart from the spanish ones) went to war over the territory east of the Rio de la Plata (the River of Silver) in the 1820s. After a few years, they signed peace and the territory became its own nation/state: the country of Uruguay.

[Someguy]

@Havenstone

Bret Devereaux

Speaking of Devereaux have you had a chance to listen to this podcast (Stream Interview: The Roman Republic at War with Dr. Bret Devereaux by The Hellenistic Age Podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud) he was on. His discussion of different methods of mobilizing manpower are really stimulating, especially for my world building. Gives me lots of ideas about possible methods of military organization during games 4-5.

[11110]

@Havenstone

@11110

My question is precisely when you say you haven’t experienced liberalism, aren’t you contradicting what you present as the political reality of empire?

Fair question! But I don’t think the existence of a empire-wide merchants’ guild gets us all that close to political liberalism or democracy – plenty of empires have had extensive commercial networks and growing urban populations without thereby spawning a “bourgeois” class that pushed for broad-based political representation.

The bourgeois revolutions that started around the 17th century in Europe were made possible by a much longer period in which urban and mercantile liberties and autonomy had been expanding thanks to the fragmentation of political authority and the growth of trade. The merchants of the Karagond Hegemony are in a position closer to what I understand was the case with the merchant classes of Ming China: prosperous, powerful, and active, presiding over a growing commercial sector, but without a history of standing outside the power of the state or building up civic associations as a way of asserting power against the state.

Though I may not be conveying it well (or at all!) in this conversation, you and I actually share a suspicion of any claim that history always plays out one way, with a single natural course of development that can be recognized in any cultural context – e.g. the classic Marxian idea of the primitive-slave-feudal-capitalist-socialist stages of economic development, or the neoliberal/Whig idea that human history naturally progresses toward free markets and democracy, driven by the universal human desire for freedom and profit. I don’t buy any of that. I believe in contingency; I believe that the deep diversity of human goals and desires plays out in radically different ways in different places and times. I loved Graeber and Wengrow’s book most for the exhilarating suggestion that human governance institutions can be wildly different from the narrow range of options we perceive today, that we’re not necessarily locked into tinkering with states and markets as the solution to our problems.

At the same time, I don’t want to altogether reject the idea of transcultural historical patterns – that there are some ways certain practices and institutions tend to lead, regardless of where they crop up. Dictators given unchecked power tend not to be benevolent. Normal states tend to oppress, unless great effort is put into building counter-oppressive institutions into them. We agree on the former but not the latter; fair enough.

When I look at how to apply cases like early modern Europe and Ming-era China to the gameworld, my dislike of excessively prescriptive historical schemes can cut both ways. I don’t want to say that the Ming merchant classes couldn’t possibly have asserted themselves against the state – that’s too path-dependent on one side. On the other hand, I don’t want to say that just because my gameworld’s oppressive empire has a substantial merchant class, it’s therefore well on its way to democracy; not every bourgeoisie takes the path toward liberalism and capitalism, as we know from our world, including the Ming and Qing.

Most importantly, I think you and I are writing from different perspectives on how much difference “fewer role models” makes – although I would describe it even more starkly than that, as “fewer technologies of control/liberation have been discovered/invented at this point.” The Meiji modernization (sociopolitical as well as technological) couldn’t have happened in the 16th century for the same fundamental reason that Rome couldn’t have had an industrial revolution – there were a bunch of inventions that needed to happen first. The fact that they were inventions of institutions and concepts rather than physical technologies of production doesn’t make it any easier for a society to conjure them up at will.

I think a biopower perspective could be helpful here. One of the many things a novice like me can find odd when first running into Foucault’s work is the way he talks about ideas, worldviews, and cultural practices as technologies–technologies of self-shaping, body-shaping, making certain institutions and practices possible in the modern era that would have been impossible in earlier eras. He’d I think be the first to raise a skeptical eyebrow if you tried to write a medieval kingdom that had modern biopolitics, and would want to know the genealogy that had made such an oddity possible.

@11110

Would you understand if I told you that my thoughts are influenced by world systems theory and biopower theory, just as your thoughts are influenced by Marxism?

Well, I’d start by confessing to mild surprise, since you seem a lot more optimistic about the liberating potential of democratic institutions than literally anyone else I’ve run into who’s coming out of either of those paradigms. Are there writers/thinkers you’d recommend within those traditions who really grapple with what it means to wield state power in liberating ways, when set against the backdrop of challenges as formidable as global core-periphery exploitation, or centuries of our minds being taken over by technologies aimed at the control of bodies?

I was rather surprised that you interpreted my views on democracy as optimistic. I did not intend to disagree with the view that building democracy is an extremely difficult undertaking and that most countries fail. I am also surprised that my views were perceived as denying state oppression. I simply wanted to argue that state repression exists as part of a deeper, more complex problem. In other words, rather than overemphasizing only state repression as it exists as part of a global system, we need to dismantle more subtle and widespread systems of repression. (In other words, state oppression is an effect, not a cause. I also think that the word “liberation’’ was inappropriate. Perhaps it should have been expressed as “carrot and stick.‘’)

On a different note, what do you think about the invention and progress of social systems? (For example, regarding the process of linking representative systems and democracy, which were originally thought to be contradictory.) There is a great deal of historical ambiguity and individual differences in opinion regarding these points. Perhaps our difference in opinion is due to a fundamental difference of opinion on that point.

By the way, I thought a comparison with the Meiji Restoration would be useful, so I created a table that summarizes the advantages, similarities, and disadvantages of the Empire in terms of democratization when comparing the Edo Shogunate and the Empire.

• Advantages

The Empire has some experience with parliaments. The Edo shogunate did not even have the equivalent of the French Estates General or the Association of Notables at either the central or local level.

-same point

Although there are bourgeois people in both the empire and the Edo shogunate, they are under extensive state control, and foreign trade is extremely restricted.

Both the Empire and the Edo Shogunate were feudal systems in which local governance was left to the aristocrats.

-Disadvantages

The lack of role models in the Empire. This is the point where you and I disagree the most about what role this plays.

If there is anything you would like to add to this table, please feel free to let me know.

Also, at the risk of repeating myself, what specific technologies does the Empire lack? It is hard for me to believe that a country that not only has a bourgeoisie, but also has the concepts of aristocratic freedom, parliament, and elections, could not even achieve 18th-century democracy.

I would also like to point out that you idealize 18th century democracy and state capacity in a different way than I do, and assume that they are at a high level.

They had high ideals, but in reality they lacked many of the things we take for granted today, and were in a state of great corruption and chaos.
Taking this into account, it is hard to believe that the Empire could not reach the level of democracy of the 18th century.

[roodcross]

@11110

Taking this into account, it is hard to believe that the Empire could not reach the level of democracy of the 18th century.

Yeah, Britain actually had an extremely restricted franchise in the 18th century. Some boroughs had fewer than a dozen electors. A representative system with really high property qualifications seems like it would be very feasible for the setting to produce.

[idonotlikeusernames]

Meh, if there must be a qualification my mc would be more in favour of a literacy test and if it is really necessary a small poll tax to finance the election but not huge property requirements and of course most likely combined with political tutelage.
This is also one way the Hegemony seems to be different as the big property owners are still the nobles, not merchant class due to most land in the Hegemony not being freely tradeable and passed down on a strict dynastic basis. One of the systems my mc wishes to smash in favour of more small-scale farmers. The so-called “noble” slave lords do not need to be further empowered as they are an inherently anti-revolutionary class that must be done away with.

[roodcross]

I think 54% of the population being chattel slaves and the vast majority of them being illiterate should be added to the list of disadvantages the post Hegemonic order faces for building democratic institutions.

[11110]

There’s a reason I didn’t add that as a disadvantage to the Empire. This is because there are various theories about the hierarchical structure and literacy rate of the Edo shogunate due to the lack of statistics common in pre-modern times, so it was not possible to conclude that the Empire was necessarily at a disadvantage.

[Vertigo]

One comment that I had while I was reading the demo is that it feels like this entry of XoR is a bit more comfortable upping the ‘weirdness’ factor of the setting. It’s good! I like it! You can definitely feel a bit of the Kyle Marquis influence in the book.

[mshan95032]

@Havenstone

It will totally be possible to try to focus suspicion of elites on one category of elite rather than spreading it wholesale.

Building upon our past discussions on K, I’d now like to shift the topic from ‘reforming’/‘controlling’ K to giving K new perspective/focus.

Can K’s hatred towards aristos be partially mitigated by a charismatic, hard nationalist aristo MC? (who paints a past narrative, in which the native Shayardene aristos had little to no power to deal with a bad hand/rigged game by “our foreign, Karagond occupiers”, up until MC’s rebellion rose up to empower all Shayardenes, both lowborn and highborn, to their rightful historical place as “it’s our turn now” imperialists)

I was thinking that G2-G5 K, after much discussion/persuasion/inspiration from bigoted Homelander MC orator, could find new purpose in focusing their wrath towards “the shifty-eyed foreign aristos (and other foreign elites) who would dare undermine Shayard’s international influence, dare steal Shayardene soil, and dare to abduct/enslave Shayardene citizens for helotry.” (while forming an uneasy truce/coexistence with the surviving Shayardene aristo NPCs under the uniting banner of MC’s imperialistic, bigoted nationalism).

@Havenstone

Halassur is a culture in transition and may well be vulnerable to people looking away from the state religion…but the last place they would look for an alternative is some version of the state religion of the genocidal invader.

And what of Halassur’s female magi, who have been institutionalized into serving as the lapdogs of their patriarch masters/slavers? I don’t recall anything about Xthonism specifically discriminating against women (unless we’re counting the part where gay/lesbian helots are forced to act against their true orientation), so perhaps MC could reasonably guarantee “Xthonic priesthood sanctuary” protection (from being condemned to helotry) to some of Halassur’s most disillusioned (and probably elite) female magi?

@Havenstone

Jev mentions it at one point: “They brought me south to Yludud, the main port in these parts of the Abhuman lands.” It’s on the east coast of the desert; I haven’t drawn it on any of the maps I’ve shared yet.

How amenable are the Seracca towards the idea of a post-Hegemony, pirate/merchant-led federation, with Yludud as its capital?
Or would Grand Shayard/Corlune be more desirable choices for a capital?

@Havenstone

To tie in all of Wiendrj, you’d I think need to match the Thaumatarchy’s levels of Theurgic oppressiveness

Okay, then. New question: if MC settled for only combining southern Wiendrj with Archonty Shayard, could less forceful means be employed to encourage southern Wiendrj to linger as Shayard’s vassal, protectorate, and/or partner? (while settling for separate, economic-only arrangements (and non-aggression pacts) with the dozens of ex-upper Wiendrj splinter states)

@Havenstone

the newly magi-ruled Free City of Tsagir (or a Nyrish urban confederation if you can keep one alive post-collapse)

Maybe I’m just slower on the uptake (than usual), but I’d like quick confirmation that the “Free City of Tsagir” (and your described “Nyrish urban confederation”) are the exact same faction in your past quote (or a gentle correction telling me that they’re separate).

@Havenstone

unless what you manage to set up is an all-conquering Theurgic dominance machine focused on reestablishing the Thaumatarchy within more or less its G3 boundaries.

Or co-opt just enough of the ‘old guard’ Theurges of the Hegemony’s already existing ‘all-conquering Theurgic dominance machine’ to prop up and maintain MC’s new regime

@Havenstone

There’s no G4 scenario where she’s “working with you to depose Kleitos.”

And how much compromise can there be between a irredentist/imperialist Homelander MC and Phaedra in our earlier, ongoing discussed G5 “two imperial blocs coexist/cooperate” scenario?

Any independent post-Hegemony states (including MC’s envisioned restored Shayard) will most likely black marks on Phaedra’s “perceived strength at keeping the Hegenony together” record, right?

Alternatively, if Phaedra marries de Syrnon male MC to secure a grain deal (and Shayardene mercenary support to aid the Erezzan defense against Halassur) for her Rump Hegemony, then could Phaedra’s remaining loyal elites/subjects grudgingly accept the loss of day-to-day political control over Shayard as a reasonable tradeoff?

And if MC were to gain exclusive access to ALL (or most) of Karagon’s Theurgic secrets (as part of Shayard’s price for protecting Phaedra’s Rump Hegemony) and then leverage said secrets to uplift/restore Shayard to its past status as a formidable imperialist superpower (and beyond), then perhaps MC’s Homelander supporter base turn a blind eye to MC “metaphorically and literally getting in bed with Shayard’s former colonial occupier”?

Perhaps a public gesture from Phaedra (that she’s abandoned her blasphemous Karagond Codex to embrace the ‘truly Angelic’ Shayardene Codex) might be helpful here? (or perhaps it wouldn’t be helpful, since it might cost Phaedra too much political capital with her remaining Hegemony loyalists)

@Havenstone

The power to draw a line in the sand to prevent further Hegemonic Ward expansion and protect its coastline from armed or Theurgic incursions might do more to move Halassur toward a cold war standoff with you than any attempt to unleash intolerable damage.

Is MC is sympathetic/allied/friendly towards Erezza, how hard it would it be for CHA-specializing MC to convince Erezza that sharing Ward knowledge with Halassur in good faith is in Erezza’s best interests? (For the plausible hope of a sustainable Cold War standoff that can spare the lives of Erezzan soldiers and limit tensions to empty saber-rattling)

@Havenstone

local-level institutions for participatory decision-making (like moots in the Rim and Westriding, or the assemblies of the Nyrnakan Republic)

Aside from Shayard and Nyryal being separated (borders-wise) by the other three provinces (Wiendrj, Karagon, and Erezza), and Shayard’s Xthonism clashing with Nereish skepticism, what are the other logistical pros/cons of a post-Hegemonic state (limited to a union of archonty Shayard plus archonty Nyryal)?

Is a sustainable representative assembly-led administration (the Grand Moot/Apella) one of those pros?

And in the grand scheme of things, could ‘archonty Shayard plus archonty Nyryal’ survive having its two main provinces not being contiguous with each other? (or would a decision inevitably have to be made to annex territory from Wiendrj, Karagon, or Erezza to create a ‘bridge’ that finally makes Shayard and Nyryal contiguous with each other)

@Havenstone

100% the former. That’s going to be a major Aekos G3 plotline.

And will killing the “Harza’s tormentor” Ennearch have any significant bearing on MC’s potentially budding relationship with Phaedra?

I don’t know if Phaedra has the unanimous support of the Ennearchs behind her claim as heiress (and in fact, I suspect that a dissenting/ambitious Ennearch will make their own third party bid for the Thaumatarchy throne, thus leading one of G5’s Big Three post-Hegemony factions).

For the sake of balancing between my MC’s hypothetical “woo the mage princess” agenda and “win over Nereish allies” diplomatic goal, I sincerely hope that Harza and Phaedra both share a common goal of wanting the same Ennearch dead/punished.

@Havenstone

Because it’s been part of the royal standard of the de Syrnons since way back when Oster tried to make them into a seafaring people, it’s more a Shayardene symbol…but you could do worse, as far as mutuality goes.

I’m willing to improvise, adapt, and compromise accordingly (to get that extra “diplomatic relationship bonus,” once the time comes to empire-build and negotiate).

What are the preferred animals/symbols of Nyryal’s and Erezza’s seafarers? (both the legitimate naval officers/sailors and the outlaw pirates, both of whom that de Syrnon MC is interested in recruiting for his navy and privateer department)

My brainstorming plan is to imagine a maritime imperial symbol which combines the de Syrnon’s Great-Eel with the Nereish/Erezzan seafarer symbols.

@comradelenin

By taking Halassurq territory, I strike the hardest blow against our arch enemy since Hera herself.

Instead of keeping the new territory (which will be infested with resentful, child-killing insurgents), why not quickly use the captured Halassurq territory as a bargaining chip to buy peace?

@random-dude-78

B) a nationalist Shayardene empire over all of the former Hegemony,
C) a great Shayard-led Koinon (League) of nations formerly in Karagon’s thrall,

My de Syrnon MCs (or at least one/some of them) aims to create a monarchical koinon that combines B and C. (creating a new “High King/Queen of the Alliance” tradition that will entrench/legitimize executive power for Shayard’s de Syrnon royal family for generations to come, and then keep the other provinces loyal to said throne by granting them marriage alliances to the de Syrnon monarchs and cadet branch princes/princesses throughout the generations)

Each generation’s de Syrnon monarch will be kept accountable to a (very hard to amend) constitution, and can be impeached by a motion filed by a supermajority of the koinon’s aristo/priest (or aristo/merchant)-dominated apella (if they find sufficient evidence to deem the monarch’s behavior unconstitutional).

If the monarch is impeached/deposed, an apella-elected regent will then rule in the monarch’s stead until the next heir is of age to take the throne.

Anyways, the goal here is to transform the Laconnier’s “bigoted hard nationalist” monarchist vision into a more palatable medieval/feudal dream that can rally both soft nationalists AND cosmopolitans (aka mirroring the current Leaguer ideology) to unite behind a monarchist-led ‘Hegemony Lite.’ (with built-in anti-tyranny safeguards)

@Havenstone

(Hera is much hated) among Laconniers for her murder of Shayard’s own imperial dream

(overlapping with my earlier mentioned topic about a Nationalist MC-Phaedra teamup)
And can Phaedra (despite being part of Hera’s dynasty) at least be tolerated by the Laconniers, if her knowledge/alliance is what enables Shayard to regain its “rightful status as formidable imperialists”?

And per what we earlier discussed of the Laconniers on the original Uprisings forum, they already have an established pattern of “wanting to have their cake and eat it too,” so what’s one more compromise at this point? (seeking Shayardene imperial dominance/independence, while ironically using the cooperation/service of a co-opted foreign imperial heiress to achieve that dream)

@Havenstone

It is however a pretty good historical analogy for what I take your gameworld federation ambitions to be – conquer your neighbors but immediately declare them friends, give them a decent share in the benefits of the empire, allow them autonomy within a few hard limits, and trust that if they get stroppy in future, you’ll be able to accommodate them by granting a slightly better deal within the federation, rather than outright independence. Rome shows how a strategy like that can be massively rewarding.

Is this Roman-inspired imperialistic strategy something that the Leaguers could easily support, or would they prefer soft power/non-military approaches instead?

@Dreamer44

When talking about the fall of the Hegemony and the formation of several factions afterwards, I can’t help but to think of Latin America’s Independence Wars. More specifically, the case of my country, Argentina.

Random questions that come to mind: How optimistic do you feel about the prospect of Gran Colombia eventually reforming in our modern era? And would you even want Gran Colombia to return at all, or do you prefer the current South American borders/political status quo as is?

[Havenstone]

@11110

The Empire has some experience with parliaments.

I’m afraid this is overstating the case. There is no institution resembling the Estates General or Assembly of Notables in the Hegemony or its historical memory/world experience. Village-level participatory decision-making (the moot) and a centuries-old memory of city-state direct democracy (the apellae of Chaton and Stegnos) isn’t nothing, but it’s a long way from anything deserving the label of “parliament.”

Here are some of the basic technologies of governance that underpinned the normal (not idealized!) performance of 18c-19c parliamentary democracy, and which the Meiji Emperor could see at work in other experienced, high-functioning parliamentary states of his era, but which Karagon/Shayard simply doesn’t have anywhere on its present-day horizon:

• Formal representation of different social classes in top-level governance. (The Hegemony is a Theurgic monopoly at the highest levels, with landholding aristocrats monopolizing the next level down; there’s no history of formal inclusion of town-dwellers or mercantile interests, or of a clergy autonomous from and clashing with the state, as there was in the societies where the first parliamentary experiments cropped up).
• An national-level representative council (even appointed, let alone elected) as an institution to represent those different social classes. The tribal assembly of the Nyrnakan Republic was something like a more gender-egalitarian loya jirga, which while a wellspring of potential democratic practice is also a long way from a 17c parliament.
• Laws made by a deliberative council or assembly, rather than by specialist state-affiliated clerics/philosophers (as in shari’a schools or imperial China).
• A national level budget (in any level of detail beyond extremely broad strokes). The Hegemony does have a military budget, which is where modern state finance started. But it entirely lacks:
• The idea that any part of state expenditure should be subject to review and approval by the social classes who are taxed to fund it, and thus the idea of an institution like parliament to facilitate that approval. This wasn’t even present in all early modern European states, and none of them could directly fuel state reprisals from rebel blood (the gameworld’s special boon to authoritarians). State accountability, in our world, was a slowly and reluctantly accepted side effect of monarchs in a high-conflict, fragmented bit of the globe not being able to fund military endeavors from (a) their own demesne or (b) repressive taxation and repeated debt-defaulting alone. A Thaumatarchy can get a lot further down road (b) than any Hapsburg ever managed.
• Political parties, a “loyal opposition,” and in general the idea that social order can result from letting social conflict and contestation play out within a particular political game, rather than by the suppression of conflicts as disloyalty.
• Formal, public elections to state institutions. The Thaumatarchy doesn’t have a single elective office, not even with an electorate limited of the wealthy and propertied, let alone mass enfranchisement.
• A cabinet and prime minister that govern without the active engagement and approval of the national sovereign (and whose laws/policies can thus be changed without discrediting the decisions of that sovereign)

So no, the gameworld does not have the concepts of elected representation or parliament, and its concepts of “aristocratic freedoms” are those of a colonized local elite wistful for the autonomy they lost to Karagon. Those concepts could lead to a Magna Carta moment, but haven’t yet; and again, that would still leave us a long way from the 18c. There are political thinkers in the gameworld who would agree in theory with Cicero that an optimally stable government would incorporate a bit of monarchy, a bit of aristocracy, and a bit of democracy – but they don’t benefit from the practical legacy of a few centuries of experiments in combining those forms.

Feel free to come back at me where you think I’ve written something inconsistent with any of this, or just depicted the gameworld in a way that makes this seem implausible. I’m open to a rethink, but at present I reckon it would be an implausible quantum leap for an MC to even conceive of all the basics of 18c parliamentary democracy; let alone implement them all; let alone implement them all over a large area.

@Vertigo

One comment that I had while I was reading the demo is that it feels like this entry of XoR is a bit more comfortable upping the ‘weirdness’ factor of the setting. It’s good! I like it! You can definitely feel a bit of the Kyle Marquis influence in the book.

Glad you liked it, and comparison to Kyle is always a good thing.

@mshan95032

Can K’s hatred towards aristos be partially mitigated by a charismatic, hard nationalist aristo MC?

I’ve just been reading a somewhat self-critical, but still sympathetic, analysis of Maoist revolutions. The authors note that for Lenin and Mao, one of the fundamental features of revolutionary war was absolute enmity. Peace was impossible while the enemy still existed as a class; victory or surrender were the only possiblities. Class enmity was inescapable, and any attempt to make common cause with an enemy could only end in a prolonging of exploitation and oppression.

We’ll see how K develops as a character in the late game; but for now, I’ll just say that s/he would have been nodding right along with that bit of the book, and it’s hard for me to imagine the MC changing that.

@mshan95032

And what of Halassur’s female magi, who have been institutionalized into serving as the lapdogs of their patriarch masters/slavers?

Cerlota would approve of that framing. Don’t count on that being how the magi see the situation.

@mshan95032

How amenable are the Seracca towards the idea of a post-Hegemony, pirate/merchant-led federation, with Yludud as its capital?

Not gonna happen. Pirate-led and merchant-led wouldn’t cut it, not even in Yludud.

@mshan95032

New question: if MC settled for only combining southern Wiendrj with Archonty Shayard, could less forceful means be employed to encourage southern Wiendrj to linger as Shayard’s vassal, protectorate, and/or partner?

Potentially, though I don’t think vassal or protectorate would cut it.

The Free City of Tsagir is the only Nyrish city that stays free if the nomads are the dominant Nyrish faction post-collapse. If you facilitate a different balance of power up north, one way or another, there could be a wider confederation of cities that are more than half-empty tributaries of the magic Mongols. (The nomads would then be much less of a threat on the Rump Thaumatarchy’s northern marches.)

@mshan95032

And how much compromise can there be between a irredentist/imperialist Homelander MC and Phaedra in our earlier, ongoing discussed G5 “two imperial blocs coexist/cooperate” scenario?

Any rump Thaumatarchic faction – and without your intervention, the world will stabilize around two big ones, jointly comprising about 70% of the continent’s remaining Theurgic capacity – would need assured access to Shayardene grain to feed its population. The natural way to ensure that would be annexing, at a minimum, the Westriding, Coast, and/or Reach. An MC on good terms with Phaedra might be able to negotiate some other deal, but it won’t be easy – they’d rather have you in a suzerainty relationship than one where you retain the power to hold their food supply hostage.

@mshan95032

perhaps MC’s Homelander supporter base turn a blind eye to MC “metaphorically and literally getting in bed with Shayard’s former colonial occupier”?

If you’re in bed with Phaedra, you won’t have much of a Homelander supporter base, though you might have their grudging tolerance if you’re (a) strong and repressive enough, and (b) not actually giving away territory. Remember, the Laconniers don’t see their compromises as compromises; they fight hard to believe that they really have rediscovered the truths of Shayardene identity. Telling them “what’s one more compromise?” would be the fast road to losing their loyalty altogether.

And while Phaedra is not on best terms with all the Ennearchs, nor would she be supportive of you assassinating any of them. It would/will put a damper on your relationship.

@mshan95032

how hard it would it be for CHA-specializing MC to convince Erezza that sharing Ward knowledge with Halassur in good faith is in Erezza’s best interests?

Depends on the political layout, and how convinced the Erezziano factions are that the blood cost of their Wards will be shared widely. If they believe that their Wards will stay up, they might be willing to give Halassur the ability to make its own – but if there’s any doubt, they’d be as horrified as @idonotlikeusernames at the prospect of the strategic balance of the last three centuries being reversed.

@mshan95032

a union of archonty Shayard plus archonty Nyryal

Not sure that’s going to be an option – I think to hold both you’d need Wiendish and/or Karagond territory under your control too. Non-contiguous territories without even a sea connection aren’t going to work in a world where inter-territorial war is a constant reality.

Those are all the questions I think I’m in a position to answer right now. Back to the writing!

[11110]

@Havenstone

@11110

The Empire has some experience with parliaments.

I’m afraid this is overstating the case. There is no institution resembling the Estates General or Assembly of Notables in the Hegemony or its historical memory/world experience. Village-level participatory decision-making (the moot) and a centuries-old memory of city-state direct democracy (the apellae of Chaton and Stegnos) isn’t nothing, but it’s a long way from anything deserving the label of “parliament.”

Here are some of the basic technologies of governance that underpinned the normal (not idealized!) performance of 18c-19c parliamentary democracy, and which the Meiji Emperor could see at work in other experienced, high-functioning parliamentary states of his era, but which Karagon/Shayard simply doesn’t have anywhere on the horizon:

• Formal representation of different social classes in top-level governance. (The Hegemony is a Theurgic monopoly at the highest levels, with landholding aristocrats monopolizing the next level down; there’s no history of formal inclusion of town-dwellers or mercantile interests, or of a clergy autonomous from and clashing with the state, as there was in the societies where the first parliamentary experiments cropped up).
• An national-level representative council (even appointed, let alone elected) as an institution to represent those different social classes. The tribal assembly of the Nyrnakan Republic was something like a more gender-egalitarian loya jirga, which while a wellspring of potential democratic practice is also a long way from a 17c parliament.
• Laws made by a deliberative council or assembly, rather than by specialist state-affiliated clerics/philosophers (as in shari’a schools or imperial China).
• A national level budget (in any level of detail beyond extremely broad strokes). The Hegemony does have a military budget, which is where modern state finance started. But it entirely lacks:
• The idea that any part of state expenditure should be subject to review and approval by the social classes who are taxed to fund it, and thus the idea of an institution like parliament to facilitate that approval. This wasn’t even present in all early modern European states, and none of them could directly fuel state reprisals from rebel blood (the gameworld’s special boon to authoritarians). State accountability, in our world, was a slowly and reluctantly accepted side effect of monarchs in a high-conflict, fragmented bit of the globe not being able to fund military endeavors from (a) their own demesne or (b) repressive taxation alone. A Thaumatarchy can get a lot further down road (b) than even the Hapsburgs ever managed.
• Political parties, a “loyal opposition,” and in general the idea that social order can result from letting social conflict and contestation play out within a particular political game, rather than by the suppression of conflicts as disloyalty.
• Formal, public elections to state institutions. The Thaumatarchy doesn’t have a single elective office, not even with an electorate limited of the wealthy and propertied, let alone mass enfranchisement.
• A cabinet and prime minister that govern without the active engagement and approval of the national sovereign (and whose laws/policies can thus be changed without discrediting the decisions of that sovereign)

So no, the gameworld does not have the concepts of elected representation or parliament, and its concepts of “aristocratic freedoms” are those of a colonized local elite wistful for the autonomy they lost to Karagon. Those concepts could lead to a Magna Carta moment, but haven’t yet; and again, that would still leave us a long way from the 18c. There are political thinkers in the gameworld who would agree in theory with Cicero that an optimally stable government would incorporate a bit of monarchy, a bit of aristocracy, and a bit of democracy – but they don’t benefit from the practical legacy of a few centuries of experiments in combining those forms.

Feel free to come back at me where you think I’ve written something inconsistent with any of this, or just depicted the gameworld in a way that makes this seem implausible. I’m open to a rethink, but at present I reckon it would be an implausible quantum leap for an MC to even conceive of all the basics of 18c parliamentary democracy; let alone implement them all; let alone implement them all over a large area.

In my opinion, your current argument contradicts your previous explanations in many ways, but for now I will give you one example that I think shows the most obvious contradiction.

@11110

@Havenstone

Pretty basic, I think, and pretty vulnerable to capture by local elites. You could try to institute a secret ballot (with the challenge of getting recognizable symbols for each candidate so the illiterate can take part) or go for choice by public voice vote. Depending on the size of your realm and overall anarchy levels, you might be able to get central representatives out to witness a decent sample of the moots that choose the local leadership to make sure the choice is being made fairly.

More likely, given the limits on central admin capacity, you’d simply be decreeing that every community/urban neighborhood of a certain size has the right to choose its own leadership through the choice of a majority of all recognized adult residents, and that this needs to be documented and your central government informed. You could regardless expect to have a huge number of cases where local elites complain that their rivals rigged the choice.

Because of the logistical limitations on vote collection and counting, if you wanted to have representation in your district, provincial and/or central lawmaking bodies, I think you’d need to have those representatives chosen by a body of local representatives from among their number. I don’t think any post-Hegemonic state is going to be anywhere close to the point where it could hold credible realm-wide elections, or really elections that go beyond (max) a few hundred participants at a time.

I know it’s a rough summary, but is it like America before the enactment of the 17th Amendment, especially from its founding to the Civil War?

@Havenstone

@11110

is it like America before the enactment of the 17th Amendment, especially from its founding to the Civil War?

America benefited from centuries of British parliamentary experience, and in many cases further experience of participatory institutions in the colonies, that are pretty much entirely absent from the Hegemony. (The memory of the Nyrnakan Republic offers the closest thing on the MC’s continent to democracy at scale, and it wasn’t a very big scale.) So no, I think the feel will be very different.

Is this a possible system for a country that has neither experienced nor had the possibility of an 18th century parliamentary system?

And, as far as I can tell, there is nothing inherently inferior about this system than the rum, bribery, and gunfights of 18th century American election.

(Maybe these claims of mine are based on ignorance of American politics, and are there any clear historical counterexamples? If so, please let me know.)

[idonotlikeusernames]

@Havenstone

Those concepts could lead to a Magna Carta moment

Magna Carta is something my mc would reject though since it only provides for nobles just the same old oppressors trying a new tactic of oppression.

@Havenstone

Any rump Thaumatarchic faction – and without your intervention, the world will stabilize around two big ones, jointly comprising about 70% of the continent’s remaining Theurgic capacity – would need assured access to Shayardene grain to feed its population. The natural way to ensure that would be annexing, at a minimum, the Westriding, Coast, and/or Reach. An MC on good terms with Phaedra might be able to negotiate some other deal, but it won’t be easy

With those guys there can be neither peace nor compromise as they are the exact same slavers we fought the rebellion against in the first place.

@Havenstone

they’d rather have you in a suzerainty relationship than one where you retain the power to hold their food supply hostage.

We will never bow to slavers again! If that is the state of the world it really does seem my mc would rather make common cause with Halassur against these guys on the condition Halassur does not resort to slavery in any conquest they might gain from that.

@Havenstone

but if there’s any doubt, they’d be as horrified as @idonotlikeusernames at the prospect of the strategic balance of the last three centuries being reversed.

That is horrifying but at least it is slightly less so than a remnant of the Thaumatarchy possibly holding us in an overlord type of relationship. The Hegemony its slavery and its nightmare caste system must be extirpated and almost any cost is worth it to do exactly that even colluding with Hallassur…but only as an absolute last resort, let that be abundantly clear.

[Nm6k]

Yeah the more we learn about Phaedra the more that I think very few players will get along with them since the few players who are pro Hegemony are also big on it being Shayard run either out of power hunger or Shayard nationalism. The only ones that I can see trying to would be super extreme low anarchy players (i.e pacifists) and even then most of them would probably want more change then what Phaedra might allow. Well just found one (and one who is planning on trying but doubts its going
to work out) might on the discord

[Aznable]

I would rather kill Phaedrx than negotiate with them but that’s just my inner Homelander speaking.

[REVAN]

Hmm can the helot mc become a position of power like king and queen without the nobles since the mc will create new nobles?

[Dreamer44]

I live very far away from Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, so… it wouldn’t affect me in the slightest.

I wouldn’t mind either choice.

[HughMyronBrough]

I guess I should chime in, because my Aristocrat builds are more or less fine with Harrowing, even if they are Compassionate (they usually are) and quibble on how nasty it is, they mainly just want to be the ones running the Harrowers.

I don’t write Cosmopolitan builds. If a player requests a Cosmo run on the Discord I’ll do it for them, but I dislike Cosmo builds for three reasons.

1. They are easier than Homelander builds, and I like a challenge.

2. I cannot think of a Watsonian reason why a Helot would be particularly moved by Cosmopolitan reasons for rebellion.

3. I also cannot see a Watsonian reason why Cosmopolitan reasons would motivate a Aristocrat to give up a relatively privileged position and run off into the woods with a pack of bandits. People will do radical things like that for religion, for nation, but not for…whatever cosmopolitanism is.

[idonotlikeusernames]

@HughMyronBrough

I cannot think of a Watsonian reason why a Helot would be particularly moved by Cosmopolitan reasons for rebellion.

Curiosity and maybe a good deal of fantasy and imagination too. You can see that best if you choose to be a helot on the Carles route and get him to tell the Hallasurq stories where a stupid ruler is not lionized but mocked and eventually brought low by a smarter hero from a humble background. That kind of story would never be allowed in the modern hegemony and it is very easy to pique the curiosity of a young helot wanting a better life for themselves and those like them.
This does not mean they’re suddenly a Vienna salon kind of cosmopolitan but it can set them on a road towards cosmopolitanism nonetheless as all that is needed for that is not a prestigious privileged education or taking a “grand tour” as privileged aristocrat but just being open to and curious about foreign ideas and places…at least to start out with.

[roodcross]

@HughMyronBrough

I also cannot see a Watsonian reason why Cosmopolitan reasons would motivate a Aristocrat to give up a relatively privileged position and run off into the woods with a pack of bandits. People will do radical things like that for religion, for nation, but not for…whatever cosmopolitanism is.

I think it would make more sense for the MC to become cosmo by accident during the course of their rebellion than to start that way. Well, I’m a nationalist but I’ve got a bunch of Whends in the band, so let’s use Koine from pragmatism. Now two of my top rebels are a Whend and an Errezzianna, and the Leaguers seem like my best potential allies among the nobility. And it go on like that.