This is definitely the single most distinctive advantage of my gameworld’s evil empire. It has no real analogue in our world, and it affects the viability of many rebel tactics, both violent and non-violent.
But like any society, the Hegemony still needs skilled labor and knowledge, not Theurgy alone, to sustain plenty of its vital functions.
If essential workers collectively stop or slow their participation, Harrowing the lot of them not only risks launching a revolt too big for easy suppression – it also narrows the pool of people with their skills, and makes the regime more dependent on the cooperation of the rest.
If enough merchants around the empire are willing to sacrifice a significant share of their own personal profit to collude in the circumvention and undermining of Hegemony-wide trade systems, it becomes ever harder to deter them. You can convert only so many of your competent bankers and traders into high-octane smoothies before you crash your economy, even as a totalitarian state.
If enough of the priesthood become dissatisfied with their role as hype men for a Theurgic caste that holds all the real power without consistently living up to the Angelic ideal, the regime may not only find itself with a more limited pool of effective propagandists; the ideological system it’s spent centuries honing may swing slowly against it, creating a space where more and more people start looking for opportunities for non-cooperation.
If the Archon can no longer find a competent noble willing to serve as aristarch, they’ll get an ass, or a Karagond colonial administrator who may take years to realize who his enemies really are and how they’re circumventing his intent.
One of my key goals for the back half of Book 2 and Book 3 is to write some really satisfying and plausible ways to mobilize people against the Hegemony without violence. As they take shape I look forward to all of your feedback!