My MC would want some minimum standard of living for the rebellion’s own prisoners but would not shed many if any tears if such standards were not met by wherever certain prisoners were extradited. Consider it another layer of punishment beyond what the rebellion’s legal system would otherwise permit. Anyways, my MC would prefer that the future state’s own people handle rebuilding its infrastructure as much as possible.
Having more than one language with official status on international treaties seems to be just asking for trouble in the future. My MC would prefer one and only language for international treaties even if it is the language of the other parties to any treaties.
I would agree that food production currently seems to be the biggest long-term problem.
As stated by @Havenstone
Yep. Unfortunately, “blood” isn’t just blood, as will become clear early in Game 2… So an Empire-wide blood tax/donation scheme would have to hit a much higher total volume to accomplish the same effects.
@Havenstone also stated:
The element of the oil economy that I’m most interested in is the profound difficulty of changing it to something that doesn’t do the same damage; and that has to apply to the Karagond blood economy, too. If it could be solved as simply as Hegemony-wide blood drives, the only reason for the current system to persist would be pure demonic malice, which would make for a much less interesting rebellion. (It may be worth repeating again what I’ve said a couple times upthread: the theory that it’s pain/torture/terror of the victim which gives aetherial blood its power is wrong. That would take the metaphor in a direction which I think is less true to the real world challenges of e.g. the slave economy or the oil economy.)
It’s true that the choice between continuing to Harrow people and allowing thousands to starve or die in war is unlikely to be entirely escapable. In the current game, that choice between killing and allowing to die is already there, on a smaller scale.
One thing that does concern me about the eventual plot is the question of whether or not millions will be starving unless our MCs implement harrowing or something like it on our own. If the analogy is to switching off of fossil fuels, then while that requires a monetary price to be paid, it does not require large scale starvation and if anything large scale starvation will be the eventual result of failing to make the switch away from using fossil fuels. The technology for the switch already exists but that would mean powerful people lose money so guess what the result is…
The first book was my favorite as well.
I do find Radmar’s last name to be quite appropriate.
I personally am skeptical that there wouldn’t be a lot of aetherial blood spending that could be reduced without starvation. I don’t think the Hegemony would have spent aetherial blood for the sole purpose of growing more food to support an increasing population if the increased blood supply from an increased population was completely used up just growing the food. If there is still a shortage of food afterwards, then my MC would prefer to encourage emigration either to other nations or to newly founded colonies overseas along the lines of the British Empire and the Irish Potato Famine. And if that requires taking land by force, well that reduces the surplus population too though my MC would prefer at that point to focus on overseas governments that abused their people.
On a completely different note and in all seriousness, @Havenstone, I was wondering whether the Xaos lands have the equivalent of
from @WayWalkerLeigh’s Way Walkers University 2. I say in all seriousness because returning to the band with an innocuous pet Xaos creature could be an excellent way of showing the band that the Xaos lands are not inherently evil which would be a useful demonstration for MCs that want to convince their bands to move into the Xaos lands. It would also be another useful way of disproving the Hegemony’s religious lies.