Economic and political capitals are often not collocated. I’m sure the lower orders of Aekos are no less disenchanted with the Hegemony than your MC. Karagon invented helots after all. If your communist utopia is also going to be ethnocentric you are going to have your hands full…of genocide.
Also all the navigable waterways and industry are in the western part of the continent so even if Avezia is more geographically central it isn’t in terms of capital.
In stable and mature polities, sure. I mean even we have Amsterdam (and Rotterdam) and the Hague. If I were turning insurrectionist tomorrow I know that I’d prefer either of the former to the latter as the base of my faction in a hypothetical civil war not to mention that the latter is, of course, the stronghold of the current government.
Unlike Avezia we can only ever think of decisively controlling Aekos very late in the game and that is to say nothing of the Hegemony possibly deliberately destroying the infrastructure leading to Aekos in an attempt to impede our march to there. If that were to happen my mc would have very little interest in re-establishing the central role of Aekos.
I fear it would be the Karagonds, even their helots who would be ethnocentric and view themselves as the “master race”, which, if true, only adds more difficulty to directly controlling Aekos or any other parts of former Karagon.
It would really not be great to have the economic hub under control of a warlord who at best only poses as a nominally loyal regional “governor”.
While my mc theoretically fights to liberate the former Karagond province same as other lands currently under Hegemony control it is likely to mostly be hostile terrain, even if the Karagond helots do join up. Problem is Karagond is more densely populated and less fertile as well as more built up and industrialized, which means there are likely less helots in Karagon today than any other province. Maybe some or even a majority of the drudges in Karagond can be won over too but unlike the other provinces inroads with the Karagond merchants who are currently on top and in the central location of the economic order would be a near impossible sell, since unlike the with the provincial merchant guilds we won’t free them from Karagond taxation, trade restrictions, quota’s and monopolies we’d be coming to take those things away from the Karagond guilds to at best force them to demean themselves by competing on a level field with former provincial subordinates turned competitors.
As for the Karagond nobility and clergy they make up the very heart and mind of everything my mc is fighting against. I really doubt any mutually satisfactory accommodation with them can be reached.
Really, the Reach, Grand Shayard and basically all of Karagond are likely to be the most hostile terrain for my mc and it would serve him in good stead to weaken, not strengthen those regions economically.
And we’ll move as much as we can eastwards, the industry is hinted to rely in large parts on minerals and other resources from Erezza, so relocating it also means a shorter supply chain.
American industry relies on minerals from West Virginia, Wyoming, the Dakotas and West Texas. Those regions aren’t also centers of industry for a reason: geography.
I’d also point out several underdeveloped and unstable countries have separate commercial and political capitals. Brazil, Nigeria, China to name a few.
Side note: Karagon Undermensch? Totally no irl parallels…
Was a deliberate and mostly symbolic act. Building something like that while it would be somewhat attractive for my mc would require resources which we can use to dig most of the Grand Canal instead. I know which one of those options my mc would prefer. If we had unlimited money and resources then, sure, a newly built capital city would be great. As it is it would not be a priority in the slightest.
My mc will work with Karagonds same as any other people, however, what he refuses to do is indulge their notions that they are somehow better or above former provincials and I can see this would most certainly be a breaking point with their elites and might even affect their helots.
I can’t help it if the Hegemony itself runs a seemingly ethnocentric and caste-based society. My mc’s rebellion would naturally seek to break both of those notions. Instead of the Nietsche thing, a more apt comparison as to how most Karagonds might view “provincials” would be how most white people in the 1850’s and 60’s America viewed their own Black and Latino population as well as non-white foreigners. There are likely outliers among the Karagonds in both directions, from the would-be (post-rebellion) clansmen equivalents to the provincial sympathizers, but the majority view in Karagond would likely fall somewhere in-between in that place that might prevent outright conflict over it most of the time but there would be a lot of simmering, underlying tensions for generations to come.
In the meantime, there would be no ethnic cleansing, sure, but plenty of underlying tensions that would occasionally boil over and erupt.
Much like your own Southern States after the civil war the former province of Karagond would likely need reconstruction and reconstruction done properly in order to become a functional part of a successor state dominated for the most part by former “provincials”. Instead of our own Chechnya. Note Kadyrov has functionally re-instated slavery and runs concentration camps that are used in part in the persecution of gay people in the name of religious fundamentalism. All right under Putin’s nose who looks away in order to safeguard a fragile negative peace. Needless to say under those conditions someone like my mc would not countenance it and would not consider such a negative peace worthwhile.
I’ll reserve judgement on that as we know the Hegemony has control, not economic efficiency (routing everything through Aekos/Karagon and the monopolies of the Karagonds are likely to be very economically inefficient) or the greater social good in mind when it comes to not letting the provinces industrialize to any significant degree. Therefore we don’t and won’t know what would actually be workable yet.
Edit, put a 9 where it should have been 8.
Anything I recently said I’d fix at the next update – continuity errors caught by Sneaks and KuriosIasoun, plus something @Rettahdam reported weeks ago that I’ve finally got round to fixing. Nothing big.
@Havenstone Does this include the scenario where Breden escaped questioning and the MC orders Breden killed on sight? It seems likely that a MC that believed Breden to be a traitor/threat would have also had messengers sent to all of the Rebellion’s contacts warning them about Breden.
On those occasions when Breden does not escape questioning for the poisoning, I still think Breden is probably not guilty of the poisoning but is guilty of criminal negligence/dereliction of duty for abandoning the food even knowing a traitor was believed present. I am also not willing to rule out the possibility that Breden may simply be an incompetent poisoner just as Breden proved at best to be incompetent at several other things. Nothing about Breden screams to me that Breden is some kind of “elite” agent.
@Havenstone What is the status of communications in the XOR world? Specifically, how quickly can messages get across the Hegemony? Is anything like the heliograph in use? Is there a Telos-vision/Theurgic method of long-distance communication? How feasible would it be to listen in on Hegemony communications or to insert our own fake messages into their communications?
The Night after Breden was accused of Poisoning the group… this is my song dedication to her 
"I can see it in your eyes
In my vision, you didn’t do it
I am here with you tonight
I will stay right by your side "
Ok, a fan theory based on two sentences in the History timeline on the wiki.
Key words are in bold.
13 XE: The Theurgic Revolution begins. Hera of Aekos discovers how to use other people’s blood to fuel Theurgy.
12 XE: Hera claims the title of Eclect, Chosen of the Angels. She kills the Oracle of Aekos and begins the forceful integration of the Karagond city-states into a single Hegemony.
Ok, I think that Hera did not come up with the process of aether extraction on her own, and was instead told the secrets behind it by the Oracle of Aekos, who she killed to stop the secret getting out.
My read from that was more about suppressing native non-Xthonthic religious traditions and rituals, and properly clearing her way to an undisputed Eclect-hood. But the Oracle being a more active early rival would be interesting.
@Havenstone If a Theurge extends their lives through Theurgy, does that also affect their appearance? For example, did Hera look twenty at one hundred, or did she look her age?
Is there anything stopping us from knocking someone unconscious with drugs or putting them into some kind of painless trance with theurgy prior to harrowing?
plotting if not this will be cyberpunk
Here’s one thing I keep forgetting: the Thaumatarch’s heir’s gender is flippable and defined by Breden’s, right? So, if Breden is female, that’d make Simon and Kalt male and the heir would also be male, or am I getting something wrong?
Both the heir and the noble RO we’ll meet in game 2 are the same gender as Breden.
Ah, I haven’t been reading the thread that much, so I think I lost the news that Loane would be making a possible comeback in the next games. 
Thanks, Verand. I always get my head mixed up with these things. But what’s that about a new noble RO in Game Two?
Teren Leliatou, Horian’s niece/nephew and a member of the cosmopolitan, anti-Hegemonic Leaguer faction, will be one of the new ROs introduced.
In that scenario, Breden’s following and yours would be very distinct from each other. You wouldn’t learn that Breden has in your absence acquired significant influence over “your” rebels. But the Rim’s a big place, and xhe’s very charismatic. You can’t really keep xhim from attracting a following.
Messages of state are written, sealed, and couriered by flying Theurge; others go by riders or boat, often paying to use the Syntechnia network. There is no equivalent of heliography or other primitive telecommunication. Theurges can make their voices loud enough to be heard over long distances, but thankfully for the otherwised deafened populace that’s not standard practice.
Hera probably looked fairly young, as she’d have kept renewing her body from about the age of thirty onward. Theurges in the post-Ward era, however, usually wait as long as possible to extend their life through Theurgy… since once they’ve done that, their Changed flesh will no longer traverse a Ward, and they’ll have to live with much more bureaucracy when they want to go in and out of a major city through a Wardgate.
Outright reversing the visible signs of age is difficult by that point, and thus a sign of excessive vanity, so most well-preserved Theurges look old but spry. If you were to see a very old Theurge who looked twenty, they’d be politically powerful enough that they didn’t have to care about (a) the vast amount of blood they’d used and (b) what others would think of their shallow self-regard. Even the Ennearchs don’t usually get to that level.
No known gameworld drugs could reliably knock someone unconscious without a meaningful risk of killing them pre-Harrowing (e.g. hemlock) and thus wasting their blood. Of course there are various drugs used by surgeons to sedate people, but not to a level of unconsciousness that would stop people screaming in agony through a Harrowing…so there’s not much humanitarian justification to waste them on the vast number of helots who are Harrowed every year.
Nor has any Theurge yet figured out pain well enough to stop it entirely, even using lots of blood (which would of course in any case be counter-productive for Harrowing). Theurgy is great for freezing muscles in place, so Theurgic surgery tends to involve getting someone really drunk/high and then immobilizing them while you do the cutting; that, combined with good post-surgery healing, produces good enough results that Theurges haven’t poured massive research into making the process genuinely painless.
All the real-world parallels for truly effective anaesthesia/hypnosis are 19th-century developments, so I think it’s reasonable not to write them into the gameworld.
And will be defined by Breden’s–unless you’ve come to realize in Game 2 Ch 1 that you’re cetero, in which case the heir will be nonbinary. (One of three planned nonbinary ROs, along with Jevahir and Laj-jas.)
@Havenstone Am I correct in assuming this is grunt work, insofar as Theurges have grunts? Actually, what are the most and least desirable jobs among Hegemonic Theurges?
Actually, if you were to Harrow a pregnant helot, would you receive the baby’s high aether content as well?
First Kyklos work, for sure. A chance to practice your flying and extend your network of places you’ve been and people you’ve met (at least briefly).
I haven’t broken down all the responsibilities by Kyklos yet, so afraid I can’t give a systematic answer to this question. I’ll work on it.
As for your other thought, Harrowers simply aren’t built to harvest pregnant helots. The machines are built to extract living tissue directly from the relevant organs of a living person, thus maximizing aether extraction. They include no way to effectively extract anything from a fetus in utero, notably its brain. Even if the ethical taboo against child-harvesting didn’t get in the way, trying to add a function like that would be an extraordinary mechanical challenge in any technological era, not just the very early-modern industrial one of the gameworld. And as a matter of population dynamics, as any hunter or farmer will attest, you generally don’t want to cull your breeding mothers if you have any sustainability concerns. For all these reasons, as noted in the game, pregnancy is a very effective way to defer your Harrowing.