Joke material. He’d never heard of it before, and in typical style started joking about the Himalayan countries of “Nipple” and “Button” when he had his first South Asia briefing. Needless to say, the unconquerable Gurkha republic was not amused.
It’s also, you know, conceivable that the US has espionage interests in a small country on China’s restive southern flank. But that’s nothing to do with me, of course.
Knowing Trump he probably wants to build Trump space tower on top of the Everest or something.
His ego probably couldn’t stand it if the Chinese built a resort hotel or something on top of the tallest mountain before he did. 
If not the first explanation makes more sense given the current state of the US than the latter one. 
Of course, of course,
Havie is so good person to be a spy. 
Lol be grateful Trump doesn’t know me lol Like I am so rude and probably he would send me as diplomatic and i would end causing third world war
But that is exactly why Mara, people like you and me we’re cynical, sarcastic, perhaps even flamboyant. All qualities they don’t want in a spy exactly because we stand out and quarrel and draw attention to ourselves and don’t get along with everybody.
I recognized the cover art to this music. I’m glad Frederick posted to explain the story to the cover art. That cover art really is excellent.
Letting other people start a war would mean letting those people steal the headlines. Draw your own conclusions as to how likely he would be to allow that to happen.
@Havenstone In addition to my question about musical notation for espionage, I was wondering about weather and natural disasters in the XOR world. Does the Hegemony have an equivalent to Tornado Alley? Does the Hegemony get hurricanes along any of its coast? Have Theurges found an equivalent of the jet stream? In which directions do the trade winds blow in the oceans off the coast? Are there any major ports that are only open part of the year due to ice? Are there any natural volcanoes within the Hegemony? Are there any natural active earthquake fault lines in the Hegemony? How often do tsunamis hit the Hegemony coast? How much of a problem are locusts in the XOR world? If locusts exist, has the Hegemony had much success preventing or deliberately causing the transition from solitary grasshopper to locust? Does the Hegemony do anything to try to suppress natural wildfires? I am curious whether the Hegemony would have viewed natural wildfires as “natural” or as emanations of Xaos to be stamped out.
Interesting article in the Atlantic on the authoritarian proclivities of fantasy worlds.
Particularly since XoR much more than GoT really does subvert some of those tropes as this trope certainly won’t be in play in XoR.
“But fantasy often is utopian. Chosen Ones battle implacable foes, and when a foe is defeated, worlds are made right and whole.”
As the whole of the last game is predicated on a very much imperfect aftermath of the struggle after the main foe, the big “evil” has already been vanquished.
Particularly since my own mc is on one hand naturally inclined towards egalitarianism, popular sovereignty and a more formal judicial process to guard against the elite to go along with it but on the other hand and a more personal level also deathly afraid that giving up what little control he has managed to gain thus far would mean becoming effectively subhuman and enslaved again and that seed of fear and paranoia is likely to increase, not decrease over the course of the series.
Unlike the Leaguers and their weak Shayard led Conferacy idea he also intrinsically dislikes the idea of a weak state or a Koinon led by a “traditional values” type of Shayard as he both dislikes the “traditional” Shayardene values insofar as they include the nightmare religion of which Shayard has served as the original birthplace, monarchism and possibly a de-facto anti-gay emphasis on bloodline inheritance over the current system of inheritance.
Your character would end like Stalin levels of paranoia obsessed with the idea of a new revolution organized by the old elites. I could see caused a genocide just to save revolution or the terror regime.
The equalitarism will die due fear of losing control. That’s what always happens. Reason equalitarism is mostly a utopia.
All of those are certainly possible, we’ll see. He certainly wouldn’t trust the Leaguers and he has good reasons to fear the old/current elites. They certainly don’t respect him, Gan and the conversation with Horion certainly proved that.
If he does need to temporarily “ally” with the Leaguers it is highly likely he’d try to preempt their purge of him by attempting to purge them first.
Paranoia, Mara? That sounds like Laconnerism if I’ve ever heard it…
I have a question for you guys: do you think there are going to be any downsides to being named Ecclect? I’m guessing it will, especially considering how XoR is keen on making layered choices that have unexpected results down the line. If the rebellion ever branches out, I’m not sure the Nyrish skeptics would like to ally someone called “Ecclect of the Angels”.
It will have for sure but that’s something to WHEN HEGEMONY OS DEFEATED…that is like in a decade from now. I have clear that in moment of hegemony shattered all alliance will be ended and it will be struggle to maintain control Isuspect people with few charisma will have to resort to violence to maintain control.
I won’t have that problem as I won’t be in a position of control over all land and I will be something like a Pope in medieval a very powerful figure that keeps people together and in base that with autoritas but not with potestas. The difference in roman right was clear between authority and direct power. Something with authority is someone that has respect and admiration of people. You are followed and obey because they trust in your wisdom but you haven’t any way to force them you have no army or law to reinforce your orders.
Most paranoid people, especially if they have actual reasons to be paranoid, such as being seen as subhuman filth by your nominal “allies”, would call it realism instead. My mc would be no exception.
Most definitely.
Indeed, that’s also the trade-off of going “homelander” you won’t have any significant following beyond Shayard and the shayardene nationalists and in that regard you already have near impossible competition from Cabel for the yeomen and the middle classes and of course the Laconniers who would mostly continue the current “noble” decadence under their own petty “Queens”.
Particularly as a helot the homelander course seems dangerous as it leaves you little room to play “divide and conquer” among your nominal allies. And subordination to the Laconniers or Cabel would get a helot mc nothing or at least very little. Cabel might grant you nominal “freedom” to be a poor day labourer in the aftermath, with the Laconniers it would probably be going right back into serfdom or slavery in the name of the “rightful King”. 
Revolts tend to start eating themselves even before the authority in question is defeated. Syria offers a notable modern example.
that is true but i was talking from perspective of a competent leadership not a mess with only chaos and nothing being acting as cohesive factor like in Siria
I’m sure there are plenty of competent leaders within each of Syria’s factions. Considering that @Havenstone has mentioned there will be as many as five successor factions in game 5 I think we are going to have to start watching our back well before the Hegemony is no longer a threat.
Not in my case as with zero violence no combat absolutely anyone will defeat me anyway so who in hell will want the spot as religious hippie instead of raid and obtaining far more gain?
Advantages of going small and peaceful you are too small and cute to be considering a rival except in religious figures i suppose
Which is a potentially big sticking point in a theocracy where self-appointed “prophets” of the nightmare religion reign supreme. It seems to me Mara needs to hope for mostly religiously moderate or even skeptical warlords and regimes to come to power who prefer to use her kinder gentler church as both a bank and to provide the “opium of the people”.
It seems difficult, but I guess no more impossible than my mc’s goals.
Yeah agree. But we are all with enemies I have less as my objectives will be less ambitious. Still Mara will have a pure charisma and not having combat and army i think most states will want use her services as is not a threat
With Breden , there are two charismatic personnel in my group … both of of us will tag in and out to talk everyone into joining us willingly 
Cabel’s dead, and the surviving supporters of Cabel’s rebellion are happy to follow a helot. Yeomen are easy enough to win over in general.
Heck, I figure that yeomen will make out like bandits in the event of breaking up the great estates and giving each helot six acres, simply because there is no way you can support a family on six acres of independent farmland without spilling blood. Most of the helots will fall right back into tenantry or even hired labor. The great estates will end up in yeomen hands after you liquidate the nobility.
Her son isn’t and he has the same name, you know very well it’s him, Jaq Cabel I’m talking about here.
In any case a helot mc in particularly has to be wary and probably justifiably paranoid if they want to have any chance at all of staying on top and not be re-enslaved.
Which is why my mc isn’t doing that, he’d try to introduce more work animals and mechanization and try to reform the great estates from being run for the profit of their noble owners into worker-owned cooperatives. My mc knows magic, even more so by the end of the series and he’ll know full well that the six-acre plan would spell disaster for most helots. Which is why he won’t back it. And to expropriate the oppressors it’s not like you need to either.