Are those the people who you want to help you when you want to strike back against hector?
For what it’s worth, Sarcifer is also totally supportive of this. My obscure hints above were referring to one very specific bloodline, not bloodlines in general; and Sarcifer is not himself the person who cares about it, just the one who can explain to you about who does and why it matters.
Bleys is a local tax collector; his wife is a healer. During the winter, if you choose to try to raid the visiting Architelone (grand high tax collector), there’s a path by which Bleys and his family may join your revolt.
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I feel that MAD won’t work.
Considering that Hera the Immortal dropped a mountain on people and resistance still occurred. Her son probably spent most of his life as one of her generals and the moment Hera was assassinated people defied him and our Northern Foes decided to cowabunga.
Just probably not about the part about bringing former helots fully into it, as a “telos” reserved for the higher castes, eh? 
No, MAD won’t work on internal enemies, unless you want to nuke yourself back into oblivion, I suppose. It might work wonderfully with Halassur unless that emperor of theirs really wants to try his hand at the post-apocalypse.
Also the time you are talking about many of the peoples were recently conquered and still had either active memories or enough elders who still actually remembered the old states and the old way of life.
That is nothing like what it is now.
Finally Hera very much had plans that involved conquering Halassur, my mc does not, not really anyway exporting the revolution in as far as it happens and is successful would be an idea. You can’t kill an idea, though of course my mc would be as surprised as anyone and to be frank probably a little apprehensive should Halassur manage to fall to their own revolution based on said exports.
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He’s actually more open-minded about that than you might think, too. 
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I’m sure the concept of the Hegemony as Hera and her son saw it is completely different from the reality it became. I don’t think either of them expected what happened to happen. Since Hera was inspired to conquer the known world due to her being proclaimed the Chosen One. Her son claimed it as a way to derive legitimacy to solidify his position as her successor. But, to Hera her mission was to conquer the known world for the Faith.
She came pretty close.
There’s a quote by the Emperor of Mankind’s personal bodyguards known as the “Companions” from Warhammer I think sums up some of the problem the Hegemony faced.
"We were never soldiers.
Whenever we are seen outside the walls of this place, as rare as that is, it is in our martial aspect. We are clad in gold, just as it was in the earliest days when He was our living captain, and mortals fall on their faces as if before gods. To them, it must seem as if we are wrath incarnate. To them, it must seem as if we were created for destruction and nothing else.
But we were His companions, once. We were the ones in whom He confided. We were His counsellors, we were His artisans. We were the first glimpse of what the species could become, if shepherded aright and unshackled from its vicious weaknesses.
Of course, we were taught to fight. He knew that war would come. It was a necessary part of the ascension, though it was never destined to last for eternity. We were the guardians of a new age, and had to be strong enough to keep it secure." - Valerian, Shield Captain.
That’s going to always be a curious what-if.
What the Hegemony would have been like if Hera didn’t die prematurely and was able to fulfil her dream.
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I have to wonder if we could drop a mountain on THEIR capital? Destabilize the region, leaving it ripe for the conquest.
It’s interesting that you mention Hera’s ambitions. This was the main reason I asked about getting others to join the new nation I’m building. It’d be in line with my characters (all of them) to want to fulfill those dreams.
My mc would prefer to deal with the devil he knows by then, I would think.
Considering she was still the “chosen one” of the most vicious of the Karagond city states, the Karagond Sparta and that society always relied on and very much pioneered the absolutely horrible treatment of their helots, even before the widespread adoption of aetherial blood as magic fuel my mc would not care at all about Hera’s supposed vision.
A more intriguing historical what-if to him with be the Karagond equivalent of Athens and what if they had “won”?
Though generally he has little use for historical what-ifs. That’s more the domain of the Laconniers whose driving motive is to resurrect their distorted image of the past.
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My character will evolve as the series goes, at first they’ll want to stabilize and strengthen Shayard. But, their primary motivator will be to bring order to the Chaos around them. They’ll look around and see the mass-death, banditry, starvation, and other warlord regimes and be horrified.
They will then begin to step in and embark on campaigns to end the chaos and establish a singular regime under their banner. They don’t necessarily believe that they are Chosen by the Angels, but they accepted it since it gave them legitimacy and they believe that with enough victories, it’ll push the scale towards them.
My MC doesn’t necessarily identify with Hera or her successors, since they really are focused on survival right now. As time goes on, successes occur, and the former Hegemony fractures into a dozen pieces. They’ll feel obligated to step up and use their considerable talents to remedy this situation. They’ll most likely lean towards a form of Imperial system.
That’s not good for him either, since it means that he’ll still be a starving peasant with no ability to move up in the world. Athens was as much of a democracy as Russia is right now.
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Well in that alternate timeline, if he had existed at all, he’d probably have been a starving peasant under some form of ancien-regime absolutist Shayardene empire in all likelihood. I think Karagond Athens would more likely have ended up as a client state to old Shayard than the other way around.
Anyway, like I said, my mc has little use for historical what-ifs.
Our Mc’s seem pretty similar when it comes to politics, though mine have democratic sympathies. On the other hand, they’re religious enough to be considered zealots, and do very much believe in the chosen one prophesy. My planned method, if possible, will be a sort of hyper expansionist federation. They conquer everything in sight, but you get equal representation regardless of nationality so long as you don’t try to secede.
Shayard was the regional power before Hera unified Karagond under her banner and marched forth with her legions and blood-mages. What I’d like to point out, is that for a Helot MC, life under the monarchy wouldn’t be as horrific or cruel as it is now.
People make the mistake of imposing their expectations and standard of living to a period of time in which they really can’t comprehend. You, are conflating your modernist and socialistic interpretation of Capetian France with what it was really like for the bulk of its populace.
In times of peace, they farmed, got married, had kids, died, and were buried. In times of war, as long as you weren’t on the border you had much the same life. The people who launched the French Revolution were the city-dwellers and low-level gentry/bougies.
In fact, his class of people launched a counter-revolution that was violently suppressed by the city-dwelling masses who massacred them wholesale. Your MC’s ancestors would have a plot of land, the same plot of land you always had, you’d farm it and then die. If there was a war, you might have been called up to fight in it. But, for the most part, that is how life was for the Shayardene Yeomanry and Serfs.
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Not every region of France was the Vendee, revolutionary support or at least tolerance among the peasants for it varied by region.
The middle classes may have originated it, yes, but they were not its only supporters.
There’s also always the gay thing for my mc, so in practice he’d have been under the same pro-natalist persecution. As to whether ancient Shayard had an anti-gay inquisition beyond just cultural pro-natalism too, I dare not speculate. But bloodline descend systems are inherently less gay friendly than the alternative.
No, it is difficult to top the cruelty of the Hegemony. Still my mc doesn’t have that much natural aptitude as a farmer and even less as a soldier, so it would still have been pretty miserable for him in all likelihood.
And he’d certainly not trade the freedom he has now to again be a peon of Hector.
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The Hera myth, ironically, captures pillars of what an ambitious rebel might dream of accomplishing: a conqueror who brought kingdoms to heel (COM), a Theurge whose power reshaped the world (INT), and a leader who transformed society to its very foundation (CHA).
Rebels can aspire to any of these, because Hera destroyed and rebuilt a world; a rebel’s dream to is to destroy and rebuild Hera’s world.
- (Of course, Hera as a living god? Karagond propaganda, probably. It’ll be fun meeting her contemporaries and seeing what they recall—but the mythic image exists, and it can be powerful)
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The Vendee was the largest wholesale massacre, but it was widespread and effected every region.
Being gay wasn’t a problem either- since succession at the time even amongst the peasantry was always equal division. The concept of primogeniture is very recent and it was created as a result of the concept of centralization and fight for supremacy against the local magnates, upper nobility, and their relatives that occurred as a result of Absolutism.
Which is much later along in the progression of the state, that means- for the most part, that rule was decentralized. You were also not a serf, you were a freeholder.
A freeholder by definition is someone who owns the land they had. They also had the right to be represented in some form of local council and vote on things. Direct rule is a very new concept in our world and even in the Hegemony it does not rule directly from the Capital. The Karagonds might issue edicts, but most responsibilities are handled through delegation and enforced by various bodies of Hegemonic authority and offices. The Karagonds only get involved directly if shit’s fucked.
My point being, I highly doubt the Crown would get involved because a small freeholder had a same-sex relationship. The suppression of same-sex relationships seems to be a “newer” concept as well. Since, birthrate to the Karagonds and Hegemonic authorities are a strategic resource since the Harrowing of your MC’s caste provides the ability to both protect their holdings, feed their populace, and also provide for internal stability (such as it is).
The decentralized nature of the State at the Pre-Hegemonic era does not allow for direct control of everyone’s lives. It’s not like in Soviet Russia where you’d be shot for Bourgeois decadence for having a same-sex partner due to you defying the centralized state apparatus and cultural norms of Russia.
@Azthyme, Hera was the most powerful mage of her era. She directed the conquest of nearly the whole sub-continent, and also brought low far more ancient and powerful states. All myths are built on some semblance of reality, and proclaiming her as some unbeatable figure was not very difficult for her successors.
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You’ve watched Fight Club too many times.
Lol. I actually haven’t seen it. I was thinking it was a magically induced illusion.
They did not. Ancient Shayard is where Xthonosis began, they didn’t have aetherial blood refinement, and the Codex is pro-gay, so it seems highly unlikely that homophobia would have been a thing in those days. Hell, in Karagond, Zebed’s theology is controversial and derided even among the priesthood - in one choice, an intelligent MC can muse that it sounds like something Halassurq.
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It’s because of what I said, the ever increasing demands for Aetherial blood have made it so that intolerance of same-sex relationships be made the norm. Since, they need a high birthrate to keep society moving. Which ensures their policy of intolerance and persecution just as it is with the PRC right now.