That and the Pope’s value proposition it a bit more ethereal. Obey me or you will suffer a fate worse than death that I can objectively prove lands a little more forcefully. Oh and I can kill you with my brain.
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There’s also the practical bit. The Clergy is a natural counterweight to the Aristocrats and Burghers. The reason why the early Capets and German Kaisers under the Ottonians established so many Bishoprics was to create state appointed clergy to serve as a counter to their vassal Dukes who typically worked to undermine them.
When you overthrow the Hegemony. The only people who you can turn to administer your conquests are ex-Hegemon officials. If you want it done semi-efficiently. It’s intolerable and infuriating, but unless you want to start your regime with inexperienced ideologically reliable figures who will do a lot of damage then this is what you got.
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Give it time, it’s only Book 1 so far. Soon enough, we’ll unleash the cult of kenon over the entire Hegemony.
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Love it. 
But no, we’re not at that level of weird science yet.
If you had the blood to do that, you wouldn’t have a food crisis in Shayard. It’s a lot easier to get enough grain from irrigated farmland than from a desert, even before you take into account the plants changed by Storms into toxic or predatory forms.
No, just that the regency scenario you outlined is impossible. Wait for Ch 4 for a better idea of why.
And yes, Helsday is the weekly day of worship in the Hegemony.
I don’t think falcons are messenger birds in real life – correct me if I’m wrong! I’ve not written any sort of pigeon post into the gameworld; my gut feeling is that the early prevalence of Theurgy has probably filled the space where people would develop messenger bird “technology”.
And no Plektast has yet figured out the massive logistical challenges involved in making flying mounts.
The connotation of koinonia (“fellowship” or “common life”) in our world is shaped by the fact that Christians have been the primary users of it for centuries; it’s tinged by Christian ideas/values of what constitutes the ideal common life. (E.g. “covenantal” – no ancient Greek user of the word would have included that word in the connotation, before the particular mash-up of Jewish and Greek civilization inaugurated by Paul of Tarsus.)
But both before and after the Christian era, koinon kept its secular usage as “league” or “alliance” – see e.g. League of the Macedonians - Wikipedia So while it’s fruitful and interesting to consider how the collision of theocracy and koinon could play out for a high-Devout, high-Cosmo MC, we should be clear that if you followed Horion in wanting to set up a Great League to succeed the Hegemony, people wouldn’t necessarily assume that it would be a “holy” league.
They wouldn’t be surprised by the idea, though. You wouldn’t expect the Leaguers to resist the idea of a holy alliance with the Eclect (or Common Voice) and “mandate of the Angels” at its center; they’re not atheists like (most) Nyr. Certainly not in the name of the separation of church/state, which as noted would still be an alien concept to any citizen of the Hegemony.
I’d say definitely, to both.
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And yet that is exactly what my mc wants to do as he will not be beholden to any priests.
That it is bunk…as the burdens would still mostly fall on the helot class with wider additions of the yeoman and urban poor groups…if it is a mathematically “fair” lottery the chance for priests, aristos and merchants to have their number come up would still be quite low as they are a comparatively smaller part of the population, but since they used to derive a vastly outsize share of the benefits such a lottery would still be manifestly unjust.
Either we do with self-sacrifice theurgy (or if really necessary switch to babies, like Halassur) or we harvest the enemies of the people first. At least that is how my mc sees it. In practice the enemies are mostly aristos and priests, the merchants would probably still have surprisingly good luck in any such system my mc were forced to set up…which to be clear my mc would only relent to such a thing in the first place under extreme duress.
Anybody who goes for truly radical change will probably have to do some pretty radical things to get there…most likely the things that are not exactly looked favourably upon by modern historians and ethicists.
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Omelettes and eggs come to mind.
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As exciting as it is to imagine a “nominal koinon” (in which a Palpatine-inspired Eclect treats their “Apella” as a rubber stamp legislative body of yes-men), I suppose the following (more earnest/good-faith) power split suggestions come to mind:
Scenario 1- The Eclect can institute any decrees/“executive orders” he wants, unless he’s vetoed by a 2/3rds (or more) majority of the Apella
Scenario 2- Alternatively, the Eclect can’t directly propose new laws/policies from his end, but instead holds veto power over the Apella’s proposed laws (unless that veto is overridden by a 2/3rds (or more) Apella majority)
Scenario 3- Under the “judge, jury, and executioner” model, perhaps the Eclect could be the Supreme Court judge, the Apella is the jury, and the military (and/or Theurges and/or Alastors) are the executioners?
Scenario 4- Perhaps instead of officially being a part of the koinon’s conventional chain of command, the Eclect is the head of the “Defenders of the Codex” (FYI independent bureaucracy of “auditor monks/knights”), thus (hopefully) ensuring that both the Apella and its Head of State doesn’t abuse its power to unfairly target minorities and “the lesser orders” (aka yeomen and ex-helots).
Scenario 5: To break the (potential) gridlock of the Apella, the Eclect can/should be granted Roman dictator-inspired emergency powers in times of crisis (aka Game 5’s anticipated crisis).
Unless, of course, a High-CHA Common Voice MC manages to achieve an unofficial “first among equals” celebrity status amongst his fellow worshippers, thus positioning himself to endlessly win (secular) re-election to the koinon’s presidency (and then maintain a theocratic direction for the decades to come).
@Havenstone, will there ever be a future dialogue option for MC to boast (or pessimistically/melodramatically lament) how “Xaos is a ladder”?
Quite the geometric religion, if you ask me. Perhaps the true authors of the Codex were mathematicians all along? 
As fun as it is for me to speculate the outcomes of an Eclect-Laconnier monarch alliance, I sometimes ponder if it would be much more efficient to “skip the middleman” (by having MC simultaneously claim both the Eclect role and the Shayardene throne).
I was very pleasantly surprised to learn how much money we could make during Game 1’s Winter (if we recruited Bleys).
It certainly makes me ponder how much benefit MC could get from recruiting (or at least allying with) Phyrgia (especially if Phyrgia becomes an in-law after MC marries Teren).
Actually, it just now occurred to me that we do have precedent for a plant-person in XoR: Yed (the Game 1 guy who was partially transformed into a tree).
Did Yed’s dietary need for regular human food change as soon as he became half-tree?
During Game 1, I vaguely remember Breden excitedly gushing about the old stories of Shayard being able to grow its own food (without stooping to the Thaumatarchy’s Harrowing-based Theurgy).
Was this merely a hint about Shayard’s past use of self-sacrifice Theurgy-fueled agriculture? (or are there other “lost to obscurity” Shayardene agricultural tools/methods that are waiting to be uncovered by MC?)
New idea: what if Yed later chose to embrace his “plant transformation” freak accident to fully transform into XoR’s version of Swamp Thing? (from DC Comics)
Could Yed potentially supplement MC’s forces with an army of renewable plant elementals? (including the toxic/predatory plants you just now mentioned)
I can already visualize the XoR version of the Piranha Plants (from the Mario games) wrecking havoc on enemy infantry!
In a brilliant example of “turning one’s weakness into a strength” it turns out that Britain’s falcon pest control problem (aka “peregrine falcons that lived in abundance along the coast” were picking off British carrier pigeons) inspired MI5 “to establish a special falconry unit to train the very species that was killing the domestic pigeon population” (for the purpose of intercepting German carrier pigeons during World War 2).
That’s indeed true, but if blood is going to become scarce/highly contested during Game 5’s crisis, then it makes sense for most (if not all) factions to start considering low-tech alternative methods of communication (e.g. messenger bird fleet).
And if the messenger bird fleet does become a widespread practice, every animal tamer who specializes in training/operating birds (that prey upon the messenger birds) is now a potentially useful counterintelligence asset.
Now, which Game 1 NPC (and their entourage) conveniently happen to be avid falconers? Hector (and whichever bunch of unnamed Shayardene aristos he happens to hang out with)!
And perhaps we could add Ganelon to the list, too?
On a separate (but related) note, I’d like to recommend Extra History’s lecture series on the First Crusade. And P.S. there’s a lot of mileage to squeeze from the “why let (insert) get in the way of a good crusade? catchphrase”
I prefer poached eggs/eggs benedict; what about you?
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Why stop with Shayard’s throne when you can seize the whole thing? This is a time period in which the rules are determined by the strength of your sword arm and your ability to wield it. There is no lip-service to a rules based order. Hera didn’t forge the Hegemony or unify Karagond by just being named Eclect. She got that privilege through the Rite of Conquest.
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Winning the war is many times easier than winning the peace. Hera’s assassination is enough evidence of that in world. The mandate of the angles is just the easiest way to secure that peace (and probably with the most existing infrastructure intact as possible). Certainly there will be other fonts of legitimacy as @Havenstone as alluded, but they will likely require more anarchy to effectively replace the angles. If the MC limits their ambitions to Shayard though that arithmetic probably gets easier. Especially with the Gryphon Throne as a preexisting (nationalist) source of legitimacy.
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One of the things, that I think was suppressed and you’d probably be able to speak on this more than I would be that. I think Hera was struggling against the Empire. The Xaos Storms were probably ravaging the West (I did a reverse Patrick Star and originally wrote this as East) Provinces and our Legions were just being grinded down in costly siege after costly siege against a rival empire that managed to recreate a form of Aetherial blood that put them on parity.
Her assassination was probably triggered by mounting unrest in the West, a stalemate in the East, and probably a daughter who felt it was her time to rule.
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I don’t have any special insight into @Havenstone’s plan for the story, but I suspect Hera’s ambitions finally got large enough to intimidate even her closest lieutenants like Alexander. Those ambitions could have either threatened their personal power (by more widely sharing the teaching of theurgy than they were comfortable with for example) or could have just taxed available resources beyond what they thought prudent.
I suspect the story of her fall will share some uncomfortable parallels with the maximalist MCs in the endgame.
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My earlier comments about avoiding too close an homage to Martin also apply to Benioff & Weiss. (Or whover on their writing team came up with that line.)
For anyone who doesn’t mind having the end of the HBO GoT show spoiled for them, this piece offers some reflections on challenges that may be relevant for anyone who hopes to set up a koinon with elected leadership in G5.
Helical be Thy name…
Some of his skin turned to bark when a Storm brushed him. It was a superficial Change; if it had gone any deeper, he’d not have been able to re-cross the Ward by cutting it off. No photosynthesis or Swamp-Thinging for our Yed.
Or Shayard might just have had one-thirtieth the population back then.
This is true (sweepingly so, hence my suggested edit), but doesn’t mean that people are going to make huge leaps to fill the gaps with things we the readers can easily imagine with the benefit of hindsight. There will be some innovation, but it needs a jumping-off point that’s somewhere plausible in the collective imagination of a world dominated by Theurgic tech. Working messenger pigeon systems are rare enough even in our world, where centuries passed when it would have been useful; I don’t think I’m going to write them into this world, where until G4 there won’t have been any need to spur people to think in that direction.
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It is however not one that is available to helots, presumably unless you’re willing to forge a bloodline and then heterosexually marry another claimant. And even then you’d probably just be a consort at best or a slave concubine at worst.
Air rifles and the steam engine and even a bit of steampunk aesthetic are known to exist though. Even if the hegemony elites seem to use the latter mainly in extravagant kids toys. 
As far as the article goes, while this quote is absolutely right:
be assured that my mc (both of them actually) know full well what they’re attempting to do. It’s just that my main mc will try to break things down far further than merely elective monarchy while my alternate one will indeed be satisfied to be the elected emperor of a koinon…not led by Shayard.
Hence the need for lower ranked appella’s / moots, and in the case of my main mc the grand appella itself to form and in the latter case be the constitutional representation of popular sovereignty through elected representatives.
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The Chairman has no need of extant legitimacy. The world hurt him and now he’s going to hurt it back. If you want to survive his wrath you need to be one of his people or submit. His legitimacy comes from the fear of the fires burning your house down not from some existing source. The problem your MC faces isn’t from trying to cobble the remaining sources of legitimacy together to preserve as much as possible. Rather he needs to build something from the ashes fast enough to not be wholly devoured by the external threats.
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Also if he is literally planning on being Mao he’s going to die the largest landowner with a harem, private trains, and wiping out countless of his own people. With none of his policies working and being undoneby his successors who turn his nation into a rising Superpower.
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The pony express would require much less of a leap though, particularly for any factions who are going to maintain some form of highway system anyway…might as well run messages/mail on it too.
And frequent famines too probably.
That is true by necessity as no extant sources are remotely suitable for what he wants to do
I suppose that answers a major part of how to tie the realm together post-crisis…there’ll apparently be some truly major innovation of those kids toys. 
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Just a question are you in favor of reparations to Indonesia?
We’re already sorta committing to individual reparations in proven cases. I’m in favour of individual reparations in proven cases.
As for (more, my understanding is we already paid the Indonesian government some) government to government stuff…that is rather more difficult of a thing at the very minimum the Moluccan issue and Bersiap period would loom large there. It would also depend far more on whatever precise terms were to be negotiated, so I couldn’t really comment until a potential draft treaty were released to the public.
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Thank you for the vote of confidence; I look forward to seeing the Shayardene Empire come to fruition! (in one form or another)
Military glory/prowess is fine and all, but I do believe Sun Tzu made a big deal about how “all warfare is deception” and how “the epitome of martial excellence isn’t winning every battle, but winning without fighting.”
If my High-CHA (or Hybrid CHA/INT) MC has anything to say about it, perhaps he’ll successfully scheme/schmooze his way to the top without ever having personally lifted a single blade or Theurgic spell.
And by the way, on a separate (but related) note, despite having won all of his military battles in the War of the Five Kings, GoT’s Robb Stark was ultimately taken out of play by a mix of factors: his own political ineptitude (aka breaking his marriage alliance/oath with the Freys to instead hastily pursue a marriage of love), and Tywin Lannister’s brutal efficiency at being able to take advantage of that ineptitude (aka the Red Wedding).
My MC, on the other hand, intends to enjoy Habsburg-levels of success with his marriage alliances for the future games (and G5 epilogue-depicted future generations) to come.
By the way, how plausible do you think it might be for a defeated, post-“Battle of Aekos” Karagond to eventually evolve into “lost the war, but won the peace” modern-day Germany of MC’s koinon?
For understandable reasons, @idonotlikeusernames doesn’t exactly share my optimism on this topic, so I’m curious to find out what your opinion is (in comparison).
@Havenstone , how many Karagond city-states existed before being united by Hera?
Are they directly comparable to historical Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Syracuse, Aegina, Rhodes, Árgos, Erétria, and Elis?
Perhaps the transition of MC’s federal koinon (into a decentralized shell of its former self) might be a heavy (but acceptable) price to pay for MC’s “everyone is allowed to be trained into becoming a self-sacrifice Theurge now, I guess, but Harrowing is banned!” emergency agricultural plan.
@Havenstone , do the Laconniers happen to possess any Excalibur-equivalent “legendary weapon(s)” amongst their regalia?
And if the answer is yes (or if MC instead has to invent/forge the sword from scratch), then could a “pulling the sword from the stone” or “Lady of the Lake’s gifting ceremony” publicity stunt be arranged by MC?
And to paraphrase/twist a quote from Monty Python and the Grail, perhaps “supreme executive power can be derived from a farcical aquatic ceremony” after all!
What a very detailed and compelling article, Havie! I especially found the speculation, “The wheel breaks at last, beneath the boot of an Empire of the North”, to be the article’s most chilling line (plenty of goosebumps to be had here!).
And on yet another separate (but related) note, I’d like to recommend the following World of Warcraft Reddit link as yet another source of insight for how to determine a G5 koinon’s leadership (this time, by permanently assigning the executive role to a hereditary monarchy instead of bothering with elections).
“TL,DR: Alliance established the position of the High King and tied it to the throne of Stormwind to be able to capitalize on its military (which is the largest and the strongest within the Alliance) for rapid mobilization, well maintenance and political stability in leadership. Anduin himself is currently unchallenged and accepted because he has good publicity and managed to build close and respectful relationships with the rest of the Alliance leaders before his ascension.”
Well, “The Beard” trope could come in handy for your MC in this case, right?
Actually, history has taught us that being a consort does not necessarily mean being stuck as a powerless trophy spouse. The most recent favorite example that comes to mind is Eleanor of Aquitane.
Could you please paint me a more detailed picture about your imagined apella hierarchy?
So far, from what I’m guessing…
1- (National) Grand Apella
2- (Province/state-wide) Lower Apella
3- (District/city-wide) Lower x2 Apella
4- (Local tribe-wide) Lower x3 Apella
What exactly is the predicted scope of the Chairman’s newfound territory, by the way?
If your MC is going to invent the very first “crazy train” in XoR, does this mean we get to call him the Prince of Darkness? 
I’d rate that possibility pretty high. Existing trade routes and infrastructure have been created to maximize Karagon’s potential in the economy and concentrate the high value added work in the imperial metropole. Additionally, Karagon language and culture have diffused deeply into the provinces and become the equivalent of high society. Germany, as you indicated, was thoroughly destroyed, divided, and reviled after the world wars yet still emerged as the preeminent power in the EU. It will also probably still be regarded highly as a source of theurgic knowledge.
This is more for @idonotlikeusernames as I’m riffing off his character, but I think the answer is “as much as possible”
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