Choice of Rebels: Uprising — Lead the revolt against a bloodthirsty empire!

Choice of Games games
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486

And you clearly don’t know how a pervasive caste system works.

Highly developed agriculture is a significant money maker, but that requires significant investments of education and capital as I come from a country that does just that. However agriculture is also increasingly automated and employing less and less but increasingly higher educated and skilled people.

I’d rather see them more successful as this is what I ultimately have against our own Liberal party, the freedom to die on streets because you weren’t born wealthy isn’t much freedom at all.

Well if you’re going to redistribute most of the land it is in fact your problem as that would quickly lead you to becoming a Zimbabwe and unlike Zimbabwe there’s no South Africa, UN and other external powers able and willing to prop us up with food aid. So the new farmers had better get an education in how to farm first.
It also assumes the yeomen and merchants won’t just either claim all the land first or simply drive helots who dare to claim land off of it with hired thugs likely aided by a highly complacent and corrupt police force especially if you leave it to only slightly reformed Alastors. Again plenty of examples for those kinds of practices all over Asia, Africa and South America.
Abolishing the noble privileges and giving most helots and yeomen a stake in the gaint agriculture operations so that they become worker-owned collectives or co-operatives seems a better way to go to me. Plus if they share in the dividents it may actually encourage people to work harder and innovate more and escape the economy of serfdom, where any productivity beyond the absolute minimum they can get away with is the enemy of the people.
You can be damned sure that my mc did as little work as an unpaid piece of blood-cattle as he could get away with because again doing any more than that is not in the serf’s or slave’s best interest.

That is not a narrative that would work for my mc seeing as how he is a helot, the helots are the most important elements of his base and he needs them to fill many of the key positions, which they cannot do unless they get educated first.

Well some of the reform projects, again from India are not encouraging in that regard. But even if they do get paid, I expect that pay to be below subsistence levels in many cases thus forcing them back into perpetual debt-bondage again.

Some? Try most, which may or may not be acceptable depending on how much helots we can educate or slot into relatively well-paying factory jobs instead. Still slotting some yeomen and the best of the helots into managerial positions in the new collectives and cooperatives to replace the current nobles may be preferable.
Farming in the Hegemony also doesn’t work like it did in old Shayard or the early US for that matter as the current mode of food production seems heavily reliant on scale and (theurgic) skill. Break that up into smallholder farm, instead of say reforming it into employee owned collectives and there will be famine. There is likely to be some famine no matter what we do, but going the way of India or Zimbabwe has the potential to greatly exacerbate it.

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This goes back to my original argument that Helots are essentially useless except for cheap labour and blood sacrifices. Since you both are so intent on basically showing how utterly useless they are in all aspects of society building, I guess I’ll just need to keep them around as blood chattel. For the greater good!

That’s the thing with me, I’m not going to waste my time on useless projects. If they are so beyond the point of effort and usefulness, then I’ll maintain the status-quo. It would really cause me zero pain since they aren’t going to be much use anyway from what you guys are saying.

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Come to the bloody side. We have cookies :slight_smile:

The helots magnify Him by their toil and their blood, as the liturgy says.

I figure reforming the existing system to eliminate its abuses will lead to the greatest prosperity for all (including the helots - who do matter to Alya, surprisingly!). Likely, that means turning helots into milk cattle and oxen instead of beef cattle (to “butcher” an analogy, as it were). But as I said way back above, I think the helots would be more interested in regular meals, human rights and a little bit of prosperity than in revolution. @idonotlikeusernames wants to get rid of helotry entirely and turn helots into proletariat factory workers, which I think is ignoring the existing technological paradigm of Karagond.

Of course, Havenstone is probably laughing at all of our plans. :slight_smile: Awesome work on his part making a screwed-up situation with so many possible options for its future, though!

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Thing is by not educating them the Hegemony is wasting a lot of potential. Just from our own backwards and backwoods village, there are some talented people who already can do a lot of things just as good or better then some nobles can with fairly minimal education and training, but they do need the opportunity to avail themselves of it.

And nobility and the current clergy, my mc wants to get rid of the caste system in its entirety, with no half-measures, as the steadily backsliding modern India of mr. Modi is what happens when you take half-measures and don’t actually enforce most of your laws.

I’m not so sure, some techne seems pretty advanced even without blood-magic, only the Karagonds have always kept industrialisation strictly confined to Karagond itself. Once we get there and out of our current backwards backwoods, we’ll see how viable the technological paradigm of Karagond is.
All persons are (nominally) equal in the eyes of the law and all that.

Very likely, right Havie (as Mara used to call him)? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

As I’ve argued with the resident Tiger before, the nominal human rights serfs had weren’t worth much in practice because they lacked impartial enforcers and depended on the kindness, goodwill and essentially self-regulation by the nobles. A system in which my mc would naturally have exactly zero confidence.

And the more talented into soldiers, officers, bureaucrats and theurges, let’s not forget that.

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490

The reason why I want them to be in their own villages in the middle of nowhere so when they can’t figure out how to farm and with their self governance… well, who’ll know what is happening right? Besides if I can spread Techne and get some assembly lines set up, I have a feeling I might be able to do some distribution to villages. Try to get 4 to each village maybe. Who knows, starvation was the norm in this era.

Honestly, @Ramidel, the person who needs to be Harrowed is @idonotlikeusernames, he’s a psychotic maniac who will destroy the world with his dumb reforms.

At least he won’t be able to be miserable ever again and complain about how much the nobility are evil.

491

From Alya’s perspective, if these helots want to show that their telos is not in line with their station at birth, they should show it. Maybe join the army if that’s practical, or scrounge up enough money that their children can learn to read or buy into a syntechnia. Show that they are more than they were born to be.

I mean, she has no objection to elevating Elery to aristocracy, but for every Elery, there’s a Radmar (someone who should be kept at least a bowshot away from the levers of power, because he’s a Millstone around her neck) and a bunch of followers who just listen to what their leaders say.

(Obviously, your MC and mine are working from fundamentally different first principles there.)

Maybe. That said, if we assume that Karagond is between 1500 and 1800-ish (watch me condense three centuries of rapid technological advancement into a sweeping, inaccurate generalization :smiley:) then breaking the Malthus trap will require blood magic.

They still had certain checks (for example, prima noctae is a straight-up myth), largely driven by the Church (for all the latter’s faults). There’s a reason I’m keeping the Diakons - that, and establishing a functional rule of law, with courts that can bring charges against nobles on behalf of helots.

492

I know that this is just talking about the game, but let’s please keep it civil and lower the heat, even if we’d be killing each other in the field. It is just a game.

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493

So how would you organise your government from top to bottom and the bureaucratic structure of it?

Bureaucratic:
Imperial Province of Shayard: Directly ruled and administered from Shayard City and controlled by myself. Broken up into various counties where the nobility will be placed under the purview of governors appointed by yours truly.

Other former Hegemonic Provinces: Broken up into their constituent regions. They will be controlled in a similar system to the current Hegemonic one. We will strive to make sure that the overarching Koine continues to thrive to try to maintain a unified nation. Since without a comprehensive communication system, Indirect rule is the best policy.

Government:

Executive Branch:
HIM: Phyla Alakatou, will be the head of the Imperial Government with the ability to appoint governors, administer justice, appoint ministers to serve as deputies, and supreme commander of the military

The Nine: The Wards are probably still going to be up and someone needs to monitor them. They will be kept, but they will no longer be the sole advisors to the Empress.

The Chief Ministers:
Ministry of the Exchequer
Ministry of the Interior
High-General
High-Admiral
High-Mage
High-Judge
Chief Archimandrite
and a few others that can be created a step needed.

Legislative Branch:
Local assemblies of free citizens who will be granted the right of petition and direct access to the judges appointed by the executive.

Judicial Branch:
Judges appointed by the crown to uphold the legal code of the Empire. They will be tiered by importance from wandering judges, to county judges, and to provincial judges who are the supreme judges of the province. They will be strictly monitored by the Inquisition to ensure they are upholding their duties. The Inquisition will be monitored by loyal Kryptasts.

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Oh, my mc has his issues, who wouldn’t have growing up the way he did. But abolishing the caste system is still a noble goal and there have been lots of reforms throughout history that have had unintended consequences. He tries to do what seems best from his perspective and will make most of it up as he goes along.

The vast majority of the nobility in the Hegemony is evil. As Horion said, if they had the guts the Hegemony could have fallen a hundred years ago, since they now depend quite heavily on the provincial nobility to the point where they can no longer get around without them. Again if Horion’s esitmates are worth anything and not lies, both things my mc has some doubt over. But there you have it.

That’s prohibited by the religious caste system, you know.

Since they are not paid that is a rather difficult proposition and even if they did either the nobility would “impound” those savings, which they have every right to do according to the current laws, as soon as they learn of it. Even if that doesn’t happen there’s no school in the current Hegemony that will deign to educate someone born a helot, no matter how talented or able.

That is very much true. But the current “nobility” I dare say is seemingly made up of far more Hectors then Horions.

I don’t think that will really work, at least not without really smashing the caste system to bits. Again our closest example of a caste dystopia in modern India has seen a surprising number of lower caste, particularly untouchables who even dared to try and make use of the courts to seek redress suffer “accidents” before they ever saw the end of their “fair” trial or even the inside of a courtroom.

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Bzzt. You know quite well that I’m abolishing the religious aspect of the caste system. What I’m keeping is the practical aspect, and in so doing, allowing social mobility where proven.

Not to mention the Brahmins attaining Scheduled Caste status - seriously, that wasn’t how it was supposed to work.

That said, Alya believes that she’ll be able to establish a Thaumatarch-level bureaucracy that will be able to defend the lower castes from the aristocracy’s “excesses.” Essentially, a crown-commons alliance against the nobility (common in English history).

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Creating bureaucracy is fun, I want to create a web of bureaucracy so big and confusing that the Byzantines would be proud.

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Okay, here we go. Eternal Thaumatarch Alya Seriatou at the top, of course.

Below the Thaumatarch, multiple chains of power (hey, you like it Byzantine…). The first chain of power is through appointed archons and aristarchs. (These are not to be linked to families, however. They’ll usually come from the aristocracy, but an archon is appointed from the center and aristarchs by the archon.) These are the governors of the nations and districts of the Koinon, and appoint the Telones and Alastors - they’re essentially local government, in charge of tax collection, order maintenance, and other aspects of the nightwatchman state. Karagon will likewise have its own Archon.

There will also be a Phalangite army command, with a central office and then local commands not answerable to local governments but centered in the local capital, as well as border commands. The Phalangites exist both to defend the borders, crush rebellion by the helotry and enforce the Thaumatarch’s will on the archon and aristocracy (for example, enforcing decisions of the royal courts).

There will also be royal courts established in each district for the judicial system. Felony jurisdiction and the right of Harrowing is exclusively theirs; Alastors are limited to order-maintenance duties and summary judgment of misdemeanors, and corruption will be dealt with.

And then there will be the Syntechnia, including the Theurgic Syntechnia and possibly the Diakonate, who are in charge of training and rating skilled professions, controlling and licensing trade, and so on. The Theurgic Syntechnia in particular will be a primary arm of the Koinon’s control, having licensing and command authority over Theurgy, and responsibility for managing blood tax (which cannot be left to the archons). The Ennearchs will be officers of the Syntechnia rather than Eclectoi.

There will also be a Kryptast Syntechnia, but everyone knows that they don’t exist. Really. Any rumors that they deal with corrupt Archons before the Phalangites have to be sent in are just bedtime stories. :slight_smile:

I’m not going to have a “ministerial” government, but each branch and major syntechnia’s chief will be part of the Thaumatarch’s court (the chief Theurge being effectively deputy Thaumatarch), and there will be certain officers of the Crown such as the Treasurer on the Thaumatarch’s personal staff.

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Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of doing with the governors and nobility. I might have gymnasiums for the nobility to hone their greater potential. My army will be an all volunteer professional force and I plan on having schools for that. I plan on incorporating the Syntechnia under their various umbrella ministries.

I might also allow for Syntechnia to act as Unions and give them petition rights to stand in front of a judge and state their case in regards to abuses by employers and the like. Should be interesting… the dirty unwashed proletariats should have a right to collective bargaining.

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Oh, yes, and the “cow protection squad” vigilantes, which seems to be more of an excuse to beat up anybody who “steps out of line” according to the most ridiculous interpretations of the religion. Occasionally going so far as to literally do it in front of the complacent “police”. I’m glad one of my old neighbours was able to get out of there when he did.

Of course on the big picture level anybody with a bit of guts and talent getting out when they can leaves the worst of the worst and will make sure the cycle never gets broken, though on an individual level I can’t fault the ones who make it out as they tend to have suffered more than enough already. Just one more of the fundamental tragedies of refugees and exiles, eh?

Course to take the crown you have to be born a noble first. Which is why it could never work for my mc. Also I think you are again underestimating the caste system, since if you divorce it from religion it would quickly lose whatever remaining legitimacy it has and if you don’t divorce it from religion what you want to do likely won’t be possible.
That said, as a noble I suppose you can try to create your own complacent clergy, particularly if you claim to be the new supreme “prophet”, again like the resident TIger wanted to do in order to (try to) reform the religion, but on the other hand you can probably also ask the late Pharaoh Echnaton how that can go badly, badly wrong too.
Your crown-commons alliance may also suffer from the old Chinese proverb “the mountains are tall and the emperor far away” in every bit of territory not directly in or near the capital and under absolute royal control. Especially if you make it serfdom and leave the protection and advancement largely up to the whims of the nobles and priesthood then, in practice, not much is going to change.
It is, I believe, one of the reasons our very own Cata has always maintained China to be a 4000 year old train-wreck.

Highly likely, which is why Mara may ultimately turn out to be the most successful of all of us (and oh, the irony of that, eh?). Since she has no problems whatsoever with famine or culling the population by ceasing all blood magic, so long as she ruthlessly and cunningly manages to retain power and somehow manages to deter Halassur from pouncing.

Still the Hegemony obviously spends a lot of blood on the wards, the plektoi and needless decadence for its upper classes. Cut that frivolous and wasteful spending to the bone and them maybe along with the tolls from war and rebellion and the decrease in fertility that better education, particularly of women and legalized mullow is going to give you and maybe we can get to the point where the population begins to stabilize. Particularly if a more eithical blood tax that former nobles and any surviving former alastors and priests are definitely not going to be exempted from can be made to work.

Yeah, considering the nightmare theocracy the Hegemony is my mc really wouldn’t trust the massively corrupt church to enforce anything or look out for the common people as long as they can receive fat state subsidies instead of having to rely on voluntarily given donations from the common people. It can’t bite the hand that feeds it if it wants to survive, but the problem is that hand belongs to the state and the nobility at present, not the masses of helots and yeomen.

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Your MC doesn’t even trust the Diakons? Shamefur, simply shamefur.

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IMO the most critical problem is food production. The Hegemony is already clearly in a tight spot with food production since it is taking 7 harvests a year to keep Shayard City fed. That is way beyond modern industrial capacity, and represents a massive blood investment. Even the rebellion just disrupts the blood faucet it could cause severe shortages, which will impact everyone including the rebels. This is also something that has to be resolved with the year or you’ll be pulling an “Arduous March” before you know it. I personally don’t see a land reform or techne path to 7 harvests a year.

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Then we may all just need to become as ruthless as Mara in the end, willing or no.
Until we get to Karagond proper and know if a less reprehensible and more egalitarian blood-tax (more egalitarian Harrowing will always be possible as we can always make it a lottery that if there really is absolutely no other alternative) are in fact possible we don’t know what we can do differently with tech and magic. I hope there will be some ways, particularly if we’re cutting all wasteful current spending of blood, particularly the wards and the plektoi.
Halassur seems to make it while being (far) less wasteful with blood magic in comparison to the Hegemony. Of course we know that it is somewhat larger in territory and we don’t know its population totals and agricultural production. I guess it would be interesting and highly informative to compare them sometime.

In a way he fears them more, because they are more likely to be true believers then Ecclesiasts like Linos and probably Zebed who at least instinctively seem to know that most of the current religion consists of nothing more then self-serving lies of the Hegemony.
That said, the Diakons can be useful tools to utterly shatter and fragment the church with, provided they are cut-off from all state funding and the leadership they’re so accustomed to blindly following is decapitated, as this would force them to both begin to actually think for themselves and try to interpret the religion on their own, it will also render them dependent on what flocks they can retain, or steal away from other Diakons for their livelihood. This competition of differing interpretations and former Diakons competing for faithful followers would utterly shatter the power and unity of the current nightmare church.
Thus this is one thing the Tiger has convinced me off that, if properly handled, the former Diakons might make useful tools and fools. That doesn’t mean my mc trusts them, quite the opposite actually. Which is why they will not get to wield temporal power in the name of the state.

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The Hegemonic population has grown into the available surplus made possible by the blood economy. To equate it to modern terms I think it would be like suddenly running out of phosphate. Modern fertilizer underwrites the entire modern global food market. Even with reminding stockpiles and reserves trying to turn the entire global system to new (read older) food production methods would take time and probably would not be as productive. In short winners and losers and somebody starves. Then add in the disruption of a civil war…

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Most likely but it hasn’t yet been determined that a blood tax isn’t going to be possible in any way, shape or form or that it wouldn’t be enough for agriculture even if we cut all wasteful spending of blood.

If that’s gonna be the case my mc would rather not have his people, read the rural helots do most of the losing and starving, but that really isn’t so different from any other politician putting their own base first.
Of course it should be an absolute priority to avoid famine if at all possible, without the current caste system and harrowing in my mc’s case of course.

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I assume (unless the Hegemony is just straight up malevolent) that the blood tax is significantly less efficient than harrowing. The rebellion inherently will control less of the population than the authorities and the ability to enforce a tax requires legitimacy.

There is also the problem that currently the phosphate mine is also the farm equipment and your soldiers. The efficiency equation is not looking great is all I’m sayin’…