She would feel broadly positive about the idea – not just about steps to prevent a Theurgic monopoly on power, but to exclude them from formal office and confine them to being advisors and executors of decisions made by the non-Theurgic authorities. Something like the civil-military divide in our own societies.
She wouldn’t think it’s realistic. It’ll be hard enough to keep Theurges from ruling; pushing them all right out to the physical margins is impossible. (The Night’s Watch only works because it’s made up of powerless people.)
Many MCs may well intend to write off Eastern Erezza and just focus on reversing the historical injustice that grafted a good chunk of Shayard onto it. And negotiating an Erezza-Halassur ceasefire in the immediate wake of the Hegemony’s collapse may just be setting your sights too high…
Yeah, not gonna happen…because the most likely non-theurgic authorities in waiting are the nobles and clergy who are quite firmly wedded to a system of chattel slavery that my mc would see extirpated.
See, now my mc would get why idealists like Cerlotta and maybe Sarcifer might think like that, and it is a position borne of generations of privilege…to them the nobility and the clergy are, or used to be their friends and family…where they came from and where their roots were. To my mc they are his mortal enemies, or at least 99% of them are, and the people who have been oppressing his class of people for generations and treating them and him worse than cattle. To them it may just be a reordering of the “family hierarchy” but where my mc comes from his people where never given any seat at that proverbial family table to begin with.
Besides knowing a few fancy magic tricks wouldn’t personally protect him from re-enslavement either literally or in all but name, in such a scenario.
Ideally that is what the WMD’s are for, protecting territorial integrity, at least vis a vis external enemies…besides we need Erezza’s minerals if we ever hope to achieve anything as there seems to be no feasible alternative to get them from anywhere else at a reasonable cost and on a meaningful scale.
I mean very long term it might, theoretically, be possible to trade for them with those faraway other continents that the current order has no real interest in and put the canal to good use…but even that is far less optimal strategically than getting them from your backyard. And my mc won’t trade for essential goods (assuming they’d even trade them in the first place) with Halassur…only for meaningless “luxury” junk and only during periods of thaw at that.
It seems they have less, at least for the moment, as they seem to lack the understanding and skillset necessary to equal the Hegemony’s highest level theurgy, like the wards.
Why do you think my mc is so endlessly fascinated by the Xaos storms? They are eminently suitable for area denial and seem to be self-perpetuating to at least some degree, yes, they may leach off the wards, but they also seem to leach of the life in their area. If only they could be controlled and possibly harnessed to some degree, eh?
Primarily in deterrence of course…unless Halassur really decides to press, then, yes, my mc would unleash the apocalypse upon them if he could and whoever survives can struggle for dominance in the wasteland.
Point is they are primarily potentially advantageous to force a cold war with Halassur…but if push comes to shove it is better to use your capabilities first, rather than last and given that those resources in Erezza seem to be vitally important to our longer term prospects, well…
Do you mean in use or deterrence? Halassur has much if not more access to Theurgic WMDs as the hegemony. They’ll almost certainly have the advantage after the Hegemony’s collapse since it will largely be driven by a blood shortage. Additionally, theurgy doesn’t natively come with the radioactivity that makes nukes “useful” for area denial. I suppose you could create some effect that serves that purpose, but sustaining it will require blood you won’t have.
Sorry guys, work is busier than expected, so the minmaxed pacifist “Prophet of Peace” guide is on indefinite hiatus. That said I will post the basic skeleton here, in case people want to use it.
The original build idea was by Ledd, I did not know that a very optimized pacifist run that keeps all lieutenants alive was possible until he showed me. That said this particular winter strategy is my work alone, Ledd’s strat is different (though our results are about the same).
Remember that this is Compassionate / Devout (Inner Voice) / Homelander. You need to be Homelander so you can more easily get mules from Yeomen. You need over 800 rebels (adults and children) by Chapter 4 for this to work, which this guide will get you. Choose to send everyone back to the camps. When the time comes, you will send a few rebels away with Elery, to save her from poisoning and later death.
Week 1: 3/4 Rations for Adults and Child Healthy, 3/4 for Adult Sick, Subsistence for Child Sick. Week 1: Sell 5 arms and get 18 bushels. First beg mules with both you and Breden. Then talk to Alaine. Then have You beg Helots for food. Then have Elery recruit with remainder.
Week 2: Sell 5 arms and get 19 bushels. Switch Sick Child rations to Healthy (to save Alless). Have yourself beg mules and look for food from Helots, and have Breden recruit.
Week 3: Sell a mule, buy 43 bushels. Have Breden look for mules (this will get 1), and you bum food from Helots, and have Elery recruit. (edited)
Week 4: Switch the Adult Sick rations to Subsistence. Buy the bushels you can. Have yourself look for mules and beg helots for food, and have Breden recruit.
Week 5: Sell a mule, buy 43 bushels. Have yourself bum from merchants and beg Helots. Have Breden recruit.
Week 6: Buy all the bushels you can. Have yourself bum from merchants and beg Helots, have Breden recruit. Remember that this is when you do the mission from Alaine. In this week I had to hunt for a few rabbits with 20. Also switch rations to: switch rations to
Week 7: You have food! DO NOT bum from Helots this time. Just recruit everything.
Week 8: Sell 1 mule, buy 43 rations, Recruit with everybody, you and Breden.
Week 9: Sell 1 mule, buy 43 rations, recruit with everybody, you and Breden
Week 10: Sell 1 mule, buy 42(!) rations, recruit with everybody (if necessary, cut healthy child rations to half and bum a bit of food from helots with Elery).
By the way, will there be a future “idol vs principles” moral dilemma for Cerlota to grapple with in later games? (particular if/when she discovers that Sarcifer’s true agenda is for Theurges (preferably just himself) to rule/manipulate society (e.g. MC’s post-Hegemony new world order) from the shadows)
Last I checked, “ruling/manipulating through the shadows”.obeys the letter but violates the spirit of Cerlota’s preferred “Theurges are excluded from formal office” agenda, right?
Oh boy, how heartbroken is Cerlota going to become? (once she finds out that Sarcifer, her primary source of inspiration, isn’t the selfless role model that she envisioned him to be)
Duly noted, so I guess I’ll reframe my question accordingly: Will “exiled to penal colony” be an applicable punishment for defeated/de-powered enemies in later games?
#1: Alternatively, could protecting Eastern Erezza (or at least minimizing Halassur’s territory grab to acceptable levels) be a useful bargaining chip for buying back Shayard’s missing chunk? (in good faith)
#2: And by the way, how nationalistic does Cerlota feel about Erezza?
Does she feel sentimental/homesick enough to ask (or even demand) that MC make Erezza’s G5 border defense his top priority?
Not only does he distrust Halassur, my MC also has a vested interest in keeping Cerlota around (as his Minerva McGonagall of his post-Hegemony faction).
Since cultural influence is a two-way street, how plausible will it be for Homelander Lite merchant prince MC to coax his foreign allies into trying out (or perhaps even embracing) Shayardene culture/cuisine (aka the soft power approach)?
(Similar to how America has left its mark on foreign countries via Coca Cola and McDonalds)
Unfortunately for us players, @idonotlikeusernames, Havie already shut down our shared dream of “harnessing Xaos storms” a long time ago.
On my current plan, there won’t be any mule game in G2, so there’s no harm in selling-- but MCs who weren’t crushed by the Phalangites in G1 will get a better price in G2 for any mules they’ve kept.
It will have to be a better price in terms of arms and goodwill with the helots and yeoman. I think most of us invested the cash in those areas at the end of G1. Even if the mules just give more cash in G2 it would probably still be worth it to sell them all in G1 to get the jump on those two stats.
We’ll see. Not going to share more than I already have about Sarcifer.
Probably not for Theurges. People who know how to fly using their own blood are hard to pin down. For non-Theurges, there are probably some islands you could strand them on, but that would also not work well if they had Theurges as allies…
I don’t think the Erezziano leadership would be willing to voluntarily concede Avezia when they’re also facing territory losses to the east. That may be an outcome they have to accept, but it wouldn’t be the outcome of good-faith negotiations.
She’ll certainly be making it hers, whether or not she’s in a position to press your MC to make it his.
They’d have no problem trying the cuisine, but even if they embrace it, that doesn’t necessarily create an America-esque soft power dynamic. In my lifetime I’ve seen hummus go from something you could only get in a Middle Eastern restaurant to a familiar grocery store staple in both the US and UK, but I don’t think that’s given Middle Eastern states a notably greater soft power balance in the West.
Shayard’s language and culture aren’t about to become a new lingua franca any time soon in the wreckage of the Koine-sphere – it took centuries for French to displace Latin as the (literal) linga franca after the fall of Rome, and centuries more for English to spread into a similar role. Religion is your best shot for a cross-border soft power approach.
I read idnlun as talking about “controlling and harnessing” Storms for purely destructive purposes, e.g. to threaten Halassur and try to replace the hot war with a MAD-assisted cold one. Any of that may or may not be possible – I’m not going to say either way definitively – but I’d note that it’s different from harnessing a Storm for energy generation, which I have indeed ruled out.
Does Xthonism also have its own version of Passover, Easter, Good Friday, Christmas, and other Christian holidays?
@Havenstone, even though nationalism is an empire-killer, soft nationalism can still be a useful glue for Homelander MC to form alliances with non-Shayardene nationalists, right?
Admittedly, I will concede that this nationalism-driven koinon could end up spiraling out of control into becoming a dangerous coalition of expansionism-obsessed fascist countries (similar to the World War 2 Axis).
However, will it instead be possible for MC (and like-minded allies/successors) to steer/maintain a nationalism-driven koinon towards a tamer, decentralized, and NATO-like vision?
(e.g. “Being patriotic about our respective home provinces doesn’t mean we’re doomed to become bigoted bullies or apathetic isolationists; we can and should behave better than that! Let us instead form a pact to militarily unite/defend each other in times of crisis/invasion, while also defining clear boundaries that respects each member province’s sovereignty/cultural independence.”)
Will it be possible for MC (and/or others) to eventually develop technology that suppresses a person’s ability to use Theurgy? (similar to Young Justice’s inhibitor collars)
Such technology would especially be relevant/useful for a MC that decides to pursue an anti-Theurgic inquistion, right?
Suddenly, I can already visualize Hector and Calea having a secret “prison pen pal correspondence” with Sarcifer (who advertised his services as a “glorified magical Uber driver”).
And during later games, could MC himself be on the receiving end of this punishment? (Only to later escape exile and then gloriously return to absolute power, Napoleon-style?)
(And FYI, unlike Napoleon, MC fully intends to win XoR’s take on Waterloo, if applicable!)
Duly noted. Anyways, since MC would like to avoid repeating Bismarck’s Alsace-Lorraine annexation mistake (which antagonized France into later (vindictively) pushing the Treaty of Versailles onto WW1-defeated Germany), how would the Erezziano leadership instead feel about MC’s proposed “Shayardtown” compromise?
(FYI, MC’s definition of Shayardtown is “a vacation spot that lets a rotating selection of Homelander Shayardene tenants live out the fantasy of ‘reclaiming Shayard’s old holdings’ while in exchange, the Erezzan government (the landlord) gets the privilege of collecting extra rental income/property tax”)
Darn it, so much for MC’s ambition to build a global McShayard fast food franchise!
But FYI, McDonald’s comparison aside, the other real-life analogy that prompted me to discuss this “food as soft power” topic is the Thai government’s recent use of “culinary diplomacy” in today’s modern era.
But it is within MC’s power to at least promote Shayarin as the encouraged language of his koinon’s royal court/aristocracy, correct?
(While simultaneously acknowledging/retaining Koine as the “still useful/practical”, nationwide lingua franca of the koinon’s citizens)
It’s not annexation when you’re all in the same country, it’s administrative re-districting, Avezia would be the new capital, both of the larger state and of its own capital district, which would be pretty big and include the canal zone.
Besides, depending on what sorts of cultural divides run through Erezza itself my mc may split it into more provinces too, as the current ones are far too big and my mc would generally favour splitting the current huge provinces into multiple smaller and highly interdependent ones.
Just about the only useful thing of the old Hegemony to keep would be the common language…besides language is a living thing, so I’m pretty sure we’ll see some new revolutionary and post revolution new order terms pop-up ,while hopefully reducing other ones to the dust bin and obscure historical texts…like helotry, for example.
It has its seasonal festivals, which don’t correspond to the calendar of any Earth religion.
Yes, that will be possible! As I’ve argued at length elsewhere on the forum, nationalism isn’t inherently bad or divisive, even if (like all significant sources of social order) it can go very, very bad.
Other than e.g. an axe to the cranium? No.
Mmmmaybe? We’re a long way off from the ends of Game 5, and I don’t want to rule out or promise an Elba plot as one option.
I’m afraid this wouldn’t come close to satisfying any real irredentist – and the Erezziano wouldn’t want to let in visitors who are play-acting at conquest, in fear that it would turn into the real thing.
That’s pretty cool, and new to me – thanks for sharing! But it’s also a strategy for a world of stable transnational commercial ties, which is (let’s say) highly unlikely to describe the gameworld for most of the MC’s lifetime.
It would be interesting to see you try. There’s a reason that India has kept English as an official language post-colonially, and similar factors would push pretty heavily toward keeping Koine as the working language of the koinon, including whatever form its top leadership takes.
If you’re relating to the other nations as their conqueror, Norman-style, rather than as a member of a league of equal nations, then you’d be in a much better place to encourage your language as the new imperial tongue.
The Hegemony has something that suppressed it though. I guess we won’t be developing it, but some supernatural force prevents the MC from activating their powers in the captured bad end.
Be that as it may, in my opinion, Cerlota’s loyalty (along with the loyalty of any Theurgic students that she personally trained, AND have become more loyal to her than they are towards MC) are factors that shouldn’t be casually dismissed in this “how Erezza should be treated” debate.
And in a series where acquiring (and keeping) Theurges is essential for empire-building, do you really think it’s a wise idea to alienate the (potentially) most experienced Theurgic ally/subordinate/lieutenant (and her associated followers/disciples) away from your faction?
How high would your MC’s tolerance be for NPCs who potentially banded together to become “soldiers without borders”? (independent of MC’s HRE-inspired imperial koinon)
Once elected/secure in the koinon’s seat of leadership, would your MC see these mercenaries as assets or hindrances to his reign?
@Havenstone, building upon the Norman TED-Ed topic I brought up earlier, how possible will it be for XoR’s various languages to start overlapping with each other?
(e.g. new terms that combine both Shayarin and Koine)
Alternatively, perhaps the helot label could be a recontextualized as a “look how far we’ve come, despite being born (or sold) into slavery!” mark of pride? (in a post-Hegemony world in which ex-helots are properly liberated, and/or have become the new ruling class)
On a separate note, if Eternal Thaumatarch feels too pompous for your tastes (when later titling Alya’s role of absolute power), “First Citoyen” could be a reasonable alternative.
On a separate note, what are the Whendish, Erezzan, and Nyrish terms/vocabulary for Theurge? (if they decide to brand their Theurges in accordance with their nationalism, similar to how Shayarene Homelanders brand their Theurges as “Wisards”)
Per your personal observations/opinion, which “sources of social order” spectrum extreme (Homelander/Cosmo, Skeptic/Devout) terrify you the most? (aka is the most volatile, the hardest to control, and is the most prone to succumbing to villainous behavior)
Like I’ve stated earlier, my most dreaded XoR extremists/opponents are the nationalist demagogues of later games (especially the more ruthless/intolerant subfaction of Shayardene Xthonists), but what about you?
Speaking of axe-wielders, has it ever been clarified which COM helot NPC is stronger (and/or more skilled): Radmar or K?
Okay, then time to revisit my favorite angle: a good old fashioned marriage alliance.
Would a seat at the table of Shayard’s politics (aka marry into the line of a Shayardene royal family claimant) be a worthy incentive for giving back ownership of Aveche to Shayard?
(especially if Laconnier MC (or allied claimant) was a bachelor (or widow) by Game 5, didn’t form a pact with Phaedra, and was strongly considering the formation of an Austro-Hungarian inspired diarchy with Shayard and Erezza as its “crown lands”)
From MC’s POV, it’s all about the context.
Rather than provoking “grr, how dare Shayard impose its language as superior to my native tongue” resentment, MC is instead hoping to inspire feelings of “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we learned/imitated the language of the heroic Shayardenes who played the biggest parts in liberating our home provinces, and then invited us into their koinon?” gratitude.
A new idea just came up: could there be a sneaky counter-intuitive purpose for MC deliberately keeping Shayarin restricted (and not too widely known outside of Shayard)?
(e.g. pursue a Navajo Code Talker-inspired approach to give Shayard an espionage boost)
Nah, there is not a single shred of joy or pride to be had in helotry…conversely if my mc lives a reasonably long theurgic lifespan one of the greatest joys could be seeing kids or teens vacant expressions and glazed over stares when casually mentioning the word.
Only my second mc would go for the Koinon my main mc wants a single state. Tolerance for private military contractors will most likely be quite low in both cases, as PMC’s tend to be agents of destruction and unsanctioned war-crimes much like the current Alastors and they should not expect mercy when defeated if fighting against him.
That said, if the cold war is achievable some will likely be around and it’ll be lucrative and very dangerous as they’d exist only for plausible deniability for, I imagine, both Halassur and my mc’s state. So again, they should be expected to be treated like common mass-murdering outlaws if captured or defeated by either side, not POW’s.
One exception where, under the right circumstances, my mc might encourage private action is on the high seas if a situation manifests itself where establishing a system for privateering makes sense and is feasible.
Not a technology. A trained Theurge of appropriate skill can sense when someone else is trying to Change a telos, and intervene reflexively to reinforce the nature of the thing being Changed and/or disrupt the opponent’s capacity to make Change. That can happen a few times in G1 Ch 4 if you’re contending magically with Theurges.
If you’re caught in the end and taken on Braveheart parade to Grand Shayard, you’ll be under constant Theurgic guard. Your hands will be shackled and muffled to keep you from cutting yourself, and there will always be an alert Theurge gauging if you’re somehow trying something anyway. Those precautions can work in the short term for the exemplary display of a captured Goete rebel…but it wouldn’t be remotely cost-effective to run a prison colony on that basis.
If I’ve mistakenly written anything inconsistent with this or opened up any plot holes, let me know.
Well, they already kind of do. When Shayardenes call the Archon “Conte,” or talk about “a telone” and “many telones” rather than telones/telonai as the singular/plural, or a “Goete” rather than a goes, or strictly speaking, even when someone says “Karagond” rather than “Karagounid” – all of that could be called “Koinerin.” They’re mashing Koine vocab with Shayarin structure, or vice versa.
Here’s some draft text on that topic from the Cerlota dialogue:
*if wisardry = "Wisardry"
"Wisardry." She tastes it, brow furrowing. "An old Ciarreno word?"
"From stories going back long before the Codex."
"In Erezza, when not using Koine, we might say [i]magia[/i]."
"Aye, magic. They'd say that on our Coasts as well, and everyone
knows that Theurges are called magi. But up in the Rim and Westriding
we still remember more of the older Shayarin tongue. To speak of a
wisard doesn't make folk think of Theurgy. It sends their minds
further back."
Cerlota considers, then shrugs. "We also have older stories that
speak of [i]stregoneria[/i], but I would not be a strega. Those words
have too much of the echo of Goety about them. For your Wisardry,
I shall say Magia."
When the action turns to Wiendrj and Nyryal, I’ll decide the comparable terms, if any.
Nationalism, totally. Religions generally have some intrinsic tie to a compassion-ethic or at least a purportedly universal ethic, which tends to generate contradictions in the social project of using religion to oppress and exclude. Those contradictions don’t (at all!) prevent religion from being used that way, but they do mean that an oppressive social order with a religious basis has a built-in vulnerability–its critics can wield (some of) its own core values against it. It’s much easier to end up with a completely exclusionary and self-consistent nationalism.
As you can see from that answer, I’m at least as terrified by the extreme success of any source of social order as I would be by its extreme failure. The fact that a source of social order has some built-in volatility and can be used by critics of the order as well as its defenders is, to me, broadly a good thing. Anything that comes close to allowing elites complete and reliable social control – even well-meaning and righteous elites – would be anathema to me.
Radmar is much stronger. K gets by on ferocity and speed.
You can expect the general Erretsin response here to be: Avezia is too valuable for us to trade away to you on any terms whatsoever. Shayard has more than enough land. Stop being so bloody greedy, you power-drunk expansionist.
The more intentional you are about pushing it, the less likely it is that the gratitude (or the self-interest in learning the language of the koinon’s biggest and most resource-rich member) would outweigh the resentment.
No, that’s not realistic. You could train up your spies to use some weird hill dialect from the Reach, maybe, or one of the local Whendish languages even more obscure than Szert (the only one mentioned in G1), but you’re not going to be able to get a meaningful espionage boost from the language that’s already the mother tongue of a huge and well-connected population.
So I noticed a lot of people talking about things and places I haven’t seen, am I missing an expansion pack, book2 or is it like a patreon thing? Or is it all speculation, author hints and stuff
None occurs to me. The MC hasn’t been able to perceive any change in the making in their vicinity yet, but that can be easily attributed to a lack of training.
Just about anything people are talking about will be based on information shared by the author on this thread, or in some cases on the earlier Game 1 WIP thread. Much of it has been collected on the Choice of Rebels wiki, too.
A year and a half ago I linked to a few key forum discussions for anyone who wants to catch up on the spoilery stuff. That’s still valid.
The first chapter in G2 should be getting its own thread posted here soon.
