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

[P_Tigras]

@idonotlikeusernames

@P_Tigras

More importantly this supports my original point that Karagond is unlikely to have the masses of helots that Shayard does. It doesn’t need them the way the giant plantations in Shayard do, just as the much more heavily industrialized American North had less use for them than the plantations of the American South.

Karagond still needs masses of industrial drudges and its population needs lots of street cleaners, sewer muckers, housekeepers, boot polishers, gardeners and lots of other menial servants.In short they’d do all of the jobs even poor free people do not want to fill. Much like you see with illegal immigrants in the US and other developed countries, only even more cruel since they are not merely illegal but actual slaves without even basic human rights. Since there is a heavy natalist drive and helots and drudges represent a strategic blood reserve in addition to their labour I think that both the government and the private owners use far more servants then they technically need as they represent not just labour but capital in the blood economy too.

You’re trying to argue it both ways. Industrial workers aren’t drudges however. They tend to be specialized. Each task in the production line is different, and it often takes considerable time, on the order of weeks and even months, to become both accurate and fast at the assigned task, and that’s assuming the worker is both motivated and suited to the task. A large percentage of industrial workers don’t work out. If these jobs aren’t open to helots than Karagond just doesn’t need very many helots for its factories. And if they are open to helots, than the factory owners are going to pull strings to avoid having their production lines stall due to a bottleneck because the most critical workers in the production line were randomly harrowed.

@P_Tigras

Again, this supports my original point that fewer helots will be found in Karagond than Shayard. Karagond’s cities just don’t need as much unskilled labor as Shayards massive plantations. I expect that visiting central Karagond for the MC will be like stepping into a different world.

Hmmm…for one thing even Karagond factories are probably far more labour intensive by design then necessary given their technology just to use more drudges.

Untrained drudges are useless in most factory positions. The majority of factory positions require some sort of on the job training, and it can take months for that training to become reflex to the point where they are both accurate and fast. A large number of fresh untrained drudges will just make a big and costly mess of things.

@P_Tigras

How cruel they are is immaterial to our discussion, the overwhelming majority of them still won’t like the government taking their toys any more than they do the government taking their money. It’s human nature.

At the moment the powerful Karagond nobles are the government as the provincial governments and nobility seem to be mere quisling type puppets.

Exactly. That’s why the Karagond nobles have the ability to pull strings the Rim Square nobility do not. Expecting them never to pull those strings just because they’re evulz is not just unrealistic, but also cornball evil, and the evil in this story is not cornball evil.

[idonotlikeusernames]

@P_Tigras

Untrained drudges are useless in most factory positions. The majority of factory positions require some sort of on the job training, and it can take months for that training to become reflex to the point where they are both accurate and fast. A large number of fresh untrained drudges will just make a big and costly mess of things.

Those factories still need to be cleaned, for this no skill whatsoever is needed. And the gardeners, boot polishers, menial servants, sewer muckers and cleaners, oh so many cleaners remain. Those are all absolutely rotten jobs that, much like in modern America or any remotely developed country no truly free person no matter how lowborn is going to want to do as a career.
Plus, again if worst comes to worst, which it probably will in light of our mc’s ongoing rebellion those people represent not just an unpaid labour force to do the least desirable jobs but also a strategic blood reserve.

Plus they need to harrow likely hundreds of helots and drudges per day merely for luxury spending and that floating palace, better to take those from a native reserve then to have to import them from the distant provinces.

[HughMyronBrough]

New challenge, guys: create as much anarchy as possible!

I’d wager that the best way to go about this is to do a 2COM build and straight up raid everything that moves, but you’ll need good micromanagement to max out your anarchy, and there aren’t too many obvious local maxima.

A Helot is probably slightly better for this challenge, because you can get Carles the Jongler to help you later, and if you’re trying to max out anarchy, you’re not going to be making friends with Nobles anyways.

[Iello]

I can’t possibly speculate on whether or not there are many slaves in the Karagond heartlands and whether they’re treated differently than provincial helots but I can tell you that if there are any slaves, my MC is looking to reform that too and rebuild Karagond in a way that does away with slavery without necessarily overturning the entire social order.

[Sneaks]

@idonotlikeusernames

And the gardeners, boot polishers, menial servants, sewer muckers and cleaners, oh so many cleaners remain. Those are all absolutely rotten jobs that, much like in modern America or any remotely developed country no truly free person no matter how lowborn is going to want to do as a career.

I know a few gardeners who would take offense to that.

[Verand]

@idonotlikeusernames

Those factories still need to be cleaned, for this no skill whatsoever is needed. And the gardeners, boot polishers, menial servants, sewer muckers and cleaners, oh so many cleaners remain.

Realistically though, how many serfs serving as street sweepers or sewage cleaners are you going to need in comparison to a region (such as Shayard) who’s economy is built upon the back of chattel slavery. Even adding in however many helots may be employed as domestic servants and the like, there simply won’t be nearly as many jobs to fill in such a (relatively) urban and industrialized area, so the helot population will be significantly lower, even if the Hegemony likes to have an extra blood reserve around just in case.

[P_Tigras]

@idonotlikeusernames

@P_Tigras

Untrained drudges are useless in most factory positions. The majority of factory positions require some sort of on the job training, and it can take months for that training to become reflex to the point where they are both accurate and fast. A large number of fresh untrained drudges will just make a big and costly mess of things.

Those factories still need to be cleaned, for this no skill whatsoever is needed. And the gardeners, boot polishers, menial servants, sewer muckers and cleaners, oh so many cleaners remain. Those are all absolutely rotten jobs that, much like in modern America or any remotely developed country no truly free person no matter how lowborn is going to want to do as a career.

Pay them enough and they will, at least in America, but there is no need to when migrants are willing to do it for less, thus depressing wages below what natives are willing to accept.

As for helot laborers in central Karagond’s major cities, I still believe you overestimate the number of unskilled laborers needed in these cities as compared to Shayard’s countless giant plantations. There is a reason why the institution of slavery failed to thrive outside of agricultural areas during the colonial period, it just wasn’t as cost effective and it distorted the local economy to the point where it impeded the development of industry as occurred in America’s antebellum South. Given that this distortion exists in Shayard, but not in central Karagond (or is at least much reduced), it seems fairly clear to me at least that helots in central Karagond are a much smaller share of the population than in Shayard.

Plus, again if worst comes to worst, which it probably will in light of our mc’s ongoing rebellion those people represent not just an unpaid labour force to do the least desirable jobs but also a strategic blood reserve.

Plus they need to harrow likely hundreds of helots and drudges per day merely for luxury spending and that floating palace, better to take those from a native reserve then to have to import them from the distant provinces.

Karagond has as much need of these helot abattoirs in its major cities as Nazi Germany did extermination camps in its major cities, which is to say that there were good reasons why the Germans placed their slaughterhouses in the rural areas of conquered Poland instead of inside the great cities of the German heartland.

[cascat07]

I think this assertion relies on the assumption that the precursor to atherial blood is easy to transport. Blood itself being organic doesn’t keep well without refrigeration. Seems like a major waste in the production of atherial blood if it has to be transported to a central location, processed and redistributed. That being said I think it’s safe to assume Karagon proper is not harvesting from among skilled laborers. The main/only destination between helots, and yeomen even in Shayard is exclusion from harrowing without cause. Karagon was able to launch its conquest with native raw material. That combined with inherent logistics issues leads me to assume that Karagon does have local blood supply in it’s Conte. It would also make the future installments rather easy if you could deny Karagon access to it’s energy supply just by cutting it off from access to the rural helot population.

[P_Tigras]

@cascat07

I think this assertion relies on the assumption that the precursor to atherial blood is easy to transport. Blood itself being organic doesn’t keep well without refrigeration.

It must be or there would be little reason to harrow in Bum**** Egypt, er I mean Rim Square.

Seems like a major waste in the production of atherial blood if it has to be transported to a central location, processed and redistributed. That being said I think it’s safe to assume Karagon proper is not harvesting from among skilled laborers.

Agreed.

The main/only destination between helots and yeomen even in Shayard is exclusion from harrowing without cause.

It certainly appears that way, and given that downward mobility is far more achievable than upward mobility, it serves as incentive for yeomen not to rock the boat.

[cascat07]

@P_Tigras

It must be or there would be little reason to harrow in Bum**** Egypt, er I mean Rim Square.

I wouldn’t be so sure. The blood for the border wards and the 7 harvests a year comes from somewhere. Pretty sure it is locally.

[P_Tigras]

Rim Square is on the opposite side of the hegemony from Halassurq, but I’ll grant you that it is close to the border wall. Nevertheless, I suspect that the major reason theurges are present at harrowings is to ensure the blood is properly preserved. Their ability to inspire fear and assist with crowd control is just a secondary benefit IMHO.

[cascat07]

I guess for me I just don’t by it from a strategic perspective. If the logistics system of atherial blood was complex I don’t think the empire would have survived this long. Personally I think knowledge and moral qualms are the barrier to creation. It’s more like cooking meth than refining oil…

[P_Tigras]

@cascat07

I guess for me I just don’t by it from a strategic perspective. If the logistics system of atherial blood was complex I don’t think the empire would have survived this long. Personally I think knowledge and moral qualms are the barrier to creation. It’s more like cooking meth than refining oil…

@Havenstone has never mentioned anything even remotely akin to oil refineries existing for Aetherial blood, so I’m inclined to agree. Either the refining equipment is portable and transported with the harrower, or Karagond’s theurges have other means to preserve the blood until it can be refined.

[idonotlikeusernames]

@cascat07

The main/only destination between helots, and yeomen even in Shayard is exclusion from harrowing without cause.

And property ownership and the ability to own and bear at least some weapons, mainly daggers and bows.
Yeoman can own at least some property whereas helots are property and can only be owned themselves.

@P_Tigras

Pay them enough and they will, at least in America

Right and where is the willingness to do that, modern America (and Europe and the Arab states, even coastal China) basically don’t have it so we in the more developed parts all use “illegals” who often still labour in conditions virtually akin to slavery. The Hegemony on the other hand has no need to split legal hairs or maintain a benevolent facade or polite fiction in the face of “illegals” since it has an actual slave caste.

Sure through unionized labour and an ethic proclaiming the dignity of labour you can make these occupations into careers that at least pay a living wage, but the Hegemony has absolutely zero incentive to do so, as, again, it has actual slaves and a slave caste whose “telos” is to do these things and enjoy them without any payment whatsoever.

@cascat07

It’s more like cooking meth than refining oil…

So in a way our rebellion is going to be “breaking bad”. Sorry cascat, I couldn’t resist that one.
But, yes, you’re going to at the very minimum want to have at least some local blood-reserves to deal with unexpected circumstances even if the precursor can be transported fairly easily.

@P_Tigras

has never mentioned anything even remotely akin to oil refineries existing for Aetherial blood, so I’m inclined to agree. Either the refining equipment is portable and transported with the harrower, or Karagond’s theurges have other means to preserve the blood until it can be refined.

On the other hand he also said the more developed portions of the Hegemony do have a more Steam/Diesel punk-ish feel to them, so I guess we’ll know either way once our rebellion gets out of our backwards backwoods.

[Hazel]

@Havenstone I’ve got a calculation bug when infiltrating the camps as a charismatic aristo. I did the Brecklands raid for the first time, so the extra troops from that might be at the root of the bug. The Brecklander flavor text also interfaces weirdly with releasing Horion early. It doesn’t read very smoothly.

[anon96373287]

Hello, I’ve come across what I’m pretty sure is a bug, and a pretty frustrating one at that. I’ll let these screenshots speak for themselves:

As you can see, the only scouts that are actually accounted for and that I actually sent out are the ten looking for tithe barns. For whatever reason, the number of scouts kept increasing without me dedicating any bandits to that task; even when those that were scouting came back, the number did not decrease but instead kept increasing by 10s (I believe I noticed that there were 50 scouts out, which was way more than I’ve ever used in this game, and then next week there were 60, 70, and so on).

The same thing happened today during a new run where I only ended up with 45 bandits: I sent 10 out to scout, waited for those to return, then sent 10 more out, only to find that the game was saying I had 20 bandits out scouting while only accounting for 10. The next week, it said I had 30 bandits out scouting even though I never even touched the scouting option.

Has anyone else had this problem? Also, another minor and unrelated detail I noticed during a playthrough was the game stating that people looked up to “the people that had led them throughout the winter” such as Breden, Zvad, Elery, and Alira, even though I only really relied heavily on Breden to calm people down and then successfully lead pretty much every winter raid myself. Might not be a glitch and just a case of the game having to follow a script for heavily using on someone else, but it’s still pretty immersion breaking and silly when you see characters flocking to people that might as well have not been there (I didn’t even know Alira was a character until the next chapter lol).

[Havenstone]

@Havenstone

Attacking the mutant beast doesn’t lose you the achievement. Attacking the human mage who’s controlling the mutant beast does.

Mara, just to check, on your pacifist runs, do you get this choice?

Like I said above, you should only be offered this choice if you’ve been consistently nonviolent throughout the game. If you’re not getting that choice, then you’re picking something earlier that the game considers violent.

I can confirm that as a 2 CHA 1 INT character, I was able to finish the game and get the Nonviolence achievement from this point. However, on that runthrough I had also started a religion (kenon) which helped me to survive the game’s final encounter. So to get the achievement, you might need to not only be nonviolent, but more religious (one way or another) than Lady Mara de Jade would usually be.

@JVM

If I’m right about this please give me a shoutout after Book 2 releases

Even if you’re right about this, I’m afraid it still won’t be 100% clear by the end of Book 2. We’ve got 5 books to get through, after all.

@idonotlikeusernames

that noble was probably visiting on unrelated business

It’s possible, down one hard-to-reach line of conversation with Horion and a noble MC’s father, to get some sense of what that business might have been, and to learn that the Keriatou are sympathetic to the Shayardene traditionalist faction that includes the Laconniers.

@P_Tigras

Perhaps @Havenstone can elaborate more on this

I’ve been enjoying your discussion far too much for that. But sure, here’s some more grist for it.

My current worldbuilding vision (still somewhat subject to change, until I’ve actually written the Grand Shayard chapters of Game 2 and the Aekos chapters of Game 3) is that agricultural helots across the Hegemony are ritually harvested in a way that urban slave populations are not. (So yes, the great plantations of the Westriding and Southriding are some of the Hegemony’s main sources of blood as well as barley). The bought-and-sold drudges for the factories have a higher comparative value than farm hands, as of course do specialized semi-skilled House slaves.

It’s actually a bit better, in a city, to be a slave than to be a tradeless, Houseless, landless freeman. If you’re a freeman with a bit of land to rent, or a trade and a license to carry it out, you can do well. If on the other hand you’re a slave with skills worth buying, then you’re at least worth feeding, clothing, and sheltering. But there are vast urban classes of “masterless folk” who have a social status barely above helot, and who don’t have a trade of their own. The urban elites won’t enslave these classes, because that would entail feeding them; it’s not clear they could afford to enslave them, even if they wanted to.

These “free drudges” do a lot of the worst, most menial work in and around Hegemonic cities on a daily wage basis. When they can’t get enough to live on from that menial work–which is pretty much all the time–they break the law. They steal, or smuggle, or traffick, or carry out illegal petty trades and crafts.

By the same token, every city of the Hegemony has plenty of Harrowers, which operate in some cases on a near-daily basis, providing for a good share of the city’s blood needs. Their fodder is criminals…rioters, seditionists, smugglers, bawds. Or in thirsty times, just vagabonds and practicers of unlicensed trades…the kinds of folk who might be pressed into the lowest ranks of the army and shipped to the Halassur front if they’re lucky (and the war’s on) or sent to the Harrower when they’re (or it’s) not.

This is true of Aekos, whose menial classes are a polyglot blend from every province in the Thaumatarchy, as well as desperate Karagonds.

Their “liberties,” symbolized by freedom from ritual Harrowing, are still something the menial urban classes value immensely. A future government that tried to shift from the current widespread-but-unsystematic culling of criminals to a sacred lottery like the rural Harrowings would trigger massive urban resistance.

This is also, by the way, the class in Shayard that will be the most delighted if you made the decision to kill Horion Leilatou. You’ll get the option to spend a lot of time with them in Shayard City, if you don’t want to hang with the nobles.

Thoughts on the above? As I said, if I end up proposing some massive worldbuilding inconsistencies, it’s not too late to adjust it.

@cascat07

It’s more like cooking meth than refining oil.

Absolutely. And as a confirmed fan of the saga of Walter White, I approve of the analogy.

@Hazel, @anon96373287, thanks for the bug reports. I’ll get onto fixing them as soon as I can, and apologize for the frustration.

[poison_mara]

Short answer Yes i have that choice. BUT ALWAYS ENDED WITH ME DEAD. So is totally like not having it. I don’t mess with religion normally as I don’t it’s something Mara wants. Because She thought about it and Imagine a entire life pretending all non sense and that She is okay with all shayardene old codex but not become one only By Horion so I choose I want more declare me not only you.

So don’t tell me I have to declare a new religion or be an angel to survive a MUTANT BEAST???.
THE POWER OF RELIGION KILL HIM??? That’s a good one @Havenstone

[Havenstone]

@poison_mara

THE POWER OF RELIGION KILL HIM???

Nothing so obvious. Are you getting killed by the Plektos or by the soldiers catching you afterwards? The latter is where it can help to be a great prophet.

[Hazel]

@Havenstone

Nothing so obvious. Are you getting killed by the Plektos or by the soldiers catching you afterwards? The latter is where it can help to be a great prophet.

Yes, I got this one quite recently. A very different end for Esme than the previous ones I got, I’m not sure why. Possibly bonking Suzane had unanticipated complications. Welp. That’s why I’m replaying chapter three again.