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Safehold post-Jihad

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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by Dauntless   » Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:28 am

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the mighty host can't go back to harchong (north or south). full stop/period.

the north will disarm them (well try to) and return them to being slaves in all but name.

south would probably treat them with respect but the north would see it as all but a declration of succession or that they want to conquer the north. so unless RFC is going to give us north and south Korea that seems unlikely


I have a hard time believing siddermark would let them settle, too much bad blood/raw wounds even though the host fought with honour compared to the army of god.

the temple lands MIGHT be able to take them and settle them in the border states

overall despite the problems with transport and getting families out of harchong I think having them settle in charis, on silverlode as others have said or some other place equally underpopulated is going to be the best option.

easy and straight forward? no but the best of bad set of choices
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by Louis R   » Thu Feb 16, 2017 5:36 pm

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While it provides an amusing image, that would be an extremely dangerous game even for Harchongian bureaucrats. Or it could be, at any rate.

It's very unlikely that they would try to stiff the Church too. Or even want to. All you need is one curious person in a position to review both the tithe reports and the tax returns, and you could trigger a serious housecleaning. Someone like the Archbishop of Chiang-Wu, say...

DMcCunney wrote:Agreed on the social structure of South Harchong vs North Harchong. South Harchong seems to have been going its own way for some time, and paying nominal lip service to the Emperor in Shang-mi in the North. (And I suspect the South Harchong bureaucracy is very good at telling North Harchong what it wants to hear, and remitting enough taxes to keep the North content while carefully not reporting how well it's actually doing and how much tax it really should be paying...)

< snip >

Dennis
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad
Post by phillies   » Thu Feb 16, 2017 6:22 pm

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The Mighty Host will, I expect, return to Harchong.
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by DMcCunney   » Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:31 pm

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PeterZ wrote:
DMcCunney wrote:If I were the South Harchong decision makers, I might stay carefully out of revolutions in North Harchong or Desnair, wait for the dust to settle and victors to emerge, and then do profitable business with the winners (or ignore them, depending upon just who won.)
South Harchong on the whole would likely prefer to remain above the fray, any fray, anywhere. My assumption is more that some of the merchant families in the South will have strong feelings about the social abuses in both the North and Desnair. How different are they from similar merchant dynasties in the Northern States of the antebellum USA?

All it takes is one or two of these families and movements get funded. Once funded, these movements take on a life of its own with those passionate but less wealthy members providing the hands and feet of the movement. Furthermore, I doubt Charisian interests will remain above the fray in supporting such endeavors. Private and public interests will have their interests coincide in facilitating social change in Desnair and North Harchong.
Good point, but we don't know enough about the power structures in South Harchong. They seem to be governed by a branch of the Harchongese bureaucracy, and seem to have rather less of the great nobles that ossify North Harchong to maintain their social position.

But there is government, and likely people in a position to say "You can't do that!" to wealthy merchant families that want to stir the pot by financing revolutionary movements in North Harchong and Desnair.
All this suggests to me that the Northern Aristos will fight tooth and nail to prevent any part of the MH to move down south. That sort of weapon will allow South Harchong much more freedom to tell the North to pound sand any time they believe the cost of compliance is worth the effort to avoid compliance to any Imperial policy.
In practice, South Harchong could likely tell North Harchong to go pound sand now. What, precisely, could North Harchong do about it? I believe South Harchong's membership in the Harchongese empire has been increasingly nominal for some time. Given that the Harchong Sea and the Gulf of Dohlor separate North Harchong from South Harchong, doing something about it would require the Harchong Navy to ferry troops across and land them to spank the South Harchongese. I suspect the ICA might prevent that just on general principle. :P)

The principal factor keeping the Harchongese Empire intact is tradition, with the Emperor a symbol that all can point to and say "We are all Harchongese and loyal to the Emperor." But textev indicates the Emperor reigns but does not rule, and Imperial proclamations get filtered through the Emperor's council (or whatever the equivalent body is called in North Harchong) and the Imperial bureaucracy. The Emperor can likely say whatever he wants, but what is done is a rather different matter.
The only way the North will allow it is if there is a benefit to the North in having the MH move South.
How might they prevent it? They certainly don't want the MH back in North Harchong.

The challenge with the MH going to South Harchong is simply getting them there.
One example would be a war of conquest against Desnair. Adding Desnair to the imperial tax base would be worth letting the MH kill itself in Howard. The longer that fight continues, the fewer soldiers will be around to cause mischief. After the war is over, those soldiers can provide the garrison for Desnair.
Same practical problem as having them go to South Harchong. How do they get there?

The land route requires them to march through the Grand Duchy of Silkiah. You can assume Silkiah will not be thrilled by that, and its borders have been confirmed in perpetuity by Charis and Siddarmark.

An alternate would be staging through Dohlar or a Border State like Tanshar or Sabana, then proceeding by sea, but who provides the transport? I'm not sure North Harchong has the lift, and I don't see the ICN permitting it.
I seriously doubt letting the MH anywhere else in Harchong doing anything else will make the North comfortable.
The last thing North Harchong wants is for the MH to return home. As mentioned, the thought of a couple of million peasants and serfs who have been given modern weapons and training coming back to a system that treated them as less than beasts of the field (because the beasts cost money and have definable value) would be enough to have any rational North Harchong great noble waking up in a cold sweat. They have to be aware the returnees would not simply resume being oppressed when they have the power to resist it.

What will happen to the Mighty Host is a really good question. I think Lord Protector Stohnar's concerns about what will happen to Rainbow Waters if he tries to return home are justified, but I doubt he would actually be assassinated. Anyone who tried would have a lot of fun getting close enough to make the attempt. The response of pretty much anyone in the MH to a threat to Rainbow Waters is likely to be "You will do that over our dead bodies. Come and try it and see who actually gets dead."
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Dennis
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by DMcCunney   » Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:43 pm

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Louis R wrote:While it provides an amusing image, that would be an extremely dangerous game even for Harchongian bureaucrats. Or it could be, at any rate.
My guess is that many things are possible if you grease the right palms.
It's very unlikely that they would try to stiff the Church too. Or even want to. All you need is one curious person in a position to review both the tithe reports and the tax returns, and you could trigger a serious housecleaning. Someone like the Archbishop of Chiang-Wu, say...
Who said anything about stiffing the Church?

As you mention, I don't think they would want to. They are loyal sons of Mother Church. (And we don't know what factors Mother Church considers when they set the level of tithes nations are expected to pay.)

Creative accounting to avoid paying taxes to your government is another story. :P
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by Weird Harold   » Thu Feb 16, 2017 11:23 pm

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DMcCunney wrote:The last thing North Harchong wants is for the MH to return home. As mentioned, the thought of a couple of million peasants and serfs who have been given modern weapons and training coming back to a system that treated them as less than beasts of the field (because the beasts cost money and have definable value) would be enough to have any rational North Harchong great noble waking up in a cold sweat. They have to be aware the returnees would not simply resume being oppressed when they have the power to resist it.


Do we know this, or do we just assume that because we can see the implications that NH Nobles and Bureaucrats will see them also?

I would actually expect NH Nobles to be screaming and crying that they need their serfs back and Bureaucrats adding up the compensation to be paid in lieu of returned serfs.

The implications of training and arming the serfs when out of the NH Noble's immediate sight are going to be overlooked in favor of returning as many warm bodies as possible.

It isn't going to be particularly smart of NH, but they didn't really see serfs as real people, and they aren't going to see them as a real threat if (until) they get them back.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by Bluesqueak   » Fri Feb 17, 2017 7:51 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
DMcCunney wrote:The last thing North Harchong wants is for the MH to return home. As mentioned, the thought of a couple of million peasants and serfs who have been given modern weapons and training coming back to a system that treated them as less than beasts of the field (because the beasts cost money and have definable value) would be enough to have any rational North Harchong great noble waking up in a cold sweat. They have to be aware the returnees would not simply resume being oppressed when they have the power to resist it.


Do we know this, or do we just assume that because we can see the implications that NH Nobles and Bureaucrats will see them also?

I would actually expect NH Nobles to be screaming and crying that they need their serfs back and Bureaucrats adding up the compensation to be paid in lieu of returned serfs.

The implications of training and arming the serfs when out of the NH Noble's immediate sight are going to be overlooked in favor of returning as many warm bodies as possible.

It isn't going to be particularly smart of NH, but they didn't really see serfs as real people, and they aren't going to see them as a real threat if (until) they get them back.

We know Harchongese nobles were quite capable of seeing trained serfs as a threat because we know they didn't want them trained in the first place.

Rayno certainly counts it as a failure that he couldn't get the training stopped, and I think it specifically says that he's worried about possible rebellion.
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by Keith_w   » Sat Feb 18, 2017 8:32 am

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Bluesqueak wrote: We know Harchongese nobles were quite capable of seeing trained serfs as a threat because we know they didn't want them trained in the first place.

Rayno certainly counts it as a failure that he couldn't get the training stopped, and I think it specifically says that he's worried about possible rebellion.


Technically, he doesn't worry about anything anymore. :(
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by DMcCunney   » Sat Feb 18, 2017 9:02 am

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Weird Harold wrote:
DMcCunney wrote:The last thing North Harchong wants is for the MH to return home. As mentioned, the thought of a couple of million peasants and serfs who have been given modern weapons and training coming back to a system that treated them as less than beasts of the field (because the beasts cost money and have definable value) would be enough to have any rational North Harchong great noble waking up in a cold sweat. They have to be aware the returnees would not simply resume being oppressed when they have the power to resist it.
Do we know this, or do we just assume that because we can see the implications that NH Nobles and Bureaucrats will see them also?
I think we can safely say we know it.

Recall how carefully North Harchong had oppressed the serfs and peasants, with things like possession of any weapon more advanced than a simple sling subject to the death penalty, and a good bit of the actual function of the IHA before the Jihad had apparently been internal security.

I would actually expect NH Nobles to be screaming and crying that they need their serfs back and Bureaucrats adding up the compensation to be paid in lieu of returned serfs.
Compenastion, yes, though the question arise of who would pay it. Wanting the serfs back after they had been inducted into the Mighty Host, given weapons, and trained to use them, would require stupidity even more flagrant than that of a Desnairian great noble.

The implications of training and arming the serfs when out of the NH Noble's immediate sight are going to be overlooked in favor of returning as many warm bodies as possible.
Why?

North Harchong seems to have gotten along without them, and the drain on the local labor pool wasn't bad enough to collapse their agricultural sector.

See above about the stupidity required to want them back after they were given guns and taught to use them. There might be an NH great noble or two that dumb, but I suspect the bureaucrats are brighter and in a position to block the idea.

It isn't going to be particularly smart of NH, but they didn't really see serfs as real people, and they aren't going to see them as a real threat if (until) they get them back.
They saw them as real enough to make damn sure they had no effective weapons back before the Jihad. There's no requirement to see them as people - only as potentially violent and dangerous animals that must be carefully controlled and constantly disciplined.
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Dennis
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Re: Safehold post-Jihad (Spoilers)
Post by Louis R   » Sat Feb 18, 2017 12:55 pm

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Ah, but what you are suggesting creates two sets of records for the same income. Or should, at any rate - we know that tithes are [normally] 20% of everyone's income, it would surprise me a lot if the Empire used a different basis for most of its taxation simply because the example of tithes is right there. Asset-based taxes are probably used for estates where 'income' can be a bit tricky to characterise, but income is going to be the main tax base.

If that's the case, having someone like the Adjutant of the Order of Schueler, who probably views you as a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals, in a position to simply request a comparison of the civil and ecclesiastical tax rolls and direct the attention of people in Shang-mi to the discrepancies revealed is potentially extremely career-limiting. And not unlikely to happen if it lets Willem Rayno kill multiple birds with only a few stones. Creating projects that put a bunch of the taxes collected back in the pockets of the contributors - local administrative costs would get deducted before the balance is remitted - would probably be a lot safer if there was some reason to cut the local tax burden and/or reduce the Treasury's take.

And if, as is not unlikely, Church and State use the _same_ rolls to calculate their respective takes, try anything beyond the standard rate of peculation, and you're hosed.

DMcCunney wrote:
Louis R wrote:While it provides an amusing image, that would be an extremely dangerous game even for Harchongian bureaucrats. Or it could be, at any rate.
My guess is that many things are possible if you grease the right palms.
It's very unlikely that they would try to stiff the Church too. Or even want to. All you need is one curious person in a position to review both the tithe reports and the tax returns, and you could trigger a serious housecleaning. Someone like the Archbishop of Chiang-Wu, say...
Who said anything about stiffing the Church?

As you mention, I don't think they would want to. They are loyal sons of Mother Church. (And we don't know what factors Mother Church considers when they set the level of tithes nations are expected to pay.)

Creative accounting to avoid paying taxes to your government is another story. :P
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Dennis
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