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After the Ashes: A Fire Nation Chancellor Quest

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[x] Minister Amari remained in his chair, the ancient general seemingly struck by a bout of tiredness as he gazed about the room almost morosely. If she hadn't known any better, the man would have almost appeared lost, the once venerable colossus of war reduced to a relic of an age since passed, one that had endured beyond the things that gave it purpose.
 
[X] Lord and Lady Yamaha reacted poorly to the news that a 'half-breed' would be taking the helm, both of them erupting with anger and shouting invectives. The Fire Lord, suitably incensed by the situation, shouted them down in kind before finally ordering them tossed out of the palace by the Royal Procession, the married couple having to be hauled out of the council chambers by the masked firebenders as they hurled abuse at the new sovereign. While their removal from the council meetings will certainly make things calmer, Namiko can't help but be concerned about what they'll get up to outside of it…
[X] Minister Amari remained in his chair, the ancient general seemingly struck by a bout of tiredness as he gazed about the room almost morosely. If she hadn't known any better, the man would have almost appeared lost, the once venerable colossus of war reduced to a relic of an age since passed, one that had endured beyond the things that gave it purpose.
 
jwolfe_beta said:
Also prevent the Earth Kingdom forces etc from deciding they want a little 'extra' land back as things get sorted out.

Because it would be relatively unlikely for Aang to step in and tell them 'no'. After all, they're the good guys and would never do something like that.
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To be honest the army would resist this even if we told them not to. In this case if your top priority was avoiding bloodshed you'd either need military build up to deter aggression (we intend to demobilize) or get the avatar to stop it (he's a child). So let's hope the EK warlords don't organize a "Reconquista" expedition. Or maybe we do? Maybe it will stave of military aggression towards the government? Or maybe not? Maybe defending against such an expedition would give them legitimacy and political power necessary to permanently derail/destroy Zuko's agenda. Anyways the possibilities gets your noggin joggin.
 
jwolfe_beta said:
Also prevent the Earth Kingdom forces etc from deciding they want a little 'extra' land back as things get sorted out.

Because it would be relatively unlikely for Aang to step in and tell them 'no'. After all, they're the good guys and would never do something like that.
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Medicus said:
To be honest the army would resist this even if we told them not to. In this case if your top priority was avoiding bloodshed you'd either need military build up to deter aggression (we intend to demobilize) or get the avatar to stop it (he's a child). So let's hope the EK warlords don't organize a "Reconquista" expedition. Or maybe we do? Maybe it will stave of military aggression towards the government? Or maybe not? Maybe defending against such an expedition would give them legitimacy and political power necessary to permanently derail/destroy Zuko's agenda. Anyways the possibilities gets your noggin joggin.
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The Earth Kings can't do that for several reasons.

The first is of course, lack of a proper navy. They have zero hope of hiding that kind of build up and even less hope of not clashing over the specifics of what a proper earth invasion fleet should look like. Earth Kingdom generals take the typical stubborn opinionated foolhardiness common to their people up a tier or two. This is the entire reason they've failed to oppose the fire nation in the first place.

Second is Azula. Her conquering Ba Sing Se without so much as an answering whimper is a huge blow to faith in the Emperor of the earth Kingdom and the lesser kings beneath him. Earth benders respect strength, and having one of the other remnants of Kyoshi subverted and used to finish off the strongest unconquered earth kingdom city state is a strong message of the weakness of it's rulers. There going to have a hard time holding onto the loyalty of their subordinates and avoiding Coups when the fire nation army pulls out and there is no longer a unifying enemy.

Then there are the long swaths of Earth Kingdom army which have gotten use to operating as little more than bandits playing at soldier and are unlikely to stop just because the wars over and some of their authority is stripped. The earth kingdom is going to increasingly descend into large swaths of land claimed by idealistic refugees and preyed upon by ex Earth Kingdom soldiers turned bandits.

In summary, the fundamental nature of the earth kingdom and the impact of the finals years of the war are about to trigger a gradual but cascading collapse of the last remnants of pre war governance. Ange should take steps to mitigate this, but he's going to get caught up in reclaiming and preserving his culture, romance, the white lotus and ultimately his republic city unify peoples of all nations in a city of the future project.

In the end, it's amazing the earth kingdom takes as long as it did in Korra to fall into total anarchy.
 
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[X] Lord and Lady Yamaha reacted poorly to the news that a 'half-breed' would be taking the helm, both of them erupting with anger and shouting invectives. The Fire Lord, suitably incensed by the situation, shouted them down in kind before finally ordering them tossed out of the palace by the Royal Procession, the married couple having to be hauled out of the council chambers by the masked firebenders as they hurled abuse at the new sovereign. While their removal from the council meetings will certainly make things calmer, Namiko can't help but be concerned about what they'll get up to outside of it…
[X] Minister Amari remained in his chair, the ancient general seemingly struck by a bout of tiredness as he gazed about the room almost morosely. If she hadn't known any better, the man would have almost appeared lost, the once venerable colossus of war reduced to a relic of an age since passed, one that had endured beyond the things that gave it purpose.
 
[X] Lord and Lady Yamaha reacted poorly to the news that a 'half-breed' would be taking the helm, both of them erupting with anger and shouting invectives. The Fire Lord, suitably incensed by the situation, shouted them down in kind before finally ordering them tossed out of the palace by the Royal Procession, the married couple having to be hauled out of the council chambers by the masked firebenders as they hurled abuse at the new sovereign. While their removal from the council meetings will certainly make things calmer, Namiko can't help but be concerned about what they'll get up to outside of it…
[X] Minister Amari remained in his chair, the ancient general seemingly struck by a bout of tiredness as he gazed about the room almost morosely. If she hadn't known any better, the man would have almost appeared lost, the once venerable colossus of war reduced to a relic of an age since passed, one that had endured beyond the things that gave it purpose.
 
[X] Lord and Lady Yamaha reacted poorly to the news that a 'half-breed' would be taking the helm, both of them erupting with anger and shouting invectives. The Fire Lord, suitably incensed by the situation, shouted them down in kind before finally ordering them tossed out of the palace by the Royal Procession, the married couple having to be hauled out of the council chambers by the masked firebenders as they hurled abuse at the new sovereign. While their removal from the council meetings will certainly make things calmer, Namiko can't help but be concerned about what they'll get up to outside of it…
[X] Minister Amari remained in his chair, the ancient general seemingly struck by a bout of tiredness as he gazed about the room almost morosely. If she hadn't known any better, the man would have almost appeared lost, the once venerable colossus of war reduced to a relic of an age since passed, one that had endured beyond the things that gave it purpose.
 
[X] Lord Yanase took that opportunity to press his case again, once more attempting to emphasize the importance of having a true son of the Fire Nation in the role of the chancellery, only to find himself promptly dismissed by the thoroughly annoyed teenager. The man didn't seem to believe it at first, laughing as though it was a joke, though the imperial firebenders made it evident enough that the boy-king most certainly had not been speaking in jest. While the man's removal might allow for some degree of reform within one of the largest ministries in the country, it also pits the most powerful industrialist in the nation against the throne.
 
Honestly, for the Earth Kingdom the solution might be Bumi stepping up to take a more prominent role in organizing what's going on in the south... and presumably also finding a successor because he's fucking old.
 
The Laurent said:
Honestly, for the Earth Kingdom the solution might be Bumi stepping up to take a more prominent role in organizing what's going on in the south... and presumably also finding a successor because he's fucking old.
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That would be the sort of thing ange might have arranged, but he sort of checks out when it comes to the earth kingdom. He gets a little melancholic once he loses that "need to defeat the fire lord and restore balance" drive. In the end we can't really do much about it at all, not without interfering in the precious "Balance", so we'll just have to do what we are supposed to deal with the fire nation problems.
 
The Laurent said:
Honestly, for the Earth Kingdom the solution might be Bumi stepping up to take a more prominent role in organizing what's going on in the south... and presumably also finding a successor because he's fucking old.
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Bumi has, per Granite's musings on the discord, been pulling his weight in the south for 100 years. Indeed, this has been a major cause for discord in Ba Sing Se, and they probably only supported Bumi when things were at their most dire, because after all, who wants a more independant and self-reliant Omashu?

We don't know a lot about the last 100 years of Earth Kings, but when Sozin ascended to his throne, his opposite upon the Jade Throne of Ba Sing Se was the infamous Jialun, a man whose first recorded acts were to purge the intelligentsia established by Avatar Kiyoshi, and turn the Dai Lee into what it is today, a secret police force that thinks nothing of disappearing people, brainwashing, and controlling the modern Earth Kingdom through puppets. He also saw little wrong with Sozin's ambition, since he too was ambitious, and claimed many of the same islands that Sozin would later use as the jumping-off points for the invasion. Jialun's actions were probably one of the major reasons that the Earth Kingdom lost as much ground as it did. Since the days of Jialun, there seems to have been some change in the appointment of Earth Kings, with at least 3-4 cycling through the office since his time. Kue, famously, was placed on the throne at the age of four, and was entirely a puppet of the Dai Lee. But none of those kings, none at all, bear as much blame for ruin and destruction as Jialun.

My hypothetical line of descent goes
46th Earth King (260-231 BG)
47th Earth King (231-160 BG)
48th Earth King (160 BG-110 BG)
Jialun (110 BG-25 BG)
50th Earth King (25BG-2 AG)
31st Earth Queen (3 AG-52 AG)
51st Earth King (52AG-80 AG)
Kuei (80 AG- Now)

Or to put it differently, the last 150 years have seen the Earth Kingdom ruled by:

  1. Caligula
  2. Queen Ranavalona
  3. Tsar Nicholas II
  4. Prince Regent George IV
 
Randino Treviani said:
That would be the sort of thing ange might have arranged, but he sort of checks out when it comes to the earth kingdom. He gets a little melancholic once he loses that "need to defeat the fire lord and restore balance" drive. In the end we can't really do much about it at all, not without interfering in the precious "Balance", so we'll just have to do what we are supposed to deal with the fire nation problems.
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Does he? While he did have a lot to do between the end of the Hundred Year War and his death 50-ish years later, I don't think it's said anywhere that he didn't help stabilize the Earth Kingdom during that time, especially with the White Lotus likely pitching in to help maintain some modicum of order.
 
Limabot said:
Does he? While he did have a lot to do between the end of the Hundred Year War and his death 50-ish years later, I don't think it's said anywhere that he didn't help stabilize the Earth Kingdom during that time, especially with the White Lotus likely pitching in to help maintain some modicum of order.
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Think about where the earth kingdom is in Korra. Massive banditry problem. Greatly impoverished even after war reparations. Ruled by an aging dowager empress who's blatantly incompetent and largely neglecting large swaths of her kingdom, to the point that one red lotus assassination is all it takes to plunge the entire earth kingdom into anarchy with only a few independent city exceptions, to the point where a prodigy like Kuvira needs to go antagonist to combat it.

Combined with what they do tell us of ange's life, and it becomes clear that Ange didn't do much to avatar outside Republic city past the initial aftermath of the war with the exception of the red lotus. He drags his friends and his white lotus allies into his republic city project while in the grips of a melancholy for his simple idealistic view of the world prior to the war, and focuses on that and passing his culture onto his family, and a lot of the world outside republic city goes to seed aside from overseen by zuko fire nation.
 
Vehrec said:
and turn the Dai Lee into what it is today, a secret police force that thinks nothing of disappearing people, brainwashing, and controlling the modern Earth Kingdom through puppets.
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This reminds me, where are they now? Azula had at least some of them in Caldera before her issues had her paranoid enough to kick them out. Are they already gone? Or could we get some if we acted swiftly enough?
 
[X] Lord and Lady Yamaha reacted poorly to the news that a 'half-breed' would be taking the helm, both of them erupting with anger and shouting invectives. The Fire Lord, suitably incensed by the situation, shouted them down in kind before finally ordering them tossed out of the palace by the Royal Procession, the married couple having to be hauled out of the council chambers by the masked firebenders as they hurled abuse at the new sovereign. While their removal from the council meetings will certainly make things calmer, Namiko can't help but be concerned about what they'll get up to outside of it…

[X] Minister Amari remained in his chair, the ancient general seemingly struck by a bout of tiredness as he gazed about the room almost morosely. If she hadn't known any better, the man would have almost appeared lost, the once venerable colossus of war reduced to a relic of an age since passed, one that had endured beyond the things that gave it purpose.
 
The Game said:
This reminds me, where are they now? Azula had at least some of them in Caldera before her issues had her paranoid enough to kick them out. Are they already gone? Or could we get some if we acted swiftly enough?
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Their likely on ships to the colonies by now. Maybe we could get the navy to stop those ships and offer them new leadership given Amari is leading, but it's unlikely since we don't have the spy background to lean on. There one of the loose ends the avatar world never addresses.
 
Sidenote, speaking of the White Lotus; do we have to worry about Zuko, like, trying to give Piandao or Jeong-Jeong official positions in the government?

Asides from Iroh, who has made it very clear that he is not getting involved they are probably the only Fire Nation adults he's inclined to trust, but like...by Szeto, that could go very badly.

...

This is probably something for the distant future, but I shudder to think of the reaction to the Fire Lord playing tea shop waiter when visiting his uncle.

Also, Zuko is going to want Mai and Ty Lee released from the Boiling Rock immediately. Not to mention the members of the Black Sun invasion force and Kiyoshi Warriors who weren't able to participate in the jail break. That's going to be fun to arrange.
 
krinsbez said:
Sidenote, speaking of the White Lotus; do we have to worry about Zuko, like, trying to give Piandao or Jeong-Jeong official positions in the government?
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No, we don't, any more than we have to worry about Iroh showing up to replace us. None of these old men want to run a government. to be honest, they also don't have the imagination or unbiased vision to imagine a new fire nation. This is why they put the world shaping on the shoulders of a group of 10 to 18 year olds and just sort of direct their individual chapters of the white lotus to rally in support of them.
krinsbez said:
This is probably something for the distant future, but I shudder to think of the reaction to the Fire Lord playing tea shop waiter when visiting his uncle.
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Aside from liberator Iroh, I don't think any member of the royal family is welcome in Ba Sing Se, given Azula's actions and her giving Zuko credit. It's going to be a few years before the war reparations are sufficiently being payed reliably for that to be an option.
 
krinsbez said:
This is probably something for the distant future, but I shudder to think of the reaction to the Fire Lord playing tea shop waiter when visiting his uncle.
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Only just appointed and already we are prizing stuffy and alienating court life for the Fire Lord over his performing as a man of the people.
 
[X] Minister Qin had paused for a moment as he went to leave, looking as though he was trying desperately to remember something important that had slipped his mind. After a moment of concentration, the man paled and began speed walking towards the courtyard in a close but not ultimately imperfect approximation of a dignified pace.

Okay time to try and argue for this option some more. I am 99% sure this is Qin going over to check in on Azula and based on the assumptions our choices do matter, will resolve in some negative way if not taken. While this could be "just" having to shove away Qin's crispy body when we later go to retrieve her, it could also involve the jingoistic people/others we just kicked out grabbing her for a figurehead. I'd say these people due to being kicked out early might already have unchained her and are trying to smuggle her out right now. I cannot emphasize how much having a legitimate Fire Lord candidate for people to rally around would be here. As necessary as getting the military on side is and fixing our everything with the economy is (of fucking course Ozai is a "just print more money" doofus), I feel the Princess screaming in a public place is the most immediate and time sensitive thing to address.

To make an analogy, when you have a shitty run down "fixer upper house," stuff like old crappy knob and tube electrical wiring, termite infestestation, and leaks in the fondation are fundamental issues and vitally important to fix that will take a long time+lots of effort so starting ASAP is always better. However, you should still probably shut off the open gas valve as your first step.
 
Huh, reading through the QM making sure we understand that the General is a fading opportunity, and the importance of keeping the military on side, I'm gonna shift my vote to go with the majority. Probably doesn't matter hugely, and of course, I fear that we'll lose some opportunity on getting good relations with the Merchantile faction, but if the troops start rebelling that's gonna have a BIGGER impact on the budget.

[X] Lord and Lady Yamaha reacted poorly to the news that a 'half-breed' would be taking the helm, both of them erupting with anger and shouting invectives. The Fire Lord, suitably incensed by the situation, shouted them down in kind before finally ordering them tossed out of the palace by the Royal Procession, the married couple having to be hauled out of the council chambers by the masked firebenders as they hurled abuse at the new sovereign. While their removal from the council meetings will certainly make things calmer, Namiko can't help but be concerned about what they'll get up to outside of it…
[X] Minister Amari remained in his chair, the ancient general seemingly struck by a bout of tiredness as he gazed about the room almost morosely. If she hadn't known any better, the man would have almost appeared lost, the once venerable colossus of war reduced to a relic of an age since passed, one that had endured beyond the things that gave it purpose.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Night_stalker on Dec 21, 2024 at 10:57 AM, finished with 136 posts and 43 votes.
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