The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

Investigate the Sea?

  • Yes

    Votes: 593 80.4%
  • No

    Votes: 145 19.6%

  • Total voters
    738
on most of the plans now that Elder Haman is no longer making plans Enjou pretty much has a monopoly on plans and thus usually wins hands down. so to me there isn't much point in me voting
 
If you keep the High Council's ability to veto or overrule the Low Council in all things, then you're not really increasing the Low Council's actual power, you're just delegating things to it and having the High Council interfere whenever they damn well feel like it. That's not the same thing as giving the colonies real power in setting policy, because the real power would still sit with the High Council.

But that's the entire point of having a High Council !

A quick and efficient body that can cut through the red tape and make the necessary decisions.

It's the Low Council that deals with individual planets and their day to day affairs. We can increase the scope of the Low Council without weakening the High Council.

Most proposals have either had a very high degree of support, or a middling amount that sometimes required us to spend influence. I don't see that changing just because a small number of additional votes are added.

Every new member is another vote that needs to be swung in our favour to pass a proposal. The more voting members we add the harder it becomes to pass a proposal.

Also there is no guarantee that a colony that might start out as progressive would continue to vote that way. It could very well end up being conservative in its voting habits. We shouldn't just vote to expand in the hope that we'd have more allies against the conservatives.

That line of thinking would come back to bite us in the ass.
 
Even if they've got only a fraction of the voting power that the founding worlds do, having a few High Council se
I think you may have left your sentence unfinished because you couldn't think of a reason the province worlds would be in any way satisfied with only one vote (per 25 or whatever).
Every new member is another vote that needs to be swung in our favour to pass a proposal.
Not necessarily. They may want to vote similarly to us on a given issue.
 
[X] Vote for Sigurd's proposal
[X] Vote for Surt's proposal
[X] Bring up the problem of the Imperial Bank, specifically Article VIII subsection 2, which stipulates that the Nine Worlds must have 70% of the shares of the Trust's bank and that no other organisation can have more than 3% of the remainder noting the potential economic and equality issues this could present. Ask that a vote be held on this within the next 50 years at a minimum similar to Garp.
 
[X] Vote for Sigurd's proposal
[X] Vote against Surt's proposal
[X] Bring up the problem of the Imperial Bank, specifically Article VIII subsection 2, which stipulates that the Nine Worlds must have 70% of the shares of the Trust's bank and that no other organization can have more than 3% of the remainder noting the potential economic and equality issues this could present. Ask that a vote be held on this within the next 50 years at a minimum similar to Garp.
 
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But that's the entire point of having a High Council !

A quick and efficient body that can cut through the red tape and make the necessary decisions.

It's the Low Council that deals with individual planets and their day to day affairs. We can increase the scope of the Low Council without weakening the High Council.

You're ignoring my actual argument here - increasing the scope of the duties of the Low Council doesn't increase it's actual power. It just gives them more work, but no real ability to determine policy since the High Council can just force them to change course. What you're proposing doesn't in any way, shape, or form actually address the concern that the colonies will be unhappy having no real effective voice in policy decisions and potentially secede over it.

And adding maybe four or five extra votes in the long run (which is the most we can expect to add, given polity size limits) isn't going to horrendously deadlock the Council. It would still be a reasonably small enough body that I don't see it causing the kinds of problems you're saying it will. Yes, we need a High Council that can make decisions at a reasonable speed, and that's a good justification for limiting the number of seats the colonies can end up getting, but not really a good one to keep them from getting any when the number that would be added isn't a huge amount. Currently, we'd just end up adding one. Once we get around to conquering Valinor's worlds, we'd end up adding a second. After that, there aren't any big nearby clusters of inhabited worlds to expand into.

Every new member is another vote that needs to be swung in our favour to pass a proposal. The more voting members we add the harder it becomes to pass a proposal.

Also there is no guarantee that a colony that might start out as progressive would continue to vote that way. It could very well end up being conservative in its voting habits. We shouldn't just vote to expand in the hope that we'd have more allies against the conservatives.

That line of thinking would come back to bite us in the ass.

I don't particularly care that we might have to work somewhat harder to get our agenda passed. I care far more about maintaining the unity of the Trust as a whole because that's far more key to our long term survival, and giving up a little power to decrease the chances that we're going to deal with an angry secessionist movement that wants some real say in the policies that affect their worlds. The Trust has to last thousands of years, and infighting would be one of the worst possible things we could end up dealing with.
 
[X] Vote for Sigurd's proposal
[X] Vote for Surt's proposal
[X] Bring up the problem of the Imperial Bank, specifically Article VIII subsection 2, which stipulates that the Nine Worlds must have 70% of the shares of the Trust's bank and that no other organisation can have more than 3% of the remainder noting the potential economic and equality issues this could present. Ask that a vote be held on this within the next 50 years at a minimum similar to Garp.
 
You're ignoring my actual argument here - increasing the scope of the duties of the Low Council doesn't increase it's actual power. It just gives them more work, but no real ability to determine policy since the High Council can just force them to change course. What you're proposing doesn't in any way, shape, or form actually address the concern that the colonies will be unhappy having no real effective voice in policy decisions and potentially secede over it.

And adding maybe four or five extra votes in the long run (which is the most we can expect to add, given polity size limits) isn't going to horrendously deadlock the Council. It would still be a reasonably small enough body that I don't see it causing the kinds of problems you're saying it will. Yes, we need a High Council that can make decisions at a reasonable speed, and that's a good justification for limiting the number of seats the colonies can end up getting, but not really a good one to keep them from getting any when the number that would be added isn't a huge amount. Currently, we'd just end up adding one. Once we get around to conquering Valinor's worlds, we'd end up adding a second. After that, there aren't any big nearby clusters of inhabited worlds to

And you are ignoring the purpose of the High Council.

There is no guarantee that a single planet chosen from an arbitrarily grouped together collection of planets will represent these planets' interests better than the council members already do.

All it would do is create another voting member with its own vested interests.

There are issues with the Council but this proposal isn't the answer to it.


Anyway at this point I am just repeating what I said before. So if you still aren't convinced, we'd just have to disagree about this issue.
 
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How do you figure that? Having a voice is infinitely more representation having none at all.

How do you figure that a single planet that is chosen from a group that is put together with no rhyme or reason behind it, will represent them adequately?

All it would do is add another member to the Council while the problems you mention would still plague the remaining planets.
 
There is no guarantee that a single planet chosen from an arbitrarily grouped together collection of planets will represent these planets' interests better than the council members already do.

All it would do is create another voting member with its own vested interests.

My presumption is that the High Council representatives would be much less permanent than other members, and we'd be seeing different ones every High Council meeting because there will be a lot of politicking involved in the matter. Every colony will want their own person as a representative of course, but they'll likely trade favors, make promises and concessions, and do other things to end up settling on what will likely be a compromise candidate that should represent a fairly broad swath of interests. If the person they pick decides to not represent the colonies as a group and entirely pursue their own interests, then they just prove that they are untrustworthy and will certainly not retain the position.
 
@Riggnarock , @Nikandros , @Timewarriors @Angelform @AlsoSprachOdin @Stormgear

Could I convince you guys to consolidate to:
[] Vote against Surt's proposal
-[] Convince Svartalfheim to vote against this proposal

It's the one way we stand a chance of not voting for this.

Nah.

I don't want to burn favor if I don't need to. You don't need to convince Svartalfheim to do anything if you want to just vote against the proposal.

A more politically savvy move might be to abstain and then get Svartalfheim to vote no too, but I'd rather table the discussion for the next council meeting rather than voting flat no.
 
How do you figure that a single planet that is chosen from a group that is put together with no rhyme or reason behind it, will represent them adequately?

All it would do is add another member to the Council while the problems you mention would still plague the remaining planets.
The position can be decided by any method befitting the local grouping of worlds, which means the locals will self-regulate the fairness and competency of their representative. If the single representative does not properly represent his/her constituency, they can and will be removed by the leaderships of the worlds.

If a self-serving clique forms among the worlds to dominate the High Council vote against the wishes of the other worlds, the matter will be brought up by the Inquisition and be resolved on a case-by-case basis. If it happens too often then we can affect a reform then.

The system may not be perfect but it's far better than doing nothing.

And the single way of accruing support is through the readily apparent goodness of their hearts?

"Vote for me or I supress your logging industry".
If the representative is that dumb then it's his fault he got offed by the Inquisition.
Besides that's a Low Council thing.
 
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My presumption is that the High Council representatives would be much less permanent than other members, and we'd be seeing different ones every High Council meeting because there will be a lot of politicking involved in the matter. Every colony will want their own person as a representative of course, but they'll likely trade favors, make promises and concessions, and do other things to end up settling on what will likely be a compromise candidate that should represent a fairly broad swath of interests. If the person they pick decides to not represent the colonies as a group and entirely pursue their own interests, then they just prove that they are untrustworthy and will certainly not retain the position.


I get what you are saying but Surt's proposal seems simplistic and half baked.

I would rather not go on presumptions and leave such a crucial point undecided.

More importantly how is he planning to get it passed without the required votes needed to amend the High Council membership as said in the constitution ?
 
I don't want to burn favor if I don't need to. You don't need to convince Svartalfheim to do anything if you want to just vote against the proposal.
As I understand it, we're still waiting for Durin to confirm if it's really necessary to convince Svartalfheim, and if not, we're voting not to do so.
A more politically savvy move might be to abstain and then get Svartalfheim to vote no too
Did you mean "to not vote too"? Because what you describe is the same as if we just vote no and don't get Svartalfheim involved.
 
As I understand it, we're still waiting for Durin to confirm if it's really necessary to convince Svartalfheim, and if not, we're voting not to do so.

Did you mean "to not vote too"? Because what you describe is the same as if we just vote no and don't get Svartalfheim involved.

Nope! I mean to have them vote no. We abstain, they vote no, and thus we don't technically vote against an ally.

Of course, that's just weird-ass backroom politicking and I don't like it.
 
[X] Vote for Sigurd's proposal
[X] Vote for Surt's proposal
[X] Bring up the problem of the Imperial Bank, specifically Article VIII subsection 2, which stipulates that the Nine Worlds must have 70% of the shares of the Trust's bank and that no other organisation can have more than 3% of the remainder noting the potential economic and equality issues this could present. Ask that a vote be held on this within the next 50 years at a minimum similar to Garp.
 
It's a little off topic for the current discussion, a side effect of going beck to try to read all the omakes, but doesn't the champion system Avernus has really jive with what little we know of the Varangian Guard upper command structure? I bet they're also using it.
 
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