Anyone got any boring cool ideas for government reform?
How does government even work tho. I mean, I sort of know the answer from education/experience, but I couldn't design one from the ground up based on particular circumstances. Wikipedia, please save me.
Okay, for one thing, the Elixir Sovereignty is going to have to change their name to, like, the Elixir Protectorate. I joke, but also kinda not because that's an honest telling of what would be happening.
And fortunately, we don't have to decide how to govern from nothing. Setting aside the currently existing power structures, Hunger comes with inbuilt preferences so we don't have to argue about them.
Freedom, Justice, Truth. In time, democracy. A society with the power and wherewithal to be organized around its highest ideals, rather than brute necessity. It is what they would have wanted - and if he no longer wields a hero's strength, still he has a hero's influence.
I see... a bit of a snag already, with the "Sovereignty" thing. From context, Hunger's freedom is freedom of individuals and not of polities, so that's not a conflict, but "the society's highest ideals" blatantly include telling the Empire to fuck off on even the most cursory reading, in this case. Mizuku was pissed that they wouldn't knuckle under even with a fig leaf of supervision for protection, and then Hunger trades protection for the crown. Hunger will set things up to run without him, of course, but according to Mizuku that's not actually different. And Hunger is also aggressively expansionist, technically, because if nothing else he's going after the entire Human Sphere at some point.
Not that we can't work through most of this. We'll have to research/inquire on the specific grievances the Sovereignty had against the Empire to ensure that we incorporate protections against them into the new state.
I'm sure, if we pick Change as we overwhelmingly are, we'll get a closer look at Hunger's ideals, but "Freedom, Justice, Truth, Democracy" is a good start for planning. And we'll have to keep in mind the next bit as well- creating a government is an immense undertaking, which generally requires a lot of "brute necessity" - Hunger would prefer to minimize compromises with reality. He doesn't ask for much, huh. Let's take it one by one.
Freedom. Some argue that the best way for government to ensure freedom is for it to not exist. I disagree, but fortunately my opinion on this doesn't matter because Hunger is making a government, so we don't have to argue about that point.
It's incredibly murky, but we're lucky to have a great example of not freedom to start with. The "soft conscription" policy has to go. Surgecrafters should be free to use their abilities in non-harmful ways without incredible artificial social pressure to enlist in the military.
This entails a revision to the curriculum of Elixir High and other schools, assuming Mizuku is correct that the teaching is censored. There can be no freedom of choice without freedom of information. (Lmao, that must have subconsciously come from something I read, no way I came up with that on my own.)
Beyond basic things, I think we'll have to come back to "freedom" later, because it can only really be understood in balance. After all, a person with total freedom... I think we call such a person a "Tyrant."
Spoiler: Projectile does not come back to freedom later in this post, because even after talking about everything else coming up with a good definition is a bit of a head scratcher.
Justice. I remember two types of justice from philosophy class- which I was proud of, until Google told me there were four! Oh, wait, you can have it both ways, or 8 according to Stanford Encyclopedia because justice is also complicated.
Distributive Justice is who gets what in society. Everyone intuitively understands this, see the three year old that cries about unfairness when their sibling gets a treat and they don't. Being that that's the case, you'd think we'd have a fairer society lol.
There's a Surgecrafting elephant in the room, here, because some people get to be wizards and other people don't. The generational component of this, I don't think we can do much about in a few days. However, the oligopoly on the natural resources of the Elixir Springs would have to go. Nationalize the Kaguya for great justice. Ugh, I have a headache just thinking about it.
Then we're arguably dropping another injustice on top, with Ennobling. Some people are just better than others, because Hunger's friends like them. One way to minimize the cognitive dissonance on this one would be to tie Ennoblement to specific positions rather than people, but that would entail work on Hunger's part. The better way would be to Ennoble everyone. Time burns, but we can always come back and do it after the Tower, I think. That would solve the problem wonderfully, at least until immigration becomes a concern. We could... set a national Ennobling holiday where we Ennoble newcomers? That's a longer-term issue anyway.
Corrective Justice involves reacting when one person harms another. How is the latter recompensed, and is/how is the former punished? I'm not a huge fan of punishing people for its own sake, but I didn't, uh, devote my eternal life to Vengeance so I suspect Hunger might disagree. Or not, if he accepts that he's acting against justice in this instance, I suppose.
There's the gigantic "you know, we can't reliably deal with hypothetical uncooperative Surgecrafters" issue. And I can't sincerely propose anything police related atm without my head exploding from cognitive dissonance, so I'll pass on this one.
Other thoughts... ah, justice should be for everyone, not just citizens, not just humans. Enshrine that somewhere.
Truth. This one is pretty simple, if we throw out all practical concerns. Heh.
I already said freedom of information was Cool and Good, so that's a nice start. Transparency in government is an idea. But I'm not sure how to guarantee that other than by telling people to not be naughty, or the Reckoner will bring a reckoning (that's a pretty good idea tho, he's scary). Supernaturally talented corruption-busters other than the big H would also be nice, but who watches the watchers? Hunger's superpowers do, once we get Lunar Coronet. But then what ensures Hunger's goodness? How dare you question the perfection of the Great Leader, I believe is the correct response. Yeah, uh. Actually, if we could set up a source of corruption-sniffing power tied to the
ideal rather than any individual, that'd be pretty goddamn fantastic. Could a Grace bring that about eventually? Or Artifice/Mind dominions, or even the unsurfaced Truth. I must remember that lots of these mundane problems could have supernatural solutions. There might be an appropriate Soul Evocation, if we reach that level of interaction between our nations (lul).
Cameras for everyone (in public, freedom of privacy natch)? With an AI or something to actually make sense of the data, ain't nobody got time for that.
Hunger likes science in the way that I like science, which is with 100% fervor up until the point where I actually have to grind it out. But obviously it's an immense societal good, which is what we care about here. Aeira already wrote a textbook, she's such a good citizen! Throw $$$ in the direction of learning stuff, and make the grant process less horrendous than the one I had to deal with. Ennobling people would help as well. For the more difficult cultural issue... eh, if Hunger proclaims his priorities, sets an example, and waits for a bit, Cha should help a lot, the details are finicky anyway.
There's also the share of information between different cultures to consider. In keeping with the ideal, the Sovereignty should share their knowhow with anyone who asks... maybe not all the gun stuff, or the boom wizard stuff, as a concession to practicality. And they should eagerly seek out partners who are willing to return the favor. Though that might mean they should be more cagey about their own stuff, for greater knowledge transmission? How convoluted.
Forget everything
I say, though, if Hunger does not consult the Azure Ring of Truth on how to best actualize his ideal of Truth he deserves a Ber to the face.
Democracy. Is there a technological solution in this sci-fi land that would make direct democracy practical? That would cleave most tightly to the ideal, at the risk of people being bombarded with things they don't care about.
Ennobling representatives sorta kinda completely misses the point of "representative" if the rest of the population isn't- more reason to give everyone superpowers, I think.
Who gets a vote? Sovereign Citizens (lol) or anyone who live- wait, first we'd have to decide citizenship requirements. Do we really need them? If you happen to be in the area you get a v- wait, no, it's a tourist trap so maybe not. A certain period of time?
Democracy can be fucked with, so blaring Truth around would be a nice counter to misinformation, if we're to focus on that anyway. Our supernatural... not-secret not-police should stop on shenanigans.
We just gotta ignore the whole "Crown" thing for this one, alright. Hunger's the King of the Elixir Democracy, if you question it too much it'll disappear in a puff of logic. I guess... this portion of Hungertopia, which is overall autocratic, is democratic. Yeah, that's not necessarily contradictory, let's go with that.
Other Sovereignty Ideals. "Fuck the Empire" not included. In the interests of democracy and truth and common sense, we should just ask people what they believe their societies ideals to be, and then implement them as best we can. But since I can't do that, I'll just guess for now. "Heroism" seems to be one- but that's kinda awkward, since that was a concerted effort by the government to turn teenagers into cannon fodder. But heroism itself isn't bad, and Hunger is turboheroic and he's spreading his memes all over the place, I don't think its going away.
A society based around heroism... I've heard that before, it's orcs and that's terrible. Gotta temper your "heroism" with "justice" and "be sure you're actually helping people and not just feeding your ego or bloodlust or pocket" to stop that going bad places. Emphasize non-martial heroism? Hunger's not the best man for that job, but it's an idea.
Is tourism an ideal or a practicality? "Welcoming to strangers" is hardly a bad thing, regardless.
Health, that's a good one, and it combines well with the other ideals. They've got a good opportunity to capitalize on the Springs, to share the benefits and insights from those as well (teehee) as possible, if they want to go that route.
The Broader Hungry Empire. Currently limited to the Temple, but even that much gave me a realization; we have some freedom to experiment here. The Temple's current government is a divinely-chosen aristocracy following a mandate of "be nice, give utopia pls", because we did a hack job because screw torturers. Quite different from the democracy Hunger plans for this one. Buut they still both answer to us, and under that framework, if any of our government experiments veer off into crazytown the existence of other Hungry Provinces should keep them in check. And while the exact government may vary due to circumstances and Hunger's whims, if we instill the same ideals in each then they could learn from each other what methods do and do not approach them. Eventually, we should perhaps set up a formal shell to contain these entities- you know, if we keep on conquering places, which we may or may not do.
That's more long-term, right now we should just set up trade. Particularly food going towards the Temple, that's the urgent issue. The tech disparity will cause upheaval... but they should be used to that by now, oof. I'm not eager to accelerate the process of them coming together, I think. Food shipments, possibly a promise of military aid in emergencies, and then let it be.
I'm 30% irritated and 70% amused that this plan has Sten thinking Hunger's actions were a masterful Ring-lord keikaku rather than events evolving in a particular way. :s
"Now Projectile," you might say, "you've written a lot about ideals, and a few specific policies, but this isn't nearly enough to run a government."
My response to that is simple. I have no gosh darned idea what I'm doing, somebody get a polisci major up in here.
2048 Words of pre-government brainstorming. Actually more coherent than expected.
