SV has quite a few 'nation-building' quests for tribes, cities, or nations. Let's have the opposite: a doomed city-state falling apart on your watch. The initial conditions are someone else's fault, but you'll have enough opportunity to shape the outcome that the history books might put your name on the collapse.
The Disintegration of a State
- Thread starter Exmorri
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Welcome to Ulsan, you just killed twenty people
- Location
- Norway
This quest is an exploration of one of the themes of the Exalted RPG: briefly stated, that there is no Wisdom stat.
Exalts in general and Solars in particular have puissant Charms to seize power and to enforce one's will, to grease the wheels of bureaucracy and to acquire devout loyalty, Charms for the many measurable aspects of ruling: efficiently and cheaply and speedily and honestly, but there is no Charm to solve the immeasurable difficulty of making good decisions. A Solar can cure cancer, but not short-sightedness. Often, the worst enemy of a Solar is not some undead monstrosity nor foreign ruler, but the consequences of your own decisions and your finite willpower and foresight.
The city-state of Ulsan has been gradually coming apart since the Tyrant seized power, about four years ago. He executed and exiled astrologers who disputed his legitimacy, alienated many dependencies and satellites with overlarge demands, installed incompetent loyalists as military officers, burned down every power base that wasn't his own, and generally created an unsustainable situation. He established a standing army, emptied the city coffers to pay for it, and sent the army to extort tribute when toll and tax proved insufficient. In some other quest, you might have been playing as the resistance or an outside polity seeking to depose the Tyrant.
For a Solar Exalt, that was the easy part. The hard part will be running a state that's now had two violent successions in less than five years. Ulsan's not coming out of this intact.
You are Solar McSunnyface (it sounds better in Old Realm), a Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, a righteous hero wandering the face of Creation, wielding the incredible power of the Most High. You bear the mark of the Eclipse Caste, diplomats and travellers, but your mother always taught you that being well-rounded was key to success in life. Knowing the right skill for the job saves you from beating in a nail with a shoe, as the proverb goes.
And so, you once sat in a temple's library during the Twilight hours of the day, reading of the history and geography of Creation, and of the Varang City-States and of Ulsan in particular, to find where you should travel next and do some good. In the dark of Night you infiltrated the city, mapping out where the Tyrant and his enforcers ate and slept, so that you could get them all in one stroke and not let any run into hiding. Dawn found his lieutenants dead and you battling through a gladiatorial pit of monsters beneath the Tyrant's palace. Scything through his soldiers like wheat, you made your way up from the sewers by which you had entered, finally slaying his personal guard and the Tyrant himself. Now you have cleaned yourself off, and as the sun nears its Zenith, where the Tyrant was due to speak to the people, you have arranged with the palace servants for yourself to be presented on the palace balcony instead, with all pomp and circumstance.
You will speak to them of liberation from tyranny, of the glory of the Unconquered Sun, of hope for a brighter tomorrow. But while the sages will grasp the full wisdom of your speech in all its particulars, experience suggests that the illiterate masses are likely to remember only your glorious self and the one theme that you repeat most often until it sinks into the minds of the listeners. As you mentally compose your speech, you intend to encourage the common people with promises of...
[] Peace
[] Prosperity
[] Land
[] Food
[] Fertility
[] Order
[] Sanctity
[] Knowledge
[] Your favor
Exalts in general and Solars in particular have puissant Charms to seize power and to enforce one's will, to grease the wheels of bureaucracy and to acquire devout loyalty, Charms for the many measurable aspects of ruling: efficiently and cheaply and speedily and honestly, but there is no Charm to solve the immeasurable difficulty of making good decisions. A Solar can cure cancer, but not short-sightedness. Often, the worst enemy of a Solar is not some undead monstrosity nor foreign ruler, but the consequences of your own decisions and your finite willpower and foresight.
The city-state of Ulsan has been gradually coming apart since the Tyrant seized power, about four years ago. He executed and exiled astrologers who disputed his legitimacy, alienated many dependencies and satellites with overlarge demands, installed incompetent loyalists as military officers, burned down every power base that wasn't his own, and generally created an unsustainable situation. He established a standing army, emptied the city coffers to pay for it, and sent the army to extort tribute when toll and tax proved insufficient. In some other quest, you might have been playing as the resistance or an outside polity seeking to depose the Tyrant.
For a Solar Exalt, that was the easy part. The hard part will be running a state that's now had two violent successions in less than five years. Ulsan's not coming out of this intact.
Havelock Vetinari (Guards! Guards!) said:
You are Solar McSunnyface (it sounds better in Old Realm), a Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, a righteous hero wandering the face of Creation, wielding the incredible power of the Most High. You bear the mark of the Eclipse Caste, diplomats and travellers, but your mother always taught you that being well-rounded was key to success in life. Knowing the right skill for the job saves you from beating in a nail with a shoe, as the proverb goes.
And so, you once sat in a temple's library during the Twilight hours of the day, reading of the history and geography of Creation, and of the Varang City-States and of Ulsan in particular, to find where you should travel next and do some good. In the dark of Night you infiltrated the city, mapping out where the Tyrant and his enforcers ate and slept, so that you could get them all in one stroke and not let any run into hiding. Dawn found his lieutenants dead and you battling through a gladiatorial pit of monsters beneath the Tyrant's palace. Scything through his soldiers like wheat, you made your way up from the sewers by which you had entered, finally slaying his personal guard and the Tyrant himself. Now you have cleaned yourself off, and as the sun nears its Zenith, where the Tyrant was due to speak to the people, you have arranged with the palace servants for yourself to be presented on the palace balcony instead, with all pomp and circumstance.
You will speak to them of liberation from tyranny, of the glory of the Unconquered Sun, of hope for a brighter tomorrow. But while the sages will grasp the full wisdom of your speech in all its particulars, experience suggests that the illiterate masses are likely to remember only your glorious self and the one theme that you repeat most often until it sinks into the minds of the listeners. As you mentally compose your speech, you intend to encourage the common people with promises of...
[] Peace
[] Prosperity
[] Land
[] Food
[] Fertility
[] Order
[] Sanctity
[] Knowledge
[] Your favor
1. This is a choice with deliberately limited information about what the people most want. Like many Solars, and like more than a few voters, Solar McSunnyface came here very big on Righteous Face Punching and not so big on Understanding The Nameless NPC's Motivations.
2. "Solar McSunnyface" is a humorous reference to Boaty McBoatface and its many knockoffs. It should not be read as the protagonist's 'real' name in character. My purpose with it is to put the focus on McSunnyface's decisions, not naming conventions or cultural background or the like.
2. "Solar McSunnyface" is a humorous reference to Boaty McBoatface and its many knockoffs. It should not be read as the protagonist's 'real' name in character. My purpose with it is to put the focus on McSunnyface's decisions, not naming conventions or cultural background or the like.
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- Location
- Academy City
- Pronouns
- They
[X] Food
There sure are a lot of problems around here
- Location
- Norway
[*] Prosperity
Word has gotten around about your murders in the night by now, and the crowd assembling in fearful curiosity of the Tyrant's speech is abuzz with rumors and gossip. It's also much larger than usual, according to the frazzled palace servant helping you with the last-minute touches. The people are surely wondering if the Tyrant is dead too, or alive and angry at the loss of his men, or alive and smug about ordering the killings, or something else. With this many eager listeners, whatever you have to say will surely be known across the city by nightfall. But that's no reason to rest on your laurels.
Essence Overwhelming!
The power of the Most High surges through you, lending eloquence to your tongue. It is a wonderful thing to be a Solar, a representative of the Sun on Earth, empowered with a fraction of your patron's infinite potential. Warmth blooms in your chest, your feet are light upon the ground, and a golden glow ignites upon your brow. The speech comes together in your head as you step out on the balcony to announce the Tyrant's death and the new age of Ulsan. Your primary focus will be on prosperity and what it enables: dowry and bridewealth will be affordable, those who want land can buy it, those who want tutors can hire them, and those who would otherwise starve can purchase food. This you will see done in Ulsan, in the name of the Unconquered Sun!
Heart-Compelling Method!
As you give the greatest speech the Ulsani have likely heard in centuries, you burn more essence to speak as a prophet does. Through you, the Ulsani hear the Unconquered Sun himself, and their hearts are filled with hope. Tomorrow will be better, they are assured, so even the worst of the cynics and hecklers can look towards it.
(Perhaps they will change their minds again tomorrow, for you have only inspired hope in their hearts, not seized their souls by force. But you have found that even one day's glimpse of hope can sustain a man through long hardship.)
Phantom-Conjuring Performance!
Neophyte Solars sometimes have poor essence control, and when they channel this much power into their Charms, the spillover can shine bright enough to blind onlookers, bleach cloth and weather clay. With experience comes the precision to avoid that. You have gone beyond precision into finesse - you manipulate your aura of golden light until it projects an ethereal image of throng of spirits supporting you, a beam of light descending from the heavens, and even a musical accompaniment. Everything's better with music.
The speech is, of course, a rousing success. Now comes the part where you have to deliver on your promise of prosperity.
For the short term, you open a chest you looted from the Tyrant's personal chambers, and fling fistfuls of silver coin to the crowd. Where a careless mortal might have landed most of the coin on the first few ranks, you have the strength and accuracy to toss from your balcony all through the crowd, ensuring a relatively even spread of wealth. It only comes to a pittance per person, but it's a good first impression.
For the long term, you call on the palace servant from before, and an old man and a young woman from the crowd to give you some varied perspectives. Once you've given assurances that you do not intend to hurt them or kidnap them or extort them or... anything bad in general, they eventually calm down and stop genuflecting. Then you ask the three of them to fill you in on just how dysfunctional Ulsan is and where you need to start fixing things. They interrupt each other and talk at cross-purposes a great deal and it's clear there's a lot of trouble, like the city having no more elephants and so they can't hold the annual Maidens' Day Parade any more.
"When is Maidens' Day?" you ask, not being familiar with the local customs.
"Two months from now." says the young woman nervously. "I've missed it twice already! If I miss it again I'm probably going to be married before I can participate!"
You comfort her with assurances that you will find an elephant some time in the next two months and restore the Maidens' Day Parade, and steer the conversation towards more immediate problems.
The palace servant, Prakash, encourages you to start with the prisoners held in the palace-complex and the dungeons. Imprisonment was previously a rare punishment in Ulsan, but the Tyrant began holding innocents as hostages to ensure their families' good behavior, as well as ordering murderers sentenced to imprisonment rather than death. Several new magistrates were appointed to assist in making this punishment more common, too. Now there's a new microcaste of prison wardens, food suppliers, and other people involved with this whole thing. You should let the innocents out at least, and figure out whether the guilty should be executed or retried or released or what, assuming you can figure out just who is guilty. There have got to be records. Probably.
One of the most detestable reasons for the increased use of imprisonment was being able to feed still-living human flesh to the monsters the Tyrant was breeding and keeping in the deepest dungeons. You recall slaughtering your way through some of them on the way here, including a sort of giant carnivorous pangolin with razor tentacles, but had written it off as 'obscure local species' at the time. Gods know you see plenty of strange local fauna in your travels. Apparently these were deliberately created for vile purposes? It's probably for the best to go back and kill them all, and that sounds happily uncomplicated compared to everything else you're being presented with.
Having been privvy to some of the palace intrigues, Prakash can inform you that the current religious strife in the city is also a deliberate creation. By longstanding tradition, the cities of Varang favor the worship of the Five Maidens (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) as suited to the common practice of astrology. The Tyrant first built up the local city god, Lady Kamakanta, as a more immediately present patron, then when that schism was well under way, invited the near-atheist monks of the Immaculate Philosophy to come and preach disregard of the gods. Now Kamakanta has gotten used to frequent and sumptuous sacrifices, while the Immaculate Monks have powerful foreign backers.
Speaking of astrology, it's not such a common practice in Ulsan any more. The Tyrant had several of the most outspoken astrologers killed for denying the legitimacy of his rule, and bribed some fakes to invent a destiny for him, both of which drove a lot of real astrologers to leave the city for greener pastures. Old Ranjit remembers the glory days when astrologers were common and cheap enough that he could afford to have his horoscope cast monthly; now he hasn't had one during the past two years. He knows astrologers still exist in the city, but you have to be wealthy or well connected to find one who isn't an incompetent lackey. The problem is only getting worse as poor castings of horoscopes drive people away from astrology, which drives good astrologers to leave and fewer youths take up apprenticeships in the art. This, Ranjit says, is leaving a great many people confused and distressed and unlucky.
(OOC: Astrology is explicitly a real but imperfect science in Exalted. Its signature use is predicting one of an infant's future aptitudes, helping to match people to professions.)
Young Nandita finally spits out what's been distressing her: you look "wrong" and "creepy". Your clothes are wrong. Your tassels are wrong. You don't have any of the right tattoos. You look like an untouchable. Ranjit has been politely avoiding the topic, not wanting to insult the hero of the hour, but now that she's raised it and you haven't flown into a violent rage, he cautiously explains that you look as though you attempted to disguise yourself as the Tyrant. (Which is not entirely wrong.) There's a set of customary dress for visiting foreigners, and an extremely complicated array of dress customs for residents depending on hour of birth and social standing and so forth, and you match none of them. Trying to interact with people when you're dressed like this will make everything harder than it needs to be.
Nandita also complains that she hasn't been able to go boating for a year. Prakash tries to shush her, but Ranjit interrupts him in turn. "No, she has a point there. It's a bigger problem than she knows. The Tyrant built a barrier-bridge across the river downstream to catch smugglers and fugitives. Since then, fewer traders have come in and fewer fishers have gone out. O Sun-Blessed One, if you were to order the barrier retracted, we would be rid of the worst of it immediately, and perhaps next year it could be torn down when there are enough workers with strength to spare." You smile gently at his naïvety; you could tear the bridge down yourself this same day.
"Finally" is perhaps an optimistic word to use in Ulsan as it stands, with a hundred ongoing petty causes and self-sustaining vicious cycles of poverty and starvation and suffering in the background. No doubt there's sickness and slavery as well. But, finally, the huddled hubbub you've informally called together seems to be winding down to their last major issue that you should deal with: the question of the Tyrant's overly large and costly army. With both the Tyrant and his foremost general dead at your hand, the army is temporarily leaderless, which means unpredictable. It could be a great asset if you seize it, and there's a potential concern that someone else might attempt to seize power with it.
Time to prioritise: what's important, what's urgent, what's solvable, and what will fulfill your promise of bringing prosperity?
[] Prisoners in the dungeons
[] Monsters in the dungeons
[] Religious strife in the city
[] Lack of astrologers
[] Dress for success
[] Unblocking the river
[] The headless army
(Approval vote for as many items as you want. The top TWO winners will get immediate scenes fleshing out the problem and choosing how to 'solve' it, then there will be an opportunity to rest, reconsider and delegate for others.)
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[X] The headless army
[X] Religious strife in the city
[X] Monsters in the dungeons
An army you don't control in your land is a receipe for disaster. They could become rebel army causing civil war and they could turn to banditry.
Religious strife can turn nasty very quickly. Religious war, religious riots are all a possibility if religious strife isn't managed properly.
I don't want starving monsters to break out of the dungeon and terrorise the city.
[X] Religious strife in the city
[X] Monsters in the dungeons
An army you don't control in your land is a receipe for disaster. They could become rebel army causing civil war and they could turn to banditry.
Religious strife can turn nasty very quickly. Religious war, religious riots are all a possibility if religious strife isn't managed properly.
I don't want starving monsters to break out of the dungeon and terrorise the city.
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[X] The headless army
Biggest problem by far. Put them to work on some infrastructural project.
[X] Unblocking the river
Easy and has good effects
[] Monsters in the dungeons
Easy and prevents bad effects. I'm not convinced they're as high a priority since they're presumably locked in a dungeon, so might unvote this.
Trying to sort out politics, or guilty/innocent, is probably a longer-term project.
Unusual dress--simple dress rather than being dressed as the Tyrant--could be a useful form of counter-signalling: "we're so strong (which we are) that you should disregard all preconceptions; you're dealing with me alone." Not sure how well that works in practice.
Biggest problem by far. Put them to work on some infrastructural project.
[X] Unblocking the river
Easy and has good effects
[] Monsters in the dungeons
Easy and prevents bad effects. I'm not convinced they're as high a priority since they're presumably locked in a dungeon, so might unvote this.
Trying to sort out politics, or guilty/innocent, is probably a longer-term project.
Unusual dress--simple dress rather than being dressed as the Tyrant--could be a useful form of counter-signalling: "we're so strong (which we are) that you should disregard all preconceptions; you're dealing with me alone." Not sure how well that works in practice.
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- Location
- Academy City
- Pronouns
- They
[X] The headless army
[X] Unblocking the river
[X] Unblocking the river
[X] The headless army
[X] Prisoners in the dungeons
I really hate the idea of doing nothing about innocent people kept in prison under what must be horrific conditions. Freeing these prisoners will also provide an immediate boost in popularity from the former prisoners and their loved ones advocating on our behalf. It will provide immediate and visible proof of our ability to resolve the evils perpetuated by the Tyrant.
Dealing with the Army before they can be used as a tool for another Coup or simply collapse into bandit armies simply seems like a common sense priority as this is the only thing that can immediately threaten our control over the city.
[X] Prisoners in the dungeons
I really hate the idea of doing nothing about innocent people kept in prison under what must be horrific conditions. Freeing these prisoners will also provide an immediate boost in popularity from the former prisoners and their loved ones advocating on our behalf. It will provide immediate and visible proof of our ability to resolve the evils perpetuated by the Tyrant.
Dealing with the Army before they can be used as a tool for another Coup or simply collapse into bandit armies simply seems like a common sense priority as this is the only thing that can immediately threaten our control over the city.
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Of fear and soldiers
- Location
- Norway
[X] The headless army
[X] Unblocking the river
[X] Unblocking the river
"Prakash, tell me about the army." you say. "Who's in charge now that General Tusharist is dead? Where is it encamped? How much would I have to reduce it to be affordable?"
"Almighty one, there isn't-"
You hold up a hand. "Stop. The Unconquered Sun can be 'Almighty One'. For me it will suffice with 'Mighty One'. Please continue."
"Yes, Mighty One!" says Prakash with fear in his voice, and grovels apologetically.
You hold back a sigh. The Tyrant might have killed Prakash for getting his titles wrong, and now you killed the Tyrant; that doesn't mean you're going to kill Prakash for getting your titles wrong. Murder is not a transitive property. But reprimanding Prakash further at this juncture would almost certainly be counterproductive, so you silently let him continue.
"If the Mighty One will allow me to fetch the appropriate records?"
"Of course."
Once Prakash is out of sight, Nandita asks if she can go home too. You send her on her way, and from the longing in Ranjit's eyes, you can tell he wants to leave as well but he doesn't dare ask. What is it that makes people tongue-tied in this particular way? A minute ago he was much less nervous describing everything the Tyrant ruined and asking you to fix, but asking to go home is apparently beyond him, which is doubly strange to you as it would result in his being out of the presence of the person he fears so much. Truly, the intricacies of the human mind could be a subject of endless study. "Go, Ranjit." you say. "Go tell your children you are well. I assume you have children?"
"I do, O Sun-Blessed One." Ranjit responds, looking downright terrified. Why — oh yes, the Tyrant kept family members as hostages. Damn him for ruining everything. Now politely inquiring after someone's family sounds like a threat.
"Tell me where I can find you later. You seem like a wise man, and there is much I would know about this city. Then go."
He describes an address, and you wave him off, and he departs with haste that is just short of running. He's probably going to be worried about your next meeting, but a man who's at least somewhat accustomed to you is better than finding a new informant to calm down from the beginning all over again. Probably. You briefly consider calling for volunteers instead, but if the normal people are like Ranjit, the kind of volunteers you'd get would likely all be sycophants whose power-lust exceeds their fear.
Your musings are interrupted by Prakash returning with several scrolls, from financial to tactical. The 'army' of Ulsan, or rather, of the Tyrant, is divided into eight groups called 'Talons', nominally consisting of 100 soldiers each, in practice overstrength up to 125 so they can rotate and reinforce internally, and so they come to a thousand in all. Under healthy conditions, which is to say, before the Tyrant took over and ruined everything, the palace revenue could have supported three of these eight Talons. As finances now stand, you estimate it could support one, which is why they've turned to extorting vassals and raiding neighbors. Nobody is in charge of them all any more, other than you, but the Talonlord of the 1st has seniority and would probably assume overall command if they got an opportunity to sort out the chain of command.
The 3rd, 7th and 8th Talons are currently deployed in Ulsan to help maintain the peace, or were until this morning. The 2nd, 4th and 5th Talons are off-duty but present in Ulsan. The 1st Talon is away on a punitive expedition, which is a euphemism for raiding a smaller town for loot. The 6th Talon is out on patrol of the nearby roads and river. You'll deal with the six Talons that are here for now, and the rest can catch up once they get the message to come home immediately.
There don't seem to be any good options. You don't have the money on hand to keep all the soldiers paid, but dismissing them would risk a lot of them immediately reorganizing as independent armies and turning to banditry or taking over smaller towns. Maybe if you imprisoned their officers and dismissed the rest so they couldn't reorganize? The worst case, you figure, is that they refuse whatever order you give and try to usurp you on the spot. You could kill them all with Infinite Melee Mastery and Grass-Cutting Strike if that happens, and for a moment you consider whether you should do so regardless. Looking at Prakash's papers, each of the Talons has been on 'punitive expeditions' at least once since the palace coffer ran dry. From a certain point of view, that makes them bandits guilty of rape and pillage, and death would be a form of justice. Then again, that is rather bloodthirsty, and they'd probably break and scatter long before you could kill them all. So...
What's the plan?
[] Dismiss the entire army immediately.
[] Dismiss all but one talon.
[] Create priceless works of art to make dragons weep, and pay the soldiers with those.
[] Keep the entire army on, and look into even more creative ways of paying.
[] Use Husband-Seducing Demon Dance to make the soldiers serve without pay for now.
[] Imprison the officers, and dismiss the common soldiers.
[] Kill the officers and dismiss the common soldiers.
[] Kill them. All of them.
[] Arrange public executions of the officers, and dismiss the common soldiers.
[] You need more time to think. Go deal with the bridge first.
[] Write in?
Being a Solar is rather like being the personification of the American army invading Afghanistan. Or British army, or Russian, I'm told they had similar experiences. You trivially have the firepower to kill anyone who gets in your way, and blow up whatever you want to see destroyed, the big question is "what then?". You think it'll be over by Christmas, you'll stab the bad guy and fix everything with overwhelming might, and several bloody years later you wonder why everything just keeps going wrong the moment you look away. It's one thing when a recognizable political faction burns down infrastructure you built for a rival faction, but it's quite another when you dig a new well for a village and the people of that same village fill it in for some inscrutable reason. Plus there's a significant religious faction teaching that your people are the Great Satan. If you had any sense you wouldn't be in this godforsaken country in the first place.
But the Exaltation doesn't select for, nor grant, common sense. That would have been contrary to its original purpose. At the dawn of history, the Solar Exaltations were forged by the Gods for cosmic war against the Primordials, empowering those humans most willing to throw themselves against seemingly impossible odds. And those humans died in droves, and the Exaltation (which is a sort of prosthetic soul) reincarnated into a new human host for the meatgrinder, until at last the Primordials lay broken by the onslaught of divine weapons and the Gods seized the Celestial City.
Not that Solar McSunnyface knows anything about the Primordial War. As far as you're concerned, the Unconquered Sun, King of the Gods, Lord of Virtue, has always been in charge of Heaven, and He appeared in a vision one day to give Solar McSunnyface a divine mandate to better Earth and the ability to back it up. The Sun grants power and skill and bravery and compassion, but, again, not wisdom. The Sun answers "Can I do this?" with a bright and shining Yes, but has no answer for "Should I do this?"
And because I just know people are going to ask about Husband-Seducing Demon Dance:
Article: In answer to the call of the Solar Exalted, in ancient times, people gave up their homes and families and marched to war. Some Lawgivers gave speeches and shone with the sun's radiance, but others called their servants with beauty — piping, dancing or playing at the harp, wordlessly and terribly calling their soldiers to their deaths.
The Charm is possible to use for sexual seduction, but that's a narrow special case. Its more general function is instilling devotion and commitment, so that people will die for you. This does not depend on sexual attraction.
- Location
- Singapore
[X] Write in: Decimation. Execute the commander of every Talon and every officer on his staff. Then, execute every third surviving officer, chosen at random. Then, line up the entire garrison— disarmed, of course—and execute one soldier out of ten. Finally conscript & castrate every man who survived into forced labor battalions in which we might—or might not—grant them their liberty after several years of service.
*Yes I lifted this from David Drake's Dance of Time.
*Yes I lifted this from David Drake's Dance of Time.
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[X] Plan: War Crimes Tribunal
-[] Imprison the officers and common soldiers seperately. Create a Prisoner's Dilema. Make the common soldiers do labour while you convene a War Crimes Tribunal. Get common soldiers and the population to testify against the military. Execute every officer involved in looting, pillaging etc. Allow soldiers who refused to take part in these activities to leave or join a new talon. Use common soldiers who took part in these activities to serve out their sentence in labour camps, working for the good of the people they have harmed and execute the common soldiers who have done particularly heinous crimes.
-[] Imprison the officers and common soldiers seperately. Create a Prisoner's Dilema. Make the common soldiers do labour while you convene a War Crimes Tribunal. Get common soldiers and the population to testify against the military. Execute every officer involved in looting, pillaging etc. Allow soldiers who refused to take part in these activities to leave or join a new talon. Use common soldiers who took part in these activities to serve out their sentence in labour camps, working for the good of the people they have harmed and execute the common soldiers who have done particularly heinous crimes.
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[X] Plan Public Works
-[X] Write-In: Use Husband-Seducing Demon Dance and put excess to work on public works. Ask advisors what works are most needed (probably revitalizing trade routes, farm labor).
(Not a real plan; this is just so you can write "[X] Plan Public Works" and the tally detects it.)
Three problems to be addressed:
A lot of the army isn't productive, so use for public works (don't have better ideas right now) to address Issue 2.
Issue 3 is temporarily solved by the dance, but will need to figure out a real way to pay/feed them later [TODO].
-[X] Write-In: Use Husband-Seducing Demon Dance and put excess to work on public works. Ask advisors what works are most needed (probably revitalizing trade routes, farm labor).
(Not a real plan; this is just so you can write "[X] Plan Public Works" and the tally detects it.)
Three problems to be addressed:
- Getting the army not to scatter
- Putting them to productive work
- Providing for them
A lot of the army isn't productive, so use for public works (don't have better ideas right now) to address Issue 2.
Issue 3 is temporarily solved by the dance, but will need to figure out a real way to pay/feed them later [TODO].
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[X] Plan: War Crimes Tribunal
[X] Plan Public Works
[X] Plan Public Works