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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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This is a very chicken/egg trinary response for the non-write in options. Productivity (and the wealth that follows) contributes to happiness and happiness contributes to higher productivity. Underpinning that relationship is the surety that tomorrow won't contain any challenges that can't be overcome and that can only occur under stable circumstances. Leaning too hard into any one direction is counterproductive to the goal of acquiring them all. We've seen the stagnation in the Meng that focused too much on stability and looking into real life we can see the crushing environments of Amazon warehouses and sweatshops in various countries that value productivity above everything else creates. Happiness is harder to point directly to the potential problems unless you're a believer in the "if you give a man everything he'll turn lazy" mindset, but we can point to maybe examples like Rome where festivals led to things like gladiators battling against lions in the Colosseum to keep the citizens "happy". I'm not entirely happy with that example so maybe someone else will come along and make it better for me. Either way here's my write-in:

[ ] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.
[ ] Without long-term stability all other gains are ephemeral. Nothing lasts forever, but sometimes today's struggles bore tomorrow's bounties.
[ ] The productivity and bounty of a land were the direct foundation of any prosperity its people could have; it only made sense to prioritize that.

[X] All three are supports for the others and all can be harmful if taken too far. Stability can lead to stagnation, happiness to indolence, and productivity to gloom. Finding harmony between the three benefits the Community and its neighbors most greatly.

Edit: a word (and then again for multiple other words)
 
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corax888 said:
[ ] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.
This option seems the most clearly in line with Ling Qi's attitudes and Way, and is probably the most generally beneficial. It seems like an option that doesn't rock the boat: prioritizing health and happiness probably means making a bunch of little adjustments with local spirits and fief improvements like the Communal Ovens.

[ ] Without long-term stability all other gains are ephemeral. Nothing lasts forever, but sometimes today's struggles bore tomorrow's bounties.
Given what this option says about delaying gratification, and what Zhu Fan said about forgoing growth, I don't think this is a good fit. It likely means investing in things like defenses and failsafes, as well as extensive bureaucracy, only expanding when absolutely necessary. That might be good for most border fiefs, but we have a lot of backing and protection, and limiting growth doesn't play to Ling Qi's strengths or Cai Renxiang's plans.

[ ] The productivity and bounty of a land were the direct foundation of any prosperity its people could have; it only made sense to prioritize that.
This option feels a bit like a dark horse to me. As Candesce pointed out, Shenglu is on a trade route that's only going to get bigger if our plans work out. Prioritizing our own resource production might not be the most efficient plan. But as AbeoLogos said, Zhengui is going to be the lord of the local court, and the bounty of the earth is right in his wheelhouse. Also, I know that most of our fief projects are resource based because we're just starting out, but our contract with Snowblossom already prioritizes the bounty of the lake, and the Bai Clan Soil Studies we got and our Meng Geomancer are both advantages most fiefs don't have. I feel like if we leaned into it, we could be a real powerhouse.
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Even on a trade town, we cant just import everything. A healthy town should make enough food to support itself, and to grow and becoms large town that can be a lot of food. You also want to be able to produce enough resources to cover at least part of construction and maintanance.

In mechanical terms, while wealth can come from trade, agriculture and material are stuff we need to produce, and in quantity.

Also Shenglu has some great resources. Not using that is stupid
 
Stability leads to abundance, which leads to creativity and a thriving culture. Stability isn't stagnation. Chaos is what stagnates human growth. You can't grow when you can't plan or prepare.

[X] Without long-term stability all other gains are ephemeral. Nothing lasts forever, but sometimes today's struggles bore tomorrow's bounties.
 
[X] All three are supports for the others and all can be harmful if taken too far. Stability can lead to stagnation, happiness to indolence, and productivity to gloom. Finding harmony between the three benefits the Community and its neighbors most greatly.

[X] Write-In: Liminality. Leadership is to sway and dance between the shifting pressures of competing needs and desires. To find the place between the needs of today and the possibilities of tomorrow. To tend to the wants of the community without suffocating iron grip nor unseeing neglect.
 
[x] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.

The point of the other two is to maximize this one. Why stability? Because it's better for health and happiness than instability. Why minmax extraction? Because being rich is good for health and happiness.
 
Glau said:
[x] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.

The point of the other two is to maximize this one. Why stability? Because it's better for health and happiness than instability. Why minmax extraction? Because being rich is good for health and happiness.
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Glau has the right of it.

The purpose of stability is to ensure health and happiness during transitions. The purpose of productivity is to ensure health and happiness through abundance.

Get right to the point. We're on a border fief, stability is not solely down to us, border expansions and enemy action will shift and we would need the flexibility to pivot.

[x] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.

Also, the man is asking for a policy statement, and the various write ins so far cannot really be defined into policy beyond vague politician podium statement
 
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[X] The productivity and bounty of a land were the direct foundation of any prosperity its people could have; it only made sense to prioritize that.
 
[X] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.
[X] Without long-term stability all other gains are ephemeral. Nothing lasts forever, but sometimes today's struggles bore tomorrow's bounties.

I'm not really a fan of the extraction/production/profit focused vibe of the third option, and while these two do have their own associated negative implications; this doesn't seem like the sort of thing where you can just say "We will focus on everything in such a way that no issues arise and everything works out perfectly." As Veekie put it, to try and do so would just make us sound like a generic politician.
 
[x] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.

Honestly I don't exactly like any of these, but this feels the least meh to me? Including of the write in options people have suggested, which don't generally actually feel like policy statements.
 
[X] Write-In: Liminality. Leadership is to sway and dance between the shifting pressures of competing needs and desires. To find the place between the needs of today and the possibilities of tomorrow. To tend to the wants of the community without suffocating iron grip nor unseeing neglect.

[x] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.
 
[X] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.

Ok sure I can take that. Maybe we can still pivot to the healing/purifying springs that I wanted before, even if it won't be as good now that we didn't pick it when it came up the few times it was available.
 
[X] The health and happiness of one's citizens was the priority, and their ease too, as far as it contributed to those things.
Health and happiness are the goal, stability and bounty of the land are the means that goal is reached.
And as others have noted, Ling Qi will treat local spirits as citizens.
 
Just as a point of fact, we're not on a trade route, major or otherwise. It's simply not an accurate statement about Shenglu.

It's also worth remembering that we're slated as the administrative hub for the region. If we did build with a mind emphasizing our theoretical trade dominance, then we'd be leveraging essentially only that administrative role, and the martial authority implicitly backing it, as what sets us above in terms of wealth in our cluster of settlement. Which feels... hollow to me. I don't think we should be wealthy just because we're da boss and that means we get all the trade revenue.

Or rather, the feudal default is already that we get to skim wealth off the top of everything on the basis that we're in charge because we punch good. So I'd prefer that Shenglu actually had stuff going on for itself.

Also, like, strategic resilience is a thing. If we're trading with the White Sky, it's probably a good idea to have our own industry involved; if we're overly reliant on broader provincial, or even empire, sourced trade goods then those sources have a, uh, source of leverage over us and by extension our relationship with the White Sky. Similar issues of resilience apply to the new wave of settlement around Shenglu.

[X] The productivity and bounty of a land were the direct foundation of any prosperity its people could have; it only made sense to prioritize that.

The more I think about it, the more I think productive capacity is key to securing the kind of regional autonomy and agency our clan and political projects really want us to have. We want to be a medium sized fish in a little pond sooner rather than later.

Ling Qi's also got an interesting way of viewing things. Like the Meng, she wants to grab existing/established spirits and bend them towards mutual prosperity. She'll even move to enhance the potency of the spirits if she can and it suits her objectives. Should give the two here something to discuss.
 
[X] The productivity and bounty of a land were the direct foundation of any prosperity its people could have; it only made sense to prioritize that.
 
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[X] Without long-term stability all other gains are ephemeral. Nothing lasts forever, but sometimes today's struggles bore tomorrow's bounties.
 
[X] Without long-term stability all other gains are ephemeral. Nothing lasts forever, but sometimes today's struggles bore tomorrow's bounties.
[X] All three are supports for the others and all can be harmful if taken too far. Stability can lead to stagnation, happiness to indolence, and productivity to gloom. Finding harmony between the three benefits the Community and its neighbors most greatly.
 
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