This feels like a very nurgalite philosophy to me? Like, the idea that if you can't create benefits without harming anyone else, you just shouldn't ever create any benefits for anyone? It's implied, not explicit, but the whole spiraling down into a pit of misery convinced it is the best of all possible options...
I mean, sure, it's a bad philosophy to run a nation on. On the other hand, it
also seems like it might be a bad idea to give your super magic spies authority to make decisions on who prospers and who dwindles on a nationwide level, especially if they also have an outsized personal stake in that decision.
Did Mathilde make that decision? No. But it couldn't have happened without her. And the fact that regardless of whether she or Wilhemina made the call, it greatly benefited her. That is going to have an effect on one's judgement. (Even if it might be the
opposite effect, being too conservative for fear of... violating whatever the Vow of Poverty means)*
It doesn't stop being a conflict of interest when you make the right call once.
*Embedding a bunch of agents in various institutions and counting on the fact their survival depends on the Empire's benefit to encourage them to make good decisions is a
valid strategy, but doesn't seem to be what's happening, at least not with the Grey College.
On some level we're arguing semantics.
Obviously there's more facets to the effect (like social safety nets for women: maternity leave, guaranteed job security during maternity leave etc). So it'd at most be a factor in the problem.
I like Imrik's (the forum member) approach: A bit of this, combined with long, arduous pregnancies. An elf who gets pregnant is committing to a not-insignificant time and no small amount of risk.
Guns break their rules, Swordmenship takes 3 years before you got the basics, 10 years for the bow, and a lifetime of effort for mastery.
you can build a gunline from people that never even touching the things in 6 months, and human nobles master pistols as an on and off hobby.
a Swordmasters of hoeth can spend centuries mastering cutting rain of arrows out of the air, an master pistoleer can often, if not most of the time, hit him anyways.
of course guns are cheap and tacky!
Basic elf infantry are spearlines.
That's... probably not it.
(And as an aside I suspect a Gunmaster of Hoeth could shoot your bullets out of the air if they wanted to.)
Oh sure, but if the decline is a thing in the story itself, then there should be a Watsonian explanation.
I was going to say something snarky about 'Well, there would have been an elven renaissance, but then End Times.' But then I remembered how dumb Pheonix King Malekith was.
Still uh... *gestures towards Lumineth* ...I guess that counts?
