Who Needs Harmony?: An MLP Empire Quest
- Thread starter Questor
- Start date
People, I do believe the vote was called some time ago 😅
- Location
- Italy
shhh, don't tell them! Let it be a surprise
they're voting for the winner anyway
- Location
- Germany
Was the vote actually closed? Thought the tally was more of a "snapshot"
- Location
- I think somewhere. I might be nowhere though
I thought so originally too, but then Questor mentioned needing some time before they would be able to write the update so it might have actually been the closure of the vote...not that it matters with the sheer difference in votes between 1st and 2nd.
[X] Aid Only
Guys, I don't know if I'm missing something, but trying to get a proud order of royal guards who uphold the legacy of a strict aristocratic society to formally recognize a faction being run by a peasant former brothel madame is probably biting off a little more than Gawain can chew.
Guys, I don't know if I'm missing something, but trying to get a proud order of royal guards who uphold the legacy of a strict aristocratic society to formally recognize a faction being run by a peasant former brothel madame is probably biting off a little more than Gawain can chew.
- Location
- Germany
Just because they upheld the legitimacy of slavery doesn´t mean that they agreed with it.
"My Master/Country, Right or Wrong" is a trope for a reason, even in RL.
The thing is, Gawain isn't going to be speaking of legacies.
He's gonna be reminding a professional soldier about current military facts.
- Location
- Germany
That too, yes... it´s simply more pragmatic from a military standpoint ofr the Guard to play nice with the Abolitionists.
Both factions aren´t really at odds with each other ideologically, while they could help each other with their respective goals (Marecinas wants to restore peace and bring the assassin to justice, Ambrosia wants to end the suffering slavery brings with itself by default). So the only thing preventing the Captain from reaching out is her damn pride.
- Location
- Italy
and her suspicions we might be the ones who sent the assassins.
She's wrong, but it's understandable. If we wanted to conquer/annex Maretonia and didn't care about the common people's suffering that would indeed have been the optimal solution.
Instead we were playing the long term game, trying to weaken the worst nobles and empower the abolitionists, hopefully smoothly enough that in the end a civil war wouldn't have been necessary (or, if it was, it would have been a less destructive one)
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Mostly because the kind of people to uphold the legitimacy of slavery have no issue with gaslighting everyone.
The leading vote is essentially "slavery is ending either way, the only question is how hard we end it," which is solid. But don't go thinking that the soldiers that climbed to the most prestigious positions in the nation don't have some fondness for the systems they were upholding, or at least enough apathy towards those systems that the prestige made the upholding worth it.
How often the best of intentions end in a train wreck. And it not even our fault. At least, not totally.
Heck, the way Maretonia was set up, civil war was always an certainlty as it been spoken before. Maretonia was a powder keg even at the best of times. We just happened to be involved when it finally went off with the death of the Queen.
- Location
- Italy
on the other hand there's a difference between apathy toward a (relatively) stable system, and apathy toward a system that imploded so badly.
After this war there will probably be a strong desire to centralize power to avoid a repeat of the civil war, and Maretonia WILL NEED support from other countries if it wants to recover swiftly.
And, simply put, that support won't be there unless they accept some of our demands, and removal of slavery will be the first one on the list, at least on our (and Neighpon's) part. The minotaur cities also expressed their dislike for the practice, so they'd probably support us on this.
Who would Maretonia be able to trade with if they kept to slavery?
Neighpon is out.
Gryphus is out.
Canterbury might or might not want them all dead, and we still don't know what's really happening there.
YakYakistan does not care about them, and they'd probably follow our lead anyway. It's not like they have much to trade anyway yet, and they'd need to go through our territory anyway to reach them.
Emerald Island is allied with Neighpon and couldn't afford to offend them like this even if it wanted to.
The Minotaurs are against slavery too.
Libertalia is (mostly) in our pockets, and wouldn't go against us on this, at least officially
The only one that MIGHT trade with them anyway are whatever is at their south (we know NOTHING about it yet) and the Caribous (which would need to go through Neighpon controlled waters, and might try to pillage them anyway.
eh, our only role in this was making the abolitionists a true contender, and maybe weakening house white star a bit before things started (they were the one who benefited most from slavery, and we DID free some slaves and supported Ambrosia in freeing some more).
I'd say this is COMPLETELY not our fault, unless we somehow encouraged Canterbury to make their move without meaning to.
If Mareia ended up killed anyway the situation would have probably been actually worse. With only 2 true factions (and the guards) the war would have likely been even more violent and direct. With three factions they needed to be carefull less they exposed themselves.
...of course with only two true factions it's possible that the guards might have chosen a candidate to support sooner. We can't really be sure.
- Location
- Germany
Might I ask what those links have to do with everything?
Also, even those fond of evil systems can grow dissastisfied or even disgusted with the regime over time...
Oskar Schindler for example started out a strong believer in the Nazi ideology, but over time essentially ruined himself outta guilt trying to save as many Jewish people from a horrifying end as possible. Or Erwin Rommel, who (although he did fight for the Nazi to the best of his abilities) never acted cruel towards his opponents and at least did have some knowledge of plots to off Hitler, even if he didn´t take part himself.
So Captain Marecinas - despite her very high military status - could be more accepting of the Abolitionist cause then you seem to expect once she makes proper contact.
- Location
- The state of Paranoia
Pretty sure they're examples of how people in power who benefit from horrible systems use propaganda and culture to make those systems seem less horrible than they actually were. This then feeds the attitude of 'my country, right or wrong,' in relation to those systems.
On the one hand, Captain Marecinas benefited from the overall system, and as such may have bought into this mindset. On the other hand, she didn't directly benefit from the slavery aspect, so I would guess that she would be more likely to be a target of the propaganda, rather than one of the ones creating it. It's possible that when you consider a how much trouble the nobles gave her and her queen, she may actually be pretty ambivalent to the slavery part of the system which benefited the nobles so much.
On the third hoof, this is the world of My Little Pony. Things don't have to be realistic, we have multiple monarchies that actually take good care of their people for crying out loud. It's possible that she just plain hates slavery because it's My Little Pony and she's a decent person.
Edit:
Also you have some good examples of individuals in real life that disliked the horrible systems that benefited them. I will note though that they didn't grow up in a Nazi regime, so it was likely less normalized to them than slavery is to someone who grew up seeing slaves going about their daily business.
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Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You say the trope exists for a reason, I give you the reason.
She's been neutral for years, preferring to prop up the corpse of a defunct government over siding with the abolitionist successor state. We had to go to her to argue, bribe, and threaten her into cooperating even though the abolitionists are the only faction left that hasn't used a weapon of mass destruction on the country she claims to protect. She's clearly not Schindler.
The Desert Fox? Interestingly, he did want his burial to be apolitical, not associated with the Nazi party. Of course Hitler did not respect that. He was of the mindset 'my country, right or wrong,' no love of the Nazi party, just doing his duty to his country.
One thing we might need to keep an eye on those who would defend, or rebrand the practice, although trying to enact something like the Jim Crow Laws would be harder without any clear tells of who was a slave and who was not. Though they could decide to limit it to the least prestigious of the three pony groups, therefore making it feasible to try and pull off...
Edit:
House white star has not used any WMD. We only know they were in the process of developing a potential WMD. If the intended product was used on the hurricane, where would likely have been no city left.
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- Location
- Italy
I have to protest here.
You make it sound as if monarchies were inherently wrong/evil. They're not.
As a matter of fact a "good" king (in both the meanings of "moral" good and "capable" good) can likely do much more than a "good" president.
The problem is that once you have the misfortune of getting a "bad" king it's much harder to remove him from power than it would be for a "bad" president,with all the consequences that follow.
Mlp Equestria had the advantage of getting not only GOOD princesses, but also immortal ones. And even then Luna went bad, proving how the system was unstable. If Celestia ever died it would have been chaos. They were lucky they had plot armor until Twilight appeared.
As long as we get good heirs the system will work. Once we get bad ones... Well, we have the advantage of the near-immortal regent her majesty best dragon daughter. That will likely be enough to let the system survive a couple of bad apples.
One thing to argue, white star hasn't yet used their mass destruction weapon (which is not actually ready yet), and we can't prove they would have used it on civilians.
No, stopping the hurricane doesn't count. And they certainly wouldn't have used the destructive version on the hurricane anyway, that would have been suicide with it so close to the mages (and if the mages could shield themselves... Well I'm not sure there WERE civilians close enough to be hurt anyway. I don't remember how close the mages are to civilian settlements)
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
House White Star is not left, and if the Royal Guard was holding out hope for them to make a comeback that says as much about their stance on abolitionists as anything else I listed.
- Location
- Germany
Schindler was more of an option how to deal with a steadily worsening situation...not so much a character Marecinas necessarily has to resemble.
Yet, it is also at least implied in the talks that the royal gaurd is confidant in being able to face, and win against house storm.
The angle Gawain here focuses on "At What Cost?". They are trying to figure out what the right thing is, and they naturally don't really trust us, which is actually sensible here. They will likely work with the abolitionists, but are very wary of us, and any hidden costs our help might have.
To be perfectly fair, staying neutral for this long has been what saved the capital and the surrounding region, keeping them out of the war, and protecting both subjects, and displace refugees.
But the time of being neutral is passed.
- Location
- The state of Paranoia
It is certainly true that monarchies are not inherently evil any more than any other form of government. They simply don't incentivize those in charge to do things which are beneficial to the people.
While a king who happens to be morally good could potentially help his people a great deal, it's incredibly difficult for him to do so. A king must keep his key supporters happy, just as much as a president must keep the people who vote for him happy. The difference is that there are fewer people that keep the king in power.
On the surface, it may seem as if it should be easy to keep the king's key supporters happy, and then get on with the process of wisely ruling the country. Have a kid, go to church, make sure to give enough bribes to the nobles. However, in practice keeping these supporters happy is a difficult and expensive process. There are many examples of kings or other leaders with few supporters (who I'm going to call kings for the rest of this post because it's faster to write) who have indeed tried to make things better for the people. Most of them promptly got stabbed to death or shot, because they misjudged how much money they needed to use in order to keep their key supporters happy. It takes a lot of money to rule wisely, but it also takes a lot of money to keep your key supporters happy. That food you want to send to your starving farmers? Why, that money could instead be used to pay for a feast for your nobles. Letting the serfs move freely between nobles estates so they can find a better life for themselves under less oppressive nobles? Duke So And So is not amused by your attempt to let his property run away.
A good example is Julius Caesar. He was well loved by the common people of Rome during his time as a dictator, in part because he started many projects to help them such as restructuring debt to reduce the number of debtors, imposing term limits on governors, and creating public works projects to help reduce unemployment. He was soon killed by his key supporters, who were very much not the general public and did not approve of how some of these policies affected them.
Yes, it is possible to get a good king who helps the people. It is much more likely however, to get a good (morally speaking) king who makes life even worse for the people in order to stay in power, or a bad king who makes things worse for the people in order to stay in power and live in luxury. These last two categories are very difficult to distinguish from each other, so I'm grouping them together. A good example of a 'king' who has indeed made life better for the people is the leader of China, showing that it can indeed happen. The examples of kings who make life worse are much, much more numerous.
The problem isn't that humanity keeps getting kings who are terrible people, nor that we keep getting kings who are incompetent. The problem is that in order for a king to help the people he needs to be both a very good person and incredibly competent. He must be morally good enough to go out of his way to help people and to also potentially accept a lower personal quality of life for himself, as any money he spends on the people will be money he would otherwise spend on himself. He must be extremely competent because he needs to not only find policies that actually help his people, but also to make sure those policies don't anger his key supporters too much. Finding policies that will help the people is of course only made more difficult by the lack of free press that is necessary to keep the people themselves from rebelling and overthrowing him. He also must do the delicate balancing act of finding money for these projects while making sure to still have enough money to pay his key supporters.
This is the reason that there are so few real life kings that helped the people. It's not that kings, queens and dictators are all inherently bad or stupid people. At a base level, they aren't much different from anyone else. The reason is that they were never incentivized to help the people, and it takes a truly exceptional person to both make the effort and actually succeed without getting killed.
Contrast this with politicians in democracies. Are politicians somehow naturally morally superior to your average king or queen? Of course not. However, they are in a very different position. Politicians are incentivized to do things that are good for the people, or at least which the people want. This is because the people are key supporters of politicians. Keeping the people happy directly contributes to a politician staying in power. It's a system that has many, many flaws and many failures. But on average it works a lot better than monarchy or any other form of government that relies on a small number of key supporters.