"To choose between guns and butter is foolish. I personally know many soldiers who can butter their bread and fire at the enemy simultaneously."
-Basilevs Kristyn III
"This new conclave is formed of pure thought, baptized in altruism. We are simply her brickmakers and masons, laying the foundation for greater works to come. This work is just now beginning, for her true architects are yet unborn! They are men and women of idealism and strength, unbound by nationality or creed. The brilliance of their ideas, still unspoken, shines forth across time like the distant promise of the stars."
-Ivan Avaryk, Discourses on Rationalism
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Agre. There was no city more worthy of being called 'eternal,' except Golden Sarai itself. The ancient records and monuments of the Agrinese Empire declare the city as 'beyond description,' but still try to describe it. A glowing metropolis from which the Baslievs held unquestioned dominion over three continents. A city of arches, silver bridges and marble streets, lush citrus gardens lining the Imperial Road, markets overflowing with gold and gems. And here, there, and another place, a palace or library or spectacular war memorial commemorating this Agrinese victory, this glorious campaign, this remarkable Basilevs. And then the silence of the law courts, the mausoleums with their hallowed, well-kept graves, all surrounding the walled brilliance of the Imperial Domain. That was the capital of the Agrinese Empire.
This was not that Agre.
The greatest reminder of the Empire that once lived was the walls. The Imperial Republic loved her fortifications, and maintained them better than any other edifice under her control. Bastions had replaced towers, modern long-range artillery emplacements had superceded boiling oil. The gates were guarded, reinforced, and constantly patrolled. Antalya WAS security.
No, Agre had not 'decayed'. But it seemed that in the centuries after the Basilevs relocated to the still more ancient, still more spectacular Altyn-Sarai, the city had lost her luster. It was an echo of power and might, but not powerful. It reflected past beauty, but beauty itself was gone. The palaces remained, but occupied by nobles, councils, and lesser governors, rather than the man that embodied the Empire.
More importantly, the gardens and well-kept streets of the city had become clogged with industrial traffic. Agre had morphed from a city of emperors to a city of steel. Forges and workshops, steel mills and grain mills clustered around the city's center. The business of the day was production, rather than dominion. This wasn't bad. Agre today attracted technicians, engineers, and skilled craftsmen with the magnetism of innovation, with the promise of being at the heart of the machine that drove Antalya's superiority.
Two cities coexisted, superimposed on each other. One was ordered, green, and stately, quiet places and half-neglected areas referencing a past beauty, and a power that had moved on. The other was chaotic, red-gold, and frantic, bustling with energy and drive to produce, improve, and supply. Tackling such a city would overwhelm any authority...except one.
And then came the Conclave. The Golden Conclave. The fact that it would be the largest building in the world, take 50 years to build, and cost more than a small kingdom didn't really overawe most of Agre's citizens. After this long, they were used to ridiculous things being built in their city. But when the council of architects and scholars designing the project to the required specifications declared that half of the central industrial district would have to be levelled, it caused the first great crisis of representation between the Baslievs and the citizens of his second-oldest city.
Demetyr was not a 'traditional' Basilevs. They typically fell into the 'pensive scholar' or 'hardened warrior' categories. A scholar, like Aristarkh I, would have sighed, raised the city's taxes as a form of punishment, and relocated the project to Antalyak or Sinopha. A warrior Basilevs, like the five that preceded Aristarkh, would simply have sent in the army to burn out the districts and sent compensation to the widows that could be found.
Thankfully, Basilevs Demetyr I was a pensive, scholarly soldier. Rather than undoing his slow attempts to allow his people to govern their local affairs, he convened a meeting with the municipal council, the first of its' kind.
As later records indicate, it was remarkable. Even in the council hall, the Basilevs was never separated from crowds of his subjects. Fawning sycophants separated themselves from the clever aristocrats, as the military liaisons stood off to the side, pensively drinking from hip flasks and quietly talking among themselves. The constant train of kneeling, admiring, and useless pleasantries that fall off the tongue when presence of overawing power were unending. As they swirled around the Basilevs, he played the gracious part, seeming the host even though it was THEIR city. Always present, he was utterly alone.
Seven oak trees were felled for the conference table, which seated merchants, nobles, soldiers, 'first citizens,' devout Rationalists, engineers, craftsmen, and every possible segment of society.
Five minutes into the discussion, some gigantic forgemaster tackled a merchant, who suggested that clearing out the city's center for the Conclave would provide both an economic benefit from pilgrimages, and also improve the air quality by destroying 'those filthy workshops." Two minutes later, a soldier almost drew his dress weapon on a poor Rationalist that meekly suggested moving the army out of the city to provide additional space.
Three minutes later, the meeting dissolved into complete confusion. During this time, the Basilevs had been resting his hand on his chin, quietly watching the interactions of his subjects. Then, he stood. The room fell completely silent, embarrassed and not a little afraid.. Demetyr cleared his throat, uttering what would become one of history's more famous quotations.
"Every nation is built upon an ideal. Every culture is built upon a rationale. The culture and nation of Antalya, our nation-state, is the Rational Ideal. If, as I have seen today, the Rational Ideal lies so far from your hearts, Antalya shall fall. For a people will be judged on their capacity to compromise."
The Basilevs stood, pushed in his chair, and walked from the room.
"I am an emperor, not an autocrat. Do not force me to become one."
After a long night, on the following day the High Council of Agre presented to the Basilevs their plan for the redesign of the city. It included the relocation of her industrial districts, the widening and replanning of her streets to be both aesthetically pleasing and efficient conductors of industry and commerce, the tentative division of the city into municipal, commercial, religious, and mixed districts, and their complete approval of the architects' initial requirements to build a series of work camps around the building site.
Thirty years later, the Basilevs entered his Golden Conclave, still uncompleted but already surpassing the Great Pyramids of Argos in size, and uttered one of the other famous quotations in history.
"Alexandyr, I have surpassed thee."
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Hmm... I'm working on stories for both neses and I'm 3/4th done on both, what to do 
