Against All Odds: The Struggles of the Noyyau

[jackelgull]

Could I perhaps convince the other Houses to change their vote to bureaucracy? It is more efficient and better for the empire over all. Nobility may lead to some tensions that would unwise for this empire considering its current state of expansion. Our people are restless, and a stable bureaucracy will calm them down and endear them to the firm but gentle hand of government.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

Why would nobility not want nobility? It will be very difficult.

 

[jackelgull]

Why would nobility not want nobility? It will be very difficult.

Please do not misunderstand my proposition good sir. I do not wish to strip the nobility of their power or their divine right to command. What I propose is simply a bureaucracy that manages the small daily tasks of the kingdom to reduce the strain that nobles have on their workload. This bureaucracy shall help the nobility enjoy the fruits of their labors.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

The nobility can rule this empire just as well as any petty bureaucrats.

 

[clanky4]

The nobility is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding nobility.

 

[jackelgull]

The nobility can rule this empire just as well as any petty bureaucrats.

It is your right to rule, indeed, it is your duty, but a much expanded bureaucracy can streamline the process bringing in more wealth and more productive citizens. It would be good for the Noyyau as a whole. And the extra wealth in your coffers and the industriousness of your citizens for any purpose you so choose are an added benefit are they not? And we are only aids in the whole process, the big decisions would still be made by you.

And why do the noble Houses believe bureacracy and nobility are mutually exclusive? Bureaucracy will include much of the nobility. We are only looking for the best to help keep the machine of this kingdom running, and the best minds are often born among the nobility. Indeed, your extraneous children can find their chance to move up in the world through the bureaucracy. It will avoid messy succession problems and increasingly smaller inheritances of land and jealousy over who gets what.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

Alright, I choose Bureaucracy, but only if our current power status remains unchanged as nobles. Is that how it would be Noyyau?

 

[Spirictum]

OOC: As Vassalage provides unlimited Nobles (specialist), I believe this is enough to assure the continuity of the noble houses.

IC:
House Spirictum requests more information about the state of the nation. What's our worst problem and our greatest strength? How is our treasury? Do we suffer from sickness, angry citizens or separatists?

We see a great synergy in Nobility, Feudal and Vassalage. Not only that, but with a history of invasions and conquests, these would fuel our power even more. More experience, less cost for troops acting in foreign lands and a good load of . The drawbacks are the increased cost to train units and the load of unhappiness.

To House Spirictum there is no discussion on our economy and religion:
- Slaves are the backbone of the kingdom and the most important source of production;
- Prophets should guide the followers into the way of the spirits.

To end, House Spirictum would need more information to decide if the welfare of the people should be handled by the Temples and Prophets, or by the Crown.

So House Spirictum is open for the debate on these matters.

 

[Niccolo Edwards]

OOC: Are the slaves considered a part of a caste or is it possible to escape or buy your way out?

 

[GreekAnalyzer]

House Greek and House Florentatius are happy to announce the betrothal of Martha Greek to Fritz Florentatius. We hope this marriage will unify our country through this time of great change, no matter how we proceed. Long live His Grace the King and long live Noyyau!

The formal betrothal will occur on the 1st of July in the House of Nobles in sight of both gods and men. May the spirits bless their marriage, and give them many fat children! All nobles, with their wives and retainers, along with His Grace the King, are cordially invited for the ceremony and a reception afterwards.

 

[Niccolo Edwards]

House Florantanius supports:
Welfare: Church
Religion: Prophets
Military: Vassalage (so long as the plebes don't get any ideas about leaving their caste)
Economy: Slavery
Society/Governance: (in the interests of unity) Patrician (so long as the Prince leads the council and House Florentanius has a delegation at the council if one or both of these cannot be met House Florentanius will throw their support behind the formation of a Senate).

 

[Noyyau]

The House of Giacola

Spoiler :

Motto: "The system must continue to function."

The House of Giacola is known as the noble house without any nobles. Its roots come from a scribe who became an aid of one of the kings of the Noyyau due to the king's inability to read. The scribe had many children and so used the personal wealth he had amassed to get them positions within the other noble houses. Within several generations the House of Giacola developed into a de facto bureacracy within the Noyyau empire. Members of the House of Giacola work as judges, quartermasters, spies and of course scribes. The power still lies within "the noble" caste, but the House has quickly become a potent political voice within the kingdom. They do not currently have an official seat on the king's council, but they are important enough that the King often listens to and incorporates their opinions into his decisions. The House, due to its fragmented nature has a system of unwritten rules for a myriad of situations, with the current head being the arbitrator for special cases. Punishment for breaking these rules is often swift, and involves a very hungry dire wolf. The current matriarch of the House of Giacola currently resides in the capitol, but the House's members are spread everywhere. The snake is their symbol because of its connection to the Orithmos, the snakes that drag the stars, the moon and other planets endlessly around Earth. Their work is similarly endless and requires as much patience. The House of Giacola does not support the system that is "best" but rather the one that is most stable.

Actually there has been only one King so far, before Cid Raynor they were tribal chiefs and despots. Except for that, everything sounds pretty good for what I had imagined the scribe/bureaucrat caste to be.

 

[Noyyau]

OOC: Are the slaves considered a part of a caste or is it possible to escape or buy your way out?

Slaves are the lowest caste, but it does happen sometimes that a slave is freed by a benevolent or grateful master. In that case they become members of the lowest plebeian caste, and from there there is no way up.
Obviously slaves try to escape all the time. They either move somewhere where no one knows them, and generally live a very poor life, or they get captured, and punished. Usually escaping slaves can expect only danger from people, as there are rewards for their capture.

Though if we do change civics, that might change.

For example, switching away from Slavery will make all the slaves become indentured workers to either their masters, or the state, with the possibility of buying their freedom after a certain number of years of work. Or paying a hefty sum.

Becoming Feudal, especially without Slavery, will mean that while most of the population will remain in the same condition as their parents and ancestors, social mobility is now possible, especially through military service or the patronage of some rich and influential person.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

Alright, I choose Bureaucracy, but only if our current power status remains unchanged as nobles. Is that how it would be Noyyau?

Can you answer this please?

 

[Noyyau]

IC:
House Spirictum requests more information about the state of the nation. What's our worst problem and our greatest strength? How is our treasury? Do we suffer from sickness, angry citizens or separatists?
[...]

To end, House Spirictum would need more information to decide if the welfare of the people should be handled by the Temples and Prophets, or by the Crown.

So House Spirictum is open for the debate on these matters.

As the new King John, the first of his name, is discovering by examining what his father had left, the expenses of the Kingdom are extremely high, especially in regards to experiments with weapons, metal smithing, and generally anything related to warfare.
There had been no sudden monetary crisis so far only because the deficit was covered by the constant income of plundering and conquering foreign lands, especially the Iranians. Still, the Alcohol price crisis might be a symptom that something in the economy needs to be improved.
While the treasury had become almost empty, there is still something from the plunder of Tehran, and some more income is expected from the ongoing conquest of the rest of Iran. And who knows, maybe from Spain as well, if Lord Greek manages to establish his command over the lazy troops in the north.

The health of the general populace is generally acceptable, the major cities, despite being crowded, have only rarely localized epidemics (in the poorest neighbourhoods, obviously).

The people are generally docile and are not at the moment prone to revolting or seceding. There is much pride in our military conquests, and most people are too busy working to have enough time to protest anyway.
Our current times are making everyone wary, though, and the effects of the coming changes to the Kingdom are anyone's guess.

Finally, having given some thought to the matter, the new King thinks that, perhaps, it would possibly be useful to let the Shinto priests handle the welfare needs of the population, helping to spread and better establish our faith.
The King also thinks that this would be quite beneficial to House Spirictum in the long run, would it not?

 

[Noyyau]

Alright, I choose Bureaucracy, but only if our current power status remains unchanged as nobles. Is that how it would be Noyyau?

Can you answer this please?

OOC: Give me a minute!

IC: As the representative of House Giacola quite eloquently described, any "public servant" is, as the name says, a servant. While nobility does not equal unlimited power, it does mean that anyone of lower status has the duty to defer to their better's judgment and orders.

So yes, the Nobles will not lose their privileges, and the Bureaucrats will have to obey them, as long as what is asked of them is within the King's Law, of course.

 

[Noyyau]

Finally, voting for the civics will remain open until 01:00 GMT/UCT of Sunday 14 June.

 

[jackelgull]

I believe the wise and sagacious king has made a compelling case for the adoption of Church for the welfare of the nation's citizenry; however, I of the house Giacola would like to state my reservations of leaving the job to the Shinto priests. Under the current system, any charlatan can claim to be spreading the message of the true faith. While this system allows the shinto faith to propagate itself quickly, the draw back is that it allow for radical interpretations to form. Have you heard the rhetoric of some of these so called "prophets"? They call for violent overthrow of the system. If we allow them to take care of our citizens, we will find the lower castes in arms against their superiors. I believe in the House of Spiriticum's ability to reign in the situation so that the true form of Shintoism will take hold in the people's mind, a moderate peaceful form. However, until that happens, until a stabilized form of Shintoism is consolidated, with multiple monasteries built throughout our cities, we, the House of Giacola believe that Public Welfare is best.

I understand that such a system will be more expensive than the church welfare system, but not by a large amount. Also, it has many benefits that offset the cost. Due to our use of slaves as labor, we have a growing population of the idle poor- those not slaves yet still have no money and no hope of having money. Currently they have nothing but time to plot and have much energy. The use of public works can direct their energy to more productive uses. Their labor can also help stimulate the faster development of our economy, and cause them to be grateful and more kindly disposed to the government. Also, through these public works project, the nobility can give their heirs a chance to experience rule without thrusting them into the position with no experience ruling over people.

 

[Spirictum]

House Greek and House Florentatius are happy to announce the betrothal of Martha Greek to Fritz Florentatius. We hope this marriage will unify our country through this time of great change, no matter how we proceed. Long live His Grace the King and long live Noyyau!

The formal betrothal will occur on the 1st of July in the House of Nobles in sight of both gods and men. May the spirits bless their marriage, and give them many fat children! All nobles, with their wives and retainers, along with His Grace the King, are cordially invited for the ceremony and a reception afterwards.

OOC: Do you mean RL 1st of July? That sounds interesting, although this would be far into the future. Maybe using real dates to mean something in the game is a nice idea, the marriage could happen before the end of the civic choice (sunday).



I'm grateful for the answer Your Majesty, with this House Spirictum will show its official opinion on how to manage the Realm:

- We should use Nobility and Feudal together with Vassalage. These 3 will slow our training of new troops and also fuel some angry spirits, but the majorly decreased cost of troops in foreign territory, the extra revenue we will get from the Nobility and the defensive manors and castles that it builds, the bonus in defense on every city and also the better training of our new units seem to us the better option out there;

- Slavery for production;

- Prophets because it won't require any money from the Crown;

- And finally Church, as the King suggested.

Of course the debate will only end when the end comes, so House Spirictum encourages the debate on these matters.

 

[Noyyau]

I believe the wise and sagacious king has made a compelling case for the adoption of Church for the welfare of the nation's citizenry; however, I of the house Giacola would like to state my reservations of leaving the job to the Shinto priests. Under the current system, any charlatan can claim to be spreading the message of the true faith. While this system allows the shinto faith to propagate itself quickly, the draw back is that it allow for radical interpretations to form. Have you heard the rhetoric of some of these so called "prophets"? They call for violent overthrow of the system. If we allow them to take care of our citizens, we will find the lower castes in arms against their superiors. I believe in the House of Spiriticum's ability to reign in the situation so that the true form of Shintoism will take hold in the people's mind, a moderate peaceful form. However, until that happens, until a stabilized form of Shintoism is consolidated, with multiple monasteries built throughout our cities, we, the House of Giacola believe that Public Welfare is best.

I understand that such a system will be more expensive than the church welfare system, but not by a large amount. Also, it has many benefits that offset the cost. Due to our use of slaves as labor, we have a growing population of the idle poor- those not slaves yet still have no money and no hope of having money. Currently they have nothing but time to plot and have much energy. The use of public works can direct their energy to more productive uses. Their labor can also help stimulate the faster development of our economy, and cause them to be grateful and more kindly disposed to the government. Also, through these public works project, the nobility can give their heirs a chance to experience rule without thrusting them into the position with no experience ruling over people.

The representative for House Giacola makes a valid point for the validity and usefulness of Public Works projects, though We believe that their outlook on the new faith is too pessimistic.

Let us consider that Shintoism is not a foreign faith, like Taoism (which has been present for decades in our major cities). Rather, it is the formalization of the beliefs held since time immemorial by our forefathers. If the only option were to convert to a foreign religion, then House Giacola's worries would be the King's worries too.

By giving to the new faith a social duty to fulfill, the King thinks that such activity will keep the fervidly religious busy with something useful, rather than having too much time on their hands to get ideas about the State not considering spiritual matters.