You are aware that our position is difficult.
Yes.
What is it that was said by the Admiral Ren Cha? Peace brings war?
That is a summary. The inevitable outcome of peace is war.
Ah, yes, but you are correct, your Majesty.
Don't flatter or patronize me.
The problem with this of course would seem to be that there is no war to fight. Nihon, Aryavarta, Hong Kong, Tieh China; none of them offer anything that is worth grasping. Too distant or too rebellious. It would seem that the time of conquest has passed and that our predecessors will forever outshine us in that regard. And we all know the price of large expeditions to distant lands...
Have they responded?
Your Majesty?
Those listed. Have they responded?
Two, your Majesty. The reports are being prepared as we speak.
Do you recall the saying of Mercantile Instructor Fai Sun?
I cannot say that I do, your Majesty.
All life is war. Business, politics, trade, diplomacy... all war by other means. War for resources, war for riches, war for prestige, war for honor, war for mates, war for survival. Conflict is inherent in life. It is merely a question of how it is channeled and expressed. The only peace one might ever know is in death. It is simple, Sok Bei. We do not need to war against our neighbors, or distant rivals. War does not require states. War requires merely an opponent and a goal.
And in this instance, what would our opponent and goal be?
What else?
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IMPERIAL PALACE, FUNANOKOR, KHMER EMPIRE
1306 LOCAL TIME, 12.03.0852AF
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The notion of stagnation as an enemy had been laid down in the long distant days before the Great War, during the reign of the Emperor Tai Dan and the Empress Fan Li. It had been the teaching of a Philosopher, Kao Jiap. Khmer government had been structured to fight it. Khmer culture had been structured to fight it. Khmer religion, even, had been structured to fight it. The nation had been founded on the principle of change, to
exploit such stagnation for gain, and yet here they were, fighting it again, locked in eternal struggle. Apparently losing. Aryavarta, Nihon, Hong Kong, on and on, they were all looking up, while the Khmer Empire slid into a sort of mediocrity. How had it come to this? “A failure in imagination,” exclaimed Empress Aya Aidan.
The various courtiers and Regional Representatives looked to the old thrones from which the outburst had come. They were not the originals, although they shared a similar style; their progenitors had been destroyed when Vyadhapua had fallen. Only one was occupied at present. The Khmer system was unique; Emperor and Empress were co-rulers when they were married. “Two parts of a single whole,” as the old documents on succession stated. The tradition reached back all the way to Fan Chan of Funan and Ke Nam of Champa. The Empress was unwed; a number of suitors had died in strange ways lately, in fact, such as by being stabbed through the heart. It was apparently lonely at the top; another sign of the times.
She stared with simmering derision at the advisor standing before her, then glanced out across the court with an icy glare. Several people visibly recoiled. The thought of weaklings flashed through her mind. After giving the advisor another baleful glance she rose to her feet and turned to her right, saying “Court Transcript, Empress Fan Li to Imperial Merchant Jan Phen, 16.05.0484AF and Teachings of Kao Jiap, 0479AF.”
A page bowed, saying “Yes, your Majesty,” and took off through the halls at top speed. The transcripts were one of the treasures of the Khmer Empire. There was a set of scribes within the Imperial Court, and the Regional Assemblies, diligently recording whatever it was they could, organizing it, and storing it away. It was later peer-reviewed and things of prudence or wisdom recorded. It saved the trouble of having to sort through vast volumes of worthless drivel while at the same time keeping the occasional gems found in the debris. The court sat in mute silence while the page was gone, and it seemed to stretch on forever. The Empress stood as a statue before them all, her gaze hard but her face otherwise expressionless. After some length the page returned, running up to her, dropping to one knee, and presenting the documents in uplifted hands, head bowed in deference, stating “As you requested, your Majesty,” between panted breaths. She took them and dismissed him with a small smile, and he returned to his place. The sound of paper rustling as she looked through them filled the hall, and all stared until at last she spoke, reading one aloud:
Court Transcript said:
Empress Fan Li: Do you know the real motive behind land exchanges?
Imperial Merchant Jan Phen: No, my Empress, I do not.
Empress Fan Li: It's really quite simple: trim the fat.
Imperial Merchant Jan Phen: I am not sure I understand, my Empress.
Empress Fan Li: Why keep what you do not need? The mistake of so many is in keeping worthless baggage and in trying to forever acquire more of it; eventually there is too much for one to keep track or make use of. One should always keep what they need most, and perhaps a little bit more just in case. Do you see?
Imperial Merchant Jan Phen: I believe perhaps I do.
Empress Fan Li: They tell me that this is a result of the eternal enemy: stagnation. But that is perhaps another story.
She turned and set the paper on the empty throne, before gesturing for a serving girl. The girl immediately poured a cup of tea and approached, taking a knee as had the page and offering it with outstretched hands. The Empress sipped it and regarded the next paper in silence for some moments, before placing the empty cup back into girl's hands, at which time she immediately withdrew. The Empress cleared her throat, before continuing:
Teachings of Kao Jiap said:
What we discern from all history is one thing: life is merely a state of change. If change is inherent, what becomes of those who do not change? They become obsolete, they stagnate, and as times and situations change they forever fall further and further behind until eventually there is no hope of recovery. This is not so endemic to people as it is to countries or institutions, for people have such short lives whereas these organizations they create often vastly exceed them in duration. To be successful, to last, one must be adaptive; no one doctrine shall ever cover all possible contingencies, no system be perfect, and one must therefore always look forward to see how things can be improved or changed with new methods, new practices. It is only through such constant vigilance that we might always be wary of the plague of stagnation which waits just out of sight to consume us all.
She turned once more, setting the second document upon the empty throne. With feline grace she walked over to her own throne and sat down upon it, surveying the crowd with a steely gaze. Then, in a measured tone she stated “Our engineers have noticed that in all mechanical systems involving gears or pulleys that due to constant movement there is heating and wearing, and resultant fatigue or breakages; the more something is used the less efficient it becomes, until eventually it must be replaced.”
“They call this a loss of
moment of activity—a measure of the useful work done. It has become one of their principles of design; that most everything in a system needs to be replaced eventually. This in itself is perhaps not remarkable, or a statement of the obvious. Or, it was until our philosophers got hold of it.”
She produced another document, this one appearing significantly newer, and studied it for a moment as if to refresh her memory of its contents, before reading it as she had the others:
Thesis of Decay said:
The discovery of the craftsmen and mechanics might at first seem ordinary; it is clear that continual use of a given object will wear it out. It is not the observation, however, which is important, but how it can be applied elsewhere. Consider the state as a machine. Does it too not have moving parts and components? Will not then continual usage wear it out too? When one analyzes the relative decline of the Khmer Empire as compared to its rivals, and the rise, growth, decline, and fall of other nations, it becomes clear that this “loss of moment of activity” applies not simply to machines and objects as they tend to be thought of, but nations and perhaps people as well. What is death, perhaps, but a gradual wearing out of the machinery of the body?
This principle is at work in all things. It is therefore appropriate to bestow upon this force a name: entropy[1]. It can perhaps be defined as a tendency in all things to lose their capability to function over time, or to state it more specifically, a loss of ability over time.
It would seem on the face of it that this would thereby doom a given thing to unavoidable decay. However, if one considers again the craftsman repairing a pulley, or a carpenter repairing an old house, a doctor healing the sick, or the sun’s rays causing new plant growth, one can discern that the input of outside forces—ability from the outside—can be used to reinvigorate a thing which has lost its own ability to work. It is only when something is neglected or beyond the power of influence by outside forces that chaos can utterly overcome order.
The Empress set the document on top of the others on the empty throne and reclined back, surveying the various courtiers. The fire had left her gaze, and it was replaced now by a strange mix of consideration and determination. After some moments, her voice again lilted over the silent court. “If what these documents say is true, then we might think of this,” she said, gesturing at the building around them “as a machine; rigging on a ship or pulleys in a drawbridge.”
She placed her fingertips to just over her heart “Indeed that would make us pieces of that machine; the gears, the rope, the pulley, the cogs.”
Her gaze hardened suddenly as she leaned forward slightly “But we are not mere inert pieces of metal or cloth or wood; we can think, we can dream, we can imagine and see what could be—we
are the outside force.”
She suddenly stood dramatically, swung an arm down to gesture at the empty throne, her voice lifting “This will be my co-ruler—knowledge—and with it, people of the Khmer Empire, I hereby declare war on the greatest enemy of all: the stagnation, the
entropy which has afflicted us for so long. It is a war that shall never end, shall never know ultimate victory, but it is a war which we must undertake. We can no longer take for granted our power or position, or we shall lose it. It is time again to take up the banner of eternal vigilance, and to once more do battle with such complacency.”
In one of those sudden flairs for the theatrical for which the Khmer rulers were famed, going far back into the history of Funan itself, she withdrew from her side-scabbard her long sword—the steel of its single edge gleaming with a wavy pattern as it proceeded up the subtle backwards curve. She held her left hand palm up and in a razor motion ran the sword’s edge across it, returning it to its sheath in a single motion. The sea of faces stared in mute shock at the display as she lifted her arm into the air, forming a fist. Blood lazily flowed down her forearm and dripped onto the polished stone below. “I swear a blood oath,” she said, a resolute conviction in her words, before she added “To the Khmer Empire!”
What followed was dead silence. She surveyed the representatives, officials, the advisors, the courtiers, the nobles, all had that same shocked look on their faces. Again the word of cowards flickered through her mind. As she readied herself to assault them verbally, assault them physically perhaps, go on a whirling path of destruction through such spineless cowards, two voices to her right cried out “To the Khmer Empire!”
All the eyes swung that way, including hers, coming to land on the page and the serving girl, both with their left fists outstretched. Then there was the sound of swords being drawn, and as she heard it two more thoughts ran through the Empress’ mind: insurrection;
assassination. The Royal Guard were watching, but there was no time, and as she turned her gaze back forward her right hand grasped the grip of the sword tightly. She made it just in time to see several of the nobles and representatives and even the Royal Guard themselves repeating her gesture, lifting bleeding fists into the air and shouting “I swear a blood oath to the Khmer Empire!”
Looking at one another the rest of those who were armed began doing the same, while those who were not put their fists into the air as had the page and serving girl, repeating “To the Khmer Empire!”
The two mantras of the armed and unarmed continued, growing louder and louder as more joined in the chorus or repeated it, and amidst the cacophony Empress Aya Aidan found a smile crossing her face. Maybe, just maybe they had a chance.
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[1] Probably not really, since it’s derived from Greek, but that would be the nearest English equivalent.
@ Constantine I. 
