Eleven Weeks To Go, what are you looking for?

Nice enough, indeed, but chunks of it are based on incorrect premises. The Wiki isn't accurate.

RFC's definitive statement of the situation - until he changes his mind, at least - was given here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2888&p=60351&hilit=salthar+canal#p60351

It seems pretty clear that Silkiah was not and never had been part of Desnair, and it wouldn't surprise me if, given its druthers, it would have cheerfully become the southermost province of the Republic. Given their behaviour to date, many Silkiahans are probably still of that opinion, possibly including the current Grand Duke [just because the family benefited from the arrangement doesn't automatically mean they like it].

The southern border of Silkiah was either already the northern edge of North Watch or marks a 50/50 split of the unclaimed lands between them. It was Siddarmark that was being whacked, not Desnair, and the Church would not have taken any recognised Desnairian territory away from it to create the Grand Duchy. They probably, since they were being 'even-handed', didn't pinch off any recognised Siddarmarkian holdings either, which would explain the rather odd southern border of South March: the Republic _was_ expanding that way, but didn't actually administer any of the territory further south, they just marched through it on their way to trouncing the Desnairians again. Now, of course, that expansion has been cut off by Church fiat.

I won't quote it all, but here are some relevant passages giving the history of Silkiah and it's relationship with Desnair:

"The city of Silkiah has been around virtually since the Day of Creation; the Grand Duchy of Silkiah is a much more recent creation, taking its name from the major city in the territory. .. There were several reasons for the invasion, but one of them was that Siddarmark had essentially turned the city of Silkiah into an overseas extension of the Republic, with local coasters transshipping canal cargoes across the Gulf of Mathyas to Trokhanos and Malitar Provinces. Desnair wanted the cargoes to go south, down the Silkiahan coast to the Gulf of Jahras; Silkiah didn't much like Desnair and preferred to deal with Siddarmark.
... As a means of separating the contestants, the Church created the Grand Duchy of Silkiah (out of land which was still largely uninhabited) and specifically demilitarized the Salthar Canal.

...

Desnair collects tribute from Silkiah; Silkiah is not a Desnairian possession. It is, in fact, specifically not a possession of either Siddarmark or Desnair. The tribute that it pays to Desnair was intended largely as a deliberate smack in the teeth to Siddarmark on the part of the Church when the Grand Duchy was created...The tribute itself is pretty much nominal (it actually consists primarily of a requirement that Silkiah give Desnairian cargo passing through the canal a preferential rate), and it is officially justified not as a means of punishing Siddarmark for its hubris but as a way of compensating Desnair for the fact that it was not — then — possible to transport by canal from the gulf of Dohlar to eastern Desnair."

n7axw wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:
More to the point, Charis is already providing all those benefits you cited to Siddamark, courtesy of a treaty, which doesn't require incorporation into the EoC.

NTM, this has been a subject of several threads over the years, many of them started by me.

Given that we know very little about Silkiah and absolutely nothing about the Grand Duke of Silkiah [aside from his existence], except that he's quietly supported the smuggling despite Clyntahn's threats, that probably included assassination if it had been possible; which says to me that the GDS may be a fairly popular guy, and might easily remain the GDS or even be elected the equivalent of 'Lord Protector', were Silkiah to lean towards the republic which it very well might, since it was the republic's pressure on Desnar that created the Grand Duchy in the first place, but I don't see the allies even suggesting that Silkiah change its form of government, because offering simple true independence, is more than a big enough prize for most Silkians I expect to prefer the alliance over the temple and Desnar.

The Wiki at least refers to Siddarmark's expansion into the Grand Duchy and Desnair, halted by the Treaty of Silk Town. That suggests that the Grand Duchy wasn't created then, but rather was a pre-existing state likely to fall to Siddarmark. (It doesn't, notably, indicate whether or not it was inclined to join Siddarmark peacefully; inclined by some Silkiahans to do so; or threatened with outright conquest.) Silkiahan accents sounding Desnairian suggests that the Grand Duchy may have been a breakaway portion of Desnair, perhaps conducting a negotiation with Siddarmark for alliance, protectorate status, or annexation over time, halted by the Church lest Desnair get overwhelmed or cut off from Haven or Siddarmark get too powerful.

Chances are though that Silkiah had to have been Desnairian at some point, even apart from the accent, just because Siddarmark has no Desnairian border and would have to go through Silkiah or Dohlar or water to get to Desnair, or vice versa. That may be the best support for taking the Wiki references (at least) as poor phrasing and Silkiah for having been established with the Treaty of Silk Town. That was only one generation ago though, so it's unclear what sort of national identity Silkiahans have - apart from being irritated at being confused with Desnairians.

Getting closer than they have to to Charis, or Siddarmark, does carry those risks. But how much choice will they have? However much Charis may be happy to give them, Clyntahn figures anyone who isn't a frothing heretic-killer is a heretic. Them or us. You can't even submit to occupation without being written off as a heretic. So Silkiah can have a constant guerrilla war against an occupation by its real friends that its real friends cannot afford, that would destroy the nation entirely - or stand up, accept this as a liberation, and assert itself as an ally of Siddarmark and Charis. (Or, if it had any reason to, an annex-ee of one or the other.) It's not buying relief from risk of retribution without paying for it with its own national existence, much as it may like to have that kind of option. The Sword of Schueler made that all too clear already.

Of course, on Charis' side, that's an option that no longer exists either. Alliance with Siddarmark gets it in that war now, because it needs those mainland allies. It had two mainland friends, but Silkiah fell under the shadow of the Sword of Schueler and Siddarmark got sliced in half from it. It's working to restore Siddarmark and it's surely going to do it for Silkiah, but it's going to have those continental wars for as long as the Temple is capable of turning the whole mainland against it.

Still, in the longer term, it's an argument against annexation over alliance. You've got no flexibility with annexation. An alliance with Silkiah, in which you help Silkiah get to stand up for its own interests, means you can back off or reposition as need be - and flexible diplomacy is a hallmark of an island empire.

That wouldn't apply to Siddarmark though, and for all I know of Silkiah's history, maybe they were angling for a closer relationship of some sort there before the Church meddled.

A nice post JeffEngel...I had been thinking that becoming part of the Republic might be in Silkiah's best interests. But I think you've changed my mind...

Perhaps eventually....when it is timely to so so... a joint guarantee of Silkiah's independence by both Siddarmark and the EOC.

Don[/quote]

I _think_ he's suggesting that the Republic will conquer the Border States as a matter of principle, and that neither the Siddarmarkians nor the Charisians are going to be all sweetness and light about it.

He has a point about the willingness of the Borderers to join in on the pillage of the Republic, although there is snippet evidence that suggests that if their armies haven't shown up it's mostly because there really isn't very much to see. My understanding of the Republic's history is that they never expanded by conquest, but that doesn't mean they won't make exceptions under the circumstances. OTOH, it doesn't make it likely that they will, either, if there's no direct gain. And 'making sure it won't happen again' means dealing with Zion, not the Border States. By the time this war ends, the Border States could be untouched - and they still wouldn't reach a paw out for a crumb without permission in writing from the Lion to the east. Whether there is anything to be gained by taking things further than that depends on much that we simply haven't been shown yet. Even the maps are barely past the 'here there be monsters!' stage.

SWM wrote:

Isilith wrote:Those of you who seem to think that the RoS and EoC are going to just hug and make up confuse me.

I know all of you have read the books, and the books clearly imply just how eagerly the BS supported the SoS and invasion of of the RoS... in fact, in the books, it points out that armies out of the BS were waiting to pour across the border, even before the AoG.

I can only assume, since we never directly see an army labeled as a BS army, that they were absorbed by the marching AoG, or integrated into RoS TL units. Such integration was what happened in Glacierheart.

That said, there is about zero chance that the allies overlook how eagerly the BS tried to bring down the RoS. Which is one huge reason I am fully expecting the BS to turn into western provinces of the RoS. The RoS is going to make it certain that they can never do anything against the RoS again.

Too many acronyms.

But seriously, I am having trouble understanding what you are saying.

Louis R wrote:Nice enough, indeed, but chunks of it are based on incorrect premises. The Wiki isn't accurate.

RFC's definitive statement of the situation - until he changes his mind, at least - was given here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2888&p=60351&hilit=salthar+canal#p60351

It seems pretty clear that Silkiah was not and never had been part of Desnair, and it wouldn't surprise me if, given its druthers, it would have cheerfully become the southermost province of the Republic. Given their behaviour to date, many Silkiahans are probably still of that opinion, possibly including the current Grand Duke [just because the family benefited from the arrangement doesn't automatically mean they like it].

And I'm sure a big fish in a little pond could accommodate himself well enough to being a fairly big fish in a larger pond, anyway.

Thank you very much for that link, it does nail down a lot about Silkiah that's been otherwise undescribed. It does prompt another question though: how'd Silkiah get a population of 45 odd million? It's described there as basically Silk Town plus a lot of land without major or long-term habitation. Silk Town itself can't be more than one million people or so, which leaves the remainder of Silkiah strangely populous for that history. I wonder if they've had a large influx of Desnairians who didn't want to be Desnairians anymore. There may have been an influx of population from all nearby quarters for free land if you can consecrate it yourself, and live there safely now that the wars are over. (Ironic in retrospect....)

It also leaves Silkiah's future, if it gets a say in it, wide open. It's not been around long enough to get much of a national identity. Prior to that, it's been a commercial city at a crossroads for coastal traffic up and down the mainland's east coast, and the place where ocean and canal cargoes change media of transit. I could see them content with deals that make them part of Siddarmark, make them part of the Empire of Charis, or get them set up in a better position as a truly independent partner. (I also wonder that it wasn't as much a partner of Charis' in getting goods to the mainland as Siddarmark, with its own Charisian Quarter.)

The southern border of Silkiah was either already the northern edge of North Watch or marks a 50/50 split of the unclaimed lands between them. It was Siddarmark that was being whacked, not Desnair, and the Church would not have taken any recognised Desnairian territory away from it to create the Grand Duchy. They probably, since they were being 'even-handed', didn't pinch off any recognised Siddarmarkian holdings either, which would explain the rather odd southern border of South March: the Republic _was_ expanding that way, but didn't actually administer any of the territory further south, they just marched through it on their way to trouncing the Desnairians again. Now, of course, that expansion has been cut off by Church fiat.

Without a lot of habitation there other than Silk Town itself, the Church probably had a fairly free hand in allocating territory - they may have been able to go a ways south before they would have been taking anything Desnair viewed as anything but a buffer region against Siddarmark.

Hi SWM,

Isilith is basically saying that the Republic of Siddarmark and the Empire of Charis aren't going to stop fighting when they get to the republic's borders, ie the Border states are toast.

If almost all of the TL's in the BS leave, so the large majority remaining are mainly pro republic serfs and reformists, annexing the Border States into the Republic becomes much easier.

Of course, the KotTL wakes up with its worst nightmare-the republic on its eastern border; only its eastern grants all the way to Zion are evaporating almost as quickly, even before BGV steams up the river.

So who are all those p-o TL's going to blame?

Do you think Clyntahn will get the message?

L

SWM wrote:

Isilith wrote:Those of you who seem to think that the RoS and EoC are going to just hug and make up confuse me.

I know all of you have read the books, and the books clearly imply just how eagerly the BS supported the SoS and invasion of of the RoS... in fact, in the books, it points out that armies out of the BS were waiting to pour across the border, even before the AoG.

I can only assume, since we never directly see an army labeled as a BS army, that they were absorbed by the marching AoG, or integrated into RoS TL units. Such integration was what happened in Glacierheart.

That said, there is about zero chance that the allies overlook how eagerly the BS tried to bring down the RoS. Which is one huge reason I am fully expecting the BS to turn into western provinces of the RoS. The RoS is going to make it certain that they can never do anything against the RoS again.

Too many acronyms.

But seriously, I am having trouble understanding what you are saying.

The book!

(Shortest post ever!)

Hi JeffEngel,

Kudos for some excellent unanswered questions!

NTM some clever suppositions.

We may have to wait for another book to answer them all unfortunately.

Although I expect the allies to take the Salthar Canal at some point in HFQ, sooner rather than later, and probably with the 50,000+ ICA troops on their way to the republic at the end of September, since getting to SC in the middle of winter [February] left them rather underutilized because they were unable to use the frozen canals, sending them south has always made more sense to me, and taking the canal is the most useful thing they could do.

Dohlar next door has a population of 97 million despite its similar small size, and while 2 or 3 crops a year are possible that close to the equator, it still seems rather tight; that Dohlar could easily require massive imports were there to be any kind of agricultural failure, which doesn't have to be entirely natural, since almost all bureaucracies are notorious for screwing things up even when they're not corrupt etc.

The revolutionary army's 1777-78 camp at Valley Forge for example was a relatively mild if not unusually warm winter; it was the congressional bureaucrats in the commissary and quartermaster departments, entirely run by congress that demonstrated gross incompetence in creating an almost perfect storm of a disaster.

Washington tried to get congress to send a committee to investigate in November but it wasn't until the end of January before one showed up and was shocked speechless at what it saw [unusual for politicians, I know ]; everything G.W. had written was true; and agreed almost unanimously with all of Washington's suggested improvements.

Granted Washington's choice was apparently politically motivated, and it may even be true that some of the local politicians in Pennsylvania misrepresented several things to get the army to stay in so poor a place, including the easy availability of supplies and popular support.

L

JeffEngel wrote:

Louis R wrote:Nice enough, indeed, but chunks of it are based on incorrect premises. The Wiki isn't accurate.

RFC's definitive statement of the situation - until he changes his mind, at least - was given here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2888&p=60351&hilit=salthar+canal#p60351

It seems pretty clear that Silkiah was not and never had been part of Desnair, and it wouldn't surprise me if, given its druthers, it would have cheerfully become the southermost province of the Republic. Given their behaviour to date, many Silkiahans are probably still of that opinion, possibly including the current Grand Duke [just because the family benefited from the arrangement doesn't automatically mean they like it].

And I'm sure a big fish in a little pond could accommodate himself well enough to being a fairly big fish in a larger pond, anyway.

Thank you very much for that link, it does nail down a lot about Silkiah that's been otherwise undescribed. It does prompt another question though: how'd Silkiah get a population of 45 odd million? It's described there as basically Silk Town plus a lot of land without major or long-term habitation. Silk Town itself can't be more than one million people or so, which leaves the remainder of Silkiah strangely populous for that history. I wonder if they've had a large influx of Desnairians who didn't want to be Desnairians anymore. There may have been an influx of population from all nearby quarters for free land if you can consecrate it yourself, and live there safely now that the wars are over. (Ironic in retrospect....)

It also leaves Silkiah's future, if it gets a say in it, wide open. It's not been around long enough to get much of a national identity. Prior to that, it's been a commercial city at a crossroads for coastal traffic up and down the mainland's east coast, and the place where ocean and canal cargoes change media of transit. I could see them content with deals that make them part of Siddarmark, make them part of the Empire of Charis, or get them set up in a better position as a truly independent partner. (I also wonder that it wasn't as much a partner of Charis' in getting goods to the mainland as Siddarmark, with its own Charisian Quarter.)

The southern border of Silkiah was either already the northern edge of North Watch or marks a 50/50 split of the unclaimed lands between them. It was Siddarmark that was being whacked, not Desnair, and the Church would not have taken any recognised Desnairian territory away from it to create the Grand Duchy. They probably, since they were being 'even-handed', didn't pinch off any recognised Siddarmarkian holdings either, which would explain the rather odd southern border of South March: the Republic _was_ expanding that way, but didn't actually administer any of the territory further south, they just marched through it on their way to trouncing the Desnairians again. Now, of course, that expansion has been cut off by Church fiat.

Without a lot of habitation there other than Silk Town itself, the Church probably had a fairly free hand in allocating territory - they may have been able to go a ways south before they would have been taking anything Desnair viewed as anything but a buffer region against Siddarmark.

lyonheart wrote:Hi JeffEngel,

Kudos for some excellent unanswered questions!

NTM some clever suppositions.

We may have to wait for another book to answer them all unfortunately.

Although I expect the allies to take the Salthar Canal at some point in HFQ, sooner rather than later, and probably with the 50,000+ ICA troops on their way to the republic at the end of September, since getting to SC in the middle of winter [February] left them rather underutilized because they were unable to use the frozen canals, sending them south has always made more sense to me, and taking the canal is the most useful thing they could do.

Dohlar next door has a population of 97 million despite its similar small size, and while 2 or 3 crops a year are possible that close to the equator, it still seems rather tight; that Dohlar could easily require massive imports were there to be any kind of agricultural failure, which doesn't have to be entirely natural, since almost all bureaucracies are notorious for screwing things up even when they're not corrupt etc.

It's not Silkiah's population density as such that has me curious there - it's the timing. Apart from Silk Town, it's gone from largely uninhabited, unorganized, unconsecrated territory in about twenty years to a place with 45 million people in it. That last includes Silk Town, but there's only so many people Silk Town is going to include. Even supposing it had a hinterland sufficient to give it all the agriculture it needed back before there was a Grand Duchy, we're still talking perhaps 2 million people back then, and probably less. 2 million to 45 in 20 years is not the result of resident human population growth - well, not unless Silkiahan women, menarche to menopause, are every one of them conducting some kind of obstetric marathon exercise and Silkiahan men are dedicating themselves to a lifestyle of sex, diaper-changing, and marrying off their 15 year old sons and daughters to carry on the tradition. Oh, and regularly having twins and triplets, and being all between 15 and 25 or so initially.

I think Silkiah would have gotten a certain remarked-upon reputation in that case. "The Rabbit Duchy" perhaps, or "the Grand Duchy of Sexiah".

One possibility is that Silkiah's western border maybe included some pre-existing small, independent earldoms that made a living selling produce to Dohlar. But that's not only pulling a possibility out of thin air, it's also leaving us a mystery why they didn't end up part of Dohlar (or Desnair, or Siddarmark) already.

If Silkiah, after the Treaty of Silk Town, did get to be a peaceful, prosperous place, with lots of land to claim, consecrate, and put to use, large and early families would be likely, and Pasqualites will keep infant mortality and complications of pregnancy and childbirth down to late 19th century rates on Safehold. So a baby boom could well be part of it. And we needn't suppose the whole Grand Duchy started off totally depopulated but for Silk Town and its agricultural breadbasket. But I still think that has to leave immigration as the largest source of that population growth. That does introduce questions about the sources and reasons for that immigration.

JeffEngel,

I think you are making big assumptions there. I don't believe there is anything in the text to suggest that the Silkiah region had a low population before the buffer state was created. In fact, I would assume that the population already existed, or they would not have bothered to create a nation there. Exactly how it was organized, I don't know. Perhaps there were multiple city states or princedoms, or perhaps it was all one nation already before Siddarmark took it over. I imagine that it was an unstable area, with no government lasting long under the conflicting influence of the two opponents on either side.

So the Treaty of Silk Town simply organized this existing poplution into a new government with certain restrictions and a guarantee of protection by the CoG.

SWM wrote:JeffEngel,

I think you are making big assumptions there. I don't believe there is anything in the text to suggest that the Silkiah region had a low population before the buffer state was created. In fact, I would assume that the population already existed, or they would not have bothered to create a nation there. Exactly how it was organized, I don't know. Perhaps there were multiple city states or princedoms, or perhaps it was all one nation already before Siddarmark took it over. I imagine that it was an unstable area, with no government lasting long under the conflicting influence of the two opponents on either side.

So the Treaty of Silk Town simply organized this existing poplution into a new government with certain restrictions and a guarantee of protection by the CoG.

From the RFC link upthread:

As a means of separating the contestants, the Church created the Grand Duchy of Silkiah (out of land which was still largely uninhabited) and specifically demilitarized the Salthar Canal.

I'd've made the same assumptions you are before reading that post. Since then, that's not on the table anymore. From the rest of that post, Silk Town was around for a long, long time - maybe since the Day of Creation - and was much of the bone of contention between Siddarmark and Desnair for two centuries of fighting. The rest of what is now Silkiah and South March were almost all uninhabited, unorganized, and unconsecrated at the beginning of those wars and only a bit less empty at the end.

Hi JeffEngel,

RFC's post responding to my exuberance almost 3 years ago had several surprises, particularly the low population numbers.

We now know there is also a Silk Town-Thesmar Canal, that was very probably there in 869, since building an 800-900 mile canal in 20 years with muscle power is going to take an awful lot of people, but the more important thing is it almost triples the territory within Silkiah in easy reach of a canal for farmers to get their products to market in 2-3 days.

Your description of the "Grand Duchy of Sexiah" sounds more like Ireland before the great potato famine, when the population quadrupled in 30-40 years within most women being grandmothers by their early 30's, etc.

However I suspect RFC's 'largely uninhabited' could mean a very low rate relative to the rest of Safehold's highly populated tropics, then again perhaps most of the land was largely empty, maybe only 3-5 people per square mile, while that within 80-100 miles of the canals had over 45; Martin van Creveld's rather low median of mid 17th century European population, especially low for western Europe since well irrigated warm Lombardy had 110 per mile^2 while Prussia with its poor soils and deep winters had only 35, for a range of population of 11-15 million to start with.

Given a population growth rate of 3-4% annually over 24-27 years from 869 for the 46 million [was that for 894 or 895, or 896?], that population could easily double [at 3% for 24 years] if not triple at 4% in 27, before getting into immigration rates; probably from Desnar and Dohlar as you have supposed, of something under 500,000 per year for the low end down to a tenth that at the high end.

So whenever RFC addresses this current conundrum, he'll have very reasonable median numbers to explain, not forgetting we still have so little of the puzzle yet.

I hope that helps moderate your concerns.

L

JeffEngel wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi JeffEngel,

Kudos for some excellent unanswered questions!

NTM some clever suppositions.

We may have to wait for another book to answer them all unfortunately.

Although I expect the allies to take the Salthar Canal at some point in HFQ, sooner rather than later, and probably with the 50,000+ ICA troops on their way to the republic at the end of September, since getting to SC in the middle of winter [February] left them rather underutilized because they were unable to use the frozen canals, sending them south has always made more sense to me, and taking the canal is the most useful thing they could do.

Dohlar next door has a population of 97 million despite its similar small size, and while 2 or 3 crops a year are possible that close to the equator, it still seems rather tight; that Dohlar could easily require massive imports were there to be any kind of agricultural failure, which doesn't have to be entirely natural, since almost all bureaucracies are notorious for screwing things up even when they're not corrupt etc.

It's not Silkiah's population density as such that has me curious there - it's the timing. Apart from Silk Town, it's gone from largely uninhabited, unorganized, unconsecrated territory in about twenty years to a place with 45 million people in it. That last includes Silk Town, but there's only so many people Silk Town is going to include. Even supposing it had a hinterland sufficient to give it all the agriculture it needed back before there was a Grand Duchy, we're still talking perhaps 2 million people back then, and probably less. 2 million to 45 in 20 years is not the result of resident human population growth - well, not unless Silkiahan women, menarche to menopause, are every one of them conducting some kind of obstetric marathon exercise and Silkiahan men are dedicating themselves to a lifestyle of sex, diaper-changing, and marrying off their 15 year old sons and daughters to carry on the tradition. Oh, and regularly having twins and triplets, and being all between 15 and 25 or so initially.

I think Silkiah would have gotten a certain remarked-upon reputation in that case. "The Rabbit Duchy" perhaps, or "the Grand Duchy of Sexiah".

One possibility is that Silkiah's western border maybe included some pre-existing small, independent earldoms that made a living selling produce to Dohlar. But that's not only pulling a possibility out of thin air, it's also leaving us a mystery why they didn't end up part of Dohlar (or Desnair, or Siddarmark) already.

If Silkiah, after the Treaty of Silk Town, did get to be a peaceful, prosperous place, with lots of land to claim, consecrate, and put to use, large and early families would be likely, and Pasqualites will keep infant mortality and complications of pregnancy and childbirth down to late 19th century rates on Safehold. So a baby boom could well be part of it. And we needn't suppose the whole Grand Duchy started off totally depopulated but for Silk Town and its agricultural breadbasket. But I still think that has to leave immigration as the largest source of that population growth. That does introduce questions about the sources and reasons for that immigration.