Considerations about naval designs

PeterZ wrote:

Jeroswen wrote:
You could be correct on Emerald as I am making an assumption. However, in all the books all the bottlenecks in production are in Charis. So an assumption was made on my part that they need to spread production around.

I remember reading that the nobles were standing in the way of Chisholm joining in the manufacture of goods. However, they need someone who isn't distracted by a thousand different details to head up the project of breaking through the resistance. The empire is fighting for its life and these nobles could be argued to be endangering the state with their tactics. So the empire should buy out the holdings that are needed. The nobles can take the money or not, but the state is seizing the land and putting up manufacturing sites. This sucks as it sets a very, very bad precedent. Here this falls under eminent domain. I wonder if the empire needs to institute a similar ruling on eminent domain to get this done?

This is a really bad idea. The rule of law is still relatively new even in Charis. Most nations are like Corisande used to be under Hektor. The ruler decreed his will with consent of the CoGA. The laws were merely a list of royal decrees and the ruler could theoretically decree anything.

If the landowners right over what to do with their property is disregarded so blatantly, who will trust that the rule of law will remain constant in the face of royal pique or fancy? The laws have to be established and dependable before exceptions can be accepted as exceptions to the rule.

No much better to use politics and peer pressure. Make the recalcitrant noble's neighbors as rich as Crassus or as influential as Rasputin. Let envy do the rest. For those nobles that tax too highly, use Imperial law to limit what they can tax and how much they can tax it. Bottom line is that unless everyone knows and believes to be true that the government has certain absolute limits in what it can do, no one will trust it to refrain from using such odious powers as it possesses.

PeterZ wrote:

Jeroswen wrote:
You could be correct on Emerald as I am making an assumption. However, in all the books all the bottlenecks in production are in Charis. So an assumption was made on my part that they need to spread production around.

I remember reading that the nobles were standing in the way of Chisholm joining in the manufacture of goods. However, they need someone who isn't distracted by a thousand different details to head up the project of breaking through the resistance. The empire is fighting for its life and these nobles could be argued to be endangering the state with their tactics. So the empire should buy out the holdings that are needed. The nobles can take the money or not, but the state is seizing the land and putting up manufacturing sites. This sucks as it sets a very, very bad precedent. Here this falls under eminent domain. I wonder if the empire needs to institute a similar ruling on eminent domain to get this done?

This is a really bad idea. The rule of law is still relatively new even in Charis. Most nations are like Corisande used to be under Hektor. The ruler decreed his will with consent of the CoGA. The laws were merely a list of royal decrees and the ruler could theoretically decree anything.

If the landowners right over what to do with their property is disregarded so blatantly, who will trust that the rule of law will remain constant in the face of royal pique or fancy? The laws have to be established and dependable before exceptions can be accepted as exceptions to the rule.

No much better to use politics and peer pressure. Make the recalcitrant noble's neighbors as rich as Crassus or as influential as Rasputin. Let envy do the rest. For those nobles that tax too highly, use Imperial law to limit what they can tax and how much they can tax it. Bottom line is that unless everyone knows and believes to be true that the government has certain absolute limits in what it can do, no one will trust it to refrain from using such odious powers as it possesses.

6L6 wrote:I would think that nobles who decline to allow the factories on their land would loose their best and brightest workers to more forward thinking areas and be left with the old and disabled, kind of what's happened in the US with North V South and the shift in pouplation.

fallsfromtrees wrote:
The only thing I would add to this is to have the nobles who decline to allow the factories on their land sign a statement saying that they understand that they are forgoing the opportunity to get rich. Then three years down the road, when they complain that the crown had favored their neighbors and discriminated against them because they had opposed the crown, you whip out the papers and point out that they had had the opportunity and declined. There was in fact no discrimination on the part of the crown. Rather spikes that argument.

n7axw wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:
The only thing I would add to this is to have the nobles who decline to allow the factories on their land sign a statement saying that they understand that they are forgoing the opportunity to get rich. Then three years down the road, when they complain that the crown had favored their neighbors and discriminated against them because they had opposed the crown, you whip out the papers and point out that they had had the opportunity and declined. There was in fact no discrimination on the part of the crown. Rather spikes that argument.

Hi fallsfromtrees,

My friend, if you think whipping out papers, reason or conscience are going to do anything to spike the grumps of the bellyachers, I have some bottom land to sell you. I'm just not going to tell you what it is on the bottom of. What's even worse is that there are always plenty of people to listen to the bunk and believe the worst. I often marvel that civilization has progressed as far as it has.

Don

PeterZ wrote:Don,

The grumpy old Dukes will be the best advertisement fir the new ventures. The younger and more junior peers will see the prosperity the new ventures will bring their people, the new influence and admiration they wield and find confirmation in the grumpiness of their fadind seniors.

Nothing convinces the next generation better than the misplaced convictions of their elders.

n7axw wrote:
Hi PeterZ,

Maybe... But prejudice tends to cling a bit more tightly than you seem to be admitting. All too frequently, the young absorb the biases of their elders and instead of grumpy old dukes, you get grumpy young dukes.

But...from your lips to God's ears! I hope it works your way.

Don

PeterZ wrote:

n7axw wrote:
Hi PeterZ,

Maybe... But prejudice tends to cling a bit more tightly than you seem to be admitting. All too frequently, the young absorb the biases of their elders and instead of grumpy old dukes, you get grumpy young dukes.

But...from your lips to God's ears! I hope it works your way.

Don

I agree that prejudice is absorbed from a young age. My point wasn't that the young have less prejudice. They just have more incentive to adopt new ways to gain power/influence. Power through the increased wealth the new ventures offer. Influence by emphasising how wrong those crochity old rogues were and how right the young peers are.