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Rule for a Prolong time or not?

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Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by Lord Skimper   » Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:08 pm

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In The Honorverse with the advent of Prolong it is assumed that each monarch will rule for a long long time, but as all the members of the royal family will be prolong users, they royal family will be a lot more like the pre prolong families except the first Prolong Monarch. Barring an accident or premature death, the Royal family will likely have even shorter reigns than the British royal Family right now.

Take the Queen, she is quite old and will likely live a few more years. She will then be succeeded by Charles who is already quite old and may rule for 20 years, followed by William then George, assuming nothing happens to any of them.

With prolong the only one to rule for a really long time will be the First prolong ruler, barring untimely deaths, Elizabeth should rule for a couple three hundred years, by that time her heir will rule but for a short 20-30 years, also being 250-300 years old then pass on the legacy to the next who will be 250+ years old etc... That is an awful long time to be an heir in waiting to rule. This could lead to royal/imperial families that assassinate each other so that they can rule, especially if they are ambitious and don't want to wait 250 275 years before they get their turn. Brief turn to rule.
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by Lord Skimper   » Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:28 pm

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Add in the option to wait till you are 50 to have an heir, most royal families do not wait that long especially if someone is try to bump them off, you can end up with a huge, Saudi Arabian huge royal family. If you wait 25 years to have an heir, and live to 300 and have another heir just in case every 10-20 years there after, by 300 the Empress will have had, 14 to 30+ heirs / kids. And each of these will have had heirs / kids. by the time Elizabeth the 1st Empress is 300 the royal/imperial family could be huge. 100+ direct members. After a 1000 years 1000's or 10,000's of family members all vying for their 20-30 years.

One might think that giving each Royal/imperial family member a planet or system to rule under the Empress is an idea but that will just lead to conflict among equals down the road. Add in the family genetics and waiting hundreds of years and this prince thinks that that princess is unfit to rule and this other prince is too dangerous to be let alone...

Or if families are limited to 3 kids Heirs but all three get assassinated and then who gets what?

Problems.
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by Commodore Oakius   » Tue Sep 09, 2014 8:25 am

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Eh, yes and no.
I see your point, and it is a valid one, however there are 2 counterpoints, one stronger then the other:
1st, since prolong, we have not seen a drastic uptake in the number of children people feel they need to have, indeed, more and more people are using prolong to delay having children while other things are being bothersome. Example Hamish and Emily. The Harringtons were waiting to have more as well, they always planned it but never got around to it til honor was dead.
2nd, The are now on the 3 generation of the prolong treatment. It is possible they would continue to refine it to a more efective treatmeant, allowing succeeeding monarchs longer reigns. Yes, there would be an eventual point of ending where the situation you described about the monarchs ruling for set periods, but I don't think it'll be as big an issue as you think it might be, not with proper upbring of the children.
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by Hutch   » Tue Sep 09, 2014 8:27 am

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Lord Skimper wrote:In The Honorverse with the advent of Prolong it is assumed that each monarch will rule for a long long time, but as all the members of the royal family will be prolong users, they royal family will be a lot more like the pre prolong families except the first Prolong Monarch. Barring an accident or premature death, the Royal family will likely have even shorter reigns than the British royal Family right now.

Take the current Queen of England, she is quite old and will likely live a few more years. She will then be succeeded by Charles who is already quite old and may rule for 20 years, followed by William then George, assuming nothing happens to any of them.

With prolong the only one to rule for a really long time will be the First prolong ruler, barring untimely deaths, Elizabeth should rule for a couple three hundred years, by that time her heir will rule but for a short 20-30 years, also being 250-300 years old then pass on the legacy to the next who will be 250+ years old etc... That is an awful long time to be an heir in waiting to rule. This could lead to royal/imperial families that assassinate each other so that they can rule, especially if they are ambitious and don't want to wait 250 275 years before they get their turn. Brief turn to rule.


Skimper--I added a couple of words (in italics) to help alleviate confusion (well, my confusion at least) to your above quote.

That is an interesting thought. I wonder if Elizabeth Winton will set a precedent and after 100 years on the throne, abdicate in favor of her son. Much like George Washington set the precedent for serving only two terms (there was nothing on Presidental Term Limits in the original Constitution until it was added by Amendment in the early 1950's).

But yeah, in some systems (I'm looking at you, Gustav of Andermann), the issue could lead to some interesting political developments.

We may see...or not, since it doesn't really impact the current storyline-IMHO.
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by JohnRoth   » Tue Sep 09, 2014 10:03 am

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This is only a problem with a strict hierarchy invested in a person who reigns until they die. The last Pope resolved this by resigning; the current Pope has said he might if he's no longer able to function effectively.

There have been any number of systems for passing on Supreme Executive Authority, including not having anyone in that position but having some form of Supreme Council. There are currently systems that work this way, including companies with several tens of thousands of employees. Ref: Sociocracy, although there are other models in use as well.

As has been mentioned, though, we're almost certainly not going to see RFC deal with it in this series.
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by saber964   » Tue Sep 09, 2014 8:46 pm

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The House of Winton is already delaying things a bit. IIRC KRIII did not marry until 1855 PD and had his first child until 1865 PD. KGIII was roughly 45 and 55 T-years old. QEIII probably had an heir earlier because there was probably concern about the succession due to the age she acceded to the throne.
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by Quinlan73   » Tue Sep 09, 2014 11:11 pm

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It's just as likely she had children when she did merely because she wanted to.
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by lyonheart   » Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:12 am

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Hi Hutch,

Given all the textev attention on Rivka, on how good she'll be etc, I suspect Elisabeth III may not live long enough to really enjoy prolong in the first place.

L


Hutch wrote:
Lord Skimper wrote:In The Honorverse with the advent of Prolong it is assumed that each monarch will rule for a long long time, but as all the members of the royal family will be prolong users, they royal family will be a lot more like the pre prolong families except the first Prolong Monarch. Barring an accident or premature death, the Royal family will likely have even shorter reigns than the British royal Family right now.

Take the current Queen of England, she is quite old and will likely live a few more years. She will then be succeeded by Charles who is already quite old and may rule for 20 years, followed by William then George, assuming nothing happens to any of them.

With prolong the only one to rule for a really long time will be the First prolong ruler, barring untimely deaths, Elizabeth should rule for a couple three hundred years, by that time her heir will rule but for a short 20-30 years, also being 250-300 years old then pass on the legacy to the next who will be 250+ years old etc... That is an awful long time to be an heir in waiting to rule. This could lead to royal/imperial families that assassinate each other so that they can rule, especially if they are ambitious and don't want to wait 250 275 years before they get their turn. Brief turn to rule.


Skimper--I added a couple of words (in italics) to help alleviate confusion (well, my confusion at least) to your above quote.

That is an interesting thought. I wonder if Elizabeth Winton will set a precedent and after 100 years on the throne, abdicate in favor of her son. Much like George Washington set the precedent for serving only two terms (there was nothing on Presidental Term Limits in the original Constitution until it was added by Amendment in the early 1950's).

But yeah, in some systems (I'm looking at you, Gustav of Andermann), the issue could lead to some interesting political developments.

We may see...or not, since it doesn't really impact the current storyline-IMHO.
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by Hutch   » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:34 am

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lyonheart wrote:Hi Hutch,

Given all the textev attention on Rivka, on how good she'll be etc, I suspect Elisabeth III may not live long enough to really enjoy prolong in the first place.

L


I have had the same thought, friend Lyonheart. It could be that since losing major characters is going to be hard to do with the military imbalance, if RFC wants to make life harder on the GA, having Elizabeth killed off would be one way to do it.

Might make Honor and especially Mike Henke madder than they already are...and that may not be a good idea...

We shall see...eventually.
***********************************************
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow.

What? Look, somebody's got to have some damn perspective around here! Boom. Sooner or later. BOOM! -LT. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5
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Re: Rule for a Prolong time or not?
Post by Commodore Oakius   » Wed Sep 10, 2014 8:23 am

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Hutch wrote:
lyonheart wrote:Hi Hutch,

Given all the textev attention on Rivka, on how good she'll be etc, I suspect Elisabeth III may not live long enough to really enjoy prolong in the first place.

L


I have had the same thought, friend Lyonheart. It could be that since losing major characters is going to be hard to do with the military imbalance, if RFC wants to make life harder on the GA, having Elizabeth killed off would be one way to do it.

Might make Honor and especially Mike Henke madder than they already are...and that may not be a good idea...

We shall see...eventually.


While your logic definately tracks, there is also another possiblity I just wanted to throw in the ring. Considering the statments wer partially made in Elizabeth's head it may be that she is planning to step down before the issue of prolong comes into effect. Maybe not anytime soon, but sooner then near the end of her life.
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