How To Convert entire populace

John Prigent wrote:What makes me boggle is that the Protestant Northern Irish that the terrorists hate are reputed to mostly be descended from of Irish people who moved to southwest Scotland but whose later generations returned to Ulster centuries ago. I sometimes wonder how much of the argument is religious and how much is simply 'we want the power'.
Cheers
John

Keith_w wrote:

A more valid challenge to my premise would be the Brits Irish problem in N. Ireland. That can be portayed as a struggle to liberate Ireland of English domination.

But it does have to be stated that both situations have a strong religious vector. And if we think about it, there are probably more exceptions to my statement.

Don

That one could also be expressed as the minority's desire to overthrow the majority's preference. Besides, if the Irish high king hadn't invited the Norman king of England in, there wouldn't have been this problem in the first place, but who'd a known back then!

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John,
As I understood the northern Ireland thing... it was less about the differences between catholic and protestant as it was the fact that the English who came in and took control brought their religion with them. Any rebellion against the new rule happened to polarize around any differences.

If some of the Irish fled to Scotland and their descendants decided to come back and join a revolt against the English that should not be such a surprise.

You do know that beef grown on Irish estates was deported during the potato famine and that the "Protestant" land owners could have provided other food to the slaves that worked for them but chose profit of selling beef and other agricultural products into the foreign market

If I go far enough back up the family tree, I find people from each side of the conflict. Look at the muddle the Americans make of proper grudges

Merlin said that a slave rebellion (as he expects to see in Harchon) is the only thing worse than a religious war.

How do you know what someone is thinking till their words or actions give them away?? But a slave and a land owner have clear lines of distinction to base their plan of action on.

The slaves will remember who let their children starve while the sent their own children to private schools

Not to mention the muddle Americans make of proper history

The Scots invasion of the extreme north-west of Britain started in the 4th or 5th century, long before there were any English, or even any significant number of Angles, on the island. The ties between Ulster and Dalriada stayed strong right through the Viking period - in fact, as late as the beginning of the 14th century it made sense [to some people, at least] to make the brother of the King of Scots High King of Ireland. That, as you can imagine, worked out as well as all the other attempts to create a kingdom of Ireland - and the fact that they were both of them Normans anyway shows how much ethnicity actually meant to anybody at the time. However, IIRC, the 'Scots' of the Ulster Plantations actually came from Galloway, which means they were of Hiberno-Norse origin and not as closely related to the Ulstermen as Highlanders would have been. They were brought in to replace said Ulstermen, who had proven rather successful in discouraging English delusions of ruling the place, and since their descendants are, or at least were in 1920, a majority in the six counties of Ulster, that part of Ireland remained in the United Kingdom. The irredentists who've been trying to reverse that ever since have not, AFAICT, ever been notably Catholic.

Anyway, that's probably too much detail. The point is that there weren't any Irishmen who fled from the English and later returned to join a rebellion against them. The 'returned' Irish are the UK's henchmen. Well, some of them. There are also quite a few families on the Catholic side who fled Scotland a century earlier during the Reformation. One rather well-known name among them being "Kennedy".

C. O. Thompson wrote:

John Prigent wrote:What makes me boggle is that the Protestant Northern Irish that the terrorists hate are reputed to mostly be descended from of Irish people who moved to southwest Scotland but whose later generations returned to Ulster centuries ago. I sometimes wonder how much of the argument is religious and how much is simply 'we want the power'.
Cheers
John

That one could also be expressed as the minority's desire to overthrow the majority's preference. Besides, if the Irish high king hadn't invited the Norman king of England in, there wouldn't have been this problem in the first place, but who'd a known back then!

John,
As I understood the northern Ireland thing... it was less about the differences between catholic and protestant as it was the fact that the English who came in and took control brought their religion with them. Any rebellion against the new rule happened to polarize around any differences.

If some of the Irish fled to Scotland and their descendants decided to come back and join a revolt against the English that should not be such a surprise.

You do know that beef grown on Irish estates was deported during the potato famine and that the "Protestant" land owners could have provided other food to the slaves that worked for them but chose profit of selling beef and other agricultural products into the foreign market

If I go far enough back up the family tree, I find people from each side of the conflict. Look at the muddle the Americans make of proper grudges

Merlin said that a slave rebellion (as he expects to see in Harchon) is the only thing worse than a religious war.

How do you know what someone is thinking till their words or actions give them away?? But a slave and a land owner have clear lines of distinction to base their plan of action on.

The slaves will remember who let their children starve while the sent their own children to private schools[/quote]

While the history of Irish tribalism is interesting.... And my British ancestors have a lot to answer for.
Getting back to the populace of Safehold....

I think the beginning of spreading the truth is already being accomplished by Mr Weber. It's happening by the breaking of the proscriptions. Denis Shwaygair, Brother Lincoln and many others are proving to themselves that what the CoGA taught is not true. The undermining is already happening, courtesy of Zhaspar Clyntahn. Increasing Knowledge is causing the more dogmatic and extreme religious views to be discredited. Of course no one is saying it. Not while Inquisitors are listening, but when Clyntahn is gone.....

Much as has already happened on Earth. Very few religious people today believe the universe was created in 4004BC as Archbishop Usher calculated in the 18th century. Actually he missed that Genesis 1:1 happens before the start of the creative days.

martin wrote:While the history of Irish tribalism is interesting.... And my British ancestors have a lot to answer for.

It was a two way street. Remember the Irish wild geese available to be recruited into Hapsburg armies. Even in the Elizabethean period, England couldn't ignore the possibility of Ireland being used as a stepping stone with lots of wild geese used by Philip for an invasion of England.

The same with the Scots, really. The final round of Scotlands conflict with England was at least partly over Scottish interest in restoring the Stuarts to the throne in London.

The point is that the responsibility for the conflict doesn't just rest with the English.

Don

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Well, a lot of England's problems with her neighbours were self-inflicted: the Normans didn't suddenly lose their acquisitive bent in 1066. More importantly for guessing the course of Safehold affairs, the essentially personal nature of power and politics of the high Middle Ages set up some Byzantine conflicts that have echoed down to the 21st century - genuinely Byzantine, some of them, in the Balkans and Middle East. That's very true for Safehold still, with the possible exception of Siddarmark. And no, I'm not forgetting either Charis or Harchong when I say that. Rule and the exercise of power in the Charisian Empire is very much predicated on a web of personal allegiances. Not that the rulers thereof don't want that to change, but with the best will in the world, which not everybody involved has, it's going to take another generation at the least. Harchong may have its bureaucracy, but, if it's hewing to the ancestral model, how far the bureaucrats' writ runs beyond their office doors will depend critically on not just the person and personality of the current Emperor but on those of the nobility as well.

This all gives rise to a pattern of feuds and alliances that surprisingly often ignores national or provincial boundaries - but will have a great deal of influence on who comes down on what side of the various current and pending divides in Safehold societies. Decisions about reform may be made as much because someone is ticked at the next door land-owner because of how his grandfather was treated under their mutual great-grandfather's will, but is great friends with the chap on the other side of the river, as they are on merits of cases that go right over their heads.

n7axw wrote:

martin wrote:While the history of Irish tribalism is interesting.... And my British ancestors have a lot to answer for.

It was a two way street. Remember the Irish wild geese available to be recruited into Hapsburg armies. Even in the Elizabethean period, England couldn't ignore the possibility of Ireland being used as a stepping stone with lots of wild geese used by Philip for an invasion of England.

The same with the Scots, really. The final round of Scotlands conflict with England was at least partly over Scottish interest in restoring the Stuarts to the throne in London.

The point is that the responsibility for the conflict doesn't just rest with the English.

Don

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Louis R wrote:Well, a lot of England's problems with her neighbours were self-inflicted: the Normans didn't suddenly lose their acquisitive bent in 1066. More importantly for guessing the course of Safehold affairs, the essentially personal nature of power and politics of the high Middle Ages set up some Byzantine conflicts that have echoed down to the 21st century - genuinely Byzantine, some of them, in the Balkans and Middle East. That's very true for Safehold still, with the possible exception of Siddarmark. And no, I'm not forgetting either Charis or Harchong when I say that. Rule and the exercise of power in the Charisian Empire is very much predicated on a web of personal allegiances. Not that the rulers thereof don't want that to change, but with the best will in the world, which not everybody involved has, it's going to take another generation at the least. Harchong may have its bureaucracy, but, if it's hewing to the ancestral model, how far the bureaucrats' writ runs beyond their office doors will depend critically on not just the person and personality of the current Emperor but on those of the nobility as well.

I doubt Siddarmark is too much of an exception there. Practically speaking, exercise of political power is through a relatively small number of wealthy families. Which one has an office at a time is going to depend on a (relatively) much broader franchise - I don't want to make it out as not genuinely fairly representative - but arrangements, details, sentiments, feuds, and familial alliances are all going to have a lot of play there.

Siddarmark looks like it was working fairly well before the Sword, but now it's looking at generations of ill-will between the Temple and Republic Loyalists; the haves and have-nots with edges all the sharper for war; and the newcomers and the established residents of many provinces with the demographic shuffling with the civil war.

All the support from Charis and generally responsible political leadership helps - a lot - but it's still going to be a mess for a long time. I don't think people factor that in when they talk about Siddarmark annexing this that and the other.

Good point, indeed.

JeffEngel wrote:I doubt Siddarmark is too much of an exception there. Practically speaking, exercise of political power is through a relatively small number of wealthy families. Which one has an office at a time is going to depend on a (relatively) much broader franchise - I don't want to make it out as not genuinely fairly representative - but arrangements, details, sentiments, feuds, and familial alliances are all going to have a lot of play there.

Siddarmark looks like it was working fairly well before the Sword, but now it's looking at generations of ill-will between the Temple and Republic Loyalists; the haves and have-nots with edges all the sharper for war; and the newcomers and the established residents of many provinces with the demographic shuffling with the civil war.

All the support from Charis and generally responsible political leadership helps - a lot - but it's still going to be a mess for a long time. I don't think people factor that in when they talk about Siddarmark annexing this that and the other.

Louis R wrote:Well, a lot of England's problems with her neighbours were self-inflicted: the Normans didn't suddenly lose their acquisitive bent in 1066. More importantly for guessing the course of Safehold affairs, the essentially personal nature of power and politics of the high Middle Ages set up some Byzantine conflicts that have echoed down to the 21st century - genuinely Byzantine, some of them, in the Balkans and Middle East.

My statment is not a defense of English agrandisment. It merely states that, placed in context, the English were not alone in that. They had lots of company. Acqusitiveness is a human trait, not a national one.

As for Safehold I wonder how much Siddarmark's expansion had to do with Desnairian agression once the Republic had those formidable pike blocks. I have an impression of much of the conflict in those wars happened as Siddarmark begin pushing back, first expelling the Desnairians back out of Siddarmark and then into more neutral ground as the wars proceeded before the matter was brought to a conclusion by the Treaty of Silktown which the church created as a buffer state between the two opponents.

Don

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n7axw wrote:As for Safehold I wonder how much Siddarmark's expansion had to do with Desnairian agression once the Republic had those formidable pike blocks. I have an impression of much of the conflict in those wars happened as Siddarmark begin pushing back, first expelling the Desnairians back out of Siddarmark and then into more neutral ground as the wars proceeded before the matter was brought to a conclusion by the Treaty of Silktown which the church created as a buffer state between the two opponents.

Don

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I think Siddarmark's expansion may have owed a lot more, early on, to the threat of Desnairian expansion north of the isthmus, or (to a lesser extent) Dohlaran expansion or the conversion of mid-continent small republics into monarchical Border States. Those early enclaves could see empires growing to the south and west, and Dohlar could have been a nucleus for another of them. Under those circumstances, you had to group up to be safe, and Siddarmark's republican system gave them something to group into that would be more compatible with their way of life. They were probably taking a long view, but in the shorter one, a larger unified state would have advantages for trade and law enforcement.

Silk Town - or proto-Silkiah, taking it along with its hinterlands - would have been much the same, only larger and with a lot of commerce, but for the misfortune of being too close to Desnair when the Church's willingness to see a sprawling republican empire ran out.

From RFC's post back when, much of the Siddarmark/Desnairian conflict was over Silk Town and its surroundings and which of them would have how much influence over it. Further inland and to the north, there wasn't then and still isn't much to fight over in terms of populated, terraformed regions. To the extent it was about land, it was a struggle for a frontier and strategic places for a border.

JeffEngel wrote:

n7axw wrote:As for Safehold I wonder how much Siddarmark's expansion had to do with Desnairian agression once the Republic had those formidable pike blocks. I have an impression of much of the conflict in those wars happened as Siddarmark begin pushing back, first expelling the Desnairians back out of Siddarmark and then into more neutral ground as the wars proceeded before the matter was brought to a conclusion by the Treaty of Silktown which the church created as a buffer state between the two opponents.

Don

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I think Siddarmark's expansion may have owed a lot more, early on, to the threat of Desnairian expansion north of the isthmus, or (to a lesser extent) Dohlaran expansion or the conversion of mid-continent small republics into monarchical Border States. Those early enclaves could see empires growing to the south and west, and Dohlar could have been a nucleus for another of them. Under those circumstances, you had to group up to be safe, and Siddarmark's republican system gave them something to group into that would be more compatible with their way of life. They were probably taking a long view, but in the shorter one, a larger unified state would have advantages for trade and law enforcement.

Silk Town - or proto-Silkiah, taking it along with its hinterlands - would have been much the same, only larger and with a lot of commerce, but for the misfortune of being too close to Desnair when the Church's willingness to see a sprawling republican empire ran out.

From RFC's post back when, much of the Siddarmark/Desnairian conflict was over Silk Town and its surroundings and which of them would have how much influence over it. Further inland and to the north, there wasn't then and still isn't much to fight over in terms of populated, terraformed regions. To the extent it was about land, it was a struggle for a frontier and strategic places for a border.

I think your point here gloves into mine... All I'm really saying is that the trigger for Siddarmark's push to the west was the threat from Desnair. I'm not sure that Dohlar ever figured in. I don't see any basis for that conjecture, anyway.

Don

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