From what we've heard of the original enclaves, they were all little republics to start. In the War Against the Fallen, the Archangels gave at least implicit blessings to hereditary aristocracies that sprouted up, and since then the Church has enjoyed the conservatism and financial dependence they bring. I suppose you could still look for some secret order to discourage the abandonment of republicanism in proto-Siddarmark, but the explanation that rings in the fewest challenges to an plausible account is still simple preference for nominal human equality there over the machinations of some ancient hidden conspiracy.PalmerSperry wrote:
I think Siddarmark being a Republic is strongly suggestive of being the result of some secret order. Not necessarily positive proof mind, since as far as I'm aware, none of the republics on Earth came about as a result of the machinations of a secret order that predated creation! However I don't think it's necessarily the case that said secret order still exists, or if it still exists, has any real power or influence. The "republican tradition" seems to be pretty ingrained in Siddarmark at this point and thus not necessarily requiring any active management to keep it on track.
Harchong being the result of another secret order that took completely the opposite approach to overthrowing the Church is an interesting idea. Also entirely possible, but I think we should be wary of seeing secret orders under every bed.
Yes. And wary of expecting too much of them.
The Brotherhood of St. Zherneau and the Sisterhood of St. Kohdy should be considered wildly successful, but what they've achieved has been relatively modest. They've preserved themselves as secrets; they've retained the resources to maintain themselves comfortably in as great a number as security would permit anyway; they've carried on the knowledge of secret history at the core of their orders. They have had a small, gentle influence on Charisian political and religious culture and Temple corruption respectively - less so for the Sisterhood, but they have, unlike the Brotherhood, worked up a much vaster intelligence and covert action establishment.
But that's all. Preserving or introducing an entirely different form of government for the most powerful state on Safehold would be asking far, far more of the hypothetical Siddarmark one. The most you could ask there would be a bit more gentle encouragement of something they were inclined towards anyway. Just what a Harchongese one would be doing to create modern Harchong as an attack on the Church is elusive. If the idea is to turn the Church into a hideously corrupt body, backed by an Empire of Harchong that's an ongoing human rights disaster with an arthritic government, so that the rest of Safehold has enough of it and rebels... Well. It suffers from excess ambition (if the Church and Harchong were not already heavily inclined to go those directions) and from a horrible disconnection of ends and means such that few people would be willing to carry it out over centuries.
A secret order that threw up gunpowder and got it past the Inquisition, for the purpose primarily of canal-building and thereby undermining labor-intensive agriculture in Harchong, wouldn't be aiming so very high, would have plenty of cover as doing something any thoughtful Harchongese patriot and loyal son of the Church might, wouldn't have to be large or powerful, and wouldn't have a clash between what they want in the end and what they're doing to bring it out.