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Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?

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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by Bluesqueak   » Tue Jul 31, 2018 1:44 pm

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evilauthor wrote:Hmm. A thought in Siddarmark Republicanism... sort of:

Even before Merlin and Charis becoming an Empire, all the out islands had parliaments, a quasi-legislative body where the nobles and high ranking clergy of the land get together. But not a single mainland monarchy that we've seen has a parliament, or at least, not one important enough to actually be mentioned in the story.

And as I've previously mentioned, it's likely that the out-islands aped the mainland nations when putting a government together, especially since they likely did it later.

So my thought: monarchies with parliaments is how the angels and Writ mandated governments should be, at least at the start. Or maybe they didn't mandate it, but had the first countries bigger than a single village made that way.

Countries however evolve with time. The out-island kingdoms were young enough to still have parliaments. Most of the mainland nations though had their parliaments whither away, usually to centralize power in the monarch (or the bureaucracy in Harchong's case).

Siddarmark however went in the OTHER direction. Instead of withering away, their parliament became more important to their government. They started expanding the franchise early on. Some angel probably looked in on it and dropped the word "Republic" which Siddarmark embraced.

And the Temple Lands of course probably stays closest to its original form of government, at least until current events. The Grand Vicar and Council of Vicars IS the Temple Lands' government.

And irony of ironies, I suspect that the reason the Lord Protector is an elected position was done to ape the way the Grand Vicar gets elected. I suspect alot of Siddarmark's original Republican structure was done to copy the way the CoGA was run.

I mean, it can't be coincidence that the ONLY other major political unit other than Siddarmark that elects its leader is Mother Church herself, right?


It's probably stating the obvious, but 'Lord Protector' was the title given to Oliver Cromwell when he took over the 'head of government ' post. This was following the argument between King Charles and the English Parliament, which Parliament eventually resolved by disconnecting Charles' head from his body.

The quarrel was indeed over centralising power in the monarchy. :)
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by evilauthor   » Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:10 am

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Bluesqueak wrote:It's probably stating the obvious, but 'Lord Protector' was the title given to Oliver Cromwell when he took over the 'head of government ' post. This was following the argument between King Charles and the English Parliament, which Parliament eventually resolved by disconnecting Charles' head from his body.

The quarrel was indeed over centralising power in the monarchy. :)


Given that the first generation mainland aristocrats were appointed by the "angels", a Siddarmark monarch would have to have been a real <insert bad word here> to inspire an Oliver Cromwell style reaction and a total change in government style.

OTOH, current day Safehold is clearly no stranger to usurpers and nobles rebelling against "tyrannical" kings. But that just makes Siddarmark doubly weird in that their uprising (if it happened) created a Republic instead of just changing who was wearing the crown.

On the OTHER other hand, if it happened REALLY early, there's be entire generations old enough to remember when the only governments they had were relatively democratic village councils and monarchy was this new fangled thing introduced during/after the War of the Fallen. That'd make it easy to fall back on a modified version of the village council system (perhaps with a sprinkle of inspiration based on how the Church runs its internal affairs).
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by SYED   » Sat Aug 04, 2018 4:16 pm

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There is serfdom and slavery everywhere in safehold except for the charisian empire. It is that harchong it was practised to the worse extent. I was thinking the large scale rebellion in harchong might force the other countries to change their own laws to ensure no rebellion would spread or fermented on their own lands. There are enough upheavals as it is, in this new world.
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by dobriennm   » Sat Aug 04, 2018 4:45 pm

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Bluesqueak wrote:
It's probably stating the obvious, but 'Lord Protector' was the title given to Oliver Cromwell when he took over the 'head of government ' post. This was following the argument between King Charles and the English Parliament, which Parliament eventually resolved by disconnecting Charles' head from his body.

The quarrel was indeed over centralising power in the monarchy. :)

However, you can find the Author saying you should never "read" too much into his historical references, they're liable to be red herrings.

RE: Soul of Haven
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by n7axw   » Sat Aug 04, 2018 9:06 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:
Unfortunately, Siddarmark has not "always" been a republic. If you will recall, when Greyghor is watching the Sword of Schueler roll across the plaza towards Protector's Palace before Ahnzhelyk/Aivah/Nynian and her riflemen intervene, he is reflecting upon the fact that he is armed with the Siddarmarkian sword of state . . . which is also the sword of the very first lord protector. In other words, the fellow who oversaw the creation of the republic.

I may or may not ever get around to giving you the backstory on the Republic and how it came into existence, just as I may or may not get around to giving you the backstory on Harchong, Desnair, Chisholm, etc. To date, that information hasn't really been significant, so I haven't shared it.


Ah, RFC...all that backstory would be so interesting...

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Wed Aug 15, 2018 7:02 pm

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SYED wrote:There is serfdom and slavery everywhere in safehold except for the charisian empire. It is that harchong it was practised to the worse extent. I was thinking the large scale rebellion in harchong might force the other countries to change their own laws to ensure no rebellion would spread or fermented on their own lands. There are enough upheavals as it is, in this new world.

Although, it was mentioned early in OAR that Charis had serfdom until Haraarld's grandfather or great-grandfather abolished it.
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by Kael Posavatz   » Wed Aug 15, 2018 8:31 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:
SYED wrote:There is serfdom and slavery everywhere in safehold except for the charisian empire. It is that harchong it was practised to the worse extent. I was thinking the large scale rebellion in harchong might force the other countries to change their own laws to ensure no rebellion would spread or fermented on their own lands. There are enough upheavals as it is, in this new world.

Although, it was mentioned early in OAR that Charis had serfdom until Haraarld's grandfather or great-grandfather abolished it.



As I recall only Harchong and Desnair have outright slavery.
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by isaac_newton   » Thu Aug 16, 2018 5:58 am

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Direwolf18 wrote:Never said or meant to implied be lied. He has successfully tricked me by playing on my expectations however more then once. Realized how I got played as the rope a dope more semi frequently when I reread the series.


We have become a group of Kremlin watchers - reading the subtlest of signs into the sublest choice of words :-)
once bitten - twice shy!

BTW on the Siddermark government... dont forget that there is no reason why lines of monarchs cannot die out for any number of reasons - think of the plantagenets or tudors for example

So the republic may have formed in a time of troubles rather than from an outright revolt.
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by Vinea   » Mon Aug 20, 2018 4:10 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:

It didn't take all that long for war to reemerge as a human pastime on Safehold, especially with the example of the Fallen before its people, but the need for military service went even deeper than that. Safehldian predators are scary, people (you actually meat a great dragon in TFT, which should help make that point clear, and the "unconsecrated" lands have all sorts of nasty threats to human safety.


I was always curious why the Writ didn't try to make warfare stylized into combat between individual warriors/champions as opposed to battles between militaries...I'm of the opinion that wars and military rivalries have been one of the drivers of technology...

Wouldn't they want to try to nip that one in the bud?
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Re: Slavery and Serfdom, why, how?
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Tue Aug 21, 2018 1:06 am

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Vinea wrote:
runsforcelery wrote:

It didn't take all that long for war to reemerge as a human pastime on Safehold, especially with the example of the Fallen before its people, but the need for military service went even deeper than that. Safehldian predators are scary, people (you actually meat a great dragon in TFT, which should help make that point clear, and the "unconsecrated" lands have all sorts of nasty threats to human safety.


I was always curious why the Writ didn't try to make warfare stylized into combat between individual warriors/champions as opposed to battles between militaries...I'm of the opinion that wars and military rivalries have been one of the drivers of technology...

Wouldn't they want to try to nip that one in the bud?


IIRC, Pei Shan-wei was the best historian in the command crew. I doubt that she would have mentioned that (never stop your enemy from making a mistake).
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