The potential for atrocities.....

With the chaos and severe bitterness in Siddermark, and possibly effects of heavy pollution from unregulated industry (that IS a major cause of mental problems and violence as my area's history proves)
And, with complete arseholes in charge now, totally unlike the ethical Greghor and Parkyr

The frustrated decades? Long stumping of Harchong's "Rump" Emperor....who's southern folk may rise up in revolt when their kin start getting pointlessly butchered in his wars
And he's conceited and also doesn't want to listen to advisors to avoid being made into a "puppet" for the bureaucrats, so he doesn't take reasonable advice very often

And Mahris' long, long curled sour pus against Charis
(I can just imagine his face twisting up every time he's in conference with his men lol!)

PLUS
potentially a really bitter conflict arising within the Church:
Shan-Wei, or not Shan-Wei, that is the Question...we will throw you on a bonfire for!
Robhair's Reforms may come unglued in the midst of all this


So, the potential for atrocities may sky rocket in these new conflicts?
Look at the horrendous mess Europe was in at end of WW2
And the ghastly aftermath where huge amount of criminality and loss of life went "under the bridge" in all the chaos AFTER the war ended as well


Charis has sane "clued in" leaders,
Rainbow Waters legacy is of sanity and restraint
Everyone else bar Duchairn's supporters...have a tendency towards a lack of restraint, as we've seen with Harchong's mercenary minions

ever seen how bitter things can get just over football, never mind all that?!

Is Siddermark for the Soviet experience? Populists take over and back the greedy industrialists and greedy bankers for ruining the economy and the country. If only the State owned the land and manufacturing centers and the banks they could ensure everyone had work and food and was safe.

Erls
Well there's a variety of different ways Siddermark could end up, because it's "Chaos in Motion", and this arc of the saga takes place over longer time spans, so anything is possible there I think.
Though of course, extremists are all equally as bad to the poor shmucks who have to suffer under them


I believe that RFC is rightly showing how sequences of events can turn things into real nasty mayhem you wouldn't expect.
It's alas, Human Nature.
Much easier to cause harm than heal,etc.

The brutalized survivors of oppression AND rebellion AND wars...added to economic catastrophe, and places where unrestricted industrialization will cause wide spread mental health problems due to heavy metal poisoning....
All that reduces ability for moderation, recovery, humanity.

Klyntahn's concentration camps, exactly like the Nazis, will leave scumbags with a blueprint of how to exterminate those they don't like....

Actions of the Inner Circle have made something like the Bolsheviks extremely unlikely in Northern Harchong.
There's just no need for such extremism because they were offered honest, effective help that worked.
Folk tend to forget it wasn't."Communism" that caused the mayhem from Russia to China, it was the ghastly systems folk suffered under that gave no moderation, education, hope or societal concerns for."Human Rights"...so when they did rebel, it went nuts
Folk there were not offered genuine democracy or honest dealings, one of my relatives was ordered to go fight in Russia, which was just the cherry on the top of his WW1 experiences!
And all it did was nark the locals off and empowered the Bolsheviks even more.
And in such bloody chaos...monsters can get power.


The US Civil War war was, unusually, extremely "civil"
Most such conflicts devolve into atrocities, but despite mass carnage on the battlefield, massacres etc were pretty small and rare.
Same to large extent with British Commonwealth vs Germany on Western Front (though nature of that struggle ended up making machine gunners and snipers seen as "fair game" and were often shot out of hand, alas as the men were so angry on both sides)

Conflicts ahead for Safehold are showing up to be pretty grim, IMHO.

SilverbladeTE wrote:Folk tend to forget it wasn't."Communism" that caused the mayhem from Russia to China, it was the ghastly systems folk suffered under that gave no moderation, education, hope or societal concerns for."Human Rights"...so when they did rebel, it went nuts

Exactly.

SilverbladeTE wrote:Folk tend to forget it wasn't."Communism" that caused the mayhem from Russia to China, it was the ghastly systems folk suffered under that gave no moderation, education, hope or societal concerns for."Human Rights"...so when they did rebel, it went nuts

Dilandu wrote:
Exactly.

Agreed. The abysmal education allowed those people to be persuaded to embrace the unhealthy concetration of power cummunism provides. That provided the means for those oppressed to go nuts on their oppressors. We saw similar reactions in Haiti, the French Revolution and anywhere else hopelessly oppressed uneducated people were allowed to assert power with little constraint.

Britain had its woes and done its share of evil, but fortunately, because of geography, being an island, it was able to learn more and have less carnage, thus support for Human Dignity was much higher
Still, we had the Nobles stealing common land and starting the first concentration camps.(workhouses)

Yet the Public rose against chattel slavery and against other evils in mostly peaceful protest and to some effect
Some of the nobles were decent and aided such things.
But we also got.assholes ordering sabre charges on peaceful protesters and allowing the Irish Famine to worsen, etc

Still, for all that, it wasn't at all as bad as Russia and others suffered.
Russia still had the freakin' "knout" as an official form of punishment,.ick!
And the Okhrana scumbags easily morphed into what would one day be the NKVD (hence the word "Chekist" came to be)
The Church in Russia was...Medieval and the Bureau's couldn't organize the proverbial "drunken inebriation in a brewery"
It was no wonder millions of serfs ran off and formed illegal communities to be free of that

There were Democratists in Russia but they had almost no support socially because there wasn't enough secure educated Middle Class to support.them...very easy to talk about Democracy in America at the time...but the Okhrana would act as thugs against those in Russia.
AND the Democratists did not get support from Europe, Churchill didn't support them and that's one of the things not realized or overlooked
Churchill had some great insights, but was alas, myopic in some social issues because of the terrible way he had been brought up...way most of the Establishment had their kids educated was...very bad leading to some very "damaged" individuals and I avoid explaining some points since this is a PG 13 forum. This I believe lead to his "erratic" or naive actions at times. Every society has its evils, alas.

Anyway, with no broad understanding and support for GENUINE Democracy in these nations (as opposed to the BS regimes Western governments tried to foisted on some of them claiming they were "democratic")
And the ordinary people desperate for.many things but primarily land reform, and the Elite sure as hell wouldn't part with a single acre they had arrogantly stolen for themselves (who died and made.them God, eh?)
Well, they spawned peasant rebellions that actually succeeded.

Folk should read up on the history of peasant rebellions...as RFC noted they usually are even worse than religious wars, ugh.
And they even occurred in Britain
The nobles nearly always won by treachery and having professional soldiers.
America was extremely lucky to have the combination of things that led to its democratic freedom

Takes a long, long time for societies to grow, heal and change. "Getting" what Democracy really means and supporting it doesn't occur over night
And without a valid, honest alternative, desperate people will grab at the poisoned chalices extremists offer them...and things go to Hell.