Dragaera

Idle Speculation - The Tekla Republic

Wed Sep 29 10:49:02 PDT 2004

--- Joshua Kronengold <mneme at io.com> wrote:

> Scott Schultz writes:
> >I'm wondering what sort of government it is that they create.

I've wondered about that too.

> > Is it a
> >republic like our own, or is it more of a constitutional monarchy? Does
> it
> >have a parliament? How often are elections held? How long does the
> ruler
> >hold power? Does a Tekla Republic actually last past the tenure of the
> >initially elected leader?

Are there elections at all?

> It seems pretty obvious.  
> The Tekla Republic begins in bloody revolution.  It takes power with
> high ideals, but the desire for revolution on the new government's
> "betters" gets the better of the leaders, and they begin massacring
> those nobles they can find and blame (the nobles, knowing which way
> the grass is blowing, hide).  Then it gets worse, the various Tekla
> demagogues eventually turning on one another, each seeking the Orb,
> but doing great violence to the empire as they do so. Eventually,
> things proceed to the point where it's obvious that the Repubulic
> cannot be saved, and the Jhegalla heir manages to gather the scattered
> reins of rulership and bring an end to the remains of the republic
> (and become Emperor).

That's one plausible answer, but there are others.  One is that
there is a Teckla heir who gets the Orb--maybe "First Citizen" or
"President" instead of "Emperor"--but he or she is often a figurehead.
Another is that the Teckla have a "shadow" structure during the
previous reign (the Speakers we've seen might be the lowest layer)
that smoothly takes power when the previous emperor dies, so there's
no need to wait for the election or selection of a ruler.  An idea
that might be combined with the latter is that some sort of ruling
council, not an individual, might wield the Orb.  (For a minute
I thought we had textev against that, but what I was remembering
was Gandalf telling Saruman that only one can wield the Ring.)

Another is some kind of palace revolution--keeping in mind that during
the reign immediately before theirs, the Teckla have nearly their
maximum influence.  (We've seen them only during their period of
minimum influence.)  Thus a Teckla Republic could be something like
Mussolini's Italy or Ataturk's Turkey.

Someone's (Mark Englehart's) suggestion of the Roman Republic
is worth considering.  Also, Dragaera's "present" stage seems to
correspond to Europe in maybe the 15th to 18th centuries--the
feudal lords are losing power to the commercial classes, but
we're not ready for Marxism yet.  In addition to the French
Revolution, we might want to look for parallels in the republics
of Switzerland and Venice.  I think Venice especially shows
that "republic" doesn't entail voting or individual civil rights.
Wikipedia says, "The Republic was under the titular sovereignty
of the Doge, a nobleman elected to the post for life. However,
the doge had little real power, and actual authority was exercised
by the Great Council, an extremely limited body in which only
members of the great aristocratic families of the republic were
allowed to participate."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Republic>  A Teckla
Republic might not have "great aristocratic families", but it
might have wealthy or powerful Teckla, plus members of the noble
houses ditto.

Somebody who knows more history than me (not hard) might want
to amplify this.

> >What happens when the previous (Athyra?) house's ruler dies in
> >office?
> 
> Presumably, the Athyra heir takes over.
> You didn't think that only one Emperor could rule per reign, did you?
> What would happen if an emperor was killed before the minimum term?

As Jose has now reminded us, the previous house is Orca.

Anyway, as Zerika tells Vlad in _Phoenix_, the Orb protects the life
of the Emperor, and that's what the whole Mario-whatserface thing in
FHYA was about.  It's conceivable that the Orb even prevents the
Emperor from dying of natural causes until the minimum term is up--
or that it doesn't.

Jerry Friedman

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