Noble Power

[Marauder Moe]

That's a pretty tenuous analogy to a vastly different society.  I've already given several concrete examples of how a ZALANTHAN militia captain exceeds a Zalanthan junior noble.

I also think you're overestimating the education and training a PC noble receives.  I think being a junior noble PC is their political training.

[valeria]

Your military coup would involve a single black robe snapping his finger and vaporizing not only the leader of the coup, but everyone involved, and their families. Generations of lineage would be ended in a heartbeat.

So, to prevent that, people don't coup that far up the chain.

They probably could, but that's about the equivalent of telling your supervisor at work that you can't handle little niggling details without direction.  You could do that, but it's not going to make you look good, and if you do it enough you'll probably get... fired.

[wizturbo]

That's a pretty tenuous analogy to a vastly different society.  I've already given several concrete examples of how a ZALANTHAN militia captain exceeds a Zalanthan junior noble.

I also think you're overestimating the education and training a PC noble receives.  I think being a junior noble PC is their political training.

I think this is a limitation of players.  The players of a noble didn't grow up in the environment, and aren't going to necessarily be politicians.  Not every junior noble PC is extremely interested in politics either...some are just dandies...  

The good nobles I've played with (and there have been quite a few...) would eat that Captain alive, and in my opinion, they're more representative of the standard Zalanthian noble than your average noble PC.  Would this be true in ALL cases?  No, of course not.  Some Captains are savvy politicians, bound to become Commanders or Generals someday, and versus a noble who isn't particularly gifted in politics they might win a round or two of the great game.  In general though, which is to say, virtually speaking, your average Captain should be seriously outmatched by an average junior noble.

[palomar]

It could probably go both ways as these things are rarely black/white.

Isn't there a log in the submissions thread with a Jihaen going after a Bynner and having to kind of back down when the local Lieutenant shows up?

[aeglaeca]

I guess I should have clarified I meant military coups with regard to real life and not in game-- especially considering that military coups aren't really necessary in Zalanthan politics considering how it's structured. :X (That said, if sorcerer kings were really that powerful and micromanaging, no one would ever have gotten the better of them! There are IC stories which imply otherwise. Not that I'm suggesting anyone try a military coup ICly, I'm just saying fighting the man shouldn't be considered impossible. Right? Right??? Disclaimer: I'm still basically a noob. And actually, now I kind of want to see it.)

I also did say above sergeant, not at the rank of. Sergeants running a small unit is one thing, someone running a reasonably large military organization is something else completely-- which isn't to say it's impossible that the position would be filled by someone with no political savvy, just that it's likely they shouldn't be underestimated or automatically designated to failure, and that their position comes with inherent weight relative to their history. Sergeants would be what I would call small time compared to a higher rank, but someone who made a notch above and is essentially running multiple units is playing on a different field completely.

In addition, it's not really third world illiteracy vs DC level politics-- and even if it was, it's not like the US hasn't been beaten more or less in these examples in foreign policy, and such things are also arguable for internal politics.. for... everyone, everywhere? ... which is a completely different conversation, I guess.

All I'm saying is, what it takes to hit leadership at that level in any type of organization shouldn't be discounted. Assuming junior nobles will win because they can read and were born into a political culture is overestimating things in general.

[Marauder Moe]

Well guess we just have to disagree.  It doesn't matter much, really, since players aren't allowed to play captains.

[BadSkeelz]

Any commoner Captain who tries to play politics with a noble will probably have a Blue Robe (or several) immediately on his ass demanding to know why he's fucking around with politics when that's not his job. If the Blue doesn't just kill him outright. Commoner officers are expendable.

[Is Friday]

Assuming junior nobles will win because they can read and were born into a political culture is overestimating things in general.

I think you're missing the point and haven't grasped the Allanaki way of things. The city's culture is elitism. The nobility accounts for a very small percentage of the population (read: less than 1%). Slaves account for a majority of the occupants. The Senate is a corrupt organization run by the senior nobility which drafts up the laws and motions, sometimes working together with the various ministries run by the Templarate.

Yes, a noble will win. If only so that the dirty plebs don't realize that nobility are fallible, the noble's House will resolve the problem before shuffling that stupid noble out of the public eye.

[Barzalene]

Often we start a topic and go off on tangents and need new threads. Today I wish that Noble Power, Noble Wealth and External conflict were combined. I think we're all sort of talking about the same thing in all three.

I should say, to start that I have not played a southern noble in a while. And too, I should say that I would gladly play one, so when we look at the current state of affairs and think about what is missing and could be improved, I don't think there is blame assigned or a feeling that anyone has let us down.

Instead, I think what has happened is that as time went on and we tried to make fixes and adjustments for things like Arm 2 and then no Arm II that things moved along and the road led us here. There are so many good ideas in all three threads. But I don't think that to make the game perfect that every fix should be immediately adopted and that everything should change. I just think, and maybe I'm mistaken in thinking there is a consensus here, that it might be time for something to change.

When I say that there should be a more organic and fertile ground for plots, (and again I'm not saying that people haven't in the current climate done a good job with plots, but rather that it could be easier to keep momentum) I think that's where all the threads converge. Nobles having the power and money to more easily drive conflict. When we talk about external conflict and house alignments these are not conflicts that every noble has to adopt, some people will have brand new and exciting ideas outside of these lines, but to have these things in place makes it easier to have nobles drive plots out of the box.

The thing to remember about nobles and ranks regardless of that what plots they are or are not involved in, how charismatic they are or are not, is that they rule because the god king chose them. Someone may have promoted your captain to his current rank, but it wasn't a divine appointment and that carries weight.

[HavokBlue]

^

You can be the highest ranking commoner in your respective military but your existence is inherently inferior to the lowest ranking junior noble of the lowest ranking noble house because he is highborn and you are not.

The vast majority of Zalanthans living in city states understand and accept this as a basic fact of life. It's not something they question or challenge. It's just accepted.

[Down Under]

In the short term, I could see a Captain pulling a stunt that leaves a Junior Noble incapacitated, perhaps even dead, or many of their aides or friends dead/incapacitated.

That Captain will have a death wish though, and probably wouldn't last the night. Just because you have the capability of doing something doesn't mean it's healthy for you to do.

I've found that Red Robes are 'far above it all' when it comes to petty squabbling. To even hear the word 'commoner' is so beneath them that they would probably rarely think of lifting a pinky to intervene on their behalf, not to mention a Noble or a Blue Robe. Same with a High Templar in Tuluk, really, at the end of the day.

I don't think that just because a Captain reports to a Red Robe (Though probably through a blue robe) that they have anything beyond Martial Law Emergency Procedure on their side. They could, effectively, help facilitate the plots of another Junior Noble, perhaps, under the guise of some city-wide emergency that grants access to their Estates, or other such massive military coup procedure, but if they plan on living through the night, they would do well to have friends in high places.

Basically, Nobles has more staying power than any Commoner. They can get away with more, get their hands dirty, and even get caught for it and not get their head cut off. They can get fined, or demoted, or flunked around until they fuck up so bad that they get the axe. I think that's a major difference between the two.

[Semper]

The notion that all commoners are discardable and easily replaceable is not an accurate picture. Why would you scrap your prize-winning greyhound, after putting in years and many dollars to train it to perfection? Or perhaps a better example for the military, the police go through strenuous hours and resources to properly train a good police dog who can be relied on when the shit hits the fan. It isn't quite so easy to just discard that animal, and you might even feel attachment to it (or at least the superior who has been working with that dog). In this kind of way, a Noble, even if they are above a commoner, won't just kill them or throw them away without at least getting something of equal worth back if possible. I'm pretty sure any rank in the militia above sergeant would require extensive training and some political backing to be promoted above the rest of the rabble. More than likely they might even be a bastard child of Nobility or some other relationship with a political leash.

[Malken]

I don't want to derail the thread too much, but the reality is that even though Sergeant and Lt ranks seem pretty high for us because of the ceiling limit imposed on us, the reality is that a Sergeant or even lt rank is absolutely nothing grand in the end.

First of all, not only are you MILITIA but you're also just a sergeant or lt among many other hundreds.

One of the grand illusion of Armageddon is that we're allowed to play roles that seem highly important to us because it's as high as a player can be but in the end, we're still left to play the nobodies of every part of society (junior this and junior that, lt this and sergeant that)

- Edited to replace Captain with LT, since we can't even play the captain rank.

[Patuk]

Either city-state's militia isn't a meritocracy, and nobody makes it to captain because they're just so charismatic/skilled. A person might reach captain rank because their templar thinks they won't be a threat, or because they're a bastard noble and someone pulled strings, or because they had wealthy parents and got to stay in Tor for a long while, or because they have a templar aide's three babies and said templar figures that should be reason enough for loyalty.

With superpowers like Allanak or Tuluk, the state's own militia is more of a threat than external forces are. Promoting ambitious, charismatic, skilled people to be captains is likely to be more of a detriment than an asset for a city that barely ever sees war.

But hey, don't believe me. Believe the Korean government, who tortured the greatest admiral to have ever lived, the man who saved their very kingdom, for the sheer audacity of being popular with the masses for doing well.

Politically, nobles outclass captains with ease.