An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government

[krinsbez]

Well, the simple fact remains that any state relies on force to enforce its will. Adults will defeat kids in any fight. Ergo, there have to be adults using the system for their own ends and thus enforcing it for their own ends.

Presumably, we're looking at some form of ephebeocracy that puts a younger child theoretically in charge to make a point, but actual power is held by teens and twentysomethings?

Or we're looking at something like Timothy Zahn's A Coming of Age, but where the adults don't regain control after the first generation complete puberty and lose their powers.

 

[rvbomally]

Presumably, we're looking at some form of ephebeocracy that puts a younger child theoretically in charge to make a point, but actual power is held by teens and twentysomethings?

Or we're looking at something like Timothy Zahn's A Coming of Age, but where the adults don't regain control after the first generation complete puberty and lose their powers.

This brings up another issue: can we really expect a generation of leaders to voluntarily give up power because they hit a maximum age? They could always decide to scrap the system. I also see no convincing rationale behind having children as leaders, especially if they need to convince the adults who need to do the fighting and dying in their revolution.

 

[Miranda Brawner]

This brings up another issue: can we really expect a generation of leaders to voluntarily give up power because they hit a maximum age? They could always decide to scrap the system. I also see no convincing rationale behind having children as leaders, especially if they need to convince the adults who need to do the fighting and dying in their revolution.

Yeah, it would require a pretty contrived scenario to put the system in place.

 

[naraht]

This brings up another issue: can we really expect a generation of leaders to voluntarily give up power because they hit a maximum age? They could always decide to scrap the system. I also see no convincing rationale behind having children as leaders, especially if they need to convince the adults who need to do the fighting and dying in their revolution.

A somewhat related scenario that I *think* I have seen in fantasy is closer to the Peshewar Lancers. Women have some sort of significant magic until they either a) hit puberty or b_ have sex for the first time.

 

[rvbomally]

A somewhat related scenario that I *think* I have seen in fantasy is closer to the Peshewar Lancers. Women have some sort of significant magic until they either a) hit puberty or b_ have sex for the first time.

I know EBR put a moratorium on governments that are too fantastical. I know interstellar polities are out, for example.

 

[Ephraim Ben Raphael]

I know EBR put a moratorium on governments that are too fantastical. I know interstellar polities are out, for example.

Yeah. A little bit of hard scifi is okay, but no magic please.

 

[Yama951]

I'm suddenly reminded of that whole 'socialist monarchy' idea. Like in a reality where either proto-socialism took off from the medieval period, or where socialism didn't define itself as atheistic, republican or both, or perhaps a timeline where socialism took off first before liberalism. Like an actual monarchy be it absolutist or constitutional but the economy is made in socialist or syndicalist lines.

Or a more crazy idea, Anarcho-Monarchism. A society following more decentralized anarchic communes but has a monarch as head of state, maybe a weird result of the peasant revolutions in the HRE that ITTL the emperor supported and promoted as a counter to the nobility resulting in the strange combo of monarchism and anarchism.

 

[rvbomally]

I'm suddenly reminded of that whole 'socialist monarchy' idea. Like in a reality where either proto-socialism took off from the medieval period, or where socialism didn't define itself as atheistic, republican or both, or perhaps a timeline where socialism took off first before liberalism. Like an actual monarchy be it absolutist or constitutional but the economy is made in socialist or syndicalist lines.

There was a communist-in-name-only monarch in Philosophy Is Like Big Game Hunting, which is set in the same multiverse as EEUSG. Of course, she was a deposed monarch, but maybe an alternate version of her is still on the throne.

Or a more crazy idea, Anarcho-Monarchism. A society following more decentralized anarchic communes but has a monarch as head of state, maybe a weird result of the peasant revolutions in the HRE that ITTL the emperor supported and promoted as a counter to the nobility resulting in the strange combo of monarchism and anarchism.

Maybe a Protestant peasant “kingdom” where God is the literal king?

 

[Yama951]

Maybe a Protestant peasant “kingdom” where God is the literal king?

Sounds like a possible theocracy unless it's specifically defined against a theocracy forming.

 

[xsampa]

Maybe a rationalist state that quantifies every aspect of its citizens lives and uses “discipline” as defined by Deleuze&Guattari to make the standardized hexacubes efficiently wonderful even as your heart rate is broadcast to the AICensor

 

[Whiteshore]

I'm suddenly reminded of that whole 'socialist monarchy' idea. Like in a reality where either proto-socialism took off from the medieval period, or where socialism didn't define itself as atheistic, republican or both, or perhaps a timeline where socialism took off first before liberalism. Like an actual monarchy be it absolutist or constitutional but the economy is made in socialist or syndicalist lines.

Or something about the M L A D O R O S S I.

 

[xsampa]

Maybe a rationalist state that quantifies every aspect of its citizens lives and uses “discipline” as defined by Deleuze&Guattari to make the standardized hexacubes efficiently wonderful even as your heart rate is broadcast to the AICensor

This is an example:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1225867958909652994

 

[krinsbez]

This brings up another issue: can we really expect a generation of leaders to voluntarily give up power because they hit a maximum age? They could always decide to scrap the system. I also see no convincing rationale behind having children as leaders, especially if they need to convince the adults who need to do the fighting and dying in their revolution.

Again, the children wouldn't actually be leaders, but symbolic figureheads to distract the teens and twentysomethings fighting and dying for Youth Power from the fact that the people actually in charge are, in fact, in their forties or whatever?

I'm not sure why this violates your S.O.D., but people in the Twentieth Century deciding that, actually John C. Calhoun was right and slavery is a "positive good" does not?

 

[rvbomally]

Again, the children wouldn't actually be leaders, but symbolic figureheads to distract the teens and twentysomethings fighting and dying for Youth Power from the fact that the people actually in charge are, in fact, in their forties or whatever?

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough: this is exactly how I picture such a state working. There would still need to be an ideological reason why kids should be in charge, but given how weird some OTL ideologies are, I’m sure that’s not impossible.

I'm not sure why this violates your S.O.D., but people in the Twentieth Century deciding that, actually John C. Calhoun was right and slavery is a "positive good" does not?

In the entries here where slavery is key to the system, it’s not that people in the Twentieth Century decided that slavery is okay. It’s more that they never decided that it wasn’t okay, at least in their corner of the world. Keep in mind that history has no set moral path; there is nothing dictating that people must become more enlightened by some point of time or another. And also keep in mind that different parts of the world can and do have different, sometimes repugnant, values. Consider that slavery is still widespread in some parts of the world, despite the consensus of much of the planet that it is evil.

 

[Deleted member 107125]

I was thinking of talking about the Mittelafrikan government in a WWI German victory.

 

[krinsbez]

Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough: this is exactly how I picture such a state working. There would still need to be an ideological reason why kids should be in charge, but given how weird some OTL ideologies are, I’m sure that’s not impossible.

Ohhhh.

Presumably, it'd be some kinda Logan's Run/Wild In The Streets-type dealie where a Youth Movement went rabid?

You can't trust anyone over thirty,..until you turn thirty yourself.

In the entries here where slavery is key to the system, it’s not that people in the Twentieth Century decided that slavery is okay. It’s more that they never decided that it wasn’t okay, at least in their corner of the world. Keep in mind that history has no set moral path; there is nothing dictating that people must become more enlightened by some point of time or another. And also keep in mind that different parts of the world can and do have different, sometimes repugnant, values. Consider that slavery is still widespread in some parts of the world, despite the consensus of much of the planet that it is evil.

You sure? I coulda sworn we had some where it was brought back?

Oh well, you know more about what's in here than I do.

 

[rvbomally]

Ohhhh.

Presumably, it'd be some kinda Logan's Run/Wild In The Streets-type dealie where a Youth Movement went rabid?

You can't trust anyone over thirty,..until you turn thirty yourself.

I could see it being explicitly a check on adults who are otherwise running the system. The idea is that children are innocent and honest, and will check adults on their bullshit more than any adult would (there was an Evil Overlord list entry about checking every evil plan by a child, to prevent simple but easy to overlook mistakes from passing through. Similar logic). As de jure leaders, the children act as one last check on an adult bureaucracy, not unlike how the US President has veto power over bills. A further rationale could be religious, following Jesus’ exhortation to suffer the little children.

You sure? I coulda sworn we had some where it was brought back?

Oh well, you know more about what's in here than I do.

I can think of three entries where slavery persists: New Sparta, the Confederated States, and the People’s Republic of the Antilles. All three diverged in the 19th century and arose from states where slavery was never abolished.

 

[naraht]

I can think of three entries where slavery persists: New Sparta, the Confederated States, and the People’s Republic of the Antilles. All three diverged in the 19th century and arose from states where slavery was never abolished.

*Maybe* we don't get Slavery restored, but maybe... Serfdom. If both Alexander II *and * Tsarevich Nicholas* die in the 1861-1865 time period leading to the reactionary Alexander III taking the throne 15-20 years early, *maybe* he can keep Serfdom around somehow. OTOH, the question of what Russia looks like with Communism in the 1880s would be another possiblity for TTL.

 

[Bookmark1995]

*Maybe* we don't get Slavery restored, but maybe... Serfdom. If both Alexander II *and * Tsarevich Nicholas* die in the 1861-1865 time period leading to the reactionary Alexander III taking the throne 15-20 years early, *maybe* he can keep Serfdom around somehow. OTOH, the question of what Russia looks like with Communism in the 1880s would be another possiblity for TTL.

You could see a Russian version of the Haitian Revolution.

 

[rvbomally]

An idea that I believe I have posted somewhere before: a theodemocracy, where the priesthoods of the country’s various religions vote to select the leadership. The size of a priest-elector contingency depends on how big the religion is in the nation. How much control parishioners get over who their priest-electors are depends on the faith. The irreligious and unrecognized religions (usually newer belief systems and those too small to count) are unrepresented. As for the nation itself, I’m thinking either India or maybe even a remnant of Alexander’s empire, which turned Buddhist with Alexander but has believers from Greco-Roman pagans to Hindus.