//Interesting and most slippery subject than that one. Please do not forget I am inRP.
To carry on the eventual survival of a religion, and their becoming in our comtemporary world...
In my opinion, several things can tighten the bonds between the different social cast in a population together, and tighten the bonds between this population and their ruler :
Religion
Fear
Ambundance
Early days of mankind - called the middle age - have seen the rise of the first Kingdom and their very first Kings, and those were using a combination of fear and religion to maintain social cohesion. Kings were kings because God says so, then breaking the law was consider a sin and swiftly punished. Challenging the authority was heresy. It did last for nearly 2 milleniums...
The exponential grow of science and technology, leading to the industrial era, was the first step in major changes. Ground breaking discoveries (Fact : those people use to think their planet was flat) were shaking the dogma of nearly all religion, thus weakening the power of those ruling in its name. With industry came abundance (so to speak, regarding of the terrible scarcity of the middle age) and a new form of governement emerged. Constitution, republique, constitutional monarchy....all were elected with one promise : abundance shall carry on, the show must go on. The last blow to the old three monotheism was undoubtly deep space travel and the discovery of other sentient creatures (nomads, AI...).
Although I can't be cetain, I am confident there is no more followers of the ancient monotheism in their original form. All that should remain from the Catholic religion in the Court of Galia should be ritual, probably not understood at all if ever noticed. Fear of the terrible events that happend to Galic population before their exodus have been more than sufficient to maintain social order, and the now abundance we see from them have slowly replace fear.
But it is not impossible to imagine that some of these religions have perdure and evolved... We are currently seeing and ancient pagan cult from the Roman time rising again with the Discordian from [TAZ]. We could imagine that catholicism, for example, did merge with some zen philosophy in order to create a new and more adapted religion...In the eyes of the historian that I am on my spare time, I tend to sometimes consider religion as entities of their own, feeding on mankind hopes and fears, and afraid of dying.
May Abu d'Dhur, father of the immaterial roads, be favoralble to us and those that supports us.
It's safe to assume religion still exists. Just don't touch on it.
That's pretty much sci-fi rule number one, especially if it is in the fat future. It exists! Don't. Touch. Not on a Official level, at least.
It raises up to many pitchforks. Religion is a very, very personal thing after all... And usually not entirely relevant, or at least not on a level that makes it necessary to state.
Given the Space Countries that exist, it's safe to assume every religion is still about in some level. It's probably even safe to assume that there are a few new ones! Don't touch.
Separation of church and official storyline, mm?
People can toss down their own religion characters if they want. I plan on playing a nun, for instance, if only because the thought amuses me. Relatively Christian. The Inari shrine exists and has a bit of a face about already, that's Shinto.
You'll ruffle a lot of feathers eventually, otherwise.
Now. The Royalty concern; It is passed down. Quite simple. Not every monarchy in ye old times prescribed to a religion belief to back themselves. Some people simply said they were most honorable or whatev' and their bloodline was the one to rule. Or a particular nobility house. So on.
Pretend it's a dictatorship with a crown if you want.
' Wrote:Seriously, though, if the royal family is so darned strong, then why is the GRP so darned corrupt? They should be acting as the right hand of the GRN.
The GRN doesn't care much or think much about the actions of the GRP. The two often operate completely independently of one another. Remember that the GRN have been fighting a civil war, and now a real war. They have bigger things to worry about than the GRP taking some bribes. If the GRP take bribes that result in serious damage or other issues, than certainly the Royalty and military would become involved. But in most cases, the things GRP let people get away with are fairly harmless. In fact, I believe the thing they do the most is -overfine- people and extort them. Considering most of those people are foreigners or criminals, we really don't care if they do that. I also imagine the GRP have royal friends who receive some of that money in exchange for some political backing, though those royals would never try to defend GRP from the King or the GRN if either had occasion to be seriously displeased by something they did.
' Wrote:A true monarchy in an open society is unusual to say the least. One man to lead the goings-on of one planet is something we haven't managed to pull off on planet Earth - how the hell would it work for a complete interstellar mini-empire?
The way I've found is best to describe it is to say it's a combination of divine right, good leadership, and liberal policies carried out by the Royal Line.
Gallia is strong. Very strong. It is also prosperous. If you look at history, most revolts and topplings of monarchies and dictatorships are the result of inadequate social freedom and liberty, or the lack of basic necessities of the population - See the fall of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Soviets for the latter. Gallia has never had a lack of necessities since its first century on arrival, when they were first rebuilding their nation.
As for the former, the Royalty has kept the dictatorial monarchy in place, but has enacted a large amount of social liberties. Something modern-day dictatorships loath to do, for political reasons or because they adhere to a strict form of religion and use it as an excuse to oppress certain minorities or oppress women. Gallia was formed by the left overs of France, who were already well accustomed to a wide range of social liberties. By keeping these in place, and in fact, increasing them to have a truly open and equal society, coupled with economic prosperity and a nation-wide goal of attaining justice, the monarchy was able to stay in power with the approval of a vast majority of the population. Note that the Council, as per infocards, do not have the support of a majority of the citizenry, though most people do sympathize with some parts of their agenda. However, most people also eye their motives with suspicion.
Furthermore, also note that the Council was not created for the purpose of casting down the Monarchy or attaining political freedom, though those have gradually come about naturally to further try to justify their position. The Council was originally formed to bring an end to Gallia's isolation and to prevent the coming war against Liberty and Bretonia. This is why the Council was intent on taking either Lorraine or Languedoc. (The almost had Lorraine, they succeeded in Languedoc).
In conclusion, you have to take what we can deduce from Gallia's present condition to really justify why an absolute monarchy was able to stay in power, since there is no lore to concretely give reason for it. The only answer is that Gallia has managed to avoid the two lethal situations that caused other monarchies to fall;
-Lack of social liberty
-Lack of economic prosperity
Coupled with the spreading of a national goal that managed to capture the population's passions; Justice.
I feel also that the people's passion for justice is in fact, fueled also by their lack of political freedom, but that the Monarchy is able to successfully shift their thoughts to make them feel like it is really Bretonia or Liberty that causes those feelings, rather than the political system in Gallia.
People have often said that Gallia's motives in attacking Bretonia and Liberty are either stupid - Because it's for some perceived injustice from 1,000 years ago, or greed, for wanting Bretonia's mineral wealth. But I feel the first is simply a tool for the reason that this war is, in fact, a political one, and a way to keep population control. The mineral wealth in Bretonia is simply a useful side-effect, but a minor factor nonetheless.
I was just wondering if perhaps you took something like how David Weber has Manticore set up in his Honorverse - a Constitutional Monarchy - and then twisted it such that the monarchy has the support of the people in pursuing a war - if that would be an effective way to run things in Gallia.
In other words, you still have a Prime Minister, a House of Commons and a House of Lords, and a civilian government that is answerable to the Monarch, but also retains the power of the purse.
That would allow you to expand some of the backstory.
(11-21-2013, 12:53 PM)Jihadjoe Wrote: Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.
Neither, it's fiction. But still, it was a fictional science.
Actually, in foundation, the religion was used exactly as it was/is used today: to manipulate dumb masses at the time of dark ages. There was no religion during civilized imperial times and new artificial religion died out as soon as technology marched back on.
Oh and, Herbert didn't really have a religion in Dune, too. There were only defense mechanisms of Bene Gesserit which used local superstitions and implanted messianic fairy tales into them as a form of backup.
I was just wondering if perhaps you took something like how David Weber has Manticore set up in his Honorverse - a Constitutional Monarchy - and then twisted it such that the monarchy has the support of the people in pursuing a war - if that would be an effective way to run things in Gallia.
In other words, you still have a Prime Minister, a House of Commons and a House of Lords, and a civilian government that is answerable to the Monarch, but also retains the power of the purse.
That would allow you to expand some of the backstory.
I am not familiar with David Weber or Honorverse. But I can say the lore makes it abundantly clear that Gallia is not a Constitutional Monarchy, but an Absolute Monarchy. Obviously the king delegates some of the governing to others, but the entire government is made up of nobles and very very wealthy individuals (who often can obtain nobility through their wealth anyway). But the King always has the power to override their decisions. Lastly, the GRN are one of the strongest political forces in Gallia as well, and the vast majority of Gallic culture in Disco centers around military service and achievements.
On a related note, dunno if it was mentioned, the Council isn't exactly looking forward or attempting to remove the Monarchy from its place, as it doesn't even have popular support. Empathy and sympathy? Maybe. But I wouldn't call that support in the least. People were sympathetic to the Quebec Liberation Front terrorists in Quebec in the '70s, but rarely did they actually support them. The Council's main goal was just to open up the way to Sirius and try to make sure stuff wouldn't be -too- hostile, not to oppose the Monarchy.
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