Babel
| The Republic of Babel | |||||||||||||
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| Politics and Religion | |||||||||||||
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The Republic of Babel was established by the overthrow of the Empire of Babel. The extremism and misgovernment of that Orthodox regime led to a radical anti-theist ideology spreading through underground presses, eventually overthrowing the theocracy and establishing a state based on anti-clericalism and human rights, in percieved opposition to Divine Right. More traditional states are now watching the experiment with anything from amusement to alarm, while the fledgling republic seeks to secure its position and spread freedom and democracy to the oppressed of other lands and shores.
History
Ancient History
In the early days, a convergence of geographical, geological and supernatural factors produced outstanding farmland in an arid region of Creation, which was settled and densely populated by humans, who were conquered by the Alfar like all others when their time came.
After the influence of the Alfar became negligible and then vanished completely, the great men of Babel collapsed into bickering, leading to a long period of misrule by warring noble families that exchanged settlements and populations like game pieces. The image of the ‘Grand Game’ or ‘Noble Game’ remains strong in Babelic culture, both as a board game (now unpopular) and as a concept invoked to condemn the way nobles and gods use their subjects. However, the Noble Game itself did not survive the Necromantic war and the coming of Orthodoxy.
The Necromantic War
The Necromantic was was one of the few times in history that the nobles displayed a semblance of unity. With the assistance of Orthodox crusaders they fought in the bitter conflict for decades, and Orthodoxy spread through much of the land. As the war drew to a close however, the lords fell into bickering once more. The Church, displeased, backed the strongest Orthodox lord and with the aid of the Crusaders the region was unified under Emperor Carloman.
The Orthodoxy
Carloman's empire established the first unified church and institutions, and was a roaring success. However the governments of his successors were marked largely by incompetence, arrogance and oppression. The most critical manifestation of this was their focus on traditional and foreign enemies which led to a failure to isolate and stamp out rising of Merodist sentiment among the general public until it was too late. The final errors were the decision of the Orthodoxy to support the corrupt government against its opponents, and the public execution of Merodin himself, which sparked a general revolution against both the government and the Orthodox church itself. The Orthodox government was doomed, and certain critical events such as the defection of General Rim-Sun and the isolation of Orthodox reinforcements only hastened the inevitable.
The Republic
That was five years ago. Now the Republic is firmly established, governed by an elected Senate, Representative Councils and an Emperor in turn elected by them. The statues of the Orthodox Emperors and Angels have been torn down and replaced with Urist, Merodin and Empress Semiramis, and the masses of the people that validate the power they hold.
Politics
The Principles of the Revolution
1. All rational beings are in essence equal.
2. No authority derives except from the consent of the governed.
- "Can a people crushed by centuries of propaganda and oppression give meaningful consent? Of course not, no more than you or I would accept a confession from a man beaten senseless by his captors. It is our moral duty to free these people and uplift them until they can establish a government of their own."
3. All rational beings inherently possess the rights to life, property, and freedom of thought and agency.
4. These rights may only be abridged as is necessary to defend the rights of others and the principles of the revolution.
- "The promulgation of material denying the righteousness of the revolution is inherently a threat to the rights of the people and the integrity of the republic they have created. To allow these demagogues to walk free is not a defence of our principles, it is a betrayal."
Factions
Revolutionism: A militant formulation. Revolutionist throught holds that all revolutionary states must continuously attempt to advance the revolution, because the Unjustly Powerful will in turn never cease their attempts to crush it. True peace is impossible as long as one or the other remains, and true justice cannot be attained until the world (or the cosmos, in more ambitious theoretical texts) has been unified under rational, democratic rule. The most prominent Revolutionist is Sundjata, but it is an open secret that Semiramis’ sympathies lie with the sect.
Matarism: A moderate, national formulation. Matarism holds that each body of people should formulate their own republic and that established republics should advance the revolution through mutual co-operation and leading by example. It is also less antitheist than most, prescribing merely that spirituality be maintained as a personal matter and that institutions should remain secular. The most prominent Matarist is Matar himself, who serves as Foreign Minister.
Henrism: The Henrists are a minor faction that deemphasises property rights infavour of democratic communal ownership, for fear of the creation of a new de facto aristocracy of wealth. They have established a minor base among farmers opposed to enclosure.
Geography
Military
The Army of the People
Babel is threatened at every turn by the forces of Reaction, and so a policy of conscription has been enacted. Every able-bodied man and woman is expected to serve a tour of duty in the army and be ready to defend the revolution. Even beyond this the revolutionary fervour is such that many people voluntarily remain in the military once their time is completed. This has enabled the creation of a large army that makes up for a lack of training and tradition with motivation and professionalism, aided (and sometimes hampered) in no small part by various technical and organisational innovations.
The Republican Guard
The armoured spearhead of the military however is the Republican Guard. The most hardened veterans of the revolution formed the basis for this body, and are only joined by those who distinguish themselves in the regular army in terms of talent, bravery and ideological purity. These men and women then form a fanatically devoted and cruelly trained elite that the goverment can call upon to perform the most important tasks.
The Inquisition and Exquisition
Freedom is an irrepressible but fragile thing. The seeds of its destruction in Babel must be uncovered and crushed. The seeds of its creation in other countries must be spread and nurtured. To this end the Republic has established a secret order of the most dedicated and capable children of the revolution. In its two branches, it acts outside of public knowledge to defend the republic and the principles on which it stands.
Cast
- Semiramis: Empress of Babel. Bright-eyed fanatic. Leader and hero of the Revolution.
- Kin-Apli: Chairman of the General Council. Dependable bureaucrat who tirelessly but fruitlessly fought corruption and sought reform, then threw in his hat with the revolution when it came.
- Matar: Foreign Minister. Major intellectual of the Merodist movement.
- Souman: Minister of the Interior. Former merchant instituting liberalisation policies.
- Sundjata: Minister of War. Unsmiling fanatic. Distrusts Rim-Sun.
- Rim-Sun: General Officer of the Army of the People. Major former Orthodox general.
- Riai: Scientific genius.
- Ninya: Semiramis' daughter. Entitled brat.
Miscellaneous
Fabulous fashions of the wives of the wealthy: 1, 2,3, 4
Babelic music is primarily based on stringed instruments. The harpsichord is popular in the city, though being supplanted by the newly invented and highly fashionable fortepiano. Rural folk music uses simpler instruments and makes greater use of percussion.
The symbol of the revolution is a red circle, commonly represented with a ribbon or a garland of roses. The heraldry of Babel consists of a red circle on a white field.
The Orthodox Emperors
- Carloman I
- Reigned 3701-3725
- Carloman I, or ‘St. Carloman the Great’, was the first Emperor of Babel. He converted towards the end of the Necromantic wars when he was still a House King, and proceeded to unite the region under Orthodox government. His centralisation of power and creation of universal military, religious and economic institutions ushered in Babel’s twenty-year ‘Golden Age’. His faith, while thought by many to be a political construction at the start of his reign, is accepted to have become a genuine and humble piety by its end. In recognition of his achievements and qualities he was canonised as a saint after his death in battle, an honour perhaps also facilitated by his son’s generosity towards the Orthodoxy.
- Carloman II
- Reigned 3725-3733
- Carloman II, or ‘Carloman the Gilded’, was raised in opulence and majesty, and set out to redouble this at his ascension to the throne. Money flooded from the coffers to fund lavish cathedrals, palaces and parties. It also funded several ill-conceived wars driven more by dreams of glory than concrete benefit. Despite the excellent state of the imperial treasury Carloman II managed to run deeply into debt, and the free flow of wealth fostered a climate of corruption and inefficiency that Carloman failed to combat. He eventually succumbed to a catastrophic digestive incident after a particularly debauched birthday celebration.
- Carloman III
- Reigned 3733-3757
- Carloman III, or ‘Carloman the Pious’ was a sharp change from his father. Where the elder was profligate and generous, the younger was tight-fisted and driven by hellfire. The parties stopped except for the barest needs of diplomacy. The palaces were stripped of valuables and many were repurposed or sold off. The ‘moral decay’ of the realm was sharply arrested by a crackdown on corruption, theft, heresy, blasphemy, immodesty and all the other sins that plagued the mortal soul. Unfortunately as he aged he was overtaken by madness, and his purges went from the harsh to the monstrous, gutting his officers and bureaucrats and driving the people to hatred and rebellion. Given this it is perhaps not surprising that his death was in suspicious circumstances, but no wrongdoing was found by the investigators.
- Zaman I
- Reigned 3757-3760
- Carloman III’s son Zaman, known as ‘Zaman the Bright’ was an immediate and welcome change. He relaxed the moral laws, improved diplomatic relations, and instituted several important reforms. While his statesmanship was excellent, it was arrested by two flaws: That the liberalisation allowed the Merodism that had taken root during the reign of the Pious to develop itself more easily, and his failure to instigate sufficient quarantine measures early enough to prevent the Mancer’s Pox outbreak of 3759 becoming a nationwide epidemic which eventually claimed his life and that of his children.
- Carloman IV
- Reigned 3760
- Carloman IV, ‘Young Carloman’ attained the throne at the age of merely 15, already suffering from the pox. He remained stoic through the pain and delerium and directed the relief efforts as best he could, but he was in the last weeks of his life and died shortly after his father.
- Zaman II
- Reigned 3760
- Zaman II, ‘Zaman the Innocent’, was ten years his brother’s junior. He became emperor at the age of 5, and died of the Pox a few days later, the last of his generation.
- Zaya
- Reigned 3760-3769
- Zaman I’s sister Zaya seized the throne after the death of her brother’s line, and ably filled the power vacuum as the plague passed. Unfortunately while not possessed of any gross character flaws she was simply not nearly as capable at exercising power as she was at obtaining it. A series of blunders stymied the recovery from the disaster and more than obliterated her brother’s successes in diplomacy and reform. Zaya’s death in 3769 remains unexplained.
- Regency Council
- Governed 3769-3774 under Carloman V
- Zaya’s heir Carloman V was not of age when she passed, and the realm suffered for five years under the corrupt, self-enriching rule of a regency council comprised of the sort of talent that occupied the upper echelons of Babel by this time.
- Carloman V
- Reigned 3769-3795, Governed 3774-3795
- More by luck than judgement, Carloman V managed to wrest control from the regency council when he came of age. It swiftly became apparent that he had inherited all of his mother’s incompetence and enhanced it with a monstrous arrogance that ended all hope of a return to the golden age in this generation. Unable to conceive that the current system might end someday, he busied himself with grand proclamations, pointless wars and overcomplex diplomatic wheezes while the Merodists spread and wide and deep. Eventually their exploits came to his attention and he directed the army to crush them, but his hamfisted response only angered the public and alarmed his allies while failing to cripple the revolutionaries. Critical mass was reached, and with his own servants turning against him he could not sustain his rule. He died by hanging in 3795, executed by the revolutionary transitional government for crimes against the people, and is remembered as Carloman the Last, much to the chagrin of his son.
- Carloman VI
- Claimed reign 3795-
- When the revolutionaries took the palace, Carloman V’s son surrendered with his mother and sisters. They were offered the choice of renouncing his claim to authority and living as private citizens, or exile. Carloman the younger, as proud as his father, elected the latter. Unlike his father however he is possessed of shrewdness and charisma, and is already considering how he can use them and his resources to return to power.
Sample Build (250 pts)
Emisum
- Countryside (major river, genesis, mana leak)
- City, Town, Horse Ranch
- Production: 6-7 food, 1350 gold, 150 mana, 25 horses, 40 books
- Draft: 12C, 1N
Samium
- Countryside (major river, genesis, mana leak)
- City, Horse Ranch
- Production: 6-6 food, 1150 gold, 150 mana, 25 horses, 30 books
- Draft: 10C, 1N
Zabaia
- Demesne (major river)
- Town, Levistone Quarry x2
- Production: 2-1 food, 350 gold, 100 mana, 2 levistones, 10 books
- Draft: 2C
Sin-Iquisham
- Wastes x3
Sin-Iddinam
- Wastes x2
Totals
- Domains: 8
- Population: 24C, 2N
- Gross food production: 14
- Net food production: 0
- Gold income: 2850
- Mana output: 1000
- Levistone output: 2
- Book output: 80
- Horse output: 50
Sample Build (250 pts, no Genesis)
Emisum
- Countryside (major river)
- City
- Production: 3-5 food, 1150 gold, 100 mana, 30 books
- Draft: 9C, 1N
Samium
- Countryside (major river)
- City
- Production: 3-5 food, 1150 gold, 100 mana, 30 books
- Draft: 9C, 1N
Naplanum
- Countryside (major river)
- Town, Horse Ranch
- Production: 3-2 food, 350 gold, 25 horses, 10 books
- Draft: 5C, 1N
Gungunum
- Countryside (major river)
- Horse Ranch
- Production: 3-1 food, 150 gold, 25 horses
- Draft: 3C, 1N
Zabaia
- Demesne (major river)
- Town, Levistone Quarry x2
- Production: 2-1 food, 350 gold, 100 mana, 2 levistones, 10 books
- Draft: 2C
Sin-Iquisham
- Wastes x3
Sin-Iddinam
- Wastes x2
Totals
- Domains: 10
- Population: 29C, 2N
- Gross food production: 14
- Net food production: 0
- Gold income: 3150
- Mana output: 750
- Levistone output: 2
- Book output: 80
- Horse output: 50