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Polity Guide pt. 1
Jul. 7th, 2008 12:15 amHumans excel at many things. Longevity is not one of them. Human societies blossom like flowers, only to squander their hard-won gains away in the next generation. United by visionary leaders, humanity can accomplish great things, but visionaries are few and far between and are often all too human themselves. Their brief candle of a lifetime, when stacked up against the Dwarves or the Elves makes them prone to greatness, to tragedy, but mostly to petty survival.
If Elvish and Dwarvish societies seem slow and hidebound, they are also extremely enduring. Every leader knows that their plans have centuries to play out and they must consider the far-reaching consequences of their actions because they will be forced to live in the future they make for a very long time. Humans are more willing to “pass the buck” since they have little to lose and everything to gain by pursuing short-sighted policies for quick gain.
How then to instill a sense of perspective for Human rulers?
The City-State of Sarh has found a rather unique solution. The members of their Stone Senate are elected for 20 year terms. What makes this more interesting is that their terms are not continuous. Each senator serves for 5 years and is then magically turned to stone for a 20 year period before being re-animated to serve another 5 year term. There are 5 rotating sets of senators. Thus, the senators must be prepared to manage affairs for a full century.
The task of catching up on 20 years of history is something of a challenge. Luckily, the magic that petrifies the senators is capable of being influenced by artifacts within the senate building itself. The broad outlines of policies and current events permeate the senators in stasis and if it’s not a detailed education, senators generally require much less orientation than one would think -- although senators frequently experience unsettling instances of deja vu from time to time as a result of their “dream briefings”.
The system has worked rather well. There have been a couple of instances in Sarh history where the current term has attempted to prevent the re-animation of some or all of the next Senate and a few attempts have been made to steal some of the statue senators. This has caused some paranoid senators to hide their bodies during the stasis period, but then they are denied the informative help of the senate building itself and the “future shock” has often been more of a hinderance than the potential for any violence on their person.
Sarh has enjoyed a modest, but steady growth. Other city-states have tried to take advantage of Sarh’s slower response times. Attacks during term transitions have been especially popular, but Sarh has usually come out ahead in the long run. Aside from simply outliving hot-head rulers who hope to conquer them, the Sarh also have senators (and not a few military officers) who’ve seen a lot of different tactics and who’ve studied their enemies’ development over a long period of time. Truly new and unusual tactics and strategies can fluster them, but they’re very good at improvising when the need arises.
In the end, Sarh is not the largest or richest City-State, but the overall standard of living is high and basic governmental services are efficient and effective. It’s also telling that the various Elven and Dwarvish City-States prefer to deal almost exclusively with Sarh over other Human entities.
-- from the Polity Guide produced by the Association of Policy and Foreign Relations
If Elvish and Dwarvish societies seem slow and hidebound, they are also extremely enduring. Every leader knows that their plans have centuries to play out and they must consider the far-reaching consequences of their actions because they will be forced to live in the future they make for a very long time. Humans are more willing to “pass the buck” since they have little to lose and everything to gain by pursuing short-sighted policies for quick gain.
How then to instill a sense of perspective for Human rulers?
The City-State of Sarh has found a rather unique solution. The members of their Stone Senate are elected for 20 year terms. What makes this more interesting is that their terms are not continuous. Each senator serves for 5 years and is then magically turned to stone for a 20 year period before being re-animated to serve another 5 year term. There are 5 rotating sets of senators. Thus, the senators must be prepared to manage affairs for a full century.
The task of catching up on 20 years of history is something of a challenge. Luckily, the magic that petrifies the senators is capable of being influenced by artifacts within the senate building itself. The broad outlines of policies and current events permeate the senators in stasis and if it’s not a detailed education, senators generally require much less orientation than one would think -- although senators frequently experience unsettling instances of deja vu from time to time as a result of their “dream briefings”.
The system has worked rather well. There have been a couple of instances in Sarh history where the current term has attempted to prevent the re-animation of some or all of the next Senate and a few attempts have been made to steal some of the statue senators. This has caused some paranoid senators to hide their bodies during the stasis period, but then they are denied the informative help of the senate building itself and the “future shock” has often been more of a hinderance than the potential for any violence on their person.
Sarh has enjoyed a modest, but steady growth. Other city-states have tried to take advantage of Sarh’s slower response times. Attacks during term transitions have been especially popular, but Sarh has usually come out ahead in the long run. Aside from simply outliving hot-head rulers who hope to conquer them, the Sarh also have senators (and not a few military officers) who’ve seen a lot of different tactics and who’ve studied their enemies’ development over a long period of time. Truly new and unusual tactics and strategies can fluster them, but they’re very good at improvising when the need arises.
In the end, Sarh is not the largest or richest City-State, but the overall standard of living is high and basic governmental services are efficient and effective. It’s also telling that the various Elven and Dwarvish City-States prefer to deal almost exclusively with Sarh over other Human entities.
-- from the Polity Guide produced by the Association of Policy and Foreign Relations
