The Pact and the Tawon Empire (Spoilers)

[Serene Tempest]

During my first meeting with Dreless, as he's about to jump out the window and asks me if it would be possible for Tawon to be free of the Pact's tyranny without returning to it's former imperialistic ways, I thought about it for awhile and a solution occured to me. What if the Pact were to offer the Tawon Empire membership? Of the farlands, they alone seem like they could be viable candidates, and while there is certainly distrust and bad blood between them and both Holklanda and Kellmendriel, is there really more than there is between the current pact members? It would achieve what Dreless wants (for Tawon to be secure and free from the Pact's tyranny), at least if you take his word for what he's real goals are. It would also strengthen the Pact and give them one less enemy to divide their resources among.

 

Thoughts?

[Shogo]

At least one obstacle comes in the form of Redbeard.

 

Now, admittedly, he was talking about one of Khemeria's warlords . . . But in the first game he presents you with a scenario in which one said warlord has expressed an interest in joining the Pact, promising to adhere to all of its laws and do all the other stuff that would be required to be part of the Pact.

 

He'll ask you what you think should be done in such a scenario, and the only answer that he will consider to be the correct one is refusing the offer. As far as he's concerned, you shouldn't even stop to consider the idea.

 

You can then ask him if Farlanders trying to join the Pact is common, and he'll say that such offers are made quite frequently.

 

It's part of a balancing act. He's deliberately trying to keep the Farlands just strong enough to make the Pact nations focus on their external foes rather than their internal divisions, while trying to keep them from being strong enough to genuinely threaten the Pact.

 

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Another example would probably be the stubborn to the point of incompetent Pact nations themselves. There'd likely be a lot of resistance not related to Avadon to the idea.

 

And the Pact can't be anything other than incompetent given their inability to deal with such things as the Contested Lands and Beraza Woods after centuries of pointless bickering.

[eaintree]

Would a new Pact member even be Redbeard's decision? In A1 perhaps, but at this point Hanvar's Council would definitely have to approve it.

 

In the larger scope, however, Dheless' question is rhetorical. There is no real solution for the Tawon, no way for it to become a force without becoming a tyranny, any more than it's possible for the Pact to resolve its own internal conflicts. Both entities are splintering, and at the start of A3 what you'll clearly have is a free-for-all across Lynaeus, with mercenary rule, in which Avadon is nothing but a more-than-typically organized mercenary force.

[Serene Tempest]

A regime change in Avadon would certiantly make this a more viable option - especially as I'm sure that Dreless would need certian assurances to agree to this, and assurances coming from a (future) Keeper of Avadon would carry much more weight than assurances coming from some random Hand.

 

Also, if you could play it off right, you could make it apparant to Hanvar's Council that this was a way out of a disasterous war. That might make them reconsider.

 

I'm sure you'd have to do some pretty good political maneuvering to pull it off.

[Davies]

I'm sure you'd have to do some pretty good political maneuvering to pull it off.

 

In other words, the correct answer to Dheless' question is "Yes, it can happen ... but probably not in our lifetimes."

[eaintree]

The larger story of the Avadon series is similar to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. A ruthless imperium with the best army in the world, eaten by bandits from the outside and by weak/divisive leadership on the inside.

[Edgwyn]

Fairness wise, I think that Tawon should have a chance to join the pact. And if the members of the Pact were rational, it would allow them to re-allocate their resources in a better manner. However, I suspect that if Holkanda and Kellemderiel did not perceive Tawon as a threat, they would devote event more attention to fighting each other, splitting the Pact into chaos.

[Edgwyn]

The larger story of the Avadon series is similar to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. A ruthless imperium with the best army in the world, eaten by bandits from the outside and by weak/divisive leadership on the inside.

I see it more like Yugoslavia. An artificial construct of separate entities with little in common, held together by a dictatorship with secret police. Once the dictatorship becomes ineffective it balkanizes into something resembling its constituent elements which proceed to fight among themselves.

[Triumph]

Yes, particularly with the nationalistic elements like conflicting claims to ancestral lands, the Pact definitely has elements that remind me of the Balkans.

[eaintree]

Fairness wise, I think that Tawon should have a chance to join the pact. And if the members of the Pact were rational, it would allow them to re-allocate their resources in a better manner. However, I suspect that if Holkanda and Kellemderiel did not perceive Tawon as a threat, they would devote event more attention to fighting each other, splitting the Pact into chaos.

 

Who in the Pact has the slightest concern with fairness? I think the Shadowalker who killed Shima's clan with Avadon backing in A1 put it best: "sometime when you have several weeks to spare, someone can explain all the politics to you."

[Serene Tempest]

I think that was supposed to be a reference to the arcane and overcomplicated nature of internal Holkland politics. (I'm using "arcane" according to it's real world definition here: "understood by few, mysterious, secret").

 

And perhaps no one in the pact having the slightest concern with fairness is part of what brought them to this impasse in the first place. While in the long historical view the Tawon Empire may have brought this on themselves, Avadon/Pact policy has essentially backed them into a corner where they have no other way to achieve basic security and dignity. This conspiracy is as much Avadon's creation as it is the Farlander's.

[eaintree]

I think that was supposed to be a reference to the arcane and overcomplicated nature of internal Holkland politics. (I'm using "arcane" according to it's real world definition here: "understood by few, mysterious, secret").

 

And perhaps no one in the pact having the slightest concern with fairness is part of what brought them to this impasse in the first place. While in the long historical view the Tawon Empire may have brought this on themselves, Avadon/Pact policy has essentially backed them into a corner where they have no other way to achieve basic security and dignity. This conspiracy is as much Avadon's creation as it is the Farlander's.

 

Which was my larger point re: the Shadowalker. Everyone you meet has a bias, against outlanders, against Avadon, against the neighboring country. Doesn't matter. No one has anyone else's best interests in mind, everyone's bound by their clans, locked into a centuries-long cycle of political gridlock for the sake of "stability", which is an illusion.

 

As the Shadowalker goes on to say - yes, of course they want you to sacrifice your friends. Who cares about your friends? Or you? All that matters is the Pact.

[Lilith]

I think that was supposed to be a reference to the arcane and overcomplicated nature of internal Holkland politics. (I'm using "arcane" according to it's real world definition here: "understood by few, mysterious, secret").

 

As opposed to Kellem politics, which is arcane in the more usual FRPG sense of "involving lots of wizards".

[Edgwyn]

I am sure that there are a few folks in the Pact that want fairness. Of course, I have no evidence of that since our characters never meet any of them. I do believe that Tawon and perhaps Khemeria should have a chance to join the Pact, not that it matters, since the Pact is doomed. In my Avadon 2 posts, I am looking for a way to delay the fall of the Pact and death and destruction that will follow. It is probably hopeless, but that is what our good little hands and Pact soldiers do, buy time for the politicians to come up with solutions. Of course the system breaks down when the politicians have no interest in solutions.

Ultimately, the structure of the Pact is wrong. The civilian government (Havnar's council) has too little authority. The Pact appears to be a confederation, not a union. There appears to be very limited mobility and almost no interaction between the civilian populations of the different nations. The regular military is not much better, with the Pact military units that we have met being mostly formed of members of a single nation. Avadon is the one place where people from different nations work together, but Avadon is no longer (if it ever was) working for the betterment of the Pact, only for the betterment of Avadon. It does not appear that people leave Avadon and return to their nations as respected individuals who know that cooperation can bring progress. If they return alive at all, it is as symbols of corruption.

If Havnar's council had asserted its authority over Avadon early in Redbeard's tenure, stopped Avadon's corruption, focused Avadon solely on the external threat, desegregated the Pact military and forced the nations with disputed territories to set up joint colonies, it is likely that the Pact would be in much better shape. A less divided Pact would be brought together by the external threat of the Tawon and the Corruption and potentially further strengthened, versus the divided Pact being weakened by those same forces.

[Triumph]

I've seen double-posts before, but never a TRIPLE-post. Most impressive.

[Edgwyn]

Sorry about that, I am not sure what happened. My wi-fi connection went out right after I posted, so I couldn't even hunt around for a way of deleting the extra two.

[Lilith]

I've gone ahead and deleted the superfluous copies.