Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 2 [3]

Author Topic: Welcome to Tsust! (World-building exercises in futility)  (Read 12329 times)

bahihs

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Welcome to Tsust! (World-building exercises in futility)
« Reply #30 on: April 22, 2015, 07:57:55 pm »

Political System: The Qorin Kingdom has seen various political systems during its existence, to describe them all would be exhausting and unnecessary, especially as some forms of governance lasted less than a few months. Instead, we may divide Qorin's political history into four distinct periods: Pre-democratic, Democratic, Post-democratic and Plutocratic, with the largest period being Democratic (The Post and Pre-democratic periods were about the same size) and the current period being Plutocratic.

The Pre-Democratic period was possibly the most prosperous time for the Qorin Kingdom, resulting in an enormous population boom, economic growth and high standard of living (compared to other nations of that time). Indeed, the period between 6800-5400 years ago, are argued by some to be the golden age of Qorin. The decentralized government of that time consisted of a layered representative system, with each layer appointing members of the next layer. The basis of the system was the household or family unit. A family unit was the immediate and nuclear family or members that legally shared a residence. From each unit a representative would be selected which saw to the interests of his/her unit. These family representatives, could then create a higher tier of governance if they felt it was necessary (i.e if the population was large enough), and then those representatives could do the same, and so forth.

The representatives at each level were only responsible for the interests of the level immediately below them, yet the highest level representative was a member of every level below his own (as representatives of a higher tiers can only be chosen from lower tiers). Goods, property and wealth were distributed by representatives rather than privately owned, according to need and ability. At the highest level, the representatives divided evenly, the goods and resources available to them, handing them down to the next level. Each successive level then divided their portion according to their represented body's needs and abilities, all the way down to the level of the family unit. Like the Egeonid Empire, early Qorin society was self-enclosed and self-governed without any centralized presence. An average settlement had only a few thousand inhabitants, allowing the above system to work well to satisfy everyone.

Sometimes settlements would merge into unified bodies (this happened with more frequency near the end of the Pre-Democracy period) when it was believed such union would result in greater prosperity. Yet such union was relatively rare and settlements interacted through trade rather than politics. Furthermore, there was rarely, if ever, a single person at the highest level. Instead it was more often a council of 10-50 people. The "Rule of Ten" was created sometime between 6400 and 6300 years ago. It dictated that representative groups had to be exactly 10 people (plus or minus 2-3 people, when necessary) allowing a scaling system for each tier. For example, a if a town consisted of 800 family units (each unit having 3-5 people) then among the family representatives, 80 would be appointed to serve in a higher tier and of those 80, 8, to serve in the highest tier. Those 8 would then distribute the wealth of their town evenly among themselves, and then pass down that wealth to the 80 below them. Those 80 then divided the wealth over the 800 family units based on whatever criteria they wished. Appointed representatives were re-appointed every six months, allowing any tomfoolery to be dealt with swiftly. Corruption was non-existent in early society, as the homogeneous populations and close-knit communities dissuaded any wrong-doing through public shaming and mutual dependence.

Unfortunately, as with all things, this society would not last. Several changes occurred, the biggest of which was the war against Ozolodel (or the Kubo people) in alliance with the !Xtu. After the war, a period of alliance between the two nations resulted in mass migrations of !Xtu into Qorin, resulting the destruction of harmonious homogeneity the Qorin enjoyed, and the system of government which relied upon it.     
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3]