• Memory • The theory of war: End of a Kingdom

[Sintih]

Ymiden, 21st, 711th Arc
Andaris Library

For some reason or other, Sintih kept finding reasons to spend time in the library. A season ago, he was here because of the cold, trying to save on firewood to heat his own home, leeching from the already burning fires in the library here. Then it was to get out from the rains of late Zi'da and now he was here again because of the rising temperatures outside and the relative cool of the library within. Sin suspected they had some sort of defiance mage regulating the temperature in this building but he'd never seen any proof of it. For the past few trials, he'd been gathering information for his next chapter, looking through various books and tomes to fish out the specifics of the subject, keeping only a list of useful titles and pages. Today, he would put it all together in a readable text.

The end of a kingdom seldomely rarely comes at the hands of an army. Although most of the historical ends of nations or kingdoms are because of an army, this is simply because the victorious nation would would go through extra effort to immortalize their deeds. It's all the nations and kingdoms that a nobody knows about that worry me. Where have they disappeared to and why? In my research, I've gathered together multiple sources and experts on the subject and put their words together in one, complete work.

Where does the end of a kingdom come from, if not from the outside? There are many reasons, which I'll be grouping together in by their types. The first and most often seen is the conceit in the of the nation. Through the formation of factions within to criticize and vilify the wise and the good, by the presence of luxury, through judgement based on personal, rather than national, laws and views and by making alliance with enemies, waiting for advantages within. Any people found doing these should be stripped of their rank and power on sight and be put as far away from any influence as possible.

The books and tomes he'd gathered offered all of this information to the one who seeks it. They carried within them complete answers to most questions Sin had managed to come up with by himself. The only problem was the answers were usually divided over the entire library, sometimes having barely a paragraph on the subject yet being an important piece of the puzzle. Others were entire volumes on the subject that held little to nothing useful within them or spoke of such outrageous events and examples that Sin barely believed them to be true.

While the nation itself may be falling prey to conceit, it is also possible that singular people in power are the cause of downfall. Appointed officials holding positions of power or influence are capable of ruining a nation because they themselves are decadent in their personality. Greed, jealousy and envy are parts of a person personality traits that lead one to the path of destroying a kingdom. But hesitation, addiction or gullibility are equally destructive as well as malicious liars, loose lips or slandering others. Any of these traits, again, when proof is brought forward concerning these, the person having them should stripped of their rank and power to safeguard the kingdom. If any of these traits are If anyone trustworthy brings proof forward of these traits being present in a current office holder, they should be stripped of their power and rank and sent as far away from the capital as possible.

Faults within the nation or the people of power are strong beginnings of the end. But there are others who are capable of bringing down a nation. A commander of an army in his arrogance or stinginess is capable of bringing it down. By being arrogant, the commander will become discourteous which will alienate people from him and alienated people become rebellious. By being stingy, the commander will not reward those who deserve it, who in turn will feel they lose their dedication to a nation that doesn't award them. A soldier who isn't dedicated is ineffective and if he's ineffective he is of no use to the army. A useless army is incapable of stopping even the weakest of enemies.

Sin had to admit that the subject got him down. Writing about the end of something was never fun but the more the worked the subject, the more he imagined the end of Rynmere. There were plenty of ways the place could fall down around their ears. He wondered if there was anyone looking for these particular things in the people that worked for the kingdom. Was Rynmere nearing its end as he was writing this information? Sin couldn't help but wonder. In an effort to improve his own mood and get rid of the defeatist thoughts going through his mind, Sin quickly leafed through some of the books and tomes looking for solutions to these problems. A bit or ten later, he started writing again.

But these potential problems can all be avoided through use of good management and control from higher up. Ultimately, the king leader of a nation or kingdom is the one responsible for the people assigned to power in his nation. There are various avenues of order that they can employ to keep tabs to keep an eye on their subjects and officials. Through thoughtfulness and the use of secret agents and intelligence, through organization by gathering news and watching what others do, by promoting modesty, justice and duty when the opportunity shows itself, by being impartial and giving meting out rewards and punishment in an equal egalitarian fashion, through respect and honoring the wise and the able, by knowing when to stop and finally, through planning, by assessing yourself, your kingdom and the people who hold positions of power within it.

It is clear that these aren't things you one could do on their own and requiring the use of others in order to keep tabs on even more others itself caries a risk. Where would the cycle end if you had to employ people to look after people who were looking after yet more people? At some point, a king needs to trust would need to employ trust and loyalty between himself and the people that serve him or that serve as his eyes and ears throughout his kingdom. He should trust them that their loyalty towards him is true real and they will trust that their king ruler is looking out for them if needed. These people don't need to be all need to be trained spies professionals. While those directly under you should know what they're doing, the information they get is equally, if not more, valuable if it comes from a maid in someone's household then if it comes from a trained professional.

By using the rules avenues of order, the ruler can maintain the loyalty not only through the use of rewards and punishment but by showing results the results of their work. Even if their names aren't made publicly linked, or especially when they aren't, to the removal of a deviant in power, knowing that they worked on something important like that is often the most important part for people like this.

What is important to keep in mind remember is that people who think of their ruler as being a good and honorable ruler, someone who embodies multiple traits facets of a commander (see chapter on commanders) will find these people you employ will come to you naturally on their own. Whereas rulers who are deemed tyrants will need to spend their treasury in order to maintain a group of people who would do this for them.

Sin put the quill down and read over his work. It wasn't his best, that was for sure. There wasn't a lot of material to work with in the first place and since Sin wasn't in any position of power in the kingdom of Rynmere, he had very little to no experience to pull from to add to this. For some reason the library's collection of books on how to ruling and running a kingdom was either extremely limited or there were many people in the kingdom in need of the knowledge, which was why the library had no books left to lend out. Although, Sin knew from experience that they would never lend out a last copy or original.

Collecting his pile of books, tomes and papers, Sin stacked them up properly and carried them in two separate runs back to the front desk. If he knew exactly where they belonged, Sin would have returned them there but he wasn't so versed with the library system that he could do that without making mistakes. So he left it all to the employees of the library who had become very familiar faces over the past season he'd spent in here. That didn't mean that they glared less at him whenever he returned a stack of books he'd used for half a break only to have them replace them again. It was a bit of a give and take, with Sin giving a lot of smiles and thankful words whenever he could and they giving their time and patience to clean up after him.

[Pegasus]

Sintih

Points!:

Story: 5/5
Collaboration: 0/ 5 (solo thread)
Structure: 5/ 5

Knowledge:

Research: Collect your sources then start writing
Research: Keeping lists of sources helps.
Research: Looking for points on both sides of an argument.
Intelligence: Vital to keeping a kingdom alive
Writing: Forming an argument.
Writing: Keeping points clear and separate.

Loot:

NA

Fame:

NA

Magic:

These points may NOT be used for arcana

Overview:

General comments.
Story I really enjoyed this, it was interesting again to see how Sintih thinks of things ~ he is a complex character, that's for sure. It's fascinating to get an insight into his thoughts.
Structure No worries.


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