allthenotes | [HORSE]

"Fortunate indeed, even if it was only time to grow into yourself before things came home to roost." The foundation must have helped, really; even if it was false, for children little mattered more than having a sense of security and a start on building their own ability to handle things.

"She had a twin sister who was taken by a different Legatus..." It was half idle pondering, running on with the idea. "As much as I've heard little to distinguish Regula van Hydrus from his peers, he at least raised Lucia to be capable and able to think for herself, perhaps too well, as she chose to fake her death to defect to a different home. I've met her, these last few months; she's the trusted and valued second in command of the Temple Knights of Ishgard, and her commander is a very clever and canny man who cares about those who serve under him."

"Having a living family can only help," Asch says. "Especially when the relationship isn't broken." A sister and an adopted brother - Asch doesn't really know what siblings are like, as close as he was to Natalia as a child. Even if he loved Luke like nothing else in the world (and ha on that idea), the two of them were raised entirely separately. "I think she can do it."

He wants to believe it, badly, even if he doesn't understand why, entirely. He doesn't want to see anyone else live under the kind of shadow that he did. But it's more than that, something fundamental about the whole situation that leaves him angry, makes him want to lash out against an army that isn't even there. No one responsible for what happened to Livia is here, and the only one even partly responsible for Asch's life is Dist. As much as he dislikes Dist, Asch has enough restraint yet to not turn that anger on him, because it would kill.

All he can do is glare at the ceiling. "They deserve better. Their whole country deserves better."

"... I think she can as well. I may need more alcohol for the interim, but between Cid and when we can speak freely enough to Lucia to put them back in contact... they will help." He didn't know what Lucia thought of her sister - although recognizing Livia's twin had put new light on Ishgard's stealth-salvage of Livia's old Magitek Armor - but he did want to have faith for the better.

"I hope, once we have brought our realm to where we may push back instead of merely resisting conquest, that we may be able to start. It will be long and hard, even for recently conquered territory, but change for the better must start somewhere." The enormity of how much Garlemald had done to the conquered territories, to the people and the children, was something that didn't bear thinking about, but 'this has to end' was as good a starting point as any. His knife-sharpening had turned somewhat more pensive with the thought.

Asch doesn't quite chuckle at the mention of alcohol, but if Thancred had been looking, he would have seen the briefest of smiles. Dealing with other people's emotions was probably Jade's major reason to drink.

"No chance of taking out the top and pushing revolution that way?" he asks. "Or is there no one who thinks even the slightest bit differently that you can back?" The Order of Lorelei is like that after all, now that the replica Ion is gone. Aside from Asch himself (and his standing in the church wasn't likely to be all that great, these days), Tear and Anise were the highest-ranked individuals with any sense, and they would only be able to manipulate the Order into following Ion's wishes for so long. At least Mohs was out of the way, in a way that made most of the church resent him, no less.

If only it really were dealing with emotions; brainwashing was where he hit needing alcohol.

He flipped the knife, an idle balance-test that involved tossing it in the air and catching it by the handle. "'Twould take an impressive bloodbath; their own politics tend to be rather cutthroat - the Emperor recently died with the two leading candidates for the throne also recently deceased, including the only one that might have leaned less brutal, and for a while there was some quiet while the surviving Legati and nobility squabbled for the throne. One of the conquered cities attempted to take advantage of the chaos, and were razed near to the ground in punishment." He seemed satisfied with the knife, at least, and that cleaning and sharpening hadn't thrown it off any. "Mind, I rather expect a bloodbath will be needed; I doubt most of those involved in the current order there would accept a change, though I weep for the amount of their soldiers that will likely be cut through before that can be accomplished."

Brainwashing without an emotional component doesn't really work, though.

"All the more reason to aim from the top down," Asch says. "Leave the chaos of infighting to the ones who will actually jockey for the position and give the conscripts a chance to get out." He has no doubt that the majority of the front lines are conscripts, in effect if not in name. Livia had said as much, though she probably didn't think of it the same way. "Is there any kind of organized resistance, or is the occupation too new?"

He had a long moment of thinking; there was a large area with large populations. "...Removing the serpent's head depends upon which Legion, how controlled the structure has been, and how close they are to Imperial territory where the fellows of those removed can exert influence." He twirled the knife in one hand. "There are resistance efforts in at least some areas, although they recently chose to make an example of an entire city after its people thought the death of the previous Emperor would cause enough instability for them to throw off the Empire's yoke. The survivors that had been fighting made a long voyage to Eorzea, and have been aiding us in preventing them from moving further in our own land."

He dealt often enough with the Ala Mhigan resistance himself, even if the other continents were hard to get to.

"I can't blame them for trying," he says. "Disruption in the upper ranks is a better time to strike. But it sounds as though the separate groups aren't very organized." That had been their problem on Auldrant, too, in some ways; Noir's people were rarely in contact with anyone but him once Van started to move, and certainly not anyone in government. Luke's people were running ragged trying to do everything and he hadn't been much better. Removed from the frantic pace of it, Asch can admit that the only reason they had any organization at all was the fact that he freely spied on Luke over their connection and Noir's impressive network of spies. "Get something cohesive together, that's probably the best use of energy aside from resisting further conquest."

Thancred flipped the knife into his hand where it vanished, and he rubbed his temples now that his hand was more free.

"...Has there been some explanation to the scale of the Garlean Empire, and the number of nations and peoples that had made up the map before their rapid expansion?" Coordination would help on paper, but it was an idea far easier stated than made into something that would work. "The Ala Mhigan resistance has been working from the northern part of our continent; there is an entire other continent between them and where Doma used to be, with installations that interfere with anything that may work for long-range communication. It's a good idea, but the logistics are not going to be easy to come by."

"That's not exactly daunting to me," Asch says with a shrug. "I'm used to working on the scale of all of Auldrant. It would be hard to coordinate, but I don't think it would be impossible. It just means that any movements have to be planned far in advance, and notice has to be sent to the most distant first."

He's prepared for the scale of the land, Thancred, but the population density will probably blow his mind.

He raised an eyebrow, the knife appearing again as he started arranging the throwing knives into a loose map. "This is Aldenard; it and outlying islands here form the realm of Eorzea. At one time there were six great city-states that made up the Eorzean Alliance; as of this time, Sharlayan has been destroyed-" He indicated the northwest corner - "And Ala Mhigo was taken by Gaius over a decade ago; the Empire has put up a wall with regular aerial gunship patrols between its highlands and the rest of Eorzea." That had a line traced along the Northeast corner.

"This central continent is Ilsabard. Before Garlemald began recreating ancient Allagan weaponry, they were a small nation here in the far north of it; they suddenly boiled over once they had arms and armor that could overwhelm others. There were a handful of other nations there, although I doubt more than small pockets remember them well; Garlemald tends to separate children from families in conquered territories, and raise them taught to serve Garlemald and deride their previous culture."

He arranged the last few into another shape to the east of that. "This is Othard. There were a few groups that managed to slow Garlean advances via summonings, but that did not hold for very long; Doma used to be in the south-east, here. Across all of the Garlean held territory, there are border checkpoints, periodic aerial surveys, barriers to separate territories from one another. There's around two hundred million folk on each of the continents, at least, with the resistance groups typically small, embattled, and often entrenched into paranoia by necessity, as children are encouraged to hand over their own parents if they suspect dissent."

And that wasn't even getting into any old ethnic rivalries or groups like the Ala mhigans who'd mostly closed in on themselves, with little trust for "outsiders".

Midway through the knife "drawn" map, Asch is again wishing that he had something other than the given notebook to draw in; it would certainly make this discussion easier. He sits up to get a better view of what Thancred is doing, his eyes following the weapons with an occasional nod, until it gets to -

"Two hundred million?" he repeats, eyes going wide.

Thancred's pause is brief and dumbfounded; somewhere in his education in Sharlayan was a discussion of factors that impact population growth, and he'd been under the impression that Asch's world had at least something approximating their level of knowledge of medical factors and other technology that would presumably include things like developments in food production and living spaces.

"...Yes. The city of Ul'dah alone has somewhere around six hundred thousand folk within its warrens - Recent upheavals and refugee influxes have made it harder to keep count."

"That's not that much more than Baticul," he says. "But that's a huge population center - there's only four cities of comparable size in the world." Baticul, Grand Chokmah, Chesedonia, and Daath. "But Kimlasca's whole population is around one and a half million, and we're spread over two and a half continents. Auldrant was home to at most ten million before the Hod war."

Edited (wow check ur numbers nai) 2016-02-12 04:20 (UTC)

That explained a good amount of Asch's idea of how to deal with some of their current conflicts, in a way. "More people means things become more complicated to organize... and the cultures and general identities of the city-states vary widely. Ul'dah is the largest of the city-states to our current knowledge - Ishgard may be even, but they've had their borders mostly closed for fifteen years now." He tapped the central-northern area.

"Sharlayan used to be comparable in size to Ul'dah, but when the Empire took the scholars as a potential threat, most of the population retreated off the continent to elsewhere; the few that remained scattered and fled. Gaius bombed the remains to the point that I'm not even sure the landscape would be recognizable now. Limsa tends to fluctuate a great deal, since much of its population are seafarers; Gridania is smaller in population if one goes by the human inhabitants."

Which....actually brought another issue up that led to him rubbing the bridge of his nose. "....And there is the matter of various Beast Tribes, and the dragons of Dravania - groups of races that tend to keep separate from the others on the continent; they're not particularly friendly with the City-States or the Empire. I know the Amal'jaa's city of Pagith'an is a decent size, and the Kobold warrens under O'ghommoro may be larger than Ul'dah."

"More chances to go wrong," Asch agrees, "but also more chances to go well." More people to come up with ideas, and more people to execute them. But his eyes remain wide as Thancred continues to talk population, and thankfully the discussion from before with Murtagh leaves him at least a little prepared for the existence of non-human races. Livia's comment before about Garleans not being like the other people's of her world suddenly makes a lot more sense.

"There are a few sentient monsters on Auldrant, but none have a more complex society than pack structures," he says. "And probably only the cheagles would agree to a headcount, since the others tend to be hostile to humans. Ligers actively hunt human flesh for their young, most of the time." Though the fact that Arietta exists indicates that they're capable of more complex emotions like pity. Asch can't think of any other reason she would have been spared. "And the fonic sentiences in the atmosphere if you count those, but they don't interact with humans very much either."

He had a dry laugh. "Well, also different cultures, which can work out very well or mean misunderstandings and conflicts - just within the Eorzean city-states that are in the Alliance at current, throwing a Gridanian and a Limsan who haven't encountered each other's standards before in the same place is almost asking for trodden nerves and conficts...and I think half of Limsa's war with the Kobolds stems from one too many case of a people that play to rules loosely meeting one that believes in exacting agreements."

And the more structured culture there wasn't the human one. "Ironically, the kobolds are the ones Limsa learned to make firearms and cannons from." Some of the goblins helped, too, but it seemed like adding in nomadic groups like them and the kobolds would probably confuse things at this point.

"...There are sentient beings that exist among the Aether, but they ... are usually only concerned with 'their people'."

Asch nods. "There's some cultural difference between Kimlasca and Malkuth, but not usually enough to impair communication. Auldrant's society is composed of the distant descendants of a group of Dawn Age survivors - " By distant, he means several millennia. " - And has long been mostly united by the Order of Lorelei. Yulia City has been isolated and there's some cultural conflict there, but that's in large part due to their 'role in the world' completely breaking down."

Though how they were supposed to observe the world from deep beneath it, never actually seeing the way people live is something that Asch has never been able to figure out. He has a fairly low opinion of most of Yulia City's residents, except Tear (and she was of Hod blood, anyway).

"The only fonon sentience concerned with humans is Lorelei," he says with a little bit of a shrug. "And even I'm not entirely sure what form that concern takes. It appears to be benevolent, for some value of it, but Lorelei could also be considered the consciousness of the Score, and the Score is..." Not benevolent, at least not in the view of those who know the ending in full.

Edited 2016-02-12 06:54 (UTC)

It was fascinating and a little unsettling - even Sil'dih and Ul'dah had developed differently over the course of a few centuries; societies changed just as a normal result of generational shifts, differences in environment, and events, enough that a single church being enough to stave off any major differences implied a degree of control being kept that easily eclipsed the Ishgardian Orthodox Church.

"...There is one being that tends to mind the world at large, but - well, the Mothercrystal is essentially the life-force and memory of the world, and some of my closest and dearest friends speak to her. Very few specifically worship her; the tendency is to show reverence to various other guardians and deities that can vary widely." Between the Twelve Eorzea and some other societies revered, the Primals of the Beast Tribes, and some of the other spirit-worship he'd ran into, there was a spread of religious differences the more one traveled; he was toying with one of the knives on the bed idly, giving a measured explanation.

"As such, different peoples and societies can be incredibly different depending on who founded it, what they value, and how the area develops, down to things one can easily take for granted. A society that values peace and prosperity of community will encourage quiet and conciliation in dealing with others; take that to a place that values freedom and competition, and the folk there will read it falsely as cowardice or a weak will." Which would be the problem in his earlier example with a Limsan and a Gridanian, and was a sort of dispute he'd gotten to mediate out before within some of the adventurers they'd recruited over the years.

"The Order of Lorelei doesn't worship Lorelei, it worships the Score," Asch clarifies, not sure if the point is being confused or not. "The Score read by Yulia most especially, which is about two thousand years of prophecy that's highly specific in some cases, but also fairly self-fulfilling given the nature of the Order working to maintain it."

He's very familiar with those inner workings, more than he's really comfortable telling Thancred at the moment. Most people are not named two thousand years in advance, and most people have not been a part of Oracle Knights Special Operations and played a grisly part in maintaining that order.

"For two thousand years, the ending of the Score was kept hidden, and the whole world believed that it would bring prosperity, except for those of Yulia's descendants who kept the final piece." He snorts bitterly. "Which foretold exactly the opposite, of course. Death of the world in plague. But that promise of prosperity kept the world together, with a bit of help from the Order. I can't imagine how many wars they've instigated and how many people they've killed in the last two thousand years. Perhaps if it weren't for the Score, we'd have a world more like yours." It would have been delightful, some part of him thinks. He would have been able to grow up without the shadow of death hanging in secret over his head, and have an actual political challenge to grow up to, rather than the manipulations of people like Mohs.

His eyes narrow at that with a quiet, unimpressed noise. "I much prefer treating such prophecy as an invitation to find a way to avert disaster, or at least mitigate it." They HAD soundly failed to avert the Calamity, but it hadn't been as bad as it could've been; Bahamut had only been free for a scant few hours, and they knew from van Darnus's possessed ranting that the dragon wanted to raze everything.

"It isn't easy to keep that sort of control over people as a whole; even a well-run and generally pleasant nation will have its pockets of disagreement and dissent, or historical fumbles as history continues on. I imagine it is a wonder your seas aren't tinted red for what it would take to enforce such a thing." It was an oddly thoughtful and cynically bitter moment; as much as Thancred liked people in spite of - and sometimes because of - the inherent flaws and foibles of humanity, he was far too aware of many angles of its darker sides.

((WHEN I EVENTUALLY UPDATE HIM ASCH WILL GET HIM WANDERING IN WITH ONE EYE TO STRIKE UP A CASUAL CONVERSATION ABOUT ISHGARD AND "SPENDING A THOUSAND YEARS FIGHTING A POINTLESS 'HOLY' WAR OVER A LIE B/C SOME ASSHOLES DIDN'T WANT TO OWN UP THAT THEY DID SOMETHING HORRIBLE AND BUILT A RELIGION OUT OF THE COVER-UP THAT CONTROLLED THE LIVES OF THE COUNTRY."))

"I'm sure that if you added it all up, they would be. The Order has instigated enough wars and other horrible things because of the Score. Rumours say that the seas did run red after Hod was destroyed, but I'm somewhat inclined to doubt that. It dropped below the crust, not into the sea." Of course, most people hadn't had any idea of the Qliphoth when the rumours started, back when Asch was still a small child. He wouldn't be surprised if the rumours had started from the Order itself, to fend off suspicion, along with the rumours of ghosts dragging people down in that part of the sea to keep anyone from observing the massive hole Hod had left behind.

Thancred's frown deepened with a quiet, disapproving noise. "Kill any who fail to fit the 'perfect' homogeneous 'order', then turn the bodies into some sort of example to others, whether by claiming it directly or calling it 'the will of the Gods' to pretend the blood is on other hands." It sounded like this Order was opting for the latter, even if prophecy made for a flimsy sort of shield to hide behind.

"What was the state of this 'Order' last you'd seen, if that is something you are willing to discuss?" They seemed to be comparing notes on discussing horrible regimes anyway.

"No, not even that. The people of Hod were simply unlucky enough to live in the place that was named for destruction." There's a simmering anger in it. "And Akzeriuth was the same. What happens to dissenters, rare as they are, is significantly more discreet." That was his job, after all, Asch is intimate with how that process works. Sniff them out, snuff them out, get rid of the bodies. "The Score said Hod would be destroyed, so the Order pushed things into place to make that happen."

At the question, there's something that's almost a smile on Asch's face. "It's a wreck. All the military leadership has left, the Fon Master is dead, the Grand Maestro tried to form his own order and got what he deserved for everything he's done, the secret of Yulia City is on the map, and the reading of the Score is currently illegal in both Kimlasca and Malkuth. Hard to know how long that will last, but it's long enough to really shake up the Order."

The noise of disgust that came at that was almost a growl, his nose wrinkling in distaste. "I hope that your people manage the momentum to be rid of that." He may not know what all of the titles are but he can guess at some of it. "My own mentor was known as the 'Allseer'; we worked ourselves to the bone and he gave up his life to put a stop to the cataclysm he had foreseen." Louisoix might technically still exist, but for all practical purposes, he was gone; there would probably come a point where some future generation would barely, if at all, remember anything about the man the Phoenix had once been.

"If its control is disrupted enough, then that leverage can be pushed; scatter the military while they have no leadership, make them question their cause, ensure that any truths that would make folk rebel against it spreads as far as possible..." He closes his eyes with a thoughtful frown. "And replace whatever is left in vacuum as soon as possible with a better alternative; that may be your worst risk - folk that are confused and afraid returning to what is familiar because there isn't something else to turn to."

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bloodyashes - 2016-03-03 01:40 (UTC) - Expand

[HORSE]

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yeah the factor thancred is probably forgetting is monsters

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and they will have a MOMENT about that

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