Random Conworld idea thread

Discussions about constructed worlds, cultures and any topics related to constructed societies.
User avatar
cybrxkhan
roman
roman
Posts: 1106
Joined: 25 Dec 2010 21:21
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by cybrxkhan »

Micamo wrote:
cybrxkhan wrote:^Those have a vague resemblance to some Zen stories, to be honest. But what not.
Really? I was trying to avoid that. It's probably just the style.
Yeah, the style resembles a lot of Zen anectdotes, especially with the clever one-liner quip at the end, oftentimes about how stupid or ignorant or unwise people can be, or the expression of some philosophical concept or something. And I swear I can probably find one or two of those Zen stories that are almost exactly like the stories you have, except with the two characters being monks or other spiritual figures, of course. Actually some of the Zen ones are pretty entertaining.
I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce
User avatar
Micamo
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5671
Joined: 05 Sep 2010 19:48
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Micamo »

Well, a big difference I had in mind: Mea and Rhea aren't meant to be oppositions, but compliments. Mea represents the wisdom gained from experience, but entraped in old patterns, while Rhea represents the wisdom of a fresh perspective, but crippled with naivete. Rhea just got all the clever one-liners in my examples...
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

My shitty twitter
User avatar
cybrxkhan
roman
roman
Posts: 1106
Joined: 25 Dec 2010 21:21
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by cybrxkhan »

Micamo wrote:Well, a big difference I had in mind: Mea and Rhea aren't meant to be oppositions, but compliments. Mea represents the wisdom gained from experience, but entraped in old patterns, while Rhea represents the wisdom of a fresh perspective, but crippled with naivete. Rhea just got all the clever one-liners in my examples...
Yeah, usually the Zen stuff has a master vs. student(s) differentiation, or something like that, although there are quite a number of stories where its student vs. student(s) or something like that. Sometimes its even everyone in the story vs. ... the story? Still, it's a pretty nifty idea all the while, at least for me since I like these tiny little clever stories.
I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce
User avatar
cybrxkhan
roman
roman
Posts: 1106
Joined: 25 Dec 2010 21:21
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by cybrxkhan »

I just had a quick idea for the Aidisese goverment a while back, but I'm not sure how to make the details work.

Basically, Aidis, for much of its history - up to and including the modern times - is a sort of Constitutional Monarchy akin to the British one, except the Emperor in this case actually has some real powers as defined by the constitution. Anyhow, the new idea I was playing with was what if the Empress (that is, the Emperor's spouse or the nearest female substitute like his mom or a favored daughter if his spouse is dead) also had equal power with the Emperor. In effect, it would be making the executive branch of Aidis a diarchy.

Aidis was always a bit more liberal with women (though that's relatively speaking, anyways), so I figured it might make sense to have Empresses with reasonable amounts of power, especially as Aidis was modernizing and adopting some attitudes similar enough to our modern-day ones. It generally probably might not always really effect the power structure that much anyways, assuming if the Emperor and Empress agree on things for the most part.

However, while I like this idea of having an equally powerful Emperor and Empress, the thing that's bugging me is how the two offices would pass onto the next generation. The Emperor would pass on from father to son (or nearest male relative according to succession law), while the Empress would simply the spouse of the next guy. I don't really like that because it means the Empress is sort of decided at random to some extent, while you sort of more or less know who the next Emperor would be. It might make for some interesting politics, I suppose, if some power-hungry factions try to force the crown prince to divorce his wife and marry someone who's on their side.

Another idea I've been toying with concerning this is if, say, the Emperor and the Empress were brother and sister, so pretty much it's the royal incest thing. Brother-sister incest is practiced in Aidis in certain circumstances, so this makes sense in that context, but it seems kind of odd for me that every single generation of monarchs have to marry their sibling for centuries on end.

A final idea is perhaps the Emperor and Empress are brother and sister - so they inherit it from their parents or uncles or whatever - but it's not required that they be married (that part being optional). That would be pretty interesting, actually, if, say, the Emperor's consort and the Empress' consort had their own political goals in mind, and, heck, if their consorts were also their siblings or even cousins... whatever.

Well, that was a long rant. But I like this idea, actually. Probably will have to think it through more though.
I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce
User avatar
Zontas
greek
greek
Posts: 484
Joined: 31 Jul 2011 01:30
Location: Menulis, Miestas, Pragaras

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Zontas »

The mercury network which is an entirely filmed bizarre universe ruled by the evil overloards 'producers' and also inhabited by the tragic serfs 'contestants'. It is a comic I am trying to do [it's a black humor comic]. If you are very rich you may buy the Mercury network and see the contestants in action peril. Parody of every behind-the-scenes show ever and with the element of insanity.

for the language please check out the thread in 'conlangs'. I could use everyone's constructive criticism.
Last edited by Zontas on 03 Aug 2011 02:17, edited 1 time in total.
Hey there.
User avatar
eldin raigmore
korean
korean
Posts: 6352
Joined: 14 Aug 2010 19:38
Location: SouthEast Michigan

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by eldin raigmore »

cybrxkhan wrote:I just had a quick idea for the Aidisese goverment a while back, but I'm not sure how to make the details work.

Basically, Aidis, for much of its history - up to and including the modern times - is a sort of Constitutional Monarchy akin to the British one, except the Emperor in this case actually has some real powers as defined by the constitution. Anyhow, the new idea I was playing with was what if the Empress (that is, the Emperor's spouse or the nearest female substitute like his mom or a favored daughter if his spouse is dead) also had equal power with the Emperor. In effect, it would be making the executive branch of Aidis a diarchy.

Aidis was always a bit more liberal with women (though that's relatively speaking, anyways), so I figured it might make sense to have Empresses with reasonable amounts of power, especially as Aidis was modernizing and adopting some attitudes similar enough to our modern-day ones. It generally probably might not always really effect the power structure that much anyways, assuming if the Emperor and Empress agree on things for the most part.

However, while I like this idea of having an equally powerful Emperor and Empress, the thing that's bugging me is how the two offices would pass onto the next generation. The Emperor would pass on from father to son (or nearest male relative according to succession law), while the Empress would simply the spouse of the next guy. I don't really like that because it means the Empress is sort of decided at random to some extent, while you sort of more or less know who the next Emperor would be. It might make for some interesting politics, I suppose, if some power-hungry factions try to force the crown prince to divorce his wife and marry someone who's on their side.

Another idea I've been toying with concerning this is if, say, the Emperor and the Empress were brother and sister, so pretty much it's the royal incest thing. Brother-sister incest is practiced in Aidis in certain circumstances, so this makes sense in that context, but it seems kind of odd for me that every single generation of monarchs have to marry their sibling for centuries on end.

A final idea is perhaps the Emperor and Empress are brother and sister - so they inherit it from their parents or uncles or whatever - but it's not required that they be married (that part being optional). That would be pretty interesting, actually, if, say, the Emperor's consort and the Empress' consort had their own political goals in mind, and, heck, if their consorts were also their siblings or even cousins... whatever.

Well, that was a long rant. But I like this idea, actually. Probably will have to think it through more though.


In Adpihi, or some other conculture if it doesn't work there, I'm currently tentatively assuming that political or religious office or magical power (actually, any intangible, invisible asset), if hereditary, passes from father to daughter and from mother to son, rather than from father to son or from mother to daughter. (Portable assets including money go from father to son; real estate and fixed assets (and probably also furniture) go from mother to daughter; haven't decided about rolling stock and livestock yet, but they probably go from father to son, or else from father to daughter and mother to son.)

Would you like to try that?
User avatar
cybrxkhan
roman
roman
Posts: 1106
Joined: 25 Dec 2010 21:21
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by cybrxkhan »

eldin raigmore wrote:In Adpihi, or some other conculture if it doesn't work there, I'm currently tentatively assuming that political or religious office or magical power (actually, any intangible, invisible asset), if hereditary, passes from father to daughter and from mother to son, rather than from father to son or from mother to daughter. (Portable assets including money go from father to son; real estate and fixed assets (and probably also furniture) go from mother to daughter; haven't decided about rolling stock and livestock yet, but they probably go from father to son, or else from father to daughter and mother to son.)

Would you like to try that?
The mixing up of who gets what looks like a pretty nifty idea, actually. I might use it for another conculture of mine, maybe the predecessor culture to the Aidisese whom they displaced during their migrations - actually that might be a good idea to provide some justification for why Aidis was fairly liberal towards women in contrast to some other cultures.

The main thing though why I'm not sure whether I can use that sort of thing for the later eras of Aidis is that I've decided that this diarchy system was a relatively modern development in Aidis' history (so basically during our equivalent of the Enlightenment at the earliest), so this system technically would not have developed out of concern for who inherited what, but rather just a standard liberalization of attitudes towards women - in Aidis' case, it'd probably be because there's already so many powerful women running around anyways in the government, then why should the highest executive office be biased towards men (even if a woman's chances of inheriting it are actually more favorable than in almost all other countries).

Actually, my main concern is how things would be kept in the family with such a system. If I understand it correctly, within a number of generations, the various items that can be possibly inherited could have possibly diffused to two distant branches of the family (then again we're not taking into consideration the way marriage works for your people...). With such a central office as the imperial throne, this could make the two diarchs come from very distant - maybe even unrelated, as Aidis is originally patrilineal for the most part - branches of the family. In essence, the diarchy isn't to divide and balance the power within the executive per se, but rather to have each diarch complement each other. The diarchy would more rather be like a President and Vice-President thing. Regardless, then again, Aidis originally had a clan/tribe-like system similar to Pre-Islamic Arabia, so maybe as long as the inheritance stays within the clan/tribe it'd be fine - but the problem is the clan/tribe system sort of collapsed/disappeared after thousands of years, by the time I want this diarchy to come into place.

Yeah, I'm still not quite sure on how to organize all this, but your suggestion does give me an idea that perhaps I could divide the two offices with different functions. The important thing for me at this point, though, is to ensure that the inheritance more or less keeps within the family. I think at this point I'm leaning towards my original option 3, where brother and sister inherit (or male/female cousin or other combos in the case siblings are not available), but they are not required to married (although it will be encouraged, especially under certain circumstances). However, it still goes patrilineally - that is, the sister cannot pass on the emperor-ship or empress-ship to her children, unless if her husband was her brother or at least a cousin on her father's side or something.

As a side-note, I suddenly remembered something, when you mentioned "political or religious"; I read somewhere that in some early Mesopotamian city-states, it's theorized that the two highest powerful people were the high priestess and the king, with the former taking religious duties and the latter taking care of the military and other political stuff. I'm not sure how this relates though, but I wonder if I can do something where the Empress originally was a religious office, a bit akin to the Ancient Egyptian system where the highest priestess was often the pharaoh's daughter, even if he had to adopt her.

But thanks for the suggestion anyways! As said, at the least it's sparking some ideas. This thing is going to be a bit more complicated than I originally planned, but that's politics, I guess?
I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce
User avatar
eldin raigmore
korean
korean
Posts: 6352
Joined: 14 Aug 2010 19:38
Location: SouthEast Michigan

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by eldin raigmore »

In many ancient societies the Kingship was chiefly a religious office.

When Rome expelled its (political) kings and became a Republic, they kept their kings as rex sacrorum (king of the sacrifices).

Many modern states that have transitioned from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy have a monarch who has no formal legal constitutional power, but who has such prestige that his/her opinion matters -- a lot.

Remember in ST:TNG when Worf said he would support the clone of Kahless as Emperor? By that time there hadn't been an Emperor for 300 years; and if they accepted the clone as Emperor he would have no letter-of-the-law powers or duties. Worf challenged him to lead purely by example, and said he thought he could do it.

-----------------------------------------

As for dyarchies;

The Spartans' two kings, and the Celts' tanists, and so on, are considered "primitive" in the sense of "archaic". Sparta was the only Greek polis that had such a dyarchy in historical times; that was because Sparta was very conservative.

OTOH, when the Plebeians got extra power in Rome, one-by-one most offices were doubled, with the second one being restricted to Plebeians. (Some, such as Tribunes, were only plebeians). Sometimes an ambitious Patrician might get himself adopted into a Plebeian family to better his chances of winning an office.

In a way that began in pre-Republican times, when one king of Rome doubled the size of the Senate by conscripting more Senators (the "conscript fathers"). (Of course the new Senators weren't plebeian -- or, at least, not as far as I know.)

So real-life societies have tended to go from dyarchies to monarchies at the top -- if there was a top -- but often go from one-officer to two-officers at nearly any office under the top one.

But, if you think you can manage it in your conculture, go for it.
yacheritsi
hieroglyphic
hieroglyphic
Posts: 55
Joined: 24 Feb 2011 20:25

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by yacheritsi »

In my greek history class, we were taught that the Spartan dual kingship likely arose from two tribes joining together (in the distant past, as the Spartans were, as you said, conservative) rather than a second king being added. The kings commanded the field army on alternate days. This had the unfortunate consequence of the rasher of the two being able to get the army in trouble on his day of command.
User avatar
Ànradh
roman
roman
Posts: 1376
Joined: 28 Jul 2011 03:57
Location: Cumbernauld, Scotland

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Ànradh »

yacheritsi wrote:In my greek history class, we were taught that the Spartan dual kingship likely arose from two tribes joining together (in the distant past, as the Spartans were, as you said, conservative) rather than a second king being added. The kings commanded the field army on alternate days. This had the unfortunate consequence of the rasher of the two being able to get the army in trouble on his day of command.
"Hey Leonides, how was your day?"
"Lost the army; counter-attack should hit tomorrow. Have fun!"
Sin ar Pàrras agus nì sinne mar a thogras sinn. Choisinn sinn e agus ’s urrainn dhuinn ga loisgeadh.
User avatar
Micamo
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5671
Joined: 05 Sep 2010 19:48
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Micamo »

I had the idea of giving my conworld a supernatural conflict between embodiments of opposing philosophies or ideas, but Good vs. Evil is horribly overdone, way too difficult to define properly, and the terms are loaded to hell.

So I had a different, more interesting idea. I'm unsure what to call these sides, so let's call them Team A and Team B. Team A believes it is wrong to rise above your station within the natural order and the way to happiness is to learn to be satisfied with what you have. Team B believes it is wrong to take things lying down, and you should try to change things to better fit your desires. The central supernatural conflict of my conworld is the one between the physical embodiments of Team A and Team B.

Ideas for names, anyone?
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

My shitty twitter
User avatar
Ànradh
roman
roman
Posts: 1376
Joined: 28 Jul 2011 03:57
Location: Cumbernauld, Scotland

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Ànradh »

Balance and Ambition?
Sin ar Pàrras agus nì sinne mar a thogras sinn. Choisinn sinn e agus ’s urrainn dhuinn ga loisgeadh.
User avatar
Micamo
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5671
Joined: 05 Sep 2010 19:48
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Micamo »

"Ambition" is pretty good, but I don't like the sound of "Balance." I'll keep thinking.
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

My shitty twitter
User avatar
Ànradh
roman
roman
Posts: 1376
Joined: 28 Jul 2011 03:57
Location: Cumbernauld, Scotland

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Ànradh »

Only other words I can think of are Humility or Contentment I'm afraid; not sure if they're any better.
Sin ar Pàrras agus nì sinne mar a thogras sinn. Choisinn sinn e agus ’s urrainn dhuinn ga loisgeadh.
User avatar
cybrxkhan
roman
roman
Posts: 1106
Joined: 25 Dec 2010 21:21
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by cybrxkhan »

Team A reminds me of Japanese culture for some reason.
I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce
User avatar
Micamo
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5671
Joined: 05 Sep 2010 19:48
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Micamo »

Team A is a LOT of real human philosophies and religions.
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

My shitty twitter
User avatar
cybrxkhan
roman
roman
Posts: 1106
Joined: 25 Dec 2010 21:21
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by cybrxkhan »

Actually, now that you mention that, I remember why this sounds so familiar - it seems very much related to the Collectivist vs. Individualist scale that I've seen used to analyze cultures. i.e., Team A seems more vaguely collectivist while Team B seems more vaguely individualist.
I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce
User avatar
plathhs
sinic
sinic
Posts: 273
Joined: 13 Jun 2011 20:21
Location: +46-8 (SE)
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by plathhs »

cybrxkhan wrote:Actually, now that you mention that, I remember why this sounds so familiar - it seems very much related to the Collectivist vs. Individualist scale that I've seen used to analyze cultures. i.e., Team A seems more vaguely collectivist while Team B seems more vaguely individualist.
These were my first thoughts too.
User avatar
Micamo
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5671
Joined: 05 Sep 2010 19:48
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by Micamo »

cybrxkhan wrote:Actually, now that you mention that, I remember why this sounds so familiar - it seems very much related to the Collectivist vs. Individualist scale that I've seen used to analyze cultures. i.e., Team A seems more vaguely collectivist while Team B seems more vaguely individualist.
Somewhat, but it's not a definition: Take for example, the early Marxists. They believed that communism would bring about world peace and end material scarcity, which is definitely a Team B desire. But I don't think anyone in their right minds could call them individualists!
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

My shitty twitter
User avatar
cybrxkhan
roman
roman
Posts: 1106
Joined: 25 Dec 2010 21:21
Contact:

Re: Random Conworld idea thread

Post by cybrxkhan »

Micamo wrote:
cybrxkhan wrote:Actually, now that you mention that, I remember why this sounds so familiar - it seems very much related to the Collectivist vs. Individualist scale that I've seen used to analyze cultures. i.e., Team A seems more vaguely collectivist while Team B seems more vaguely individualist.
Somewhat, but it's not a definition: Take for example, the early Marxists. They believed that communism would bring about world peace and end material scarcity, which is definitely a Team B desire. But I don't think anyone in their right minds could call them individualists!
True. I still feel, though, that probably the best cultural stereotypes your teams resemble would be East Asian culture (high emphasis on following set hierarchy, family, and superiors, don't get out of line, etc.) vs. American culture (do stuff for freedom and because you want to make yourself happy, American dream, etc.).
I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce
Post Reply