worldbuilding: government and military
I already posted these on tumblr, but now I'm combining them into one post and adding them here. I have a couple more worldbuilding posts to follow!
This one is about the oenclar government structure and how it once functioned vs how it now functions, and also how the military hierarchy and social groups within it relate to who gets to be part of the government.
The setup of the oenclar government originally looked like this:
Hrakeneen is the term for the government when it’s in session - basically actively meeting and discussing things, like what just happened in the most recent chapter of Skiagraphia. I’ve never used that term in the story, basically it’s always been ‘council’. While there’s a word in Isji for ‘government’, it’s not actually used to describe all three of these groups together because they aren’t actually considered a unit, except when something is actively happening where they’re involved/discussing with each other (which may, you know, be part of the problem with them not playing well together at all). So, unless these group are actively meeting, there is actually no word to describe them all together. However, I will use ‘government’ for this post, because that is much easier.
This diagram is the original set up of the oenclar government when it was first formed. The ghereen was meant to represent the high castes (like Warrior, Healer, Keeper, etc.) and the Worthies were for representing civilians and lower castes (merchants, artisans, labor, etc.) The Worthies were actually selected by these groups, which is why the name ‘worthies’ - they were basically given worth/power by the people in the government. The gheret is obviously the agistar and his family/personal council. Circle size is relevant to the number of people generally within that group; usually twice as many Worthies as gheret, and twice as many ghereen as Worthies.
Each group has a varying level of power and political ability that can handicap or assist them. Generally these end up overlapping in a way that means no one group outweighs another completely. For instance gheret members can’t suggest new laws or changes to existing ones (this includes the agistar), but they also have the ability (as a group, not individually) to strike down those suggestions put out by ghereen members or Worthies. There’s a whole bunch of checks and balances happening but explaining every instance would go forever - tl;dr the government was pretty much balanced.
Buttt changes happened. Because of the huge growth of the military and how important the war became, more and more ghereen members ended up being Warrior caste. This meant the Worthies ended up representing more and more of the other castes, and got more and more powerful within the government. And then the ghereen started getting really elite and biased and didn’t let anybody in unless they were high-blooded military Warrior caste (not everyone in the Warrior caste is in the active army) and became a big military club, basically. Then the only people in the government not necessarily from the military were the Worthies, and not even all of them. But the large majority of people were being represented by the Worthies.
BUT THEN, when the oenclar became almost entirely nomadic/displaced across various worlds, the need for the Worthies to represent civilians pretty quickly diminished. Because each individual colony began to govern itself, to set up little systems of government just to function, and also became estranged from the very nomadic military half of society and didn’t share very many issues with them. There’s a bit of this at the start of Skigraphia, where Keyd and Alan are meeting with one such person - the ‘mayor’, so to speak, of a small township (the term for this kind of leader is balahekka).
What Maedajon (Keyd’s dad) did was to disband the Worthies as a group quite a few years after the exodus from Clarylon, because they really were mostly obsolete under the reason they were actually meant to function in by then. He left them as individuals in the government, because many of them were still also representing other castes (like Healer, Keeper, etc.) Unfortunately this just made them mad, and integrated them into the ghereen itself, and allowed them to continue to function as individuals who now just had the same abilities/constraints as the rest of the ghereen.
Now the government looks like this:
Which essentially means that even though the Worthies don’t have power as an official group, they can still pretty much work together from within the ghereen to make things really difficult for everybody, and now instead of being two other entire groups to oppose them, there’s just one. Maedajon simultaneously did a good thing and fucked up big time. Unfortunately he didn’t get to see how much of a big fuck up he made, and Keyd got to inherit the mess. Which was already messy when Maedajon got it; there’s been a few off-hand references to this in the story, but Maedajon’s dad was a terrible leader and let the Worthies run everything, mostly Eldronrhet, so they got used to having lots of power with him.
Now for the military part. There are three social subdivisions/groupings within the active military (not the Warrior caste), and they completely determine a person’s fate within the military and, therefore, how they can/cannot interact with the government. I’ll define them more specifically right here.
Clarjja: these are people who are born into families in the Warrior caste, almost entirely ones who already have a history of being in the active military. Because the Warrior caste includes the active military and also people who are not soldiers but support the army via skills, labor, etc., this latter group is neither automatically clarjja or automatically not. It’s almost a case-by-case basis, depending on the power of your family name and your birth (like a lot of other things!) So, for example: a person born into the Warrior caste in a family traditionally of horse breeders, but they want to enter the active military. If this family had a well-known family name or even breed particularly excellent horses or had maybe once done something good for a family who is clarjja, that person might actually be considered part of the clarjja grouping.
Oulchen: Say that horse-breeder family wasn’t actually particularly well known, or didn’t have much of an established name, or basically no one knew who they were or cared. Despite being born Warrior caste, if a child from that family entered the military, they would be oulchen. Oulchen is a secondary group below clarjja that’s reserved for people like the case I just described, people from other ‘high’ castes like Healers, Keepers, etc., and very very rarely people not from the high castes at all, but who have good family names and/or breeding(this is always important, clearly) and/or something to bring to the table that impresses everyone. Kir, for instance, is oulchen because he’s originally from the Keeper caste. Oulchen people can’t gain as high of military ranks as clarjja, but they’re generally considered to be a fairly worthy subset of the military, not really discriminated against except in the smallest of ways. Often, if they’re from another high caste, they’ll bring a really useful skill into the military just from having grown up around it, and be valued because of that.
Maikaun: literally everyone else. Castes have a varying degree of difficulty in switching between them - up is nearly impossible, down pretty easy, and “across” (as in, to another group considered of equivalent social importance) also varies. The Warrior caste (which is obviously a high one, perhaps the highest, though not in any official terms) is the easiest caste to enter, from across or from below - they welcome people jumping castes into it. Because when you join the Warrior caste all you can do is be a soldier. Doesn’t matter which caste you came from prior, into the active forces you go. Even people from other high castes get funneled into the same place - but they generally end up oulchen. Not from a high caste or a good family? You are maikaun, and the lowest of the low. A hell of a lot of the active forces are maikaun, because there’s such a large pool of people that fit that category. These people are generally considered to be kind of expendable fodder, they get discriminated against not only through their limited rankings, but in where they’re stationed and assigned, and just in daily life. The oenclar military is an exceedingly elitist place, and this is where most of their biases show up, because almost all factions of society get represented there, so it ends up being a little microcosm of prejudice. There are reasons to join the military even if you’d end up maikaun though, even if it’s not always an automatic step up in life.
Now, these three groupings are in relation to the military hierarchy and the government. Here’s a nice little chart of exactly how it works:
(The ‘equivalent ranks’ part is really not perfect or accurate, but just for a rough idea of where these ranks would stand comparatively, so it’s not just a bunch of goofy words with no meanings thrown at you.)
So you can see the ceilings that people in the lower groups hit, and how quick they hit them (sucks to be maikaun, really). It’s also possible to damage your status in this hierarchy, to get yourself treated like a member of another grouping even if you aren’t. A good example of that is Hahd, from this ask. Because of who Hahd married (someone who would be considered maikaun in the eyes of the military if she were in it), it dragged his status down to somewhere precariously in between oulchen and maikaun. His super good family name is the only thing keeping him from being treated as fully maikaun; not that it matters to him because his rank is kasjre, which is low as hell anyway, and he doesn’t care to go much higher.
You can also see on this chart that artaln is not included as a rank. That’s because it’s not a military ranking, only government. When Keyd was artaln, he actually had a completely separate military ranking, which he still technically has. But the title of agistar applies to both military and government and therefore puts him above literally everyone else, but only the former when the government is meeting. In a military situation, Keyd is actually outranked by (or on equal grounds with) a lot of the government. But in a council situation, he outranks everyone. His rank is khisjja, which puts him below people like Darban and Arirsanya and Oredaiken, who are all the top tier rank. In a military situation, Darban could actually order Keyd around. Not that he would.
Usually the agistar would also be this top rank; Keyd’s is lower because of Rysa - your rank is tied to your antshil partner, if you have one, same way it gets tied to your spouse. Rysa is a bizarre misfit in the social hierarchy because the severe categorizations in their culture don’t adapt well to foreigners and/or just people not born in their society. Since she was “adopted” by the Raen family who has the highest status of ever and ever, Rysa was finally and grudgingly accepted to be maybe kind of oulchen sorta. But it took her forever to move through the ranks because she was still viewed as a outsider/sorta-enemy for most of that time. When she and Keyd did the antshil bond, it immediately dragged his eligibility for promotion way the hell down to where she was (actually demoted him, even), which he didn’t mind at all because he was actually trying to sabotage his own government career then. But he had an automatic in because of his birth; all his dad had to do was go ‘you’re artaln now congrats son’ and his military rank became irrelevant.
Keyd and Rysa don’t have the same rank now, which is really uncommon for antshil partners; but she’s stuck at the oulchen rank-ceiling and can’t be promoted further, even though Keyd catapulted her into the government by putting her on the gheret - the only way someone not-clarjja can get into government other than being a Worthy. Even then people still don’t like that being done because it’s like giving their precious hierarchy a big fat slap in the face.
Side note: the two types of cadet are a part of how their military works - trainees are just being trained, active cadets are still cadets but actually see battle; that’s considered part of training to actually become a soldier. This is (one of two main reasons) why they stay in ‘training’ for so long, it’s not just drills and techniques for like eight years.
So this is hella fucking complicated, isn’t it? You’re welcome. everyone can give Alan a break now for not mastering it all in less than a year
This one is about the oenclar government structure and how it once functioned vs how it now functions, and also how the military hierarchy and social groups within it relate to who gets to be part of the government.
The setup of the oenclar government originally looked like this:
Hrakeneen is the term for the government when it’s in session - basically actively meeting and discussing things, like what just happened in the most recent chapter of Skiagraphia. I’ve never used that term in the story, basically it’s always been ‘council’. While there’s a word in Isji for ‘government’, it’s not actually used to describe all three of these groups together because they aren’t actually considered a unit, except when something is actively happening where they’re involved/discussing with each other (which may, you know, be part of the problem with them not playing well together at all). So, unless these group are actively meeting, there is actually no word to describe them all together. However, I will use ‘government’ for this post, because that is much easier.
This diagram is the original set up of the oenclar government when it was first formed. The ghereen was meant to represent the high castes (like Warrior, Healer, Keeper, etc.) and the Worthies were for representing civilians and lower castes (merchants, artisans, labor, etc.) The Worthies were actually selected by these groups, which is why the name ‘worthies’ - they were basically given worth/power by the people in the government. The gheret is obviously the agistar and his family/personal council. Circle size is relevant to the number of people generally within that group; usually twice as many Worthies as gheret, and twice as many ghereen as Worthies.
Each group has a varying level of power and political ability that can handicap or assist them. Generally these end up overlapping in a way that means no one group outweighs another completely. For instance gheret members can’t suggest new laws or changes to existing ones (this includes the agistar), but they also have the ability (as a group, not individually) to strike down those suggestions put out by ghereen members or Worthies. There’s a whole bunch of checks and balances happening but explaining every instance would go forever - tl;dr the government was pretty much balanced.
Buttt changes happened. Because of the huge growth of the military and how important the war became, more and more ghereen members ended up being Warrior caste. This meant the Worthies ended up representing more and more of the other castes, and got more and more powerful within the government. And then the ghereen started getting really elite and biased and didn’t let anybody in unless they were high-blooded military Warrior caste (not everyone in the Warrior caste is in the active army) and became a big military club, basically. Then the only people in the government not necessarily from the military were the Worthies, and not even all of them. But the large majority of people were being represented by the Worthies.
BUT THEN, when the oenclar became almost entirely nomadic/displaced across various worlds, the need for the Worthies to represent civilians pretty quickly diminished. Because each individual colony began to govern itself, to set up little systems of government just to function, and also became estranged from the very nomadic military half of society and didn’t share very many issues with them. There’s a bit of this at the start of Skigraphia, where Keyd and Alan are meeting with one such person - the ‘mayor’, so to speak, of a small township (the term for this kind of leader is balahekka).
What Maedajon (Keyd’s dad) did was to disband the Worthies as a group quite a few years after the exodus from Clarylon, because they really were mostly obsolete under the reason they were actually meant to function in by then. He left them as individuals in the government, because many of them were still also representing other castes (like Healer, Keeper, etc.) Unfortunately this just made them mad, and integrated them into the ghereen itself, and allowed them to continue to function as individuals who now just had the same abilities/constraints as the rest of the ghereen.
Now the government looks like this:
Which essentially means that even though the Worthies don’t have power as an official group, they can still pretty much work together from within the ghereen to make things really difficult for everybody, and now instead of being two other entire groups to oppose them, there’s just one. Maedajon simultaneously did a good thing and fucked up big time. Unfortunately he didn’t get to see how much of a big fuck up he made, and Keyd got to inherit the mess. Which was already messy when Maedajon got it; there’s been a few off-hand references to this in the story, but Maedajon’s dad was a terrible leader and let the Worthies run everything, mostly Eldronrhet, so they got used to having lots of power with him.
Now for the military part. There are three social subdivisions/groupings within the active military (not the Warrior caste), and they completely determine a person’s fate within the military and, therefore, how they can/cannot interact with the government. I’ll define them more specifically right here.
Clarjja: these are people who are born into families in the Warrior caste, almost entirely ones who already have a history of being in the active military. Because the Warrior caste includes the active military and also people who are not soldiers but support the army via skills, labor, etc., this latter group is neither automatically clarjja or automatically not. It’s almost a case-by-case basis, depending on the power of your family name and your birth (like a lot of other things!) So, for example: a person born into the Warrior caste in a family traditionally of horse breeders, but they want to enter the active military. If this family had a well-known family name or even breed particularly excellent horses or had maybe once done something good for a family who is clarjja, that person might actually be considered part of the clarjja grouping.
Oulchen: Say that horse-breeder family wasn’t actually particularly well known, or didn’t have much of an established name, or basically no one knew who they were or cared. Despite being born Warrior caste, if a child from that family entered the military, they would be oulchen. Oulchen is a secondary group below clarjja that’s reserved for people like the case I just described, people from other ‘high’ castes like Healers, Keepers, etc., and very very rarely people not from the high castes at all, but who have good family names and/or breeding(this is always important, clearly) and/or something to bring to the table that impresses everyone. Kir, for instance, is oulchen because he’s originally from the Keeper caste. Oulchen people can’t gain as high of military ranks as clarjja, but they’re generally considered to be a fairly worthy subset of the military, not really discriminated against except in the smallest of ways. Often, if they’re from another high caste, they’ll bring a really useful skill into the military just from having grown up around it, and be valued because of that.
Maikaun: literally everyone else. Castes have a varying degree of difficulty in switching between them - up is nearly impossible, down pretty easy, and “across” (as in, to another group considered of equivalent social importance) also varies. The Warrior caste (which is obviously a high one, perhaps the highest, though not in any official terms) is the easiest caste to enter, from across or from below - they welcome people jumping castes into it. Because when you join the Warrior caste all you can do is be a soldier. Doesn’t matter which caste you came from prior, into the active forces you go. Even people from other high castes get funneled into the same place - but they generally end up oulchen. Not from a high caste or a good family? You are maikaun, and the lowest of the low. A hell of a lot of the active forces are maikaun, because there’s such a large pool of people that fit that category. These people are generally considered to be kind of expendable fodder, they get discriminated against not only through their limited rankings, but in where they’re stationed and assigned, and just in daily life. The oenclar military is an exceedingly elitist place, and this is where most of their biases show up, because almost all factions of society get represented there, so it ends up being a little microcosm of prejudice. There are reasons to join the military even if you’d end up maikaun though, even if it’s not always an automatic step up in life.
Now, these three groupings are in relation to the military hierarchy and the government. Here’s a nice little chart of exactly how it works:
(The ‘equivalent ranks’ part is really not perfect or accurate, but just for a rough idea of where these ranks would stand comparatively, so it’s not just a bunch of goofy words with no meanings thrown at you.)
So you can see the ceilings that people in the lower groups hit, and how quick they hit them (sucks to be maikaun, really). It’s also possible to damage your status in this hierarchy, to get yourself treated like a member of another grouping even if you aren’t. A good example of that is Hahd, from this ask. Because of who Hahd married (someone who would be considered maikaun in the eyes of the military if she were in it), it dragged his status down to somewhere precariously in between oulchen and maikaun. His super good family name is the only thing keeping him from being treated as fully maikaun; not that it matters to him because his rank is kasjre, which is low as hell anyway, and he doesn’t care to go much higher.
You can also see on this chart that artaln is not included as a rank. That’s because it’s not a military ranking, only government. When Keyd was artaln, he actually had a completely separate military ranking, which he still technically has. But the title of agistar applies to both military and government and therefore puts him above literally everyone else, but only the former when the government is meeting. In a military situation, Keyd is actually outranked by (or on equal grounds with) a lot of the government. But in a council situation, he outranks everyone. His rank is khisjja, which puts him below people like Darban and Arirsanya and Oredaiken, who are all the top tier rank. In a military situation, Darban could actually order Keyd around. Not that he would.
Usually the agistar would also be this top rank; Keyd’s is lower because of Rysa - your rank is tied to your antshil partner, if you have one, same way it gets tied to your spouse. Rysa is a bizarre misfit in the social hierarchy because the severe categorizations in their culture don’t adapt well to foreigners and/or just people not born in their society. Since she was “adopted” by the Raen family who has the highest status of ever and ever, Rysa was finally and grudgingly accepted to be maybe kind of oulchen sorta. But it took her forever to move through the ranks because she was still viewed as a outsider/sorta-enemy for most of that time. When she and Keyd did the antshil bond, it immediately dragged his eligibility for promotion way the hell down to where she was (actually demoted him, even), which he didn’t mind at all because he was actually trying to sabotage his own government career then. But he had an automatic in because of his birth; all his dad had to do was go ‘you’re artaln now congrats son’ and his military rank became irrelevant.
Keyd and Rysa don’t have the same rank now, which is really uncommon for antshil partners; but she’s stuck at the oulchen rank-ceiling and can’t be promoted further, even though Keyd catapulted her into the government by putting her on the gheret - the only way someone not-clarjja can get into government other than being a Worthy. Even then people still don’t like that being done because it’s like giving their precious hierarchy a big fat slap in the face.
Side note: the two types of cadet are a part of how their military works - trainees are just being trained, active cadets are still cadets but actually see battle; that’s considered part of training to actually become a soldier. This is (one of two main reasons) why they stay in ‘training’ for so long, it’s not just drills and techniques for like eight years.
So this is hella fucking complicated, isn’t it? You’re welcome. everyone can give Alan a break now for not mastering it all in less than a year