Are my themes militarist or non-militarist?

So I have a world I've constructed in which there are two political entities suffering from different problems and I wasn't sure what it looks like to a reader.

Country A:

• Militarists in the East blame the military ineptitude of a pacifist Empress for losing a war in the north, and for her crappy attitude in not making any invasion campaigns to expand the territory of the Empire (the Empress is busy solidifying a long ignored economic base)
• The protagonist is the daughter of the Empress who is a princess (this society follows German ranks, so princess isn't super duper high) that also is popular due to her military prowess in leading the primary Imperial fleet

Country B

• Barbarians have slowly eroded the frontier defences of the nation and are starting to threaten the central military domains but the Parliament has thus far been deadlocked in a roundabout debate and generally refuses to release extra funds to the military to shore up defences.
• The protagonists are a pair of hussars who were made bodyguards of the elected Queen, they generally just follow the Queen blindly no matter what is going on (and the Queen is the one who is refusing to give into military demands for extra funding)

edited 10th May '12 9:43:05 PM by breadloaf

This summary makes it seem militarist, but that isn't saying much nor is that necessarily bad, per se.

It largely depends on presentation, I think.

@ Flyboy

So what about it makes it seem militarist? Characters, plot, theme?

@ nrjxll

Yeah, I've been thinking about that too. I usually write my stories to be highly centric around a character's viewpoint thus providing a "biased" Po V. However, I don't actually mean that POV to be my personal opinion.

edited 11th May '12 8:28:51 PM by breadloaf

Yeah, I agree. It depends not only on where you choose to place the focus of the story, but on how you portray both countries and which aspects of each country appear positive or desirable.

The first one would depend entirely on how you play it. It could either come from the angle of "the Empire would be safer if it expanded its buffer zones, and its opponents are somehow of lesser moral value (i.e. the mindless variety of orc), and so the Empress is making her own country suffer thanks to blind idealism" or the angle of "the Imperial military is power-hungry and expansionist against peoples who haven't done anything to deserve a war (i.e. haven't attacked the Empire), and thus the Empress is right to focus on domestic issues and clamp down on the military as best she can."

The second one, however, seems like a pretty cut and dry case of "politicians are stupid while the military is the proverbial Cassandra trying to warn them that they're about to get pwned by an outside force."

Ah alright, well then I'll just spit a few points on how I intend to present it then.

Imperial Federation

• The Empress is unpopular after "losing" (ie. not crushing the enemy) the Arun-Lanloa War in the north. The Eastern royalty who make up much of the ministerial staff, blame her ineptitude in waging war for the loss.
• The princess, the Empress' daughter, blames the whole war starting on the Eastern royalty who then didn't properly back it with enough resources. She feels she has the right to talk about it loudly because she was the only successful Fleet Marshal in the conflict.
• The Empress didn't want the war at all because she felt it totally pointless to attempt an invasion of the fairly strong Thuric Kingdom in the north (many talk about how the Thuric royalty consorts with demons but it's hard to separate out what is propaganda), she felt it was a waste of money and that the Imperial Federation is falling behind smaller countries due to an economy geared toward the military
• The Princess, who is the protagonist, and her finance, a semi-pacifist from an outlying independent star system in the southwest (it's a starmap, so I use the cardinal directions loosely), get embroiled in court intrigue as a crusade is called and she's trying to prevent the Eastern royalty from forcing the Empress into yet another conflict in her absence

Commonwealth

• There are vicious barbarian hordes always at the galactic fringe ravaging many worlds and fighting amongst themselves. The High Command is deployed to stop these, while the Independent Hussars are deployed in the north to stop barbarian approaches from that direction
• The two protagonists are from the Independent Hussars, who have been favoured by the elected Queen, therefore receiving lots of good funding and have a good relationship with the Queen
• On the other hand, the High Command has a terrible relationship with the Queen who has sided with the Megacorporatists in the Sejm (parliament) and constantly refuse extra funding to the military to shore up defences
• The Queen thinks the High Command is merely trying to take power from the Royalty
• The High Command thinks the Queen is an incompetent civilian

The Commonwealth one is difficult for me because the military is correct in believing that they are receiving insufficient funds to fight the war. However, they go beyond that and believe that a military dictatorship is the correct method of solving the problem. Most, but not all, of the High Command has also bought into an old doctrine of "glass barbarian worlds, screw the costs" and other hardliner tactics.

The POV in this case are the lictors, the two Independent Hussar officers, who are minor nobles and bodyguards of the Queen. They just blindly follow her no matter what is going on.

edited 12th May '12 1:25:25 PM by breadloaf

Mm. So my interpretation of the first one was "Empress stuck in fascist government, Princess sees that things are fascist, and tries to stop the elites before they start another one of their fascist wars." Good so far?

What's the problem with that strategy? Or is "barbarian" not intended to imply lesser moral value?

As for military dictatorship, eh... the Queen there actually does sound incompetent. Incredibly so, in fact. In a situation between standing with the Queen and kicking her out so everybody doesn't die horribly, the latter also would be preferable.

The real question and dilemma, to me, is whether or not things get fixed after the imminent demise of the country has been thwarted.

What's the problem with that strategy? Or is "barbarian" not intended to imply lesser moral value?

Uhh... the fact that it would be genocide? Odds on everyone on the planet being of 'lesser moral value' are low unless your story is going to some very weird places.

@Flyboy - From my other conversations with you, I'm guessing the "what's the problem with that strategy" comment is meant to be sarcasm.

Well, yes and no. Breadloaf tends to have a very nuanced view of life, so the fact that he's describing the antagonists here explicitly as "barbarians" makes me think they're intended to be silly Tolkien-esque two-dimensional no-culture Always Chaotic Evil orcs, in which case "nuke them into glass" may not be an entirely inappropriate response in a science fiction space opera setting where such a thing isn't "the end of civilization" so much as it's "a standard playbook maneuver."

I would not necessarily advise such an approach to writing, since I don't approve of the propaganda tactic of dehumanizing one's enemy, but if we're operating under that paradigm then I tend to think in those terms.

So, basically, the question becomes, what does "barbarian" actually entail here?

Given that it was part of a quote, I thought it was clear that "barbarian" meant "as seen by the High Command".

The word "barbarians" is used without quotations often in breadloaf's posts on the setting. If that is the case, however, and these people aren't just two-dimensional stereotypical fantasy evil hordes, then yes, it would be genocide and it would be highly inappropriate and wrong.

I would liken it to how we treat warfare versus how we treat pest control. It is morally acceptable to kill an ant colony if it's eating all the food in your house, but it's morally dubious at best to enter a war against your fellow humans. Likewise, in fictionland, it's not morally acceptable to just attack other countries for no reason, but it isn't exactly frowned upon if in the course of defeating the classic horde you happen to wipe them out, since the horde exists only to be evil.

It probably isn't fair, and it's usually a rather lazy method of creating an antagonistic opposing force, but that's the hilariously fucked up principles that fictionland operates on.

Edit: Although, in hindsight, that could be how you fix your (I presume) "I don't want to glorify war/the military" problem, breadloaf. Have the High Command idiots actually think these people are all two-dimensional cultureless bands of raiders and annihilate them, and then everyone finds out that they were wrong and just wiped an intelligent species out.

Or, perhaps more uniquely, have the plot then focus on High Command's attempts to stop anybody from finding out that they really did just wipe out an intelligent species, a la spy thriller.

edited 12th May '12 4:14:04 PM by Flyboy

My nuanced view of life :P

Okay so I'll clear up a few things:

I use the term "barbarian" to refer to the militant way of life of the groups of aliens. They're not of lesser moral value, and I have no two-dimensional people. My two Commonwealth protagonists operate with the Independent Hussars who specifically run their fleets in an area of space known as the "Rimmish Kingdoms", where humans/dirty xenos live together in an unholy union hated by the Orthodox Church of the Commonwealth. The Independent Hussars don't really care, they're just there to stop any barbarian horde fleets from sweeping into the Commonwealth.

So when I say the High Command wants to glass whole worlds, Icalus has it right, it's basically genocide. They'd have to be nuking planets full of billions of sentient individuals, most of which have absolutely nothing to do with the barbarian fleets (they just don't happen to impede the barbarians at all). Only the Independent Hussar has first hand interaction with the xenos and knows they're fine. Everyone else thinks they a bunch of vicious animalistic monsters that rape and pillage their way through life (basically they think they're Tolkein-esque orcs).

For Flyboy's description of the Imperial Federation, I think you have given me an excellent way to write the story. The Eastern royalty is basically a bunch of fascists and the country itself was basically fascist until the current Empress. So the Imperial Court doesn't want a turn-around in an ages old policy of never ending expansion.

For the Commonwealth, it's rather grey for me right now as to how it looks. The Queen is basically an idiot who is owned by the megacorporatists. The High Command though is pulling the most dirty underhanded tricks to take power, up to and including offing generals in suicide missions that don't agree with a plot to form a military dictatorship. I don't really want to write a plot in which the end result of her actions are super-bad to show that I don't like an oppressive military dictatorship to "solve problems", I more want to show that using evil means and justifying the ends is itself bad enough. I'm talking security sweeps, mass arrests, assassinations, threatening to use nuclear weapons on civilian rabble, execution of dissidents etc. And then there's the big issue of, is a person capable of feeling the suffering if High Command glasses a bunch of xeno worlds?

edited 13th May '12 2:42:53 AM by breadloaf

Only the Independent Hussar has first hand interaction with the xenos and knows they're fine. Everyone else thinks they a bunch of vicious animalistic monsters that rape and pillage their way through life (basically they think they're Tolkein-esque orcs).

So where did everyone else get that idea from? Seems a bit too black-and-white - the aliens must have done something to get their rep, even if they were totally justified.

Compare the colonisation of Africa, where native tribes tended to get their 'bloodthirsty barbarian' rep by, say, objecting strenuously to the colonial powers steamrolling in and resource-stripping their land, and the resource-strippers in question encouraged that reputation because it would let them get more troops on hand to drive out the 'bloodthirsty barbarians' (and make a fat wad of money in the process).

Alright, so that explains quite a bit. I had an image of my head of your stereotypical space opera bug war. That's rather different.

Cool.

If I were you, the story would not be about the actual war, per se, but the aftermath, where the High Command is all "yay, we won, we're saved, take that you stupid-ass Queen!"

"Oh. Wait. We just killed a trillion people. Son of a bitch."

Aggressive propaganda. It's what colonial empires always do to justify their bullshit.

Ah, well, the communication technology is... "slow" even though it is FTL. So basically, the military goes off into what is considered distant lands that nobody has ever seen or cares about full of civilisations that don't really build large space fleets because their industrial base and people are so shattered/undeveloped.

The only interaction the common people have with the "barbarians" are through the High Command after they conduct defensive military campaigns. So all they see are body bags and wounded coming back to their country. Only a small segment of the population educates itself and of course, ironically, more people in the High Command fleets know full well that most xenos have nothing to do with the barbarians compared to the civilian population. The Independent Hussars operate at a distance, plus many of them are part of a subset cult (I was thinking of making them part of the lolcat cult) that makes them a bit questionable in the eyes of the Orthodox Church. So the more friendly interaction with xenos are by people of a slightly different religion, therefore... bad!

Yeah, so having the High Command get a trillion people killed is probably a good way to make them look bad. Thinking about this, I think I have distilled the idea to this:

• If you have an incompetent government is it right to have the military step in and get the job done no matter the cost?
• Do you care about glassing billions of foreigners when less than 1% actually threatened you?

And when the job is done, will the military step down?

And do you account for the fact that you're glassing them on the basis of misinformation and propaganda, and in fact have no real idea what these people are like at all?

If you want to avoid glorification of war/military forces, I think those are your questions to ask, thematically.

Hm, interesting.

So the High Command will find crisis after crisis to resolve so basically they'll never step down in their life times. There'll always be some disastrous problem around the corner they want to resolve before letting go. However, even if they let go, they don't want to put it back in the hands of the silly incompetent civilians. They'd create some sort of military-related rulership.

As for knowledge of the xenos, I can provide that through my two protagonists. They are both Independent Hussars who have had direct contact with multi-specie nations and thus have intimate knowledge of the xenos. They'd still be racist though. Someone along the lines of "Hey you can't glass xeno worlds! I need them for my sex slaves."

Well... that seems rather cartoonishly evil, but then again, this is a space-faring nation that somehow still has a monarchy, so I guess they're kind of backwards as it is.

Well I don't want to make them super-evil king of the evil people. It's along the lines of this:

• The civilian government is incompetent
• The military is the one fighting and dying for the civilian masses
• Civilians just don't understand the sacrifices that the military makes for them
• Only someone from the military can properly lead a country because only they have the knowledge and skills to do so

Also it's not a straight monarchy. I didn't want to get into the really complex political structure I manufactured for the Commonwealth but it goes like this:

• Queen is elected by the nobility through a free vote. She leads the space faring empire. Currently FTL speeds put it at days to weeks to travel to nearby star systems, and no FTL communication, everything is done by courier because that's as small of a ship as you make to go FTL.
• Nobility can get into the sejm, the parliament, via popular vote by the peasantry
• Regional council governments are democratically elected by the peasantry

This system is similar to that of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

So... is it supposed to be militarist or anti-militarist?

Here's my nuanced view, as you like to call it...

I expect there to be a separation between the military and rulership because I like democracy. However, when democracy hits a rutt because the people are voting themselves off a cliff, I don't think the answer should be a military coup but to fix the original system itself.

So I was thinking that the hussars I have for protagonists would try to create a "third option" over time as they protect the incompetent queen but they're more interested in resolving the problems of the institution rather than the queen herself.

EDIT:

So I was thinking a path of progression for the High Command goes something like this:

• Grow unsatisfied with the elected Queen and the Sejm
• Quietly try to off generals who are too close to the Queen
• Stage a bloodless coup
• Attempt to contain an increasing armed insurgency, political dissident movement and an uncooperative sejm
• Forcibly secure funding for a campaign against the xenos to glass their worlds
• A minority of people are disgusted by the deaths of many innocent xenos
• A third foreign invader party has hidden many agents and subverted a lot of Commonwealth officials
• They go all Robbespierre on the populace

edited 14th May '12 12:10:04 AM by breadloaf