How to avoid a Game of Thrones-like civil war

Ok I'll be honest I haven't really read the books or watched the show, but I do know that there is a large amount of bloodshed due to a succession crisis and all of this is occurring as hordes of undead are marching from the north to wipe out everything.

In my story, several different nations and empires, each situated in their own physical realm (i.e. their own universe), bore witness to the destruction of the kingdom of Camelot as a result of a succession crisis and an anarchist plot; both having connections to Mordred.

Camelot, in my story, is suppose to be a very powerful nation and its destruction served as a grim reminder of the risk that all the other monarchies faced.

So in addition to seal off all access to Camelot's realm to prevent the chaos from spreading, many nations enacted government reforms to prevent internal conflicts that could effectively destroy the nation.

Note the reforms don't necessary have to be democratic or egalitarian, it just has to mitigate the risk of coups and insurrections from happening in the first place.

edited 15th Aug '14 3:45:17 PM by Worlder

First, make sure the succession laws are absolutely airtight so that if the current ruler dies, there is no doubt whatsoever about who's next in line.

Second, put a mechanism for keeping the kingdom running while succession is sorted out into place...a pre-defined regency council, for example.

Third (and this is a big one), establish a civil service separate from the high nobility. This will provide continuity regardless of whoever has the crown at the moment. There are multiple ways to keep such civil servants from becoming a problem to the dynasties of high nobility...for example, the chinese approach was to assign these posts to eunuchs. If they can't pass anything on to their heirs, they're less tempted to start building their private empires. Alternatively, you can use clergy for the job, if clerical celibacy is a thing (really, that was the whole reason catholicism started using that system in the first place).

didnt the eunuchs cause all sorts of problems anyway?

edited 15th Aug '14 4:43:54 PM by Tarsen

Yeah, but nowhere near as much as staffing those positions with the scions of nobility would have.

What about consolidating all military resources and personnel under the control of the monarch?

That is the nobility can no longer have private armies.

The question is how to get there without being very swiftly removed by said nobles. Even otherwise loyal nobles would pretty much instantly turn on any monarch trying to achieve this kind of change.

There's also the fact that the more centralized things get, the more of an organized bureaucracy is needed to keep it running, and Sabresedge made a very good post on why that can go wrong in another thread here.

If you're going to involve magic and fantasy, why not just have the gods step in to keep the peace?

The world is at war! The Eternal Prince and the Red Rose of Gustanov Plains have a disagreement on things and must have words with each other - and their armies feel the same. Suddenly, two ethereal beings, brimming with power well sufficient to knock two whole armies on their asses, appear on the battlefield. (They look suspiciously like Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, but the armies don't know this and are quite happy to stay on their asses whilst IMMENSE COSMIC POWER is happening in the skies.)

"BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER," the two beings say. "OR WE WILL PARTY ON YOU DUDES."

The war ends, and the leaders of the two factions decide that their squabble is very minor indeed, in retrospect. Peace is restored. It is the peace at the point of a gun (well, 'nigh-infinite power beyond the wildest imaginings of Marvel Comics'...), but peace nonetheless.

With war completely removed from the list of options (it is also established that any attempt to wage war will result in mutually assured destruction, with 'destruction' in all-caps), petty squabbles between provinces and states and hamlets and nations and continents and neighbors must be settled through the arts.

Humor becomes the new sword with which nations exert their might - peace, at the point of a pen if you will.

...at least, that's how I would avoid a Throne-y war.

If overt disarmament is difficult, then perhaps the nobles could be starved of materiel over time by the manipulation of supply chains.

Or maybe a combination of both overt disarmament and supply chain sabotage.

EDIT: Also remember that this isn't coming out of the blue. It is done in the aftermath of the collapse of a great nation-state caused by feudalism gone totally wrong.

edited 16th Aug '14 12:04:27 PM by Worlder

What I can't understand why you would possibly want to avoid a gigantic free-for-all Crusader Kings 2-esque Thirty-Years-on-steroids nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-again civil war.

it does sound like a lot of fun.

Yes, why set things up so as to deny the story such a delicious source of conflict?

Because I generally prefer a war between two mighty empires rather than a Balkanized war within an dying empire.

edited 16th Aug '14 3:14:31 PM by Worlder

Yeah...but nothing in your scenario indicates any of that. Also, it should be noted: wars in the pre-modern era, even wars fought by empires against empires, tended to devolve into local allies and proxies bashing against each other, and even well into the modern era flipping a proxy from one side to another is a time-honored way of fighting.

What I'm getting is this: Camelot's disintegrating and anarchists are involved somehow. (Anachronism warning! Anarchism as an ideology really only took off with the development of mass ideologies, and that had to wait for the development of modern nation-states. Mass ideologies weren't a thing before the 1800s.) Other countries, not having easy physical access to the place, seal off their borders...okay, probably to prevent contagion of newfangled social ideas, sure, but how easy would it be to hop from universe to universe anyway?

And you want this to form the basis for an empire-versus-empire war...how? How did you imagine a kingdom disintegrating if not via civil war? (Czechoslovak-style velvet divorce? 1989 Autumn of Nations? The slow breakup of the British Empire? But see above regarding nationalism.) You've got a horribly vague scenario and you're asking us to find an alternative to a scenario which anyone familiar with history would tell you would lead to instability—aka, "civil war".

Oooh. Gotcha.

So you're looking for more of a World War II or Cold War flavor, while making it believable over a bloody internal struggle.

The situation kinda sounds similar to Super Robot Wars Z. The difference between that and real life, is that it often boils down to 'who has the better means of funding their war and peace'.

Worlder, are you familiar with the US Civil War? And the similar-ish ones pretty much every major world power seems to need to suffer to get there? ...come to think of it, if you needed a way to make your country 'great' in some way...

Okay I might clear some things up and admit I might have not thought out the backstory of this backstory far enough.

This character of Mordred that I am creating was once on better terms with his father. He in fact fought many battles for the kingdom. But when the last warlord, rogue wizard, or demon cult has bowed to the might of Camelot, he unable to function in this new more peaceful world.

Now here is the part that I now think might need some feedback and ideas.

Mordred sought to undo his father's work and create a more savage world that shuns the existence of powerful nations. Nothing bigger than a city state will exist in his world and definitely nothing more powerful than him.

So he used to his advantage, the multi-faction civil war that shortly followed a succession crisis. By manipulating the factions and drawing out the war, he made sure the victorious faction would be too weak to fight against his personal dark forces. These forces would then proceed to wipe out any trace of the kingdom and memory of it as well.

Of course not all traces of Camelot were wiped. Refugees fled to other nations during this conflict.

Now the other nations thought they could negotiate with Mordred thinking he is the new ruler of his realm only to find out he is more interested in destroying civilizations than ruling his own. Military forces from multiple powerful nations were immediately dispatched to end this growing threat. However not a single personnel has reported back since they were sent to Mordred's realm.

Since then travel to that realm is forbidden, but just as important other nations have begun to examine their own systems for the same flaws that could lead to terrible infighting. It is through a house divided that a madman was able to burn all of it to the ground.

Are there any glaring plot holes or fridge logic issues?

Who keeps working for Mordred, given what his goal is? (Always-successful mind control? In which case, what's keeping the outer worlds from starting up ABCD weapons programs?)

I'm not entirely sure how this scenario is supposed to lead to any empire vs empire wars. I assume Camelot was a member of one of the local alliances and the kingdom's destruction has upset the balance of power so the enemies of Camelot's former allies think they have a chance of defeating the enemy faction once and for all. This isn't stated anywhere in your posts, but it's the only way I can make sense of the goal you want to reach with the premise you've given us.

I imagine that Mordred is creating temporary alliances by promising local nobility a share of the spoils if they agree to turn on their own monarch. Happened in real life all the time. The key to stopping that is control over communications and an active counter-espionage service. Think Queen Elizabeth. If they cant keep Mordred's agents from entering their realms, then they cant stop the plots within plots from hatching, that simple. Mordred might or might not be able to incite other internal conflicts, but he could certainly keep the pot boiling.