Favorite Tajaran Faction

[Mofo1995]

I don't know how to start polls.

Recently when talking to Jackboot I was presented with the idea that players might want some "slice of life" articles in addition to the various political news and war reports. So this got me thinking, what is everyone's favorite faction? I'm set in how I'm going to progress the macroscopic lore, but I'm wondering which faction players want to see more lore and articles form about their day to day average life.

[Loow]

Stop being a lazy cuss and write more articles about dance crazes.

(haha could you imagine if I said that?)

[Tomiix]

Tell us more about the new kingdom. How you feel the average citizen of the awkward duck faction works.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Hey Jaenpi Sicberht here just your average player who is in no way your boss or incredibly biased haha

I like the PRA because it hits a lot of the story and ethos beats I like. They tried so hard and got so far. But in the end it doesn't even matter. They are so morally gray and are the lawful evil faction. Slice of life from them would be interesting, but we have a lot of that.

The ALA have become clear bad guys, evil naughty terrorists. It's hard to emphasize with them. I like their huge potential because they all believed in al'mari hadii, but then the new Hadii popped a cap in his brother's ass and they left. Seeing daily life in the ALA, now the DPRA, would be lovely because it would make it easier to emphasize with them and understand how Tajara can be seduced into the dark side. Currently they are like North Korea - you can TRY to argue about how it's the best nation in the world but no one would be convinced. The PRA on the other hand can argue for hours about the merits of a classless society with tajara characteristics.

The NKA is interesting too. They are the awkward duck because they are the moderates. Life there would be interesting to see but my personal preference is for the DPRA.

 

[Loow]

Hey there. Loow here.

[mention]Mofo1995[/mention] , you silly person. You just dropped an explosive bit of info in the last Royal Telegram. Straight up, a civil war almost happened off-screen. People were trying to ice each other for nobility bragging rights and parliament seats, and we find out about it once it's winding down. Like, I believe it mentions that there's around a thousand warrants still out for all the crazy stuff that went down in the Kingdom.

How you gonna drop that and dead-ass ignore NKA life?

Don't think you can, man.

Hit me with that lore.

Then there's the old PRA themes you need to remind people about.

While we're at it, the ALA could use some non-war-related news.

Gee, Mofo, it looks like all of the factions could use some love.

Also for the love of all that's good, NKA articles. C'mon man. Royal Telegram.

[calion12]

Gotta back ma boi Sokolov here and ask for more stuffs regarding the ALA. Not much else really. New kingdom would also be pretty neat.

[Mofo1995]

Loow Shit:

Hey there. Loow here.

Mofo1995 , you silly person. You just dropped an explosive bit of info in the last Royal Telegram. Straight up, a civil war almost happened off-screen. People were trying to ice each other for nobility bragging rights and parliament seats, and we find out about it once it's winding down. Like, I believe it mentions that there's around a thousand warrants still out for all the crazy stuff that went down in the Kingdom.

How you gonna drop that and dead-ass ignore NKA life?

Don't think you can, man.

Hit me with that lore.

Then there's the old PRA themes you need to remind people about.

While we're at it, the ALA could use some non-war-related news.

Gee, Mofo, it looks like all of the factions could use some love.

Also for the love of all that's good, NKA articles. C'mon man. Royal Telegram.

 

I have to say that I'm genuinely surprised no one brought this up until just now. I agree that the Royal Telgraph, ironic considering it's a news channel of my creation, is criminally under-loved by me. There's a lot of tension between the civil administration factions (nobles in parliament) which think upholing rule of law and the constitution is where importance should be weighted, and the militarist faction (nobles in the military) which think that being as successful as possible in the war effort is what the scales should find more valuable. King Azunja and Field-Marshal Akhan have been at the top trying to reconcile the two factions. But things might get more interesting now that many former parliamentarians were slain and there has been mass recalls of officers from the frontlines who have now inherited legislative powers.

Calion Shit:

Gotta back ma boi Sokolov here and ask for more stuffs regarding the ALA. Not much else really. New kingdom would also be pretty neat.

 

I didn't even realize there were any actually loyal ALA cats on station. In the works is a reformatting of the Adhomai Liberation from a rebel guerilla media where orders are given to a full news station. I think this would be the most efficient way to create a vessel through which I can provide news and information on the Democratic People's Republic of Adhomai.

Jackboot Shit:

Hey Jaenpi Sicberht here just your average player who is in no way your boss or incredibly biased haha

I like the PRA because it hits a lot of the story and ethos beats I like. They tried so hard and got so far. But in the end it doesn't even matter. They are so morally gray and are the lawful evil faction. Slice of life from them would be interesting, but we have a lot of that.

The ALA have become clear bad guys, evil naughty terrorists. It's hard to emphasize with them. I like their huge potential because they all believed in al'mari hadii, but then the new Hadii popped a cap in his brother's ass and they left. Seeing daily life in the ALA, now the DPRA, would be lovely because it would make it easier to emphasize with them and understand how Tajara can be seduced into the dark side. Currently they are like North Korea - you can TRY to argue about how it's the best nation in the world but no one would be convinced. The PRA on the other hand can argue for hours about the merits of a classless society with tajara characteristics.

The NKA is interesting too. They are the awkward duck because they are the moderates. Life there would be interesting to see but my personal preference is for the DPRA.

 

 

Far right wing jingoist populism infused with theological justifications does sound evil to most people. I often hope that it makes people scratch their heads and consider if Mass politics is really what's best for Tajara, or if some more "advanced" and "civil" nations can swoop down and "culture" them. But you're right in that everything shouldn't appear black and white, and I definitely haven't intended to make it appear that way, so I'll have to get crackin to fix the one-sidedness of the PRA seeming to have the moral high ground.

Tomiix shit:

Tell us more about the new kingdom. How you feel the average citizen of the awkward duck faction works.

There are nuggets of lore on the Tajara military structures page, but I would consider knowledge of that page to be not required and esoteric to the average player. But I can actually answer this question pretty straight-forwardly now and just write wiki lore for it later, since I've always felt that the relationship between commoners, nobility, and the king always needed clarification. So I'll spoil the upcoming lore right here and hopefully the spurred discussion will have more people coming in to give me feedback about overall Tajara lore.

So what's the deal with the NKA's social structure? Well first we need to start with the king. Much like the monarchies of old, power and jurisprudence de jure flows from the king who acts as the head of the judicial systems and as the executive system, so sort of like if the US Supreme court and the US President were all rolled into one person who held it for life and passed it on to his heir. The legislature is where it gets different. It's a single house, so there's no house of lord or house of commons or house of reps and senate, it's just one legislative body. Now, this is where there's only been slight hints where explanation is easily needed. Positions in Parliament are inherited rather than voted on. When the NKA was founded the loyal revolutionaries who made it happen and who got them their early successes were essentially Azunja's clique, and were given these positions as more or less rewards. The commoners were largely fine with this since Azunja's Kari'mah dynasty of the Kingdom of Kaltir were capable and benevolent rulers, so they trusted the king with this one. The reason the recent constitutional crisis lasted so long was because everyone was trying to snatch one of these coveted positions.

So what about the rest of the nobility? Anyone who is a noble has sections of land where they are assigned to administrate and operate. It works on multiple different levels, similar to the feudal system. So the nesting doll goes like this: The King is at the top, then the grand dukes (which the king is also one of) then the dukes and marquis, and some more powerful counts, then the rest of the counts, then barons. Scattered throughout all of these various tiers are various princes-- not necessarily relatives of the Kari'mah dynasty mind you, as the title can be granted too, but seeing as though it doesn't correlate to the amount of land or wealth someone has, it's a grab bag. Where it differs from the feudal system is that it isn't a chain of tax collection where the bottom nobles collect taxes and then pay their taxes and so forth all the way to the top where the king reaps the big benefits. Instead, all taxes are collected directly by the crown and all nobles who take part in any civil administration or military service duties are paid salaries depending on position and rank. All of age Tajaran nobles have to serve in some way shape or form, whether it be as bureaucrats, police chiefs, officers, or adjutants, with the only exception being members of parliament who have the job of, well, legislature. Special allowances are made for nobles who run companies, business, and enterprises. So if you own a large factory and employ tons of commoners and create wealth for the Kingdom's economy, you'll get a far smaller salary but you do get to avoid service so long as you are active in the management of the business. Most nobles however run agrarian operations which the government makes it nearly impossible to claim as a venture which demands intricate managerial attention, so all of the biggest land owners of the nobility fall into the category of needing to serve in government since they're also the ones who minmaxed agricultural enterprise. The difficulty with this system largely comes with the duties of the children of high ranking nobles and their pretenders. Rather than every child of, say, a count also being a count, they have to inherit the title on either the retirement or death of their relative. All nobles who do not currently personally own land or businesses or a title default to a sort of class which is obligated to serve in some way as part of the service gentry. So this forms a corps of petty nobles who serve the various middle-class tasks of the nation from being on school boards, to being the low class officers in the various military branches. If there isn't a need for them at the moment, they're with no duties at all, but also with no salary, so essentially a commoner except they can be pressed into the service gentry if needs arise. Nobles who don't have an active obligation often operate their family business ventures, managing farms, being the foremen at factories, getting educated and doing architecture or medicine, whatever floats their boat. A common family strategy is for a "titled" noble, which is someone with actual rank, to retire when they aren't able to perform their duties anymore and collect a government pension for their service. They then pass on their duties to their heir who would've been a petty noble for awhile to let them go handle the duties while they live out their retirement operating family businesses. So one aspect of society is that there are a lot of pensioned petty noble patriarchs and matriarchs behind the scenes who technically retired from their titled noble positions, but really run the scenes of the various more powerful families.

Okay, what about the commoners? Well, at the moment, in addition to the service gentry, every commoner family is obligated to provide one able-bodied adult to military service. But the whole upside to being a commoner is that, aside from the current conscription which is going on for the war, there is no obligation to perform any public service. There is no (legal) slavery on Adhomai, unless you're the kind who thinks having to pay for food and housing is slavery. A commoner can do just about anything they want so long as they can afford it, but most can't. A lot of the wealthier business owners at the time of the new kingdom's founding were also appointed to nobility positions, and those who were loyal to the PRA had their assets seized and handed over to the newer nobles. So most commoners aren't business owners and instead resort to working for some business owner somewhere, usually a noble family. But they're aren't restricted from the public sector, and most doctors, police officers, professors, artists, actors, teachers, etc are commoners. Some of them are fortunate enough to scrape out a living for themselves and form small businesses, but as has already been stated in the lore, pretty much the whole new kingdom- nobles and government included- are broke. Just about everyone is in a lot of debt, and the only reliable surviving banking institution is the government itself which gives out various loans to the people and the nobility. One feature of the Kingdom's constitution is that it features purchasing titles of nobility. Although this feature is dusty and has hardly been used since the Kingdom's first year or two, if a commoner makes enough money they can actually purchase their way into nobility. The cheapest option being the untitled noble, and the highest buyable position being a baron. Anything higher than that requires a census of the crown to determine that a noble has enough land under them to justify being appointed a count who administrates all of it. But the Kingdom has yet to have even a single census, and the constitution just says that a census begins when Parliament submits a request for a census to the King, and after determining the feasibility and necessity for it, the King can then approve it and carry it out.