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Iomedae in the Eastern Empire!
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Count Idor Harlath of the Ministry of Progress possesses the sacred charge of turning the Empire into utopia. (He does not normally think that way, but it's true.) In a practical sense, his job is mostly interfacing between the public works department and the Emperor, but ultimately all magical research takes place under his umbrella. He takes a point of pride in never having good news, which does not mean he's not good at his job. "The gate-canal bill went up again," he says, "and, Siman, my staff will need Aritha back if we want to get there next month instead of next year."

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"We'll be done in a week," says Sinan, raising his hands in a quick symbol of surrender. "She's no more disloyal than anyone else, we just need to make sure there's nothing we're missing."

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Bastran does not want to be dealing with this right now. He's so tired. 

 

 

His mental model of Altarrin is deeply unhappy about all of the proposed solutions. Bastran is currently kind of sick of listening to his mental model of Altarrin. Yes, of course, Altarrin would be able to solve these problems brilliantly and without destroying any value permanently. The thing is, if Altarrin were there then he wouldn't have this problem, would he. 

The proposed solutions...are in fact not good ones. Altarrin used to talk about burning nebulous resources you can't see or touch - precedents set by the early founders at great cost, or trust in the Empire's law and righteous cause carried by people and institutions over the centuries - but this isn't even that, this is burning next year's seed corn. He might have to, anyway, but there are pragmatic reasons to try to avoid it, not just ideological ones. 

 

They need a different kind of move. Some sideways step that changes the game they're playing. 

...Buying the help of Iomedae's enemies with diamonds is that, but he doesn't like it. For one thing, isn't Iomedae's foremost enemy Tar-Baphon? She might be lying about the danger there but...overall he doesn't think so, and it would be an awful gamble to take even if he did. For another, even if they invest in interworld Gating, it's going to be very hard to make strategic decisions that actually achieve what they want, in a world they know almost nothing about. 

Is there anything else

 

An important skill that Bastran learned - from Altarrin, mostly - is how to interrupt a debate that isn't going anywhere, and say the things that no one else can say, because he's the only person in the room who doesn't have to fear how anyone sees him. 

 

 

"We can discuss the obvious plans in a minute," he says. "I'm going to propose some less obvious plans. All of which are probably bad, thus why they're not obvious, but I'm hoping we can workshop something, with this many clever people in a room.

 

Probably-stupid alternate plans! 

- They can't negotiate for peace with the Knights of Ozem, who are clearly untrustworthy with commitments, but they still might be able to bribe them. Even untrustworthy people follow incentives, usually, or at least the successful ones capable of pulling off any big projects do. 

- They could, in fact, back out of Oris. This does have various costs - and will be incredibly unpopular - but holding Oris also will, and for decades. At that point, the Knights at least have no reasonable ground to intervene. 

- They could make diplomatic overtures to Ithik, bribe them with favorable trade deals to back out of supporting the pretenders.  

- Also on the theme of 'tolerating gods', they could make a deal with the temple of Anathei, if there's still any kind of organizational structure to work with. Let them back into Oris, commit in writing to at least a 20-year grace period, give them lots of aid in the form of food and Healers, and in exchange ask the priests of Anathei to get the locals to settle down and accept being a province of the Empire. 

- (Bastran is probably only thinking this at all because he's very angry with Altarrin, though he's mostly not aware of it in the moment because everything is numb) Wasn't Archmage-General Norean claiming to be one of Bastran's true and loyal allies, fighting to free him from Altarrin's evil mind control? Well. The fact that Altarrin has now defected to another world is arguably grounds to make overtures to him and give him a face-saving route to reconciling with the Empire, at which point they'll at least be down to two wars. The cost is of course that it makes it vastly more complicated to reinstate Altarrin to his position, if they get him back intact and still loyal to the Empire, but Bastran doesn't currently see a route to do that anyway

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" - Bastran, it's not that desperate! We've got them on the run in Taymyrr -" (Altarrin had them on the run in Taymyrr and his replacement is enjoying the benefits of his foresight). "Don't despair. We'll have them all beat soon enough, just leave the battles to me and mine."

(It may, perhaps, be worth mentioning at this point that Macaley, like every other officer here, does not see 'we are short of people' as being a problem so much as an opportunity, and has enough names to recommend to the Emperor to fill every post on the list, though not quite enough to fill all the vacancies!)

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Elnore is already thinking, though. "Any diplomatic gains coming from deals with Iomedae are made on a basis of mutual distrust, and so require mutual benefit at each step and no god-interferences to make her think she can do better. If we can't independently contact the powers of her world so her breaking deals is public knowledge, there's a limit to what we can get out of it."

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Declane thinks backing out of Oris is a great idea, actually. Tozoa province was still not net-positive-tax-income counting the garrison, and the resistance will make sure that keeps being true for years, and this lets them redeploy the army there to worry about their enemies. Given that they're winning, he's sure Duke Elnore can negotiate a peace where they get to keep the territory north of the Havau Bar Ridge to connect to foreign trade routes, which he's sure the rebels will be willing to give up if the alternative is a complete defeat.

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"Your majesty, I beg you not to consider recognizing the pretender! To allow one rebel commander to profit by his treason would lead to incentivizing still more rebels, at greater cost to the Empire! Even to negotiate would embolden him, and he cannot possibly accept anything less than freedom from compulsions if he expects to keep his head when the war is concluded!"

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... Lady Voltha, like everyone else, is just going to pretend that the Emperor did not recommend recognizing a god. Is Bastran insane?

(She thinks that bribing Ithik is a pretty good idea but doesn't expect it to show immediate results, given that the rebels will still keep all the weapons and training Ithik already gave them.)

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"We can't afford to show weakness, Bastran. Back out of Oris, recognize a god, let Norean keep his post - they'll all give us another ten rebellions to put down. Of course, we can't afford anything else, either, isn't that right, Pelias?"

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"An empty treasury isn't bankruptcy, Idor. But we do need more reliable sources of income, and soon, or our grandchildren will still be paying for these wars."

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He sighs. 

 

"We know why Norean rebelled, right? He's a very capable administrator who was always more or less loyal - when it was in his interests, but we can take that assumption for granted for nearly every provincial governor or general - and then, and we know this was a godplot, he ended up with the - not unjustified - belief that we were about to remove him from his post and execute him for disloyalty. At which point it became abruptly in his interests to actually be disloyal. 

"And that's stupid, right? What a cheap intervention for Them, to pit us against one of our strongest and most economically critical provinces, and sit back while we do Their work for them and destroy our own resources and manpower, because we don't have a choice, because the alternative would make us look weak." 

 

He shakes his head.

"I know it would. I know that matters. I'm not sure it's even workable - we can offer Norean another chance, but he's still the one who has to be willing to take that chance, and of course he'll be worried it's a trick. I'm not willing to bend that far, he'll want a deal where we don't replace his compulsions and we need him under compulsions again, and maybe there's no deal there he's willing to take." Sigh. "Just, not trying it - letting the rest of this play out the way it inevitably will - is going to make us actually weaker, however it looks. We'll win, probably, eventually, unless something explodes in the meantime and we can't respond because rather than having Norean's men and Tolmassar's taxes working for us, we don't have them and we're dedicating a lot of our other resources to fighting them. But even if we win, we'll have less for the next thing the gods throw at us." 

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There's silence, for a moment. Macalay is not looking happy about this. Nobody is, really. Macalay could say if the army learns we offered it'll be bad for morale but Bastran knows this, or it will hearten him and his, but Bastran knows this, or it isn't that desperate but, well, it doesn't have to be desperate for Bastran to want to not execute a lot of people. Nothing wrong with that, just...

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Count Declane is trying to decide if he can afford to offer to use his personal contacts to try to negotiate a peace! It is true that the number three person in the finance ministry has relatives in Tolmassar on the rebel side, but it's also true that he's spent a lot of credit recently protecting her, and if this falls through, as he expects, he'd probably lose her on a treason charge if the Emperor didn't personally vouch for her, and the Emperor has never met her. (Her Plan For Fixing The Imperial Treasury is not in the list of things presented to the Empire; it might work, but would require annoying so many people. It's a plan for when there is not a revolt, and the Empire has free time. Like, any free time.)

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"My diplomats could speak with one of the representatives he's sent to a foreign court. Taking place outside the Empire, it would be hard for him to credibly claim it occurred if negotiations fell through; one of the Hardornen courts, maybe." Because Hardorn is unstable and its word is meaningless.

(The foreign service was relatively uninjured by the collapse of Altarrin's faction and the defections in Tolmassar and Taymyrr, and so without the need to avenge lost honor that the ministries of State and War possess, it is in an exceptionally strong position to make potentially-risky offers without being accused of treason.)

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Lady Voltha of the Ministry of Justice has the least secure seat of anyone here and so is mostly going to remain silent aside from providing quiet emotional support to Bastran about how screwed they all are.

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The Minister of State wants Norean's HEAD ON A PLATTER but directly going against the Emperor would be stupid. Therefore.

"If we must yield territory, withdrawing from Oris would free up significantly more resources. Even a compulsioned General Norean could never be trusted again, not without careful - and expensive - watching."

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"- Unless Iomedae's people invade, or her enemies do, in which case I think it'd be in everyone's interest to be on the same team here, and - I'd want to at least have traction on that, if not a signed truce. I agree that if we don't end up allied-in-truth against a common enemy, monitoring him is an ongoing cost and history says it's likely to only be delaying the problem. ...I'm inclined to put out some feelers. Sending our diplomats to meet his diplomats in a Hardornen court isn't going to sell him on - us meaning it, not enough that he'll take any chances - but it's at the very least a channel of communication." 

He frowns. "...An offer we could make - and I don't think we're there yet, but I think one more worrying report on the other world's capabilities would push me to it - is just giving him everything we already have. If it feels like his decision, whether to figure out how to Gate there and trade diamonds for their support or take our truce offer because they're a worse enemy, that buys us - not actual trust or loyalty, but a step toward it, I think." 

And of course everyone is going to hate that, so he'll turn and acknowledge Baron Pierson. 

"In the short run, I share your impression. Oris matters far less to us than Tolmassar - the southern half particularly has never really been part of the Empire at all except for on paper, and it's likely to be decades before the region would be net-positive on paying taxes or on providing troops." 

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He'll nod his head. (He's one of the least expert talkers-to-Bastran on the council; his central virtues are sixteen hour workdays and a very good memory.) "The loss of Oris would be tragic, but it can be reconquered in ten years, or twenty, or thirty. The loss of Tolmassar would be the loss of the Empire's strong right arm." (This is slightly a cliche, or more than slightly.)

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On the one hand, if the Emperor tries for Oris, he won't try for Tolmassar. On the other hand - "Bastran, if crimes committed against imperial subjects and the imperial flag in Oris are not avenged, there will be outrage in the streets of Jacona." Admittedly these tales are exaggerated, invented, or carefully selected to ensure popular support for the war, but that doesn't make it false. Riots have brought down more than one emperor. "The withdrawal will need to be very carefully handled."

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"We need to keep  the Havau Bar corridor," Macalay says. "We keep it, or we lose lowland-west Tolmassar the first time some Hardornen princeling wants a fight." It's what they invaded Oris in the first place for, that key link between previously separated territories.

And he does not want to lose southern Tozoa and the rest of Oris. Oris has men, and Oris has ore, and Oris has land. (And, impolitely, all these things need officer jobs to protect which can be handed out to loyal imperial noblemen, many of them his cousins.)

But it's better than negotiating with the rebels in bloody Tolmassar.

A little better.

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" - Bastran, the negotiations in Oris would be greatly preferable to diplomacy with Norean, even to the extent of telling him the truth about Iomedae's otherworldliness. if we are the sole faction speaking for Velgarth with her world, than we are in a much stronger position than if we, Iomedae, and Norean are three separate channels. I have no doubt but that Idor -" who is in this respect his political ally; the foreign minister and the person in whose domain novel magical research lies are natural allies for the discovery of a new world with novel magic "- can get us there ahead of him, but I would guess that even renegade imperials could beat barbarians to the required research."

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"If we can't, we're doing even worse than I'd expect." He's fine with giving up Oris. There would be Ministry of Progress jobs and spoils in it with the need to repair and expand the Gate-network in Tozoa and Oris, but frankly all his ministry's attention is going to be devoted to the extradimensional magic until the Empire's finished assimilating it into its own techniques, and there will be enough public works doing repairs in Tolmassar and Taymyrr to keep that department happy.

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"It took Altarrin a week to crack Gates and we barely have his notes," Bastran says wryly. "I don't think it's usable information for him, in the short run - and in the long run it's messy - it's not a good idea, just the first thing that came to mind if we decide it's a priority to convince him we're serious. Which I don't think it is, yet, so we can come back to it and get some ideas for other approaches later." 

 

And he turns to Archmage-General Macalay. "I suspect we're in a position where we could offer the rebel leader a ceasefire and peace talks, and it's very much in their interests to accept, and accept a proposed treaty where we hold onto the Havau Bar corridor. I'm - not sure how much to expect their leader to agree with that assessment, we know he's been planning from the premise that the gods are on their side, which doesn't necessarily imply rational decisionmaking." 

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"Oh, it's in their interests to surrender, all right," Macalay agrees. "Been in their interests to surrender from the start. It's in everyone's interests to surrender and join the empire! I just bloody wish they'd do what was in their interest, instead of keeping fighting forever."

Nonetheless, he does have plans his subordinates have submitted and he's approved - what to move out, what to Gate in, how to manage the withdrawal, what to do about collaborators trying to evacuate over to imperial territory - for either keeping the Corridor or giving up everything. Some of this is the Emperor's business, some of it is the general's, and a good bit is the Minister of War's, or his subordinates.

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Lady Voltha will chime in with some plans for riot control in secondary cities in the event they do that - she'll want the Imperial Guard, to stop it from going too badly in Jacona.

(It would, ironically, be less taken as a symbol of defeat, and be much less bad for morale, if they engaged in no negotiations, Gated the legions out, and called it a redeployment and so lost the whole province instead of keeping the valuable bit. The Emperor knows this, but it's still something she thinks about.)

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