Very interesting points. Its important to pay attention to the logistics of the situation, however. Government models are limited by their technology; The most pragmatic approach was usually the only one they could afford while keeping society running. I find it interesting because I feel like this is, in part, a failure of imagination more than a failure of research. It's hard to visualize the repercussions of magic, for example, to this extent. Then again, that's the fun of worldbuilding in the first place. I really like your approach to worldbuilding. It's refreshing.
With Magic you could think off the wildest ways Governments work and are connected with. Of course, this depends on your magic system, but it definitely has as much of an impact as for example the Telegraph lines had. You're right with that.
@@worldbuildingsage Exactly what I was thinking: If you had a way of transmitting messages very quickly, you could control a much bigger empire without losing control of the periphery than without that type of magic.
Typically, it's the safer places that can afford a slow-moving government where politicians can argue over what to do. Where there is an immediate physical danger to the people, a warrior class with an all-powerful leader is needed to quickly give orders or possibly personally lead armies into battle.
I disagree that it's needed, but I think that future all powerful leaders definitely try to gain said power during times of instability, chaos, and strife.
@Worldbuilding Sage I'm not talking about future leaders. I am talking about the past when they didn't have the infrastructure for standing armies but found themselves in danger. The existence of an established military structure shows a higher level of stability.
I mean, even in that cases. Many non developed societies are very democratic in nature, and even when they have a leader, like in the Big Man societies, these leaders lead on consent of the whole group. In the end it really depends on the most minor of changes in material conditions on what type of leader a society might have.
The HAUDENOSAUNEE or Iroquois are a direct example against your thesis if you wanna check them out and how in many places those warrior nations where doomed to lose compared to those with a more stable beauracracy
In magic heavy worlds, I think everything would become a magocracy; possibly a monarchy with an archmage king. If you don't want that I think you need to be able to explain why it isn't the case.
That's something I argue too, actually. In my setting every ruler is either a Wizard, someone otherwise powerful like a powerful Warrior who also knows how to wield magic usually, or someone who is controlled by either.
Magocracies definitely should pop up much more often in magic-heavy settings and themselves can be quite varied. It also depends on how witches and wizards view themselves in terms of class. I have a setting, which has no nations but city states and most of them either started off or became or still are magicratic republics, meaning they had some form of councils or governments run by witches and/or wizards rather than a magical godruler or something. This, however, requires them to view themselves as a seperate class. In one example a magicracy has turned into a democracy (albeit limited and flawed at start), which caused younger generations of witches to stop identifying themselves as a class of their own, which is further fueled by the local labour movement, which does recognize witches as fellow workers and tries to include them. Magicratic ideas start to lose their appeal and eventually die out for the most part. So yeah. Magocracies don't have to monarchies plus and can shift to other forms of governance, especially when they aren't repressive af and let other classes come to wealth and/or power or simply lose their appeal to those that make up the magocracy.
Does magic require an in born gift? And is that gift hereditary? If you answer yes to both questions, a magocracy would basically be an aristocracy. Holding a lot of stake in blood lines. If the gift of magic is not readily hereditary, then a meritocracy is more likely. Peasants who display the ability of magic could very rapidly climb the social latter. If magic could be taught without a gift, then whomever had the resources would rise to power. Nobles could afford the resources needed to study magic. But if such knowledge is considered a trade secret, power would be concentrated to a few schools and guilds.
Great video man, I really liked the Confederacy! Both it's history as a democratic republic and it's transformation into a dictatorship are really interesting, I can't help but wonder what an uprising to depose the Lord Protector would look like. I would be pumped to see your thoughts about how a successful peasant revolt would happen and organize itself (their democratic governance, and their prevention of a counter-revolution) after deposing their former lords. There are many, many, unsuccessful peasant revolts throughout history, but one that came pretty damn close to success I can think of is the Hussite Revolution led by Jan Zizka. Not only did Zizka and his peasant army fend off multiple Catholic crusades using novel tactics, but with his radical Taborites won a civil war against the conservative and reformist Ultraquists (the best part is that he did a good part of this completely blind after loosing both of his eyes in various battles).
The Wars of Religion and the Hussites are a very interesting case, but I think they're a bit hard to replicate in a similar way like I took my influences from the Swiss with the Confederacy. I can definitely make a video on uprisings and peasant revolts in future though.
i think an element to perhaps expand upon (great video by the way) would be perhaps why the governments get formed of course there are various theories on hows and whys of government formation but i think at least initial elements can be played around in a fantasy setting for insistence geographical determinism would make us think certain governments in our world were destined or more prone to form due to location. Such as coastal cities being more dominated by merchants which in turn makes them a more important power bloc to appease in turn creating merchant republics but a fantasy setting well all bets are off there i mean hey you want to have more trade hire the wizards to bend the river your way but wait oh no the wizards demand annual payments to keep it this way so now they get a say and sure enough in some hundred years wizards get to either officially or unofficially start running your city. In short i think this is a great idea but i think you could expand some on the background of states this does not even mention elements such as local variation on large scale governmental systems such as polish feudalism as opposed to french feudalism but that is somewhat overkill and as a base is not really needed.
Of course there are the local differences but that's why these three simple questions I posed are the baseline you can ask yourself further questions that rise up while asking yourself these questions. It's not enough but it's basically the foundation of any governmental worldbuilding in my eyes.
I am pretty sure that the 3 most important questions are: How to secure the nation from others or problems within? How to do the best economy? How to keep the ruling class happy?
in my world the elves were an ancient bronze age/ neolithic inspired theocracy in which priest kings derived their legitimacy from power and ancient dragons considered to be avatars of the gods. The main race of men were hired by them to fight in a large civil war in which a religious offshoot rose up claiming the dragon's were not the gods, and men being able to use iron (something that drains elves powers with too much use) could be trained to fight for them with this secret weapon. After the war, in which the anti-dragonist were defeated and subjugated, much of the land of said people lay empty, and were thus given to the mercenary men as an award, however the dragons commanded the elves to sacrifice humans to them, and so a war broke out between the men and elves. the elves were pushed back onto a large island south of the main peninsula where they remain as an isolationist state to this day. The men became a confederated monarchy in which there was an empire ruled over by an emperor, that had vassal kings that controlled the various regions, and expanded until it hit all the natural barriers in its path.
@@worldbuildingsage no, they learned the secret technology of iron, which was part of the reason the elves hired them. They are essentially iron age La-Tene culture style celts, with different tribes loosely representing Gaels, Britons, Gauls, Galacians and Celtiberians. They also have allies in the Phoenician inspired southern men who they trade with by sea, and have enemies in germanic / slavic inspired barbarians even farther northeast of their homeland, as well as an Assyrian empire style giant tyrannical empire that has at various times taken over or fought with their Phoenician trade partners. There is also dwarves in the mountains that divide the peninsula from most of the mainland, but they are tribal bronze age / neolithic peoples that worship the bear cult and are enemies with Sasquatch inspired trolls in their mountain river valleys.
I have to admit I am very uncreative when it comes to goverments, probably because they haven't played a big role in my writing projects so far. The fantasy stuff mostly comes to my mind with default monarchies, unless their lifestyle demands otherwise. For my sci-fi WIP I came up with some other things, though. That one quarrelsome arthropod species has a council of ancient mothers whose name is being translated, fittingly, as "the Matriarchy", and who is or is not a member of that council depends on how many daughters you have and how successful they are. Basically, if you cannot be ignored by the council anymore, they will begrudgingly make you a member. The amphibian people are a theocracy where direction is mostly given by a very powerful and ancient being and all the nitty gritty is being seen to by "priests" who are basically just clerks. Another arthropod species is so compulsively cooperative that their natural way of doing things is anarcho-communism. They govern themselves by consent in a basic democratic manner. The humans have no real global government (yet), but the UN has been strengthened and different parts of the world participate in it more or less. Therefor it's a representative democracy. It's still very shaky and rough, though, because humankind is just recovering from a global famine that killed about half of them and redrew a lot of lines on the map. There are a lot of different forms of government on the world at that point, with various levels of functionality. I haven't quite figured out the system for my "space elves" yet. They probably have some kind of elected council at the top and maybe some kind of direct democracy for the rest of the people. The administration is being done by a large AI anyway, so maybe I just give them a kind of "Cybersyn" for decision making. They also have amassed solutions for nearly every problem that could arise, because they are very cautious in nature and tend to discuss everything until they have not only a plan A but also a plan B to Z just in case. So there are precedent cases and handbooks for how to deal with most things that could warrant a decision.
For governments its always the easiest to think about the society and it's power structures before thinking what kind of government it has. And well, if they have a massive singularity ai, just let the AI be the government.
@@worldbuildingsage I don't think it's a singularity AI. It's more like a cluster of AIs that are each responsible for running a bunch of systems like transportation, resource management, several automated production facilities, a matchmaking service, job finding service, etc. pp. But all of those functions are administrative and even though the AI that is responsible for coordinating them and serving as an interface to people is slightly more intelligent than humans, it still understands itself as a servant of the state. It will give recommendations for certain problems, but it cannot enforce them against the wishes of the people. If it tried that it would feel like a total failure for missing its purpose. Usually the council heeds the advise of the AI, but an AI that is designed to administer a planet can never fully understand the lived experience of biological beings whose brains and bodies are built completely differently. Therefor, it should always be people making the final decisions. And about power structures: That's a good way to approach it, indeed. Just in their case it's hard for me to answer that. I assume power is gained by social prestige in this society. And the urge to conform to societal norms is very strong among them, that means that a person willing to grab all the power and become a dictator would have to be an extreme outlier. They also would quickly lose support and be shown the door in shame. Anyway, you asking those questions and making your videos is giving me new impulses to think about my worldbuilding. It is very much appreciated. :)
>I assume power is gained by social prestige in this society. And the urge to conform to societal norms is very strong among them, that means that a person willing to grab all the power and become a dictator would have to be an extreme outlier. They also would quickly lose support and be shown the door in shame. There's always a way for a charismatic figure to weasel themselves around such societies.
@@worldbuildingsage Yep, there actually kind of is one in the story in a minor role, but even she has been socialized into just wanting to do "the best" for her people and everybody else. I mean, you're raising a good point and I might just be too unimaginative to come up with ways how things could go wrong in this society. I haven't invented much of their history yet, because it plays no actual role in the story.
