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Old 01-09-2018, 01:17 PM   #1
jason taylor
 
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Default Persim Monarchs

It seems to me that one of the chief disadvantages of republican government is simply that it is difficult to get loyalty for what is in essence a corporate prince, and therefore an inherent tendency to devolve toward despotism is placed inside like a suicide gene. Likewise a chief advantage of monarchy is that monarchs are sophants and will do all the embarrassing things sophants do. Such as marrying six wives; or first violating religious divorce prohibitions and second sucking up to the national enemy out of spite for instance, or something quite a bit worse then such displays of tackiness, depending on the power available to a monarch.

So given the availability of Personality Simulator programs, why not square the circle by having a constitutional monarch with a PerSim monarch? Make a legendary hero of the past king or queen and program the personality(as remembered) into a computer.

Whether or not this is actually a good idea is not the point. The point is that someone might find it a good idea making it an interesting plotline.

What can be done with this?
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Old 01-10-2018, 12:14 AM   #2
ak_aramis
 
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Default Re: Persim Monarchs

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
It seems to me that one of the chief disadvantages of republican government is simply that it is difficult to get loyalty for what is in essence a corporate prince, and therefore an inherent tendency to devolve toward despotism is placed inside like a suicide gene. Likewise a chief advantage of monarchy is that monarchs are sophants and will do all the embarrassing things sophants do. Such as marrying six wives; or first violating religious divorce prohibitions and second sucking up to the national enemy out of spite for instance, or something quite a bit worse then such displays of tackiness, depending on the power available to a monarch.

So given the availability of Personality Simulator programs, why not square the circle by having a constitutional monarch with a PerSim monarch? Make a legendary hero of the past king or queen and program the personality(as remembered) into a computer.

Whether or not this is actually a good idea is not the point. The point is that someone might find it a good idea making it an interesting plotline.

What can be done with this?
First thoughts....

The benefits: continuity of governance, superior retention of information.

Drawbacks: likely to make opaque decisions, subject to coding issues and attacks, possibly the lack of a physical body, possibly the use of a string of "Meat-puppets" instead (think puppet interface chips being installed in the royal line early on, and slowly taking over as they reach adulthood), possibly an alien understanding of common good, quite likely rather ruthless in certain circumstances.
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Old 01-10-2018, 01:41 AM   #3
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: Persim Monarchs

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Originally Posted by ak_aramis View Post
First thoughts....

The benefits: continuity of governance, superior retention of information.

Drawbacks: likely to make opaque decisions, subject to coding issues and attacks, possibly the lack of a physical body, possibly the use of a string of "Meat-puppets" instead (think puppet interface chips being installed in the royal line early on, and slowly taking over as they reach adulthood), possibly an alien understanding of common good, quite likely rather ruthless in certain circumstances.
I wasn't thinking of a persim actually ruling so much as one filling the ceremonial role. Ruthlessness would be irrelevant to the point.

One problem I can see though is in the dispensing of honors. It would be awfully hard for a persim to do it.
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Old 01-10-2018, 01:45 AM   #4
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Default Re: Persim Monarchs

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One problem I can see though is in the dispensing of honors. It would be awfully hard for a persim to do it.
Getting to meet the monarch in person is part of the honour, at least in the present day.
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Old 01-10-2018, 03:42 AM   #5
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Getting to meet the monarch in person is part of the honour, at least in the present day.
A vital part.
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Old 01-10-2018, 10:55 AM   #6
Mike Wightman
 
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Default Re: Persim Monarchs

The Imperium has had the technology to store the personalities of dead emperors and high ranking nobles on wafers for an awfully long time.

The wafer personality can be temporarily downloaded to a willing or unwilling host equipped with a wafer jack implant, it may be run in realtime on a high TL computer or robot brain, and finally a blank brain clone or synthetic derived from the the original (augmentation and genetic alteration optional) can have the personality implanted.

By TL15 the personality overlay machine from Expedition to Zhodane can write a personality on top of host even if they don't have a wafer jack (it is possible this is experimental higher TL gear).
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