Shinju no Nectar - Ch. 107 - The Emperor of Koenig

[Salfaro]

"Empires will always fall, Ludwig! It's in the nature of their over-extension!"
"But have you considered, Kai...?"
"What? ...No...!"
"That's right. What if the empire was really, really big? A flawless plan!!!"

 

[Tsumi]

So uh... Can someone summarize what was kai and the emperor talking about? Politics make my head spin. Explain it as simple as you can please

Basically, the emperor has the grand delusion that if he united (really, forcefully subjugated) everyone under his ironfisted rule, there will be world peace. His reasoning is that wars occur because different nations with different priorities exist, and if everyone was in one nation with the same priorities there wouldn't be war. He doesn't care how many people have to die for it- the ends justifies the means. Kai basically just says no and that he will oppose the emperor with everything he has.

 

[Tsumi]

Guy wants to do what is obviously not going to work. No one man can have power over the globe. Not a single one. Should've just beaten budget Hitler down on the spot rather than letting him walk.

Kai is generally physically weaker than the natives of this world. It's only with the nectar that he becomes powerful.

 

[talisay999]

a lot of reading ugh

 

[Iskarioth]

The emperor himself never explicitly says anything about supplanting, suppressing, or exterminating different cultures. Koenig military officials have definitely shown a common belief in their cultural superiority, but Ludwig himself hasn't, including in his previous meeting with Kai in the dwarven lands. He only seems to be interested in military and political dominance. The key here is on page 19, he says "all nations move as one, gathered under one single banner, governed by one single ruler," crucially not "all people united as one nation" or anything of that sort. There's also nothing about "Koenig ruling the world," only him ruling it.

Granted, based on what Monroe deduces his plans for Huang Lia are in chapter 93, he definitely doesn't care about preserving culture either. There just isn't any evidence he cares about cultural identity at all, just in his own individual superiority.

Sure, what I said is conjecture based on his little speech but I doubt he's simply going for a Hitler 2.0 since he apparently knows Earths history somehow. So as he alluded too, he knows how those Empires based on simple conquest and domination ended. He wants to do it differently, even suggest that there's not gonna be any more wore when everyone is part of the same empire.

 

[Tsumi]

Sure, what I said is conjecture based on his little speech but I doubt he's simply going for a Hitler 2.0 since he apparently knows Earths history somehow. So as he alluded too, he knows how those Empires based on simple conquest and domination ended. He wants to do it differently, even suggest that there's not gonna be any more wore when everyone is part of the same empire.

He's not really doing it differently though. The only difference is rather than justifying it through some sort of cultural, religious, or economic cause, he's using world peace as his justification. The method is still use of deadly force on anyone that dissents or resists. Softening up nations by encouraging devastating civil wars is part of the strategy.

 

[Meijin]

It's always ze not!Germans up to these ploys. I would not be surprised if his marebito was at least a century further down from Kai's time given that ray gun the dark elf dude had. I predict that while the war is kicking off in China, the Germans and the Romans will team up to divide and conquer the region. England will order Kai to stay the fuck away from the mess and I'm guessing the dwarves will become the next target for their production lines. I hope this ends in Kai having to fight a nuclear armed jet.

 

[zuflis11]

so many big and long pep talk only to end up with classic textbook tyranny: "everything, everyone under one rule, which is me."
if the world only consist of one pangea with relatively same condition from end to end, maybe sure.

also what the author mean by no one ever taken that path? no one ever succeed, thats more like it.

 

[ChaosAndBunnies]

All very dramatic but didn't make much sense. He's saying autonomy is bad, and then he argues that globalization destroyed Earth. How is globalization the end result of autonomy? It's the end result of oligarchy and denying self-determination. Also the world united under a single ruler has never been done? Alexander, Rome, Gengis Khan, Britain.

Yeah, basically every example of something resembling a "world-spanning empire" has two things in common; they become massively corrupt, or shatter immediately. His plan isn't just arrogant, it's naïve.

On the whole, chasing a perfect system in the first place is a fools errand, since every system is always going to be both made and run by imperfect humans. The only thing we can do is iterate on as many different systems through trail and error to create gradually less-flawed systems, because the world is just too complex to account for with just ambition and idealism.

The history of the world is just an ongoing science experiment trying to discover the least-terrible way to make a functioning society, and all he's really doing is pausing all testing for 20-100 years.

 

[Ruhrpottpatriot]

But Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40k worked

Pfff... The Imperium of Man """works""" because it's anything but a unified state. It's ridden with internal strife, civil wars, inefficient, cruel and beleaguered with all kinds of external enemies. It """works""" because the mass of it's rotten corpse is still on a trajectory set by the Emperor in 30k and we all know how his grand dream of a unified mankind turned out. And that happened even though you had the most capable and powerful ruler mankind had ever (and will ever) seen.

Also I dont think he Emperor is right because the issue is ... he is mortal and no matter how good and capable ruler he is, it will eventually break apart, a unification needs to come from a strong desire like what happened in Italy and Germany or from a system that gets too complex and useful to be torn down, the the EU.

That goes exactly into the direction Yang Wenli makes in LoGH. No matter ho great of a ruler Reinhard is, he is just a man and therefore mortal and nobody knows if the next ruler is as wise or capable as the previous.

Democracy combined with republicanism have the advantage that it divides power and control over said power onto many shoulders. This removes the single point of failure (even if Ludwig is eternally young, he can still be assassinated) and makes sure that at least somewhat capable people are ruling and that inept rulers can be ousted.

And before someone comments: No democracy and republicanism are not the same, the latter is the ideology, the former is the source of said ideology. You can have a democratic monarchy (the UK) and you can have an dictatorial republic (the Roman republic at certain times).

 

[Exile]

That goes exactly into the direction Yang Wenli makes in LoGH. No matter ho great of a ruler Reinhard is, he is just a man and therefore mortal and nobody knows if the next ruler is as wise or capable as the previous.

Democracy combined with republicanism have the advantage that it divides power and control over said power onto many shoulders. This removes the single point of failure (even if Ludwig is eternally young, he can still be assassinated) and makes sure that at least somewhat capable people are ruling and that inept rulers can be ousted.

And before someone comments: No democracy and republicanism are not the same, the latter is the ideology, the former is the source of said ideology. You can have a democratic monarchy (the UK) and you can have an dictatorial republic (the Roman republic at certain times).

Well yes but LoGH presents both sides, the Galactic Empire under Reinhard was what we can called a "Enlightened Dictatorship" as the Free Planets Alliance was a democrat undermined by corruption, populism and in case anyone forgot, it started with their invasion of the Galactic Empire to "liberate then" and when supplies were cutoff they were quick to oppress their "liberated" ... I am not disagreeing since its very political, Earth was shown as so corrupted and oppressing to its colony worlds that lead to Rudolph von Goldenbaum and the Goldenbaum dynasty, the show isnt kind to Rudolph von Goldenbaum as he is no Reinhard.

Also lets not get carried away with Republic, Rome was a Republic and elected a pair of Consuls that lead exactly to the same problems, consuls did everything to get reelected and hada year to do so and eventual lead to the Dictators and the Trivurates ... Rome was a Democracy as much that could be called it in the Ancient World, Caesers were after all voted by the Senate ... it wasnt a heritary line by default even if in pratice. And the German Democratic Republic was after all as the name indicates a Democratic Republic and Democratic Republic is something very specific. Unitary State is what I believe what you are looking for, those are rather common.

What LoGH did was shown that no system is perfect, that as absolutism lcan work underpeople such Reinhard and Demoracries can fall as easily into corruption, what Yang Wenli voiced whan that was talked about was responsibility, in a Democracy if its shit then people that voted are as responsible as the ones they put in power and can enact change were in absolutism they are stuck with who is in power short of rebellion, the show did show even a Democracy can be oppresive since thats what Earth did to the Colonies.

 

[Ruhrpottpatriot]

Well yes but LoGH presents both sides, the Galactic Empire under Reinhard was what we can called a "Enlightened Dictatorship" as the Free Planets Alliance was a democrat undermined by corruption,

And that invalidates Yang's point in what way? The last, the very last episode has Reinhard telling Hildegard that, should their son be an inept ruler, she should make sure that he's not to rule. This is exactly Yang's point. No matter how "enlightened" a ruler is, in a hereditary system you have no way of ousting them and history has shown that oligarchies and autocracies in the vast majority of cases are worse off than democracies.

Also lets not get carried away with Republic, Rome was a Republic and elected a pair of Consuls that lead exactly to the same problems, consuls did everything to get reelected and hada year to do so and eventual lead to the Dictators and the Trivurates ...

You missed the point about Democracy and Republic entirely. Democracy is the power source, i.e. where all stately power derives from. "Democracy" doesn't compete with "Republic", it competes with Oligarchy and Autocracy. Many, few, one in that order. "Republic" as a socio-political ideology competes with "Monarchy". Either the power you hold is temporary or infinite.

Also, Rome was never a democracy, not by modern standards and not by theirs. Athens is debatable, by modern standards, but fine by their, but Rome wasn't even on Athen's level. Even as a free, land owning, man you had almost no rights to vote. Rome was an oligarchy, and they themselves would've classified their republic as such.
And that's my entire point: An oligarchic republic is a valid system of power, one where have the power to decide who rules, but where those in power are only in power for a (relatively) short period of time. The same goes for when Rome elected their dictators. By their laws a dictator could do everything they wanted (with the exception of very few senatorial rights and the Veto of the plebeian tribunes). By definition this is an autocracy, but it's still a republic since most dictators gave up their powers at the end of their term (ignoring the last days of the republic here).

What LoGH did was shown that no system is perfect, that as absolutism lcan work underpeople such Reinhard and Demoracries can fall as easily into corruption,

To quote the man himself: " think humanity ought to avoid being united by a dictatorship. For example, while it is true that Duke Lohengramm might have that talent, what about his descendants? His successor? Rulers are not necessarily wise through generations... I do not think that the entire human race should be ruled by a system where everything depends on one person's character." Source: E33 'Fortress vs Fortress'

Yang is pretty adamant: Even if the current system of governance in the Empire works, it only works because of Reinhard and nobody knows how it will pan out in the future. That's the reason why he thinks Democracy and Republicanism are the better forms of government.

 

[Exile]

Also, Rome was never a democracy, not by modern standards and not by theirs.

You are the one stuck with Republic, Rome was a republic and office wasnt hereditary, well legally anyway and I could draw parallels to today.

So whats was the difference, as you pointed out Athens was a Direct Democracy as Rome was a Representative Republic were in Athens people directly voted in Assembly in Rome the Citizens elected Magistrates to govern then and there were other differences too such as Athens had a lottery as Rome had elections.

And of course neither are modern, women couldnt vote and only Citizens could ... I kinda dont want to go over class systems but the point being that Rome system is the one that modern Republic use because it was a very well put up system that can expand and scale very well, Athens on the other hand give the ideal of Democracy for participation but organizational wise its utterl unfeasible, imagine I win the lottery and became head of Treasure ... you guys would be really fucked.

That brings me to my point and also I believe Yang's that was both system have flaws and both systems can fail but he believes Democracy is the better system not because "muh vote" ... after all as a male Roman Citizen you could elect a Magistrate and even run for Office as long you meet the requirements that was m meeting minimum age and being of good legal standing ... you didnt strictly needed to serve in the military either, it dont think the show wanted to make the stand that Democracy is always better otherwise the first part of the OVA (never watched the remake) wouldnt done what they did ... but that on a Demoracy people ARE responsible for the people that hold office and so its a shared responsibility, if they do something you dont like ... vote for someone else that says what you want to happen.

And yes, I know the last part as Reinhard convenient starts dying because the show way hyped the guy as the greatest ever so he kinda had to because how good he was so they argue that same thing, even if Reinhard doesnt trust it but understands that clinging on the idea that only the suitable should rule should be starting with a new hereditary line, his ...

I like the show because it avoids a lot of traps, such as the "kind wise ruler" that is too common (God, Crest and Banner of the Stars is so bad in that regard) but also doesnt fellatio Democracy as the only system ... all systems have flaws as I seen people losing their collective shit over who won elections.

 

[mongol13]

I'll be real here chief. I spent like the entire arc just scrolling down looking at pictures.

I was getting afraid I'm the only one thinking that way. Seriously, this entire arc is nothing but politics. At some point I just stopped giving a damn what they talk about and just started sweeping through dialogues with my eyes, reading maybe 2 words from each sentence just to keep the context.