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Monarchy

2023-05-19T20:46:29Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* Parliamentary Monarchy */

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[[File:Louis-xiv-photo.jpg|thumb|Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.]]

{{topquote|I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.|Voltaire}}

{{topquote|Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity.|Arthur Schopenhauer}}

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You don't need a grand formalized ideology or a complex administrative org-chart to start a kingdom. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed. Likely with nobody fretting about what this means for society in the long term.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some exceptions of course, with hereditary [[Dictator|dictatorships]] like Syria and North Korea.

== Types of Monarchy ==
Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

===Absolute Monarchy===
{{topquote|L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)|Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre}}
The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia, Oman, and Brunei.''

===Divine Monarchy===
The Monarch [[Ecclesiarchy|is seen as being a God]], at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Ancient Egypt, the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.''

===Elected Monarchy===

Formed where a bunch of Aristocrats or other powerful groups which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne, said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country and could sometimes remove the monarch. They generally arose when several smaller monarchies joined through non violent means such as a political marriage or confederation and no party was strong enough to totally dominant the other or where a group started becoming too powerful to totally control so were integrated into the power structure. Because of this they tended to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering but could work a lot better at the city-state scale such as in Venice where it stopped any one family totally dominating.

Most countries were historically 'elected monarchies' but the monarch was only elected from and by the royal family and this was simplified to hereditary succession. In turn countries usually retained elements of this or adopted elements of them over time, for example in countries such as Medieval Scotland in practice were still a hereditary monarchy but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

:'''''IRL examples:''' The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up (various constitiants were also elective), Ancient Rome at various times, the Holy See, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in both these later cases the monarchs are elected from their heads of the constituent states and are monarchs in their own right over the states they have responsibility for. Further while the UAE monarchs have power and elect each other to roles like Prime Minister, Malaysian monarchs are purely ceremonial and elected from one of the 9 state royal families, some of which are themselves elected monarchies).''

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism led to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through a combination of marriage, alliances, and inheritance, England owned more of France than France itself did - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''

===Military Monarchy===

{{topquote|The government here is entirely in the hands of the army. The Ottoman Sultan, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janissary's frown.|Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing during her travels of the Ottoman Empire}}

Similar to a Stratocracy, where the military has all power in government, the Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree as even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by or inversely it will be strengthened as the monarch draws more and more power from the military until the military aspect dominates.

Because of this in a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Military monarchs will usually lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility and at times the nobility will be near exclusively drawn from the military class. The disadvantage of this is that military and civilian leadership do not correlate one to one. Being able to lead an army in the field may win you battles, but to keep them fed and clothed you need a functioning economy. A combination of bad economic policies and a runaway military budget can be disastrous.

Further differentiated from other types of monarchy where the monarch is simply the head of the military, often the monarch will maintain a standing army of sorts (rare until modern times) and be in a constant state of war with either a long term opposing kingdom or wars of expansion. Sometimes this standing army will become central to their powerbase and end up controlling the Kingdom, such as with the Praetorian Guard in Rome or the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This usually has disastrous results for the monarch as the military gains more power and ends up controlling the entire apparatus of state with the monarch left as a figurehead.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Sparta, many Medieval Kingdoms, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.''

===Parliamentary Monarchy===
{{topquote|The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution ...|Article 4 of the Constitution of Japan}}

Also known as Constitutional Monarchies, the first modern Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. By this time, while the monarchy exists in a merely ceremonial respect and holds no real power in the day-to-day running of the country, the job can still be demanding in the sense that the monarch's new position is to serve as the embodiment of their nation's history, tradition and ideals - ideals that most world leaders rarely live up to even on a good day. The British royal family, for example, is heavily involved in beneficence, using their position to give official support and recognition to individuals and organizations that are doing good for the country as a whole. And its only by continuing to serve in this capacity that such a dynasty could maintain its existence; otherwise the public wouldn't be too keen on spending tax money on mansions and castles for a family that they don't have to answer to and do not admire. Commonly known as constitutional monarchies since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan and Thailand.''

===Semi-Constitutional Monarchy===
A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics. The Monarch (who is likely hereditary) may have to share executive powers with the Prime Minister from the legislative. Compared to a purely constitutional monarchy where the monarch is often given limited powers and a ceremonial role like parliamentary republics with ceremonial presidents, the monarch actually has some teeth to take action such as dissolving a gridlocked parliament or executive acts of government that bypass the legislative and judiciary if things are too dysfunctional (at the risk of abuse of powers).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there), Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco.''

===Theocratic Monarchy===
Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

:'''''IRL examples:''' pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican and ancient Egypt.

== Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy ==
*'''Line of Succession''': All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the '''Heir Apparent''' and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. If the current first in line's right of inheritance could be defeated, such as by the birth of a nearer relative to the monarch, then they are the '''Heir Presumptive''' instead. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
**'''Primogeniture''': Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies (excluding Spain, where ironically the King has no ''male'' heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
**'''Ultimogeniture''': Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
**'''Partible inheritance''': King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form that was present in the Early Middle Ages, and as any Crusader Kings player can tell you it tends to result in a lot of wars between the successors.
**'''Seniority''': The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
**'''Rota''': A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
*'''Abdication''': Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various [[Rules Lawyer|legal interpretations]] by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
*'''Consort''': The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a '''Queen Consort''' for a wife or typically '''Prince Consort''' for a husband (yes '''King Consort''' makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
**'''Dowager''': A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
*'''Sovereign''': another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
*'''Court''': The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
**'''Privy Council''': The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
**'''Court Etiquette''': You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
*'''Pomp and Ceremony''': Monarchy ''loves'' to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
*'''Regalia''': A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with [[Monty Python|Orbs that may or not be grenades]].
*'''Ladies-in-Waiting''': Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth Báthory|bathing in the blood of young women]]. For Regnant Queens such Elizabeth the First, ladies-in-waiting were often spies and messengers, either for or against the throne. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
*'''Pretender''': Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via [[Rules Lawyer|convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship]], or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
*'''Retinue''': Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a [[Inquisitor]]'s close circle of confidants and followers as well.
*'''Regent''': The ''de facto'' ruler for when the ''de jure'' monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
*'''Dynastic Politics''': Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
**'''Marriage Deals''': When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
**'''Dowry''': Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to '''[[wikipedia:Catherine_of_Braganza#Legacy|WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES]]'''.
**'''Paramours''': Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
**'''The Legitimate Dumbass''':[[File:EstatesGeneral.jpg|thumb|right|300px|When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.]]A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General (which promptly decides that they don't want a king at all and declares that the kingdom is now a republic).
**'''Fratricide''': One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir presumptive gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
**'''Personal Union''': One of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state. This can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
*'''Petitioner''': AKA "the Peasants doth complain too much". Petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
*'''Royal Guard''':[[File:Swiss Guard.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...]]A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with [[Musketeer|fancy uniforms]]. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
*'''Boons''': Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a blank check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endeavour like a trade mission across the ocean or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

===Legitimization===
A Monarch can't rule by force and fear alone. It's costly, wasteful, there's always someone who won't be intimidated, if the threat of violence fails to materialize the fear that cowed the populace can rapidly crystalize into hatred and a monarch still needs people to beat and scare people into line. A monarch can also buy the loyalty of those enforcing minions with money, food, housing, etc to follow their orders. But relying on wealth alone means that unscrupulous underlings will plot to usurp the throne, especially if pay is late. To ensure that their reign continues and their dynasty endures, Monarchs need something to convince people that their reign is the Right and Proper order of things. There are several ways to do so and most countries employ a mix...

*Beneficence: A Monarch provides wealth to worthy causes such as charity to the poor, assistance when disaster strikes and so forth. Obviously a Monarch who helps those in need out will be seen as a good thing by those down on their luck, especially when compared to a cruel miser. The same goes to those who use their wealth to build and maintain bridges, roads and other such useful things.
*Justice: A Monarch who is seen to settle disputes fairly, avoid unnecessary cruelty, properly deals with the corrupt and rights wrongs is usually seen as a positive thing. Creating uniform legal codes to replace centuries of outdated and confusing laws is one way for a King to streamline the legal system and make it more fair.
*Pax: The Monarch's Reign has brought peace, especially compared to the conflicts and turmoil which was the case before the rise of their dynasty. A strong military or foreign policy that stops the threat of banditry and raids will give the peasants much-needed breathing room to help the kingdom's economy prosper, and normally leave them with more money as they don't have to worry about being attacked all the time. In monarchies, peace is often bought through marriage, combining royal bloodlines and creating a personal union of nations; this can work very well when it unites groups that were already pretty similar.
*Religion: Either by claiming a measure of Divinity for yourself, holding key religious positions or by having religious institutions say that your rule is how the gods want it. In Medieval Times the Church said that the social order was divinely ordained and (with some exceptions, usually when the King repeatedly and majorly goes against the church) that disobedience to their Rightful Authority was not something god approved of. This eventually evolved into the Divine Right of Kings. Even so, a King may go the extra mile by building bigger and better places of worship, or by recovering holy artifacts and turning their capital into the religious center of the region, thereby bringing in pilgrims across and from outside the kingdom.
*Tradition: If this place has been a Monarchy for some time and especially if your Dynasty has reigned for a long while, you can claim that the rule of your line is the right and proper way of things and that attempting to change it would go against the ways of your people. With enough stability and good reputation, the citizenry will identify with the monarchy as part of its cultural heritage, even long after a particular monarchy has stopped having any real political power.
*Culture: A wealthy nation that actively promotes the arts and invests in talent can establish itself as a cultural centre to be envied and emulated. Not only does it keep the people happy, it can even cement your reign as your country's Golden Age of prosperity and cultural heritage. Future generations will seek to replicate the success of their Golden Age to legitimize themselves as well. It also helps that patronizing the arts gets you in the good graces of many artists, writers and intellectuals; it's not or nothing that Louis XIV put a lot of effort into being immortalized as the ''Sun King''.
*Education: A Monarch can afford to get the best education their kingdom can offer for their kids, especially the Heir Apparent. Numerous Tutors, each both wise in their fields and good at handling students and with access to all the works of history who can invest all their effort in helping them towards wisdom. The idea that the person destined to wield ultimate authority in a nation of millions has been trained since they could form a sentence to rule is in theory a solid justification as to why they should rule instead of Joe Schmo the shoemaker or Alice from Accounting. Of course it still takes two to tango and you can have a little shithead who'd neglects their lessons in favour of abusing servants for a larf.
*Philosophy: Learned individuals can be found who can articulate why Monarchy is the proper order of things. Once they emerge, promoting their essays, books and so forth can legitimize your rule to the masses. Since even the learned need to eat, your patronage on that front will produce lots of said treatises. The Philosopher-King was seen by Plato as the ideal ruler, seeing its closest form in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. To this end, have your various channels of dissemination and religious authorities promote those ideas far and wide.
*Censorship: On the flip-side, eventually someone will write responses against the works justifying your rule while others will come up with arguments against your reign or even that (gasp) that Monarchy itself is not the best way to govern. In that case, forbidding the publishing of these seditious treaties or slanderous libel lets proper loyal modes of thought flourish without pernicious weeds of dissent spoiling the garden.
*Repression: The next step from censorship is to establish a secret police force and crack down on republicans, reformers and revolutionaries. This of course can easily backfire; having a dozen democrats decapitated for spreading pamphlets saying that you are a cruel tyrant kind of proves their point.
*Parliamentary Concession: Sometimes the best thing a monarch can do if they want to keep their crown and a head to wear it with is to simply let at least a section of the common folk vote in representatives and have a say in government. It might lead to the degradation of their power in the long run, but at least the monarch and their descendants will be around to possess it.

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. for instance there are a lot of fantasy stories in which the resolution of a kingdom's issues is the return of the ''True King'' and the toppling of a Usurper. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at its most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the [[Local Lord]] first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in [[Dune]] and [[Battletech]]. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or (going Doylist again) it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of [[Imperial Truth|SCIENCE]]. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technology, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their [[Peasant|ruling subjects]] from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of [[Nagash|usurpers]] still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

== See Also ==
*[[Emperor]]
*[[Noble]]
[[Category: History]]

Monarchy

2023-05-19T20:45:44Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* Parliamentary Monarchy */

{{Stub}}
[[File:Louis-xiv-photo.jpg|thumb|Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.]]

{{topquote|I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.|Voltaire}}

{{topquote|Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity.|Arthur Schopenhauer}}

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You don't need a grand formalized ideology or a complex administrative org-chart to start a kingdom. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed. Likely with nobody fretting about what this means for society in the long term.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some exceptions of course, with hereditary [[Dictator|dictatorships]] like Syria and North Korea.

== Types of Monarchy ==
Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

===Absolute Monarchy===
{{topquote|L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)|Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre}}
The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia, Oman, and Brunei.''

===Divine Monarchy===
The Monarch [[Ecclesiarchy|is seen as being a God]], at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Ancient Egypt, the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.''

===Elected Monarchy===

Formed where a bunch of Aristocrats or other powerful groups which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne, said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country and could sometimes remove the monarch. They generally arose when several smaller monarchies joined through non violent means such as a political marriage or confederation and no party was strong enough to totally dominant the other or where a group started becoming too powerful to totally control so were integrated into the power structure. Because of this they tended to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering but could work a lot better at the city-state scale such as in Venice where it stopped any one family totally dominating.

Most countries were historically 'elected monarchies' but the monarch was only elected from and by the royal family and this was simplified to hereditary succession. In turn countries usually retained elements of this or adopted elements of them over time, for example in countries such as Medieval Scotland in practice were still a hereditary monarchy but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

:'''''IRL examples:''' The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up (various constitiants were also elective), Ancient Rome at various times, the Holy See, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in both these later cases the monarchs are elected from their heads of the constituent states and are monarchs in their own right over the states they have responsibility for. Further while the UAE monarchs have power and elect each other to roles like Prime Minister, Malaysian monarchs are purely ceremonial and elected from one of the 9 state royal families, some of which are themselves elected monarchies).''

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism led to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through a combination of marriage, alliances, and inheritance, England owned more of France than France itself did - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''

===Military Monarchy===

{{topquote|The government here is entirely in the hands of the army. The Ottoman Sultan, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janissary's frown.|Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing during her travels of the Ottoman Empire}}

Similar to a Stratocracy, where the military has all power in government, the Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree as even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by or inversely it will be strengthened as the monarch draws more and more power from the military until the military aspect dominates.

Because of this in a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Military monarchs will usually lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility and at times the nobility will be near exclusively drawn from the military class. The disadvantage of this is that military and civilian leadership do not correlate one to one. Being able to lead an army in the field may win you battles, but to keep them fed and clothed you need a functioning economy. A combination of bad economic policies and a runaway military budget can be disastrous.

Further differentiated from other types of monarchy where the monarch is simply the head of the military, often the monarch will maintain a standing army of sorts (rare until modern times) and be in a constant state of war with either a long term opposing kingdom or wars of expansion. Sometimes this standing army will become central to their powerbase and end up controlling the Kingdom, such as with the Praetorian Guard in Rome or the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This usually has disastrous results for the monarch as the military gains more power and ends up controlling the entire apparatus of state with the monarch left as a figurehead.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Sparta, many Medieval Kingdoms, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.''

===Parliamentary Monarchy===
{{topquote|The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution ...|Article 4 of the Constitution of Japan}}

Also known as Constitutional Monarchies, the first modern Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. By this time, while the monarchy exists in a merely ceremonial respect and holds no real power in the day-to-day running of the country, the job can still be demanding in the sense that the monarch's new position is to serve as the embodiment of their nation's history, tradition and ideals - ideals that most world leaders rarely live up to even on a good day. The British royal family, for example, is heavily involved in beneficence, using their position to give official support and recognition to individuals and organizations that are doing good for the country as a whole. And its only by continuing to serve in this capacity that such a dynasty could maintain its existence; otherwise the public wouldn't be too keen on spending tax money on mansions and castles for a family that they don't have to answer to and do not admire. Also known as a constitutional monarchy since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan and Thailand.''

===Semi-Constitutional Monarchy===
A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics. The Monarch (who is likely hereditary) may have to share executive powers with the Prime Minister from the legislative. Compared to a purely constitutional monarchy where the monarch is often given limited powers and a ceremonial role like parliamentary republics with ceremonial presidents, the monarch actually has some teeth to take action such as dissolving a gridlocked parliament or executive acts of government that bypass the legislative and judiciary if things are too dysfunctional (at the risk of abuse of powers).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there), Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco.''

===Theocratic Monarchy===
Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

:'''''IRL examples:''' pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican and ancient Egypt.

== Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy ==
*'''Line of Succession''': All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the '''Heir Apparent''' and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. If the current first in line's right of inheritance could be defeated, such as by the birth of a nearer relative to the monarch, then they are the '''Heir Presumptive''' instead. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
**'''Primogeniture''': Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies (excluding Spain, where ironically the King has no ''male'' heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
**'''Ultimogeniture''': Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
**'''Partible inheritance''': King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form that was present in the Early Middle Ages, and as any Crusader Kings player can tell you it tends to result in a lot of wars between the successors.
**'''Seniority''': The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
**'''Rota''': A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
*'''Abdication''': Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various [[Rules Lawyer|legal interpretations]] by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
*'''Consort''': The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a '''Queen Consort''' for a wife or typically '''Prince Consort''' for a husband (yes '''King Consort''' makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
**'''Dowager''': A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
*'''Sovereign''': another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
*'''Court''': The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
**'''Privy Council''': The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
**'''Court Etiquette''': You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
*'''Pomp and Ceremony''': Monarchy ''loves'' to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
*'''Regalia''': A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with [[Monty Python|Orbs that may or not be grenades]].
*'''Ladies-in-Waiting''': Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth Báthory|bathing in the blood of young women]]. For Regnant Queens such Elizabeth the First, ladies-in-waiting were often spies and messengers, either for or against the throne. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
*'''Pretender''': Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via [[Rules Lawyer|convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship]], or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
*'''Retinue''': Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a [[Inquisitor]]'s close circle of confidants and followers as well.
*'''Regent''': The ''de facto'' ruler for when the ''de jure'' monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
*'''Dynastic Politics''': Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
**'''Marriage Deals''': When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
**'''Dowry''': Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to '''[[wikipedia:Catherine_of_Braganza#Legacy|WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES]]'''.
**'''Paramours''': Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
**'''The Legitimate Dumbass''':[[File:EstatesGeneral.jpg|thumb|right|300px|When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.]]A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General (which promptly decides that they don't want a king at all and declares that the kingdom is now a republic).
**'''Fratricide''': One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir presumptive gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
**'''Personal Union''': One of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state. This can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
*'''Petitioner''': AKA "the Peasants doth complain too much". Petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
*'''Royal Guard''':[[File:Swiss Guard.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...]]A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with [[Musketeer|fancy uniforms]]. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
*'''Boons''': Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a blank check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endeavour like a trade mission across the ocean or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

===Legitimization===
A Monarch can't rule by force and fear alone. It's costly, wasteful, there's always someone who won't be intimidated, if the threat of violence fails to materialize the fear that cowed the populace can rapidly crystalize into hatred and a monarch still needs people to beat and scare people into line. A monarch can also buy the loyalty of those enforcing minions with money, food, housing, etc to follow their orders. But relying on wealth alone means that unscrupulous underlings will plot to usurp the throne, especially if pay is late. To ensure that their reign continues and their dynasty endures, Monarchs need something to convince people that their reign is the Right and Proper order of things. There are several ways to do so and most countries employ a mix...

*Beneficence: A Monarch provides wealth to worthy causes such as charity to the poor, assistance when disaster strikes and so forth. Obviously a Monarch who helps those in need out will be seen as a good thing by those down on their luck, especially when compared to a cruel miser. The same goes to those who use their wealth to build and maintain bridges, roads and other such useful things.
*Justice: A Monarch who is seen to settle disputes fairly, avoid unnecessary cruelty, properly deals with the corrupt and rights wrongs is usually seen as a positive thing. Creating uniform legal codes to replace centuries of outdated and confusing laws is one way for a King to streamline the legal system and make it more fair.
*Pax: The Monarch's Reign has brought peace, especially compared to the conflicts and turmoil which was the case before the rise of their dynasty. A strong military or foreign policy that stops the threat of banditry and raids will give the peasants much-needed breathing room to help the kingdom's economy prosper, and normally leave them with more money as they don't have to worry about being attacked all the time. In monarchies, peace is often bought through marriage, combining royal bloodlines and creating a personal union of nations; this can work very well when it unites groups that were already pretty similar.
*Religion: Either by claiming a measure of Divinity for yourself, holding key religious positions or by having religious institutions say that your rule is how the gods want it. In Medieval Times the Church said that the social order was divinely ordained and (with some exceptions, usually when the King repeatedly and majorly goes against the church) that disobedience to their Rightful Authority was not something god approved of. This eventually evolved into the Divine Right of Kings. Even so, a King may go the extra mile by building bigger and better places of worship, or by recovering holy artifacts and turning their capital into the religious center of the region, thereby bringing in pilgrims across and from outside the kingdom.
*Tradition: If this place has been a Monarchy for some time and especially if your Dynasty has reigned for a long while, you can claim that the rule of your line is the right and proper way of things and that attempting to change it would go against the ways of your people. With enough stability and good reputation, the citizenry will identify with the monarchy as part of its cultural heritage, even long after a particular monarchy has stopped having any real political power.
*Culture: A wealthy nation that actively promotes the arts and invests in talent can establish itself as a cultural centre to be envied and emulated. Not only does it keep the people happy, it can even cement your reign as your country's Golden Age of prosperity and cultural heritage. Future generations will seek to replicate the success of their Golden Age to legitimize themselves as well. It also helps that patronizing the arts gets you in the good graces of many artists, writers and intellectuals; it's not or nothing that Louis XIV put a lot of effort into being immortalized as the ''Sun King''.
*Education: A Monarch can afford to get the best education their kingdom can offer for their kids, especially the Heir Apparent. Numerous Tutors, each both wise in their fields and good at handling students and with access to all the works of history who can invest all their effort in helping them towards wisdom. The idea that the person destined to wield ultimate authority in a nation of millions has been trained since they could form a sentence to rule is in theory a solid justification as to why they should rule instead of Joe Schmo the shoemaker or Alice from Accounting. Of course it still takes two to tango and you can have a little shithead who'd neglects their lessons in favour of abusing servants for a larf.
*Philosophy: Learned individuals can be found who can articulate why Monarchy is the proper order of things. Once they emerge, promoting their essays, books and so forth can legitimize your rule to the masses. Since even the learned need to eat, your patronage on that front will produce lots of said treatises. The Philosopher-King was seen by Plato as the ideal ruler, seeing its closest form in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. To this end, have your various channels of dissemination and religious authorities promote those ideas far and wide.
*Censorship: On the flip-side, eventually someone will write responses against the works justifying your rule while others will come up with arguments against your reign or even that (gasp) that Monarchy itself is not the best way to govern. In that case, forbidding the publishing of these seditious treaties or slanderous libel lets proper loyal modes of thought flourish without pernicious weeds of dissent spoiling the garden.
*Repression: The next step from censorship is to establish a secret police force and crack down on republicans, reformers and revolutionaries. This of course can easily backfire; having a dozen democrats decapitated for spreading pamphlets saying that you are a cruel tyrant kind of proves their point.
*Parliamentary Concession: Sometimes the best thing a monarch can do if they want to keep their crown and a head to wear it with is to simply let at least a section of the common folk vote in representatives and have a say in government. It might lead to the degradation of their power in the long run, but at least the monarch and their descendants will be around to possess it.

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. for instance there are a lot of fantasy stories in which the resolution of a kingdom's issues is the return of the ''True King'' and the toppling of a Usurper. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at its most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the [[Local Lord]] first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in [[Dune]] and [[Battletech]]. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or (going Doylist again) it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of [[Imperial Truth|SCIENCE]]. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technology, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their [[Peasant|ruling subjects]] from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of [[Nagash|usurpers]] still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

== See Also ==
*[[Emperor]]
*[[Noble]]
[[Category: History]]

Monarchy

2023-05-19T20:43:45Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* Semi-Constitutional Monarchy */

{{Stub}}
[[File:Louis-xiv-photo.jpg|thumb|Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.]]

{{topquote|I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.|Voltaire}}

{{topquote|Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity.|Arthur Schopenhauer}}

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You don't need a grand formalized ideology or a complex administrative org-chart to start a kingdom. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed. Likely with nobody fretting about what this means for society in the long term.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some exceptions of course, with hereditary [[Dictator|dictatorships]] like Syria and North Korea.

== Types of Monarchy ==
Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

===Absolute Monarchy===
{{topquote|L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)|Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre}}
The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia, Oman, and Brunei.''

===Divine Monarchy===
The Monarch [[Ecclesiarchy|is seen as being a God]], at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Ancient Egypt, the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.''

===Elected Monarchy===

Formed where a bunch of Aristocrats or other powerful groups which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne, said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country and could sometimes remove the monarch. They generally arose when several smaller monarchies joined through non violent means such as a political marriage or confederation and no party was strong enough to totally dominant the other or where a group started becoming too powerful to totally control so were integrated into the power structure. Because of this they tended to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering but could work a lot better at the city-state scale such as in Venice where it stopped any one family totally dominating.

Most countries were historically 'elected monarchies' but the monarch was only elected from and by the royal family and this was simplified to hereditary succession. In turn countries usually retained elements of this or adopted elements of them over time, for example in countries such as Medieval Scotland in practice were still a hereditary monarchy but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

:'''''IRL examples:''' The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up (various constitiants were also elective), Ancient Rome at various times, the Holy See, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in both these later cases the monarchs are elected from their heads of the constituent states and are monarchs in their own right over the states they have responsibility for. Further while the UAE monarchs have power and elect each other to roles like Prime Minister, Malaysian monarchs are purely ceremonial and elected from one of the 9 state royal families, some of which are themselves elected monarchies).''

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism led to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through a combination of marriage, alliances, and inheritance, England owned more of France than France itself did - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''

===Military Monarchy===

{{topquote|The government here is entirely in the hands of the army. The Ottoman Sultan, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janissary's frown.|Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing during her travels of the Ottoman Empire}}

Similar to a Stratocracy, where the military has all power in government, the Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree as even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by or inversely it will be strengthened as the monarch draws more and more power from the military until the military aspect dominates.

Because of this in a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Military monarchs will usually lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility and at times the nobility will be near exclusively drawn from the military class. The disadvantage of this is that military and civilian leadership do not correlate one to one. Being able to lead an army in the field may win you battles, but to keep them fed and clothed you need a functioning economy. A combination of bad economic policies and a runaway military budget can be disastrous.

Further differentiated from other types of monarchy where the monarch is simply the head of the military, often the monarch will maintain a standing army of sorts (rare until modern times) and be in a constant state of war with either a long term opposing kingdom or wars of expansion. Sometimes this standing army will become central to their powerbase and end up controlling the Kingdom, such as with the Praetorian Guard in Rome or the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This usually has disastrous results for the monarch as the military gains more power and ends up controlling the entire apparatus of state with the monarch left as a figurehead.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Sparta, many Medieval Kingdoms, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.''

===Parliamentary Monarchy===
{{topquote|The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution ...|Article 4 of the Constitution of Japan}}

The first modern Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. By this time, while the monarchy exists in a merely ceremonial respect and holds no real power in the day-to-day running of the country, the job can still be demanding in the sense that the monarch's new position is to serve as the embodiment of their nation's history, tradition and ideals - ideals that most world leaders rarely live up to even on a good day. The British royal family, for example, is heavily involved in beneficence, using their position to give official support and recognition to individuals and organizations that are doing good for the country as a whole. And its only by continuing to serve in this capacity that such a dynasty could maintain its existence; otherwise the public wouldn't be too keen on spending tax money on mansions and castles for a family that they don't have to answer to and do not admire. Also known as a constitutional monarchy since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan and Thailand.''

===Semi-Constitutional Monarchy===
A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics. The Monarch (who is likely hereditary) may have to share executive powers with the Prime Minister from the legislative. Compared to a purely constitutional monarchy where the monarch is often given limited powers and a ceremonial role like parliamentary republics with ceremonial presidents, the monarch actually has some teeth to take action such as dissolving a gridlocked parliament or executive acts of government that bypass the legislative and judiciary if things are too dysfunctional (at the risk of abuse of powers).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there), Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco.''

===Theocratic Monarchy===
Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

:'''''IRL examples:''' pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican and ancient Egypt.

== Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy ==
*'''Line of Succession''': All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the '''Heir Apparent''' and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. If the current first in line's right of inheritance could be defeated, such as by the birth of a nearer relative to the monarch, then they are the '''Heir Presumptive''' instead. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
**'''Primogeniture''': Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies (excluding Spain, where ironically the King has no ''male'' heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
**'''Ultimogeniture''': Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
**'''Partible inheritance''': King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form that was present in the Early Middle Ages, and as any Crusader Kings player can tell you it tends to result in a lot of wars between the successors.
**'''Seniority''': The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
**'''Rota''': A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
*'''Abdication''': Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various [[Rules Lawyer|legal interpretations]] by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
*'''Consort''': The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a '''Queen Consort''' for a wife or typically '''Prince Consort''' for a husband (yes '''King Consort''' makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
**'''Dowager''': A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
*'''Sovereign''': another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
*'''Court''': The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
**'''Privy Council''': The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
**'''Court Etiquette''': You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
*'''Pomp and Ceremony''': Monarchy ''loves'' to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
*'''Regalia''': A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with [[Monty Python|Orbs that may or not be grenades]].
*'''Ladies-in-Waiting''': Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth Báthory|bathing in the blood of young women]]. For Regnant Queens such Elizabeth the First, ladies-in-waiting were often spies and messengers, either for or against the throne. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
*'''Pretender''': Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via [[Rules Lawyer|convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship]], or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
*'''Retinue''': Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a [[Inquisitor]]'s close circle of confidants and followers as well.
*'''Regent''': The ''de facto'' ruler for when the ''de jure'' monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
*'''Dynastic Politics''': Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
**'''Marriage Deals''': When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
**'''Dowry''': Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to '''[[wikipedia:Catherine_of_Braganza#Legacy|WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES]]'''.
**'''Paramours''': Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
**'''The Legitimate Dumbass''':[[File:EstatesGeneral.jpg|thumb|right|300px|When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.]]A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General (which promptly decides that they don't want a king at all and declares that the kingdom is now a republic).
**'''Fratricide''': One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir presumptive gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
**'''Personal Union''': One of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state. This can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
*'''Petitioner''': AKA "the Peasants doth complain too much". Petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
*'''Royal Guard''':[[File:Swiss Guard.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...]]A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with [[Musketeer|fancy uniforms]]. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
*'''Boons''': Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a blank check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endeavour like a trade mission across the ocean or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

===Legitimization===
A Monarch can't rule by force and fear alone. It's costly, wasteful, there's always someone who won't be intimidated, if the threat of violence fails to materialize the fear that cowed the populace can rapidly crystalize into hatred and a monarch still needs people to beat and scare people into line. A monarch can also buy the loyalty of those enforcing minions with money, food, housing, etc to follow their orders. But relying on wealth alone means that unscrupulous underlings will plot to usurp the throne, especially if pay is late. To ensure that their reign continues and their dynasty endures, Monarchs need something to convince people that their reign is the Right and Proper order of things. There are several ways to do so and most countries employ a mix...

*Beneficence: A Monarch provides wealth to worthy causes such as charity to the poor, assistance when disaster strikes and so forth. Obviously a Monarch who helps those in need out will be seen as a good thing by those down on their luck, especially when compared to a cruel miser. The same goes to those who use their wealth to build and maintain bridges, roads and other such useful things.
*Justice: A Monarch who is seen to settle disputes fairly, avoid unnecessary cruelty, properly deals with the corrupt and rights wrongs is usually seen as a positive thing. Creating uniform legal codes to replace centuries of outdated and confusing laws is one way for a King to streamline the legal system and make it more fair.
*Pax: The Monarch's Reign has brought peace, especially compared to the conflicts and turmoil which was the case before the rise of their dynasty. A strong military or foreign policy that stops the threat of banditry and raids will give the peasants much-needed breathing room to help the kingdom's economy prosper, and normally leave them with more money as they don't have to worry about being attacked all the time. In monarchies, peace is often bought through marriage, combining royal bloodlines and creating a personal union of nations; this can work very well when it unites groups that were already pretty similar.
*Religion: Either by claiming a measure of Divinity for yourself, holding key religious positions or by having religious institutions say that your rule is how the gods want it. In Medieval Times the Church said that the social order was divinely ordained and (with some exceptions, usually when the King repeatedly and majorly goes against the church) that disobedience to their Rightful Authority was not something god approved of. This eventually evolved into the Divine Right of Kings. Even so, a King may go the extra mile by building bigger and better places of worship, or by recovering holy artifacts and turning their capital into the religious center of the region, thereby bringing in pilgrims across and from outside the kingdom.
*Tradition: If this place has been a Monarchy for some time and especially if your Dynasty has reigned for a long while, you can claim that the rule of your line is the right and proper way of things and that attempting to change it would go against the ways of your people. With enough stability and good reputation, the citizenry will identify with the monarchy as part of its cultural heritage, even long after a particular monarchy has stopped having any real political power.
*Culture: A wealthy nation that actively promotes the arts and invests in talent can establish itself as a cultural centre to be envied and emulated. Not only does it keep the people happy, it can even cement your reign as your country's Golden Age of prosperity and cultural heritage. Future generations will seek to replicate the success of their Golden Age to legitimize themselves as well. It also helps that patronizing the arts gets you in the good graces of many artists, writers and intellectuals; it's not or nothing that Louis XIV put a lot of effort into being immortalized as the ''Sun King''.
*Education: A Monarch can afford to get the best education their kingdom can offer for their kids, especially the Heir Apparent. Numerous Tutors, each both wise in their fields and good at handling students and with access to all the works of history who can invest all their effort in helping them towards wisdom. The idea that the person destined to wield ultimate authority in a nation of millions has been trained since they could form a sentence to rule is in theory a solid justification as to why they should rule instead of Joe Schmo the shoemaker or Alice from Accounting. Of course it still takes two to tango and you can have a little shithead who'd neglects their lessons in favour of abusing servants for a larf.
*Philosophy: Learned individuals can be found who can articulate why Monarchy is the proper order of things. Once they emerge, promoting their essays, books and so forth can legitimize your rule to the masses. Since even the learned need to eat, your patronage on that front will produce lots of said treatises. The Philosopher-King was seen by Plato as the ideal ruler, seeing its closest form in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. To this end, have your various channels of dissemination and religious authorities promote those ideas far and wide.
*Censorship: On the flip-side, eventually someone will write responses against the works justifying your rule while others will come up with arguments against your reign or even that (gasp) that Monarchy itself is not the best way to govern. In that case, forbidding the publishing of these seditious treaties or slanderous libel lets proper loyal modes of thought flourish without pernicious weeds of dissent spoiling the garden.
*Repression: The next step from censorship is to establish a secret police force and crack down on republicans, reformers and revolutionaries. This of course can easily backfire; having a dozen democrats decapitated for spreading pamphlets saying that you are a cruel tyrant kind of proves their point.
*Parliamentary Concession: Sometimes the best thing a monarch can do if they want to keep their crown and a head to wear it with is to simply let at least a section of the common folk vote in representatives and have a say in government. It might lead to the degradation of their power in the long run, but at least the monarch and their descendants will be around to possess it.

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. for instance there are a lot of fantasy stories in which the resolution of a kingdom's issues is the return of the ''True King'' and the toppling of a Usurper. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at its most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the [[Local Lord]] first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in [[Dune]] and [[Battletech]]. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or (going Doylist again) it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of [[Imperial Truth|SCIENCE]]. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technology, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their [[Peasant|ruling subjects]] from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of [[Nagash|usurpers]] still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

== See Also ==
*[[Emperor]]
*[[Noble]]
[[Category: History]]

Monarchy

2023-05-19T15:56:00Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* Parliamentary Monarchy */

{{Stub}}
[[File:Louis-xiv-photo.jpg|thumb|Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.]]

{{topquote|I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.|Voltaire}}

{{topquote|Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity.|Arthur Schopenhauer}}

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You don't need a grand formalized ideology or a complex administrative org-chart to start a kingdom. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed. Likely with nobody fretting about what this means for society in the long term.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some exceptions of course, with hereditary [[Dictator|dictatorships]] like Syria and North Korea.

== Types of Monarchy ==
Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

===Absolute Monarchy===
{{topquote|L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)|Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre}}
The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia, Oman, and Brunei.''

===Divine Monarchy===
The Monarch [[Ecclesiarchy|is seen as being a God]], at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Ancient Egypt, the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.''

===Elected Monarchy===

Formed where a bunch of Aristocrats or other powerful groups which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne, said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country and could sometimes remove the monarch. They generally arose when several smaller monarchies joined through non violent means such as a political marriage or confederation and no party was strong enough to totally dominant the other or where a group started becoming too powerful to totally control so were integrated into the power structure. Because of this they tended to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering but could work a lot better at the city-state scale such as in Venice where it stopped any one family totally dominating.

Most countries were historically 'elected monarchies' but the monarch was only elected from and by the royal family and this was simplified to hereditary succession. In turn countries usually retained elements of this or adopted elements of them over time, for example in countries such as Medieval Scotland in practice were still a hereditary monarchy but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

:'''''IRL examples:''' The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up (various constitiants were also elective), Ancient Rome at various times, the Holy See, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in both these later cases the monarchs are elected from their heads of the constituent states and are monarchs in their own right over the states they have responsibility for. Further while the UAE monarchs have power and elect each other to roles like Prime Minister, Malaysian monarchs are purely ceremonial and elected from one of the 9 state royal families, some of which are themselves elected monarchies).''

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism lead to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through marriage alliances and inheritance, England owned more of France than France - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''

===Military Monarchy===

{{topquote|The government here is entirely in the hands of the army. The Ottoman Sultan, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janissary's frown.|Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing during her travels of the Ottoman Empire}}

Similar to a Stratocracy, where the military has all power in government, the Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree as even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by or inversely it will be strengthened as the monarch draws more and more power from the military until the military aspect dominates.

Because of this in a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Military monarchs will usually lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility and at times the nobility will be near exclusively drawn from the military class. The disadvantage of this is that military and civilian leadership do not correlate one to one. Being able to lead an army in the field may win you battles, but to keep them fed and clothed you need a functioning economy. A combination of bad economic policies and a runaway military budget can be disastrous.

Further differentiated from other types of monarchy where the monarch is simply the head of the military, often the monarch will maintain a standing army of sorts (rare until modern times) and be in a constant state of war with either a long term opposing kingdom or wars of expansion. Sometimes this standing army will become central to their powerbase and end up controlling the Kingdom, such as with the Praetorian Guard in Rome or the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This usually has disastrous results for the monarch as the military gains more power and ends up controlling the entire apparatus of state with the monarch left as a figurehead.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Sparta, many Medieval Kingdoms, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.''

===Parliamentary Monarchy===
{{topquote|The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution ...|Article 4 of the Constitution of Japan}}

The first modern Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. By this time, while the monarchy exists in a merely ceremonial respect and holds no real power in the day-to-day running of the country, the job can still be demanding in the sense that the monarch's new position is to serve as the embodiment of their nation's history, tradition and ideals - ideals that most world leaders rarely live up to even on a good day. The British royal family, for example, is heavily involved in beneficence, using their position to give official support and recognition to individuals and organizations that are doing good for the country as a whole. And its only by continuing to serve in this capacity that such a dynasty could maintain its existence; otherwise the public wouldn't be too keen on spending tax money on mansions and castles for a family that they don't have to answer to and do not admire. Also known as a constitutional monarchy since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan and Thailand.''

===Semi-Constitutional Monarchy===
A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics. The Monarch (who is likely hereditary) may have to share executive powers with the Prime Minister from the legislative.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there), Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco.''

===Theocratic Monarchy===
Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

:'''''IRL examples:''' pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican and ancient Egypt.

== Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy ==
*'''Line of Succession''': All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the '''Heir Apparent''' and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. If the current first in line's right of inheritance could be defeated, such as by the birth of a nearer relative to the monarch, then they are the '''Heir Presumptive''' instead. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
**'''Primogeniture''': Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies (excluding Spain, where ironically the King has no ''male'' heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
**'''Ultimogeniture''': Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
**'''Partible inheritance''': King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form that was present in the Early Middle Ages, and as any Crusader Kings player can tell you it tends to result in a lot of wars between the successors.
**'''Seniority''': The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
**'''Rota''': A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
*'''Abdication''': Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various [[Rules Lawyer|legal interpretations]] by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
*'''Consort''': The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a '''Queen Consort''' for a wife or typically '''Prince Consort''' for a husband (yes '''King Consort''' makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
**'''Dowager''': A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
*'''Sovereign''': another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
*'''Court''': The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
**'''Privy Council''': The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
**'''Court Etiquette''': You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
*'''Pomp and Ceremony''': Monarchy ''loves'' to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
*'''Regalia''': A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with [[Monty Python|Orbs that may or not be grenades]].
*'''Ladies-in-Waiting''': Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth Báthory|bathing in the blood of young women]]. For Regnant Queens such Elizabeth the First, ladies-in-waiting were often spies and messengers, either for or against the throne. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
*'''Pretender''': Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via [[Rules Lawyer|convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship]], or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
*'''Retinue''': Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a [[Inquisitor]]'s close circle of confidants and followers as well.
*'''Regent''': the ''de facto'' ruler for when the ''de jure'' monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
*'''Dynastic Politics''': Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
**'''Marriage Deals''': When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
**'''Dowry''': Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to '''[[wikipedia:Catherine_of_Braganza#Legacy|WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES]]'''.
**'''Paramours''': Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
**'''The Legitimate Dumbass''':[[File:EstatesGeneral.jpg|thumb|right|300px|When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.]]A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General (which promptly decides that they don't want a king at all and declares that the kingdom is now a republic).
**'''Fratricide''': One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir presumptive gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
**'''Personal Union''': one of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state; this can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
*'''Petitioner''': aka the Peasants doth complain too much, petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
*'''Royal Guard''':[[File:Swiss Guard.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...]]A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with [[Musketeer|fancy uniforms]]. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
*'''Boons''': Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a blank check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endeavour like a trade mission across the ocean or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

===Legitimization===
A Monarch can't rule by force and fear alone. It's costly, wasteful, there's always someone who won't be intimidated, if the threat of violence fails to materialize the fear that cowed the populace can rapidly crystalize into hatred and a monarch still needs people to beat and scare people into line. A monarch can also buy the loyalty of those enforcing minions with money, food, housing, etc to follow their orders. But relying on wealth alone means that unscrupulous underlings will plot to usurp the throne, especially if pay is late. To ensure that their reign continues and their dynasty endures, Monarchs need something to convince people that their reign is the Right and Proper order of things. There are several ways to do so and most countries employ a mix...

*Beneficence: A Monarch provides wealth to worthy causes such as charity to the poor, assistance when disaster strikes and so forth. Obviously a Monarch who helps those in need out will be seen as a good thing by those down on their luck, especially when compared to a cruel miser. The same goes to those who use their wealth to build and maintain bridges, roads and other such useful things.
*Justice: A Monarch who is seen to settle disputes fairly, avoid unnecessary cruelty, properly deals with the corrupt and rights wrongs is usually seen as a positive thing. Creating uniform legal codes to replace centuries of outdated and confusing laws is one way for a King to streamline the legal system and make it more fair.
*Pax: The Monarch's Reign has brought peace, especially compared to the conflicts and turmoil which was the case before the rise of their dynasty. A strong military or foreign policy that stops the threat of banditry and raids will give the peasants much-needed breathing room to help the kingdom's economy prosper, and normally leave them with more money as they don't have to worry about being attacked all the time. In monarchies, peace is often bought through marriage, combining royal bloodlines and creating a personal union of nations; this can work very well when it unites groups that were already pretty similar.
*Religion: Either by claiming a measure of Divinity for yourself, holding key religious positions or by having religious institutions say that your rule is how the gods want it. In Medieval Times the Church said that the social order was divinely ordained and (with some exceptions, usually when the King repeatedly and majorly goes against the church) that disobedience to their Rightful Authority was not something god approved of. This eventually evolved into the Divine Right of Kings. Even so, a King may go the extra mile by building bigger and better places of worship, or by recovering holy artifacts and turning their capital into the religious center of the region, thereby bringing in pilgrims across and from outside the kingdom.
*Tradition: If this place has been a Monarchy for some time and especially if your Dynasty has reigned for a long while, you can claim that the rule of your line is the right and proper way of things and that attempting to change it would go against the ways of your people. With enough stability and good reputation, the citizenry will identify with the monarchy as part of its cultural heritage, even long after a particular monarchy has stopped having any real political power.
*Culture: A wealthy nation that actively promotes the arts and invests in talent can establish itself as a cultural centre to be envied and emulated. Not only does it keep the people happy, it can even cement your reign as your country's Golden Age of prosperity and cultural heritage. Future generations will seek to replicate the success of their Golden Age to legitimize themselves as well. It also helps that patronizing the arts gets you in the good graces of many artists, writers and intellectuals; it's not or nothing that Louis XIV put a lot of effort into being immortalized as the ''Sun King''.
*Education: A Monarch can afford to get the best education their kingdom can offer for their kids, especially the Heir Apparent. Numerous Tutors, each both wise in their fields and good at handling students and with access to all the works of history who can invest all their effort in helping them towards wisdom. The idea that the person destined to wield ultimate authority in a nation of millions has been trained since they could form a sentence to rule is in theory a solid justification as to why they should rule instead of Joe Schmo the shoemaker or Alice from Accounting. Of course it still takes two to tango and you can have a little shithead who'd neglects their lessons in favour of abusing servants for a larf.
*Philosophy: Learned individuals can be found who can articulate why Monarchy is the proper order of things. Once they emerge, promoting their essays, books and so forth can legitimize your rule to the masses. Since even the learned need to eat, your patronage on that front will produce lots of said treatises. The Philosopher-King was seen by Plato as the ideal ruler, seeing its closest form in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. To this end, have your various channels of dissemination and religious authorities promote those ideas far and wide.
*Censorship: On the flip-side, eventually someone will write responses against the works justifying your rule while others will come up with arguments against your reign or even that (gasp) that Monarchy itself is not the best way to govern. In that case, forbidding the publishing of these seditious treaties or slanderous libel lets proper loyal modes of thought flourish without pernicious weeds of dissent spoiling the garden.
*Repression: The next step from censorship is to establish a secret police force and crack down on republicans, reformers and revolutionaries. This of course can easily backfire; having a dozen democrats decapitated for spreading pamphlets saying that you are a cruel tyrant kind of proves their point.
*Parliamentary Concession: Sometimes the best thing a monarch can do if they want to keep their crown and a head to wear it with is to simply let at least a section of the common folk vote in representatives and have a say in government.

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. for instance there are a lot of fantasy stories in which the resolution of a kingdom's issues is the return of the ''True King'' and the toppling of a Usurper. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at its most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the [[Local Lord]] first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in [[Dune]] and [[Battletech]]. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or (going Doylist again) it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of [[Imperial Truth|SCIENCE]]. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technology, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their [[Peasant|ruling subjects]] from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of [[Nagash|usurpers]] still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

== See Also ==
*[[Emperor]]
*[[Noble]]
[[Category: History]]

Monarchy

2023-05-19T15:55:24Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* Semi-Constitutional Monarchy */

{{Stub}}
[[File:Louis-xiv-photo.jpg|thumb|Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.]]

{{topquote|I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.|Voltaire}}

{{topquote|Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity.|Arthur Schopenhauer}}

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You don't need a grand formalized ideology or a complex administrative org-chart to start a kingdom. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed. Likely with nobody fretting about what this means for society in the long term.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some exceptions of course, with hereditary [[Dictator|dictatorships]] like Syria and North Korea.

== Types of Monarchy ==
Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

===Absolute Monarchy===
{{topquote|L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)|Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre}}
The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia, Oman, and Brunei.''

===Divine Monarchy===
The Monarch [[Ecclesiarchy|is seen as being a God]], at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Ancient Egypt, the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.''

===Elected Monarchy===

Formed where a bunch of Aristocrats or other powerful groups which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne, said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country and could sometimes remove the monarch. They generally arose when several smaller monarchies joined through non violent means such as a political marriage or confederation and no party was strong enough to totally dominant the other or where a group started becoming too powerful to totally control so were integrated into the power structure. Because of this they tended to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering but could work a lot better at the city-state scale such as in Venice where it stopped any one family totally dominating.

Most countries were historically 'elected monarchies' but the monarch was only elected from and by the royal family and this was simplified to hereditary succession. In turn countries usually retained elements of this or adopted elements of them over time, for example in countries such as Medieval Scotland in practice were still a hereditary monarchy but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

:'''''IRL examples:''' The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up (various constitiants were also elective), Ancient Rome at various times, the Holy See, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in both these later cases the monarchs are elected from their heads of the constituent states and are monarchs in their own right over the states they have responsibility for. Further while the UAE monarchs have power and elect each other to roles like Prime Minister, Malaysian monarchs are purely ceremonial and elected from one of the 9 state royal families, some of which are themselves elected monarchies).''

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism lead to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through marriage alliances and inheritance, England owned more of France than France - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''

===Military Monarchy===

{{topquote|The government here is entirely in the hands of the army. The Ottoman Sultan, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janissary's frown.|Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing during her travels of the Ottoman Empire}}

Similar to a Stratocracy, where the military has all power in government, the Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree as even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by or inversely it will be strengthened as the monarch draws more and more power from the military until the military aspect dominates.

Because of this in a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Military monarchs will usually lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility and at times the nobility will be near exclusively drawn from the military class. The disadvantage of this is that military and civilian leadership do not correlate one to one. Being able to lead an army in the field may win you battles, but to keep them fed and clothed you need a functioning economy. A combination of bad economic policies and a runaway military budget can be disastrous.

Further differentiated from other types of monarchy where the monarch is simply the head of the military, often the monarch will maintain a standing army of sorts (rare until modern times) and be in a constant state of war with either a long term opposing kingdom or wars of expansion. Sometimes this standing army will become central to their powerbase and end up controlling the Kingdom, such as with the Praetorian Guard in Rome or the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This usually has disastrous results for the monarch as the military gains more power and ends up controlling the entire apparatus of state with the monarch left as a figurehead.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Sparta, many Medieval Kingdoms, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.''

===Parliamentary Monarchy===
{{topquote|The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution ...|Article 4 of the Constitution of Japan}}

The first modern Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. By this time, while the monarchy exists in a merely ceremonial respect and holds no real power in the day-to-day running of the country, the job can still be demanding in the sense that the monarch's new position is to serve as the embodiment of their nation's history, tradition and ideals - ideals that most world leaders rarely live up to even on a good day. The British royal family, for example, is heavily involved in beneficence, using their position to give official support and recognition to individuals and organizations that are doing good for the country as a whole. And its only by continuing to serve in this capacity that such a dynasty could maintain its existence; otherwise the public wouldn't be too keen on spending tax money on mansions and castles for a family that they don't have to answer to and do not admire. Also known as a constitutional monarchy since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan.''

===Semi-Constitutional Monarchy===
A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics. The Monarch (who is likely hereditary) may have to share executive powers with the Prime Minister from the legislative.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there), Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco.''

===Theocratic Monarchy===
Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

:'''''IRL examples:''' pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican and ancient Egypt.

== Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy ==
*'''Line of Succession''': All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the '''Heir Apparent''' and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. If the current first in line's right of inheritance could be defeated, such as by the birth of a nearer relative to the monarch, then they are the '''Heir Presumptive''' instead. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
**'''Primogeniture''': Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies (excluding Spain, where ironically the King has no ''male'' heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
**'''Ultimogeniture''': Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
**'''Partible inheritance''': King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form that was present in the Early Middle Ages, and as any Crusader Kings player can tell you it tends to result in a lot of wars between the successors.
**'''Seniority''': The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
**'''Rota''': A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
*'''Abdication''': Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various [[Rules Lawyer|legal interpretations]] by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
*'''Consort''': The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a '''Queen Consort''' for a wife or typically '''Prince Consort''' for a husband (yes '''King Consort''' makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
**'''Dowager''': A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
*'''Sovereign''': another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
*'''Court''': The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
**'''Privy Council''': The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
**'''Court Etiquette''': You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
*'''Pomp and Ceremony''': Monarchy ''loves'' to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
*'''Regalia''': A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with [[Monty Python|Orbs that may or not be grenades]].
*'''Ladies-in-Waiting''': Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth Báthory|bathing in the blood of young women]]. For Regnant Queens such Elizabeth the First, ladies-in-waiting were often spies and messengers, either for or against the throne. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
*'''Pretender''': Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via [[Rules Lawyer|convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship]], or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
*'''Retinue''': Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a [[Inquisitor]]'s close circle of confidants and followers as well.
*'''Regent''': the ''de facto'' ruler for when the ''de jure'' monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
*'''Dynastic Politics''': Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
**'''Marriage Deals''': When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
**'''Dowry''': Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to '''[[wikipedia:Catherine_of_Braganza#Legacy|WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES]]'''.
**'''Paramours''': Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
**'''The Legitimate Dumbass''':[[File:EstatesGeneral.jpg|thumb|right|300px|When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.]]A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General (which promptly decides that they don't want a king at all and declares that the kingdom is now a republic).
**'''Fratricide''': One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir presumptive gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
**'''Personal Union''': one of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state; this can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
*'''Petitioner''': aka the Peasants doth complain too much, petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
*'''Royal Guard''':[[File:Swiss Guard.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...]]A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with [[Musketeer|fancy uniforms]]. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
*'''Boons''': Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a blank check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endeavour like a trade mission across the ocean or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

===Legitimization===
A Monarch can't rule by force and fear alone. It's costly, wasteful, there's always someone who won't be intimidated, if the threat of violence fails to materialize the fear that cowed the populace can rapidly crystalize into hatred and a monarch still needs people to beat and scare people into line. A monarch can also buy the loyalty of those enforcing minions with money, food, housing, etc to follow their orders. But relying on wealth alone means that unscrupulous underlings will plot to usurp the throne, especially if pay is late. To ensure that their reign continues and their dynasty endures, Monarchs need something to convince people that their reign is the Right and Proper order of things. There are several ways to do so and most countries employ a mix...

*Beneficence: A Monarch provides wealth to worthy causes such as charity to the poor, assistance when disaster strikes and so forth. Obviously a Monarch who helps those in need out will be seen as a good thing by those down on their luck, especially when compared to a cruel miser. The same goes to those who use their wealth to build and maintain bridges, roads and other such useful things.
*Justice: A Monarch who is seen to settle disputes fairly, avoid unnecessary cruelty, properly deals with the corrupt and rights wrongs is usually seen as a positive thing. Creating uniform legal codes to replace centuries of outdated and confusing laws is one way for a King to streamline the legal system and make it more fair.
*Pax: The Monarch's Reign has brought peace, especially compared to the conflicts and turmoil which was the case before the rise of their dynasty. A strong military or foreign policy that stops the threat of banditry and raids will give the peasants much-needed breathing room to help the kingdom's economy prosper, and normally leave them with more money as they don't have to worry about being attacked all the time. In monarchies, peace is often bought through marriage, combining royal bloodlines and creating a personal union of nations; this can work very well when it unites groups that were already pretty similar.
*Religion: Either by claiming a measure of Divinity for yourself, holding key religious positions or by having religious institutions say that your rule is how the gods want it. In Medieval Times the Church said that the social order was divinely ordained and (with some exceptions, usually when the King repeatedly and majorly goes against the church) that disobedience to their Rightful Authority was not something god approved of. This eventually evolved into the Divine Right of Kings. Even so, a King may go the extra mile by building bigger and better places of worship, or by recovering holy artifacts and turning their capital into the religious center of the region, thereby bringing in pilgrims across and from outside the kingdom.
*Tradition: If this place has been a Monarchy for some time and especially if your Dynasty has reigned for a long while, you can claim that the rule of your line is the right and proper way of things and that attempting to change it would go against the ways of your people. With enough stability and good reputation, the citizenry will identify with the monarchy as part of its cultural heritage, even long after a particular monarchy has stopped having any real political power.
*Culture: A wealthy nation that actively promotes the arts and invests in talent can establish itself as a cultural centre to be envied and emulated. Not only does it keep the people happy, it can even cement your reign as your country's Golden Age of prosperity and cultural heritage. Future generations will seek to replicate the success of their Golden Age to legitimize themselves as well. It also helps that patronizing the arts gets you in the good graces of many artists, writers and intellectuals; it's not or nothing that Louis XIV put a lot of effort into being immortalized as the ''Sun King''.
*Education: A Monarch can afford to get the best education their kingdom can offer for their kids, especially the Heir Apparent. Numerous Tutors, each both wise in their fields and good at handling students and with access to all the works of history who can invest all their effort in helping them towards wisdom. The idea that the person destined to wield ultimate authority in a nation of millions has been trained since they could form a sentence to rule is in theory a solid justification as to why they should rule instead of Joe Schmo the shoemaker or Alice from Accounting. Of course it still takes two to tango and you can have a little shithead who'd neglects their lessons in favour of abusing servants for a larf.
*Philosophy: Learned individuals can be found who can articulate why Monarchy is the proper order of things. Once they emerge, promoting their essays, books and so forth can legitimize your rule to the masses. Since even the learned need to eat, your patronage on that front will produce lots of said treatises. The Philosopher-King was seen by Plato as the ideal ruler, seeing its closest form in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. To this end, have your various channels of dissemination and religious authorities promote those ideas far and wide.
*Censorship: On the flip-side, eventually someone will write responses against the works justifying your rule while others will come up with arguments against your reign or even that (gasp) that Monarchy itself is not the best way to govern. In that case, forbidding the publishing of these seditious treaties or slanderous libel lets proper loyal modes of thought flourish without pernicious weeds of dissent spoiling the garden.
*Repression: The next step from censorship is to establish a secret police force and crack down on republicans, reformers and revolutionaries. This of course can easily backfire; having a dozen democrats decapitated for spreading pamphlets saying that you are a cruel tyrant kind of proves their point.
*Parliamentary Concession: Sometimes the best thing a monarch can do if they want to keep their crown and a head to wear it with is to simply let at least a section of the common folk vote in representatives and have a say in government.

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. for instance there are a lot of fantasy stories in which the resolution of a kingdom's issues is the return of the ''True King'' and the toppling of a Usurper. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at its most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the [[Local Lord]] first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in [[Dune]] and [[Battletech]]. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or (going Doylist again) it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of [[Imperial Truth|SCIENCE]]. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technology, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their [[Peasant|ruling subjects]] from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of [[Nagash|usurpers]] still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

== See Also ==
*[[Emperor]]
*[[Noble]]
[[Category: History]]

Monarchy

2023-05-19T15:53:39Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* Semi-Constitutional Monarchy */

{{Stub}}
[[File:Louis-xiv-photo.jpg|thumb|Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.]]

{{topquote|I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.|Voltaire}}

{{topquote|Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity.|Arthur Schopenhauer}}

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You don't need a grand formalized ideology or a complex administrative org-chart to start a kingdom. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed. Likely with nobody fretting about what this means for society in the long term.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some exceptions of course, with hereditary [[Dictator|dictatorships]] like Syria and North Korea.

== Types of Monarchy ==
Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

===Absolute Monarchy===
{{topquote|L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)|Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre}}
The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia, Oman, and Brunei.''

===Divine Monarchy===
The Monarch [[Ecclesiarchy|is seen as being a God]], at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Ancient Egypt, the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.''

===Elected Monarchy===

Formed where a bunch of Aristocrats or other powerful groups which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne, said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country and could sometimes remove the monarch. They generally arose when several smaller monarchies joined through non violent means such as a political marriage or confederation and no party was strong enough to totally dominant the other or where a group started becoming too powerful to totally control so were integrated into the power structure. Because of this they tended to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering but could work a lot better at the city-state scale such as in Venice where it stopped any one family totally dominating.

Most countries were historically 'elected monarchies' but the monarch was only elected from and by the royal family and this was simplified to hereditary succession. In turn countries usually retained elements of this or adopted elements of them over time, for example in countries such as Medieval Scotland in practice were still a hereditary monarchy but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

:'''''IRL examples:''' The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up (various constitiants were also elective), Ancient Rome at various times, the Holy See, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in both these later cases the monarchs are elected from their heads of the constituent states and are monarchs in their own right over the states they have responsibility for. Further while the UAE monarchs have power and elect each other to roles like Prime Minister, Malaysian monarchs are purely ceremonial and elected from one of the 9 state royal families, some of which are themselves elected monarchies).''

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism lead to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through marriage alliances and inheritance, England owned more of France than France - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''

===Military Monarchy===

{{topquote|The government here is entirely in the hands of the army. The Ottoman Sultan, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janissary's frown.|Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing during her travels of the Ottoman Empire}}

Similar to a Stratocracy, where the military has all power in government, the Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree as even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by or inversely it will be strengthened as the monarch draws more and more power from the military until the military aspect dominates.

Because of this in a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Military monarchs will usually lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility and at times the nobility will be near exclusively drawn from the military class. The disadvantage of this is that military and civilian leadership do not correlate one to one. Being able to lead an army in the field may win you battles, but to keep them fed and clothed you need a functioning economy. A combination of bad economic policies and a runaway military budget can be disastrous.

Further differentiated from other types of monarchy where the monarch is simply the head of the military, often the monarch will maintain a standing army of sorts (rare until modern times) and be in a constant state of war with either a long term opposing kingdom or wars of expansion. Sometimes this standing army will become central to their powerbase and end up controlling the Kingdom, such as with the Praetorian Guard in Rome or the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This usually has disastrous results for the monarch as the military gains more power and ends up controlling the entire apparatus of state with the monarch left as a figurehead.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Sparta, many Medieval Kingdoms, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.''

===Parliamentary Monarchy===
{{topquote|The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution ...|Article 4 of the Constitution of Japan}}

The first modern Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. By this time, while the monarchy exists in a merely ceremonial respect and holds no real power in the day-to-day running of the country, the job can still be demanding in the sense that the monarch's new position is to serve as the embodiment of their nation's history, tradition and ideals - ideals that most world leaders rarely live up to even on a good day. The British royal family, for example, is heavily involved in beneficence, using their position to give official support and recognition to individuals and organizations that are doing good for the country as a whole. And its only by continuing to serve in this capacity that such a dynasty could maintain its existence; otherwise the public wouldn't be too keen on spending tax money on mansions and castles for a family that they don't have to answer to and do not admire. Also known as a constitutional monarchy since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan.''

===Semi-Constitutional Monarchy===
A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there), Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco.''

===Theocratic Monarchy===
Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

:'''''IRL examples:''' pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican and ancient Egypt.

== Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy ==
*'''Line of Succession''': All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the '''Heir Apparent''' and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. If the current first in line's right of inheritance could be defeated, such as by the birth of a nearer relative to the monarch, then they are the '''Heir Presumptive''' instead. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
**'''Primogeniture''': Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies (excluding Spain, where ironically the King has no ''male'' heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
**'''Ultimogeniture''': Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
**'''Partible inheritance''': King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form that was present in the Early Middle Ages, and as any Crusader Kings player can tell you it tends to result in a lot of wars between the successors.
**'''Seniority''': The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
**'''Rota''': A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
*'''Abdication''': Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various [[Rules Lawyer|legal interpretations]] by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
*'''Consort''': The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a '''Queen Consort''' for a wife or typically '''Prince Consort''' for a husband (yes '''King Consort''' makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
**'''Dowager''': A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
*'''Sovereign''': another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
*'''Court''': The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
**'''Privy Council''': The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
**'''Court Etiquette''': You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
*'''Pomp and Ceremony''': Monarchy ''loves'' to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
*'''Regalia''': A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with [[Monty Python|Orbs that may or not be grenades]].
*'''Ladies-in-Waiting''': Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth Báthory|bathing in the blood of young women]]. For Regnant Queens such Elizabeth the First, ladies-in-waiting were often spies and messengers, either for or against the throne. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
*'''Pretender''': Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via [[Rules Lawyer|convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship]], or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
*'''Retinue''': Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a [[Inquisitor]]'s close circle of confidants and followers as well.
*'''Regent''': the ''de facto'' ruler for when the ''de jure'' monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
*'''Dynastic Politics''': Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
**'''Marriage Deals''': When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
**'''Dowry''': Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to '''[[wikipedia:Catherine_of_Braganza#Legacy|WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES]]'''.
**'''Paramours''': Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
**'''The Legitimate Dumbass''':[[File:EstatesGeneral.jpg|thumb|right|300px|When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.]]A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General (which promptly decides that they don't want a king at all and declares that the kingdom is now a republic).
**'''Fratricide''': One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir presumptive gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
**'''Personal Union''': one of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state; this can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
*'''Petitioner''': aka the Peasants doth complain too much, petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
*'''Royal Guard''':[[File:Swiss Guard.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...]]A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with [[Musketeer|fancy uniforms]]. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
*'''Boons''': Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a blank check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endeavour like a trade mission across the ocean or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

===Legitimization===
A Monarch can't rule by force and fear alone. It's costly, wasteful, there's always someone who won't be intimidated, if the threat of violence fails to materialize the fear that cowed the populace can rapidly crystalize into hatred and a monarch still needs people to beat and scare people into line. A monarch can also buy the loyalty of those enforcing minions with money, food, housing, etc to follow their orders. But relying on wealth alone means that unscrupulous underlings will plot to usurp the throne, especially if pay is late. To ensure that their reign continues and their dynasty endures, Monarchs need something to convince people that their reign is the Right and Proper order of things. There are several ways to do so and most countries employ a mix...

*Beneficence: A Monarch provides wealth to worthy causes such as charity to the poor, assistance when disaster strikes and so forth. Obviously a Monarch who helps those in need out will be seen as a good thing by those down on their luck, especially when compared to a cruel miser. The same goes to those who use their wealth to build and maintain bridges, roads and other such useful things.
*Justice: A Monarch who is seen to settle disputes fairly, avoid unnecessary cruelty, properly deals with the corrupt and rights wrongs is usually seen as a positive thing. Creating uniform legal codes to replace centuries of outdated and confusing laws is one way for a King to streamline the legal system and make it more fair.
*Pax: The Monarch's Reign has brought peace, especially compared to the conflicts and turmoil which was the case before the rise of their dynasty. A strong military or foreign policy that stops the threat of banditry and raids will give the peasants much-needed breathing room to help the kingdom's economy prosper, and normally leave them with more money as they don't have to worry about being attacked all the time. In monarchies, peace is often bought through marriage, combining royal bloodlines and creating a personal union of nations; this can work very well when it unites groups that were already pretty similar.
*Religion: Either by claiming a measure of Divinity for yourself, holding key religious positions or by having religious institutions say that your rule is how the gods want it. In Medieval Times the Church said that the social order was divinely ordained and (with some exceptions, usually when the King repeatedly and majorly goes against the church) that disobedience to their Rightful Authority was not something god approved of. This eventually evolved into the Divine Right of Kings. Even so, a King may go the extra mile by building bigger and better places of worship, or by recovering holy artifacts and turning their capital into the religious center of the region, thereby bringing in pilgrims across and from outside the kingdom.
*Tradition: If this place has been a Monarchy for some time and especially if your Dynasty has reigned for a long while, you can claim that the rule of your line is the right and proper way of things and that attempting to change it would go against the ways of your people. With enough stability and good reputation, the citizenry will identify with the monarchy as part of its cultural heritage, even long after a particular monarchy has stopped having any real political power.
*Culture: A wealthy nation that actively promotes the arts and invests in talent can establish itself as a cultural centre to be envied and emulated. Not only does it keep the people happy, it can even cement your reign as your country's Golden Age of prosperity and cultural heritage. Future generations will seek to replicate the success of their Golden Age to legitimize themselves as well. It also helps that patronizing the arts gets you in the good graces of many artists, writers and intellectuals; it's not or nothing that Louis XIV put a lot of effort into being immortalized as the ''Sun King''.
*Education: A Monarch can afford to get the best education their kingdom can offer for their kids, especially the Heir Apparent. Numerous Tutors, each both wise in their fields and good at handling students and with access to all the works of history who can invest all their effort in helping them towards wisdom. The idea that the person destined to wield ultimate authority in a nation of millions has been trained since they could form a sentence to rule is in theory a solid justification as to why they should rule instead of Joe Schmo the shoemaker or Alice from Accounting. Of course it still takes two to tango and you can have a little shithead who'd neglects their lessons in favour of abusing servants for a larf.
*Philosophy: Learned individuals can be found who can articulate why Monarchy is the proper order of things. Once they emerge, promoting their essays, books and so forth can legitimize your rule to the masses. Since even the learned need to eat, your patronage on that front will produce lots of said treatises. The Philosopher-King was seen by Plato as the ideal ruler, seeing its closest form in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. To this end, have your various channels of dissemination and religious authorities promote those ideas far and wide.
*Censorship: On the flip-side, eventually someone will write responses against the works justifying your rule while others will come up with arguments against your reign or even that (gasp) that Monarchy itself is not the best way to govern. In that case, forbidding the publishing of these seditious treaties or slanderous libel lets proper loyal modes of thought flourish without pernicious weeds of dissent spoiling the garden.
*Repression: The next step from censorship is to establish a secret police force and crack down on republicans, reformers and revolutionaries. This of course can easily backfire; having a dozen democrats decapitated for spreading pamphlets saying that you are a cruel tyrant kind of proves their point.
*Parliamentary Concession: Sometimes the best thing a monarch can do if they want to keep their crown and a head to wear it with is to simply let at least a section of the common folk vote in representatives and have a say in government.

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. for instance there are a lot of fantasy stories in which the resolution of a kingdom's issues is the return of the ''True King'' and the toppling of a Usurper. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at its most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the [[Local Lord]] first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in [[Dune]] and [[Battletech]]. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or (going Doylist again) it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of [[Imperial Truth|SCIENCE]]. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technology, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their [[Peasant|ruling subjects]] from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of [[Nagash|usurpers]] still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

== See Also ==
*[[Emperor]]
*[[Noble]]
[[Category: History]]

Monarchy

2023-05-19T15:51:10Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* Absolute Monarchy */

{{Stub}}
[[File:Louis-xiv-photo.jpg|thumb|Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.]]

{{topquote|I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.|Voltaire}}

{{topquote|Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity.|Arthur Schopenhauer}}

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You don't need a grand formalized ideology or a complex administrative org-chart to start a kingdom. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed. Likely with nobody fretting about what this means for society in the long term.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some exceptions of course, with hereditary [[Dictator|dictatorships]] like Syria and North Korea.

== Types of Monarchy ==
Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

===Absolute Monarchy===
{{topquote|L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)|Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre}}
The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia, Oman, and Brunei.''

===Divine Monarchy===
The Monarch [[Ecclesiarchy|is seen as being a God]], at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Ancient Egypt, the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.''

===Elected Monarchy===

Formed where a bunch of Aristocrats or other powerful groups which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne, said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country and could sometimes remove the monarch. They generally arose when several smaller monarchies joined through non violent means such as a political marriage or confederation and no party was strong enough to totally dominant the other or where a group started becoming too powerful to totally control so were integrated into the power structure. Because of this they tended to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering but could work a lot better at the city-state scale such as in Venice where it stopped any one family totally dominating.

Most countries were historically 'elected monarchies' but the monarch was only elected from and by the royal family and this was simplified to hereditary succession. In turn countries usually retained elements of this or adopted elements of them over time, for example in countries such as Medieval Scotland in practice were still a hereditary monarchy but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

:'''''IRL examples:''' The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up (various constitiants were also elective), Ancient Rome at various times, the Holy See, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in both these later cases the monarchs are elected from their heads of the constituent states and are monarchs in their own right over the states they have responsibility for. Further while the UAE monarchs have power and elect each other to roles like Prime Minister, Malaysian monarchs are purely ceremonial and elected from one of the 9 state royal families, some of which are themselves elected monarchies).''

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism lead to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through marriage alliances and inheritance, England owned more of France than France - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''

===Military Monarchy===

{{topquote|The government here is entirely in the hands of the army. The Ottoman Sultan, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janissary's frown.|Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing during her travels of the Ottoman Empire}}

Similar to a Stratocracy, where the military has all power in government, the Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree as even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by or inversely it will be strengthened as the monarch draws more and more power from the military until the military aspect dominates.

Because of this in a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Military monarchs will usually lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility and at times the nobility will be near exclusively drawn from the military class. The disadvantage of this is that military and civilian leadership do not correlate one to one. Being able to lead an army in the field may win you battles, but to keep them fed and clothed you need a functioning economy. A combination of bad economic policies and a runaway military budget can be disastrous.

Further differentiated from other types of monarchy where the monarch is simply the head of the military, often the monarch will maintain a standing army of sorts (rare until modern times) and be in a constant state of war with either a long term opposing kingdom or wars of expansion. Sometimes this standing army will become central to their powerbase and end up controlling the Kingdom, such as with the Praetorian Guard in Rome or the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This usually has disastrous results for the monarch as the military gains more power and ends up controlling the entire apparatus of state with the monarch left as a figurehead.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Sparta, many Medieval Kingdoms, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.''

===Parliamentary Monarchy===
{{topquote|The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution ...|Article 4 of the Constitution of Japan}}

The first modern Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. By this time, while the monarchy exists in a merely ceremonial respect and holds no real power in the day-to-day running of the country, the job can still be demanding in the sense that the monarch's new position is to serve as the embodiment of their nation's history, tradition and ideals - ideals that most world leaders rarely live up to even on a good day. The British royal family, for example, is heavily involved in beneficence, using their position to give official support and recognition to individuals and organizations that are doing good for the country as a whole. And its only by continuing to serve in this capacity that such a dynasty could maintain its existence; otherwise the public wouldn't be too keen on spending tax money on mansions and castles for a family that they don't have to answer to and do not admire. Also known as a constitutional monarchy since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan.''

===Semi-Constitutional Monarchy===
A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there).''

===Theocratic Monarchy===
Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

:'''''IRL examples:''' pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican and ancient Egypt.

== Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy ==
*'''Line of Succession''': All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the '''Heir Apparent''' and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. If the current first in line's right of inheritance could be defeated, such as by the birth of a nearer relative to the monarch, then they are the '''Heir Presumptive''' instead. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
**'''Primogeniture''': Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies (excluding Spain, where ironically the King has no ''male'' heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
**'''Ultimogeniture''': Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
**'''Partible inheritance''': King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form that was present in the Early Middle Ages, and as any Crusader Kings player can tell you it tends to result in a lot of wars between the successors.
**'''Seniority''': The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
**'''Rota''': A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
*'''Abdication''': Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various [[Rules Lawyer|legal interpretations]] by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
*'''Consort''': The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a '''Queen Consort''' for a wife or typically '''Prince Consort''' for a husband (yes '''King Consort''' makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
**'''Dowager''': A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
*'''Sovereign''': another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
*'''Court''': The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
**'''Privy Council''': The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
**'''Court Etiquette''': You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
*'''Pomp and Ceremony''': Monarchy ''loves'' to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
*'''Regalia''': A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with [[Monty Python|Orbs that may or not be grenades]].
*'''Ladies-in-Waiting''': Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth Báthory|bathing in the blood of young women]]. For Regnant Queens such Elizabeth the First, ladies-in-waiting were often spies and messengers, either for or against the throne. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
*'''Pretender''': Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via [[Rules Lawyer|convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship]], or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
*'''Retinue''': Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a [[Inquisitor]]'s close circle of confidants and followers as well.
*'''Regent''': the ''de facto'' ruler for when the ''de jure'' monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
*'''Dynastic Politics''': Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
**'''Marriage Deals''': When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
**'''Dowry''': Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to '''[[wikipedia:Catherine_of_Braganza#Legacy|WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES]]'''.
**'''Paramours''': Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
**'''The Legitimate Dumbass''':[[File:EstatesGeneral.jpg|thumb|right|300px|When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.]]A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General (which promptly decides that they don't want a king at all and declares that the kingdom is now a republic).
**'''Fratricide''': One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir presumptive gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
**'''Personal Union''': one of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state; this can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
*'''Petitioner''': aka the Peasants doth complain too much, petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
*'''Royal Guard''':[[File:Swiss Guard.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...]]A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with [[Musketeer|fancy uniforms]]. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
*'''Boons''': Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a blank check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endeavour like a trade mission across the ocean or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

===Legitimization===
A Monarch can't rule by force and fear alone. It's costly, wasteful, there's always someone who won't be intimidated, if the threat of violence fails to materialize the fear that cowed the populace can rapidly crystalize into hatred and a monarch still needs people to beat and scare people into line. A monarch can also buy the loyalty of those enforcing minions with money, food, housing, etc to follow their orders. But relying on wealth alone means that unscrupulous underlings will plot to usurp the throne, especially if pay is late. To ensure that their reign continues and their dynasty endures, Monarchs need something to convince people that their reign is the Right and Proper order of things. There are several ways to do so and most countries employ a mix...

*Beneficence: A Monarch provides wealth to worthy causes such as charity to the poor, assistance when disaster strikes and so forth. Obviously a Monarch who helps those in need out will be seen as a good thing by those down on their luck, especially when compared to a cruel miser. The same goes to those who use their wealth to build and maintain bridges, roads and other such useful things.
*Justice: A Monarch who is seen to settle disputes fairly, avoid unnecessary cruelty, properly deals with the corrupt and rights wrongs is usually seen as a positive thing. Creating uniform legal codes to replace centuries of outdated and confusing laws is one way for a King to streamline the legal system and make it more fair.
*Pax: The Monarch's Reign has brought peace, especially compared to the conflicts and turmoil which was the case before the rise of their dynasty. A strong military or foreign policy that stops the threat of banditry and raids will give the peasants much-needed breathing room to help the kingdom's economy prosper, and normally leave them with more money as they don't have to worry about being attacked all the time. In monarchies, peace is often bought through marriage, combining royal bloodlines and creating a personal union of nations; this can work very well when it unites groups that were already pretty similar.
*Religion: Either by claiming a measure of Divinity for yourself, holding key religious positions or by having religious institutions say that your rule is how the gods want it. In Medieval Times the Church said that the social order was divinely ordained and (with some exceptions, usually when the King repeatedly and majorly goes against the church) that disobedience to their Rightful Authority was not something god approved of. This eventually evolved into the Divine Right of Kings. Even so, a King may go the extra mile by building bigger and better places of worship, or by recovering holy artifacts and turning their capital into the religious center of the region, thereby bringing in pilgrims across and from outside the kingdom.
*Tradition: If this place has been a Monarchy for some time and especially if your Dynasty has reigned for a long while, you can claim that the rule of your line is the right and proper way of things and that attempting to change it would go against the ways of your people. With enough stability and good reputation, the citizenry will identify with the monarchy as part of its cultural heritage, even long after a particular monarchy has stopped having any real political power.
*Culture: A wealthy nation that actively promotes the arts and invests in talent can establish itself as a cultural centre to be envied and emulated. Not only does it keep the people happy, it can even cement your reign as your country's Golden Age of prosperity and cultural heritage. Future generations will seek to replicate the success of their Golden Age to legitimize themselves as well. It also helps that patronizing the arts gets you in the good graces of many artists, writers and intellectuals; it's not or nothing that Louis XIV put a lot of effort into being immortalized as the ''Sun King''.
*Education: A Monarch can afford to get the best education their kingdom can offer for their kids, especially the Heir Apparent. Numerous Tutors, each both wise in their fields and good at handling students and with access to all the works of history who can invest all their effort in helping them towards wisdom. The idea that the person destined to wield ultimate authority in a nation of millions has been trained since they could form a sentence to rule is in theory a solid justification as to why they should rule instead of Joe Schmo the shoemaker or Alice from Accounting. Of course it still takes two to tango and you can have a little shithead who'd neglects their lessons in favour of abusing servants for a larf.
*Philosophy: Learned individuals can be found who can articulate why Monarchy is the proper order of things. Once they emerge, promoting their essays, books and so forth can legitimize your rule to the masses. Since even the learned need to eat, your patronage on that front will produce lots of said treatises. The Philosopher-King was seen by Plato as the ideal ruler, seeing its closest form in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. To this end, have your various channels of dissemination and religious authorities promote those ideas far and wide.
*Censorship: On the flip-side, eventually someone will write responses against the works justifying your rule while others will come up with arguments against your reign or even that (gasp) that Monarchy itself is not the best way to govern. In that case, forbidding the publishing of these seditious treaties or slanderous libel lets proper loyal modes of thought flourish without pernicious weeds of dissent spoiling the garden.
*Repression: The next step from censorship is to establish a secret police force and crack down on republicans, reformers and revolutionaries. This of course can easily backfire; having a dozen democrats decapitated for spreading pamphlets saying that you are a cruel tyrant kind of proves their point.
*Parliamentary Concession: Sometimes the best thing a monarch can do if they want to keep their crown and a head to wear it with is to simply let at least a section of the common folk vote in representatives and have a say in government.

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. for instance there are a lot of fantasy stories in which the resolution of a kingdom's issues is the return of the ''True King'' and the toppling of a Usurper. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at its most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the [[Local Lord]] first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in [[Dune]] and [[Battletech]]. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or (going Doylist again) it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of [[Imperial Truth|SCIENCE]]. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technology, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their [[Peasant|ruling subjects]] from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of [[Nagash|usurpers]] still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

== See Also ==
*[[Emperor]]
*[[Noble]]
[[Category: History]]

Monarchy

2023-05-19T15:49:21Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5:

{{Stub}}
[[File:Louis-xiv-photo.jpg|thumb|Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.]]

{{topquote|I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.|Voltaire}}

{{topquote|Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity.|Arthur Schopenhauer}}

Technically speaking a '''Monarchy''' is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a '''Monarch'''. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is '''Monarchism''', the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the [[Bronze Age]] at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in [[Stone Age]] bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You don't need a grand formalized ideology or a complex administrative org-chart to start a kingdom. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed. Likely with nobody fretting about what this means for society in the long term.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the [[Age of Enlightenment]] and especially after [[The World Wars|The Great War]]. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some exceptions of course, with hereditary [[Dictator|dictatorships]] like Syria and North Korea.

== Types of Monarchy ==
Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

===Absolute Monarchy===
{{topquote|L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)|Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre}}
The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia.''

===Divine Monarchy===
The Monarch [[Ecclesiarchy|is seen as being a God]], at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Ancient Egypt, the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.''

===Elected Monarchy===

Formed where a bunch of Aristocrats or other powerful groups which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne, said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country and could sometimes remove the monarch. They generally arose when several smaller monarchies joined through non violent means such as a political marriage or confederation and no party was strong enough to totally dominant the other or where a group started becoming too powerful to totally control so were integrated into the power structure. Because of this they tended to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering but could work a lot better at the city-state scale such as in Venice where it stopped any one family totally dominating.

Most countries were historically 'elected monarchies' but the monarch was only elected from and by the royal family and this was simplified to hereditary succession. In turn countries usually retained elements of this or adopted elements of them over time, for example in countries such as Medieval Scotland in practice were still a hereditary monarchy but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

:'''''IRL examples:''' The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up (various constitiants were also elective), Ancient Rome at various times, the Holy See, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in both these later cases the monarchs are elected from their heads of the constituent states and are monarchs in their own right over the states they have responsibility for. Further while the UAE monarchs have power and elect each other to roles like Prime Minister, Malaysian monarchs are purely ceremonial and elected from one of the 9 state royal families, some of which are themselves elected monarchies).''

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism lead to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through marriage alliances and inheritance, England owned more of France than France - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''

===Military Monarchy===

{{topquote|The government here is entirely in the hands of the army. The Ottoman Sultan, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janissary's frown.|Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writing during her travels of the Ottoman Empire}}

Similar to a Stratocracy, where the military has all power in government, the Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree as even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by or inversely it will be strengthened as the monarch draws more and more power from the military until the military aspect dominates.

Because of this in a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Military monarchs will usually lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility and at times the nobility will be near exclusively drawn from the military class. The disadvantage of this is that military and civilian leadership do not correlate one to one. Being able to lead an army in the field may win you battles, but to keep them fed and clothed you need a functioning economy. A combination of bad economic policies and a runaway military budget can be disastrous.

Further differentiated from other types of monarchy where the monarch is simply the head of the military, often the monarch will maintain a standing army of sorts (rare until modern times) and be in a constant state of war with either a long term opposing kingdom or wars of expansion. Sometimes this standing army will become central to their powerbase and end up controlling the Kingdom, such as with the Praetorian Guard in Rome or the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman Empire. This usually has disastrous results for the monarch as the military gains more power and ends up controlling the entire apparatus of state with the monarch left as a figurehead.

:'''''IRL examples:''' Sparta, many Medieval Kingdoms, Ottoman Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.''

===Parliamentary Monarchy===
{{topquote|The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution ...|Article 4 of the Constitution of Japan}}

The first modern Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. By this time, while the monarchy exists in a merely ceremonial respect and holds no real power in the day-to-day running of the country, the job can still be demanding in the sense that the monarch's new position is to serve as the embodiment of their nation's history, tradition and ideals - ideals that most world leaders rarely live up to even on a good day. The British royal family, for example, is heavily involved in beneficence, using their position to give official support and recognition to individuals and organizations that are doing good for the country as a whole. And its only by continuing to serve in this capacity that such a dynasty could maintain its existence; otherwise the public wouldn't be too keen on spending tax money on mansions and castles for a family that they don't have to answer to and do not admire. Also known as a constitutional monarchy since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan.''

===Semi-Constitutional Monarchy===
A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics.

:'''''IRL Examples:''' German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there).''

===Theocratic Monarchy===
Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

:'''''IRL examples:''' pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican and ancient Egypt.

== Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy ==
*'''Line of Succession''': All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the '''Heir Apparent''' and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. If the current first in line's right of inheritance could be defeated, such as by the birth of a nearer relative to the monarch, then they are the '''Heir Presumptive''' instead. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
**'''Primogeniture''': Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies (excluding Spain, where ironically the King has no ''male'' heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
**'''Ultimogeniture''': Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
**'''Partible inheritance''': King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form that was present in the Early Middle Ages, and as any Crusader Kings player can tell you it tends to result in a lot of wars between the successors.
**'''Seniority''': The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
**'''Rota''': A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
*'''Abdication''': Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various [[Rules Lawyer|legal interpretations]] by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
*'''Consort''': The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a '''Queen Consort''' for a wife or typically '''Prince Consort''' for a husband (yes '''King Consort''' makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
**'''Dowager''': A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
*'''Sovereign''': another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
*'''Court''': The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
**'''Privy Council''': The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
**'''Court Etiquette''': You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
*'''Pomp and Ceremony''': Monarchy ''loves'' to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
*'''Regalia''': A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with [[Monty Python|Orbs that may or not be grenades]].
*'''Ladies-in-Waiting''': Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start [[Wikipedia:Elizabeth Báthory|bathing in the blood of young women]]. For Regnant Queens such Elizabeth the First, ladies-in-waiting were often spies and messengers, either for or against the throne. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
*'''Pretender''': Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via [[Rules Lawyer|convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship]], or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
*'''Retinue''': Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a [[Inquisitor]]'s close circle of confidants and followers as well.
*'''Regent''': the ''de facto'' ruler for when the ''de jure'' monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
*'''Dynastic Politics''': Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
**'''Marriage Deals''': When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
**'''Dowry''': Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to '''[[wikipedia:Catherine_of_Braganza#Legacy|WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES]]'''.
**'''Paramours''': Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
**'''The Legitimate Dumbass''':[[File:EstatesGeneral.jpg|thumb|right|300px|When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.]]A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General (which promptly decides that they don't want a king at all and declares that the kingdom is now a republic).
**'''Fratricide''': One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir presumptive gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
**'''Personal Union''': one of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state; this can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
*'''Petitioner''': aka the Peasants doth complain too much, petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
*'''Royal Guard''':[[File:Swiss Guard.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...]]A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with [[Musketeer|fancy uniforms]]. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
*'''Boons''': Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a blank check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endeavour like a trade mission across the ocean or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

===Legitimization===
A Monarch can't rule by force and fear alone. It's costly, wasteful, there's always someone who won't be intimidated, if the threat of violence fails to materialize the fear that cowed the populace can rapidly crystalize into hatred and a monarch still needs people to beat and scare people into line. A monarch can also buy the loyalty of those enforcing minions with money, food, housing, etc to follow their orders. But relying on wealth alone means that unscrupulous underlings will plot to usurp the throne, especially if pay is late. To ensure that their reign continues and their dynasty endures, Monarchs need something to convince people that their reign is the Right and Proper order of things. There are several ways to do so and most countries employ a mix...

*Beneficence: A Monarch provides wealth to worthy causes such as charity to the poor, assistance when disaster strikes and so forth. Obviously a Monarch who helps those in need out will be seen as a good thing by those down on their luck, especially when compared to a cruel miser. The same goes to those who use their wealth to build and maintain bridges, roads and other such useful things.
*Justice: A Monarch who is seen to settle disputes fairly, avoid unnecessary cruelty, properly deals with the corrupt and rights wrongs is usually seen as a positive thing. Creating uniform legal codes to replace centuries of outdated and confusing laws is one way for a King to streamline the legal system and make it more fair.
*Pax: The Monarch's Reign has brought peace, especially compared to the conflicts and turmoil which was the case before the rise of their dynasty. A strong military or foreign policy that stops the threat of banditry and raids will give the peasants much-needed breathing room to help the kingdom's economy prosper, and normally leave them with more money as they don't have to worry about being attacked all the time. In monarchies, peace is often bought through marriage, combining royal bloodlines and creating a personal union of nations; this can work very well when it unites groups that were already pretty similar.
*Religion: Either by claiming a measure of Divinity for yourself, holding key religious positions or by having religious institutions say that your rule is how the gods want it. In Medieval Times the Church said that the social order was divinely ordained and (with some exceptions, usually when the King repeatedly and majorly goes against the church) that disobedience to their Rightful Authority was not something god approved of. This eventually evolved into the Divine Right of Kings. Even so, a King may go the extra mile by building bigger and better places of worship, or by recovering holy artifacts and turning their capital into the religious center of the region, thereby bringing in pilgrims across and from outside the kingdom.
*Tradition: If this place has been a Monarchy for some time and especially if your Dynasty has reigned for a long while, you can claim that the rule of your line is the right and proper way of things and that attempting to change it would go against the ways of your people. With enough stability and good reputation, the citizenry will identify with the monarchy as part of its cultural heritage, even long after a particular monarchy has stopped having any real political power.
*Culture: A wealthy nation that actively promotes the arts and invests in talent can establish itself as a cultural centre to be envied and emulated. Not only does it keep the people happy, it can even cement your reign as your country's Golden Age of prosperity and cultural heritage. Future generations will seek to replicate the success of their Golden Age to legitimize themselves as well. It also helps that patronizing the arts gets you in the good graces of many artists, writers and intellectuals; it's not or nothing that Louis XIV put a lot of effort into being immortalized as the ''Sun King''.
*Education: A Monarch can afford to get the best education their kingdom can offer for their kids, especially the Heir Apparent. Numerous Tutors, each both wise in their fields and good at handling students and with access to all the works of history who can invest all their effort in helping them towards wisdom. The idea that the person destined to wield ultimate authority in a nation of millions has been trained since they could form a sentence to rule is in theory a solid justification as to why they should rule instead of Joe Schmo the shoemaker or Alice from Accounting. Of course it still takes two to tango and you can have a little shithead who'd neglects their lessons in favour of abusing servants for a larf.
*Philosophy: Learned individuals can be found who can articulate why Monarchy is the proper order of things. Once they emerge, promoting their essays, books and so forth can legitimize your rule to the masses. Since even the learned need to eat, your patronage on that front will produce lots of said treatises. The Philosopher-King was seen by Plato as the ideal ruler, seeing its closest form in the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. To this end, have your various channels of dissemination and religious authorities promote those ideas far and wide.
*Censorship: On the flip-side, eventually someone will write responses against the works justifying your rule while others will come up with arguments against your reign or even that (gasp) that Monarchy itself is not the best way to govern. In that case, forbidding the publishing of these seditious treaties or slanderous libel lets proper loyal modes of thought flourish without pernicious weeds of dissent spoiling the garden.
*Repression: The next step from censorship is to establish a secret police force and crack down on republicans, reformers and revolutionaries. This of course can easily backfire; having a dozen democrats decapitated for spreading pamphlets saying that you are a cruel tyrant kind of proves their point.
*Parliamentary Concession: Sometimes the best thing a monarch can do if they want to keep their crown and a head to wear it with is to simply let at least a section of the common folk vote in representatives and have a say in government.

== Monarchy in Fiction ==
Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

=== Monarchy in Fantasy ===
Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. for instance there are a lot of fantasy stories in which the resolution of a kingdom's issues is the return of the ''True King'' and the toppling of a Usurper. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like [[Tolkien]] or [[C. S. Lewis]]). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at its most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the [[Local Lord]] first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

=== Monarchy in Science Fiction ===
While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in [[Dune]] and [[Battletech]]. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or (going Doylist again) it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of [[Imperial Truth|SCIENCE]]. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technology, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their [[Peasant|ruling subjects]] from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of [[Nagash|usurpers]] still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

== See Also ==
*[[Emperor]]
*[[Noble]]
[[Category: History]]

Dictator

2023-05-19T15:44:02Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* What Makes A Dictator? */

{{skub}}

So, you want a [[BBEG]], but you don't want to have superhumans in your setting?<ref>Or have superhumans in your setting, but want them out of political power for [[Black Rage|one reason]] or another...</ref> Or want the BBEG to have not just a few, but an endless fountain of underlings and mooks? Dictators are the obvious answer.

A Dictator is the head of an authoritarian regime, usually strongly personalized. Since authoritarian regimes are generally unresponsive to the needs of their people, and [[wikipedia:political strongman|political strongman]] regimes doubly so, dictators have a terrible reputation, for very good reasons.

There can be some overlap between a BBEG and a Dictator, but there can be some non-overlap. Notably, more than one BBEG has taken on the role of a dictator, but it's possible to have one who is merely an ally of the BBEG, or have a BBEG who is more of a Warlord or CEO than any kind of Ruler.

==What Makes A Dictator?==
Dictators can refer to two different things: a Roman dictator and a modern dictator. In both cases, they are reflections of the challenges or failures of representative government.

The Roman dictator was a regent of the [[Roman Empire|Roman Republic]] nominated and empowered for a limited time and a specific purpose. Most commonly and famously, dictators would be nominated to take command of the Roman state to address a specific military emergency. These military dictators would arise when the elected Senate and Consuls of Rome had failed so badly that the very survival of Rome was at stake and a single decisive leader was needed to save the city; their power, or ''[[Warhammer 40,000|imperium]]'', was resigned at the conclusion of the crisis. This was similar to the Byzantine Greek Despot, who was just a centralized ruler or governor of a province/city state with centralized powers (though that title too soon had negative connotations in modern times). In practice, the Roman dictator served as a superior magistrate; he possessed great but not absolute power over the Roman state that could only be applied to the cause for which he was nominated, and did not have unlimited powers over every aspect of Roman life. That being said, after the Roman Civil Wars first Sulla and then Julius Caesar used the title of dictator to reform the Roman laws and constitution, granting themselves such tremendous authority (and in Caesar's case declaring himself dictator for life) that we get the second definition of dictator...

The modern dictator is a leader with absolute power over his state, territory, or function. Now, through much of history, there have been kings, emperors, sons of Heaven, etc. who would be happy to be called dictator. It meant that they were the pivotal and unchallenged decider who could marshal the energies and resources of the state to accomplish tremendous things, be it building a canal to the Nile or freeing the serfs. Especially in pre-modern Europe, to be called a dictator was not a bad thing. Compared to being the King of Poland, who was prisoner to the whims of the Polish Sejm, or remembering the fate of Charles I, executed by his Parliament, many European rulers would be perfectly happy to be a "dictator."

Until [[Nazi|those]] [[Communism|goddamn]] [[Fascist Italy|assholes]] [[China#Modern China|showed up]].

With the establishment of representative government in nations that had very little, or much degraded, history of it, people in power would often resent the challenges of "voting" and "compromise." Perhaps you had [[/pol/|opinions]] which couldn't be spoken without [[SJW|shrieks of outrage]] from opposing ideologues in the democratic assembly. Maybe such people are so [[Grognard|morally]] [[That Guy|degenerate]] that you felt they should be silenced in a permanent and definitive fashion. When such opponents marshal just enough power, as granted under a constitution so new it wasn't old enough to drink, to thwart clear and necessary reforms, declaring yourself dictator in the mold of Sulla and Caesar becomes a very attractive option.

Any country can be a dictatorship. Some are more prone to it, or reliant upon it, than others.

*'''Fascism'''; Obviously. The ideology based around might makes right outright advocates for a nation to be entirely led by a single leader. Fascism is all about aesthetics and emotions and using them to co-opt symbols and ideas that can be used to convince people of the fascist politician's platform, all part of the dictator's playbook. Guns, goons, and money pave the road to power, but charisma stops the revolutionary from being born until it's too late. However, that charisma is essential. Fascist regimes tend to die with their leader. Fascist leaders tend to die after their Genius Plan fails and partisans/enemy soldiers/their own citizens find out where they're hiding.
**'''Nazism''' or ''"National Socialism"''; also obviously. The name derives itself from two major interwar German political issues: the rebuilding of a national identity and workers' rights. It was similar to Mussolini's fascism in many ways, but also incorporated weird occultism, an almost completely fabricated national past for Germany (Hitler was embarrassed that nothing north of the Rhine had stone buildings by the time Romans had figured out indoor plumbing), and a "Master Race" theory(which was cobbled together from maliciously misinterpreted Nietzschean ideas and the need to blame the German loss in WWI on someone convenient and easy to beat up.) Half of the villains of the past eighty years have some flavor of Nazi in them, for obvious reasons.
*'''Banana "Republics"'''; Sometimes, the dictator is just a power-hungry general who thinks the current leader is a wuss. Suppose he's in a third-world country, and said country has resources that could be exploited for great monetary gain while the foreign [[Megacorporation#IRL Megacorporations|megacorporations]] are more than happy to sponsor with the blessings of whatever host country’s intelligence agencies are in the loop. Well, a big massive trust of companies or investors or a cabal of military officers can push a rebellion and finance said general to establish a dictatorship under the promise that he would have full control over the country as long as he keeps giving them exactly what they want. Is this an extremely petty excuse for a regime? Yes. Does it work? You betcha. Is that uniform snazzy as hell? You already know. However, the Generalissimo isn't always at the top of the food chain, because...
*'''[REDACTED]'''; So, it's a time of great political upheaval. The old order is collapsing, new countries are popping up everywhere, and you want your country to be up there with the big boys in this bright new tomorrow.[[Communism|There's one ideology that is spreading across the globe like wildfire]] [[Ameritrash|and you wanna prevent that, as its supporters don't like you for some reason.]] So you start spying on a country that just recently adopted that ideology(or one similar to it), you orchestrate a coup, find one of the aforementioned tinpot dictators to lead the country, and boom! Your mines, farms, and factories have a favorable tax rate and the former government is reduced to guerillas hiding in the mountains. Hey, as long as the commies aren't in power, we can justify the deaths of millions of innocents by a hostile and self-harming government, right? [[Meme|You'll glow a little, especially if you swear you weren't behind it.]]
*'''Communism'''; Marx was convinced that the first communist revolutions would be in countries like Germany and England, industrial nations that ran on wage labor. Therefore, he assumed the whole "one nutjob becomes Supreme Comrade" business wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue as it was. In fact, the building blocks of his dreamed-of future would be tested in feudal economies or unindustrialized former colonial nations. The bones of his ideas would, unfortunately, be used by some of the most repressive rulers of the 20th Century, starting with the power struggle of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Lenin, in the short time he was alive after the revolution, was actually ruling over the USSR, but he at least tried to share his power amongst his men. However, the Bolsheviks were taking more and more power for themselves as they set about the task of building up a nation of dirt farmers into a modern industrial nation, invading various neighbors, and fighting off invasions by the rest of Europe, who were at this point scared shitless by the fact that Communists had successfully formed a government. When he died, the party sought a successor that could lead the newborn Soviet Union away from the famines and shortages of the Tsarist years and the devastating civil war. It didn't took long for Stalin, an ambitious party member that nobody suspected of harboring such aspirations or abilities, to eliminate the competition (as in the infamous Trotsky ice pick incident), create a cult of personality based around him, and use his rapidly expanding power to make sure that political opponents or even critics of his regime were [[Commissar|properly disposed of.]] Oh, and let's not forget how he separated some people into castes and heavily rewarded those who obeyed him the most with fancier things than anyone else. It took the USSR a lot of time to unfuck everything he did. Tankies<ref>Defined here as "leftists who uncritically support anyone who waves a red flag and/or doesn't like the USA to the point of self-contradiction." Such people are usually first-world armchair revolutionaries or loyalists of long-since collapsed second-world governments. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and if you crush it up with wishful thinking and willful ignorance and snort it, you can come up with some amazing ideas about what did and didn't happen during the Cold War. This clarification has been added because as of the time of writing, common internet usage of the term varies significantly. "Tankie" is often used as an insult with identical meaning and intent to "commie," to denote a supporter of modern capitalist Russia's cause in the war in Ukraine, or, in leftist circles, the world capital of hair-splitting and tedious infighting, as a general-purpose pejorative towards anyone the user considers more authoritarian than they should be. It should be added that "[[wikipedia:Tankie|Tankie]]" derives from those who continued to support the USSR internationally after the violent suppression of the Hungarian Revolution and decade later Prague Spring, both of which removed any hint of "voluntariness" from membership in the Warsaw Pact.</ref> will deny all of that, of course. Or claim that it was all necessary. [[/pol/|Possibly both]].
**Same goes for Mao Zedong. If anything, he was worse at governing than Stalin and crazier too. Some claim he had a genuine desire to revolutionize China and get rid of the old aristocracy that kept dividing the country. His party's policies and infrastructure projects did successfully end the millennia-old cycle of famines in China, and hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty because of this. However, due to the indoctrination and sheer pressure he applied to his followers (and his followers to the populace), he pushed an aggressive tabula-rasa and made the most abrupt turns. Supposedly for "the good of the country". See; The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the destruction of a massive chunk of China's cultural heritage, the oppression of minorities and neighboring countries, the Sparrow Incident, and so and so forth.
**'''Dictatorships of the Proletariat''' are related, but they're named more in reference to the Roman idea of a dictatorship rather than the modern one. By definition, there is no dictator, but instead a direct democracy or a set of "representatives of the people" in charge. Marx envisioned such a system as the end result of a transition to communist society. For various reasons, this hasn't happened yet. There were only a few systems like this one, but they rarely prevail in the long term. Generally, [[Capitalism|some external factors come into play]], but they are often short-lived because of how they tend to form as local governments during revolutions, being absorbed by someone with less idealism and more weapons. They are usually more benevolent since they are, in theory, led by the "people of the land" and not aristocrats or nobles. The ELZN, an anarchist organization of villages of the Mexican state of Chiapas, is a good example of how such a system would function.
*'''Religious''': Rare in the real world (arguably, only Iran qualified since 1900), and so, in fictionland, somewhat rare outside stuff that's doing the whole [[Cult]] thing. Though most of them are referred to as Theocracies, and the actual man in charge is nothing more than in-name-only spokesperson for the big guy above. The Catholic Church should probably be mentioned here, if only to state that 1. various officials of the Church across the world have supported every conceivable ideological position at some point or other, although the higher-ups once tended to be friendly to fascists for various reasons, and 2. you should pick another set of religious aesthetics to steal wholesale for your setting's Big Bad Theocrats, since that's a little overdone at this point.
**'''North Korea''': A rare (not even Türkmenbaşy came close) blend of communist and religious dictatorship, the Kim family of North Korea uses '''''Juche''''' ideology to maintain its grip on the Hermit Kingdom. Juche states that political independence relies upon economic and military self-dependency, and that the challenges to such goals can be overcome through the thought and will of the revolutionary people as channeled by a single, vital, unquestioned leader. That unquestioned leader is always a member of the Kim family, also known as the '''Mount Paektu Bloodline'''. Mount Paektu is the holiest place in the Korean peninsula because it is where the legendary Dangun, founder of the Korean nation, was born from the union of the Son of Heaven and a bear-woman; it is also where North Korean propagandists claim Kim Jong-Il, the second ruler of North Korea, was born as his father led the fight to overthrow the Japanese Empire and liberate Korea. The rebirth of the Korean nation under the Kim family, and the prosperous life enjoyed by all North Koreans, is self-evident proof that the Kims deserve to be the unchallenged and unquestionable rulers of the Korean people. In the absence of any information to the contrary, many North Koreans give thanks to photos and statues of the Kim family in their daily lives and attend to their pronouncements with a fervor that wouldn't be out of place in a hive manufactory.
*'''Military Junta'''; basically a ‘state within a state,’ it’s basically the setup where the ruling party is very embedded with the military establishment and officer corps. Expect a lot of cases of coups led by generals against any presidents that fall out of favor, martial law and dissolution of legislative assembles in the case of gridlock or undesirable laws being passed, and of martial law being declared “for the duration of the emergency.” Many non-democratic governments (regardless of whether they were left-wing or right-wing) in the developing world can fall into this category at one point in history or another. The most infamous cases are Myanmar, Pakistan, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Cold-War Era South Korea, Cold-War Era Taiwan, and various African or Latin American countries during the Cold War.

==Notable examples related to /tg/==

===[[Battletech]]===

* Stefan Amaris

===[[DC Comics]]===

* Darkseid rules Apokalips as both ruler and god, and he's strong and cruel enough that nobody dares question him.
* There's been plenty of examples of dictatorships run by previously-good heroes, with the most prevalent being Injustice (Superman loses his wife, kills Joker in revenge and conquers the world with an iron fist), the Justice Lords (Justice League kill President Lex Luthor, world becomes all-seeing police state), and Earth-3 (Everyone was just born evil on opposite day)

===[[Marvel Comics]]===
* Doctor Doom when the writers want to portray him as evil.

===[[Star Wars]]===

* Palpatine (AKA Darth Sidious) posed as one.

===[[Warhammer 40k]]===

* [[The Emperor|Da BEEEEEEG umie]]
* [[High Lords of Terra|Da BEEEEEEG Bea- Beaur- Be-u-ro-kra-see ov da Imperi-oom]]
* Give or Take 35% of all Planetary Governors of the Imperium of Man
*[[Asdrubael Vect|That Dick]]

The Clans

2023-05-18T16:51:38Z

2607:FB91:11C3:9E2:C532:BBC6:AC86:2CA5: /* Clan Terminology */

{{Infobox 40k Nations
|name=
|image= [[Image:Clan Logo.png|250px|center]]
}}
{{Topquote|We will purge our old ideals and ethics; those belong to the corrupt stars of the Inner Sphere, and will not serve as we begin anew. Now, while our minds are open and yearning for new insight, we must re-mold them, and fill them with the truth of our destiny. For we are destined not only to be different from those we left behind, but also better. My father knew this, and saved us from the holocaust of the Inner Sphere. I accept it as truth, and have returned to lead you, the survivors of this most bitter trial.|Nicholas Kerensky}}

{{Topquote|Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down to darkness.|Nicholas Kerensky}}

'''The Clans''' are a civilization in the [[Battletech]] Universe. Descended from a remnant of the [[Star League]] Defense Force which fled from the Inner Sphere when the shit hit the fan and spend the next two and a half centuries developing on their own course before [[Clan Invasion|returning back in 3049]] from the [[Deep Periphery]].

From an IRL perspective in a very human focused setting without intelligent extraterrestrials, the Clans were designed to be very alien without actually being Aliens. Most BattleTech factions could be bluntly summed up as [[Draconis Combine|"Space Japan"]], [[Federated Suns|"Space England"]], [[Capellan Confederation|"Space China"]], etc. Being designed to have no parallel equivalent culture in real-life to be compared with beyond VERY loose analogies to the steppe nomads and Barbarian invasions that toppled many historic empires, they're not based on any one historic civilization and have a more Science-Fictiony way of operating.

== History ==
In 2766 a guy named Stefan Amaris (ruler of the Rim World's Republic) launched a coup d'état while the majority of the SLDF was out fighting rebellions in the periphery, killing the young First Lord (along with the rest of the Cameron bloodline) and seizing control of the Terran Hegemony. This started a fourteen year long civil war called the [[Amaris Civil War]] in which the SLDF under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky dismantled his support base and moved to liberate the Terran Hegemony in spite of being cut off from resupply and limited support by the Five Great Houses. But while he did succeed in toppling Amaris' Asshole Regime, the Star League did not survive the fall of House Cameron and fell apart shortly afterwards. In spite of internecine infighting within the Great Houses, all agreed to strip Aleksandr Kerensky of his authority while secretly seeking to subvert the SLDF's individual regiments as recruits for their planned wars to claim the Star League's throne. War was on the horizon between the Great Houses but Kerensky was unwilling to seize power for himself or see his remaining army and fleet used in the looming conflict. As such he got the SLDF leadership together in secret and proposed something to save the Inner Sphere and themselves: leave the Inner Sphere and start up somewhere new. Most agreed and in 2785 a fleet loaded with some six million SLDF troops, their families (including Aleksandr's wife Katyusha and two sons Andery and Nicholas) and some folks with valuable skills left the inner sphere for greener pastures.

After a two year long voyage through the unknown, with crowded ships pushed beyond their intended limits and taking care to cover their tracks, losses due to accidents, and an attempted mutiny they found some uninhabited planets beyond the Periphery known as the Pentagon Worlds. They set up shop, discharged most of their soldiers and began rebuilding their lives and establishing a bastion of the Star League in Exile. For about 15 years, it seemed to work. Ex-SLDF soldiers built homes, farms and towns, started families and businesses, and many of them found a measure of peace after a life of carnage. Unfortunately this was not universal and there were problems. Starting a new colony is a lot of hard work, especially when you were cut off from any resupply; meaning that any form of luxury or creature comfort was in short supply. Similarly, once survival was achieved a fair number of people began to lose their sense of purpose and common identity. Some of the demobilized guys decided that they'd be better off forming their own petty kingdoms (many of which were based on old Inner Sphere loyalties) and soon enough there was a big and brutal shit fight in 2800. The closest equivalent to the [[Succession Wars]] in Clan space before the [[Wars of Reaving]], they’d became known as the Pentagon Civil Wars. Aleksandr (already more than 100 years old) died heartbroken, leaving everything in utter disarray.

In this chaos, his son Nicholas managed to get the support of some loyal troops and most of the SLDF Fleet and made his way to another world nearby called Strana Mechty ("Land of the Dream" in Russian) along with about a million pentagon refugees brought in not long after. Convinced that the current order of things and the Star League ways of thinking were fundamentally broken he decided to not only establish a new colony, but also build a new society from the ground up, dividing his warriors into twenty Clans, and soon assigning civilians to each Clan. To nip a second exodus civil war in the bud, each Clan was made from a mix of people from all over the Inner Sphere. Cities were founded, factories built, ammunition was stockpiled, ships were readied and the warriors were drilled constantly. In 2820 the newly formed Clans returned to the Pentagon Worlds during Operation KLONDIKE, reconquering them over the span of two years. But beyond simply restoring order, Nicholas imposed the new (and still forming) culture onto their population. Given that the name Kerensky skill carried a lot of weight, the end to the chaos of civil war, the fact that the system basically worked and Clan Warriors having all the guns the bulk of the remaining population went along with this. Those that did not were one way or another silenced.

After Nicolas's death, the system chugged along quite well with the occasional hiccup in what was known as the Golden Century. What had been a few million war-ravaged refugees soon grew into a thriving civilization, if one which operated quite differently from that of the inner sphere. The population rapidly expanding and new worlds being colonized. The social structure solidified, technological breakthroughs were made and the individual Clans evolved along their own paths. In contrast, the Inner Sphere was busy self destructing due to blood feuds and the machinations of Space AT&T.

Eventually in the 2900s there was a split between two factions of The Clans: the Wardens (who felt the Clans should keep to themselves and only get involved in the Inner Sphere if it was threatened by someone else) and the Crusaders (who saw it as their duty to conquer the Inner Sphere and restore a new Clan based Star League). Honestly, if they allowed caste mobility and injected some capitalism and used government-enforced stamps for extra luxury items as the carrot, a Clan conquest likely would have gone over pretty well all around. Unfortunately they're master race asshats who effectively enslave everyone who isn't a warrior ''(as opposed to the Inner Sphere, where you're a slave because you aren't rich or have the wrong last name)''.

== Society ==
{{topquote|Return to the Inner Sphere is impossible for us. Our heritage and our convictions are different from those we left behind. The greed of the five Great Houses and the Council Lords is a disease that can only be burned away by the passing of decades, even centuries. And though the fighting may seem to slow, or even cease, it will erupt again as long as there are powerful men to covet one another's wealth. We shall live apart, conserving all the good of the Star League and ridding ourselves of the bad, so that when we return — and return we shall — our shining moral character will be as much our shield as our BattleMechs and fighters.|Aleksandr Kerensky, General Order 137, December 5th, 2785. These words would be the Nucleus of the Hidden Hope Doctrine}}

An important fact about the Clans is that they were born from repeat societal trauma. The Amaris Coup and Civil War, the Death of Star League, the Exodus, the Pentagon Civil War and the Second Exodus; these were harrowing events to live through, but also were seen as total failure of the old order of things even if it had aspired to noble ideals and achieved greatness. As such, Nicholas Kerensky and his followers were convinced that for humanity to survive society needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. Nicky did work from his specific interpretation of his father's words and borrowed elements from a lot of different historic cultures (Mongols, Sparta, Maoist China, Tokugawa Japan, pre-modern India, various native cultures and probably more), but the aim was to start clean.

[[File:Clan Spaniel.jpg|thumb|left|The Clans have produced fearsome genetically enhanced warriors, revolutionary BattleMechs and some darn fine cartoons (yes this is totally canon)]]
Even though there is a Grand Council for settling disputes and acting as a whole, each Clan operates mostly independently of its fellows. "Peace" is not really a thing in Clan Society, but war is seldom total. When the Clans are not out conquering others, they're fighting low intensity highly ritualized wars with each other. Yet, what made the Clan Homeworlds spared the Succession Wars level of violence that sent the Inner Sphere back to the stone age was the application of Zellbrigan and the Honor Road, which emphasized individual unit and warrior prowess while minimizing collateral damage. This includes codes for honorable surrender. This would work well if they operated in loose, highly autonomous units like the modern US military. They don’t. On the downside, while material and technological matters were better preserved (if not improved upon with OmniMechs, Battle Armor, and rapid limb replacement with cloned ones or myomer prosthesis), individual human lives weren’t seen as inherently valuable so concepts such as safety gear and personal healthcare were seen as things only worth providing to those who had more worthwhile skills. So while your typical Scientist, Merchant, and Technician castes has average lifespans, most Laborers and Warriors wound up dead in their 40-50’s due to combat or physical burn-out leaving them as “dead weight” if they can’t do anything useful. It’s bad enough that most elderly Warriors would rather die as disposable infantry sent in the first wave of an assault instead of starving in bed while infirm.

Clan Society is militaristic, authoritarian, honor bound and strictly hierarchical. It's mostly built around a rigid caste system in which one's role in society is typically assigned in childhood and social mobility is a rarity. Although this could be due to their skill at screening genetics and testing for competency, as such tests are available for caste mobility and so Clans likely simply get it right on the first try in childhood. The Economies of each of the Clans is largely centrally planned and mostly concerned with producing more mechs, ships, weapons and warriors and more clanners to make and support more of those. Humans are mass produced as much as Mechs are in Clan Society1. Motivated by the Clan Home-worlds being harsher and less abundant in resources, wastefulness is discouraged while recycling is the norm to the point that harvesting organs and tissue from the deceased is expected before the cremated ashes are used for crop nutrition. Meanwhile nonproductive activities such as entertainment or leisure were normally seen as incentives to get people working or in extreme cases outright banned. Hence, while stuff like competitive combat sports and athletics are encouraged, things like literature and theatre are treated as frivolous trivialities at best. Most observers note that outside of agriculture, healthcare (for combat injuries), STEM topics, heavy manufacturing, and military-industrial complexes, most non-military related tech and practices were literally frozen in the Star League era. Overall, "Everything for the Clan", "The Clan Provides" and "The Clan Knows Best" are the overarching attitudes. That said, this still means the Clan civilians’ quality of life is high by Inner Sphere standards and probably blows the modern day out of the water.

One of the quirks of Clan Society is that most people only have a given name. More on that in a bit.

The Castes are as such...

* Warrior Caste: The rulers of Clan society trained the Spartan Way. Most of them are grown in bulk in industrial exowomb factories and raised in sibling companies (sibkos), but a few applicants from the general populace are let in. Many flunk out one way or another and become part of the civilian castes while many others end up dying in brutal training regimens and trials for combat. Those that become Warriors are typically hard as nails and brutal fighters. By far the smallest caste. Those who are nearing retirement age (typically 30-50’s in their hyper competitive society) or forced to retest if they failed graduation in a live fire exercise are usually placed in lackluster duties like police, intelligence services, non-power armored infantry, and armored vehicle formations. They're three main flavors of Clan Warriors...
**[[Clan Elemental|Elementals]]: Battletech's answer to Space Marines, huge guys and gals who wear power armor and act as shock troops.
**Pilots: Small fellows with big eyes and heads who can take a lot of Gs like the T'au's Air Caste.
**Mech Warriors: The most regular warriors, but optimized with improved reflexes and increased neuro-helmet compatibility.
* Scientist Caste: Scientists, inventors, researchers and the like who expand on the Clan's knowledge base and run the eugenics programs. As the Clans have advanced technologically where the inner sphere has regressed, they've been largely successful. The second most powerful caste in Clan society who can actually overrule the warriors on certain matters such as eugenics or technology.
* Technician Caste: Mechanics, engineers, and spacecraft crews who keep the machinery of Clan Society humming along. They work with the Warrior Caste directly more than most which gives them some clout.
* Merchant Caste: Traders as well as managers, artists and a wide variety of other functions required to run the economy of Clan Society. They have a higher status in Clan Diamond Shark, since Diamond Shark Warriors can honorably retire to this caste with reservist status if the Clan requires more manpower.
* Laborer Caste: The proles who do all the grunt work to keep everyone else fed, housed, equipped, armed, pooping in unclogged toilets and so forth. The largest caste, no less due to Battletech's universe using neo-feudalism.
* Dark Caste: Not an official caste but a bunch of outcasts which live on the edges of Clan society in hiding. Makes for convenient target practice for clan warriors. They either survive as pirates, smugglers, or organized criminal syndicates that try to disguise themselves as guilds (which isn't hard as the Free Guilds do exist independently of each clan but are publicly regulated).

In addition each caste has it's own internal hierarchy where merit and competition determines your pecking order. For example the Merchant Caste has retail clerks at the bottom and top negotiators for big inter-clan deals at the top. And while each caste committee is technically subordinate to the Warrior exclusive Clan Council, the council mostly let the civilian castes do what they deem best unless it deals with the Clan’s existential matters or martial affairs. In terms of warriors, the inter-Clan’s competition is not only reflected in rising up the ranks from sib-cadet to Khan but a Desire to win a Bloodname through gaining honorable victory for their clan. Having a BloodName means they get a surname and their genes will be be guaranteed for use to produce the next batch of Warriors while they can participate in Clan Council. Conversely, any disgrace a warrior commits risks anything from demotion at best to outright eliminating their entire Bloodname’s BloodHouse from the Clan’s records and genetic repository. Really accomplished scientists can be awarded a Labname like "Einstein" or "Darwin", but non-Scientists rarely use them.

Two other known divides between members within Clan society depends on their type of birth and their national origin. With the Clan scientist caste’s access to Iron Wombs and eugenic genecraft, Clansmen are classified as either Trueborn or Freeborn. The former are literal designer babies who are grown in an artificial amniotic womb while the latter are naturally born. Due to the Clans’ focus on breeding the best of their warriors for beneficial traits as quickly as possible, Trueborn are generally deemed superior. On the other hand, whether it's due to their superior training regimes or genes is up for debate. Likewise, there's a distinction between those born within a Clan and those who were absorbed as bondsmen captured from other Clans or factions. Their outcome depends on each Clan's attitude and the captured person's origins. Ideally, transplanted outsiders are either treated the same as native clansmen and promoted based on their merit, loyalty, and adaptability to Clan culture. Conversely, captured outsiders could also be subjugated to de-facto second class citizenship from either prejudice against enemies or the natives’ superiority complex.

A big part of Clan Society, especially in the Warrior Caste, is tradition and ritual. On the whole they have a rather "meh" view of religion (partly due to their utilitarian mindset and a big portion of their population being designer babies), but it's role is largely filled by the Hidden Hope Doctrine and a cult of personality mixed with hero worship of the Clan’s original leaders. Aleksandr and Nicholas Kerensky are all but worshiped as "the Founders". Warriors must past through a variety of trials to achieve position and within the Clan's hierarchy. The Clans preserve and teach their history through ''The Remembrance'', a long epic poem that summarizes each Clan’s glory. Bloodnames are part of that. In general they try to cultivate an air of mystery and impart subtle meanings into the various rituals. All of which are conceived to reinforce the ideals of The Clans and Clan identity into future generations on an emotional level. On the same note, Clanners tend to be very conformist with little tolerance for un-Clanlike Behavior at the best of times.

In particular in their mythologized view of history Star League was a bountiful paradise despoiled by the greed and spite by wicked petty power hungry leaders, especially the five Great House (in of itself this is not a bad interpretation of events). As such they view the people of the Inner Sphere having fallen into Barbarism. This is notable because it gives them a standard to define themselves against as well as prejudices their outlooks against others.

Another side effect to Clan culture’s emphasis on conformity and blunt honesty is that they tend to suffer against piracy operations and guerrilla warfare when they invade non-Clanner territories. In contrast to civilians and other Clans accepting new rulers in Clan Space as a fact of life, the Inner Sphere had no compunction against nationalist resistance movements. Hence why the Dark Caste and pirates thrive in the Clan Occupation Zones. While civilian and certain Clan politics are just as two-faced as anyone else, outright breaking agreements without justification or blatant lies unless it’s half-truths and subtle deception is unheard of. Hence, the Clans suffered in intelligence operations before the Blakist Jihad. While later clans were able to adjust in the Inner Sphere with commando raids, headhunting operations, open intelligence gathering, and sleeper agents, outright assassination and espionage were still prohibited as anathema against honorable combat. Otherwise, they just suspend Zellbrigan application to war if they deem their foes dishonorable to permit total war.

1Both by Exowombs and more conventional means. Clan Civilian Society is pronatalist, encouraging large families with various incentives, extensive childcare services and similar to keep up a steady supply of babies and see to them until adulthood. On a similar note, Clanners are as a rule rather casual about sex as long as contraception is employed for casual hook-ups. This is especially the case for Warriors, who think of sex as a fun thing to do with your friends if they're up for it.

== Individual Clans ==
There are originally twenty clans formed by Nicholas Kerensky but over the course of the centuries, many were destroyed or absorbed into other factions.

[[Category: BattleTech]]
* '''[[Clan Wolf]]''': The first "Mary Sue" Clan, having the ilKhan along their ranks kinda marks you for that. Also known for fielding the Timber Wolf which plenty call a poster boy for the series. They actually won their objectives in the battle of Tukayyid. As of a recent novel, they're now ilClan with Jade Falcon as their bodyguard and Smoke Jaguar reconstituted as their special forces. The Wolves' superpower is that they tend to show up with an actual strategy for both winning the war and winning the peace that comes after the war, a rare thing in the highly dogmatic and Trial-obsessive Clan culture. Perhaps due to absorbing some of Clan Wolverine (perhaps even more than “some”), Wolf seems to be more open-minded about caste mobility in the “put someone where they fit best” sense.
* '''[[Clan Jade Falcon]]''': The other "Mary Sue" Clan. Also the Purist Clan, since they are staunch traditionalists which stick with Nicky's vision as tightly as they can. When you think of honor-crazed warrior cultures that went full murder-hobo, you're thinking Jade Falcon. Were the asshats that invaded '''MY HOME PLANET''' in the animated series. They earned themselves a draw on Tukayyid at about the last minute.
* '''[[Clan Smoke Jaguar]]''': The Asshole Clan. Aggressive militarists who value only strength and treat their civilian castes like crap. They make Jade Falcon look nice as the green birb gets that rewarding loyal productivity gets you more of it. They earned getting smoked on Tukayyid, bidding away a vast majority of their forces to get the first deployment and only to have them repeatedly baited into ambush after ambush on Tukayyid by being the most aggressive Clan during the invasion, and ultimately demolished in the Second Star League's counterattack during the Trial of Refusal.
* ''' Clan Blood Spirit:''' The Bitter Keener Clan. One of the smaller of the Clans, Clan Blood Spirit was conceived as the embodiment of the esprit de corps of the Clans by Nicholas Kerensky. Clan Blood Spirit wore military dress uniforms and sent ambassadors to the other Clans for diplomacy and were also the most tradition minded and isolationist of the Clans. Though producing the best warriors individually, the Blood Spirits lacked overall numbers and resources due to their pursuit of perfection. Their bitterness towards the other Clans for abandoning what they saw as Kerensky's vision ensured they had few friends. Got blown the fuck up during Wars of Reaving, and were Annihilated in 3084.
* '''[[Clan Diamond Shark|Clan Diamond Shark/Sea Fox]]''': The Money Clan. Once Clan Sea Fox until they saw a Diamond Shark devour a Sea Fox whole. Fitting that their fighting strength was almost wiped out in Tukayyid due to their inexperience in fighting a actual war as opposed to the dance and diddy that the Clans call a war. Currently going by Clan Sea Fox again, mostly run by merchants after their warrior caste was basically butchered to the last.
* '''Clan Ghost Bear''': The Practical Clan. Moderate fence sitters that actually attempt to do their homework on their foe? My God, it is like they have a brain... At any rate, Ghost Bear are unusual for the Clans in that they actually practice something akin to normal family structures, and were slow to adapt new tactics but moved in a steady pace for effect. The other Clan that got a draw on Tukayyid. They eventually shacked up with the [[Free Rasalhague Republic|Rasalhagues]] to make their own hybrid state.
* '''Clan Nova Cat''': The Mystic Clan. Brought in to help Clan Smoke Jaguar, they ended up joining the Inner Sphere instead. However, they got the shit beaten out of them first by the Ghost Bears and then by their Inner Sphere hosts once they backed the wrong faction in a Kuritan Civil War; killing them off. All that remains are their Spirit Cat descendants in the Free Worlds League and unaccounted refugees.
*'''Clan Steel Viper''': The smug clan. This clan had a rough start since their first Khan was a yandere (for real). They mostly isolated themselves and focused on making super-elite soldiers while dreaming about how they'd rule the Inner Sphere. This got them a spot as back-up for the Jade Falcons, but having super-elite infantry is not a replacement for actually good mechs, and they got kicked out of the Inner Sphere by the Falcons, started the [[Wars of Reaving]], and ultimately got murk'd.
* '''Clan Cloud Cobra''': The Religious Clan. Everything they do is in service to what they call "The Way", a sort of pseudo-religion that generally prefers them to keep their nose out of trouble and honor the sanctity of life. Normally this would mean they were prime real estate to get eaten alive by the others, but The Way does call for war when struck, and many a clan has realized far too late that Cloud Cobra isn't just a bunch of peaceniks, they're sharp as a tack and exceptionally politically devious. Currently the second largest power in the Clan Homeworlds Post-reaving, probably tending their gardens and reading psalms to each other when they aren't crank calling Clan Coyote.
* '''Clan Star Adder''': The Pragmatic Clan. Star Adder had no time for the pseudo-religious trappings of any Kerensky worship, simply seeing Alex and his kid as noteworthy generals in their own right. This lack of interest in the ritualism and especially the politics of the Clans lead to a very close relationship between all caste members equally, and attracting little notice in inter-clan relationships. Eventually ended up the biggest clan among the Homeworlds once Steel Viper had accidentally made it super easy to get rid of them, and are for the most part buddies with Cloud Cobra and Stone Lion, while tolerating Clan Coyote's presence.
* '''Clan Coyote''': The Survivor Clan. Initially did fantastically for themselves as a noble practitioner group of Zellbringen as well as best buddies with Clan Wolf, as well as being the clan directly responsible for the development of OmniMech technology and their Khan was briefly IlKhan for a bit before a Snow Raven plot killed her. Since that point, they've largely been shunned, if not sent away from Clan Space after the Wars of Reaving, but still survive to this day, though far more ruthless in their aims. Their first Khan was the lover of Andery Kerensky (Nicholas' younger brother), and both Clan Wolf and Coyote use their genetic legacies to create sibkos in memory of them every so often.
* '''Clan Snow Raven''': The Sneaky Clan. Due to a series of major military disasters early on in their history, this clan has spent most of its time playing realpolitik against itself and the rest of the Clans, preferring to stay out of open confrontation due to their lackluster forces. Have a lot of naval prowess due to their occasional need to hit the stellar bricks. Eventually shacked up with the [[Outworlds Alliance]] government to become the Raven Alliance.
* '''Clan Burrock:''' The Not-So-Stiff Clan. A Clan named after an insect that burrowed through solid rock with its acidic saliva. Clan Burrock was known for its liberal attitude towards its civilian castes, often to the point where captured Burrocks had difficulties adopting to more strict Clans. They mostly drifted towards Crusader leanings. They were absorbed by Clan Star Adder after the Inner Sphere invasion and the Refusal War for its association with the Dark caste. Ironically right when the current Burrock Khan discovered this link and tried distancing the Clan's association herself. The absorption into Clan Star Adder angered a lot of former Burrocks to the point that Clan remnants committed themselves fully to to the Dark Caste, leading to the former Clan's involvement with The Society during the Wars of Reaving, where the Clan remnants was fully exterminated.
* '''Clan Goliath Scorpion:''' The Stoner Clan with a twist of Indiana Jones treasure hunting. Have a deep preference for extremely precise strikes as opposed to brute forcing their way through things, while also requiring getting absolutely blasted on refined scorpion venom. Deep Warden feelings and an obsession with the past meant they basically kept themselves out of most clanner bullshit unless pressed. They also had a habit of trying to secure bloodlines or artifacts linked the the Star League and actually think they can find them with visions induced by said cocktail of narcotic scorpion venom. Eventually got into trouble for illegally adding bloodlines to their eugenics program from the [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|SLDF descended Eridani Light Horse]] and just fucked off to the [[Deep Periphery]] to go fight the conquer the Castilian Cluster and the Hanseatic League to start their own empire.
* '''Clan Ice Hellion:''' The Speedster Clan. The [[White Scars|White Scars Legion]] of the Clans. Their M.O. can be described as 'attack attack ATTACK! with SPEED! Was a constant thorn in the side of Warden Clans and a major advocate for invading the Inner Sphere, but never amounted to a major player of the invasion. Cut out of the invasion, they lashed out at the other Clans during The Hellion's Fury (ridiculed as the "Hellion Tantrum" by the other Clans). Was mostly wiped out during the Reavings, what survived was absorbed by Clan Goliath Scorpion.
* '''Clan Hell's Horses:''' The Biker Clan, for as much as one can be a Biker in Battletech. Known primarily for their use of combat vehicles <s>rather than</s> alongside Mechs. Hells Horses has the distinction of being an extremely stable Clan, if not the most powerful, due to their personal belief that all within it, including the Freeborn, serve the [[greater good]] of the Clan. Eventually fucked off to the Inner Sphere, with a hardliner contingent remaining behind and becoming a different clan altogether known as Clan Stone Lion.
* '''Clan Fire Mandrill''': The Horde Clan. Set up almost the exact opposite way as Hell's Horses, as it is organized in to dozens of mini-Clans called ''Kindraa'', who often fought amongst themselves just as much as they fought other Clans. Unsurprisingly, they got completely wrecked by the Wars of Reaving.
* '''Clan Mongoose''': The Bitey Clan. Notably for fighting everyone they could all the time for any petty reason. Their antics made them a lot of enemies and eventually they got curb-stomped and absorbed in 2868. Unfortunately they got mopped up by Smoke Jaguar.
* '''[[Clan Wolverine]]''': The Not-Named Clan whom all the other Clans hate with a burning passion. Betrayed by the original founders of the Clans for being better at the Clan thing than Kerensky was. It sounds like sarcasm but sadly it’s literally what happened. Survivors wondering who-knows-where (called the Minnesota Tribe when they stormed through the Inner Sphere away from Clan Space, they seem to call themselves the Clave now), but the main Clan went out as balls-to-the-wall badasses.
*'''Clan Widowmaker:''' A short-lived Clan that is most notably known for having a personal beef with Clan Wolverine and Clan Wolf. They masterminded the downfall of the Not-Named Clan using a false flag attack with a nuke. Karma struck the Widowmakers a decade later, when they went too far in mistreating the civilian castes and wiped out their own Merchants for wanting some respect. Originally sentenced to be Absorbed by Clan Wolf after being deemed unfit to rule, the last Widowmaker Khan, Cal Jorgensson, killed Nicolas Kerensky with a cockpit shot while the IlKhan was supervising the Trial, in the midst of fighting off an illegal intervention of a Widowmaker Star. In an angry outburst at the loss of the Clans' founder, Clan Wolf unofficially Annihilated the clan after killing Jorgensson, burned their worlds of Roche (homeworld) and Ironhold (site of Kerensky's death) to the ground, and later absorbed their Bloodnames. The black widow moniker used by Natasha and Anastasia Kerensky can be traced back to bloodlines absorbed by Clan Wolf, and subsequently used in those individuals' creation.

== Clan Military ==
Each Clan has it's own military collectively called a Touman. They share some common practices and conventions laid out by Nicholas Kerensky, but within said boundaries each Clan is free to set up their forces more or less as they see fit, and usually each does according to their Clan's ouvre. Of course, what makes the Clans so dangerous regardless of their individual affiliation is their [[OmniMech]]s, which were often lightyears ahead in terms of modular design and technological strength of the Inner Sphere's BattleMechs. On top of that, their tendency of using jump-jet equipped power armored infantry piggybacking off of their OmniMechs enabled them to have swarms of MEQ’s either ripping vehicles or bunkers when BattletMech use would be deemed overkill.

But while they hold a technological edge, where the Clans falter greatly is in tactical strength. Most Clan warfare prior to the invasion was limited to the honor-bound, extremely skirmish-heavy battles fought between each other where both sides showed up, told each other what they'd be fighting with, and often fighting only in significant duels. All this was supplemented with a heavy emphasis on Mech warfare (or whatever hat the individual Clan wears), a massive culture-wide bias against intelligence gathering due to it being "dishonorable", and what the Zellbringen code allows; which meant they often plopped only the bare minimum of assets down to complete their missions as a personal dare to win with as little as possible. While in theory this is done to both minimize casualties and keep valuable resources alive and working for the Clan to use, the simple fact of the matter is Clanner warfare is continually hamstrung by itself; The Inner Sphere Successor States are under absolutely no delusions about war being an honorable thing, and were able to effectively fracture their entire society by daring to be cute with their own ideas of warfare, coming to one of the harshest wake-up calls they ever got in the Battle of Tukayyid, and any gains they took from the Inner Sphere from the initial invasion almost immediately began to crumble as their attitudes towards their new subjects ultimately plopped them into a series of guerilla wars, something utterly alien to them. Some Clans wised up and decided to try and learn something from this, others have yet to understand why things happened the way they did and returned to the Periphery.

The Clans tend to organize themselves depending on their culture, but generally speaking have their own military structure. Unlike the Inner Sphere which uses the traditional "chain of command", "grunt to general" approach, the Clans do not necessarily have an officer system by the traditional method. Every Warrior is considered roughly the same until you get to the Point Commander rank, at which point traditional methods kick back in, but even so the relationship is much less formal. In contrast to the Inner Sphere's "Base Four" or ComStar's "Base Six" system, every part of the Clan Touman is organized into a "Base Five" system, which organizes everything into even groups of five.

The Clan Toumans are (typically) organized into:
* Point: 1 Mech, 2 Tanks, 5 Elementals or 25 Regular Infantry. Commanded by a Point Commander/MechWarrior.
* Star: 5 Points. Considered the "base" unit of Clan warfare. Most Stars are all of one combat role, as mixed Stars tend to do poorly. Commanded by a Star Commander.
** Nova: combined arms Stars (between a Star and a Binary in size) that have to be trained extra rigorously to be competitive. Commanded by a Nova Commander.
* Binary: 2 Stars. The point at which Combined Arms becomes feasible. Either they or a Trinary is commanded by a Star Captain.
** Trinary: expanded variant with 3 Stars. If they're the Khan's personal bodyguard unit, they're called a Keshik.
** Super Nova: combined arms Binaries or Trinaries. Commanded by a Nova Captain.
* Cluster: 3-5 Binaries. Commanded by Star Colonels. Among Clan Sea Fox, they’re called Aimags commanded by OvKhans.
* Galaxy: 3-5 Clusters, plus an extra Trinary for Command. Commanded by either Galaxy Commanders, the LoreMaster, or either the Khan or SaKhan. Generally a logistical designation because the process of Clan warfare bidding down typically ensures that Galaxies will only ever be deployed rarely. Among Clan Sea Fox, they’re called Khanates commanded by SaKhans.

===== Notable 'Mechs =====

Due to the fact that they showed up out of nowhere unannounced besides a few Batchalls, Clan Battlemechs have both official names and Inner Sphere code names. The following "original sixteen" are the most common frontline OmniMechs used in the invasion, and found in most Clans' toumans:

* '''''IIC BattleMechs''''' - As the Clans never lost their technology, they continued to develop and evolve the Star League-era 'Mechs into stronger and deadlier versions. Curiously, by the time of the Clan Invasion, these were considered obsolete by Clanners due to them lacking the modularity of OmniMechs, and were not used in the frontlines with a few exceptions like the Hunchback IIC, which was basically a suicide weapon for ''solahma'' (old) and/or ''dezgra'' (disgraced) MechWarriors, and the Conjurer/Hellhound/Wolverine IIC, which is quite versatile for longer battles thanks to its mostly energy arsenal. While less versatile than OmniMechs, they're more than a match for most Spheroid designs; a lesson many Spheroids learned the hard way when they tried raiding Clan territory behind the front lines.
* '''''[[Timber Wolf|Timber Wolf/Mad Cat]]''''' - The Clanners' most famous 'Mech. Actually quite a preposterously expensive thing, but the fact it can blast it's way through Assault 'Mechs makes it a favorite. It's Inner Sphere name comes from their targeting computers being incapable of deciding whether or not it's a ''Marauder'' or a ''Catapult'', and so flashed MAD CAT over and over whenever it showed up. Developed (and produced exclusively) by Clan Wolf, though most other Clans acquired them by trade or salvage during the century leading up to the invasion.
* '''''[[Mad Dog|Mad Dog/Vulture/Hagetaka]]''''' - The Clan's OTHER most famous 'Mech. Basically the Timber Wolf's leaner, scrappy little brother, resembling the Inner Sphere's Archer. Follows the same basic concept of shoulder mounted missiles and arm mounted energy guns, but has a little more pod space in exchange for a lighter chassis and armor. Can hot-swap the LRMs for an absurd number of SRMs, [[What|or its entire loadout for a pair of Gauss Rifles]]. First built by Clan Smoke Jaguar but most popular with the Ghost Bears.
* '''''[[Summoner (BattleTech)|Summoner/Thor]]''''' - The Summoner fills the unusual role of being a heavy 'Mech that sacrifices weaponry for mobility, generally giving up redundancy in its weapons in order to carry jump jets and maintain a flexible loadout with less capacity. The result is a 'Mech that's pretty good at moving in fast and bullying things smaller than itself, but doesn't want to tangle with assault class stuff unless it has weight of numbers; not because it doesn't have the armor (see the Hellbringer and Executioner) but because it doesn't bring [[dakka|enough guns]]. Resembles the Inner Sphere's Thunderbolt. The favorite 'Mech of Clan Jade Falcon.
* '''''Hellbringer/Loki''''' - A glass cannon, carrying a versatile array of weaponry at the cost of having laughably weak armor for a heavy 'Mech. Its primary configuration resembles the Inner Sphere's Warhammer, with twin ER PPCs in the arms mated to a targeting computer, backup lasers and anti-infantry weapons. The other favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.
* '''''[[Dire Wolf (BattleTech)|Dire Wolf/Daishi]]''''' - The last word in mech-to-mech encounters. Where the Summoner is happy being a schoolyard bully and the Hellbringer is minmaxed for DPS, the Dire Wolf is just one huge chungus that simply does not care what the enemy brought. 100 tons, unapologetically slow, with an absurd amount of firepower and armor, this is the ultimate assault mech. Barring a lucky headshot this mech will outlast and crush anything you throw its way; underestimate it at your own peril. This is the mech every Mechwarrior dreams of piloting, and many important figures(Natasha Kerensky, Victor Steiner-Davion, Hohiro Kurita) design their own(even stronger) custom variants. This design was fought over between Clan Wolf and Clan Smoke Jaguar and also produced secretly on Outreach by Wolf's Dragoons.
* '''''Executioner/Gladiator''''' - A strange take on the concept of an Assault Mech. At 95 tons it can mount a lot of equipment, but focuses on mobility through jump jets and MASC. As the downside to this, it has anemic side torso armor, meaning it gets cut in half whenever faced with any real attrition. But as an upside, its speed and good leg armor make it a great Elemental transport, and carrying Elementals can help guard its side torsos... sadly most of its configurations have long range weapons while Elementals need to be brought in close. The stereotypical Ghost Bear omnimech.
* '''''[[Warhawk|Warhawk/Masakari]]''''' - Pure evil, bringing this to a friendly game will turn some heads. Heavily armored, average speed, the classic Warhawk carries [[Rape|FOUR CLAN ER PPCS]] in its arms, mercilessly vaporizing limbs and heads of anyone unfortunate to be caught in its sights. If that isn't enough, every variant carries a massive Targeting Computer, essentially giving the pilot an aimbot. A common variant swaps two ER PPCs for Large Pulse Lasers, allowing it to better manage its heat while firing with even greater accuracy. One of Clan Smoke Jaguar's signature designs.
* '''''Gargoyle/Man o'War''''' - The infamous SpurdoMech is somewhat of an unusual design, an assault mech that moves above its weight class but has (relatively) weak leg armor. Its Prime also has the misfortune of having ballistic weapons yet too many heat sinks, its twin LB5X autocannons forcing it squarely into an anti-vehicle role. Its lack of torso weapons and its speed make it a good Elemental transport and Clan Wolf builds them in large numbers: however overall it is weaker than the lighter Timber Wolf (unless mech quirks are in play). Also somewhat popular with Clan Ghost Bear. (apparently the weird configuration works well under specialized Clan duel rules)
* '''''Stormcrow/Ryoken''''' - The close combat star of the clan mediums, usually packing fists and lasers although sometimes fitted for long range. At 97 km/h it's faster than everything it can't take down. Doesn't get much time in the spotlight compared to its slower, heavier cousin the Mad Dog, but it comes from the same family of flexible second-gen omnimechs. A workhorse design for many Clans but most popular with the Smoke Jaguars.
* '''''Nova/Black Hawk''''' - One of the oldest OmniMech designs still in use, the Nova is uncommon yet universal among the Clans as a medium mech that can (briefly) throw dakka like mechs 20 tons heavier than itself. Infamous for running HOT with TWELVE ER Medium Lasers, the king of alpha strikes. Also has a PPC sniper variant which is quite good, and a couple configurations that try to pack ballistic weapons and missiles despite the fixed heat sinks.
* '''''Ice Ferret/Fenris''''' - A swift yet well armored scout that can do some sniping to boot. Originally built as a harasser to counter the Timber Wolf, Clan Wolf liked it enough to capture a factory and started producing it themselves. Now is a ubiquitous sight in their touman.
* '''''Viper/Dragonfly''''' - A fast jumper, often described (incorrectly) as lacking punch. [[Cheese|Known for being one of the first mechs to combine jumping 8 hexes (extremely hard to be hit) with pulse lasers (extremely easy to hit the enemy).]] A great Elemental transport and infantry killer popular with the Ghost Bears and Wolves.
* '''''[[Adder|Adder/Puma]]''''' - The largest of the Clans' ubiquitous light OmniMechs is a bit of an oddity. While not particularly fast for a light mech, it carries a pair of ER PPCs with a targeting computer, making it a true sniper. As an OmniMech, it can switch to being a gnarly missile boat in an hour or two. Most often found among Clan Wolf (though the Fenris fits the scout role of a light mech better).
* '''''Kit Fox/Uller''''' - Similar to the Adder in most respects, though lighter armored, the Kit Fox tends to carry a more balanced assortment of weapons in its variants, rather than boating one thing in particular. Except for the EW/anti-infantry variant, which happens to have a whopping three anti-missile systems. Recently canonized as having a dedicated Arrow IV variant(read: a guided, auto-loading cruise missile launcher), meaning it can be equipped with [[Exterminatus|nuclear weapons]]. Unsurprising, given that it is produced by Clan Jade Falcon.
* '''''Mist Lynx/Koshi''''' - A 25 ton dedicated scout OmniMech packing more weapons than its Inner Sphere equivalents, but nothing special as far as Clan mechs go. [[Derp|Infamous for having one less jump jet than needed to be truly evasive, putting nearly half its torso armor on its rear facing, while fully armoring the head]]. Used by Clan Smoke Jaguar in the rare OOC instance that they attempt reconnaissance.
* '''''Fire Moth/Dasher''''' - [[Meme|GOTTA GO FAST]]. A derpy little machine with arms that stretch high above its head, and speed that far exceeds anything the Inner Sphere thought a BattleMech could be capable of. It still manages to have more guns than Inner Sphere mechs twice its size, too- Clan tech is just that powerful. Surprisingly the light mech of choice for Clan Ghost Bear, which actually makes a lot of sense: the Clan that prefers Elementals and plays American Football loves a mech that runs up and flings the battle armor overhand at the enemy.

== Clan Terminology ==
The Clans speak English. A rather formal variant of it which avoids contractions, but English none-the-less. Even so they have added a few words and terminology specific to their culture.

* '''Abtakha''': A Clan Warrior adopted as a bondsman from another Clan or Faction after being captured and assimilated.
* '''Aff''': Affirmative. Can be combined with Query to form the inquisitive term, Quiaff.
* '''Batchall''': Battle Challenge. Before a fight, you lay out your intent and declare the forces that will fight to achieve them. [[Meme|Refuse at your own peril]].
* '''Bondsman''': A prisoner of war that serves as an indentured labourer. Among Clanners it's Honorable to surrender if you are overwhelmed, but once you do you have to obey your captors. Otherwise you are not only throwing away your Honor but pissing on your Clan's as well. One can conduct Bondsref (Bond Refusal) as ritual suicide before capture. Bondsmen are kept for a number of years before being either returned home or (if they choose) inducted into the Clan.
* '''Canister/Trash Born''': Someone grown in an Exowomb. (insult version among more rebellious civilians).
* '''Dezgra/Chalcas''': Disgrace/Un-Clanlike.
* '''Freeborn''': Someone born the old fashioned way. Less favored source of Warriors.
* '''Freebirth''': Someone born the old fashioned way (insult version).
* '''Giftake''': a sample of a Warrior’s genetic material collected at death. Generally believed to be a more promising source for breeding greater warriors than samples collected when the Warrior is alive.
* '''Hegira''': safe pass of enemy troops granted by defenders out of a war zone if deemed honorable.
* '''Iron Womb''': Exowomb.
* '''ilClan''': The title intended for the Clan that succeeds in capturing Earth/Terra. They will become the permanent leaders of all Clans and their Khan will always be the ilKhan.
* '''ilKhan''': The supreme leader of all Clans and since 3151, the leader of the Star League.
* '''Isorla''': Spoils of war for the Clan, including conquered peoples. Abbreviation for "Individuals, Supplies, OR, LAnd."
* '''Keshik''': Elite bodyguard unit led by the Khan or SaKhan. Derived from Mongolian.
* '''Khan''': The leader of a Clan and the commander of their ''touman''.
* '''Kurultai''': From Mongolian terminology. A Clan War council composed of all Bloodnamed Warriors. The Grand Kuraltai or Grand Council is the entirety of all Bloodnamed warriors from all Clans and is needed to elect an IlKhan (or Khan of Khans) if inter-Clan coordination is required.
* '''Neg''': Negative. Can be combined with Query to from the inquisitive term, Quineg.
* '''Not-Named''': Anything/Anyone that has been Abjured/Annihilated and is widely despised by all Clanners. Most often used with Clan Wolverine (The Not-Named Clan) and Ellie Kinnison, the first Steel Viper Khan and the first Warrior Reaved for trying to assassinate Nicholas’ wife (The Not-Named Khan).
* '''Rede''': Oath. Any broken oath considered extremely serious, and is sometimes punishable by death. A variant is Surkairede where a warrior apologizes honorably for being wrong and being honorably pardoned in turn without grudges.
* '''Ristar/Elstar''': Rising Star/Elite Rising Star. Used as a term for rising elite Warriors with lots of potential.
* '''saKhan''': A Khan's second in command. They also carry out the duties their Khan cannot do personally.
* '''SafeCon''': safe passage of enemy troops granted by a defender into a war zone if enemies are honorable.
* '''Seyla''': possibly derived from the Hebrew term, sela, and roughly translated as "So shall it be.” It was the name of Clan Wolf freeborn warrior Seyla, who sacrificed herself to save Khan Jerome Winston during the Clan Widowmaker Absorption Trial of Refusal, in the context of the Clans it can be translated as "Unity".
* '''Sibko''': Sibling Company. Basically communized groups of children called sibcadets who’re raised from infant creches. Those who pass all tests are made Warriors (out of maybe a dozen) while those who fail are made civilians.
* '''Solahma''': elderly warriors who are past their prime. Yearn to earn final glory in combat instead of ignominious death by age.
* '''Stravag''': Another term for Freebirth. Loosely derived from Russian.
* '''Surat''': generic insult based off some rodents used as pets by civilians.
* '''Touman''': A Clan's entire military strength in the form of all Galaxy assets combined. Derived from Mongolian.
* '''Trial''': ritualized warfare used by the Clans. Variants include Abjuration to wipe the target from the history records for unforgivable crimes (with punishment being exile or execution), Position to gain warrior ranking, Bloodright to claim a bloodname, Grievance to settle irreconcilable disputes, Possession/Absorption to claim or merge units or territories into a Clan, Refusal as an appeal against a Clan Council/commander’s controversial decisions that one vehemently objects to, and Annihilation against those who commit war crimes against humanity and are a threat to all Clan society.
** '''Rite''': Hybrid combination versions of Clan Trials. Examples include Adoption to welcome bondsmen into their new Clan or Reaving/Propagation to adjust number of Bloodlines in terms of competence or mediocrity.
*** Note: while Abjuring, Reaving, and Annihilating seem synonymous, the difference is in terms of a sliding scale of severity: starting at exile/execution; then wiping out the name, genes, and records of a warrior or unit; and ending at the extreme of exterminating or sterilizing any trace or relatives of the culprit in question. Additionally, the first two can be reversed with Adoption or Propagation but Annihilation can only be voided if the culprit proves innocence by killing all their accusers in the Trial.
* '''Trueborn''': Someone grown in an Exowomb. More favored source of Warriors.
* '''Wolverine''': Due to the Not-Named Clan, comparing a Clanner with a wolverine is an extremely offensive insult that will make them lose their shit and try to kill the one who said it.
* '''Zellbrigen''': honorable warrior conduct based on the [[Ares Convention]] and one-on-one combat. Akin to Kuritan Bushido.

== Clanners of Note ==
* '''Nicholas Kerensky''': Son of Aleksandr Kerensky, founder of the Clans and the first ilKhan. Often known as the Founding Father and the Great Founder. He was quite crazy, but it's not known if it was due to his mother being unhinged from a genetically inherited mental illness as well, or due to side effects from surviving the Curse of Eden, a deadly brain-damaging disease. While recognized as a visionary political leader, his peers occasionally found his messianic complex to be too much; though most held their tongues.
* '''Jennifer Winson''': Mother of the Clans and Kerensky's wife as well as one of his closest supporters and agents since the Amaris occupation of Terra. Allegedly the sister of Jerome Winston. May have secretly been Amanda Cameron; last scion of the Star League’s ruling house though this information is unproven speculation outside of universe.
* '''Andery Kerensky''': Nicholas’ younger brother and a person more in touch with the common man. He was also one of the few people who could temper Nick’s messianic complex and outlandish ideas without suffering blowback despite sharing a mutually strained relationship with his brother. Unofficial member of the Founders due to not being Khan, he was also a lover of Clan Coyote’s first Khan, his death by mass fire from enemy units who breached Clan lines during Operation Klondike made Nicholas codify ''Zellbrigen'' for honorable dueling to prevent such deaths again. Sara McEvedy was a close friend and his death made her start second-guessing Nicholas (who she suspected of unproven fratricide).
* The first forty Khans: the first generation of Khans and SaKhans, also known as the Founders.
** '''Jerome Winson''': First Khan of Clan Wolf and the second ilKhan. Was a close confidant to the Great Founder himself, after rescuing him and his family from Moscow during Amaris' rule. After leaving his wife behind with the Spheroids, he founded the first of the Clans and led them to victory on countless occasions. He avenged Kerensky by slaughtering the Widowmakers to the last and succeeded him as ilKhan. He's often seen as the one responsible for the Golden Century, the Clans' golden age.
** '''Elizabeth Hazen''': First Khan of Clan Jade Falcon and one of the most fearsome Clanners that has ever lived. She was the first person to tame a Jade Falcon, which she named Turkina. One of the survivors from the Black Watch’s near annihilation during the Amaris Coup, she was apparently in love with her old boss, SLDF general Aaron DeChaviller, and his horrific death at the hands of Liao rebels during the fall of the Pentagon Worlds made her go so berserk she [[AWESOME|butchered them all, on foot, with just a sword.]] She became Khan when she was 80, making her the oldest of the Founders. She was quite famous in Clan history for ending several rebellions in a bloody manner.
** '''Franklin Osis''': First Khan of Clan Smoke Jaguar. Surprisingly, he used to dislike conflict in his youth, but two awful experiences changed him into a killing machine: spending a year in a labor camp for being part of a FedRat gang that killed a Capellan, and the death of his younger brother Simon at the claws of a Smoke Jaguar, which [[RAGE|made him snap and kill the giant cat with a small knife]]. After becoming Khan, he and the Smoke Jaguars became infamous for [[Exterminatus|burning entire cities to the ground Vietnam-style]] during Operation KLONDIKE. Unlike the rest of his Clan, he grudgingly respected the civilian castes for their vital jobs in keeping the clan functional. Osis is one of the few that managed to enrage the Great Founder himself and live to tell the tale.
** '''Dana Kufahl''': First Khan of Clan Coyote and creator of several of the Clans' traditions. She was also Andery's lover and his death messed her up so badly that she retired afterwards, becoming an ambassador. Was raised by a Cree tribe, so she was quite a hippie.
** '''Sarah McEvedy''': First and only officially recognized Khan of Clan Wolverine. Supposedly killed during their annihilation in 2823, but was instead captured and spared by Kerensky himself. Apparently marooned on the planet her Clan died until Trish returned, she seemingly led her clan's remnants out of the Kerensky Cluster alongside Trish and their reformation into the Minnesota Tribe.
** '''Dwight Robertson''': First saKhan of Clan Wolverine. Was killed during a Trial of Refusal against the Widowmakers after getting tag-teamed by two King Crabs; McEvedy as his partner barely survived and became even more jaded with the Clans before launching Operation Switchback.
** '''Ellie Kinnison''': First Khan of Clan Steel Viper. Infamous for being a crazy yandere that had the hots on Kerensky himself. Ultimately went completely crazy and tried to murder his wife, which led to her death at her own saKhan's hands. After her death, she and her Bloodname were Abjured and wiped from the records by Kerensky. She's now only remembered as the Not-Named Khan.
** '''Steven Breen''': First saKhan of Clan Steel Viper, and its second Khan. Rebelled against Kinnison's madness and killed her to save Winson. His actions saved the Steel Vipers from sharing Kinnison's fate.
** '''Jason Karrige''': First Khan of Clan Widowmaker. An ambitious, smug and manipulative bastard, he hated the Wolverines for their fair treatment of their castes. He destroyed the city of Great Hope with a nuke and tricked the other Clans by making them believe the Wolverines did it, transforming their Trial of Absorption into an Annihilation. After discovering the truth of his actions and his death at the hands of Hallis, Kerensky secretly Reaved Karrige and his Bloodname.
** '''Mariel Sanders''': First saKhan of Clan Widowmaker. Was assassinated during the assault on Dagda in Operation KLONDIKE. Unfortunately for the opposition, the Widowmakers marked all opposition as collectively guilty by association and brutally hunt them down with extreme prejudice; making the other Clans concerned.
* '''Franklin Hallis''': Second and de facto last Khan of Clan Wolverine. Led his clan during the Annihilation. Avenged Great Hope's destruction by killing Karrige himself. After his death, Kerensky himself buried him.
* '''Trish Ebon''': Third and last saKhan of Clan Wolverine. Survived the Annihilation and led the remnants of her clan outside Clan space.
* '''Cal Jorgensson''': Second saKhan and last Khan of Clan Widowmaker. he was an abrassive hothead that ruined his clan's relationship with the Fire Mandrills and Goliath Scorpions. He ultimately damned his clan when he ordered the killing of hundreds of Widowmaker merchants for demanding better treatment. During his Trial of Grievance where he tried to stop Clan Wolf's Absorption of the Widowmakers, Jorgensson killed Nicholas Kerensky himself by shooting his Atlas II in the cockpit with his Highlander's Large Lasers after being dazed. Winson had him executed and Annihilated the Widowmakers for his actions. He was brother of Hans Jorgensson of the Ghost Bears.
* '''Lincoln Osis''': Last Khan of Clan Smoke Jaguar. His extreme bloodlust led to his death and his clan's destruction at the hands of the Second Star League when they unleashed Task Force Serpent and Operation Bulldog under Victor Steiner-Davion’s command.
* '''Natasha Kerensky''': Last Khan of the unified Clan Wolf before the Refusal War killed her and split in the Clan in two. She is infamous as a hot-headed mercenary in the Wolf’s Dragoons unit before old age and time away from the Clan forced her to retest for her credentials with her protege, Phelan. She is legendary for downing the most opponents in her Trial of Position on Clan history and her Mech was left unmolested after her death as a monument to her prowess. The clan would remain split until the Third Star League.
* '''Vladimir Ward''': Savior of the Crusader half of Clan Wolf. Was a rival of Phelan Kell when he was captured and later adopted as a Warrior. Had a romance with Katherine Steiner-Davion, the mad bitch responsible for the Fed-Com civil war and mother of the first IlKhan of the Third Star League (who she created with her brother’s genes and raised up in Vlad’s image as her revenge against the Inner Sphere).
* '''Phelan Kell''': Savior of the Warden half of Clan Wolf and its leader when they went into exile. Was originally a member of the Kell Hounds mercenary unit that was captured before being adopted into their ranks.
* '''Brett Andrews''': The last Khan of Clan Steel Viper. Also known as the Bloody ilKhan for starting the [[Wars of Reaving]] that led to the Homeworld Clans' downfall and the Annihilation of his Clan.
* '''Aiden Pryde''': Arguably the best mechwarrior in Jade Falcon history, a true Jade Falcon at that; cold, prideful, arrogant and most importantly he got the job done (until Tukkayid happened). Originally failed testing due to the shenanigans of his Sibko and future Jade Falcon Khan Marthe Pryde, he would adopt the name of a recently dead freeborn and use his forged identity to attain the title of warrior. He would eventually reveal his true identity in order to win the Pryde bloodname, earning himself a couple of enemies in the shape of JF warriors who thought the way he became a warrior was disgraceful and was given command of the disgraced Falcon Guards as an insult. His heroic self-sacrifice at Tukayidd allowed the rest of the Jade Falcon Touman to withdraw intact and changed his reputation from dezgra to paragon of his clan.

== External Links ==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDR_Zpb05uk Part One of Tex's series on Clan History]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B165wbTnHs Part Two of Tex's series on Clan History]

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