1) Charging three political thrones in parallel
2) Charging two political thrones and one religious throne in parallel
3) Charging one political throne in serial
4) Charging one political, one religious, and one scouting throne in parallel
#3 is the most stable from a *psychic* point of view. Everyone is focusing on "The Hegemon", all the time. Very simple. The others become trickier the more complication is introduced, because of trying to balance the streams to be equal. None of them seem impossible.
Psychically, two thrones one religion is the shakiest of the plans, because it decreases the political focus (My Hegemon/Your Hegemon instead of The Hegemon) by also muddying it up with the religious icon. But it's not automatically doomed to failure, just the least robust.
Psychically, merging two bloodlines into one is a REALLY REALLY REALLY bad idea.
Politically, two-throne plus religion might be stable. Two empires at peace is certainly more stable than two empires at war. It could work if the religion is structured to keep them from fighting, *or* from uniting. Two empires that are allied and at peace to have the potential to unify into one, thus messing with the three bloodlines. The religion would have to be maintain the ongoing status quo, which is doable, but there is risk of devolving to one-throne plus religion.
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> General
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> Non-political-hegemon plans all have to pass the test of "why will
people focus on this?". [We think: Religion isn't so
hard. Entertainer is probably not hard. Scouting is viable but not
strong, and could benefit from a Hero aspect for the scion.]
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> [We think/speculate: All forms of dividing focus are weaknesses. Partially but not completely symmetrical division (i.e. two thrones plus religion) is extra-weak as it divides a genre of focus without the benefit of simplicity.]
This analysis is mostly correct.
There are various psychic aspects to keep in mind:
Psychic analysis does *not* take into consideration "What happens if everyone forgets about the Flames" or "Will anyone be willing to *do* this?"
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> One Hegemony
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This is the most psychically stable. One focus for the people to fixate on, and it's a big figurehead that everyone knows about and thinks is important.
This is plausible, but "stable" is not really an apt description. The most obvious failure case is for one of the lines (most likely: Hegemon) being a bigger figurehead than the others, and charging disproportionately. It's one of the least lossy psychic solutions, though, in that there's likely to be a figurehead to appeal to nearly any sort of personality (if all you have is Hegemons, then you lose the politically independent or disenfranchised). All the loss is due to muddledness, because this one is a bit muddly. But since total charge is not a very tight economy, the thing that seems most necessary is some way to bleed off excess charge from the biggest line, or deal with a Mad Hegemon. This does seem likely to require some psychic micromanagement, but it's a setup that seems to *allow* for some micromanagement.
*Psychically*, there's no reason for it to be unstable. From the people's point of view, you have "THE HEGEMON". That's an easy focus, and essentially identical to "rotate bloodlines every few hundred years." It allows for fairly easy psychic micromanagement: "Blue is biggest right now; we'll push them one down in the rotation."
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> Two Hegemony
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This is even more psychically muddled than Scout/Throne/Religion, but without the benefit of losslessness. On the other hand, it doesn't have the problem with the Throne line getting overpowered. Any solution with two Thrones is in danger of one Throne line growing faster than the other, though.
This is less muddled than the "with Religion" variant, and it does ameliorate problems of one Throne line being larger than the other. It's reasonably psychically stable, but it would be hard to micromanage if something seemed to be going wrong.
Again, it's not *psychically* unstable. From the point of view of the citizen, you have "My Hegemon" and "The Other Hegemon". Two thrones isn't as psychically pure as One Throne, but it's not *too* bad. It does better than the "slow braid" above because it can be more easily micromanaged, but it probably doesn't need it, because generational randomness should even things out. (Maybe people are saying these are psychically unstable because heirship would have to be treated differently, but that's not a psychic issue).
This is by far the lossiest of the setups. At best, assuming everything goes swimmingly, it's on the border of enough charge but not much to spare. There's really no psychic advantages over the other systems.
> That should really be "We think this either means that Blue eventually overshadows/absorbs Red politically, or else Scouting and Religion are weak in Blue and strong in Red/Outworlds, so this is unstable any way you cut it."
(The biggest psychic problem is lossiness rather than instability. On the other hand, the psychic worry with throne/religion/scouting is the size of the throne charge; the original plan is one extreme, and this is the other).
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> Three Hegemony
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Three parallel thrones is actually more psychically muddled than two thrones - with two, you can do Us v. Them, which has some psychic purity, but with three, it's Us and Him and That Other Guy.
If it was divided as Red/Blue/Outworlds, psychically, the Outworlds throne would just be way too underpowered, and consequently the other two would be overpowered enough to go mad.
Dividing it physically some other way would not be as big a psychic problem, the Us, Him, Other Guy effect makes the whole affair lossier and more muddled than the other options.
(Not that you mentioned it, but you *could* do Red/Blue/Outworlds with a "Every hundred years, each Hegemon moves one Throne to the right." At least, you could, psychically. It's not really an improvement over the two thrones slow braid, though.)
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Executive Summary
Psychically, From Best to Worst:
(Options are ordered within groups, but the differences between members of a group are much smaller than the differences between groups.)
Group 1: Strongest plans
Group 2: Medium plans
Group 3: Weakest plans
(This basically thinks about a "next hundred years" timeline, and the strategy of how you get from where you are now, to there. )
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> One Hegemony
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> Potentially somewhat stable, though there is the instability of what happens when a line doesn't want to give up the throne. After all, we saw the failures of this arrangement pretty clearly in the last round.
This is politically pretty stable. It only requires buy-in from the top people, though as you say, if a line doesn't want to give up the power, that's a failure point. Strategically this is reasonably easy to arrange if you support the Blue bloodline in taking over the universe through conquest or marriage, and swap in the other bloodlines later.
>Need to define scouts and religion as filling different needs than govenerment, but should be stable.
Politically if you can get there, it's more stable than the slow rotation. However, strategically it's a bit harder to get to, because you have to both push Blue into controlling everything, politically, while at the same time taking power *away* from parts of the government to give to Scouts. On the other hand, you get a strategic bonus from the fact that you get Donella's desire to rule the world supporting you.
> [Theory] Politically, this is very stable. One organizational entity for everything, very clearly defined inheritance rules. There's definitely an expectation of what happens next over time.
Politically somewhat unstable. Strategically almost as easy as the slow rotation to get to, except that there's likely to be more resistance from Donella. But even in the first couple of generations, there's a higher chance for political trouble her than in the slow rotation, as each changeover is an opportunity for someone to say "No, I want my kid to keep it" or, alternately, "I'm not going to live to be king! I must act now!"
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> Two hegemonies
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> There are some political instabilities with with this. Basically, is the religion the thing which is balancing them? Do they remain in peace? Is there war occasionally? These questions create instability, as well as the strong possibility of two thrones merging into one through peace or war.
Strategically, this is really easy. Marry Katya to Viktor and tell Jayla to be Pope. The dynamic between the two Hegemonies does lead to a fair amount political instability, though it's not impossible to balance.
> [Theory] I think this combines the instability of two thrones with the instability of a bloodline not wanting to give up it's spot
Your theory seems basically correct, politically. It's not the worst of plans, but it definitely has flaws. Strategically it's also pretty easy.
> Hippoc addressed this in a prior mail, most of what he said was that it was wacky.
This has a big political flaw in that it requires the *people* (who presumably aren't in on the plan) to not know who the heir is going to be until it happens. This is a large change from how things are done in both Hegemonies. Now, it's possible that that could be worked around by adopting a completely different paradigm of changeover, but it's a big strategic hurdle as well.
> [Theory] Could work, but I suspect the thrones will devolve at some point to one, which may make it into the hegemony/religion/scouting option with lost time
This still has some strategic overhead in that you need to get power away from the government to give to scouts. It's not quite as strategically difficult to do this when you're not also merging Hegemonies at the same time. Politically, it has the two-throne flaw.
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> Three hegemonies
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> Quite possibly could work, but would have to prop up the outworlds much more. [Theory] How stable would they be, to not have one absorb another, splinter, etc?
Strategically, the big question is how you divide things up evenly, since the outworlds aren't big enough to be one throne. Completely rewriting the borders to make three equal Hegemonies is strategically way harder than adjusting the borders of two, or conquering the universe with one.
Politically, three hegemonies is a little bit more stable than two; if one starts to grow more ascendant, the other two can work together.
>[Thoery] Probably equally stable as the above one, but need to determine the mechanism for when the shift occurs.
This is a little less politically stable because of the changeover mechanism. But strategically it's a lot easier than the previous one, because you don't have to try to make them even.
Politics General Summary:
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(We are keeping the numbers from the Psionics email)
Group 1: Strongest plans:
Group 2: Medium plans:
Group 3: Weakest plans:
Strategy General Summary:
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Group 1: Strongest plans
Group 2: Medium plans:
Group 3: Weakest plans:
Good plans
The Brochoah will see "change frequently" and "change less frequently" as about equal. Two thrones, and especially three thrones (Blue/Red/Outworlds), is more likely to allow them to maintain their independence than one throne is. If you postulate that they *have* to join either way, then the Good and Medium set switch places.
Medium Plans
Iffy Plans
These are likely to have weird inefficiencies due to the different natures of the thrones. Throne/Religion/Scouting is also likely to sound like "personal short term fun preference over long-term good and efficiency" which they will disapprove of.
Bad Plans
p It takes far too much war and chaos to get to three equal thrones.
For the others, you don't think the Hive are likely to express a preference at all. Tinoori will have greater resistance to plans that involve seriously mucking with Tinoori society; if you try and draft Scouts or require Jaylaism, they'll not like that, but if your plan is to have them all on the Perception line anyway, then it doesn't matter so much.
Good plan:
Yay! We like this one! No change for us!
Almost good plan:
This is likely to have the least political change, since thrones can be of vastly different sizes.
Suspiciously Like Being Conquered Plans (Medium):
Definitely Being Conquered Plan (Medium Poor):
Being Conquered and Then Given To Someone Else (Really Bad):