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Hunpecked said:
Very interesting discussion between El_Phil and Starhawk. Some more comments:
The "weak" Icaran army: Ah, now I get it. The army was a basically sound institution in temporary decline because of neglect and mismanagement. The resulting opportunity was just too good for the Spartans to pass up.
Firearms: I agree with El_Phil on the difficulty of adopting a new weapons technology. The whole process should go a lot faster, however, if the importer can capture/bribe the needed experts and/or buy sufficient weapons from smugglers or neutral parties while building up its own infrastructure.
Easy conquests: I can think of one way an enemy state could seemingly collapse after a long resistance. Suppose the Icarans developed extensive and sophisticated subversion, propaganda, and "black ops" capabilities. When the effects of propaganda, bribes, blackmail, assassination, sabotage, etc. reach the "tipping point", resistance could collapse in a relatively short time. Of course the Icarans would also have to develop effective assimilation techniques or, as El_Phil points out, their new "assets" would be more like ticking time bombs.
Decline and fall: El_Phil also has a good point about the long span of the Icaran Empire; such an empire is unique in human history. Egypt, Macedon, Rome, Mongolia, Spain, Turkey, and England built great empires, but in the end they were all temporary. Various combinations of internal decay, rebellion, and outside pressure brought them all down eventually. The Icaran empire has to have a character not found in these other states, a character that's flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances but durable enough to last millenia. As I recall, Starhawk has written about advanced education/indoctrination techniques and the option of "removing" an ineffective Praetor in the "modern" Icaran empire, which is a fair start.
Iron: I browsed around the web a bit, and found sites confirming El_Phil's data on iron's drawbacks compared to bronze. There is speculation that iron finally supplanted bronze in the Med mainly because of some kind of disruption of the tin trade, making bronze almost unobtainable.
The story might make sense if the Icarans had developed steel, but that would require substantial advances in smelting and metalworking. Perhaps the inventive Icarans had been playing with steel for some years as a curiosity (its military potential overlooked by the Triumvirate), and only turned to it in earnest out of desperation.
Alternatively, maybe the Icarans' armor advance was in design rather than material. I know little about armor, but I understand the Romans wore mail instead of the Greek hoplite breastplate. I gather mail is lighter than plate armor, so perhaps that would give the Icaran infantry the edge on their opponents. However, as I recall one disadvantage of mail is the labor required to make it.
Any armor experts on the forum?
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Regarding the army: Yeah you've got it now
The army was essentially a sound force except for that it was neglected by a poor government.
Re: Firearms, like I said I will change it so that the Yuan basically just kept the guns from any Icaran soldiers they killed. Then replicated older more primitive firearms and relied on their massed numbers to win the war for them.
Re: Easy conquests, you pretty much got the Idea Hunpecked, Icara used its military might to conquer a territory and then its political might to secure it. Enough bribes/assassinations and purifications and after a while the resistance fades into nothingness.
RE: Rise and Fall, well the main reason Macedon fell is lack of an heir, Rome fell because of its own grotesque decadance and the careless spending of massive ammounts of hard cash that could only be replaced via conquest added to political corruption.
Icara is different from these Empires in many ways:
1. They consider their Praetor a living saint chosen by God himself, and unlike Romans they do not consider the Praetor something replaceable in the political sense (Basically the Praetor's family has no competition for the position).
The Praetorian family is not inbred and is in fact strictly monitored by family historians to ensure that this never becomes an issue, the good thing here is also that since the females can not ever become Praetor and only the eldest daughter or sister of the Praetor can give birth to an heir if the Praetanii (Praetor's wife) can not, none of his male relatives count as heirs unless they are eldest Nephew or Eldest grandson.
There are very few cases in history of corrupt Praetors and their degenerate eldest heirs running into "accidents" within a short period of time, however there is always a clear line of succession.
2. The Icaran Empire is a much more "friendly" appearing Empire in that they did not ever take human slaves, and in fact liberated tens of thousands of slaves from other Empires as they conquered their way across the globe which allows them to potray themselves somewhat saintly even in a primitive society.
3. Any traitor to the Empire is not simply seen as a traitor by the people but as a Heretic because they betrayed not simply a man made Empire, but they betrayed the God given Rule of the Praetor. This added fire of hatred toward traitors is a good tool to keep people loyal because heretics suffer very unpleasent deaths as do any of their family that show the same inclination. (This is early Empire by time we reach the space age and beyond though traitors are still seen as heretics they are generally either executed alone (I.e their entire family isn't killed) or banished to the frontiers. Though banishment is in and of its self a near death sentence depending on what the current "frontier" happens to be.
4. The Icarans have in fact evolved slowly on a "visible" level for most of their traditions remain the same as they were for millenia, however they do adapt and modernize and though by our standards the modern Empire is "harsh" it is a varitable pussycat compared to Early Imperial history. Hell the First Icaran Crusade led to more people being executed after the fighting then died during, and though this Crusade is seen as the first step towards Empire it is also seen as a tragic period for Icara.
5. Icaran children are raised in a rather militarized education system that raises them to respect and idealize not "The State" but instead "The Community", self denial for the good of all and a level of community awareness we only wish modern citizens of the modern world had. Don't take this to assume Icarans are drones because overall they are actually proudly individualistic, it is just that they are raised by their parents and their school system to beleive that the good of others is more important then themselves.
Add to this Icara forbade all forms of wellfare back in the early 1590s IY and instead instituted a forced work ethic where if you can't find a job by time you reach a certain age the government gives you one. (And you don't get to pick and choose) In turn however you do receive fair pay and labor hours. This plus the fact that Icara gives enough technology only ot enhance human workers ability to produce goods (and not to replace humans themselves) and you have virtually zero unemployment.
Those who are unemployed out of any reason beyond mental or physical inability are seen as "draggers" and looked down upon by virtually all Icarans.
6. Icara has actually "fallen" twice and had to completely reform it's society, The Icaran Principality was replaced by the Icaran Empire after the Triumverate was overthrown. And the second time after the UN (Later to be known as Sol Coalition) drove Icara and the ESS out of Sol the Icaran Empire was replaced by the Icaran Royal Empire with the merged ESS populace and culture influencing Icaran development.
The Icarans however are remarkably stubborn people and very traditionalist which helped greatly in ensuring that some form of Icara survived long enough to grow again.
7. The final Major difference in Icaran society is that the nobility is as answerable to the law as an average citizen, Nobles don't get "privilage" in any way except the fact that they are usually pretty wealthy and the amount of authority they have within their province.
Politically corrupt or cruel nobles have been removed by the Military on more then one occasion throughout history and many more have been executed for causing needless Icaran deaths.
Even if a Noble decided they would rebel it would be incredibly difficult for them to gain
any support, much less from the military. And if they did manage to gain enough support to pull for independence the full might of Icara's available forces will be dropped on their heads shortly there after.
The only noble who ever got close to killing the Praetor led an army of some 25,000 people in the year 1150 IY but this army was butchered to the last man and woman by the "Praetor's Own" and local army regiments, even average citizens swarmed over the traitors and almost 8,000 Icaran civilians died on the blades of the traitor's army. Not only was this noble executed but every single male in his family was drawn and quartered and every woman and girl rendered baron. (As I said Early Imperial history was Brutal and is not often discussed by modern Icarans)
Icara managed to ride out these rough times and eventually became a society that learned moderation in it's responses, though of course by modern US standards they are still brutal and harsh.