Annotated 50-17
Gondolessa isn’t playing any kind of game here. Avians’ interests have been seen to…they’re kind of easy, as special-interest groups go. He just wants Penk’s coalition to work.
Byron may not want the job, but he here demonstrates why he should have it. Not really a huge surprise, but we needed to confirm that somehow.
With the point about contact often reducing racism, we speak to a modern social problem and argue a bit for the very existence of “mixed-race” series like Guilded Age, even if the race-mixing is mostly metaphorical.
One of the important arts of marriage is to know when your spouse can (and wants to) do it themself and when you should step in. Byron can make his own choices, but he still struggles a bit with the speechmaking part of the job. Syr’Nj has talked to him enough that she can represent his thoughts here better than he can…then segue from them to an idea of hers that she’s been workshopping.
“Wait, Newlight is EASIER to spell? It has two silent letters and that thing you do where you change a vowel sound by adding a w to the end of it! Why is it not just ‘N-ū-l-ī-t’? Humans, I swear…”
FB: When you get caught between the namers of Newlight City—I know you’re Big Boss, but it’s true—if you get caught between the namers of Newlight City, the best that you can do (the best that you can do) the best that you can do is fall in line.
*Cue saxophone solo*
What’s hard to spell about South Corral? :p
Some people would find offense at not being in North Corral, convinced it’s better but that humans are excluded. ” ‘S a conspiracy! That’s why we can’t find it and it’s not on maps! It’s been hidden!!”
But Gastonbury could become “North Corral”, since Souff Koral is already a place…
But then, maybe some humans would think the savages are secretly amassing an army in Souff Koral, and sneak out there only to fall prey to land sharks on the way, and then sooner or later humans would think the land sharks are that secret army, and … well. Humans really are shit.
About what Syr’Nj said… Harky’s coalition worked because all of them had a common cause (to bring Gastonia down) and a common faith (Tectonicus). And, while different, the savage races didn’t see each other as “alien” the way humans are probably still going to see the fuzzy/green people for years to come (Harky and Gondolessa were frowned upon by some because they were both male, not because of them being an interespecies couple). Elves, dwarves and gnomes are way more human-like than the other especies, and humans treated them poorly. Without some sort of common cultural/ideological ground, true racial integration is going to require a lot more than renaming a few places
“Harky’s coalition worked because all of them had a common cause (to bring Gastonia down) and a common faith (Tectonicus).”
One of those, maybe; I don’t think the goblins or land sharks–
–or, in fact, any of the World’s Rebellion races except trolls worshiped Tectonicus, until Iver decided the faith of Tectonicus should replace the mystics.
I sure hope nobody who read this would think that renaming the capital city is all it’s going to take. Like, even on this page, Byron’s decision not to give the humans an officially designated space “to hide out with their own kind” is more important. But it’s going to take a lot more work, yes; good governance always does.
And yes, Harky led his people in the cause of vengeance, but in the end, even vengeance mattered less to the Rebels than the hope of a better life, or they wouldn’t have switched over so readily to Penk, who focused that vengeance on a few and otherwise foregrounded that hope. When such hope for a better life is widespread, divisions tend to matter less; when it is not, tribalism tends to fester…between former allies as well as recent enemies.
And so that better life is what the Arkerran Union has to offer its peoples now. Names are just a statement of intent to do so…and names and marketing have power, but words have to be backed up by actions, especially so early in a new government’s history. Still, one problem at a time. There will be many more Councils after this one to address the further issues that arise.
I actually think that renaming an old place, especially if it’s coming from the “new” people, can be a serious stumbling block.
Also: Right now, there is a lot of enthusiasm with a lot of people “to build a peaceful future”, but there is one thing that both Harky’s coalition on one side and Gastonia and their allies on the other had to bind them together, and that is a common enemy. That is now gone, and I think this means that after the “honeymoon” time, some tension or another will become amplified until it splits society, along whatever lines.
One obvious fault line for this would of course be the narrative that humans lost their privilege (which they definitely had, and now they don’t), and there will be people who find that more important than not being assailed by a “savage” army, especially because most Gastonians probably didn’t really notice much about the war until it was at their doorstep, and over a few days later. So in their mind, the problem avoided there will look way smaller than the status they had held for decades and lost seemingly over night.
Thinking about the years and decades coming up, I think both Byron’s main task (and most others would be wise to support him as they can) is to drive home, to everyone, how the new situation is a huge improvement to what would have happened otherwise — and to do so without bending anyone’s truth, including the personal experiences of those who objectively lost something in the process.
I recently read a thing about well-off white (former) inhabitants of South Africa feeling as if the country has taken a turn for the worse since the end of Apartheid. Racist tendencies among them are increasing, because they never had a sense of the life of everyone else in the country who suffered bitterly to enable their good life during the Apartheid years. Most things are much better now *on average*, but white people are now getting a larger portion of their fair share of bad things, which would feel like a loss to almost anyone. It’s just, it absolutely needed to happen, but it also needs to be acknowledged (and put into context), or else it creates more conflict down the road.
Leaving the capital (or human nation) with either of its old names, “Gastonia” or “Iwatania,” just isn’t on the table. In the minds of avians, dwarves, goblins, trolls, gnolls, elves of all kinds, gnomes, and even some turncoat humans, those are names for an old empire that fell. And nobody’s going to be naming anything after House Iwatani after Taro’s reign. You’re right that such a name change will make some humans jittery, but that’s outweighed by everyone else wanting those names gone.
I agree with the rest of your analysis, but if human affairs are governed well, the loss of privilege humans felt over other races could be offset by gains in real privilege for many humans who’d had their mobility limited by the Heads-of-Houses system. Economic inequality was a feature of life in Gastonia. In Newlight, many humans could have a chance to do better for themselves, or at least the hope of doing so.
Reactionaries are gonna react.
Better to stomp on their feelings with gusto than try to sneak around them.
That way at least, everyone will see that the reactionaries are losers.
Sir Groff looks so astonished.