Resurrections

Jeff Wilson · 02 Aug 2010, 10:10 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:10:15 -0500
Subject: (urth) Resurrections
In-Reply-To: <4C55ECE0.7080900 at verizon.net>
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Message-ID: <4C569987.7080809 at io.com>

On 8/1/2010 4:53 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> 200 autarchs could rule an average of 5 years each over 1000 years. If
> 20 of these autarchs ruled an average of 20 years, the remaining 180
> would each have to rule for about 3+1/3 years to maintain the average.
> It's possible. In such a system, the individuality of each autarch, all
> but the greatest, would be inconsequential and utterly lost. Which is
> exactly what has happened in imperial dynasties. England's monarch, by
> contrast, was much more robust even at its weakest.

Which imperial dynasties did you have in mind? Holy Roman? 
Austro-Hungarian? Egyptian?

> If we know only 3 names from the past 1000 years, perhaps that is why.

There's a few more, but my Lexicon may have drifted into the Void. 
There's Ymar, Sulpicius, the guy that closed the roads, "Appian", Severian,

 > If only these 3 ruled for 50 each and the remainder for still only about
 > 4 years on average, that makes 200 in total. It's then slightly more
 > plausible.

Still not a good match for the mathematical likelihood, or the the more 
stable monarchies' historical examples, and I think that the 
considerable reliance upon secret words and non-subbornable machines 
makes the Autarchy more resistant to hostile seizure than similar, 
(apparently) constitutionless rulerships.

 > But is this important?

There is so little said about the thousand-year succession of autarchs 
despite it being such a central story feature that any detail about them 
is important and could be the key to any of the attendant mysteries, 
like how Sulpicius can be expected to return.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

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