With the long life-span of Amarrians, that might take a few hundred years...
In NZ, there's a definite feeling that as the old right-wing reactionaries die off, many social changes are becoming more possible. If you divide polls by age groups, the younger people are much more liberal about things like gay marriage, legalisation of certain low-damage drugs, and ending slavery prison reform.
And every five years, the age of people supporting the more liberal lines increases by a few years...
Once all the wrinklies are dead, we'll be a more liberal society.
Is there that same age-based difference in opinion in the Empire do you think? Or is Esna basically pissing into the wind?
On the one hand, my intuition is to say that the overall state of the Empire is likely to be dominated by the House the current Emperor or Empress is from - i.e., Kor-Azor and (God forbid
) Tash-Murkon would produce more liberal rulers who would swing the Empire towards a more liberal state as a whole, while the more conservative houses such as Ardishapur and Sarum would produce more conservative rulers, etc etc.
The problem with this is it hasn't happened. In fact, we've instead been treated to the exact opposite - a series of rather liberal and open Amarrian leaders who've been making one step after another in opening previously barred doors (i.e., reuniting with the Khanid Kingdom, the release of the 9th gen. slaves). Even those Heirs you might expect to see leading the charge against change - Yonis Ardishapur comes to mind - have been swept up in it.
I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for the Empire to swing toward the dark and nasty side, for some time; I think CCP may have played with this some during the reign of Karsoth viceroy. Unfortunately, given the way things were written, Karsoth and the Empire in general came out reading more like Stupid Evil rather than the Lawful Evil that I suspect CCP was more aiming for, which may have put them off of it in the long term.
Anyhow, back to the questions at hand: Is Esna's plan reasonable?
My answer is yes, but only in the long term, as Ulphus said. The Empire is an extremely slow-moving juggernaut socially, and it it will take many generations of Holders before we see anything approaching what Esna is aiming for being accepted on a wide scale. Given, however, the current trend of liberalism continues in the Empire, and the "shifts by the dominant House" theory does not hold, I think he'll get some - if not all - of what he's pushing for.
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Topic: What is your quest? (Read 9536 times)