297 The Plan
Diana groaned as she flopped onto her bed, thoughts and ideas stacking on top of each other faster than they could be addressed. All of them were, in some form or another, related to the population war she had decided to wage. More specifically, they were related to the unique traits of the Nekh.
In some ways the Nekh's biology and social structures were almost purpose built for this type of war, which in a way made sense. They existed in a state of constant crisis, experiencing difficulties with resource acquisition and reproduction in a way that would destroy them if they didn't make those their focus. It didn't show in the way they carried themselves, but a bit of probing revealed that practically every aspect revolved having a child and securing the resources and environment that child would need to grow into an adult who, in turn, would have a child of their own.
The ultimate representative of their affinity towards 'Bellum Missarum' was the biological 'bond' their women made to a mate, which seemed to have enacted two pressures on their society.
The first had to do with the impetus to find a mate belonging to the woman rather than the man, with the aspect of it being a subconscious (or possibly unconscious) reaction adding to the schism from the norm. This situation likely forced the men to adopt a more reserved and protective temperament - something like an unspoken code of chivalry - and incentivized certain forms competition between them, though Diana would need to interact with said men before she got a handle on what that competition might entail. Furthermore, a heavy social stigma was placed upon the man to care for a women who bonded to him whether he wanted it or not, which was reflected by an expectation for women to be someone their beloved could not raise objections to.
The second pressure was on matchmaking incentives, more specifically the negation of 'class' regarding desirability of mate. Admittedly there was another aspect to this in the form of genetic 'clans', but with the influence of wealth on matchmaking prospects questionable at best the social stratification based on said wealth was minimal. There did still exist some degree of stratification, however this was almost exclusively based on merit. The only exceptions to this were the Strappers, who received unconditional respect, and the warrior clans, who were expected to sacrifice themselves for the majority whenever the time came. Everyone else held status based on their abilities and feats, neither of which could be inherited.
The result was a merit based society that emphasized productive competition rather than individual profit as a means to attract a mate. Tearing others down would do little (if anything) to improve an individual's prospects, so trust between random strangers was fairly high as far as Diana could tell, and it meant that there was very little risk of crimes overall.
This level of trust combined with their clan system would ease some of the sharper pains generally associated with a rapidly growing population - resource competition and inherited wealth disparities. Inherited wealth disparity would mean little in the long term when one's job was effectively chosen at random at birth, and the competition for resources would be unlikely to escalate to theft or murder. They had already been dealing with the latter for centuries at this point, and from the sounds of it those crimes were exceedingly rare.
Of course there were problems associated with this society as well, particularly regarding the assimilation portion of Diana's population war. A society with a high degree of trust could very quickly become averse to integrating outsiders if said trust is repeatedly violated for personal gain. Anyone hailing from a low trust society would easily be able to wreak havoc on Diana's designs by taking advantage of any potential goodwill of the Nekh, subsequently tanking her ability to integrate further populations and increasing the State's expenditure of resources and effort towards keeping the peace.
This wasn't to say the integration of low trust societies was impossible - it just required a great deal of care and forethought in planning her measures to build that trust. The first of those measures was the liberal application of the death penalty.
Well, not the first, but 'genocide of low trust societies' didn't sit well with her, nor would it be good optics for the rest of the galaxy she was attempting to integrate. That was really more a thought experiment in what Donovan, the king of solving apparently complex issues with simple or obvious solutions, would tell her to do should he be speaking without a filter. In truth, a death penalty wasn't something she wanted to make 'liberal' use of either, but it was undoubtedly cost effective - scaring potential offenders into compliance, providing a sense of security to those who would have their trust violated, and eliminating anyone too stupid, malicious, or rebellious to cooperate with her.
Of course she was going to reserve this punishment for the most damaging of crimes, which she already started a list for based on a few interviews with Titanyana and some other Nekh.
Capital murder and rape were first on the list given her personal thoughts on the matter, followed closely by bribery, treason, fraud, and 'grand theft' at Arc's behest. Some consideration was given towards espionage on Donovan's behalf, but she decided against it. Espionage was not her forte, and she wasn't yet sure if killing a foreign dignitary was acceptable. What she could be sure of was the Nekh aversion to domestic abuse (particularly regarding children) and sabotage, the latter of which surprised her greatly.
The intense hatred of sabotage made sense when she took more than a second to think about it. The Nekh had limited resources, so any infrastructure used to get those resources where they were needed or stretch those resources a little bit further than they would without it were precious. Roads, bridges, houses, furnaces, mills - all of those and more were not only vital to maintaining their gradually shrinking breathing room, but represented huge investments of manpower and resources they could ill afford to lose. To damage or destroy them was synonymous with murder in their eyes, which was a pretty sound case for the death penalty in Diana's eyes.
"Is he available?"
"Donovan is unconscious at the moment."
"Figures."
She didn't want penalties to be the only form of persuasion, but she had to admit they were the most effective. Even if she wanted to present a benevolent front, providing perverse incentives was the last thing she wanted to do. Aside from that, she would also need to justify the rewards for expected behavior to those not receiving rewards for it, which implied that the desired 'base state' would need warrant some level of reward to circumvent the indignation.
Classes.
Diana did not like them, but if she was going to avoid conflict stemming from a reward structure she was going to need a class structure to work alongside it. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a class structure tied to wealth, occupation, or race, those tended to create the very tension Diana wanted to avoid, but it would have to provide the basis for denying people something like the right to vote. Admittedly, this was getting close to the type of stratification Diana wanted to avoid, however there were ways to get around it. Most notable was placing herself above the legislature in a position to veto measures to oppress these 'lower classes' - the benevolent despot.
Donovan would have to be that despot though. Diana viewed herself as unqualified for the role on account of her being the diplomatic face, more suited to a position guiding the legislature than holding absolute executive power. Given his personality and motivations he wouldn't be likely to abuse the position, nor would he be one to ignore situations requiring his attention. He would definitely need help though, which she supposed could be covered by Arc and a cabinet of professionals . . . which brought her into the next point of Nekh culture she wished to leverage.
Diana wanted to make use of the meritocratic structure present in their clans and a legally enshrined class system to tie talented individuals directly to the government. This class would have to be an 'opt-in' deal in order to avoid allow such individuals to make waves in the private sector should they not be receptive to government control over their work focus and lifestyle. These people would mostly be decision makers and researchers as well as executors of the government's will more generally, possibly acting as a useful apparatus for controlling disillusioned demographics should the position achieve a certain reputation. Donovan would undoubtedly make use of the system in a military context to secure his commanders, logisticians, and special operatives, while Arc would be most likely to recruit those suited for positions overseeing industrial development and gauging public opinion.
All of this would make it easier to secure competent and loyal advisors in charge of important matters without the need to gamble with bureaucratic appointments by elected officials.
"Arc?"
"Yes?"
"When do you think Titanyana will be able to read legal documents?"
"Depending on the selected grammar and vocabulary, three to seven years. Why do you ask?"
"I need to write a constitution, and she's gonna need to sign off on it." Diana stretched an arm out towards Mercedes, curled into a ball on the corner of the bed, but wasn't able to reach.
"I would advise against early action on that front. Pressuring a population under duress into an arrangement they may not fully understand is a recipe for future headaches."
"We can make necessary changes as the need arises, amendments or Reconstitutions you know?" She wiggled to get a little bit closer to the sleek ball of fur mere inches away. "If conventions of the world's finest couldn't get it right after years of debate and discussion, I highly doubt we'll be able to nail it the first time either."
"Fair enough."
Titanyana would be her test case for another part of this government, one that sought to address the biggest issues an interstellar empire would face. Even if a planet subscribed to the overculture of the empire, cultural divergence would naturally emerge as a function of social isolation and a different social, economic, or terrestrial environments. This divergence might not be something major, perhaps only a slight difference in local administrative preference, but this would generate tension in a way that incentivized separatist or revolutionist sentiments as only one method could be implemented.
Expand this disagreement in administrative preference to topics like taxation practices or misdemeanor qualification then multiply it by a hundred planets and suddenly you have a huge problem on your hands. The proposed fix to this took a page out of the medieval handbook, where tools to administrate vast swaths of territory were not fully developed or widely available - feudalism.
Part of her had come to believe the dominance of this system was no accident. A democratic form of government would be difficult to manage across an interplanetary domain consisting of billions of people, many different perspectives, opinions, and motives making the election of representatives difficult and governance near impossible, any attempt at secession being guaranteed to succeed on the basis of the extreme difficulty associated with moving armies between planets.
Instead, the people here decided to centralize executive and legislative authority in single individuals. 'The people' did not refer to the general public but instead to those individuals powerful in Split, at least not in Diana's estimation. These 'the people' possessed the means to exercise their authority on others, and so became leader, a hierarchy likely forming on the basis of strength. One person couldn't control a planet on their own, so they made those slightly weaker (but stronger than the average) into their 'vassals', enjoying privileges, status, and protection afforded by the stronger person in exchange for giving their 'lord' a portion of the spoils. Should they not be strong enough to enforce control on their own they could flex the strength of their lord, their lord in turn using the taxes and levies of their vassals to enforce control on disloyal cronies and to protect the territory at large.
Diana sought to mimic the positive aspects of this system and discard the negatives, the plan being to implement a system of 'monarchies' with a degree of legislative and executive autonomy. They would not have the same degree of freedom as a traditional feudal lord, nor would the 'monarch' have to be a hereditary position, but they would possess a level of authority and status ensured by the Imperial government in exchange for handling the administration and security of their planet. This would permit Donovan, the de facto executive of the empire, to devote less concentration to the management of small and medium scale 'disasters' that might only affect a single planet and focus on the larger ones affecting the empire at large.
Arc would be involved in the administration at all levels regardless of government form - an entity with theoretically unlimited processing power did not require the same degree of concern towards attention allocation - however he lacked the authority to make the final decision on such a large scale owing to an extrapolation on his first directive. Decisions regarding administration could determine the life or death of others so he could not make such decisions without the approval or oversight of an individual with sufficient authorization, meaning a person would be required anyways.
That aside, having a form of pseudo-vassal position available would open a powerful avenue of diplomatic expansion by way of negotiated vassalization. A smaller polity with good relations or a precarious position could be brought into the fold first as a traditional vassal at first and integrated into the system over a period of time in such a manner that avoids conflict. Already plots were forming in her mind to leverage economic pressures to force territorial concessions under such a system, mainly through loan 'forgiveness' after snaring them in a debt trap.
Thus, Diana would introduce a position that could ease the burden of civil unrest and disaster response on the central government, provide a means of peaceful expansion, and leverage a modicum of control over local cultural customs in a single move, though she worried she might be missing something. Even if she did her best to remove the bad parts, feudalism was not a system of government she had much familiarity with.
"Good night, Arc."
"Sleep well, Diana."