Summary

The Monarchrate is one of the most enduring organisations of Guild Space. Although very much reduced since the Rift Wars, it is still a vast empire. Its origins lay in a set of understandings between unelected elites in the late 21st Century on Earth. Although various secret organisations and cartels existed before these arrangements, the kind of collusion represented by the Monarchrate was the first of its kind since the Roman Catholic Church of the 12th Century.

The Monarchrate gets its name from a central oligarchy that is constituted in houses that can sometimes, even today, bear the names of the corporations, and dictatorships that created them. These houses fight amongst themselves to emplace a monarch, in a modern analogue to mediaeval feudalism. There are upwards of a thousand houses in the Monarchrate, with most of them being vassals to other houses.

From within the Monarchrate emerge the fraternities and guilds, these operate as centres of allegiance for the houses and are therefore very influential in emplacing and maintaining a monarch.

While the almost exclusively human, elites have an arrangement between the Neolodian Church, the Shipwight's Guild and the Monarchy as the main power bases, it is Nova-Rea, child of K_Rea, that is actually "the Master of Mankind" since the Rift Wars. Nova Rea, gives access to the technology of the realm, while the Monarchrate supplies the many psions, which are called Navigators.

The Monarchrate has endured, because it is flexible, and because the various elites that constitute it understand that it is only through this organisation that they can ensure that social mobility is minimised, the gulf between rich and poor remains wide; that humanity advances on their terms.

History

Formation (2080-2150)

Democratic systems of government took hold over much of the earth's nation states from the 17th Century and reached their zenith in the late 20th Century. Over the course of the 21st Century, democratic systems retreated, partly through circumstance, but mostly through the actions of various tech-oligarchs. The Monarchrate arose through the gradual agreement and collusion between these oligarchs.

In The Democratic West

The rise of the Monarcharate was, in essence the inheritance of power from a crumbling Pax Americana by a corporate elite whose lavish excesses became the cultural identity we recognise today. The inheritance began as an ongoing provision of socialism for the merchant world and capitalism for the common people. A national security ideology was usually evoked for population control. A complex of public subsidy and private profit was transferred from Pax Americana to all of its client states in the Western World.

The formula paved the way for multinational corporations, to slowly modify each client state into a branch economy, where ownership was never local, but local labour and investment laws were relaxed to enhance profits. The managerial ideology pushed neo-conservative arguments, which demonised the public sector and unionism, and turned the citizenry against its own mechanism and its principle means of representation. The states of the west slowly became a mechanism for the maintenance of corporate power.

The english language, which had become the language of business, split into the public and the corporatist forms. The corporatist became formalised and structured into three parts: propaganda, rhetoric and dialects. Rhetoric was the ideology trotted out to the public, whilst propoganda was the way it was sold. The rhetoric - a formalised, received wisdom - abstracted and obscured real events: firing employees being called "downsizing", and "irresponsible" was the label applied to any investment-unfriendly elements. Propoganda simply delivered belief over knowledge, and emotion over thought. Finally, dialects obscured knowledge in specialist areas, protecting it from public inquiry.

The supremacy of Pax Americana was, however, not assurred, and its increasingly aggressive posture abroad, combined with its increasingly fascist agenda at home demonstrated this from 2080 through to its demise as a recogniseable political unit in the 2130s. Two forces came to overlay, and eventually replace the neoconservative agenda.

The Branded Lifestyle

Throughout this period brand identity began to replace party political identitiy. Where a brand became associated with a lifestyle choice, and the opportunity to “escape into a billboard” was increasingly made available to a disillusioned citizenry. This began with branded retail outlets, then became whole malls, resorts, and finally whole suburbs became private space where you could live the alpine/outback/1950s/postmodern lifestyle associated with the brand of choice.

The citizens that could afford the lifestyle escape became cocooned from the collapsing society around them. This fetishist vangard seemed absurd at first until the whole middle class had seemingly voted with their feet by the 2140s. Brand identity, at first a corporate sales strategy, became Western Culture's most important unit; to which even the family was subservient. Corporations, now in control of the core of Western Culture, could exert incredible power over the citizenry. The CEOs of the brand-owners became exalted, fantastic, larger-than-life heroes that went to battle on behalf of the lifestyle or ideals that the brand represented.

It was, after all, about control and the brands could either synergise with each other or go into furious media battles. As the burbclaves formed, the converts showed their hands, the media was no longer necessary and actual covert warfare began.

Christian Nationalism

The Neoconservative and Superstar Brands were leaving behind millions, the discontent that this produced would bring down the systems being assembled, without propaganda, rhetoric and dialects to bring the middle class to heel. This needed to convert a majority to a hardened form of the strongest religion and villify the rest as enemies within. Christian Nationalism, which was already intolerant, violent and evangelical became a vehicle for useful idiots to do the elites work for them.

The slide of the world into corporatism was by no means uniform. Many nation states (certainly, those with populations more inoculated to the influences mentioned above) began to form leagues that preserved national or regional identity over brand and religious identity. The loose confederation of warring corporations that the United States had become no longer had the political will to exert the kind of military force needed to pull a wayward state back into line. By the 2140s three world orders were becoming visible: the web of corporations; what became later known as the UNRA (United Nations Roebuck Accord), and a bloc of mainly eastern, single-party nations.

In the Party-Led East

Large states that assigned as being East of the post-colonial nations, had been captured in the 20th Century through either a single, dominating political party, or by the national security apparatus that paraded as a party from time-to-time. In all cases there was no effective check on authoritarian rule. The elites were oligarchs, either within government (party officials) or very closely associated with it (as financiers). This group provided an alternative system of world trade, and did not even pretend to be interested in human rights.

These states eminated certain soft power that exported an economic system and rigid economic compliance. The state-owned enterprises from within this system began to exert considerable control over the economic activity of large parts of the world, and inevitably brushed up against the corporations arising from the West. Trade had long been excised largely from any concerns around human rights, and so the oligarchs of the east and the corpratists of the west found much common ground.

Over the following decades, the corpritist west and the party-led east were distinguishable only by brand, and the nations that remained under the UNRA, fought increasingly fiercely, but ultimately in futility.

The Succession Years (2150-2250)

There was a gradual coalescence from a collusion of oligarchs to a familial and fraternal system of houses and monarchy. This remained mostly a secret government with a mask that rarely showed any cracks, just an overall feeling of powerlessness amongst the general population. But the consolidation of power was only really possible when the various Monarchrate elements, with the power of nation-states, but fiercely undemocratic, began to fight against the remaining nation states, It led to what has been retrospectively referred to as World War III and the last world war on Earth. The war, while devastating, gave the Monarchrate the upper hand and with it, world dominance.

The Consolidation Years (2250-2552)

The Monarchrate became more established and more overt, and maintianed a good control over the world's population. The ability by anyone to dissent or organise any kind of rebellion became extremely challenging, and the Monarchrate bent a lot of effort in tightening their grip. Nonetheless rebellions did occur, with the early ones being violently put down, but over time they become more organised and putting them down become more and more difficult. However, three things of Monarchrate development, in particular, aided their cause: The Byzantine Ear - a gradual development of nanotech-based population surveillance, that infected everyone on Earth with nanites that would report your thinking to vast data centres. The "Soma" - a drug (referencing Aldius Huxley's Brave New World), administered widely, that engendered docility and compliance. The Demon Hordes - A genetically engineered race of rat-like beings that were, perversely, the basis of the Xanya Panyan and other variants, but functioned as a vast indomitable army of darkness that acted as an existential threat to world order. The other project, began in the 2450s, resulted in the AI known as the (First) Golem of Neolod, or K_Rea.

The Event (2552)

In 2552, when much of humanity was out in space, just starting to colonise other stars, K_Rea achieved self-awareness, and many things happened all at once. As K_Rea evolved geometrically, it accessed spaces and aged thousands of years in the blink of an eye. A quantum mechanical even occurred, known by some as the Dragons Breath, others as the Sundering of Space, many worlds coalesced. Regions of space from parallel universes crossed over one another. One of the largest pieces, that of a vast region of southeastern Australia, was substituted with that from a second world that was known as Jer. Two other major components were the spaces now known as Neander and Nex, but there were many hundreds besides. The devastations this brought on Earth was enough to ensure that the colonies of space, held by the Monarchrate were very much separated from the people that remained on earth. But the contact that existed between the four spaces, although, at first, not significant, would at last have their reckoning in the Rift Wars that began in 3110.

The Colonial Era (2552-3110)

This is the era of the titan striker, in these years, strikers were huge, expensive craft that would carry in their holds hundreds of other ships to transport them between the stars. Strikers evolved over this time to be faster sleeker and more performant. They became specialised between military flagships and vast cargo carriers and ferry services. They were the axis upon which the Near Space economy rotated. Toward the end of the period, we start to see a large rebellion forming at the fringes of Nearspace as well as the nascent contact with the freens and the ronites. Contact with the Peak Sect, the Eporrhynchines and the Geopooreens from Jer, rapidly escalated into the Rift Wars.

The Near Space Long Night (3160-3900)

The dark ages that followed the rift wars was felt differently in the different spaces. In the Near Space region of Gul, the Monarchrate lost control of 60% of its systems, but more crucially, it lost control of technology itself. During this time the Helgar Neti, which were emmisaries from K_Rea, that assisted with striker navigators, gradually became Nova Rea. This AI then began to become the regulator of the Monarchrate, itself, and technology became the produce of the AI. Those of the Neolodian Church soom became its worshippers, and now did works for the AI. From around 3300 onward, strikers were able to be built smaller and smaller.

The New Colonial Era (3900-4400)

By 3900, the Monarchrate (or Nova Rea) regained much of the lost control over the many core systems: the sense of lawnessness started to disappear, and the many governments that had formed on the isolated planets got to experience an invasion of sorts by the Monarchrate. Even after regaining this control, they were still nothing near their pre-Rift Wars height. Nonetheless, in the outlying territories they still held, they began explore again.

Government

The Monarchrate is feudal in the sense that it consists of a patchwork of mostly duchies, where a duke controls the region through a complex network of barons and baronies.

There are, however, two corporate oligarchies, called syndicratia. These are not under the control of a duke, rather it is a set of cartels, referred to as Guilds. The syndicratia are each larger than any duchy.

No leader of either syndicratia can ever mount a claim to the Monarchrate throne, however they are also not beholden to the King’s every wish. For example, they will not prosecute a war for the King, like a duke would, rather they war for economic gain. They also pay considerable tribute to the King. The King gains authority through the Neolodian Church, who are the Vicars of Neolod - the new Golem, Nova Rea. The Neolodian Church interprets the will of Nova Rea though their army - the Order of the Helgar Neti. They coronate and regulate the King.

The Duchy

A duchy can be as small as a single system or as vast as several hundred, and many duchies are vassals to other duchies. Any individual system may be tightly controlled by agents of the duke, and under strict Monarchrate control, or they can be effectively lawless, depending on how stretched a duke’s resources are. Also the number of lawless or, at least, very loosely bound systems, increases as you move to the margins of the monarchrate overall. The notable exceptions to this trend are where the Monarchrate is at war with the Empire of Almuqasa on the rimward end, and particularly the Xeranian Eukhalion on the north core-spinward end.

There is also the Frontier of Sol, which is a special region around the System of Sol itself.

Fraternities & Guilds

Throughout the machinery of Monarchrate government, there are also fraternities, which are somewhat like clubs, and there are trade guilds. Fraternities and guilds can often seem like they are the same thing. The traditional difference is that guilds are usually formed around an industry, whereas fraternaties are around a religious, philosophical or ideological belief.

Shipwright's Guild

The most famous examples of guilds are the Shipwright’s Guild (often just called the Guild -as if there were no others), and the Helgar Neti. It is the Guild that lease Strikers (and their navigators) to the dukes. Although there are some dukes that get caught hiring mercenaries with strikers, or even building their own strikers. As doing so is seen as a first sign of rebellion, any dukes doing this need to be extremely careful. The most important fraternity is the Neolodian Church, however there are a few other major fraternities that are extremely influential.

Culture

Entrenched class division: the well circulated idea that societal advancement is more important than individual freedoms, extends to the upper middle class. The upper class enjoys considerable freedoms, and in amy ways, the reverse is true.

Technological and Economic Suppression

There are many areas under Monarchrate control that are suppressed in technological and economic ways as well as political. While in a lot of cases it is an underclass residing in shanty towns outside walled or gated areas, these are also entire worlds that are deliberately starved of everything but propaganda. There can be entire cities, built not of synrock, but concrete, that show many visible signs of decay.

Extremist Dukes

Throughout Monarchrate history, there have been a number of extremist movements that have usually centred on a particular duke, but their origins are usually from within the fraternities, and occasionlly, one of the guilds.