Ditto!
Given that the Tzenkethi leader holds his or her post on merit, having tested highest on whatever criteria the Tzenkethi use to judge leadership potential, it makes sense that Korzenten, for all his antagonism toward the Federation, would be a rational player. Cultural biases and ideological baggage aside, a test for leadership potential surely weeds out those prone to psychological instability or megalomania, whatever the culture.
I think that may be an overly optimistic assertion. I certainly agree that Korzenten is a rational political actor, but I'm very skeptical of the idea that you can design a test capable of objectively determining who is a good leader and of weeding out megalomania. I mean, you are literally talking about a society where everyone is indoctrinated to worship the Autarch as a virtual god -- seems to me that megalomania of sorts is almost a job
requirement.
The Tzenkethi value order and fear chaos, apparently on a very primal level. It seems likely to me that a measured and self-correcting thought process is inherent to their concept of correct leadership, and that a tendency to rash or obsessive thinking would render one illegitimate for a leadership post.
I'm not sure I see any evidence of "measured" and "self-correcting" thought processes as being a requirement for the "autarchracy." Korzenten is a rational political actor, but I think his internal monologue in
Plagues of Night indicates a mind that is deeply psychopathic; he does not truly view his fellow Tzenkethi (let alone aliens) as being
persons. He feels about them the way one might feel about NPCs in a video game -- they are beings that exist to serve or amuse him in some manner. That kind of extravagant narcissism does not usually lead to self-correcting behavior.
I view Korzenten as a rational political actor, and not someone who's out for territorial expansion or to destabilize the interstellar scene. But I think his capacity for empathy is deeply limited or nonexistent, and that he is deeply narcissistic. How could he not be, when he is literally worshipped by his subjects? He is "measured" in the sense that he is a realist -- he knows that the Coalition's military resources are limited and insofar as he understands that perpetuating his power and the Tzenkethi social structure do not require expansion, and that thus imperialistic policies are antithetical to his interests. But I wouldn't consider him "measured" in the sense of having a realistic understanding of his own psychology or of others'.
Does it? I mean, that's a very subjective concept, isn't it, a "sense of perspective?" A good sense of perspective might be for them to recognize their relative power, and the fact that Federation expansionism only ever occurs either consensually or in unclaimed territories, and to therefore decide it's in their best interests to ally with the Federation rather than to be antagonistic towards them. A good sense of perspective might be to recognize the fallibility of their attempts to create a genetic caste system and to instead use their genetic engineering skills to embrace an orderly egalitarianism. Even if they cannot embrace egalitarian democracy, a good sense of perspective might simply mean rejecting the idea of absolute monarchy in favor of a more generalized aristocracy.
Ah, but those perspectives are at odds with the current package of ideas and assumptions upon which the Coalition and the Tzenkethi social order as a whole are founded. Like all societies, the Tzenkethi are inherently conservative. A sense of perspective, in the sense that I used it there (and you're quite right to note that I should have qualified such a subjective term), is to understand what is likely to place stress on the existing system, what might undermine it or threaten its cohesion, and thus undermine the role in which the autarch finds him/herself. A sense of perspective places the shape of the society and its existing balance above the personal desires of the individual leader.
I think I see what you're saying -- and on that level, yeah, I can see the Tzenkethi as plausibly considering it important that candidates for the role of Autarch be capable of analyzing weaknesses in Tzenkethi social structure in order to prevent its destabilization. However, I also think that that kind of thing requires a level of subjective analysis that would defy an objective standard by which to judge who is best capable of locating and neutralizing social instabilities. I think it's highly likely that whatever body it is that determines who becomes Autarch must, on some level, rely on subjective reasoning rather than objective criteria.
Absolute monarchies are terribly unstable systems of government, since they thwart the ambitions of many while only celebrating the one, leading to constant coup attempts.
In human societies. With a human tribalist psychology (which doesn't describe all humans, though apparently a vast majority). Maybe the Tzenkethi are different. Who's to say they would favour ambition in the sense alluded to here?
Well, let me put it this way.
We know that Tzenkethi society is built upon a genetically-engineered hierarchy. Lower classes are viewed as having "inferior" genes, and are engineered to inhibit behaviors that could be construed as assertions of individual will. They're even trained to refer to themselves in the third person--"all the better to depersonalize yourself, my dear." They're trained to defer to the higher echelons at all times; higher-ranked castes are apparently engineered and/or socialized to be more intelligent and capable of exercising individual judgment in ambiguous situations, yet to continue the pattern of deference to higher echelons. At all points, the higher echelons are considered to have superior genes, and the Autarch is considered to literally be genetically superior to everyone else.
So, in a society like that, it's pretty clear that group loyalty is supposed to outweigh individual loyalty, and that defective individuals are not given much value. And yet... we know from
Articles of the Federation that there are some members of the Tzelnira who are willing to place the welfare of their families above loyalty to the Autarch. They are willing to consort with enemies of the Coalition on behalf of their children with genetic defects.
So this implies to me that, at least within the high castes, there are Tzenkethi who are more loyal to themselves, or to their families/houses/clans/whatever, than to the Autarch. That's pretty huge in a society that trains its working class to worship their oppressors.
So, yeah, I think it's likely that there are Tzelnira members out there who feel thwarted by the Tzenkethi monarchy. This is, admittedly, me reading into what KRAD established in 2005 and the interpreting it in light of what DRGIII and Una McCormack have established since then. But I think it's one that's supported by evidence.
I suppose a large part of it comes down to what a given reader finds the more interesting. I tend to think the Tzenkethi as a functional civilization is far more interesting at this juncture than repeating the Cardassia/Klingon/Romulan approach of having them be a inherently dysfunctional society poised to unravel.
I don't think Tzenkethi society is poised to unravel. I think a more realistic assessment is that for any social movement to develop that moves towards Tzenkethi democracy, it will take hundreds of years. But I do suspect that the contradictions inherent to absolute monarchy will eventually eat away at the cult of the Autarch, especially in the era of increased cultural connections to the other Typhon Pact worlds, particularly Romulus and Gornar.
True. As I said, the Tzenkethi aren't always great at judging what action they should take on the wider board of galactic politics, because they're such a controlled, stable and xenophobic society.
Well, I think another aspect is what I view as a certain level of psychopathy on the part of the Autarch (and possibly shared by his servants): He literally can't quite view other people as people. When he looks at the members of the Tzelnira in
Plagues of Night, he doesn't view them as leaders worthy of esteem; he views them as wind-up dolls whose strings he is pulling. When you're used to seeing people in this manner in the context of a social structure that encourages them to submit to this viewpoint, it can be very hard to see people from outside that cultural framework as anything else.
Perhaps there is ample space for a given Tzenkethi to let off its frustrations while, in terms of functioning as a piece within their society, they slot easily into position. Maybe it takes more repression to make a Tzenkethi snap - or indeed make a fuss - than it does a human.
That's a very valid point! I suspect that may well be the case, particularly if Tzenkethi are naturally more inclined towards sociability and gregariousness than Humans. I still think that the repressions inherent to an absolute monarchy will inevitably lead to the overthrow of the Autarch, but this is another reason I think it wouldn't happen until long after the timeframe of the current novels.
Sci said:
I'm going to display my political bias here, but I think this makes sense for another reason: The Breen, as established in Zero Sum Game, are practitioners of a particularly all-encompassing brand of corporate capitalism. If there's anything the history of the British and American empires has shown, it's that capitalism has a historical pattern of driving its practitioners to conquer or to dominate new lands in order to find new markets or new resources to be exploited. This can, in particular, be a unifying imperial mission, as demonstrated by the way the imperial impulse unified the English and the Scots in service of the pound-sterling, or the way it brought together the Yankees, New Yorkers, Tidewaterers, and the Deep Southerners in North America both before and after the U.S. Civil War. So the Breen's imperial impulse, I suspect, has some very powerful economic forces driving it--forces that feed both their elite, and their need for intra-Breen unity.
Very good point,
Sci. That makes perfect sense to me, and I think the books greatly support it. I particularly liked the depictions in
Zero Sum Game of Breen citizens being identified by their commercial footprint; by the imprint they make and the reaction that ripples through the system, rather than by anything to do with their core self.
Thank you. The Breen as a dark meditation on capitalism is something that's been knocking around in my head for a while.
Do not forget that in The Struggle Within, Breen mercenaries were directly responsible for a massacre on the Kinshaya capital world that led to regime change there and condemnation even from Pact members.
The Breen have not had a good time of it.
Excellent point -- I had restricted my analysis to Breen/Federation encounters, but you're right to point out that intra-Pact backlash from the Brex government's interference in internal Kinshaya affairs would necessarily also come into play.
Which is why it wouldn't surprise me to see the Kinshaya tuck in under the wing of Romulus in the manner of the Gorn; they too have suffered from the Breens' interference and apparent unwillingness to view their supposed partners as anything other than tools.
Hm. If we go with the Warsaw Pact metaphor, I wonder if we might eventually see something akin to the Soviet-Sino split? The Pact could well end up informally divided between two camps.
It is interesting to observe how the novels have developed the Breen Confederacy into a sort of dark reflection on the Federation. The Breen work as an dynamic and ostensibly egalitarian and multispecies civilization, but the way they achieve these aims is consistently authoritarian if not totalitarian, and quite violent.
I wonder how they got this way. Other Trek civilizations have their foundational traumas. What happened to the Breen?
I was just wondering about that the other day, and I've got an idea.
We know, as stated above, that the Breen embrace a particularly all-encompassing vision of capitalism. And I was thinking about that, and about how they're obsessed with the concept of meritocracy, to the point of attempting to hide any potential source of difference--homogenize the entire population so that only individual action after that homogenization earns any status.
And I was thinking about the effect of large corporations on society -- particularly in terms of the homogenizing effect corporations can have on local economies and local cultures. Think of the McDonalds that moves into a developing country, or the Walmart that puts the local shops out of business. And I was also thinking about how I've worked for corporations that were positively
terrified of any accusations of racial bias, to the point where they would tolerate abusive employees if those employees made false allegations of racial discrimination.
And it kind of clicked for me -- what if the Breen are obsessed with masks, with hiding their own cultures and heritages, as a result of pressures placed upon their societies by powerful corporations? What if the masks started off as a business practice, and it spread from there? What if Breen capitalism is both what drove the disparate cultures of the Confederacy together under a "meritocratic" ethos, but also what drove them to repress local cultures and hide their true faces from society at large?
Seems like the infant Typhon Pact could easily fission.
Now.... Suppose that the Khitomer grouping were to become unglued? (The Klingons start acting like TOS Klingons or J.J. Klingons.)
Suppose further that coup installs a dictatorship on Cardassia?
I don't think a coup on Cardassia is probable at this point. Garak and his allies were able to squash the True Way's coup attempt pretty thoroughly in
The Crimson Shadow. Cardassian fascism is still an important social movement, but I think it's losing steam and Cardassian democracy has managed to entrench itself very firmly into the structure of Cardassian society. People have just gotten too used to the idea of democracy, of free speech, for Cardassian fascism to really gain traction anymore.
Without popular support, the only other path to power for a Cardassian fascist movement would be support from the security agencies. But the fascist-leaning Direct of the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau was forced out by Garak; the planetary constabularies successfully pushed out their fascist infiltrators; and the Cardassian Guard seems committed to political neutrality and civilian rule.
Seems like the infant Typhon Pact could easily fission.
Now.... Suppose that the Khitomer grouping were to become unglued? (The Klingons start acting like TOS Klingons or J.J. Klingons.)
Suppose further that coup installs a dictatorship on Cardassia?
I'm wondering if we could see an alternative set alliances forming...with the Federation caught in the middle.
Who knows?
My sense is that Cardassia under Garak and the Klingons under Martok are set on their new directions, away from their chaotic and violent pasts, but who knows?
Well, with Qo'noS, I think it's hard to judge. It would appear that the anti-Federation movement's leaders have mostly been neutralized politically or outright killed in battle as a result of the Borg Invasion. But Martok is just one guy. Unlike Garak, he is not the result of a genuine social movement that has been aiming to transform society from top to bottom. And I for one am deeply skeptical of the idea that widespread social change can come from the top down -- usually I think it has to go from the bottom up.
Ultimately, I don't know if we really have enough of a sense of what Klingon society outside of the Defense Force and the political elites is like in order to get a sense of social movements on Qo'noS or throughout the Empire. Does anyone remember
A Burning House well enough to comment? But in lieu of a sense of a popular Klingon social reform movement, I could see the next Chancellor being a more aggressive leader.
For example, what if, post-Dominion War, Cardassia began to sell weapons, such as warships, to the minor powers? I imagine the minor powers would have access to natural resources, so they would have something to trade.
Interestingly enough,
Well of Souls reveals that the Cardassians purchased weapons for their expansion programs from the Breen (via middlemen). I wonder if the spiral-wave disruptors are actually Breen technology, or at least developed from it? The Breen seem driven to retain a lead in weaponry and tactical systems, though whether it's to ensure their own supremacy or to keep on top of the market might be interesting to learn
Why not both? There certainly doesn't seem to be much of a contradiction for the U.S.'s military-industrial complex.
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