Concepts on eldar government...

The government system is flexible enough that it mimics any of the 'governments' represented in the 'fluff', though is predicated upon the idea that outside interpretation is they key interpretation of the eldar. That is to say that the 'observer' does not have all the facts at their fingertips and so can misrepresent the various features...

This post was made elsewhere:

[/li][li]Ancestor Council. These individuals, selected from the most 'powerful' (? or something) voices within the Infinity Circuit, represent that which was. They are a living memory ( kinda) and repository of the wisdom of the past. They speak with the voice of the undifferentiated souls of the deep Infinity Circuit and, by default, the voice of the Craftworld. They advise, but do not govern.

[/li][li]Clan Council. Individuals elected to position by their age and former choice of Path, they understand not only the forces within eldar craftworld society but those without. They determine the policy of the craftworld based upon the preferences of the individual Clans and the balance between them. They govern, insofar as it is many ways not a true 'clan' system but rather a combination of participatory and representative 'democracy'.

[/li][li]Seer Council. These represent that which shall be; the future. (Amongst other things.) It is composed of represenatives of the different Ways of the Path of the Seer. They advise, but do not govern.

The Councils do not necessarily have equal sway. It all depends upon the 'history' of the individual craftworld. There is, for example, a tacit assumption by practically everyone that there must be a Farseer present upon a craftworld. After all, the limited argument works on the principle that they are the leaders therefore there must be a Farseer...

The Importance of the Path
We must not, however, lose sight of what the eldar Path is and the Farseers relationship to that Path. They are the "paramount practitioners" of the Path of the Seer just as Exarchs are to the Path of the Warrior. The Path dominates their lives such that they do nothing in exclusion to that Path. Their dedication enhances their abilities, true, but it also limits the way in which the operate and, even, think. Not the best choice for leaders...

With that said, the Path of the Wariror has the "Menshad Korum", or 'Warriors in Search of Themselves'. Unlike other Exarchs who remain trapped within a specific Way, the Menshad Korum continually cycle betwen the various Ways. It would thus seem reasonable to suggest that there is a Seer equivalent... But I would personally imagine that such individuals are extremely rare.

I'm rambling now, but hopefully some of the above will give the basic tools for discussion..

So what do we have in this system? Three different voices, two guiding and one determinant. But the froopy thing is that the determinant voice also listens. The Clan Council may make the decision, but the Ancestor and Seer Councils operate on so many different levels (within the Clan Structure, interacting with the Ancestors, the Ancestors interacting with the individual, etc.).

How does this conform to the 'fluff'? In many regards the voice of the Farseers, if present, is in part the voice of the Seer Council. Indeed, if they are "Menshad Korum" then this would be compounded, since they are not limited by the Way upon which they walked before becoming a 'paramount practitioner'/Farseer. In this they can be said to lead, since their determinations are the basis for politicals decisions of the Clan Council (which becomes in essence a version of privvy council). A particularly charismatic Farseer might even literally guide all decisions of the Craftworld (e.g. Dukhat = Eldrad! ).

If the Seer Council does not have a Farseer, or the Council does not hold sway as it does not on, say, Iyanden? A different voice is 'heard' and arguably 'directs'... The Clan Council becomes, in essence, the hand which is directed.

The Path, the Councils and "Leadership"
The system is therefore both flexible and robust, conforming to the 'fluff' while creating an integral approach to eldar government which can be used as a framework of interpretation.

Similarly the acknowledgement of the importance of the Path in 'governance' and leadership, as well as the awareness of the difference between someone who walks a Way and who is trapped on a Way (or in the case of Menshak Korum, trapped on a Path) creates a specific system where leadership becomes dependent upon adoption of perceived responsibility and function...

Pardon? Put it this way. If a Seer becomes trapped on the Path of the Warlock and becomes a "Battle Seer", do you send them on a mission of diplomacy? Would they even be interested in going? (Indeed, given the eldar approach to the Path of the Warrior and the Path of the Seer, a "Battle Seer" would be a rare indiviudal anyway.)[/quote]
And why must there be consensus... We are, as far as possible, trying to 'properly represent' the 40k universe, and not necessarily buy into all the "get out clauses" that are present in the 'fluff'.

Of course, to use my own words "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But then again I do see the eldar 'fluff' as horrendously broken, much as Phillip sees the entire imagery of the eldar as broken.

It's not a problem. In reference to literature and televisual entertainment one tries to refer not just to a specific fact but an image or relations that have been detailed extensively. It sometimes makes understanding that much quicker and easier.


That is, in essence, the seeming presence for the eldar, yes.


The assumption in the 'fluff' - one that I feel is flawed - works on this principle, yes, both in terms of the 'origins' of the craftworlds (i.e. they have different cultures now so they must have had different cultures then) and the current 'state' (i.e. they are represented as different now and therefore they must be different).

In part it is a result of the wargame: quite simply they need a simple setup by which they can justify conflict. I'm jiggy with that, but it's always struck me was... wrong, at least the way that they have achieved that. That and there is very little information on the craftworlds beyond the superficial nothingness that you normally get.


The point being that an obvious reading of the 'fluff' suggests that because Farseer x says that something will happen if they do y, then Farseer x determines what course of action must be taken to make y happen or to ensure that it doesn't happen. That is to say they are the automatic leaders...


Then you must have missed the point. Remember that all information from the eldar - and indeed most of the races - comes from biased sources, either Imperial scholars (or whatever), manifestations of limited information (battles, etc.), or in the image-heavy text where GW try to set something up (much of the so-called 'third person' or 'god text').

Put in simples terms, everything that you seen in the 'fluff' is a partial (mis)intepretation of the 'truth'. Furthermore, eldar society pre-Fall (not peri-Fall) was broadly similar across the various worlds because communications/travel was so easy and quick... (Note the above assumption by many that the eldar homeworlds were all cuturally different as counter-argument. This is where it comes down to preference.)

The desire, therefore? To create a 'standard' system to which variation and exceptions can be made, rather than merely everything being different (i.e. exceptions are always made). The 'fluff' generates information that variously has 'historical figures' as being important, Seer Councils, Clan Councils or whatever... Given that the eldar were of the same (ish) culture before, then it is reasonable to infer that they would have the same (ish) start-up.

(Again, there are some other features which argue against this, i.e. the nature of craftworlds, but these themselves can be argued against... It all depends on whether you 'believe' automatically in the difference of the eldar craftworlds and whether this shades your interpretation.)


I believe they call that a government.


I've seen this suggestion made before and, unsurprisingly given the viewpoints of the majority of the posters, everyone puts an amazing influence on those that follow the Path of the Warrior and those that follow the Path of the Seer. It's strange that, isn't it! This is, for me, self-evidently true since there should be no reason why one Path is considered more important than the other.

But if you're having government by Path, then there is no reason that you cannot have a true participatory democracy: government by the decision of all members of the craftworld. Given the 'fluff' on the various ruling bodies of the canonical craftworlds and the premise of integration rather than segregation, however, this does not work as a valid interpretation. For me.

broken fluff is fluff that sucks, or contradicts itself, or doesn't make sense (like the war in heaven, on all counts). fluff that is widly incomplete is also broken, but i don't see the Eldar fluff as wildly incomplete as much as intentionally non-specific. you can't describe every craftworld or Imperial world because 1) it's too much information and 2) you've got to let people make up their own stuff.

which is the trouble i'm having with your government fluff: you've thought this out so thoroughly that its kind of limiting if i, for instance, accept it as canon. this is your vision, and i'm not trying to take anything away from it, but like GW fluff, there has to be room for 'this is not always the case' if other people are going to use it.

if Rule 8 applies to characters (if you submit them you have to accept what happens to them as the story unfolds), it has to apply to fluff in some degree as well, in that your ideas are going to inspire other people to have new ideas, so there's a certain amount of surrender that goes into putting your ideas into public.

my point is, if you want other people to participate in building this new fluff you're going to have to let them do it their way sometimes. i'm feeling a lot resistance to different takes on certain ideas, which works if this is your fluff, but if it's collaborative it can't be closed.

this is called a technocracy, and was championed by Veblen around the turn of the 20th century, thus is a human system as well. is it invalid? not at all, nor should we rule out majority rules as a possible way for some craftworlds to make decisions?

Exactly.


And completely shaded by the 'theme' of the eldar as well as misinformation.


Which implies that you are caught up - or fond - of the idea that every craftworld is significantly different, or different enough to notice the difference with ease. As with worlds of the Imperium, however, I personally find it is the commonalities that are interesting.

In this case, I would - and do - personalyl argue that the eldar were far more homogenous than a seeming consideration of only one end member would indicate...


A human body shares broadly the same characteristics with every other human body, yet once you put the flesh on it everything begins to change. There are no real ways of reconstructing the face of an individual, despite what the TV might suggest. It all comes from the same rough structure, though.

The structure advocated here operates as a basic under-pinning that, again, you can alter to bring your own interpretation, or copy one of GW's interpretations, or whatever. Or you can throw it out to make an 'exception'. The idea that every craftworld is unique except through the armies, which have to conform to the same rules set, is... strange.


While I thank you for the compliment about the 'thorughness' of the system, I do not feel that it is remotely exclusive in any way. It looks at the 'fluff' and the eldar and attempts to identify common features and how these might be altered if you wanted to get different effects... Again, the system is flexible since, remember, the 'influence' of any one particular Council can vary tremendously, even to being displaced by what might otherwise be a subsidiary (i.e. Council of the Young King, a by-product of Clan Council by reasonal inference).


Perhaps that might be how you vision extra detail? I view it as a skeleton upon which you build things. Your arguments would seem to imply that you view them as a cage?


Discuss your point, argue the relative merits and how they are appropriate and interesting to the universe. You'll find that I change my approach when things work better, though not strictly 'cooler'.

The system was created when reading through the 'fluff' and realising that there was in no way enough information to make a half-assed attempt at a 'detailed' culture breakdown of the eldar. When I have seen something which I consider 'better' I have always integrated it, even though I might have resisted it and argued against it.

So, if you have something that you feel is not covered then perhaps you could mention it rather than making generic statements...? (This is an invite, not a challenge.)


Technically speaking the 'fluff' woud suggest that a democracy wouldn't be a "human" way of doing things, at least in the 40k universe!


This is why I see that personal responsbility is paramount of the eldar, as is an awareness of ones own abilities and past experience. Given that I personally argue that the "Clan Council" deals with not only the internal forces of the craftworld, its primary job is detailing how the eldar are going to interact with the rest of the universe.

After all, when it comes down to it, how often do the eldar have to make foreign policy decisions? The "Clan Council", just like any of the others, do not spend their times in meetings!


Hmmn... this seems to imply that there is some huge misunderstanding as to the nature of the "Clan Council", since this is the major bug-bear that you seem to be having.


That is what the concept of the 'clan as interest group' was meant to provide a context for.

Although I see your point, I think that that approach is more suited to a pure discussion forum at Portent than here. Here, we're working not just to punt a bunch of ideas around but to build, from foundations upwards, a detailed and vital portrait of a piece of Imperial space. Although it would be nice if every conversation organically evolved into a picture of each aspect of the 40Kverse that everyone subscribed to, that isn't going to happen: several of us have come into the project with fundamentally different pictures of the setting that just aren't going to mesh without someone giving way somewhere. For the project to go anywhere there has to be someone whose ideas do trump the rest of them to break these deadlocks.

That person is Kage. Kage is the guy who thought up the idea for the project, laid the foundations, set up the original Portent threads and created these forums and recruited the rest of us. That means that, while it's designed to get input from many people and will benefit from a mixture of minds, when you get to the crunchy end it's Kage who has the right to step in and say "I've considered the different points, and now this is what the Project is going to use."

It's not really much of an issue IMO. Look, there are several things that have become part of Anargo canon that I don't agree with, from particular aspects of the background to general principles about the "tone" and defining imagery that's assumed into the groundwork. But that's cool. I just work on the bits of the project that appeal to me, float my ideas when it seems that they'll be useful and where they don't clash too much with the prevailing views of the setting, and remember that the version of the 40Kverse that we're building here is one possible version of it, not laws carved in stone which will bind the whole hobby. When I'm working on stuff to go into the Project, I accept that other people's input is going to modify what I invent and the final word about its validity for the Project, should one ever become necessary, will be Kage's.

In conclusion, the Project will try to accommodate as many people's ideas as possible. By all means argue for your ideas, as vigorously as you wish. However, for the Project to work as a coherent whole there will be times when it needs to be laid down that this piece of fluff is going to work in that way. When a decision like that has to be made, it's always going to contradict some people's personal 40Kverse - sometimes it will be yours. That's unavoidable. And because it's Kage's house, it's Kage's rules.