Talk:Lescatie/@comment-37028137-20191028054625

I’m writing this here because Lescatié is the closest example I have to model the Theocracy of Rathengalia after.

Some background information for my novel so this makes sense. In my story the Order is basically religious extremism at its worst point. Think of the Spanish Inquisition, Concentration Camps, Public Executions, that sort of thing. The Order as an organization is clearly the bad guys. When I say ‘The Order’ I mean the Magistrates, Consuls, and the mindless gits in the Church. The ordinary folks are good people but they’re so incredibly impoverished that just trying to survive is their first concern. They’re living in old ramshackle buildings that are falling apart, there’s no sanitation, and disease is rampant. While the Church is of course lavish and the priests live in luxury and decadence. (I really want to illustrate the gap between the citizens and the religious elite.)

In any case when Vellantha sees the atrocities of entire families of ‘Monster sympathizers’ are being rounded up and executed, children (about age 14) are being conscripted into fighting for the Order, and the burning heretical texts (I.E. books which explore science or mathematics.) as well as just how the supposedly pious priests show no regard for the suffering of others she loses it as I think any sane person would.

My question here is: Because Vellantha’s a Lilim and as we know Mamono don’t kill unless sufficiently provoked, how far would she go in exacting revenge against the Elite Order cronies? And how far should one go in combating violence with violence. Nicholas (the Time Lord protagonist) is fairly vocal about his thoughts on the whole idea.

Also I’d like to point out that Rathengalia as a Demon Realm is a flourishing center of commerce and trade where poverty has been completely wiped out; and the kingdom is a welcoming, inclusive nation of many cultures and ideas. That is important as my novel actually opens in the future and Nicholas sees Rathengalia first as a Demon Realm and later when he travels to the past and storms the kingdom with Vellantha he sees how it used to be under the Order and it really colors his perception of what the Order is and how they operate even going so far as to compare them to other horrors he’s faced.

So I really want to show that the Order’s contemptibility as it relates to the ruler, the Commanders, the Military, but also show that the ordinary people are just trying to stay alive in the midst of persecution and hatred.

I put Nicholas’ speech below if you’re interested.

“You’ve known me for a while now Vellantha…Do you remember when we first met and you asked me why I do the things I do and I told you it was because I was a Doctor and I wanted to heal, not harm? And you told me I was foolish for not acting to stop evil at its source, and for trying to understand it?” Vellantha nodded across the tent at me her eyes shaded in darkness and her posture tired and slumped. “Yes but I barely knew you then, and what I said was out of anger! I was judging you based on assumptions, it has no bearing on who you really are.” “But you were right Vel, you and I we’ve fought side by side on the battlefield you know what I’m like! 23,000 years of life in these old bones and yet so much of it draped in bloodshed by my own inaction. Sure I’ve saved people but how many did I really help in the long run, hmm?! I believed there was no good that could come of war; that violence just begets more violence. After all, I took an oath ‘Do No Harm’, to be better, to be compassionate. Yet every time I try and show that compassion I get burned for it! The Berserkers, The Reavers, the Goa’uld, the bloody Daleks! Now these Order zealots are doing the same damn thing! So many innocent people gone because I lacked a spine! … But, seeing that city, the squalor, the fear, the ruthless festering hatred did something to me. I had an epiphany you might say. Think about it this way: A surgeon cuts out a cancerous growth, that’s not evil, it’s just good medicine! Sure he has to cut through the flesh and the bone, and yes it’ll bleed and be painful but he does it to insure the health of the overall organism. I finally get it now. I need to see this from a holistic approach not a palliative one. It’s time to change philosophies Vellantha; it’s time to excise the cancer!”