Lessons from Byzantium

[Nyrath]

http://www.isegoria.net/2010/01/lessons-from-byzantium.htm

http://visionsofempire.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/lessons-from-byzantium-survival-amid-weakness-and-eternal-war/

 

[1] Get this book from the library

[2] Skim through it and make quick notes

[3] In the notes, replace "province" with "galactic sector", "city" with "planetary colony", "armies" with "star fleet", and so on

[4] You suddenly have the background history for your galactic empire campaign

 

Notice how pathetic little Byzantium cleverly used underhanded tactics to survive a thousand years longer than the great Roman empire. These ploys would make nice complicated-intricate-deadly situations for your stable of players to be caught up in.

[RexMundi]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Excellent example. I was actually planning on buying that book anyway. Got some gift cards for the book store folks, and in the mood to add to the History shelves a bit.

 

~Rex

[Markdoc]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Notice how pathetic little Byzantium cleverly used underhanded tactics to survive a thousand years longer than the great Roman empire.

 

The idea of using them as a model for your galactic empire is a good one - but it should be pointed out that "puny little byzantium" was the "great Roman empire". For centuries after the western half of the empire had gone down the gurgler, Byzantine armies marched under banners bearing the logo SPQR, standing for Senatus Populusque Romanus ("The Senate and the People of Rome"), the language of the court (and church) was latin, as were the laws. In the 11th century, Michael Psellus, writing his history of the byzantine emperors started (without any post-modernist irony, because it hadn't been invented back then) "When Basil came to power over the Romans..." Their Frankish and Turkish allies/enemies called them Romans too.

 

In a lot of ways, it's more correct to call the byzantine empire by the name "Eastern Roman Empire" - and for the last couple of centuries they co-existed, the Eastern Roman Empire was the senior partner. It ended up controlling most of the former Roman Empire (under the Latin-speaking Justinian, it stretched from what's now Spain to Iran (including all of Italy and Rome itself: it lacked only part of Western Europe to have included the entire old Roman territories, plus a little extra! It wasn't until the last fifth of the empire's existence that they got squeezed down to rump state.

 

cheers, Mark

[RexMundi]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Very true, and excellent points. Still, it's a very usable model especially if you wanted to do, an Empire that's fragmenting.

 

~Rex

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

.... It wasn't until the last fifth of the empire's existence that they got squeezed down to rump state.

 

cheers, Mark

 

And the Kaysar-i-Rum would disagree with even that. The Son of Osman is Augustus, and what's the point of that if you can't also be Commander of the Faithful? (Of course, the Qing Emperor is descended from Julius Caesar, too. Just ask him.)

[RexMundi]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

I think Half of the Known World could tie themselves back to Julius Caesar, heh.

 

~Rex

[Zeropoint]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

I can't remember the source, unfortunately, but I remember reading somewhere that if you go back a couple thousand years, then statistically speaking, if a person from back then hasn't had their lineage die out completely, then by now EVERYONE is descended from them.

 

Yeah, everyone is a descendant of everyone.

[Markdoc]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

And the Kaysar-i-Rum would disagree with even that. The Son of Osman is Augustus' date=' and what's the point of that if you can't also be Commander of the Faithful? (Of course, the Qing Emperor is descended from Julius Caesar, too. Just ask him.)[/quote']

 

He might disagree, and so might some of his sycophants, but pretty much everyone else agreed that the "Roman Empire" had finally been extinguished by the Turkish conquest. Some contemporary historians even started making that distinction after the 4th Crusade (of course European nobility had been squabbling over the right to Caesar's legacy for some time, by that point )

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Historic digressions apart, I have thought for along time that pre-modern empires were a pretty good model for star-spanning empires. I was thinking early european colonial rather than Byzantium, but either works, assuming near-lightspeed travel. You identify a likely planet. You don't invest a huge amount in it, since it might be a bust. Instead you send out a bunch of rough and tumble expendables who may or may not succeed in establishing a foothold (or you sell the rights to a group who wants to do it). Then you forget about them. If they are successful, they'll call home eventually. But it will be years, or more likely decades, before you hear anything. Even once you get into contact, any contact will be intermittent, with a delay of years between when the message was sent and its arrival.

 

As a result, planets - even those nominally part of a single political entity - would be run pretty autonomously. As long as the ships arrived once or twice a year carrying whatever it might be that is worth transhipping plus a package of news, the controlling power back home is likely to be happy. I was thinking of models like the early Spanish outposts in South America, or the colonial companies in Asia and India. Guys who went to the colonies signed up for contracts that ran years to decades, the colonies ran their own military policy, with their own armies (sorry: policing forces ). The guys back home might appoint and send out a governor - or not - but whatever, they'd have only a faint idea of what was going on, and that idea would aways be out of date. Likewise, the people in the colonies would have little idea of what was going on back home and in a short time, home would be wherever they grew up. Barring sudden unexpected discoveries, though they'd also likely always be behind the technology curve (at least for a long time) giving them an incentive to stay connected.

 

Of course this distance would make rebellion seem like a plausible idea in times of economic trouble - if you rebel now, and stop sending stuff back to the homeworld, the homeworld doesn't find out for 10 years. You get ten years worth of free supplies that are already in transit and it'll be 20+ years before any kind of investigation force turns up - if they even bother to send one.

 

cheers, Mark

[Kristopher]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

With with FTL, you can get some of the same effects. With ships that can make the insane speed of 1 LY / day, you're still probably talking weeks between inhabitable planets. Communcation is at the same speed. The local government is going to have to have a lot of power, especially on short-term issues.

[RexMundi]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

I could see that working as well. The Company Template, is a very workable model and probably one that would pop up before the old school material especially given the motivation of Profit.

 

~Rex

[Nyrath]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Noted SF author Ken MacLeod said "History is the trade secret of science fiction."

Another useful history book in this regard is Edward Luttwak's other work: The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. It is available online here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fIzyfXF1gh0C&dq=the+grand+strategy+of+the+roman+empire&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=UPtWFza806&sig=dsh99vptw3zszA8Nfm0YiGQTF20#v=onepage&q=&f=false

[Markdoc]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

With with FTL' date=' you can get some of the same effects. With ships that can make the insane speed of 1 LY / day, you're still probably talking weeks between inhabitable planets. Communcation is at the same speed. The local government is going to have to have a lot of power, especially on short-term issues.[/quote']

 

Yes, but he effect becomes much more pronounced - it's been estimated that there are potentially 12-14 suns with earthlike planets within 30 LY of Earth -meaning that they are closer than that to each other. If you're talking a week or two for communications then that suggests a level of control possible that wouldn't be realistic in a relativistic setting. To put it in the same setting I had been thinking of: 16th-17th century Europe, travel at 1 LY / day puts multiple potentially habitable systems in the same "time range" as many cities in Spain were from the capital and a lot closer than the Spanish colonies in the Americas. You could (would?) still get the same effect, but the "controllable space" gets much, much, larger. The early spanish fleets took about 4 months to make a round trip to the Caribbean: at 1 LY / day that gives you a sphere of space 100+ lightyears from earth, on the same time scale: that's many thousands of star systems, including hundreds of G-class suns.

 

cheers, Mark

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Yes, but he effect becomes much more pronounced - it's been estimated that there are potentially 12-14 suns with earthlike planets within 30 LY of Earth -meaning that they are closer than that to each other. If you're talking a week or two for communications then that suggests a level of control possible that wouldn't be realistic in a relativistic setting. To put it in the same setting I had been thinking of: 16th-17th century Europe, travel at 1 LY / day puts multiple potentially habitable systems in the same "time range" as many cities in Spain were from the capital and a lot closer than the Spanish colonies in the Americas. You could (would?) still get the same effect, but the "controllable space" gets much, much, larger. The early spanish fleets took about 4 months to make a round trip to the Caribbean: at 1 LY / day that gives you a sphere of space 100+ lightyears from earth, on the same time scale: that's many thousands of star systems, including hundreds of G-class suns.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Aside from the number of star systems in a given volume, all of the important variables above can be tailored to the SF setting you want.

 

The game I'm working on has FTL, but it's nowhere near 1LY / day: 100c is the best it can do, approximately 2LY / week. And earth-like worlds are assumed to be extremely rare -- the only ones found so far require extensive terraforming. My point is, with a little tweaking, I think it would be possible to fit the Byzantine history model to an FTL setting -- just not necessarily with the 'defaults' of 1LY / day FTL, and earth-like worlds 10LY apart.

 

 

Don't look at me,

Xavier Onassiss

[Kristopher]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

From another thread, we're probably looking at sol-type systems almost 20 LY apart on average, and not all of those with fully habitable worlds.

[RexMundi]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Aye you can get a very hefty Age of Sail feel out of that. One thing though I point out to my players, Earth Like, doesn't necessarily mean you want to live there heh.....

 

~Rex

[Nyrath]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

One thing though I point out to my players' date=' Earth Like, doesn't necessarily mean you want to live there heh.....[/quote']

"Earth-like" means "you will not die instantly if you stand on the planet in shirt-sleeve clothing."

Which includes places colder than Antarctica, hotter than the Sahara Desert, with more air pollution than Eastern Europe, with more UV than directly under the Ozone Hole, and other delightful spots.

[Nyrath]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

From another thread' date=' we're probably looking at sol-type systems almost 20 LY apart on average, and not all of those with fully habitable worlds.[/quote']

 

Well, that falls under the heading of "tweeking the average separation between Earth-like planets"

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Noted SF author Ken MacLeod said "History is the trade secret of science fiction."

Another useful history book in this regard is Edward Luttwak's other work: The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. It is available online here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fIzyfXF1gh0C&dq=the+grand+strategy+of+the+roman+empire&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=UPtWFza806&sig=dsh99vptw3zszA8Nfm0YiGQTF20#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

 

Luttwak might help you write better scenarios, but he's otherwise a nearly-complete waste of time. Just wrong on so many levels.

 

I'm also not exactly clear why the Ottoman Empire can't claim to be the spiritual heir of the Roman Empire. I know why this claim hasn't been embraced in the past, and await the defence of the proposition that "legitimate states must be Christian."

[Kristopher]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

I wouldn't defend that proposition with a twelve-foot gedankenexperimentpol.

 

I do not, however, think that Ottoman Empire was the spiritual heir of the Roman Empire. Different beasts.

[Nyrath]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

Luttwak might help you write better scenarios' date=' but he's otherwise a nearly-complete waste of time. Just wrong on so many levels.[/quote']

Yes, but for a Star Hero campaign, it doesn't matter if it is wrong. It just has to be exciting.

I found the first few chapters to have interesting notes on the evolution of an empire's foreign policies, useful for outlining the dynamics of your galactic empires at various stages of their lifespan.

 

But if Luttwak annoys you, one can even find useful campaign material in, say, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire.

[RexMundi]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

UGGH......mention not the complete Idiots Guide to Anything! Lowest Denominator writing is what keeps things boiled down to the lowest denominator.

 

~Rex

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

I'll say this much for the Ottomans: nobody in history has ever made a better foot-stool.

 

...

 

What?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

It's true. And those fezzes were stylin'.* It's also apparently interesting to read Napoleonic-era internal Ottoman documents demanding that the navy use more !Science! in classical bureaucratic Persian.

As far as the whole "Ottoman Empire=Roman" thing goes, I just think it's interesting to know that the Ottomans did sometimes make that claim, take it or leave it.

That said, trying to answer the question "why isn't the Ottoman Empire the Roman Empire" might lead us in interesting directions as we try to define what makes them different. For me that's not a thought train that leads back to old Rome, but to the late Nineteenth Century and Gladstone campaigning for re-election against the Ottoman Empire. A great deal that went wrong in the world in the years 1900--1919 has to do with politicians deciding that multinational empires were presumptively illegitimate and needed to be replaced by national states, even if the nations had to be invented. And, I think, in the background of much of that thinking was the unspoken prejudice I`ve already thrown out (and might be interpreted as criticising Kris, apologies, dude) that non-Christian states, and, more specifically, non-Protestant states, just should not be.

 

 

*Plus, if Takofanes wants to beat up Doctor Destroyer, he turns the good doctor into an Ottoman. Evil can be so comfy, for an afternoon nap, or watching DVDs!

[Nyrath]

Re: Lessons from Byzantium

 

UGGH......mention not the complete Idiots Guide to Anything! Lowest Denominator writing is what keeps things boiled down to the lowest denominator.

Well, there is always Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but that is a little ... dense.