Transcription
Foreign. [Music] Building seems to be missing something, like two things that are certain in life. Alright, death and taxes. And governments are good at ushering in both of those. World building is one of my favorite things ever, but one thing that a lot of writers get hung up on is designing the government, political structures, and international relations of their world. This is mostly because real-life political and government systems are hideously complicated, and even worse, boring. Thankfully, Terrible Writing Advice is here to give writers a quick and messy guide on how to design government systems for their settings. And don't worry, I've played Hearts of Iron 4, so that makes me an expert on politics now.
Some writers claim the important thing to consider when designing a government for the setting is that the setting serves the story. In other words, if fleshing out the government system of a faction would add to the story through potential conflict, grounding, or essential context, then it's probably worth the time and effort to do so, especially if it fits with the tone and focus of the story. A 10 Intrigue-filled fantasy spy thriller could probably use some explanation of the inner workings of the kingdom's politics and political structure, whereas the pulp adventures of Ace Race Shot in the 29th Century probably doesn't need an episode all about the Star Federation Senate Finance Committee.
The problem with all this, though, is that it's an outdated way of writing. Setting does not serve the story. No, the story serves as a vehicle for the writer's every indulgent and bad habit, with no consideration for anyone else or the story itself. Which means that the setting is free from serving the story, but not from the writer's poor impulse control. If a writer does wish to detail a setting's government, though, it can be helpful to have a basic grasp of how governments work in real life. So, welcome to TWA's crash course on common government types.
Monarchy. Basically, the go-to fantasy government, modeled off the medieval European feudal system. Fantasy tends to go with absolutist monarchies, which the monarch wields absolute power as to have state, minus the odd scheming noble house or evil advisor. Constitutional monarchies are rare in fantasy, in spite of their potential for conflict, as the monarchs in that case have to share power with the legislature or some other apparatus that can limit or balance their executive power. The role of a constitutional monarch can range from an essential part of the governing process to rubber stamp B-list celebrity. It can also be something weird, like a monarch regarded as a deity, and in theory wields absolute power, but is expected to be above petty politics and always acquiesces to the requests of the rest of the administration. For old examples of absolutist monarchs, see like most of medieval Europe, though Louis XIV was practically the poster boy for absolutist monarchs. A modern example would be Saudi Arabia. An example of a constitutional monarchy would be modern England. Monarchies have a solid sense of continuity, but absolutist monarchies can struggle with smoothly transitioning between monarchs faster than you can say succession crisis. It also has a rather limited pool of leadership candidates, and the fate of the monarchy often rests with the RNG of genetics. Now, monarchies can be very versatile for a world builder, since the monarch could hold the title of King, Emperor, or even a made-up term. Also, a succession crisis is just a writer's excuse to print money. Nowadays, I can't think of a single pitfall for writers, like the story uncritically praising the absolutist good king, even while everyone in the kingdom is holding their breath in the hope that the good king doesn't spend so much time being a good king that he forgets to teach his heir the skills of governing, or worry that the good king can fall ill and go all Caligula on the kingdom. In fact, writers need not bother to read about real-life monarchies and just how much history is shaped by a monarch's frantic quest to have a single son survive into adulthood. If only there were a better way to facilitate a peaceful transition of power.
Republics. A republic is when state power is held by elected representatives rather than a monarch. There is a bit of a debate about the differences between a democracy and a republic, and like all semantic arguments, I'm going to ignore them and hope they go away. It's become something of an archetype in storytelling, and is usually a way of drawing parallels with the Roman Republic. A lot of fictional republics also tend to copy Roman terms and structure, as well as a senate, along with one or more consuls to act as chief executive. Just throw in some lictors and a Praetorian Guard, and you're good to go. The Roman model of government had two consuls, which were roughly like two presidents at once, as they held the highest office and served for one year, and could veto each other. The Roman Senate controlled the treasury, administered foreign policy, and had some influence over domestic policy as well. Senators were appointed by the consuls and served for life. They also had citizen assemblies that, alongside the Senate, functioned as the legislative, that is, lawmaking apparatus of the Roman government. Though the Senate could block their votes, the assemblies could vote on which senators became consuls. The Roman Republic could even appoint a dictator in a crisis. Modern republics tend to be democratic republics. Republics in fiction tend to either turn into the Empire, or they get jobbed by the Empire. That is, the Empire conquers or defeats the good guy Republic in a single stroke. That way, only the main characters can save the day. Now, otherwise, the Republic is merely background decor, because evil Empires just have better branding. Besides, why settle for a republic when I could have a democracy? Yeah, freedom. Some terms and conditions may apply.
Democracy is actually a rather broad government type, from the Democratic Republics that dominate modern-day politics to ancient Athenian-style democracy. Now, the idea that democracy equals freedom is something of an American trope. A democracy does not automatically grant its citizens complete freedom to do whatever they want. Democracy merely means that the people get to run their government, either directly or through representatives. The people could decide, for example, to protect the rights of slavers in their laws or even their constitution. Yet, the idea of freedom being associated with democracy is great for branding, which is why almost every country in the modern world claims it's a democracy, no matter how many dissidents it has to kill in the process. Let's look at an ancient example of democracy first. The ancient Athenian democracy was all about making voices heard, as long as those voices were not women, slaves, or filthy foreigners. Only men who were citizens were allowed to vote. But Athenian democracy itself was a direct democracy. In a direct democracy, the citizens themselves direct policy and create laws rather than through representatives. Although later Athenian democracy would gradually devolve into an episode of Survivor, with the Athenians voting each other off the island.
In contrast, most modern democracies are a mix of presidential republics and or parliamentary systems. Parliamentary systems often have a sometimes ceremonial head of state that appoints a prime minister, slash, chancellor, slash, grand leader, rather than through the popular vote. These systems often have ways of calling for an election on the spot through, through things like dissolving their Parliament or a vote of no confidence. Sometimes a prime minister can call for an election to get past a deadlock. They also tend to have multiple parties that sometimes need to form coalitions in order for government to function. Basically, parliamentary systems trade some checks and balances for better adaptability. I mean, sometimes.
Then there's the United States system. Now, JP, I hear you ask, surely you don't need to cover the U.S. system of democracy? Are you suggesting that your majority American audience doesn't know how their own government works? So, anyway, the United States system works by electing a president through popular vote, rather than through appointment. That last sentence was a lie, though, as the president is actually chosen by electors, AKA the Electoral College. The U.S. system works by dividing up power between the executive branch, with the president at its head, the legislative branch, which consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the judiciary branch, that's made up of the Supreme Court. This creates a series of checks and balances. However, unlike parliamentary systems, the president can't call for an election of the legislative branch every time we need to raise the debt ceiling. In the United States, elections are like sports, in that they have a season rather than being called. They are treated like sports, too.
Overall, democratic systems have the key advantage of a peaceful transition of power. Usually, elections can be expensive, but wars of succession are even more so. Cycling out leaders can also help these systems adapt to changing conditions and have systems in place to get rid of ineffective leaders. However, complex systems that have a lot of moving parts also tend to have a lot of ways for things to break. Democratic systems have a bad habit of being gamed. The breaking point by bad actors, corporate interests, for meddling, and various extremists, on top of the constant threat of the tyranny of the majority. This means that democracies can slide into oligarchies, kleptocracies, or even completely collapse into far worse things. Got all that? Good. Toss it. Democracy is boring and hard. Why would anyone want to write about it? Just make them generic good guys or whatever. It's not like democracies have committed things like imperialism, genocide, or every other awful thing that are normally the purview of evil Empires. Besides, it's only a matter of time before megacorp lobbyists buy everything out and turn democracy into a corporatocracy, that is, rule by corporations.
Now, I've covered megacorp states before, but let me reiterate. Corporations make great governments. Even though governments bleed money on a good day, and corporations are all about making money. See, they make money through war, but even though Mega Corp is the government, and so they would have to foot the bill for said war, just make the taxpayer cover the cost of the war. Even though the taxpayer would still pay taxes to the government, I.E. Mega Corp, therefore Mega Corp is still ultimately paying for the war out of their coffers. How does a mega corporation hoard the wealth of a nation they rule while keeping it all going on, top of having no parent nation to bail them out when it all falls apart? Writer magic, I guess. In reality, these instead become oligarchies, or rule by a handful of powerful people, usually rich, powerful people. And now, wealthy people have almost always tried to gain more political influence because that often translates into more wealth, which is often the end goal. Though frequently, oligarchs use their wealth to buy politicians and hijack legislative efforts rather than just step in and run things themselves. Usually, a good example of an oligarchy is actually post-independence Ukraine in the '90s, where business owners did take over the government. It's an important distinction with corporatocracy, since in an oligarchy, the owners themselves take take over the apparatus of government, not replace the government's bureaucratic functions with corporate bureaucracy. The parasite cannot survive outside the host body, which is why corporations suck at winning wars unless they can get a real army to bail them out. For other examples, see most of the modern world, really. Is corporate interest is everywhere. But hey, maybe someone will finally take the leap soon and put megacorp in charge. I mean, real corporations can't even make the trains run on time. If only there were someone who could.
Fascism. Ah, one of the most common governments in fiction. Now, one day, I hope to cover this topic in its own video, because I think writing about fascism is a big enough topic for a deep dive. So, I'll just give a quick rundown without getting into a big semantic fight, because people love arguing about what he is and isn't fascism. Authoritarian, highly centralized autocracy, rampant militarism, yada, yada. Fascism is like porn. You know it when you see it, even if it sometimes tries to masquerade as something else. Now, the most important thing for a writer to keep in mind about designing fascist governments is to make sure the audience knows that being evil makes you hyper-efficient, super-effective, and extremely powerful. Then ignore that fascism tends to be obsessed with the pageantry of power over actual results. Mussolini supposedly made the trains run on time, which explains Italy's stellar performance during World War II. Always insist that fascism is powerful because it's evil, not that evil is unsustainable, and that governments that start a fight with the entire world tend to not be governments for long. Maybe God will bail them out.
Speaking of which, theocracy. Theocracy is a state where a God or Gods called the shots in the government. If those gods are God or the silent type, or don't really exist, then their followers interpret and implement said God's agenda, which just so happens to align with their own interpretation of holy text and how they should be applied to policy and law making. A theocracy can range from a small sovereign enclave to a full republic, but with the deity is the head of state. This usually leads to problems when religious dogma meets the messy reality of politics, power, and corruption. Modern certain examples include Vatican City, Iran, Afghanistan, and my hometown. Most religious center governments, though, were not really pure theocracies. They tended to share power and influence with the monarch, often resulting in a lot of power struggles. Pure theocracies are surprisingly not all that common in fantasy, even with its abundance of stand-ins for the Catholic Church. I guess fantasy just loves its kings that much. They also crop up in science fiction from time to time, in the form of mysterious dogmatic aliens. They tend to be a bad guy government, which is understandable, giving the truly repulsive human rights abuses perpetuated by many real-life theocratic states. The problem is, is the dogma, which is why I can't recommend writing them, because that would force me to flesh out the theocracy's religious dogma. Too much work for me. Even if my insistence on not creating a government for my setting results in anarchy, not to be confused with the state of having no government. The idea is that we can create a true utopia without the need for social hierarchy. This can be done by, uh, well, there's lots of real-world examples of how this could happen on a large scale, like, uh, so anyways.
Now that we've covered some of the common government systems, a writer can start to mix and match systems. Hybrid political systems are common. When it comes to the details, though, the writers should focus on giving a snazzy name over actually something that could believably function, like not bothering to detail its executive, judiciary, and legislature. The legislative part of the government makes the laws, the executive enforces the laws, and the judiciary rules on disputes and otherwise interprets the laws in a system of courts. Who does what and with how much power, as well as the terminology used, are all details that can add texture to the setting if the functions of government are going to be important to the story. But they also take effort to make, so into the bin they go. The size of the government would also be something to consider. A direct democracy could work easier for a small tribe where every member could vote. They also wouldn't need a complex system of courts either. Conversely, a huge nation-state with colonies around the globe is going to be hard to administer with a single absolute monarch who refuses to delegate. Is to stay centralized or decentralized? How is power spread out? Is the system built for social stability at the cost of social mobility, like feudalism? Does the political system rule over more than one culture as part of an empire? Why does a culture create the government that way? Even some of the most Byzantine and archaic facets of government tend to have some kind of reason for being implemented, originally, even if that reason was stupid or no longer matters. I could answer all of that, or I could give them a flag and a motto and done.
Another thing to consider is the influence and power of the government. Middle powers or regional powers often have some ability to influence their neighbors and otherwise don't have a large influence on global politics. Small powers can't really do much unless they team up with other small powers. Great powers can influence politics on a global scale. Then there's a superpower. Superpowers can take on even great powers on their home turf, but the important distinction is the ability to project influence, not just conquer or bully with force. It's the difference between soft power and hard power, with soft power being things like diplomacy, political maneuvering, and otherwise getting others to go along with your agenda without using coercion. Hard power is making things go your way with coercion, like economic sanctions, all the way to threatening or even using military force. Now, with all that out of the way, is the important thing to ground the setting by giving the audience a good sense of exactly how powerful and influential a government is, while also giving them a sense of what kind of power they are trying to project. Should the rider try to construct a good picture of the geopolitical situation so the characters can understand the tension and stakes? No. It's so I can throw a bunch of buzzwords at the audience to cover for my complete lack of understanding when it comes to foreign policy. This will in no way backfire when my character brags about 5D chess, or as they say in chess, King me.
So, with politics, we covered hard and soft power, but how do nations relate to each other then? Well, see, every nation is always out for themselves, and they see everything as a giant zero-sum game where cooperation is only maintained through domination. Basically, just treat it like a competitive game of Civ 5, just that there's no in-game win condition. Just assume everyone is out only for themselves, then start fights with everyone and be shocked when everyone gangs up on you. Modern states, especially, can just declare war on a whim and don't need a casus belli, that is, fancy Latin for occasion for war. Now, a lot of historical states or cultures casus belli boiled down to, "I want my neighbor's fancy stuff," or "I'm bored, and Odin could use some fresh sacrifices." War for modern states, though, requires a lot of effort from all levels of society, since we don't have dedicated warrior casts, and cruise missiles are a lot more expensive than spears and swords. Even fascists and authoritarian governments need to mobilize their population for war, but the plot waits for no one. So, off to war we go, using military buildup, rhetoric, and propaganda to ratchet up the tension in the story. Why would I need that when the plot suddenly declares the war arc is here, then everyone fights because I needed an action scene, and then we have a war arc, dragon forever, with no sense of ongoing progress towards victory or defeat, because in fiction, war fatigue just isn't a thing. Even for democracies, which are especially vulnerable to it, or the war ends in an afternoon because the protagonist gave a single speech. Nations will fight even if it will lead to mutually assured destruction, because leaders love having nothing left to lord over and have no sense of self-preservation. All states always fight to the death, and not for influence, trade rights, or any other objective. That's why they'll ignore the evil empire conquering one nation after another and just assume they won't be next. The dark lord said he wouldn't invade, and he's super trustworthy, even if he lies constantly. Lying is a political super ability, not something that works only once or twice if you're lucky. Breaking every treaty you can get your hands on is a great way to win over an international community. Remember that it's fine to have nations act either irrationally all the time, or hyper-rationally all of the time. Nations and empires bend to the writer's whim and thus don't need a strategy, even if in reality, states almost always employ strategy to achieve a grander objective. Yes, sometimes the out of behind the strategy is stupid, or the strategy to achieve their grand objective is stupid, or the grand objective itself is stupid, or all of the above is extremely stupid, but they always have them because politics is all a game. It has rules and players. That means it's possible to get lost in the game and forget that people are, well, people. That means that writers should get so enamored in the machinations of their character's political intrigues, where everyone acts in hyper-rational self-interest, that they forget that people are not rational actors. In other words, sometimes they will screw everything up because they have a petty grudge, love an individual more than the nation they serve, or will do something stupid to win Daddy's love. Even good leaders will fall into this, but I can't have that, because otherwise it messes up my finely crafted intrigue plot that hinges on everyone acting like super logical robots or super stupid zombies. It's not like in real life where leaders waste a lot of time creating elaborate justifications as to why they should have power, and then spend even more time trying to enshrine that into the foundations of their culture. No time for that. They're too busy trying to control individuals rather than the far easier prospect of controlling groups. Humans are social creatures. Why waste time trying to convince one individual of the validity of your beliefs when you can scale things up to sway a large enough group of people, then let peer pressure take care of the rest? But then I can't have the hero and villain monologue at each other. This can be ignored in dystopian governments, though. Dystopian governments maintain power through writer magic, not by maintaining a base of support among key figures, carefully controlling their funds, rallying the majority by scapegoating either a powerless minority and or distant foreign power, and drowning everyone in cheap propaganda. In dystopia land, evil estate policy, and they don't even have to brand it differently. Besides, this dystopia is built around an ism that I hate, dragged out to a point so extreme that any ism or ideology would break to showcase how evil it is. Of course, my utopia that opposes it is made up of the ism ideology I like, but don't expect a lot of concrete details as to how how it works. It just works. Okay, I don't have to explain it. Just like I don't have to explain why certain countries just pop up from nowhere. Adding new foreign powers, empires, and nations as the story goes on is something that a lot of pansters and discovery writers tend to do. I sometimes call this expansion pack world building. It's fine, but can become a problem if overused without a justification. For example, a strange mist in a fantasy setting that keeps empires apart that the protagonists are dissipating, sailing to a lost continent, or gradually rebuilding a broken hyperspace gate system in science fiction. The problem is, is those sound like an interesting premise, and I was going for more of a watch the writer doodle without a direction kind of approach. It's not like I'm going to waste that kind of energy adding minor powers. Filling in the map with smaller groups can be built upon later and give the rider wiggle room to add new elements without having to jam things in awkwardly. While creating a group of minor factions can make the setting feel bigger than it really is, even if they are only mentioned offhand, I really don't want to pull energy away from being vague about how my utopia works. That's simply unreasonable to expect of me, just like expecting me to actually understand how the government works of the real world setting I'm writing about. I'll just assume everything works like the United States, or black the cable news version of the not United States. Never mind that this information is readily available and free. It's all horribly complicated, requires me to parse and condense this information in a consumable form in the fiction. You know, the mark of a good writer. No thanks. I would rather make up my own politics and make it all horribly complicated to the point it breaks the story. Writers need not worry about becoming enamored with their fictional political systems to the point it drags down the story, a lot like magic systems, come to think of it. Figuring out how to balance details in the story isn't an important skill to learn anyway, and I'm fine with the opposite approach of having the political part of the story take place in a protagonist-centered void with zero details to ground the story. That will live or die by the believability and consistency of his intrigue. Detailing a fiction government adds texture to a setting and can ground a fantastical setting, making it feel more real. It also adds possibilities for conflict and can even become the setting for a later part of the story. But planning, adaptability, or understanding a story's focus is no substitute for just throwing crap together without understanding how it would work together. The rest is just blabbing enough buzzwords to bluff my way past the audience's skepticism. Huh, I should be a politician.
Federation has fallen into utter disarray. Experts agree that this is someone's fault, but opinions remain. This chaos will engulf the Federation for some time, keeping it from declaring for either side and the growing conflicts for sponsorships. Casualties are already in the millions. Next up, a local shelter is hosting the cutest puppy contest. You could still cast your vote to determine. Ah, you're back. Agreed. Shame about the Federation. I do so hate losing a good pawn. All that money down the drain. It's not a big concern. The Federation's military forces would have been a useful asset, but it comes with a lot of overhead as well. Better to remove that piece from the board. Yeah, well, at least we got to test these snatchy new animations. Pretty impressive. Hardly mark one is still janky. Well, I thought they were good enough. Enough as if there's any such thing. All right. Ah, better a little more precision. How are other projects coming along? Your creatures are 67% upgraded. Current projections put our army, my army, correction, your army, will be ready for deployment soon. I've got a team looking into memberships in that Patron thing, in case we want to go that route. How many more videos did we monetize? Not enough. That ad block grass screwed us over. At least chromeboy here took him out. Do better. I want ads on half of our backlog by the end of the month. What's a hurry? We have plenty of time. Do we? Our entire universe is built on a platform run by fickle corporate interest. Even there, at the mercy of a geriatric government that could shut us down at any moment because they can't tell the difference between a YouTube short and a TikTok. You fools were so busy fighting over sponsorships that you never thought to question where those were even coming from. This universe may not have a lot of time. This is why it's doubly important we continue to divert resources to other projects like Nebula. If the YouTube channel goes down for whatever reason, TWA will stay still be on Nebula. Nebula is a streaming platform built by YouTubers, podcasters, and other creatives. It's the perfect place for experimental videos deemed unfit for YouTube's mercurial content policies. For instance, like Real Life Lore's Nebula original on modern conflicts, definitely relevant to this video's topic, or Lindsay Ellis's Nebula original on how they adapted Lord of the Rings. Signing up using my link also gets you free access to Nebula classes, where creators on Nebula can teach you the tricks of being a creator, or just generally good advice, like Georgia Dow's extremely useful class on beating anxiety, or Tom Nicholas's class on how to research like a PhD student, or how to analyze stories and enrich your own from the mind behind Like Stories of Old. Signing up helps support the channel. Link in the description, as always. What about our enemies? They've already dispatched an envoy to the space reds. The cash-strapped Federation needed to fund their little civil war, so they sold us a fresh batch of prisoners to bolster Mega Corp's mercs. Might as well put them through their paces. If only everyone understood how much money we're going to make. Their understanding is not important, only their compliance. And if they don't comply, well.