If we're using physicsy intuition pumps, which I love, have you thought about what could be the "free energy" of society? The "money on the table" for hereditary armies, that thing which all dynamic processes of settling into a new equilibrium are ultimately an irreversible (macroscopically) conversion of that into "heat"?
I'm new to worldbuilding type games, and I'm often not sure how to decide on what the fallout from character decisions will be. I'm adding this view of equilibria-seeking societal forces into my toolkit for consideration because I think it will be easier to decide "how does this change things" when "things" is more clearly considered.
I'm curious about the military examples at the end, is this also about Tokugawa Japan? Maybe the shogunate era samurai?
The shogunate came about because "the warrior caste rule through a military dictatorship" is a natural attractor state. Other things also happened, but when chaos destabilized the situation, it ended up shaking out as a military dictatorship.
Then, centuries later after much war and chaos, Tokugawa Japan very carefully made sure only samurai were allowed to have weapons and know how to use them. It controlled the samurai through their feudal ties to their lords, who were hostages half the time (and had hostages the other half). The army that eventually beat the Tokugawa in the Meiji Restoration broke these rules, training anyone who was an enthusiastic volunteer for the cause how to kill people with guns.
The same principles, though, are true of medieval European feudalism arising out of "the power belongs to Germanic chieftains, not the Romans," the Janissaries serving as kingmakers in the Ottoman Empire, the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
If we're using physicsy intuition pumps, which I love, have you thought about what could be the "free energy" of society? The "money on the table" for hereditary armies, that thing which all dynamic processes of settling into a new equilibrium are ultimately an irreversible (macroscopically) conversion of that into "heat"?
Could there be a useful intuition pump there?
I'm new to worldbuilding type games, and I'm often not sure how to decide on what the fallout from character decisions will be. I'm adding this view of equilibria-seeking societal forces into my toolkit for consideration because I think it will be easier to decide "how does this change things" when "things" is more clearly considered.
I'm curious about the military examples at the end, is this also about Tokugawa Japan? Maybe the shogunate era samurai?
It's about everything!
Uh.
The shogunate came about because "the warrior caste rule through a military dictatorship" is a natural attractor state. Other things also happened, but when chaos destabilized the situation, it ended up shaking out as a military dictatorship.
Then, centuries later after much war and chaos, Tokugawa Japan very carefully made sure only samurai were allowed to have weapons and know how to use them. It controlled the samurai through their feudal ties to their lords, who were hostages half the time (and had hostages the other half). The army that eventually beat the Tokugawa in the Meiji Restoration broke these rules, training anyone who was an enthusiastic volunteer for the cause how to kill people with guns.
The same principles, though, are true of medieval European feudalism arising out of "the power belongs to Germanic chieftains, not the Romans," the Janissaries serving as kingmakers in the Ottoman Empire, the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.