How to Control the Populace?

[Xar Zarath]

Hi everyone, I am trying to figure out how to run a city/state/country even world, by controlling the masses and getting the place to be able to run itself. Not neccesarily need end up like Tippyverse but if it does end up like that...BTW the one in control is 30th level human wizard straight up, no PRC or other.

What methods would be effective for medieval setting?

as well as...

What methods would be effective for modern setting?

Thoughts,suggestions, etc are welcome and appreciated:smallsmile:!

[CRtwenty]

Large scale epic divination magic that would predict and inform you of crimes and plots against you before they occur like in Minority Report. It'll be hard to form a rebellion when you've already swooped in and taken care of its founders before they even think of it.

[Emperor Tippy]

First question, do you want known control or unknown control?

[Xar Zarath]

WOW The Emperor is on my thread!:smallredface:

As of right now, both really, but the unknown is in terms of thought policing and identifying dissidents( Not neccessarily rebels)

The known control is, as of right now, is more of a presence of the wizard's minions, like police and propaganda ads etc.

[CRtwenty]

WOW The Emperor is on my thread!:smallredface:

As of right now, both really, but the unknown is in terms of thought policing and identifying dissidents( Not neccessarily rebels)

The known control is, as of right now, is more of a presence of the wizard's minions, like police and propaganda ads etc.

What is the alignment of the Wizard in question?

[Juntao112]

Give everyone access to mindless distractions like gladiator games, centrifugal bumble-puppy, soma, and the internet.

[Emperor Tippy]

First, your favorite spells are going to be Simulacrum, Telepathic Bond, Ice Assassin, Mindblank, Mind Rape and Polymorph Any Object. You also want the feat Tenacious Magic: Permanency.

A Simulacrum of yourself (at level 30) casts as a level 15 wizard, meaning it has 8th level spells. Create one and then create a Permanent Telepathic Bond with it before using PAO to make it look like someone else to better blend in. It will cast Mind Blank every day which will conceal it's true state and magic from any Divination.

You send these guys out to every village, town, and city in the world to become permanent residents. Merchants, farmers, inn keepers, guards, couriers, whatever fits in. The reason for this is to build a world wide information and intelligence network that no one knows exists.

Do the above but with a couple of hundred Ice Assassins. These are your "adventurer's" mold their careers from the start on and have them cover the alignment and political spectrum (and have some be against you). The purpose of these guys is to solve problems (like rogue dragons or orc armies) and be the peoples heroes. They also act as lighting rods for dissent and can be used to solve your own problems discretely.

You want to replace local potentates and rulers of various kinds with your Simulacrums and Ice Assassins as well. The objective is to be the worlds power broker without anyone knowing it. This lets you play off every faction and populace against one another and focus them how you want.

Mind Rape is for suborning enemies. Send fifty or a hundred Ice Assassins at an enemy if you have to and capture that enemy before Mind Raping it into being loyal (or whatever serves your purposes at the time).

Have a cadre of Simulacrum/IA's that do nothing but sit around all day and cast various divination spells. Get a few made of high level Psions as well for Hypercognition and Metafaculty.

---
The thing you need to understand is that the world does not exist in stasis and that you will always be facing problems and potential problems. The more direct and constant control you want to exercise the more problems you will face and the more difficult it will be.

The ways to achieve and maintain control are the military, the economy, religion, demagoguery, and education; at least generally. To really solidify your control you want to get the populace worshiping you, you want ironclad control over a majority of the areas military force, you want to control the trade routes and magic trade, you want the populace to love you, and you want to be the one shaping what is taught to the next generation.

Give it ten generations and you can be worshiped as a god with most of the population deeply in love with you and convinced that you can do no wrong.

However, creating a tippyverse is not the way to do that. You don't want the population concentrated into cities, you don't want them to be able to easily share information. That comes after they all already worship you. It's far easier to control a population made up of a thousand discrete entities than it is one that is made up of one entity.

[Xar Zarath]

What is the alignment of the Wizard in question?

I think the Wizard will be neutral evil. I was thinking of Lawful Evil and having the whole tyrant government with Hunger game vibe to it, but dropped the idea because of the potential that Neutral Evil has.

[eggynack]

Stuff
That was some pretty beautiful stuff. Were this thread to be in a state of constant competition, you would be the winner of it.

[Xar Zarath]

First, your favorite spells are going to be Simulacrum, Telepathic Bond, Ice Assassin, Mindblank, Mind Rape and Polymorph Any Object. You also want the feat Tenacious Magic: Permanency.

A Simulacrum of yourself (at level 30) casts as a level 15 wizard, meaning it has 8th level spells. Create one and then create a Permanent Telepathic Bond with it before using PAO to make it look like someone else to better blend in. It will cast Mind Blank every day which will conceal it's true state and magic from any Divination.

You send these guys out to every village, town, and city in the world to become permanent residents. Merchants, farmers, inn keepers, guards, couriers, whatever fits in. The reason for this is to build a world wide information and intelligence network that no one knows exists.

Do the above but with a couple of hundred Ice Assassins. These are your "adventurer's" mold their careers from the start on and have them cover the alignment and political spectrum (and have some be against you). The purpose of these guys is to solve problems (like rogue dragons or orc armies) and be the peoples heroes. They also act as lighting rods for dissent and can be used to solve your own problems discretely.

You want to replace local potentates and rulers of various kinds with your Simulacrums and Ice Assassins as well. The objective is to be the worlds power broker without anyone knowing it. This lets you play off every faction and populace against one another and focus them how you want.

Mind Rape is for suborning enemies. Send fifty or a hundred Ice Assassins at an enemy if you have to and capture that enemy before Mind Raping it into being loyal (or whatever serves your purposes at the time).

Have a cadre of Simulacrum/IA's that do nothing but sit around all day and cast various divination spells. Get a few made of high level Psions as well for Hypercognition and Metafaculty.

---
The thing you need to understand is that the world does not exist in stasis and that you will always be facing problems and potential problems. The more direct and constant control you want to exercise the more problems you will face and the more difficult it will be.

The ways to achieve and maintain control are the military, the economy, religion, demagoguery, and education; at least generally. To really solidify your control you want to get the populace worshiping you, you want ironclad control over a majority of the areas military force, you want to control the trade routes and magic trade, you want the populace to love you, and you want to be the one shaping what is taught to the next generation.

Give it ten generations and you can be worshiped as a god with most of the population deeply in love with you and convinced that you can do no wrong.

However, creating a tippyverse is not the way to do that. You don't want the population concentrated into cities, you don't want them to be able to easily share information. That comes after they all already worship you. It's far easier to control a population made up of a thousand discrete entities than it is one that is made up of one entity.

Applause to you Emperor! Very thorough, I like it and will try and implement it.
However what happens if I try it and I find resistance, say another epic level Wizard trying to do the same thing? What happens? Epic secret wizard war?

[ArcturusV]

He's got a good plan there. Not too much else I can think to add to it.

Clone Immortality might also be a thing to consider. With it, and a few discrete spells/perfectly mundane arts you can pull the usual trick of Immortals, pretending to be your own Heirs/offspring.

That's better if you're trying to keep a low profile rather than approaching a Personality Cult sort of method. I do like the Low Profile myself. It's a lot easier to evade potential trouble, rabble rousers, etc, if they think you're just some lowly scribe, clerk, or courtier instead of the Grand High Emperor.

Because there is ALWAYS a rebellion. And the more that your rebellion is comprised of rag tag groups of youths with unclear goals, the more likely they are to eventually murder the emperor.

As a level 30 wizard though? There' so many different ways you could go about the domination racket. It sort of depends on what you want the world to look like when you're in control. Is it a place of constant strife, upheaval, and apparently Chaos being carefully orchestrated by you? A place of peace and prosperity? A theological backwardly regressing society which is replacing advancements with faith?

Though generally I'd suggest taking a lighter touch to things than the usual Evil Emperor schtick. Running around with absolute decrees, or maintaining your realm by sheer dint of your own personal power just seems like a recipe to your eventual downfall. Stability (Of a kind) is what you really want to look for. And that means building a framework that extends beyond merely having agents or mindraping anyone who disagrees with you. Good solutions in the beginning. But likely to bite you in the butt later.

[graymachine]

First, your favorite spells are going to be Simulacrum, Telepathic Bond, Ice Assassin, Mindblank, Mind Rape and Polymorph Any Object. You also want the feat Tenacious Magic: Permanency.

A Simulacrum of yourself (at level 30) casts as a level 15 wizard, meaning it has 8th level spells. Create one and then create a Permanent Telepathic Bond with it before using PAO to make it look like someone else to better blend in. It will cast Mind Blank every day which will conceal it's true state and magic from any Divination.

You send these guys out to every village, town, and city in the world to become permanent residents. Merchants, farmers, inn keepers, guards, couriers, whatever fits in. The reason for this is to build a world wide information and intelligence network that no one knows exists.

Do the above but with a couple of hundred Ice Assassins. These are your "adventurer's" mold their careers from the start on and have them cover the alignment and political spectrum (and have some be against you). The purpose of these guys is to solve problems (like rogue dragons or orc armies) and be the peoples heroes. They also act as lighting rods for dissent and can be used to solve your own problems discretely.

You want to replace local potentates and rulers of various kinds with your Simulacrums and Ice Assassins as well. The objective is to be the worlds power broker without anyone knowing it. This lets you play off every faction and populace against one another and focus them how you want.

Mind Rape is for suborning enemies. Send fifty or a hundred Ice Assassins at an enemy if you have to and capture that enemy before Mind Raping it into being loyal (or whatever serves your purposes at the time).

Have a cadre of Simulacrum/IA's that do nothing but sit around all day and cast various divination spells. Get a few made of high level Psions as well for Hypercognition and Metafaculty.

---
The thing you need to understand is that the world does not exist in stasis and that you will always be facing problems and potential problems. The more direct and constant control you want to exercise the more problems you will face and the more difficult it will be.

The ways to achieve and maintain control are the military, the economy, religion, demagoguery, and education; at least generally. To really solidify your control you want to get the populace worshiping you, you want ironclad control over a majority of the areas military force, you want to control the trade routes and magic trade, you want the populace to love you, and you want to be the one shaping what is taught to the next generation.

Give it ten generations and you can be worshiped as a god with most of the population deeply in love with you and convinced that you can do no wrong.

However, creating a tippyverse is not the way to do that. You don't want the population concentrated into cities, you don't want them to be able to easily share information. That comes after they all already worship you. It's far easier to control a population made up of a thousand discrete entities than it is one that is made up of one entity.

So, essentially what Geppetto does in Fables?

[Blightedmarsh]

What you want is for the lawful alignment to become the default one for your citizens. Obedience to the system, loyalty and honesty are the cornerstones of the lawful alignment and that is what you want from you people.

You want a civil bureaucracy, religious hierarchy and professional military core based on a meritocratic system, competitive examinations, loyalty and strict adherence to the lawful alignment. Look after your people; give them wealth and the kinds of privileges that wealth alone cant buy. Trust your people but be sure to make extreme public examples of what the betrayal of that trust costs. In this way you ensure that the best and brightest know the surest path to advancement is dutiful service to you and your cause.

[Mithril Leaf]

What you want is for the lawful alignment to become the default one for your citizens. Obedience to the system, loyalty and honesty are the cornerstones of the lawful alignment and that is what you want from you people.

You want a civil bureaucracy, religious hierarchy and professional military core based on a meritocratic system, competitive examinations, loyalty and strict adherence to the lawful alignment. Look after your people; give them wealth and the kinds of privileges that wealth alone cant buy. Trust your people but be sure to make extreme public examples of what the betrayal of that trust costs. In this way you ensure that the best and brightest know the surest path to advancement is dutiful service to you and your cause.

This is the fluff for how hell is run. They even use the phrase "the infernal bureaucracy". Merit based advancements, totally lawful. Not saying it's a bad idea, but it just so happens hell did that first.

[Blightedmarsh]

No actually China got there about 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucian) millenniums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_%28Chinese_philosophy%29) before DnD did, though I am sure hell did it better. China's problem was always corruption and difficulties arising from decentralized rule, that's why I said about making (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion) examples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned_at_the_stake) out of (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing) dissenters ("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_familial_exterminations").

It may also make sense to develop a "cult of law"; where the law and the concept of the law becomes the object of reverence rather than any actual godhead. Juryprudence, law enforcement and obedience become acts of worship, the lawful lifestyle becomes the ethical and spiritual lifestyle. Anyone who breaks the law become a pariahs, anyone who defies or speaks out against the lawful authorities become blasphemes. Under this system you might get someone like Dredd; judge, jury, executioner and preacher?

[Coidzor]

This is the fluff for how hell is run. They even use the phrase "the infernal bureaucracy". Merit based advancements, totally lawful. Not saying it's a bad idea, but it just so happens hell did that first.

The main difference being that corruption and subversion is expected and required in Hell, you're just not supposed to be publicly caught doing it even though your superiors already know what you're doing lest you axe them.

[Emmerask]

Hi everyone, I am trying to figure out how to run a city/state/country even world, by controlling the masses and getting the place to be able to run itself. Not neccesarily need end up like Tippyverse but if it does end up like that...BTW the one in control is 30th level human wizard straight up, no PRC or other.

What methods would be effective for medieval setting?

as well as...

What methods would be effective for modern setting?

Thoughts,suggestions, etc are welcome and appreciated:smallsmile:!


You don´t have to use magic in a modern setting, that would be a waste of power really.
Introduce self controlling mechanisms, people won´t even realize they are part of your control scheme ^^

The rest of this post would be against forum rules so I leave it at that ^^

[Illarion]

The most effective, mundane method to control a large populace would be through religion.

[Xar Zarath]

Thanks for all the responses. I will try and incorporate them. Still I think it best if i go with a medieval setting. That way if you guys have any further inputs it can go off without setting off any problems compared with a modern setting.

That is not to say that I won't be using a modern setting. The input laid out here can be used for both settings.:smalltongue:

[angry_bear]

With a level 30 Wizard as it's ruler; your country doesn't need to be controlled by force or suppression. A caster at that level can provide pretty much anything his society needs to the point that they don't even remember how to think for themselves. Think more along the lines of A Brave New World rather than 1984 and you're set for life.

Although that creates a pretty major problem in giving the PC's a means of fighting the system. It's a lot easier fighting an enemy who's boot is on the throat of the populace than fighting one who's ended hunger, disease, and poverty...