World Domination

[pentagathus]

If there were any success stories, don't you think the world would be controlled by one person?

But a skillful ruler would not let everyone know that they are being controlled.

 

[Almalexia]

A skillful ruler would make sure only the best and brightest of the world ever rose to political power, including his own successor. The main point of my empire would be to make it last; as long as it possibly can, so it might be able to set precedent for another world-wide empire after my own dies out. I don't intend to have another Qin dynasty, with so many lives wasted for nothing.

 

[FrisianDude]

EH, no. A skilful ruler would probably make sure weak-minded puppets rose to power.

 

[vadermath]

Nope, I agree with Tib on this one; A skillful ruler would have the interests of the Empire as his primary goal, not his own power (of which he already has plenty, so why bother?).

 

[Almalexia]

Puppets create discontent among the more intelligent orders of the empire. Such discontent trickles down to the lower classes, which is then inflamed, the puppet is overthrown, and the precedent for disorder is set. That is unacceptable.

*EDIT*

Plus, in addition, puppets are usually incompetent in nature. I'd be busy enough running the major events of the empire, to take care of someone else's job for them.

 

[FrisianDude]

Vader ma boi, skill has nothing to do with intent. And surely a skilful ruler can keep a puppet under his control while making the puppet look like a good leader, no?

 

[vadermath]

That's not the point! You need to make sure the Empire will exist even after your reign.

@Tib: Also, there is one thing an Emperor must look after when choosing candidates for power; Age.

Under no means must he take someone intelligent, but old and experienced. Such people would likely go for the throne themselves, and jeopardize any long-term plans. This is why you take the intelligent ones while they're young, and educate them properly, in order to achieve the desired effect; Intelligence and skill, but coupled with loyalty and understanding. 

 

[FrisianDude]

Then you groom an heir, but that heir need not be your front-man!

 

[vadermath]

If you're running the Empire publicly, there's no need for a frontman!

 

[Almalexia]

Look, you'd be ruling over an empire of over six billion people, which would be increasing rapidly. Now, of course, the war to unify the world might knock of a billion at most, which, while staggering in scope, the overall population would be a monster to manage. You cannot afford to do the day to day administration of the nation-provinces. You need competent officials of the highest intellectual order to take care of that, making sure discontent is low, while improving the economy and infrastructure of the province, while you take care of the big stuff. The big stuff including rebellions, partisan movements, appointment of high-class officials, and the election of your successor, who will have to be the very cream of the crop of intelligence among our species, while sharing some of the characteristic traits you posses.

*EDIT*

You know what, I can't bother to just deal with every single one of the flaws in your world domination plans individually. I might as well post my entire plan, and cover all of it.

 

[FrisianDude]

Vader; But then there's need for buttloads of protection.

TDM; the officials are competent, of course! Never said they oughtn't be.  As a good shadow mastermind you'd simply make sure they would not know and you'd influence THEIR highest chiefs, but in order to influence those, you'd want them to be weak-minded or very susceptible to blackmail/incredibly ridiculously loyal.

 

[vadermath]

@Tib: I agree with that, except for one thing; the war. Haven't you seen my peaceful theory, you warmonger?!

@FrisianDude: Bah, that's not exactly a big deal, is it? I own the bloody world, having a good security shouldn't be a problem.

 

[FrisianDude]

And a few moments ago rebellion and insurgents were a grave danger! Obviously not everyone is going to agree with your domination. Your security is likely to be susceptible to different ideas than the one that you should be the biggest cheese. And if your close associates are too savvy they might think they'd do a better job at it than you. Then you have to get security forces against your security forces, and those aren't trustworthy either! The road to madness, that is.

 

[Almalexia]

@Tib: I agree with that, except for one thing; the war. Haven't you seen my peaceful theory, you warmonger?!

The trouble is, is that it is likely to fall apart when you die off. Every nation, every empire crumbles eventually. From corruption, from military decline, from civil unrest... the list goes on. It is your duty, as the supreme authority over this planet, to eliminate as many of those as possible, and try to ensure that those reasons are suppressed for as long as possible after you are gone. The whole focus of this, at least for me, is to postpone the inevitable nuclear war. And to eliminate the possibility of nuclear war, at least for the the time being, is to make sure there is no one to use them against. If there are no enemies, or at least no enemies with access to nuclear missiles, then the threat is moot. The ongoing economic prosperity and coherence of the Roman Empire depended on the fact that there was always someone to fight. Mine rests on the fact that there is no one left to fight.

 

[FrisianDude]

Why would you accept any duty if you're the supreme overlord anyway? Why not just leave them to fight eachother a bit, you might actually make a profit from that.

 

[Almalexia]

Because our world is a jewel amongst our galaxy, one of a select few to actually support life, out of the millions, maybe even billions of planets throughout the Milky Way. Nuclear war would potentially destroy all of it, rendering our surface uninhabitable for... who knows how many years? And how long would it take for life to come back, after it's at least near eradication? After that, intelligent life might never come back to Earth.

Thus, our duty to prevent that from happening. And as I said, you can't nuke enemies that don't exist.

 

[FrisianDude]

Well, yeah. Total annihilation is a bit different than some teensy wars, y'know. Be more subtle, else you'll never be a mastermind.

 

[Almalexia]

You may have noticed a shift of modern militaries from more general, world-wide conventional warfare to regional conflicts against insurgents. If you rushed them with conventional war, and overran them with greater numbers, in addition to the advanced technology of today, then you could potentially catch them completely off-guard.

 

[vadermath]

@Tib: I agree with that, except for one thing; the war. Haven't you seen my peaceful theory, you warmonger?!

The trouble is, is that it is likely to fall apart when you die off. Every nation, every empire crumbles eventually. From corruption, from military decline, from civil unrest... the list goes on. It is your duty, as the supreme authority over this planet, to eliminate as many of those as possible, and try to ensure that those reasons are suppressed for as long as possible after you are gone. The whole focus of this, at least for me, is to postpone the inevitable nuclear war. And to eliminate the possibility of nuclear war, at least for the the time being, is to make sure there is no one to use them against. If there are no enemies, or at least no enemies with access to nuclear missiles, then the threat is moot. The ongoing economic prosperity and coherence of the Roman Empire depended on the fact that there was always someone to fight. Mine rests on the fact that there is no one left to fight.

How the **** does this differ from my theory? What, because you conquered the Earth, there will be no-one left to fight? Where's the logic in that? There will be many more people with an agenda against the World Regime that way! No, the only way to lasting peace is peace to begin with.

And a few moments ago rebellion and insurgents were a grave danger! Obviously not everyone is going to agree with your domination. Your security is likely to be susceptible to different ideas than the one that you should be the biggest cheese. And if your close associates are too savvy they might think they'd do a better job at it than you. Then you have to get security forces against your security forces, and those aren't trustworthy either! The road to madness, that is.

Rebellions are still a grave danger, if you dominate the world through conquest. If you do it through peace, there will only be a terrorist here and there to worry about. Also, finding good security employees is the least of the worries of a bloody World President.

 

[FrisianDude]

Are you kidding? You can still become disliked if you're peaceful, and you'll still have many people who think they would loooove all that power.