《The Summon》Chapter 54 - Disadvantages and Choices

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The king sighed and, after a short moment of thought, began to speak again: “Let’s assume I believe you, and this is in fact so advantageous. What are the disadvantages? And do not try to tell me there are none, because there always are some. They might be less than the advantages, especially under certain circumstances, but there will be some. So answer me!”

At the end, the king got very loud.

Jonathan thought for a moment and then began to answer carefully: “A democracy means that the old elite will loose at least some power and privileges. If they are intelligent they just might loose the privileges, and could hang on to their power pretty well, but over time it is almost guaranteed that others will gain power, at a cost to those old elites, of which you personally are a part of. So those might make problems, which could end in a civil war, which would be problematic, especially if most of the mages take the side of the old power, fearing for their own positions. Still, if implemented carefully, this might not necessarily happen. Outside powers are of course a problem as well, a democracy directly at their borders might set an unwanted precedent. But one of the biggest problems that democracies tend to have is their readiness to go to war. Because of this and because the leaders of a democracy need to conform to the wishes of the people in at least some capacity, democracies do not tend to have a large standing army, especially if there is not an active threat. Do not make the mistake of assuming them to be militarily weak because of that, they can easily have their people’s trained and the arms stored away. Their active forces are always only meant to hold until the reserve can be activated. And, while the reserve of this country right now consists of even more untrained levies, the reserve of a democracy consists of people who are well trained, and, to top it all of, also get a small refresher if the situation permits it. In fact, in most modern democracies, there are two types of reserve forces. The official reserve forces, who are regularly trained and are part of existing units, even if they might consist completely out of members of the reserve, which can thus be activated very quickly, and persons who already went through basic training of some form, maybe as part of a short mandatory training period and then go one with their lives as normal. Even though, in my era, especially the latter kind looses importance, because of the threat of weapons, which can destroy the world. If you are forced to call those units up, the situation might already be hopeless, so why not go out in a bang and hope that death will be painless?”

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The king nodded to that.

Not necessarily what he would have thought, but still not necessarily stupid. Humans were egoistical beings.

He thought for a moment and then answered: “You want this. I understand, you have never known something else, and you think that monarchies are something that did not work particularly well. And when I look at how my nobles behave, then I understand that sentiment. But still, even though I should be against democracies, I see no other choice but to begin that process. We need to begin to plan how exactly it will look like, and I will, of course try to keep as much power in my hands as possible, but I want to enact at least some reforms!”

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