I'm new to the forum and even newer the game itself (I barely have 55 hours of gameplay at this point - but those rooky numbers won't last long !), but as a student and becoming social scientist, the description of fictional cultures and societies has always inspired me a great deal.
As I explore Kenshi's world, I discover a narrative deeply rooted, if I may say, in the scientific method of historians : to understand a panoramic view of the world, you must dig into documents, lost books, conversations and biased opinion. It gives the world some realistic taste a cinematic couldn't provide.
As in most games though, some particular and explanatory aspects of the lore remain unfathom : how does the economic and cultural structure influence individuals' behavior in one society, how did the evolutionnary process lead to hive with individualistic possibilities despite a cognitive-rooted hive-mind, etc.
Most of the time, such elements are pure diegesis, and a game can perfectly work it's atmosphere without it. The never ending crave for details is not always a good thing, and some famous games were pretty better when the developpers didn't integrate extended univers to the core product.
Despite those considerations, I'd like to show you a sketch I've been working on lately : an historical approach to the political practices of Esata's reign, sheks' empress. I believe that kind of micro-writing, rooted in a social sciences' scope, may allow the lore to enrich itself with more details while remaining an original content irreductible to dropped facts about the diegesis.
One last thing : as a french, my english may suffer mistakes I can't prevent, also, I'd like to ask your forgiveness before they cringe you out.
An historical view on Esata's reign
If Esata's education didn't differ from most Sheks, relying on oral transmission, material practice and institutionalized violence, it is in the net of her individual history that one may find the answer of a more "rational" reign.
In deed, from the historical data we managed to gather - and some witnessing which can be regarded as trustworthy - it is likely that Bayan's influence played a major role in the value-shifting set of political practices Esata established as empress.
Bayan, from our current sources, seems to be a scholar (to what extend this role may be used to talk about Shek society is not our concern in the present reasoning) : the way he was introduced, taught, the way he incorporated the scriptural practices that allowed him to read ancient texts, is still a problem of concern for the present study, but the accepted fact that Bayan reads and write is nevertheless a driving consideration for the following hypothesis.
Considering the outwardness of Esata's concern for population growth in the shek kingdom, it is not implausible that such a set of value would be stranger to the shek culture, but it may even be plausible that it is an internal shift, within the Shek culture.
If shek's noble caste seems entirely directed to a self-fulfilling path through conflict and honor, the lower caste, in contrary, must be subjected to rationalizing considerations about finance, production, trade, negotiation, etc. In deed, the material conditions of existence in shek's society seems driven by lower classes - agriculture is not, from our current understanding, anything valuable in a warrior's life.
Yet, for Bayan to be admitted to a war council lead by Shager, the former emperor, Esata's adviser must have been a member of the ruling caste. Thus, his contact with lower sheks will now appear plausible if we consider that his influence on Esata's "long-term oriented strategy" derives from the rationalizing values of dominated Sheks.
At this point though, this hypothesis could be easily countered. Without more intels on Bayan's network including his potential contact with lower-caste sheks, the second hypothesis according to which the rationalizing-practice of Esata's reign are external to the Shek culture may hold. But another had oc hypothesis may reinforce the previous reasoning : as a scholar, Bayan was probably considered somewhat of an outsider, even within the noble caste. This otherness, carried through a likely important part of his life (one does not become accustomed with scriptural cultures in a month), may have facilitated an empathy towards dominated sheks and therefor, a transmission of values from below to the upper caste.
I believe that kind of writing could be interesting, disseminated in two or three "micro-books" and that it could be an element of lore itself : let's say, the studies on one particular scholar, of a school of thought, of an imperial historian, etc.
Tell my what you think
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