Reply To: Idea for storyline – Loki sows sedition

[Monty]

Driving to work today I had the idea that one of the prominent critic would be another noble family, working to position themselves and increase their standing- working all their persuasion and doing their best to appeal to the populace.

The best political manipulators work BEHIND the scenes, using others to do the dirty work, and only coming out of hiding when the time is ripe.

For example, IIRC, The way Hitler came to power is he caused a deadlock on the Presidential vote, causing runoff elections. Then, he demanded to be made chancellor, but von Papen is appointed, who distrusts Hitler and is allied with the military leader von Schleicher. Then, after another runoff election, von Schleicher and von Papen break with each other (von Schleicher wanted to be chancellor), and when von Papen lost support, von Schleicher becomes chancellor. Then, von Schleicher starts to lose support, and von Papen, looking to seize the opportunity, allies with Hitler. After many more political upheavals, von Papen convinces the then president Hindenburg to appoint Hitler, thinking they could control him. Oooops……
Only then does Hitler really roll out the storm troopers (they were used earlier to cause riots and weaken the government, but never directly) and use them to suppress and further eliminate opposition. Then when Hindenburg conveniently dies in August 1934, Hitler assumes all power in Germany, backed up by all of his thugs.

Convoluted? You bet. But it’s pretty clear from history that Hitler engineered the whole thing, pumping up the violence as he gained power, both to frighten the population to his way of thinking, and to eliminate opposition, first secretly, then, after he became chancellor, overtly.

The communists used similar tactics against the czar in Russia, undermining his position, and causing revolts, not directly, at first, but using others as puppets until they had enough power to take center stage, at which point they removed the opposition the simplest way possible – by eliminating them. They ALSO eliminated any of their “friends” that they thought might not go along with the new arrangement, so the people that aided them most are the ones they got rid of first.

The real weakness of any democracy is through frightening the population into electing a radical leader that would normally not be viable or electable. If that leader is ruthless enough, they then strip away the democratic process using intimidation and violence, and maintain power with terror.

So, going back to a MS2 scenario, Loki would merely need to agitate against Lord Mark at this point, and attempt to turn the population against him. Then, get others to start demanding that he (as a upstanding citizen) be appointed to take over, but allowing others that have more support to seize control while secretly undermining THEM. In addition, using other supporters to make them turn on each other, getting an influential one to press to have Loki made boss.
Once that does occur, then the bad guys come out of hiding. They kill or attempt to kill any viable opposition, to keep Loki in power.

Simple! 😉