Family Dynamics

The family as a political entity and the family as a social construct have been talked about, but the actual day to day workings of a family and how they interact with each other haven’t. Not so much. This is of course, a much varied thing. A family of the upper echelons of society will behave much differently towards each other than a middle class family. Or a poor one. Or even a military family. But the Military is a thing that could be written about at length elsewhere, and it probably will. In fact it needs to be, in order to figure out some very important things about how and why they do things in relation to the Empire as a whole (the spying and manipulation of trade for starters, the way they work the marriages and the product of those marriages for another. And the tentacles they reach into the mercenary and home units that guard the high houses.) Having run of into a different train of thought entirely, back to the family as a unit. Rissa’s family has been meant as an example of the lower end of Nobility, a few rungs up from the middle class (with fingers in the merchant class by means of the second sons), but not at the full level of pomp and formality that would come of being a Duke. Duke’s by the way, are about as high as you get before the demi-kings, who rule the different sectors of the Empire and are closest to the throne as far as their ability to squabble over it. That brings me back to Rissa’s family. They are nobility, and important because they are within relative spitting distance of the Gatekeepers systems. This will make it dangerous for Syrus to go in that direction, but half the Empire is knocking on the Gatekeepers’ doors. (Make this part of the reason the increased interest in cryo and faster/better sublight ships is being researched after virtually lying abandoned for so long) Otherwise, their rank is low enough that they wouldn’t have that much to do on the grand stage of the Empire. Their holdings are too small to give them enough resources to stage any sort of coup. It’s possible that a daughter of the family would marry higher up in the rankings, and then there’d be a son and so on. But if a son of theirs marries a daughter of the family (like Leader), all the other possible heirs would have to be dead before the Duchy passes to him. Apparently, the Duke has enough heirs that he’d not worried about Leader taking over this position. But he has been looking forward to making use of Rissa. Possibly marrying HER to the heir? Until the cancer and the nehkeh and all that. This of course, doesn’t answer the family dynamic issues. When I was first planning the series and the second book in particular, I was planning for Rissa’s father to be a cold fish. Not valuing his daughter as a person. Not caring at all. And to an extent, none of the women are valued as people first, even when they’re well treated. Leader’s Wife is firstborn of the Duke, and has been treated well enough (we’d think) that she is loyal to her father and his ambitious plans for the future. But there are signs that’s she’s been sort of…brainwashed if you will. Affection in the family wasn’t in the plans at all. Arranged marriages that are put in place and approved as much by the priest (doctors) and secretaries that do all the negotiating work, those were planned. Required even, for some of the bits of the story to work. And an active hand in a child’s upbringing wasn’t much thought about. Turns out, at the level of nobility Rissa’s parents operate at, they almost seem like a real family. At least in terms of what today’s Western society might think is a real family. The parents (mostly the mothers, not so much the fathers) raising the kids until it comes time to start training them for the place in life they’ll take up. This usually happens somewhere between ten and twelve years of age. The father would take his sons under his wing at that point, and start showing them how to take care of the family business, both in the sense of business AND the House itself. Once the basics are down, the second son (if it is a son) would be sent off to the uncle in charge of the mercantile interests of the family. The point in all this is to instill the reverence for FAMILY. For blood ties and affection (in theory) that will trump pretty much anything else. It goes back to the Ancestor worship part of Navlad society. To that end, there are indeed bonds of affection between parents and children in the normal course of things. And between spouses, if only for the sake of making life a little easier. Of course, there are those who don’t get along. And there are parents who are awful to their kids. The idea of abuse in Navlad is different than abuse in our world. The Leader Wife probably would have been counted as abused, for what he father has done to her in order to make her loyal. And Rissa too, with that her father put her through. And then there’s Rissa’s husband, who very certainly abused her and would have killed her. The family ties reach into the workings of the House as well. Reverence for the Ajiri planets is almost as strong as the Ancestor worship in most places. Again, this family is meant to be an example of that. They don’t just sit in a Capitol city enjoying their money and having fun. Part of the benefits of society are supposed to be the ability to have clothes from natural fibers, food that’s not been highly worked over, and an enjoyment of the outdoors. They’re expected to work with their commoners, especially those who actually live near the family home. Fishing, yes. Or maybe a hunt somewhere. Gathering plants and other non-dangerous stuff like that is a good way for the women of the house to reach out to the commons. And the products of these gatherings can be turned into food or cloth or whatever the case may be and keep the family itself from paying the higher price for the goods when they’ve been made by someone else. There’s also the issue of ownership. If a noble family holds, say, a particular patch of ground where rare mushrooms (hello truffles, you stinky buggers you) grow, they will reap the profits of it. If someone other than the family gathers said truffles, they usually get a portion of the harvest (as much work in the country is paid out in trade or part shares) and then they can sell them as well. Things like berries might get dried, canned, turned into jelly, or anything else, and shipped out. Wool or fiber from a native animal can be used for clothes, etc. The family usually only participates in the rarest or closest of these activities, depending on the planet and where they are living at the time. Back to the marriage part though. Brat was supposed to be just that, a brat. Bitter and angry at what happened with his family and ALL the marriage prospects for himself and his brother and sister. By the time Rissa is finally married though, he himself has been married for several years. And his wife has captured if not his love, then a certain affection. His daughters too. I think it’s a mark of not only a lower echelon noble family that the children get affection, but also of the Ajiri ones. Something about the fact that there’s more room to spread out on the planets as opposed to a ship or space station? Mother too, was supposed to be much more aloof from what happened to Rissa and the family. She was sent into this marriage with a man who is more than a bit of a cold fish, and prone to rages as well. What she’s turned out to be is concerned for her daughter over all things. And a bit naïve in how she goes about trying to get her back. I think I need to fix that so she’s not quite so clumsy in her efforts to set up a spy network. That, or give her husband and children (and the Duke, who really should have known about Syrus in the first place, not later)more of a network of their own to inherit. I’m thinking that Father did as much as he could out of sight of his wife, so to speak. She was in charge of the household and its schedule and would know about guests and travel and social obligations, but she was raised to be a wife and mother and to run that house, not to get involved with politics. Which is a difference between her and Leader Wife, and one that becomes more apparent every time there’s an issue that crosses them. Well. That sounded horrible. But Mother is also too…amiable. That will need to be tightened up some. She isn’t as vindictive as Brat turns out to be, but her opinion of Syrus is going to be changed by whether or not Rissa is with him when he is finally found. And by that time, the Duke will be feeling the effects of age and more and more looking to secure the Throne and possibly the center of the Empire. Back to Father. He is a cold fish. And cruel. And again, prone to rages. But he spends the majority of his marriage living up to what HE was taught. Family first, the sanctity of his House to be upheld so he can go on to be an Ancestor knowing that the House will continue. He’s not so much ambitious as he is holding on to the status quo with both hands and a grip of iron. Rissa threatens that, both by being sai, and by bringing Syrus into their home. They are even more threatened by the Fleet coming, and he does everything he can think of to trade his position and his children into assets that will keep his House in existence should the Fleet make it through the Net. He’s not thinking in terms of affection and love. He’s thinking in terms of the House as a whole (I don’t think the boys are as geared towards family values as we know them as the women. First born sons most of all. Brat was taken out of the running for head of House before he got as indoctrinated in the idea of treating his family like game pieces as his Father did. And Leader, being youngest, grew up under the shadow of all the turmoil that came with Rissa. He sees what happened with her as a tragedy and a step BACK for his family and House, and is determined not to drive his own daughters into the street to find companions to screw things up. Although that’s not at all a conscious thing.) In all of this is the looming threat of the Duke. Not as an invasion, but as someone who will demand obedience and resources and as much as he can get away with without the throne (and whoever is controlling/sitting on it at the time) noticing. He was looking to have Rissa as part of his arsenal, and I can’t imagine that he didn’t hear about Syrus too. Most anyone would have taken a sousi pair, even if one is a nehkeh. Sai are rare enough for that. Once Father had the priests mark Syrus with his nehkeh sigil, the information in Syrus blood would have been scanned. Bribes. Lots of bribes would be needed to keep the priests quiet, but eventually the Duke could have probably found out. He is also looking at the approaching Fleet, and doing calculations as to how long it would take the ships to make it to the Core. If they breach the Net that is. He is also looking at the Throne as a possible way to gain more power and prestige for his House. And of course, to be Emperor. (rumors in some circles of the actual first colony planet, abandoned for the capitol planet instead?) The Duke is angry when Rissa’s father manages to find her a husband outside of the Duchy. Angrier when it turns out that the man is from outside the Net. He understands, of course, but now she’s out of reach of his ambitions and ability to influence. It’s probably true that the Duke was looking to create some influence with Rissa’s husband. To get him to come inside the Net again with Rissa. Or more likely, to send people outside the Net to fetch her back. But Syrus gets there first, and Rissa’s father isn’t successful at hiding that from the Duke. Now she’s REALLY out of reach. And since Father says she’s dead, no real way to call him out on it. Especially since Rissa’s husband says she’s dead to. One of the strongest weapons he was going to bring to bear in the fight for the Throne (or in keeping the Fleet from overrunning him) is gone. Dead. So of course he’s going to send more people looking for Syrus and Rissa. Quietly. And he’s going to keep his contacts in the military looking for either one of their maruste sigs in the Barbicans. Or anywhere else. They all assume that the pair are outside the Net, because the only way back IN is with approval and a blood test. The blood test is what will trip them up. Syrus that is. Later on. But in the meantime, the Duke is using mining planets that the throne has no knowledge of to build an armada of his own to take the Capitol world. Some of these are put in play already? Skipping Barbicans in places so they won’t be seen coming through the Network? Which would mean he’s doing much the same inside the Empire that the Fleet is outside. Making his slow way through the planetary systems (which are laid out differently than the Barbs would make you think) and doing it in waves. Fights between different Houses are usually done with men and resources drawn from their own holdings. A Duchy is larger than what Rissa’s House can draw on, and Rissa’s House holdings are obliged to give men. Mercenaries come from the military too, sons and children that don’t go into service. Since the military itself is looked on with scorn as barely about the level of the nehkeh as a whole, they’re going to have a lot of disgruntled men with no place in the rest of society and a limited ability to absorb all those kids. But that’s a different topic, and one I keep wandering into without really realizing it. The Duke has his own planets of course, but he also holds the loyalty of a number of subdivisions inside his holdings. X number of sub-dukes. X number under each of them. But he rules his Duchy, and may answer to only one or two other sub-emperors/kings. From what we’ve seen though, nobody really regulates the Duke, and he browbeats everyone under him into obedience, using their holdings as his own to bolster his power. Which is why Leader Wife is so eager to label everything that goes against what her father is working towards as treason. Whether it’s a real offense or not, that view is enforced. When Brat skims from the business holdings, which are technically part of the Dukedom even though he’s the one managing them, he’s taking from the Duke. Taking especially, a source of income that the Crown (theoretically) can’t track. Which is bad. When Syrus showed back up on the radar though, Duke is going to find out. And his daughter too. So by extension, would Rissa's family. Either through Mother’s military contacts, Leaders (as he tries to keep his house safe, just as his father did), or by means of Leader Wife letting them know as well.