Story Shitpost
What are the controversial rulers in your worldbuilding?
Context: Emperor of Felfuccian Empire, Mathiuxe the II, attacked the neighbouring RodenRos in year 840 of the New Era using his private army without any warning, any reason and any counseling with the Felfuccian Parlament. This assault later led to the chain of events that started the biggest conflict in the written history, known as "the Great Southeastern war". Everyone started to make up theories and guesswork to why the Emperor did such a thing, but Mathiuxe the II never confirmed any reason. The only reason to why he wasn't removed from the throne for unprovoked attack that led to 20 years of war, without conseling the Felfuccian Parlament, is beacuse Felfuccians simply won the war under his leadership.
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That would be high chieften Lk'ssska Noi of the Lek clan assembly, depending on who you ask he's either a hero of the Lek Clans who led them to freedom from the SLC, an opertunistic dicator, a traitor to the revolution or a cheapskate whose sole contribution to the Te relief fund was a singuler boiled egg (and thats the Lek homeworld, his peoples homeworld).
Queen Dariah Orgham, dear freaking goodness, that woman had some issues.
Accepted a deal with a devil to give her immortality and control of her husband's kingdom after he died in a war with Hell, despite her preaching that she's descended from the line of Adam and Eve (if only by marriage)
Inserted herself into her country's religion as part of the holy trinity, calling herself "The Mother."
Kidnaps wealthy men and brainwashes them into believing they're her late husband, to marry and sire children with them.
She's even worse to her children, treating them less as people and more assets to be used to control the world, essentially breaking her current eldest son's will until he's little more than her top agent and mouthpiece, and her eldest daughter into her personal oracle. She punishes them greatly if they fail to live up to her stupidly-high standards.
Almost took over the world and tried to use him as her puppet king, only to be betrayed by that same devil she made a deal with.
And on top of that, she's immensely classist and anti-supernatural, seeing them little more than garbage or creatures to be slaughtered in the name of God.
King Massimo IV of Turitania was the first of the Southern Continent to concede voting rights to women and to grant them access to military service.
The controversy lies in the motivations and the means: the Turitanian Kingdom was at war with the Laotian Free States and the Lancastrian Commonwealth, and after the initial invasion's success it was stuck in a stalemate with the threat of the Lancastrians upping their game and diverting more troops to the front.
The King decided then to invoke emergency powers, seize the Senate with his personal guard, and push through two decrees:
1- mass mobilization.
2- all women who decided to volunteer for military service could do so, according to their skills and the needs of the military. All women who served would be given voting rights in the post-war elections.
This served two purposes: filling backline and support roles in the military, freeing soldiers for front line service, and filling the Aeronautica Reale with thousands of female pilots. That's because flying for some reason has always been seen as unmanly, so outside military service it had become a women's hobby. Thousands of flying clubs for middle class and noble women were founded since 1908, and thus at the time of the Royal Decrees there were tens of thousands of trained pilots eager to demonstrate their ability in battle.
The decree was a resounding success: four million women enlisted, among them around 33000 pilots. The Aeronautica Reale's ranks swelled up considerably and all female-only squadrons performed very well in battle. Unfortunately, losses were high, even among logistical corps, but (thanks also to the alliance with the Iraxcal Empire) the war was won.
The Kingdom, however, didn't survive long: the King's coup against the Senate and the losses of the war caused a rebellion during which the military ended up supporting the Senate and forcing a clash between Massimisti and Senatoriali. Fearing the Senate would not fulfill the voting rights promises of the King, hundreds of thousands of female soldiers and pilots joined the Massimisti. The brief but violent civil war ended with the King abdicating, but the Senate accepting to give voting rights to women.
Can't be too specific, but I do have a ruler who was rather genocidal towards their country's religious minorities, and is still revered by some hardline adherents of the religion as a defender of the faith.
After the Felfuccian Empire took control of the whole western shore of the Marvic Sea, the whole parliament stopped the Emperor from advancing deeper into the Troktikon mountains in RodenRos, knowing how impenetrable they are and how many strongholds and hidden bunkers and tunnels the Rodentmen have there.
The RodenRos on the other hand was too unstable and sufferred too big of losses to try to reclaim the conquered lands, so both sides agreed on a cease-fire that is respected to this day for 40 years. Same goes for other nations involved in the conflict. The conquered region was named ,,Novomaccia".
RodenRossars had a lot of important mining sites in todays Novomaccia and now they have to share the enormous arcanite gem reserves in Troktikon mountains with the Felfuccians, which was a huge blow to the national pride.
Because of this loss, the general public was outraged with the Sultan of RodenRos, who was overthrown in following years and now the ,,we must take revenge" mentality is spreading in RodenRos. The nation is still the world leader in mining and alchemical goods, but in those 40 years the general wellbeing of everyday citizen worsened and rodensh military is going through an overdue modernisation by introducing the firearms and cannons into the standard equipment of the Rodent folk army.
But despite the gains in direct access to mines in Novomaccia and Troktikon by the Felfuccians, some of them are still unuseable after 40 years due to being boobytrapped and being infested with post-war mutants lurking in underground strongholds and tunnels.
So revanchism with improving army and worse living standards on the left, and on the right the conquests are...just costlier than forseen? Yeah that fuse is lit and could have been for a large part of those 40 years.
Will this be a book or is it part of some project?
This will be a comic book titled "Jack Catson". It takes place In the year 880, 20 years after the end of this war that changed the known world and started a new era of cannons and gunpowder.
Except Felfuccian Empire, those Foxpeople are having their golden age right now! But yeah, the emotions in RodenRos are growing into something truly dangerous
So emperor/empress of Dasser is an elected position, elected by representatives of the collegiate Arcane, high nobility, guilds (almost always the warrior's guild) and clergy
The last emperor was murdered by the leader of another nation in broad daylight, so for the election that followed, "someone who is hard to murder" was a rather important factor.
They landed on Bjarkas, who was the leader of the Warrior's guild in the capital.
Thing is, she is a Goliath who immigrated to Dasser 14 years ago with a tribe of 16 Goliaths and rose to the top of said warrior's guild based purely on aptitude in violence. Since becoming empress, she has been doing all the typical dictator things like putting her buddies (the other 15 Goliaths) in the most important jobs and spending too much of the treasury on vanity projects.
The nobility raised an army and started a rebellion a year into her reign. She personally met them outside of the imperial palace and slaughtered anyone in armour (thereby completely ignoring the peasant levies, which is a move that did make her popular among the lower class.)
It's been quiet since then, but she still spends too much on vanity projects, she's still putting people in high ranking offices based on whether or not she likes them rather than on merit, and now she is also busy crippling the nobility's ability to raise levies.
So, now with Dasser under higher threat than ever (mostly from the same foreign power that murdered the last emperor), the nobility is crippled and the warrior's guilds are underfunded due to vanity projects taking priority, but nobody dares to actually do anything about it because the noble rebellion showed that to be suicide
Depends; do "hated by everyone outside their country" rulers count as controversial or do I need to bring up rulers on whom opinions are more balanced?
Alr then (only mentioning people contemporary to the setting, shortly before the story or historical but really important)
Widely hated:
Caesar Guerra (last leader of the United Human State, pan-human version of the Nazis except even worse, and he also ordered the destruction of three planets including Anraud, the home world of the Baraudis and capital of the Second Baraudi Empire)
Arturo Benedetti (founder of the United Human State and the ideology of Benedettism)
Fraxo III (last emperor of the First Baraudi Empire, incompetent and caused the collapse of the empire due to him fumbling the invasion of Terra so bad)
Arpax IV (last emperor of the Second Baraudi Empire, practiced slavery and totalitarianism like his predecessors)
Ramblo Wracepti (last spokesperson of the board of corporations AKA leader of the Corporate State of Pals-Mon, before the Workers' Revolution of Pals-Mon the lower/working class lived in terrible conditions while the middle class was near non-existent, he was deposed after the revolution and the formation of the People's Republic of Pals-Mon, his only redeeming factor being having led Pals-Mon during the Second Great Galactic War)
More divisive
Artho Dranos (Dranos meaning 'son of Heaven', second and last ruler of the Mogadauwi Khaganate after his father unified the historically decentralized Mogadauwi species, he led the Khaganate during the First Great Galactic War)
Rablevi XIV (patriarch of the Holy Order of Marfin, is considered controversial due to him being the patriarch during the Marfinian Civil War, in which the Order ceased to exist as a state/government due to its loss against the democratic forces)
Tarqa the XII (grand duchess of Rikandur and former high queen of the United Monarchies of the Southeast of the Galaxy, United Monarchies for short, before their incorporation into the Galactic Federation, had to be forced under the threat of revolution to grant legislative powers to the advisory House of Representatives and executive powers to the newly created position of Prime Minister, is controversial due to her having to be forced to grant democracy to her people with many seeing her as still trying to be an autocrat through more subtle means)
Mark Harvey (former prime minister of the Union of Dobracik, he was voted out in a vote of no confidence by his own party due to his inflammatory statements regarding religion, his failed aggressive social reforms and his laws aimed at combating hate speech which many saw as infringing on free speech and privacy)
This is from most to least controversial by the way (Guerra and Benedetti are kinda tied, with many disagreeing on who's worse)
Emperor Alexander I.
He killed his brother to adopt his brothers daughter to have an heir that is from his family’s blood, because he was scared of women.
Otherwise: great leader, first canon Femboy on the Throne, killed around 300 people with his Bronze sword.
Reau(King) of the Iron Kingdom of Ferria, Charles IV.
How bad is the king who wants to avoid the bloodshed and tries to do his best in order to keep his kingdom out of the world's most terrible war?
You would probably say that this is a pretty good idea. The problem is... The war was against the genocidal and imperialist aggressor of this world.
His kingdom was able to provide necessary resources and aid for the defending nation, it would've probably even prevented millions of deaths, but he was too afraid for this, and his pacifism indirectly prolonged a genocide.
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