Night Gardener
Inkling
I have a social-legal-plot situation in my WIP, and I can't decide how best to handle the premise.
The Realm was founded on Amnesty and Armistice: After many years (centuries) of warring Houses and factions, a Great Lost Battle happend. There was a Lone Survivor with no memory of what exactly occurred that apparently- simultaneously- killed every one on the battlefield. Some of the Houses and factions ultimately decided to solidify allegiances, stop their warring with a common more devious enemy that scattered to the wind after the Great Lost Battle, and join resources to create the New Realm.
To join the Realm as a free person of free will, you had to agree to a New Deal/ New Society and an experimental form of governance. The founders obviously had no problem creating the rules they were willing to follow.
If you were from the Outer Realm, and a former "enemy" or a stranger you had a few choices. Do not enter the Realm at all as a combatant, and no harm would befall you. If you wanted to join the New Realm as a citizen, but had a really bad reputation from war or civil crimes, you could go through an official process of renouncing your surname/ House Allegiances, etc. to be given a fresh start. So, annonymity surnames like 'Freeman', 'Brightcaster' etc. were appointed. Not everyone who takes these new surnames are terrible people. Some people use this because they are runaway slaves and have no surname, or want to change names because of former associations they are no longer party to, etc.
I can't decide if there should be a "official record" of who these people *were* and what they *did* before asking for citizenship. On the one hand, it serves the themes of annonymity, amnesty and forgiveness. On the other hand, having official records means secrets and intrigue to be exploited later in the plot. What would be more interesting? To be teased as a reader that there's a way of knowing these secrets, or to never know just like the characters, until it's made relevant?
Another layer of complexity is: if these people have a sealed record of sorts, under what if any circumstances would these records be unsealed?
In the New Realm, because basic needs are met, penalties for criminal acts are pretty freaking severe. If you swear to enter a community and leave your past behind you... and then you don't... should the community be made totally aware of your past actions? Should it even matter when you should be judged for the present, and not the past, as a founding principle?
Then, the other flipside is, people who do dreadful things flee to the New Realm to escape justice from unincorporated kingdoms and territories (not all these places are bad places full of bad people, either.) The outer realm people do not like this amnesty loophole nonsense at all. So, frequently, there are clandestine raids to capture individuals or entire families to bring them to justice, and the New Realm swears to defend it's own citizens, so there's always political conflicts and complications.
Then, for more fun, just because you might take a new name for a fresh start, doesn't mean other citizens won't actually recognize you and the despicable heinous things you've done from 'the before times'. They're just forced to pretend they don't know you, and play nice until they can figure out their next move... which is usually revenge by proxy; hiring prople from the outside realm to sneak into the kingdom to drag out the wrong-doers and bring them to justice.
So, as a founder's law I want to fully exploit how lofty and naiive these ideals are in practice, not necessarily principle... but it's the sealed records thing I'm really stumbling over. Why keep records unless you have the will or purpose to know what is in it? Why write that kind of information down, to know it could be used against you by the government? Can you have an honor system to... Blackmail? Behave here and now, or, people will know who you are and what you did. Perhaps this could be a major criticism of the New Realm, all about forgiveness on the surface, but blackmail is readily available.
What do you fellow Scribes think?
The Realm was founded on Amnesty and Armistice: After many years (centuries) of warring Houses and factions, a Great Lost Battle happend. There was a Lone Survivor with no memory of what exactly occurred that apparently- simultaneously- killed every one on the battlefield. Some of the Houses and factions ultimately decided to solidify allegiances, stop their warring with a common more devious enemy that scattered to the wind after the Great Lost Battle, and join resources to create the New Realm.
To join the Realm as a free person of free will, you had to agree to a New Deal/ New Society and an experimental form of governance. The founders obviously had no problem creating the rules they were willing to follow.
If you were from the Outer Realm, and a former "enemy" or a stranger you had a few choices. Do not enter the Realm at all as a combatant, and no harm would befall you. If you wanted to join the New Realm as a citizen, but had a really bad reputation from war or civil crimes, you could go through an official process of renouncing your surname/ House Allegiances, etc. to be given a fresh start. So, annonymity surnames like 'Freeman', 'Brightcaster' etc. were appointed. Not everyone who takes these new surnames are terrible people. Some people use this because they are runaway slaves and have no surname, or want to change names because of former associations they are no longer party to, etc.
I can't decide if there should be a "official record" of who these people *were* and what they *did* before asking for citizenship. On the one hand, it serves the themes of annonymity, amnesty and forgiveness. On the other hand, having official records means secrets and intrigue to be exploited later in the plot. What would be more interesting? To be teased as a reader that there's a way of knowing these secrets, or to never know just like the characters, until it's made relevant?
Another layer of complexity is: if these people have a sealed record of sorts, under what if any circumstances would these records be unsealed?
In the New Realm, because basic needs are met, penalties for criminal acts are pretty freaking severe. If you swear to enter a community and leave your past behind you... and then you don't... should the community be made totally aware of your past actions? Should it even matter when you should be judged for the present, and not the past, as a founding principle?
Then, the other flipside is, people who do dreadful things flee to the New Realm to escape justice from unincorporated kingdoms and territories (not all these places are bad places full of bad people, either.) The outer realm people do not like this amnesty loophole nonsense at all. So, frequently, there are clandestine raids to capture individuals or entire families to bring them to justice, and the New Realm swears to defend it's own citizens, so there's always political conflicts and complications.
Then, for more fun, just because you might take a new name for a fresh start, doesn't mean other citizens won't actually recognize you and the despicable heinous things you've done from 'the before times'. They're just forced to pretend they don't know you, and play nice until they can figure out their next move... which is usually revenge by proxy; hiring prople from the outside realm to sneak into the kingdom to drag out the wrong-doers and bring them to justice.
So, as a founder's law I want to fully exploit how lofty and naiive these ideals are in practice, not necessarily principle... but it's the sealed records thing I'm really stumbling over. Why keep records unless you have the will or purpose to know what is in it? Why write that kind of information down, to know it could be used against you by the government? Can you have an honor system to... Blackmail? Behave here and now, or, people will know who you are and what you did. Perhaps this could be a major criticism of the New Realm, all about forgiveness on the surface, but blackmail is readily available.
What do you fellow Scribes think?