But if we return again to the Ancient World, where everyone was concerned about their glorious ancestors, then we will ask, why do the nobles need such difficulties?
They could create a family-like ordinary people and produce their offspring. That’s the problem. Offspring of what status? After all, without feats, there is no domination. And there is no domination without merit. So that the children of the Nobels do not experience problems in this world, all traditional people want to increase the tail of family fame. And then everyone will hang around their children, their descendants. Their descendants will walk with an invisible tail. And everyone will know that this family, this family, has a deep root.
Chapter V
Empire is a song
So why do Zerefs need a tail? They need the root first. From the root, they make themselves the very tail of glory. And we found out that the root is necessary for the surrounding people to always see the merits of the family if it is an ancient tail, the tail of the past, or the personal merits of a person who grew the root for posterity by a feat.
In the traditional world, and this is not necessarily just the world of antiquity, in the modern world there are also many peoples who openly adhere to traditions. There are nations that are half-civilized. There is a quarter cultivated, there is the eighth part, and so on. The relationship between tradition and culture is difficult to determine at once, but it is possible.
If the people value informal services, people worship officials, leaders, leaders, or even just people of age, then these persons are 100% traditional. These are the Zerefs. If there is worship, a deification of leaders, officials, but disrespect for old age, this is already a semi-traditional people. There is so insecure transitional caste of Zeremids. If the officials themselves respect the state and do not need a dictator’s stick to maintain discipline, then civilization has slipped by a quarter among the people. If there are Remid statesmen, responsible people who do not need either a root or their own personal tail, this is very good.
After all, every nation has a memory. So every nation has a tradition. The more memory governs the people, the more the people are traditional. And vice versa. This means that the more people look back to the past, the stronger the tradition. And if there is a tradition, then there is a hierarchy. If there is a hierarchy, then there are roots. After all, the root means the past. People look back, stare at the shadows. Any tree has roots. The older the tree, the deeper the roots. And so far in this area, there is no constitution or code of laws for everyone (first for the completely wild, who know nothing but war, and completely rootless, nomads and full of migrants) this means that this society is based on a hierarchy of local nobles (zerots). There are patricians and plebeians, feudal lords and black people, white bone and black bone, blue blood, and all sorts of different blood.
There comes a time when people with money (the refags) can impose their will on the Zerefs. How could this happen? So that people without a root and without fame become dominant. This will tell us only one thing: the people here are so mixed up, and in addition, the number of tailless migrants in this place has exceeded the critical line of unconsciousness. No one is interested in who is who. Who came from where, from what place they moved, just ran away from the feudal lord or from the fierce father. Or maybe the father himself kicked out, because there were a lot of children in the house, it was difficult to feed all the household members.
There is another very important variant of taillessness.
The most savage tribes, depending on the whims of nature, who did not have enough intelligence, natural sharpness, to oppose something to this very nature, for example, the same nomads. The most aggressive children of nature of all the barbarians. Of course, there were various root gatherers and hunters in history. But the consumption of plant roots is such a primitive development of farming, besides giving so few calories that a hereditary root does not grow from children, descendants, because most of those born died of hunger, so such an economy could not create an aggressive force. To assemble a squad and attack need a force of blood. And what can attract a group of hungry herb gatherers? Therefore, we can only talk about wild nomads, whom nature itself forced to unite on a related principle.
So, these are the most nomads are strongly reminiscent of the tailless merchants of refags. And the zerefs and the refags don’t actually have a tail. In any case, in a new place. None of the Zerefs had ever appreciated trading. Well, what can be the glory, if you managed to sell a herd of pets? Another thing is if you are lucky enough to exchange for the right thing, and even better to capture, rob the defeated victim. Therefore, the Zerefs, although they always have memories of the glorious past, start all over again in a new place. In that, the moment their memory resembles the floors of a building or the sheer cliffs of a mountain, one rock rising above the other. This is the time for all rootless or active passionaries without a glorious ancestor to show their prowess. Well, the Zerefs can’t live without the roots of glory. Because in a new place, the hierarchy does not disappear, it is updated.
Another thing is that Zeref does not need so much to be happy. He can build or install a portable dwelling, find a wife or capture a wife so that this woman will bear him heirs. This is enough for him to be happy. In order for the heirs to have something to inherit, then we need to continue the war. Neither hunting nor gathering roots, it’s all unimportant, but go to war, he must go on a campaign.
If this Zeref has succeeded, performed feats, entered the elite, turned into a tribal aristocrat (zerot), from now on, one ordinary dwelling will not be enough for him. From now on, each member of the traditional community must not only confirm their status with the root but literally build a palace. The palace of the Zerot-tribal nobility should be larger, wider, richer than the dwellings of ordinary members of the community. It is also not enough for him to have one wife. What if she’s barren! So the nobles have several wives, and the very first chief has a whole harem.
Any elite is not very interested in the home. These are black people who marry quickly and procreate quickly. As soon as the urges appear, they seem to be afraid of not having time. This is understandable. In fact, ordinary soldiers could be sent to war. They will not ask whether they want or do not want to fight for the glory of their master, and in the future of the state or empire. But the owner, the state, and the empire know about this, they try to single out heroes, reward them, and encourage them financially. If there were no hierarchy in such a society, no Zeref would go to war. He would have children, his wife would give birth to an heir every year, and he would not know what to do with them. After all, Zeref itself is part of the mechanism of war. If suddenly there is no war, no one attacks, he multiplies the heirs, potential soldiers become more and more, then he will look around. He will look once, look twice, and the third time he will become aggressive. He will go out on the road and start robbing passers-by. An Imperial man is always a warrior.
The rulers know this. Therefore, the Zerots are always engaged in propaganda of war. Even in peacetime, they train the population, train their military skills, and create physical support, a physical number of their supporters, in advance. And we already know that for the traditional population there is only one formal and informal deity – their leader. As he commands, so be it. One of the prizes of an empire, real or with the phantom pains of former power, is the constant work of propagandists. No one seems to be interested in the interests of the population. They want to fight, or they don’t want to. The empire lives on. And that says it all. Propaganda-and only propaganda!
So.
If the Zeref builds houses, the Zerot builds palaces. If the Zeref has an ode to a wife, a noble may have several wives. If the Zeref goes to war so