#cuz like Terrible War Barbarian Planet runs on an eternal Flower Picking War

[mathlann]

Thinking about Cas' background and why she probably got picked as a potential heir for Theodora.

So going off the Noble Triumphs, I changed Cas' from Apex of Brilliance (+Persuasion, stopping a Feudal War) to Feat of Greatness (+Coercion, destroyed a rival house's reputation and had them banished from the Sector) for her second run. And while those options are assuming a more interplanetary scale than anything she handled back home, I do think functionally the same thing happened for her because of how tenuous peace in Port Suffering is and how massive the impact of failing can be.

And getting a rival Vai's main envoy(s) exiled from Port Suffering would be a huge deal even if it's not a move with the same impact as a similar maneuver on say, Scintilla. Because even in the best case scenario where the Vai would just have to find some new people, that warband is still looking at

So one of the ways Iocanthos "works" is that Port Suffering is parked on the largest reserve of water on the planet, and, by controlling the only spaceport, the Imperium has almost full control of what resources are given out to who and when. So there is the 5 year flower tally that decides the Vervai (Planetary Governor) and their warband gets top pick for everything, but in those intervening years and for everyone else, each warband has various full or part time envoys who are sent to the city to negotiate contracts with the Administratum for necessary provisions. So envoys not only have to be socially savvy and educated enough to flatter whatever Administratum Adepts have been assigned to handle whatever resource without getting screwed over, but they're also competing with each other to get the best/most for their people absent being the Vervai's own representative.

And so on that level I don't even see Cas' Rule of Annoying as being especially unique to her, since, absent the ability to outright fight each other within city walls, undermining and pissing each other off is just a mode of communication most of them cultivate. But I think where Cas gets noticed, is that she doesn't just undermine one of her rivals, she plays the game well enough that she provokes them to the point where they lose their cool and end up banished outright (with their contracts conveniently granted to her instead).

A) Anywhere between a few weeks to a year or more to learn the news. Since information travels by snail mail (maybe illegal wizard if lucky).

B) Finding people worth replacing the old envoy with, and potentially training them (do they know the Creed? Can they speak Low Gothic? Can they read? Etc)

C) Sending the new people to Port Suffering without them being intercepted and possibly killed

D) However long it would take for the new people to adjust to how things work there and claw their way back into the Administratum's esteem

And all the while, that's time that that warband has no access to resources beyond maybe the bare minimum, and longer they'll likely be barred from anything necessary to stay ahead like weapons, vehicle parts, etc. Worst case scenario the whole warband ends up eventually dissolving as people defect to more prosperous rivals or straight up die.

And I think with Theodora, having a rather eccentric taste in who she chooses for her inner circle, probably saw the incident in whatever background check report and recognized the magnitude of that. Because on the one hand "backwater Agri-world-er' does not a good Rogue Trader make on its face but because of the way Cas' home planet is set up there is a surprising amount of political savvy needed to be successful in such a way that is valuable for a Rogue Trader in the semi-Frontier of the Koronus Expanse. And I think the added bonus of the fact that most Imperial Worlders would underestimate Cas could be an asset in seeing how she does as a potential successor because proving herself by holding her cool against Barbarian Envoy #3 may mean something on Iocanthos, but if she could do the same against, say, Calligos Winterscale, that's very valuable.