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Lies, Dirty Lies, and Propaganda
RedRoach:
Hey friend,
I just wanna let you know that there are other trading partners more wise than the Mercantile Guild. You think trading might be an excellent idea with their influence at your fingers, but Angleans here all agree with me when I say that it's not them you're using, it's them that's using you. You think that they're all trustworthy people, someone to fly with and expect to share profits simply because you hold their banner high? You don't know the wonders a tongue can spin.
Any merchant worth his salt, or hell, gold, considering that's all they care about, is gonna want to make a profit, and that derives driving a profit up with a silver tongue. The thing is, they don't stop at diplomacy. They have to be able to speak many different languages, be able to lie and deceive, undermine the competition, all in order to create their economic supremacy. If it wouldn't put them all in danger, I'd bet you they'd lie and cheat their way into the coffers of every single town, nation, and kingdom there is, even that small hamlet you call home. You simply just can't trust them.
Anyone who believes themselves safe should keep an eye out for a well-twisted lie. A Mercantile Guild member can easily influence himself into the realms of our privacy, stealing away all our money and commodities. I fear that, secretly, that has been their plan all along: not to gain a economic advantage, but to make us trade with them so reliably and commonly, that when they deny us trade, their installments through our nations will render everyone in disrepair. There is only one way to put them down, and that is with the gun.
From your friend,
(The name is heavily smudged, rendering it unreadable.)
Indreams:
"a divided power in the state is impotent and at odds with itself ... if power was delegated for short periods only, it was so uncertain as to discourage any prolonged undertakings or wide-reaching plans ... for a great nation the only salvation lies in hereditary power, which can alone assure a continuous political life which may endure for generations, even for centuries."
-fragmented document discovered by Fjord librarians-
(This is from "Napoleon's Reasons for Making Himself an Emperor")
ShadedExalt:
Greetings, Mercenary. I welcome you to the Guild, and I can assure you that you have made the right choice by accepting our contract. No other power has as many resources and ships availible to them. But you see, the filthy Arashi rats want nothing more than to take everything we've worked so hard for away. Not only to use it for themselves, but simply because they can. Do not be fooled by their 'Honor' and 'Freedom'. No, they are lies designed to lure you in until they can scour away and snatch up everything you are, everything you own, and everything you stand for, like the storms of dust that rage over the hellpit they call a nation. Remember, friend, that one must never trust an Arashi rat. Now go, and wipe out as many as you can. I hope you find our partnership to be profitable...
[Recording of a High-Level Merchant in the Guild talking to their latest mercenary. Please hand off to the next member of our glorious empire's spy network. May the Shining Path forever guide you.]
HamsterIV:
Brothers and Sisters of the Fjords I am sure you have noticed a decline in the quantity and quality of fish being brought in from the great sea. Every day more fishing boats leave our harbors and yet our fish markets are looking more barren than ever. Clearly some perfidious force is at work and we have to look no further than our Chaledonian neighbors.
We have all witnessed or heard tales of Chaledonian tech sorcery making barren land fertile again, but at what price? Those nutrients they infuse the soil with don't come from thin air, in fact they come from the sea. Using some form of witchcraft the Chaledonian have been depleting our fishing reserves to advance their own agriculture industry.
As our population grows with the influx of refugees, Chaledon seeks to impose a lopsided trade relationship that will ultimately lead to our enslavement. We must strike now while we still have the resources to overwhelm these Chaledonian leaches. Every day we delay Chaledon grows a little stronger at our expense. How long before even our mighty king must scrape and beg for the table scraps of a Chaledonian banquet?
To the Honor of our Ancestors,
The Fjord Minister of Commerce
Charon:
Thought I'd leave this here for you guys.
"Here are five basic rules of propaganda, courtesy of Norman Davies in his extraordinary book "Europe: A History":
The rule of simplification: reducing all data to a simple confrontation between 'Good and Bad', 'Friend and Foe'.
The rule of disfiguration: discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies.
The rule of transfusion: manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends.
The rule of unanimity: presenting one's viewpoint as if it were the unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: draining the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure, and by 'psychological contagion'.
The rule of orchestration: endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations."
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