Warfare 103: Civil War
Greetings and serratic! ...Well, if you have a limb you need to lose, I can saw it off! It is often said that the difference between a revolution and a civil war is who wins. And to some degree, there is a certain level of truth to it, but on a larger level, it is total bollocks.
War is not civil
You know me by now, first part is always about definitions! Anne, should we make a book called “Vivian’s Definitions”? Anyway, how can we define civil war to be useful in worldbuilding?
A civil war is when two or more factions of the same country, with the factions containing at least one of the keys to power, are at war to control the country.
To understand the word “key” in there I recommend reading rules for rulers, but the short version is that a key is a person or institution that helps a person or institution have power to rule. The highly astute of you will know I did a post on revolution, where I define revolution as conflict where the people are the ones going against the government, or, to put it another way, where there are no keys actively participating.
To make it clearer, a revolution is when keys are not in the fight; they may, however, have stopped supporting the rulers to allow the revolution to happen. In a civil war, though, the keys are now participating in the fighting in order to gain control over the country. The line can get very blurry as the involvement of keys can shift throughout a conflict.
The murmurs of dissent
A crucial point, as I stated, are the keys, so I will be focusing primarily on them and their roles in things. Will the keys be entirely happy under any ruler or any set of rulers? Of course not, anyone that has a nickel of cubic sense will know that power makes it so you want more power. Or at bare minimum, you wish to retain the power and privilege you have managed to acquire already.
So between the rulers–I will just assume one ruler for the sake of this, as covering multiple gets annoying, but it applies to many rulers or organisations–and the keys there is always a power balance going on; even between all the keys, there is minor infighting. Everyone is tugging, pulling, and pushing to see what they can get to increase their own power and position, but none of the keys nor the ruler wants to actually disrupt things, so the jockeying for position is not any kind of real threat.
This can, over time, result in two camps of the keys. See this PBS Infinite series clip on why; short version is that if you say that all are either friend or foe, the only stable configuration where no one has incentive to change if they are friend or foe with anyone else is if there are two camps, both camps are foes with the other, and within each camp all are friends. Enemy of my enemy and all that.
The ruler now has two camps and will have to pick one or the other (simplified heavily), and whoever the ruler does not pick now has beef with them. Because of this factionalism, what might have once been a minor disagreement that can be ignored becomes yet another reason to not like the ruler and the other camp. As long as the camp that the ruler does not pick doesn’t have enough power, this is a relatively stable situation and can last for ages.
The issue becomes when both camps start becoming more equal in terms of power. This is the dangerous part where a civil war becomes real. But prior to the outbreak, all the keys will start to arrange a possible out for themselves. That is, they know what is coming and will prepare for their own safety and gather all that they need to not be the loser. Some will side with the side they think is the most likely to win, others will start mobilising their forces for what is inevitable. Others yet will try to betray each camp if they think it will give them the most. No matter what everyone is doing, most keys will know that things will break soon, but no one knows how.
The chain is broken
It has happened, it is WAR! Wait, what has happened? That is the thing: no one will know. It can be anything that ignites the powder kegs that have been building for years. It can be anything, but because of the buildup of displeasure, the keys, including the ruler, have all started to expect that they will have to fight, so what should have been a nothingburger has exploded and sprayed the entire place in condiments.
And when I say it can be anything, I mean anything. Sure, it can be the classic: the ruler dies, and then there is a dispute on who will be next in the line of succession; after all, keys want the candidate they can use the most on the throne! It can be the annual celebration of the Empire’s ascension to a global superpower that has a terrorist group from conquered people wanting to show their immense displeasure; well, this is a great chance! Use the chaos and get the upper hand in the war! Or maybe it is the marriage of the daughter of the ruler? Or how about, in a democracy, there’s a contentious election that factions of the nation do not like the result of? Where have I seen this? Anyway, it can also be a natural disaster that kills a buttload of keys and now the rest have to scramble for power and maintain the nation! Oh yeah, those fuckers are still around, well, civil war too!
The start of a civil war can literally be anything from the minute to the grandiose. All that is required is that the side without the ruler feels this is the time they have a chance to get the power. Which includes getting the people on your side, which…
Moving the pawns
As much as the keys are the main focus in this discussion, they are hardly alone. Keys have their own keys, as I explained in rules for rulers, and they in turn have keys, and so on. But as with any war, you need a proper justification that the people will believe and accept being at war over… mostly. Not everyone has to agree, but enough of the population has to.
Civil wars are fortunate in a way when it comes to this! How I will explain in a moment. The dissenting camp of keys will have to have a reason to launch their war, which can be anything from fabricated to legitimate issues with the other side, but it has to sound reasonable to the population. After all, if there is no good reason for this that affects the people, then they are likely to overwhelmingly side with the ruler’s camp, and it can die real fast.
But here comes the fortunate part: when it comes to civil war, as it is people against people, the reason quickly changes. Sure, the initial moment, you gotta have all those good fancy reasons for your cause–BLARGH! Balderdash! Anyway, you get some parts of the nation to side with you because your cause is just! Well, they get to believe that! But there are parts that don’t want to side with you, even keys don’t want to side sometimes, but you can have entire sections of the nation going ”nu uh!” on the question of siding. But all you need for them to side with you is… the other side attacking! As it is a civil war, the odds of either side starting to attack, accidentally or intentionally because the attackers believe the ”neutrals” will side with the ”wrong” side, is very high. So once they are attacked, you can come in and proclaim yourself as their defender and get more people on your side!
Though, maybe you need to attack them first; after all, what is the difference between neutral parties in a civil war and the enemy in a civil war? Time. Remember, the people are your pieces in the game of war and power!
They spoke to me of friends
A friend in need is a friend indeed! Who are your friends in a civil war? Well, depends on who you side with! Honestly, no one is really a good friend inside the nation as they have a large amount of incentives to try to settle things as early as possible; no good for your power wanting plans!
But you know who you can count on to help you? Outsiders! Well, depending on a few criteria. The first and most important thing for external friends is this… What do you have to offer? In politics, you have friends only so long as you are useful to the desires of said friends. It can be oil, magical crystals, strategic position, literally anything you can imagine. In the Cold War, it was siding ideologically to show which side was better! If you don’t have this, no outsider will care if you burn yourself to the ground.
So you have something to give, now what? Well, you have to convince those outsiders that want what your nation has to give that your side is exactly the one that they want in power to get it. How do you do that? The dance of politics! My father used to say, ”The art of politics is to be able to tell someone to go to hell and they look forward to the journey.” And to get people on your side, you have to be that skilled.
So you have something to give and convince them that you are just the side to give it. Now they will send in the troops! Hold your horses, you pickled peanut! Most nations are unwilling to send their own people; it is not popular at home to send people to die in other wars that are not affecting the home, and it also looks bad internationally, or interstellarly. It can give your enemy’s side a point to tell your benefactor’s enemies to get more from them and even outright declare war, and, well, it can escalate quickly, and suddenly we have a huge war that no one wanted. They will be sending you supplies, lots of weapons, skills, and money (but mostly weapons), to help you fight your war, and as long as you can keep those things flowing in, your morale will stay high! Unless you royally screw this up!
Right and wrong are just words
Things have escalated, and the war is imminent, or it might even have started, early on or further into it, but you’re a key, a person, some random arse protagonist in a story or figure in worldbuilding. How do you pick your side? After all, if you’re not with any side, you’re the enemy of all sides… Hopefully not, but let’s be honest, people quickly go to the ”Either you’re with us or against us” mentality regardless of how dumb it is.
If you are a key, the need to pick a side is very imminent, and depending on how big of a key you are, you can literally make the difference between the civil war happening or not. Though you clearly aren’t that important, or this blogpost wouldn’t exist. If you are like most keys, the choice is whichever is most likely to benefit you and your family. And here is the dirty secret: power is nasty and dark. So to save your own behind, you will likely have to kick a few babies to survive this no matter what side you pick. So you have to pick your poison and decide which devil you sleep with for this long night.
If you are a more generic person of no big concern, the choice can be just as brutal. Maybe you live in your town or village peacefully when the army comes in and ravages the place because the other side was coming or any number of things, and now you have to choose to side with those that killed your own, or the other side… We both know which you pick, no matter how ”just” you genuinely think the attacker was.
Even if you allow it just to be ideological, and that is the factor by which people pick sides, it will still destroy you. Your family will choose different sides; the violence has not yet reached them, but as it starts coming and the war becomes more intense, they will, as all humans, dig in on the choice they made ideological over changing positions. Well, sometimes they change, but that is unfortunately rare.
Within the same blood, it will flow upon the streets as parents turn against children, siblings against siblings, and children against parents.
Rebuilding on blood drenched land
It’s been years, might even be decades, but the civil war is over. One side and those keys came to be on top. Families have been shattered and destroyed. Towns and cities lie in ruin. What happens now?
The keys that won have to re-establish themselves and fill in the roles of keys that they lost in the war. Though you, my dear reader, would be amazed how few are left on the losing side. Keys are powerful, and as much as they might go to war, those less attached to one side will keep an olive branch ready for the other side, and at the right time, jump ship to go to the other side that is now winning for certain. So make certain in your world that the amount of missing keys on the losing side is less than one would expect; you don’t go getting rid of all of the keys as that signals all keys around that they might be in danger… And we are back to square one. An olive branch always makes it easier to win because they won’t feel like they have nothing to lose if they continue.
But even that is not the end; the powers outside will want the payment you promised, and sure enough, you can say ”Fuck off” and do nothing, but you are significantly weakened now and need allies. And you don’t want to give them reasons to try to dethrone you the same way they helped you get/keep the power! So whatever industries are relevant to what you promised are some of the earliest that must get back up.
Sure, the people matter too, but you know, they don’t matter THAT much! But once you have enough, you might rebuild all the other stuff too, get people working again so they can pay taxes and work for you. Without them working, you don’t have as much to tax and people to wield your power over! But it is all going to cost a lot, and your keys now, if you gained the power, will be expecting more after all of this.
A forest never burns only once
The big thing for a lot of civil wars in the aftermath is dealing with the initial causes, which can be done easily in one way. You kill all the keys that had the issues that caused it. But as I said, that can be very costly and not worth it in the long run as you need to try to unite the country once more and killing the old will only spark people to return to fighting or keep fighting to the bitter end.
So how does one deal with it? A hard question; the initial issues have to be dealt with somehow. If the civil war was sparked by people and keys feeling that they are getting diminished power, then making certain that they have their fair share of power is a sure way to prevent them from rebelling again. If it is ideological, it can be much harder because telling someone their ideology is wrong only makes them clamp down harder than a finger trap on the wrong appendage on guys.
The only way to deal with this is long term and work hard on changing people's views. This is a long term goal that can take generations, and in the meantime, you will have to find something else to unite around to keep the lid on this cooker until the stew is ready. If you cannot find something to unite around, the second civil war will come far too soon, and outsiders will help make it all boil over by hurling more wood into the fire.
Summa Summarum
Civil wars are complicated beasts, and Anne wanted me to cover more, but I felt those things can be done more in a more generic post on those specific topics. But the key thing to take from a civil war here is that with my definition—keys and their dissatisfaction—is a primary thing when it comes to civil wars.
If the keys are not actively participating, it is not a proper civil war, and they are fighting for their own sakes. It is not the people but the keys that fight, and the people are the pawns in the grand strategy game called politics.
When a civil war finally breaks out, it is one that has been in the making for a long time, and the keys have known in general it has been coming for a time, but it is rare that anyone knows until it happens when it will happen. And of course, outsiders will play a role as they can supply what is needed.
But civil wars are great for stories because they easily turn families against each other and are very emotionally charged when people start picking different sides. While I have implied in this blogpost that there are only two camps in a civil war, and most often there are, it can have many more sides and camps. Keys can splinter off for many reasons if they think they have a chance.
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