[Sca-cooks] Re: Food-related Meta-Issue

[Daniel Phelps]

Greetings:

I've out of touch for a week, motoring about on a 40 foot boat in the Gulf
of Mexico and upon returning have read the posts re this thread and find the
subject interesting.  Checks and balances in the SCA generally address the
foibles of regal transgressors of "noblesse oblige".  People know that they
will be king for only 6 months and that after that they have to live with
those that were formerly their subjects.  Those that don't see the light are
ultimately blinded by the flash.  I've seen crowns spend their second reigns
mending fences from their first.  The more egregious transgressors of
Corpora are reined in by the BOD.  I've seen that happen too.

Now about setting up an "alternative" I've a tangential suggestion that
might amuse, the SCA equivalent of the late period "Holy Roman Emperor"...
no real "power" just prestige.  We could have qualifying tourneys at major
wars open only to those that became royal Peers and sitting Royalty by their
own hands. Such would culminate in a final tourney at some selected major
war or perhaps that war itself where in the winner decides whom is to be
Emperor(es)/Tsar(ina)/High King(Queen)/ for that tournament cycle.  Some of
the upsides of this suggestion are that it would give royal peers something
to aspire to beyond sitting on their respective kingdom thrones yet again
and it would provide an interesting coherence to the yearly cycle of
inter-kingdom wars.  The downsides include that it would require alterations
of Corpora, if only to accommodate such into the existing structure.  A
major stumbling block would be defining an acceptable relationship of
sitting royalty and their prerogatives to such, that and defining what
prerogatives, if any, the Emperor(es)/Tsar(ina)/High King(Queen)'s would
have.

I'm not at all sure that this idea could fit into our structure but it might
be fun.

Daniel