Well, its about 10:30 here and my house is being pummeled with rain and lightning so I figured I might as well post a blog instead of you know, sleep. Because of my avid love of strategy games and the fact that I have run my fair share of world-conquering gambits in my mind, I really took into consideration as to what my perfect utopian empire would be. The reason as to why I did not simply say my "utopian society" was probably because A: A really utopia on Earth is complete bullocks (look on Peace has gone to Pieces) and B: What is the point of conquering the world if you don't really need to?

Though I haven't really set criteria for myself such as land, population, and the like I have limited myself to starting at one continent to begin with and expand from there. For reference purposes, lets say this would take place inthe mid 1500's CE or so, and the countries that I choose to inhabit first would be completely clean of any historical ties andwould be made under my direct control. Oh, and also beforesomebody gets somestrange ideas that I would want to pursue a military career, you can just very well stop. In fact, I hate the Idiot Patrol with every living fiber of my being, indeed, I wrote a livid and ranting ragenot too long ago about them and my reasons as to why. I don't I'll go posting that unless I descend into a maniacal fury and my mercy isat a premium. I merely enjoy the sheer enjoyment of conquest and battle. To sum it up, I am fascinated with war and all of its miserable failures, yet also disgusted at those who help wage it.

My first set ofland would have to be the "finger states" which consist of Finland, Sweden, and Norway because of the impeccable geographic advantages that could be exploited. First off, my empire can literally, punch Europe in the face by splitting the three "fingers" into three separate invasion forces and simultaneously taking out a trio of potential European superpowers, namely, England, Germany (Prussia), and Russia. Because of the shared border, forces from Finland should be able to simply march into northern Russia and take the area surrounding the White Sea with little resistance, from there the Finnish fleet could easily help surround where Arkhangel'sk is today and swiftly seize any of the countryside to the east and eventually catch St. Petersburg in a pincer from both sea and land. The enormous timber resources claimed from the conquest would certainly help fuel the attack on England next.

Of course, everybody knows that at one point, the British had complete control over the seas, however, their dominance over the land would be somewhat limited, after all, the more modern United Kingdom did not become established until about 1707, so Scotland and Ireland would still be at odds with England and would undoubtedly aid this new superpower in toppling their hated enemy. The way I see it, is that if the Norwegian fleet were to launch from a more northern port, theycould effectively avoidBritish warships altogether and slip through theOrkney islands into the northern British isles. There, the Scottish (maybe Irish too?) would join forces with us and after moving south stopping atsomewhere around Liverpool, we would simply begin to lay siege to southern England, London in particular. During this time, the invasion of Russia would have (hopefully) been completed and with a substantial addition to our lumber caches, we could easily create massive amounts of ship to break trade lines between the Netherlands or France and eventually sweep into the British capital once they were weak. Although I have considered employing French pirates to do the dirty work or maritime pillaging for me, I doubt that the French would be so eager to trade one superpower rival for another.

Right, so now for the hard/easy part. the invasion of Prussia. The contradiction in the last statement was a necessary one, as it entails the struggles to come, or not, meh... I suppose it depends on what's going down in Prussia that day. Theoretically the invasion of Prussia could be very easy if I could simply either unite, rally, or conquer the rather small and undefended independent kingdoms that covered the German countryside which would undoubtedly increase our fighting power in the immediate area. However, Prussia itself might not be all too excited that a foreboding empire has made itself cozy on its doorstep. Though I do not know the situation with Denmark in the 1500s I think i can say that it was not part of Prussia, therefore should logically belong to Sweden from the start 8). With this in mind I find it unsettling how difficult it would be to simply conquer or lay siege to such a power as Prussia, even with the smaller kingdoms at our backs. However, those little dots of royal power that we have just subjugated may be incredibly useful. After all, they are still somewhat German right? (I think) That being said, I don't think it would be horribly far-fetched to employ a few willing persons to act as espionage agents or spies to infiltrate Prussia society and royalty until, through a series of assassinations, blackmails, or sabotage, the country goes into total upheaval. Hey here's an idea, acquire a French flag, rifle and sword, give them to a very special spy, and have them kill an equally important (general or duke) figurehead with said rifle and sword and plant the flag on his body... Yeah, that will certainly stir some things up.

Uh... Yeah, so France can just sort of chill for all I can, maybe I can use another sabotage plan onthem, except use the Spanish as the aggressors. The real point of conquering Prussia and Russia is to claim all of Eastern Europe. Not only were they rather under-developed at the time (and today) but there is literally AND figuratively, a gold mine of raw materials to be exploited in Eastern Europe. This includes timber, coal, iron, silver, gold and all that other good stuff and if push came to shove, I could very well juts whittle down France through attrition and eventually beat the crap out of Spain in a similar mannerism. However, I very much dislike attrition battles so I think I'll stick to how I play. Moving on and wrapping up concerning the society itself, I think that it would hold many characteristics with Alexander the Greats Empire (he was Great for a reason you know). Meaning that, when a country was conquered, nobody would force the natives to give up their rights and freedoms or religion, instead both cultures would become infused to further promote unity and stability. Regardless though, my created religion would most certainly be Polytheistic. Not only because of my emotional attachment to the subject, but again, when a country is conquered, their culture is not destroyed, rather, they are integrated with a certain god or goddess that more or less becomes a symbol of that area.

Hmm... well its about 11:13 now and I still have school tomorrow (ah crap). So I think I'll finish this up with a bit of symbolism/cliffhanger. My Imperial symbol would be The Orange Rose, yeah I'll be sure to go into that one in depth later.

Frayed nerves and broken bones do not a weak man make. Yes, yes, but being tired is only natural.