The next day came as promised and as was my habit when the Grand Parliament was in session, I watched the proceedings from a safe and comfortable place. The Grand Parliament did not meet in a large room, but rather in a large open area that sat on a plateau below the Templo Mayor as well as the mountain fastness where the Exilarch had his cave-fortress. On the side of the mountains there were a large amount of flats set up, and it was in these flats that the members of the Grand Parliament resided when it was their time to serve the people. The rest of the year they resided in their home areas and got to know the needs of the people and see conditions in their particular Amphoe. (I know that term may be unfamiliar to you, but it is the district where government services are that serves as the basis for the political districts of Bravia, which have fixed borders–one Amphoe, one vote in the House of Amphoes. For what it’s worth, the term seems to have picked up by the Bravians over the course of their wanderings.

Besides the representatives of the Amphoe, there were the royal governors of the provinces, who sat in a higher chamber that also included the chief members of the royal establishment, the leaders of the military, the high priest and his associates, and the leaders of various professional guilds, which sat in a body that we would consider the Senate or something like it. Although this higher house had a great deal of influence given the power of the people in it, laws could not be started in this higher council, and so the lower ranking representatives of the large number of Amphoe across the spread of Bravian territory were the most important people, as it would be their behavior that would set the process of passing laws and spending government expenditures in motion

The various members of the Grand Parliament sat in their seats on the plateau and the members of the cabinet as well as the three representatives of the Fremen came before them. “Esteemed members of the Grand Parliament. We have received a call for help from brethren that we have not known who live across the Southern Sea and who are seeking a refuge from the wars that they have faced. What they ask of us will require a lot of effort on our part to develop the area of the delta of the Eastern River and so I thought it worthwhile for them to introduce themselves and what they ask of us so that we may answer the call of Bravia’s children,” stated the Prime Minister. “I would like to introduce for you now Musa Ben Eleazar, who is the First Minister and leader of these people, who call themselves Fremen, and are the descendants of Bravian fathers who traveled to settle some trading posts across the Southern Sea and the local people there they intermarried with who sought freedom and elevation from the oppression they had long known in that land.”

“Greetings, representatives. I come to you all as a stranger to you but someone who has a deep tie to your people. My name is Musa Ben Eleazar, and my colleagues here and I hail from the land of ___________, where our people was formed from the union between Bravian traders who settled in the trading posts on the northern coasts of that land and the local women. For years we lived at peace, with our people becoming free men and women while Bravians made a considerable amount of money and gained a lot of land. Eventually, however, a ruler arose who saw this as a threat to his rule, and so he cowardly attacked us without warning. Our people were able to defend themselves and to protect themselves within the trading posts, but so much damage was done to the countryside around those posts that we have been unable to return to the work that we knew before, and we are quite unsafe outside of the trading posts still. With our people in serious need of land, I was sent to request of your Exilarch for some land, and he informed me that it would require the consent of many others. Just yesterday, my colleagues and I spoke with the Royal and Parliamentary Cabinet, and the result was a comprehensive set of tasks that would need to be done to make the region selected suitable for us as a home in the long-term. What we wish to do is to receive permission to leave and have towns prepared for our return with our people. At that point we can continue work as more needs to be done later on.”

At this, a representative stood up from Low Bravia and looked at Musa. “Do you know which Eleazar you are the son of?”

Musa replied. “I do not know which Eleazar he would be to you. One of the difficulties we face in understanding ourselves is that so far we have not seen the records tying our fathers back to their people here. We only know who we are descended from in the area of the trading posts, but that is something that we will look to solve with the help of our fellow Bravians shortly.”

A representative from the outskirts of Freeport Bravia stood up to speak. “I do not have any issues with your seeking refuge with us, and I think it is good to hear that we will finally be developing the Delta region of the Eastern River, as it is has remained a swampy place for far too long. My question is for the government in order to ascertain whether the costs for this development have been fully enumerated.”

The Prime Minister stood up to reply. “We are working out the precise details, but there are at least three sorts of expenses we are dealing with. The initial transport of the Fremen from the Bravian trading posts to the new province, which we propose to be called the Eastern Delta Province, as well as the initial construction of the wharves and the platting of the new settlements, we can do with currently allotted funds from some of our departments. These will be accounted for in our annual report to you all. There is a second group of expenses, notably the construction of the towns, port facilities, fortresses, and a capital for the province to be located, which will require further requisitions that will apply to next year’s budget. While I do not think this will be a problem in terms of its amounts, we wish both to place these issues before you for you to debate and to receive your consent. Third, there will be ongoing expenses relating to the training of the Fremen militias to be compatible with our own troops, as well as the moral and intellectual education of the Fremen people, and also the infrastructure in terms of roads and railways that is to be constructed into the region to link into our network and those with our allies in the region. These expenses and this effort, as well as the acceptance of the Fremen into the Bravian nation, will require the consent of the people at large, and so a referendum or series of referenda will be undertaken to ascertain the will of the Bravian people in this matter. We were only introduced to the matter ourselves yesterday, but while we do not have all of the details yet as to the expenses, we do have a good idea of what we are getting into.”

“Thank you, that answers my concerns,” the representative replied.

With this, one of the representatives of the priests stood up to speak. “I direct my questions to the High Priest. Do we wish to accept these people into our own commonwealth without investigation or will a thorough test be made as to their claims to be Bravian?”

The High Priest stood up to speak. “Far be it from me to accept claims like these without tests. We proposed, and the Fremen people accepted, a three part test to determine their place within the Braivan people. Yesterday, in the cabinet meeting, I conducted the first test of the Umim and Thummim to determine several questions relating to their identity so that we were able to get the knowledge of God as to their general identity, and this test determined that the Fremen people are the children of Bravian fathers and do have within them some Zadokite lines who will be trained for their places in the Bravian priesthood. That said, we also tested and found that there was no royal blood, although we have agreed that the father of one of the representatives here will serve as the royal governor in the new province as he is the head of state for the people, even if he is not of royal blood. I hope this answers your concerns.”

“It does, Your Grace,” the priest said, bowing slightly before sitting down.

With this one of the representatives for what was tentatively titled the Over-The-Eastern-River Province stood up to speak. “Do the plans for the development of the Eastern River Delta region hinder at all the ongoing plans to build up the Over-The-Eastern-River Province?”

At this the Secretary For The Interior stood up. “We are aware that the efforts to develop two provinces simultaneously present a heavy burden on the attention and resources of our people. However, at this time we do not believe that efforts to develop the Eastern River Delta region will hinder at all our ongoing efforts at development in your own region. Some of the expenses involved in creating infrastructure to the Delta region will accelerate the infrastructure already being built in your region, by providing another direction for roads and railways to go and a less expensive outlet to the ports for your goods as well as travelers. Similarly, as the population of this new area will come from the existing Bravian trading posts–who will be asked to contribute their fair share of help in setting up the trade posts of the new towns as well as contributing to the expenses and labor involved in this development–and will not require any diversion from the population of settlers moving into your province, we do not think that it will slow down the filling of your province and its development into new Amphoe.”

“That is a relief to hear,” said the representative, who appeared to be a bit of a backwoods type compared to some of the others who had previously spoken.

At this, a representative from the province of Southeast Bravia stood up. “Do we know what the boundaries of the new province are to be, and how they will affect my province?”

At this, the Prime Minister stood up. “Looking at the maps, we have proposed that the border of the provinces is to be just east of Port Esperance at the very western edge of the Dismal Swamp region that has remained as undeveloped. We also plan on using Port Esperance as a launching point for roads, railroads, as well as shipping into the new Province, as it is the closest city to the new region that has been fully developed. After that, we plan on connecting the new Provinces through New Port Cumberland once that city has been fully developed along with its river port on the Eastern River at the Southwestern edge of the Over-The-Eastern-River Province.”

“I think this will be acceptable to our people, but at the same time I expect that the province will be voting on this matter?”

“Yes, they will,” the Prime Minister said. “We are not using this situation, as surprising as it is, to overturn any of our societal norms relating to the need for popular consent for such decisions. In the coming days, weeks, and months, there will be a variety of laws to pass as well as referenda for the people of the nation as a whole as well as specific provinces to discuss and vote upon.”

“That will be a relief to our constituents, and I am sure that of many other areas,” the representative said to a general murmur of agreement.

There was, of course, further business to discuss, but the representatives of the Fremen people at this point left with a wave and a standing ovation from the Grand Parliament, and as most of the other matters to discuss were far more mundane, I decided to retire to my room as well as ponder what I had seen. Such a scene as I saw in the Grand Parliament would never happen in our nation, Dread Sovereign. This was the third of at least four or five stages of consent that needed to be obtained for a policy, and in our nation we would have at most the first two of them. It was interesting to see how much consent was required in order for the government to act. People came to the Exilarch seeking for something to be done, and he patiently involved the royal and Parliamentary cabinet to discuss matters and figure out what needed to be done. I could see all of that happening with you, for you are a wise enough ruler to accept the need for good counsel when making difficult and costly decisions. I cannot see, though, our people having elected representatives brought in to ask difficult questions for government officials to answer, potentially putting them to shame in front of the political body of the nation. I was impressed with how the questions were answered honestly and with clear evidence of thinking by the government, but at the same time our leaders would never subject themselves to such treatment by elected representatives, some of whom come from tiny places nearly entirely bereft of culture and civilization, and deeply concerned with a myriad of petty concerns like the borders of backwater rural provinces or the growth of hicktowns.

And that is not even getting to the most outrageous portion of it, that ordinary people, who are certainly less elevated than the representatives I saw, getting to choose who belonged to their people and on what terms. It is inconceivable that a nation which is ruled by a wise and capable ruler like the Exilarch, whose judgement and wisdom are excellent and who has decades of recognized and accomplished leadership of his people behind him, allows its major policies to require the approval of millions of peasants and villagers and town folk. This is precisely what the leaders of __________ see as such a threat to their nation with the Fremen acquiring some aspect of Bravian ways from their fathers, even without knowing the ins and outs of Bravian culture as a whole. Any nation which allows the Bravian people to gain a high degree of land as well as permission to operate according to its own laws and customs presents an appealing target too good to resist for the ordinary people of any of the lands we have ever engaged with. For such common people to be given such a high degree of power and authority is something that threatens every state, and somehow the Bravians consent to it, trusting in the ability of their leaders to pursuade the populace to support what is needful and proper and trusting that their people are wise and discerning enough to know and act on what is good for them. Few rulers have such trust or any realistic hope that such a trust could be rewarded.

Yet, at least so far, this trust has been rewarded by the Bravian people, who despite being a nation of refugees that is fairly new to the region, have exploded in power and population to such an extent that every nation around what they call the Southern Sea as well as those nations on their own continent have to reckon with their explosive growth. Admittedly, a large part of their growth comes from the generally low burdens that government places upon them and their fondness for settling free land that is sold to its citizens on easy terms. The ease of acquiring land in Bravia, whether that is a townhouse in the city or a home with a large garden plot just outside of towns or farmland in more rural areas, has made it possible for Bravians to basically dispense with any pretense to supporting population-limitation. This has allowed Bravian population to explode as its people settle just about every piece of land that it can access by sea or land and has drastically shaped the demographics of a widening area, all of which makes Bravia a nation whose ways must be taken about of. It is likely that we would never think to make a treaty with Bravia apart from its massive population growth, and its ability to grow through merging with other peoples and changing the legal and cultural aspects of other lands is something that we and other nations must pay close attention to. It is easy to want the wealth provided through fair Bravian trading, but in the absence of a native middle class, Bravians will fill that middle space in such a way that threatens to overturn without conscious intention the traditional structures of the nations where they live, and that is something we must recognize and try to counteract in a way that does not offend the Bravians themselves. For while they act very slowly, they act very decisively once they do act. I will have more to say about that shortly in very confidential addendum to this dispatch.