Dravot's Axioms

Dravot's Axioms is the name given to the sayings and utterances recorded of Liv Dravot-Osman, the Imperial Mother, during her rebellion against her son's government led by the Steward, the the Count Palatine of Kezan.

It took a little while to collate from the singed papers recovered from her apartments in Teldrin after her demise.

Dravot's Axioms form part of Livism.

Dravot's Axioms

1. Confronting adverse realities:
   1. If at first you don't succeed, apply blunt object trauma until the definition of success revises itself in view of changed circumstances;
   2. Facts are recorded by humans. Humans are susceptible to pain. The truth therefore may be subject to revision, if facts are corrected with sufficient vigour.
   3. In retrospect it was not entirely wise to say "This is not my fault. I was only issuing orders".
2. Statecraft:
   1. Like a highwayman, the state must maintain the air of blameless innocence between the times of dragging victims into the undergrowth to despoil and dismember, similarly the site of these atrocities must be varied, lest travellers elect to favour a different road.
   2. The personal enjoys precedence over the political; find that with embarrasses and shames a person and you will observe how quickly their political self falls into accord with your will.
3. Society:
   1. Humans, as animals, exist to perform their function; to work, to breed, and to die. Those who prove incapable in the first two stages may be encouraged to proceed directly to the last.
   2. The fear of god is rather like money, it only has value so long as people are incapable of imagining living their lives without it.
   3. All crime has its roots in desire.
   4. No person who remains childless above the age of thirty can retain an unqualified right to life.
   5. The history of empire, of all empires, is simply told: a nation devours whole nations so as to sate its appetite, and is - in turn - consumed from the inside out by the writhing mass of parasites it has ingested, until all that is left is spoilt meat for the worms. This is the summation of history, and it is glorious.