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

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.
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 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.