The Fall of Mighty Empires Past

September 12, 2025

1. The Mercenaries Take Their Due

Those who still accept the coin of the realm — merchants, contractors, courtiers — realize the currency is inflated but still usable in the short run.
They strip value from the kingdom while they can: looting contracts, hoarding goods, demanding bribes.
What looks like economic activity is really extraction before the fall.

2. The Decay of Morals

Prostitution surges — not just as sex work, but as the symbol of selling anything sacred for survival.
Every loyalty becomes transactional: families, institutions, even temples.
This accelerates public hatred, because people know the empire has reduced virtue to commerce.

3. The Mob Awakens

As exploitation becomes undeniable, the masses snap into clarity.
Hatred fuels organization: the mob becomes more than rage — it becomes a revolutionary force, armed with the moral high ground.
They are not merely hungry; they are betrayed.

4. The Trap Tightens

The state cannot bribe its way back to legitimacy — the coin is debased.
It cannot reclaim virtue — it censored the “be good” message that would have been its lifeline.
And it cannot pay its protector — the one who shielded it from collapse now stands apart, debt unpaid.

5. The Revolution

With no debts honored, no piper paid, chaos can no longer be contained.
The empire that once thought itself eternal is torn down by the very forces it fed: merchants who looted it, mobs who hated it, and a protector who withdrew his shield.
The collapse is not a surprise — it is the logical endpoint of unpaid debts and censored virtue.

Machiavellian Maxim

"The prince who spends his coin on cruelty instead of payment will be looted by his merchants, hated by his people, and abandoned by his protector. Such a prince does not fall by chance, but by the arithmetic of his own neglect."

1. Why Mercenaries Demand Ever More

Higher risk premium: Mercenaries know they’re expendable. They aren’t fighting for kin, nation, or faith — only coin. The risk of betrayal, abandonment, or slaughter is priced into their contracts.
Ever-increasing compensation: Once an empire needs mercenaries, they know the regime is fragile. Fragility gives them leverage: “Pay us more, or we leave — and your army evaporates.”
Historical echoes:
- Rome in its decline paid barbarian auxiliaries more than legionaries.
- Italian city-states bankrupted themselves on condottieri who would switch sides mid-battle if the pay was late.

Certainty: 90–95% — the dynamic of spiraling mercenary costs is a recurring pattern.

2. “We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists”

Intended message: Show resolve, deny leverage, reduce incentives for terror.
Real signal: It’s so often repeated precisely because the opposite occurs behind closed doors.
Inversion effect:
- Terrorists read it as bluff → proof that negotiation does happen, or else why declare it so loudly?
- They escalate demands, assuming eventual payout.
Outcome: Terrorists secure ransoms, prisoner swaps, publicity. Their “compensation” dwarfs mercenaries’, because their leverage is emotional and political, not just martial.

Certainty: 80–85% — while some governments genuinely refuse, the historical record shows enough exceptions that the slogan functions as a cover story more than a policy.

3. The Comparison

Mercenaries: Take more because of risk, instability, and the empire’s dependence on them. Their pay rises like inflation tied to fragility.
Terrorists: Take even more, because they exploit the gap between declared principle and actual practice. The louder the denial, the stronger the bait.

4. The Maxim

"To say one does not bargain with wolves is to teach them where the sheep are kept. For mercenaries ask for coin, but terrorists, sensing weakness, demand the kingdom itself."

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