Marc Adlerówič Basileiów

Marc Adlerówič Basileiów is the current Chancellor of Mechyrdia. Elected on a platform of populism, Basileiów broke up several large monopolies that dominated Mechyrdia's entertainment, culture, and news industry, and legally forbade them from colluding with each other to influence Mechyrdian elections. Eckardt-Winckler, Shtam Seltasram, and many others were dissolved by state action. Basileiów also fortified the border with the Diadochi to the west, subsidized and encouraged private-citizen weapons ownership, and launched many public-works projects.

Early life

Marc Adlerówič Basileiów was born in the year 213 UC (2853 AD) to his parents Adler Arminówič Basileiów and Caþerina Caþerinówca Basileiówa on the planet Cosmopolis (now known as Patchwork), in the Vescar sector. Cosmopolis, at the time of Basileiów's birth, was a cesspit of crime and hedonism. Early in his adolescence, he became interested in the works of various statesmen and economists, such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe (an economist of the Austrian School), Klemens von Metternich (minister who orchestrated the Concert of Europe), and Kendar Hjavrar (Tylan professor of Earth history).

Local politics

Through his studies, the young Basileiów became immersed in an ideology from the late Age of Earth: neoreaction, abbreviated as NRx. In 232, Basileiów founded Mechyrdia's first local neoreactionary party. Naming his party Gold and Purple, for the colors of capitalism and monarchism, Basileiów campaigned on a radically pro-order platform. Considering the widespread crime on the planet, this won him a significant portion of the vote in the planet's legislative election in 234. In 236, Basileiów was elected governor of Cosmopolis.

Renaming the planet Patchwork, after the patchwork government proposed by neoreactionary ideology, Basileiów divided the planet administratively into thousands of small districts, delegating authority to district CEOs, and making these local executives held liable to wealthy district shareholders. Basileiów, along with several of his advisors, drafted a new constitution for Patchwork. This new constitution made many changes to the planetary government: renaming the seat of governor to "Chief Executive of Patchwork", this new office would be elected by local district CEOs, who could augment their vote share by paying money to the planetary government. This would, at least in theory, encourage executives of Patchwork's districts and planetary government to avoid making and enforcing tyrannical laws, as those would be too costly and impede generation of profit.

Return to private life

In the year 238 UC (2878 AD), Basileiów resigned as Chief Executive of Patchwork, considering his job done, and took up a career working for tech conglomerate Argus LLC. There, he invented a way to distribute quantum data across many datacenters, using a technology Basileiów named with the acronym DEPS-QuaDD (Dynamically Entangled Particle System - Quantum Data Distribution).

During his career in the tech field, Basileiów mellowed out on his political opinions, becoming much less of a radical neoreactionary and more of a fiscal conservative reformist. Seeing the inefficiency of a private company first-hand led Basileiów to realize that governments shouldn't be structured as corporations with shareholders, but simply have their power over the economy reduced to allow for private-sector competition. Basileiów would later disavow his governorship of Patchwork in a TV interview, realizing that what he did there was not the best thing he could have done, though he still admitted that he would run for Chancellor of Mechyrdia "only if things got bad enough". Also during this time, he read Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, and would later call it "a very dense book, but with a lot of good wisdom".

In 244 UC (2884 AD), Basileiów married his childhood friend from Cosmopolis, Metella Psecnówca Giucundówa. Since then, they have had two children, a son Quintus, and a daughter Lucia.

Founding the Freedom Party

In 245 UC (2885 AD), Basileiów founded the Freedom Party as a fiscally conservative faction in the Mechyrdian Senate. While ineligible to run in the 246 Senate elections due to a lack of popular support, in the 250 Senate elections, the Freedom Party gained a plurality of seats in the Senate, and so it formed a coalition with the Whig Party (the market liberal party) and the Imperial Party (the national conservatives).

This coalition enraged some members of the Whig Party, and so they split and formed the opposition Liberal Party, which is more socially-liberal where the Whig Party is more market liberal.

Career as Chancellor

In 252 UC (2892 AD), Marc Adlerówič Basileiów was elected Chancellor of Mechyrdia, in a massive upheaval in favor of populist ideology across the Empire. While most of the media is smearing the Chancellor as a tyrant, Basileiów has expressed that he wants to solve the problems that the country is facing by legitimate, legislative means, instead of forcing his reforms through via decree of the Chancellory.

Policies

Passed

These policies have been introduced, voted upon, and passed by the Senate and by the Chancellor himself.

• Addendum to the Marcanów Doctrine: Chancellor Basileiów proposed that when dealing with nations with which a war would be too destructive, that a better approach would be to limit their influence outside of their borders and keep them contained in an iron cage. This was in response to the Isarnareyksk Federation attempting to influence other former parts of Fulkreykk into restoring the Authoritariat.
• Abolition of executive nullification: Executive nullification was introduced into the Mechyrdian bureaucracy and law enforcement by the Whig Party: the idea that, since members of the executive branch are those enforcing the law, then if they find a law immoral, they can simply choose not to enforce it. One of Basileiów's first acts in office was to abolish this executive nullification, as he doesn't want bureaucrats legislating from the desk.
• Intervention against conquerors: Basileiów is emphasizing support for the Mechyrdian military, in order to intervene and force peace in extra-universal conflicts against imperialistic would-be conquerors. This is done for two reasons, the first being to prevent conquering empires from becoming too powerful, and the second being to boost Mechyrdia's diplomatic influence outside of its home universe. Despite this additional militarism, Basileiów has made it clear that he will not invade other nations for ideological differences. To provide additional justification of this policy, Basileiów has adapted the ages-old concept of Westphalian sovereignty to modern astropolitics: the idea of cuius regnum, eius regimen "whose realm, his ruling".
• Removal of the charity tax: The Whig Party installed a tax on charity, which they claimed was in order to promote a program of meritocracy. In reality, as discovered in leaks of internal party correspondences, it was to ensure the dominance of the Democratic Union's welfare system. Basileiów is removing this tax entirely.
• Decentralized sheriffdoms: Currently sheriffs are elected per-planet. Given that very few people know sheriff candidates personally, this makes those elections very susceptible to the influences of astropolitan finance. Basileiów plans to shrink the area of, and thus create more sheriffdoms, in order to not only increase the proportion of voters who know the sheriff personally, but also increase the amount of money required to influence elections for sheriff.
• Deregulation of the economy: When the Whig Party was in a coalition with the Democratic Union, it conceded several economic programs and regulations that, in the long term, only served to halt the decline of poverty and entrench monopolies in the market. Basileiów is removing these regulations, in order to allow the poverty rate to resume falling and reduce the power that monopolies have.

In the Works

These policies are currently either in the process of being implemented, or up for debate and voting in the Senate.

• Fortification of the Diadochi Border: The Diadochi, age-old remnants from the Arkant Horde, have proven to be a problem to Mechyrdia. Seeing the potentially-threatening rise of the Diadochus Masra Draetsen, Basileiów has decided to extend the Megaliów Line of starforts, minefields, and bulkspace snares, from just the Starkihet sector to covering the entire border to the galactic west. Facing opposition from left-wing parties in the Senate, Basileiów is now using the Navy's construction forces to build the star citadels.
• Breakups of international or anti-Mechyrdian monopolies: Under the Whigs' administration, many monopolies were influenced by the Ilkhan Commune and its remnant the Ilkhan Syndicate, the Fulkreyksk Authoritariat, and domestic Mechyrdian leftists in order to turn them covertly against Mechyrdian values. Basileiów is using old anti-trust legislation (ironically signed into effect in a concession to the Democratic Union) to break up the monopolies and reduce their power.
• Semi-privatization of government departments: Basileiów is implementing his idea to generate government revenue by alternative means: by turning various minor government departments into state-run businesses operating on the profit model and competing with private businesses of the same industry. The Chancellor says that this has two benefits: additional government revenue allowing for tax cuts, as well as making these departments more efficient due to competition.
• Public works projects: Basileiów is increasing government spending on public works projects to ensure the creation of jobs for the poor and unemployed. Projects such as the fortification of the western border, cleaning radiation in bulkspace to facilitate interstellar travel, and creation of civilian and military infrastructure, are all receiving increased attention. To fund this, Basileiów uses the profit generated by for-profit government institutions, such as the state option for healthcare, fast-lane wormholes for interstellar travel, state-owned luxury housing on Mechyrdia, etc.
• Encouragement of private weapons ownership: Basileiów sought to undo the damage that the Whigs and Democratic Union had done, and embarked on a subsidy and media campaign to encourage everyone to buy weapons for self-defense, attacking Diadochi raiders, and even potential revolution in the case of a future tyrannical government.
• Economic self-sufficiency: Basileiów has made it his personal goal to make Mechyrdia economically self-sufficient like it used to be. Using calculated tariffs and sanctions, the Chancellor is reducing the dependency Mechyrdia has on other nations, such as the oppressive Isarnareyksk Federation or the increasingly syndicalistic Ilkhan Republic.
• Elimination of Progressive Inclusion and Social Sanitization (PISS) spending: Basileiów eliminated PISS spending from the government budget entirely, and is making moves to restrict corporations' ability to alter Mechyrdia's social norms.

Personality and Beliefs

Childhood

In his childhood, Basileiów was known for mostly keeping to himself, as well as his accelerated skill in mathematics; he mastered algebra when he was 8 years old, and by age 12 was already learning single-variable calculus. He also had great technological aptitude, to the point where most of his friendships were made because Basileiów fixed his friends' devices.

However, he also had issues with anger back when he was a teenager; compounded with the fact that his family often used him for free tech support, the young Marc often found himself in trouble for getting mad at his elders. This changed when one of his friends suggested to him that he charge money for his computer repair services, which eventually helped Marc realize that he is in charge of his own destiny.

Basileiów then started looking into radical individualist politics; combined with the political problems plaguing his homeworld Cosmopolis, as well as his agreement with the politics of Mr. House (a character from an old Age of Earth video game), he came to the idea that the right autocracy is better at preserving individual liberty than democracy is. Hence, he sought the governorship of his homeworld, when he was as young as 19 years, and drastically reshaped its political structure.

Adulthood

Basileiów has a calm, reserved demeanor. Even when he gets angry, he doesn't shout, instead his voice becomes quieter than normal. He also doesn't get angry very often, reserving his anger for egregious offenses such as injustice: when crimes are brushed under the rug in the name of "protecting" the perpetrators from the consequences of their actions, Basileiów will act in rage, sometimes going as far as ordering the Mechyrdian military to enforce the law where such an injustice has happened.

Something else that sets Basileiów off is betrayal; when it was revealed to him that Lord Admiral Giósef Maximillianówič Čagateiów had planned to give Mechyrdian military secrets to the Diadochus Masra Draetsen, the Chancellor ordered the Lord Admiral to be brought before him, by force if necessary. Basileiów then had Čagateiów arrested; the former Lord Admiral was convicted of plotting to commit treason and aid Mechyrdia's enemies, and sentenced to death.

The Chancellor's goal in life is to serve the citizens of the Empire; he cares not for himself so long as the Mechyrdian people are treated with the fairness, justice, and respect for liberty that Basileiów values most of all. Combined with his support for the free market, Basileiów believes that the problem isn't money or class, but the imbalanced power granted to wealth by the way that democracy works. Despite his disdain for democracy, he isn't willing to abolish it yet, as the Chancellor doesn't believe that Mechyrdia is ready for an autocracy.

Despite his devotion to the people, Basileiów does have hobbies; usually he enjoys coding and developing games, as well as just playing them; his favorite genre is strategy, and he often spends much of his free time honing his talents in 3D chess, Kriegsspiel, or various space fleet combat simulations.

He also spends a significant amount of time each day reading literature and working out; currently Basileiów is reading Clausewitz's On War.

The Chancellor's favorite foods usually involve beef products: steak, beef ribs, beef bourginon, even just the simple cheeseburger.

He currently stands at 208 centimeters, or 6 feet and 9.9 inches tall.

Current Beliefs

Basileiów is a lot more mellow and less radical than he used to be as a teenager. While he keeps his mathematical and technological abilities from his youth, he has also become skilled in linguistics and knowledgeable in history, the latter he views through the lens of Spenglerian philosophy. Basileiów sees his leadership of Mechyrdia as fulfilling a similar historical role to Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus of the Roman Republic, that of a populist reformist who attempts to enact change through legal means.

Despite his perceived role, the Chancellor seeks to avoid making the mistakes of his predecessors. He is willing to go as far as becoming the Mechyrdian successor to Julius Caesar or American autocrat Jack Coleman, but only if he views it necessary.

Spenglerism and Capitalism

Basileiów, while he is both a Spenglerist and a capitalist, doesn't view the two as contradictory. He points out the populism of the late American Republic and early American Empire, and its deregulatory, free-market nature. Basileiów explains it as being the end of the struggle between two conflicting spirits of Faustian civilization: the Norse Viking, who by 1900 AD had become a merchant and businessman, and the Teutonic Knight, who by the turn of the 20th century had become a government administrator.

Since the second and third German Reichs, which had embodied the Knight mentality, lost their respective world wars to the Norse Viking-representing Anglo-American countries, the German nation could no longer produce a Caesarist movement. Rather, such a movement to bring Faustian civilization into its Imperial age would need to come from the United States. Indeed, the autocracy of Coleman was characterized by the libertarian capitalism that Spengler would describe as being of the Viking.

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