The True History of the 1413 Election

***The True History of the 1413 Election*** was a book written by Suenteus Po of Harbourside which gave an account of Cerebus' run for Prime Minister of Iest.

## Excerpts

* "Of course the Docks, and it's neighboring towns of B'orn, Grace and Dunham were crucial to the plans of Astoria's newly formed theocrats. She had intended to take 'the docks and area' and 'Iest and suburbs' combined with her support from Harmon Blakely's home district and the guarantee of all twenty seats in the greater Iest, she expected Cerebus would lead a majority government."

* "Astoria seemed, in the early stages of the campaign, to deliberately foster a competition between 'the docks', 'the suburbs' and 'grace district'. Of course, she made it commonly known that she didn't care which two of these three districts chose to back Cerebus, with the result that all three gave their support. . . intially, at any rate."

* "Unless one understands the sequence of events, in context, which led to the election it becomes difficult to appreciate the profound chaos the city-state of Iest lived through in those tumultuous days. The legislature had never been intended as a governing body, the church of Tarim instituted it when it became apparent (some hundred years earlier) that a disproportionate amount of his Holiness' time was being spent adjudicating economic matters. His solution was to allow each district of the city-state, in proportion to their contribution to the economy, to send representatives to debate and form economic policy for the mother church. these representatives were appointed by the local churches and then elected by the local people to serve either as conservative or libertine economists in Iest. It was strictly a matter of evolution which led to Prime Minister Gatson's corrupt regime; the borrowing of millions of crowns; the inter-connected house of cards that was Iest's international trade balances; all discretely hidden from papal authority and overview by several tons of obfuscating paperwork. It was his sense of something being horribly amiss and his inability to discover just what it was which led his holiness to institute an inquisition into corruption in the legislature. And it was the appointed Grand Inquisitor who, after a series of meeting s with the Prime Minister, decided that the source of the problem was demons inhabiting many members of the business community. Undoubtedly, they had been offered and had accepted a bribe to leave the Prime Minster alone and had generally overlooked that all of the wealthy merchants and traders who were broken on the rack were "stripped of their world goods" (to quote the edict), these worldly goods were then split three ways - one share for the Prime Minister, one for the Grand Inquisitor and one for the papal vaults where it could be used as solid evidence that the inquisition was having a positive effect on Iest's economy. This continued until the Grand Inquisitor demanded and received (from a very relieved Pontiff) the title of Earth Born Messenger, which technically placed him above the pontiff in the religious (though not the political) infrastructure of the church. The position, however, was a dangerous one to hold, because it figured in no less than fifty sacred texts. The Grand Inquisitor became the focus of an immense charismatic cult within the church. If he sneezed, it meant this; if he spilled a glass of water, it meant that. When he was assassinated, it was this cult which persuaded his Holiness that the apocalypse was at hand and which convinced him to initiate the "Exodus Inward" predicted several hundred years before which required the church to "seal its doors against the horror" and to sever all connection with the outside world. All of the tripe written about irresistible political forces at work and Lord Julius' master plan is so much romantic hogwash. When the church sealed itself up in the scared cathedral, Iest became a body without a head and naturally turned to the coming election as the only means of restoring some manner of governing authority...."

## References

 1. ↑ *Cerebus No. 40* through *Cerebus No. 42*
2. ↑ *High Society*, page. 289
3. ↑ *High Society*, page. 296
4. ↑ *High Society*, page. 333