Garry LaPaix

Garry LaPaix giving a speech while on the campaign trail

**Garry LaPaix** was the 60th Serene Doge of Aeldrum, holding the office beginning in 530 A.U..

## History

### Early Life

Garry LaPaix was born to a Struthil family of minor nobility, the son of a wealthy elvish father and a half-elvish mother (who was herself the niece of Francis Mervodan, Aeldrum's Secretary of the Treasury during the late 4th century). Garry's father, Soren LaPaix, made a fortune amid the ethernet technology boom of the 5th century (primarily through his startup company LaPaixPal), propelling the LaPaix family upward into the ranks of Struthil's nouveau riche.

LaPaix's childhood in a proudly mixed-race family with a political legacy, combined with the opportunities granted by the family's newfound wealth, allowed him to enter Aeldman politics as a champion of liberalization right around the time of the Serene Duchy's post-Second Coalition War political readjustments and devolution crisis.

### Political Career

LaPaix began his career in local Struthil politics before making his way to the national stage, becoming a member of Serene Parliament in the late 400s. As a liberal-leaning member of Aeldrum's Industrialist coalition, LaPaix supported a policy of independence for former Aeldman colonial holdings in parallel with greater economic integration throughout the Aeldman sphere, and continued the Industrialist legacy of strong collaboration with the Industrial-State Cooperatives.

Alongside his traditional industrialist economic outlook, LaPaix worked to establish a reputation for himself as a social progressive, working toward greater enfranchisement and political influence for the non-wealthy, non-noble, and non-elvish citizens of the Serene Duchy. He was outspoken in his belief that strict social and racial hierarchies were incompatible with a fully modern 6th-century superpower, and made many appeals to his "Uncle Frank" having championed human rights, and to his own mixed-race identity (and after 530 A.U., to his status as the first non-(purebred)-elvish Serene Doge).

This progressive posture was aided by LaPaix's affinity for, and efficient use of, modern technology and social media, often in stark contrast with Aeldrum's stereotypically old-fashioned and geriatric leadership. While his liberal and culturally modernized posture ensured him a stong base of support among younger and non-elvish demographics, still many of LaPaix's critics from the left dismissed these aspects of his demeanor as mere pretension, seeing them as a politically expedient affectation in order to provide cover for the same old conservative agenda.

### Serene Dogeship

*See also: Grand Strategy 2*
Despite his eventual victory, LaPaix had not initially been a preferred candidate in the 530 A.U. election for Serene Doge, even within his own party. Instead, he was ultimately elected as a compromise candidate in order to keep the Industrialist Party's minority partners in line and maintain a voting majority, a move carefully calculated to maintain tenuous Industrialist dominance over the fascism of the rival Secular Nationalist Party bloc.

## Personal Life

LaPaix was married to Chaster D'Argent, an elvish barrister and legal expert from Aeldrum Spire. Together they had two adopted daughters, the orcish Caelid LaPaix-D'Argent and the elvish Liurnia LaPaix-D'Argent, both of whom were teenagers at the time of their father's election to Serene Doge.

Though LaPaix did not profess any religious affiliation, he was outspoken in his support of religious tolerance, both generally and with regard to individual religious Aeldman politicians (partly in order to distance himself from the hard-line secularism of the Secular Nationalists).

LaPaix was known for being a fan of jazz music and was an accomplished saxophonist.

## Media

Garry LaPaix is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/serenedoge60 and on Mastodon at https://aeld.net/@serenedoge60

## Notes

1. ↑ Garry LaPaix technically held the title of *Lord*, a fact which he downplayed in pursuit of an appearance of egalitarianism, but which was often emphasized by both his opponents from the right (who tended to prefer that the Serene Doge bear a title of higher noble rank) and those from the left (who felt that any noble title undermined LaPaix's egalitarian pretensions).
2. ↑ Or rather, nouveau *ultra*-riche, given that the LaPaixes were already very wealthy and of noble pedigree. Their exponential gains during the ethernet boom didn't introduce them to the country club, but instead took them from the country club into the Empire Club.
3. ↑ The front-running candidate from within the Industrialist Party's core was, incidentally, Crispin Aefendt, the son of the late Serene Doge Bareth Aefendt. Crispin's popularity, even without command of a winning plurality, was at the center of much of the intra-party opposition to LaPaix's political platform during his tenure.