Conservative Party

The **Conservative Party** was a political party in the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum, active in the late 300s A.U. The Serene Doges Selash Luvelath, Leopold Orvhim, and Bareth Aefendt were all Conservative Party members.

## Party Policy

* **Foreign Policy**: Interventionist
* **Economic Policy**: Mercantilist (the Duchy protects Guilds, ATC, Plantations etc.)
* **Political Connections**: Caucuses with the Industrial Party, Core Supporter of the Serene Doge

## Constituency

* **Social Constituency**: Aristocratic
* **Planetary Constituency**: Aeldrum

In 395 A.U., the Conservative Party held 121 Parlimentary votes; 110 votes from Aeldrum, 11 votes from Core and Colony worlds.

## Factions

During the First Coalition War, the Conservative Party was divided into two distinct factions:

### Morweld Faction

The Morweld Faction was led by Sivelna Morweld and supported Serene Doges Leopold Orvhim and Bareth Aefendt, with political and financial resources from the Morweld family. Politically, the Morweld Faction represented "reform conservatism," emphasizing a proactive, militant Aeldman foreign policy and political as well as economic collaboration with Homer of Lidenia's Reform Party on matters of Aeldrum-core relations and technical development.

The Morwelds (and their cousins the Delvants) were highly influential, controlling several baronies and marquisates within the Aeldman parliament, as well as more unusual positions of influence, such as the Cardinal of Idolmar (Cardinal Morweld was Sivelna Morweld's favorite nephew). Sivelna Morweld, in addition to being one of the wealthiest members of Aeldrum's "old" (pre-colonial) aristocracy, was the political mastermind of the faction, brokering the election of her husband Leopold Orvhim both through her family connections and a personal friendship with the Industrial Party leader, Marquise Corina Vendrin. With the assassination of Sivelna Morweld, the later suicide-bombing by Cardinal Morweld and the assassination of the Morweld's chief political investment, Leopold Orvhim, the Morweld faction was politically devastated and fell under the steering of Marquis Lisend Delvant. Delvant helped secure the election of Orvhim's protegee, Bareth Aefendt, but was alienated from the new Serene Doge when Bareth refused to advance the interests of the faction.

During the Aledman Militia crisis, Delvant held the Conservative majority hostage and extracted significant concessions on Bareth's behalf from Count Homer of Lidenia, whose control of the Aeldrum Trade Company allowed him to offer considerable spoils to those who supported Bareth against Doges Augustine and Durant. Though unsubstantiated, rumors circulated for some time at the highest levels of Aeldman politics that Lisend Delvant may have entertained discussions of a coup against Serene Doge Bareth, possibly with veiled support from the Luvelath Faction.

Following the end of the Coalition War and the breaking of the Guilds, Delvant and his surviving Morweld cousins diversified their ATC positions into lucrative core-world holdings and, following the removal of Count Homer of Lidenia, helped Serene Doge Bareth and his chief councilors Francis Mervodan and Count Solaire dismantle the ATC and either spin off or nationalize its assets.

In effect, Morweld "reform conservatism" morphed under the stresses of the Coalition War into a form of state-capitalist nationalism, championing patriotism over lineage and focusing intensely on the development of the Aeldman core (as well as co-opting labor and civil rights positions to receive progressive political support for increasingly authoritarian state powers); the movement was steered first by such figures as the Count of Lidenia and Marquise Corina Vendrin and subsequently by a more assertive Serene Doge Bareth, the former lieutenants of Lidenia and Vendrin (respectively, Solaire and Mervodan) and leading industrialists such as Baron Hannon Mossag and Chella Nebai. The shift accelerated at the end of the Coalition War, with the concentration of power in the Aeldman State and away from parallel institutions such as the Guilds or the Aeldrum Trade Company.

### Luvelath Faction

The Luvelath Faction was led by Quentin and Sinvas Luvelath and supported Serene Doge Selash Luvelath and the Luvelath family. The Luvelath brand of conservatism represented the status quo of Aeldman domestic and foreign policy since the Fialta-Shantine War, with an emphasis on containment but not outright confrontation with the Fialta Imperium. Luvelath conservatives emphasized the preservation of aristocratic power and especially the balance of power between Aeldrum and the core worlds (fearing that the Core would overwhelm Aeldrum numerically and hence politically in time). The Luvelath faction presented frequent but largely ineffective resistance to the authorian streak of the Morweld leadership, and the Luvelaths attempted but failed to form a political coalition with the Aeldman progressive parties against the Reform-Conservative alliance formed by Serene Doge Bareth and Count Homer: the effort to achieve progressive-conservative unity against Bareth and his faction collapsed with the radicalization of the leftist Aeldman party and the splitting of the center-left Common Party into the Progress Party (pro-Bareth) and the Labor Party (which was swiftly dragged into crisis by its Aeldman allies).

With the reorientation of Aeldman politics from Aeldrum-Core tensions toward Aeldrum+Core against the colonies, the Luvelath faction's platform has become all but defunct. Nevertheless, the Luvelaths have retained a strong reputation as the standard bearers of an older, increasingly rose-tinted era and could morph their political brand toward the restoration of an open and free Aeldman democracy (insofar as such an institution ever existed) and the recession of the state authoritarianism whose rise they failed to prevent.