Zing, coups and the nature of power

Max Zing oblivious to the world

Running a vast totalitarian empire is like riding a T-Rex: it's great while you're on top, but heaven help you if you fall off. 

I have no doubt Putin has given that possibility more than a passing thought of late. 

The instability and suppressed violence of a dictatorship was one of the things I was trying to get at with Warlord of Io, where a cabal of power hungry generals overthrows the new, ostensible supreme leader, Zing, who's oblivious to the danger he is really in. 

He just thinks everyone will obey him Because Fancy Title.

I got that impression from many people I talked to at the time, who felt a Supreme Leader was just accepted by everyone, and had their orders automatically obeyed. It struck me as a mind boggingly naive view of power structures and how they are maintained in dictatorships.

The politics of totalitarian states are complex, but the mechanics are submerged beneath a facade of Everything Is Wonderful All the Time (unless they've got a purge going on, in which case wonderfulness is suspended until The Wreckers can be lanced), and results in periodic outbursts of extreme violence. 

As a result, dictators rarely retire.

Except for Diocletian, who went and grew cabbages.