“Let me get this straight. We have zero candidates who wish to run for High General?”
The circle of Rethans all nodded. Present were the most powerful and most respected of the Rethan elite, each one a heavily armoured, highly decorated General. At the head of the table was Rethais Rethianos, the former High General and current Vice General, acting as High General temporarily while a new election was being arranged. While Rethais was legally supposed to be in charge, his social contract only lasted until the beginning of April, after which a new leader had to be democratically elected.
“Well, we had a few maybes…” Veeksiar, the Keeper of the Great Rethan Libaries (and one of the few unelected positions in Rethan government), exclaimed as he ran through a list. “Most prominent was General Gath Tsoriou. Said he would have offered himself had he not just had a kid. But there is not a single General outside of this room willing to run.”
“What about inside this room?” Rethais asked.
Several of the Generals grumbled.
“Both Lefterias and I are… considering it…” Vaksavar grunted. “As are Omnos and Rysos… The issue is, none of us want to run against each other. We would easily tie up the votes, especially with preferential voting.”
“What Vaksavar is trying to say,” Lepidas explained, tutting and crossing his arms as he did so, “is that the vast majority of Rethans are swimming in brain fog. Half this room included. We need a super simple election to choose a figurehead, while the rest of us continue doing our job as a council behind them.”
Rethais tutted. “You have that little faith in our fellow Rethavok?”
“Basically, yes. And he is not alone…” Lefterias and Vaksavar both sighed.
“However…” Lepidas continued. “We have a different problem as well. There is no way to gauge how… sick of the elite the normal Rethavok are. Even if we have a vote between, for example, myself and Vaksavar, we might be completely overrun by the “no preference” vote, and cause even more problems!”
“That might just have to be the risk we take though…” Rethais frowned. “We need an elected leader. We need to at least try and retain some form of democracy. Do any of you think it is worth opening the floodgates, removing the General Requirement from any potential nominations?”
The Generals all shook their heads.
“That rule is there for a reason!” Rysos interrupted. “Only a General has a true understanding of leading others! We cannot have just anyone ruling!”
“The Skyavok’s All-Ksa is a former prostitute and sex education teacher…” Veeksiar muttered. “And, to his credit, he led his kind pretty well, up until the universe combusted…”
“He was barely keeping things together.”
“Still did a good job.”
“Had a council of other, much more skilled Skyavok, keeping him in line.”
Rethais sighed, seeming to have reached his limit when it came to this mess. “Alright, fine. We do not have time to vet non-Generals for this election. But we still need to find some nominations. Do another search. See if you can find any general willing to run. If you do, run them past me, then get the election started. If you cannot, then we will just have to draw two of our names from a box and go from there. Understood?”
The Generals all hesitated, then sighed.
“Very well, Ser…”