Character Study of the Week: Daoshen Liao
Who: Daoshen Liao
What: Duke of Capella
Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation
When: 3071 – Alive as of 3145
Weapon of Choice: Yu Huang
Other
Strong, dynamic, powerful individuals are always hard to follow, few are the offspring who can manage to match or surpass parents who excel, at best they can maintain the legacy. Those who do manage to carve their own place on history’s skull tend to be rather terrifying.
As Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation Daoshen represents a return to type. Self-centred, crazy, cunning, ruthless, authoritarian, he is every bit the deluded dictator his great grandfather and grandmother were.
Not that dictator is a rare title in this setting, but if you’re painting a villain it’s a useful title and more obvious than Chancellor or, say, First Prince, Archon or any of the rest.
And Daoshen is a villain in this setting. He has always been in direct opposition to the Republic of the Sphere, painted in heroic tones early on and still, for the time being, largely heroic, and now goes after the Federated Suns, another traditionally, nominally heroic (as far as the setting goes) faction.
It is also good drama for the villain to be so overwhelmingly successful right in the middle of things, The Empire Strikes Back proves that, even the Warrior Trilogy shows the weakening Capellan Confederation on the verge of a rebound.
This is very different from father and predecessor Sun-Tzu, who admittedly did have the benefit of being a Point of View protagonist for two novels, and a Point of View character in several others. This permits us an intimate perspective on Sun-Tzu denied to us on Daoshen, though considering his mental state that sort of perspective could be murky beyond the scope of a pulp science fiction novel. More on that later.
Another key difference from his father is that Daoshen was trained as a MechWarrior, and was pretty good at military matters from a hands on perspective. In fact he rather disliked being pulled back from the front but acquiesced because he was the heir and he was going to take power someday. Having not completely brought into his own sales pitch yet he saw the sense in it and withdrew as the war heated up and increasingly put his life at risk.
He had some close calls, but through fanatically loyal troops and his own skills Daoshen avoided death or capture.
His choice of ‘Mech deserves some credit. The Yu Huang, quite probably an increasingly rare design since it is no longer production, making it even more of a prestige design than it already is, and that’s saying something.
The Yu Huang came into being as a part of the Xin Sheng movement, and the great Capellan renaissance of TRO 3060, and is quite possibly one of the most fearsome Inner Sphere designs of the period.
Fast (for an Assault), jump capable, powerful, versatile, presuming he used the 9G configuration it would have allowed Daoshen to be very aggressive on the battlefield.
This is a tendency that follows through with Daoshen’s national strategy. Until the blackout all Daoshen does is send a representative annually to demand the return of Capellan worlds from the Republic of the Sphere. A petty, politically childish move that shielded his true movements and preparations to reclaim those worlds behind, well, his honest intention of reclaiming those worlds.
So when the blackout happened he drove forward and attacked the Republic and grabbed everything he could until the Fortress went up.
Then he turned his attention to the Capellan March, the Haseks being a perpetual thorn in the side of the Confederation with two particularly annoying recent generations, and an arrogant annoyance even to New Avalon.
Brutal and effective doesn’t begin to describe what happened. The last time the border changed this much was the Fourth Succession war and that was in the other direction.
As far as benchmarks set by his father go this is one Daoshen blew out of the water.
There are a number of very good in universe reasons for this.
As of 3145 Daoshen has a number of advantages over Sun-Tzu. For one thing he’s not fighting a two front war at any point, deluded he may be but he’s neither obsessed nor stupid. When going after the Republic there are only minor skirmishes with the Free Worlds League remnants and the Federated Suns as everyone probes each other during the uncertain early days. And when the Fortress goes up the reborn League has other things to worry about leaving the Suns an open target.
The other key thing is the Blackout, the McGuffin that defines the Dark Age. With communications so poor it is almost impossible to fight a defensive war, by the time word of an attack reaches a major headquarters or command centre it’s too late to send reinforcements, let alone muster them. The Federated Suns, having brought into Devlin Stone’s disarmament pipe dream to a greater extent than anyone else, doesn’t even have the forces. The Confederation does, this twist was tailor made for Daoshen’s ambitions.
Indeed the setting favours aggressor strategies. An assault force can always break off if it finds the forces on world to be too great, or go somewhere else, initiative is key.
For the game setting this is incredible fun. Anyone can attack anyone else for what seems like a good reason. Indeed the early days of the Dark Age that’s what all the little factions were all about.
This is why the Confederation, Draconis Combine and Clans (as well as the Lyrans until the manner in which they treated their allies bit them, well, everywhere) have been doing so well for so long.
In fact odds are that when the Fortress walls come down the Republic will also see great success, at least to begin with.
Of course this is almost incidental to Daoshen’s central characteristic, that most defining Liao trait: the crazy.
Great granddad was disconnected, grandmother was delusional, dad was a little paranoid, Daoshen is utterly, dangerously insane.
For one thing he seriously believes he is a living god. Starting from the Dark Age this is a simple thing to throw out there, a continuation of the Liao stereotype, no need to explain the how or why, and makes for a good threat during the early days when we jumped from 3067 to 3132
This did require some creative skirting of the edges when Wars of the Republic era was produced, the lunatic Chancellor of the future had to be reconciled with the heir/warlord of the early 32nd Century.
Overall the picture we have of the early Daoshen is patchy, we know he was very effective, aggressive and so forth, but the insanity that would follow is only hinted at building up, that he was formulating and perpetuating the living god myth to follow was a background occurrence to the events the book was focusing on.
In an odd way it makes sense though, and strengthens his connection to his father.
Sun-Tzu inadvertently built up a cult of personality around himself through Xin Sheng. It was never a goal but it happened and he exploited it for purposes of moral for the Capellan people. What Daoshen is doing is the logical continuation of that, going from cult of personality to full blown cult.
That he was apparently tutored in some of these matters by dear Aunt Kali certainly did not help, and is an easy way to write in the continued crazy.
Furthermore this may have been the result of Sun-Tzu’s teachings to his son. Part of the crazy is that Daoshen sees himself as an extension of the Capellan State, something most leaders of his position would like to believe and see as immortal. This means the form his insanity takes is at least understandable in context.
It is also very constructive and is another link to Sun-Tzu, because Daoshen has also largely subsumed himself in favour of the Capellan nation. Or vice versa, it’s hard to tell with crazy. Either way this grandiose view of himself gives Daoshen every reason to see that the Confederation exceeds or excels, making him even less likely than his father to surrender worlds or squander resources.
This means, and this is very important, that unlike Max or Romano Daoshen’s insanity does not prevent him from being very, very effective. And in this case it is more than just talented subordinates, such as those Sun-Tzu relied upon, helping him get the job done.
The successes of the Capellan Confederation are the sort of thing that only come from the top, because that is the setting. Hanse Davion, Theodore Kurita, Ulric Kerensky, Alaric Ward, all get credit for their victories, the bevy of Generals, Colonels and others who undoubtedly did the planning, work, and whatever else, are all but forgotten or ignored.
It’s the way of things in the fictional setting, there need to be individual heroes and villains, and given the settings basis as a game it needs to be a head of state or other sort of factional leader.
In this case, dictatorial cult leader Daoshen is the focus and all successes are his.
Then of course is the final, rather uncomfortable element of Daoshen’s insanity, or villainy, or, whatever: fathering Danai Centrella-Liao with his sister.
Incest is another one of those brushes that paints a character, this time as unsavoury rather than outright evil. In the context of Daoshen it is difficult to place, but it paints him nonetheless.
And not just him, apparently Ilsa deliberately allowed this so she could get her hooks into him and manipulate him. So as disgusting as it makes Daoshen seem, and it is a characterising factor, it is more of a factor for characterising Ilsa Centrella-Liao.
Given the Maskirovka’s capabilities and loyalties it’s hard to believe that Sun-Tzu did not know, but exactly what he or his wife thought of this turn of events is unknown.
It also places something of an elephant in the room. With neither Centrella-Liao presenting a direct heir only Danai can inherit the thrones. Daoshen may not have considered this, being a living god and the immortal embodiment of the Capellan state and all that, though Ilsa likely will have, and in any case presents an interesting, and possibly frightening future for the Capellans and Canopians both.
In the meantime Daoshen seems to be racing the Draconis Combine to New Avalon, and with the Fortress coming down in five years its unknown if a sudden new front on his flank will be a disaster, or an opportunity to reclaim those last few worlds that escaped him last time.
This ends our series on Capellan Chancellors, I’m open to requests, though if none are forthcoming and given the focus so far I will probably choose a Free Worlds or Draconis Combine character next from outside the ruling line, or possibly a minor Merc or Clanner.
Though if people were to request Kali Liao for an odd sort of completion of the series . . .
