The Promise Doctrine

There are two things receiving a disproportionate amount of the limited manpower and resources of The Steppes; Defence and exploration, which allows its relatively meagre population to punch well above its weight in both fields.

This is commonly referred to as "the promise to our children", a term and doctrine popularized by the stallian diplomat Lenn Ranel, summed up as "to become strong, so that we might be spared of using force and understand the world, so that we might understand each other". The doctrine quickly became a leading principle among the different cities and was eventually adopted as something of an unofficial motto for The Court of All Humans.

The first tenet of this doctrine, that of military deterrence, is dictated by the fact that The Steppes are in effect undergoing constant, albeit low intensity warfare, for the most part not even against political entities with clear representatives with which they can negotiate, but instead marauding beastfolk bandits, ogres, beasts and hidden influenced organizations. All the while, the threat of a coordinated, overwhelming invasion by millions of armed beastfolk bandits always looms on the horizon.

Under these circumstances, it is argued, it is necessary not only to prepare for this doomsday scenario, but to make The Steppes as much of an undesirable target as possible to ideally avoid confrontation altogether. To this end, the different cities have been cooperating in creating technologically advanced and extensively trained armies with which to defend themselves and each other, promising unacceptable loses to any would be invader.

This cooperation, enforced by nothing but the knowledge that one city's fall would clearly announce their collective weakness to the beastfolk hordes, is symbolically represented for example in each city's naval ship full official designation, always containing the words "Intervention Fleet", signifying their design to intervene wherever needed rather than simply defend their own waters.

The second tenet could in fact be considered another mean to the same end. While deterrence is currently necessary and could work as a temporary solution, its cost would be untenable in the long run, so the doctrine envisions the need to understand the world as a whole in order to reach a more sustainable peace, which is ultimately what is called "the promise to our children".

This understanding involves plenty of academic and laboratory research, but it is more frequently portrayed as the much popularized archaeological, geographical and scientific explorations into the protectorates.

Each new expedition embarks, if one is to trust the tabloids, with the hope that it might be the one to discover this one new all-revealing piece of lost history, game-changing magical artifact or tide-turning saurian technology that will finally bring lasting peace and guarantee the protection of The Steppes. The members of these expeditions often become pop culture heroes and every detail of their private lives, whether known or simply rumoured, is prominently featured in sensationalist media.

It is rarely however that these dangerous expeditions come back with something other than uninteresting-looking artefacts or information useful for something other than long-term academic research, and often that they return with half or less of its members alive, if at all. This leads skeptics to point out that, just like the deterrence is nothing but an excuse to feed an overblown military-industrial complex, these expeditions are another waste and little more than a show to put on to entertain the masses, distracting them from more immediate social issues. 

Then again, it is not unusual for surviving explorers to talk about clear signs of recent looting or even the rare encounter with other, well equipped and armed humans in uncharted territories hindering their progress and sometimes even attacking them, so one could as easily argue that these expeditions are on the right track to something, if usually just a little too late.