Law's Predictable Facade
People often imagine courtroom battles like those in Ace Attorney, but that's not a real trial. In actual trials, nearly all the facts are hashed out in documents and through professional courtesy long before the gavel falls—back at the law firm or even law school level. The judge's questions, the lawyers' arguments, the prosecutor's charges, the witnesses' testimonies? They're just a formality to confirm the facts. If there's no real disagreement, the judge, prosecutor, and defense—our little WWE trio—simply rubber-stamp the verdict. It's a given.
Of course, folks dream their lawyers will fight tooth and nail for an acquittal. But if it were that straightforward for innocence, there'd be no charges in the first place—no indictment, no trial. Fierce courtroom brawls usually happen in civil suits or divorces, where pitting the parties against each other means more billable hours. So, if you ever want an acquittal in a criminal case, you'd better be a politician. Indictments there are more about political agendas than evidence.
In the end, the law—written law, at least—isn't sacred or absolute. It can't serve as an unerring standard or hand out indulgences, not when wielded by humans. "The law merely promises predictability, unlike the arbitrary whims of feudal lords."
People want to believe the world has order, with the Ten Commandments of law avenging and protecting them. And the law elevates that faith into a predictable system. That's its raison d'être. But naturally, if civil society rejects that faith and system, the law becomes nothing more than the sword and shield of the elite. In a world stripped of trust, it's just a tool for vote-counters to oppress vote-givers.
That's precisely why advanced civil societies invented the jury system. If law were truly society's judgment benchmark, you'd only need a judge to interpret it, a prosecutor to prove it, and a defense lawyer to argue against its application here. Hell, just a judge would suffice. But citizens created something akin to political commissars: jurors to oversee law enforcement. And their purpose? Shockingly identical to those commissars. They were proxies to block public power from imposing executions civil society couldn't stomach—whether on citizens or soldiers.
Skill level irrelevant, legal or military knowledge nil, trolling or not—the key was their mere presence. Political commissars and juries alike proved the long-standing distrust and betrayal felt by the ruled toward law and military. Citizens wish for value-neutral law and army, but if they were truly neutral, why crave neutrality? They weren't, so the longing, dreaming, demanding began. The jury system is, in truth, a massive societal waste—like political commissars. Costly. A truly neutral judge would eliminate the need. And astonishingly, human history has never seen one. Because judges are human. Even if they claim to serve the ruled, their elite status caps it at "Britain caring for the Irish."
Anarchists demanded public power's abolition for exactly that reason. But unsurprisingly, most citizens—distrusting power yet fearing the masses and barbarism more—compromised. We need law and military, but those gripping them (the elite) must stay under the ruled's watch. That's as far as it went. "Just that much oversight, and we'll tolerate the exploitation—better than being thrown to the mob's savagery."
Trials being what they are, treaties and negotiations wrap up major agreements among power-holders, insiders, and staff beforehand. Win-win deals are rare; most are zero-sum. The exploited party must first concede, "This much loss, I'll bear it," before the negotiation table opens publicly to affirm it. In that sense, Korea's ratification wasn't groundbreaking. We'd already agreed to naval disarmament multiple times at insider and staff levels.
The issue wasn't disarmament itself, but its implications. Korea signed on dreadnought limits, seeming to endorse those implications—but we didn't. First, we rejected the 20-year truce outright. Given our tonnage class, any World War II would suck us in, Axis or Allies, for some contrived reason. They'd twist our arms from both sides.
So, imposing auxiliary tonnage limits on defeated Germany, banning dreadnought and sub construction—that hardline stance would ignite German fury over sovereignty infringement, dreadnought utility aside. Keep their land intact, starve the battleship cash sink, and unite Germans in rage? That mustachioed Yale boy might return home with big resolve. Better let others build dreadnoughts. Stubborn now, conciliatory later if fury boils—denying Versailles, Paris, or London treaties sets a bad precedent. What would Germany think? Hawkish when dovish needed, dovish when hawkish? Korea couldn't agree.
Nor to ladder-pulling via dreadnoughts. The treaty strictly bans sales or tech transfers to non-signatories. Some say "What's the harm?" But dreadnoughts are this world's nuclear tech. Emperor Gojong once asked in an ironclad debate, "Is this the battleship those English and American devils meant?" I said no. That Jo-Sun ironclad would beach itself against a Dreadnought. One salvo from Han River, and the palace vanishes. Symbolic near-nukes. Gallipoli cliffs eroded off maps from Dreadnought barrages.
Thus, the treaty's hidden clause: keep dreadnoughts from non-signatories. Isolate any signatory or non- who acts up diplomatically. With dreadnought owners already crowding the world—sparking these wars—their point holds. Japan even cheered inclusion, despite our fifth their tonnage. They can build in war, refit cruisers to battleship size later. Knowledge persists, and as signatories, negotiate that pittance up. Beats non-owners' flat denials. Nuclear non-proliferation vibes: live with main guns aimed at capitals for "justice and peace."
"The dreadnought era shifts to battleships and carriers soon anyway." Tonnage? Concessions fine. But ladder-kicking via dreadnoughts? No agreement, no participation. World too crowded? It always was. Embrace and agency matter. Embrace others without being shaken or puppeteered. But they reject the disliked, puppeteer the rest—with dreadnoughts. While trimming their operating costs. Fewer ships overall boosts utility if war hits.
"As humans, I get it. But I can't oblige."
The Soviets—we needed the Soviets. In this mess, someone to voice Korea's rage. Korea wants model-student status, so smashing thug powers and bosses stays secondary. I wished someone would; Soviets came to mind. Tell them "those bastards are pure evil," and meddlesome Soviets step in.
Korea already had headaches galore. Those thugs avoid great powers, but Korea's model-to-advanced path held thornier issues. "Great power status is the threshold to advanced nation." Non-great advanced nations need neighborly tolerance—obvious. With global talent markets opening (not slave ones), talent floods great powers from weaklings. Hitherto, non-greats begged advanced permission; henceforth, swim upstream without it.
I figured Korea's power base solid enough. Yet the advanced road loomed distant, treacherous—issues brutal. Overcome innate xenophobia, selfishness; accumulate broadly. Beyond literacy via elementary ed—higher still. Former was barbarism-vs-civilization; latter, world-vs-world.
"Survival sorted, class-line conflicts intensify."
Solve that for advanced status. Naturally, no agreeing to or joining armband antics. Korea lacked the luxury.