milliways_bar | (no subject)

"I'm a man of Eng...land..." Roxton gapes. "Uh. Sir."

What the heck is this thing?

Ironhide's head whips around to peer at the human; he nods. "My name's Ironhide," he says. "I come from a planet called Cybertron. I live on Earth these days. I don't hurt humans, much as some of 'em make me want to sometimes. Nobody human made me, I've looked like this pretty much all my life. All my people're machines. That's usually the questions that someone with a look like the one you've got winds up asking to start with."

"...yes," Roxton manages after a moment. "That answers quite a few questions." Challenger will be begging him to come back and get specifications, he's sure.

"I'm John Roxton," Roxton says, having recovered by now. Living machinery? After some of the things he's seen on the plateau, that's almost tame.

"Why the interest in Britain's monarchy?"

"Aaaah, me and this human girl're this close to being sparkbonded," says Ironhide, holding up two fingers separated by less than a millimeter. "She was a princess in her home world, right? Thing is, she's the only kid in her royal family. Her father's a worthless heap of mine tailings if I ever saw one, but he's not long for this world. She realized today that since she's not ever gonna marry a human, I'm her father's heir. We don't have kings on Cybertron. We've got a two-leader system and neither the Prime nor the Lord's an absolute. I'm tryin' to find out how to head for a system that looks like it WORKS."

"You want to change their monarchy so it reflects your two-leader system? Couldn't your...fiancée be the other person of power?"

Yes, he's a bit O_o at the idea of a machine and human being bonded, but he also has a fairly open mind. He'll deal. Eventually.

"Nah, more like- I can't be in her kingdom all the time, so I wanna get it set up so that the kingdom can pretty much run itself. I don't want to be in charge of a whole country full of another species. I can't just say 'no kings', because her neighbors take that as meaning it was time to invade her kingdom and split it up sixteen different ways. So I gotta be king until I can just... you know, ease off the governing duties onto the actual humans. Right now, the king's got absolute power of life and death. There's nothing like that at all back home. I have no slagging clue how to start walking them towards ruling themselves. I heard England's got a king or a queen or something but they pretty much run their own affairs anyway, so I figured..."

"It's King George V in my time, but the Prime Minister David Lloyd George has much more power. The monarchy doesn't have absolute power, but neither does the Prime Minister, though he is capable of getting much more done in the way he chooses, usually via the House of Lords and the House of Commons. They can either check the Minister's actions or support them."

Roxton knows what he's talking about. Really! ~~It's the mun who's learning as she goes.~~

At that, Ironhide perks right up. He's been filing the King's duties under those a Cybertronian Lord would perform- but a Lord's only half of Cybertron's leadership without a Prime. Hearing that the humans've got a similar position, well-

Okay, he's got a completely inaccurate idea of what the Prime Minister actually does, but it's still a weight off his suspension system.

"Where'd you get this Parliament thing from?" Ironhide asks. "And how d'you get a Prime Minister?"

"Parliament is made up of two Houses: the Lords and the Commons. The Lords are selected by the government to their positions, but the Commons are elected by the people every five years or so. The king is also a member of Parliament, though he mostly acts on the advice of the Minister.

"The Minister himself is supported by the Commons, though the king does the actual appointing. The Minister then goes on to select his Cabinet."

Ironhide nods. "A'right, I can see that," he says. "What's this cabinet do?"

"The Cabinet, which is made up of members of the Lords and the Commons, is what makes most of the decisions for the government. It was implemented rather recently, actually, a way to make faster decisions so things weren't bogged down in endless councils." Fast decision making is important when a country's at war.

"Hnh." Ironhide turns that thought over. "Lissar said there were councilors in her kingdom already anyway, so that's not such a bad place to start, I guess."

"Are those lords of the kingdom? It's usually those that fill the House of Lords, people of wealth and power. It's supposed to strike a balance between the common people and the wealthy," Roxton says thoughtfully.