A Great Lord Commander of the Nights Watch?

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

On 4/14/2017 at 1:01 AM, House Beaudreau said:

Wouldn't peace always be better tho. Many of the Far northern houses don't seem to send men to the Nights watch i assume because the want to keep fighter around for when raiders do come, if the raids stopped you might see number of recruits go up from northern houses. 

And the wildlings aren't a single entity. We know that Craster trades with them, some free folk have been know to trade with east-watch, and Haldon traded with them. So surely relationships could be made with entire townships like Whitetree or other villages as well as some clans, these relationships would also help you defeat some of the more defiant raiding party and leaders like Rattleshirt, Harma dogshead, the weeper. Think about the Targaryens defeating the Kingswood brotherhood, the got the support of the smallfolk of the kings wood, and a lot of the free folk population in village and town dwellers who don't engage in a lot of fighting or raiding and would gain a lot from relationships with the Nights Watch.

The point is that currently the Free Folk are not a threat to the 7K (at least, they are only a threat sporadically). Building trading links with them has the potential to change that, so why do it? Peace may be a nice idea, but they're not really at war with them. Occasional raids are not really an issue, and can be handled by the NW even at its current terrible state. 

[Julia H.]

On 2017. 04. 09. at 9:20 PM, House Beaudreau said:

Third order: Start trading with the free cities on a large scale. East-watch has a fleet and with a endless supply of timber in the North the nights watch could create many ships for extremely cheap because they wouldn't need the coin to buy the timber. There are several trading ports that East-watch could easily reach and could be reached in turn like Bravos, Lorath, Pentos, Ibben and even Tyrosh, Myr and Lys. Norvos and Qohor could also be possible with relationships with Over land traders. The follow are items that are the Watch could aquire easily and have a abundance of that would be worth lots of coin and goods in trade.  

• Timber, Lumber, firewood. Bravos imports all there wood for ships, and firewood. 
• Stone. The stone from the mountains in the gift and north of the wall would provide endless amounts of Stone to sell to every single free city in theory, especially Bravos, Pentos, and Lorath. These being the easiest ports.
• Ice, Fresh Water.
• Wild game unique to the North. Deer, Elk, Snow bear, Shadow cats, Mammoths etc. This would be valuable to both the Free Cites and The Watch.
• Animal pelts and skins. 
• Mined goods like Bronze and Iron and other gems and metals like silver or gold found North of the wall. Trade with the Free Folk would benefit them in a great way also for example Thenn could sell there bronze surplus to the watch in exchange for iron and steel or coin.
• Whale, Whale Oil. It seems to me that the only large whaling operation in the world is the Ibbense. They probably have the market cornered, the Nights Watch could be the next big whaling operation.
• Free folk goods, like Amber, Mead, honey, Bone, antler, skins, furs etc.   
• Long shot Trades, Image how much the Slavers in Meereen would pay for a Mammoth for their Fighting pits?    

 

Just curious here: Most of these goods would have to come from North of the Wall (the NW territory doesn't have so many resources). Would the NW under your command acquire them through fair trade from the wildlings or would you simply colonize and exploit the areas that do not belong to either the NW or the Seven Kingdoms?

In the first case, it seems that the NW (or at least Eastwatch) should turn into a huge trading post, where wildling goods are gathered and shipped onward to the Free Cities, and, of course, a large amount of goods are also sent back North of the Wall as payment. All those goods should also be imported from somewhere, as I don't think the NW would be able to produce enough goods to pay for all those mammoths and bronze and whale oil etc. As a result, the NW would probably need a new order, the largest of all: the Order of Merchants. It would probably become a very powerful and influential order within the NW, but to make it successful, it should be filled with competent, educated and preferably reliable people (who wouldn't sail away with the profit), so no random criminals. To attract such people, those strict rules would have to change - the merchants would want a comfortable life, some personal gain, and yes, wife and kids. 

Where would that leave the other orders? The rangers, the builders, the stewards? Could you keep the same strict rules for them? The NW would change into a completely different organization, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing in general, but you'd have to be extra careful to keep up the standard of the fighting skills and to keep the Wall strong and intact otherwise the threat of the Others would find the "NW" ultimately just as badly prepared as in the actual story.  

Unfortunately, before you, the Lord Commander of the NW, could start building up this large international trading post, you'd need to raise a significant amount of venture capital somehow to build ships, finance voyages, acquire the first shipment of goods, hire the people with the necessary knowledge, etc. Another problem would be that the lords of the realm would probably notice something weird going on in the North and they might just want to stop you before you become too powerful. The sad truth is that the lords of the Seven Kingdoms do not want a too strong and fairly independent military organization up there, especially when there is no imminent military threat from the Far North, because they would see you and your wildling friends as a threat. All in all, before all these happy changes could be realized, one or two of your brothers would probably come up to you one day and stab you in the back "for the Watch" to keep those lords happy. 

In the second case, the NW would have to turn into a colonizing power North of the Wall, which would also require significant human, military and economic resources and would not guarantee a good relationship with the wildlings in the end (so you would still have to defend the Wall actively against them, etc.). Such an adventure might receive some support from some adventurous lords, but they would also want their share of the profit. The trade with the Free Cities would still require competent people, so see above.

 

[House Beaudreau]

On 4/13/2017 at 3:28 AM, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

One of the main roles of the Nights Watch seems to be to “keep the Wildings down” as it were. Establishing trading links, etc. would potentially turn an ill-equipped, poor enemy into a more dangerous force. The Seven Kingdoms would not necessarily benefit from good relations with the Wildlings, all they do is trouble the far North with minor raids. Best just have a small team of misfits charged with kicking the shit out of them occasionally, and the realm remains pretty secure from them.

 

The only reason an accord is eventually needed is the threat of the Others, which wasn’t foreseen by anyone

Wouldn't peace always be better tho. Many of the Far northern houses don't seem to send men to the Nights watch i assume because the want to keep fighter around for when raiders do come, if the raids stopped you might see number of recruits go up from northern houses. 

And the wildlings aren't a single entity. We know that Craster trades with them, some free folk have been know to trade with east-watch, and Haldon traded with them. So surely relationships could be made with entire townships like Whitetree or other villages as well as some clans, these relationships would also help you defeat some of the more defiant raiding party and leaders like Rattleshirt, Harma dogshead, the weeper. Think about the Targaryens defeating the Kingswood brotherhood, the got the support of the smallfolk of the kings wood, and a lot of the free folk population in village and town dwellers who don't engage in a lot of fighting or raiding and would gain a lot from relationships with the Nights Watch.   

[House Beaudreau]

On 4/17/2017 at 7:02 AM, Julia H. said:

Just curious here: Most of these goods would have to come from North of the Wall (the NW territory doesn't have so many resources). Would the NW under your command acquire them through fair trade from the wildlings or would you simply colonize and exploit the areas that do not belong to either the NW or the Seven Kingdoms?

In the first case, it seems that the NW (or at least Eastwatch) should turn into a huge trading post, where wildling goods are gathered and shipped onward to the Free Cities, and, of course, a large amount of goods are also sent back North of the Wall as payment. All those goods should also be imported from somewhere, as I don't think the NW would be able to produce enough goods to pay for all those mammoths and bronze and whale oil etc. As a result, the NW would probably need a new order, the largest of all: the Order of Merchants. It would probably become a very powerful and influential order within the NW, but to make it successful, it should be filled with competent, educated and preferably reliable people (who wouldn't sail away with the profit), so no random criminals. To attract such people, those strict rules would have to change - the merchants would want a comfortable life, some personal gain, and yes, wife and kids. 

Where would that leave the other orders? The rangers, the builders, the stewards? Could you keep the same strict rules for them? The NW would change into a completely different organization, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing in general, but you'd have to be extra careful to keep up the standard of the fighting skills and to keep the Wall strong and intact otherwise the threat of the Others would find the "NW" ultimately just as badly prepared as in the actual story.

As far as Acquiring goods I think it would be a health mix of both. The free folk for the most part have never seemed to keen on staying or settling in the lands near the wall. Places like Whitetree and other villiages would probably part with goods for fairly cheap, after all Davos says the Wildlings were terrible hagglers. "Colonizing" would be completely necessary, Rangers can hunt for skins and furs, Builders can gather other resources.

I really like your Idea about the order of the merchants. It really could add a lot of political intrigue and all that other stuff you mentioned about personal gain. But ultimately I really dont think it would really be necessary because all of this trade could be under the control of the Stewards.  There is this central theme when it comes to the NW the Lord commander and the Three Orders. The Builders can be defined by all of the crumbling castles and how shabby Castle Black is, and the growth of the forest coming up to the wall, The Stewards are nothing more than house maids, Donal Noyne is the only steward that's badass and he literally has one arm.  The Rangers were once comprised of knights and younger sons of lords and noble houses, now they are mostly bastards and criminals and other "scum" to fill the ranks like most of the watch now.

But the stewards would count and act as the merchants and merchants could live and stay at East watch as guest like they would do at any other port town.

The whole point of all this, it that, peace and trade will better equip the Watch to guard the realm, and prepare for winter. The stronger the watch gets the more recruits they get, then eventually the reputation gets better.

And as far as the Lords of the realm fearing the Watch seems unlikely, The Northern house are really the only one who even care about the watch and even then not that much and the southern lords do even seem to know the basics of what the watch needs or the strength they have.