Essos ambition stark

[History]

What if instead of southern ambition,rickard stark had essos/free cities ambition and wanted to expand the north and the stark family  prsence in essos  that would bring more people and wealth to the north and stablish northern trade with essos so it was no relyng on south for food and trade.

[Moiraine Sedai]

One of his boys would have been engaged to the daughter of a rich Magister.  Lyanna to a son.

[Ylath's Snout]

It'd make for a fun AU fic. I'm thinking he'd be limited to focusing on Braavos and Pentos mostly as those are the major cities of Essos that don't indulge in slavery and considering what happened to Jorah slavery is very much a no-go in the North.

Also, the North would finally have a reason to get it's fecal lumps together and get a propper navy going.

Heck a Essos Ambition could create incentive for a alliance with the Westerland to finance a canal that would connect the Blazewater Bay and The Bite via the River Fever at Moat Cailin. A long shot to be sure but Planetos has plenty of very impressive feats of engineering.

[Stormking902]

The Iron throne would be watching lord Rickard very close to say the least, would probably cause paranoid Aerys to do something stupid and cause a dif type of civil war lol. 

[Ylath's Snout]

5 minutes ago, Stormking902 said:

The Iron throne would be watching lord Rickard very close to say the least, would probably cause paranoid Aerys to do something stupid

Yep, the only way around this would be for Rickard to convince Aerys that he was doing it on his behalf.

[Darth Sidious]

8 hours ago, History said:

What if instead of southern ambition,rickard stark had essos/free cities ambition and wanted to expand the north and the stark family  prsence in essos  that would bring more people and wealth to the north and stablish northern trade with essos so it was no relyng on south for food and trade.

What could the North offer that the Essosi cannot get elsewhere?  You have to have something to offer.

[Trigger Warning]

Trade's not just going to flourish because of a marriage, if there's trade to be done on the Eastern side of Westeros why would they not already be doing it, they likely already are at White Harbour to some extent but making an alliance doesn't make Northern trade any more appealing, furthermore the North is already agrarian, they don't rely on shipments of food from the South. 

[Ylath's Snout]

6 hours ago, Agent Orange said:

What could the North offer that the Essosi cannot get elsewhere? 

It it hard to offhandedly say what kind of staple trade goods like lumber, iron and wool would make sense in a The North and western Essos trade network. There is potentially one luxury item Rickard could corner. Pelts of exotic animals from beyond the Wall like Mammoth and Dire Wolf could make for very expensive, fairly compact and unique goods.

They would have to establish trade relations with some groups of Free Folk or organize hunting expeditions but neither of those are impossible although not without their own risks.

[hodorisfaclessman]

He could increase trade yes (we are assuming there isnt already a healthly trade between the 2 regions) but its hard to see how he cements an alliamce as theres no royalty to marry into there

[Lemorecake]

I believe house Manderly has done as much as possible to profite from any options Essos has to offer to the North. I doubt, the Starks could have done better.

Indirectly, the Starks do profit from White Harbors wealth very much , so why risking to get in conflict with them by forcing any further ambitions?

 

[Ylath's Snout]

46 minutes ago, hodorisfaclessman said:

but its hard to see how he cements an alliamce as theres no royalty to marry into there

A lot of the cities of Essos lack royal houses but they are functionally oligarchies and it stands to reason that figuring out who the leading families are wouldn't be impossible.

Making a marriage-pact with a family on the cusp of claiming the Sea Lordship of Braavos with promises of mutual support might work.

 

17 minutes ago, Lemorecake said:

so why risking to get in conflict with them by forcing any further ambitions?

The marriage-pacts Lord Rickard entered into was a risk both in regards to destabilizing the North and incurring Aerys' wrath. Not to mention whatever the next step of any Southern Ambition would have been. Taking a gable doesn't seem out of character from what we know of Rickard.

[Lemorecake]

2 hours ago, Ylath's Snout said:

The marriage-pacts Lord Rickard entered into was a risk both in regards to destabilizing the North and incurring Aerys' wrath. Not to mention whatever the next step of any Southern Ambition would have been. Taking a gable doesn't seem out of character from what we know of Rickard.

Hm, it's one thing in the seven kingdoms and a whole other thing with the free cities. I just don't see why a Great House should do marriage-alliances with minor families from the free cities at the current state. 

I know, Doran did marry to Essos, but it doesn't seem like he got much support nor power over there through it.

[Ylath's Snout]

15 minutes ago, Lemorecake said:

I know, Doran did marry to Essos, but it doesn't seem like he got much support nor power over there through it.

Yeah, frankly that marriage is very weird seeing as how Norvos is a slaver-city and considering their history the Martells should be fiercely anti-slavery. But they did get over a very bitter history to marry into the Targs several times. The Martells seem to vary widely in if the marry for love or power. Doran's father is unknown right so it seems improbable that he came from a important family.

16 minutes ago, Lemorecake said:

I just don't see why a Great House should do marriage-alliances with minor families from the free cities at the current state. 

It is a question of power distribution. If power is very wide spread among say, the Keyholder and Magisters of Braavos then making a marriage alliance might not make a lot of sense. If the pool of families that directly or indirectly hold the Sea Lordship is smaller then it might be possible to pull off. A very powerful family from on of the richest cities of the World isn't really "minor" although they would lack the direct clout of a House Paramount.

 

I am not saying that this is what Lord Rickard should have done. IMHO it is fun to think about, maybe use as premmis for a fanfic.

[The Commentator]

2 hours ago, Lemorecake said:

Hm, it's one thing in the seven kingdoms and a whole other thing with the free cities. I just don't see why a Great House should do marriage-alliances with minor families from the free cities at the current state. 

 

For wealth.  The north of Westeros is rather poor.  Many of the houses could use an infusion of wealth.  

Slavery is illegal and morally wrong, so doing what Jorah did is out of the question.  But that is an easy way, any wildling raider captured on the good side of the wall gets sent to the Masters for a life repurposing and attitude adjustment.  

So yes, exotic animal skins.  How about the hide of a giant like Wun Weg to a rich eastern collector?  

[hodorisfaclessman]

4 hours ago, Ylath's Snout said:

A lot of the cities of Essos lack royal houses but they are functionally oligarchies and it stands to reason that figuring out who the leading families are wouldn't be impossible.

Making a marriage-pact with a family on the cusp of claiming the Sea Lordship of Braavos with promises of mutual support might work.

 

The key word there though is families ,theres no set overall  lords of a free city  like westeros has  for each  region instead its shifting prob a hotbed of competion etc...and starks singling out one family over others would prob turn them against those selected for marriage

The sealord though if doesnt leave his position to a family member or heir  so its not a permanent alliance and a gamble (if he dies early ) 

Again trade deals would make more sense but they prob already have those

[Ylath's Snout]

30 minutes ago, hodorisfaclessman said:

The key word there though is families ,theres no set overall  lords of a free city  like westeros has  for each  region instead its shifting prob a hotbed of competion etc...and starks singling out one family over others would prob turn them against those selected for marriage

(I'm gonna focus on Braavos as it seems like the most likely candidate for a Northern pact, geographically and culturally)

Oh yes I never said that it would be easy. If you wanted to mollify the consernce of the other majors families then maybe making matches between Northern Nobel Houses and the other major Keyholder families could work?

That in essence would be a marriage pact between the whole North and Braavos. I am unsure circumstances where something like that could happen however.

Aerys issuing some sort of law/decree that threatened both Northern and Braavosi interest or a major pirate threat maybe? 

The other way of going about this would be to back a complete takeover by one family. Establishing the Sea Lord as a hereditary title would make any marriage alliance more permanent but it would in all likelihood result in numerous other problems.

 

43 minutes ago, hodorisfaclessman said:

The sealord though if doesnt leave his position to a family member or heir  so its not a permanent alliance

Not marriage alliance is permanent, just look at the Baratheon and Targaryen. They intermarried two generations before Robby went full-on Hammer Time on them.

 

50 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

For wealth.  The north of Westeros is rather poor.  Many of the houses could use an infusion of wealth.  

LF made several matches between poor Vale nobles and merchants looking for upward social mobility, so this is deffenetly a thing.

52 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

How about the hide of a giant like Wun Weg to a rich eastern collector?  

Duuuuude, you know those sick freaks in Slaver's Bay would love that sort of thing.

[hodorisfaclessman]

1 hour ago, Ylath's Snout said:

(I'm gonna focus on Braavos as it seems like the most likely candidate for a Northern pact, geographically and culturally)

Oh yes I never said that it would be easy. If you wanted to mollify the consernce of the other majors families then maybe making matches between Northern Nobel Houses and the other major Keyholder families could work?

That in essence would be a marriage pact between the whole North and Braavos. I am unsure circumstances where something like that could happen however.

Aerys issuing some sort of law/decree that threatened both Northern and Braavosi interest or a major pirate threat maybe? 

The other way of going about this would be to back a complete takeover by one family. Establishing the Sea Lord as a hereditary title would make any marriage alliance more permanent but it would in all likelihood result in numerous other problems.

Not marriage alliance is permanent, just look at the Baratheon and Targaryen. They intermarried two generations before Robby went full-on Hammer Time on them

Yeah that was at least 2 gens prior and had a major thing happen (his bethrothed's 'rape' ) to break it