Oh really? You blame Niselur?
Well of course. But not completely. Niselur did, after all, declare a war with the *exact* intent to reduce the power of the church and the theocracies. Niselur's explicitly stated intent, at the beginning of the war, was to throw off the chains of the church, and establish their power as an entity independent of the church. The treaty that Niselur has proposed is something that Leopold probably dreamed of when he started the war. He wouldn't have stopped there, though. He would have subjugated Astrum, and then kept on with the war against the church. Fulco isn't as obviously ambitious as Leopold was. Or at least not as transparent. The fact that Fulco, the king who rules at the end of the war, wasn't the one that clicked the "Declare war!" link doesn't change the intent behind how the war started. It just changes how it ends. Maybe.
Niselur isn't completely to blame in this. I am quite certain that there was a lot of collusion with the leaders of Asylon and the Farronites in this. They both wanted Astrum taken down for their own reasons. And they certainly succeeded, that's for sure.
The church also has some blame in the situation leading up to the war, and its outcome. I imagine we could really come up with some good ways that the church failed and contributed to the situation.
However... Let's not forget that Leopold specifically and intentionally engineered this war as a
war against SA. He did everything he could, very cleverly, and very deliberately, to bring about the situation that has now evolved. He just lacked the persistence to see it through.
The church and astrum have taken zero incentive during the war to solve the situation.
Well that's certainly not true. The church bent over backward to stop the war before it started. The church went to extreme lengths to placate Leopold. Leopold didn't want that, though. He specifically wanted a war.
I will definitely agree that Astrum wasn't very communicative, and cooperative in bringing about the end of the war. I think a lot of the higher-ups in Astrum were wearing blinders. There was not much in the way of discussion about how bad things really were. I'm guilty of that, too, I know. I really haven't been very involved in Brance lately, and let a lot of things slide.
