zaffre
fdril
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Pronouns
- he/him
Very simple but hopefully interesting question - what's the longest possible rule?
If you only count sovereign states (and I do for the purposes of this, since otherwise the possibilities become near infinite) then in OTL the record of 72+ years set by Louis XIV is on track to hold pretty much indefinitely, as far as I can tell. But across the span of all possible AHs, 72 years seems very easily beatable, and even Sobhuza II's 82 years quite surmountable. The crucial feature here is that human life expectancy has risen largely because of children living longer, rather than massive changes to the upper bounds. Very improbable for pre-modern monarchs to get truly ancient, but not impossible - St. Anthony the Great was born in the 250s and despite (or because?) he holed up in the desert for most of his life, it's pretty widely agreed he made it to his 100s.
This makes the most likely contenders monarchs that were crowned young and (ironically) died young, since it's comparatively easier to say that King Poisoned II of the By-His-Uncle dynasty could have lived an extremely healthy life than that Louis XIV suddenly takes up cardio. And this is why other forms of government don't really enter into this, since we tend not to elect kids. Of course, the funny thing about this is that child monarchs inherently have especially, er, fraught reigns. King Henry VI would have "just" needed to make it to 83 to be the all-time GOAT, but I mean [GESTURES AT HENRY VI]. So the best bet is probably a child monarch with a very robust state apparatus behind them, like Louis himself. Pretty much any contender for the top spot has a fascinating ATL reign, by definition.
I'll start us off with a very logical option but also a bit of a cop-out - have political butterflies in late 1920s Europe, of any number of varieties, and it's not likely, but certainly possible, to have King Michael I of Romania (1927-2017).
If you only count sovereign states (and I do for the purposes of this, since otherwise the possibilities become near infinite) then in OTL the record of 72+ years set by Louis XIV is on track to hold pretty much indefinitely, as far as I can tell. But across the span of all possible AHs, 72 years seems very easily beatable, and even Sobhuza II's 82 years quite surmountable. The crucial feature here is that human life expectancy has risen largely because of children living longer, rather than massive changes to the upper bounds. Very improbable for pre-modern monarchs to get truly ancient, but not impossible - St. Anthony the Great was born in the 250s and despite (or because?) he holed up in the desert for most of his life, it's pretty widely agreed he made it to his 100s.
This makes the most likely contenders monarchs that were crowned young and (ironically) died young, since it's comparatively easier to say that King Poisoned II of the By-His-Uncle dynasty could have lived an extremely healthy life than that Louis XIV suddenly takes up cardio. And this is why other forms of government don't really enter into this, since we tend not to elect kids. Of course, the funny thing about this is that child monarchs inherently have especially, er, fraught reigns. King Henry VI would have "just" needed to make it to 83 to be the all-time GOAT, but I mean [GESTURES AT HENRY VI]. So the best bet is probably a child monarch with a very robust state apparatus behind them, like Louis himself. Pretty much any contender for the top spot has a fascinating ATL reign, by definition.
I'll start us off with a very logical option but also a bit of a cop-out - have political butterflies in late 1920s Europe, of any number of varieties, and it's not likely, but certainly possible, to have King Michael I of Romania (1927-2017).
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