Talk:Vernon Roche/@comment-24444169-20150804074958/@comment-172.254.84.165-20150809164028

I imagine that Roche's deal with Nilfgaard will leave Temeria as a vassal state, not unlike Toussaint. In the books, Nilfgaard, while technically the ruler of Toussaint, has virtually no say in how the country is run, instead allowing Toussaint to manage itself. The country has no official army and relies on knights errant to police it. This arrangement probably came as a result of Toussaint surrendering in the early days of Nilfgaard's occupation of the north. In exchange for not destroying the country, Nilfgaard taxes its vassal state, and largely leaves it alone, hoping that other countries will notice and surrender in order to avoid heavy loss of life (a model which successful empires have followed in history when conquering small territories). Of course, Temeria, Aedirn, Kaedwen, and Redania are all enormous countries with large armies, so they didn't agree to surrender when Nilfgaard arrived at the Yaruga.

While we aren't privy to the fine details of Nilfgaard's deal with Roche and Thaler, it probably says something about Nilfgaard respecting Temerian borders in exchange for Temerian subjugation. These two were fiercely loyal to the Temerian crown and I find it hard to believe that they would say yes to a deal that didn't favor Temeria. You have to remember that Nilfgaard isn't looking to kill everyone in the north--they just want their resources and land. And when the war is over, who's going to farm those resources if they've killed everybody and pissed off the rest? They've already eliminated the kings of the north and no one is stepping forward to unite the armies. Radovid is killing all the mages and nonhumans, and Emhyr isn't. Roche and Thaler chose the lesser of two evils for the Temerian people.