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In this fic, we're looking towards establishing a proper "Neo" Moon Kingdom on the actual Moon, because, let's face it, realpolitik means she is not going to suddenly become Queen of Earth even if she is Sailor Moon. It's going to grow out of just two tiny settlements: Moonbase Alpha in Plato Crater, and atop the ruins of Serenity's Castle along the edge of the Mare Serenitatis.
I'm curious as to what this government, and the society it builds, would actually look like. Rob's done a bit of work on the key players, identifying people who would count as some level of nobility. But this is only a small part of what a society looks like.
The first thing to look at is canon: what did the government of Crystal Tokyo look like? We know very little. First off, in the manga, Usagi travels to Sag A*, and pretty much every protagonist in the series gets killed off, and finally they all jump in the Galaxy Cauldron to be reborn. And at some point in the distant future, they are reborn together thanks to Ginzuisho magick and um uh, Usagi says "I'm the queen of the world!" (On a boat like a proper sailor.)
Second, Chibiusa is the heir apparent. The manga says she has been for 900 years, despite looking and acting like an 8 year old, so in this reality Tuxboy and Bunny are too dumb to get the "an heir and a spare" thing in nearly a millennium. The anime just makes Chibiusa her own age, which makes 900 times more sense. The manga does give her her own Sailor Team of the Asteroid Senshi, which is pretty cool. We're using that in this project.
Third, we know that at least some people rejected future!Usagi's purification, and were exiled to Nemesis, and became the Black Moon clan. The manga suggests that they rejected the long life as "unnatural" (read: religious reasons), or perhaps it was the happiness that came from being "refreshed". And, gosh, is there a lot of fan wank about this point. I found a thread about it in /r/sailormoon, and they basically concluded that Crystal Tokyo is an authoritarian dystopia, exactly like the United States is now, and I just closed the tab. (I mean seriously, why not compare Singapore if you're going there?)
The problem is that the Black Moon Clan is all very unreliable narrators, all living under the influence of Wiseman. Compare Númenor when Sauron gained favor; nothing good followed. In any case, it would be worse that being stuck in Philadelphia with a bunch of Death Eaters. Oh right, the original point: all of this exposition was either from their perspective, or trying to explain the perspective of the Black Moon Clan.
You know what we call people like the Black Mooninites in our world? Terrorists. And Demande's thing about rejecting Serenity II's rule while simultaneously desiring her so much as to subdue her romantically is class S incel material. I don't trust anything from their perspective, other than the fact that they were exiled to a distant planetoid. So what else can explain the exile?
Crime and Oshioki yo!
Government is, at its heart, about legitimate power. The phrase "the state has a monopoly on legitimate violence" comes up a lot. There are two core ways that power is used: in warfare, and in resolving disputes. In a sense, that's only one way, as war is just an external dispute and courts are for disputes internal to the society, but you get the idea. I'll get around to war a bit later, since we want to deal with the Black Moon Clan first.
A primary role of the king, noble, or even tribal chieftain is to resolve disputes among members of the group. The most basic of these is not criminal law, but civil law: a family wants restitution for a murder, so the murderer must pay.
In Classical Athens, where we have lots of records, the murderer would most often have to pay money, unless they killed a citizen. Athens could afford a jail to hold people for a speedy trial, but not a prison. So really, there were only three punishments available: money/property restitution, exile, or death. (Literally anything could be proposed in the sentencing phase, but these are the only workable things.) And remember, Athens is considered to be the most progressive society for centuries!
If the Black Moon Clan came about in the early phase of Crystal Tokyo, as a something of a frontier society, they pretty much have these choices as well. The great fanfic Dance of Shiva proposes that Crystal Tokyo emerges after a long ice age on Earth, where a new generation of survivors building a kingdom like this makes sense.
Either way, we are building something from scratch, and one of the sad truths preventing utopia is that some folks are going to be criminals. Some people make a simple wrong decision, some people fall into the wrong crowd, and all of these people can be forgiven. And then there are the sociopaths, for whom there's really no saving them. Unless maybe you have a magic gem that does moon healing purification?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. One thing we know about Usagi, very very well, is that she believes in punishment in the name of the Moon. She uses the word "unforgivable" nearly as often, but always makes it clear that the action is unforgivable, not the person. So the core concept behind criminal justice in our fic Moon Kingdom (slash canon Crystal Tokyo) is forgiveness. A person is either in a state of grace, or is not and in need of punishment.
This is radically different than most systems of justice. The aim of some systems, like, let's say the Scandinavian countries, is to reform the offender. In places like the US, it's to extract vengeance and provide punishment. But if the Moon Kingdom mirrors its founder, the purpose of justice for her is to forgive. The court system is a process to create forgiveness. Love and justice, after all.
How this works out as a real system, I really have no idea. There have been a lot of different systems of justice in history that operate similarly but have radically different goals. Even today, it ranges from "protect the regime" to "rehabilitate" to "carry out the divine law". It might work, if enough people are willing to follow. Which is something I can say about all governments, because as I said before it's really about legitimacy.
This kind of system determines the kind of punishments. Assuming you're not personally having your butt on the receiving end of a Sailor Kick, there needs to be some standard ways to be forgiven. The death penalty is not an option, since it precludes the repentance that leads to forgiveness. People who truly repent, or were manipulated by others, may get off very lightly.
People who only appear to truly repent might go on to commit more crimes. Recidivism might be a big problem in small crimes. Things may go badly for people who do not confess, including the truly innocent. I'd imagine this part of the Japanese court system would be replicated pretty well in Crystal Tokyo (but without the beatings).
Yep, that's right, even in perfect Sailor Moon Land the government will do the wrong thing, or have imperfect solutions.
For the most part, punishments will fall along familiar lines as in liberal democracies near you. Imprisonment, monetary fines, and especially community service. Occasionally service to the wronged party; a shoplifter may be asked to make amends and be forgiven by the person they wronged. Pink Sugar Hearts aside, I don't think physical punishment is part of the courtroom punishments, but it might be part of policing.
And then there's the weirder stuff. First: exile. If it's clear a person will never join a community, they will probably be asked to leave the Moon entirely. In our setting, this is easier, as there are plenty of countries on Earth that may take an exile. Or a person may end up stateless, which is effectively what happened to those banished to Nemesis in canon (but not necessarily to those who followed them there). Most likely, they will just fly exiles to California because thats where unwanted people are sent these days.
And then we finally have to deal with the question: what does Moon Healing magic actually do? In canon, it cures people who have been possessed by an evil spirit, as well as heal some physical wounds. In fanon, it brainwashes people to be happy and never rebel against their God-Empress Usagi. And ultimately I'm wondering why on earth the fans drank the Black Moon Kool-Aid (which dyes your tongue stygian purple with its grape flavor!)
I know there is so very little information about Crystal Tokyo that people latch on to whatever they're given. But does Usagi even want worshipers or adoring brainwashed hordes? The manga goes into detail about how Usagi's purification offers long lifespans, in the range of ~1000 years. Book of Genesis style lives. And that a minority rejects this purification. Wiseman rejects it because he's a fricking eldritch horror masquerading as a human. But the other people who follow?
I'm just going to point out that worship of death is a fairly common tenet of Ur-Fascism, perhaps the most common one. It's point #11 in Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism. Honestly a few of the other points in that essay apply the the Black Moon, which is kind of amazing with how little backstory we get. In any case, I'm pretty sure we can discount everything they say about the politics of the future as extremely biased and probably just delusionally wrong.
But what if the magic really does work on brains? Recall the sociopaths I mentioned earlier, which are a somewhat intractable problem for most countries (and in most countries they provide a significant portion of leadership). Is healing a broken brain, one that doesn't include a conscience, unconscionable? Wouldn't feeling guilt lead to forgiveness? I get the feeling that all of the sailor senshi would come down on the side of using magic to fix people's minds and souls. If you believe so strongly in morality, not ever caring for others is, well, unforgivable. The other starting population from Moonbase Alpha is going to be more mixed about such a thing, but most will actually believe that psychiatric diseases should be cured.
Right now, I'm partial to the idea of this as an analogue to capital punishment: A crime so severe that it must be forgiven only by the Neo Queen herself. And they face a final choice, to be healed and be made whole — and I do mean healed in a clinical sense, at least from Ami's understanding — or to choose a life in exile. The monarch's role as ultimate judge is a long one in history, and still exists in republics with the rights to pardon crimes (i.e. forgive) given to the executive heads.
As for the other people serving as judges, I'm not sure yet. But I will say that I have been looking at the Islamic Republic of Iran as a potential model, along with Commonwealth countries.
I'll be following up on more topics later. Feel free to post your own ideas, I'm curious to hear them. Unless they are ideas about how the Moon Kingdom is an Orwellian nightmare (you didn't watch the the same show, apparently).
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