One day I've got to write that essay about monarchic succession in relativistic inertial frames
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Exactly which person died before the other is subjective, depending on your velocity as you observe the two deaths, which in turn can affect the chain of succession
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As I understand it, legally speaking, two events are never considered to be simultaneous, which is really interesting to me while also resolving a vast slew of potential legal edge cases
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For example if two people die in a car crash and have conflicting wills, you place one death before the other and execute the wills in that order
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This obviously develops from Terry Pratchett's bit about kingons and queons and may hopefully lead to a Grand Unified Theory of monarchic force exchange
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So, for example, suppose Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles were to die "simultaneously" - or rather, their deaths are spacelike-separated events
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If I'm getting my succession rules correct, then an observer who sees Elizabeth die first would consider her son Charles to be the monarch from that point onwards. When Charles is observed to die, the throne passes to his son William (cont.)
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"Meanwhile", an observer who saw Charles die first would consider Elizabeth to continue as Queen. On observing Elizabeth's death, they would consider the throne to have passed to her second child, Prince Andrew (I think?)
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Replying to @qntm
It is William regardless. They shuffle the order of succession at the time of each birth, so when William was born Andrew was demoted from second to third in line to the throne, with William taking second. As long as William is alive at the time of their deaths he becomes King.
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Ah, then I need to concoct a more elaborate scenario with potential heirs to the throne being born at spacelike-separated moments
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