Timelines: What if Spain Failed to Control the World?

AlexanderPrimus said:

Can hardly wait! Hope it comes soon!

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It's almost there ! Going to be a few more hours XD Gosh I work so slow when I'm disracted . Especially by sleep haha

phargle said:

My eternitized abscess of obscurantism fondles no profit.

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It sounds like a rule of acquisition ..

comagoosie: trust me , I don't get it either XD

phargle: ... XD

update is 90% complete . Heading your way in the next hour !

27 December 1641

A murderous crash resounded in the large meeting hall of the chamber and Matthijs watched in horror as the candelabrum that fell dramatically from the central table began to start a small conflagration amongst the strewn papers on the floor. In a fit of passionate anger during the debate, one of the Calvinist delegates had swung his arm too wide and pushed the candelabrum made with the finest Spanish silver off the mesa. Already, a flame spread across the mass of papers radiating out militantly and scorching everything in its path. All the delegates quickly forgot their immediate arguments and had congregated around the fire stamping and hampering it with their shoes and jackets. Having no success, they had to call upon the guards stationed just outside the chamber to come in and stop the small inferno from enveloping all of them.

“Don’t be so careless, Filippus!” Matthijs heard one of the delegates call out informally. It was at that moment that van Bergen tapped his secretary on the shoulder to remind him that he was once again clutching at that hidden item against his chest. Matthijs immediately put his arms down on either side and looked to his master.

“Don’t look so shocked,” van Bergen whispered to him. “These kinds of things will happen.”

Matthijs was silent for a few moments and looked back at the dark circle that the flame had left after finally being put out. The old men of the room looked a bit ridiculous to Matthijs now. They sat around exhausted and panting even though most of the work had been done by the poor soldiers who now returned to their posts sweating and slightly charred. One man was even injured in the leg, Matthijs noted, and was being pulled away by his fellow soldiers. The delegates merely nodded their heads in breathless approval, but did not bother to thank them.

“Shall we get back to business, gentlemen?” a voice from the crescent of elderly men asked the rest. A short grumble pervaded the room. The Calvinist delegate was the only one to find the stamina to stand up from his seat despite the heat from his already fire-licked soles.

“Fellow delegates,” he began to say, “We cannot waste any more time! Already Madrid has ordered us to close Amsterdam to the Russians and more and more of their men are using our homes and cities as staging grounds for their campaign! Another campaign! With war once again declared against Russia, Novgorod is blockaded and we are to give up over a quarter of our overseas trade!”

There was a sedated murmur of agreement. “They’re levying more taxes again,” another delegate shouted from the sitting crowd, “and we have to feed and house these soldiers!”

“Exactly,” the Calvinist delegate roared triumphantly, “Who is it really that’s being invaded here? They say Paris is taxed just as much; or Vienna. But those cities do not rely on trade for their livelihood like we do nor are they forced to house Spanish soldiers in their own homes! We are being occupied by tyranny!”

There was an uneasy eruption of half-shared sentiment. Already, the Calvinist delegate screwed his eyes in fiery disappointment at the softness of these colleagues of his. He was about to open his mouth once more when van Bergen stood up and faced his fellow delegate with a bow. “I’m afraid that due to the late hour and the recent fiasco, we’re all a bit tired. If we do not seem enthusiastic for the cause of our homeland, it is not because we have no love for our life and property.” The seasoned delegate flashed a smile to everyone in the crowd. “Perhaps we should rest for the evening—” and here he raised his voice quickly enough before the Calvinist delegate could interject, “it would allow us all to contemplate the words you have told us with greater clarity, I think.”

The president of the meeting, recognizing the cue, immediately called for a vote of recess which speedily passed. The Calvinist delegate and his colleagues expressed their discontent but were overpowered by the mill of men defiling out of the chamber. “We’ll until adjourn tomorrow afternoon,” the president ruled.

Matthijs sighed in relief at the ruling and slumped back into the desk chair that he had been using leaving the quill pen for notes still half wet and slowly blotting on a blank piece of paper. He looked up at van Bergen who, despite his age, seemed much more energetic than his young assistant. That older man had not moved from his spot and the smile he had on when addressing the Calvinist delegate was still broadcasting around the room.

“So tell me, Matthijs,” the older one addressed him while still watching the others exit. “Have you learned much?”

Matthijs stared at the side of van Bergen’s face and furrowed his brow at the question. He wanted to give a proper answer but all that came out of his lips was another sigh that depressed him further back into his chair. “That fighting for one’s rights begins in rooms like these… not in the battlefield. This may be a bit harder, though… since you must fight your countrymen.”

“You’re wiser than you think,” van Bergen said to him in reply with a palm tapping Matthijs’ shoulder. “Come, we’ll head to our bedchambers. I’ll see you in the morning promptly.”

Matthijs nodded although he sat in the chair a moment longer while in some daze. His master made his way out of the room and the young man was the only one left. Matthijs and the dark spot that the fire burned were now staring at each other. The dark void of charred wood still left an aftertaste of something burning in the air. The subtle grooves of the wood gave the darkness an almost organic feeling as if it was some diabolical scale that had fallen off a giant fish of an unfathomable abyss. He felt its presence oppress him quietly as if at any moment the patterns in the wood would unwind and grapple at his arms and pull him into its swirling mass. In the silence of the empty room, he returned to his habit and reached for his crucifix.

“So who gave that to you?” a voice echoed from the doorway. Matthijs nearly fell backward in his seat as he straightened himself up. Shooting his eyes to the portal he could see an image in a white dress—a girl perhaps as old as he was leaning on an ivory parasol with a rosy smile framed by blonde curls.

“Gave what to me?” Matthijs stammered as he stood up. Even before he could compose himself, the girl pointed squarely with a lace gloved finger to his chest. Matthijs suddenly felt the crucifix underneath his tunic depress into his skin as if the very identification by the young lady had shot something at him only to ricochet off the corpus and push the object into his skin. “I…”

“You don’t need to worry,” the young girl said with a bubbly smile with even a tilt of her head to the side to complete the picture of innocence. “I won’t tell anyone,” she said with a few steps forward. Her white dress began to illuminate the room like some multifaceted mirror reflecting the candlelight all around into a dazzling shimmer. Even the dark spot on the floor began to be eclipsed and the wood seemed to groan at her approach. “I’m Katarina Ivanovna,” she introduced herself, “an aide to my uncle Alexei Alexandrovich, the Russian liaison here at this meeting.” It was only then that Matthijs recognised the Russian accent, although it was clear that this particular lady was from the Scandinavian quarters of the Russian Empire.

“Matthijs...” the young man was still uneasy as he introduced himself, “Matthijs van der West.”

“You'll have to forgive me,” Katarina laughed a little, “I'm not very good at memorising Dutch names yet.”

Matthijs didn't notice he was blushing when he replied: “And you'll have to forgive me if I'm not very versed in my Russian...”

“Katja then,” the young lady tilted her head in the other direction, “You can call me Katja.”

“Katja...” Matthijs repeated. He smiled slowly, unable to resist the example the young lady was giving. “And... you can call me Tijs if you'd like.”

“Well then, Tijs,” Katarina seemed to get the hang of the nickname rather elegantly, “are you going to answer my question?” she pressed on pointing once again to the middle of the young man's chest.

A hint of nervousness returned to Matthijs as he reached up to the lump in his tunic. “It was from a cousin of mine. My uncle gave it to me,” Matthijs began to explain reluctantly trying to search in the innocent blue eyes that faced him if there was a kind of deception hidden there. “My cousin was much older than I was...”

“Your cousin was?” Katarina caught on.

“He disappeared around the time I was born,” Matthijs clarified. “He was a soldier.”

“Was he in the Persian campaigns?” Katarina asked.

Matthijs shook his head with his cordial smile turning into a distant one. “He was lost somewhere in the Americas... we're not really sure how it happened. After my parents died, my uncle took care of me and gave this to me since he thought that perhaps what God had taken away from him He was giving back through me.”

“So your cousin is watching over you in Heaven then? Protecting you through that sacramental,” Katja intuited pursing her lips in contemplation.

Matthijs was a bit shocked at how well she read him, but he nodded and softened his smile. “I suppose so. Though I never met him, I'm sure somewhere out there, my cousin is praying for me.”


15 April 1642

“Spain is swimming in gold and that is why we are here,” Lope explained to his young apprentice. He spoke evenly and without interruption even as a suture was tightened around a wound on his shoulder. It had already been a week of fighting and the small mercenary tercio was still twenty miles from Oslo. Due to a surprising amount of resistance, the path to the city had been slowed considerably.

Íñigo was holding his head with some difficulty as he listened to his tutor. Just a few hours ago, he had barely survived a cannon shot that landed a few feet away from him. The sound of the blast was still ringing in his ear more loudly than the gentle talk of his benefactor. He had been bleeding out of his ear earlier, but that had already dried now into a crusty trail of darkness down the side of his head. Íñigo did not complain, however. In fact, his injuries were not the things that had been on his mind at all that evening. “Señor,” Íñigo addressed Lope louder than he expected.

Lope stopped his educational ramblings just as the field surgeon snipped the trailing end of the bloody stitch and made his way to the next patient. He looked to his companion and pondered that strange look on Íñigo's face for a moment. The young man's gaze was directed at the ground as if he was watching the grass underneath them hang doloriously in reverence to the dead strewn about just a few yards away on the abandoned field. Lope noticed how Íñigo's body was relaxed, yet the young man could still show his power from beneath the tunic. There was a lot of energy moving through Íñigo, but now it was moving like a whirlwind inside of him that it was beginning to disable the young man's limbs and sucked the redness from his skin.

After a minute or two of silence waiting for Íñigo to speak, Lope's own eyes began to widen. He accompanied this with a smile and leaned over to his young companion. “It's not what you expected it to be, was it?” Lope said with a sly grin. He placed a warm-- and freshly stitched-- arm around Íñigo's shoulders. Íñigo did not look back at him, but Lope knew he was contemplating the question.

“I don't think I could ever get used to it,” Íñigo resplied.

“And you shouldn't,” Lope agreed heartily with a patriarchal air as if chiding Íñigo for ever thinking it. “Killing a man should feel terrible; lest we get used to doing it. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to kill.”

Íñigo did not seem to be overly satisfied with the response. The thoughts that wandered through his head were those of his boyhood training first by the monks and then by his unlikely adopter. The monks had taught him how to read, how to pray, and how to give thanks to the Almighty for giving him this life; the other taught him how to deceive, how to dissimulate, how to take lives away. No, Íñigo knew that Lope was not a bad man. He was far from it, Íñigo reminded himself. Lope adopted him, fed him well, made him a strong young man. Lope was never able to get a wife so he poured all of his fatherly energy and attention to Íñigo who cherished his new father.

Lope was a veteran and soldiering was the only thing he knew how to do. Perhaps it was because of his humility in that profession that led him to adopt Íñigo, the young man had always pondered. Lope would always brag about barely going to mass, but Íñigo was accustomed to the fact that Lope always made Íñigo go. I have work today, but don't you dare miss Mass was the old Sunday greeting that Íñigo would receive instead of a “good morning.” Apparently, if Íñigo had missed the Liturgy, Lope would find out through the priest and make him go to bed without dinner. Lope was raised as a soldier, but he would have easily been a Franciscan, Íñigo thought.

Lying, killing, these were only the side effects of the “jobs” a mercenary had to do, Íñigo reminded himself.You must never kill the innocent or women, Íñigo remembered the instructions. In our profession, if we are to keep calling it a profession, we must have honour and discipline. There is honour in fooling and deceiving your enemy, because only an idiot believes what his enemy tells or reveals to him. There is no honour, however, in deceiving innocent men and women.

Íñigo, thought back to that afternoon. Where was the honour in that Norwegian dead on top of him after the scuffle? Where was the honour in slicing another enemy soldier's kidney? Lope had trained Íñigo well that most of the battle, the young man was riding on purely instincts. But was that enough to justify what he did? “Ego autem dico vobis: diligite inimicos vestros, benefacite his qui oderunt vos, et orate pro persequentibus et calumniantibus vos,[1]” Íñigo recited.

Lope frowned at him a little and tightened his grip around the young man's shoulders. “Loving our enemies also means not sitting about and letting them commit grave evil. We're here to liberate our brothers in Oslo, Íñigo. Both those who are persecuted under their schismatic patriarchs and our separated brothers themselves. The money's just incentive.” Here, the old Lope laughed.

Íñigo nodded slowly and half heartedly. He had a lot to think about, but for now, the pain in his head was becoming unbearable.


Trey tried to stand up again, but he only managed to make himself feel even worse before laying back on his bed. He didn't even know why he wanted to stand up; Randall was kind enough to drop him off some ibuprofin before heading out for his night class and Trey had just been holing up in his bed all afternoon. Headaches... they always seemed to get him every now and then. He's had them for as long as he can remember, but the doctors had always told him that they would just come and go and that they didn't really know what was causing it.

He groaned loudly as he curled up with the blanket over his frame. It had just been five minutes since he took the pills so it would take another fifteen or so before the effects would take hold. Until then, it was going to be fifteen minutes of lonely and unbearable pain. He wanted to talk to someone and for a moment he reached out his hand to his mobile at the edge of the side table, but then he thought how each sound would crack against his skull. Even the ticking of the clock in the room became intolerable.

Trey started to breath heavily against the pillow grinding his legs against his sheets in an effort to knead the pain out of his head. It was like a ringing was starting to grow inside of his ear canal and was gaining volume. When he heard the knocking on the door, it sounded like a shotgun went off. His heart jumped in his chest and pressed him to sit up against the headboard only to let out a groan.

The doorway opened. “Trey?” a voice echoed into the room. Slowly, a tall figure found itself in the chamber carefully.

“Yeah,” the one in the bed managed to half-moan out. Behind squinted eyes, Trey could make out a cautious, tall figure. “Lei?” he relaxed somewhat in his bed.

“Just wanted to drop off the printouts you missed earlier for our Christian Moral and Ethical Principles class,” was the reply.

Lei had been in many of the same classes as Trey ever since the beginning of the semester and both had become de facto study partners. Aside from that, both were very different. Whereas Trey was always proud of his English heritage, Lei hailed from Far East ancestry. Trey was an avid student of history and Lei was the captain of the swim team while majoring in business. Trey spent most of his time inside campus buildings while Lei had built up a healthy tan. It just so happened, as with many of the friendships that happen on the campus, that they both had to take the same theology requirements.

“Thanks...” Trey whispered as he receded back into a horizontal position on his bed.

“Headaches again, huh?” Lei sympathised as he carefully placed the papers on Trey's desk. “I also copied today's notes for you.”

“You didn't need to--”

“I still owe you for last week,” Lei replied quickly. “Just get some rest. We'll talk more about this tomorrow.”

“Thanks...” Trey managed smiled from underneath his covers.

As Lei made his way to the door, he took a second to look back. “I'll see you for this weekend's study session?” Lei asked quietly. He could see the outline of a head underneath the covers nod up and down just once. “I'll bring my notes over on Just War on Saturday, then. Night.”

Chapter CXVI: Just War (coming soon)

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[1]Matthew 5:44 "But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you"

ColossusCrusher said:

Ooh, does Matthijs have a love interest?
I don't know if that's the right smilie, but oh well. :rofl:

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Haha , well who wouldn't be dazzled by blonde Russian princess , eh ? XD

crusaderknight: Thank you very much XD

Grubnessul: Haha , why is it always the romance that grabs your attention ! What about the Dutch Revolt allegory of the first scene ? XD

ForzaA said:

Well, we already know the evil empire is going to win.. All we can hope for is a symbolic victory (some sort of influence for the Dutch) but even that is unlikely....

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Seriously though, much as it is probably not your intent (based on who the main characters are, the title etc.) I more and more get the feeling that Spain is more of an Oceania (of 1984), with the various people fighting with great conviction for an ultimately wrong cause. And while some are fighting this empire, they too aren't (mostly, in any case) fighting for a "just" or "right" cause... Much like Eurasia and Eastasia (if these even exist and aren't a fiction kept up by Oceania), say...

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That's an interesting thought ; a world bereft of political entities and rebellions that are fighting for right causes at all you mean ? So far interesting and definitely something that I've been hinting to address and the ambiguity of whether Spain in the world it is in is actually a good or bad thing remains one to be debated and expounded on .

Grubnessul: As for the allegory , I meant more so the idea that it is the Calvinist in his excitement that starts a fire from the candle made of Spanish silver representing the Calvinist faction starting the rebellion and causing a Spanish response in devastating force . The delegates , even the moderates , join in to help try to stamp out the fire representing the full force of the dutch political system attempting to redress the wrongs but then when that is not enough , they have to resort to the military (the guards) in order to put out the fire . However , it leaves a devastating black spot as well as injures many of the soldiers while the politicians are exhausted representing the damage it would cause to the Netherlands should this come to pass .

Avernite said:

I do note that they managed to get the fire out, so they're gonna win.


It's just in the alternate timelines caused by the timepieces that the Spanish actually win, the REAL timeline has the Dutch winning, evidently


Also, much interesting things going on with Inigo. Taking Oslo, are they? Well, one more valiant nation crushed under the jackboots of the Spaniards. Pity

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ROFL ! I actually enjoy the fact that I've managed to write a WC AAR that people are actively rooting against it from succeeding even though they know it will .

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So I wanted to throw this out there . A Poem that one of the characters has written .

The clues as to who the character is are intentionally vague so one can only guess . We do know that this person is a son . The journey he is on has been done before . One more thing: if you paid attention to the Dante Arc in Season II , you'll find that a secret has just been revealed about this person . A clue is: What crime is he trying to bathe away ?

Grubnessul said:

Hmm I missed that >.<

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Haha it's alright XD I haven't done allegory in a while anyway XD