This session, the Axis and American powers were given an opportunity to meet with Triumph and Disaster, and demonstrate their ability to treat those two impostors just the same.
Ashgabat, long held by 70 heroic Georgian divisions and protecting the Georgian nuclear reactor from being overrun, was unfortunately vulnerable to being outflanked; we did not have the troops to be strong everywhere, and the Malaysians, under the cover of the Japanese air forces, were able to push around the Aral towards the northern end of the Caspian. The Georgians began their evacuation of the forming pocket too late, and were eventually surrounded, along with half a dozen Norwegian divisions. This freed up several dozen Malaysian divisions to burst unbounded into Central Asia.
At which point, the European alliance declared war on the Axis.
Georgia, incidentally, has been out of manpower for two sessions now.
The Prussians fought bravely, but France and Germany together proved too much for them, and they have now been annexed; the Africans burst into Egypt and crossed the Suez; Norwegian counterattacks out of Denmark were repulsed by French air superiority. French ships forced the Dardanelles and landed troops in Constantinople. Portugal was evacuated safely, a tiny grace note of deliverance in a tide of defeat. What's left of the Georgian army is making a last stand at Baku; the Finns, Norwegians, and Italians have retreated to Finland proper, and intend to hold the line from Viborg to the White Sea against all comers. French paratroops have landed in London, and marines are marching to their rescue. The plains of Russia lie open; it is now a race between Europe and Asia to see who can occupy them first, more than a war.
It is a harsh setback, no doubt of that; but are we not Ynglings? We have, at any rate, a very fine tank obstacle; and our workshops continue to pound out the weapons that will arm the American continent. Now is the time to lean on uptime tradition, to remind oneself that at one time (this time, in fact, 1947, in that other history) Norway was a few hundred square miles of radioactive German mud, and to find again the spirit that carried the Norse people through two diasporas, through war and occupation and defeat.
The Finnish and Georgian governments we do not mourn; they were allies of convenience only. The honourable peoples that they oppressed remain our allies, and we shall restore them. One good thing, at least, we can find in the loss of Eurasia: The simplifying disaster has cast onto the waste-heap of history two odious regimes, and we can now fight to impose freedom at the limit of our bayonets' reach.
