Chapter 454: Morning in Eimerica
“Ye maca timiquican, ye maca tipolihuican.” (May we not die, may we not perish.)
-Battle cry of medieval Triple Alliance jaguar warriors, resurrected by modern Mexicanist State of Cemanahuac (MSC) ocelomeh fighters as one of their own battle cries
In the early months of 2013, the Russian government declared bankruptcy again, to the surprise of nobody. By now, Russian government bankruptcies were routinely expected every few years, despite the economy having improved relative to where it was in 1986. Non-Roman foreign investments dried up because of the high risks and no rewards. Even many Romans had begun questioning the Merkel administration’s continuation of Kohl’s subsidies, considering it a huge drain on financial resources which could be better used to help the eastern provinces or Africa’s many Länder, which were tired of being ignored by Europe.
The Alternative for the (Roman) Reich party, better known as Alternative for Rhomania (AfR), capitalized on this sentiment. Going into the 2015 examinations, the non-mainstream party on the right built a new platform around ending the Russian subsidies and reinvesting the funds in the eastern provinces. As word of their promise spread, their popularity surged, dislodging left wing parties like the SPR and PMS in the east and eroding the CMU’s support among blue collar workers in the west. However, the surge stalled, as the rest of the platform, focusing on cutting back immigration of all kinds, remained unpalatable to the public, and Africans realized they would still be ignored. Its leaders were also tainted with allegations of Mexicaphobia and ties to neo-Angeloi groups.
In the meantime, the Roman government subsidized construction of an Olympic Village in Constantinople’s suburbs and prepared the New Hippodrome for the coming 2016 games.
Starting in 2013 and continuing for the rest of the decade, the world’s supernational blocs entered a period of rapid expansion and consolidation. Small countries, still reeling from the lasting economic effects of the recession, formed or joined economic and customs unions with the hope that deeper cooperation and freer trade would reboot their economies and help them weather the next big economic crisis.
Burma was the first country to strengthen supernational ties as part of this trend. Yangon’s government chose to officially join ASEAN in July. In addition to gaining access to the Southeast Asian economic union, ASEAN was also brought closer to India. Countries like Siam and Malaya though expressed concern as to India expanding its regional influence, but Delhi promised to respect and protect the neutrality and sovereignty of ASEAN members. Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkestan announced the formation of their own regional bloc, the Central Asian Confederation. The aim of this bloc was primarily economic, like ASEAN, but a secondary goal was to safeguard the national interests of the three countries against possible Roman, Chinese, and Indian interference. Such interference though was unlikely, given the ASEAN member states were on good terms with the three major powers.
The NEC saw the most growth, though. In June, the office of State Commissioner, the de facto head of state of the NEC, passed to the ambitious Jorvik Thordarsson, son of Kanatan chancellor Petur Thordarsson and a former Kanatan chancellor in his own right.
Jorvik Thordarsson, North Eimerican State Commissioner
The young reformer used his charisma to broker a historic series of treaties with the Eimerican Commune successor states. Personally mediating each individual treaty, he secured all but one state’s transition to a democratic or meritocratic government and membership in the NEC; the nationalist Meskwaki Empire regime was the lone holdout, refusing to join as long as its rival the MFS was a member. To protect these new member states and build a case for the CSSA successor states to follow, Thordarsson convinced the older member states, particularly Fusang and Kanata, to contribute more troops to a supernational peacekeeping force to protect against Mexicanist and other insurgencies. Attempts to formally consolidate this force into a conventional army were met with strong opposition from Fusang and Kanata though, which feared it would be used to weaken their influence and national military strength. Thordarsson shelved those plans, intending to pursue them when public opinion was more in his favor. While the Kanatans were slowly coming around to the idea, the Fusangren were firmly opposed to it as of now, with no indications they would change their minds soon.
Thordarsson’s greatest triumph to date took place in Tawantinsuyu. For the last few years, Tawantinsuyu had held honorary membership in the NEC since it was the North Eimerican Community after all. Cusco had often petitioned for full membership at Federal Assembly meetings in Jinshan. Fusang was in favor of bringing its old ally into the bloc, but Mexico and the UPM, Tawantinsuyu’s ancient enemy and breakaway province, strongly resisted. After weeks of negotiations with the four countries, which the Mayan delegation helped mediate, Thordarsson managed to get a deal which would grant Tawantinsuyu full membership. In exchange for this, the NEC would be reformed into simply the Eimerican Community, or EC. This was ironically the same abbreviation used for the Eimerican Commune, which several member states, particularly Eimerican Commune successor states, strongly protested. Thordarsson promised he would work on a new name as soon as possible.
The continent’s major currencies—the Kanatan kroner (used in Kanata and the UTR successor states on the east coast), the Fusang yuan (used in Fusang, the MFS, and many of the Eimerican Commune successor states), and the Mexican tetl (used in Mexico, the UPM, Tejas, and Aztlan and pegged to the Mayan kakawa, which was used in those countries as well)—were to have their exchange rates fixed. This effectively united the three currencies and made it easier to exchange between then, strengthening the economic power of Mexico and the UPM. Tawantinsuyu was to peg its currency to the tetl/yuan/kroner/kakawa once its finances were in a much better situation. Thordarsson’s plan was to eventually pave the way for a single currency to replace the continents’ many national currencies and streamline trade even more. A more consolidated single market would also assuage Mexican and Mitteleimerican fears by making sure Tawantinsuyu would be on the same economic footing as them. But for now, such a single market was limited to Fusang and Kanata to test it out first, with the UPM and Mayapan promising to join once it was proven successful.
A similar movement took place on the other side of the world, but this was more of a traditional national unification movement, centered on Nepal and Bhutan and their ties with India. The two countries had much in common with India, sharing populations, languages, and cultures. Nepal itself had been artificially split off from India only decades ago. Bhutan itself had split off from Nepal at the beginning of the century and was still trying to develop its own identity, with not much success. Both countries had serious economic and social issues they found difficult to resolve on their own.
In the New World, Thordarsson was faced with his first real challenge. Many North Eimerican nations joined the EC due to continued instability in Cemanahuac and the promise of supernational peacekeeping, but their participation did not ease internal tensions which came from a variety of sources. Protests had simmered in Tejas for at least five years, the most notable occurring at a major oil refinery in west Tejas, where protesters staged rallies, sit-ins, and strikes for several months before the secret police arrested everybody.
In Mayapan, workers organized thousands of strikes against the unregulated capitalism prevalent in the country under an increasingly illiberal regime. Major unions planned a general strike, which was promoted by computer-literate working-class youths and middle-class college students in an online viral campaign. In response, the Mayan government sent infiltrators and riot police to break up the strike and arrest its leaders. The Mayan government’s actions were heavily criticized as going against the spirit of the country’s meritocracy, including by Thordarsson himself, and many feared the country was headed down the path of authoritarianism again. Yajaw K'ahk' Hakal Rak was especially criticized, but he blamed “foreign meddlers” for forcing him to use heavy handed tactics. In response, Thordarsson and Merkel threatened to impose sanctions.
Fusang wasn’t spared the unrest. The Roman ambassador to Fusang wrote in a leaked diplomatic cable that Fusangren, especially native Eimericans in the south, were “unhappy” with long-standing political alienation in favor of the Chinese-dominated coastal and northern cities. In the south, food strikes occurred every week, and there were demonstrations every day calling for reform. Many protests cited issues such as education and health care, which had been gutted by the administration, while others complained about a bias towards urban and northern Chinese, Manchu, and Navajos.
The catalyst for further escalation was the self-immolation of a Tejan street vendor on June 6 to protest police corruption, filmed by shocked bystanders and spread online. His death brought together various groups dissatisfied with the Tejan regime, including many unemployed, political and human rights activists, labor, trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, Mexicanists, equalists, Paulluists, Mexican unification nationalists, and others to begin the Tejan Revolution.
The Tejan Revolution
In a month, the Tejan government was overthrown, the absolute monarch stripped of powers, and a Roman-style meritocracy declared. Inspired by the success of the Tejan protesters, a wave of unrest rippled out to Osage, the CSA, Creek, Aztlan, and Shawnee. As most of the initial protesters involved were ethnic Nahua, these movements became known as the Nahua Spring.
Thousands of Mayans gathered in the central markets of New Peten and New Xichen, demanding Rak’s resignation. Rak refused and continued blaming the protests on foreign saboteurs and neo-equalists. Four days later, protests against the Meskwaki Empire regime and its dictator Gikwafi Medewathen broke out in the old industrial towns of the Great Lakes, which had seen their fortunes drastically decline over the last few decades. Medewathen deployed the army to break up the protests by force. Hundreds were killed, sparking massive riots throughout the country and overwhelming the regime. This would soon escalate into a full-blown civil war between Medewathen’s regime and disparate groups of rebels with differing goals. In August, rebel forces coalesced to launch an attack on Michigan City.
After 90 years of rule by many different dictatorships, Pierremaskin’s and Dohumme’s former capital was now a shadow of its former self. The palaces of the Opeatako-Osceola family either fell into ruin or were ill-treated by its current inhabitant, Medewathen, who pawned off many of their treasures on the black market to fuel his war effort. The army was let loose on the ancient streets of Michigan City, looting and pillaging as if they were an invading army. The rebel factions dug in and held their own against the corrupt regime forces, their morale and numbers countering the regime’s technological advantage. Although the regime forces made the rebels bleed for every block of the city, within a week their lines had collapsed. As the people of the city rose in rebellion, tearing down the regime’s flags and toppling Medewathen’s statues, the dictator evacuated Pierremaskin’s palace and fled with his family and remaining loyal generals, taking as much treasure as he could with him. The rebel leaders marched into the palace and declared the Meskwaki people had been set free from nine decades of tyranny.
Later that month, King Tomogata III the UPM was severely injured in a failed assassination attempt blamed on Nahua separatists and Mexicanist organizations. A regency was declared. The government, a right-wing government which had been swept to power on a Mexicaphobic and Muiscan nationalist platform, used the attack as an excuse to increase mass surveillance of and declare martial law over the Nahua-majority north, replacing civilian law enforcement with military units. A total blackout was enforced on the north, and internet and TV services were cut as part of the lockdown. Mexicanist terrorist groups ramped up bombing campaigns against the UPM military, calling on pious Mexica to kill their heathen rulers and reestablish the southernmost altepetl of the Triple Alliance. Merkel again threatened sanctions, but Panama City predicted she would not risk losing access to the Panama Canal to press her demands, taking a page out of Paullu’s playbook.
Otto’s attention was taken up by a hostage situation at Blachernae, where for a few tense moments a madman took him hostage, attempting to replicate Friedrich Augustin von Arbon’s takeover in the modern day. Thanks to the efforts of several Athanatoi agents, the crisis was resolved with Otto unharmed. But the hostage crisis would take up the country’s attention for the next few days as Merkel, the CMU, and the Varangians pointed fingers at each other to see who was to blame for letting the man get right to Otto. Non-mainstream parties declared this incident showed the mainstream parties had grown complacent and calcified, too satisfied with the status quo and busy being deadlocked with each other to push for real change. Roman media stopped covering the crisis in North Eimerica to focus on more profitable political drama.
The next month, Nahua groups protested against the destruction of a Mexica temple in the Cherokee-dominated Shawnee dictatorship. The Shawnee regime responded by sending in tanks and massacring them, provoking another uprising. The country fell into chaos, interrupting the secret passage of Medewathen and his son through the region. His luck ran out as the Shawnee rebels captured them and handed them over to the Meskwaki rebels, who executed them. In a show of mercy, the rest of his family was allowed to seek asylum in the Old World. With Medewathen’s death, the Meskwaki civil war was supposedly over. But almost immediately, the rebel factions turned on each other, fundamentally disagreeing on who should lead the new government and what form it would take. Thanks to support from China, pro-democratic factions ultimately won the power struggle, declaring the Meskwaki Commonwealth and inviting Emperor Pierremaskin II to return to Michigan City. There were even talks of unification with the MFS, which Thordarsson offered to mediate.
Mass protests continued throughout southern Fusang, culminating in a protest in Zhumasi, the great coastal city and the south’s main urban center, by native Eimerican and Nahua groups calling for equal rights and recognition by Jinshan. Although the emperor and chancellor sympathized with the protesters, the majority party in the Diet, a Chinese nationalist party descended from the Fusang Guominjun, did not. The government deployed riot police and troops to break up the Zhumasi protest, causing dozens of casualties. This only caused the riots to spread to more cities, including many Chinese-majority ones. The government continued cracking down, even as the emperor ordered a deescalation. In response, the Fusang Diet sacked the chancellor and replaced him with a more jingoistic one.
Although Merkel threatened to impose sanctions, the Reich’s official policy on the Nahua Spring was to not interfere in what was considered the internal affairs of each North Eimerican nation, although the Kaiser did offer his sympathies to the protesters “fighting for human rights” in his New Year’s address and privately spoke with Thordarsson about the need to take action quickly or watch as the Eimerican Community collapsed. In comparison to the chaos of the New World, the Old World was quiet for the first half of 2014. The only two spectacles were the canonization of Ecumenical Patriarch Ioannes II and the centenary of World War I in June.
(This may not have aged well in light of the last couple days’ events, but Ioannes is not exactly the same as John Paul.)
The latter was marked by Princess Wilhelmina and the Mingzhong Emperor meeting in Prachinburi, Thailand, where they laid the cornerstone for what would be a new World War I battlefield memorial. The rest of the summer saw events in Livonia to commemorate the battles of Vilnius and Grodno, accompanied by vigils and prayers in the rebuilt Hagia Sophia. However, the events were all marred by some rash comments from Wilhelm Karl. Likely enraged his niece had been chosen over him to represent his father at Prachinburi, the Crown Prince denounced the Reich’s cowardice in “bowing” to Chinese demands when China started the war in the first place. Although Merkel quickly issued an apology to contain the damage, Wilhelm Karl then criticized Merkel for proving his point and bowing to China.
The Nahua Spring had no end in sight. Rak continued blaming foreigners and equalists for the mass protests which had now become dangerous riots across Mayapan. By now, rebel groups dedicated to overthrowing Rak had begun organizing in the outer islands. The most powerful of these groups was the New Xichen-based Free Mayan Navy (FMN), formed by an alliance of rogue naval officers and provincial leaders, which maintained its popularity due to its insistence on not only overthrowing Rak but also reforming the Mayan economy to be more equal and fair. Fearing the growing popularity of the Free Mayan Navy, Rak declared martial law in the outer islands and mobilized the Mayan military. A week later, in response to an FMN attack on a military checkpoint on Mayapan Island, the Mayan Navy launched an attack on New Xichen. The offensive began with heavy naval and aerial bombardment by government forces, followed by marines establishing footholds on the island to set up rockets and mortars. Helicopters and tanks then advanced into downtown, supported by rocket fire. After multiple foreign journalists were killed in the attack, human rights groups criticized the bombardment as indiscriminate. Water supplies, electricity and communications were entirely cut off across the city. By the end of the month the FMN’s leadership had been annihilated, crippling the pro-meritocracy rebels. With the collapse of the FMN, many Mayans, particularly the Nahua populations of Cuba, turned to Mexicanist groups as their best shot for overthrowing Rak. Other countries began following Mayapan’s lead, among them Aztlan, which cracked down on its own demonstrations.
Most Romans were more concerned with the examinations at this point. The two front-runners were Merkel, obviously, and Martin Schulz, the SPR’s candidate. Merkel’s campaign focused on continuing her policies, as she had done since 2005. Schulz assailed her from the left on her alleged lack of progress, bringing up the continued economic slump of the eastern provinces and the rampant unemployment and crime there, as well as the crumbling of the welfare state and Imperial Health Service. He also reminded her of the decline of traditional industry in the western provinces and the lack of attention paid to working class individuals who had lost their jobs due to the changing economy while approving tax cuts for the wealthy. Finally, he criticized Merkel for approving the controversial Nord Stream project, a proposed oil pipeline with Russia, as being environmentally dangerous and in the pocket of wealthy oil corporations, which went against her official positions on combating climate change, implying she was a hypocrite. Although he gained a massive online presence and widespread support among minorities and younger Romans, most examiners, who were generally older and from majority demographics, did not agree. Preferring to maintain the status quo, as many of their demographic had well-off lives and good jobs, they sided with Merkel.
SPR candidate Martin Schulz
Schulz wasn’t helped by significant media coverage going to the AfR’s unexpected candidate. At the opening of campaign season, the AfR had been written off as an irrelevant fringe party. But that changed when Osama bin Laden, a real estate heir, announced his candidacy with a controversial speech that insulted Russians as criminals and drug addicts, among other things. While a majority of Romans were obviously shocked by his vulgar words, a not insignificant minority applauded his willingness to sidestep established political norms and “tell it like it is.” Schulz had been doing something similar in his campaign, but major news networks focused more on bin Laden, as the networks gave him no chance of winning and saw broadcasting his ridiculous speeches as good for ratings, as opposed to Schulz’s serious chance of winning (and possibly going after their own money).
Bin Laden served them well. After getting weeks of boosted ratings, news networks ditched him in favor of the Nusantaran annexation of the city-state of Yogyakarta. Some pundits called it a military invasion, as several Nusantaran armored divisions had been deployed into the city. Others explained the people of Yogyakarta had petitioned for annexation, hoping to restore Yogyakarta’s status as the traditional capital of Nusantara (and to fix the city-state’s economy). Yogyakartan security forces opposed to the petition launched a coup, leading to Nusantaran military action.
Backc in the Reich, bin Laden was forced to end his campaign after losing every primary, though not before siphoning away points and supporters which would have gone to Schulz. When the results were tallied in December, Merkel had easily won a third term. The left fractured, unable to mount serious opposition with lackluster candidates, while Schulz was plagued with media blackouts and mischaracterization of his policies as equalism. The other fringe parties siphoned off a few points from the KRA, FMP, Greens, and PMS. The result was the CMU and its allies won 65% of points and a majority of Länder, just one percent shy of a supermajority.
However, the CMU still had to fight for that victory, as the real numbers told another story. Not even considering falling short of the supermajority, a significant chunk of that 65% went to parties which actually were not really allied with the CMU but were simply just centrist or right-leaning enough to be considered in the same ideological bloc and most likely to support the CMU’s proposed legislation. The CMU itself won only 18% of points, a plurality when compared to the winnings of each individual party, but it was a far cry from the 65% Merkel and her favorable news coverage repeated. Since 1945, all parties had been neatly organized into several ideological blocs for convenience. The three major ones were the centrists, right-leaning classic liberals, and the traditional left, led by the CMU, KRA, and SPR respectively. The FMP, usually lumped in with the KRA, was considered the fourth major party. These parties had collectively dominated politics in one form or another since 1836, when the Hohenzollern Faction and the Schweinfurt Faction were founded and gained seats in the newly reformed Diet of Sigismund II. This system heavily favored the four established parties or other parties closely aligned to them, making it hard for new parties to get started. It wasn’t impossible, as many of the religious right parties had successfully been included in Merkel’s coalition during her previous term. Those religious right parties saw a surge in 2015, thanks to one man.
(Like with Ioannes and John Paul, Thierry Baudet here is his own person, separate from the real person.)
Thierry Baudet, a minor politician and former CMU representative from Frisia, rose to prominence during this campaign season. His charisma helped him cobble together many different minor and regional parties, from religious conservatives to environmentalists to mainstream conservatives and some liberals, to form what was effectively a fifth party. Their common goal was to provide the public with an alternative to the four major parties and end their “centuries-old stranglehold” on the Diet and chancellery. Baudet named his alliance of the downtrodden and forgotten The Forum. His message resonated with many Romans who had long ago resigned themselves to Berlin forgetting them. The Forum won 28% of points, more than the SPR’s and KRA’s alliances won. It was a troubling sign for Merkel, but The Forum was not an official party, and each individual party won only 4-5% of points, so the CMU won out, for now. To redirect the narrative in her favor, Merkel wasted no time after the examination concluded, quickly passing an affirmative action bill on New Year’s Day. This would earn her more support among minorities, but many Germans and Greeks were mixed on the law. Some felt it went against the country’s meritocratic traditions.
But it became clear very soon the situation in North Eimerica could no longer be ignored by the Old World. While the democracies, meritocracies, and dictatorships of the continent tore themselves apart in the Nahua Spring and the EC struggled to whack the moles that were the budding insurgencies, the feared terrorist group af-Quetzalcoatl, which had brought the Reich to its knees on November 9, slowly regained ground throughout Cemanahuac. By January 2014, the Mexican government had lost control of most of the north to af-Quetzalcoatl. Af-Quetzalcoatl also seized crucial border towns in Tejas and Fusang, overwhelming local authorities. On January 3, its leader, Ocuil Zolin, a former officer in Zolton Huicton’s army, proclaimed the restoration of the old Triple Alliance and renamed the organization as the Mexicanist State of Cemanahuac (MSC), with himself as the rightful huetlatoani and not the “corrupt foreign puppet” in Aztlan. With the blessing of sympathetic members of the priesthood, Zolin called for a global flower war, a xochiyaoyotl, to assert the supremacy of his extreme brand of Mexicayaotl and the sacrificing of apostates, particularly non-Eimericans.
Secular rebel groups of all kinds, from equalists to Paulluists to separatists, as well as the EC-backed Mexican army, temporarily put aside their differences to fight MSC. But Zolin’s devoted and motivated soldiers, called ocelomeh (jaguar warrior) after the feared shock troops which laid waste to pre-Eimerich North Eimerica and rampaged across the Britannian Isles and Scandinavia during the Thirteenth Century Crisis, easily routed the weakened and disorganized rebel/government alliance. Zolin went on the offensive immediately, his armies sweeping away many of the militias effortlessly. His armies then marched on the industrial city of Nochistlan, one of Mexico’s largest cities and a major government strongholds. After a short assault, its underpaid and exhausted garrison not only surrendered, but dropped their weapons, abandoned their posts, and fled the city in a panic. The disaster was filmed by both militants and locals, and the footage went viral online, humiliating the regime. Hours later, a car bomb detonated in the central market of Gull Rock, Tejas, killing dozens. MSC claimed responsibility, and fear of the organization spread throughout the continent. Zolin and his main army marched south to deal with other rebel groups in northern Mexico, with the goal of taking Tenochtitlan and making it their capital. MSC promised amnesty for anybody who defected but extermination for anybody who resisted. Fully aware of the threat, State Commissioner Thordarsson convinced Fusang and Kanata to contribute more troops to the peacekeeping force.
Shocking online footage of MSC’s atrocities circulated online. The most notorious of these included cutting out the hearts of foreign reporters, flaying prisoners of war alive, or mass executions of ethnic minorities. But despite being outraged by what they saw, the Roman public didn’t pay much more attention besides token opposition. Even Merkel believed Thordarsson had a plan for them, just like he did for everything else. She personally was more focused on the rededication ceremony of the rebuilt Brandenburg Palace on January 27 and the inevitable political debate over Russian subsidies following Tsarberg’s latest declaration of bankruptcy. Public opinion was focused at home, not on the chaos overseas. For all of the mayhem those Mexicanists caused in the New World, it just didn’t affect the Old World…did it?
On March 12, Rak and the rest of the cabinet and royal family were attending a routine naval ceremony when a ship unexpectedly fired a missile at their viewing platform, killing most of them. Half of the attending fleet joined the attack, firing on the crowd and opposing warships. Car bombs detonated throughout New Peten, killing hundreds. With the entire Mayan government decapitated and the main fleet in open rebellion, Mayapan descended into chaos. K’uhul Ajaw Cocom survived the attack but was critically injured and flown to Europe for medical treatment, during which the surviving members of his cabinet forced him to abdicate. His young son, Pacal, attending school in Neurhomania, was declared his successor, but he was kept in Neurhomania under armed guard due to the situation in Mayapan. A naval junta assumed emergency powers, but Cuba, Yucatan, and the other islands organized their own rival juntas based on naval factions, which all began fighting. In that chaos, MSC-aligned groups seized control of strategic ports and cities, particularly in the eastern islands near Neurhomania. What was a highly developed and stable country just a year or two ago had now descended into barbarism and violence like that seen on the mainland.
Meanwhile, despite the increasing body count and the fact that MSC cells controlled territory dangerously close to Neurhomania, major Roman media still focused on domestic news. The Forum underwent a schism between its religious right core and right-wing populist and nationalist parties which had been brought into the fold by Baudet for 2015. The religious right wanted to focus more on environmental concerns and inclusion of minorities, while the populists and nationalists called for a focus on identity politics and an embrace of Christian Germans at the cost of all else, which Baudet refused to support. The populists and nationalists left the alliance, joining the AfR-led National Democratic Front. Now only the core green-purple alliance (green for the environmentalists, purple for the religious right) which formed the basis of The Forum remained without an alliance or unified party of their own, which would help boost their name recognition and performance in 2020. Although the PBC and SIR parties were officially listed as members of this new populist alliance, their leaders insisted they remained part of The Forum and would eventually leave to join whatever bloc or unified party it formed.
Zacatecas was the last major northern government stronghold to fall to MSC. Once news of the city’s fall reached Tenochtitlan, the Mexican government panicked. The cabinet and legislature deliberated on a strategy to counter MSC. With the Reich still seemingly underestimating the severity of the problem and Thordarsson’s peacekeepers tied up further north on the plains, the Mexicans were on their own. However, they couldn’t agree on a plan. The next two weeks were spent arguing in conference rooms about who should pay for the operation, which general should carry it out, what favors were to be done to get the help of certain militias, which militias to ask, and who should get credit. Fed up with the corruption and inaction, General Huicton Ollin took the thirty thousand men under his direct command, the most motivated and best trained in the entire army, out from Tenochtitlan to retake Zacatecas himself, without waiting for authorization from his superiors. He would accept disciplinary action once he had returned from crushing these terrorists. It would be a grave miscalculation.
Zolin’s ocelomeh blew up dams in the vicinity of the advancing government forces, forcing Ollin to relocate to higher ground. Dozens were killed in the floods, not counting the hundreds of civilian casualties. Oil fields were set ablaze, the smoke forcing the troops to change their routes to the ones the ocelomeh wanted them to use. And once Ollin’s forces had relocated to such higher ground, that was exactly where more ocelomeh waited in ambush. Hit and run tactics whittled down Ollin’s numbers by the dozens each hour, while improvised explosive devices claimed hundreds more. In Zacatecas, the ocelomeh easily lured them into a trap in the open desert to the north, where they converged on the soldiers from all directions, with nowhere to run or hide. The demoralized soldiers immediately dropped their weapons and ran as fast as they could from the battlefield, in full view of foreign camera crews who broadcasted their panic around the world.
At least eleven thousand men were captured and sacrificed over a period of three days.
Ollin was captured alive and brought before Zolin. As it turned out, Zolin once served under Ollin’s direct command. He looked nothing like he did in Zolton’s time. He had grown a long beard and replaced his military uniform with traditional religious garb and a feathered headdress. Instead of a regular gun, he carried a macuahuitl, a medieval Triple Alliance sword, alongside a copy of the Codex of Huitzilopochtli, one of the Mexicayaotl sacred texts. His words were filled with cherry-picked religious quotes and archaic poetic verses, and he spoke deliberately and with an unexpected charisma Ollin did not remember. Due to their shared history in Zolton’s army, Zolin spared Ollin and released him, if only to deliver a message to his Roman puppetmasters: the gods were waking, and he was their sword. Huitzilopochtli demanded sacrifices once again, as the end of human sacrifices in the 15th century had led to the Triple Alliance’s steady decline from its 13th century hegemony to constant humiliation after the Sunrise Invasion. Only the blood of the foreigners who defiled Cemanahuac could sate the angry god’s thirst.
When news of the disaster at Zacatecas and the humiliation of the national hero spread, the rest of Mexico descended into chaos. Insurgencies in central Mexico intensified, as both MSC-allied and other militias launched attacks against government forces and each other. Similar uprisings took place in Tejas, Tsalagihi Ayeli (the Cherokee), Creek, and the UPM, among others, demonstrating the extent of MSC’s influence. This was no longer just simply Mexico’s internal affairs.
(Most of MSC’s provinces were given to them by events. I then used the console to give them ownership of any province they occupy.)
What remained of the Mexican army fled as the Mexicanists and other terrorists advanced. Thousands fled their homes. Nochistlan became the MSC’s temporary capital until Tenochtitlan was “liberated.” There, the ocelomeh seized control of government offices, the airport, and police stations. Militants also looted the Central Bank in Nochistlan, reportedly absconding with 429 million marks which would be used to buy weapons and supplies on the black market, as well as fund an online propaganda campaign. Libraries were put to the torch with an enthusiasm not seen since the Fifty Years’ War. In an online video, Zolin declared that “if they contradict the Codex, they are to be burned as heresy, and if they don’t contradict the Codex, they are redundant and should be burned anyways.” The University of Nochistlan’s faculty was flayed alive or sold into slavery and its supply of chemicals and radioactive materials seized to make weapons of mass destruction. Museums were looted, with “heretical” artifacts demolished while the rest were sold on the black market. More than 500,000 people fled to escape MSC. As it was close to the Pacific coast and the Mexican Gulf’s and Aztlan’s oil refineries, its fall posed the threat of MSC seizing control of major Mexican oil production.
At this point, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed alarm at reports that MSC fighters "have been actively seeking out and killing soldiers, police and civilians, whom they perceive as being associated with the government". Finally realizing how dangerous MSC was, Merkel requested 500 million marks from the Diet to use to train and arm moderate Mexican, Mayan, and North Eimerican rebels and government forces to counter MSC attacks and keep allied governments in power. Although the mainstream parties were generally in favor of the aid, the new Liberal-Conservative Reformer Party, a centrist party promoting itself as an alternative to the “ideological extremes” of the four mainstream parties, insisted on half that amount in the name of compromise and had the votes to force the main four to comply. What compromise they wanted was beyond anybody’s understanding.
Things took a turn for the worst when a series of attacks struck Frankfurt in the days leading up to the annual November 9 memorials. The first incident was the assassination of Aliya Hussein, an economist and billionaire who was known to support liberal and progressive causes around the world, making her a target for Islamophobic far-right conspiracy theories and the archenemy of the nationalist Gaojiang Zhao Yu of Penglai (who was one source of the conspiracy theories). The deaths of not only her but also every Muslim at a wedding reception, and only Muslims, forced the public to reckon with several controversial issues they’d rather not talk about: Islamophobia in the Reich, ideological radicalization by social media, the continued survival of the Angeloi ideology despite decades of government-directed and self-imposed deangelification, Holocaust denial, the paradox of tolerance and possible limits on freedom of speech, and the state of the eastern provinces, and many other issues. But the attacks didn’t end there. Several more chemical attacks targeting Muslims and later Jews took place throughout the city, culminating in a hostage situation at a museum for a World War II hero where the perpetrator was killed. Frankfurt was left reeling from the week of deaths, but its people had no time to rest. As soon as one crisis ended, another began, coincidentally involving the same team that took down the Frankfurt terrorist.
On November 9, 2015, thousands of classified government and corporate files dating back to the late 1940s were leaked to Die Zeiten by the X-Division, a branch of the Athanatoi dedicated to investigating crimes overlooked by the rest of the agency and also, apparently, massive government and military corruption. At first glance and to mainstream audiences, the information presented in the files appeared crazy and completely ridiculous, the stuff of 1990s conspiracy theories long since forgotten by modern conspiracy theorists:
-A giant cabal of Roman and international elites, including many government, military, and corporate leaders, led a group called Sentinel.
-Through the connections these individuals had within the group and with others, Sentinel wielded significant influence over the Roman and other governments, militaries, and economies.
-The goal of Sentinel was to amass enough power and eventually seize control of the world for its own ends. This would be achieved by using upgrades to Strategic Defense Initiative, which would safely eliminate resistance on the ground before it even started resisting.
-Sentinel was also a front for money laundering and illegal human experimentation for the goal of creating “super soldiers,” although the results of such experiments were not released. The only details released about the experiments was that they involved unnecessary genetic or cybernetic enhancements.
-Anybody who stood in the way of Sentinel or even suspected their existence was “removed.” Chancellors like Walter Scheel were toppled with scandals, and individuals like Abraham Green, Ragnar Beck, Anne Frank, and even Elisabeth Alexandra were outright assassinated.
-Gerhard Schröder was blackmailed into helping Sentinel impede efforts to prevent the November 9 attacks, while the assassinations of Elisabeth Alexandra and Anne Frank were orchestrated to intimidate Otto into compliance because he was slowly figuring out the conspiracy with them.
-Zolton Huicton was an Athanatoi asset, but nobody outside Mexico paid much attention to that because they were all focused on the previous point and he was long dead.
All this would’ve been laughed off as the work of a crazed anti-government fanatic had there not been so much evidence to back it up. Regardless, people still had their doubts about both the X-Division and Die Zeiten.
The small division had been researching Sentinel for the last 23 years, somehow staying under the radar all that time while having to put up with hostile senior leadership which at least three times ordered its dissolution. At one point, its main four agents were charged with murder of a government employee, conspiracy to aid and abet said murderer, high treason which caused thousands of Roman soldiers and Russian civilians to die at Chernobyl in 1986, and war crimes while fighting on the Soviet side of that same war. The division was dissolved and a national manhunt was launched for the four agents. However, the charges were dropped and a formal apology was eventually given to the four agents when the division was reinstated following a series of bioweapon terrorist attacks that were eventually traced back to Wilhelm Tesla, the CEO of Tesla Dynamic and creator of SVI. The mad chief executive was found to be hoarding more biological weapons in preparation to wipe out humanity and “start over with a new Eden.” After a shootout on a cargo ship he had made his hideout against the coming apocalypse, he was killed, and the weapons of mass destruction were destroyed. The division’s funding was expanded and its reputation fully restored, while its agents earned an almost folk hero-like following among their fellow agents. They continued their successes with the handling of the Blachernae hostage crisis and more recently the Frankfurt terrorist attacks, which coincidentally were mentioned in the Sentinel files.
Die Zeiten was also staking its entire credibility and reputation on publishing the story on its infamous front page. The 179-year-old newspaper had a tendency to put articles of questionable significance on the front page and sometimes report on news that was already weeks if not months old. By now, though, people had generally stopped caring about the order of articles and what was on the front page, considering it part of the newspaper’s charm. And when it got the timing right, its coverage was often top notch. The chance of high quality reporting hidden on Page 5 proved to be an effective marketing gimmick, somehow, as people picked up copies to read through since they couldn’t just glance at the front page like any other newspaper.
However, public opinion quickly shifted when the reprisals started. First, unknown assailants attacked the newspaper’s main offices, attempting to kill or intimidate the journalists and sabotage the printing presses to prevent further publication of the files. This failed, and the assailants were defeated by X-Division, who expected an attack and prepared accordingly. Another attack was carried out in the United Nations headquarters in Vienna, with the assassination target being the Roman ambassador Annie Schmidt. Again, X-Division predicted this would happen and saved the ambassador, driving off the attackers, though they couldn’t save Schmidt’s immediate predecessor, Ambassador Irene Doukas, a named Sentinel collaborator, from meeting a similar fate. Sentinel then used SVI to wipe out the KL base at Ramstein and an entire Kaiserliche Marine carrier battle group heading to Neurhomania, while RSB agents, in a violation of Penglai’s sovereignty, carried out a botched assassination attempt on X-Division agent Anders Humboldt’s sister, who was living in the country. In retaliation, Gaojiang Zhao expelled the Roman embassy and suspended diplomatic ties with the Reich, calling the Romans hypocrites and no better than him. All these attacks only served to prove there really was a Sentinel pulling strings. Following an Athanatoi raid on an RSB facility in Nicomedia, the remaining ringleaders of the Sentinel cabal were killed when they turned SVI on themselves, destroying all Sentinel-controlled black sites in a last ditch effort to destroy whatever evidence had not been revealed yet. Sole SVI control was turned over to the Kaiser alone, so there would be no repeats of this crisis.
In the span of a week, everything flipped on its head. Walter Scheel and Gerhard Schröder were indicted and put on trial. Attempts to arrest Rees-Mogg, the Varangian implicated in the murder of the Crown Princess, initially failed as the man had fled his estate one the news broke. The Athanatoi and local law enforcement agencies launched a massive nationwide manhunt for him, ending when enraged citizens in Lublin formed a mob and hunted him down, beating him senseless before turning him in to authorities (he was said to have not defended himself and kept apologizing for the killing even as he was beaten). Dozens of current and former politicians from all four mainstream parties in both houses resigned en masse after having been implicated, with some turning themselves in. The RSB director, KNMB director, Minister of Defense, Minister for the Environment, and Megas Domestikos ton Aeras were all indicted.
The scandal spread across borders too, with large parts of the Russian, Yavdian, Chinese, and Indian governments implicated. China’s Health Ministry and Defense Research Agency both saw their entire senior leadership arrested. Millions of Chinese were shocked the feared junta-era Unit 731 was not only still in operation seventy years after it had allegedly been dismantled, but it had expanded its illegal human experiments to the Reich, Russia, and Yavdi, with the support of those three governments through Sentinel. Zhao used the opportunity to bash the Roman government’s criticism of his regime, saying “a nation with such a large and dangerous parasite inside it subverting the world’s freedoms and liberties has no right to lecture me about corruption and liberal norms.” The United Nations ordered a review into the security of the UN Island headquarters, and a vote to move the headquarters to the new offices in the suburbs was fast tracked for deliberation. The Mexican government threatened to expel Roman and coalition forces from the country, with much of the political establishment enraged the Reich had propped up Zolton Huicton and his brutal regime for decades, but fortunately it did not follow through on its threat. It instead severed several trade deals and partnerships with the Reich, instead aligning diplomatically and economically with Kanata and the Eimerican Community. The Roman troops were allowed to stay for now in the interest of defeating MSC, but they were to leave as soon as the terrorist group was destroyed.
Back at home, there were now two trials of the century going on at the same time. The Sentinel files released previously unknown evidence directly implicating Scheel in obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy relating to the Wassertor incident and investigation, while Schröder was revealed to have received advanced knowledge of the November 9 attacks and (although blackmailed) let it happen to push through the Patriot Act, expand the powers of the Sentinel-controlled RSB, and pursue a war with Mexico to enforce regime change, on top of illegally lobbying for Chinese energy firms after leaving office. Schröder immediately confessed to everything in exchange for a reduced sentence. Scheel refused a plea deal, and the resulting trial lasted for weeks, with millions again watching the spectacle before he was convicted.
Although the RSB director and the Minister of Defense had already been indicted, the entire leadership of the RSB and half that of the Bureau of Defense were also indicted days later on charges of conspiracy and, in some cases, high treason. Riots broke out in major cities and had to be peacefully but forcefully broken up by local police departments. Death threats were made against named Sentinel participants who had not yet been indicted as well as others suspected as being Sentinel, including the Crown Prince, whose already low popularity dropped further. Wilhelm Karl responded by saying the allegations were baseless, and although he was not on good terms with his sister before her death, he would never have ordered her death like the “Sentinel traitors” did. Public support dropped for cybernetics and unnecessary genetic enhancement as they featured heavily in many of Sentinel’s military experiments.
The political establishment was torn apart by the explosive allegations in the report, forever changing the political landscape. Merkel was pressured to resign but refused. Despite a serious hit to her approval ratings, her coalition remained stable and the opposition remained fractured, leaving a confidence vote out of reach. To prevent one from being held in the future, Merkel and the coalition managed to push through a law repealing the Wilson-era bill, which restored the impeachment process in place before Wilson set up the confidence vote mechanism to oust Schmidt.
Pushing through such a major reform at this time, though, gave the impression Merkel was using the whole scandal as a cover to pass a secret agenda, which increased the backlash. In protest, much of the leadership of the CMU and SPR resigned, leaving both parties adrift. Merkel was expected to lose 2020 in a landslide to whoever the SPR ran, most likely Schulz, as the SPR was considered less tainted than the CMU. In addition, the SPR was really the only other choice for examiners enraged by the scandal due to the nature of the Ottonian system, which had allowed the four mainstream parties to become entrenched over the decades. With the KRA and FMP being themselves and the CMU obviously a non-starter, examiners wanting change had no choice but to pick the SPR as the “lesser evil.” At least it was like that until Thierry Baudet jumped into the conversation.
While the main four parties were torn apart by the scandal, Baudet and The Forum, which had done modestly well in the recent examinations, were completely untouched. Baudet held a press conference several days later in which he affirmed his commitment to uncovering the truth behind the report and holding everyone involved accountable. He did not point fingers or use the opportunity to gloat about his moral superiority over the mainstream parties, as many expected him to do. Instead, the image of the relatively younger Frisian man in a business casual suit talking calmly and reassuringly in his regional accent struck a cord with the enraged and confused populace.
My fellow citizens, in these confusing times, I must urge that we take a moment to breathe. That’s all I’m asking. Take a deep breath. I’d like to share with you a story from my childhood. My dad was a soldier stationed in West Berlin. Occasionally, he’d exchange insults with the Soviet soldiers patrolling the other side of the border. One of the ones he’d say is, ‘May you live in interesting times’. As a kid, I didn’t really understand why he’d say that, because it didn’t really sound like an insult or anything. But now, many years later, I do. Because we are truly living in interesting times. We’ve learned a truth that has shaken us to the very core. A lot of the things we’ve taken for granted are gone or built on lies. The people of the world are looking to us for leadership in these very uncertain times. If this nation is to survive, we should slow down and take a deep breath. When Friedrich the Great set out to restore the Reich, he did not do so with fear and mistrust. He did so by rallying the people of Europe together under his banner, so that they could be united in a single nation where all were treated fairly and justly, where the truth was honored. We would do well to emulate his spirit today. We must treat our fellow citizens with fairness, bring the truth to light, and uphold the spirit of justice and freedom that is represented by the Augustinian Code. If we work together, we can and will get through this.
Baudet’s and The Forum’s popularity surged in the days following his call for calm, and the coalition saw a massive spike in personal donations and membership registrations. The wave of new support was enough to elevate it from a minor political faction on the fringes of the mainstream to a serious contender, with five years to build up even more for 2020. It was the perfect moment for Baudet and his allies to begin integrating the disparate parties of The Forum into a single party. Now there was an alternative to the SPR that wasn’t just a lesser evil. With the mainstream parties still reeling from the effects of the Sentinel scandal, Baudet’s fifth party was poised to become a mainstream party in its own right, ready to make its voice known in the upper echelons of Berlin. An official announcement was planned for January 1, 2016, after the Kaiser’s customary New Year’s Day address to the nation.
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Temple of Solomon, Jerusalem - January 1, 2016, 9:00 AM
The medieval synagogue, its beautiful dome a testament to the Second Empire’s architecture and its minaret-style columns (like those built for the new Hagia Sophia) and geometrically appealing wall patterns symbolizing the coming together of Europe and the Middle East, loomed over the ancient city’s downtown from its sacred perch on the Temple Mount. A podium had been set up at its entrance. Reporters gathered with their cameras ready. A few minutes later, Thierry Baudet appeared, and the journalists got their recorders and notepads ready, while curious passersby, on their way to services, stopped to see the spectacle. Thierry cleared his throat and began.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Today, I’d like to talk to you about something very important to me. I’m sure it’s also very important to all of you. Let me put aside politics for a minute, because we’ve talked enough about that for now. Because what I want to talk about about is climate change.”
He paused for a moment, letting the reporters jot down notes.
“Yes, climate change,” Thierry said, “Our planet is warming at an unprecedented rate thanks to our actions. The science is clear. The coral reefs of Penglai are dying. An extreme drought has worsened the crisis in North Eimerica. In Gallia and Italia, wildfires are burn down entire towns, forcing hundreds to relocate, while their smoke spreads out across the neighboring provinces, causing respiratory problems in many citizens and turning the skies a deep red. The acidity of our oceans is increasing and killing our fish, hurting the livelihoods of our fishermen. Sea levels are rising, threatening our coastal cities. Just take a look at Rotterdam. This is a crisis. A global crisis that demands every bit of our attention.
“Yet the party cartel simply does not grasp the severity of this situation. Don’t get me wrong, as they do know about this crisis. It makes it even worse that they know about this crisis but only take token measures to stop it. They sign feel-good treaties and pat themselves on the back, but they don’t follow through on them or set very lenient goals they can easily meet. They pass environmental regulations, but they either roll them back immediately or don’t enforce them. They prolong the war in Mexico to keep the oil flowing when they could’ve wiped out MSC months ago and focused on our own oil, if not alternative energy. I don’t think they’re serious about this crisis. They’re more concerned with staying in power. The Sentinel leaks show just how far they are willing to go do do that. That’s all they care about now. Not your interests. Only themselves.
“To that, I say, no more! We are not going to let the party cartel continue like it’s business as usual as it has done for the last seventy years. After seven decades, it’s time we had new leadership in the Diet and Chancellery. We need a change in course for the ship of state. Before this world goes up in flames, we have to right the ship and put ourselves back on a course that respects this great nation’s many traditions and maintains the natural garden God gave us. Genesis 1:28 tells us, ‘Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground’. It is our sacred duty, our divine mandate, to protect His creation, because it belongs to all of us. And I am going to make this duty the pillar of the platform of my new party, Christenheit Bewegung.”
The cameras flashed again, and the reporters murmured.
“Now, what is Christenheit Bewegung, you might ask?” Thierry said. “It’s simple. We are a Christian meritocratic party. Only unlike the so-called Christian Meritocratic Union, we actually believe in Christian meritocracy, the idea that we can apply what we learn from Christ’s teachings to build a just and moral government which upholds our rights as Roman citizens and protects the environment we share. Don’t be intimidated by our name, which is only there to show our connections with the Christian heritage our nation was founded on. We are committed to maintaining the secular traditions laid down by His Majesty seventy years ago.”
In fact, he really didn’t like the name, but Emilio and Jacob insisted, and he lost the vote.
“Despite the name, we welcome people of all faiths to join us in our quest,” Thierry said, “It doesn’t matter if we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any other faith. We are all created equal in the image of the divine. We are all Romans. We all share the same world. So we should put aside our differences and work together to effect actual, lasting change. Thank you very much for your time!”
Thierry stepped away from the platform. The reporters leaped out of their seats and tried asking him questions, but he continued walking down the stairs and joined the other CB leaders. Emilio Vandenburg was the first to greet him, shaking his hand and patting him on the back.
“You did great out there,” the pastor from Naples said, “I see you took my advice.”
“I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, Emilio,” Thierry said, “That verse was just too fitting.”
“I’ll say,” Joel Ostler said, “Your tone could use a little practice. This isn’t debate team.”
“Joel, please,” Thierry said, “I’ve been doing this for a while, okay?”
“I’m just giving you advice, Thierry,” Joel said, “Because if you get on that debate stage, Merkel is going to beat the scheiße out of you.”
“It’ll be many years before we get there, Joel,” Thierry said.
“Can’t hurt to start practicing now,” Joel said.
“Thierry!” Sebastian Kristof said, walking over with a smile on his face.
They shook hands, Sebastian’s strong grip still surprising Thierry.
“Sebastian, I was just going to ask about you,” Thierry said.
“Oh, of course,” Sebastian said, “I was going to say what a wonderful job you did.”
“Joel and Emilio here already told me as much,” Thierry said.
“I did not,” Joel said.
“Where’s Jacob?” Thierry said.
“Oh, you know Jacob,” Sebastian said, “He’s down in Loango visiting family.”
“So how were the consolidation talks?” Thierry said.
“Buendnis C’s leaning in favor,” Joel said, “As for the Pirates, they’re dissolving.”
“Dissolving?” Thierry said.
“Yeah, I was surprised too,” Joel said, “But last I heard, most of the leaders were thinking of joining us.”
“That would significantly help our youth outreach,” Sebastian said.
“Speaking of youth outreach…” Josiah Burkard said, walking over to them.
“Yes, Josiah?” Thierry said.
“I closed the deal on the Brotherhood,” the professor said, “They were really impressed by my detailed integration plan and roadmap for 2020.”
“The Brotherhood?” Sebastian said.
“The Shepherds’ Brotherhood, remember?” Joel said.
“The largest youth outreach program and humanitarian organization in the eastern provinces,” Emilio said.
“As a matter of fact, their leader is here to talk to you about it,” Josiah said.
“Where is he?” Thierry said.
Josiah pointed over the heads of the audience near the temple entrance, where a young couple in their thirties leaned against the wall. The man had short brown hair, trimmed and combed back very neatly. It was a standard-issue military haircut, meaning this man had served in the armed forces before. His clothes, a regular business suit, weren’t noteworthy, but Thierry’s attention was drawn to the eyepatch over his left eye. The woman next to him, presumably his wife, had her blonde hair tied back in a bun and wore a long dark blue dress. She was on her phone.
“Peculiar guy, huh?” Josiah said. “I thought the same thing. But don’t mind the eyepatch. He’s a pretty friendly guy.”
Thierry walked over to him. As he approached, the man locked onto him with a laser-like gaze, analyzing each movement and observing his facial expressions as if looking for threats. Undeterred, Thierry held out his hand.
“Morning,” he said, “Nice to meet you. I’m Thierry Baudet.”
The man firmly shook Thierry’s hand and smiled back.
“Elias Anhorn,” he said, “Shepherd’s Brotherhood.”
“Ah, so you’re the man I’ve heard so much about from the others,” Thierry said, “You must be proud of your creation.”
“Actually, I was inspired by my sister,” Elias said, “And my wife set up the whole thing. I wouldn’t be here without her. Oh, I forgot to introduce her. This is Gertrude Anhorn.”
“Gertrude Anhorn?” Thierry said. “Author of The Fundamentals?”
“The one and only,” Gertrude said.
“It’s an honor to meet you,” Thierry said, taking her hand and kissing it.
“It’s all mine,” Gertrude said.
“You know, I’m a huge fan of your book,” Thierry said, “All twelve volumes of it. How our focus on unimportant ideas is hastening the collapse of the environment, how to turn our youth off the path of drugs and crime and onto a new purpose and mission, and the decline of our faith in today’s secular society…”
“Proverbs 14:34 states that, ‘righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people’,” Gertrude said, “I just wanted to remind our people of our founding morals.”
“I totally agree,” Thierry said, “A nation's moral standards are dependent on those exhibited by its leaders. And the fact is our current leaders have no morals.”
“Anyways,” Elias said, “I hope the terms we presented yesterday were fair.”
“They were more than fair,” Thierry said, “Thank you so much for your support. With the Brotherhood on our side, we can reach a much larger constituency than before.”
“I hope so,” Elias said, “We’ll need all the help we can get to take out the party cartel.”
Thierry smiled and patted Elias on the shoulder. “I like your enthusiasm.”
“Where we’re going, we’ll need a lot of enthusiasm,” Elias said.
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Finally, after a long time, Chapter 454 is finally up! It’s been a while since I posted Chapter 453, and I’ll have to get used to working with this new layout, especially with my current situation. At least mobile no longer glitches out so it is unusable. Next up is the update I wrote for the first Fire Emblem game.
I like to think of Elias Anhorn resembling Congressman Dan Crenshaw, but not exactly. That’s where the similarities end.