Chapter 455: Otto the Great
Otto in 2006
By 2016, Kaiser Otto was 105 years old. He was now the oldest person in the Reich, having passed the Imperial Century paleontologist Owen Niederung’s record of 103 years (and still falling far short of Samrat Chakravartin Purandaradasa's record), and would’ve been the oldest in the world if not for some Ryukyuans who had been born maybe when Crown Prince Rudolf was still alive. Although his mind remained as sharp as always, his body had begun deteriorating as early as the 1980s, when the stress of the early months of World War III took its toll on him. The deaths of his mother, daughter, and wife accelerated the decline. By the mid 2010s, he spent most of his time resting in bed. It was clear he wouldn’t last much longer. For the first time in a hundred years, since the last years of Franz Joseph, the Imperial Household and civilian government began preparing for an imperial succession, even if they “had reservations” about the Crown Prince. They kept their feelings hidden, putting the stability of the country first. It was too late to back away now, both to choose a new heir and to reconsider their support. The rest of the country continued on as normal. Most of the population had known the Kaiser for their entire lives. Although they were aware he was mortal and could die at any moment, they didn’t think it would happen soon.
Politics continued as usual, as Otto in his later years had delegated more of his powers to the civilian government and to Merkel. In January 2016, a new political party formed. Its leader, Thierry Baudet, had brought together the allied parties of the Forum into a single party, which was called Christenheit Bewegung (CB), in a nod to the original parties’ religious right origins (Baudet himself didn’t like the name because it sounded too intimidating, but his allies outvoted him).
Despite the intimidating name, CB was more like a big tent party and like many other organizations with similarly intimidating names was in fact very tolerant and diverse. It welcomed people from all ideologies, provided they all were dedicated to the same thing: decisive action against climate change, fixing the Reich’s stalled political process, and restoring a moral constant perceived lacking in Roman society.
With the wounds exposed by the Sentinel leak still raw, it was easy for CB to gain new followers and a heightened profile. CB also received several important endorsements and partnerships, among them its acquisition of the Shepherds’ Brotherhood, the largest nonprofit humanitarian organization in the Reich, and the joining of its leaders, the veteran Elias Anhorn and his charismatic wife, author Gertrude Anhorn, as CB officials. By the end of the year, it would essentially have become the fifth major party, despite the other four parties ruling out any partnerships or collaborations with it due to its “extremist” platform, and pundits predicted it would be a serious contender in the upcoming 2020 Reichstag examinations, if not earlier Reichsrat and local ones. Chancellor Merkel and her cabinet considered CB a minor nuisance. The CMU still effectively controlled both houses, and she was more focused on the real threat, the SPR, which was just as battered by Sentinel as her own party. Even if CB would be a serious contender in 2020, there was no way it could gain a majority or form a coalition. And examiners still perceived Baudet, CB’s likely candidate for the chancellery, as too radical for the country.
But as Merkel stubbornly focused on domestic issues, the Eimerican crisis spiraled out of control even more than anybody had expected. Just as happened in Mayapan, Tawantinsuyu suddenly and unexpectedly imploded after a botched and contentious examination campaign led to accusations of rigging and then rioting, which forced the government to declare martial law. This led to several provinces, many of which were now led by neo-equalist, separatist, religious fundamentalist, or anti-EC nationalist coalitions and sympathetic military garrisons, seceding from Cusco, which mobilized the military and sent it into the Andes to bring them back in line. State Commissioner Jorvik Thordarsson managed to convince the EC member states to put together a defense coalition to support Tawantinsuyuan government forces.
Millions of Tawantinsuyuans fled over the border into Neurhomania to escape the fighting, worsening an already worse refugee crisis spanning two continents. Viral images and videos flooded social media, telling of poor families trekking through the dangerous Amazon or taking to the Caribbean in makeshift rafts to escape terrorists and dictators. Initially, public sympathy was in favor of the refugees, and charities received massive donations to aid resettlement. But soon, the backlash began, as it always did.
Fifteen years of almost exclusively depicting Eimericans as terrorists in the news and popular culture did their work, and soon talking heads were calling for the refugees to be sent back, as they could’ve been infiltrated by MSC. After gaining majorities in the province in 2018, the KRA-led governments in Neurhomania shut down the border and erect massive holding facilities across the western and northern Amazon to process refugees, causing not a small amount of controversy back in Europe. The fears were not unfounded though. The General Staff warned MSC had been attempting to infiltrate Neurhomania through the refugee emigrations following their highly successful campaigns against Fusang, among other places, but the Bureau of Defense assured the public that security measures were strong already and vetting was comprehensive enough. Only three refugees were unmasked as undercover terrorists, which could be good or bad depending on who one talked to.
By 2018, the crisis had sparked a larger conversation within the Roman public about immigration and its benefits and drawbacks. The old divisions between left and right started breaking down in the absence of global equalism and an empowered aristocracy, replaced by a divide over an open or closed society. Trade, immigration, and culture were all realigned, and politicians began taking aim at each other from their new foxholes. The KRA dug deeper into its classical liberal roots, affirming its support for free trade, lower taxes, and a smaller government but doubling down on identity politics, cutting immigration, and withdrawing from most if not all international responsibilities. It found strong support in Neurhomania due to its anti-immigration stance, but this came at the cost of it losing support in its traditional strongholds of coastal trade centers such as Hamburg, Amsterdam, Genoa, Venice, and Stettin, which now embraced more progressive and climate-friendly policies which aligned them with the Greens and CB.
The CMU and SPR, which clung closely to their old platforms, took a beating in subsequent Reichsrat examinations, which didn’t bode well for 2020. Merkel’s “wilkommenskultur” policy of actively supporting refugee integration was quickly made her signature policy by the media, which took every opportunity to call it either ineffective or outright dangerous. The CMU risked being upstaged by parties further to the right…that was, if the NDP and AfR, which saw small gains in 2015, weren’t enmeshed in scandals of their own, with the latter having to put up with a certain Arabian “billionaire” who had somehow taken over the party despite losing in 2015. The SPR was still popular, but people still remembered the Schröder years, especially now that Schröder had been indicted, and held it responsible for not doing enough on climate change. The green parties consolidated behind the Greens as the Pirate Party and Buendnis C were dissolved. Helped by not being tainted by the Sentinel leaks, the Greens saw massive gains in Reichsrat examinations from 2016 to 2018, and they would be expected to repeat their successes in 2020. It was clear 2020 would be very contentious and could lead to the greatest shakeup of the Diet since the Ottonian system was established, with a weakened mainstream and energized outsiders.
China got off easy. On May 20, the Chinese people overwhelmingly voted into office their first female chancellor, Tsai Ing-Wen of the progressive Minjindang, a Fuxingyundong branch and coalition partner formed by former Tangwai leaders. While the election was not without its usual mudslinging, it remained civil. The liberal Fuxingyundong came in second, while the center-right Guomindang came in a distant third. The Legislative Yuan, once notorious for its lawmakers throwing chairs at each other, had quieted down and become rather dull.
It was much worse in North Eimerica, where Kanata and Fusang not only had to put up with the usual political intrigue but also MSC. MSC had overrun half of Fusang, including almost all of its eastern border. Its reach extended from the Kanatan border to not only Zhumasi but the suburbs of Jinshan itself. Ocelomeh suicide bombings had become so common in the capital the government had temporarily relocated north to Hongzhou, although that was only slightly safer as MSC cells were now coming down from the Cascades to wreak havoc on the coasts. Here, Thordarsson focused more on integrating local security forces and fortifying the Fusang Range against possible MSC incursions. He also used the wars as an opportunity to strengthen the EC, believing a more integrated and united North Eimerica could break free of its decades-long cycle of ethnic and sectarian strife. But first, he had to defeat MSC.
Just a year ago, Fusang was the most powerful nation on the continent, as well as the most powerful EC member, projecting influence deep into the heartland at the EC’s expense. Now most of its cities and farmland were in flames and under terrorist control, with its military scattered and demoralized. As destructive and tragic as this was, this was an unexpected boost for Thordarsson. With Fusang temporarily weakened, it reluctantly acquiesced to giving more powers to the EC, and the Kanatan delegation led the charge. The member states’ delegations met in Hongzhou to renegotiate and strengthen the ties between them. The resulting Treaty of Hongzhou would reform the transcontinental free trade zone, designate Hongzhou as the location for a temporary EC administrative capital, and establish a “troop-sharing” agreement similar to the one regulating UN peacekeepers (ironically also proposed and written by Kanatans) in which member states would contribute troops from their own militaries to an EC force with a unified command structure. The delegates at Hongzhou agreed to leave more radical proposals, such as expanded legislative powers and a single currency and legal code, for a future conference.
MSC had also advanced southward to the outskirts of Tenochtitlan. The Mexican government was on its last legs, having lost control outside of most of the heartland. Gebhard Remmele hoped to change that with twenty thousand new troops. With the help of Mexico’s General Ollin and Livonia’s Boris Bradziunas, he planned an offensive into Tejas to retake its western oil fields from the MSC and then drive to the Gulf of Aztlan, cutting off MSC in Fusang from Mexico. Meanwhile, EC and Roman forces would turn back the MSC incursions into central Tawantinsuyu and around Cusco.
There was also the problem of the other rebel groups that weren’t Mexicanist. Neo-equalists fought with Paulluists in the countryside, frequently causing more damage than MSC itself. Despite efforts to get them to unite against MSC, they continued fighting each other and coalition forces. This benefited MSC, which was free to move south into central Mexico and pick off the opposition as it saw fit. By July 2016, much of Tenochtitlan had been occupied by the Paulluists, forcing Remmele to relocate his base of operations. The Paulluists in turn fled the city when they got word of almost fifty thousand ocelomeh advancing through the desert toward the city in their feared machine gun-equipped pickup trucks.
MSC’s military campaigns were frequently paired with a propaganda push online, led primarily by Roman converts to the cause. Among them were Werner Hainisch, a Neurhomanian Nahua who defected to the MSC and now narrated its notorious livestreamed executions of Roman journalists and aid workers, and Reinhold Ludendorff, a privileged son of the Ludendorff military family who had apparently joined a genocidal terrorist death cult in an act of edgy rebellion. There were of course others, both Nahua and not, who joined the terrorist group after falling under its propaganda’s spell and soon regretted it, only to find themselves trapped by bloodthirsty religious extremists who responded to dissent with slavery and death.
To break the propaganda, Remmele decided to take the city of Huaxtepec, an important trade and religious center where Hainisch had been broadcasting many of his propaganda videos and was potentially holding his hostages. The city was assaulted from the air and desert that July, and the forty thousand ocelomeh broke under the pressure, though Hainisch escaped. The coalition sustained almost ten thousand casualties though, which enraged the media and by extension the Roman public when the news reached Europe. Merkel (through willkommenskultur somehow) was given the full blame for the battle, despite it being a decisive victory and her having no part in planning it.
(I don’t know why MSC uses Roman names for its generals, but I suspect when I Germanized the name list for the Arab cultures, I forgot to change the MSC tag’s primary culture, since I used vanilla NWO’s ISIS tag as a base.)
Concurrently with the Huaxtepec assault, Tsalagihi Ayeli and Creek launched a joint offensive against MSC’s easternmost territories in the swamps and forests of the Southeast, hoping to draw away ocelomeh from Tejas and Fusang and give Remmele a path to Aztlan. The eastern campaign far exceeded everyone’s expectations. Although they had taken full advantage of the local terrain, the inexperienced ocelomeh easily folded, yielding the territory just as quickly as they seized it. Simultaneously, the Fusang government managed to pass a controversial bill offering amnesty to any MSC fighters who surrendered within the month and who hadn’t committed any major crimes, based on both the amnesty plan that ended the Malayan Emergency and a similar deal used by General Horst von Hohenzollern to broker a peace in the Yucatan. It was highly unpopular among the general population, as would be expected. Massive backlash would ensure everybody in government at the time, regardless of if they supported the bill or not, would lose their job within the next two years. Even the emperor was replaced, because he died, maybe he wasn’t used to the colder and rainier weather of Hongzhou. But the amnesty miraculously did its job. Most of the cells in Fusang and Aztlan dissolved within the month, and EC forces temporarily occupied Aztlan in the first successful test of the new troop-sharing agreement enacted in Hongzhou. Thordarsson got most of the credit for the victory over MSC, giving legitimacy and widespread support for his integration dream. While a few remnants took advantage of the ceasefire to go on a rampage across Fusang’s southeastern deserts, occasionally raiding cities on the coast and in the interior, combined Eimerican forces would dispose of them within the next four months.
The Reichsrat examinations of 2017 were contentious during the campaign season, despite the composition itself not changing much. But the numbers didn’t tell the full story. The CMU took a beating, with the CSU taking many of its seats. A good chunk of them outright defected to parties on the further right. The KRA held steady, but this masked its pivot from the North Sea coasts and Italia, whose commercial centers once favored its economic policies, to Neurhomania, where its cultural and immigration policies earned it the entire province’s support. The SPR and Greens held onto the Reichsrat, but it was now clear the Greens were the leaders of the coalition. CB’s delegation held steady at 8%. Not good, but not bad either. They had almost as many as the CMU delegation now.
(Don't worry too much about the MSC getting back the provinces in Fusang due to a glitch, as I quickly reversed that.)
After beating back a temporary MSC resurgence in Fusang, Remmele and the coalition moved to capitalize on their victory at Huaxtepec. His forces moved west and south, routing MSC at the crossroads town of Parral and then taking back Tenochtitlan itself by the end of September. Zolin was captured while trying to flee the city. In the aftermath, his terrorist group fell apart, its many cells falling into infighting or surrendering. In order to not give the Mexicanists a martyr to revive the group around, Ollin ordered Zolin to be kept in extended custody under armed guard until the UN brought him to trial for his crimes. Although sporadic Mexicanist terror attacks would continue for many more years across North Eimerica, it was clear MSC was gone for good.
On the other side of the Atlantic, as the Reich anticipated and prepared for its first imperial succession in over a hundred years, the country was unprepared for another of it greatest statesmen to sudden die. Helmut Kohl passed away in his hometown of Ludwigshafen on the morning of March 3 at the age of 87.
Kohl in 2012
In office from 1984 to 2000, a sixteen-year period of sweeping geopolitical changes, he was widely regarded as a hero of World War III and the “father of reunification” and “heir to Adenauer.” During his tenure, the Cold War came to an end with the fall of both the Soviet Commune and the Guominjun junta. He then turned to building a new world order, dreaming of a world at peace as Adenauer envisioned in 1946. To this end, he dissolved the Central Powers in the 1990s. Originally founded to guard the Reich and its allies against Chinese and Meskwaki aggression in the early 20th century and then against the Soviets between the second and third world wars, those threats were now gone. Although military ties remained and would still informally be called the Central Powers for many decades to come, the alliance was officially replaced with the Schengen Pact, which focused on trade. Founded in the Roman town of Schengen, the pact established an economic free trade zone covering all former Central Powers members, with their agreement. In 2000, Kohl was the second person to be named an Honorary Citizen of the World after Kaiser Otto. Following his death, he was lauded by world leaders as one of the “greatest statesmen of the second half of the 20th century.”
Chancellor Merkel, speaking in Rome, said of her one-time mentor that "this man who was great in every sense of the word—his achievement, his role as a statesman in the Reich at the historical moment culminating fifty years of historical moments—it's going to take a while until we can truly assess what we have lost in his passing." She lauded Kohl's "supreme art of statesmanship in the service of people and peace" and noted that Kohl had also changed her own life decisively, having started her career (not mentioning how she had thrown him under the bus in 1999 during the scandal that would ultimately end his career).
From his prison cell, Kohl’s successor Gerhard Schröder lauded Kohl as "a true friend of human rights and freedom" and "one of the greatest leaders in post-World War II Eurasia." Otto said he was "deeply saddened" by the death of "my dear friend Helmut" whose "visionary leadership prepared the Reich and all of Eurasia for the 21st century." Ulrich Scheel, son of Walter Scheel (who had died the previous year), said Kohl was "a friend and ally to the world" and that "he was not only the father of reunification but also an advocate for reconciliation with a democratic China and transcontinental relationships with other Eurasian and African nations. The world has benefited from his vision and efforts. His legacy will live on."
Empress Sita said Kohl's death means "the Reich has lost one of its greatest leaders, India has lost one of its best friends, and the world has lost a ringing voice for freedom," and that Kohl "more than anyone at the end of the Cold War was the architect of the reunification of the Reich" which had "brought freedom to millions and has helped make Eurasia and by extension the world safer and more prosperous." She added Kohl was "a towering figure in Roman and global history" who "entrenched the Reich in a wider Eurasia as Saint Wilhelmina and Jayasimha I envisioned centuries ago, in the hope of achieving a unity and peace that the continent had never known before. This required great political strength and courage – both of which qualities Helmut had in abundance."
Scandinavia’s Fylkja Aleta III said, in a joint statement with Livonia’s Gediminas I, Kohl was "a giant of modern history" and that "I pay tribute to the role he played in helping end the Cold War, reunify the Reich, and ultimately pave the way for the restoration of my nation among others, undoing the sins his ancestors committed against my people. We have lost the father of the modern Reich." Thordarsson said, "I was lucky to have known Helmut Kohl in person. I profoundly admired his wisdom and the ability to make well-considered, far-reaching decisions even in the most difficult and hostile situations." He called Kohl a "highly reputed statesman, one of the patriarchs of Old World and global politics."
Chancellor Tsai called Kohl a “great citizen of the world” and “an architect of the reunited Reich and Sino-Roman friendship.” The Mingzhong Emperor praised Kohl as a “visionary leader and statesman” and said he had "great admiration for Chancellor Kohl's steady leadership when the Cold War came to an end and the reunification of the Reich became possible." He also noted Kohl’s and Otto’s role in inspiring him to take a stand against the junta in 1989, saying “they encouraged me to stand up for liberty and justice, when nobody else would.”
The Ecumenical Patriarch Alexios lauded Kohl as "a great statesman and committed world citizen who worked with farsightedness and devotion for the good of the people in the Reich and in neighboring countries."
Penglai’s nationalist Gaojiang Zhao Yu, who had recently been in the news for openly criticizing Merkel’s refugee policy and proudly declaring himself “Merkel’s ideological archnemesis,” called Kohl the "great old man" of Eurasian politics and "Penglai’s friend" for helping negotiate the peaceful independence of Penglai following the fall of the Chinese military junta.
Persia’s Shah Hassan I called Kohl one of the UN’s founding fathers and a “giant of a peaceful Eurasia and a truly united world,” and said that "he who was, rightly, described as 'the Chancellor of Reunification', worked with far-sightedness and determination, in years marked by deep and epochal changes in world equilibria, to give back unity to his country in the framework of the great project of global cooperation and unity. As an authentic statesman, he knew how to combine pragmatism and a capacity of vision, furnishing a courageous contribution not only to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the Reich, but also to overcoming the dramatic divisions which for decades had torn Eurasia and the world at large." Turkestan’s chancellor Ekrem Imamoglu called Kohl "an outstanding figure and statesman, a great politician in exceptional times”.
Former Russian chancellor and liberal champion Viktor Petrov said that "it was real luck that at that difficult time of 1984–1990, the Reich was led by statesmen with a sense of responsibility, adamant about defending the interests of their nation but also able to consider the interests of others even when they were outright hostile, able to overcome the barrier of prevailing suspicion about partnership and mutual trust even in times of war. The name of this outstanding Roman politician will stay in the memory of his compatriots and all humans."
All flags were flown at half-staff at both UN Island and the new United Nations headquarters in the Viennese outskirts. Secretary-General António Guterres, a Norse Hispanian from Kanata, lauded Kohl as a “great Eurasian and world citizen.” He called Kohl “my mentor, my inspiration, my friend, the very essence of Eurasia and a united Earth, a great statesman with a great vision who was the champion of reconciliation and unity among the peoples of Eurasia. He played an instrumental role in the peaceful reunification of his country. He is the embodiment of a reunited Reich in a united Eurasia in a united Earth. Today's world is a product of his vision and his tenacity, in the face of enormous obstacles.”
However, the reality was much darker. There was no fairy tale ending for Kohl.
Helmut Kohl was survived by his two sons Walter Kohl and Peter Kohl and by his grandchildren Johannes and Leyla Kohl, as well as his second wife, Maike “Kohl”-Richter, a former CMU speechwriter and alleged survivor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Everybody preferred to forget about her. She made that impossible.
(Picture of Richter redacted out of respect to the Kohl family)
Kohl’s high school sweetheart and wife of 41 years, Hannelore, died in 2001. When he met Richter in 2008, he was recovering from serious head trauma after a car accident. For the rest of his life, he was impaired by brain damage, had difficulty speaking, and was wheelchair-bound. According to Peter, Kohl had not intended to marry Richter. Peter then said, “then came the accident and a loss of control,” implying Kohl had been pressured into marrying her. Both sons testified their father was kept “like a prisoner” in his final years, unable to see him at all.
In 2011, Peter managed to visit his father once with his daughter, Leyla, for the last time. His father had been happy to see them, but after a while he let them know that it would be better if they left before Richter found out, otherwise there would be "great troubles". Peter Kohl speculated his father was not "able or allowed" to take part in the 10th anniversary commemoration event of Hannelore's death. In Peter’s biography about his mother, he described his visit to Richter’s apartment, saying "in my male naïveté, I was not prepared for what awaited me there: I had entered a kind of private Helmut Kohl museum" full of Helmut Kohl photographs and artifacts wherever he looked; "the whole thing looked like the result of a staggering, meticulous collecting for hero worship, as we know it from reports on stalkers." Walter and Peter explained it was unclear whether letters purportedly from their father were actually written by him or Richter or if their letters even reached him. They were not allowed to speak with their father on the telephone and that they were threatened by Richter with imprisonment if they tried to visit their parents' house, their own childhood home. They noted that Richter had appropriated their late mother's jewelry, their family heirlooms, and ordered their mother's pictures to be removed; "it seemed to be the case that she tried to erase all traces or memories of Hannelore Kohl, her children, and grandchildren," Peter wrote.
Reporter Jochen Arntz criticized Richter in the Bavaria-based newspaper
Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2012 for building a "wall" around Helmut Kohl and controlling him. As a result, Kohl had become estranged from many friends and political colleagues Richter disliked. Kohl biographer Heribert Schwan described Richter as "more than right-wing, maybe even neo-Angeloi," and said she insisted on the right to "interpretational sovereignty" (related to “sovereign citizen” movements popular in neo-Angeloi circles alleging the post-World War II Roman government was a Chinese-imposed puppet regime and the prewar Reich had never been legally restored) over Kohl's life as well as insisting on many obvious falsehoods and conspiracy theories.
When it was time to organize the funeral, Richter banned the entire Kohl family. She barred them from paying their respects at his house and ignored their wishes for a ceremony in Berlin and that Kohl be interred alongside his parents and Hannelore in the family tomb. Richter denied Walter and grandchildren Johannes (son of Walter), aged 20, and Leyla (daughter of Peter and his Turkish wife Elif Sözen-Kohl), aged 15, entry to Kohl's house, their childhood home. Richter asked the police to tell Kohl's son and “mongrel” grandchildren to leave the Kohl family home when they waited outside to pay their respects to their father and grandfather. In a statement to the media, Walter accused her of "tasteless behavior."
When Kohl's former driver, personal assistant for over 46 years, and close friend Eckhard Seeber wanted to sign the condolence book and Richter became aware of his presence, she screamed "who let you in" and ordered him evicted. The scene repeated when Kohl's nephew Harald Getrey wanted to pay his respects to his uncle and was also evicted. While Richter barred Kohl's blood relatives and friends from paying their respects in Kohl’s own family home, she let streams of her own friends from neo-Angeloi circles see the body, and her friend, the former tabloid journalist Kai Diekmann, remained a permanent presence "loitering" in the house, promoting Richter and the organizations she was associated with.
Richter took full control of Kohl’s funeral, carefully curating the guest list to only include her close friends, among them many neo-Angeloi. In response, the Kohl family severed all remaining ties to Richter, boycotted all memorial ceremonies except the UN Act of State, and filed a restraining order against her.
When the UN organized its first Act of State to commemorate his life, with several prominent figures including Merkel giving eulogies, Richter tried to block Merkel from speaking, calling her a traitor who would surrender the country to MSC terrorists disguised as refugees. She instead urged the UN to ask Penglai’s right-wing nationalist Gaojiang, Zhao Yu, Merkel’s fiercest critic and archnemesis, to speak instead and to uphold the Reich’s values of defending civilization against barbarism during a new Thirteenth Century Crisis.
Reuters suspected "whether it was really an increasingly frail Kohl who was close to Zhao, a nativist critic of Merkel's open-doors refugee policy" or if it was actually Richter writing in his name.
Die Zeiten’s Theresa Novak noted “in this case the word ‘family’ refers to one person, Maike Richter, and I will not dignify her by including Kohl in her name.”
Secretary-General Guterres gave a speech condemning Richter, saying “with all due respect, the way and place in which this outstanding political lifetime achievement is honored is far more than just a family affair.” He also added with incredulity how she “attempted to exert power over the entire United Nations itself.” Richter responded by calling the UN a hindrance to the Reich and a destroyer of Roman civilization and Christianity, urging the Reich to withdraw from the “China-controlled” organization and take back its sovereignty. Richter only relented when the aging Kaiser, making his first public appearance in months since his New Year’s address, ordered her to stand down. However, even Otto could not break her control over the funeral, owing to the support of certain members of the CMU and populist/nationalist right and his own declining health.
Kohl was honored with an unprecedented UN Act of State in his honor in Vienna, attended by many current and former world leaders. Planned as a "grand ceremony," it took place at the old UN Island, which had been temporarily reopened for the occasion, on July 1. Speakers included Otto, Merkel, Tsai Ing-wen, the Mingzhong Emperor, Viktor Petrov, Guterres, and Thordarsson. A requiem mass was celebrated in the Speyer Cathedral in Speyer, broadcast on national TV. Richter insisted on a burial in the cathedral because two pre-Restoration Holy Roman Emperors had been buried there and nobody would let her bury Kohl in the Hohenzollern imperial tombs as “was only fitting for such a great man.” The Church immediately denied the request, so she decided on a burial in the nearby Old Cemetery.
Kohl's final resting place. Richter refused to let him be buried in Ludwigshafen with Hannelore and his parents.
The controversy continued, and the media rightfully piled onto Richter, urged on by both of Kohl’s angry sons. She was heavily criticized for the attempt to take full control of the Act of State in Vienna, and for denying Helmut Kohl a Roman act of state in Berlin, as desired by most German politicians, out of spite for Merkel, whom she hated. Ironically, her hatred for Merkel led to an outpouring of support for the chancellor, who had been struggling in polls since the Sentinel leaks.
Die Welt commented Richter never was recognized as a proper member of the Kohl family by neither the Kohl family itself nor Roman society. The Helvetia-based
Der Bund wrote that she had been called "Kohl's ventriloquist" and "family destroyer" in public, and that she was "reviled and demonized" in the Reich. She was widely compared to the unpopular third wife of the late chancellor Willy Brandt, Brigitte Seebacher-Brandt, who caused a scandal by disinviting Brandt's wife during his political career and mother of his children, Rut, to his funeral in 1992, and for her later insistence on being an authority on Brandt's political legacy (she later relented and apologized). For the record, Seebacher-Brandt herself criticized Richter's behavior following Kohl's death as excessive and petty even by her own standards.
Richter was also criticized of falsely claiming to have "sole decision-making power" over Kohl's historical legacy, a claim widely mocked by Roman media and described as "a provocation." Anders Humboldt wrote in
Die Zeiten that Richter was "accused and guilty of wanting to exert excessive control over the memory of her so-called husband."
Der Spiegel noted "Maike Richter wants to control the political legacy of Helmut Kohl. But she has largely isolated herself with her quarrelsome behavior in relation to Kohl's funeral."
Spiegel editor and Kohl expert Jan Fleischhauer accused Richter of "stealing the Chancellor" from the people with her insistence on having "the sole decision-making power" over his legacy.
Peter and Walter called the funeral and all related ceremonies, bar the Act of State, unworthy of Kohl’s legacy and called for the Roman Act of State to be held in Berlin regardless of Richter’s inevitable objections as desired by most Roman politicians, a rare bipartisan moment in recent years not seen since the end of the Kohl years. They proposed it would take place in front of the Brandenburg Gate or, failing that, Berlin Imperial Cathedral on Museum Island. Although the Diet was initially in favor, Wilhelm Karl overruled it.
“One Act of State is enough,” he said in a short televised statement, “While the circumstances of this whole affair are shameful and the perpetrators should be rightfully condemned, we should now move on to other greater things to move forward instead of dwelling on the past, as the late chancellor would’ve wanted.”
That one statement was enough to sway a majority of the Diet to support him, and suddenly the politicians reverted to their old ways, talking and arguing about asking about ways to pay for it, who would benefit, the cultural or economic importance, the taxpayer expense, the necessity, and the potential environmental issues. Within hours, support had died down, and the Act of State proposals were all withdrawn. With his health declining, making it harder for him to speak for long periods of time, Otto was forced to watch his old friend be denied the respectable sendoff he deserved. It pained him to see Kohl buried like this.
After the funeral, Otto would not make any other appearances in public, aside from the New Year’s speech of 2018, where he looked tired and out of breath throughout the address. Doctors later reported his condition had deteriorated, and they were struggling to reverse that. It appeared Otto, after suffering through the tragedy of losing so many of his family members over the last 17 years, had simply lost the will to live after the Kohl funeral fiasco. Some doctors speculated he had stress cardiomyopathy, where the muscular portion of the heart was temporarily weakened, notably from emotional stress. But speculation wouldn’t do anything to cure the ailing Kaiser.
On the other side of the Pacific, ASEAN’s member states convened in Saigon for their annual diplomatic conference. Headlines were made when the Vietnamese delegation showed up calling itself the “Srivijayan” delegation, after the ancient trading empire that spanned Maritime Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese called for all member states to come together and make ASEAN more efficient (also because they wanted to one-up the EC). They suggested emphasizing a common history in Srivijaya, the closest they had to a national ancestor. While the Nusantarans laughed it off and claimed themselves as the rightful heirs of Srivijaya, many of the other delegations saw merit in the suggestion. An increasingly nationalist Penglai had sent ships to claim disputed islands in the southeast. Although India’s continued military presence in Burma was justified as being there to suppress recurring neo-equalist insurgencies and potential Naxalite remnants, the rest of ASEAN saw India as a domineering imperialist who wanted to split them apart and keep them in its sphere of influence. China was democratic and neutral, but it occasionally squabbled with Qiandao, Laos, and Vietnam over disputed borders and fishing rights in the South China Sea. The Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, and Qiandaoren saw the Srivinaya project as a way to put themselves back on equal footing with China. The Vietnamese in particular believed it would give them the economic benefits of the Eimerican model without having to cut ties with the Reich, although a few nationalists saw it as an opportunity to restore the old Tran Empire in the modern age. The Nusantarans, East Indonesians, and Papuans wanted to align the bloc closer to China due to cultural and economic ties and geographic closeness. Nusantara wanted to have the last laugh in its decades-long rivalry with Vietnam and saw itself as the true successor to the medieval thalassocracies of Majapahit and Srivijaya (even if Srivijaya’s old capital, Palembang, was now located in Roman Sumatra). Burma, Siam, and Malaya stood in between the two factions, wanting a middle ground where they would build the new bloc as a neutral party, standing as equals to the three superpowers and forging its own path. It remained to be seen which faction would win out, but the Vietnamese had the most political and diplomatic capital heading into the next round of talks.
As with 2017, 2018’s Reichsrat examinations saw almost no changes in political composition, but political composition was an increasingly outdated way of measuring the rise and fall of governing coalitions. The SPR and Greens retained control, but the SPR itself was now losing ground within its own ideological bloc to, surprisingly, PMS. The Party of Meritocratic Socialism had been descended from the old Socialist Unity Party which dominated the Soviet-controlled “German Democratic Republic” regime during the Cold War, and it had successfully abandoned its equalist roots in favor of a social meritocratic platform to emerge as the main rival to the ancient SPR. CB solidified its dominance over the traditionalist bloc and formed alliances with the Greens and other progressive groups due to their shared environmentalist beliefs, while the NDP and AfR remained mired in infighting. The KRA nearly completed its transition to becoming an exclusively Neurhomania-based party, with a few KRA strongholds in Pisa, Genoa, Socotra, Bremen, Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Lubeck, and Rotterdam; these strongholds would be aggressively targeted by the Greens over the next two years. The CMU continued being supplanted by the CSU, causing a rift in their decades-long caucus, and many of its members, disillusioned by Merkel following the Sentinel leaks and the following craziness, left the party, most registering as independents and a few of the better connected considering forming a new centrist party.
Things started dying down in the Eimericas following the collapse of MSC. The Mayan Civil War came to a strange and awkward end following the assassination of the neo-equalist dictator of Cuba by the Scholai Palatinae, spurring the remaining rebels to surrender to regime forces. The child K’uhul Ajaw, Pacal, remained in exile in Neurhomania for his safety, and an unstable interim government was set up. Merkel refused to send Roman troops to prop up the government and oversee the peace process, which would give the impression of a Roman occupation like in Mexico. Instead, she agreed to help the EC do it, significantly boosting its influence over other member states.
With the Eimericas mostly peaceful again, thanks in part to the newly empowered EC gaining influence over weakened nation-states, 2018 shaped up to be a quiet year for once. But that would not be the case, because the day everyone dreaded finally arrived.
(Yeah…I expected it to happen in 2017. Preferably exactly at the cutoff date, despite the text, because that would be most fitting. Also I didn't expect the major event dialogue box to be so small)
In the afternoon of March 5, 2018, the 107-year-old Otto, Kaiser of the Romans, passed away “peacefully in his sleep,” according to his son Wilhelm Karl. He had reigned for 101 years, the longest reign in Roman and world history. His long life spanned the end of the Imperial Century through three world wars, the Angeloi, and the Cold War to the modern era. Nobody remembered any other Kaiser. It was truly the end of an era. A Roman legend had faded into the history books.
The UN held a minute of silence in his honor. Guterres said: “With Kaiser Otto, a giant of a Roman, Eurasian, and world citizen has left us. He gave us an important impetus to the liberal project throughout his rich life. His commitment to the United Nations should set an example for the rest of us, especially in difficult times. He made a central contribution to the opening of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of a country that had been divided for too long. In the darkest hours of the world, Otto has been a rock of truth and humanity. He resisted the Angeloi with the same determination he opposed the equalist regimes of Molotov and Varennikov. He kept the flame of hope for the reunification of the Reich and the freedom of Russia and China alive when many others had given up. I will never forget the moment when he spoke in Berlin at the height of the Berlin Crisis of the 1960s, at great personal risk to himself, simply because it was the right thing to do, and in doing so cut the first holes in that Iron Curtain of shame. He was a great man and a good man at heart. He relentlessly defended the United Nations and the Schengen project. He embodied the history of a free and united world like nobody else. The child who had lost his father to World War I fought all his life for meritocracy, freedom, multiculturalism, and an understanding of the peoples of the world, hoping to usher in a world free from war and suffering. From his childhood at the end of the Imperial Century and height of World War I to his defiance to Markos Angelos throughout World War II to his famous speeches and visits in the Cold War to his steady leadership during World War III, he succeeded in overcoming borders and showing the peoples of the world a way forward to a shared and peaceful future.”
Ecumenical Patriarch Alexios offered his condolences to the Imperial Throne. He praised Otto as “a great world citizen and good Christian” who worked tirelessly for peace, the coexistence of all of the world’s peoples, and a just and fair order in previously wartorn Eurasia. “In the hour of grief over this tragic loss, I associated myself with you and the entire imperial family in prayer for the dearly deceased. In a long and fulfilling life, His Majesty was an active witness to the eventful history of Eurasia and the the world at large,” he wrote. Patriarch Renato Martino of Rome remembered Otto as one of the 20th century’s “greatest defenders” of the Christian faith (among other faiths) and human dignity, stating that his father, “Blessed Karl, would be proud to have seen him grow into the just and holy ruler that he became. Otto learned from an early age that the office of Kaiser is one of holy service and selfless sacrifice for the good of the peoples entrusted to him. It was a philosophy that would influence him all his life.” Patriarch Christoph Schönborn of Berlin said “Kaiser Otto was without doubt one of the greatest people in this modern world,” and that he should be regarded as one of the “architects of the United Nations and of an integrated world” together with visionaries like Osterhild Anniona, Konrad Adenauer, and Helmut Kohl.
As the news emerged in Russia, Russian lawmakers held a minute of silence in the Duma. Tsar Borislav II, Chancellor Zhukov, and former chancellor Petrov sent their condolences to the imperial family. An official government statement said "his staunch support for the Russian cause and for the freedom of the Russian people brought him universal recognition and deep respect in our country".
Empress Sita, a longtime friend of the Kaiser since World War II, said Otto was "a devoted global citizen who paved the way for the greater Schengen area and a stronger United Nations", and he "internalized like no other person the global idea and articulated it already at a time when there was still a dark shadow over the continent…all of the world is crying."
The Mingzhong Emperor praised Otto, stating Otto had "courageously fought for the peoples imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain along with those living under a different dictatorship, no matter who they were." He remarked that Otto had been his role model growing up, with his tireless activism and leadership being an inspiration for him to become more active first as crown prince and then as emperor. He also praised Otto’s strong anti-Angeloi stance, mentioning the initial coup which kicked off the greater war was codenamed Operation Otto, meaning “Angelos knew Otto was his main enemy.”
Thordarsson said "Kaiser Otto was one of the strongest advocates of a united world, a great man and a promoter of freedom. He will be sorely missed by everyone." He thanked him for “inspiring the Eimerican project” and vowed to “see it through” in Otto’s memory, so the New World and its people can know the peace the Old World enjoys.
Fylkja Aleta sent her condolences to the imperial family, stating that "with deep sorrow I heard the news of the death of His Majesty the Kaiser of the Romans. Today, the world has lost a prominent leader, the great proponent of peace and a major contributor to the United Nations, while Scandinavia has lost an irreplaceable friend and protector who will be considered and remembered forever. We remember his role in rebuilding our country after the devastation of World War I and helping us leave our violent past. On this painful occasion, on behalf of Scandinavia and its citizens, and on my personal behalf, I express my most heartfelt condolences and my deepest sympathy to the Imperial House von Hohenzollern."
Livonian Foreign Minister Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis sent his condolences, saying Otto’s "involvement of spreading meritocracy and the Schengen idea will be remembered in Livonia." Chancellor Saulius Skvernelis and King-Emperor Gediminas I issued a joint statement saying Otto was “a friend of Livonia, despite our history, who never once let a grudge control him and instead worked toward a better future.”
Abyssinian Chancellor Abiy Ahmed sent his condolences and described Otto as "a great political role model and world citizen and a relentless promoter of human rights." He said the Abyssinian people always had a great friend in Otto and that he will be especially remembered for his involvement and contribution to international support for Abyssinia in its times of need.
Otto's funeral procession in Vienna, made up of veterans wearing Imperial Century- and World War I-era uniforms from the various old provinces (featured are those wearing the uniforms of Carpathia and Germania)
Otto’s funeral took place on March 15 in Vienna and March 16 in Potsdam. On March 6, a two month period of mourning started across the Reich. His body was laid in repose at Berlin Imperial Cathedral, Saint Wilhelmina’s Basilica in Rome, and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople for three days each before being transferred by train to Vienna. Requiem masses were celebrated in every state, with the largest masses held in Rome, Vienna, Berlin, and Constantinople.
Patriarch Schönborn at the Berlin funeral procession
The Ecumenical Patriarch himself read a blessing at the largest mass in Constantinople, which was streamed on big screens at Augustaeon Square. In accordance with Hohenzollern tradition, his body and heart were buried separately. At Potsdam, he was buried with full military honors. Representatives from all branches of the military gave him a 21-gun salute. Veterans of the world wars saluted his coffin as it passed into the tomb while military bands played music.
The funeral was broadcast live by all television networks. The procession through Berlin to Potsdam was five kilometers long and accompanied by hundreds of veterans paying their last respects. At Potsdam, the procession stopped at the imperial crypts.
A tradition dating back to the Restoration continued there. The herald of the procession, family friend Ulrich-Walter Lipp, who had been the herald for Zita and Elisabeth Alexandra as well, knocked on the door to Potsdam Imperial Cathedral. A friar asks “Who demands entry?” to which Lipp gives the person’s name. The friar responds, “We don’t know him,” making Lipp repeat themselves. Zita had been first introduced with all of her imperial titles and the second time as “Zita, Her Majesty the Kaiserin Consort and Empress Dowager.” Elisabeth Alexandra had been introduced first as “Elisabeth Alexandra, Imperial Princess of Thrace” with her other titles and second as “Elisabeth Alexandra von Hohenzollern” with all of her civic achievements. Otto was introduced as "His Imperial Majesty Otto I, August Kaiser of the Romans" with all of his titles, which took a minute to read off. The second time, he was introduced as “Otto von Hohenzollern, Kaiser of the Romans,” with his civic achievements read off, among them his standoff against the Soviet Commune, his work for the United Nations, his many speeches, and his leadership after the Cold War. The third time, he was introduced as “Otto, a mortal, sinful human being,” as Zita and Elisabeth Alexandra had finally been introduced as. The friar, Father Gottfried Undesser, who had presided over the burials for Zita and Elisabeth Alexandra, opened the gates and exclaimed, “So he may come in.” Otto was then buried in the family tombs. He was the last to be entombed there. The crypt was out of room, having housed nine centuries’ worth of Hohenzollerns, both Kaisers and close family members, and future Kaisers would be buried in a new crypt nearby. He was laid to rest with his parents Karl and Zita, his wife Victoria Louise, and his daughter Elisabeth Alexandra, as well as previous Kaisers and other important minor Hohenzollerns like his nephew Prince Horst. In death, his family was finally reunited, after decades of tragedy.
Otto lying in repose with Victoria Louise in Potsdam, both draped in the colors of the imperial war flag emblematic of the Cold War and flanked by an honor guard in Imperial Century-era uniforms.
The next Sunday, Otto’s heart was buried in Hagia Sophia, following a ceremony with vespers in Greek and an ecumenical prayer. He had wanted his heart to be buried in the city which had given him shelter for over fifty years when he left Berlin in World War II. Alexios and the five pentarchs presided over the ceremony, together with hundreds of members of the imperial family and Chancellor Merkel representing the civilian government. A golden urn containing his heart was surrounded by a wreath of flowers and leaves in the colors of the Roman flag—red and yellow—combined with imperial purple. His sons Wilhelm Karl and Georg quietly carried the urn to the crypt, where it was buried under a marble slab. The urn identified him simply as “Otto, Kaiser of the Romans.”
Otto's final resting place
The funeral was a major event in Roman history, with Patriarch Schönborn describing it as a “historic moment for the Reich,” stating it would be good for the nation to “remember its greatest hero of modern times in prayer and gratitude.” While the Potsdam funeral and burial was a mainly private family affair, with only a few non-Hohenzollerns invited (and the imperial family retaining full control after Kohl’s funeral scandal), the Vienna memorial service was the most publicized event of the century yet, with more attendants than even the highly publicized funeral of Elisabeth Alexandra. The security measures were unprecedented, leading PMS to criticize the government for its lavish spending and support. Every Viennese street was jammed with traffic for the entire day and TVs placed on every corner to watch the service. An estimated 30 million Roman mourners and another 60 million foreign mourners were drawn to the city, on top of the population of almost the entire city and the surrounding suburbs. 90% of all Romans watched the service on TV or online. Five billion around the world watched on TV or online. It was aired in every country and on all continents, including in research facilities in Antarctica and on the International Space Station.
Concurrent memorial services at Berlin Imperial Cathedral, Saint Wilhelmina’s Basilica, and Hagia Sophia drew twenty million mourners each. At each cathedral, crowds watched and listened to the service as it was livestreamed from Vienna and prominent guests gave eulogies, ranging from friends to war veterans to celebrities to politicians to representatives of the charities Otto and his daughter patronized. Every major head of state and their families attended with the entire Roman government, necessitating the most extensive security efforts ever. Among the leaders were Borislav, Aleta, King Haakon of Kanata, Gediminas, Tsar-Khagan Temur, Sita, the Mingzhong Emperor, and Thordarsson. All paid their respects at Otto’s coffin, which was draped in a plain Roman flag. The Mingzhong Emperor shed a tear as he did so. In his eulogy, he was the first of many to call him “Otto the Great,” the first Kaiser since Friedrich the Great nine centuries ago to receive that nickname (though he had many other nicknames as well). The Ecumenical Patriarch repeatedly denied he had begun canonization proceedings, even though it was obvious he had and it was clear Otto the Great would eventually be declared a saint. And so the phoenix faded into sunset.
On May 1, as soon as the period of mourning ended, the Imperial Throne put out a statement officially proclaiming Crown Prince Wilhelm Karl as Kaiser Wilhelm IV and that a coronation was planned to take place at Berlin Imperial Cathedral in several months. That simple statement released online, incredibly modest compared to the spectacle of March and the expected spectacle later that year, would snap every Roman back to reality. Grief and sadness gave way to honest anticipation. They had a new Kaiser. They knew change was coming, but they underestimated how much it would be. The new Kaiser was not Otto the Great, that was certain. But he was Wilhelm IV, Kaiser of the Romans, Defender of the Faith, King of Kings, Descendant of the Saoshyant and the Prophet, and Chosen Steward of Jerusalem, among his many other ancient titles. He was himself. That was all he needed to be.
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Hohenzollern Imperial Crypt, Potsdam - March 16, 2018, 10:00 AM
Georg sat quietly next to his family. The Church choir sang in tune with the beautiful organ music from Mozart’s Requiem, while a procession of priests burned incense and carried around a portrait of Otto done in the style of traditional Orthodox icons. After the music ended, a somber Wilhelm Karl, wearing a black suit, stepped up to the podium.
“My father was a tireless man,” Wilhelm Karl told the assembled dignitaries and mourners, “My father always fought for what was right. Every minute of his life was spent bettering the life of his subjects. He led this nation through three world wars and the Cold War. He is truly the greatest man of our nation, of our times perhaps, having shaped the course of human history for over a century. And he is with God now…”
Wilhelm Karl broke down and sobbed profusely, unable to continue. His wife, Francesca, helped him back to his seat, where his son, also named Wilhelm, patted him on the back reassuringly. Georg scoffed privately. He knew his brother, and he knew it was all an act. That’s just what he always did. A military band began playing Amazing Grace on bagpipes. Heinrich and Gebhard lined up seven soldiers from the different branches of the military in front of the cathedral.
“Form ranks!” Heinrich shouted. “Present arms!”
The soldiers held out their guns.
“Ready!” Heinrich shouted.
The soldiers raised their guns.
“Fire!” Heinrich said.
The soldiers fired.
“Reload!” Heinrich said. “Fire!”
The soldiers fired again.
“Reload!” Heinrich said. “Fire!”
The soldiers completed the 21-gun salute.
“Forward march!” Heinrich said.
Gebhard and the soldiers marched to Otto’s coffin, draped in the Roman colors and the Hohenzollern imperial eagle. A mound of flowers lay around it, and a picture frame of Otto in his youth had been placed behind it. The four Varangians standing watch at the coffin’s side, carrying both modern rifles in their hands and a ceremonial Viking axe at their side, made way. The coffin would lie there before they customarily asked the cathedral for entry to the tombs. The bagpipes intensified, and the choir started singing to complement it. Gebhard and Heinrich knelt at the coffin and bowed their heads, placing a hand on it. Then they took their seats with Merkel and her cabinet. Heinrich looked back and saw Thierry Baudet and the Anhorns sitting several rows back, next to Wilhelm Karl and Zhao Yu. Zhao was showing him a picture, probably of his new space program. Or maybe it was the “fertility incentive,” where mothers of at least four children wouldn’t have to pay income taxes.
On the other side of the aisle sat Anders Humboldt and his family. He was probably invited because his wife was the Athanatoi director. There was no other reason a reporter like him would be here among chancellors and emperors. Georg was dismayed. If he was in charge of the invitations, he’d have invited more people like him instead of making him solely rely on his wife’s connections.
As the eulogies continued and more of the late Kaiser’s family and friends spoke, Georg grew a little bored. He had already spoken and said the same thing as his brother, only more genuine. He couldn’t help but think of other developments happening elsewhere, stuff he and his brother would have to deal with. Fusang and Penglai had left the Tianxia two days ago, the former to formally join the newly established Eimerican Federation’s united government and the latter because of that nationalist Zhao. That would pivot China’s alliance from being Pacific-oriented to Asia-based, from the sea to land. And that meant tensions in Central Asia and the steppes. Heinrich was already consulting with the General Staff over new potential security threats, and also about what this new Eimerican Federation could do. Georg wondered if the new federation would be more effective at delivering aid and if he could work as well with it as with the national governments.
The eulogies still continued. Gebhard seriously looked tired. He had just flown in from Mexico on the 14th and would have to fly back tomorrow. Ollin needed him to help oversee the reunification with Aztlan and the transition to peace. It was crucial that Mexico began healing from its long insurgency quickly but also effectively. The cycle of poverty and violence had to end at some point.
Georg was surprised Ollin reached out to Gebhard. Heinrich had told him they’d had a falling out after MSC took Tenochtitlan. Then again, Ollin didn’t have much choice. Bradziunas was heading to Russia to renegotiate reparations for Soviet atrocities against the Lithuanians. Tsar Borislav wanted to focus on moving the capital from Kiev to Tsarberg and fixing the economy yet again.
Why was he talking about this during his father’s funeral? Why was he still concerned with his work today? He should be listening. But his mind kept being dragged back to something Heinrich had told him about. His friend had talked with his father a while ago, and the aging Kaiser had shared a word of troubling advice to him.
“When he becomes Kaiser, keep a close eye on him,” Otto had asked of him.
Georg looked at Wilhelm Karl again. What exactly did his brother have planned? Why did his father ask Heinrich instead of himself? And what did he mean by keep an eye on him? What even could Georg do? At least Heinrich was Megas Domestikos, while Georg was just a prince with a charity. He started feeling a little worried.
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Alex, Anders, and Diana sat behind the cabinet and their families. The old men and women remained stoic and silent, solemnly listening to the eulogies. Their children and grandchildren fidgeted in the seats next to them. The ones around Alex’s age were transfixed by the ceremonies going on but looked like they weren’t listening at all. Alex looked to his right and saw his mother crying. He felt like he wanted to comfort her. A tear dripped down her cheek. He looked to his left and saw Anders crying even more, frequently wiping away more tears from his cheeks like a slightly running faucet. His phone kept lighting up with texts, even though it had been silenced. Alex looked behind him. Far away behind several rows, he could just make out Angela and Alexandra, their hair helping them standing out among the dark hues of the people around them. They’d been personally invited by both Princess Wilhelmina and her uncle, Prince Georg.
Personally, Alex didn’t know the Kaiser as well as his parents. He still felt sad, since he was dead now, but he didn’t grieve as much as his parents, and he was here just because his parents were invited. Nothing against Otto. The late Kaiser was a good man, and Alex had effectively known him his entire life. It was sad to see him go. But he didn’t feel as attached as the other people here.
The speaker finished their eulogy. The congregants stood up and formed a line in the aisle.
“Come on, Alex,” Anders said, “Let’s pay our respects.”
Alex didn’t say anything. He got in line with his parents. Although there were dozens of mourners ahead of them, the line moved quickly, and before he knew it, they had reached the Kaiser’s coffin. A mound of flowers had been laid around it, and the plain wooden coffin itself was covered with a Roman flag. Underneath the flag, the only adornment Alex could see was a small Hohenzollern imperial crest. The only thing telling him this was the Kaiser’s coffin was a painting of a young Otto, painted long before Alex’s grandparents were even born.
Anders and Diana stopped in front of the coffin and bowed their heads in silence. Alex followed their lead, looking at the picture that was decades older than him. He didn’t know what to do. He was always bad at big events. He never knew what to do. He hoped Otto understood, wherever he was now. He hoped Otto was enjoying his rest, after a hundred years on the throne. A full century of ruling…he couldn’t imagine living that long, let alone ruling that long. He must’ve seen so much in his long life. So much must’ve changed since he was Alex’s age. Imagine growing up at the end of the Imperial Century and dying with the Internet and regular space exploration. Imagine directing the course of history for that long, leading a nation through its darkest days and to new heights. He couldn’t imagine it.
“Goodbye…Otto,” Alex whispered, “Thank you.”
It was the beginning of an era.
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It feels like I can divide NWO into two parts. The first part is the life of Otto, covering 1946 to 2018 and focusing on the Cold War and modern era, and the second is 2018 to 2100 with the setup for Stellaris.