Rime: A Sci Fi Story of Politics and Power

[JuliusNepos]

It is the closing days of the four hundred and sixty first year since the declaration of the first Empire, it is the closing days of the second year of the reign of Emperox Jurgen Jean-Marie Spencer D'Aristide zu Battenberg.​

♫

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News in the Empire​

The Founding day of the Empire is not only the starting point of yearly reckoning, Empire Day is also the first day of the new year. Everywhere in the Empire celebrates Empire day as one of the major holidays of the year, even if some put more focus on the new year than the Imperial anniversary. Traditionally on Empire day the Emperox's vassal gift him sumptuous presents on account of "his birthday", effectively serving as an extra unofficial tax. This year word has gone out from the Lapis Lazuli palace that the Emperox wishes no presents, instead wishing that his beloved vassals honor him and the Empire by ensuring their local celebrations are particularly resplendent, for the devastation of the plague has led to inadequate homage paid for some time now.
​

News in the Sector​

In the Aslace sector a day of thanksgiving and prayer has been decreed by Cardinal Leidrad for the last known Wretched victim of the smiling death on Verden has died in quarantine, leaving the sector-for the moment-free from confirmed cases. May it never return! The Cardinal now plans to clear the holy planet of scoundrels, restore its looted tombs and promises absolution for those that donate men or funds to this effort.

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News Abroad​

The Most Masculine King of the Lacedaemonian, Agis CMV, has decreed that the upcoming Gymnopaedia-Olympia contest of strength, war and arts will be for the first time, open to the participation of outsiders. Women, of course, will be strictly forbidden from Brotherhood space and as the contest will be held nude, attendance in disguise by "Double Xs" will be impossible. Prizes are promised to those that triumph, and Agis hopes to demonstrate the superiority of the Brotherhood's way and reinvigorate its gene-lines.

Spoiler: Dramatis Personae

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The Last Du Pont​

Ferand-Arnatz Gastón Todor du Pont de Bethelain, Count of Bethelain @Rolman​

Nobles​

The Marchioness of Bourledoc, Adeline Jeanne-Marie Charlotte de Monctmoren @Fingon888​

Ealderman of Prydain, Hansi Schmidt @Nemesis_Scar​

Marquis of Lyonesse, Arthur Theodore Johannes von Löwe, Lord of Löwenhalle @Red Robyn​

Markus Augustine Koch-und-Kliest Lord Castillian of Highlodge und Grafombudsman of the Serene Mistshadow world of Ehiri @Skrevski ​

Christophe-Frederic Victor Adelard de Hohenkreis, Weltgraf of Sternenta @Etranger ​

​

Magnates​

Mistress Joséphine-Cima Dupleix Juror of Trade , Keeper of the Dupleix family @Rincewind​

Sibyl de Marle, Arbiter Elegantiae @Simpli​

Monastics​

Grandmaster Lancelot, Fifth in the line of Star-Slaying Sages @THatWhichWillBe​

Brother John @Theaxofwar​

​

Heresiarchs​

Rixfennid Artur Mac-Nels of the Fenian, the fourth Prophet, Crøb-Kin, Master of the Fens @Fancy Face​

Saintess Aevelyne the Unready @Astra Myst​

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Sword Nobles​

Vesel Von Voss @Laplace​

Philipp du Krahekreuze Lord of Dawnbreak, Lord Castellan of Durander and Marquis of Norflurelle By Blood and By Right @TropicDepression​

​

Outsiders​

August Hugues du Saint-Concord @Thiccroy​

Ser Freidrick Ezekiel Decant De Castille Son De Trieste the Fellhanded, Cadet to the House of Trieste, Knight Captain of the Honored Company of the Sunhawk. @Furrybacon​

Spoiler: Stats

(To be done)

 

[Rolman]

Tell me what to do, Father Todor.

Purple steam rises off of him, sitting stately in his case of solid gold. The algae Soma is beginning to take hold. Whispers from a hundred voices – the voices that live in the blood – hang in the air.

He died two and a half centuries ago. The first du Pont to claim Bethelain during the time of troubles. His eye sockets stare back at the young man praying before it, tiny sapphires embedded in the deepest points of the pit. The calligraphy across Todor's forehead reads:

REMEMBER THAT YOU WILL DIE, AND REMEMBER THAT I MAY SPEAK ALWAYS: THE GOD-HEART OF MAN DOES NOT BURDEN A SOUL BEYOND THAT WHICH IT CAN BEAR.

THE SELF IS NEVER BORN, THE SELF MAY NEVER DIE, THE SELF MAY ONLY BE OBTAINED SHOULD THE SELF CHOOSE IT. TEAR DOWN THE WALLS OF THE ELEVEN-GATED CITY.

FOR I BECAME A MAN-OVER-MEN WHEN I SAW THIS PLACE, SUFFERING IN ITS HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS, AND SO BECAME ITS KEEPER. WITHIN MY RIBS I FOUND THE CROWN, FROM WITHIN MY OWN HEART I PULLED IT OUT. I BALANCED ATOP THE COLUMN ON THE TOES OF ONE FOOT. REMEMBER THAT YOU WILL DIE, AND REMEMBER THAT I MAY SPEAK ALWAYS.

When he came here all was in disorder. Petty kings ruled islands and archipelagos, fingers hovering over their nuclear weapons, their rusting pre-collapse corvettes trained on each other in planetary orbit. It was with fire and faith that Father Todor did bring fair Bethelain to heel. Revere the Saints, revere your liege, revere your fellow man. A quick defeat of the island-lords in battle spurred the pious natives to throw off their old identities, their old Saints, awestruck by the coming of a human being so powerful. He bathed the world in an electromagnetic pulse and rebuilt it in his image.

Thank you, Father Todor. Thank you, to the priests and philosopher-chemists who knew his words, knew to mark his bones with the sayings of Saints and seers and prophets. Conquest does not come easy, nor does it come on a sword-tip or through a soft voice alone. The Great Ones knew of balance, of justice, of compassion and an even hand; on these matters they all agree. But compassion cannot be complacency, cannot be weakness.

Ferand-Arnatz exhaled slowly, longingly, his eyes hooded. He felt their presence around him, yet could understand no words beyond the ones engraved on his kinfolk. He allowed his eyes to close, sending him into a kaleidoscopic world of shapes, shadows, and colors.

Son. Son of thousands, of hundreds of thousands, of millions, of people who only knew the stars from the end of a tether, from people who once could only look up. The vastness of the understanding of who he is, where he was, and why he's here surrounded the Count, enclosed him; he beheld in his soaring mind the beautiful, writhing sum-soul of the human being in its oneness. A million faces flashed before him, a million voices spoke out through muffled walls yet could not be heard. He felt the seal breaking all about him.

Yet through the din an old man's voice spoke, louder and clearer than any other:

Son, son, it is yours. As this world was made mine. Spread the Light.

Ferand-Arnatz opened his eyes. It had ended with the last word. His ears rang, the light from the crypt's entrance hurt his eyes. He remembered that he must not let the Soma take him. He remembered that he must focus on what he came here to give.

He fumbled with half-numb hands through the satchel he brought with him, trying to retrieve his offerings.

He spoke to the skull. "Father Todor, to you I bring these things:"

A blade made of shining coral, beautifully polished on the blade and beautifully pockmarked on the pommel. "The dagger. May I know how to use it and may my enemies' blades break."

A bone, thin and long. "The larynx of the Chantperche. May I always ply the depths of land and sea and man as if at home. May I live in tranquility, my soul speaking the tongue of the waves of thought and nature."

He hesitated before the last one. "The sapphire circlet. Guide my hand, tip the scales to myself and balance them for those who appear before me…" the young Count swallowed. "Bring to me my birthright, Father Todor, to what you call me to attain. Bring me my cloak of stars, as a world was given to you."

The shuttle ride back to La Montagne was silent. A bodyguard noted to himself that his liege hardly moved.

The Count of Bethelain sat slouched in his chair in the ossuary, beholding the bones of a thousand nameless cousins. "You know, my guide, this all is such a bother."

Kyesaux cocked their head, looking out over the barnacle-like growths that coated their body and face. As Saint Todor was merciless to bring about mercy, so too may the body be mortified to refine the soul's closeness to the God-Heart and its pure humanity. "A bother?" They speak through an amplifier embedded in their throat, buzzing with electronic tones. An autoinjector of Mana clicked, and Kyesaux sighed. "More than a bother, yet you are not being glib. You are an interesting human, and unlike the ones in your blood. Great Todor never doubted, never complained."

Ferand-Arnatz didn't know what to make of that comment. "What have you seen in your dreams?"

"Solar sails and grasping hands. Chains breaking and reforming. The shifting of the tides, as they do around the Île-de-Kmvoum. My mind reminded me, lucid in the dream, of my lost birth name and sex – and rejecting it once more." They closed their eyes. "To be a human requires increasing humanity itself, elevating oneself into the being they create in their own image, in the God-Heart residing within." Physical and mental obliteration – it is the cost of tapping into the Heart, to dream the dreams of a species always.

"Saint Todor called upon me," said Ferand-Arnatz frankly. Kyesaux blinked. "During my meditation before the Holy Crown. The Duchy is my birthright, it is the culmination of this line."

"Then you are marked by history and destiny, then, truly. The voice of a Saint is infallible. You were born on a certain day, seeker, at a certain time to certain parents, to become this." The philosopher-chemist was deep within their senses, unmoving from their cross-legged pose. "Yes, faces swirl around you, whispering in your ear."

"And I must listen?"

"They will guard you from human animals, and guide you to true ones."

"How do I listen?"

"Do you live in sorrow?"

The question took the count aback. "Perhaps it's better said that I feel some dismay."

"The Self dances within the heart-crown, lord duke," said Kyesaux. "It never ceases discourse with its departed fellows. Dismay is merely a fog." They turned their head upward. "For you there will be the cleansing light of a dozen suns. From nothing you will become something, seeker, your rootless feet will find earth in the void. Your home is greater than you know."

They cannot help but speak in riddles, but things seemed growingly clear to the Count. He felt a rush of wonder and fear, silhouettes of the dead flitting about in his peripheral, whispering near-imperceptibly the sayings of the Saints. They extended their beckoning arms to Ferand-Arnatz. Humanity is watching. The God-Heart beats louder.

 

[Rolman]

THE LINE LIVES.
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So speaks the Count of Bethelain to all Alsace:

When our ancestors, guided by unheard voices and held by unseen hands, created their compacts between master and servant, liege and vassal, highborn and low, were they not manifesting their own forebears' will through their blood, their souls, and through their minds?

For everything in history is but a culmination of the millions who gave themselves as fuel for its engines to manufacture destiny, to allow a God-Heart to beat for a race blessed with retrospection and foresight in equal measure. A great trust must be held in Man itself that the future is self-assured, that all will transpire as it is meant to be.

The guardrails of the future stand as willpower and remembrance. Though we all contain teeming millions, individual humans may find themselves at crossroads, standing before high mountains and great seas with fear and the urge to conquer it in their hearts. We do indeed find ourselves, humans all, at such an inflection point.

In this time of devastation and chaos, the mind must turn inward and look backward. This is an act of resistance against temptation of the Self, temptations to power, to venality, to self-serving greed. The billions of this sector live under no aegis; all is in flux; invaders beat on our doors. The soul is under attack without order, and the body falls next.

Thusly one must remember that the venerable ancestor Gottfried Heinrich Jefferson du Pont entered into the God-Heart not as the last traitor, but as the last man of loyalty to a doomed liege – is there no higher honor to give the body to the mind, to die for an ideal, however misguided? The name du Pont is unsullied, and no slander may touch it.

The law says what it will say, but all humans with open eyes must bear in their minds that the end of the great Duke was noble, honorable, and lawful, offering the mercy of his own death to shield this sector from devastation. The title is gone, yet his line remains. Order balances on one foot but, by the grace of the light of humanity, may not be lost yet.

Remember that well, and look to the blood that once provided peace and prosperity. Rally to Bethelain; the Self will make its own decision, but may you feel called. Remember the bonds of human brotherhood, and of our shared parentage, and ask yourself: This human will never have a master, but who shall rule over me?

Rally to Bethelain. Rally to peace and to continuity and to humanity. Rally to the glorious Heart within yourself.

 

[Nemesis_Scar]

Address to the People of Prydain on Empire Day​

I am not one for fancy speeches or word-weaves of that sort. You know me! It behooves me, however, to give a speech this day — this noblest of days, that swells the hearts of patriots and makes bold just men everywhere. And noble days such as these, why! They ennoble us all! Even a simple Aglæc, even as I, can be called upon to give a few words in such cases.

Our great Empire endures because of three things: Rime, Faith, and Steel. This must never be forgotten, lest we lose the reins of state and admit defeat. Should any be endangered, be that by false doctrine, or by unwilling hands and hearts, or poor supply, we tempt fate. But despair not, folk of Prydain. On our green world, we have that all in ample supply.

We're not those veslingur on Bourledoc, are we now? (Audience laughs.) Or Gods forbid — the miscreants in Lacedaemonia, either!

(Audience jeers.)

That's right, ye Lacedaemonian bastards! While you prance about playing at war, no doubt engaging in all manner of effete degeneracy with each other afterwards, we have been practicing it. Is that not a novel concept to you ergi?

We drill. We spar. We do target practice. Why, occasionally, we even march in unison!

(Schmidt stares directly into the the camera. His deep-set eyes narrow.)

And one day, one day very soon, ye all will learn the truth of Prydain Go Bragh.

Now, enough talk of dark places and dire deeds. A toast to our Emperox and our Empire!

(The crowd cheers, shouting over and over: "PRYDAIN GO BRAGH!".)

 

[JuliusNepos]

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---

Roster​

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The Last Du Pont​

Ferand-Arnatz Gastón Todor du Pont de Bethelain, Count of Bethelain @Rolman​

Wealth: Modest(Awaiting inheritance)

Retinue: Middling

Agents: Poor

Influence: Theological (Cult of Todor)
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Nobles​

The Marchioness of Bourledoc, Adeline Jeanne-Marie Charlotte de Monctmoren @Fingon888​

Wealth: Modest

Retinue: Decent

Agents: Average

Influence: Theological (Sacralism)

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Ealderman of Prydain, Hansi Schmidt @Nemesis_Scar​

Wealth: Struggling

Retinue: Powerful (Posthuman)

Agents: Poor

Influence: Underworld(Aglæc Free-Companies)

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Marquis of Lyonesse, Arthur Theodore Johannes von Löwe, Lord of Löwenhalle @Red Robyn​

Wealth: Struggling

Retinue Average

Agents: Excellent

Influence: - Theological(Cult of Three Saints)

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Markus Augustine Koch-und-Kliest Lord Castillian of Highlodge und Grafombudsman of the Serene Mistshadow world of Ehiri @Skrevski ​

Wealth: Modest

Retinue: Decent

Agents: Good

Influence: -Theological(Universal Faith)

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Christophe-Frederic Victor Adelard de Hohenkreis, Weltgraf of Sternental @Etranger ​

Wealth: Struggling

Retinue: Powerful

Agents: Average

Influence: - Theological (Order of Singularity)
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Magnates​

Mistress Joséphine-Cima Dupleix Juror of Trade , Keeper of the Dupleix family @Rincewind​

Wealth: Prospering

Retinue: Middling

Agents: Average

Influence: - Mercantile (Guild of Trade)

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Sibyl de Marle, Arbiter Elegantiae @Simpli​

Wealth - Prospering

Retinue Poor

Agents: Average

Influence: Mercantile (Vvhanil Industry)
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Monastics​

Grandmaster Lancelot, Fifth in the line of Star-Slaying Sages @THatWhichWillBe​

Wealth: Destitute

Retinue: Average

Agents: Good

Influence: - Theological (The Order of Sidereal Swords)

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Brother John @Theaxofwar​

Wealth - Struggling

Retinue: Middling

Agents: Poor

Influence: Theological(Order of Saint Franklin)​

Heresiarchs​

Rixfennid Artur Mac-Nels of the Fenian, the fourth Prophet, Crøb-Kin, Master of the Fens @Fancy Face​

Wealth: Destitute

Retinue: Middling

Agents: Good

Influence: Popular(Fenians)

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Saintess Aevelyne the Unready @Astra Myst​

Wealth - Struggling

Retinue: Middling

Agents: Poor

Influence: Theological (Cult of Four Saintesses)


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Sword Nobles​

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Vesel Von Voss @Laplace​

Wealth - Affluent

Retinue: Average

Agents: Poor

Influence: Underworld(Smugglers and racketeers)

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Philipp du Krahekreuze Lord of Dawnbreak, Lord Castellan of Durander and Marquis of Norflurelle By Blood and By Right @TropicDepression​

Wealth - Struggling

Retinue: Middling

Agents: Good

Influence: Underworld (Dispossessed Nobles)
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Outsiders​

August Hugues du Saint-Concord @Thiccroy​

Wealth: Struggling

Retinue: Decent

Agents: Excellent

Influence: Foreign Influence(Brotherhood) Weak

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Ser Freidrick Ezekiel Decant De Castille Son De Trieste the Fellhanded, Cadet to the House of Trieste, Knight Captain of the Honored Company of the Sunhawk. @Furrybacon ​

Wealth - Struggling

Retinue Powerful

Agents: Average

Influence: Court Influence: Weak (The Emperox knows your name)​

 

[Simpli]

=}+{=
=} Sibyl de Marle, Arbiter Elegantiae - 461 A.I.C. {=​

The rebreather-mask fit snuggly to her face and the gloves were light enough that brushing her fingertips over the vibrant leaves of the Hamelin felt as if she wasn't wearing any of the protective equipment that was both sparing her from the fertilizers and pesticides and in turn protected the harvest from whatever she might drag in from the outside. The leaflings around her weren't as fortunate, their green suits heavier and their breathing apparats heavier – a needless expense some would claim, but Sibyl knew that experience was hard won and easily lost. She didn't mind their work, it needed a certain finesse but that was easily thought from their team leaders to anyone arriving new at the work crews – repetitive but vital for the production quota, fundamental even today. All around her dozens of serfs were moving up and down the long shelves of tender flowers, the gold and lilac of her family's signature breed beginning to blossom in some, while others still kept closed. The later were gently watered and coaxed open, rhythmic touches improving the rate of their flowering.

Those that already did fell under a different regime and under the watchful eyes of the oldest and most experienced men and woman among them, tiny, miniscule sickles were brought to bear. Their golden alloy contrasted with the light tan of the silken bags that would catch the stigmata before it could be lost, their precious heads falling on top of one another as the flowers were harvested: gentle enough not to disrupt the growth of further flowerings. It was a silent work, for vibrations and song had negative impacts upon the growth – a reason the cultivation chambers rested in an all-encompassing silence, padded and parted from the rest of the station.

Her padded steps soon took her out of growth chamber #13, the green lights over its entry denoting its status as a well function and praiseworthy place of work and production – while the distant yellow light over chamber #19 heralded at later consequences for the whole group of serfs assigned to it. Her own assistants were following with some distance, holding the samples she had had collected throughout the growth chambers, promising new breeds and crossings from the latest exchange of seeds across the Empire. They would need to be analysed, described, shared between the orbital stations and in some cases sent across the far flung reaches of the Empire to reach other breeders and cultivators, finding their way into new breeds and ever more plentiful harvests.

For now they made their way to the clean-rooms, where white and furnishes of gold became the colours of the day, her presence being noted by the few idle eyes in a room full of ever busy hands. Small scales and large magnification glasses took note of every Stigmata that made its way into these halls, tenderly handling a fibre that would wilt under the concentrate of an electric magnification and crushed by anything but the most tender of touches. Purity and Health were the watchwords of these judges, only the stigmata with completely promising textures and surfaces were allowed further into the refinery, the one place on the whole station where machines actually took over most of the work…

…but today there wasn't any time to watch the swirling off the glasses and watch the flakes down golden as the heat reached just the precise hight that was necessary to transform the frail stigmata of the Hamelin plant into the precious ambrosia of the Empire: Vvhaniel.

And there was need of it, there was no doubt: the celebration of the Imperial Anniversary was an occasion for great celebrations and none was truly great without a supply of Vvhaniel. Even on distant Verden there would be the grand and terrible Leichenschmaus with all the food and drink it entailed and who would ready themselves for the Gymnopaedia-Olympia without a hint of Vvhaniel on their plate or in the oil spread across their body?

The smiling death seemed to be over – and as the Hamelin grew, they were ready to let the spices flow. For civilization, prosperity and the heritage laid down for them since the days of the Lantipac Era!

=}+{=​