- Location
- universe
If he threatened to kill him, he should follow through with it. Empty threats serve no use but bluster, which is the worst thing that an officer can be seen to do.
Otherwise, good fic.
Otherwise, good fic.
Mein Krieg (Youjo Senki/Tanya the Evil OC)
- Thread starter Trunko
- Start date
-
- Tags
- youjo senki
I think you're coming at it from a very modern perspective which is alien to Youjo Senki. Remember the lynching and the man hung as a traitor? This is not a society of powerful media and hard checks on authority. Interfering with the military could easily be considered treason, and any attempt to moralize that 'how could I think children are soldiers', or discount the kids as capable of volunteering, could be considered criticism of the military's ethics- very, very dangerous if not suicidal.
I remember talking with my grandfather about what things were like in World War II in America. The Greatest Generation and all that, yeah, but questioning authority is something you generally just didn't do- ESPECIALLY about the war. Germany in World War I would be even more insanely authoritarian and jingoistic and nationalistic in comparison.
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That would not help as they were in the train so you could not fly very high without blasting a hole in the roof and flying low inside the train would be mistaken for simple wire tricks.
- Location
- USA
Simple wire tricks do not work if you are close enough to see the wires, or put your arm though the space they should occupy.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
I don't think that at this point of time either kid can fly without the help of a computation orb, which being a weapon is not issue to cadets until they report to their post. That said the kind of forgery needed to create documents of the necessary quality to equal military issued Ids is such that if the controller still believed to be false he should have called the local police and get them out of his hands.
That said I do place some blame for this screw-up on the academy and the office of personnel in general, mature or not they are children, in body even in not on mind, so they should have arranged a minder to get them through the city and into the train station at the very least, and is not as if its too hard to arrange for an officer, NCO or even another older cadet who needs to go to Norden to match schedules.
That said I do place some blame for this screw-up on the academy and the office of personnel in general, mature or not they are children, in body even in not on mind, so they should have arranged a minder to get them through the city and into the train station at the very least, and is not as if its too hard to arrange for an officer, NCO or even another older cadet who needs to go to Norden to match schedules.
I think there is an element of cognitive dissonance between the academy and it's military and society at large. Those officers will be among the most jingoistic and buy into the idea that the volunteers for the military, scum or not, are heroes who want to save the Fatherland. Any civilians who failed to volunteer will be set next to that with the idea the volunteers are more virtuous because of their courage and sacrifices. That will be the academy's ideology.
Frederick and Tanya come into that as the most radical examples of volunteers making sacrifices for the Fatherland- risking their lives and giving up their childhood. Then they not only keep up with the curriculum but excel at strategy, a discipline higher ranking officers identify with themselves. They are also really, really cute. It's not the way of the military to give praise, but the level of affection and pride the academy officers have in Frederick and Tanya is probably absurd.
The academy officers undoubtedly did not assign a minder because they are confident in the children's proven competence and their own authority as expressed by the papers the kids were given. No one should dare question written orders in the military unless they are betting their ass. For civilians to interfere with military orders is straight-up criminal.
Now some pathetic civilian scum train operators are questioning the express written authority of the high ranking officers, shaming the brightest heroes of the Fatherland, and disrupting military logistics. They may be questioning the ethics of military and working against the war effort if it is chosen to be seen that way. I'd bet someone is doing jail time at the least.
Frederick and Tanya come into that as the most radical examples of volunteers making sacrifices for the Fatherland- risking their lives and giving up their childhood. Then they not only keep up with the curriculum but excel at strategy, a discipline higher ranking officers identify with themselves. They are also really, really cute. It's not the way of the military to give praise, but the level of affection and pride the academy officers have in Frederick and Tanya is probably absurd.
The academy officers undoubtedly did not assign a minder because they are confident in the children's proven competence and their own authority as expressed by the papers the kids were given. No one should dare question written orders in the military unless they are betting their ass. For civilians to interfere with military orders is straight-up criminal.
Now some pathetic civilian scum train operators are questioning the express written authority of the high ranking officers, shaming the brightest heroes of the Fatherland, and disrupting military logistics. They may be questioning the ethics of military and working against the war effort if it is chosen to be seen that way. I'd bet someone is doing jail time at the least.
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- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Maybe not jail time, even the harshest judge would be hard pressed to declare that two ten years old with military documents are not a little out of the norm, especially if they are already graduates from officer's school so the controller got a reasonable and legal enough motive to do what he is doing. That said I do fully agree with your reasoning but I would also add that they are probably going to feel at least a little guilty for forgetting that those two do come with some obvious disadvantages that a normal soldier of either sex would normally face and that they should have taken their circumstances into account.
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Chapter 11: The Homeland of the Snow
Trunko
Dissatisfied writer
- Location
- Milan, Italy
Chapter 11: The Homeland of the Snow
"Major… I can assure you… if I had known that they were telling the truth…"
"They did" Major Springer said in a very angry tone "They even showed you authenticated documents of the Academy, to prove their truthfulness. But apparently, you did not listen to them despite their protests and all the evidence they presented!"
Sitting on our respective chairs, Tanya and I tried desperately to suppress our laughter. It was nice to witness a punishment when you were not the one to be punished. However, being able to see your enemies receive theirs well-deserved comeuppance, at the hand of someone more important than them, was sweet as a meringue cake.
"Not only did you not trust the words of two of the Academy's best cadets, but you de facto kidnapped them, threatened and interrogated without permission from your superiors, solely for their appearance! You can be sure that this incident will not go unnoticed at the Headquarter!"
The commissioner seemed about to collapse on the ground. Not even a quarter of an hour of confrontation and already was crawling like a worm in order to ingratiate himself with the officer in front of him.
The idea of Tanya had been brilliant. Pretending to surrender and admit we were just children, we had urged the commissioner to make a phone call to the Academy, making him believe it was a private telephone number. Of course, as soon General Christof had learned what happened to us, he immediately sent one of his best officers to confirm our identities and order the commissioner to release us.
In this way, the inspector had caused his (and that idiot controller's) ruin with his own hands.
The only downside of the plan had been that, because the phones in this world were still tied to their wire and did not yet have a built-in camera, I had no means of photographing the face the commissioner had.
Not that the controller was better. For as long as his superior had used to make the phone call to the Academy, he used to be smug and arrogant and continued to claim that we would get punished, but now his self-confidence was gone. His face was white, and he kept rubbing his hat in his hands, thinking in terror of what he had done.
There was no way to describe how bad the situation was for him. In the order, he had:
- Kidnapped two Warrant Officers, believing they were two children.
- Insulted and being rude with the previously mentioned Warrant officers.
- Made a bad impression in front of his boss.
- Caused the aforementioned boss to be insulted by an angry Mayor, and probably costed him his job.
- Attracted the attention of the Army, the strongest, most influential and vindictive political force of the Empire.
In our old world, if someone would have managed to screw up this much, he would have been fired immediately and probably would have been subjected to an investigation and a discrimination lawsuit as well. I had no ideas about what possible punishment would have received in this world for his actions, but he did, and they were not happy thoughts.
And I was going to twist the knife further.
"So, big man" I said quietly to the controller while Major Springer was still savagely bombarding the commissioner of insults "What a lovely situation, don't you think? I think that the situation could have been solved easily if only you had listened to us. If you had believed us, when we were on the train, now you would not find yourself in trouble. We would be traveling to our destination, and we probably would have already forgotten this adventure. But, apparently" I said mimicking Tanya's grim smile "you have no brain in your head!"
"Y-you little…"
"Sh-sh-sh, mister, I suggest to you to keep your mouth shut. From now on, whatever crap will come out of your mouth will only serve to aggravate your position. I mena, what if Tanya and I decide to report to the administrator of this station about what happened? Things would be worse ... for you!"
He froze. I knew I had the upper hand, and I intended to use it to the bitter end.
"I know what you probably where you thinking. You thought to be some kind of hero, doing his daily heroism of preventing runaway kids to escape home. However, we were the young defenseless orphans you though. This is a totally different kind of book. And you were the mean man which bullies the protagonist before he finds out they are very important person, and that they have more power than him."
I saw something reflective descend from his eye trough the cheek. Was that a tear? Good.
"Now, before we proceed to destroy whatever hopes you had for a brighter future, tell me: do you believe in God?"
He blinked.
"I'll take that as a yes. Well, I must tell you something very sad for you then: there is no such things as a good, righteous God that makes sure every good and bad things gets its appropriate reward. There is no justice, there is no truth. And you…" I leaned toward him "you can kiss your job a lovely bye-bye!"
"Sir" said Tanya, who until now was sitting quietly next to me, to the Major "Can we go now? We have orders to reach our new assignment, by tomorrow morning!"
"Of course" said the Major before turning once again to the commissioner "I seriously hope you enjoyed your time here, fat-ass, because as soon as I'll write my report, you are going to be ousted!"
The commissioner nodded slowly.
"Good!" said the major letting him go and turning toward us "Now, Warrant officers König and Degurechaff, you better keep you out of other situations like this! Today I was ordered to help you, but the next time I will not. You understand me?"
"We understand you, sir!" we said as we saluted.
"Very well. Take the next train to Nordren, and report to the base officer as soon as possible. Dismissed!"
"Yes sir"
While we were recovering our things before leaving the filthy station, I manged to see that the commissioner was no more looking sad. Instead, he was looking at the controller with a very smug and eager smile, that said a lot about what would happen once we were away.
"Sir, I can assure you…" the controller tried to say.
"Sit down" the commissioner answered.
"But…"
"SIT. DOWN!"
Tanya and smiled, walking out of the door of that terrible place, while with ours hears we started to listen with a very long string of profanities…
"Well, what do you think Tanya?" I asked as we walked away "What do you fell now? Joy, smugness? Or both?"
"To tell the truth, I am a quite sad…
Sad?
"Why?"
"Because I was not the one that got to fire that idiot!"
After eight hours long hours of travel, our train finally reached the station of Waterlin, from where we would have gone to the nearby base of Saufort, home of the Northern Theater Force Garrison.
"We've arrived," I said yawning, "Time to get up and off the train, Princess!"
Tanya yawned in turn. Eight hours of travel had left us both numb and with slowed reflexes.
"Do you think there will be someone to pick us up?" I asked.
"Don't be stupid" said Tanya while regaining her normal mood "We are warrant officers; almost certainly they will have sent someone to meet us and take us to the base!"
"Well, I hope that at least we do not have to go all the way to the base on foot!"
"Would it be a problem for you? Would it be worse than the transfer marches we did at the Academy?"
"Well, I hope not!"
Slowly, we got off the train.
The first sensation I felt once we were outside was cold. Not simple cold, but teeth-rattling cold. And looking around me, I understood why.
The buildings of the station and those around it did not differ too much from that of Berun, maybe a little smaller and less showy. But their roofs were all covered with frost, indicating that the outside temperature had to be less than 0 degrees Celsius.
"Wow" I said, looking at the bright sparkles that the frozen dew sent.
"Be a soldier, not a child!" Tanya warned me sternly.
I looked at her badly. Was true that we were both adults in bodies of children, but beautiful things did not have an age limit to be appreciated.
"I'm sorry… Warrant Officers Degurechaff and Konig?" said a voice I did not knew.
We both looked in its direction. A skinny soldier in uniform of the Imperial Army was looking at us with disconcert.
"Yes. Who are you?"
The soldier walked toward us "Second Lieutenant Pruttman, I'm here to take you both at the base of Saufort by order of the Commander!"
"Thank you" I said saluting "Shall we move?"
"Yes! Please come with me!"
"Lieutenant Pruttman? Can I ask you a question, sir?"
Pruttman swallowed "What's this, Warrant Officer Konig?"
"I noticed that you keep watching me and Degurechaff instead of focusing entirely on the road. Since I think this is not safe, I would ask you to ask why…"
Pruttman swallowed again. It was clear there was something wrong inside of him.
"It's nothing… really. It's just…"
"Just what?"
"Just… hell… I have a niece in Berun, and she's older than you two!"
This again, I thought rolling my eyes in frustration. Now I knew how people with baby face felt.
"Lieutenant, really?" Tanya asked at my right "What's her name?"
I looked at her with a mix of surprise and amazement. Was Tanya treating a person in front of her with respect? I could not believe it.
"Sophie" the lieutenant said, his eyes once again focused on the road ahead "She's thirteen years old now, and writes me a letter once a month. She's a very kind girl"
"Then, she must be really proud to have a member of her family into the army" Tanya said with a gentle smile, "I'm pretty sure that many schoolmates of her admire her for this!"
The lieutenant smirked "Yes. She always tell me that…"
Tanya's gentle voice chirped again "Well, we surely cannot fly you to your niece, but we can still help you endure the long distance that divides you two. Lieutenant, would you mind, once we have arrived, to help us understand how things work in the base?"
The lieutenant gulped. It was clear that Tanya's cuteness had nailed it.
"Well, I cannot help you right now. I have another assignment and, besides, there should already be someone to help you. However..." he said with a trembling voice "… I would love to help you. Not today, but, if you ever need something, please ask…"
I was amazed. Had Tanya shown her gentle side? Without any practical reason?
Why?
Maybe… there was some good inside her, after all?
"Tanya" I looked at her with a smile "You…"
She looked and me and signaled me to make silence.
Now what? I though as she approached her mouth to my ear.
"What do you think?" she hissed lowly in her natural tone of voice "Now this fool will be a new pawn for us. He will keep us informed about what happens in the base, and maybe more…"
I groaned as I realized what she really had done. With a few kind words, he had played his mind, turning him into an unwitting pawn for her schemes.
"You never change, right? You'll always be a pragmatic psycho!"
"And you will always be an idealistic fool!"
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Hehe. Nice! A lot of Tanya's intelligence and manipulative side got lost in the anime, but part of her former incarnation's opinionated nature came from the fact he was not just a skilled manipulator, but also an amateur psychologist.
'They sure are cute together.' think almost everyone who see them
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
The amateur part probably coming from his business related psychology classes he must have taken at college or as part of his office training which is why he knows so much about manipulating people but is so easily surprised when people act in the direct opposite way he expected since his target audience is not composed from subordinates, coworkers and bosses but instead of the military equivalent which despite sharing just enough common points with their modern civilian counterparts for Tanya to relate their interaction with office politics they got varied motivations and their definition of common sense is so different from Tanya that she always falls into traps of her own making by expecting people to respond to her signaling the way she planned instead of them misundertanding her actions and doing the opposite.
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Well it is now quite close to Tanya's Nordern incident so I wonder if Frederick will split from Tanya or be her subordinate
What the hell?! The official translation uses that, even if in a single passage, I can only guess as a massive blind idiot translation, given how good the author generally is on military minutia. Maybe meant the Fahnrich rank, then the author translated to the closest Japanese term, which got translated into English?
If they are warrant officers, they are the ones that need to salute upon seeing the 2nd lieutenant, that's a commissioned officer rank and outrank warrant officers, then he returns the salute, not the opposite. Sure, everyone is green as hell, and the 2nd Lt. might be inclined to overlook it given their age, if he even gets himself together from the surprise, but I'd expect Tanya to be very well versed in military protocol at this point, and not pass what she thinks an opportunity to impress.
Trunko
Dissatisfied writer
- Location
- Milan, Italy
This was Tanya's rank in canon....
What do you mean?
- Location
- Netherlands
Basically, a 2nd Lt. still has a higher rank than Warrant officers. Therefor, Frederick and Tanya should be the ones saluting here.
WO is the "middle" between NCOs and Officers if I remember correctly.
Trunko
Dissatisfied writer
- Location
- Milan, Italy
This is what happened. Tanya and Frederick saluted the officer, who saluted in return
I'm sorry if I said that badly...
- Location
- Netherlands
From this paragraph, it is the 2nd Lt. who salutes first, which goes against protocol. It should be Frederick and Tanya salute him first. Then the man would salute back.
Trunko
Dissatisfied writer
- Location
- Milan, Italy
Thank you fixed!
Which I think was a mistranslation in the official English version of the books, because generally speaking, a Warrant Officer would be someone in a highly specialized track, outranking enlisted and Non-Comissioned personnel, but still not having an officer commission. Historically, as I understand, it came to be in the Royal Navy, to handle that it had a highly aristocratic officer corps, but had too many highly technical roles in a ship that needed skilled personnel.
It could be that the mage corps were considered as a whole a specialized track, but that would mean the grunts would be the warrant officers, while Tanya did go to officer school to become a proper officer. Given army ranks in Imperial Germany, which would be the equivalent to Tanya's country to some degree, I would guess that what it was meant to be would be one of the "officer candidate, but not quite so junior" ranks, since she had already graduated from officer school.
Now, if the author of the novels wasn't generally so good at getting military minutia right, I could see them wrongly using warrant officer, but since he is that good, I'd expect the blame is on the translators for not picking the right word to represent the Japanese translation of the Imperial German rank.
Edit: Mind you, again, this is not a criticism of you, since you are just following canonical sources, just that I feel that the official translation might be bad there.
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This isn't actually the case. The deployment to Norden is actually a her final training exercise before graduating. That is why when the Entente invades Tanya gets field promoted to second lieutenant since that shifts her from legally still being an officer cadet, and thus not legally allowed to fight, to being an officer and thus able to be sent into battle.
I haven't read the LNs so I don't know if they go into detail but my guess would be that during these training deployments officer cadets are given temporary non-com ranks to enable them to legally fulfill their duties. Which normally probably consists of bossing around a bunch of enlisted.
NuclearBird
More issues than Reader's Digest
- Location
- Here and There
I don't have the Anime on hand to check, but the wiki says she graduated and THEN was assigned to the artillery squad in Norden.
So Tanya's page on the wiki says:
However the anime is quite clear on this:
So maybe this is a difference between the anime vs. the LN and/or manga or alternatively the people writing the wiki may have misunderstood what Tanya was saying with "I finished my training".Episode 2 - 11:15 onwards said:
Chapter 12: A war of mass distraction
Trunko
Dissatisfied writer
- Location
- Milan, Italy
Chapter 12: A war of mass distraction
Imperial Norden, the Empire
12 June, Unified Year 1923
Imperial Norden, the Empire
12 June, Unified Year 1923
Life in Norden was not very different from the Academy. The rules were always the same, and so was the training. In a sense, everything had changed, but nothing had really changed. For now, at least.
In the meantime, both Tanya and I tried to make the best of the situation: Tanya continued to carry on her ruthless strategy to gain the admiration and the assent of our senior officers, either by taking advantage of her cute looks or by playing with their feelings and emotions. I had to admit; Tanya had a natural talent for manipulating human emotions.
As for me, I preferred other, less tiring and more peaceful kinds of hobbies: I had become an avid reader of local newspapers in particular.
This was very odd or me: in my previous life, before that fateful argument with "Being X" and being reincarnated in this world, I had never read or bought a newspaper. I read the news, that is true, but I read them on my phone, or on my computer, through sites likes Google News, AbcrNews or the HuffingtonPost. I read news from all over the world, sometimes in real time, through fair and correct points of view free of any personal opinion.
Now, instead, I had to wait the same day, every week, for a courier to bring to the base days old newspapers with outdated news. And since it was impossible, realistically, to provide every soldier of a personal newspaper, we had to share them.
One evening I was sitting in the base's refectory, intent to eat my portion of Kommissbrot and Eintopf along with some other men of the garrison. Tanya was not present, so I was giving myself the luxury of a chat without double-ends. My interlocutors were two soldiers of the garrison, called Andre and Helibert, and a fellow wizard recently reassigned from the southern border, named Gerwald. Since we had no other interesting topics to chat about, we were discussing about what Gerwald was able to read earlier on the Saufort Tageblatt, a local newspaper heavily focused on the diplomatic relations between the Empire and the near Entente.
"From what I've been able to read before losing control of the newspaper," said Gerwald to the three of us "the Entente is in a much worse situation than the usual. Apparently, they are suffering a severe economic crisis, caused by the economic policies of their previous government. The Tageblatt says that their money is now worth less than half of our marks, and the situation becomes worse with every report!"
"Good!" said Andre at my left "This means that, while it lasts, we do not have to worry about them!"
"That's right," responded Helibert before taking another sip of his beer "They will be too busy fixing their crumbling economy to pay attention to us!"
"I would not be so confident about it." I said absently, still looking at half-finished dish "Their economic recession is not necessarily a reason for the Entente to not attack us. In fact, I think it would be a good reason for us to remain cautious…"
I reached for my glass of water, when suddenly another hand intercepted mine.
"What do you mean?" said Gerwald looking at me with very confused look on his face.
"Sorry, I was just thinking out loud." I said, trying to avoid his gaze and (hopefully) make them forget what I said.
However, I was not such lucky.
I was once again trying to focus on my less-than-enjoyable meal when I saw Andre changing place and sitting right in front of me, and he was smiling.
"Come on, kiddo: tell us what you were trying to say. Currently, there are no officers to judge your words, and I'm very curious how a broke country could be a threat to the Empire."
I realized immediately that I had no chance to disappear or make them forget what I have just said, so my option was only one.
"Well..." I responded, trying to look as most authoritative as I could "First, we must remember that the economic crisis is a very bad thing for the people, and even more for their government. I mean, is their current government still the same?"
"No. The old council members were voted out of office a week ago." said Gerwald, trying to remember what he had read, "The Entente's people have voted and elected a new council to replace them."
"And the new ones are competent and pacifistic politicians, who knows how to deal with this?"
"I do not know." Gerwald admitted, "What do you mean by this?"
"Because, if they aren't, which I strongly suspect, in a few days at most they will realize that they have no idea how to fix the situation, unless they have realized it already! However, if their situation will not get better, they will quickly lose public support like the previous council. So, in practice, they will have only one realistic option to keep their seats…"
"And what's that?" asked Andre with a very curious look.
"Simple: to distract them. Give them something that will keep their minds off the weak economy and the inability of their council to do anything about it. And here their old claims come into play"
"You mean… they could try to claim Norden to distract their own people from the economic crisis?" asked Andre, giving me a strange look.
"Well, it's a possibility: The Entente has been claiming Norden for many years now, since before the Empire was born, and once in a while there is always some low-level politician who claims that Norden is rightful Entente territory and the Empire should return it."
"Yes. And every time they seriously try to take this territory as their own, they end backing down once we show them our military strength!" said Helibert with a smug look.
I smiled in turn.
"Obliviously, mine are just suppositions. I do not think that the Entente will be stupid enough to start a war against us without having at least the help of the Republic, new government or not, but this is still possible in my eyes…"
The three men looked at each other. It seemed obvious that they could not conceive of the idea that a nation in economic ruin like the Entente could attack the strong and powerful Empire.
"Well…that's a very… interesting point of view…"
"Well, I…"
"Frederick!" suddenly yelled a voice I knew very well.
I turned around, looking at the young blonde girl who had just entered refectory with a very provocative smile "Hello, Tanya. What brings you there?"
She did not answer. Instead, she walked toward me, with a furious look. Those who happened to be in her way moved aside out of respect and fear.
"You. Me. Our quarters. Now!" She finally said once she was right in front of me.
"Oooh!" said Andre looking with a very amused look "You never told us you had a girlfriend, kid!"
I froze. Calling Tanya "my girlfriend" was one of the thing that make her mad. Very, very mad.
"The kid is a natural-born Casanova!" joked Helibert, ignorant of the danger as well.
"Defeated by a youngster!" replied Gerwald "The world is so unfair!"
Tanya's glare intensified. Mentally, I prepared for her outburst of rage.
"Let's move." she simply said turning towards me.
I was quite shocked. Was it possible that Tanya had learned to manage her anger in a manner similar to any human being?
I was so dumb-folded by Tanya's self-control that I almost did not hear the pats that many other soldiers were giving on my shoulders.
"Go, kid!" said a scarred soldier giving me a gentle smile.
"Make us proud!"
"Please name your first child after me."
I groaned, before following Tanya out.
In the meantime, both Tanya and I tried to make the best of the situation: Tanya continued to carry on her ruthless strategy to gain the admiration and the assent of our senior officers, either by taking advantage of her cute looks or by playing with their feelings and emotions. I had to admit; Tanya had a natural talent for manipulating human emotions.
As for me, I preferred other, less tiring and more peaceful kinds of hobbies: I had become an avid reader of local newspapers in particular.
This was very odd or me: in my previous life, before that fateful argument with "Being X" and being reincarnated in this world, I had never read or bought a newspaper. I read the news, that is true, but I read them on my phone, or on my computer, through sites likes Google News, AbcrNews or the HuffingtonPost. I read news from all over the world, sometimes in real time, through fair and correct points of view free of any personal opinion.
Now, instead, I had to wait the same day, every week, for a courier to bring to the base days old newspapers with outdated news. And since it was impossible, realistically, to provide every soldier of a personal newspaper, we had to share them.
One evening I was sitting in the base's refectory, intent to eat my portion of Kommissbrot and Eintopf along with some other men of the garrison. Tanya was not present, so I was giving myself the luxury of a chat without double-ends. My interlocutors were two soldiers of the garrison, called Andre and Helibert, and a fellow wizard recently reassigned from the southern border, named Gerwald. Since we had no other interesting topics to chat about, we were discussing about what Gerwald was able to read earlier on the Saufort Tageblatt, a local newspaper heavily focused on the diplomatic relations between the Empire and the near Entente.
"From what I've been able to read before losing control of the newspaper," said Gerwald to the three of us "the Entente is in a much worse situation than the usual. Apparently, they are suffering a severe economic crisis, caused by the economic policies of their previous government. The Tageblatt says that their money is now worth less than half of our marks, and the situation becomes worse with every report!"
"Good!" said Andre at my left "This means that, while it lasts, we do not have to worry about them!"
"That's right," responded Helibert before taking another sip of his beer "They will be too busy fixing their crumbling economy to pay attention to us!"
"I would not be so confident about it." I said absently, still looking at half-finished dish "Their economic recession is not necessarily a reason for the Entente to not attack us. In fact, I think it would be a good reason for us to remain cautious…"
I reached for my glass of water, when suddenly another hand intercepted mine.
"What do you mean?" said Gerwald looking at me with very confused look on his face.
"Sorry, I was just thinking out loud." I said, trying to avoid his gaze and (hopefully) make them forget what I said.
However, I was not such lucky.
I was once again trying to focus on my less-than-enjoyable meal when I saw Andre changing place and sitting right in front of me, and he was smiling.
"Come on, kiddo: tell us what you were trying to say. Currently, there are no officers to judge your words, and I'm very curious how a broke country could be a threat to the Empire."
I realized immediately that I had no chance to disappear or make them forget what I have just said, so my option was only one.
"Well..." I responded, trying to look as most authoritative as I could "First, we must remember that the economic crisis is a very bad thing for the people, and even more for their government. I mean, is their current government still the same?"
"No. The old council members were voted out of office a week ago." said Gerwald, trying to remember what he had read, "The Entente's people have voted and elected a new council to replace them."
"And the new ones are competent and pacifistic politicians, who knows how to deal with this?"
"I do not know." Gerwald admitted, "What do you mean by this?"
"Because, if they aren't, which I strongly suspect, in a few days at most they will realize that they have no idea how to fix the situation, unless they have realized it already! However, if their situation will not get better, they will quickly lose public support like the previous council. So, in practice, they will have only one realistic option to keep their seats…"
"And what's that?" asked Andre with a very curious look.
"Simple: to distract them. Give them something that will keep their minds off the weak economy and the inability of their council to do anything about it. And here their old claims come into play"
"You mean… they could try to claim Norden to distract their own people from the economic crisis?" asked Andre, giving me a strange look.
"Well, it's a possibility: The Entente has been claiming Norden for many years now, since before the Empire was born, and once in a while there is always some low-level politician who claims that Norden is rightful Entente territory and the Empire should return it."
"Yes. And every time they seriously try to take this territory as their own, they end backing down once we show them our military strength!" said Helibert with a smug look.
I smiled in turn.
"Obliviously, mine are just suppositions. I do not think that the Entente will be stupid enough to start a war against us without having at least the help of the Republic, new government or not, but this is still possible in my eyes…"
The three men looked at each other. It seemed obvious that they could not conceive of the idea that a nation in economic ruin like the Entente could attack the strong and powerful Empire.
"Well…that's a very… interesting point of view…"
"Well, I…"
"Frederick!" suddenly yelled a voice I knew very well.
I turned around, looking at the young blonde girl who had just entered refectory with a very provocative smile "Hello, Tanya. What brings you there?"
She did not answer. Instead, she walked toward me, with a furious look. Those who happened to be in her way moved aside out of respect and fear.
"You. Me. Our quarters. Now!" She finally said once she was right in front of me.
"Oooh!" said Andre looking with a very amused look "You never told us you had a girlfriend, kid!"
I froze. Calling Tanya "my girlfriend" was one of the thing that make her mad. Very, very mad.
"The kid is a natural-born Casanova!" joked Helibert, ignorant of the danger as well.
"Defeated by a youngster!" replied Gerwald "The world is so unfair!"
Tanya's glare intensified. Mentally, I prepared for her outburst of rage.
"Let's move." she simply said turning towards me.
I was quite shocked. Was it possible that Tanya had learned to manage her anger in a manner similar to any human being?
I was so dumb-folded by Tanya's self-control that I almost did not hear the pats that many other soldiers were giving on my shoulders.
"Go, kid!" said a scarred soldier giving me a gentle smile.
"Make us proud!"
"Please name your first child after me."
I groaned, before following Tanya out.
"So," I asked to Tanya once we were alone "what did you want to talk to me about?"
"The Major wants us to join the training exercise tomorrow, so you better be in good health when you wake up!"
"Wh-already?" I asked, curious "I thought there were no training exercises until next week!"
"I know. But apparently, someone has decided to bully the dragon…"
I stared at her "What do you mean?"
She leaned closer "From what I was able to gather thanks to my … ahem …informants, the Entente Council of Ten has claimed, through a formal note to the Empire, the territory of Norden as part of their nation. The Strategic Headquarter wants to do some high-level training to show the Entente our strength and possibly scare them into withdrawing their claim."
I continued, unable even to think.
Was it really happening? Had I accidentally predicted the future?
Was the new Council of Ten stupid enough to pick a fight with the more advanced and powerful Empire in a foolish attempt to hide their own weakness? It did not make any sense, unless…
For a moment, I wondered if this was the work of the powerful hand of "Being X". Was he behind all this? Was he intentionally sabotaging relations between the Empire and the Entente just to get Tanya and I into trouble?
It could not be true, could it?
"Relax, Doll-face." Tanya said putting her right hand over my cheek "In all probability it will end in nothing. The Council of ten will hold as much as they can, maybe they will also try to show attitude, but after a demonstration of power, they will be forced to retreat and submit. There is absolutely no chance they will ever start a war they cannot win!"
"You…you think?" I said, trying to believe her words.
"Absolutely. There is no way people can be so stupid!"
I smiled, trying to forget all the bad though I had still in mind.
But I couldn't.
Ah, the two infinity things are at it again: human stupidity and politician promises