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We should assign influence based on population, even today vast areaas of the U.S. are sparse or empty yet wield more power and influence than more populous states.
So here's a question about Victoria's timeline and trying to make sense of it. In the book, Rumfords life after the conflict is to eventually take up farming until his death in 2072, how do we make that make sense when our history has him killed by Father DImitri in 2050?
So here's a question about Victoria's timeline and trying to make sense of it. In the book, Rumfords life after the conflict is to eventually take up farming until his death in 2072, how do we make that make sense when our history has him killed by Father DImitri in 2050?
So here's a question about Victoria's timeline and trying to make sense of it. In the book, Rumfords life after the conflict is to eventually take up farming until his death in 2072, how do we make that make sense when our history has him killed by Father DImitri in 2050?
2072 was when the CMC decided it would be most convenient for Rumford to, "die of old age," and publish his memoirs detailing to everybody why he'd been nowhere to be seen for all that time. Linking that to the line of bullshit Dmitri used to lure him and the radicals out in the first place just tied everything up in a neat little bow and let them repurpose some actual primary sources as, "evidence."
EDIT: And Maria was...strictly instructed in what to say.
2072 was when the CMC decided it would be most convenient for Rumford to, "die of old age," and publish his memoirs detailing to everybody why he'd been nowhere to be seen for all that time. Linking that to the line of bullshit Dmitri used to lure him and the radicals out in the first place just tied everything up in a neat little bow and let them repurpose some actual primary sources as, "evidence."
EDIT: And Maria was...strictly instructed in what to say.
I wonder who the intended audience of said memoir is.
Dude's been dead for a generation, and the ruling class have been serving Russia's interests for that long.
What mix of internal politics necessitated the publishing of this memoir.....
Getting a look at the original journals might be interesting.
Figuring out how much was the work of a ghostwriter probably earned some graduate student in FCNY or Germany a PhD.
*looks at timing*
Then again, I will note that the Chicago Accords went into effect i 2073, a year after they published these memoirs.
One wonders at the timing.
2072 was when the CMC decided it would be most convenient for Rumford to, "die of old age," and publish his memoirs detailing to everybody why he'd been nowhere to be seen for all that time. Linking that to the line of bullshit Dmitri used to lure him and the radicals out in the first place just tied everything up in a neat little bow and let them repurpose some actual primary sources as, "evidence."
EDIT: And Maria was...strictly instructed in what to say.
Did he? I recall he had an internal monologue about how she was literally the only woman he's ever met that could ever appease his standards for a wife and then decides he doesn't want to bother with all that. And then she just sticks around as his maid, for some reason.
In the novel, he rescued a White Mexican Noblewoman (scion of some ancient Spanish house nobody has heard of or cares about) from Aztec pirates, who was the ultimate woman (pathologically domestic, knew, "her place," and was entirely devoted to the service of men). They never married, though.
That's not a thing that actually, y'know, happens, so I'll say that during his period of ineffectually flailing at pirates, Rumford's crew stumbled across a refugee vessel that didn't realize early enough that it needed to fucking run, and Rumford took a liking to Maria. He basically made her a live-in maid, and she more or less rolled with it because she was thousands of miles from home with no support network and had to survive. Whether or not they had something with the external aesthetics of a romantic relationship is an exercise left to the reader, but the CMC has her enshrined as a First Lady-ish figure regardless of whatever the actual facts may be. Her life is strictly structured to best enable her use as a PR piece and a feature at the social functions of the mighty, so she drifts from event to event, always present but never really included, masking what is essentially an entire lifetime of bitterness and spite behind a pleasant smile, as she is, to this day, still intent on surviving in the hell her world has become.
She is also a highly-valued contact and asset for at least six foreign intelligence agencies and as many as eighty-two resistance movements. When everybody sees you as furniture and insists on inviting you to the fancy dinners, you hear a lot, and Maria has a lot of vengefulness built up about how her life has turned.
[X] Focus your rhetoric on breaking up the forming bloc. Some of these conflicts, you can resolve before Young manages to harden their resentment, and that can help reduce the number of people he convinces.
The Pond Widens
The room could be described as opulent, but not only as that. Tacky could also feature, with unnecessary and bizarrely nationalist making surprisingly compelling appearances in supporting roles.
Carpeting deeper than a banker's pockets swallowed feet up past the ankles with every step, and all of it in Imperial Russian red. Blackout curtains in Imperial blue hanged alongside the windows, stirring faintly in a breeze. The walls, meanwhile, were a clean white -- Imperial, of course, if it needed to be stated. As if to emphasize to any viewers exactly what shades dominated the room, one entire wall was occupied by a Russian flag. The wall was built for the flag; it held it perfectly snug to each corner, all excepting an inch at the bottom so it did not touch the ground. It was an impossibly bold room. Surely, such a room would be meant to receive foreign ambassadors in a private setting -- to overawe visitors with a display of Imperial splendor. It was not. In fact, it was rarely used.
That would not, however, be apparent in any way. The whole thing was kept spotless by daily cleaning sweeps, and the furniture rotated regularly, just to avoid the implication that the room was ill-loved. Today, it was set up for an intimate meeting, perhaps between family, or close friends. Couches and armchairs so plush they made the eyes flutter closed merely to look at them clustered around a fireplace, a coffee table filling the space between them. All were made of ludicrously expensive woods and fabrics. They were not, however, the most expensive things in the room. On the walls were glorious paintings, all made in the past thirty years by Russian artists, as some of the finest examples of the new superpower's wealth and culture. They, neither, were the most expensive things in the room.
That honor went to the suited bodyguards standing by each door and window, their postures straight, their eyes keenly attentive behind shaded glasses. Each was the product of Russia's special forces units, given additional training and indoctrination to excel in their new role. Each was a veteran of at least a decade of service. A fortune in rubles poured into humans to produce the ultimate defender of one specific human life. In terms of the amount of money invested to produce, equip, and maintain them, they were, by far, more expensive than anything else in the room.
Well, except for the things they were there to protect.
Alexander Ivanovich Romanov, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russians, took a contemplative sip of water as he gazed around the place. "...I do believe I hate it," he mused.
Katerina Alexanderovna Romanova, Princess of the Imperial Throne of Russia, curled up on an armchair, rolled her eyes. "There are any number of rooms you could have chosen instead. You picked this one." She leaned back in her chair, looking around the room. "...but, yes, I hate it too."
"Unsubtle," replied her father, pursing his lips at the flag wall in disapproval. "And loud. I would like to come here to relax."
Katerina sighed. "And, somewhere, the housekeeper has a panic attack. Father..."
He snorted, waving off her reproof. "I am permitted to dislike a room! I'm not going to kill anybody over poor choices in decoration!"
Katerina shrugged. "As you say." She shifted a bit, settling in. "So. Why am I here? What do you want?"
"Simply to check in with my daughter," said Alexander. "We haven't spoken lately. I've been hearing about you mostly through others-"
"I've told you to stop spying on me," said Katerina, crossing her arms.
"-and I felt like I should hear about my daughter's life from her instead of court gossip," he continued, undaunted. "I'm always interested to hear about your projects, for instance."
Katerina narrowed her eyes and said nothing.
He blinked. "...albeit worried about some of them."
Still, she said nothing, her glare intensifying.
He sighed. "I've heard about your plans to travel to-"
"I'm going," she said in a flat voice.
"Katerina-"
"No," she said, jaw clenched. "We have discussed this. You don't interfere with my work, I don't interfere with yours."
Alexander's eyes narrowed. "You cannot interfere with my work. Have a care, Katerina. I have only so much indulgence..."
She snorted. "You've yet to muzzle me for anything I've done thus far. And I think I've proven that I can interfere just fine."
Alexander ground his teeth, taking a deep breath. "...I don't want this," he breathed to himself. He looked back up at her. "Katerina, I'm not trying to prevent you from doing this. We made an agreement and I shall stick to it. But I want to talk. What you are planning to do is dangerous."
The Princess visibly took hold of her temper, settling back in her chair and taking a few breaths. "...yes," she admitted. "But that is entirely your fault."
Alexander grimaced. "I'm aware. There is a purpose to that, a-"
"As there is to everything you do, yes, yes, I recall," she snapped, sharply waving him on. "The fact remains that the result is still before us. I have work to do. Important work; the most important work either of us have ever done. And a good part of that is cleaning up your messes."
"The, 'messes,' to which you refer are what keep Russia strong-"
Katerina snapped her hand across at chest level. "And I do not have time for them!" she said. "You know why my priorities are as they are, and your work has made mine a nightmare. I get maybe a month back in Russia every year, I travel so much. And half the time, no sooner have I made progress than does one of your own projects make a ruin of it! So don't start hemming and hawing over every little visit I make when you are the proximate cause of all of them being dangerous!"
Alexander sat up straight. "There is dangerous, and then there is Chicago while they are in the middle of rallying the center of their continent against our foremost ally on the East Coast!"
She crossed her arms. "Are you asking for me to explain my decision, or are you simply going to order me to stay?"
He grimaced. "I made a promise. I'm asking for an explanation."
Katerina sat back. "For the first time in decades, stable American states are cropping up in the interior of North America, in direct defiance of Victorian efforts to stamp them out. In fact, they have firmly established themselves, and utterly humiliated Victoria in the process. People in America are, at last, reorganizing, and we have no reach there."
Alexander winced. "I would not say no-"
"We have Spetznaz teams trained to supply and assist opposition groups to polities that grow too strong, and to direct Victorian operations," said Katerina, her voice uncompromising. "We do not have tools appropriate for destabilizing a state flushed with victory against their cultural nightmare. They are too strong. Too united. The tools we have in place are wrong for the job it has become. The game is up, father. There is a stable state on American soil that we do not control."
Alexander stiffened. His lips peeled back from his teeth. His fingers sank into the arm of his chair, the fabric straining. He let out a quiet, tense hiss of hatred.
Katerina reached out and took a sip of her drink. "And that," she said, tilting her glass in his direction, "is why I took up the handling of this situation for myself."
Alexander growled, "They destroyed us, Katerina-!"
"We destroyed ourselves," she replied, staring coolly back at him. "You do not hold any particular fondness for the Soviets, Father."
"They shut us out of the world they built in the wake of the Union's collapse!" he roared, coming at last to his feet. "I grew up in the ruin of a country Russia became after the Union collapsed and the West soared to prosperity, all as that idiot Putin continued to antagonize them as though we still held the Union's strength! Russia was a joke relative to what once it was, its only claim to true prominence a stockpile of aging nukes we could hardly maintain. It was only by the spectacular miracle of America turning on itself and destroying all that it once was that we had any chance at all to recover! Now parts of that continent reform beyond our grasp, their founding documents filled with symbolic references to the old Constitution, their military headed by an officer of the American military, and you expect me to simply accept that the project has failed?!"
Katerina leaned back into her couch, looking up at him. "It is the reality before us," she said. She took another sip. "So yes."
Alexander shook his head violently. "No! I will not accept that!" He started pacing. "I will not accept that those bastards may have another chance at destroying Russia, and I will not accept you placing yourself at the heart of their power! You do not go to these events as my daughter, and you have made that more than clear-!"
Rage sparked in Katerina's eyes, and she bolted to her feet, ignoring the bodyguards' abrupt tension as she does. "I WILL ACT AS YOUR DAUGHTER ON THE DAY WHEN YOU STOP UNDERMINING MY EFFORTS TO KEEP THE WORLD ALIVE!" she roared.
Alexander stepped to within an inch of her and pointed right at her face. "Do not presume to lecture me on the magnitude of your task! Without me, you would have never had the chance! I started that work, not you!"
"You started it, and you're doing your level best to end it," she hissed. "I have eyes, old man, and can use them! I can tell when my latest efforts died because of you!"
Alexander snorted. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Her eyes narrowed. "You destabilized France. Again."
He laughed. "You can't prove that! Nobody can, I was very thorough." He folded his arms. His lips twitched. "It's France. I'm sure it was about to happen on its own anyway."
Katerina's eyes widened, and she nearly laughed before covering it with a cough. Rallying, she demanded, "Why did you destabilize France?"
Alexander shrugged, turning away and walking over to the window. "They were getting complacent. Does them good to have some rousing civil unrest every now and then. A riot a day keeps the nukes away, you know."
Katerina pinched at the bridge of her nose. "I had a project there."
He glanced over his shoulder with a scornful expression. "A recurring assignation with an attractive Parisian, no matter how many doctorates he has, is not a, 'project.'"
"That is not what I meant! And you promised you would stop killing my boyfriends," growled Katerina.
He waved the concern away. "He's alive. He...will be fine."
"Father!"
"I don't understand what the problem was with Prince Heinrich," he sighed. "He was perfect. Attractive, well-spoken, educated. Pliable."
"'Pliable,' is exactly the issue," she said, through gritted teeth.
"You could always just settle down with Konstantinos," he offered.
"Father."
"I'm just saying, he has initiative-"
Katerina shook her head sharply. "Your spy is fun, but I'm not interested over the long term. Now, Father, we were talking-"
"Fine!" he cried in exasperation. "Fine, I'll make sure to extract this Pierre if you like him so much. Will that make you happy?"
Her eyelid twitched. Her nostrils flared. "No!"
"Why not?!" demanded Alexander, throwing up his hands.
"Because I HAD PROJECTS THERE, YOU ARROGANT-" Katerina broke off, taking a deep breath. She released it with a bark of laughter. "Always, you distract me," she chuckled.
Alexander's countenance cleared, and he laughed along with her for a moment. The bodyguards visibly relaxed. The Tsar shook his head, grinning. "...I did see to it that your young man was safe, you know," he said. "Relocated him to Kaliningrad, as part of a larger refugee program. I was looking forward to telling you about it."
Katerina sighed. "...sorry. I know you care, I just...I didn't care about France just because of a boyfriend. It's a part of the EU, and the EU is a part of the broader environmental strategy. It was important, and now it's in too much disarray for me to have anything to do with it for quite some time. You keep interfering."
Alexander eyed her for a moment. "Your work would be easier, and be much better able to proceed despite...disruptions...if you would accept a post from me, formally."
Katerina shook her head. "I have told you, it would undermine my credibility-"
"No."
Katerina blinked. "Excuse me?"
He shook his head. "Undermine your credibility? You are my daughter. My favored heir to the throne. Everywhere you go, Russia goes with you. You cannot escape that. The fact that you refuse any official post means that people simply see you as trading on the one title that never goes away, Princess."
She glared at him. "I don't want your throne. I have been dodging assassins since I was six, thanks to your throne."
He frowned. "You have what you do only because of it. That has costs. But if you want to change that, fine! But you cannot achieve that from the comfort of your armchair, passing judgment on me while wasting your potential on passion projects in the Arctic Circle and dealing with just one of the countless things I do to ensure that Russia rules the world."
"I help to ensure that you have a world to rule," she snarled, fists clenched.
"Then you have some idea of the true magnitude of ruling, if that is but a single part of it," he snapped back. "If you don't believe me, then prove me wrong!"
"And how would you have me do that!?" she shouted.
"Show me," he hissed. "You want to go to Chicago so badly? Go, with my blessing! But you go as my representative!"
Katerina jerked back. "Your-?" She scowled. "I am not your ambassador."
"For this, you are," he snapped. "You have defied me, publicly, for too long, Katerina, and I will not have it continue if you have not even tried to grasp the nature of the position you are spurning. Go to Chicago. Talk to the Americans. See if they will listen to a Princess of the Russian Empire. But if they will not, you will at least be there as you are. I will not have you shrinking away before these people as though you are ashamed. They will hate you already. I refuse to let them hold you in contempt."
Katerina took a furious breath in through her nose. Her fingers clenched and unclenched. Then she released the breath, sighing, and took a long, slow blink. "...very well," she said. "For this alone. And you will not interfere with my work again."
He stared back at her, and the two locked eyes for a long moment. Eventually, Katerina turned, and left the room. The door slammed behind her.
One of the guards turned her head, her stoicism breaking. "Your daughter is very much like you, your Majesty," she said.
Alexander laughed. "Yes! Too much, some might say." He turned, looking out the windows on the city of Moscow. "But she still has much to learn before she can take my place."
* * *
THE NEW CHICAGO TRIBUNE
KATERINA IN CHICAGO
THE CROWN PRINCESS ARRIVES AT THE MIDWESTERN CONFERENCE
"IN THE NAME OF RUSSIA AND ALL THE WORLD, I HAVE COME."
he then proclaims his only true love is the roman goddess of war Bellona which Ironically would make him a heretic by the same standards he had for that female bishop
So I've been thinking about the discrepancy I mentioned and how a lot of ex-presidents do things like write books, give speaking tours and join organizations out of office; and this got me thinking how with enough doctored evidence such as Photoshop, deep fakes and imitation of his voice, Russia could use Rumford as a puppet even when out of office as long as they make sure no one sees him in person.
So, if we were in the Battletech setting (and had a competent intelligence agency), I'd advise assassinating her. She's too competent as an inheritor to the Imperial title, and Russia has no network here so they can't conclusively prove it was us.
Sadly we aren't in the Battletech setting and our intelligence agency is newly formed and 3rd world, so we'll just have to smile and bear it, i guess.
I'm shocked the number isn't higher, myself. In all seriousness, they're more probably all ostensibly the same resistance movement, just split up into cells that don't talk with each other very much.
This isn't that bad. If we were relying on intimidating people, this would undermine us a lot because it would make us not the most dangerous guys in the room, but Russia doesn't give a shit about any of our baby oppositions in this conference and this does a lot for our credibility. This helps Russia put its thumb on the scales, yes, but this is also a sign to everyone watching that Russia has accepted our victory; if they were going to stomp us, we wouldn't be worth treating with - an ultimatum would take a different diplomatic channel.
