Empire

[Ayzek]

Halvadag, Lanlania, HLE
Sunday, 8 Nueva 1682

"Our empire is in decline.

"Our prestige is in decline.

"Our military primacy, historically absolute and overwhelming, is in decline.

"Each year, our industrial and economic lead on other nation diminishes and our sphere of influence that once spanned the globe in imperium is encroached upon and assaulted by mewing upstarts. Their armies and naval forces bolster while ours flounder in decay as the Moderate and Social Democratic establishment twiddle their thumbs, content to revel in the memory of our gone eminence.

"NO MORE. I repeat: No. More!"

"No more!" The crowd roared in reply. "No more, no more, no more, no more!"

Alfred Aria Sulkholm, Leader of the Imperial Sentric Party, waited. There was a solemn look on his face as the watched the people electrify. As their chants began to faltered, he was quick to seize the moment and continue his speech. "Ladies and gentlemen, I say, it is high time that we end the six decades of decadent Moderate and Social Democratic rule. For too long they and their ilk have eroded the very fiber of Holy Lanlanian society, undermining our Messanic values and chipping away at the Crown.

They did nothing as our friends and allies in Galeae, Veinland, Oslanburg, Soyabar, Lochland, Akitsu, Kaljurand were besieged and overthrown by degenerate forces. They did nothing as our brothers in Ashford were bullied—and continue to be bullied—by the Carpathian rats. They did nothing when our cousins in Myramark were invaded by communists forces. They are watching, wide-eyed, as separatist forces fracture our empire, as the Akhadist plague infests our serene suburbs, bringing with them violence and wickedness. They turn their heads as the homosexuals corrupt the mind and bodies of our children, as uncultured swines steal our jobs, rape our daughters, assault our mothers, and spread their vile depravity.

"Unacceptable!"

"Unacceptable!" the crowd chanted. "Unacceptable! Unacceptable! Unacceptable!"

"Two weeks from now," Sulkholm began.

"No more, no more, no more!"

"Two weeks from now," he repeated as the crowd soothed, "we must remove the the Moderate and Social Democratic degenerates from power, who through inaction and pissant governance have lead the empire into a new dark age. Vote Imperial Sentric! Vote for the Empire! Vote for yourself!"

The People cheered.

[Ayzek]

Thaleslatt, Lanlania, HLE
Wednesday, 4 Dein 1582
8:32 P.M.

"This is a terrible insult to Imperial democracy," Sulkholm balked, slamming his fist on the podium he stood at. "The Moderate-Social Democratic establishment have once again impeded the will of the People. By again refusing to work with the most popular party, they have proven that they are not interested in serving the Holy Lanlanian people, but themselves and their obscure agenda.

"They're criminals!" Another resonating slam.

"Criminals!" the crowd repeated.

"The Moderate-Social Democratic elites are the enemies of the Holy Lanlanian People! Your enemies, my countrymen! And we must not permit them to further ruin you!

"We must engage in a campaign of civil disobedience!

"The Moderate Party and its puppets must not be allowed to freely advance their unImperial agenda. We must do all we can to challenge them at every turn! To make them recognize that the Holy Lanlanian people will not tolerate their corrupt and unlawful rule! They must resign and allow the rightful, popular government to govern!"

The People cheered and their thunder filled the Thaleslatt stadium the ISP often held rallies in. It had an empowering effect on themselves and Sulkholm, whose eyes glimmered with resolution.

[Ayzek]

Halvadag, Lanlania, HLE
Saturday, 7 Dein 1582
11:19 A.M.

Damen Freed Styrlund, Crowned Holy Lanlanian Emperor Damen II, was 38 now. He'd ascended the throne seven years ago now, shortly after his father was assassinated by Azreaen separatists. Sitting where his father once sat, watching his own son fiddle with some trinket where he once did, he better understood why his father was always so distant and aloof. The weight of the Empire and its people, its wants and needs, its troubles—it was all quite heavy. And there were many troubles. Reactionary forces marched on the streets, spreading chaos and discord, while the far reaches of the empire were little short of open rebellion—all of it just barely held together by the tired hands of an aging politician.

He closed and rubbed his eyes, letting out a tired sigh. Democracy was killing the empire.

"Tired, Father?"

"Just a bit, Feryn," Damen answered, glancing at his boy. He grew up so fast. The memory of holding a mewling baby, awestruck by human life and fretting over its fate, was still clear in Damen's mind. Feryn looked more like his mother. "I was up deep into the night yesterday."

The boy nodded, pouted. "That's not fair, Father. I want to stay up late too."

Damen rolled his eyes. "Playing video games, I assume?" The Emperor reached his feet and ruffled the boy's silky golden hair as he passed. The garden air was fresh and the sun was warm despite the Fall season. Damen and his family had stepped out into the garden to enjoy it. "How's it going, Honey?" he asked, stepping between two rows of roses. Sitting at the edge of the fountain where his wife and daughter, a wide book in the latter's hands.

Lariss was pregnant with their third child.

"Great, Daddy," Hayley answered. She was 10, a year younger than her brother. While the boy fiddled with his video games, she enjoyed books. Biology books, to Damen's surprise.

"But we're running out of tea," Lariss added, raising a metal tray from the stone edge. "Could you bring us more?"

"Mmm, in a bit," Damen replied, taking the tray and setting it on his lap as he sat next to his wife. "First let me enjoy your company, Honey, I'm so tired."

"That meeting did drag on, didn't it?"

Damen nodded. "That fool continues to stir up the people and cause all sorts of trouble. I'm seriously considering intervening."

His wife scowled. "What he's doing is certainly dangerous. For everyone." Her father, King of Galeae, was killed by a similar demagogue.

"Yes. But Crown intervention in riksdag matters is equally dangerous. It's been far too long since its exercised its prerogatives." Indeed, the last several Holy Lanlanian Emperors were rather passive, allowing the elected riksdag to control most domestic affairs, and even exercise some influence abroad. But a multitude of controlling powers were nonetheless available to it.

"They are clamoring for a strong leader," Lariss whispered, glancing at her husband. "And I'd say you're a far better choice than that madman."

Damen met her eyes. A silence hung over them for several moments before he smiled thinly and went for the tea.

[Ayzek]

Halvadag, Lanlania, HLE
Wednesday, 18 Dein 1582
9:12 P.M.

"You don't look happy."

Bernard Alexander Sandlund, Leader of the Moderate Party, Prime Minister of the Holy Lanlanian Empire, retired Imperial Marines Colonel, and a veteran of 33 years in Holy Lanlanian politics froze in place. It was for a only moment, though his wife nonetheless took him by complete surprise. "The times are tough," Sandlund answered, taking off his shirt and throwing it into the hamper. He sat on their bed to remove his shoes and slacks. "You've seen how the state of the empire."

"That's not what I meant," Margaret replied, shaking her head and letting out a tired sigh. The two had been married for over 40 years now and had been together since high school. Margaret followed him when moved with the Marines and they'd even raised five kids together. Had over a dozen grandkids, and were starting to see grandchildren. "You rarely look at me anymore."

Sandlund threw his shoes aside a little too roughly. "I'm tired, Margaret," he whispered, looking at her only with the corner of his eyes. "It's been very stressful these last few years. Everyday it's protests this, riots that, movements here, and...." He sighed exasperatedly, looking back at the wall beside their bed.

Maragret nodded, reached out and placed a hand on  her husband's shoulder. "I know it's difficult, Darling. And it's starting to affect your life at home. When was the last time you took a moment to talk to our children? Have you even see a photo of your Alice?" Sandlund scowled. Which one was Alice? "Did you even know your granddaughter gave birth?" Oh. "Maybe it's time you take a break from politics. We're almost 70. Let the younger generations take over."

Her husband spun around to face her then, a shocked look on his face. "I can't abandon the empire now," he cried. "Not with that snake so powerful."

"Honey...your health is failing. I'm worried. Please think it over." In the last few years, Sandlund hair had turned completely gray, and the wrinkles on his face were beginning to overall the creams his aids applied. He'd also began to put on more weight.

Still, he shook his head. "Let's sleep. I've an early morning tomorrow."

[Soyabarian Empire]

in the soyabarian imperial palace

An emergency meeting was called in the imperial palace in Handwenstad about the situation in the holy lanlanian empire it is of deep concern of the soyabarian goverment and the soyabarian royal house that the HLE might implode itself so the emperor of soyabar decided after the meeting to write a telegram to the Holy lanlanian emperor

to The holy lanlanian emperor
from: the great emperor of the soya,soyabar and new zealmark. The leader of the Soyabarian commonwealth

My dear college,
it has been brought to my attention, that your empire is crumbling from within. This is of great concern for not only me, but also my empire. I make to you this promise, that I will return the favor of protecting your empire.
When civil war might break out, we will send out our navy to at least protect the Lanlanian mainland and collect and take in refugees. We also offer to intervene when necesary to protect the empire and the wishes of the people

sincerely yours,
The emperor of soyabar

[Ayzek]

Halvadag, Lanlania, HLE
Tuesday, 10 Treizen 1584

Sulkholm sighed, leaning back into seat as he downed another shot of rum. After finally achieving his life-goal of becoming Prime Minister of the Holy Lanlanian Empire, it'd be nothing but problems. The riksdag was not in his favor, the people were resisting his rule, the Crown was blocking his efforts. To make matters were, it'd come to light that there were multiple investigations into the Imperial Sentric Party, on ongoing and recently closed. And now multiple soldiers with ISP affiliations had been caught distributing military weapons to thugs.

Well, they were his thugs, but it was nonetheless troublesome. It drew unwanted attention and with the Crown having seized control of the security and intelligence services....

He served himself another shot and passed it.

He needed more time.

[Ayzek]

Halvadag, Lanlania, HLE
Thursday, 12 Zechyr 1585

"This is unacceptable!" Sulkholm bellowed. "How dare you lay a hand on me! I will have your jobs for this!" The Prime Minister fumed in his armchair, glaring down the Imperial Marshals and the Secret Security Service officers that were ripping apart his office. They'd zip-tied his arms together after he'd made one too many attempts to stop them, and one of their agents had the specific job of pushing him back into his seat whenever he shot up.

The array of officers had arrived late in the evening, a little before midnight. Sulkholm had just changed into his sleepwear and joined his wife in bed when a knock on their door and the whispers of a sympathizing Executive Security officer warned him that Crown agents had arrived to detain him. He'd managed to shoot off a few emails and even attempted to escape before the Marshals and SSS pushed through his security detail and stopped him.

A short stand off, an argument, and a light scuffle later, Sulkholm could do nothing as the agents poured through his documents. His desk and file cabinets were ravaged while his computers were hacked, copied, and dismantled. His phones, and the phones of all his aids and guards, were seized. Restoring the Prime Minister's Residence would take weeks. Sulkholm had no doubts the scene was repeated at all his residences.

Sulkholm smiled when the radio on an officer's belt, silent since their arrival, sputtered alive. "We've got trouble out here," came over the radio. "A n angry crowd is approaching the residence on foot and in vehicles. No visible weapons. The media is with them. Over."

With barely a glance, the officer pulled his radio up and answered, "Don't let them through the road block. Once we've finished seizing material, we're airlifting back to headquarters. Buy us ten. Be prepared to move. Over."

"Roger."

Sulkholm's smile vanished. He doubted his Golden Guard would make it in time.

The radio was silent for a few moments, before it again cracked and burst alive. "Holy!"—the distinct crackling of automatic weapons fire came through over the radio, as well as the shrieks and cries of a frantic crowd—"We are taking rifle fire. Repeat, we are taking rifle fire from multiple positions. Cannot identify the source. The crowd has split: elements continue to advance on our position while others have scattered. Awaiting guidance. Over."

The devious smirk returned.

"Do not return fire," the officer ordered. "Launch tear gas and withdraw to the residence. Draw them in so we can surround and finish them. Over." The officer glanced to another, who nodded and quickly pulled out a large cell phone and made a call.

"Firing tear gas and reducing perimeter. Over."

Again, Sulkholm fell crestfallen.

By morning's light, he'd have been moved to a secure Marshals facility and his Golden Guard reduced to less than half its size—many killed or arrested at the Prime Minister's residence, others dealt with at home by Duchy Sheriff and City Police in a series of raids across the Imperial capital and its surroundings. Still, the Empire's darkest day was only beginning.

[Ayzek]

Halvadag, Lanlania, HLE
Thursday, 12 Zechyr 1585

By early afternoon, a massive crowd had gathered outside the Imperial Palace, spilling into the King's Park which sprawled across the outer fence. Protesters, primarily composed of Imperial Sentric Party supporters, had gathered to fight what they perceived as an illegal coup of the "legitimate government" and demand the release of Sulkholm and his ministers. Counter-protesters had gathered to shout them down, and thick lines of riot police separated both the protesters from each other and the palace from them both. Similar scenes played out at the Imperial Riksdag and the Prime Minister's Residence, which had been closed off and fallen silent since the Imperial Marshals and Secret Security officers left.

The sizes of the crowds fluctuated as news trickled out of the government throughout the day. It'd bloated significantly when news of the Prime Minister's arrest was leaked in the early morning, though seemed to scale back when the Ministry of Justice announced he—along with other members of the his government and his party—was suspected of treason and other high crimes a few hours later. It grew again when the Emperor announced the dismissal of the Prime Minister, and the dissolution of the Imperial and Lanlanian Riksdags, both of which had several MPs arrested and escorted from the grounds by Imperial Marshals.

It reached its peek when the Ministry of Justice abandoned standard practice and revealed details about an ongoing investigation: the Secret Service had been investigating the Imperial Sentric Party for months, and came across intelligence revealing the ISP's plot to seize complete control of the empire by holding the Emperor hostage, much like in Oslanburg. The ISP had been behind the loss of military rifles from an army base in Sydlslatt, north of Halvadag. While some of the rifles had fallen into the hands of common criminals, the majority had went to the ISP's paramilitary arm, the Golden Guard. The very night that Sulkholm was arrested, much of the Golden Guard was captured unprepared by raids lead by the Marshals and the SS.

"More information would be revealed as the case went to trial."

That was, unsurprisingly, not good enough for Imperial Sentric supporters. Many decried it as a complete sham, lies told to keep them down and remove Sulkholm from power. They demanded his release, demanded the Imperial Sentric Party be restored, demanded the Emperor abdicate. As the day grew dark, the crowd became more and more violent. Their chants louder. Shadows weaved through the crowd. Rocks were thrown. The odd inciter was tackled and dragged into the palace—that stopped when it became clear it only triggered the crowd more.

When the police finally moved to disperse the crowd, the situation exploded—quite literally. It was shortly before midnight when Molotov cocktails flew over the outer fence and gunfire pierced the chants. Chaos erupted, as many fled in fear and others charged at the police line. Shrieks and war-cries managed to challenge the gunfire. Tear gas covered the crowd as the riot police were pushed through the palace gates. Government forces held fire until the crowd had thinned and the black-glad Golden Guard stormtroopers were more discernible. It would later come at elements of the Lanlanian Home Guard personnel were among them.

They didn't last long afterwards.

The attack on the palace would be the Golden Guard and the Imperial Sentric's Party's final struggle and was itself the spark of a six-day riot that would devastate Halvadag. In the end, Holy Lanlanian Army troops patrolled the streets and the capital of the two-thousand year empire would never again be the same.

[Ayzek]

Halvadag, Lanlania
Friday, 20 Zechyr 1585

Two days after the riot was suppress, a quiet peace had fallen over Halvadag. The Imperial Army was its enforcer, after martial law was declared on the fifth day. Hundreds of police officers and sheriff deputies had been injured, and several killed in firefights with ISP Golden Guard remnants. Or perhaps common street thugs; it was difficult to really tell them apart. Over two thousand civilians had been injured and more than ten thousand were arrested. Property damage alone was estimated at nearly a billion Valta. The costs of clean up and lost business was estimated to be far greater.

The city's atmosphere was somber. Military engineers had been called in to assist in the clean up, and their vehicles dotted the city alongside ruined—burned—vehicles, broken storefronts, and charred remains. Though it was usually the Home Guard's that step in to clean up disasters, its infiltration by Imperial Sentric Golden Guards instead had them confined their barracks as intelligence services poured over ISP and Golden Guard documents to identify and weed out the infiltrators.

The rest of the country—and, indeed, the empire—was little better. It was in shock that the Lanlanian nation could be threatened by a coup. Some blamed their politicians, others the Crown. A few doubted that there was a coup attempt at all, and instead saw the entire fiasco as the Crown's bid to return to relevancy. Whispers of independence for Syorid and Rylmark started to go around. The demonstrations in Azreae bolstered.

It was to such a country that Damen II, Holy Lanlanian Emperor, spoke. It was late evening, though the Imperial Throne Room brightly lit. Beside the Emperor, his wife. They were all that appeared on screen, aside from their regal blue-and-gold thrones. The throne room was in fact full of people, however. The Emperor was, even now, an acute representation of the country: dark and tired. Whether on purpose or natural would be lost to history. He'd aged visibly since his last public announcement, with darkened eyes and notable new wrinkles. He certainly didn't look only 40 years old.

"My beloved peoples," he read from the ivory sheets in his hands, "it is with a heavy heart that I appear before you this dark evening. Our nations have been dastardly attacked this month, not from an outside foe but from within our own ranks. Traitors had penetrated the highest echelons of our government and were found conspiring to undermine its rightful order, to destroy our empire of laws, order, and traditions and replace it with a shallow copy based on their malicious and corrupt ideology.

"They were, thankfully, stopped by the combined efforts of our faithful public servants in the Secret Security Service and the Imperial Marshals, who last week arrested the ringleader of the vile conspiracy: Alfred Aria Sulkholm, who abused his office and planned to overthrow the Crown. This serious betrayal of trust and faith can not be forgiven. Sulkholm and his cohorts will stand before the High Court and face justice.

"His corrupt government has been removed from power. His vessel, the Imperial Sentric Party, and his paramilitary army, the Golden Guard, have been disbanded. His agents and sympathizers in the Lanlanian Home Guard, having betrayed their oath to King and Country, will be court-martialed.

"Our nations will endure. This betrayal will not dampen us. The empire will not be ruined by one small man and his corrupt ideology."

There was a second of silence, perhaps as the Emperor steeled himself.

"The Crown will soon appoint persons to the Ministries affected by the government's dismissal. I welcome His Holiness, Aldes Johnathan II, and the Prime Ministers of our fellow Imperial countries to Halvadag next week to discuss the State of the Empire."