Embassy of the League of Nations, Mage-Market District,
Free City of Rondel, North of the Romaria Mountains
Torsten Bodstrom was somewhat stressed as he sat at his nice new desk, in his nice office, in this nice medieval city filled with magic and other wonders. Now these things were not causing him stress obviously, rather it was the job itself that had placed all these nice things before him that was now somewhat more difficult than had been originally envisioned.
This of course could have been described as negotiating for this nice city filled with bizarre things like non-humans and magic users to enter into friendly relations with the League of Nations and its various members for trade and diplomatic purposes. Nothing overly onerous in truth, as while strange and fantastic in setting, was essentially dealing with a small City-State who were already quite impressed with his bosses before he'd arrived.
Something that would do wonderfully on his credentials in Swedish Foreign Office, and help continue the positive relations with the two massively powerful neighbors of Sweden his nation desperately needed. Something he had largely achieved in with the first few days of arriving in Rondel and meeting with 'Magisters Council' that ruled the City-State.
A success which he had just been congratulated on by the elderly gentlemen sitting before him...while he also handed him a potentially disastrous next assignment as a reward. And one did not say no to Julien Meunier, his immediate boss and a former Foreign Minister of the French Fourth Republic, without one's career suffering unfortunate...delays. So when the old man talked Torsten listened quite attentively.
"Cmdt. Coopers forces then will arrive here in Rondel, most likely tomorrow evening or the following morning, and establish camp just outside the city as you have agreed with local government. The Cmdt. and his immediate staff will then be your advisors in the matter for the short term. What we intend then is to arrange an initial meeting with these supposed other-Earth Japanese and to establish some basis for full negotiations to occur. And avoid a war of course"
"This quite the honour Mr. Meunier..." no it was not, most definitely not "...may I enquire as to why it would be entrusted to myself rather than a more esteemed diplomat such as yourself" yes really why? your already here after all breathing down my neck?
The old Frenchman smiled faintly for a moment as he sipped at his tea "Ah...it was felt that owing to the history between ourselves...and our Soviet colleagues of course, with the Empire of Japan of our own...ah...Earth. It was agreed it would be preferable to put forward a largely neutral third party from the Assembly's ranks. And of course it will prevent any concerns of any major power possessing undue influence in these initial discussion..." the Frenchman smiled pleasantly "...but do not worry, myself and colleagues from the Commonwealth and Soviet Union will be at your disposal for guidance and aid"
Joy. Fucking joy. He would get to be leader of the negotiations while in reality operating as the sock puppet of the 'advisors' on the negotiation team such as Meunier. And his own government were absolutely delighted by the turn of events, succeed and the world was his oyster. Screw up badly and it would be 'Torsten who?' all while he'd have little control of such outcomes. Yay!...fuckers.
Torsten smiled back equally pleasantly "Thank you Sir, I will give my utmost effort for the success of this diplomatic mission and not fail your trust in me..." damn you, damn you all "...and the guidance of such experienced diplomats as yourself will be invaluable as well a great honour" if my eyes were lasers I'd incinerate the lot of you right this minute you cheese eating bastard. Pew. Pew.
"Excellent Monsieur Bodstrom, excellent..." Meunier replied placing the tea cup delicately into the ivory white saucer.
The locals found them impressive surprisingly even if they were a far cry from the ones in Assembly and regular diplomatic soirees. "...now a primary goal of this initial meeting will to gain an understanding of our opposite numbers as well as exchange history books to try verify this fantastic tale somewhat" assuming they don't lie outright and then don't die of sheer boredom from the dry as sand books the League puts out "...That and of course make contact with our organisations opposite...this...ah...United Nations mentioned by this Lt. Itami" because another global bureaucratic organisation is just what the citizens ordered!
"Has this been signaled to our opposites?" he asked curiously. So far there was scant information on them from the papers in front of him. It was disturbing possibly going in blind to talks with a nation that's historical concept of 'diplomacy' was that they'd started bayoneting 'resisting' villages to death when told gas was a war crime.
"Yes Monsieur Bodstrom, we shall hopefully have a simple schedule arranged via short transmissions between our side's respective militaries by tomorrow. General Pradesh, and myself as well, prefer to keep communications fairly short and concise for the moment to avoid any confusion till we can get a feel through face to face communication. Cultural differences and all that as we've seen before"