Skaven Undercity under Landrel Barrow

What had been called a Warren before was truly an Undercity now. Sleenek had led his Skaven into this former Undercity a couple of years after the Horned Rat died. Money from every Skaven that was part of his church had gone into this. The Germans wanted to keep tabs on their former enemies and had provided some equipment at cut-rate prices. That allowed them to combine maintenance with intelligence gathering and made lots of beings sleep much better.

And while the Undercity was still tight and claustrophobic it was also clean, well lit and ventilated. Warpstone was very much absent and electricity took its roles. There was no Clan Moulder any more, no statues and pictures praising the Horned Rat, but crosses by the dozen. A common feature were churches and chapels, small and large. One of the smaller ones was simple and even by the Skaven's new standard squeakily clean. It was the closest to Sleenek's office and that was where he met his underlings.
He spoke from the pulpit, he had been the first of the Brethren to see the Lord after all.

"Blessed are the missionaries misionaries, the ones who bring the truth of the Lord Lord to the people people. They are the ones who offer the chance of Life Eternal, they aid in salvation and they bear witness witness. Their courage knows no bounds boundsand all of them are willing to become martyrs in the Lords name.

And yet there are tasks that we are not meant to fulfil fulfil, not here and not now. There is accepting the challenge in Lord's name and there is throwing one's life away away. We know that the Lord does not smile on those who kill themselves themselves.

Yes, the Royals of Bretonia do no longer have the favor of the Lady Lady. And they should accept salvation salvation. But they are not yet ready to accept it from us us. We have lost no fewer than a dozen missionaries trying to witness to the Breton nobles nobles. This has to stop stop."

Soreil Bretonia

Walter Theodoric St. Helier's pinkie was not touching the cup's handle, his mother had insisted on that if he were to find himself in decent company. He was not really sure if that presently applied, but as everybody in the room did their level best to keep up the act, so did he.

Lady de Dubois was a feature in Soreil, able to mingle with what nobility was left in Soreil these days, the traders and the new government. Her social events were sought after, allowing people to meet who would otherwise have a hard time to do so. She was a patron of arts, supporting bards and painters. Both kind would use their art to praise Lady de Dubois and they would not have to lie to achieve their goals. Her age was a well-kept secret, that she was a rare beauty was not.

Nobody asked where the money to further the arts and to support the poor came from. Those who were not overly interested in such matters accepted the explanation of old money easily enough. The more curious and those who made it their business to to know the finer points of social strata knew but would usually not talk about it. The Lady was the madame nearly of Soreil's bordellos. That truth was big enough to hide her real secret.

The Rebel government knew about her of course. Given that she was about half their intelligence organization they would hardly do anything about it.

The ball room was full of Soreil's in-people, often wearing masks. Some danced to the tunes that came from a surprisingly good sound system. Others nipped at delicious finger food or sampled the many beverages offered.

The Lady herself held court in an alcove that gave her and selected guests a bit of privacy while she was still able to watch. Currently she nipped from a goblet full of something red and smiled at her guest. Several women too beautiful to be lady-in-waiting kept a bit of a distance. Behind her seat that was to tasteful to be called throne two mountains of muscle tried to pose as servants and failed. They did not worry Walter overmuch, his Webley would take care of them if thing went seriously south. What made him uneasy was the last member of this little gathering.

The actual serving was done by a frail-seeming girl of perhaps a dozen years. She would pierce many hearts in a few years, now she appeared frail and shy. Knowing Lady de Dubois' business he had no illusions what she would do in far too few years.

"I am so glad that you could spare the time to grace us with your presence mon General. You look dashing today and it so good to see that you recover so well from your wounds. I hope to see more of you now that peace is achieved. Such interesting times that we live in."

Walter chuckled a bit.

"May you have to live in interesting times."
"Sorry Sir Walter, I do not follow you."
"It was supposedly a Chinese curse in my old world, may you have to live in interesting times. The times that historians find interesting are usually hell on those who have to live through them."
"You and your people have brought such wisdom from your old world, such works of art and devices that surpass what magic can do. This world is changing because of it."
"Yes, we made a proper bloodbath here, didn`t we?"
"You gave hope to the hopeless and dignity to those who had none. And if you and your people were able to make an army of serfs beat an army of knights you will be able to build up a nation in peace. It will be so exciting."
"Yes, I believe that was what the Americans thought when they elected Grant for president. But yes, whatever we do will be better than what the Royals did, not that this is such a high hurdle to jump."

"You really like to belittle yourself mon General. What can you achieve when you can apply such talents to peace. And it seems that we will be secure, right?"
"Oh, the border to the Royals will be watched by peacekeepers from the Reiksbund, no worry. If King Lioncoer gets it up again they'll mince his army right and proper. And it is not that out people will forget how to fight."
"So we can all feel safe now. There is just one thing that tickles my fancy mon General."
"And what might that be?"
"I keep hearing that Mousillon will be part of the Bretonian Republic Walter. What will the Lady do there?"
"A place far away from here Lady de Dubois and hardly any danger to us."
"Yes, I am sure you are right. But it is the only place that has never joined the Rebellion. Nobody contributed, nobody joined us that I know of and we hardly know what is going on in Mousillion. Surely this must worry the Republic's government?"
"Mylady as you pointed out yourself I am barely back from the battlefield and have yet to get back to my feet fully. I am not aware.."

The hand that touched his lower arm was small, the joints nearly bigger than the fingers itself. Walter felt that its temperature was wrong even through his shirt and they gave the feeling of securing him better than a vise.
He turned and saw directly into the eyes of the serving girl. There was not the slightest hint of subservience in them, they were tunnels into depths that Walter really did not want to enter.

"Walter, you are such a hero on the battlefield. Now do not be shy and share your knowledge."
"Given that I haven't the slightest idea who you might be I am not going to discuss this with you. Lady de Dubois, would you be so kind..
"Walter Theodoric St. Helier, you are in the presence of Melissa de Acques, I have been like this when Giles de Breton took the throne and Lady de Dubois does as I tell her. As will you."
"So the Duke of Mousillion is one of your kind, isn`t he?"

"Yes, you are very clever Walter. I like that and if you are a good boy you will walk away from this. Mallobaude, Duke of Mousillion is one of ours as you so nicely put it. And that means that we are very and really interested in what the new government plans with the only place in Bretonnia where we can be really safe. And now answer Lady Dubois before we wipe this unfortunate episode from you squishy brain and be best friends again. Be nice and I do not have to make you desire me."
"A question of I am allowed?"
"Testing my patience already Walter? So?"
"Is your kind really vulnerable to silver, especially the blessed kind?"
"Very..oh"

It was no longer Melissa's hand that kept the two together, it was Walter's. His other was busy holding his revolver a few centimeters from the Vampire's chest.

"I am not stupid enough to believe that I can leave this room alive if we cannot behave like civilized beings. But I am also not stupid enough to go to a room full of Vampires not not prepare."
"You knew?"
"Maybe you have realized that our government is led by a goddess? And that we might be a little interested why people offer us intelligence practically free of charge. Of course we had a look. Yes, you may be old as dirt, but that does not make is stupid. As long as our interests align we had no problems with that. If you indeed kill me or turn me into your little toy we will burn you. Oh yes, look at me and see if a talk the truth."
"Merde."
"Can we now talk or do we get on with the business of killing us all off?"
"So you get out here alive and burn us as you so aptly put it?"
"We could have burned you the last couple of months if we needed to. We did not and you were useful. How about keeping it at that level?"

"So you will try to kill us when we are no longer useful?"
"We will kill you when you try to kill us or entice others to do the same, not before."
"So what do you suggest?"
"A treaty."
"What bloody treaty?"
"Roughly the same as the Lahmians have with the Reiksbund. Work with us, be good little citizens and buy from the Red Cross. Live. Try to play us like puppets and don't. And if you do not like that, go to Mousillion. We will not touch it with a ten-foot pole as long as that Mallobaude behaves himself. Live there if you cannot live here."
"General St. Helier, it will be fascinating to work with you, it really will be."
"Likewise."

Die Kaiserlichen" Party convention, Paulskirche Frankfurt, Germany

Markus Ruhdorfer had been an ardent patriot well before the Weltensprung. When he decided to finally become a member of a political party in 2522, he had several choices. Parties on the left side of the political spectrum, like the two Green parties and 'the Left', were naturally no option for him in their current form. Realityblind wingchair revolutionaries and hypocrites with zero understanding how dysfunctional most of their ideas really were. Their half-baked ideas in conjunction with a fanatical adherence to an overblown political correctness were part of the reason for the rise of center-right and right-wing positions even before the Weltensprung.

There were simply too many "Lipsis" and "Grüfris" among the left parties. (Both logograms exist in real life)
More practically-minded party members like Kretschmann or Palmer were a distinct minority even among the Realo Greens.
The Greens had had one good idea, that you could not spoil all of Earth, but then they got the notion that their other ideas were great. Which they were definitely - NOT. Well-thought is not always well-made.

Among the parties of the center, which were his natural political home, Markus Ruhdorfer favored the Union parties, the right wing of the SPD and the new Freisinnigen. To the surprise of a number of acquaintances, Markus chose neither but one of the new parties, the Kaiserlichen.

In Markus´ view, the SPD had developed such a fetish for "social justice" to the exclusion of many other important factors and when it came to looking down on different opinions to their own, the SPD of today was only slightly less sharp than the Greens. In addition, personal like Schulz, Dreyer, Stegner or Kraft filled him with dread, not assurance.

The CSU would have been his favorite to join, but since the reform of the Federal States was still in the works by the time he choose his membership, it was not sure the Palatinate would return to Bavaria and a move there was not possible due to several other reasons. Besides he liked his home.

The CDU in his region would have been equally fitting, but he considered Merkel to be too eager to sell out positions for short-term gain and like many, he was still angered about Merkel´s stance during the Greek Crisis. And he theorized with some justification, that the Chancellor would try to overtake the left on the left side if she felt it needed to be. Since Markus entered his new party before Merkel´s retirement, this left him the newbies among the democratic parties.

The Kaiserlichen, roughly translated as the Imperials, were an amalgam of people with political positions ranging from the center to the right, monarchists, Imperial and Nipponese immigrants. Many were former CDU, SPD and Freisinnigen (even a handful Greens and Left) members and voters, who felt being pushed aside by the left-leaning course of Merkel and the main parties leaderships and had no political home anymore.

Among them one Group, who made themselves known much more since being stranded on Warhammer were the well-founded monarchists. On Earth they were a tiny minority, but on Warhammer with the different circumstances, they were still a minority, but their chances rose. The "Tradition und Leben" (Tradition and Life) and the "Bund aufrechter Monarchisten" (League of upright Monarchists) NGOs held the banner of Monarchy high for decades. Most of them just wanted to replace the Bundespräsident with a Kaiser or Kaiserin.

The number of hardcore monarchists among the Kaiserlichen was small, but their finds would play an important role in election campaigns.
The Kaiserlichen party took up that banner and money and expanded upon it. Part of their aims was a rebirth of the German Empire, with the best of the Federal Republic and the old Empire mixed together.

The vast majority of the Kaiserlichen were no reactionaries. They did not cling to the past like a lifeline, but the Kaiserlichen were convinced that too many proven things had been sacrificed for mostly harebrained leftist schemes during the last 50 years. Evolving proven, inventing and testing new things was better than rushing headlong into a not thought-through revolution.
An example they had pushed hard in the last national, and successful, election campaign was school policy at large.

Baden-Württemberg had always been among the Top 3 in the national ranking when it came to school success. Within five years of the Greens coming into power, Ba-Wü´s schools took a nosedive in quality. Without their very popular leader Kretschmann, the Greens in Baden-Württemberg would surely have lost the 2524 election. As they did in other federal states, where they had loses of up to over 10%. And it is telling that the Greens in Ba-Wü very quietly handed over school policy to their CDU coalition partner after the election to repair the damage.

Within a decade the Kaiserlichen, risen on a tide of protest votes, votes by immigrated Imperials and Nipponese and people who felt not being properly represented by the established parties anymore, became the third-largest party in Germany.

Like all foundings of a new political party, the road had been stony. Being openly patriotic in Germany was something that riled up especially the left-leaning people and media. Constant insulting and slurring by press and left parties, anti-demonstrations and the Nazi-mace were part of the things members and voters of the Kaiserlichen had to endure. Even today it was still there, but a lot less than a decade before, since being stranded on Warhammer showed quite clearly that some positions of the Kaiserlichen were sound thinking instead of the dogmatic stance many other parties exhibited.

But the biggest hurdle to overcome on their quest to become part of the next federal government was the party convention in Frankfurt. Like all parties, the Kaiserlichen were not monolithic, having various internal factions and wings.
The left wing of the party was dominated by the social policy members and the Warhammer immigrants.

The "mainstream" of the Kaiserlichen ran the gamut of positions from the center to the democratic right. Not all economists of the former AfD went to the Freisinnigen and many economists critical of government positions and future scenarios from other parties found a home here. The Monarchists and those from all social strata feeling abandoned by the earlier established parties were overrepresented in this faction. It included a sizable number of Warhammer natives as well.

The right wing of the party was composed of people still being among the democratic right, some being slightly radical and then the Ultra-Nationalists. The right wing of the party had another sizable part of Warhammerites among them, unsurprisingly, since living on Warhammer all your life shaped you quite a bit. A small faction of radical monarchists was placed among them too.
For delegates like Markus Ruhdorfer the party convention would shape the future route of the Kaiserlichen. If the moderates won, the Kaiserlichen would truly establish themselves among the main parties of Germany. If the radicals won, the party would sooner or later become marginalised, because of not majority-palatable positions.

In Markus opinion, one of the things which had to go STAT was the "Gold Standard" babbling of one party faction. Yes, on first look this currency solution looked good, it was catchy during the last election, but the vast majority of economists in- and outside the party knew that the Gold standard was a folly for a modern industry nation. If the convention went like it should from a moderate viewpoint, the delegates would cashier in the gold Standard and phase it out of the party program step by step to not disturb the electorate. The absolute majority of the Kaiserlichen championed a continuation, with some reforms, of the Coordinated Market Economy with corporatist welfare state Germany used for over one and a half centuries.

It was not immediately obvious due to the stormy route of history, but the baseline blueprint of Germany´s economy had already been laid down during the German Empire time. With the Kaiserlichen seeing themselves, with some justification, as the descendants and successors it was clear they pushed this economic model and tried to be an example for Karl Franz´ Empire.

Another problem to be solved was the border point where right-wing became too far right. On one hand, the Kaiserlichen did not want hardcore, antidemocratic sectarians among themselves, on the other hand, there were a number of people among the right wing of the party, who skirted around this border, partially radical, partially still constitution conform, like Bernd Höcke and his group. Kicking them out would please the harsh critics, but on the other side would push them into more radical circles, losing them for the current political system altogether, radicalizing them even more.

Considering how willfully blind many lobby groups, media and even state organs were to radicalism on the political left, inventing hair-raising excuses for Stalinism and Anarchism, while bashing people with political views on the right, but these far closer to the mainstream of politics than the ones the left radicals got excuses handed out on a platter, Markus was not convinced to create more radicals, no matter the political wing.

When he entered the Paulskirche, Markus recognized the anti-demonstration on the square, but they were less than 2 years ago. One had to give honor where it was due. Roth, Özdemir, Göring-Eckart and all those other Greens and Lefts dying near Hof shortly after Germany got to Warhammer, so gruesomely and publicly due to their stubborn dogmatism, rendered Germany one service. Their death showed that many high-minded ideals, discussion and politics meant nothing in the face of opposition which gave a damn about that.

The Paulskirche was chosen as the place of convention for two reasons. One was to show the Kaiserlichen allegiance to democracy, in the location of the 1848 parliament, the other was the Church was equally a place of patriotism.

The weekend was long and hard, but when Markus and other known members of the party left the Paulskirche for the waiting TV cameras, they were elated. The moderates of center and right-wing had prevailed, the hard-right had been pushed back in influence on party policy.
For the next national election the Kaiserlichen would be ready to speak about a coalition with all parties in the parliament, even if some constellations would be rather difficult to imagine. As a gift for the monarchists, the Kaiserlichen would continue to nudge the parliament (if not too insistent) towards a constitution change to make Germany a parliamentary monarchy, with a Kaiser instead of a president.

The Gold Standard would be praised as a good idea for developing economies, of which Warhammer had quite a number of and much more subsistence level economies, which would profit from that standard as well, but that it could be only a phase to ease and establish a trade with even the most backward Warhammer nations for a few years. After that, when the trade connections were made, Germany had to return to modern monetary standards, with the more developed nations, like the Empire, following suit to establish a new standard.
Openly implied was the fact, that the Kaiserlichen would prefer Germany staying on modern standards all the way, but help the least developed nations to establish a functioning monetary system first, before upgrading it. Who said, especially considering the vastly differing situation across the Warhammer nations, that building up a worldwide trade network of a medival world towards a modern one was easy?

A number of far right party members on the outer fringe were expelled, but the majority of the party´s far right wing was kept. Sending them away would only strengthen the really hardcore, anti-democratic fringe parties like NPD, something which would help neither the Kaiserlichen nor their established political adverseries.
As a bone for the party´s right wing, the Kaiserlichen would urge the parliament to lay claim on greater areas outside the Old World, at least on paper. Besides, with so much unclaimed and unsettled land, often with sizeable ressources, on this world, it was simply good preparartion making sure your country could get hold of some of them some day.

And as the party which did the most to integrate the Imperials and Nipponese in Germany, the Kaiserlichen were pushing for even more cooperation with Nippon and the Empire.