Lidl, Berlin

Ralf Winkler carried the bag of groceries from the discounter. The Winklers usually ate at the Charite, but even the better kind of hospital food became unpalatable after a while and cooking by yourself a welcome alternative instead of a chore. He brought the bag to the back of his new car, opened the trunk in the back, stashed the groceries and then went all the way to the front of the car. He pulled the complete front, including the steering wheel, pedals and dashboard open before plonking into a remarkably comfortable front seat.

The Winklers' old beater had had its final encounter with the TÜV last year and bringing it back into a shape that would allow it to pass the inspection of roadworthiness would have exceeded its worth considerably. It was probably by now serving its last years in the Empire where the rules were considerably looser. Ralf would have preferred a new Golf, had indeed eyed the midrange model with some 200 hp. They could have afforded that one, but both Ralf's wife and the image the Cult of Shallya tried to project shot that down. Instead he was now sitting in a car not even 2.5 meters long, fit only for two passengers. Its Gigacap allowed for a couple of hundred-kilometer range and the 75 hp engine option gave the small beater surprising grunt. Ralf wouldn't say so, especially to his wife, but he liked that small thing by now. He did not need to, she already knew.

The Iseta was back, this time electric.

Stockholm, Sweden

The meeting room had changed after all the years, the old one was closed for renovations. The new one was just as bland, just as much published and just as much ignored by the public due to the bureaucratic smokescreen that hid it in plain sight.

Gerald Villiers and Matt Lindström were the veterans of the committee that handled the information sharing with the Germans via the Versailles link. Others had come and gone as their administrations changed or they were climbing their career ladders to different places. For the Brit and the Swede, it was their final contribution to the public service of their respective nations, they would cease working in a very few years.

Both had stayed a bit after the last session, sharing a cup of tea and finishing what cookies had survived the meeting.

"You know Gerald, I am starting to think you have the rights of it with that idea of the Germans having access to an Old One AI."

"Now that is ..unexpected. You have always been the one who thinks the Germans are playing it straight. What happened?"

"I still believe that, mostly. There are things we do not tell them either, mostly ones that will not make much of a difference to them and are rather important to us. Given the news and films that we received, I am not sure that the German population at large has an inkling that there is such a thing. It would surely make all kinds of waves."

"So what makes you think you know something that the average German does not."

"The last Nobel Fields Medal in mathematics. The N-Body problem solved by a mathematician called Nathan Weise nobody has ever heard of before. Proven in ways that contain at least one new theory of number ranges? That is a bit too much for me."

"Interesting, I did not think about it that way. So what would you have us do about it?"

"Simply ask for more of the background and proof. If nothing else it will give us more insights into mathematics. That is the language of reality, after all, it could be useful in all kinds of ways."

"Lets make it so old boy."

Soreil, Bretonia

Pierre Troisieme knew he would fall again, just like the last times. He was just too old to learn this. Still, there were too many people watching, so giving up easily was not an option. He got himself up again, he mounted the mechanical monstrosity and pushed off with his right leg. And then came the moment where it had gone wrong the last times and where for his life he could not see what he could do better to avoid such an ignoble fate. Still, he lifted up both legs and began pedaling. And of course this stupid thing started tipping over again. Just that this time something made him shift his weight and move the handle before him in a different way and he stayed upright. Actually, he started gaining speed and for some reason this made staying aloft easier, not harder. He fought the temptation to put down a foot when his ride started to incline in the first curve he tried.

To his great amazement, he found this fun. He had to exert himself, for sure, but he was going at a speed he could only achieve at a full-out run, if at all. He made a hash of the stop at the end of this run, but it was obvious that he had gotten it.

Pierre Troisieme, former serf, the son of a line of serfs, hero of the Battle of the Glade, had learned to ride a bicycle. This was great, this was more than that. The Leon Curvier foundation was picking up used bicycles all over Germany and established workshops all over the Bretonian Republic where they were brought back into working order.

They gave countless citizens a mobility they had lacked before, allowing them to work in places too far from their homes, shop from distant suppliers, spend less time in transit and much else besides. Above all, they were not horses, the symbol of the other Bretons, the nobles that had oppressed the commoners for so long. Being able to ride a bicycle became an important feature of a republican citizen, having a good bike a mark of status.

Pierre Troisime was still alive enough to cheer the riders when the "Tour de Breton" passed by his village and it had become an international sporting event.

Harbor, Karond Kar

Theros Fateweaver had always disdained the human slaves. So docile when properly motivated, so weak against the true elves, so short-lived. Now he hated them with a vengeance.

Two weeks ago he had been a factor at Malthelas&Fathdram, one of the oldest and most respected slave trading houses in all of Karond Kar. His raiding a fighting days were long over and truth to be told, they had been short and rather unassuming. But had always been able to make the numbers match whatever was desired of them and so he had been assigned a desk at the harbor.

He had retrieved his spear and his crossbow when the accursed DawiZHarr came, of course. He had taken a potshot at one of the mechanical monstrosities that invaded his home. Seeing how few use that was he made his way through the burning city that used to be his home. He found the Fateweaver house on fire, its members and servants either burned to a cinder or scattered through the chaotic battlefield. He had no memory of hat had felled him, he had awoken with a headache and a nasty bruise on his forehead in the pens much later.

The DawiZharr had made no efforts to sort masters from slaves, true elves from humans and even the few Dawi slaves that had been caught. All had been thrown into the pens and the respect and fear the lesser races had towards the true elves had vanished like a morning fog when exposed to hunger, thirst and too little food. He had fought hard for scraps of edibles he would have thought garbage only days before. He might not be a true elves warrior any more, but he at least had some combat training, had been in a few battles where the slaves he fought had none. After a week of fighting for food and any drinkable liquid the Chaos Dwarfs had driven the survivors from the pens and paraded by a few bored looking DawiZharr soldiers. They had a look at any survivor, and anybody who showed the slightest limb, the least sign that he could not work both arms, was led down a dark tunnel regardless of race. There was no indication of anything dangerous or untoward from that, but nobody but the DawiZharr ever emerged from it.

Theros really, really did not want to go down that tunnel.

All who had passed muster were chained to each other at the neck with chains that left a few meters between each prisoner. They were herded towards the harbor where they found the strangest ships moored to the quay. Made from steel, nearly featureless but for a small deckhouse they showed no visible means of locomotion. There were no sails, no rudders, but also no smokestack. Whatever drove them left them with more than enough space for cargo. There were countless crates and sacks in their voluminous holds, crates and sacks that had to be hauled from the ships by the chain gangs Theros was an unwilling member of.

Ever since three days he was carrying heavy loads from these ships, always under the watchful eyes of the DawiZharr who were fast with their whips. He struggled with the loads, his hands were used to the quill, not the rough wood of crates and to parchment, not the coarse fabric of sacks. The human slaves that made up the rest of his team were much better at that, hardly surprising since they were hardly better than beasts of burden. Where he had to fight for every step they simply marched unthinkingly. Where they simply lifted their loads to their shoulders he tortured his back every time he did the same.

Every time he saw them doing it he hated them more, they were simply better at this than he was. When he would stumble he would slow the whole team, when he stooped to catch his breath they stood as well. He had seen what happened to prisoners who slowed their chain gang too often. The whipping was not the worst part. That was reserved for those were whipping had no more effect, those were led towards that tunnel. Theros feared that tunnel and that fear fed the hate towards the humans. Oh, how much he hated their strong backs and unstoppable legs.

Chancellery, Berlin

The colonel who had briefed the security cabinet had already retreated from the room and the members looked uneasy at each other. A few weeks ago, they had slung loads of proverbial mud at each other, some had been members of the same party before an unpleasant split. Now they had to trust and work with each other. Some were used to this, others were not.
It was the new secretary of defense, Uwe Junge, who broke the silence.

"So, the three worst assholes on this world go at each other. Can we have some popcorn with that? Actually I do not see why this has to be before the security cabinet at all, this is not threatening Germany at all, and neither does it present a threat to our allies."

"Because the Chaos Dwarfs might win and that would present us with a dilemma."

Christian Lindner had retained the post of foreign secretary. He was not sure if he would enjoy that as he expected Markus Söder, the new chancellor, to be more hands-on than his predecessor and the Kaiserlichen proved to be a boorish as he had feared. Given that the alternative was that of leading a minor opposition party he did not care enough.

"What dilemma?"

"When we offered peace to the DawiZharr it was with the understanding that we would control their food source. As long as we do so we have a reasonable degree of control of the faction potentially most dangerous to us on this world. The Chaos Dwarfs have shown a high aptitude towards technology and have an uncanny ability to marry that to magical constructs. The managed to give one of the best units in Imperial employ a run for the money. If they manage to occupy a sizable part of Naggaroth they would gain a source of food we cannot control."

"Rubbish. Their Mechs and Flugscheiben might impress the Imperials a lot, but they are no match for the Bundeswehr. And even if they manage to push the bloody pointy-eared torturers into the ocean they would still need to transport the food home somehow. And I do believe we can stop that if we send a submarine or two. And if all else fails we can drop something heavy from orbit."

"They might not be a threat now Uwe, but they came quite far in very few years. Who is to say what they might do in future?"

"Be that as it may, we cannot afford to help the Druchii or start a war on the Chaos Stumpies by our own."

"And why is that Markus?"

"Because it would make us look like warmongers who go off at the slightest provocation. We need to project a picture that we care for Germany first and foremost, action on behalf of the bloody Spitzohren would be a very hard sell. I do not believe this will become a real problem any time soon. Let us monitor this situation more closely before deciding anything, but I am dead set against any action for the time being."

Biblis, Germany

The trucks carried the remains of two behemoths away from the site. Coming online in the 1970's the two Blocks of the Biblis Nuclear Power Plant had provided up to 2500 MW of power while emitting next to no CO² into the atmosphere. Two more blocks had been planned at the same location, the Chernobyl disaster put paid to that.
Like all nuclear power plants, they had their share of small-scale accidents, nothing that put anybody or anything outside in danger. There had been various agreements on how long they were allowed to run before they would have to be phased out. Being written off completely they made fabulous money for their owners, a profit of a cool million Euro a day was nothing unusual.

Then a tsunami hit Japan and showed huge holes in the emergency planning of another nuclear power plant in a nation normally known for thoroughness and meticulous planning. The sight of the roof of the Fukushima plant lifting off in a huge hydrogen explosion ran around the world. It hit big in Germany where the anti-nuclear movement was as big as anywhere and stronger than most. The fact that important state elections were just around the corner amplified the impact. In a move that exemplified politics in panic mode at its finest both power plants were shut down in 2011. It did not help the state elections any, the Greens captured a major German state for the first time.

The Weltensprung happened a year later and the needs of survival beat bullshit rather decisively. Both plants achieved criticality in late 2012/2520 again and did what they did best, providing lots of power, making up for the loss of natural gas that could no longer be imported from Russia and elsewhere.

In 2530 it was clear that the plants were clapped out. Fast neutrons had bombarded their pressure vessels for more than four decades, weakening even the special austenitic steel. Many parts of the semi-analog control system were broken and no replacements could be found. There were proposals for a digital rebuild, but the thoughts of getting these certified brought cold sweat to the brows of engineers and accountants alike.

The final decision to take the plants down was helped by the new project that would replace the two old behemoths. The Sister of Sigmar spent nearly a week at the plant, consecrating a great lot of Castor nuclear waste containers and parts of the old reactor vessel. At the set time they dumped all of that into the warp and saved RWE about a billion marks.

The trucks now carried the less active stuff away, the heat exchangers, the turbines and so much else that needed to be stored for a couple of hundred years before it could be melted down.
Not all of the plant was dismantled though. The old cooling towers were refurbished to work better than ever before. They would serve a pair of stellarator fusion reactors from 2540 if things went well enough. The He³ needed to power them was already ferried down from Mannslieb.

The Nanites in two countries were working hard on the tricky parts, there was a chance that this project would roughly stay on budget and time.

Reichstag, Berlin

The building was more than a hundred years old, having been built for a parliament that answered both to an electorate and an Emperor. It had seen two and a half decades of that Empire, one and a half of the first German republic and burned in time to aid its transformation into one of the worst dictatorships Earth had ever seen. It had been bombed and demolished in the war that followed. The Reichstag building had been repaired in the 1960's and made into the new Parliament building after the German reunification. Sir Norman Forster crowned the building with a breathtaking glass cupola and thoroughly modernized the interior.

That the former states that had fallen victim to German aggression before accepted a government from this edifice in this city was a powerful symbol of their belief in a remade Germany, one that would not repeat the past mistakes.

Ever since the Weltensprung, it housed a reformed parliament with more than 800 representatives, owing to the parts of the old world and the new one that had joined Germany. In its halls laws were proposed, budgets approved, deals made, drugs consumed and marching orders for the most powerful army on this world decided. The parliament elected the government and no Chancellor could govern without its acceptance. The Reichstag was a symbol of history, a place of power and carried more than a little gravitas.

During most debates and the majority of votes, only a fraction of the members were present. There was committee work to be done, backroom deals to be closed, constituencies to be looked after. Unspoken rules nearly as old as the Bundesrepublik made sure that for any missing member of the ruling parties one of the opposition would sit out as well so to keep the proportion of votes. There were exceptions of course, the general budget debate, the voting on really important laws or the new government were such cases.

Today was such a day. While on the surface of things there was a proposal to change a really important law this was also one of the very few times a vote in the Bundestag was not going to be along party lines. This was highly unusual in the German parliament. In theory, every member was beholden only to his conscience when it came to voting. In practice when such a vote was cast against the party whip's wishes it meant getting the boot from the faction and an end to the political career. Given that Germany's government was not directly elected by the voters, but from parliament, any vote that went against the government's proposals threatened said government's stability. Given how much Germans liked their stability, especially now that they were the only high-tech civilization around, this was not seen as diminishing democracy.

Whether the man who took the speaker's podium was fully aware of the history of this house and the gravitas his position demanded was not clear. That his mustache would fit the beginnings of this house well was.

Uwe Junge knew that the speech he was about to deliver would define his political career in many ways. Even if he was not too enthusiastic about the outcome of today's vote he had to be seen as making a valiant effort. It would be better if he even believed in what he was about to propose, but he was lukewarm at best about it. Just that the Kaiserlichen sponsors became pretty insistent on getting on with it. He had already failed to make it a part of the Coalition Agreement, this open vote was the best he could negotiate. Now he had to play the cards he had, not the ones he would have wished for.

"Honored Members of the Bundestag, the proposal that I am about to present to you is probably the most unusual this august body has seen since its foundation. If we were still on Earth nobody would dare to submit it.
We are no longer on Earth though, we are on a different world with different demands and opportunities and we have to adapt to it. No longer do so-called allies look at any of our moves looking for something that they could call fascist and use it to bludgeon to their ends. No longer are we surrounded by more-or-less liberal democracies that espouse the same values that we do. In fact, some of our new neighbors are not even human and it is debatable if all of these values apply to this world."

The Bundestag keep meticulous official records, not only of the speeches given, but also of the house's reactions to them. It is usually called the protocol.

It would note that this was the point where the ordinary murmur of the house rose to noticeable level. It also recorded the interjection from the Left Party "Come in, show us what you want to get rid of. Be a man, tell us what you really want."

"I am aware that this might not be a popular proposal and it will be hard to swallow for many of you. Still, I ask you to hear me out as I would do for any of you."

The protocol noted more laughter than usual. Uwe Junge was not really known for that.

"The proposal before the house is to abolish Paragraph 3 of Article 79. This would allow us to change Paragraph one of Article 20 from "The Federal Republic of Germany is a socially responsible federal state" to "The German Empire is a socially responsible federal state"

The protocol would later show that there was total silence in the room for about 10 seconds.

"Because yes, this is the core of the proposal: We want to abolish the office of Bundespräsident and replace him with a German Emperor."

There were about five more seconds of silence before the loudest laughter the house had heard for a very long time filled the chamber to bursting. Both the members of the Freisinningen and the CDU had been briefed in detail, the other parties had received an abstract. Nobody had believed that the Kaiserlichen would really try, seeing that they did released tension in the wrong way as far as Uwe Junge was concerned. Loud protests and insults he could have handled, even used later to build up a martyr's image. Loud laughter though….
It started at the left side of the Bundestag, it had the infectious quality that pulled big parts of the CDU and the Freisinnigen with it. There were several waves of it, remarks and catcalls ignited new rounds when it was about to die down. More than a few members had tears in their eyes and held their bellies when it finally subsided.

"After we all had our little fun let us think about this rationally, shall we? What advantages would having an Emperor confer to Germany?

First off, there is stability. A Bundespräsident is elected by the Federal Assembly, he or she is elected by a party or a coalition of parties. The president represents, at best, the citizens who have elected these parties and not all citizens. He is connected to these parties, his actions will reflect that.
An Emperor is the Emperor of all people, he has no affiliation with any group or party but will be to the benefit of all Germans."

The protocol noted the first intercession of "That worked so well the last time around, didn`t it?"

"An Emperor will have his family wealth and an appanage, he or she will not be looking for gifts to enhance his or her lifestyle. We will not see the kind of scandal that cropped up around Wulf in 2012.
Given that an Emperor will know that he or she will take office sooner or later the training for this job would start together with normal education, giving us far more suitable individuals."

"Just like Wilhelm two…" The protocol noted this one coming from the Social Democrats.

"We are surrounded by monarchies of all kinds; these governments have difficulties to understand changing heads of government in Germany. Case in point are the Dawi who still contact Angela Merkel from time to time. She might be out of office for six years now, they do not care. An Emperor would not change every so often, showing stability to this word. This head of state would be much better known, giving them a much better standing when visiting foreign states.
And it is not only the relations from foreign states that would improve. Any member of this house knows that politics are not just a matter of mind and calculation they are also one of heart. An Emperor of all Germans could be a focus of a much healthier patriotism than an elected politician. There is, frankly speaking, more of a glamour about a crowned head of government and we can use every bit of patriotism we can find.

And no, having an Emperor would not make Germany a less democratic state, or does any member of this house believe that the citizens of Sweden or the United Kingdom live in a less democratic state than Germany?
So, this is the proposal my party brings before this house. If we act in time we can forgo the election of a Bundespräsident in 2535 and proclaim a member of the House Hohenzollern the new head of state."

The protocol would note that the members of the Kaiserlichen applauded. It did not state so for any other party.