Does CS Lewis converting make sense if Tolkien fled to South Africa, destroying their correspondence and the Inklings? Uh…. Shut up. Also, ignore how the Mere Christianity broadcasts were later in our timeline.

A sinner in Thy blood to lave,

A single drop the world to save.

-Thomas Aquinas

She was the beloved of her namesake town. Perhaps she didn't have the same fame as Tennessee and Cali- sorry, Georgia- but in her namesake city, New Orleans was popular. For all that every man was a king, her home state made her feel a queen.

Photos and big appearances, like she was some key public figure. Or less flatteringly, a mascot. It wasn't an unfamiliar phenomenon: Tennessee had her fans in her namesake, and the folks in Georgia had slowly warmed up to theirs, courtesy of a purposeful campaign.

(Georgia-Cali smiling in Savannah. Drinking wine with notables on the shoulder of Stone Mountain's General Lee. Photos taken on the steps of the state capitol. Thankfully, Cali was a bit more amicable than her sister. Tennessee would have never suffered that.)

It was strange to think that they might become, in some sense, state symbols. They usually superseded mayors or governors, probably because they couldn't be elected out of office. Oh, and being attractive women instead of fogey old men probably helped a bit.

Alongside shipgirls, there were other symbols attached to states: flowers, animals, and of course the flags. The American Union State had taken many powers from her federal units– to the point where it barely seemed federal at all– but as long as you loved the State, you could love your own state, flying a flag under the AUS one. For Louisiana, this meant a white pelican on a field of blue, striking at its own breast ('vulning' itself) to feed its young with blood. Not scientifically accurate, but evocative and symbolic.

It called to mind the idea of Christ's sacrifice, blood outpoured and pain suffered for love.

Speaking of… she turned on her radio. You could argue that America's airwaves were as contentious as the war. They were filled with political speeches and patriotic songs, all whipping the people up into a frenzy.

Hell, even song choice was contentious at times. Any time a station dropped the needle on Dixie, there would be a conversation. President Long was legitimate, so there was no reason to use that particular song… but Lincoln had asked the band to play Dixie, hadn't he? It wasn't necessarily seditious, and it was definitely better than the Bonnie Blue Flag. Marching Through Georgia and The Fall of Charleston were verboten, obviously, although for different reasons.

(Georgia had cashed no small number of favors to get a record of California Here I Come for herself. She couldn't forget her old name.)

New Orleans wasn't tuning into music, though. Some sort of arrangement had been made with the Canadians, considering that America wasn't really in the state to be making much original radio content. The Canadians got to influence America and pat themselves on the back for providing the Americans with helpful advice about surviving a civil war. They had the experience.

She didn't need to worry about the nitty-gritty of raising gardens or foraging, thankfully– although she certainly didn't mind a bit of fishing– but the programs intended to comfort and entertain still worked.

Mr. Lewis was an exiled Brit, like so many others, and his story was known across Canada and the States. He had come with so many others when Britain fell to the Syndicalists… and, well, it shook him a bit. Of course it would. New Orleans couldn't imagine leaving her own home for… what, Hawaii? Liberia?

They didn't really have anything comparable to Canada waiting for them. If the Union State lost, it was either scuttling, joining the victors, or fleeing to some friendly government. Germany, maybe.

Anyway, the point was that Lewis had a conversion after his move to Canada, and then went to writing. A few books– although the AUS wasn't really in the state to print them– and speeches over the radio. Personally, New Orleans found him a bit more palatable than Father Coughlin. Less… vitriol. New Orleans didn't really like pointing fingers.

Yes, America was currently a mess and it was absolutely the result of poor choices by a comparatively small group of people. But they were political agitators, not whatever scapegoat of the week they picked out, the sacrifices whose blood they would spill in the name of a perfect society.

Mr. Lewis was talking. "I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare…. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small."

Charity wasn't really a thing New Orleans did. Sure, she enjoyed being helpful, doing paperwork or preparing for missions, but that was a far cry from helping people, really. It was killing people, even if she sometimes did it indirectly.

(Despite the propaganda, this war did not feel like a righteous crusade, a defense of American democracy or their way of life or the people. It wasn't her way of life, and she considered all of America her people instead of just the Union State. The whole job would have been more tolerable if she was doing commerce defense instead of haunting the eastern seaboard. Every convoy sunk killed merchant mariners and whoever was dependent on that shipment. Some were full of guns and grenades, sure, but others had food and supplies. They choked the American people and had the gall to call it just.)

But she couldn't exactly quit, could she?

Her radio carried on. "I may repeat 'Do as you would be done by' till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbor as myself…"

Neighbor killing neighbor was anything but love. Perhaps they told themselves they loved someone: a people long gone or a people yet to be, the children who would be borne into their hard-won paradise or the founding fathers who bled to create the country they lived in now. Real, living, breathing people, slaughtered in the name of abstractions.

It wasn't like she had much room to talk though. She could say she didn't understand it, that she found the whole exercise absurd and futile, but she was still fighting.

"The other is the various feelings, impulses and so on which his psychological outfit presents him with, and which are the raw material of his choice. Now this raw material may be of two kinds. Either it may be what we would call normal: it may consist of the sort of feelings that are common to all men. Or else it may consist of quite unnatural feelings due to things that have gone wrong in his subconscious."

New Orleans wondered if she was like that. If she wasn't 'right in the head', so to speak, or if such a thing even applied to her. Well, she had a brain that much was certain, but what made a shipgirl's brain right? What was proper operation, the proper way of living, for a new sort of being? Was an unerring willingness to fight correct, considering they were spawned from warships, cast into a weapon's mold?

(Were her little kindnesses towards her comrades and officers just… ergonomics? Were a good temper and a cooperative attitude like a well-formed hilt and a strong grip, just things that made their use as weapons more efficient?)

She decided to switch to another station. Sometimes you could catch spirituals or classical or other types of music on AUS stations, but most seemed to be crowing about one of their recent campaigns. 'The Northerly Swing' into Kentucky and the Virginia backcountry. Some unfortunate comparisons to Jackson's Valley campaign were made, and New Orleans wondered who would be made to pay for that…

Before she could get too caught up in the news and their cheering on of more violence, she saw that a visitor was approaching her ship. Playing host was so much more enjoyable than fretting over the war, so she turned off the radio and made to greet her guest.

"Hey, Cali. Can I grab you something?"

"That lemonade tea thing you do, please."

"Sure thing." She got to work– regretting her subpar ingredients– and hummed to herself. "We need a better name, I think."

"Nothing comes to mind…"

At times, she wondered if she was the only one ruminating on the war like this. She considered herself a confident gal, normally, but it didn't feel like she could admit to anyone else, for fear of being… wrong, somehow. Was there some imperfection in her cube? Had the man that dreamt her into being dreamt her wrong?

But all this teleological pondering about purpose was kind of distracting her. She didn't have the means to really stop the war– even if she did something crazy like shelling the capital at Baton Rouge, it wouldn't stop the fighting, it would just make the AUS come apart at the seams– but she did have the means to treat her comrades well.

And yes, she was aware that wasn't much. Anyone could love those who loved them, that was no great feat.

"Would you like to stay and fish with me?" New Orleans proposed, working on the lemonade mix. "I was thinking we could give some to our boys. I've heard rationing has been terrible…"

"No can do. We've got a mission to prep for."

"They didn't tell me?"

"I'm telling you now, aren't I?" California smiled. "Command thinks the Reds are getting a shipment of French tanks. The new ones."

"Convoy raiding." New Orleans sighed. "Who else?"

"Tenn can't make it and she's spittin' nails. Wants to pay back Penny."

New Orleans cringed. Those two had sat next to each other in harbor before! They were so much alike– in their love of their sisters, the gruff nature hiding a protective, loving heart– and just a few weeks previously they clawed at each other like wild animals off of Bermuda. Tennesse's tanned skin was riddled with white scars, and New Orleans was certain Penny had gained quite a few more to match that one on her cheek.

Still, she tried to some meager silver lining out of the situation: as silly as it may have sounded, far-ranging missions meant different music. Music that might have been banned back home, for whatever reason. At the very least, if she got Solidarity Forever stuck in her head, she could say it was the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Other songs were a bit more direct, though. Too critical of Long's regime or the general society of the American South, bringing up the sort of thing that the government was trying hard to cover up. One of them… how did it go?

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root…

She forgot a couple of lines, but the next pair she remembered were visceral. Another reminder that her 'country' certainly wasn't exempt from critique or without crimes. From what she had heard, Long opposed the sort of thing the song described, but it was something of a local tradition. Entrenched. (Cali liked much of Georgia, but not this.) Not to mention that the police officers sent to crack down on it were likely complicit.

There was a sickness in the Union State, one that she hoped would be stamped out.

(Pastoral scene of the gallant south,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth…)

As much as I'd like to believe in my man, Huey Long ain't ending racism in the middle of the civil war. The song at the end is Strange Fruit.

Epigraph is from a hymn where Aquinas calls Jesus a blessed pelican. Medieval piety goes hard

And I know at some point I really should explore the richness of the Kaiserreich world outside of the USA but it is my home turf. I think something like a German ship in the Baltic or Asia could be fascinating. Love me a story of a person in a strange land

I had considered an omake about skins but I felt like it would have taken away some of the oomph. I know the real reason we have skins is because manjuu need monay but I wonder how it could be justified in universe, beyond just changing outfits. Chronicles of the Siren War had it related to perception I think. Could this universe's Cali go so native she poofs into a southern belle dress? idk