Great Rome is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them?
Over whom did the Caesars triumph?
Had Byzantium, much praised in song, only palaces for its inhabitants?
When they first came to be, they were quite similar. Both ships of the same class, both dressed in a very similar style, with their major differences being eye and hair color. Hers were as the sun and moon, pale silver and gold, while her sister's eyes were a verdant green. Black hair compared with a brown that crept towards blond…
Still, they had similar faces– almost patrician in their refinement, with the same Roman nose, the same sneer upon those rare occasions when her sister was provoked to anger– and similar builds. She had seen a statue of their namesakes once, and when the two of them earned their own, they'd be hard to distinguish without paint. They didn't even have the age difference of their namesakes: nine years separated the births of the two brothers Gracchi, while mere months marked the time between Tiberius and her sister, Gaius.
Of course, it was only fair that she, as the eldest sister, received the name of the elder brother. Tiberius of the Gracchi class, proud inheritor of the tradition of that ancient tribune of the plebs. Hopefully without the embarrassment of having to negotiate with barbarian lessers like the Numantines. Oh, and avoiding the political murder would be ideal as well: her ambitions were far too grand for her to die in ignominy, without ever accomplishing anything.
There was no reason a shipgirl couldn't make a bid for mundane, human positions of power, was there? Sure, the tyrants of old Europe and the exiles in Canada gave their ships titles and lauds, but Tiberius believed she was a perfect candidate for election. Hell, it was evident in her very spawning!
She sprung into existence wearing a toga, dazzlingly white. Chalk white, even. When Roman politicians campaigned in antiquity, they did so in spotless, brilliant togas (made so white with chalk), representative of their honesty. The Latin 'white', candid, evolved into the word for anyone making a bid for a political position. It was remarkable how they all lived in the shadow of glorious Rome…
And another remarkable thing about the toga was its complexity. A few of the ships below Tiberius had ties, and Ferruccio had her dreadful outfit of slashed fabric, but both paled when compared to the complexity of a toga. Notably, not a stola, the traditional wear of a proper Roman woman, but a toga. There was something of a historical stigma about women wearing a toga, but their Republic was a forward-thinking society, so Gaius and Tiberius gained the ancient, martial associations of the toga without the equally ancient stigma that saw a woman in a toga as a harlot.
(Their republic had the potential to grow beyond the Romans, she thought. It already had, in their style of social organization. A long succession of emperors had brought the empire to its height, certainly, but they had killed it too. When men around the world spoke of Roman virtue, they did not think of imperial decadence and murderous praetorians. They thought of those austere, martial, forward-thinking republicans.)
Well, Tiberius gained from the reputation of the toga because she bothered to wear it. Her sister strongly disagreed with the complexity of such a garment, so her preferred style was the tunic or simple outfit of the workingman. Of course, they were both more than attractive enough to make outfits like that work, but it bugged Tiberius, even if the SRI liked a certain amount of humility in their shipgirls.
That had been a difficult one to adjust to. Tiberius was perfectly aware of how marvelous she and her sister were, and while she wasn't fool enough to think herself somehow exempt from the simple economics that kept war machines such as themselves operating, she knew what she was capable of. A battleship's power obligated a certain dignity, a certain competence, a certain willingness to utilize violence.
She had no doubts about her eventual destiny, yet the people of the Republic did, despite the precedent of other shipgirls. They expected her to slot into their tidy little navy system and nod along… and she supposed she would have to until they recognized her for what she was. The Republic had love for men of renown: Garibaldi, the Gracchi who named her, Ferruccio… great men studded Italy's history like the stars studded heaven, and it was only fitting that Tiberius attempted to surpass her forebears.
Her predecessor had won his place in history for his plan to redistribute lands to the common people, in line with the proud Roman tradition of giving conquered lands to farmers. By design, such a system produced men who would join the army, and while the Syndicalist dream eventually called for the end of the armed forces as a thing, she was still needed now.
The great noble estates of the Papacy and the Two Sicilies would be freed up for the common farmer, in the same way that Venetia's factories would be given to the common worker. Her name would be the capstone on that long list of patricians and revolutionaries, the brilliant mind who brought the world's disunity to an end.
She rather liked the thought of that.
Tiberius knew things had to be done– many, many things– but there was no reason that they couldn't have a bit of fun in the meantime. A bit of good cheer wasn't just good for the morale of the workers, it was proof that the Syndicalist system made happy workers. It was much more of a democracy than the ancient oligarchy of republican Rome, although she supposed it made a certain sort of sense. Who better to address the common man's base desire for bread and circuses than the common man himself?
Men could be trusted to know their own animal desires well, but the issue was that of larger things. Could a Syndicalist system, left alone, reach the intended end goal?
Her predecessor was tribune of the plebs. He addressed their needs and answered their wants, and he got a unique honor for it: one of the first great political murders of the Roman Republic. His death saw the facade of civility torn away and began the slow descent into empire.
That was the issue, wasn't it? You needed someone wiser than the simple peasant, someone capable of thinking beyond the sweet opium of games and feasts, and yet that very structure invited decay, the weakness of an entrenched upper class who played games of power instead of truly seizing it.
What they needed was perpetual revolution. The worker constantly striving, constantly pushing, proper leadership constantly rejuvenated by fresh blood and new zealots. One could not truly participate in the old Roman Republic without military service of some kind. Begrudgingly, Tiberius could admit that certain experts could not be risked on the battlefield, but fundamentally, someone who was unwilling to sacrifice wasn't fit to lead. And what they needed, inarguably, was leadership.
All of her fellow shipgirls served, but not all were fit for leadership. That was one of the benefits of the military: simple practicality triumphed over idealistic Syndicalist dreaming. Women like Tiberius and Ferruccio rose to the top, propelled by tactical knowledge and decent sense.
Decent, not because Tiberius doubted her own, but because Ferruccio was unwilling to reckon with what needed to be done. Still, most some sort of weakness that needed to be hammered out, and willingness to work was admirable. Her beloved sister Gaius was as brilliant as she claimed to be, but she struggled to actually apply it. It was an issue she shared with that Garibaldi girl, who seemed happy to while away her time in plebian pursuits like handicrafts and music.
Still, she supposed there was some benefit to it: Giuseppe had a lovely singing voice, and her sister proved an able player of the guitar. (One of those mysterious skills that shipgirls just had, attached to a woman who played nothing but labor songs and anthems day in and day out. Even music was part of her Syndicalist battle.) Tiberius supposed musical skill was becoming of society's betters, but the thought of a mighty Italian cruiser not simply getting someone to play for them or acquiring a record….
That was the disappointing thing about people doing as they pleased, wasn't it? You couldn't guarantee they'd choose right.
The night had a couple of decent songs. The Internationale was popular, and there was a certain mournful note in White Army, Black Baron that seemed applicable, considering that today was Dante's Day. Their shipgirl predecessor Dante had won a sort of fame for herself in death, a legacy that lasted far beyond when she was.
When the music was finished, Garibaldi retreated to a crowd of her own sort– Niccoloso, Piemonte– while her sister took a seat next to Gaius, just across the table from Tiberius. "Good evening, Ferruccio. You played well."
"Thank you, Tiberius." Ferruccio took a look at their wine for the night. "Is this from Emilia Romagna?"
"You know your wines." Tiberius smiled, pouring her some. Ferruccio took a very moderate sip of the stuff, trying to pace herself.
"You can drink as much as you please, Ferruccio. We're all comrades here."
"A bit of moderation is just good sense." She responded.
"What use is there in half measures?" Tiberius the Elder didn't compromise. He pushed. He aimed for the tribunate a second time. His mistake was not expecting to need to defend himself from political violence.
"When the full measure is insanity, it's only logical."
"Nothing less than the full measure is insanity," Tiberius responded. Ferruccio's great fault was a willingness to settle. It was a subtle sort of conservatism, but it was a form of the same sickness nevertheless.
"The full measure is destroying the revolution to save it. You might as well scuttle a ship to keep it from burning."
"The Romans appointed dictators, didn't they? Your beloved democratic systems simply cannot handle rapidly developing crises. Such is the nature of the system. Better a period of controlled despotism than an age of being crushed underfoot."
"Controlled despotism? You must understand how farcical that is. The 'cause' for your dictator would be nothing less than world conquest. It would never end!"
"I never took you for such a pessimist, Ferruccio. You don't think the revolution can be done?"
"I know it can without falling back on primitive authoritarianiAsm."
"A foolish optimist, then."
"I can't even dignify you as a Bonapartist! Fascist!" Ferruccio shot back. The word didn't have exceptional sting– you could be one of fascists and participate in politics– but the sheer vitriol was remarkable.
Tiberius scoffed. "And I'm supposed to take that sort of talk from a bleeding-heart social democrat? Your compromise allows a new bourgeois!"
Ferruccio reared back, and for a single moment, Tiberius couldn't quite believe what was happening. (She was more like her namesake than she thought.) A metal fist slammed into her nose, something probably broke, and blood splattered onto her toga.
She caught a few of the drops in her hand, staring at them with disbelief. How could she have possibly ignored this possibility? Vaguely, she heard a familiar voice shouting: "Jesus and Mary, Ferruccio! What the hell were you thinking?"
Thankfully, she got cleaned up without too much issue, although the mood of the party had been dampened pretty significantly. It felt like an offense to Dante's memory, falling into petty violence during her party… and now that it had happened, everyone was a little worried things might boil over again. They dispersed pretty quickly after that.
She had decided to head to the base's machine shop, to see if she might calm her mind and find out if their little scrap had caused any issues with the ship. That was the problem with sympathetic bonds, wasn't it? A bit went each way. However, a faint conversation stopped her before she could step inside.
"Well, it looks like the motors are still fine…" Giuseppe sighed. "You could have really screwed yourself over there, Ferruccio. We can't replace these yet."
"It was unbecoming of me," Ferruccio sighed.
Yes. It was very unbecoming, but Tiberius knew that any vindication she might gain from a confrontation was worth less than hearing their uncensored thoughts.
Garibaldi let out a long groan. "The ulnar spring! Son of a bitch!"
"That's what it felt like," Ferruccio sighed.
"Maybe we need to order these things by the box," Garibaldi muttered. "How many have you broken now?"
"Three."
"Well, at least it's all stuff we can fix," Garibaldi said. "You can't move your wrist for me, can you?"
"I can move it one way."
"I can work with that…" Garibaldi muttered. Presumably, she grasped some part of Ferruccio's hand and moved it. Completely without sound, as usual. Her arm was a marvel, that much was inarguable.
"We should probably get a decent stockpile built up before the French go for it," Garibaldi suggested.
"A reasonable idea. Thank you, Garibaldi."
"No problem."
Before parting, Tiberius got a brief peek at the two of them, sitting on the floor as they worked. Ferruccio held a metallic knuckle in her working hand, turning it over as searched for faults. Meanwhile, Garibaldi had moved on from whatever work she was doing with the wrist to carefully clean the hand's many, setting each one in some appointed place before going on to the next. Each piece had some place in an orderly grid, and occasionally she'd check a notebook.
"Say, Ruccio, do you think we could get several different types of hand made for you, when this is over?"
"What do you mean?'
"Like, imagine you take a fancy to a boy–"
(Tiberius returned to her own room and was surprised to see that Gaius had not simply thrown herself into bed. She had waited, and insisted on giving Tiberius a once over before she fell asleep.)
Caesar defeated the Gauls. Did he not even have a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his Armada went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Her sister was one of the most remarkable people in the world, Gaius was pretty confident about that. Being a shipgirl wasn't quite the incredible distinguishing mark it once was, but even among that group, Tiberius was a cut above the rest. There was just something about her, a feeling whenever she walked into the room.
And for the most part? Gaius was just glad to bask in it. It wasn't as if she lacked in self confidence, more that she saw an excuse to wriggle out of tiresome labor and seized it. Outside of military work, she was also quite helpful when there were any boys chasing Gaius who couldn't be scared away by her usual tricks.
Despite that, it was one of her only real relationships that asked something of her. Sure, there was the military– do this, sail there, practice shooting at that– but the military didn't have a face. She wasn't roomies with the military, the military couldn't give her that same disappointed look, the military couldn't withhold those occasional lap pillows…
Tiberius had an austere, Roman sort of affection, where hugs and kisses were always inside, always obscured from the public, but they were never forgotten despite that. Tiberius kept an accounting of what Gaius did and paid her back for it, which was both irritating and… kind of nice, in a strange sort of way.
Like, she didn't necessarily enjoy work, but when it had to be done, she'd get Tiberius' praise for it. Brief embraces or kisses on the brow. As far as Gaius knew, Tiberius didn't give the same treatment to any of the other girls who had fallen under her wings. By merit of their shared place in the brilliant Gracchus class, Gaius received a part of Tiberius that no one else in the world did. A gem in a treasure box, hidden from all the world but her.
(A city on a hill shouldn't be hidden, right? Brilliance should be seen by the whole world, not tucked away in the shade. But Tiberius was hers, in a way no one else would ever be.)
Her sister was the perfect Roman. Not necessarily the perfect person, but she seemed like she would be right at home in antiquity. Well, disregarding the obvious issue of gender. In addition to being one of the few shipgirls distinguished by conversational skills in Latin– pronounced classically, not clerically– she knew rhetoric, down the little gestures. Like, Gaius didn't particularly care much for church or anything like that, but you'd see icons or statues with Jesus holding his hands in some funny way, and that was a rhetorical gesture.
While Gaius didn't bother with the whole toga thing, she'd watch her sister go at it, lecturing to her little group of fans. Opening her speech, she posed like that statue of Augustus, one hand reaching up and out. (Meanwhile, Gaius deliberately gripped a bottle of soda.)
"Again, we find ourselves in the prelude to apocalyptic conflict. Once, the mercantile state of Carthage stood as a rival to Rome, ready to eclipse her…"
Historical references were another Tiberius classic. With what spare time she had, she read voraciously, and if she couldn't read something in the time she had, she'd find someone who could. Gaius had occasionally done some supporting work for a few of her speeches, inserting relevant historical references or helping hone the gestures.
Thumb and pointer finger up, other three down, first pointed at Tiberius' right shoulder before moving to point at the ground, like indicating that this very ground was where they'd fight for the totalist future.
"To this very day, the word Punic means treacherous. What is at stake here is nothing less than our future, our eternal reputations. History will remember us by our victory… or by our loss! Will you die a brigand?"
The Second Weltkrieg was like… perhaps not the Social War or the Italian War, but perhaps the Pyrrhic War. It was a conflict intended to unify Italy under one glorious banner, but the enemy– the Two Sicilies– invited their allies, making their peninsular affair a small part of a sprawling conflict. There was also the worrying thought that any victory would be Pyrrhic in the other sense… but perhaps it was best not to think about that.
They prepared for war. Tiberius and Gaius had both come into being carrying swords: the long spatha. Interesting, but not the fasces that Tiberius desired so fiercely. Well, it made logical sense, considering they were named for tribunes of the plebs and not Roman magistrates, but Tiberius did consider herself above the restrictions of ancient Rome, above primitive delineations between tribune and magistrate, politician and soldier.
Well, it was finally time to test the soldier part of their job, to win the fame that would propel her sister into politics. Gaius didn't particularly care for that sort of thing herself, but if she had to do the job she'd do it in the way that made her sister shine the brightest.
Before battle, her sister almost seemed to glow, a gleam in her metallic eyes like the glint of the blade at her hip. Tiberius smiled brilliantly. "We begin our true campaign today, my sister. The Tyrrhenian, and then Italy's hearts."
"And the whole world will know our splendor," Gaius responded, a smile on her face.
"They shall." Tiberius kissed Gaius, before departing for her own ship. During her approach, some of her crew and hollered, and Tiberius basked in it. Not all of her crew was so supportive, but like so many things that Tiberius considered 'hers', she was fiercely defensive of the whole lot, almost jealous.
There was something to be said for having her attention on you, like being in a spotlight. Intense, certainly, but a good sign that you were worth paying attention to: Tiberius did not spare time for the worthless.
The ancient Romans had a cult for a few decades, from Aurelian's restoration of the world to Constantine's anointing victory on the Milvian. The deity was Sol Invictus. The invincible sun, shining over Rome after years of ignominy… assuming that he was the same Sol Indiges who resided in Rome from the beginning, and not a Syraic import who grew to outshine his Roman predecessor.
Whether he lay waiting for rediscovery or thundered across Rome like a metaphysical conqueror, his sun crown marked ascendancy over an empire, one he traversed in both a glimmering sun chariot and on the faces of coins.
Roman emperors were depicted with a radiate crown, spurs of gold coming off the head like sunbeams. The Statue of Liberty far over the sea wore a solar crown, as if calling back to the towering Colossus at Rhodes. Despite the war, it stood still strong, although that burning welcome light was covered up for fear of bombing raids.
Brilliance. Gaius thought about brilliance a lot. She and her sister were brilliant, of course, as were certain members of the fleet and their officers. But while it could mean intelligence, even genius, it referred also to intense color or light.
For a single, terrible moment, a brilliant crown of light sat above the Tyrrhenian, the uniform arrows of gold replaced with slivers of wood and steel, thrown up by a pillar of divine flame. A force like that was unconquerable, and the same power sat hidden in her own belly.
That was a magazine explosion. That was Tiberius' magazine, turned into a single moment of terrible, nightmarish glory.
She remembered every detail perfectly, down to the sides of ships faintly lit by that terrible glow. There was suddenly a spray where an almighty hull had been, tracers and muzzle flashes seeming like paltry taper lights compared to that fire that lit up the whole sea. It was only a moment, but there was not one man nearby who would ever forget it. Not that light, not that shockwave.
Gaius knew it was nothing more than the work of men, shells exploding together instead of separately. And yet her heart told her that a god stood above the Mediterranean, some capricious deity who punished mortal men for daring to dream of the same heights as they.
Perfect brilliance and perfect catastrophe.
Traditionally, there was a dark toga that was worn during ancient Roman mourning. You could wear a plain white toga, or even a decorated one, if you bothered to turn it inside out to hide distinguishing features like stripes.
For a while, she was barely in a state to put on clothes by herself, much less make choices about what was appropriate to wear in a period of mourning. She limped from mission to mission, objective to objective, following the orders of whichever officer had been appointed to wrangle her. Vaguely, she realized that Tiberius had protected her from a whole line of different annoyances, officers who covered a broad range from anal-retentive to sleazebags.
It sounded kind of silly to say the reason she reconsidered the toga was some dope staring at her butt… but it was, in part. There were all sorts of clothes that could rectify that problem, but when she considered clothes, the one piece that came to mind was the toga. Her sister's favorite.
But it wouldn't do in its current state. Getting dye wasn't simple during the war, but if there was one color that Syndicalists loved, it was red. A dark red, like drying blood, not quite like what the Romans themselves would have preferred… no imperial purple, no gilding, just red.
A tribune of the plebs was supposed to be, ideally, a check on the power of the Senate and magistrates. Their veto could be laid on any act of the government, although the veto could be exploited. Had been, by a man named Octavius, until Tiberius Gracchus had him thrown out. The Romans prickled at his justification: a tribune who no longer enforced the will of the people was no tribune at all.
Cynically, you might say that justification was a simple scheme, a way for Tiberius to toss out a man who opposed his reforms. More generously, he saw a loophole that let the reactionaries in the Senate weaken one of the only ways the plebians could properly defend themselves.
And yet it weakened the position as well. For a tribune of the plebs was not supposed to be susceptible to petty politicking; he was to act boldly for the people's sake, without fear of recall. In fact, a tribune was sacrosanct, literally protected by holy law in Roman antiquity.
Any assault on a tribune of the plebs was punishable by death.
Any who tried to attack them, any who even tried to stop them… provoked nothing less than the wrath of the gods.
The Ferruccio Tiberius scene came from my constant brainrot contemplation of what would happen if KR girls were summoned to a normal Azur Lane base. I had this idea of Garibaldi just laughing like crazy at Duca because of how she slotted into the structure of the Regia Marina so easily when her KR counterpart was a bleeding heart anti-totalist. (I believe KR lets you install totalist fascism as Mussolini.)
Initially I just needed someone to play music with Garibaldi and thought of her sister. Admittedly, her previous characterization as incredible tryhard conflicted, so my compromise was that she 'got' the talent randomly and put it to Syndicalist use. Maybe there would be something interesting about Duca/Ferruccio the renaissance woman who throws herself totally into one goal.