Ofaloaf posted:

Look, you might unhelpfully call them traitors, I call them a potential source of vast amounts of manpower we could tap into if we just accepted the Bishop of Rome as head of the Church.

sniper4625 posted:

Thanks! Graphical work is one of the things I like most about legislative LPs. Happy to work with any other would-be splitters.



Ofaloaf, yell at me on skype with a real name.

sniper4625 posted:

forkis posted:

It is good to see that the safety and prosperity of the Empire lies in such capable hands! I only regret that the machinations of the perfidious court kept the Queen Regent Oda from lending her considerable skills for longer. Regardless, I see that I stand corrected in regards to the Levant - may our good Catholic brothers survive longer in their endeavor this time around. Perhaps it may be wise to consider an offer of assistance in their defense of the Holy Land? Mull it over it my friends. Even those of you who have hardened their hearts the most against our pious Latin brothers must realize that a Jerusalem under their rule is preferable to it suffering beneath a heathen Turk.

Tevery Best posted:

This has to happen. Full stop.

Ofaloaf posted:

Ofaloaf posted:

The best way to secure our future is to create reliable alliances with the Latins, reinforced by reconciling ourselves to the rest of Christendom.

Ofaloaf posted:

Personally speaking, that sounds workable enough. We would reconcile ourselves to Rome, maintain a strong religious relationship with Latin Christendom and gain influence throughout all of Christendom. I imagine that if our puppetlegitimate supported candidate for the Papacy was already a respectable bishop here in the Empire, we might end up with the entirety of the Papal States under our direct control as well.

We'd be able to bolster our diplomatic ties with the Latins and gain Rome at the same time. It's a solid plan.

Ratoslov posted:

On other matters, a number of artisans and iconographers (including cousin Lavrentos) have spoken with me. They're making noises about wanting the Senate to construct some kind of monument to stimulate the local economy and fatten their purses. Of course, I am not usually swayed by such senseless wastes of the Imperial purse, but with the loss of one of our number recently, I was thinking it would be appropriate to construct something and name it in honor of Senator Thedopolus. A bridge or a library, perhaps? Maybe a chapel?

Pester posted:

So make a marriage alliance to Kiev. And it's time for our brave patriarchs to travel abroad, into great danger for the sake of great gain, as they had in the days of St. Cyril. Though our missionaries to the great Khans may perish, they will have the greater reward for their martyrdom in the afterlife. And heaven help us if the Mohammedans convert them first.

Funky Valentine posted:

Ahoy my fellow senators!

AdventFalls posted:

I just thought it fitting considering this is a Rome LP. People can take the bits of mine they like.

quote:

Vézelay, Yonne, German-occupied Burgundy, April of 1968

Perched on a hill overlooking the blooming vinyards of Vézelay sits the town school. In a town of only five hundred souls, there is only need for a single teacher, whose lecturing voice can sometimes be heard all the way down by its ancient abbey on a quiet day.

Inside the school's solitary classroom, the town's children sit listening to today's history lesson. Most of them are French, but a few are German - the Mayor, the Abbot and the biggest land-owners in the town are all German immigrants.

"And in June of 1813, France's treacherous revolutionary government finally surrendered. The French army, realizing that it had been the puppet of evil men, honorably volunteered its service to fight Zuhriman, who was finally defeated a year later. Despite being honorably treated in the peace conference, the French people chose to listen to agitators and war broke out again eleven years later as Germany was forced to intervene against its will to protect Austria, which had been deviously attacked by France's ally Byzantium."

Raising his arm, the eldest son of a German farmer interrupts, "But Mrs. Clare, I thought the Byzantines were our friends and allies?"

The teacher nods thoughtfully at his question, "Yes, Fritz, they are now, but this was a long time ago, before the Greek people understood who their friends and enemies were. Back then, they were just as suspectible to agitators and revolutionaries as us French!"

A small French girl, frowning in puzzlement, comments, "But why are us French so easily fooled, Mrs. Clare? In your books, it always says that France is the aggressor, France is the revolutionary, France is allied with the enemy... how can it be that we are always in the wrong, and the Germans are always in the right?"

"Maybe we're just smarter than you are - perhaps because we do not eat frogs!" Fritz butts in, to the laughter of the German children. At the classroom door, normally so immobile that one might think him a part of the furniture, the gaze of a large German police officer slowly shifts from the French girl to the teacher, waiting for a reply.

With her smile only slipping ever so slightly, the teacher shakes her head, "No, I do not think it is related to food, Fritz. Rather, France has simply not had the fortune of being guided by so strong and wise a dynasty as our Hohenzollern rulers. France has been led by charlatans and fools, and it is only now that we can begin to realize it, thanks to our beloved Emperor, may he live forever!"

"May he live forever!" the class echoes back at her, and the officer at the door relaxes, the situation disarmed.

A bit later, the school day done, Mrs. Clare runs down the village street, in a hurry to get home. By the time she has reached the tiny townhouse she shares with her husband, he is already in uniform, his bags packed and his mobilization orders neatly folded into his front pocket.

Throwing herself into his arms, she asks with tears in her eyes, "Will you truly be alright all the way over there? Will there really be war with Japan? When will you get your first leave? Will you be back to see your child born?"

Her husband smiles, and he answers each question reassuringly, and he promises to be home to see his son born. They kiss, and he leaves on the back of a truck bound for Bordeaux.

In three months, he will be dead in the jungles of the Philippines, one of the first casualties of what would go down in history as 'a minor skirmish' between Japanese invasion forces and a German intervention force that almost led to nuclear weapons being exchanged but finally ended with Japanese withdrawal from the islands, nothing achieved on either side but a few hundred more lives lost.

And so history goes on, and leaves behind one less young man in the town of Vézelay, Yonne.

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
- Albert Einstein

It is only the dead who have seen the end of war.
- Plato

Fin

Empress Theonora posted:

Byzantine communists always have had a soft spot for their liberal forebears.