Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

Poor Marie. Puberty sucks. At least Tatiana got through to her, partly at least, that everyone around her does in fact sympathize with her, including their mother.
 
Another slice of life update, Marie is going to be either an actress or working for the BND as a Master or Disguise.

Young Manfred Royal: Huntmaster for the Kingdom of Bavaria.
Perhaps through Herr Kage and Kat’s Japanese counterpart, Marie discovers Kabuki theatre and Is further encouraged by Crown Princess Suga? Not to mention picking up some other Japanese practices along the way that brings her to attention of the Foreign Service?
 
Part 114, Chapter 1882
Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Eighty-Two



27th September 1968

Breslau, Silesia

“You won’t believe what Marie has been up to” Kat said as they waited in the parlor of Helene’s Breslau residence for the election returns to come in. She had agreed to come to Silesia to escape the latest round of domestic drama. Of course, that was what they ended up talking about. “Last week she was dressed up as… I am not sure what she was trying for beyond how silly it looked… A twelve-year-old’s idea of a clown or a corpse or something. It was all rather crudely executed.”

“That is not an easy age” Helene replied, “Contrary expectations and personal difficulties abound and for everyone else it is just a minefield to navigate. Especially because it is one of your girls.”

“I don’t know if it is unique to my girls though” Kat said, “Was it easier with Ina?”

“No” Helene replied, “Just different problems.”

Helene left it at that. She didn’t want to delve into all the years she had fretted over the fear that her daughter Ina’s sweet nature and generosity would get her taken advantage of in a way that would have lasting consequences. That hadn’t happened, not yet anyway.

“I suppose I ought to have expected something like this” Kat said, “I just hope that Marie doesn’t start carrying on like Tatiana, it seems like everything she does is geared to anger me.”

Helene held her tongue. She knew about some of the things that Kat’s oldest daughter had engaged in that Kat didn’t. Actively enquiring about joining the BND and such. One false word by Kris Lehrer or Asia Lawniczak and Kat would know. Then everyone expected Kat to go absolutely ballistic. The issue for Kris was that Tatiana was young, smart, and highly motivated. Exactly the sort that she had been trying to recruit into the Intelligence Service. The problem for Helene was that she had learned of this matter months earlier and had not wanted to intrude into the relationship of her dearest friend and her daughter. Now she feared that Kat would see her not saying something as a personal betrayal.

“Children tend to grow up despite our best efforts and make the decisions that they will” Helene finally replied, “Do I need to go into the choices that Manny has been making? Or what Niko did? Ilse has been unhappy about since he left.”

“Perhaps” Kat said, unaware of the full meaning of what Helene had just said.

Helene was saved in that moment as one of her staff turned on the television. The first election returns came in and it was a bit of a sour note as the center-right National Liberals had apparently increased their majority in Bavaria. Helene’s own party had hoped for a good night in Munich. It seemed that was not to be in this election.



Mitte, Berlin

Too much happening all at once.

That was the story of Louis Ferdinand’s life and he was starting to look forward a time in the near future when he would have a far simpler life. Today, the man in Louis’ office was exactly the sort of complicating factor that he had come to loath. According to the service file that Louis had read, there had been little indication that Olli Bauer was a particularly brilliant leader having spent his most of his career in the Other Ranks as a Panzer Loader. In the later years he had risen in the Warrant Officer ranks but that had more to do with his expertise in the Panzer Corps, retiring with the final Rank of Major, the Commissioned rank only granted to help pad his pension.

“Exactly what do you gain?” Louis asked.

“Me personally?” Olli replied, “Nothing.”

“Really? You think anyone believes that?” Louis asked in reply, wondering if it was possible for a man like this to exist. Cincinnatus was said to have been given absolute power by the Roman Senate and had famously given it up, twice. It seemed that as unlikely as it was, a similar figure had emerged from the Polish mess, Olli Bauer. He had been made head of the Provisional Galician Government after having led the defense of the region against the Polish Army, but he had asked for Louis’ help in getting back to his farm once the introductions had been finished.

“That is hardly my fault” Olli said, “I just want to get the plebiscite done before next spring because I have better things to do than sit on my ass and play referee to other people’s arguments.”

“Do you understand why I am opposed to holding a plebiscite?” Louis asked.

“West Prussia if I had to guess” Olli replied. Reminding Louis that despite his whole line about how he was just a farmer who wanted to go back to that vocation, Olli was not stupid by any stretch of the imagination. West Prussia wasn’t the real issue though, it was the Danzig shipyards and the role that the seaport played in International trade. Finished products as well as raw material moved through there at a staggering rate. The Warsaw Government had wanted it as a part of their vision of a Greater Poland along with a great deal more.

“You need to have more faith in people Sir” Olli said, “The Poles are hardly monolithic in their opinions, thousands of them fought on my side against the Nationalists in Warsaw.”

That was a reminder of the strange demographics of Galicia and Ruthenia.

“Yet you don’t have that faith in Warsaw?” Louis asked.

“Ask anyone in Krakow or Lwów about that and they will tell you that they were all fucking nuts” Olli replied, “Would you be in a hurry to risk having that lot in charge again?”

It was sort of hard not to see the logic in that part anyway.
 
The gains by the National Liberal Party in Bavaria could be credited to the Wedding of Crown Prince Franz of Bavaria and Her imperial Princess Victoria of Prussia which brought a great deal of positive attention, prestige and more importantly tourist money to Bavaria.

There are four basic options for Galicia at this point.
1: Remain a part of of Poland which after the actions of the Warsaw government is a non starter.
2: Become an independent political entity in the German Empire as sovereign nation or as a protectorate.
3: Become a part of either Germany, Bohemia, or Slovakia based on what kind of deal that they can get, it seems that Galicia was becoming prosperous from the influx of new people bringing back farms left fallow by the war and Krakow is becoming a very important manufacturing center.
4: Become completely independent of the Empire and stand on its own which is also a non starter.
As for Danzig the only reason that Poland would need the city to be part of the nation is if they left the Empire in its entirety and needed an access to the Baltic Sea for economic purposes, by being a part of the Empire Danzig is basically a Free Port for Poland with goods coming and going to Poland are not taxed until it reaches its final destination.
 
Well, Helene has tried to warn Kat. Helene is right to worry about Kat going ballistic, considering her own reactions to Manny enlisting & then getting into armoured recon, and that had absolutely nothing to do with Kat. Hell, both of her brothers, one of whom is Helene's own husband, did everything they could to prevent him from doing either. Helene still went batshit crazy over it. Kat took that outburst on the chin. However, I do think that Helene should ask Hans for some suitable body armour for the anticipated eruption. Something simple, yet effective. Like the latest Panzer.

Even so, the entire BND, including Kris & Asia, should know better than to keep this from Kat. The safest way to break it to her is via an official meeting where they plainly say:
"Look, Kat, we're not sure how to say this, but Tatiana has approached us about joining the BND. We did not, repeat not, approach her. We told her that we had reservations due to your clearly expressed views and that if she was insistent on the BND as a career, then she would have to at least discuss this with you and your husband. Quite frankly, with her background and linguistics skills, Tatiana is everything we are looking for in a prospective officer, but we have no desire to start a war with you over her. All we ask is that you discuss this with her about her motivations behind her request."

As for Olli & Louis... Louis may have just made another friend. The kind that reluctantly gives good advice and will have your back when the excrement impacts the rotary air impeller, but would really prefer that you keep your drama private.
 
I would have thought that demographics would have shifted enough that West Prussia would be more German than Polish by now, especially if Danzig is included.

Only place I could see Poles still having a majority is rural Posen.
 
Part 114, Chapter 1883
Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Eighty-Three



28th September 1968

Mitte, Berlin

It was getting late on a Saturday evening and Maria was looking at the Sunday Edition of the Berliner Tageblatt that was fresh off the presses. The front page had the returns from the recent elections and the ongoing coalition talks between the major political parties as a theme. Maria had recently been told that the elaborate Sunday artwork that had long been a feature of the BT was going to be eliminated as a cost cutting measure, something that she was vehemently opposed to, but was powerless to stop. It wasn’t because Maria was resistant to change, far from it. She understood that as newspapers declined in the face of increased competition, mostly from television, it was the things that made newspapers unique that drove sales rather than reducing costs to shore up the business. The proof of that was in the BT’s diverse publishing, which was driven by Weeklies, the Mirror being the one with the largest circulation.

The Corporate Board had not been swayed by that argument.

That was why there were substantial changes coming to the BT.

The question was where did that leave Maria? She had been the Editor-in-Chief as the BT had gained a truly international reach. She had also broken some major stories during her tenure, published several best-selling books and been one of the founders of the growing publishing empire the paper was at the center of. Basically, the BT had been her home for the entirety of her professional career. She knew that the changes were not going to be popular when they were implemented, and she would either have to carry them out, resign, or do both. She didn’t want to do either of those things.

Emil said that it wasn’t all bad. They would finally have the time to do all the things that they had been putting off for ages. Then there was the genuinely frightening prospect of spending all her time around the twenty-seven-year-old madwoman who was her daughter. Walter was turning out alright, he seldom had time to cause too much of a fuss because he was kept entirely too busy as a Law Student. Zella on the other hand seemed to have made a career out of being at loose ends and there were persistent rumors about just who she was personally involved with that were frankly quite disturbing.

----------------------------------------------------------------

You could learn a lot about someone by the sort of movies that they insist upon going to. The film was set almost entirely in a single claustrophobic room with the American actor Paul Newman playing a philandering husband who was getting his comeuppance at the hands of a ruthless killer, just a disembodied voice on the telephone, who had blackmailed him into going into the room and answering the telephone. The instructions were simple, if he hung up the phone, he would be killed. What followed was ninety minutes of a brutal cat and mouse game as Newman attempted to reason, threaten, and bluster his way out of the situation. Even as events in the surrounding building spiraled out of control in the form of escalating violence. There came a moment towards the end of the film as police stormed into the building and the killer continued to taunt Newman’s character where he had the growing realization that he wasn’t going to walk away. The climax of the film concluded in the typical Hollywood manner with bullets flying everywhere. It had been a psychological thriller right up to that point and it sort of lost Louis there. Later, Newman woke up in a hospital room, having survived the shootout, with a shadowy figure standing over him. It turned out to have the same voice as the killer on the phone, who had apparently outsmarted the police and escaped, letting him know that he would be “Seeing him around” in a chilling ending.

Afterwards, while leaving the theater with Zella, Louis noticed that she was humming to herself. It wasn’t until they reached the dinner afterwards that Louis able to ask her opinion. Louis’ security detail sitting at a table a meter or so away effectively blocking off access to the booth they were seated in made a somewhat private conversation possible.

“You liked the movie?” Louis asked.

“It was good” Zella replied, “The last couple movies that Hitchcock made haven’t been nearly as good, this one was a return to form even if it wasn’t quite to the same level as his earlier work a decade ago.”

“You like this sort of thing?” Louis asked.

“Who doesn’t like good writing” Zella said, “I understand that it is a matter of opinion, but have you seen how stupid the typical films that get made are? Brainless pablum at best. There are times when I think that some films torture the audience by design, usually the sort marketed to families.”

“So, you’ve seen all of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies?” Louis asked.

Zella frowned, one of the rules she had was that Louis was never to talk about the past or future, only the ever present now. According to Kiki she had a bad experience in a past relationship and didn’t want to talk about that with him or anyone else. Louis’ sister had also said that she would perform an orchiectomy on him without anesthetic if he hurt Zella or took advantage of her. Louis realized that asking her about movies she liked in the past was pushing the boundaries as soon as he said it.

“Yes” Zella replied tersely.

“Even Psycho?” Louis asked before making an approximation of the infamous screeching violins that film was known for.

“Now you are just making fun of me” Zella said.

“You do that all the time, so turnabout is fair play” Louis replied and the expression on Zella’s face suggested she wasn’t expecting him to say that.
 
BTW, the film described was based on a real movie that was pitched to Hitchcock by Larry Cohen in the 60's. In OTL a version was made in 2002 staring a forgettable actor whose monobrow is all I remember, the less said about that the better.
 
No Torn Curtain ITTL and Berlin is not a city of intrigue.
Once again the cultural butterflies are going to be enormous with no Big Bad to drive the spy thriller movies, maybe it will be more international crime organizations that are the villains ITTL.
With the demise of the Sunday color front page illustration the BT is no longer the BT and this is a great reason for Maria to retire and do what she wants on her own time and Emil will more than support whatever her wishes are.
Zella knows that she is going have to come to grips with her past but I think that LF Jr. will not be too judgmental about it and will not let it affect his affection for her.
 
You could learn a lot about someone by the sort of movies that they insist upon going to. The film was set almost entirely in a single claustrophobic room with the American actor Paul Newman playing a philandering husband who was getting his comeuppance at the hands of a ruthless killer, just a disembodied voice on the telephone, who had blackmailed him into going into the room and answering the telephone. The instructions were simple, if he hung up the phone, he would be killed. What followed was ninety minutes of a brutal cat and mouse game as Newman attempted to reason, threaten, and bluster his way out of the situation. Even as events in the surrounding building spiraled out of control in the form of escalating violence. There came a moment towards the end of the film as police stormed into the building and the killer continued to taunt Newman’s character where he had the growing realization that he wasn’t going to walk away. The climax of the film concluded in the typical Hollywood manner with bullets flying everywhere. It had been a psychological thriller right up to that point and it sort of lost Louis there. Later, Newman woke up in a hospital room, having survived the shootout, with a shadowy figure standing over him. It turned out to have the same voice as the killer on the phone, who had apparently outsmarted the police and escaped, letting him know that he would be “Seeing him around” in a chilling ending.
BTW, the film described was based on a real movie that was pitched to Hitchcock by Larry Cohen in the 60's. In OTL a version was made in 2002 staring a forgettable actor whose monobrow is all I remember, the less said about that the better.

Well half of that movie description is Phone Booth. Disembodied voice on the phone and the villain that outsmarted police and escaped.

Not sure what the hell the rest is....
 
No Torn Curtain ITTL and Berlin is not a city of intrigue.
Once again the cultural butterflies are going to be enormous with no Big Bad to drive the spy thriller movies, maybe it will be more international crime organizations that are the villains ITTL.

There is no single Big Bad, true. But there are a hell of a lot of players in the Great Game.

The Great Powers:

1) Germany
2) Britain (& whats left of its empire)
3) France (& whats left of its empire)
4) Russia
5) The United States

The (major) Minor Powers:

6) Italy
7) Japan
8) Korea
9) China
10) Canada
11) Australia (& New Zealand, that whole ANZAC thing, you know?)

The Rest:

12) Greece (Because Turkey)
13) Turkey (Because Greece)
14) Iran (Because History & Reasons)
15) Spain (Because of the Straits of Gibraltar & Reasons)
15) Everyone else at a regional level.

Berlin, London, Paris, Washington D.C., Moscow/St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Rome, Peking(Beijing?), Tokyo, Hanoi, etc., etc., etc. So many delightful (and not so delightful) venues for intrigue, mystery, co-mingling of vested national interests and a shit-tonne of Stupid Luck & Happenstance. So much fodder for spy thrillers, where the reader/audience has no real clue as to exactly what is going on, or who is actually backstabbing who at any point in time.
 
All good points but the problem is if you make the Americans the bad guy you just lost a big market and the same goes for other countries if they are the bad guys you will lose those markets also.
You can have a morally complex story where no one is really the bad guy and no one is really the good guy but a mixture of both where the nations that are involved are acting in their own interests.
 
All good points but the problem is if you make the Americans the bad guy you just lost a big market and the same goes for other countries if they are the bad guys you will lose those markets also.
You can have a morally complex story where no one is really the bad guy and no one is really the good guy but a mixture of both where the nations that are involved are acting in their own interests.
Exactly. Especially if people are left wondering "Did we win or not?" Or even better, have the story in such a way that any of the parties involved could be the victor or the loser until the very end, then have a series of interchangeable endings designed to leave the respective audiences thinking that 'their' spy was the victor. Then, years later, film buffs start arguing online about the movie because it has so many legitimate endings, but people have only just started to realise that their beloved spy classic has a completely different ending in other countries.
 
Btw what ever happened to South Africa. Did it end up leaving the commonwealth? Though right now I'm just glad that in this atl South Africa didn't screw itself over with the whole Apartheid idiocy.
 
Part 114, Chapter 1884
Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Eighty-Four



5th October 1968

Moscow, Russia

Alexei was looking with trepidation at Gia the toy car he had been playing with forgotten on the floor by his feet. She had been on the phone with the construction firm that had been building the planned housing project for which she had been present at the groundbreaking a couple years earlier. The firm was trying to abandon the project with the buildings only half complete and the promised infrastructure that was supposed to serve the people in those buildings had not even been started. The people who lived in that community had approached Gia to intercede on their behalf and had been surprised when she had agreed to. When she had gotten the company’s Chief Operations Officer on the phone, the conversation had grown heated. That man had been completely disinterested in doing what he had been contracted to do because he had clearly thought that the community which he was screwing over didn’t have the means to fight back. Gia had other ideas and if he had thought that getting a tongue lashing from her was the end of it then he in for quite a surprise.

“Yes, your mother gets angry sometimes when she has to deal with small greedy men” Gia said picking Alexei up noticing that he had grown a lot heavier. There was a part of her that wished that he were still the little baby that she had brought home three years earlier. “Do me a favor and don’t become a small greedy man when you get big.”

“We should all want that” The Nurse who helped care for Alexei said, Gia had no idea that she had been overheard. “It’s wonderful you are going to start doing in Moscow what you’ve been doing in the Trans-Baikal.”

For years Gia had worked to bring services to the people who lived in that region, plowing a great deal of the mineral wealth from Siberia that had gone to her into community investments. Gia had been surprised to learn that her personal efforts had started to improve the standard of living in the corner of Siberia where she spent her summers.

“I don’t have the resources to do that for a city the size of Moscow” Gia said.

“But the people who do are your friends and family” The Nurse said cheerfully, and Gia didn’t have the heart to disappoint her by pointing out that there were some miracles that were beyond the reach of Saint Sasha, the term she had come to use to describe the imaginary figure many people in Russia seemed to think she was. Yes, her cousin was the Tsar, and she was well acquainted with his inner circle. The problem was that she knew that Georgy tolerated her because she helped provide a human face to the regime and helped him maintain his relationship with the Orthodox Church with her public image. The fact that she had remained steadfastly apolitical had been her saving grace. Trying to get the elite of Moscow’s new Nobility to care for the destitute would inevitably become political. Especially in the likely event that she would end up having to publicly shame them into action. In an odd turn she had found that Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Stalin, was one of the few people in Russia who understood where Gia was coming from and was one of few genuine friends she had.

Getting a construction company to honor their agreements because Gia’s name was attached to the project was what anyone who knew about it would have to settle for. She would need to ask Fyodor for some suggestions as to how to go about doing that, he was far better than she was at taking care of matters like this one quietly.



Reno, Nevada

After weeks spent doing escape and evasion training with the USAF Survival School out of Stead Air Force Base, but mostly in the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains, all he wanted to do was blow off some steam. Luckily, Reno was just down the road, or so everyone thought. George Pierce had found it boring after just a few hours because the casinos were all about gambling. That might have been a case of “No duh” but he was there for a party and sitting there watching middle-aged businessmen sink more money than they had on a single hand of cards wasn’t nearly as entertaining as it sounded. The casino was less than thrilled with his group being in the bar, clearly wanting them out at the tables themselves.

Looking for something far more interesting, he saw a young woman at the end of the bar who he swiftly struck up a conversation with. It wasn’t long before her date showed up after apparently going to use the john. George wouldn’t have called him her boyfriend because she was clearly out of his league. She had mentioned before that the only reason she had agreed to this was because he had a car and she had wanted to get out of Sparks, a suburb of Reno, on a Saturday night. Sweaty, with a hairline that was already in full retreat and face that was the same shape and color of a boiled ham, he had started in on the girl for talking to George, it was obvious the little creep regarded her as a possession.

For some reason, the Robin came to mind when he saw that. His little sister had disappeared down whatever rabbit hole their father had gone down this time and he had been left wondering exactly where she had ended up. How would she handle it if she had found herself having to deal with a creep like this guy? It seemed to George that she would probably want some help.

“The lady is free to talk to whoever she pleases” George said, interrupting the creep mid-rant.

“You stay out of this” The creep snapped back.

“Actually, I was thinking that you were about to leave” George replied.

“You and what army!” The creep yelled.

“Air Force” George said, correcting the little creep with a smirk as his buddies who had been watching joined him. “Are you even old enough to be in here?”

The little creep fled, muttering under his breath about getting revenge. His former date was perfectly happy about him being gone.
 
When will "Joe" from Scranton appear again? When he's no longer "current politics"?
He only appeared once and wasn't exactly identified. He is very likely to be "current politics" for a considerable period of time and unlike some other figures I could mention, he hasn't angered me to the point where I depict him as getting arrested, incinerated, or something.
 
George Pierce, all grown up, in the air force and hopefully a better man than OTL version. Also concerned about his little sister, currently loving her life on the German Baltic coast... even if their father isn't.
 
When will "Joe" from Scranton appear again? When he's no longer "current politics"?
With the differences and changes in this TL, probably find Joe from Scranton has a long, happy and fairly unremarkable life and ends up a popular and competent mayor of somewhere like Hershy and goes to watch Bears games occasionally with his family.
 
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