American King: Expanded Universe
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
Interesting stuff so far. Michael Mitchell sounds like a superhero's name. 
Didn't notice any spelling errors or the like. Pretty well written. I'm interested in seeing how Mitchell's quest for vengeance pans out. Not to mention, the Great Boston Christmas Riot sounds like it'll be fun to watch, even if I'm slightly confused. Why would Belman's death provoke it? Guess that's just something to look forward to.
I did find this bit to be somewhat awkward, though: "(the Cravats were a local street gang and offshoot of the Sons of Liberty whose name referred to their wearing of light red cravats to identify themselves)." This is 'showing, not telling' and not only does it not gel with the rest of the paragraph, it's also an info dump. I'm not sure how else you could rework it into that part itself, but it's something worth considering.
With that said, I hope to see more adventures in the AKverse!
Didn't notice any spelling errors or the like. Pretty well written. I'm interested in seeing how Mitchell's quest for vengeance pans out. Not to mention, the Great Boston Christmas Riot sounds like it'll be fun to watch, even if I'm slightly confused. Why would Belman's death provoke it? Guess that's just something to look forward to.I did find this bit to be somewhat awkward, though: "(the Cravats were a local street gang and offshoot of the Sons of Liberty whose name referred to their wearing of light red cravats to identify themselves)." This is 'showing, not telling' and not only does it not gel with the rest of the paragraph, it's also an info dump. I'm not sure how else you could rework it into that part itself, but it's something worth considering.
With that said, I hope to see more adventures in the AKverse!
Interesting stuff so far. Michael Mitchell sounds like a superhero's name.
I did find this bit to be somewhat awkward, though: "(the Cravats were a local street gang and offshoot of the Sons of Liberty whose name referred to their wearing of light red cravats to identify themselves)." This is 'showing, not telling' and not only does it not gel with the rest of the paragraph, it's also an info dump. I'm not sure how else you could rework it into that part itself, but it's something worth considering.
With that said, I hope to see more adventures in the AKverse!
Danke! Belman was a high-ranking officer in the Cravats, and his open murder triggered a confrontation, which then evolved into a full-scale riot. It's meant to finish off the Cravats so Mitchell's enemies will be open season.
Hmmmm... I'll see if I can change it a bit.
Woah, I'll have to fix that, then!
Last edited:
This story is getting increasingly fun - please continue it. Nothing like a good large scale riot to keep a reader happy
From the Appennines to the Pennines
Approved by the monarchist greaser
[FONT="]Excerpts from Friedrich Becker, "How I ended at Wellington's party and managed not to throw up. Immigrants in the British Commonwealth", Ch. XIV, Spannung Press, Chicago 1905[/FONT]
[FONT="][...] Born in 1801 in Cesenatico, a small coastal town whose inhabitants had their fishing boats as only means of subsistence, nobody at the time would have thought Agostino Savini would have been anything else than a fisherman struggling to bring something on his family's dining table, like his father, his grandfather and all his ancestors since the beginning of historical recording. But growing up, Agostino discovered that hauling nets wasn't the only kind of manual work he was skilled in. Learning of his own accord from every mason, carpenter and smith who lived in or passed through Cesenatico, by the age of seventeen this son of a fisherman had become a sort of factotum for the people of his hometown, since he was an expert in everything about bricks, wood and iron. In that same year of 1818, encouraged by his father, who had anyway three other sons to help him on his boat, Agostino left Cesenatico for the first time in his life to go to Cesena, one of the richest cities in Romagna, to try if his skills could gain him a better living than the one a fisherman was bound. [...] After his marriage with Ambra, the prospect of making children made Agostino start pondering over his future in Romagna: part of the Papal States since the IX century, the territory had always been the most unruly towards the Pope's authority and, because of that, the most ill-treated (Borgia's campaign which brought destruction upon Forlì was an indelible part of local folklore), and ecclesiastical interference was very felt in everyday life. Cesena was an anomaly, having always been a hub of Papism, but that didn't mean clergymen didn't enjoy an inordinate amount of (indirect) power. And that was a thing Agostino could not tolerate forever [1]. It's hard to tell what made him "the greatest priest-eater Italy ever produced", as Aurelio Saffi, a friend he made during his English sojourn, described him [2]. What's sure is that his dislike for the Catholic hierarchies could very well have cost him his chances of keeping his construction firm as profitable as it was then, in the long term, and Savini knew it. All things considered, it must not come as a total surprise if a man whose longest journey he ever set out for was the one from Cesenatico to Cesena and a woman who never ventured out of the hinterland of her city suddenly agreed that the British Commonwealth held better chances for their future. On the 21st of March 1824, speakers carrying a most unusual ensign, red, white and blue in vertical bands, appeared in the central squares of every major Italian city, plus some important regional centers like Cesena, and read the following message in the local dialect:[/FONT]
[FONT="]While most Italian craftsmen probably didn't know who Andrea Palladio (who had died more than two centuries before) was, the contract terms were enough to persuade many masons, carpenters and smiths to follow the speakers in their journeys back to the Commonwealth. Agostino Savini, with his versatile talent and fascinated with what little news of the Fascist ideology had gotten to him [3], was one of the first to accept the offer. [...][/FONT]
[FONT="][...] but it was only on the 14th of May that conflict with the designer broke out. Confronted with an arcade to the main entrance which was only four feet wide, Agostino finally resolved to question Mr. Felton's project. But since the latter, even though confronted with incontrovertible reasons for having a wider covered passageway, kept on answering ad infinitum that the width of such architectural elements could only be twice the diameter of the side columns, Savini, not accustomed to planning processes where all decisions were imposed from above, finally snapped and announced that his team would have never gone on with the project as it stood. It's documented that he was furious because of the designer's attitude rather than his illogic choices, but the thing is that, the day after, he received a letter which carried new dispositions for him and his team: the fifteen of them had to move immediately from Sheffield to Colchester for [...][/FONT]
[FONT="][...] Hugh Wavell was killed in cold blood that fateful morning of the 30th of August 1826 by the foreman's assistant. He was 15 and guilty of having carried a kind of gravel that was too coarse for a "proper" lane's bed. That event badly shook Agostino and his morale only got worse when he accidentally discovered one month later that the aforesaid assistant used the building yard's statement of expenses as a way to amortize his own debts [...][/FONT]
[FONT="]The ceremony for the launching of the BCS [4] Puritan, the Commonwealth's most advanced warship, is probably the most important event attended by Mr. Savini during his English sojourn; perhaps because it was the one that finally persuaded him to leave the country. Presided by the British Chancellor himself, the whole event lasted a whole afternoon due to a number of unexpected occurrences. In other words, Arthur Wellington managed to throw in the waters of Southampton Agostino Savini (twice), the tricolor-sashed Mayor, the secretary for the Navy and the 102-year-old Baroness mascot-for-life of the Admiralty[5], to waste the whole national reserve of year 1804 Chateau Lafitte and to cut off the Archbishop of Canterbury's right pinkie. The ceremony was then suspended waiting for the ecclesiastic's murdering fury to placate and Agostino seized the chance to get out of the port's waters, go home and tell his wife to start packing their things. In three years, Mr. Savini had come to deeply understand Fascist ideology. It was relatively simple: the lowlier you were as a human being, the higher place you could aspire to. [...][/FONT]
[FONT="][1] Savini's anti-clericalism was really a serious thing if it managed to be noticed in Romagna, home of the most blasphemous sort of Italians. Some documents attest the presence of a priest suspiciously fond of his altar boys in his hometown, at least until a very unfortunate incident with a particularly large fish-hook.[/FONT]
[FONT="][2] A fellow son of Romagna (born in Forlì), he was a compulsive traveler rather than another Italian working immigrant.[/FONT]
[FONT="][3] Apparently, during his sermons, Savini's parish priest used to bring up the Commonwealth as an example of what could happen to his flock if they dared to deviate from the way traced for them by the Holy Roman Church. Whether this deviation was Wellington's Revolution or the arrival of Protestantism on the British Isles (and for that matter, which Commonwealth he was referring to) could be debated. [/FONT]
[FONT="][4] British Commonwealth Ship.[/FONT]
[FONT="][5] All authorities were stealthily launched later that day. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Excerpts from Cristina Favaretto, "Architecture after the Age of Revolutions", Ch. IX, editore Scarpa & figli, Venice 1942[/FONT]
[FONT="][...] while also known to the general non-British public as "Commonwealth Style", "Neoteric Palladianism", "Second Neoclassicism" or "Puritan Mannerism", none of these terms was coined in its homeland. Boylist buildings were always called simply «New Design/Palladian constructions» in state documents and as «Yorkies» by the population, so effectively giving the whole architectural current the nick-name "Yorkie Style" that still survives to this day in Britain, upgraded to official term because of its nearly universal use. [/FONT]
[FONT="][...] Therefore, it was in large part thanks to Inigo Jones, architect and intellectual, if Palladio's style and magnum opus, the Four books of Architecture, became known in the insular kingdom. However, if one could go back to the first half of the XIX century and attend anyone of the classes of the Department of Architecture in the St. Edward's Public Academy of Arts and Crafts, the most recurrent name he'd hear would undoubtedly be Richard Boyle's, 3rd Earl Burlington: a man born one century after Jones, but somehow elevated to much greater historic relevance by the Second Commonwealth's version of past British history. Boyle's lesson and works were so central in the education of future British architects foreign observers started to paste the title «Boylist» to any new British building more complex than a horse stable. Historians haven't yet been able to find a convincing reason for Jones's sidelining in favor of Boyle, especially since the former, a fervent Puritan, was everything but politically inconvenient for the new regime. According to Mary Anne Green, Wellington's chief biographer, the Chancellor himself ordered this sanctification of the former Great Lieutenant of West Riding after a visit to Burlington's magnum opus, the Assembly Rooms of York [1], where he would have «understood, after observing the fine proportions of the dance hall, what really made so awe-inspiring the monuments of that City whence [he] took inspiration for creating this new Fascist country. It's indeed in the harmony between all parts, not in the excessive size, that lies the success of a building, and in the end of an entire nation». Putting aside the usual hagiography, it's interesting to notice that, while there's no believable account of a Chancellor's visit to the Assembly Rooms in the formative years of the new British architectural style, a key figure in Wellington's inner circle was born in York and an amateur designer: Samuel Tuke, Advisor for the Domestic Morale. While his artistic production is completely unremarkable, his literary works about the environmental impact [2] are a fine example of proto-psychoanalysis. In particular, in his unpublished Architecture and emotion, structured as a trip on foot across his native city of York and inside its most representative buildings, he has the chance to describe the Assembly Rooms as «heavy for a man's eyes and soul and so disregarding of his measures and needs that one wonders which masturbatory purposes guided Burlington's pen, since his clients' requests surely never bothered his creative process». The answer to the "Burlington's preeminence" dilemma lies in these few words.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Richard Boyle saw his generation as the last before a cultural revolution that would have shaken the artistic world from its torpor, which had mummified the Renaissance ideals into Mannerist repetitiveness before and Baroque excess later. So he began producing architecture that, he thought, would forerun the future he and his Neo-Palladian fellow artists envisioned. But when his "prophecy" came true and Neo-Classicism became a reality so glorious it exceeded every expectation, Burlington's attempts changed in a blink from "inspirational" to "outdated". Oppressive, pedantic, unimaginative: these were the adjectives the new generation used to describe the work of the man who first foresaw their coming. And those same words were used again in the XIX century by an expert on the ambient-psyche relationship who also had the Leader's ear. In the new British society, where the ruling class knew its power would have been preserved as long as the common people would have been prevented from dreaming or hoping for better conditions, everyone had to live, work and die in an environment where everything was designed to de-humanize him/her, to cleanse his/her mind of non-Fascist thoughts. With this in mind, understanding the reverence for Earl Burlington during the Second Commonwealth does not require great mental effort.[/FONT]
[FONT="][1] Completed in 1732, their project was conceived by crossing Palladio's description of the Roman basilicas with his reconstruction of the so-called «Egyptian halls».[/FONT]
[FONT="][2] The study of the way different environments, both natural and built, influence the psyche and productivity of a human being (so not OTL's meaning). [/FONT]
Approved by the monarchist greaser
[FONT="]Excerpts from Friedrich Becker, "How I ended at Wellington's party and managed not to throw up. Immigrants in the British Commonwealth", Ch. XIV, Spannung Press, Chicago 1905[/FONT]
[FONT="][...] Born in 1801 in Cesenatico, a small coastal town whose inhabitants had their fishing boats as only means of subsistence, nobody at the time would have thought Agostino Savini would have been anything else than a fisherman struggling to bring something on his family's dining table, like his father, his grandfather and all his ancestors since the beginning of historical recording. But growing up, Agostino discovered that hauling nets wasn't the only kind of manual work he was skilled in. Learning of his own accord from every mason, carpenter and smith who lived in or passed through Cesenatico, by the age of seventeen this son of a fisherman had become a sort of factotum for the people of his hometown, since he was an expert in everything about bricks, wood and iron. In that same year of 1818, encouraged by his father, who had anyway three other sons to help him on his boat, Agostino left Cesenatico for the first time in his life to go to Cesena, one of the richest cities in Romagna, to try if his skills could gain him a better living than the one a fisherman was bound. [...] After his marriage with Ambra, the prospect of making children made Agostino start pondering over his future in Romagna: part of the Papal States since the IX century, the territory had always been the most unruly towards the Pope's authority and, because of that, the most ill-treated (Borgia's campaign which brought destruction upon Forlì was an indelible part of local folklore), and ecclesiastical interference was very felt in everyday life. Cesena was an anomaly, having always been a hub of Papism, but that didn't mean clergymen didn't enjoy an inordinate amount of (indirect) power. And that was a thing Agostino could not tolerate forever [1]. It's hard to tell what made him "the greatest priest-eater Italy ever produced", as Aurelio Saffi, a friend he made during his English sojourn, described him [2]. What's sure is that his dislike for the Catholic hierarchies could very well have cost him his chances of keeping his construction firm as profitable as it was then, in the long term, and Savini knew it. All things considered, it must not come as a total surprise if a man whose longest journey he ever set out for was the one from Cesenatico to Cesena and a woman who never ventured out of the hinterland of her city suddenly agreed that the British Commonwealth held better chances for their future. On the 21st of March 1824, speakers carrying a most unusual ensign, red, white and blue in vertical bands, appeared in the central squares of every major Italian city, plus some important regional centers like Cesena, and read the following message in the local dialect:[/FONT]
[FONT="]People of the Italian Countries, descendants of glorious tradition of the Eternal City:[/FONT]
[FONT="]To all of you who carry or carried on the trades that concur to create works of architecture,[/FONT]
[FONT="]His Excellence Arthur Wellington, Chancellor of the British Commonwealth,[/FONT]
[FONT="]Extends an invitation to come to the fair homeland of the English, the Welsh and the Scots[/FONT]
[FONT="]To lend your services in the realization of our most ambitious, nation-wide plan[/FONT]
[FONT="]Of enriching all British cities with buildings, both public and private, in the style[/FONT]
[FONT="]Founded by your most excellent fellow countryman Andrea Palladio,[/FONT]
[FONT="]He who was undoubtedly the most worthy heir of the architects of the Eternal City.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Those who will answer to this call and embrace the Anglican faith will receive British citizenship at their arrival on the island of Great Britain,[/FONT]
[FONT="]Or otherwise a safe-conduct that will allow them the right of assembly for religious purposes.[/FONT]
[FONT="](Very generous contract terms follow)[/FONT]
[FONT="]While most Italian craftsmen probably didn't know who Andrea Palladio (who had died more than two centuries before) was, the contract terms were enough to persuade many masons, carpenters and smiths to follow the speakers in their journeys back to the Commonwealth. Agostino Savini, with his versatile talent and fascinated with what little news of the Fascist ideology had gotten to him [3], was one of the first to accept the offer. [...][/FONT]
[FONT="][...] but it was only on the 14th of May that conflict with the designer broke out. Confronted with an arcade to the main entrance which was only four feet wide, Agostino finally resolved to question Mr. Felton's project. But since the latter, even though confronted with incontrovertible reasons for having a wider covered passageway, kept on answering ad infinitum that the width of such architectural elements could only be twice the diameter of the side columns, Savini, not accustomed to planning processes where all decisions were imposed from above, finally snapped and announced that his team would have never gone on with the project as it stood. It's documented that he was furious because of the designer's attitude rather than his illogic choices, but the thing is that, the day after, he received a letter which carried new dispositions for him and his team: the fifteen of them had to move immediately from Sheffield to Colchester for [...][/FONT]
[FONT="][...] Hugh Wavell was killed in cold blood that fateful morning of the 30th of August 1826 by the foreman's assistant. He was 15 and guilty of having carried a kind of gravel that was too coarse for a "proper" lane's bed. That event badly shook Agostino and his morale only got worse when he accidentally discovered one month later that the aforesaid assistant used the building yard's statement of expenses as a way to amortize his own debts [...][/FONT]
[FONT="]The ceremony for the launching of the BCS [4] Puritan, the Commonwealth's most advanced warship, is probably the most important event attended by Mr. Savini during his English sojourn; perhaps because it was the one that finally persuaded him to leave the country. Presided by the British Chancellor himself, the whole event lasted a whole afternoon due to a number of unexpected occurrences. In other words, Arthur Wellington managed to throw in the waters of Southampton Agostino Savini (twice), the tricolor-sashed Mayor, the secretary for the Navy and the 102-year-old Baroness mascot-for-life of the Admiralty[5], to waste the whole national reserve of year 1804 Chateau Lafitte and to cut off the Archbishop of Canterbury's right pinkie. The ceremony was then suspended waiting for the ecclesiastic's murdering fury to placate and Agostino seized the chance to get out of the port's waters, go home and tell his wife to start packing their things. In three years, Mr. Savini had come to deeply understand Fascist ideology. It was relatively simple: the lowlier you were as a human being, the higher place you could aspire to. [...][/FONT]
[FONT="][1] Savini's anti-clericalism was really a serious thing if it managed to be noticed in Romagna, home of the most blasphemous sort of Italians. Some documents attest the presence of a priest suspiciously fond of his altar boys in his hometown, at least until a very unfortunate incident with a particularly large fish-hook.[/FONT]
[FONT="][2] A fellow son of Romagna (born in Forlì), he was a compulsive traveler rather than another Italian working immigrant.[/FONT]
[FONT="][3] Apparently, during his sermons, Savini's parish priest used to bring up the Commonwealth as an example of what could happen to his flock if they dared to deviate from the way traced for them by the Holy Roman Church. Whether this deviation was Wellington's Revolution or the arrival of Protestantism on the British Isles (and for that matter, which Commonwealth he was referring to) could be debated. [/FONT]
[FONT="][4] British Commonwealth Ship.[/FONT]
[FONT="][5] All authorities were stealthily launched later that day. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Excerpts from Cristina Favaretto, "Architecture after the Age of Revolutions", Ch. IX, editore Scarpa & figli, Venice 1942[/FONT]
[FONT="][...] while also known to the general non-British public as "Commonwealth Style", "Neoteric Palladianism", "Second Neoclassicism" or "Puritan Mannerism", none of these terms was coined in its homeland. Boylist buildings were always called simply «New Design/Palladian constructions» in state documents and as «Yorkies» by the population, so effectively giving the whole architectural current the nick-name "Yorkie Style" that still survives to this day in Britain, upgraded to official term because of its nearly universal use. [/FONT]
[FONT="][...] Therefore, it was in large part thanks to Inigo Jones, architect and intellectual, if Palladio's style and magnum opus, the Four books of Architecture, became known in the insular kingdom. However, if one could go back to the first half of the XIX century and attend anyone of the classes of the Department of Architecture in the St. Edward's Public Academy of Arts and Crafts, the most recurrent name he'd hear would undoubtedly be Richard Boyle's, 3rd Earl Burlington: a man born one century after Jones, but somehow elevated to much greater historic relevance by the Second Commonwealth's version of past British history. Boyle's lesson and works were so central in the education of future British architects foreign observers started to paste the title «Boylist» to any new British building more complex than a horse stable. Historians haven't yet been able to find a convincing reason for Jones's sidelining in favor of Boyle, especially since the former, a fervent Puritan, was everything but politically inconvenient for the new regime. According to Mary Anne Green, Wellington's chief biographer, the Chancellor himself ordered this sanctification of the former Great Lieutenant of West Riding after a visit to Burlington's magnum opus, the Assembly Rooms of York [1], where he would have «understood, after observing the fine proportions of the dance hall, what really made so awe-inspiring the monuments of that City whence [he] took inspiration for creating this new Fascist country. It's indeed in the harmony between all parts, not in the excessive size, that lies the success of a building, and in the end of an entire nation». Putting aside the usual hagiography, it's interesting to notice that, while there's no believable account of a Chancellor's visit to the Assembly Rooms in the formative years of the new British architectural style, a key figure in Wellington's inner circle was born in York and an amateur designer: Samuel Tuke, Advisor for the Domestic Morale. While his artistic production is completely unremarkable, his literary works about the environmental impact [2] are a fine example of proto-psychoanalysis. In particular, in his unpublished Architecture and emotion, structured as a trip on foot across his native city of York and inside its most representative buildings, he has the chance to describe the Assembly Rooms as «heavy for a man's eyes and soul and so disregarding of his measures and needs that one wonders which masturbatory purposes guided Burlington's pen, since his clients' requests surely never bothered his creative process». The answer to the "Burlington's preeminence" dilemma lies in these few words.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Richard Boyle saw his generation as the last before a cultural revolution that would have shaken the artistic world from its torpor, which had mummified the Renaissance ideals into Mannerist repetitiveness before and Baroque excess later. So he began producing architecture that, he thought, would forerun the future he and his Neo-Palladian fellow artists envisioned. But when his "prophecy" came true and Neo-Classicism became a reality so glorious it exceeded every expectation, Burlington's attempts changed in a blink from "inspirational" to "outdated". Oppressive, pedantic, unimaginative: these were the adjectives the new generation used to describe the work of the man who first foresaw their coming. And those same words were used again in the XIX century by an expert on the ambient-psyche relationship who also had the Leader's ear. In the new British society, where the ruling class knew its power would have been preserved as long as the common people would have been prevented from dreaming or hoping for better conditions, everyone had to live, work and die in an environment where everything was designed to de-humanize him/her, to cleanse his/her mind of non-Fascist thoughts. With this in mind, understanding the reverence for Earl Burlington during the Second Commonwealth does not require great mental effort.[/FONT]
[FONT="][1] Completed in 1732, their project was conceived by crossing Palladio's description of the Roman basilicas with his reconstruction of the so-called «Egyptian halls».[/FONT]
[FONT="][2] The study of the way different environments, both natural and built, influence the psyche and productivity of a human being (so not OTL's meaning). [/FONT]
That is a most adequate name for me. Look at my title now.
Excellent writing, as I said before. Continue!
Look at my title now. Excellent writing, as I said before. Continue!
That is a most adequate name for me.
Excellent writing, as I said before. Continue!
You still need to find a goddamned camera.
Yes, indeed I do.
I'm going to have to update Miichael's story coming up here... I have it all planned, it's just getting writing it in novel form that slows me down.
Wow: that was great, Berlinguer. I hope this isn't the last we've seen of Savini and/or fascist!British architecture. The latter of which is something pretty fascinating, I think at least, in alternate history; though I suppose that comes from some experience with art appreciation classes (not that it does much justice to this sort of thing, but it's a starting point, at least).
Speaking of EU stuff...
---
The following is a sample from the new, tell-all book released posthumously by the McCandless estate following Tighe's death in 1898. He is survived by his wife and three daughters.
Taken from: "'Your Humble Servant': The Life of an American Governor-General" by Tighe McCandless, ed. by Eric Miland (Philadelphia: Philadelphia University Press, 1898)
"Foreword
Had it been up to myself, I would not have written this book you're about to read at all. I have never been comfortable with the attention I have received throughout my life by academia and the press. On one hand, I am the great hero of Empire; a man who has reshaped how our colonies are run. On the other, I am vilified for my lifestyle choices, one who has 'dirtied' himself by mixing his blood. Which side is focused on, however, is entirely dependent on who writes the editorial. Regardless, such experiences leave you drained and to be trotted out again, like some sideshow at a fair, isn't conducive to my health at such an old age. I'm afraid I'm deathly allergic to gossip...
It is with some irony, then, that those eager to look down at my beloved wife owe this work to my daughters. Without them, this would never have been written. They pushed and pushed, wanting me to tell my story to the world. What was it like, to change the face of American administration beyond recognition? I told them at the time I wasn't sure I could answer a question like that. It's with some surprise that this seems to have come all too easily.
But if one were to ask me what I'm most proud of, I would say it's them. All of my achievements in Johnsland mean little in comparison. I was sent a letter by King John I once, a glowing review on how I'd dealt with a native king, but I don't remember what it said. Then there was the glowing adoration showered upon me with a small feast by a minor native bureaucrat after I'd allowed one of our nurses to safely guide his wife through childbirth. It was good, but I can't think of half the things I was given.
No, the thing that sticks to my mind, even though years have passed, is seeing the hot African sun beat down upon the lovely caramel tones of my daughters' as they played with other children, half-clothed, on the edge of the great forest near Port Scott's [1] edges. White, dark and ruddy faces, together. If only we had had the ability to capture moments as we do now then! [2]
...My wife, to her credit, would just have been as happy to let everything fade quietly away, not that I can blame her. Yet I would rather tell my own life's story, with my voice, than let someone down the line tell about an old ghost.
The nation that allowed me to have such an extraordinary life should know the truth.
---
...One of the rare times that I have spoken to a public audience was in 1875 in New York. I'd been invited to give a meeting on my experience with colonial life at Columbia University by the dean at the time, Hugh Westerlund, to speak. I've never done well in large crowds. I stood for an hour and a half, telling a half-interested, half-bored body of students about what it was like to be in lands that, for many, would simply remain exotic locales never to be visited.
Asia, Africa, south America: they were mythic in the way that Mount Olympus must have seemed to the ancients. It existed, that was certain, but what was actually there was another matter to be debated entirely. Lurid tales have often filled book shelves of heroic sacrifices by our armed forces, pagan rituals filled with blood magic and winning over (and converting) the local women to the bed of the writer. Fine as this may be for bedside reading, it bears little resemblance to reality. Hateful weather, terrible outbreaks of disease and constant worrying about food shortages was what filled my own days.
It was very clear that they would have preferred the fable to the real world.
Indeed, it's hard to instill a love of colonial service in youths. It requires a discipline that many simply can't be inspired to. So there I was, telling them all the things they didn't want to hear, speaking of dealing with natives, organizing public events, creating budgets for the year with my cabinet. Throughout it all, many chose to get up and leave. But there was one young man who approached me after I was finished.
"That was brilliant, sir," he told me. He went on and on about how wonderful it must've been to be the one who set the entire nation's policy with its territories, dependencies and colonies into motion. As I like to think of myself a humble man, I denied that I was worthy of any kind of praise.
Such talk only incensed him, as he grew increasingly exasperated, trying to get me to admit to my own brilliance as he saw it. "You did what no one thought to do!" he chided with a tone that, strangely, reminded me of a mother scolding a child.
"Perhaps so," I told him, "but it wasn't anything that could never have been done before if anyone had bothered to use common sense." It's the closest I've ever come to, openly, criticizing my former governor peers.
"That's the problem!" he replied. "Most people don't think to even use an ounce of sense!" On reflection, now that I write this down, I suppose he was right.
---
Chapter VI
Equality
'Equality' is a unique word. Whether it was the free Negro speaking of it when he remembered slave auctions, or as they've been recently wont to protest, women and their wish to vote. Such a small word can inspire so many feelings in many different people. Never before, perhaps, in the history of mankind has one word generated so much joy and hatred as this.
In my youth, as I have described earlier, I was a voracious reader with a passion for history. In my studies, I came across countless figures and places who filled my imagination with wonder. So many men, people and countries who had risen up, against the odds, and changed the world. Even if all of them failed, died or were lost to the cruel and fickle hand of Fate, I enjoyed every second of it.
But troubling to my young mind was, as I read on, the realization that what I had been told by my tutors and society - that white men were simply at the top and all the other races simply were somewhere beneath - could not ring true. When one is in their youth, such realizations are simply filed away as being possible; I had not yet reached disbelieving adulthood, where concepts like that would have been scoffed at.
Yes, yes, Caesar, Charlemagne, Richard the Lion-Hearted. How Europe seemed poised to seize the world. All will be bandied about by those who wish to impress upon you that white men are superior, the best, the most suited to ruling. When the achievements of the great empires of Africa are brought up, like the Songhai, or the Chinese and gunpowder, it's downplayed. 'Perhaps at one point they could have stood with us, but they missed their chance! Let them toil in service of their betters!' This insufferable tone shaped the way all nations, even disregarding my fellow countrymen or in Europe itself, have looked at each other. A natural, perhaps, inclination of man to distrust 'the Other.'
Alexander, of the 'backwards' Macedonians, was dismissed as a barbarian by the Greeks. Yet he never lost a battle. Genghis Khan and his clan forged the largest empire we have ever known. A casual glance shall prove, to even the most stubborn, that having certain ancestry is not inherently advantageous. But such patronization, since the Spanish explored the New World, refuses to countenance this. Because of this, it is the most divisive and self-defeating aspect to old colonial models. It's why Equality must take hold and sweep them into the dust bin of history. [3]
Witness the first American revolution. There, the Americans were held in general contempt by their British masters. The yokel in Virginia might ape his peers in Oxford and the like, but he was not an Englishman. He was, like the first Constitution said for the slave, 3/5 of a man. This belief was poisonous. It could not last forever - and, as the world has witnessed, it did not. It was a bloody, unpleasant experience, but London was beaten back. They were shocked that their erstwhile 'spoiled children' could achieve such a huge victory over proper civilization. Perhaps, too, they were a little afraid. The collar of oppression, in the wake of such a thing, tightened a little everywhere else that pink showed on the map.
It is from this that we shall draw a lesson: when a man is kept down because he is viewed as inferior to the citizen of the nation that occupies the land they happen to share, the center cannot hold. Sooner or later, he will tire of his presence and his ways, for better or for worse. In secret, he'll meet with other men in his village, town, or city, and little by little, he will plot against his masters. Then, at a moment of weakness for the mother country, he will strike. Some might say that's an unpatriotic and defeatist belief to hold. But it is not. History is full of examples of the oppressed taking back what they feel they're owed. All men, by their birthright, are created equal - it's unfortunate that some have not chosen to realize it."
[1] The capital of Johnsland, named after General Winfield Scott; it was one of the most important trading hubs of 19th century American Africa.
[2] Alluding to photography, or whatever it's called ITTL.
[3] Many apologies to Ronald Reagan, but a line too good to not borrow.
---
Watch this thread for the next installment, folks!
Speaking of EU stuff...
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The following is a sample from the new, tell-all book released posthumously by the McCandless estate following Tighe's death in 1898. He is survived by his wife and three daughters.
Taken from: "'Your Humble Servant': The Life of an American Governor-General" by Tighe McCandless, ed. by Eric Miland (Philadelphia: Philadelphia University Press, 1898)
"Foreword
Had it been up to myself, I would not have written this book you're about to read at all. I have never been comfortable with the attention I have received throughout my life by academia and the press. On one hand, I am the great hero of Empire; a man who has reshaped how our colonies are run. On the other, I am vilified for my lifestyle choices, one who has 'dirtied' himself by mixing his blood. Which side is focused on, however, is entirely dependent on who writes the editorial. Regardless, such experiences leave you drained and to be trotted out again, like some sideshow at a fair, isn't conducive to my health at such an old age. I'm afraid I'm deathly allergic to gossip...
It is with some irony, then, that those eager to look down at my beloved wife owe this work to my daughters. Without them, this would never have been written. They pushed and pushed, wanting me to tell my story to the world. What was it like, to change the face of American administration beyond recognition? I told them at the time I wasn't sure I could answer a question like that. It's with some surprise that this seems to have come all too easily.
But if one were to ask me what I'm most proud of, I would say it's them. All of my achievements in Johnsland mean little in comparison. I was sent a letter by King John I once, a glowing review on how I'd dealt with a native king, but I don't remember what it said. Then there was the glowing adoration showered upon me with a small feast by a minor native bureaucrat after I'd allowed one of our nurses to safely guide his wife through childbirth. It was good, but I can't think of half the things I was given.
No, the thing that sticks to my mind, even though years have passed, is seeing the hot African sun beat down upon the lovely caramel tones of my daughters' as they played with other children, half-clothed, on the edge of the great forest near Port Scott's [1] edges. White, dark and ruddy faces, together. If only we had had the ability to capture moments as we do now then! [2]
...My wife, to her credit, would just have been as happy to let everything fade quietly away, not that I can blame her. Yet I would rather tell my own life's story, with my voice, than let someone down the line tell about an old ghost.
The nation that allowed me to have such an extraordinary life should know the truth.
---
...One of the rare times that I have spoken to a public audience was in 1875 in New York. I'd been invited to give a meeting on my experience with colonial life at Columbia University by the dean at the time, Hugh Westerlund, to speak. I've never done well in large crowds. I stood for an hour and a half, telling a half-interested, half-bored body of students about what it was like to be in lands that, for many, would simply remain exotic locales never to be visited.
Asia, Africa, south America: they were mythic in the way that Mount Olympus must have seemed to the ancients. It existed, that was certain, but what was actually there was another matter to be debated entirely. Lurid tales have often filled book shelves of heroic sacrifices by our armed forces, pagan rituals filled with blood magic and winning over (and converting) the local women to the bed of the writer. Fine as this may be for bedside reading, it bears little resemblance to reality. Hateful weather, terrible outbreaks of disease and constant worrying about food shortages was what filled my own days.
It was very clear that they would have preferred the fable to the real world.
Indeed, it's hard to instill a love of colonial service in youths. It requires a discipline that many simply can't be inspired to. So there I was, telling them all the things they didn't want to hear, speaking of dealing with natives, organizing public events, creating budgets for the year with my cabinet. Throughout it all, many chose to get up and leave. But there was one young man who approached me after I was finished.
"That was brilliant, sir," he told me. He went on and on about how wonderful it must've been to be the one who set the entire nation's policy with its territories, dependencies and colonies into motion. As I like to think of myself a humble man, I denied that I was worthy of any kind of praise.
Such talk only incensed him, as he grew increasingly exasperated, trying to get me to admit to my own brilliance as he saw it. "You did what no one thought to do!" he chided with a tone that, strangely, reminded me of a mother scolding a child.
"Perhaps so," I told him, "but it wasn't anything that could never have been done before if anyone had bothered to use common sense." It's the closest I've ever come to, openly, criticizing my former governor peers.
"That's the problem!" he replied. "Most people don't think to even use an ounce of sense!" On reflection, now that I write this down, I suppose he was right.
---
Chapter VI
Equality
'Equality' is a unique word. Whether it was the free Negro speaking of it when he remembered slave auctions, or as they've been recently wont to protest, women and their wish to vote. Such a small word can inspire so many feelings in many different people. Never before, perhaps, in the history of mankind has one word generated so much joy and hatred as this.
In my youth, as I have described earlier, I was a voracious reader with a passion for history. In my studies, I came across countless figures and places who filled my imagination with wonder. So many men, people and countries who had risen up, against the odds, and changed the world. Even if all of them failed, died or were lost to the cruel and fickle hand of Fate, I enjoyed every second of it.
But troubling to my young mind was, as I read on, the realization that what I had been told by my tutors and society - that white men were simply at the top and all the other races simply were somewhere beneath - could not ring true. When one is in their youth, such realizations are simply filed away as being possible; I had not yet reached disbelieving adulthood, where concepts like that would have been scoffed at.
Yes, yes, Caesar, Charlemagne, Richard the Lion-Hearted. How Europe seemed poised to seize the world. All will be bandied about by those who wish to impress upon you that white men are superior, the best, the most suited to ruling. When the achievements of the great empires of Africa are brought up, like the Songhai, or the Chinese and gunpowder, it's downplayed. 'Perhaps at one point they could have stood with us, but they missed their chance! Let them toil in service of their betters!' This insufferable tone shaped the way all nations, even disregarding my fellow countrymen or in Europe itself, have looked at each other. A natural, perhaps, inclination of man to distrust 'the Other.'
Alexander, of the 'backwards' Macedonians, was dismissed as a barbarian by the Greeks. Yet he never lost a battle. Genghis Khan and his clan forged the largest empire we have ever known. A casual glance shall prove, to even the most stubborn, that having certain ancestry is not inherently advantageous. But such patronization, since the Spanish explored the New World, refuses to countenance this. Because of this, it is the most divisive and self-defeating aspect to old colonial models. It's why Equality must take hold and sweep them into the dust bin of history. [3]
Witness the first American revolution. There, the Americans were held in general contempt by their British masters. The yokel in Virginia might ape his peers in Oxford and the like, but he was not an Englishman. He was, like the first Constitution said for the slave, 3/5 of a man. This belief was poisonous. It could not last forever - and, as the world has witnessed, it did not. It was a bloody, unpleasant experience, but London was beaten back. They were shocked that their erstwhile 'spoiled children' could achieve such a huge victory over proper civilization. Perhaps, too, they were a little afraid. The collar of oppression, in the wake of such a thing, tightened a little everywhere else that pink showed on the map.
It is from this that we shall draw a lesson: when a man is kept down because he is viewed as inferior to the citizen of the nation that occupies the land they happen to share, the center cannot hold. Sooner or later, he will tire of his presence and his ways, for better or for worse. In secret, he'll meet with other men in his village, town, or city, and little by little, he will plot against his masters. Then, at a moment of weakness for the mother country, he will strike. Some might say that's an unpatriotic and defeatist belief to hold. But it is not. History is full of examples of the oppressed taking back what they feel they're owed. All men, by their birthright, are created equal - it's unfortunate that some have not chosen to realize it."
[1] The capital of Johnsland, named after General Winfield Scott; it was one of the most important trading hubs of 19th century American Africa.
[2] Alluding to photography, or whatever it's called ITTL.
[3] Many apologies to Ronald Reagan, but a line too good to not borrow.
---
Watch this thread for the next installment, folks!
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Ah, thank you Nevermore. Just know that another update on Agostino is in the making while I don't know about British architecture. I'll just wait Napoleon53 to reveal what exactly happens in 1849: until then Neoteric Palladianism will be the norm in Great Britain.
And the autobiography of your cameo is really interesting, must be because it's so inspiring!
Great posts Berlinguer and Nevermore! Definitely more thought out than my rambling speeches Can't wait to find out more about Commonwealth society, and what McCandless has to say about my character
Definitely more thought out than my rambling speeches Can't wait to find out more about Commonwealth society, and what McCandless has to say about my character Love it, Nev! Excellently written, also. It amazes how many awesome writers are on here.
Now to work on a new chapter of the main TL.
Now to work on a new chapter of the main TL.
Hey, can i contribute something later?
Sure! Anyone can contribute as long as it fits in the story.
Hope you guys like it. It's pretty short. If anyone here is Portugese or Brzilian, I profusely apologize for butchering your language with google Translate.
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The following are excerpts from the War Memoirs of Colonel Bledar Kostandin Baris, an Albanian in the service of the Austro-Hungarian Army who was attached as an observer to the army of General Hannibal Glas during the Peruvian Wars of the early 1840s. They remain today to be one of the most accurate and detailed accounts of the personality of Glas during this early time in his career. Baris was later killed in 1849 early in the Great War, but his memoirs (first published in 1847) survive to this day.
April 10, 1844
“Não! Por favor! Eu não sei o que você está dizendo!”
The captive Brazilian lieutenant shook his head rapidly, eyes wide and frantic. His arms were pinned behind his back by one of the burly American corporals attathced to the headquarters unit, and the officer's knife that should have been safely in a sheath on his belt was being twirled lazily by [General Glas's] fingers. General Hannibal Edward Iordanu-Glas was a giant of a man, easily six feet five inches tall, with a wild mane of dark brown hair and stormy gray eyes. He wore a dirty, rumpled corporal's uniform, and there were obvious grass stains on his knees where he had been kneeling in the field in which the Expeditionary Force was bivouacked.
Glas continued fiddling with the knife, reading the engraving in Porugese on it. I always prided myself on my eyesight, and I was able to read it from his left shoulder: Deus Está Conosco. He frowned.
“Damnation, it's about time I learned some Portugese.” In a flash, the engraved knife was at the captured Brazilian's throat. “So, my friend, will you answer my question or not?”
“Eu te disse! Eu posso não entender Inglês!”
“I thought so.” Glas nodded slowly. Then he quickly flipped the knife around and tapped the captive's forehead with its hilt, eliciting a terrified shriek from the Brazilian. Glas roared with laughter and clapped him amiably on the shoulder, nearly knocking him from the corporal's thick arms.
“Hah! He thought I was going to kill him! He really did!” The young general's laugh was so infectuous that I had to join in, even though the joke he had played was undeniably cruel. The unfortunate prisoner was trembling from his hair to his steel-capped cavalry boots, and he was making rather piteous whimpering noises.
“Ah, let him go, Bonham,” chuckled the General. “He won't run.” [Corporal Bonham] complied, releasing the officer's arms and pushing him violently forward. The Brazilian tumbled forward right into the general, who roared with laughter again and placed a large palm on his chest to steady him. “Easy, lad,” he said, even though he, at twenty-nine, was obviously younger than most of the officers present (including the Brazilian and myself).
General Glas turned to me. “Bledar!” he roared, nearly startling me out of my boots. “Do you still have some of that wonderful tobacco from Louisiana?”
I nodded frantically, fumbling with the buttons on my breast pocket to extricate the tobacco. When I had it, he nodded approvingly and withdrew his clay pipe from God-knows where. He pressed the tobacco into the pipe, then struck a match and lit the tobacco.
Blowing smoke from his nostrils, he grinned at the captive Brazilian again. “Bring me a translator,” he said. “I have an idea.”
A few minutes later, [Major Samuel Lewis de Coverley] appeared, leading a young Brazilian local by the arm. Glas nodded and smiled to the boy, who returned the smile uneasily. Glas said, “I would like you to tell our friend, Lieutenant Rodrigues, that i have a job offer for him.”
The boy turned to the captive and said, “O General deseja saber se você estaria interessado em trabalhar para ele.”
The captive slowly answered, "Que tipo de trabalho?"
The boy turned to the general and said, in broken English that my foreign ears could barely understand, “He wants to know what job.”
The general's grin widened, a feat that I thought was impossible, and he replied, “I'm fluent in Greek, German, Swedish, and French. I wish to add Portugese to my list, and I need a tutor.”
The boy had another exchange with the Brazilian lieutenant, who looked completely shocked. I was quite taken aback myself; I was expecting him to use the Brazilian to replace the negro butler who had been sent bck to the URAS, but it seemed Glas had other plans.
The Lieutenant nodded cautiously. “Sim,” he said. General Glas seized his hand and pumped it up and down while the other officers looked on curiously.
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant!” he roared, nearly giving the poor man an accidental arm amputation.
It was then, of course, that General [Gilberto] Gil decided to ruin the peaceful morning. A shell landed about thirty feet away, kicking up a great fountain of dirt and grass. I dove to the ground, as did most of the men. Glas, on the other hand, barely gave the explosion a glance. Instead, he shook his fist towards the distant walls of Boa Vista, yelling what I assumed were some Portugese phrases he had picked up from locals. “Gil! Você ovelhas porra-bastardo! Filho duma puta!”
Considering the look on the Brazilian officer's face, I could only wonder what kind of locals the General had been mingling with.
It's pretty short. If anyone here is Portugese or Brzilian, I profusely apologize for butchering your language with google Translate. ------------
The following are excerpts from the War Memoirs of Colonel Bledar Kostandin Baris, an Albanian in the service of the Austro-Hungarian Army who was attached as an observer to the army of General Hannibal Glas during the Peruvian Wars of the early 1840s. They remain today to be one of the most accurate and detailed accounts of the personality of Glas during this early time in his career. Baris was later killed in 1849 early in the Great War, but his memoirs (first published in 1847) survive to this day.
Colonel Bledar Kostandin Baris
Boa Vista, Brazil
April 10, 1844
“Não! Por favor! Eu não sei o que você está dizendo!”
The captive Brazilian lieutenant shook his head rapidly, eyes wide and frantic. His arms were pinned behind his back by one of the burly American corporals attathced to the headquarters unit, and the officer's knife that should have been safely in a sheath on his belt was being twirled lazily by [General Glas's] fingers. General Hannibal Edward Iordanu-Glas was a giant of a man, easily six feet five inches tall, with a wild mane of dark brown hair and stormy gray eyes. He wore a dirty, rumpled corporal's uniform, and there were obvious grass stains on his knees where he had been kneeling in the field in which the Expeditionary Force was bivouacked.
Glas continued fiddling with the knife, reading the engraving in Porugese on it. I always prided myself on my eyesight, and I was able to read it from his left shoulder: Deus Está Conosco. He frowned.
“Damnation, it's about time I learned some Portugese.” In a flash, the engraved knife was at the captured Brazilian's throat. “So, my friend, will you answer my question or not?”
“Eu te disse! Eu posso não entender Inglês!”
“I thought so.” Glas nodded slowly. Then he quickly flipped the knife around and tapped the captive's forehead with its hilt, eliciting a terrified shriek from the Brazilian. Glas roared with laughter and clapped him amiably on the shoulder, nearly knocking him from the corporal's thick arms.
“Hah! He thought I was going to kill him! He really did!” The young general's laugh was so infectuous that I had to join in, even though the joke he had played was undeniably cruel. The unfortunate prisoner was trembling from his hair to his steel-capped cavalry boots, and he was making rather piteous whimpering noises.
“Ah, let him go, Bonham,” chuckled the General. “He won't run.” [Corporal Bonham] complied, releasing the officer's arms and pushing him violently forward. The Brazilian tumbled forward right into the general, who roared with laughter again and placed a large palm on his chest to steady him. “Easy, lad,” he said, even though he, at twenty-nine, was obviously younger than most of the officers present (including the Brazilian and myself).
General Glas turned to me. “Bledar!” he roared, nearly startling me out of my boots. “Do you still have some of that wonderful tobacco from Louisiana?”
I nodded frantically, fumbling with the buttons on my breast pocket to extricate the tobacco. When I had it, he nodded approvingly and withdrew his clay pipe from God-knows where. He pressed the tobacco into the pipe, then struck a match and lit the tobacco.
Blowing smoke from his nostrils, he grinned at the captive Brazilian again. “Bring me a translator,” he said. “I have an idea.”
A few minutes later, [Major Samuel Lewis de Coverley] appeared, leading a young Brazilian local by the arm. Glas nodded and smiled to the boy, who returned the smile uneasily. Glas said, “I would like you to tell our friend, Lieutenant Rodrigues, that i have a job offer for him.”
The boy turned to the captive and said, “O General deseja saber se você estaria interessado em trabalhar para ele.”
The captive slowly answered, "Que tipo de trabalho?"
The boy turned to the general and said, in broken English that my foreign ears could barely understand, “He wants to know what job.”
The general's grin widened, a feat that I thought was impossible, and he replied, “I'm fluent in Greek, German, Swedish, and French. I wish to add Portugese to my list, and I need a tutor.”
The boy had another exchange with the Brazilian lieutenant, who looked completely shocked. I was quite taken aback myself; I was expecting him to use the Brazilian to replace the negro butler who had been sent bck to the URAS, but it seemed Glas had other plans.
The Lieutenant nodded cautiously. “Sim,” he said. General Glas seized his hand and pumped it up and down while the other officers looked on curiously.
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant!” he roared, nearly giving the poor man an accidental arm amputation.
It was then, of course, that General [Gilberto] Gil decided to ruin the peaceful morning. A shell landed about thirty feet away, kicking up a great fountain of dirt and grass. I dove to the ground, as did most of the men. Glas, on the other hand, barely gave the explosion a glance. Instead, he shook his fist towards the distant walls of Boa Vista, yelling what I assumed were some Portugese phrases he had picked up from locals. “Gil! Você ovelhas porra-bastardo! Filho duma puta!”
Considering the look on the Brazilian officer's face, I could only wonder what kind of locals the General had been mingling with.
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Great posts Berlinguer and Nevermore!
Many thanks everyone. It's fun to write this stuff and I look forward to contributing much more to American King. I had a good time writing this. Hopefully the next update won't be so long in between the first version of my post and the one above.
You're welcome! And yeah, 1849 sure looks like it'll be interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word. Sounds good, though. I really like TLs where there's focus on smaller details most people don't generally think of, such as art, music or architecture. It can't all be battles and politics, even if they do cause the most noticeable changes, of course.
Pretty excited to see how Agostino is going to shape his adopted country...
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That was fun, wiiguy. Not sure why, but Col. Baris up there reminds me of how Hong Xiuquan described Jesus.
One of the things that was great about this is that I'm not really sure where General Glas' career will be heading. Napoleon's update in the main thread describes him as being up-and-coming (seemingly like a bridge between Andrew's rule and John's) guy, and a casual glance through the wiki suggests he'll be a martyr for something someday, hopefully not too soon. I don't know Portuguese since I can't speak for how accurate that all is, but it doesn't come out looking weird when put back through Portuguese to English on Google Translator. One thing that I did find a bit wonky was the formatting of names here, however. The []s were a bit distracting. Perhaps next time they could be edited out?
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Thanks, Nevermore! I dunno what Napoleon has planned for my guy (I just know he will die in a very Rasputin-esque way ) but it should be interesting.
As for the correction, I guess I could remove them.
I dunno what Napoleon has planned for my guy (I just know he will die in a very Rasputin-esque way ) but it should be interesting.As for the correction, I guess I could remove them.