Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

ferdi254

Banned
Getting the Epione across the Atlantic would be a major undertaking. One can do this but the logistics required would throw the story of it just being a nice little holiday trip out of the window.
 

ferdi254

Banned
You can but do you know the cost of this? It will turn from a nice summer vacation to a planned marketing tour sponsored by the government (even if Kiki would pay for it) in the eyes of the public. No way Kiki would consent to such a stunt.
 
Costly yes but just think of all the goodwill generated that money can't buy especially if it is a trip to the Amazon River Basin and Kiki is helping to bring medical care to people who don't have regular access to it.
Kiki has an international reputation that has her placed every year as one of the most admired women in the world and a visit from her is second in prestige to a visit from Kaiser Friedrich and Kaiserin Suga.
 
I think the problem isn't so much the logistics as it is getting Kiki to go along with it if it is an isolated visit. She would view it as a nakedly political and super expensive stunt and would likely need a direct order either from her military superiors or directly from the Kaiser. Her brother at least knows that doing so is likely to trigger a major depressive episode in her for no real gain.

I think this could happen, but it would need to be Kiki's idea and probably wouldn't involve the Epione.

What about a German civilian scientific expedition up the Amazon with Kiki as the chief medical officer of the expedition? Equatorial regions are good for launch sites and observatories...
 

ferdi254

Banned
Plus Argentine and Brazil are not exactly best friends and both the USA and Brazil certainly would not like the prospect of somebody from Germany doing what they should be doing.
 
Rivers in Asia would be a good place for Kiki. It could be the use of a barge like the one she has to help the local medical service, and she can make the trip to help train. Ganges, Mekong, Irrawaddy come to mind in friendly Countries, something like the hospital ships but for river use.
 
The British Empire might object to the Irrawaddy and the Ganges as they're both areas of British interest.

The Mekong on the other hand is somewhere she would be very, very welcome.
 
Part 132, Chapter 2249
Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Nine



10th September 1973

Tempelhof, Berlin

They were walking as a group, enjoying a beautiful early autumn afternoon. Looking out for Angelica as she started at the same school was what was expected of Sophie. She had been hearing about that for months, but unexpectedly found herself doing that for Gretchen Schultz as well.

It seemed that there was an explosion of sorts that had happened in the Schultz household. Though Gretchen had been vague about exactly what had happened. Just before the ceremony where her father was ennobled by Opa von Richthofen, Gretchen’s brother found out that she had no real reason to attend the Wahlstatt Institution and that her entire reason for being there was to avoid Anna, her older sister. The shocking part was that Sabastian had gone to the wall in order to see to it that his youngest sister didn’t have to make the sort of compromises that Wahlstatt forced its students to make. Gretchen said that for years she had thought of her brother as being extremely affable, but not particularly bright. Him going toe to toe with their father and explaining exactly why he felt that Wahlstatt was no place for her, and not just because she was a girl, was rather unexpected.

It seemed that Gretchen’s parents had been looking to make different arrangements for her anyway but were happy that Sabastian had stood up for her. Like always, Anna didn’t fail to be a disappointment. As her parents were telling Gretchen about their discissions, Anna had pretended that she was retching behind their backs. Gretchen said that she was glad that Mathilda, that strange girl who was often a guest of the Richthofen family, had been driving Anna nuts over the prior academic year and would probably continue to do so in the future.

That was all well and good, but it was very noticeable that Kat had not been there to see them off to their first day back at school like she had in previous years. Douglas said that even adults need a holiday themselves occasionally, which he had said several times before. Sophie was starting to have her doubts though. If Kat had gone on holiday like he had said, why had he remained in Berlin? She had overheard Petia and Darya talking in Russian, a language that she had picked up enough of by living in Kat’s household to get the gist of the conversation. It sounded like Kat had done something crazy, even by the loose standards that Sophie applied to what had happened around Kat in the past. They mentioned that Kat had in fact gone on a holiday, but to someplace discrete where she could regain her bearings.

Sophie absolutely hated that idea the instant she heard it.

There was nothing wrong with Kat. She saw the world how it really was with no illusions and had always told Sophie that she was nothing like the monster that her mother had described her as. That Sophie would do amazing things with her life. If Kat really didn’t have all her cups in the cupboard, then did that mean that what she said to Sophie was a part of that? Needless to say, Sophie didn’t accept that, not for an instant. Whatever was actually going on, Petia had to be mistaken.



Lenk im Simmental, Switzerland

Kat knew that privacy was wishful thinking in the clinic, especially when she considered what had landed her here. Still, she had to fight the urge to thump Doctor Cremonesi when he appeared suddenly as she was getting dressed as it were. She had been soaking in the one of the thermal baths that were supposed to be curative, it was what had made this region renowned before winter sports had become a thing over the last few decades. The constant presence of the attendants was getting to be trying though.

“There is a major story in today’s papers that I thought you might be interested in” Cremonesi said as they walked from the changing room back to the cafeteria in the main building of the clinic.

“I have been trying to ignore the outside world” Kat replied as she sat down at one of the tables. She couldn’t help but notice a small group of the other women huddled around a table across the room, occasionally they would giggle over something they were looking at. They were exactly as Peter Holz had suggested that they would be. Bored housewives who had come to the clinic for a bit of excitement in a controlled setting. To try the LSD/MDMA cocktail that Kat had done years earlier, or any number of other drugs such as cannabis. There were rumors about sexual experimentation that went on as well. Kat was decidedly not here for any of that. Paying attention for the potentially dangerous side effects of the experimental drug, Fluoxetine, that they had her on was bad enough. The drug would supposedly make her occasional black moods manageable, but Kat was skeptical about that. What wasn’t lost on Kat was that those women were the wives of Government Officials, Intelligencia, and the Captains of industry. The potential for mischief by an intelligence agency was extremely high in a place like this.

“Still, you mentioned that you are a part of the Imperial Court of Germany” Cremonesi said as he handed her a stack of newspapers. The first was the New York Times, the headlines read Daring Rescue on the High Seas, German Prince in Command and the story that followed was about how Louis Ferdinand Junior had rescued the passengers and crew off a sinking British Ferry on the North Sea. The other papers were the familiar Berliner Tageblatt, Manchester Guardian, and Times of London that all echoed the headlines of the New York Times.

“It looks like Louis is going to get a lot of medals awarded to him for this” Kat said.

“You know Prince Louis personally” Cremonesi asked.

“I was there when he was born” Kat replied, but didn’t elaborate further.
 
Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Nine
10th September 1973
Lenk im Simmental, Switzerland

Kat was decidedly not here for any of that. Paying attention for the potentially dangerous side effects of the experimental drug, Fluoxetine, that they had her on was bad enough. The drug would supposedly make her occasional black moods manageable, but Kat was skeptical about that.
wow! ITTL Eli Lilly must have either synthesised fluoxetine (later known as Prozac) and got it to human trials much earlier than IOTL. perhaps this is something else that will make Kat’s landings from her depressive episodes much softer by smoothing out the highs and lows. It might also help deal with the PTSD, but let’s hope she doesn’t suffer any of the many potential side effects.
 
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This update is where Sophie learns that even Kat is human and has flaws of her own, hopefully someone will teach Sophie that is not a bad thing and perfection is unattainable but just trying to do your best is good enough.
Bas is showing that he does has actual brains and they do work which is surprising everyone including himself.
The fact that he used them to support Gretchen is going to impress his parents especially his father Tilo because that is probably the first time he has shown positive leadership and initiative without prompting.
Kat is just to famous to be not recognized but at least she had a few days of not being the Tigress of Pankow and the Furstin of Berlin and hopefully gained some perspective and more importantly the Prozac will kick in.
 
This update is where Sophie learns that even Kat is human and has flaws of her own, hopefully someone will teach Sophie that is not a bad thing and perfection is unattainable but just trying to do your best is good enough.

Kat is just to famous to be not recognized but at least she had a few days of not being the Tigress of Pankow and the Furstin of Berlin and hopefully gained some perspective and more importantly the Prozac will kick in.
I reckon most of Kat’s wards over the years right back to Gia have had some form of hero worship going on. Sophie is heading down the well worn track of discovering your heroes are often very real people with human frailties.
 
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Part 132, Chapter 2250
Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Fifty



16th September 1973

Flensburg

Walking from the cottage he lived out into the garden, Peers Sjostedt was troubled as he often was these days. It had been raining the night before, so the air smelled of damp and mold. It was the sort of thing that he associated with autumn, more proof the seasons progressed and would continue to do so. He had encountered people who were so narcissistic that they acted as if all of it would stop when they did, but the truth was there in the seasons. No one was so important that the world would stop spinning on its axis.

Sjostedt felt like the world was going mad and he was reminded of the cynical take on the line; Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. With the additional line, Those who learn from history get to sit and helplessly watch as others make the same stupid mistakes. This was because he had made the mistake of looking at a newspaper and had seen how all the things that he had worked against his entire life were all still there in full blossom. Saber rattling between powers, crime, poverty, and malice at all levels. In the Reichstag, the Politicians spoke a good game but at the end of the day, no one heard about the Military being denied the money to purchase the latest means of blowing things up. It was hard not to feel that all that had sacrificed over the last several decades had all been for naught. That the start of the Twentieth Century had been in a muddy trench, and it seemed like it was doomed to end there. It was hard not to feel disappointed.

Being retired gave him a whole lot of time to think about these things as he went about his weekly routine. It being a Sunday, he felt like he needed to be somewhere else. It came from decades spent in the Lutheran Clergy. Frequently, he considered how the world was when Martin Luther had nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the All-Saints Church in Wittenberg, how even as things had changed radically, the world remained the same. Of course, it was easy to see how Martin Luther would probably be horrified and outraged by today’s society for all the wrong reasons. Considering the actual Witch Hunts that he had engaged in it was really no surprise. When Sjostedt compared an opinionated woman who had drawn the ire of her neighbors or the sort of trash that regularly appeared on television with the sheer potential crime that a nuclear bomb represented, it was truly no contest.

Sitting down on the bench in the garden, Sjostedt felt the ache in his chest that had been there since he had gotten shot in France a lifetime earlier. His Doctor said that the efforts to save his life had done damage to his lungs and it was something that he would have to continue to live with…

What felt like the crushing weight that suddenly landed on his chest was a bit different though? His left arm went numb, so he was unable to stop himself from falling over as darkness consumed his vision…

“I expected better from you” An all too familiar voice said, “Becoming embittered in your old age, such a waste of limited time.”

Sjostedt stood on a seashore not far from his home in Flensburg. The figure he recognized as Coyote, unlike in his past encounter, Coyote was in the guise of a young Diné warrior in the field gray uniform that the Heer wore prior to the Soviet War. Basically, Sjostedt himself from decades earlier.

“This isn’t your usual place” Sjostedt replied, this should have been the Mesa Desert of the Four Corners region of America.

“There have been too many Westerns” Coyote replied, “It became a cliché and the Diné being the toughest and smartest managed to colonize Europe with the Europeans being none the wiser. So, this is just as much my place as anywhere.”

“And it could be argued that you are a devil sent to torment me” Sjostedt said angrily.

Coyote gave him a yipping laugh.

“I thought you had a better imagination than that” Coyote said, “Being an old man who sees devils under every rock, talk about clichés.”

“Regardless” Sjostedt said, “None of this is real, you are a hallucination like before now that I am at the end.”

“No need to be so dramatic” Coyote said, “And who said that this was the end?”

“It isn’t obvious to you?” Sjostedt replied, “It is to me.”

“Fuck that” Coyote said, “You’ve unfinished business at the place where it all began.”

“Where what began?” Sjostedt asked bewildered.

“Where do you think?” Coyote said with a laugh, and Sjostedt was slammed back into… well, everything.

“We were afraid we lost you for a minute there, Pastor Sjostedt” An unfamiliar young man in the red coat of a Field Surgeon said with the sort of fake confident smile you gave someone to put them at ease. Sjostedt had given it to enough people over the years to know what it looked like.

Sjostedt was laying on the concrete path of his back garden, too weak to move, one of the newfangled plastic IV bags was hanging from the Surgeon’s hand. That had been the means by which a drug had been administered that had brought him back. Sjostedt couldn’t pretend to understand how that worked.

As he was being loaded onto a stretcher, Sjostedt saw that his housekeeper was standing there looking horrified. She must had been the one who had found him. His mind kept going back to his brief conversation with Coyote. It didn’t matter who the messenger was. Apparently, he unfinished business. But where was the beginning?
 
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The beginning, you say...

"In the beginning there was wolf Germany, and then there was pig France.
Wolf Germany was the natural enemy of pig France. (and this was good)
And so our story begins."
 
Nobel Peace Prize winner Peers Sjostedt best known for his sermon at the wedding of Crown Prince Fredrich and Princess Suga about the need for peace, love, respect, tolerance, forgiveness, and reconciliation in marriage is going back to his birthplace at the Navajo Reservation in Arizona to minister to them.
 
Nobel Peace Prize winner Peers Sjostedt best known for his sermon at the wedding of Crown Prince Fredrich and Princess Suga about the need for peace, love, respect, tolerance, forgiveness, and reconciliation in marriage is going back to his birthplace at the Navajo Reservation in Arizona to minister to them.
Nope, the place where it all started is Verdun, not where he was born, but where the story did.
 
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