A Refraction of Shadow: G. R. R. Sarcon's Legacy

[Gunnland]

Reflections on Oelarian Political Theology, Vol. I, J. Y. Halvbefaren

"Paradoxically, Olmolungring is the most isolated and the most central of Europe's nations, a most extraordinarily strange country and the mysterious heart of what is commonplace in the region... ome historians have argued, therefore, that the Great War that defined the ordinary politics of modern Europe was in turn defined by an extraordinary and obscure political thinker, Gunnar Robert Robertsson Sarcon."​

The Theologico-Political Problem of G. R. R. Sarcon, V. V. Perseifur

"Oelarian theologians have long argued the paradox that God on High was beyond the stars and simultaneously intimo interior meo, more intimately at the center of our being than our very selves... Sarcon argues there is a political analogy with Oelar, a mysteriously distant land nonetheless intimately close to the center of European politics."​

Modern Septentrionalism in Franconia, R. G. Geijer

"According to Sarcon, a political dialectic between two poles, Septentrionalism and Quietism, defines Oelarian history and by extension that of the Christian North. The septentrionalists look to the pure Christian rulers, the Knytlings or Von Nareaths for example, as God's judges on earth and defenders of good people. The quietists tremble in fear at the thought and withdraw from political judgment entirely. The Sarconist remembers that there must be a balance. The Great War was a failure of forgetting Sarcon, of radical Septentrionalism."​

​

Nokanawa

"Son of a gun." Ambassador Aethur sighed put down the printout from An Scrúdaitheoir na hÉireann, the first paper to report the Oikawan veto of Jurzan and Coronado for membership in the Council of Nations General Assembly.

"Atreifur Tomasson?" Kelsi Adamsdatter, his mistress, was characteristically formal as if to pointedly remind the ambassador at all times that they were not married. You could get away with such gross indiscretions when you lived in exile half-a-world away from Olmolungring. In fact, he was the only Oelarian ambassador besides the Ambassador to the Papal States to be outside Scanogermania proper.

He smiled at the pretty girl. "Nothing Kels, business." There was not much business as an Oelarian ambassador. Unlike the great nations, his embassy did not buzz with intelligence activity, espionage, counter-espionage. In fact, he was the only employee, although Kelsi sometimes pretended to be his secretary, although she was barely literate. Typically, Oelarian ambassadors would write occasional reports to the Foreign Ministry and, if they were Sarkonist-conservatives, to the Campanile. (In fact, Councilor Halvbefaren, the Lord Provost of the Capitollium and unofficial chief of the Campanile, was said to be generally better-informed than Foreign Minister Alvitr). Life had been lonely and boring since Gretchen Seumasdatter left him. But now... The foreign minister, he knew, wanted Olmolungring to finally join the Council of Nations. The Alvitrs are one big septentrionalist-progressive conspiracy. That was a pervasive theme of most Campanile cables.

Kelsi had come around from behind him to refill his coffee and looked over his shoulder with her big blue eyes at the paper. "Oh. Big bad Margarethe Hjovarthursdatter Alvitr is going to be worried. More work for you, dear?"

There was nothing wrong per se about joining the Council of Nations. Foreign Minister Alvitr, he knew, believed -- wrongly -- that the CON would put pressure on Olmolungring to reform its political structures. She also believed -- perhaps rightly -- that the CON membership could offer more opportunities for development assistance.

Of course it's more work for me. He smiled at Kelsi Adamsdatter. He did not keep her around, after all, for her intelligence. Intelligence was a reason to keep people away. Like myself, for instance, he mused, still with the Alvitrs on the mind.

"Yes. I will just have to dial one of Yoshikawa Katsu's people and see where we stand." Or, more likely, to assure the Oikawans two things. One, that Oelar was not about to be ruled by the pro-Franconian, progressive Alvitr faction. Or else I would be applying for Oikawan citizenship. Which would be more or less impossible, he knew. Two, that having a cautious and traditionalist nation sharing a long land border with Franken as an LFS ally, or at least a go-between for the LFS and EDF (because Sarkonists had always thought of themselves as a third way) would be a good thing.

The worst part of his job was navigating Oikawa's byzantine bureaucracy. He had seen a chart once that made his head hurt.

 

[Touzen]

Nokanawa

"And you see where I am aiming at with that probably. If you look at the chart, you can clearly see an interesting correlation, as Knut et all observed." Dr. Murakawa Saito leaned over to his silver Ringo laptop to hit one of the keys, looked over his own shoulder to make sure that the correct image was now presented to the maybe four dozens of students that sat here in this darkened - one could only hint at the rain from the sound it made as it trembled against the shutters - lecture hall of the National Institute of Political Research to listen to his excurses about The Farthest Border: Extremity in Germania and Touyou.

Of course, he thought as he looked into the faces that were facing laptop screens - chatting, are we? - or notebooks - drawing that penis is more interesting, right? - that sat before him, scattered over several rows, with a noticeable accumulation in the last rows. You couldn't care less. Want to go home. Play some games. Watch television. As if I wouldn't know. He inhaled deeply, shook his head and then crossed the arms behind his back.

"We can, basically, interpret the data in such a way as to see an astonishing similarity in the development in societies in Touyou and Germania under the impression of foreign dominance without factual control. If we look at the Jizhou of the Shun Dynasty in the 19th century and its reception of the border regions, especially Tenzing, or rather the various fiefdoms that it was composed of at that time, and now look at Germania, we will find a very similar relationship between the Knytlings and that secluded piece of land we call Oelar. Similar relationship, a strong focus on the spiritual realm with a light post character - see the script on page 52 for details - in the religious realm and.."

Within the ring of light that came from a partially opened door to the hallway a shadowy figure with the vague outline of a small middle-aged woman appeared. Murakawa pressed his eyes together.

"Yes? I am in a le.." He began to speak with an irritated voice but was interrupted by the soft and almost inaudible but decisively feminine voice of the shadowy figure that still hadn't moved one bit from its original position.

"The ministry, they called. They say it is urgent."

The lecturer sighed, closed his eyes and pushed his glasses against the back of his nose.

The ministry. Great.

"Alright, class is over for today." Flipping the switch, he initiated the bee-like mumbling, laughing and running of undergraduates that were happy to be let out of class early on a Tuesday afternoon.

"When can I call back?", Murakawa said as the last of students, a girl with a pink umbrella that was dotted with strawberries, left the room and the messenger woman had stepped closer to the man who was in the process of shutting down his laptop.

"He is still on the line. He said it was urgent." The Department for Touyou Research's secretary Tanaka Kagami nervously tapped with her feet on the ground as if to urge the clumsy intellectual to hurry up with getting his laptop back into his old leather bag.

"Well?"

"Well?" Kagami responded uncertainly.

"What is it about? I mean did he say something? I don't particularly want to come over as uninformed, you know how pedantic he is." Oh yes, he thought. He probably regrets not having been born 100 years earlier.

The laptop disappeared in the bag.

"He said something about the Foreign Minister and.."

"The Foreign Minister?", Dr. Murakawa chuckled. "What does he have to do with this?"

"Apparently he wants you in his office. Now."

Saito's eyes opened wide. "His office? Me?"

"Don't ask me. He just said something about the fact that you were needed. Honestly, I don't even know why he still wants to talk to you on the phone, to be frank. He said he has sent someone to pick you up already anyhow."

"The Foreign Minister." The Doctor shook his head as he paced down the corridor to his office.

"The Foreign Minister."

 

[Gunnland]

Nokanawa

An old report from the early 1960s supposedly originating from a smartass in Arendaal's intelligence service, the AIA, (though this may have been apocryphal, who knew?) was now infamous in diplomatic circles for anyone brushing up on Oelarian foreign policy. Infamous mostly for being funny, but also for being spot-on.

[excerpt]

Oelar is the next nation most likely to acquire nuclear weapons. A country whose energy is currently supplied by mud [peat] and dried cow shit [you heard me] will harness the power of nuclear fission. Because why!? Because a people that mostly grow up without electricity in mountainside hovels wallowing in their own feces and occasionally freezing to death somehow also seem to grow up to be the world's best theoretical physicists, and made breakthroughs at secret Franconian military sites under the mountains.

Somehow the Franconians didn't expect that WINNING THE GREAT WAR would piss the Oelarians off. The previous feudal leader of Oelar, Ludvig Karlsson Skjolden [here alone the invention of the surname does not replace the patronymic] to brutally purge all Franconian "collaborators". (Who knows how bad it would have been if Oelar lost the war!) So the Franconians didn't do a great clean-up job, reportedly, and some religious zealots have their hands on atomic bomb blueprints. WAY. TO. GO.

But there is hope. BECAUSE HE INTERPRETS THE BOOK OF REVELATION DIFFERENTLY [seriously, of all things?] the new Rigpa, Thorlakur Feargusson Gunn, has decided to destroy the atomic weapons program. That's right, he hates the Franconians just as much, but some metaphor coined by a 2nd-century Jew did the trick. OK then! The catch is that the military doesn't really care what he says; and since he is too busy praying all day, Gunn can't save Europe from a nuclear war [he is probably praying to avert a nuclear war, though].

All the Oelarian-style Christians I know back home are low-key, nice, the opposite of zealots and extremists. Not sure what happened here.

No, seriously. It's like the Order of Überwald running a country (actually they let some a cultish Order of Warrior-Monks elect their Rigpa, seriously). It is not clear that anything of value comes from this shithole, except whiskey [sic] and diamonds that have probably only caused a lot of internal strife and not turned a profit for anybody.

The rigpa has no power over his military which is dominated by some renegade clan, the Aethr and the Eirs that were elevated to power during the wartime regime of Ulf Vidkunsson Gravplass. And he doesn't have any power over the intelligence services which are still all Skjoldenites, pro-nuclear anti-Franconian people, students, what they call "right-Sarconists". And the rigpa doesn't have any power over the other cities of Oelar. It sure seems to take away the fun out of ruling a country.

Needless to say all of this drives the Franconians totally batshit-insane. The Batavians and Kryobaijanis seem to be building the base of leftist terrorist organizations in the southern mountains to hedge against Franken. The Cornavians have men on the ground to root out the communist threat. Nobody likes the Oelarians. You only come to the "Heavenly Kingdom" to stop all hell from breaking loose!

Goddamn it's cold here. I want a transfer.

Atreifur Tomasson got a laugh out of the cable, which was ubiquitous in European diplomatic folklore (though it was probably faked, it contained great truths). Ambassador Aethur had his clan name highlighted to remind him of his exile. His family had been banished in 1962 from the 'Christian lands' of Europe under the pain of death. (Theoretically that sentence would be carried out by the Campanile, his present employer.) He was born in exile in Judea and had never been to Oelar, which he realized probably made him more fiercely patriotic than he would be otherwise. Well, at least they gave me this job. He had heard that Prime Minister Roerich or someone in the foreign ministry had taken pity on him while he was teaching English in Sinhai. That or someone had received his unscrupulously-obtained "gifts" from Umbazi. And then, now, the Campanile paid him very well to tell them something at least about what went on in Oikawa. So he was not bitter like his father. In fact, he kind of liked being a colorful character.

Of course all of the information the cable contained was proved false in 1962 when the Franconians agreed to help the Oelarians build a state-of-the-art air force in exchange for destroying the secret Dovre site. Which was ironic, Aethur thought, because the entire purpose of the modern Aircommand Oelar his father had dreamed of was to protect God's realm from the Knytlings, those wayward and Faustian Oelarians who had signed a pact with the devil in exchange for worldly power.

He had heard a sermon once where the preacher said, "Satan took Jesus to the top of a high mountain and offered him all the kingdoms of the world; think of it as when Satan took Oelar to the top of Mount Kailash. Only a Knytling would accept! But God will defend Oelar."

In the same parable, it is written Thou shalt not test the LORD your God. Which is why, as he saw it, he was in Nokanawa.

 

[Gunnland]

Nokanawa

From afar, the nightscape of Nokanawa were great dark masses of glass and concrete illuminated by valleys of electric light. It was a city with a pulsing energy such as very few Oelarians would ever see, their ambassador knew. Try as the Lord Rigpa might, it is the destiny of humanity that man will live like this, Atreifur Tomasson Aethur would sometimes think.

Not that he liked the yellow bastards, but he did respect them. A famous lecture given by V. V. Perseifur had destroyed the nascent discipline of anthropology (nonphilosophical or 'scientific' anthropology) at the Capitollium. A. T. Aethur had read its brutal logic many times. Scientific anthropologists claim we can learn from other cultures. 'Question your Western bias' is their cant. Ironically, the first thing you see in other cultures is precisely that they see no need to study other cultures. To study other cultures is itself a Western bias, from Herodotus to modern anthropology. If we take the anthropologists seriously to shed our biases and learn from other cultures, we ought to throw anthropology out of the Academy, and stop worrying so much about other cultures!

Aethur took the lecture to heart. Oikawans were as ethnocentric as cultures came (even racist, some furtively whispered). An open-minded Westerner with an acute sense of irony, Aethur took this lesson to heart. The yellow bastards had an inferior culture, but you had to respect the way they had developed to harness technological power that was the envy of the world. Oelarians thought more like Oikawans than Westerners. This was something Aethur always thought might lead to a deeper understanding, a genuine, if cool, strategic relationship rather than a false friendship of warm language and lingering mistrust.

Still no word, officially, from Oikawa's Foreign Ministry on the feelers Ambassador Aethur had sent out. Just more news from Augsburg that prospective CON members had been vetoed by Nokanawa. But Oikawa was an empire of whispers. Gnomic utterances rumored to emanate from deep within the quiet government were over-analyzed and usually distorted by scurrying Western diplomats. Aethur's trade was in gossip.

And the whispers were that the foreign minister (himself!) had his eye on Oelar. Could Mount Kailash - or the semi-feudal tribes and their philosophic rulers - be a knife at the soft underbelly of Franken? Rumor had it the Oikawans' interest was piqued. But these were just rumors. And every days rumors of a Franconian takeover in Oelar grew as well.

Atreifur Tomasson Aethur was pleased that the government shake-up in his home country had put Roerich in charge of the Foreign Ministry. But he wondered if the Alvitrs would bring Oelar too close to their Franconian puppet-masters in the EDF. A good sign was that Roerich himself had gone to Hilversum to present a case for Northern Council membership. A bad sign were the rumors that Prime Minister Viereskog had been quietly exiled by Isleifur Christian Hjovarthursson Alvitr, the new 'Lord Protector', to join the Lord Rigpa in his retirement in Eiffelland.

A. T. Aethur waited for more than rumors.