Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[ejpsan]

This is what Asia has done in her quest for revenge:
She has acted not only against individuals in the BND-NAA, but also the very institution of that organization for its failure to help her, especially when it had a deep cover asset in FBI Agent John Aleshire because they did not want to potentially expose him.
We know that she was directly or indirectly involved in the deaths of two FBI Agents, one active and one retired.
She probably arranged for the Antisemitic and Anti-Slavic, Fieldhelm Busse to become the Principle Personal Aide to Heinz Kissinger thus manipulating him into being recruited by the CIA, then arranging him to receive classified and Code-Word information that he shouldn't have access to in order to pass them on to the Americans.
She used her Mentor's Daughter as a pawn in order to get things moving and by getting her exposed to the FBI, Tatiana has been rendered forever ineffective as an agent.
She has effectively single-handily successfully couped a duly elected government.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

This is what Asia has done in her quest for revenge:
She has acted not only against individuals in the BND-NAA, but also the very institution of that organization for its failure to help her, especially when it had a deep cover asset in FBI Agent John Aleshire because they did not want to potentially expose him.
We know that she was directly or indirectly involved in the deaths of two FBI Agents, one active and one retired.
She probably arranged for the Antisemitic and Anti-Slavic, Fieldhelm Busse to become the Principle Personal Aide to Heinz Kissinger thus manipulating him into being recruited by the CIA, then arranging him to receive classified and Code-Word information that he shouldn't have access to in order to pass them on to the Americans.
She used her Mentor's Daughter as a pawn in order to get things moving and by getting her exposed to the FBI, Tatiana has been rendered forever ineffective as an agent.
She has effectively single-handily successfully couped a duly elected government.

Treason doth never prosper: What's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

-Sir John Harington

 

[Othala]

She probably arranged for the Antisemitic and Anti-Slavic, Fieldhelm Busse to become the Principle Personal Aide to Heinz Kissinger

IIRC it was implied that Busse was with Kissinger before he was elected Chancellor. And even then, if this wasn't the case, other people made the actual hiring decisions - not the BND.

And that's the big problem with Ed's theory. If we assume Asia managed all that, it assumes that a lot of people did not have any agency on their own.

She almost certainly had her hand on the scale, but even a person in a powerful position like herself can only do so much without willing (and likely unknowing and uninfluenced) aid by others.

How much she was influencing? We don't know yet, but the more the more likely there was a paper trial and a variety of people suddenly reevaluating past actions. And if it was too blatant? Then parts of the story will soon make their way to the media.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

IIRC it was implied that Busse was with Kissinger before he was elected Chancellor. And even then, if this wasn't the case, other people made the actual hiring decisions - not the BND.

And that's the big problem with Ed's theory. If we assume Asia managed all that, it assumes that a lot of people did not have any agency on their own.

She almost certainly had her hand on the scale, but even a person in a powerful position like herself can only do so much without willing (and likely unknowing and uninfluenced) aid by others.

How much she was influencing? We don't know yet, but the more the more likely there was a paper trial and a variety of people suddenly reevaluating past actions. And if it was too blatant? Then parts of the story will soon make their way to the media.

My guess is that the pieces she needed for this were already in place and would’ve been in place even had she not done anything, she just took advantage of what was already there.

 

[duckie]

IIRC it was implied that Busse was with Kissinger before he was elected Chancellor. And even then, if this wasn't the case, other people made the actual hiring decisions - not the BND.

And that's the big problem with Ed's theory. If we assume Asia managed all that, it assumes that a lot of people did not have any agency on their own.

She almost certainly had her hand on the scale, but even a person in a powerful position like herself can only do so much without willing (and likely unknowing and uninfluenced) aid by others.

How much she was influencing? We don't know yet, but the more the more likely there was a paper trial and a variety of people suddenly reevaluating past actions. And if it was too blatant? Then parts of the story will soon make their way to the hadR

Or she figured out who the mole was and arranged things just so that she could extract her own personal pound of flesh in the resulting chaos. I don't think that she killed the active FBI agent (I my opinion that was done by the CIA - handler of Busse in an moment of blind panic to protect his source), but it gave her a scent of who the mole was.
She confirmed it by planting specific info for him to pass on. The killing of retired agent was done by outside free lancer sout of Russian Crime Scene without any official personal involved.

 

[ejpsan]

Busse was with Kissinger before The Patagonia War, he was the unnamed aide that Kat passed in the hallway after Kissinger as the Opposition Party foreign policy spokesperson, briefed Kaiser Louis Ferdinand before his abdication.

 

[Bronze Centurion]

Or she figured out who the mole was and arranged things just so that she could extract her own personal pound of flesh in the resulting chaos.

This was my take as well. I think at some point she caught the mole, but instead of turning him in she used him to get revenge on everyone who had wronged her and then burned down the whole operation once she was finished.

 

[Tamarind77]

This was my take as well. I think at some point she caught the mole, but instead of turning him in she used him to get revenge on everyone who had wronged her and then burned down the whole operation once she was finished.

That and Tatiana makes it so easy with how she's like Kat and Kristina. Always trying to do something, which makes it easy for her to say 'yes' when someone goes 'wanna go break shit with me?'

Like, she was meant to stay in the Embassy and never leave. But when a guy outside her chain of command wants her to go out on a mission, she jumps at the chance. Even when she knows that Asia is hunting a mole and explicitly tells her so. Making use of her inevitable breakout is just like someone trained by Kat and the BND.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Seven Hundred



21st July 1978

Langeoog, East Frisian Islands

Kat was sitting on the porch of her house on the beach watching as Asia and her son Heinrich, or Henri as he liked to be called, were walking along the tideline with Kris. Kat was a bit astonished that Henri was going to be turning fifteen next week, it made Kat wonder where the years went. As far as Kat tell he was a normal enough teenager with an interest in girls, cars, and football in no particular order. Asia and Kris had been nudging him towards going to University, but despite having never really known his father, Ludwig von Hesse, Henri was considering a few other options.

Anne, Judita, and Lenni had arrived the night before with Lenni and Anne’s respective children further disrupting things in the beach house. That was much to the annoyance of Marie Alexandra whose hope had been a couple of peaceful weeks on Langeoog before the horde of vacationers arrived at the start of the official holiday season next month. She really liked it here during the off-season weekdays when she had the whole beach more or less to herself. Now Marie was having to put up with a full house.

The impromptu reunion of Kat’s girls had been unplanned, but having everyone free came so rarely these days so they had seized the opportunity. This had come on the heels of Asia’s announcement this week that she was resigning from being an Instructor for the BND Academy in Falkensee and would no longer be Mistress of the Keys of the Imperial Court. She had told Freddy and Suga that the events of the prior days were proof to her that she was no longer effective in the role that she had played for so long, probably too long when it came down to it. They needed to find new Mistress of the Keys who had a better understanding of the times they were living in. There had been a mole in the highest levels of the Government and like so many others she had not seen what should have been painfully obvious. Suga had been a bit put out by that development having only recently gotten the Maid of the Chamber, Kat’s daughter Marie, living in the same time zone even if it was only for a couple months. There was talk about trying to call Gia, but Kat knew that she spent her summers at her house in the Trans-Baikal specifically because it was impossible to reach her there.

Kris had told Anne that it was probably for the best because Asia letting that part of her life go. A few months earlier Asia had told Kris something that she had not told anyone. About how Doctors and Orderlies at Danvers had total control of her, and what they had done was just unspeakable. Asia had described what the electroshock had been like, how it felt like she had died a thousand times. Yet it had been afterwards, when she had escaped from that hellish place that the most devastating thing had been learning that rescue had come at the cost of everything that Asia had loved most for the second time in her life. It had been her role in the Court of the Empress and her connection with the BND that had taken so much from her. From what Kat had seen, while Asia hadn’t necessarily found happiness, there was an acceptance of her past. Perhaps Kris was correct about these things.



Pusan, Korea

“I thought that the First Division got this guy last year?” Erich said as the briefing concluded.

This was a briefing of the Leutnants and Senior Noncoms of the Company now that they had finally received the orders that they had been waiting for. A self-styled Pirate King had been operating out of the Riau Archipelago as well as the Northern Coasts of Borneo and Java. Apparently, he had been causing trouble for the British and the Dutch for years. It had been his indiscriminate raiding of shipping through the Malacca Strait that had brought German involvement, though during the briefing, Hauptmann Dunkel had mentioned that pretty much everyone in the region wanted this guy to become very dead, the sooner the better, and this time they wanted to see a corpse. The High Seas Fleet was sending a strong element of the Pacific Squadron and that included Erich’s Company to help make that happen.

“Some cockroaches are really good at avoiding getting stomped on” Karl said. That was probably the most apt description for what would probably be less a pirate hunt and more of an anti-partisan campaign in the islands of the South Seas. While the Hauptmann hadn’t spelled it out explicitly, this would probably keep them busy for a considerable amount of time.

“And what are we supposed to do with our American problem?” Erich asked. Erich’s Platoon still had the American Gunnery Sergeant attached to it. Not that Erich found the American to be a bad guy, he just wasn’t sure how much he wanted Tyrone Lee around if they were in the field and things got hairy.

“Let him see” Karl replied, “He is here to observe and in this case our superiors want him doing exactly that. In the spirit of International Cooperation, of course.”

There was a round of laughter about that.

 

[jlckansas]

Marie wants some peace and quiet, send her out to Gia's place into that region of Russia. It might not be the beach but it would be far enough out in the sticks and without anyone around except people who are going to leave you alone to be worth it. She might have a chance to connect with someone else who just might understand some of what has happened to her that is not a relative, whether blood for not.

 

[Salamander]

Marie has just discovered that, while she and her immediate family don't consider themselves royalty, the entire rest of the planet up to and including her Emperor DOES consider them to be royalty. Thus Marie's feelings as of present as she is definitely smart enough to realise that she has been pretending not to notice those gilded cage bars for her entire life, and that she no longer has that option.

 

[ejpsan]

Glad that Anne is still accepted by The Sisterhood, the published diaries of Anne has probably shown The Sisterhood in a very heroic light and with time they had gained perspective.

Mothra has flapped its wings in the Dutch East Indies as ITTL there is no Nazi Germany and the Netherlands are never occupied, plus without participation in The European War, they can concentrate on the Japanese in the Pacific.
IOTL, the leaders of the Independence Movement in the DEI collaborated with the Japanese, and after the war the Netherlands wanted to hold them accountable for it but the Americans supported the independence movement and used their considerable financial pressure to force the Netherlands to grant independence for Indonesia.
ITTL, the leaders of the DEI independent movement probably also collaborated with the Japanese, but the Netherlands were able to limit the scope of the Japanese invasion, and thus the influence of the leaders of the independence movement.
ITTL after the war, the Netherlands most likely were able to captured most of the leaders and executed them without any interference from the Americans because the Netherlands were not financially beholden to the United States and were able to tell the Americans what they can do with their support of the DEI independence movement.
I could see the Netherlands slowly decolonize the DEI into separate countries instead of the massive country of Indonesia, and having much more influence there along with basing rights.
The pirates could be the remnants of the independence movement, and have turned to piracy to “finance” their movement, it really just enrich themselves.

 

[The Southeast]

Mothra has flapped its wings in the Dutch East Indies as ITTL there is no Nazi Germany and the Netherlands are never occupied, plus without participation in The European War, they can concentrate on the Japanese in the Pacific.
IOTL, the leaders of the Independence Movement in the DEI collaborated with the Japanese, and after the war the Netherlands wanted to hold them accountable for it but the Americans supported the independence movement and used their considerable financial pressure to force the Netherlands to grant independence for Indonesia.
ITTL, the leaders of the DEI independent movement probably also collaborated with the Japanese, but the Netherlands were able to limit the scope of the Japanese invasion, and thus the influence of the leaders of the independence movement.
ITTL after the war, the Netherlands most likely were able to captured most of the leaders and executed them without any interference from the Americans because the Netherlands were not financially beholden to the United States and were able to tell the Americans what they can do with their support of the DEI independence movement.
I could see the Netherlands slowly decolonize the DEI into separate countries instead of the massive country of Indonesia, and having much more influence there along with basing rights.
The pirates could be the remnants of the independence movement, and have turned to piracy to “finance” their movement, it really just enrich themselves.

It would be both interesting and amusing if the pirate turned out to be an OTL top Indonesian politician such as Suharto or Nasution.

 

[Dan]

It would be both interesting and amusing if the pirate turned out to be an OTL top Indonesian politician such as Suharto or Nasution.

The odds of it being Suharto are quite high

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Glad that Anne is still accepted by The Sisterhood, the published diaries of Anne has probably shown The Sisterhood in a very heroic light and with time they had gained perspective.

They were understandably angry with Anne because she depicted as she saw them and they weren't prepared for the public focus on them.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Seven Hundred One



26th July 1978

Langeoog, East Frisian Islands

The weekend prior Marie Alexandra had found that she had her mother and all the Little Birds along with their children present at the beach house. The result had been a scene of complete chaos. She had been hoping for a bit of quiet once they had left only to have Henriette show up with Alice and Sabastian the next. Marie knew that she probably should have been a bit put out because Henriette had not told her that she was coming from Montreal, but as she watched Henriette and Alice’s interactions with Sabastian, Marie knew that this was one of those situations that she understood wasn’t about her. There was also the consideration that Henriette had gone out of her way to visit her when to Marie’s regret, she had no idea that her friend was even in the country. There were also the profound cultural differences that were a shock to Henriette’s sensibilities. That was something that Marie had actually joked about for years, now having Henriette there in person sort of killed the humorous angle.

Then just as things were settling down again, Suga happened.

It was lucky that Marie had gone to Wilhelmshaven a few days earlier to restock the pantry and the Empress’ advance team had brought some additions of their own. Having Suga show up for luncheon or tea with nothing on hand would have been the sort of faux pas that Marie would have been crucified over.

This wasn’t the first time that an Empress had come to the house on Langeoog. There had been the awkward visit by then Empress Kira before Marie had been born that had become family lore. Marie remembered a number of times when Empress Charlotte had come for informal meetings with Marie’s mother. This was, however, the first time that an Empress had come to the East Frisian Islands looking for Marie specifically. Not that there was any trouble with that. Henriette’s presence was a complication. Marie having told Suga in the past about how serious the relationship was between her and Sabastian. Suga’s thinking was that Sabastian’s father was a Markgraf no matter how rough his personal origins were. That meant that Suga took a considerable interest in just who Henriette was and had a whole lot of questions. How had she met Sabastian? Was Henriette still attending University? How old was Alice? Was Alice looking forward to starting school?

While the Empress went out of her way to keep things light, Suga was keeping it to questions where she could read between the lines rather than delving into uncomfortable topics directly. Marie was acutely aware that it was very much a job interview. She had been introduced to Empress Kira just a few hours after her birth, so there had never been a time when she had not been a part of that world. That was why it had been an easy choice to be Kammerfräulein, the highest-ranking Maid of Honor in the Imperial Court. Henriette didn’t seem to realize what was happening. For her the Imperial Court was something from a movie set in the Eighteenth Century. That was when Suga invited Henriette to the upcoming quarterly meeting of the Order of Louise.

The Charlottenburg Palace where that meeting took place was as close to a time machine as Marie had ever encountered. Those who were at that meeting in the grand ballroom might as well be in the Eighteenth Century. Henriette had no idea what a lion’s den that was and that they needed to carefully consider Suga’s motivations.



Blue Ridge International Airport, Fairfax County, Virginia

Martin Paget was waiting in the International Departures section waiting for the Lufthansa flight that would take them home. There had not been a great deal of fanfare surrounding their repatriation after the midair collision that had destroyed their plane along with the Interceptor that had accidentally entered the dangerous wing vortices that the long wings of a Gänsegeier Reconnaissance plane generated. That was probably a blessing. Martin had never learned what had happened to the American Pilot, but he could only imagine what his counterparts in the US Navy would have had to say after they had fished him out of the Atlantic, if that was what had happened.

Even though they were not supposed to be interrogated beyond the crash investigation. Their time aboard the USS Saratoga had not been particularly enjoyable. JoJo had the worst time of it by far though. Finding herself as a German woman aboard a ship with thousands of Sailors whose minds had been corrupted by all sorts of stupid notions that had been spread by American pornographers was a particular sort of Hell. She had spent the entire time locked in a stateroom that was normally used by an Admiral if one had been aboard. Martin, Poldi, and Rochus had been shoved into what could only be assumed to normally be part of the Junior Enlisted Quarters if the general lack of cleanliness and the smell were anything to judge by. Poldi had made it clear that unless US Naval Intelligence was completely incompetent then there were probably listening devices about. So they had avoided conversation right up until the Saratoga had docked at Norfolk, that was where they had been greeted by a team from the Embassy. Martin recalled that there had been a man who came across like every other BND flunky that he had ever met who had fading bruises on his face and an arm in a cast. When Martin had asked what had happened to him, one of the other staffers had said “She wasn’t satisfied with merely telling him no.”

Now, Martin was finally returning to Germany and an uncertain future.

 

[jlckansas]

Paget is going to be surprised because he did everything him and his crew was supposed to do and not cause a problem when it could have turned out bad, very bad. They stayed out of sight and out of mind and did not let anything be a problem on the Saratoga, if anything he will be asked to work with the SEER people to develop parts of the curriculum of their training.

 

[Rinasoir]

Well, I think I can guess that one of Suga's motivations would probably be to trying to help Henriette along as an additional "not-German" in the Imperial Circle not only helps to bring additional insights to the organisation, which always are useful. I can think of a couple of different angles, but that seems the most Occams Razor one, and by helping Henriette along and, essentially, blessing any future union between her and Bas, she could cultivate a very strong loyalty from Henriette.

Right now it's all about sizing up if it is actually worth the investment of time and effort on Suga's part, as there is no point in doing that if it would turn out to be a poor investment.

But I'm guessing being a dear friend of Marie's, as well as by all appearances a good mother, tend to be two big marks in the plus columns.

 

[ejpsan]

Suga wants Marie to take Asia's old job, but that would be a mistake.
One, Marie needs to be a little bit more "seasoned" and experienced then she is now, two, it would be best served for everyone concerned that Marie goes to Trinity Law School in order that Marie can hone her "BS" detector mind, Kaiser Friedrich would probably point that out to Suga, three, and most importantly, Marie doesn't want the job and be forced into a box that she is not ready for.

 

[Salamander]

Martin recalled that there had been a man who came across like every other BND flunky that he had ever met who had fading bruises on his face and an arm in a cast. When Martin had asked what had happened to him, one of the other staffers had said “She wasn’t satisfied with merely telling him no.”

That is a perfect cover story for what Tatiana did to him, because a) he definitely had it coming, one way or another, b) because of his reputation as a "ladies' man" and who Tatiana is, more importantly who her mother is, absolutely no-one in the embassy would be surprised by her suddenly beating the crap out of him. No-one messes with the cub of a Tigress, especially a fully grown cub with her own set of teeth & claws. Once the story spreads around D.C., it will even help Tatiana with the more secretive aspects of her diplomatic career. After all, no sane, self-respecting intelligence agency would dream of using someone with a known temper, how ever justified, as a field agent. Preposterous! Even if a certain member of the FBI knows differently, he has his own reasons for keeping that info quiet.