Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[Peabody-Martini]

I just keep thinking that if Gerta was to hear Mathilda's take on the various mishmash of myths with a very feminist bent, she would encourage Mathilda's to adapt them in to the modern world, which then becomes either hit movies or highly rated television shows that are sold to networks around the world.

One of the details of this timeline is that you have people like Mathilda who are a product of their lives up until this point. For the first decade or so of her life, Mathilda lived and breathed the German and Nordic traditions that she is poking fun at, all while not being aware that she was within what is essentially a high demand religious cult. Her father, who had deliberately kept her out of the social system, followed a set set of beliefs that are all too familiar to those of us who understand the sequence of events that happened in Germany a few decades earlier in our timeline with the political movement and despotic leaders. Oddly, the feminist bent that Mathilda has taken on since has she received a Classical Education and her dislike of how women are depicted is not exactly treading over new ground. The criticism of Greek mythology on those grounds goes back centuries.

And BTW, if you think that Odin was a complete dick in the Nordic sagas, he has got nothing on Zeus.

 

[dxe131]

I wonder what is the state of Magna books ITTL and how well known they are to the West?

You mean MANGA?

 

[Dan]

You mean MANGA?

No, magna because they're huge and you have to carta them around.



I'll get my coat...

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Or, TTL’s version of Xena is German…

I'd watch it.

And BTW, if you think that Odin was a complete dick in the Nordic sagas, he has got nothing on Zeus.

Hera was quite the bitch, and definitely spiteful. but its not like she wasn't ..... completely unjustified when her husband wants to dick-wave everywhere. She just went too far....at times

 

[LordVorKon]

Hera was quite the bitch, and definitely spiteful. but its not like she wasn't ..... completely unjustified when her husband wants to dick-wave everywhere. She just went too far....at times

Nearly all of the Olympian gods are portrayed as rather horrid "people". In Hera's case, she has a habit of getting mad at her philandering husband, but then because she can't actually do anything meaningful to Zeus directly, she takes her jealous anger out on the unfortunate mortal woman who happened to catch Zeus's eye that week. Women, I might point out, who were rarely entirely willing in the first place.

 

[Rinasoir]

It's mythology, the characters are supposed to be a larger than life exaggeration as they are an allegory for understanding a fundamental aspect of either humanity or nature.

People's ascribing more "human" characteristics is getting away from the point of why it exists in the first place IMO. The Pantheon doesn't matter, be it Norse, Greek or Christian, it's all just made up stories to allow folks to accept a story and move on with their day.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixteen



2nd February 1980

Tempelhof, Berlin

It was one of those rare winter days when it was so clear that everything seemed to be in incredibly sharp focus. For Kat it was the last thing she wanted to see. It was a day like this one that had irrevocably changed the course of her life and ended with her in the hospital. To this day people thought that her actions had been heroic, but she long ago concluded that was only after staggering amount of papering over her personal failures that day. Kat had the ringing in her left ear as a reminder of that. People had died because she had been slow on the uptake, now after forty-one years she was being told that she was one of the last remaining survivors of that incident. Which was a complete farce. And like with most years at this time, there was a spike of interest in Kat. As much as she would love to turn a machine gun, or better yet, a flamethrower, on the journalists who pestered her, it was Kat’s understanding that dealing with them that way was sort of illegal. She had hoped that with Kristina being back in the news again they would have forgotten about her, but there was no such luck.

That was why Kat was holed up in her house as much as she had come to hate it. It wasn’t that she had any hate for her home. It had always been a place of shelter for her. What she hated was feeling like a prisoner…

It was then that Kat’s melancholy was interrupted by noise from the library. As she reluctantly got up from behind her office desk, she felt the too familiar pain in her back. It was what was termed a “Service-Related Injury” and had resulted in a KZS Doctor telling her that she had a condition that might eventually require surgery to correct, somewhat. It would possibly reduce the amount of pain she was in, but at the cost of her ability to move if it worked as planned. She was understandably reluctant to agree to that. Despite having retired years ago, Peter Holz regularly called Kat to check how she was doing and when they had talked about it he reminded her that she had taken what was equivalent to a hard blow from a 10-kilogram sledgehammer to her back. That wasn’t without Long-term consequences.

Entering the house’s library, Kat saw that there were five young women present, two of them were the last of the girls who Kat had taken in, talking to each other. It might have seemed strange that she had built a family, not just with her biological children, but eleven more who had needed a place to go, twelve if you included Anne, whose daughter Lina was in the library with the others. It was a bit strange that Lina was now in University. Had it really been so long? She had recently changed her surname from Kauffmann to her mother’s maiden name, Frank, after being annoyed by her father once too often. Kat had not reached a conclusion about that yet. She was arguing with Angelica over what music to put on. Angelica wanted to listen to the Moondogs’ Spiraling album, which was an odd choice considering the role that one of the members of that band had played in her life. While she had not yet completed her secondary education, Angelica was interested in studying Archaeology at University next year with the main focus having shifted quite a bit over the last few years. First it had been Rome, then China, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Egypt since she had gone there over the Easter Holiday last year. Kat figured that meant that her foster daughter was going to lead quite an adventurous life once she went out into the world.

Sophie was talking with Gabriele and Franziska as they were spreading the materials from the day’s lectures on the table. It was the first time that Kat had seen Sophie in a few days with her being kept busy lately. When Kat had established the fitness studio with the help of Malcolm, it had been an interesting diversion. The fact that she didn’t have Sophie underfoot this winter had been a happy accident. The idea had come from conversations where Marie had talked at length about the athletic club she had been a member of in Montreal, and Kat had realized that there might easily be a demand for a place like that in Berlin which was not attached to a Football Club or training Boxers. Malcolm’s climbing wall and presence of not just Sophie, but the other members of her Cycling team made it different as well. The thought of Malcolm reminded Kat of how she was filled with dread every time she thought about the Mountaineering expedition he was a part of. Everything that she had heard suggested that the mountain was absolutely lethal, which she understood was part of its allure. Malcolm had spent his life being discounted for reasons that were not his fault, so he saw reaching that summit as a way to prove all of his detractors wrong. The thing was that it was entirely unnecessary. Kat knew that the Alpenkorps had contacted him. All they cared about was that he was on the verge of receiving a Doctorate in Computer Science, had attended the Arctic Training School near Bad Reichenhall, and was a Mountaineer of note. They were giving Malcolm everything that he ever wanted after the Luftwaffe had basically shoved him into a hole to watch a monitor screen and ignored him for the last decade.

“Aunt Kat” Lina said as she noticed Kat standing in the doorway. “We aren’t bothering you. Are we?”

All of them were staring at Kat.

“No, not at all” Kat replied.

 

[Hoyahoo9]

That was sweet. After all these years, and all the amazing characters and story-arcs, I still enjoy the occasional glimpses inside Kat's head the best.

 

[dxe131]

One of these days, I'd like to see a cast of characters page/timeline, including "Kat's girls," showing the links between them all. Just askin'.

 

[ejpsan]

It may have just been the date, but it seems Kat had a depressive episode in this little reminiscing.
Kat really shouldn't worry about Malcolm getting killed on the final assault on K2 as this would be apparently his first trip to the Himalayas, and there is no way that he would be on the final summit assault team, this is not to,say that there are not other ways to get killed on the way up...
But Malcolm will prove his worth in helping with the organizing of the expedition by getting the latest equipment and communication gear that the German military has, and with his experience in satellite imaging interpretation along with getting up to date weather reports, this will be the best chance to conquer the Killer Mountain.

It is remarkable how much Kat has inspired the young girls that she has taken in over the years and how much they have achieved in their lives.
And now we can see how Ilse is carrying on Kat's example with Ingrid, Mathilda, and Edme.

Meanwhile, there is a workout I need to do at "Die Tigren Garten".

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Seventeen



4th February 1980

Fort Meade, Maryland

“All right everyone” Ritchie said as the Special Forces team he was instructing today entered the room and saw what was spread out on the table. “This is the actual gear that you might encounter in the field and as much as you might be tempted, we prefer it that you gather souvenirs out in the field as opposed to in here. So I am letting you know that we do inventory this stuff.”

There was chuckling about what Ritchie had just said. Most of these men were E-5s, the equivalent Specialist Rank, or greater. So they would have often encountered the propensity of sticky fingers among the Enlisted many times by now. It was said that there was only one thief in the US Army, everyone else was trying to get their stuff back. Ritchie also knew that any time you had a room full Sergeants, trouble was brewing. He didn’t mention what would happen if any of them were stupid enough to get caught were any of this gear on them in the field by its previous owners though. They would all be aware of that.

Getting their hands on a current German Soldier’s kit had proven difficult. After the Reichstag Bombing and 11 Messidor incident where a Neo-Jacobin terrorist had shot up a busy public street the German Military was understandably interested in keeping their equipment out of the wrong hands. There were the items that Ritchie was expecting considering that the Germans seldom abandoned anything that worked unless they came up with something better or better yet, snaked it from someone else and avoided the cost of developing it themselves.

The summer uniform that had hardly changed in decades in the four-color light grey, dark grey, and brown on tan Splittertarnmuster C pattern that had been used by them since the mid-40’s for example. The matching flak vest was made of the German version of Kevlar with ceramic plates between the layers of fabric that were held in place with aluminum rivets. The vest also had 6 pockets to hold rifle magazines. There was the belt and suspenders that held anything for immediate use. That included all manner of items starting with the straight handled entrenching tool and bayonet. The entrenching tool was the oldest item issued to German troops and it had not changed in over a century for rather disturbing reasons, it didn’t fold like the American equivalent and the wooden handle was riveted on in a socket joint. The simple construction made for a far better weapon. The bayonet was similar to the ones issued to the current generation’s grandfathers since prior to the First world War, but they had shortened the blade considerably over the decades to around 10 or so inches and the blade had a weird purple finish. There was a first aid kit and a canteen that were very similar to its American counterparts. They had a few G44 rifles in the Base Armory, but the familiarization with those wouldn’t start until tomorrow.

“Uhm… Chief, why is the left side of this shovel sharpened?” One of the men asked. That being the most noticeable field modification that the German Army performed on that particular piece of equipment.

“Because most people are right-handed” Ritchie replied and he got a lot of quizzical looks in return. It seemed that no one among this bunch was bloody minded enough to reach the obvious conclusion. Ritchie wasn’t if that was a good or bad thing considering.

The next thing that drew curiosity was the radio. It was probably one of the best examples that Ritchie had seen of trying to make something relatively complicated as soldier-proof as possible. Just a channel selection switch for preset frequencies and an on/off volume knob on a waterproofed plastic case. It was similar to the small transistor radios that had been sold in Department Stores by the millions. The only difference was that it was a two-way radio. It only had a broadcast range of a mile or so at most, but that was all that was needed. Richie had heard that the Germans had tried to use various earpiece and microphone combinations but had eventually settled on the throat transducer that was far less effected when the operator was in a loud environment than the other options they had tried. The earpiece was integrated into the helmet that the German’s used, with a cord running from it to the transducer and the radio itself which was kept in a pocket on the Flak vest. There had been attempts to create something similar for the US Army, but that project had been stymied by many Senior Officers assuming that Soldiers would either use it to listen to things other than what they were supposed to, such as ballgames or Rock Stations and those who backed the project but demanded too many bells and whistles. The same bells and whistles that those same Senior Officers thought would be misused. The last Ritchie had heard, the whole thing was caught up in the sort of procurement purgatory that made Defense Contractors money but provided everyone else with nothing.

“How does this work?” One of the men asked holding the nylon strap and the transducer.

“That goes around your neck?” Ritchie replied as he started emptying out the rucksack. He got the usual incredulous look and figured that he would need to show them. There were the spare skivvies, socks, and a change of clothes. The NBC suit that was identical to its American counterpart, except it was grey rather than green, was stored in the rain flap, the gas mask that went with it was in an aluminum container. The two boxed ration packs were lurking in the bottom. Each of those represented one day’s worth of food, but they did seem sort of small. Finally there was the shaving kit, Esbit stove, and other odd necessities.

The entire team he was showing these things to instantly took interest in the Soldatenmesser. It was basically a Swiss Army knife, having even been made by Victorinox, the same company. The only real difference was that the scales were green rather than red and it had the emblem of the German Army on it. Ritchie had heard that each of the German Service Branches had their own version. Regardless, he hoped that no one would try to steal it again. Those things were hard to replace.

 

[Jinx999]

Sounds as though the US army is suffering from a lack of military experience. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

They're also focusing on a generally peaceful democratic country as the "primary enemy".

 

[ejpsan]

They're also focusing on a generally peaceful democratic country as the "primary enemy".

It more likely that the German military is the best, and it is the Gold Standard when it comes TOE and the Americans are showing good sense in going over it.
Ritchie has the added advantage of going on a couple of operations with the Germans AND being an advisor to countries and their militaries that are fighting the Germans and their allies.
By now with all the experience that the Americans has gotten over the years,in observing the German military operations and weapons in action and by now are probably getting closer to parity then they ever have been to the Germans, it is in actual major combat operations the the Americans are extremely far behind.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

They're also focusing on a generally peaceful democratic country as the "primary enemy".

It more likely that the German military is the best, and it is the Gold Standard when it comes TOE and the Americans are showing good sense in going over it.

True that.

Or to put it another way, if you train to take on a heavyweight champion, you won't have any problems with street muggers.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight hundred and Eighteen



8th February 1980

Tempelhof, Berlin

New year, new decade, same old problems.

For the life of her, Sophie had no idea why the press always sought out the opinion of her mother whenever she was mentioned. This time it was the story about the winter program that her team had developed to keep in shape ahead of the Moscow Games in a few months. There was an air of excitement as Sophie’s team was expected to repeat their strong performance this year after their extraordinary showing in Montreal a few years earlier. Then bringing Sophie’s spirits crashing down was her mother telling a reporter all about how what they saw of Sophie in Cycling wasn’t the real her, instead she was actually selfish and conniving, having systematically ruined her mother’s life for years. It was noticeable that the reporters never seemed to ask exactly how Sophie was doing that despite not having spoken with her mother in years. If they had, they would know that Sophie’s mother had blamed Sophie for everything wrong with her life since the instant that she had found out that she was pregnant with her. Sophie would have thought that with her mother’s supposedly better life and family, she would have finally left her alone, or at least have better things to be doing. The reporter, apparently having grown tired of writing about what Sophie’s mother had said, started in on their other favorite topic whenever her name came up, baselessly speculating about her sex life. That was something that her mother had clearly given them permission to do with sort of comments that she had made in the past and Sophie sometimes wondered who would be embarrassed more if the reporters ever learned the truth.

Throwing that section of the newspaper aside in disgust, Sophie forced herself to eat a few more bites of her breakfast having totally lost her appetite. Looking down, she saw Sprocket sitting at her feet. Looking up at her, he gave a plaintive whine as if he had not eaten in weeks despite having wolfed down his own breakfast just minutes earlier. It was something that Sprocket had continued to do for the last seven years despite it never having worked. The irony was that Sophie had a lecture that morning in Nutrition at the Humanities Department of the University where she was studying Sport Science. One of the things that had been used as a practical example was how food meant for people was often extremely bad for dogs. It wasn’t that great for people either but that had seldom stopped anyone. Apparently, one of the things that Sophie had ahead of her over her career was the uphill, with a strong headwind, task of convincing people to change their habits. Sometimes, Sophie wondered exactly why she was going to University. She couldn’t even convince the so-called journalists that what her mother said about her was nonsense.



Fort Meade, Maryland

Sitting in the classroom looking out the window on a grey winter afternoon. Stevie just couldn’t keep his mind on what he was supposed to be working on. Instead he kept thinking about the latest stupid comment that Doud’s brother DJ had made.

“If you two were in caveman times, you’d both be dead by now” Was the latest bit of wisdom that Doud’s brother DJ had shared with them yesterday after school.

It had been one of the comic books that Stevie and Doud had been reading that had prompted DJ’s comment. It depicted people living in the last Ice Age trying to survive in someplace with mountains on the edge of plains. He had no idea if it was based on anything or why Doud had been interested in it. DJ had used it to make his own opinion about them known.

Stevie had not wasted his breath telling DJ something that he had overheard Grandma Cruz say after the six-month old daughter of his Aunt Abril, had unexpectedly died. “God used to take back a lot more of them” was what she had said. Mom and Dad had pointedly asked her not to say that within earshot of Abril. Grandma Crus had just shrugged, the fact that she could be so nonchalant about the death of a grandchild and her grieving daughter. Stevie had asked dad about that later and he had said that Grandma Cruz came from a different time and place and that if you went to the village in Sanora where she had been born, there was a corner of the graveyard by the church that was where they buried unbaptized infants and that the loss of children was a regular occurrence before modern medicine. Back in the Stone Age it could easily have been worse, so the odds were high that Stevie, Doud, and even DJ might not have seen their first birthday. That was just how it was.

Stevie had held his tongue though. Dad had once said that if you have to explain the joke it was stupid, Stevie had learned that insults worked exactly the same way. There was simply no way that someone like DJ would get it. If he had he wouldn’t have made the comment in the first place. Of course, Dad had told Stevie that DJ was in for a hard collision with reality when he got to West Point and found out that he could no longer skate on being a Colonel’s son.

 

[Dan]

DJ may have missed the part where evolution favours the smart just as much as the strong. Sometimes more so...

 

[ejpsan]

For Sophie, she needs a two-pronged attack against her bitter and sour mother.
First there should be a patented Zella documentary in multiple parts about the training that the Black Eagles are doing in getting to Moscow this summer.
It should include the team selection process, highlighting the main competitors from other countries, and a more "Up Close and Personal" look at the individual team members in which Sophie can really hurt her biological mother by not mentioning her at all, and at the same time proclaiming how much Kat is her real Mother in all but name.
The second prong comes from of course, Kat who has some "Words of Wisdom" to impart to Elke about how Elke is pretty much living a better life now, but that can easily change...
Also, Sophie has some powerful friends and they have even more powerful contacts of their own like her friends Princess Antonia and Nan who is the "newly discovered" Margraffin of Brandenburg, and their mother Charlotte, the Dowager Emperess of Germany, plus the Crown Prince of Italy who is very sweet on Nan , just think of all the trouble and pain they can cause Elke without even breaking a sweat...

 

[Dan]

I don't think she would need Kat making subtle, (or otherwise), threats to Elke, but the documentary would definitely have the desired effect.
Especially if the documentary were to interview a subject matter expert, someone with extensive practical and professional experience in dealing with emotionally abused children and has impeccable and unimpeachable qualifications to speak on such matters.

Maybe someone like the social worker Charlotte Von Preussen?

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Nineteen



28th March 1980

Dublin, Ireland

The evening news featured shots of a smoking crater that had opened up on the side of a mountain in America as the lead story. According to the expert they were interviewing this was a minor eruption and because the mountain was relatively remote, there was little danger to the public. Jackie remembered that her father had told her that she should always pay attention to news stories and try to figure out what they were not telling you.

“Now why do you think that they would make a volcano sound boring?” Jackie asked. A man appeared on the television wearing a too tight T-shirt over a massive beer-belly with words I lava our volcano spelled out across the front of it. That showed the problem right there. If the news coverage was anything to judge by, many of the people who lived around the mountain were not taking this thing seriously.

Marie, who had been silently on the couch only an arms span away just looked at her. “I don’t know” She replied, “Which volcano?”

Marie had apparently not been paying any attention at all despite being in the room.

As aggravating as Marie could be at times, questioning Jackie about why she did some of the things she did, or worse, steal the attention of the boys who came around at Jackie’s invitation. Jackie was starting to miss how she had been up until Marie’s mother called and told her that her cat had died last week. It was Jackie’s understanding that Cheshire had been extremely old for a cat, like twenty years. When someone has led a long life, you shouldn’t mourn for them per say. You should celebrate the mark that they would have left on their community and all the things that they had seen over a lifetime. That was saying something in a place like Ireland where outside of the big cities life changed at a glacial pace, you’d need to live to a hundred to see a whole lot of time. Marie had most certainly not done that, instead she had just seemed to shut down. While she had not missed anything that she felt obligated to attend, Marie had done nothing else for the last week.

“This would be Mount Saint Helens in Washington State” Jackie replied.

“I’ve never been there” Marie said.

Jackie knew that Marie had been to the United States a few different times. Mostly changing planes in New York. She had never been to the country of her father’s birth and thought that she might like to visit Boston one day. Neither Marie nor her father had ever seemed too impressed with it though.

The next story came on, this one had the French Army involved in a siege somewhere in the Sahara Desert. Jackie’s father had pointed out to her over Christmas that in all these stories about bushfire rebellions in former colonies it seemed like the rebels were using Russian weapons. Jackie’s father had fought in the Soviet War in the Irish International Regiment and he had told her that he had come away from the experience having learned a thing or two. The important was that no one could afford to ignore the Russians on the international stage. There was a reason why the German Army and their allies continued to be mainly focused east. Finally, there was a story about a children’s choir that was soliciting donations for their spring program.

The weather report came on. They predicted that over the weekend it was going to be cool, mostly cloudy and with a change of rain, in Ireland during this time year. Jackie wondered what the point of even broadcasting that. The sport report followed and Jackie watched two grown men argue about the current makeup of the National Side. Even she had heard about how unlike in the past, the Irish Football team was considered to be somewhat hapless, it just didn’t strike Jackie as being remotely as interesting as these two men seemed to think.



Mitte, Berlin

The publisher had been very interested in Lenz Shultz’s manuscript. With the spate of similar works that had flooded the market in recent years, it took a bit to interest them. In this case, it was the story about the Baku Bombing Campaign that Lenz had been involved in as a Fighter Pilot and the Black Sea Naval Campaign that had followed. He had tried not to include the things that he had learned after the war. When Lenz had spoken with Anri Vepkhia, his counterpart in the Red Airforce and what he had learned had shocked him.

The Luftwaffe Bomber Command had been on the verge of outright victory over Baku and that the Soviet Pilots had the NKVD circling in on them like sharks smelling blood, then they had been saved by the most unlikely of events. The Luftwaffe High Command had deemed the effort as less effective than anticipated and had allocated many of the resources elsewhere. It was not that the bombing campaign had ended entirely as Baku had remained a key target throughout the war, the intensity had gone down for a time. Anri had mentioned that all his efforts had been wasted in the end, because after the Battle of Stalingrad had basically cut the Soviet Union in half just eighteen months later the Red Airforce had been forced abandon Baku while their airplanes were still functional enough to let them fly out. Anri had considered himself lucky because many of the Red Army units who had been stranded in Azerbaijan and Georgia had not enjoyed a pleasant fate.

For Lenz, it was a bit surprising just how compressed that period of time had actually been. In his memory there were events that had seemed a thousand years apart. Apparently many of those had occurred within a few weeks of each other.

 

[Rinasoir]

Hapless now, but in 10 years the high water mark of Irish football will be in play, and after that we'll be making a whole new definition of the word hapless!

(Except for the Women's International Team, they can actually play and win a game)