1. Mr. McDermott has been serving as Prime Minister since 5701 – tilting to his second decade as Prime Minister of New Englia – while the Prime Minister’s longevity while in office has been remarked as a source of stability, it has also drawn the ire of many younger politicians and opposition figures.
   
2. His control over his own party was weakened over his unflattering remarks towards the Leader of the Opposition, Mrs. Michelle Haines – with numerous Liberal politicians expressing concern about the Prime Minister’s leadership, although these whispers have been quashed by party leadership, anxious about the fallout if a leadership struggle ensues.
   
3. The Prime Minister’s numerous policy failures – which can be exploited by his rivals. His polling numbers are, at least now, failing to see pull ahead of Mrs. Haines’ SDWP in recent polls for the next election. It might be an encouragement for those that oppose or are skeptical of Mr. McDormott’s leadership abilities to try to depose him from the Premiership.
   

1. Move towards intense relations-making operations with different New Englian politicians – we believe that having a direct line between some of our agents present in the field and the political establishment of New Englia might reveal itself useful to the enhancement of Luthorian interests in the Eastern Dovani Seaboard.
   
2. Move towards subtle influence operations in New Englia’s political scene, notably to avoid an RSP-led government or (in cases where that might be necessary) a SDWP-led government as well. The exclusion of the RSP from any governing coalition is necessary to avoid a large rebuke of Luthorian diplomacy in New Englia by the future government.
   
3. Use our agents in New Englia to forge connections within New Englia’s business world – we believe that using contacts within New Englia’s large business communities – most of whom are apathetic or downright opposed to the prospect of a socialist government – could come in handy when influencing New Englia’s political destiny.
   

Quote:As so many episodes in the Empress' life, this one began with a knock at the door.  "Madame," said The Empress' Private Secretary, Lady Renee Houston said from outside.  "The Chancellor has arrived."  Carolina put down her pen and hit a buzzer on her desk that opened the door.  Technology is amazing, she thought.

In walked Lady Melanie Alvarez-McLinn sweating.  She walked to the front of the desk, courteously bowed, and without waiting, more or less collapsed onto the couch.

"Are you quite alright, Lady Melanie?" asked the Empress.

"Apologies Your Imperial Majesty, it's a long walk through the 80 degree 95% humidity jungle from the station to your door."

"That explains your condition then," she said.

"Aye Madame." said the Chancellor.

"And your tardiness.  We were about to take up a game of solitaire."  The Chancellor felt a bit of a passive aggressive tone in the Empress' voice.

"Again, my apologies, Your Imperial Majesty.  The car never arrived."

"Indeed," said the Empress as she rose from her desk.  The Chancellor saw her stand and made a move to rouse herself to stand as well as per protocol, but the Empress extended her hand.  "Please, Lady Melanie, remain seated and compose yourself.  We are getting you something to drink."

"Madame, if it's alright with you I will pass on the tea.  It's far too hot and I feel overheated."

The Empress looked back at her, and smiled.  "But we believe you will appreciate this tea.  One moment more and it will be prepared."

The Chancellor gritted her teeth.  She had put up with this Empress for years, and had always been the loyal subject, but the Empress had a way sometimes of being annoyingly proper and nice.  And it almost felt like it was an act, if she hadn't been so incredibly consistent with it.  She could then switch on a dime and be remarkably cold, ruthless almost.  She was often an entitled jerk on many occasions in private, a complete slob when not working, and then just as easily walk out of her bedroom looking like a fashion model.  It was irritating as often as it was endearing.  The Empress approached with a tray and what looked like two glasses.  She put one down before the Chancellor and then one on the opposite side for her. 

"It looks like...  ice water, Your Imperial Majesty." she said, hesitantly.

"It is," said the Empress with a smile.  "And there is plenty more where that came from.  I pray you re-hydrate.  As for the car, it is in the shop.  It did not start this morning when we intended to have you picked up, and there was nobody at the station who could let you know.  So, you have survived your walk, and we appreciate you making it here.  You will stay with us tonight, and the car will be back in service tomorrow."

"I hadn't planned..."  the Chancellor started.

"Do you have somewhere else to be, Madame?" asked the Chancellor.

"Just a party..." said the Chancellor, reluctantly.

"Yes," said the Empress.  "We have read about those parties.  We may not legitimately comment on your personal life--you do as you please with whom you please...  But it is growing difficult to keep your name out of the papers over the matter.  So, it may behoove you to..."

"Madame, I am not ashamed of how I spend my free time," said the Chancellor, resentfully.  "The press may judge me, but I am free adult woman, and that's all that need be said about it.

"As we were saying..." the Empress continued.  "Please exercise a bit more...  discretion.  Your home is one thing, your apartment in Sulari is another.  But RF clubs in public, are quite another thing all together.  One photo could...  ruin your career.  And we do not desire to lose our chancellor over something so trivial that it would not arouse more than one could handle themselves if they were of lesser station.  Do you understand?"

"It's nobody's business," said the Chancellor.  "And quite frankly its none of yours either, Your Imperial Majesty."

Carolina sat for a moment looking at her.  "Well, there it is then." she said with an air of definiteness.

"Surely Your Imperial Majesty did not summon me here to discuss my sex life," said the Chancellor.

"No indeed we did not.  We would like your thoughts on our upcoming trip to Gaduridos."

The change in subject was a bit jarring to the Chancellor.  One minute, the Empress was lecturing her, in her prudish judgemental tone and the next, she had just, moved on, like nothing had ever been said.  How does she do that?  It was no secret that she didn't really personally like the Empress:  that feeling of quasi-hostility had remained through the years, and the Chancellor had long simply coped with the mantra that She's the Empress, and if she said it, I do it.  That's all.  It made a very complicated set of feelings quite simple.  The loyalty was to the office.  She is not my friend.  She's not anyone's friend really.  Except her pothead aunt and her doting husband and children.  How sad her life must be.  How empty.  And she's oblivious.  She's the philosopher with her mind so far in the clouds that she falls right into a well because she's not paying attention.

"Madame?" asked the Empress.

"Yes Your Imperial Majesty," answered the Chancellor.

"Are you feeling alright?  May we get you some more water?"

"Of course, Your Imperial Majesty.  We are feeling better now, thank you."

"Then perhaps you will tell us what we should anticipate in Gaduridos?"

The Chancellor then remembered that the Empress still had it in her head to travel to Gaduridos for the installation of the nation's king.  "My Liege, I really do wish you would not go."

"Yes," said the Empress.  "We have been through this before."

"You are legitimizing that usurper by attending his coronation."

"We've been through this as well, Lady Melanie," said the Empress.  "And their king is not a usurper.  You cannot usurp something that belongs to you already."

"That is merely a technicality at this point, Your Imperial Majesty," said the Chancellor.  "Look, I've taken the initiative to ask the Minister of Defense to draw up several scenarios that would allow Kalistan to reverse course on the Divorce and reincorporate them into the Empire."

"That is really not necessary, Madame," said the Empress with a smile.  "It sounds like too big a task at the moment."

"No, your Imperial Majesty.  It's not too much work.  We've already drawn up some contingencies for your consideration.  I can show them to you when you return to the Capital.  We have wide public support for bringing Gaduridos back home.  It should be easy to do before they run their charm offensive on the rest of the world and bring in foreign powers to make Gaduridos into a hostile, anti-Kalistan forward base.  We have made up these plans.  You will admire the simplicity."

"Your really shouldn't have, Madame Chancellor." said the Empress with a smile again.

"It's already done, Your Imperial Majesty.  The Defense Minister has them on her desk right now, and you can easily approve any contingency you want.  We can have Gaduridos back in as soon as 48 Hours, and no bloodshed, that's the best part of all.  It can be done with a silent infiltration that forestalls the coronation and forces a treaty..."

By now the Empress' smile had faded.  "It is not necessary," she repeated, sharper this time.  The Chancellor noticed the metaphorical blood on the blade before she noticed the cut.  But with those four words delivered in that flat tone, and the look on the Empress' face, the Chancellor realized she had perhaps...  no... definitely gone too far, and the Empress was just being polite, when she most certainly should not have been.  "I..."  she stammered.  "It..."  She did not know what to say, but she realized one thing for sure.  The Empress already knew about the plans.  "How did you...?"

"Madame Chancellor," said the Empress.  "We have been doing this for a long time.  Right?"  The Chancellor nodded.  "Here's the thing.  It was never intended that we should become what we are.  But both our father and mother were absolute Emperors, as was our Grandmother, our Great Grandfather, our Great Great Grandmother and so forth.  Our Aunt was the daughter of an Empress and the sister to an Emperor.  We cannot help that we are the Absolute Sovereign of the Empire of Ananto and Kalistan:  It is in our DNA.  As that absolute sovereign, we expect absolute compliance to our word, without qualification or sub-rosa plotting beneath our nose.  Absolute compliance to our word is our reality.  It is expected, it is demanded, and we will have it:  it is absurd to us that it could be any other way."

The Chancellor was chastened and suddenly she realized she was in a trap.  Of course the Empress already knew.  The Empress played Go:  Go players think several moves ahead, and the best ones have thought out most contingencies before making a single move.  The Empress probably had been briefed before the Chancellor was summoned all the way down here to Athosia.  She had probably ordered the Defense Minister not to tell the Chancellor anything, but let her hang herself instead, so the Empress could watch her swing before putting her out of her misery.  "Of course Madame."

"Our Defense Minister has already confessed your and her little schemes to undermine our efforts at paving a new road to Gaduridos.  She has resigned, and will be granted the opportunity to retire and enjoy her pension."

The Chancellor swallowed hard, "I shall resign effective immediately..." she felt another bead of sweat appear on our forehead.  "... as soon as I can write it out."

The Empress smiled.  "It is not our desire that you resign.  We cannot think of someone more qualified for this position than you.  You are first in our estimation, in our admiration and in our respect.  And it is our desire that you continue to serve us.  We need someone of your skill exactly in your position right now, in one of the most crucial times of our reign."

The Chancellor responded, "Having displeased Your Imperial Majesty, it is my duty to..."

"Madame Chancellor, there is no time for that."

"But..." said the Chancellor.

"Damn it Melanie, I said there is no time!" said the Empress, using a first person pronoun and shocking the Chancellor silent.  "Your little attempt to commandeer our Military has been foiled and easily.  Its not a problem anymore."

The Chancellor was stuck.  "What would Your Imperial Majesty have me do then?"

"We need you to advise us on our trip to Gaduridos.  You and Marisol Paz are the only ones who can help us with this.  Our inclination is to blow it.  We just need your advice.  You are not going to resign or retire, or anything.  You will remain with us, because we value you and your opinion.  It allows us to think of things that we had not thought of before.  This is Brethrenist Practice, and your piece of the Truth is imperative to us as we test our leadings.  Now.  Do forget all this business about resigning.  You are still needed and wanted with us."

The Chancellor was quiet.  Suddenly her throat had gone dry.  She coughed, and immediately, the Empress grabbed her glass and poured more ice water into it.  The Chancellor drank it thankfully.

"We shall assume that is a yes," said the Empress.  "This matter is behind us.  It is forgotten."

The Chancellor realized that planning military action without express command from the Empress was probably treason.  And then she realized that it had been a really stupid lapse of judgement for her--she thought to promote her own policy preferences over the stated and known preferences of the Empress.  And she could likely end up on Kings Island for treachery like this.  But the Defense Minister had confessed it all, and the Empress let her retire.  The Chancellor had been honest as well, and the Empress didn't appear to even care that two of her top advisors had been secretly planning an unauthorized war of conquest.  She had indeed dodged the bullet.  "Yes," said the Chancellor, after finishing her water.  "And we shall strive to be less critical of Your Imperial Majesty from now on."

The Empress smiled.  "Your walk from the station was penance enough for us."  The Empress moved to sit on the wicker sofa next to the Chancellor.  "But you can do us a favor.  Keep your mouth shut around the press.  No comment is a fine thing to say, especially if you know there is daylight between us."

The Chancellor nodded, looking at the Empress.  It almost felt like she was in shock.  She didn't know if it was admiration for the Empress or terror.  The Empress had an aura about her, that inspired dread when she physically got too close.  It was the same uncontrollable sensation of wanting to flee, but being frozen in place that made almost every Kalistani who got closer than the required distance from her want to move back and away.  Most who had experienced it said it was due to charisma, but the Chancellor understood it more as that the Empress radiated pure power.  It was freaky:  The Empress was a bit of a strange duck.

"Now, Madame, We require your advice," repeated the Empress.  "What shall we experience when we get to Gaduridos?  Will it be good or bad?  How would you handle it if it was you rather than us?"

The Chancellor looked at her, straight in the eye.  Her skin felt warm and prickly.  But she looked into the Empress' eyes and was suddenly interested in telling the Empress the unvarnished truth.  "Your Imperial Majesty, you should not admire me or respect me.  I do not personally agree with your plan for Gaduridos.  I think you quit Gaduridos at a loss to you and to our Nation.  And now Gaduridos is going to become a satellite for some foreign state, whether it be some Dovanian nation or Egelion or Luthori.  Lots of people have been waiting for an opportunity, for some pretext, to take Gaduridos from us and you gave it to them.  It would be a miracle if in five years, Gaduridos is not some foreign power's satellite.  I think it is a mistake for you to recognize their king:  He'll be someone else's puppet in all but name by 5725.  And besides this...  I...  I fear you, Madame.  I am genuinely afraid of you, personally.  I don't know why I just said that."

The Empress said, "Nonetheless, We will recognize the King, and we will build a new relationship.  The age of the Anantonese Empire is over.  Kalistan has what it has:  Its all we will be allowed to have.  What happens to Gaduridos happens to Gaduridos, but they were not interested in being with us.  So why should we try to force allegiance from a nation who only ever resented us?  And if they do become a puppet of someone else, they are signaling that its not subservience they objected to, but association with Kalistan.  At any rate, we will remain committed to our principles, and will remain ethically correct."

"Aye Madame," said the Chancellor.  "We may suffer, while others dominate the lands around us and strangle us, but at least we will have our principles.  Its a sad trade off."

"For you," said the Empress.  "But you are a Brethren as well.  You too have your principles.  And you stand on them.  Personal freedom is one of them.  Its a principle that you would torpedo your career and your name over.  So we are not so different."

"We are not the same, Your Imperial Majesty.  I may be Countess of Lucid, but you are the avatar of this nation.  Its not the same thing."

"Will you advise us on Gaduridos or not?" asked the Empress finally tiring of the back and forth.

"I will endeavor to do my best, Your Imperial Majesty."

"That is precisely what we expect, Madame," said the Empress.  "Perhaps someday, you will count us as one of your friends.  But today, we need an advisor we can trust, who will push back on our thoughts, and who claims she is afraid of us, but certainly is not afraid to speak her mind.  So if that's all you can be for us, we will expect that you do it well.  We trust that you will."

Quote:"That concludes the Finance Committee's update on the money supply. Same as it always is, controlling for population increase, we saw a .034% increase in Peso Demand last quarter, and for last Fiscal year, it was .0027% over FY 21. Remarkably stable and boring, as per Her Imperial Majesty's fiat." Lady Melanie was tired, but she knew there was something that needed bringing up, and it needed to be saved for last, so if the Empress needed to end the meeting early, the required matters would still be covered.

"Very well, Chancellor. We believe there is still one thing you have on your agenda to discuss."

"Indeed Your Imperial Majesty," said the Chancellor, but she didn't quite know where to start. "The investors in the oil market... they took a bath this week."

The Empress studied her Chancellor. Their relationship had grown quite formal and very businesslike over the years. The two women had never been close. The Chancellor had always been put off by the Empress, and nursed many old grudges against the Sovereign, while the Empress did not in any way approve of the Chancellor's libertine lifestyle which continued even after years of warnings, to the point where the Empress just stopped commenting on it. At any rate, a more personable relationship between the two had never developed.

"We did read this in the paper," said the Empress. "Are you concerned?"

The Chancellor studied the Empress' words. How should she answer? She had grown to expect the Empress to set traps during their conversations, and the less she said the harder it would be for the Empress to outwit her. "I... am more concerned about the appearance of Kalistan working with communists, Your Imperial Majesty."

"Who could possible have anything to say about what Kalistan does?" asked the Empress.

"The people of the world would note a contradiction between what Your Imperial Majesty's government holds as an official policy against the advancement of Communism, and the appearance that we are funding the communists with the Green Terra Initiative."

The Empress looked up from the report she had been studying. "We have long ago stopped caring what the rest of the world thinks about us," she said, staring the Chancellor directly in the eye. "Most nations of the world ignore us anyway as if we are of less consequence than no consequence, and those who do not rarely approve of anything we do, whether it is praiseworthy or not. So, the opinions of others do not affect Kalistan's decision making anymore."

"Be that as it may, Your Imperial Majesty. Working with communists is not a particularly good look, not for you and not for them."

"We are not working with communists," answered the Empress with a sigh as she returned to studying her report.

"Forgive me, Your Imperial Majesty, but Green Terra just offered Utaristan, forgive me, the Revolutionary People's Institute of Economic Development and the Revolutionary People’s Republic of Utaristan what amounts to a 30 Billion Imperial Peso line of credit."

The Empress closed her eyes, put her pen down, and rubbed her temples. "The Government of this nation has nothing to do with funding or overseeing Green Terra. You know this, Chancellor. You JUST gave us the budget proposal for next year, and there is no line anywhere on that budget for Green Terra or helping communists."

"Your Imperial Majesty, this is even worse: House Ananto is helping communists!"

"Green Terra is not House Ananto, it's an independent, not for profit foundation designed to provide grants for green energy projects, endowed by contributions of those who sought to buy and close the Englian Oil Fields. And as for them helping communists, their charter explicitly states that their mission is to promote the reduction of oil demand and dependence around the globe through replacing polluting generation strategies with clean ones. You know this full well."

"Your Imperial Majesty, I strongly advise you to reconsider the grant. Utaristan is..."

"Communists?" asked the Empress rhetorically. "So what? If they are willing to help us replace gross polluters with clean and sustainable energy production, we wouldn't care if they were terrorists. Who cares? That communist business is not our fight. Cleaning up the air and the water despite indiscriminate exploitation and wholesale burning of petrocarbons by certain nations of this world is the fight. Do not lose the plot here."

"But how can anyone trust the..."

"Lady Alvarez. Please. Shut up." Direct speech by the Empress in this fashion was highly uncharacteristic of the Brethrenist Empress. The words were like a crack of thunder, and left the Chancellor dumbfounded but silent. Three beats later, the Chancellor exhaled at last.

The Empress looked at her, the Chancellor with a stunned look on her face. "Lady Alvarez, please forgive me. I do not know what came over me." She sat looking at the Chancellor, who sat frozen, breathing very slowly, with a look on her face that suggested that the Empress, instead of speaking, had gotten up and slapped her across the face.

"Perhaps I should..." the Chancellor looked for words. "I... uh... I can't... um... I think I should go."

Suddenly, the Chancellor happened to notice, for the first time. The Empress' face had wrinkles on it that she had never noticed before. And her hair seemed to be more gray than she remembered. The Empress was nearly 50 years old. Had those wrinkles just appeared or had they been there for a long time?

"It is not our desire that you should leave, just yet..." said the Empress. The Chancellor who was preparing her things to leave, stopped what she was doing and simply sat quietly. She wanted to walk out of there, but because of years and years of observation of the protocol, her mind would not allow her legs to stand her up. The Chancellor felt humiliated, and humbled, and paralyzed all at once.

"Aye Madam," was all she could muster.

"We believe we owe you an apology for snapping just now."

"It is unnecessary Madame," answered the Chancellor.

"Nonetheless, we are sorry we said that. In that way. The sentiment that led to our poor choice of words remain. But we are sorry for the damage our words have caused."

Feigning nonchalance, the Chancellor said, "Well, that almost makes it worse, Your Imperial Majesty. If I could chalk it up to being tired or over worked or something, it could almost be understood. But knowing that you meant it, and just should have said it a different way is almost a second slap."

"Understood Madame," said the Empress. "Nonetheless, we are sorry to have said it."

The Chancellor thought that at least the apology by the Empress felt sincere. "I can accept the apology then, Majesty," said the Chancellor. "It's just... communists?"

"Madame," said the Empress. "There is something positive about working with the communists on this, and if you will grant us a couple minutes, we can explain why GTI can and should work with communists. We can trust the communists to do what they say they will do, in a way that we could not trust the capitalist nations of the world. They will do what they say: They may not be successful, due to some other issues, but at least they will do it. GTI is not an ideological organization. It seeks to help those who have a credible commitment to moving away from Oil to more sustainable energy. If a communist says that is their goal and they need help, you can bet that both of those two statements are accurate."

The Chancellor listened, but she couldn't think of anything to counter the argument. "I wish I had Your Imperial Majesty's faith in the communists to keep their word."

"Why wouldn't they? It's worth Billions to them to do so," asked the Empress.

The Chancellor couldn't believe the naiveite of that question, but decided not to answer it. "I hope that GTI knows what they are doing. Many of our investors in this nation are hopping mad that you tanked Oil futures in the KalSiE."

The Empress shrugged. "Well, placing money on the success of Oil is a stupid bet," she said. "And it also undermines our own efforts to undermine oil profitability and cause some of these oil producers to fail. If these people call your office, you may tell them to make ethical and ordinate investments going forward."

"Undermining oil profitability hurts Gaduridos and Egelion, Majesty," said the Chancellor. "As a nationalist, I should cheer this, but I am also Your Imperial Majesty's primary advisor and I knew how important relations with those two nations was."

"Ethical and ordinate investments, Lady Alvarez" said the Empress. "Those who profit from oil ought to bear all the cost of its environmental destruction, but since these oil producing nations have been able to externalize the cost of their selfishness to the rest of us, including Kalistan, who has worked for centuries to mitigate the gross destruction that oil extraction and refining did to our nation, we don't necessarily have a lot of sympathy for the pain to their economy that undermining oil profitability does. They are content to pollute our water and our air for their profitability, perhaps they ought to change their own business model and adopt clean energy and sustainability. We will, for our part continue to work on the thing that is important to our people."

The Chancellor stared silently. She only rarely ever saw a ruthless moment from the Empress. As a ruthless woman with strong convictions and an outspoken demeanor herself, the quality, when it does come from the Empress was admirable. She dared let a slight smile appear, in the form of an upturned corner of her mouth.

The Empress concluded. "Communists are on their own program, but at the end of the day, the outcome is the same. So if GTI wants to help them do the thing where the secondary consequence is undermining the profitability of oil companies and the countries who use them to generate profits, we have no objections. The communistness of their regime does not enter the calculation. Utaristan is on a good path, and though GTI is not our government, it should be in our interest to encourage them along this path as much as we can. And any other socialists or communists who want to help us undermine global oil corporations and states which benefit from that environmental genocide."

The Chancellor bowed her head. "Aye Your Imperial Majesty. As you require." She had said that sentence a million times, usually as a result of some Imperial Fiat which she had to work through the National Assembly. This time, she said it because she had become convinced that she shared the Empress' position on this thing, at last. Though she was domineering, the Empress was also very thoughtful, and was almost always the smartest person in any room. The Chancellor conceded to her reasoning, and became convinced herself.