A Battle Unseen

[Doc]

Cliff Office, Southwest Kaliburg,
Mid September, 4:25pm

"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.