Sustaining all national endeavors (Permanent Commission)

The often renovated, and not infrequently burnt, Prefectoral complex in the capital city of Shirekeep. Charged with the thankless task of civic administration in the most malodorous and ungovernable city ever conceived.

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Primo de Aguilar
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Sustaining all national endeavors (Permanent Commission)

Post by Primo de Aguilar »

The Great Hall in Raynor's Keep was as ready as it would be, with sufficient pomp and pageantry (and security!) necessary for a council of such importance: the inaugural session of the Permanent Commission of the Entente.

Alongside other government agencies, the Ministry of Military Affairs had been involved early on, since the first confidential invitations had begun discreetly circulating among high levels of the different government, and no efforts were spared to ensure the security and safety of the dignitaries, particularly now, with almost all of them participants in a global war.

An ornate, circular table lay at the center of the hall, the flags of participant nations resplendent behind the primary seats, with more seats behind for lesser factotums. Honor guards were also present, as well as more functional security. Dietary sensibilities had been taken to account.

All that was needed were the participants themselves.

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Re: Sustaining all national endeavors (Permanent Commission)

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Dramatis Personae

Constancia
Jaime Augusto Joaquin Primo de Aguilar: Autokrateira & Kanikleios


Natopia
Benjamin Meir: "Ambassador to SANE"


Shireroth
Ryker Everstone: Imperial Plenipotentiary to the Permanent Commission
Liv Dravot: Imperial Plenipotentiary to the Joint-Military Council



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Primo de Aguilar
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Re: Sustaining all national endeavors (Permanent Commission)

Post by Primo de Aguilar »

It was a more roundabout route now, but at least he didn't have to change to different flights, unlike the last time.

The airspace he'd flown over had either been Natopian or Shirerithian. He wasn't taking any chances, not with a near-global conflict taking place, and not with his own life. Personally, as a soldier, he cared little if his mortality made itself evident. He did care about his mortality making itself evident now at such a precarious time in Constancian, if not Micran history.

The plane was full - not just for the necessary luggage, but also for the requisite staff (majority in uniform), as well as his own detail of Basileusan Private Guards. He'd taken the liberty of flying over a rudimentary staff for a formal embassy in Shirekeep, such as it was that could fit in the plane.

There was also an escort from the fledgling Royal Constancian Air Force, which had necessitated periodic party landing and refueling at convenient Natopian and Shirerithian air bases and civilian airports, which reminded him that inflight air refueling was a skill that required mastery on the Constancian end.

He had slept for most of the flight, and when he was awake, he was busy poring over state papers, or otherwise dictating future policy and legislation. The Synkletos was an important organ of state, but most of its members preferred discussing how important they were instead of crafting actual legislation, or formulating effective policy. It would be a while before the scholars he was training in the rigorous Alexandrian fashion (albeit in a Constancian school), began to show their merit-based mettle, instead of typical Constancian patronage politics.

Sarah Dravot was aboard, with her own reduced factotum of one. The erstwhile Director of Euran operations for The ESB-Jörmungandr Group was a de facto minister of the Constancian government. It was an open secret that the Euran Directorate was far more capable in opposition research (personal, industrial or state intelligence) and optimization of trade, among others, that it was already functioning as the de facto customs revenue service and Export-Import Bank of Constancia. They were just more efficient, and their integrity was rather reliable, simply for the fact that they were relatively well-compensated, and had more reason to fear losing their employment, as well as their lives.

On landing, they were comfortably whisked away to the venue, where the Autokrat had sufficient time to bathe, dress, and contemplate how he was going to discuss such weighty matters among...erstwhile friends, who possessed varying interests.

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Re: Sustaining all national endeavors (Permanent Commission)

Post by House Meir »

Benjamin Meir arrives to the summit, with several aides and assistants in tow.
HOUSE MEIR OF NATOPIA
Thalassa, Natopia
(until Feb. 3, 2019) Chancellor Benjamin Meir, Count of Frenzyville
(after Feb. 3, 2019) Maria Meir, Countess of Frenzyville

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Primo de Aguilar
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Re: Sustaining all national endeavors (Permanent Commission)

Post by Primo de Aguilar »

He was, in retrospect, the personal representative of the personification of the Free and Associative Kingdom, so he wore full court uniform - without the feathered, gilded, tricorne hat, of course (his long experience was that they were never worn, but only to be arm-carried, and its primary use was for doffing several times, when approaching a throne, or departing from that throne's presence), although he did wear the officer's sword. In his case, he had refused the perfunctory functional kind. He directed that what he would wear would possess a worthy blade.

This was Shirekeep, after all, where in the midst of State celebrations by one of their more level-headed, if not popular Kaisers, their own reigning sovereign was brutalized. Never mind that it was done by rogue elements or dissidents or whatever it was they were called these days. All the Kaiser's horses, gravships, armaments and whatnot had failed to ensure that their Commander-in-Chief kept body and soul together. And at a State occasion, even. Oh, no. He would not be having any of that. Perhaps he would have some time to pay his respects. He was here in an official State capacity, after all.

In a nod to tradition, he wore all his Alexandrian decorations on his left chest, adding color above the golden frippery that was the Court uniform (and in the Constancian style, too!) - never mind if the state that had awarded it was now but a mere memory, solely of interest to the most esoteric of academics and historians - he'd earned them all, after all.

By his neck, he wore the grandiose collar order that identified him as a Grand Knight Commander of the Order of the Great Kingdom of Constancia. He'd often wondered if the Basileus had made that up on the spot, but it was soothing to note that the Fount of Honor considered him thus worthy.

Finally, in respect to his host, above the miniatures of his Alexandrian decorations on his left chest, he wore the insignia of the Order of the Griffin, of which he was a Knight.

Ordinarily, though, he would have been fine wearing full service dress (not mere service dress, he hated the Alexandrian penchant of wearing ties, which had been a pain since politicians were expected to always have one), or even the barracks dress. He was a soldier all right, even when in civilian clothing, he always tended to have more of the same. It had been his staff, when he was First Consul, who ensured that he wore varying colors of suits, shirts, and more of those dreaded ties.

He saw who could be none other than a Natopian arrive - of course he'd read Constancia's own files on his contemporaries - and after a short verbal briefing whispered by one of his factotums (this one, a well-dressed protocol officer from the Foreign Ministry), he went over with a genuine smile and offered a white-gloved hand, to the shock of the protocol officer who was supposed to handle the formal introductions. It was protocol, after all!

"Your Excellency, welcome. Jaime Augustin Joaquin Primo de Aguilar. I am sorry that we did not get to meet at the Natopia Day Commemoration Ball."
Image
Jaime Augusto Joaquin Primo de Aguilar, PC, GLH, GCNM, FSM, OGKC
Autokrator of Constancia and Co-Ruler of the Kingdom
Kanikleios to Basileusa Megaliótate Cleo, Autokrateira of Constancia
Strategos of the Thema Oranjēsiōn
Minister of Finance, International Trade and Industry and Kyvernítis of the Basileusian Bank,
Sýmvoulos of the High Court of the Free and Associative Kingdom of Constancia
Secretary-General, Micras Treaty Organization
Penultimate De jure Consul for Defense of the Empire of the Alexandrians
Alexandrian exile
Son of Santiago, Santander

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Re: Sustaining all national endeavors (Permanent Commission)

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The Regent, Imperial Mother, and the Steward, witnessed by the common people of Shirekeep, dismounted from their steads before the Gate of Noor. Beneath the huge, lapis lazuli encrusted tiled mosaics that framed the triumphal archway, the severed heads of numerous traitors, spies, and parking fine evaders could be observed rotting atop of iron spikes protruding from the walls. A feast for the city's plague of kites and carrion birds. Earlier onlookers had watched scenes of elaborate ceremonial as the Regent, riding a white charger, had led the Imperial Mother and the Steward, riding uneasily side by side, along the Noble's Boulevard. Behind them, at a respectful distance, had followed stately processions of the regiments of the Palatini Corps, resplendent in parade uniforms of gold and purple silks, Elwynnese Republican Guards in austere feld grau, and the Goldshire Regulars, tramping along at the rear in their olive green winter overcoats. Behind the serried ranks of guardsmen for the troika came the innumerable priests and prelates of the two state sponsored faiths of Shireroth - Cedrism and the Holodomatic School - led by the Regem enim sacrificium mors or High King of the Sacrifice for Death, carrying the executioners axe that was his mark of office. Behind that grim black shrouded figure came row upon row of censer-swinging sacristans of the Holodomatic School, wispy aromatic clouds wafting in their wake, and behind them the rest of the clergy associated with the Imperial Cult carrying icons of the Raynor I and the three most recent legitimate kaisers, Dominus, Noor and the beatific likeness of Ayreon IV.

The procession filed away to the left and right, taking up their places in the parade grounds overlooked by the outer curtain wall of Raynor's Keep and began to sing doleful and monotonous hymns in praise of the eternal glory of their cherubic young kaiser, still safely ensconced in an obscure manor somewhere in Monty Crisco.

Meanwhile, as the walls reverberated to this interminable noise, the trio, accompanied by their respective beige uniformed phalanxes of sentinels, passed through the gate and into the inner keep, therein the entire Imperial Household was assembled on a grassy mound before the observatory to applaud their arrival. Awkwardly the three now turned to each other, inclined their heads slightly and grasped each others arms in a strange approximation of a handshake. With that gesture, as if on cue (there was indeed a certain element of choreography) the watching household cheered the three as they turned and went their separate ways, the Steward stomping his boots on gravel as he marched directly ahead towards the foreboding stone hulk of Raynor's Keep, whilst the Imperial Mother, whom it could not be said had dressed discretely for the occasion, linked arms with the Regent who, dressed in the uniform of an officer of the Goldshire Regulars, had his face obscured, as always by a mask. In spite of this he seemed to retain a certain poise lent by the arrogance that a long life in the exercise of power affords. Briskly the pair, followed by their sentinels, progressed towards the Great Hall and the long meeting that awaited them.

Finally as the Regent and the Imperial Mother entered the Great Hall, Liv was heard to exclaim:

"I swear if that had lasted a moment longer I would have stabbed that muppet Zinkgraven in the fucking eyes."

The Regent, behind his leather mask, was as inscrutable as someone flinching from a sudden outburst could be. Unfazed, Liv moved swiftly forward to extend her greetings and the usual courtesies to her fellow delegates, as though nothing were amiss.

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Re: Sustaining all national endeavors (Permanent Commission)

Post by Primo de Aguilar »

If there was something nations on Micras could take lessons from, it was the pomp and panoply of State of the Imperial Republic. All this highly-stylized posturing was a little too much for the Autokrat of Constancia, who often tended to the informal, although he very much liked the stateliness of state ritual.

He's taken some time from the meets-and-greets to gaze out the window, and his trained officer's eye could appreciate the time and dedication needed to go about whatever it was the Big Three over there intended to do.

He was, in fact, half-expecting some random violence to take place - Shireroth had its own share of hooligans, after all, who even had their own province, Lunaria, Lunaris...something like that - but was relieved when there was none. Yet.

Having gazed outside, he went back to the indoors gaiety to sample the amuse-bouche and to nonchalantly listen to the gossip.

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