In the hills above Jan Mayen, Alexsandr van Sorensen was missing his second Terns game in a row. Well. That wasn’t strictly true. He had it on. It was playing, but he wasn’t really paying any attention. The Terns were one-nil down, that’s all he knew. No sooner had the game kicked off than his mind had started wandering back to the topic that was pre-occupying his every thought these days. That speech.
“True Valhallans, my time in power has been a time of great change for the nation. We have grown as a people, as a land, and as a force in Rushmore. Domestically, we have lowered crime, we have brought about greater unity than ever before, and we have destroyed the enemies that sought to chip away at us from within... ”
People were already calling it ‘The Kalten Address’. Well. Some people were. Those that had seen it. Those who were paying attention. Those who actually cared about the precarious future of democracy in the Federation.
Alexsandr scoffed to himself at that word. Democracy. The idea was almost nothing but a memory these days. He’d seen it coming at the time, had been one of a few public figures to speak out against the rise of The Party, but what did an old footballer know about politics, eh? At least, that had been the line aimed at him by those in suits. Truth was his synaesthesia really did give him something of a sixth sense for things like this. It made him wonder sometimes if all the adverts for ‘psychics’ at local clubs who could claim to contact the dead or read your aura were actually just synaesthetes like him, albeit, in a different way. He could taste distrust hanging around Lund and his cronies at the very start of everything. He could smell the bad intentions. Aura reading might be hack, but, he’d been proved right, hadn’t he?
“Internationally, we have not needed to poke our noses into places where they were not wanted for the nations of Rushmore to understand our might. We sit, at the top of the region, looking down on all below us. Surveying all. Observing all. The Valhallan Terns flies, soars, and circles above our opponents, at home and abroad. We are strong. Together, we are mighty. This Federation, this string of islands stretching from east to west, from south to a north where all lines of longitude converge, just as the attention of the Multiverse does, on us. We fight the snow. We fight the ice. We fight the cold. Compared to the daily battles against our home, our enemies seem small in comparison...”
Well, so long as you saw things with your eyes wide open, anyway. Those who preferring comforting lies to unpopular truths would continue to think things were fine.
“Elections were fair! You just lost! Get over it! The economy is fine, we don’t need foreigners! Valhalla stronk! Wait, what’s that? I mean, the rest of the Multiverse needs to see what a good example we are, open the country up!”
The Party said jump and the people asked, ‘how high?”
“...our armies have grown stronger. Our navy is incomparable. Our air force is well equipped. Our people are ready to die for this country, and thanks to such fervour, thanks to the passion that you, my True Valhallans, have demonstrated on my command, none have had to.”
It was demoralising. The people could have been told that up was down and left was right and they’d eventually believe it. Alexsandr didn’t know what had happened to the Federation that he’d grown up in.
Except he did. Sargossa had happened. Unintentionally, of course. He was sure that the suits in Soluca hadn’t intended to accidentally become the origin story for a dictator. He was sure Lund wasn’t even on their radar when they’d made the decision to execute the old Governor. Whether or not they’d hoped the crisis would do for Iversen-Eklund and her coalition wasn’t going to ever be clear to anyone outside of Sargossa, but he was sure they’d hoped for more than just half of Külmsaar as a return to their investments. Nonetheless, some Federal land and the destruction of Valhallan interests in that region of Oygruppen for the foreseeable future in return for a trade blockade, a couple of lies, and an assassination wasn’t a bad trade from their point of view.
The collapse of the Federal leadership may have been a bonus, or It might have been another aim. Who knows. Alexsandr was sure however that they wouldn’t have expected the grandson of Governor Rekish to sweep to power in that vacuum so soon after they’d created it, inadvertently or otherwise.
That was the problem with destablising your neighbours in an effort to seize the initiative. You never knew quite who was going to emerge from the dirtpile with the flag.
“We have opened our borders now, to let other nations share in the prosperity we are creating for our people. We will allow them a taste. We spread our wings over the Multiverse once more, having rectified our problems at home, confident and assured in our national identity...”
There was a cute irony too, in that there was a martyr, unintentionally created by Külmsaari police, that had proved so useful to the Sargossans and their forces of chaos during that skirmish, and now a martyr that they themselves had unintentionally created was now giving them a far harder opposition than any they’d faced before.
Yes, Iversen-Eklund and co had been greedy, complacent, weak, and too busy trying to be everything to everyone. But they’d been happy to work with Sargossa when it was necessary, and they’d never painted them as an ‘enemy without’. Nor had they ever actively sought to end democracy across Valhalla. And that was chilling to Alexsandr.
The Kalten Address.
Alexsandr didn’t even know where Kalten was, and he had the curiously good geography of a footballer. Go south from Aleutia Town and you get to the island of Steffansson. He knew that island well enough. Go south still from there and you reach the island of Kalten. One town, Kalten, and a handful of fishing villages, and a population that had swelled over the past week with Party officials, OO, security forces, and a bare minimum of press.
Why was the Secretary General making big speeches in towns like Kalten, Alexsandr had wondered. Why Aleutia at all? One of the further flung states, and not exactly a big hitter by any metric you chose to measure it against. So why Kalten? And why was he the only person that seemed to be wondering this?
He’d checked back through the biographies. There was no connection between Kalten and Lund at any point. So far as he could tell, he’d never been there before in his life. For a leadership that seemed to value symbolism and appearances above almost everything else, it seemed a bizarre choice.
“For three decades, you, my True Valhallans, have put your trust in me and my Party, and have voted for us to lead this great nation. We came to power thanks to our desire to no longer show weakness to foreign governments, and it was a desire you shared...”
Until, that is, Alexsandr spotted the time it was due to take place. Right at the same time as the Terns were kicking off against Eura.
Well. That changed things.
Suddenly, a bafflingly obscure choice had turned into a worrying obscure choice. There was no prospect now of Alexsandr watching the game. Lund was up to something, trying to hide something in plain sight. You can’t be accused of lying in Polarian politics if you’ve clearly said it somewhere already, right? If nobody notices, if the press don’t report on it strongly for some reason, then somebody else’s problem. Not yours.
So when everyone else in the country was excitedly tuning into the match against Eura, when the Nasjonale was rocking with anticipation ahead of the repeat of the World Cup 66 final, when all eyes were on the capital and all anyone could talk about was whether Miroshnichenko and the Terns could repeat their remarkable result from Brenecia by beating the second seeds as well... the eyes of Alexsandr were on Kalten, The Party, and Lund. What was he up to?
Turned out, trying to get rid of elections altogether.
Almost, at least.
“...who would we be, if we were to then hand back that power to another bunch of weak politicians, happy to let the other nations of Rushmore walk all over us, and take what they see fit from the waters of Oygruppen?”
Alexsandr was still running the speech through in his mind. What had he actually said. Elections had been a shame for decades now, that was an open secret. But a population that was scared to speak up, and the systematic destruction of any cross-Federation party that would have had the power to form a government had meant that opposition was fragmented and broken. Shattered. Piecemeal victories in a handful of token locations were ceded to parties in order to give the illusion of free will, but that was it. Election after election, overwhelming victories were recorded for Åskskur, and the continued presence of Lund as Secretary General. To oust them from power would take three things, first and foremost. One, an unholy coalition of political parties across the Federation, the likes of which not even ‘traditional’ Polarian politics had ever seen. Two, free and fair elections. And three, the people to come to their senses and realise that things actually weren’t as good as claimed, and that they could have a different future if they wanted one.
Which pretty much ruled it out.
So then, what was this speech all about?
Alexsandr thought back to the speech. Lund was a younger man than Alexsandr, but not by that much, and he understood that look. There was a glint in those eyes that Alexsandr recognised in his own face when he looked in the mirror most mornings. The recognition of one’s own mortality. Or at least, that your presence at the top table of current affairs was no longer a given.
“...I have no intention to retire, my friends. I have no intention to wind down, or to let everything we’ve built fall into the hands of those who would squander it.”
Without Lund, what would happen? It was a question that Alexsandr and his friends has asked many a time, back when political change seemed possible, and the people were still half-minded to rally behind an international football player that moved into politics. Stranger things had happened before, and he was a beloved and household name. Ultimately, though, they hadn’t been able to come up with a satisfactory answer to that question. If they managed to force Lund out, surely some other head would crop up that could be just as bad. Better the devil you know? The more hot headed members of the group had even mentioned more radical means at one point, but Alexsandr was loathe to do what Sargossa had done and create a martyr. That was back when change seemed possible, though. Back when you genuinely believed a majority of the people were voting for this shower of nationalists, rather than just a strong and vocal minority that had bullied their way to power, and that if you could just make them see another way was possible, then you’d be able to change things.
So much for that.
The group had drifted apart, and tighter grips had been placed on Alexsandr. More or less under house arrest now, he’d all but given up until he’d heard the news about the Terns.
Football? International football?
Not only that, but a tentative lowering of the borders as well?
What was going on?!
“Never again will Valhallan land fall into the hands of foreign powers. Never again will we allow our nation to be led, rudderless, in circles. Never again will I allow someone I do not approve of to make a mess of your business.”
His mind had started to race. Was the economy in an even worse state than was feared? The official line so far from The Party was that the Multiverse was in dire need of seeing the might of Valhalla. But if you believed that... Briefly, he’d wondered if this all meant Lund was preparing to go slower in his old age, to relax things now he’d had this three decades of fun.
The Kalten Address put paid to that idea.
No, reading between the lines, things were possibly about to get worse. Alexsandr felt a bit hopeless, really. How was he going to be able to affect any change from there? What change was there even left to affect? He was an old, old man now. How much energy did he really have left? How much appetite for a fight?
He sighed, as he finally tuned out of his trance to see that Panamer was still one-up. No, wait, two-up. The heroics of Eisenhauer’s last minute winner against Brenecia or Niemi’s last minute equaliser against Eura were not to be repeated today, apparently. Miroshnichenko had just thrown Niemi on as well, in an attempt to see if lightning would strike twice. Alexsandr winced. That was unfortunate. Just as a defensive manager looked to be coming out of his shell, too. That wasn’t going to help things.
The sight of Niemi did make him think, though. Where did the Terns fit into all this? The Party had been unusually keen to push the Terns and international sport as a spectacle. What was the game, there?
That wouldn’t fit into the ‘Valhalla stronk’ narrative, surely. Not yet. The Terns had been isolated for three decades. It would have taken an act of monumental stupidity at the VFA and The Party itself to actually think the Terns would go straight into the international scene and start dominating, surely. So then, why...? He was yet to work it out, him and his remaining associates. And he was even further away from figuring out what he was going to do about it. If anything.
Nonetheless, Niemi offered something valuable to Alexsandr and his associates during the Di Bradini Cup; a glimpse into the way The Party was thinking these days. They’d taken his thumb, surely it was deliberate, because he was making a sign that honoured his hometown of Marylebone. Why was a young man like Niemi such a threat?
Alexsandr picked up his phone. There was a timely text message from the Tramdriver...
>Tramdriver: “Stand by your beds; a young man in Farfadillis has just ruffled some feathers.”
Hm.
Another glimpse behind the curtain?
“Trust in us, my True Valhallans. Continue to place your trust in us, and you will be repaid in strength!”
The final whistle blew in Panamer, but was another battle off the pitch was just starting? The main problem was, one side didn’t even know what game the other was playing, let alone what rulebook they were using...
- Neibeskiya (25')
