Happy Hour

[closesecond]

It takes a while for Kane to notice the napkin, engrossed as he is in his EVA display and its reports of the layout of the proving ground where the GDI Mammoth Tank is being tested. The napkins have piled up five-high by the time he finally gets the message.

Kane sighs. "I suppose it was just a matter of time before you pressed me into service. Very well."

Idly he glances up at the calendar. To a man who has lived as many days as Kane, nearly every day of the year carries some significance, most of which the world has forgotten. But as the war against the imperialists rages across Europe, today feels especially significant.

He quickly begins writing the sign.


Madam Bar has enlisted me to be your bartender for this evening. It is, to my understanding, customary for guest bartenders to provide a discount on certain drinks. I shall not be doing so. However, since today is the anniversary of the First Battle of the Marne, I instead invite you to share with me this bottle of 1914 Lafite Rothschild, and drink in remembrance of the fallen.

- Jacob Caine

Comments

[street_sparrow]

A serious-faced young man approaches the Bar, taking off his hat when he sees the sign.

"I don't know that battle, but I'll drink to that."

For once, he's not even thinking about pushing his luck on getting served at 17.

[closesecond]

"It is worth drinking to," Kane says. "Whether it's worth telling you about rather depends on which year you hail from."

[street_sparrow]

"Originally 1832. Now sort of 2007 but I don't know a lot of Above history."

[closesecond]

"That sounds to me like an interesting story," Kane says.

He pours a glass.

"I'm thinking you tell me it, I'll tell you about the war, and we both drink. How does that sound?"

[street_sparrow]

"Sounds like a fair deal to me", Gavroche says cheerfully. "So who goes first?"

[closesecond]

Kane slides Gavroche a glass. "It isn't especially important to me," Kane says. "I can begin if you'd like."

[street_sparrow]

He accepts the glass and takes a sip - this is a wine to be treated with respect, something in the way Kane wrote out its name made that clear - and smiles.

"Please, go ahead."

[closesecond]

"Alright," Kane says.

"The first thing to know is that a great deal had changed in Europe in the eighty-two years since the June Rebellion. The Prussians had ended Louis-Napoleon's Second Empire more than forty years prior, seizing Alsace-Lorraine and forming a new German state. France was now a Republic, Italy and Germany were now unified countries, Greece was independent, as were most of the rest of the countries of the Balkans, and the Ottoman Empire was finally getting around to dying like it had been threatening to do for the last two centuries.

"But years of imperialist posturing in Africa and military buildup in Europe had created tension. The Great Powers were all lined up against each other in a series of alliances - war with one would mean war with all. All of Europe was a powder keg. And the fuse would be lit in the Balkans, where the Russians and the Austrians each wished to exert their influence.

"The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot by a Serbian assassin. Austria declared war on Serbia, Russia declared war on Austria, Germany declared war on Russia, and so on and so forth until nearly every nation in Europe was involved.

"Are you with me so far?"

[street_sparrow]

"A Republic?" is what he latches onto first. "Really a Republic, that lasts?" And then the rest sinks in. "Yes, I think I understand. But... war across all of Europe? Worse than Bonaparte?"

It's hard to credit.

[closesecond]

"Far worse," Kane says. "Tens of millions dead, many in battles more futile and horrific than you can possibly imagine.

"But yes. France is truly a Republic. Were you among those who fought in Paris?"

[street_sparrow]

"Yes, but maybe not at the time you're thinking of. It was in 1832, and the uprising failed before it really got off the ground - the people mostly preferred not to die when the National Guard came. I was a boy of ten, a gamin, and the drivers of the attempt were my friends. I was there on the barricade with them."

[closesecond]

"Actually, that is the time I was thinking of," Kane says. "You had mentioned you hailed originally from 1832."

Kane has always sympathized with revolutionaries. They are the ones who seek to better the species and throw off the shackles holding them back. They have been, and shall always be allies of the Brotherhood of Nod.

"The Battle of the Marne was a different sort of clash in Paris - one that sought to save the city itself, and not merely its soul."

[street_sparrow]

"So I did", he says with a nod. "It means something that you know there was fighting - I'd thought we'd be a footnote at best, a few days in the city's history. Someone wanted to destroy Paris itself?" he adds with some possessive horror.

[death_gone_mad]

Well, this can serve as an interesting experiment.

A blonde teenager who might have a familiar face takes a seat at the bar. She proclaims, "I have heard this Bar will sell me anything I want. Is that true?"

While waiting for an answer, she takes a moment to read the sign the barman just put up.

[closesecond]

"It is true," Kane says.

He takes a closer look at the patron.

"You look familiar."

[death_gone_mad]

"I don't know how I would; It's my first time here." Of course it's a lie, but she has had several millennia of practice.

Deflecting a bit, she says, "Well, that's a problem. Even if there was a menu, I might take forever to decide what I want... That menu would be a large tome, as well."

"That's wine, isn't it?" she asks, pointing at the Lafite Rothschild.

[closesecond]

"Hmmm," Kane says. "You do look very much like someone I've seen here before. I must be mistaken."

Doubtful. He's very good with faces. But he doesn't press the matter.

Kane nods. "It's excellent wine, of an old vintage. And it's on me."

[death_gone_mad]

"That's curious, I wonder who that would be."

She extends a hand in greeting, "I'm Sarah Black." Eh, it wouldn't break credibility if she introduces herself. Only paranoiacs would think dropping names in a pocket dimension that has no (easy) access to their own home dimension would be a bad thing.

Oh, great, now her alter ego is insulting her. Hmm... somewhere along the line, Sarah will need a reason to become paranoid and not be willing to introduce herself so quickly.

"I would really like that wine and the story of the Battle of Marne, if you are willing to tell it."

[closesecond]

"Ah," Kane says, taking the offered hand. "Then you are who I was thinking of."

He's also excellent with names.

"I'd suggest perhaps that this was a matter of memory, but you look younger and you say you haven't been here before, so I imagine this is probably some kind of temporal snag."

He pours a glass.

"I'd be happy to tell it. But first, do you know anything at all of the First World War?"

[death_gone_mad]

"Huh, I was warned about that. I wouldn't have believed it, but we are supposedly at the end of time here." Pfft, crazy place.

She knows that a Second World War happened from spying on a book Kane was reading, but her younger self wouldn't know, would she? "Nothing at all, probably. Just that there probably was a second if it needs to be distinguished as the first." Sarah isn't a dumbass, why should her younger self be?

[closesecond]

"A reasonable and correct assumption," Kane says, sliding the glass to Sarah.

"The First World War was above all else a war between empires, most of which were dying. The two that were dying the fastest were the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Ottoman hold on the Balkan Peninsula had crumbled. The question then arose over what to do with the area, and who would rule it. The Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire both wanted a say in how it was governed. Naturally, the people of the Balkans thought that they should have a say in it. This issue became entangled in issues of nationalism, imperialism, and militarism. Eventually, an Austrian noble was assassinated, and everybody involved simply decided it was too much effort not to have a world war.

"One of the most powerful nations involved was a country called Germany in the center of the continent. They were on Austria's side. But they were surrounded - the French were arrayed against them in the west and the Russians in the east. They would need to defeat the French quickly in order to win the war. And they almost did, but for the Battle of the Marne."

He takes a drink of his own glass.

"Instead the war went on for four more years."

[death_gone_mad]

He doesn't object to serving alcohol people who look like teenagers. Might be important, might not.

She take a sip and comments, "Nice."

"Well, diplomacy can't solve everything, I suppose." Especially when there are people like her doing their best to prevent diplomacy from happening. "So what about the battle itself?"

[closesecond]

Kane is hardly a prude about such things. Humanity had gotten along just fine for thousands of years without a legal age limit. Frankly, Kane thinks it only worsens the problem.

"Indeed," Kane says. "The problem with the diplomatic situation in Europe was that it had become so entangled that it required a sharp mind and a level head to navigate."

Germany had lost both when Bismarck died. Pity - Kane had always admired his cunning, reactionary though he might have been.

"The battle itself was a desperate and bloody affair. Germany began their invasion by violating the neutrality of Belgium, and were nearly at the gates of the French capital of Paris. But the French and their British allies stood firm and counterattacked, driving into their flank. The Germans were stopped in their tracks, and four years of bloody trench warfare followed.

"It was a momentous day. Even today people still remember the Parisian taxicabs that brought thousands of French troops to the front line in defense of their homeland."

He remembers it quite well himself. The high water mark of nationalism, as far as Kane was concerned. Of course, as the century continued, Kane realized that neither nations nor nationality could have any place in humanity's glorious future. They are toxic and divisive things.

[death_gone_mad]

"Trench warfare." She thinks for a bit. "How does that work?"

[closesecond]

"Two armies settle into long defensive lines," Kane says. "They launch artillery at each other, and every once in a while one side decides to attack. Very little is accomplished except a lot of people dying."