Kane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
closesecond) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
milliways_bar2013-09-05 01:54 pm
closesecond) wrote in milliways_bar2013-09-05 01:54 pm
Entry tags:
Happy Hour
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
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.
- Jacob Caine
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He takes a closer look at the patron.
"You look familiar."
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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.
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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."
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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."
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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?"
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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?
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"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."
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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?"
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"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.
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There's recognition in the way she says it, but a faint hidden bit of nostalgia.
"Like the stories of the god wars. Those were fronts that hardly moved from year to year," she says like a kid who has heard too many tales about the glories of war. "What is accomplished is that the front doesn't move and the lands beyond the front are saved from the fighting."
Safe to produce new bodies to feed into the combine of the Front. Safe, save for assassins and maddened murderers that stalk beyond the Front.
It was a hell of a way to be welcomed back into the world.
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Kane is keenly aware of the production necessities of war. It's why he made sure he perfected tiberium-based additive manufacturing before he began his own.
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