Chapter 2 -- The Weight of Legitimacy
The hall did not rest after the UN's words. The typewriters rattled like insects in the corners, the rain hammered its steady rhythm against the glass, and the soldiers at the door shifted their weight, boots squeaking faintly on damp stone. It was not silence. It was pressure.
The Central Union's envoy stood first. He rose slowly, shoulders square, chin tilted just enough to make the gesture look like arrogance disguised as dignity. His chair scraped the floor with the kind of noise meant to remind others of his presence.
"Let us not play at ignorance," he began. His hands moved lightly, palms half-open, as if he were a professor scolding students. "These lands have always belonged to the Central Union's circle. Our rails carved through its jungles decades before your Western ships arrived. Our schools raised its elites when your empires were busy bleeding each other dry in the Western continent. Our factories turned its harvest into civilisation whilst you were learning the price of your own wars."
His voice carried the confidence of a man reciting scripture. He gestured toward the walls with a dismissive flick.
"The regime you condemn drew its methods from Slavia Imperium doctrine, yes—but we provided the vision to temper their excesses. When they ignored our counsel and embraced only the brutality whilst discarding the wisdom, that corruption became inevitable. We offered balance, moderation, the patient path of development. They chose the Slavia way of purges and terror instead. History will show we tried to guide them toward enlightenment, not darkness."
He paused, letting the words weigh down. His smile did not reach his eyes.
"We offer more than remembrance. We offer strength. The Union will help found the new state, as we have done for a dozen nations emerging from the ashes of empire. We will pour in the lifeblood that sustains nations—men and women ready to work, trained in the disciplines that build rather than destroy. Roads rebuilt not by foreign contractors seeking profit, but by comrades seeking progress. Factories humming not to serve distant markets, but to serve the people themselves. Ports alive again, not as extraction points for colonial wealth, but as gateways to socialist brotherhood."
His tone warmed, as if he were offering salvation itself.
"Not promises on paper. Hands. Labour. Millions who understand what it means to rise from nothing, who have themselves thrown off the chains of exploitation. They will come not as conquerors but as brothers, sharing the knowledge of collective strength."
He leaned forward as he finished, knuckles pressing the table, gaze daring anyone to dispute him.
The Southern Commonwealth's envoy scoffed, shifting back in his chair with folded arms. His face was drawn tight, jaw set against the rising sting of the words. When he spoke, his accent carried the dust of open plains and the memory of frontier wars.
"Order?" he said, the word bitten out like a challenge. "Discipline? You parade yourselves as saviours whilst the graves outside this city are filled with bodies shaped by Slavia Imperium's legacy. Their doctrine created the very machine that ground children into the earth. Do not tell us they fell because they lacked you. They fell because they were moulded by that empire—taught their methods, their contempt for the individual, their worship of the collective that devours its own young."
The Union envoy tilted his head, feigning sympathy, though his smirk betrayed it. "If they collapsed, it only proves what I say. Left alone, these people tear each other apart. Without structure, without guidance, they are incapable of governance. The tribal mind cannot build nations. Better to accept a firm hand than drown again in blood."
The Federation general surged to his feet. His chair clattered against stone. His fist slammed the table so hard the inkpots trembled, and when he spoke, twenty years of contained fury finally found its voice.
"Firm hand?" His voice carried the weight of nights spent in burned villages, of names carved into ledgers that would never be complete. "It was Federation soldiers who dragged children from ditches, who photographed the corpses so the world would not deny them. You speak of guidance as if your hands are clean, as if your ideology didn't spring from the same poisoned well as the Slavia Imperium's. Where was your Union when their doctrine was grinding children into the earth? Silent. Complicit. Waiting to see which way the wind would blow before deciding whether to embrace or disown your ideological cousins."
His voice dropped to a whisper that somehow filled the chamber.
"You speak of brotherhood. Tell me about the brotherhood you showed those who opposed you. Tell me about the collective strength you offered the tribes when your proteges hunted them like animals. Your 'guidance' taught them to use starvation as a weapon, to turn parents against children, to make torture into policy. Do not stand here and call that discipline."
The Union envoy's smile turned brittle, but before he could respond, Gaule's representative cut across the tension. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, coat still dripping with morning rain. His voice was measured, but his gaze was iron.
"Enough fairy tales of protection from both of you. We remember. When empire fell, it was Gaule that pried your claws from this region, Union. Our fleets stood here then, and they stand again now. But we do not come with whips or overseers. We do not come with commissars or collective farms. We come with markets."
A ripple of unease crossed the chamber. Even the Union envoy's smirk faltered.
"Yes," Gaule continued, voice sharper now. "This land can be rebuilt not by conscripts and chains, not by ideological purges and five-year plans, but by access. By credit drawn against the weight of our economies, by opening doors to global markets where merit, not politics, determines value. With our backing, and the Federation's, and the Commonwealth's, these people will not kneel as servants to empire or ideology. They will rise as partners in prosperity."
The Southern Commonwealth envoy leaned in, voice rough but steady. "Capital is not shackles—it is investment. It binds through choice, not force. Debt can be repaid through honest work. Freedom can grow through honest trade. We offer not masses of labourers marching in lockstep, but a chance to stand in the world's markets, to trade, to breathe as a sovereign nation earning its place through what it produces, not whom it serves."
The Union envoy gave a laugh that was half sneer, half theatre. He spread his hands wide, as if revealing the absurdity of the room.
"Markets? Loans? Debt masquerading as liberation? You think scraps of paper will feed villages? That signatures will raise walls? Your 'investment' is empire by another name—softer chains, perhaps, but chains nonetheless. When the interest comes due, when the markets demand their tribute, these people will find themselves slaves to banks instead of commissars. At least we are honest about power."
The Federation general leaned across the table, eyes burning. His voice dropped low, not shouted but edged with venom.
"Better the weight of honest debt than the weight of your empire. At least debts end. At least markets offer choice. Your empire offers only the boot, the camp, and the mass grave. We have seen your 'brotherhood' in action. We buried its victims."
The chamber erupted—voices layered, colliding, West against Union, democracy against socialism, market against state. Observers craned forward, scribbling furiously. The Slavia Imperium's delegation whispered amongst themselves, smirking at every jab. The Crown Commonwealth remained statuesque, watching, calculating, as if the whole display were merely data to be processed.
And through it all, the minority representatives sat silent, backs straight, hands clenched. Their faces were masks of stone, but behind their eyes burned something else. Not gratitude. Not fear. Resentment.
The old veteran—the one the Federation general had recognised—did not move. His scarred hands rested flat on the table, his gaze unwavering as if measuring the distance between all these predators and his people.
When at last the World Council moderator rose, his face pale beneath the overhead lights, his words dragged the hall back to stillness.
"This is the question," he said. His voice carried like brittle glass, breaking the air. "Who claims legitimacy? The Union, with its history and labour? The Western bloc, with its markets and loans? Or—" He turned slowly toward the minority delegation. His eyes lingered, heavy. "—the people themselves, who have not yet spoken?"
The rain surged against the windows, drowning the silence that followed.
The whole world leaned in.