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Makemakean Does Various Graphical Things!

Faces of Nordic Reunification

princeJörgen.jpg

“With all due respect gentlemen…!” Prince Jørgen suddenly interjected, “Look, I-… It truly is gratifying and flattering that you all seem to think that I may be able to come with some useful advice or opinion worth giving on this matter and so invited me to this... thing, but, err-… Frankly, this all seems to be a bit beyond me, and I’ve kind of had some to drink already, and you fellows seem to know what you’re doing, so-…”

The room went silent. Everyone was staring at Prince Jørgen in various shades of alarm, fury, despair, and bewilderment. Herr Hedegaard looked like he was about to explode. Herr Cohen-Brandes put his hand over his forehead. Nicolas Andersen himself looked as if someone had just dropped a tray of fine imported china on the floor. The slightest of differences could be seen even on the stoic face of Admiralissimo Christmas, as he raised one eyebrow ever so little.

“…so I figured, err-…” Prince Jørgen continued “May I be excused to go back to the-… err-…”

“Your Royal Highness,” the Court Master of Ceremonies began, “This is an Extraordinary Council of State. Her Majesty and Her Majesty’s children are currently all abroad. In Sweden and in Norway. Which for four more weeks remain other nations.”

“Well, yes…?”

“As Her Majesty’s senior heir of the blood still in this country, by the Danish Constitution of 1835, you are Realm Protector, Your Royal Highness: the Rightful Monarch in all but name.”

“I see…?”

“The sole person in all of Denmark capable and legally sanctioned to exercise all the royal powers and prerogatives.”

“Meaning that-…?”

“Your Royal Highness, we stand on the precipice of war. Anything and everything that we might do explicitly requires your consent, or else all government is paralyzed. It is most essential that you stay, Your Royal Highness.”

The silence returned, and as Prince Jørgen's eyes wandered over the room, locking the gaze with every other individual therein, one at the time, each expression conferred to him that the Court Master of Ceremonies was entirely right in his enunciation of constitutional jurisprudence. The Hereditary Prince felt the weight of a kingdom and three duchies descend upon his shoulders.

There is a legend that somewhere there is a cave, deep beneath Zealand, and there lies Ogier the Dane, in deep sleep, waiting for the hour of Denmark's greatest need, when all seems lost, to awake and come to aid of his country. And there has has laid for over a thousand years. Occasionally, the end does seem near, and the canonballs fired at Copenhagen and Elsinore will indeed disturb his sleep. But hitherto, every time that has happened, Ogier has merely said, No, not yet, and returned to his millennial slumber. Again, the legendary Danish King had awakened, in his hall under the Mountains that Denmark most certainly does not have, and again he had replied, No, not yet.

Jørgen, Hereditary Prince of Denmark was going to have to do it this time.

“Oh, Helvede...” was all he could muster.
 
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My conception of Prince Jørgen is that he is kind of the Anti-Claudius in Hamlet. Though as the brother of King Christian VIII, he was the heir apparent to the throne following the death of his nephew Crown Prince Frederick, he never wanted the job on account of his homosexuality, which is an open secret in Danish high society, and he has in fact for many years been in a longterm committed relationship with an artist from Jutland by the name of Solbjørn Jacobsen. Very reluctant to give up a very happy and comfortable life, he obviously had no problems at all when Christian VIII proposed abolishing Salic Law in Denmark. Since the succession of his niece, Queen Frederikke, Prince Jørgen and Solbjørn spend most of their time in France, originally out of concern that his presence in Denmark could threaten the legitimacy of Queen Frederikke's ascension to the throne, but seeing concerns about that proved unfounded and the Danes readily accepted Frederikke as their rightful queen, nowadays he mainly lives there because he prefers the warmer climate, and it kind of helps the career of Solbjørn to be closer to Paris.

He is only visiting Denmark for the summer due to the many ceremonies and other celebrations that accompanies Nordic Reunification, and he is quite looking forward to returning to France, his personal motto being “Rather Catholic hypocrisy than Lutheran piety”.
 
Faces of Nordic Reunification

HerrÖrsted.jpeg

It cannot be easy living in the shadow of so great a father as Hans Christian Ørsted, the great “Father of Blixtkraft”[1], the man whose ideas allowed for Osmanians to be more than mere quaint calculating and summation toys to great behemoths capable of things no one had ever dreamed of, but Albert Nikolai Ørsted seems to be managing just fine. He's already a rather accomplished scientist and engineer, and though only tangentially involved in the new great Nordic Imperial Network and the Iivari-Lorentz architecture of Osmanians, he has nonetheless happily accepted an invitation by the Society of Sithric Silkbeard to speak on election night in Copenhagen on Osmanians and networks for the benefit of high society.

These days, Albert Nikolai spends most of his time up in Kiruna in the Grand Principality of Finland at the Brahe-Rømer Institute of Astronomy. He has not published anything for over five years, and has been noticable taciturn on the topic of his current research, and yet he has received considerable funding each year from both the Danish and Swedish government, and that this seems to be increasing. Seeing that the Nordic Imperial Network was first officially announced by the government four years after construction had started, there are speculations that Professor Ørsted is working on some top secret government project.

Absurd, of course.

But one has to wonder...

Why would the government think it's worthwhile to waste so much money on astronomical endeavours?

And why would a specialist on blixtkraft care about starlight, anyway?


[1] OTL's Hans Christian Ørsted actually had strong views on terminology in science, and hated the practice of importing terms from Latin and Ancient Greek. Ørsted felt that terms should be taken from the native language of the people using them, or at the very least closely related languages, which was why he said that if Danish wasn't sufficient, Danish scientists should turn to Swedish and Norwegian for alternatives. It was very important to Ørsted furthermore that the terms themselves on their own should give the man on the street an idea of what they described, and he actually wrote an entire book suggesting changes to existing Danish scientific terminology, of which some were adopted: both the Danish for oxygen and hydrogen are Ørsted's inventions. Though Ørsted never suggested an improvement for electricity and magnetism, in his book remarking that the terms had been in use so long already by that point that it was pointless to try to change them now, I figured that in this timeline, he eventually concludes that blixtkraft is a suitable Scandinavian term for electricity.
 
I was actually very annoyed to read @Thande 's most recent chapter of Look to the West, because the idea of a top-secret government project in Northern Scandinavia in the 19th century was one I've had a long time, and if I ever were to write an entire series set in the Swedish Strangerverse in the 19th century, I would always have it be there in the background, occasionally referenced, with hints that the government is funding research into quantum mechanics, that they intend to use one day or another for some horrible weapon.
 
I was actually very annoyed to read @Thande 's most recent chapter of Look to the West, because the idea of a top-secret government project in Northern Scandinavia in the 19th century was one I've had a long time, and if I ever were to write an entire series set in the Swedish Strangerverse in the 19th century, I would always have it be there in the background, occasionally referenced, with hints that the government is funding research into quantum mechanics, that they intend to use one day or another for some horrible weapon.
It's not the same area of science though. And for the record I hinted at it as early as June 2015 so you can't complain :p

It actually reminds me more of a very old piece that used to be hosted in ChangingTheTimes around 2005 which basically went from "Newton gets a better prism and wonders what these black lines are" and then smash cuts to "after 17 years playing with a big wooden centrifuge, someone leaves a cart down a street in Paris during one of the 18th century wars - and the city disappears".
 
It's not the same area of science though. And for the record I hinted at it as early as June 2015 so you can't complain :p

Oh yeah, I do remember that chapter, but in fairness, I had no idea where you going to go with Photel at that point.

I have for a long time myself been playing with the idea of a different history of electromagnetism, ever since during one particular lecture in QFT I suddenly realized that, wait, if light are merely waves in the electromagnetic spectrum, why can't you just say that the electromagnetic spectrum is the medium in which light travels? That the EM field is the luminiferous aether, it just doesn't behave the way we would expect a medium in classical mechanics to behave?

It actually reminds me more of a very old piece that used to be hosted in ChangingTheTimes around 2005 which basically went from "Newton gets a better prism and wonders what these black lines are" and then smash cuts to "after 17 years playing with a big wooden centrifuge, someone leaves a cart down a street in Paris during one of the 18th century wars - and the city disappears".

Would like to read that and find out what happens next.
 
I have for a long time myself been playing with the idea of a different history of electromagnetism, ever since during one particular lecture in QFT I suddenly realized that, wait, if light are merely waves in the electromagnetic spectrum, why can't you just say that the electromagnetic spectrum is the medium in which light travels? That the EM field is the luminiferous aether, it just doesn't behave the way we would expect a medium in classical mechanics to behave?
Yes, the same thought has occurred to me as well. It's a good example of the arbitrariness of scientific incommensurability, as with how I used phlogiston in LTTW.
 
Far from happy with this one (the drawing that is), but took more effort than it should have taken, and I've grown very fond of the character...

Faces of Nordic Reunification

Rosencrantz.jpeg

“Oh, your husband was that Count Rosencrantz!” Sir Rupert remarked merrily, “Why, I knew him! I met him a few times at Boodle's back when he was the Danish ambassador in London! Always struck me as a most agreeable fellow! But I must admit that I was entirely unaware that he had passed away. Terribly news indeed! How did it happen?”

The Countess Dowager Rosencrantz gave the nonplussed Sir Rupert a very cold and unhappy look.

“Occupational hazard,” coughed Andersen, awkwardly trying to put an end to the very tense moment, “A diplomatic misunderstanding. Confidential correspondence getting… mixed up. But, err-… A formal apology was issued by the foreign court in question, he was given a hero’s funeral, and, well, we all miss him and wish dearly he could have been here tonight!”
 
Is that just a colourful Tante Møhge you've drawn?

Pretty much (had to google to find out who Tante Møhge is though).

My conception of Countess Rosencrantz is that she is fundamentally a rather courteous old lady, who is very pleasant to deal with if you observe the proper etiquette. The richest widow in all of Copenhagen, she became something of a celebrity for buying the most war bonds of any individual in Denmark during the late Great Baltic War. Incredibly wealthy, she donates to an awful lot of charitable societies, and of course, she's a loyal donor to Radikale Højre as well.

I can only assume she's got somewhere around a dozen Cocker Spaniels in her manor, and that her sister is the Countess Dowager Gyldenstierne.

Fundamentally, she's a nice, wealthy, somewhat pretty bigoted old lady.
 
Pretty much (had to google to find out who Tante Møhge is though).

My conception of Countess Rosencrantz is that she is fundamentally a rather courteous old lady, who is very pleasant to deal with if you observe the proper etiquette. The richest widow in all of Copenhagen, she became something of a celebrity for buying the most war bonds of any individual in Denmark during the late Great Baltic War. Incredibly wealthy, she donates to an awful lot of charitable societies, and of course, she's a loyal donor to Radikale Højre as well.

I can only assume she's got somewhere around a dozen Cocker Spaniels in her manor, and that her sister is the Countess Dowager Gyldenstierne.

Fundamentally, she's a nice, wealthy, somewhat pretty bigoted old lady.
That is her, yes.

Also, you should watch Matador. It's Danish, yes, but that's made up for by literally everything else about it.
 
Fundamentally, she's a nice, wealthy, somewhat pretty bigoted old lady.

“Isn’t that a proper Morian?” said Countess Rosencrantz.

“I beg your pardon?” said Sir Rupert.

“That gentleman over there!”

“No, I meant, what do you mean by Morian?”

“A Morian! A Moor! An African fellow!”

“Oh, you mean a Ni-… Well, it doesn’t really matter what terminology you use, I suppose. No, I’m afraid you’re mistaken on that point. The gentlemen over there is not from Africa, but from India.”

“Oh, what a shame! I haven’t seen a proper Morian in ages! Would have loved to see one again!”

“So you have met Ni-… Morians in the past then?”

“Once! In Liverpool, many years ago! The fellow was some sort of a preacher! Stood on a wooden box in a harbour, shouting Hallelujah! Naturally, I just had to approach and discourse with him! Such a wonderfully gay character! Spoke his French in such a wonderfully quaint creole! And you should see a Morian when they smile! With their black skin, their teeth are like bands of pearls! I gave him three pounds sterling before I left!”

“Was he asking for donations?” asked Christensen.

“I don’t think so,” said Countess Rosencrantz a bit perplexed as she tried to remember, “But he looked so shabby and ragedy, like he could really use it, so I couldn’t help myself!”
 
Also, I kind of demand that you explicitly acknowledge how well-drawn those roses were! Drawing roses is a damned difficult thing to do, and I was actually very pleased with the outcome!
 
Problems first arose in the famous David Flynn Incident in 1843 when a Swedish soldier got lost and was captured by Russian forces. Had it not been for the fact that Chancery President Magnus Björnstjerna had first been elected in 1832 on a platform of peace and normalized relations with Russia, and that the Tsar in St. Petersburg at the time, Constantine I, was deeply engaged in internal reforms and modernization and so did not wanted to be distracted by a war with Sweden, the incident very well could have provoked a new Russo-Swedish War. Fortunately, both the Russian and Swedish foreign ministries acted quickly to diffuse the situation, and within a week, David Flynn was returned unmolested to the Swedish armed forces in a small ceremony whereby both the Fenno-Swedish and the Russian troops involved ended the day by having dinner together, playing sports, and drinking vodka, joking about the "accidental invasion of Russia", while the Swedish and Russian governments agreed that at the soonest most appropriate moment, a conference be organized to clarify the status of the border.

Was he arrested building a lot of snowmen as his first line of defence?

Also, I kind of demand that you explicitly acknowledge how well-drawn those roses were! Drawing roses is a damned difficult thing to do, and I was actually very pleased with the outcome!

Very nice, Max. Now can you tastefully insert something suggesting a fist is holding them?
 
Curiously, Wikipedia claims that Rosencrantz/Rosenkrantz is Danish for rosary, which it most certainly isn't. It's Danish (and Swedish and Norwegian) for rose wreath, as can be seen on the actual Danish Rosencrantzs's coat of arms:

Rosenkrantz.jpg
 
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