“Confederacy forces have been accused of war crimes in Central Vaeyox. Reports of CFN forces rampaging and looting captured towns and villages had filled the internet, showing in full the sheer hatred coming from ‘revolutionary’ forces. So far, law and order had collapsed in the three kingdoms, with local authorities unable to respond due to being ordered to stand down by the Confederacy. Widely circulated in social media too were scenes of Pozneki MPs shooting Azlistani POWs, which had been denied so far by the Pozneki government as ‘fake footage’.”

- ROCN News

+++

West Orland

November Palace

May 4, 2025

The media, the media, the media.

It was a growing tool that Amelie and the Heiss Government were using for their purposes. Quite frankly, the prosecution of the Second Great War hinged greatly on public opinion. The more they encouraged the war, the more they supported the public figures of the Heiss Government, and the more they convinced the people to do their part, the media was useful to Amelie.

Thus, she was today, meeting with one of the three great heads of Orlish media. Three women, who, in Amelie’s perspective, shaped the minds of Orland. And they weren’t just in charge of their own news channels, newspapers, etc. These three women controlled the nominally male-run tech corporations that built and maintained the Internet. Not just in Orland, but in all of Pollos.

And the main one was now in her room.

Well, the main one was Countess Weirloff.

Specifically, Former Prime Minister Alexa Weirlöff of the Weirlöff Holdings. Amelie’s old friend, the first Prime Minister who served under her, and the last one who served her mother. Amelie naturally had a cordial relationship with the former, badly disgraced Prime Minister, who had mostly retreated from political life…

Except for running the highly political internet platform called “Snoop”, something which Amelie had so far avoided using. She wasn’t really a big fan of social media, after all. Still, she recognized that “Snoop” was a place where billions of civilians go every day, for content, work, and of course, political posts.

“So,” Alexa started, smiling as she took her seat in front of Amelie’s table. “How is Her Majesty doing in all these? It’s been a while, huh?”

“Apologies,” Amelie meekly said. “I didn’t get to meet you again after that. It’s just been all too hectic.”

“I can see that,” Alexa nodded. “So, I suppose you need something?”

“Yeah…” Amelie shuffled a few documents in her hand. “Um, so you see, the polls…”

“Ah, the polls. Yes. Jacqueline already complained to me about it,” Alexa sighed. “Yeah, yeah, most young women are still reluctant to go straight into the meat grinder, but honestly, I don’t know what I can do to tell them to stop dodging the draft.”

“Alexa, please,” Amelie begged. “Can you…like, make some media campaign, or something? Maybe an advertisement of some sort? I mean, we already do it for men, so, we might as well—”

“Amelie, the difference between men and young women is that one is raised in a culture wherein they expect war and have been somewhat indoctrinated that it’s a place to find adventure, meaning, and purpose in a purposeless world,” she stared blankly to Amelie. “One grew up in a culture where they were told that they would never need to take up arms and that they should expect, nay, demand that the other group do the fighting for them. See the complication?”

“The culture is there, I know,” Amelie said. “But still, we have to do something. I can’t just…send in recruiters to raid houses or whatever, but the increasing amount of draft dodgers is going to affect us. Hell, I’ve heard that it’s becoming big in Snoop to find ways to dodge the draft.”

Alexa smiled.

“Young women with too much time in their hands. They’re devious. And I should say, those campaigns were very effective. It’s been trending since the Women Mobilization Bill was passed. How to dodge the draft one-zero-one.”

“And that exactly needs to stop,” Amelie said. “They can’t just weasel their way out and worse spread how to weasel their way out. I need warm bodies.”

“Whoah, gee,” Alexa’s eyes widened a bit. “You really speak that way now, do you?”

“Well, it’s the truth,” Amelie said. “I need those millions of fit, military-aged young women to go on an adventure for the big cause. And I’m not exaggerating when I say this, but I need them now. And I need a lot of reserves soon, because once the entire hammer goes down and the feds start an offensive, the losses will mount, and there needs to be replacement.”

“Have young men been really that tapped out?”

“No, not yet, but it’s close,” Amelie answered. “At this rate, we’d have to bring out the wheelchair regiment within a year or so, and I’m not interested in that, no, not ever. You know how bad those jokes were. That…that I’d bring out the wheelchair regiments first before drafting women. Well, we need to prove them wrong. This is our fight and we’ll fight it.”

“Hold on there, Amelie,” Alexa laughed. “First of all, it’s not like you’d be the one fighting.”

Amelie pouted.

“But that’s beside the point!”

“Second,” Alexa raised her fingers. “Again, how do you expect a simple ‘advertisement’ to do the trick? The issue is cultural. Mental. Young men, they’re easy to draft because they expect it. They’re defeatists. Their souls had been crushed in a million pieces and when you give them a draft paper they just sign it with an empty stare. They have no will to resist. In fact, many even want to be in the military to have power against us. Give a man a gun, and he’ll take it. I mean, just as a wand gives us a sense of power, a gun gives a guy a sense of power. There are so many reasons for them to join the military. Not so much for a young woman.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Okay, but still, you’re the media lady here,” Amelie said. “Like…can you get me a solution, I’m not really that well-versed in these things. I just know how to make a speech, that’s it. But I’m not sure about stuff beyond that.”

“I am spreading your call-to-arms speeches by the way with our algorithms,” Alexa nodded to herself. “Quite good speeches, I must say too. It gets a lot of attention. And I would bet millions have been swayed by your ideas. Well, swayed by your ideas to fight back and never surrender. Not exactly about the second part.”

“What second part?”

“The fighting back part,” Alexa fell silent. “Should be quite obvious, no? They cheer for you one moment until you tell them that no, seriously you have to do what I say and fight, and suddenly, there’s a video with thirteen million views about a young woman listing every legal loophole to dodge a draft treating it as a sort of awareness campaign to, erm, save people. I mean, to be fair, they have a point. They’d sure save themselves from a 155mm shell coming to the position that’d turn them into red mist by dodging the draft.”

“That’s just ridiculous!”

“Welcome to Orland, Your Majesty. Wanna have a cup of tea?”

“Yes, in fact, I’m ringing Nia,” Amelie said, picking up her phone and immediately phoning her lady-in-waiting for another serving of tea and cookies to her office. Amelie spent a little bit of thirty seconds distracted from the appointment with the woman in front of her as she listed the cookies and sweets she wanted in her office before she placed the phone back down. “Anyway, yeah, can you do something?”

“I make an advertisement with one of my production companies, release it, and they’d just make fun of us.”

“Ugh, okay, maybe spread government PSAs? Reiterate and reiterate the importance of signing up to fight.”

“Oh, great, something we already do. Do you really not check the internet?”

“I haven't ever since they created heinous art about me!” Amelie turned red. “I’d rather stare at the ceiling for a day straight than step in that cesspool. They can all rot there for all I care.”

“You really are a Queen. You know, thinking that you’re above the needs of the masses and all.”

“Damn right I am,” Amelie smirked. “I’m proud of that part of me. You can all be stupid scrolling endlessly, but I’m not. Instead, I’m buried in work twenty-four hours every week! Goddess damn it I need my tea.”

“Your white hair is growing,” Alexa pointed out, which distracted Amelie from her outburst. “Yeah…well, the golden blonde luster is still there, but I swear…”

Amelie checked her hair strands with her hand. Indeed, the amount of gray hair is now starting to grow. That was…well, she supposed not sleeping well sure had its effects. That and deciding daily about so many decisions that she had to make for national security. Sometimes, she wondered if rerouting so much of the decision-making to her office instead of the Prime Minister’s was a wonderful idea or not, besides the fact that she was now fully overusing her emergency powers by placing the roles of the democratic executive in her hands, but…

“I guess in terms of health it’s not,” Amelie muttered a bit. “But, well, regardless of that, I have a vision to enact, Alexa.”

She smiled faintly as she looked down at her hair.

“Stress. Missed sleep. Fear. Constant fear. The paranoia of being in the head of this nation…everything. I don’t think it’s ever going to compare to the plight of everyone below me. Even if I spend so many hours slaving away to make the right decisions, it wouldn’t compare. And my decisions affect billions. I…I have to do it right. Think all of it through as best as I can, and spend every mental willpower I have to enact it…

“I have a plan, Alexa. I…I swear I have one. I already talked greatly with William, Jacqueline, and the inner circle about it. We have to win this war. We can’t…lose it. Not if we want to keep humanity going forward. If we fail, then what of the people of this world? What of…the billions looking at us, hoping that we do something?

“Alexa, I don’t know if I’m the right woman for the job, really. I don’t know if all of my ideals are right. If I even believe in them anymore. But I want…I want to tell myself that I do believe in them because I promised change and hope. Change and hope…that was, that was my entire meaning when I was crowned. Change and hope. How can I do that, when a revolution hell-bent on nothing but blood lusted revenge is ongoing?

“I can’t move the world away from the horrors of the past when the monsters that those horrors created still fight on to spread their misery. I pity them, Alexa. I pity them so much, but if I cannot save them, then damn it I’ll save what we can save. The next generation. Those who still haven’t seen hell. Those who still…can be led to hope, and…change.”

Amelie looked up at Alexa.

“Is there really no way to do it?” Amelie asked. “Without such gruesome sacrifices? Without…choosing to save one over the other. Without…sending another generation, this time, young hopeful women who once had such bright futures, straight into the gates of hell? I realize now why. Why they don’t want it, yes. But…they don’t see that without doing what must be done, whatever future they imagine wouldn’t exist. Not for them, not for the generations after us. Not for humanity.”

“I can see the merits in your words, Your Majesty.”

“Alexa, please, there has to be a way. Something, to shape the minds of the people to do their part for the great cause. Can you—”

“The Great Cause,” Alexa muttered. “No…that word. You’re right. The Great Cause. The Great Cause. It sounds…perfect.”

“What?”

“The Great Cause, the Queen’s project to change the world for the better,” she smirked. “Starts with ending the monsters created by past horrors. We can simplify it further for the masses, but the idea. It sells to me. It sounds, both hopeful for a good future, like a call to arms. But also, it legitimizes the threat of hardship and terror ahead of us. All while not fully blaming the revolutionaries…or, men, for this entire disaster. The Great Cause…to stop the horrors created by our past mistakes…”

“I have been always admitting about the mistakes of the Kingdom,” Amelie muttered. “They say it’s not exactly a great idea, but I find it distasteful not to.”

“And it’s one of your popular qualities,” Alexa said. “You’re not someone who says, ‘Everything is fine,’ while all is burning. You’re someone humble enough to admit to past mistakes. That’s…going to go well with this messaging.”

Amelie fell silent. “I’m not sure how you’d do it though….”

“Do you have your full plans?” Alexa asked. “For this Kingdom?”

“Yes? It’s a fourteen-point plan. Everything I wanted to enact. Changes for everything. From ending the penal system. Ending the unequal welfare state. Ending extreme punitive acts against men. Ending the nobility itself. So many things, but…the civil war, and this…and now, I’m…those plans have been pushed back, greatly. How can I do it all when all is falling apart?”

“Then perfect it,” Alexa said. “Then I’ll find a way to spin it into something that young men and women, and most of the nation, can buy. Do you know what the extremists lack? What do the reactionaries and revolutionaries lack?”

“What?”

“They lack a true end goal. A true idea of what they are, and what they want for the people,” Alexa said. “Their ideals, it’s all incoherent. Vague. Unclear. What’s only clear is their sheer hatred for each other. The hatred of reactionary women against uncouth men. And the hatred of revolutionary men against high-brow women. Other than that, they’re all divided. And their messaging is weak in true purpose. We can fill that void, now.”

“Then…then I’ll try to do that then.”

“Good.”