“Queen Amelie Ludendorf and the Heiss Cabinet has achieved a sudden supermajority in the Orlish Parliament on the ‘State Protection Act’, repealing many provisions of the 1750 Federal Union Act that gave the noble rulers of Orlish Principalities massive autonomy in the laws and internal policies of their fiefdoms. Talks of consolidation are now also on the table to fully modernize the Orlish administrative system, with the UOP and ORP spearheading the enforcement of the 2012 New Union Act, which would consolidate the various small counties and provinces of Orland into new larger Principalities, reducing the count of Orlish Principalities into twelve. Both acts however have received staunch opposition from the Arcanist Party and the few conservative MPs of the UOP, with both criticizing it as a rushed wartime act for the Queen to centralize power to herself.”
- Geopol Press
+++
November Palace
West Orland
July 2, 2025
It had been weeks now since the crisis about the chemical attacks and the passing of the State Protection Act.
So far, the military and her ministers were now making good progress on the administrative reshuffling of local Orlish governments. Hundreds of inept and disloyal bureaucrats, politicians, and officials were being fired and replaced. Many because of their ties to the nobility.
In replacement of that, Amelie rolled in the carpet for a new generation of young, energetic, and determined women. So many of them had been stuck underneath the fossils who had kept the system shackled, leading to old talent stifling newer talent. Amelie also started personally spearheading the work on consolidating the Principalities.
One of the most painful things about the Orlish system was that so many different, smaller, and usually incapable administrative areas existed. Many were small counties and whatnot ruled by Countesses, Baronesses, or what-else that liked to act as if they were still in the 1800s. These people pursued radically braindead policies that they wouldn’t be able to support with their resources and become dependent on the central government for no reason.
The sheer number of reports of dumb policies instituted by differing, psychotic, inept, and incompetent nobles baffled Amelie into outrage. There were tax rates more unequal than what was set by the Kingdom. Delusional economic projects. Villainously psychotic anti-men legislation. Ridiculous punishment laws like whipping people. Some even had the gall to allow legal slavery in their Principalities, which Amelie remembered was supposed to be abolished in the Kingdom.
How did they get away with it?
Her grandmothers and mothers allowed it. Because they happened to be personal friends with the local lords ruling those places. The type of nobles who often promised that their Principality would vote this way or that way.
“Why are some of them going full medieval!” Amelie shouted to no one in particular while reading the reports on her table. “This is plain stupidity. And why would she be against gas masks in her city? ‘The children need to breathe’, well, no one said they’d have to wear it at all times!”
“It’s why we have to change it at last,” Jacqueline said, sipping her tea. “The draft for the New Union Act is also already nearly finished. They gave me the first maps of the Principalities here. Most of the large ones have been kept as they are. Two new formal Ducal Houses will be added upon signing since both House Wittfield and House Weirlöff control multiple Principalities by personal union already. And…well, the Free State is kept as it is…assuming we retake it.”
Amelie looked at the map presented to her. At the top were the same old natural ones—Westlauren, Ludendorf, Löt, Wuringen, and of course Oldrach. But two new ones were added, the first being the Duchy of Rimwurz since the area was collectively called the Rimwurz region, centered in the County of Wittfield. Then, her first Prime Minister’s little fiefdom was expanded to the Duchy of Luphalia, centered in the County of Weirlöff.
Then there were the rest of the consolidated Principalities. Nierbayern, Harlastadt, Eldenfurt, Rosenfurt, and Adlerban. By principle, each of them was just called by their region’s name. So the region of Nierbayern for example would have all of the small Principalities under it consolidated under the Duchy of Nierbayern.
“So twelve in total?” Amelie asked. “And who’s going to be the ceremonial leaders of these new Duchies?”
“Right now, our idea is to keep them vacant,” Jacqueline answered. “Then we’re going to do a post-war referendum on those Principalities for them to elect a house that would act as their ducal lord. They can also vote to be turned into full republics. For now, though, all of these Principalities will be treated as Duchies, so, basically, we’re all equal.”
“Yeah, but my Duchy has ‘Grand’ in front of it, so no,” Amelie joked.
Jacqueline chuckled.
“Well, you are the Queen. So you get to be the special snowflake. Besides, the Grand Duchy was the most powerful duchy anyway before the war. Times just changed, but I’m sure post-war that with the population of your Principality, it’d be back in ascendance.”
“Good to know,” Amelie then looked at Wuringen. “You know, I wonder how we’ll treat that Principality post-war.”
“The Free State is one of the worst projects created by our mothers. It’s more of a work camp the size of a Principality. The only reason it existed is because we wanted to screw men when we compromised with them. We tricked them into fueling our industrialization and economic boom.”
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“That…seems like how I understand the situation too,” Amelie said. “The mass immigration of men toward Wuringen for the last century has been…destructive both there and here.”
“Well, it’s what happens when it’s the only place that offers them some sense of freedom in rights and employment. The result is that the place…is unsustainable, and it breeds extremism and resentment. Post-war, we’d have to place some sort of repatriation scheme to get the men who settled there back into their home Principalities.”
“Work programs and the like? Encourage family reunification with their sons too…I guess…”
“Yeah, that’d be how we’d do it. Maybe it’ll fix relations between men and women, maybe even reverse our non-existent fertility rate. I don’t know. But, yeah, we’re leaving it untouched for now, but we’re still going to change the Free State. We’ll enforce democracy there.”
Yeah, that’s important too…
“Hmm…and how are we getting women back there?”
“To be honest, it’d probably take us decades of rebuilding and reform to get to that. I predict that unless the Federalists surrendered, we’d have to fight through the Free State and reduce its cities into rubble in the process. The culture, the people, the wartorn status, all of it will mean that Wuringen will be men’s hellhole post-war for a long time. The only good part is it would encourage men to get out of that place, go home, and reintegrate…but…”
“That doesn’t sound like a good thing either,” Amelie finished, shaking her head bitterly. “It just sounds like we’d be reducing everything they worked for desperately for decades into ashes just so they run back to us. It’s…genuinely evil.”
“But it’s also what’ll inevitably happen if they don’t surrender. The work camp they call home…well, it wouldn’t be home anymore. The ones left will have to rebuild, and I guess, once the settlements, infrastructure, and whatnot are rebuilt, people, both men and women, will flock back. Hopefully. After all, it is still the most resource-rich area of Orland. It’s where our heavy industries will be naturally located. Yesterday. Now. And in a century.”
Amelie leaned back on her seat, scanning the pages of the proposal further.
“Hmm…and on the topic of bringing democracy there,” Amelie said. “How?”
“Simple, we’ll dismantle their Directorate. Replace it with…the normal Governor system we have in place in other Principalities. They won’t have Free State status anymore. I mean, they only really used it to place tens of millions of men under borderline slave labor. All those Chief Executives that they had were just chosen by a few technocrats and shareholders. It’s a disgusting system.”
“Hmm…you’re right…”
It was one of the weird things about the Free State, Amelie thought. Since men, until the end of the Great War, had no right to vote—but had one state, the Free State, where they could have a male leader to rule them, they created a system of corporate rule. In the Free State, there was no democracy.
Only the Wuringen Industrial Group, the megacorporations controlling the Free State, had a say in how things were run.
Amelie never understood how they did politics there. But essentially, somehow, from closed doors, the technocrats of the Wuringen Industrial Group would produce a Chief Executive to run the Directorate (usually called the Eirhow Directorate).
The Directorate itself was the formal government of the Free State. It acted with complete autonomy to the Central Government, so long as it met its one obligation to the Crown.
Their obligation?
Keep the prices of everything down. And keep the Free State’s production growing every quarter. So long as that requirement was met, the Orlish Government allowed the Free State to do whatever it pleased to the people under it.
It was how the Free State gained its economic ascendancy. Not only were they a beacon for every desperate man hoping for economic success, and freedom from the archaic discrimination of every other Principalities, giving them a constant stream of meat for their industries, but they also had the ability to enact any policy to squeeze every inch of productivity for the next quarter.
The result was the creation of a Principality that shackled tens of millions of men into an abusive social contract. Keep the machines productive—and the Free State would defend them from the “evil women” outside of its borders. Ironically, compared to the completely extractionist policy of the Orlish State to men, the Free State offered a relatively better one.
At least there, they were all equal there. Equally miserable.
“But yeah, with this, we should be able to introduce and enforce reforms faster.”
Amelie smiled.
“Yeah. That’s ultimately what I need. I want all the emergency governors we appoint after the act is signed to move quickly, okay? I want every discriminatory law we have in place dismantled. I don’t want to sniff any misandrist legislation in Orland to survive this war.”
“I know. We already broke the back of the conservatives. Emergency powers are…powerful, I guess.”
“Indeed. I guess the war is a bit of a nice thing in that case. Without this, I find it hard to imagine how we’d be able to de-fang them. Mobilization, the military, popular support because of the existential war…all of it…we need to use that momentum to change everything. Then…then once the emergency powers we have are gone, well, they’ll be unable to change a single thing.”
“Ruthless, but also scary. We need to put safeguards in the system once this is over. We can’t let another fool do the same and just…reverse everything we worked for. Quite frankly, everything we’re doing, it’s undemocratic. Dictatorial. We’re tearing down the Orlish State from the ground up, and replacing it. All while using only the arm of the executive. The Parliament at this point is just a rubber-stamp committee.”
“Well, that’s why I’m planning for a proper constitution, no?” Amelie smiled, before handing the proposal back to Jacqueline. “I like it. It’ll turn Orland into a more modern country. Get it passed in the Parliament, and if not, well…guess I’ll force it in by Royal Decree. Screw them.”
“You certainly are abusing those powers, huh? You know, at this rate, with the amount of Royal Decrees you’re passing left and right…it’d turn increasingly illegitimate. The monarch isn’t supposed to be this hands-on by tradition.”
“Well, this is the system that the conservatives liked for decades, right?” Amelie grinned. “A powerful Queen appointed by the Goddess herself. I’m just doing what the system they preserved allows me to do. Just because the previous Queens liked to play by the tradition doesn’t mean I will. I mean, the rules say it already. My word is the law. I’ll abuse that until my daughter’s word won’t be the law anymore under actual rigid laws. A proper constitution.”
Jacqueline shook her head.
“You really are being driven mad.”
“That just compels me to go an extra mile further, you know?”