[Culture] Monarch to Alliance: "If you don't mind, I will have my country back."

Monarch to Alliance: "If you don't mind, I will have my country back."

Chris Woods, The Colonial

When Shanxi was reunited with the rest of the galaxy, refugee Dame Elizabeth Frances Grey was in for a shock. "The moment we had reestablished contact with Earth, I wanted to know how Great Britain was fairing. I was appalled at what I found."

"The destruction in the wake of the war was almost unbelievable...but what was worse, we [Great Britain] had lost our Sovereign and Sovereignty." Grey had suspected Queen Victoria IV was among the victims of the Reaper onslaught. However, she had also expected that the new King or Queen would have taken her place on the throne. Instead, the Systems Alliance was running the country - and the rest of the world.

"It irked me, as a citizen with a British passport, that the upstarts [i.e. Systems Alliance] would have dared to assume power of one of the oldest monarchies on Earth," stated Grey.

Dame Grey always had an interest in the Royal family tree, even as a child. Her interest was understandable; she was, after all, "46th in line of succession" to the British throne.

“I felt it was my duty, as a British citizen, to find out where our rightful Monarch was,” she said, relating her search through tales of final stands, indoctrination, and brutal slaughter until the realization came upon her. “…after I had discounted Ferdinand - who went missing in action during the push for London - it dawned on me that my branch of the tree was next.”

In a surprising twist of fate, Dame Elizabeth Grey had become the heir she was looking for.

“It was overwhelming. One of course knows of one’s position in the line of succession, but I never dared to think of it as anything more than a curiosity.” Still, the next step was "obvious;" Grey announced her divine duty, and went to the local Alliance representative to politely ask for her country back. “That was the whole point of the exercise, after all, was it not?”

A Systems Alliance official speaking on condition of anonymity noted that “we get claims to any number of thrones every other week, but Mrs. Grey's is the probably the first with any level of credibility to it. Her paperwork checks out, as do the DNA tests; they both confirm her identity and her claim to the throne. In short, there’s little doubt in my mind that she’s in fact eligible to become the next Queen of England…except there’s no England anymore, like, legally.”

Dame Grey dissents. “The Alliance is unlawfully occupying British sovereign soil. They should leave as soon as possible and allow us to reestablish the British Parliament.”

The Colonial sincerely doubts that this was part of the Systems Alliance's Five-Year Plan.

I figured the line of succession was going to quite far, didn't think it would be that much though.

Well...I can't help but sympathize Her Royal Highness' frustration regarding the Alliance's administration of Britain if it is intending to last beyond the Five-Year Plan.

Pffff hahahahaha this truly made my day now.

Call back to the old days when king/queenship was still worth to wage wars and plot murders over. What was the crown's duty then? Uphold the law, collect taxes and defend the land.

Can the "honourable" dame or her backers claim to be able to perform these duties? No. I'd say the gangsters in London or hell, krogan who took part in Hammer have more precedent for the next king of Britain than this lady!

Hahahahahahahahahaha... hahahaha... ha.

No.

I mean, I know there have been worse claims in history for finding monarchs, but this ranks among the most god damn ridiculous of all.

This has been on the newscast all day, right smack in the middle of the office too. Some of the commentators have been absolutely brilliant. I'd always hoped this whole reconstruction bit would finally be the death blow to any entitle fools who think things like nobility still have reason to exist. I might actually get to see it.


You know, I think my family might still have a claim on York somewhere...



Oh God, my sides.

If I listen hard enough, I can almost hear my dad ranting about the "feckin' English".
Good old-fashioned thousand-year-old xenophobic tribal bollocks.

Clinging to formalities is a common form of self-comfort. This does not strike me as unusual.

Paging Janice Proctor. Ms. Proctor, you're needed in-thread.

The Alliance would be smart to recognize her claim. It's not like the English monarchy has been more than a ceremonial position for the last couple of centuries anyway. They'd score a major PR victory with this, and maybe go a ways towards convincing people that their Five Year Plan is really going to be just five years.

Even if it is just a figurehead position (as it has been for the last few centuries.) giving such level of power and status to whomever comes up to claim it wouldn't be in the Systems Alliance's best interests, in my personal opinion. There needs to be further verification, as opposed to her own investigations on the status of the other potential claimants.

I can't believe the english would still want those dust-gatherers on. I mean they did shit nothing during the war, obviously, and want to get back at doing nothing and costing a fortune?

a. Probably because they were all trapped on Earth and being systematically hunted down by Reaper forces given their role as social and cultural leaders.
b. I sincerely doubt that a centuries old institution with the gravity of the British monarchy would appreciate having its entire history conflated with the whims of a petulant, spoiled, child.

C.
Get out.

I hear most of the politicians at Tokyo and Mumbai did nothing too.

Oh right, that's because they were slaughtered on the first day of Earth's invasion.

EDIT:


Good thing they made such a long line of succession specifically so that it could, then.

Yes but, sadly, in the field of "political idiocy stemming from morons with family connections" I believe that the Union has us beat on their worst day.

Who said I was criticizing? It may be a tenuous connection, but it's still a member of the former government that wants to rebuild her Earth-based nation on non-SATAE resources.

You'd think SATAE would encourage this.

EDIT: Oh hey, you changed your comment. Well, two can play at this game - at least I have a strong government in place instead of a "restoration committee."

I think tenuous is being charitable frankly, she comes across as more of a media diva a la Aisha Ashland and, if installed in any position of actual power, would probably be a laughingstock, incompetent idiot, obvious political puppet, and/or celebrity of the week instead of, you know, something useful.

Edit: Yes but, I think if we're going to be honest here, the Systems Alliance under military authority with Earth organized under martial law is still more popular than the Union at the moment.

And yet she’s already got at least one SATAE goon saying that the only reason she can’t have her country back is because “there’s no England anymore, like, legally.”

And please, don’t turn this into another Union Power Hour. This is egg on your face.

I'm just a soulless (relatively) unaffiliated corpie, my face is quite free of breakfast foods either way thank you very much.

But, in any case, like you pointed out, it's "one SATAE goon" saying that. There's a noted difference between the teen who fetches coffee and the Administrator of Great Britain.

You know, that's funny because I got to sit in on a meeting where the administrator for Europe was speaking. A bunch of bullshit about quotas and such, and it was certainly a case of death by presentation.

Still, I'm sure whoever they had do all of that verification at least had some idea of it so it can't be that off.

Of course, what if one of the other claimants shows up? Might we get a succession crisis?!

Somehow this might become interesting.

The British monarchy is not a position of power; it is a ceremonial role more akin to a mascot than an actual leader. Last time a king or queen tried to do anything of significance (Charles IV, I believe), he ended up abdicating. Assuming they convinced the would-be queen to recognize SATAE as the Government (which would presumably be a prerequisite), I don't see how the Alliance could find any faults in this.

I will reiterate that you have no idea who's even saying that and that an anonymous comment by a faceless paper pusher does not a binding, official, decision make.

Edit:

I was speaking of the English monarch in terms of their influence on modern British society and as a potential focal point for reconstruction of said culture in and of itself.