Life in Wartime (Part IV): Liebensraum

There is a certain kind of restless personality that wants more of everything, that seeks trifling bargains and gambles for power. It is found most often in a great kind of man, and with the right tools, that man can reshape the world. But with the wrong environment, such a man is a great monster.

And so it was that the Great Leader looked around him and saw fertile land which he might claim. He spent a few months in the corridors of the mighty and the councils of the wise, and everyone was saying 'peace in our time'. They might as well have been saying 'one piece at a time'. I was with the Biologist when we saw the great trees fall, with their burden of biodiversity; ironically, that land was slated for an ecogarden which failed to materialise.

The generals and staff of the war college laid out their plans for blitzkrieg while the Great Leader muttered to himself and built great castles in the air. We drew up everything — the logistics, the objectives, the schedules. He nodded. "Very good," he said, and proceeded to give our plans to the incompetents who fawned on him. We remained loyal, nevertheless.

A short while later, he launched the offensive, using an inferior version of the Plan. That he won at all was a triumph of happy circumstance, for our troops were not only the best in the world, but better than we had dreamt. We were in Paris very shortly after, and the best was yet to be. Or was it?

Emboldened by the crushing victory we won, our Leader turned his eyes away from the mundane business of mopping up and incremental consolidation. Instead, he looked away completely from the objectives we had won with so much blood and sweat. And in that instant, we knew that trouble was in the air.