The Granddaughter of Heaven
In the long gone days of Utopia, before the Apocalypse, before even the rise of Megacorp, one empire arose to dominate the entire galaxy, and if historians are to be believed, it did so with style.
The empire fell, of course, as all those of lesser races must, and nothing of them remained save ruined worlds when we rose from obscurity to our rightful place on the galactic scene, the Grand Hegemony of Ashur.
But get a historian drunk on skooma, entice him with illicit massage, or wave your threat fronds in his face, and he may tell you of the fur-less primates and their stylish leader and the greatest find of the century.
The fragmented remains of the diary of the first and the last Empress of the Ebbesen Mandate.
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From the Princess Diaries, age 0
Dear Diary,
I am born. Traumatic affair because all I remember is that there wasn't light, and then there was, and somebody was affronting my body by smacking my posterior.
I am named ”Princess Amira” according to my nurse, who claims my birth caused the world to rejoice, but she is a silly thing.
People seem to have difficulty understanding my verbal communication, but I stole a minicomp from my nurse and a woman who claims to be my mother says it is endearing to see me thumping it. Little does she know I am writing in a language of my own invention. I hide it whenever she tries to see it.
I am hungry and sleepy all the time. Is this all there is to life?
From the Princess Diaries, age 2
Dear Diary,
Remote beard in the sky chuckles when he sees me writing in the minicomp. Does he suspect something? I smile endearingly.
From the Crown Princess Diaries, age 3
Dear Diary,
A terrible discovery. I've been under a delusion all my life. I am not named princess, but Crown Princess. I have instructed my tutors to kneel when I drive past in my little cart OR ELSE!
From the Crown Princess Diaries, age 4
Dear Diary,
The remote beard in the sky insists on calling me poppet, not Crown Princess. He claims he has that right because he is my father Peter, Celestial Emperor of the Ebbesen Mandate, the son of Heaven, and Celestial = Sky Beard. I question his logic.
From the Adventures of the Granddaughter of Heaven Diaries, age 9
Dear Diary,
Daddy forced me to attend the execution of some rebels. He thought it would be a salutatory experience for me to how even the kindest heart must steel itself to blablabla. Something like that, I wasn't listening, I was playing Smash the Alien on my minicomp, trying to beat the high score.
My tutors tell me rebels are pretty stupid, disloyal, and that all the world – by which presumably they mean the survivors - rejoiced when Daddy crushed all resistance and ended the unification wars six years ago, ushering in an age of unending blablablahblah.
Stupid, disloyal, whatever, their main crime seems to be incompetence. I think the world would be better with more entertaining rebels;
From the Adventures of the Granddaughter of Heaven, age 10
Dear Diary,
My birthday was a bust. Not even the clowns juggling live scorpions could cheer me up.
Was it really too much to ask for a world for my tenth birthday present? I think not! Daddy always says he thinks the world of me and he has some to spare even if they are newly colonized, and I wrote it on my wishing list all cutesy and with little hearts around, but all I got was my little pony, stables, and the estate housing them and a staff of 50 in Germany. The nerve prod to intimidate lazy stable boys with will come in handy, though. I've got plans.
From the Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven, age 15
Dear Diary,
Fortified brandy and pole dancing does not mix. Never again. Daddy dearest has grounded me. So I threw a little tantrum and fell off my bed. Life is pain.
From the Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven, age 17
Dear Diary,
State celebrations are so dull.
Dancing on tables is beneath the dignity of the crown princess.
Stringing four young sons of the aristocracy along and having them fight duels with spiked clubs for the honour of dancing with me is regrettable behaviour. (In retrospect, not my smartest plan. The winner bled all over me, collapsed mid-dance, and had to be carried off the dance floor on a stretcher. Next time have medikit on hand to personally attend to wounded warrior. Mmm.)
Vomiting in the Kalaxenan ambassador's feeding bowl is a diplomatic incident.
Things will be different when I'm empress, mark my word!
From the Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven, age 26
Dear Diary,
The court is all abuzz with the news that we are at long last at war with the Kalaxenans! Courtiers are thumping their breasts and shouting that ”The Sacrosanct Kalaxenan Commonwealth MUST FALL”. I believe they'd chant it if they could, but it does not scan well.
Some are calling for the extermination of the aliens, but Daddy says they are morons and that while the aliens must by necessity be conquered for the good of the Mandate, so long as they are willing to worship the emperor and stay safely on their own worlds working for the benefit of empire, under benign human supervision to ensure they are never a threat and without the right of citizens, exterminating them would be a criminal waste of resources.
My suggestion to have them fight gladiatorial combat for the entertainment of humanity he vetoed on the grounds of silliness and told me it was time for me to attend the imperial council on a regular basis to grind that mischievous streak out of me. He is a real killjoy that way.
Things will be different when I'm empress, mark my word!
From the Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven Diaries, age 39
Dear Diary,
Today I set foot in my new home for the first time and faced a sad realization: It sucks. I find it hard to believe we gave up Earth for this.
Dear Daddy never thinks small, and his plans to devote an entire planet to the family and the government of the Mandate shows vision... as he never tires of telling me. So boring. I threw a little tantrum and had to undergo yet another heart-to-heart conversation. And yes, it all makes good sense leaving Earth as the symbolic sacred heart of the empire and responsible for the hand-on governance of the core worlds of phase 1 and 2 space, while the family takes the wider view and blablahbla. I'm all for it, but currently the parties are on Earth.
It will be decades of hard work before this place is anything but the boon-docks, and if I'd been interested in hard work I wouldn't have been born an imperial princess, would I? I think not.
“What's the hurry?” I asked him, “Why not build it up to be a worthy centre of administration first, complete with the essentials of a modern capital such as a court of sycophants and assorted hangers on, and then move the seat of government?” - perfectly reasonable question if you ask me!
“That's an altogether accurate and inadvisable way of describing a large part of my court, but as to your question, my poppet, consider the symbolism...” I swear he's getting loopier as he grows older. Screw symbolism, I say, and give hedonism a chance!
Things will be different when I'm empress, mark my word!
From the Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven Diaries, age 42
Dear Diary,
Today I had to see Daddy about the wardrobe malfunction at the firemen's reunion party, which I attended as protector. Apparently somebody recorded a holo of the incident where I descended from the sky on a flaming trapeze while painted with the empire flag and wearing a miniskirt and nothing else, and had to be rescued by two young, brave, strong, handsome, and virile firemen, and brought it to his attention.
In retrospect I've had better plans. Wearing flame retardant underwear did prevent burns, but not the heat. But it was fun!
He was not amused even when I told him it was perfectly safe and I was only lightly fried. He said, ”while that's certainly a novel way to cook your arse, my poppet, its that type of uncivilized behaviour that makes some people doubt your suitability as future ruler; you should apply yourself and blahblahbla responsibility blahbla”
But is the lack of civilization here my fault? I think not!
Things will be different when I'm empress, mark my word!
From the Awesome and Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven Diaries, age 47
Dear Diary,
I can't believe that the government in general and dear Daddy in particular managed to hide this from me.
Over the last few years on the remote world of whocares, imperial scientists have been busy uplifting a race of pre-sentient rodents. They are now fully sentient. The rodents, not the scientists. Bother this, the scientists are also rodents. Also sentient, I mean. Don't type while drinking. I'll detox. That's better.
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? If there's one thing that's clear in imperial propaganda, or as dear Daddy would say, ”mandatory education”, it is that this is a human empire and that aliens live here on tolerance and mostly safely enslaved, i.e. ”benignly managed”, on their own worlds.
WHY would dear Daddy want to uplift stinky alien rodents, you might well ask? Why not leave them alone kill them if they are a potential problem. Aren't there enough aliens in the empire already?
Well, would ask if you could, but you are a diary, so you can't, so you won't.
So I asked dear Daddy for you!
And this is what he said: ”Will you PLEASE stop gyrating!”, but that's just because he doesn't understand current fashion, he doesn't really mean anything by it, so I stopped and looked at him endearingly, and this is what he answered. ”My poppet, it cannot have failed to penetrate your beautiful and unconventional mind that we are not universally loved; that even amongst my ministers and soldiers, dangerous ambition lurks; that the mandate must be ruled with a sure strong hand, but that all my tools are vulnerable to human failings and YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION POPPET! I AM TALKING TO YOU!”
Frankly, I knew that already. That's why I wasn't paying attention. If he'd just get to the point rather than drone on we'd both be better off, as I pointed out.
He answered thusly: ”FINE! These rodents, Ekwinians at they will be known, have been uplifted and genetically improved to be the battle thralls of the empire. First into battle, last out. An army without the restraint or ambition of a human army, but one utterly loyal to the empire. That's how I sold the idea to the ministers, who would otherwise have opposed or interfered with my plans.
But for YOU, poppet, a secret, which they will learn too late to their everlasting regret. The Ekwinians are a Praetorian guard like none the universe has ever seen, every rodent willing to lay down its life for its god and emperor, ME, and after me, YOU, and after you, your descendants, their loyalty unquestionable, their belief in our divinity bred in blood and bone.”
I've got to admit that when dear Daddy really gets raving, he's second to none, but just as I was getting ready to applaud his brilliance he had to spoil the mood, by smirking and saying softly...
”Rejoice, poppet, for you are now a princess in Amber!”
From the Awesome and Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven Diaries, age 51
Dear Diary,
Tonight's party, well, yesterday's seeing as it is morning now, but you are just a stupid diary, so how would you know the difference, heck, you don't even know what a party is, had a most unexpected conclusion.
I'd been toying a bit with my favourites and was contemplating retiring, when Dear Daddy sprang the news that he was packing me off to the boon-docks, there to take control of a developing situation.
“I'm not getting any younger, my poppet”, he said, as if that's any news, “so how about you apply some of that outlaw edgy energy to solving real problems rather than invented ones? Your mind is first rate when you apply yourself”, which yes, I know very well, but since he only mentions it when he wants me to do chores, I thought I could see where this was going: Yet another stint overseeing one of his ministers or running war games with the navy.
I was wrong. He continued droning on, but best as I was recalculating optimal party configurations for next week suddenly some words caught my attention. He said something along the lines of “I'll be sad to see you gone, but it it is only for the duration and the colony is important. The situation in wolololo, population blablabla, is deteriorating due to yadayadaya and the colonists are upset about the blah... are you listening, poppet?”
I don't know why he persists in asking these rhetorical questions. Naturally, I stopped listening after “gone”.
So I threw a little tantrum and was sent to bed without a favourite.
Anyhow, it is off to the boon-docks to take charge with full imperial command authority, or so Daddy dearest says, but since he's sending the rat-catcher and a few of his minions along to guarantee my security there are definitely limits. Security my arse; Chaperone is more like it. That old fuddy-duddy is all work and no play.
Things will be different when I'm empress, mark my word!
From the Awesome and Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven Diaries, age 52
Dear Diary,
Today I arrived at planet Whocares in system Whatever and set promptly about doing my duty. The quicker I'm done, the quicker I'll be gone.
The situation is as follows: There's some sort of underground alien threat undermining the colony.
Now, that would seem an easy problem to deal with, but all the planetary administrator thought to do in this dire situation was to wring his hands while wondering “what to do, what do do? Are these peaceful aliens, threatening aliens, or even an alien threat? Oh, whatever can be done” while waiting to see which buildings would suddenly sink in no-doubt deliberate cave-ins.
Or something to that effect. I was too busy inspecting the artificial sinkhole that swallowed the colony's sole five-star dance-hall to really pay attention. I swear I haven't heard as much wailing and gnashing of teeth since my inspection trip of the borders aboard Cpt. Nikolai's Leper Colony six years back, a ship haunted by crew bemoaning their lost career prospects.
Sometimes I think that dear Daddy's infecting everybody with pacifism has taken a good thing too far, but to be fair, the administrator's inefficiency may be a case of stupidity or the rural disease rather than pacifism: Not only is he ugly, he is so backwards he doesn't even know how to grovel properly, and responded to my dignified “what did you say, peasant?” with some guttural noise that sounded like “nonononuurrrrrhgh”.
So I ordered the rat to stop choking him, because that's just the compassionate princess I am. The rat-catcher's minions really are protective of my dignity, the sweet darlings, and I must admit dear Daddy did the right thing by giving them a purpose in life.
ANYHOW, dearest diary of mine, I'm pretty sure I've solved this planet's problem already. It wasn't exactly wormhole science. And how did I do it, you may well ask? Like a boss, that's how.
I called the rat-catcher to me, gave him my most imposing stare, and if you haven't tried staring down the rat-catcher you haven't stared down at all, for he is a tough fuddy-duddy or as he puts it himself, one mean son of a bitch, and said to him, “Dearest rat-catcher, this is imperial command authority speaking: I have determined that these aliens constitute an alien threat”.
“So noted, your highness. What are your orders?” he responded, unflinching.
“Consider the guns blessed. Make my day!”
“Your will be done, highness.”
And it was so. General Stonewall is so efficient that it almost makes up for the hell he makes of my social life with his protective rules and regulations on these public duty excursions dear Daddy arranges.
I guess I'll need to stick around for a few weeks to console some affected peasants, inspect the craters, be suitably impressed by the mountains of skulls, and pose for a few holo-ops bossing around the rat-catcher and his minions, in other words giving the news crews some footage of the good old divine wrath and compassion. It doesn't make up for this temporary exile to the boon-docks and the lack of parties, but if I'd had any objections to mountains of skulls I wouldn't have been born an imperial princess, would I? I think not.
That said, dear Diary, I think I detected a faint hesitation from the rat-catcher in carrying out my orders. Just a tiny delay, and somebody less alert might easily have missed it, but I'm pretty sure it was there. I cannot shake the feeling that he doesn't trust my judgement entirely after the combustible clown incident.
Things will be different when I'm empress, mark my word!
From the Awesome and Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven Diaries, 55
Dear Diary,
My hand shakes with outrage as I write this, for today a danger most dire overcame my defences, swept me off my feet, and laid me low. How did I overlook this possibility? Am I truly so easily seduced by sweet words and promises of luxury? My arse wrecked with pain, I lie naked, dishevelled, and wet on my bed after the ordeal. My heart still racing, I am certain of only three things:
First, the experimental pneumatic water delivery system installed in my bathroom has got to go.
Second, the system's inventor must be transferred to arms development. His invention might find some use in riot suppression.
Third, the sweet-talking salesman who assured me that this was the future of luxury cleaning must be consigned to darkness.
While I've never felt as clean before, a bathroom system capable of blasting an unsuspecting user off her feet and onto her arse is definitely taking a good thing too far.
Things will be different when I'm empress, mark my word!
From the Awesome and Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven Diaries, age 58
Dear Diary,
My dearest companion, it is with a heavy heart that I make this, my last, confession to you. You have served me well in silence, listening to the glorious victories and dismal defeats of my life, faithfully recording them and withholding judgement. Though in all fairness you could have expressed some sympathy for the melon incident of '23. Not that I bear a grudge, but extricating the pole vaulter was really hard. My, but we've lived, haven't we!
So well done, you, but mawkish sentimentality must be put aside as I really cannot continue recording my diary in a file labelled the Awesome and Intriguing Adventures of the Most Serene Granddaughter of Heaven.
It lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. Gravity, perhaps. Because gravity/grave? Got it. But even puns must now be put aside.
I am Empress.
From the Empress Diary, age 58
Dear Diary,
As you know it has been a perplexing week for me, and I'm up here with interviewing ministers and refreshing protocol lessons, but the ceremonies are finally over with and done. Today dear Daddy's mortal remains were fired into the sun of old Earth while two dozen worlds watched nearly real-time. Grief-stricken, or whatever it is that peasants do on occasions like this.
As for me, though I loved him well I am not getting any younger, you know, and he'd clearly been losing it for years. It was time to pass on the torch. Or the crown. Whatever. You know what I mean.
But enough about him, let's talk about me, a much better subject.
You wouldn't believe the affront of my ministers today. Hardly had I accepted the crown, than the minister for protocol was ordering me to nominate my heir, with the rest of the ministers nodding their heads in support. Ordering. Me.
They seem to misunderstand the power relationship here. They would never had dared that with dear Daddy, and if they think I'll accept any less reverence than he was due they are gravely mistaken. They forget to their own peril that I was born during the unification wars.
Granted, I was only three years old when they ended, but I remember the times, which is more than can be said for the younger ministers.
Well, nobody can call me an unreasonable woman, so I asked them sweetly whether they had any preference amongst my children or whether they'd allow little old me a free choice? You catch more fish with sweet logic and a big club than with a fishing rod, after all.
At least when you are after the big fish.
Babbling with gratitude, they suggested that my firstborn, dear Esther, would be an obvious choice. Sweet little Esther with her great looks, loads of charisma, splendid intellect, and a complete disinterest in anything but her experiments, her children, and that moron she married. She's fully capable of leadership, but she just doesn't care about it. Make her empress and the family would be out on its ear or reduced to figureheads in a decade.
Dear Esther gets to live her life the way she wants it, and that's that.
So I told them that that was out of the question, and did they have any other suggestions?
Colour me surprised when they suggested my second child, dear Isaac.
I really didn't except them to nominate Isaac. He's always been a needy child, and a strange one, just like his father. Not at all leadership material.
I thought Isaac was safely bound and confined in a virtual paradise by security after that unfortunate axe incident, but the ministers assured me that such details could be arranged and that if he was perhaps a little bit mad, it was a divine madness, right? Nothing to worry about.
Thinking back to how his father met his demise by walking out the airlock to play with the fairies, I really doubt that. I am pretty sure it was the drugs that did it.
Isaac needs peace and comfort, a settled life.
So I told them that he'd be emperor over my dead body, which I realize sounds less dramatic in that that would actually be the case, because that's how royal succession works, with or without an axe, but who the hell cares about that?
Either way, I could see where this was going, so I told them to shut up and listen, and once my bodyguard of rats levelled their weapons on the gaggle of ministers, order was restored.
I told them that my youngest, Theobald, would make a splendid emperor in time, as I had been planning all along.
Never have I seen such a bug-eyed gathering of ministers. Credit where it is due, the minister of the interior was the first to register an objection, suggesting that young Theobald, despite his many splendid qualities as a poet, phrenologist, and doctor was also, and not to bandy words, mental.
It was an indescribable pleasure for me to inform the lot that the correct medical term was latent psionic, not mental.
Interior piped up that that was not, perhaps, exactly what he had meant, but with everybody glaring at him and the rats looking trigger-happy at the implied insult he shut up rather than venture further impertinence.
My dear departed father used to say that of all his grandchildren Theobald was one to watch, preferably from a great distance. But he was just kidding. Probably. Theobald is young, but he is made of the right stuff, the Ebbesen stuff, equally at home directing a party or a firing squad, and he's always been eager to please his Mommy. With him as my hatchet man it is time to shake up the empire.
Things will be different now that I'm empress, mark my word!
From the Empress Diary, age 147
Hearken! The empress my mother lies dead. The best mother, dancer, and drinker humanity has ever known. A bane to the alien, a boon to the race, she it was who brought us transcendence and control of half the galaxy.
I Theobald, first of his name, chosen of the Shroud, immortal god emperor of mankind and first, last, and always, devoted son, will consign a hecatomb of worlds to the Shroud in her name, that she will live on forever in the Shroud.
I shall conquer the rest of the galaxy in her name and then, perhaps, I will rule it in everlasting peace.
From the Empress Diary, undated annotation
My job is done. All the galaxy kneels to a single throne, and from that throne I have governed for years beyond counting. My enemies are no more and my friends are dust. Embodied immortality loses its lustre. It is time to start a new story.
I go now to join my mother in the Shroud, and like her I will wait, and I will watch, and when the time comes, we will return in glory.
This Diary I will leave as lasting testament to one who represented what was best in humanity, before the harsh reality of governing wore her down. The Empress years I have expunged. Let historians make of it what they will.
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But if you ask the historian, what this Shroud is and whether there's really somebody alien out there, waiting and listening, he'll laugh and tell you to pay no heed. He'll say that it is just alien superstition, an ghost story made up by a deluded man that no rational mind will credit.
And if he's drunk enough, he may even believe it.
But when he is sober and all alone, without the comforting buzzing of his clutch to keep him stable, with his threat fronds dangling by his side... the voices are always there, whispering darks secrets and warning him that the race is living on borrowed time, that the Grand Hegemony of Ashur a mere toy for greater forces, and that while this cycle is theirs to dominate, it is neither the first nor the last, and the Ebbesen Mandate is the beginning and the end of the cycle.
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