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TSC Dossier - Novus Imperium Romanum

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Red - Novus Imperium Romanum according TSC Map - Known Polities of the World

Novus Imperium Romanum (the New Roman Empire) is an empire encompassing pre-War Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Jordan, and Israel, along with portions of pre-War Turkey and Syria.

Country mentioned in TSC Map - Known Polities of the World, TSC Map - Known Polities of the World Updated 1, TSC Map - Known Polities of the World Updated 2, TSC Map - Known Polities of the World Updated 3, TSC Map - Known Polities of the World Updated 4.

Its capital is Constantinople. Its current emperor is Alexius VI Palaiologos, continuing from the old Byzantine numbering.

History[]

The NIR was founded by Konstantinos XII Palaiologos in 2144.

In 2150 it defeated the Peloponnesian League at the Battle of Sparta, forcing them to convert to Orthodox Christianity.

In 2178 the first contact with another sovereign nation, the Sultanate of Mesopotamia, was made.

In 2197 started the conquest of Italy.

In 2202 a triple agreement, the Treaty of Sevastopol is signed with the Reborn Coalition of Soviet Nations and the Sultanate of Mesopotamia.

In 2242 the NIR, honoring its defensive pact participated in the war against the Empire of Scandinavia at the sides of the R.C.S.N. and the Sultanate of Mesopotamia.

The year 2276 was marked by the the death late of emperor Basileios III Palaiologos and the crowning of his son Alexios VI Palaiologos.

Diplomacy[]

Allies[]

The Novus Imperium Romanum is allied with the R.C.S.N. and the Sultanate of Mesopotamia.[1]

Vassals[]

The Novus Imperium Romanum has vassalized four of its neighbours: the Romanian Republic, the Kingdom of Albania, the Bulgar Khanate, and the Kingdom of Macedonia.[1]

Enemies[]

It has hostile relations with its other neighbors, the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, the Caliphate of Misr and the Confederated Emirates of Arabia.[1]

Economy[]

The Novus Imperium Romanum has trade routes with the Republic of Formosa, the Commonwealth of Southeast Asia, the Republic of Ceylon, the Democratic Republic of Hubei, the Empire of Japan, the New Korean Republic, and the Free Economic Zone of Hong Kong.[1]

References[]

TSC Dossier[]

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/images/31861

From: Seraph Valefar To: The Starship Council Subject: Novus Imperium Romanum

Background/History: Despite the first impressions given by the name, Novus Imperium Romanum (New Roman Empire) is in truth an attempted resurrection of the Eastern Roman Empire, more commonly known as the Byzantine Empire. (As you may already know, the term "Byzantine Empire" was coined after the fall of Constantinople. Throughout its existence, it called itself the Roman Empire and was referred to as such by most.) This is reflected in the language and religion of the state, the Greek Orthodox Church. (A note on transliteration: To quote Warren Treadgold’s excellent A History of the Byzantine State and Society, “Although Latin was the official language of the Byzantine Empire until the sixth century, most of the time most Byzantines wrote in Greek, and used the Greek alphabet when they wrote. Greek names can be transliterated into the Latin alphabet for an English text in four main ways. One way, the most logical but the least familiar, is to give the closest equivalent to the Byzantine pronunciation, which was roughly the same as in Modern Greek. The first emperor of the Byzantine period thus becomes Dhioklitianos, the last Konstandinos XI. A second method, which many historians now favor, is to give the closest equivalent to the ancient Greek pronunciation, which no one used in Byzantine times. This makes the Emperors Diokeltianos and Konstantinos XI. A third method, the one most often used by the Byzantines themselves when they wrote in Latin, is to turn the Greek name into a Latin one, changing the Greek letters into their Latin equivalents and the Greek endings into equivalent Latin endings. Thus we have Diocletianus and Constantinus XI. A fourth method, long standard in English, is a modification of the third, using English equivalents when they exist and Latinizing the rest. This gives us Diocletian and Constantine XI.” Though Treadgold chose the fourth method, I have elected to use the second with the names of emperors. With this method, from the familiar form in English to Greek, Heraclius becomes Herkleios, Andronicus becomes Andronikos, Basil becomes Basileios, Constans becomes Konstans, and Lysander becomes Lysandros.) NIR was founded in 2144 in Athens by the man who became known as Konstantinos XII Palaiologos, claiming lineage from the last emperor of the Byzantine Empire. He also invoked the legend that Konstantinos XI never died but was instead turned into a marble statue and would return to save his people in their time of need, a classic example of the motif of the king in the mountain. I am personally skeptical of the former claim, due to lack of genealogical evidence, and the fact that what existed of the Palaiologos in Montferrat eventually became the House of Habsburg-Lorraine through the Gonzagas and the Dukes of Lorraine. The House of Habsburg-Lorraine, like the Hohenzollerns, survived the war, and they have been busy trying to reform the Austro-Hungarian Empire and fending off the Fourth Reich, much like the Hohenzollerns and their Teutonic Knights. It appears that he gave up that story a few years later, instead encouraging the belief that he was in spirit the revival of the emperor, which took better among the populace. In any case, as ruler of Athens, he built on the pre-existing trade networks established in Greece after the Great War and used them to forge an army and navy that crushed bandits, raiders, and pirates in the area. That army was highly useful in crushing an uprising by the Peloponnesian League, led by King Lysandros II of Sparta, in the third year of his reign as emperor. The polytheistic Lysandros, who in all seriousness worshipped the old Greek gods, rejected the reformation of the Christian Byzantine Empire. Despite being outnumbered by NIR forces, Lysandros' tactical brilliance enable him to defeat NIR forces time and time again. However, due to his poor diplomatic skills alienating potential Greek city-states that may have desired to join, every single victory was a Pyrrhic victory. After three years of warfare, his once-proud army had been reduced to a rabble of young boys and old men. Though they fought well for what they were, they were defeated at the Battle of Sparta in 2150. They were forced to convert to Christianity and to make certain they would keep their peace, Konstantinos married Lysandros' daughter, Hermione. After four more years, he felt confident enough to begin expanding the empire. Under the name of revanchism, he invaded territory of the former state of Turkey, reaching Istanbul in weeks. There, they began the siege of the city, taking it after a month of siege. In a master stroke, he used the besieging army as a distraction while he used the historically formidable Greek navy to sail its way through the Dardanelles, swept aside what naval resistance the city had, and landed a second army in its rear, the defenses of which had decayed and been neglected enough that they took the shore with minimal casualties. While Konstantinos XII was able to enter the city in triumph, he is reported to have wept in private at the destruction of the Hagia Sophia by the bombs and earthquakes. After recovering, he renamed the city Constantinople and decreed the banishment of the city's Muslim population, a mistake that his successor would have to deal with. In any case, other than fights to crush pirates, the negotiated integration of Crete into his empire, writing a treatise on neo-Stoicism, and starting the rebuilding of the Hagia Sophia, the rest of his thirty-two year reign was uneventful, if peaceful. His son, Andronikos VI, had a much more eventful reign. In the third year of his rule, reports from his scouts indicated that the tribes in Turkey were planning to invade over their banishment from the city. To preempt a possible long siege of the capital, he struck first. Though they had a rough start, the professionalism of the NIR army, combined with alliances with other tribes by promising to reverse Konstantinos' decree, enabled them to reach Antalya and Samsun by winter and were ready to attack Ankara come spring. A three month battle for the city commenced, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides. The NIR prevailed, however, and pacified the city. In a move that set the pattern for his handling of former enemies, he gained the loyalty of the defeated tribes by offering them places in his army, as well as the same rights as his Greek Christian subjects. He then swung south into Adana and captured it before having to stop for winter once again. In 2178, he moved for Syria and encountered another state for the first time - the Sultanate of Mesopotamia. There, the skoutatoi and the cataphracts of the NIR met their match. In a three-year-long war, cities such as Aleppo, Beirut, and Damascus passed back and forth between the two armies, with neither side seeming to gain permanent ground over the other. While irritating to each other at first, it grew into a mutual respect for each others' capabilities. It came to be that they would honor each others' customs in calling truces during Ramadan and the Nativity Fast and it was not uncommon for soldiers on both sides to invite each other to join in after their respective fasting periods ended. This mutual respect and the recognition that, after over a thousand deaths on both sides, neither side would win without utterly ruining themselves resulted in Emperor Andronikos and Sultan Abdullah signing a peace treaty granting the NIR Lebanon and parts of Syria while the Sultanate gets the rest of Syria, including Damascus. The treaty also stipulates that the decree banishing Muslims from Constantinople be undone and a policy of official religious tolerance be maintained within their respective empires. To guarantee the peace, one hundred hostages were exchanged, most from wealthy and aristocratic families, and the Sultan Abdullah’s sister, Rana, was married off to Emperor Andronikos’ brother, Herakleios. The peace has held to this day, with the signers of the treaty striking up a correspondence. Next on the list of the NIR's conquests was the Kritarchy of Israel. With allies in the Maronite people in former Lebanon and Syria, the NIR invaded. It was during this war of conquest that Andronikos gained the moniker of the Ghoul Emperor. During a battle for Tel Aviv, a city destroyed before the war by terrorists, Adronikos' camp was dirty bombed by the Sayaret. He survived but was turned into a ghoul by the radiation, along with many of his men, who would later form the nucleus of the Ghoul Guard. When the battle was over, he had the commander who ordered the attack, along with the surviving commandos who pulled it off, thrown into the radiation as punishment. He, however, offered to forgive the others in exchange for joining his army and helping to conquer the Druze people, much needed as his brother Herakleios had attempted to seize the throne with the help of a resurrected Peloponnesian League. (Herakleios claimed Andronikos' transformation into a Ghoul was a sign of displeasure from God for being conciliatory towards the "infidels" in the Sultanate.) The Druze had been at war with Israel for some time, as the Israelis were attempting to control the non-irradiated mountain regions the Druze had survived in. While all had three peoples had survived the devastation by hiding in the mountains, with the Jews sheltering in their mountain villages and among the Maronites, it was deemed insufficient. The Israelis attempted to expand, starting the war which the NIR had stepped into. As the Maronites had been friendly to the Jews and harbored a long grudge against the Druze for massacres against the Maronites (in the 1860 Lebanon conflict, around 50,000 Maronites were slaughtered by the Druze), they made natural allies. The war, including the initial conflict between the NIR and Israel, lasted for five years as the two sides wore each other out. The final battle was over Masada, which the Druze had occupied. Despite the promise that Masada would not fall again, the Israelis were forced to break that promise by "virtue" of being on the attacking side. With that, the Druze felt they had tapped their strength while the NIR had considered it nearly a Pyrrhic victory due to the heavy casualties taken during the battle. The Emperor Andronikos, the Maronite Batrak (patriarch), the Druze sheik, and the Israeli high judge signed the Treaty of Jerusalem, which stipulates that the NIR take control over the governance of the area in exchange for tax-free status for ten years to rebuild, as well as equal status in the NIR Army if they choose to join. The NIR was also given the power to forcibly relocate them all if war between the Druze and the Maronites and Jews starts again. They had the power to enforce this as the civil war with his brother had ended shortly before, with Herakleios defeated at Thessaloniki, tonsured and sent to a monastery. The brothers did not reconcile until midway through the Italian campaign, where he was sent, with a sizable contingent of Ghoul Guard to ensure his loyalty, to fight the RCSN in the Black Sea. He did not make war again until five years later conquering Cyprus in an uneventful war that lasted barely a month. In the time in between, he compiled a new Corpus Juris Civilis out of the original, updated with what he considered good pre-War law and the law of pre-NIR Greece and tossed out what he deemed barbarous or outdated in the original. This became known as the Code of Andronikos. In it, he decreed equal rights for ghouls and other minority subjects in the empire, something he had been working on during his time as Kaisar, or crown prince. It also abolished chattel slavery, though indentured servitude remains as a form of criminal punishment. He formed the Ghoul Guard as his personal bodyguard, which exists to this day, out of the ghoulified soldiers from the attack at Tel Aviv and from ghouls around the world. He funded development of power armor during this time, as the cataphracts were losing men and horses at an unacceptable rate with their current armor, forming armor as formidable as pre-War T-45d power armor. They later rediscovered the chemical hardening process for power armor, rendering pulse weapons less effective against them while increasing the protective qualities of the armor against most types of attack. These developments finished too late for the war in Cyprus but were useful in the conquest of Italy, starting in 2197, where heavily armored cataphract units truly came into their own as their intended role as tanks. In a fifteen year campaign against the fractured city-states of Italy, cataphracts won the day in over two dozen battles, the hammer to the skoutatoi anvil. The NIR navy was not idle during the conquest of Italy. Their iron-clad warships and use of Gatling lasers, napalm, and cannons were highly effective against the wooden ships of the three maritime republics of Amalfi, Genoa, and Pisa in the Tyrrhenian Sea and the maritime republic of Ragusa in the Adriatic Sea. (Venice had long since sunk under the water by the time of the NIR conquest. Parts of the city are still visible, however.) Not all the cities were brought in by force. Many, including Rome, had seen the writing on the wall and joined. Like his father, Andronikos nearly wept at the sad state of Rome, including the rubble of the Coliseum and Pantheon and the erasure of Trajan's Column. He was consoled by Pope Pius XV, the man who urged Rome to surrender. Like the man he named himself for, Pope Pius XIV, the Pope had no desire to see Rome sundered a second time. During their talk, they discussed the efforts of Pius XIV, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Coptic Egyptian pope, several ayatollahs, and other leading figures in Islam and Christianity to put an end to the Resource Wars. Of particular interest to Andronikos was the fate of Pius XIV, who died of radiation poisoning while attempting to aid the people of Rome after the bombs fell, and how his successors and the Catholic Church become a stabilizing force in Italy, Austria and other parts of Europe. They came out of the meeting excellent friends, and through Andronikos, the Pope struck up a correspondence with Sultan Abdullah. The rest of Andronikos' reign was peaceful, outside of repelling raids from Bulgaria and Macedonia. He spent it rebuilding roads and infrastructure and establishing a charity for orphaned children with his own funds, along with finishing the rebuilding of the Hagia Sophia. He also made a series of treaties with various neighboring states. In 2202, in the middle of the Italian campaign, he signed off on the Treaty of Sevastopol with the Reborn Coalition of Soviet Nations and the Sultanate of Mesopotamia. The treaty stipulates that the waters of the respective powers in the Black Sea are defined as fifty nautical miles off their coasts. The treaty also forbids the RCSN Navy from approaching the Bosporus and decrees that they will assist each other in wartime so long as the party entering war is not the aggressor. (The Sultanate and the NIR followed the terms of the treaty when the Scandinavian Empire invaded the RCSN in 2242. Though they arrived too late to take part in the Battle of Leningrad due to the need to better winterize their soldiers' equipment, several tourmai from the Army of Anatolia took part in crushing the Scandinavians at the Battle of Helsinki. That battle forced the Scandinavian Empire to cede Finland to the RCSN.) He signed the Treaty of Milan in 2253, defining the border between the Kingdom of Lyon France, in southern France, and the NIR as the pre-War boundaries of Italy and France. The treaty also guarantees the neutrality of the Helvetic Confederation and the Principality of Liechtenstein. He died in 2256, after ruling for eighty-one years, when he tripped on his cat and fell down some stairs. After a week of mourning across the empire, his grand-nephew ascended the throne as Basileios III. Basileios was not content to merely defend the empire from raids. For every time the Bulgarians or Macedonians attempted a raid, he would send a tourma, including cataphracts, back to inflict at least five times NIR losses, up to erasing whole towns and scattering their people. He was not single-mindedly violent, as he negotiated the entrance of Sardinia and Corsica into the empire, but that set a precedent for his behavior. When Sicily refused to join, he began plans for an invasion. The Falcone family, one of the three major noble families of Sicily, sent an assassin to preempt the invasion. That only made Basileios angry. (The assassin shot the emperor with full magazine from a Beretta machine pistol, hitting him with twelve 9mm rounds, after throwing a flash-bang grenade to disorient his guards and yelling, "Falcone sends his regards." The emperor proceeded to beat the would-be assassin to death with the assassin's own weapon before submitting to medical treatment.) With the cooperation of the Bertinelli family, the only one of the three noble families who favored joining the NIR, the Falcones were erased. Desiring to avoid a similar fate, the Maronis surrendered quietly. In appreciation for their assistance, he arranged the marriage of Helena Bertinelli, slayer of Scylla, to his son and Kaisar, Alexios. In 2276, after twenty years as emperor, Basileios III died of a heart attack, bringing his son in as Alexios VI. Alexios has sought to be more like his great-granduncle. He signed a treaty with the lords of Macedonia and Bulgaria which stopped the raids from both sides, as they were beginning to escalate near the end of Basileios' reign, and make treaty with Albania. In the signing of the Treaty of Budapest in 2277, the Triple Kingdom of Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, the NIR, and the RCSN vowed to maintain Romanian neutrality, as it was a buffer between the NIR and the RCSN if the former ever conquers Bulgaria or the rest of the Balkans. Though trouble appears to be looming in Egypt over what they deem to be excessively high fees for NIR ships passing through the Suez Canal and tensions are high with Yugoslavia over sponsorship of revolutionary groups in the NIR, the affairs of the empire are quiet for now.

Military Technology: The NIR's infantry is primarily equipped with the FN FAL, modified to fire in only semi-automatic, with a 20 round STANAG magazine. Some soldiers, however, are given AKMs modified to fire in only semi-automatic and, like the NCR Army, with the Colt M16A1 with wooden furniture and a thirty round STANAG magazine, along with M14s. Fairly uncommon are weapons such as the Hawk Semi-Auto Tactical, the Pancor Jackhammer, the H&K CAWS, the Neostead, and the Winchester City-Killer, as those tend to be issued for riot control with bean bag rounds. Incredibly rare are Gauss weapons, such as the M72 Gauss rifle and the PPK12 Gauss pistol, as they are issued only to the Ghoul Guard and some snipers. Ghoul Guard-only weapons also include the H&K G11 and the FN P90. Heavy gunners are generally given the FN Minimi (US Army designation M249 SAW), though it is not unknown for them to be issued the Rheinmetall MG3. Soldiers of the NIR were issued spathas in the early years of the empire but Konstantinos XII ordered the switch to bayonets for reasons of cost, weight, and combat effectiveness prior to the campaign to retake Constantinople. Like the NCR, they manufacture their own armor for their soldiers. The armor used by the NIR, however, is more protective than those issued to NCR troopers, equivalent to that of standard pre-War combat armor, with some soldiers getting equipment equal to that of reinforced combat armor. The very best combat armor is reserved for the Ghoul Guard, roughly equal to the combat armor worn by NCR Ranger veterans or Mk II reinforced combat armor. To hearken back to the Byzantine Empire, their combat armor resembles the klibanion (lamellar armor) worn by the Byzantine skoutatoi, with additional shin and forearm plates. However, it originally was metal armor for the early years of the empire but began transitioning to combat armor materials in the tail end of Constantine XII Palaiologos' reign. Currently, they are transitioning to the equipment equal to reinforced combat armor, as it is now affordable to do so. The NIR is unique in that they are one of only three known militaries to possess cavalry (the others are the Sultanate of Mesopotamia and the Confederated Emirates of Arabia. More may arise as horses spread and we may learn of more that have had them. Indeed, I suspect horses survived in the steppes of Asia). While their light cavalry wears the typical infantry armor and are equipped with the usual service rifles, their cataphract units wear power armor. It is not salvaged armor, like that of the NCR, but fully functioning power armor developed on their own that even their horses are equipped with. The cataphracts used to be issued heavy combat armor like that of the Ghoul Guard but it was found to be inadequate for the NIR's needs. They are experimenting with Tesla power armor to further protection against energy weapon attacks, particularly pulse weapons. The biggest obstacle to widespread adoption is nighttime operations, as Tesla armor’s sparks and glow act as a big “shoot me” sign for enemy snipers. Their standard weaponry includes the FN Minimi, the Rheinmetall MG3, and an assortment of missile launchers and high ordnance weapons for their role as tanks. Cataphracts and skoutatoi are occasionally given heavy incinerators as terror troops, with special fireproof armors to protect them from their own weapons. On rare occasions, they will use spathas and super sledges in a cavalry charge. The only time it was tried in combat was near Palermo, where then-Kaisar Alexios' 2 Kataphraktos Bandon (2nd Cataphract Squadron) routed Falcone's mercenaries. They have experimented with chariots mounted with machine guns, borrowed from Mesopotamia, but the idea was largely abandoned until tensions with Misr increased in recent years, whereupon they adopted it for skirmishers. Though the NIR is in possession of energy weapons, they generally do not use them outside of giving microfusion cell-powered Gauss rifles or scoped AER9 laser rifles to some snipers or the second generation of their warships. (Snipers tend instead to have M14s, Colt Model 933s (colloquially known as a marksman carbine), DK-501s in both 7.62x51mm NATO and 5.56x45mm NATO, H&K PSG-1s, PGM Hecate IIs, or Barrett M82s.) They are instead experimenting with other firearms, such as the Israeli TAR-21, a bullpup assault rifle with carbine length but rifle muzzle velocity, and the Belgian FN F2000, another bullpup assault rifle, and looking into making 2mm Electronic Cartridge Gauss rifles more practical. The NIR maintains a naval policy from the tail end of Andronikos' reign that states they must maintain a 10% superiority in warship numbers over the next two naval powers in the Mediterranean combined. It is not as difficult a challenge as one might imagine, as the only two other major Mediterranean naval powers are Yugoslavia, which the NIR can bottle up in the Adriatic Sea, and the Caliphate of Misr in Egypt. The ships of their fleet are named after and bear a passing resemblance to the dromons of the Byzantine navy between the 5th and 12th centuries and ancient Greek triremes, albeit clad in steel armor and powered by not wind or rowers but by massive numbers of fission batteries, and in the current generation of warship, fusion generators. This made for a much faster warship. Combined with the fact that most of their enemies were using sails or rowing in wooden ships for a long time, this guaranteed their naval dominance early on. Yugoslavia and Misr have adapted and begun powering their ships with the same means, however. The size and population of the NIR, and their experience in naval warfare, is expected to keep them on top in the future. The first generation of dromons in Konstantinos' reign used repeating crossbows that fired through burning pitch to set enemy vessels afire, on top of cannons and machine guns. The second generation, early in Andronikos' reign, saw the switch to fission batteries and the use of Gatling lasers to set afire wooden ships. The third generation of ships, in the tail end of Andronikos’ reign, were originally refitted second generation warships equipped with fusion generators, along with switching out of Gatling lasers in favor of heavy .50 BMG machine guns to counteract the armor of their enemies. Cannon has steadily improved over time, going from practically shoulder-launched missile launchers strapped down to pre-War designs in the span of a century. They are looking to improve by equipping their ships with rail guns but by their assessment, practical railguns at least several decades away from being reality.

Civilian Technology and Economy: Civilian technology in Novus Imperium Romanum is no less impressive than their military's. They have a highly advanced system of irrigation and agriculture, though use of chemical fertilizers is rare due to the expense and lack of supplies. Most fertilizer is that of brahmin or horses, but using human waste for it is not unheard of. There is some use of tractors but they are uncommon, due to a lack of rubber for tires and the expense of fitting in fusion generators. Most farmers use horses instead to pull plows, and prior to the reintroduction of horses in Italy, brahmin. They have also genetically engineered plants that can produce plastic, replacing the valuable commodity that was lost with the last drops of petroleum. Before they managed to grow non-mutated grapes, they made mutfruit wine, which is still sold around the empire. Other crops include olives, rice, maize, wheat, sugar beets, pomegranates, watermelon, and citrus fruit, with a small amount of mangoes grown in former Israel, all from seed stashes stocked by the-War governments of the areas the NIR conquered. The NIR is a net exporter of brahmin meat and are known for excellent brahmin jerky, especially those flavored with fruit. That variant of jerky hails from China and is much softer than normal jerky. Though it does add flavor, it spoils quicker. The NIR has literal ant farms to provide ant meat but it remains a niche market. They have an excellent merchant marine consisting of motley designs ranging from schooners to fusion generator-powered vessels to ship goods and fish the Mediterranean. They also maintain a top-notch railway system, which greatly helps in bringing supplies to the front line. The NIR is capable of manufacturing stimpaks, radiation treatments and clothing on top of mass production of weapons and armor matching those of pre-War design. This also extends to their abilities in construction. It may have taken decades of on-and-off work but they successfully rebuilt the Hagia Sophia. They have perfected a form of quick-drying spray-on concrete that they use to build housing and military bunkers. They have invented a new variant of nail that provides much greater structural integrity for their buildings and is more resistant to the forces of hurricanes and earthquakes. They manufacture hand-held power tools, which greatly aids in their work. In other lines of civilian work, they are beginning to start up their computer industry once more. They have started up on making soft-drinks, with the Emperor owning his own soda company, among other firms, the profits of which he uses to fund the state. They have a thriving wine industry and are looking into making automobiles once more. Given the expense of the latter, they will likely be restricted to the wealthy for the time being. Likewise with their attempt to resurrect their aircraft industry. There are also manufacturers of clothing, made from imported Egyptian cotton, to the point where designer clothing is back and only the absolute poorest are forced to wear brahmin skin clothing or two-hundred-year-old pre-War outfits. There are theater groups and bands with refurbished pre-War instruments and post-War manufactured ones, along with a revived film industry. Despite the efforts of the censors to enforce public morality, the adult film industry was brought back almost the moment after the film industry was. Banking is another sector of the economy in which the NIR thrives. It is also the most heavily regulated sector of the economy. (This is not saying much, considering that only Basileios III could be considered to not be a classical liberal.) Private banks are allowed to mint the nomisma (plural nomismata; also known by the Latin name of solidus and by outsiders as the bezant), a gold coin weighing approximately 4.5 grams; the miliaresion, a silver coin weighing approximately 3 grams; and the follis (plural folles), a bronze coin weighing approximately 10 grams. (Due to the near-worthlessness of the coin, the nummus was not revived, as it took around 16,800 nummi to equal a nomisma.) All coin must be 99% pure gold, silver, or bronze, respectively, and they must all be reeded to prevent clipping and counterfeiting. To maintain consistent weights, all coin received by banks and the treasury must be melted down and reminted before they can be issued again. For practicality, paper money is issued and can be redeemed for the stated value in coin. To maintain the honesty of the banks, the practice known as fractional reserve banking, by which banks need to retain only a portion of their customers' deposits as reserves and lends out the rest, is banned. This has the effect of rendering bank runs nearly impossible for healthy banks. Penalties for violating banking laws are severe and entry into the profession are strictly monitored. Those who attempt it must need five sponsors, minimum, from the profession attesting to the honesty of the candidate and vow to not file or chip the coin or issue counterfeit currency. As evidence of how seriously they take the integrity of their coin, penalties for violating them can range from fines of five thousand nomismata up to death. To give an idea of how high even the fine is, based on the value of the Legion aureus, which is roughly equal to 16/9 of a nomisma, the minimum penalty comes out to around 281,250 caps.

Military Organization: Much like how Caesar's Legion bases its military structure on a pre-Marian reform Roman legion, the NIR Army bases its organization along the lines of the thematic system established by either Herakleios or Konstans II (historians dispute which emperor created the system). Unlike the historical Byzantine army, the NIR abandoned the peltast and the psioloi, light infantry types, instead choosing to focus of the skoutatos, a heavy infantryman and the Byzantine equivalent of a hoplite. They kept light cavalry, the doryphoroi, and heavy cavalry in the form of the kataphraktoi, or cataphract. Unit types in this section will be capitalized. The NIR's equivalent of a squad, the Kontoubernion, is descended from the Roman contubernium and is lead by a Dekarchos. It is divided into two elements, a Rear Guard of four led by a Tetrarches and a Vanguard of five led by a Pentarches. Five Kontoubernia make an Allaghia of fifty men led by a Pentekontarches, an equivalent of a platoon. Two Allaghia form a Kentarchia of one hundred men led by a Kentarches, equivalent to a company and a centurion, respectively. Four Kentarchiai make a Droungos of four hundred, commanded by a Droungarios. Six Droungoi make a Tourma, commanded by a Tourmaches. Four Tourmai make a Thema, commanded by a Strategos. The overall head of the Army is the Megas Domestikos, or Grand Domestic, of which the NIR appoints only one at a time. The Ghoul Guard use the same structure as the infantry but go only as large as a Tourma. The cavalry of the NIR has a similar structure to the infantry. Instead of a Kontoubernion, they form a Dekarkia, also led by a Dekarchos. A Hekatontarchia is the cavalry equivalent of the Kentarchia and it is commanded by a Hekatontarch. Next in size is the Bandon, a unit found only in the cavalry, consisting of two to four Kentarchia commanded by a Komes, and equivalent to a Squadron. The largest cavalry unit in the NIR is a Tagma, consisting of three to six Banda, and commanded by a Domestikos. This unit shares only the name of the later Byzantine Tagma and is much smaller. Any of the five Thematic armies will consist of a mix of cavalry and infantry, depending on the needs of the empire. The five themes are the Anatolic Theme, which covers pre-War Turkey occupied by the NIR; the Palestinian Theme, covering NIR-Syria, Lebanon, and Israel; the Italian Theme, which covers Italy; the Theme of Hellas, which covers Greece; and the Carabisian Theme, which covers the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, and Cyprus. The 2400 soldiers of the Ghoul Guard remain with the emperor. The Army is also supplemented by large numbers of volunteer militia. They have poorer equipment than the Army, typically reinforced leather or metal klibanions, but serve to defend imperial territory until the Army can arrive. As the NIR does not pay them but only require that cities maintain a certain number of militia, along with standards of protective gear and training, it helps them cut costs by adding almost one hundred thousand soldiers nearly free of cost. Though they cannot be used for offensive operations, it makes successful invasion of the NIR much more difficult. The NIR Navy possesses a variety of ships that vaguely resemble Byzantine dromons and Classical Greek triremes. The resemblance is only aesthetic, however, as are their names. The NIR fleet consist of eighty Penteconter-class destroyers, eighty Bireme-class cruisers, fifteen Dromon-class battleships, fifty Trireme-class amphibious assault ships, and ten Kentarches-class submarines, Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines salvaged from the pre-War Hellenic Navy sold to them after being decommissioned by the US Navy. The head of the NIR Navy holds the rank of Megas Doux, or Grand Duke, equivalent to a Fleet Admiral or Grand Admiral. Each fleet, such as the Adriatic Fleet or the Black Sea Fleet, is commanded by a Strategos. Under each Strategos are two to three Tourmarchai, roughly equivalent to a Vice Admiral, who command battle fleets or task forces. Below a Tourmarches are two to three Drungarioi, equal to a Rear Admiral, who command task groups. A Drungarios can also command squadrons and task units. Below them are individual ships, each commanded by a Kentarches. Rather than organize themselves into themata like the Army, the Navy is divided into fleets, consisting of the Black Sea Fleet, the Adriatic Fleet, the Ionian Fleet, the Aegean Fleet, the Tyrrhenian Fleet, the Western Mediterranean Fleet, and the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet. Soldiers and sailors are recruited from across the empire and, as a way to imbue a sense of cosmopolitanism in them, and typically stationed away from their homes. Non-Greek speakers are sent to different training units for the first few weeks, where they are given a crash course in Greek. They understand about the language problem for those first few weeks but after that, the attitude of the military can be described as “get with the program or get your head kicked in.” Foreigners are allowed to enlist in the NIR Army and Navy and even join the officer corps, provided they make it into the proper military academies. The NIR will also accept training foreign officers of friendly states, much like how the United States Military Academy will accept foreign cadets who will serve in their native militaries after commissioning. One of the rather bizarre regulations in the NIR military is the requirement that all soldiers and sailors receive full body waxes once a month, ostensibly for ease of wound cleaning and binding. There are jokes that the real reason this regulation was put in place was because Andronikos was homosexual. His alleged homosexuality appears to be merely rumor, caused by his lack of children prior to ghoulification and desire to avoid marriage.

Government Policies: As mentioned earlier, forgery is one of the potentially capital crimes in the NIR. Among the others are embezzling, bribery, treason, rape, murder, desertion, and falling asleep during a guard shift, the last for endangering fellow soldiers. Execution is typically carried out by firing squad or by being thrown off a cliff. In the latter form of punishment, there are people waiting at the bottom to collect the body. They are also there to drag the victim back up to be tossed off again if he miraculously survives. If the victim survives a third time, the Code of Andronikos states that God must want that person to live and the sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. However, outside of those crimes, the NIR is relatively uninvolved in law enforcement. They have police but actual sentencing is typically carried out by private firms to cut costs involved in housing prisoners. It is for that reason that crimes such as theft and assault are punished by financial compensation to the victim (plus return of stolen property in the former) or indentured servitude if the criminal cannot pay. The criminal is indentured for a set period of time and made to work for the victim at an equivalent market wage for the work the criminal is performing until he meets the required amount stated in the contract. The person whom the criminal is indentured to cannot abuse the criminal in his charge and, if he so desires, may release the prisoner early. He may also sell the contract to somebody else, typically at a reduced price. The criminal and the purchaser of the contract may renegotiate it. Outside of charities run by the emperor himself for orphans and to train displaced workers, there are no social welfare programs run by the NIR itself. It is, again, a cost-cutting measure as much of the running of the empire is paid for out of the emperor's pocket and majority of his budget according goes to the military to make sure other states do not encroach on his property. It is his treatment of the empire as his personal property that encourages internally liberal policies; that and his attempts to give his subjects little reason to rebel. Subsidies are illegal, primarily to keep the emperor from using what tax money he does get to prop up the companies he owns, as he uses profits from them to finance the empire. To avoid further taxation, the concept of noblesse oblige is enforced strictly. In times of war, the nobility and the wealthy are strongly "encouraged" to sacrifice their wealth to fund the military. To avoid antagonizing them excessively, they do get returns on their investments, as they are allowed to plunder enemies they conquer. Criminal charges are higher for nobility, and even more so for royalty, as they can have "behavior unbecoming of nobility" or "behavior unbecoming of royalty" tacked on. To ensure that the higher standards of behavior for the nobility stick, only commoners are allowed into the office of Censor and bribing the Censor is a capital crime. Being a noble has its privileges, however, as only nobles are allowed to serve in the Senate. Nobles are not allowed to serve as enlisted-men, giving them a disproportionate share of the officer corps, numbering approximately twenty-five percent of junior officers and forty percent of flag officers. Religious and ethnic discrimination is looked down on by the emperor, as he needs to keep his subjects happy. It is for this that he sponsors the Oikumens, an organization working for cross-religious unity. It helps greatly that the capital of Constantinople is a great crossroad of trade and cultural exchange from as far as India and China, making it among the most cosmopolitan cities in the known world.

Foreign Relations/Internal Problems: Of course, no state is perfect. They are currently at loggerheads with the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia due to their attempts to export Communist ideology into the NIR, as well as encouraging raids from Bulgaria and Macedonia, one of the break-off regions from Yugoslavia. The latter was halted after Basileios' constant and escalating counter-raids and Alexios' offer of peace or invasion led to those two into becoming client kingdoms like Albania, whom they renewed treaty with at the same time. As the Yugoslavians show no sign of attempting to stop, war may break out soon, and potentially with the assistance of the Triple Kingdom of Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. They are also at loggerheads with the Caliphate of Misr for reasons of religious persecution of the Christian Copt population, encouragement of the Muslims, Druze and Shiite, in the Palestinian Theme to rebel, and the exorbitant tariffs charged to NIR ships attempting to cross the Suez Canal. As the trade routes by sea to Asia were expensive, it greatly reduced the profit, already squeezed by the Confederated Emirates of Arabia (CEA) and their control of the Mandab Strait, NIR merchants could make while making it more profitable for merchants from Asia to do business in the Caliphate than the NIR. This, combined with NIR desire for grain and cotton from Egypt, may make war with them inevitable. The biggest internal problem they have is in the Palestinian Theme. It is the smallest of the themes yet has the largest concentration of troops due to the potential threat of rebellion in the area. Despite the attempts of the NIR to bring the Jews, Maronites, and Druze together, they are still sore at each other. If war breaks out with the Caliphate, they might take the chance to attempt to overthrow the NIR. Like the former United States, the NIR has its problems with wildlife. In addition to radscorpions and radroaches, they suffer from an infestation of giant solifugae, primarily in the Palestinian Theme. Unlike pre-War solifugae, the solifugids, as they are called, are highly venomous and can kill a grown man in minutes, at the longest. The only predators they have are radscorpions and rattels, also known as honey badgers. The latter, with their thick hides and fierce temperament, would give deathclaws back in the US a run for their money. They only started migrating up into the NIR in the last twenty years but they have been keeping the Army in the Palestinian Theme very busy, what with claws that tear through body armor like tissue paper and their propensity to attack the groin first. To the distress of pet owners in the area, rattels appear to enjoy eating cats, even the mutated breeds that can grow to the size of lynxes. Fortunately, the cat, which is extinct in North America, can depend on human shelter elsewhere in Eurasia and North Africa. There also used to be a mutated monster in the Strait of Messina which came to be named Scylla. It preyed on merchant shipping in the area for over thirty years until Helena Bertinelli, daughter of the ruler of Messina slew it in single combat. (No little feat, considering Scylla was as large as a Super Mutant Gargantuan.) Outside of those issues, the NIR enjoys fair relations with most of its neighbors. The Sultanate of Mesopotamia is a blood relative of the Emperor Alexios due to his great-grandfather Herakleios’ marriage to Rana, which has helped keep the peace for almost one hundred years. While there are some Senators who desire to make an attempt to conquer the Sultanate, it has been shot down repeatedly due to the foolishness of alienating a long-time ally. An invasion would also violate the Treaty of Sevastopol, which would prompt RCSN intervention against the NIR. Even if the conquest was successful, the result would be stepping into the large mess that is Middle Eastern politics. The CEA hates the Mesopotamians for conquering much of former Saudi Arabia, including Medina, and the Mesopotamians dislike them for shutting out their merchants in the Mandab Strait and their attempt to seize the Strait of Hormuz. Persian control of the Strait of Hormuz is why the Mesopotamians and the CEA dislike them, the latter in particular due to Persian raids on CEA territory to squish CEA attempts to establish a navy there. CEA control of the Mandab Strait is also the reason for the hatred from the Caliphate, which prompts their high tariffs through the Suez Canal to try to recoup their losses. The only thing keeping the peace there is the fear of a regional conflagration that may bring in the NIR and the RCSN, particularly the latter and its massive army that dwarfs what the Sultanate and the NIR can amass. In Europe, the NIR is friendly with the Triple Kingdom of Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Lyon France (ruled by the formerly Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon), as well as the Vascalonian Coalition and the Iberian Union. They also enjoy good relations with the Baltic League (former Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia), the Teutonic Knights, the Helvetic Confederation, the Principality of Liechtenstein, and the Duchy of Normandy (ruled by the House of Windsor). The NIR maintains Albania, Macedonia, and Bulgaria as client kingdoms and have moderately friendly relations with Romania, though the Romanian government has expressed some resentment over the Sultanate, RCSN, and the NIR forcing them to scuttle their navy in the Black Sea. The NIR does not like the Fourth Reich but do not intervene, as their interests are not in conflict at the moment. The same goes with Air Strip One, the former British Isles. Though the Normans, many of whom are British exiles who were forced to flee the Party, desire to retake their homeland, most of Europe does not want to step into that mess. The NIR had a minor conflict with the RCSN in the Black Sea, where they even sacked Sevastopol, but have remained friendly since, much of it due to fear of the vastness of the Red Army and their reluctance to tangle with somebody else with power armor. They do have invasion plans of the RCSN in place but only as a hypothetical, due to the success of War Plan Red needing a vast coalition of other European and Middle Eastern states to successfully defeat the Red Army. The most pessimistic scenario in that war plan involves an invasion by the Sultanate and the NIR consisting of a joint sixty thousand man army that has a moderate chance of success against the potentially ninety thousand men that Orlov could rally to defend Moscow. That scenario ultimately ends in failure due to the Russian winter, the vast reserves Orlov could rally, and the presence of Hammer Head Armor. Other states, such as the TSC, are too distant for the NIR to concern them.

Commentary on the Emperors: Konstantinos XII, originally Gregorios Gianopulos III of Athens, was elected emperor by the kings of the city-states of Greece, forming the NIR. Despite being the founder of the NIR, he did not accomplish too much during his reign. The reconquest of Constantinople and parts of Anatolia along the way to the city was the biggest deed he accomplished. He made claim to being a Stoic, even writing a book on it, but it was largely a rehash of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. He certainly did not follow the cosmopolitanism that was a signature of the Stoic philosophy. He had a burning hatred of Muslims and expelled them all from Constantinople, even the children. His only saving grace was that he was fairly well-educated in economics and provided an excellent education for his son. The man was, overall, a marginally above-average ruler. Andronikos VI was, by common assessment, the greatest of the emperors. What Justinian I was to the original Byzantines, Andronikos was to the NIR. I had the fortune of meeting him as part of the Enclave European Expedition in 2256, just scant months before his death. Unlike his father, he was a true Stoic and accepting of all people. He was also well-read in economics and law. He was very fond of the Austrian noble and monarchist scholar Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, despite his Catholicism, and the German economist, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, despite his anarchism. He left a very deep impression on us when we discussed systems of governance, arguing against the implementation of democracy. "Our civilization rests on the deaths of two persons: a philosopher and the Son of God, both victims of the popular will." That was one of his favorite statements. He maintains a dislike for the French Revolution, arguing most of the problems that led to the nuclear conflagration of 2077 can be traced to it for breeding International and National Socialism. In one discussion session, he recounted how the Jacobins planned to destroy the spires of the cathedral in Strassburg for being taller than the other buildings and thus "undemocratic." He then invoked the legend of Procrustes, an ancient Greek bandit. Procrustes would ambush people, kidnap them, and then tie them to an iron bed, stretching them out or cutting off their legs to make them fit. In the same manner, in some villages in Alsace, the Jacobins attempted to remedy the lack of "sameness" due to their not speaking French by proposing to either take away their children, disperse the families equally across France, or to guillotine them all, all of which reads like an account of the Third Reich. The other calamities he blames the French Revolution for was the rise of nationalism, mass conscription, mass indoctrination of the people, and the change of warfare from clashes of crowned heads to conflicts between whole peoples. He was also of the opinion that the last saving grace for Western civilization would have been a Central Powers victory in World War I, barring the acceptance of the peace proposed by Charles I of Austria, the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Central Powers, as he was wont to point out, had none of the “liberty cabbage” nonsense and the Austrians never detained “enemy aliens.” The worst they had was statements such as "Serbia must die." There was no banning of the teaching of foreign languages the way the Americans banned the teaching of German. There was no similar phobia of the enemy which caused the House of Saxe-Gotha-Coburg to change its name to the House of Windsor or change German shepherd dogs to Alsatians. In his opinion, with the Allied victory, monarchism died and gave way to the age of democracy and mass mob rule, with its attendant short-sightedness of politicians thinking only of the next election. The European monarchs and aristocracy were internationally related, giving them a distance from their subjects from which they could judge more objectively. [The House of Saxe-Gotha-Coburg of Saxe-Coburg, Great Britain, Belgium, Portugal, and Bulgaria; the Holstein-Gattorps in Russia (the real Romanovs died with Peter II); the Bourbons in Spain; the Alemannic Hohenzollerns in Prussia and Romania; the Nassaus in the Netherlands and Luxembourg; the Swiss-Lotharingian Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary; the French Savoys in Italy; and the Sonderburg-Glücksburg-Augustenburgs in Denmark, Norway, and Greech: they were all descended from Charlemagne and Muhammad (Alfonso IV, King of Castile, married the daughter of a Moroccan prince from which all sovereign houses of Europe descend). They had drops of Jewish blood from Pierleone, brother of the antipope Anaclet II, and from Maria Theresa claimed descent from Kumanian (Turk-Tatar) princes. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and King George V of Britain both had Genghis Khan as a common ancestor. All this attests to the international nature of the monarchs. Andronikos kept that, arranging for Rana of Mesopotamia to marry Herakleios, Maria Theresia of the House of Habsburg-Lothringen to marry Herakleios’ eldest son, Konstans, and Elena Cristina Victoria of the House of Bourbon to Basileios, Konstans’ eldest son. Basileios continued by marrying Helena Bertinelli of Sicily to Alexios.] Politicians, in contrast to kings and emperors, tend to pander to the base nature of their peoples and whip them into xenophobic frenzies against the “other.” Andronikos, continuing his arguments against democracy, contrasted how monarchs and politicians gained power. Whereas monarchs were raised from birth for the job, and thus professionals, elected officials tend to gain their office through nothing but pandering, good looks, and skill in fast-talking. Because their domains could be passed on to their heirs, monarchs tended to be more far-sighted and to act historically. Democratic officials instead must act immediately, they think and act politically. Citing Hoppe, he compares democracy to a small child who wants his wishes fulfilled immediately and cries if forced to delay his gratification. Andronikos would discuss Hoppe and his analysis of the political economy of monarchy and democracy with the members of the EEE but I must exclude it for the sake of space. As stated earlier, our discussion left an impression on us. Even if we, in the end, did not desire a monarchy (something he stated was only, quoting the French monarchist Charles Maurras, “The least evil. The chance of something good.”), we had come away with skepticism of the viability of democracy. Basileios III was probably the worst of the emperors. To be fair to the man, he had a tough act to follow, but it does not change his relatively spendthrift ways and his brutishness. He blew through most of the treasury’s surplus that the frugal Andronikos and Konstantinos had accumulated over a century in just twenty years on parties, frivolity, and construction of monuments to himself and to the glory of the empire. Though Andronikos was willing to displace people for disrupting the peace and execute people for crimes, he never exterminated whole families the way Basileios massacred the Falcones, including the children. Whereas Andronikos considered himself a great sinner for having killed in battle and took pride in conquests in which no blood was shed, Basileios was actually disappointed in not being able to fight for possession of Sardinia and Corsica. He instead vented much of his bloodlust on the Bulgarians and Macedonians. The best that could be said about him was that he was physically tough and did not lack courage. Alexios VI is too recent to judge accurately. He has given me the impression of a highly intelligent man who is attempting to take after his great-granduncle. He is a better battlefield tactician than Andronikos and appears to have inherited a fair amount of his father’s physical strength and resilience. He does not speak as many languages as Andronikos (Andronikos was fluent in Greek, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, German, English, and French, with a smattering of Latin), as he speaks only Greek, Italian, and German. He is also an Epicurean rather than a Stoic, like Andronikos, or absolutely without care for philosophy, like Basileios. He is a fair diplomat, turning the Bulgarians and Macedonians into client states, and is currently attempting to draft a nuclear non-proliferation treaty among the European states. He, overall, has a good heart. When I informed him of what we knew of the former United States, his reaction to what we know of Caesar's Legion was horror. He stated that the brutality of the Legion is an insult to the memory of Rome. Despite the brutality that the Romans could sink to, they never condoned mass forced breeding of women to produce more soldiers or the sheer scale of slavery in the Legion. He has gone on the record stating that if he had the resources and men to spare, he would send an expedition to help the NCR win, just to spite Caesar. This is despite his general dislike of democracy. He believes the corruption of the NCR is a natural result of the electoral process, for, to quote him, "When buying and selling is controlled by legislation, the first thing to be bought and sold are legislators." It is for this reason that he supports a victory by Mr. House, though he does not know how he could win. If House wins, however, Alexios is willing to recognize him as Robert I of the House of House, if House so chooses to style himself as such. For the time being, barring his becoming a Nero, I believe we can negotiate with this man.

Personal Assessment: The NIR is not to be tangled with. Though they are smaller than the RCSN, they have a higher population density and have soldiers with equipment and training that can come close to our own. Add the support of a population three times as large and an economy four times the size of the New California Republic’s and you get a military that is nothing to sneeze at. Their only Achilles’ heel, should the TSC and NIR come to blows, is their lack of an air force. Fortunately, we do not have interests that conflict with each other and much reason to share in trade. Just as good, the NIR has an emperor with a good head on his shoulders, which should make diplomatic relations easy. I recommend forming a trade deal with them, with technological aid on both sides. They need expertise on the construction of aircraft and we may need their expertise in naval warfare, as they are unmatched in the Mediterranean world. I would even suggest that we exchange cadets in our military academies and cultural exchanges. We can only be enriched by our contact with this most cosmopolitan of empires.


Don't forget to like the Olympus Circular on Facebook. Thanks to VictorianApocolypse for information on the Maronite and Druze people, as well as fact-checking Fallout lore. Any remaining inaccuracy is the fault of this author. Thanks to NickWarlord for information on the Byzantine Empire. Thanks to a certain friend in the Navy for information on naval warfare. Thanks to Warren Treadgold, whose books on Byzantium were very useful. Thanks to Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, as I used much of their writing for the parts on the assessment of Andronikos, in particular Monarchy and War.

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