Emperor Christian I

Emperor Christian I is the first and current Emperor of Errikland, better known as the Errikan Empire. Praised by some as a magnificent genius and honorable warrior and cursed by others as a power hungry imperialist and heartless capitalist, he is a highly controversial figure. He is credited with the unification of the Errikan Empire as well as the success of his corporation, Weapson.

Christian holds deep conservative views, and all of his actions seem to be motivated by his desire to further the interests of his people and Empire.

Early Life

Christian was born to a wealthy aristocratic family in what is now northern Errikland. Beginning at a young age, he had a classical Errikan education, where he leared English, German, and Latin and studied history, logic, philosophy, and economics (his favorite subjects) as well as several that he was not so fond of. His grasp of tactics was apparent at a very quickly, as he soon grew bored of chess and other "lesser simulations." In his early teens, he developed a great skill for public speaking and debate, and was coming around to a very radical conservative, laissez-faire, nationalist position.

He graduated early, moving on to major in business and government. He was known to frequently get in heated arguments with his professors, whom he would usually outsmart. Despite this, he got excellent marks in all of his subjects, graduating at the top of his class. He married Helen Smith, a childhood friend and daughter of a well off owner of a mining operation, soon afterwards.

Rise

Following his graduation, Victor went on to be fairly successful in business in a short time. His charisma quickly attracted willing investors and customers, and luck seemed to be with him. One of his projects in this field was Weapson, which he founded with his friend Nicholas Rommel.

It was during this time that political instability rocked the region. Fierce debate crowded every possible venue, and the young businessman was, whenever possible, in the very center of it. Christian, though pulling some strings, managed to rise to the leadership of the Nationalist party, and was the primary engineer of the unification of this party with two other parties (the ECU and UEC) to form the National Christian Libertarian party. The three absolute truths of this party had been Christian's trademarks for years: Nationalism, Capitalism, and Christianity. This party quickly grew in power as the poitical situation grew more and more stressed. By the time the war finally broke out, Victor was the most powerful man in the party.

Civil War

Though Victor's new party was very popular to all sorts of Errikans (Students, Soldiers, Merchants, Landowners, and religious leaders), it made polarized plenty of enemies. The communists, and all other socialists, were strongly alienated, as were the Muslims and all foreigners. The result was a looming civil war that seemed initially to be fairly evenly split. However, as Victor was named Commander-in-Chief of Nationalist Forces, he quickly reorganized them. He provided them with superior weapons and equiptment, provided by Weapson, and started a brutal training program that was not only physical but psychological. The result was a thoroughly professional force of fanatically loyal and well equiped soldiers, produced in a relatively short period of time. The problem was that there were relatively few of them, and it would take quite some time to do that on a large scale. Still, he figured, if they were reacting to his actions, he could determine the numbers required. At least for a time. When the war broke out a short while later, he moved quickly and, through tactics, charisma, and sheer ruthlessness, swiftly broke the main enemy forces in a single stroke. The leaders and majority of the fighters fell back into the fortified city of Wretterburg. They knew that their defenses could hold the Nationalist forces off long enough for forces outside of the city to regroup and aid them. General Victor, as he was now called, knew this as well. He had a couple legions dig in around the city and starve them out while he led the rest of his forces out to eliminate enemy support throghout the region. At this he was brutally efficient. By winter Wretterburg was the only remaining center of socialist opposition. The General returned to the siege, spending all winter training his troops, before leading surprise attack on the southern defenses after four weeks of heavy bombardment. In order to achieve this, however, he had to first send a major distracting attack on the north western defenses, where over a thousand Trottel soldiers were killed. However, in his view it was worth it, as the city was taken after two days of urban warfare. The last leaders of the Socialists surrendered.

Aftermath

Coming out of the Civil War, Christian Victor was a national hero. He had won the biggest war in the history of the region in a very short period of time with very low casualty rate for the Errikans (the "foreigners" and "traitors" had almost 100% casualties). His frequent policy of leading from the front lines and putting himslef in the same danger as his troops further advanced him as a symbol of nationalism, and it was with great support that he was declared Emperor. Formerly, the region had been a couple loose confederations of many seperate states, and there had been some, though very little, effort to unite them. However, the civil war changed all that. There was now a strong nationalist zeal that stressed unification, and the popular war hero was the center of that movement. Two months after the formal surrender of the Socialists, Christian Victor was crowned Emperor Christian Victor I, first soveriegn of the Errikan empire.

Originally, the intention was for Emperor Victor to be an absolute monarch. However, he was highly distrustful of government, and did not believe that an absolute monarchy could be stable. It was because of this that he wrote the Imperial Constitution, which strictly controlled the power of the government and provided for a legislature.

Emperor

As Emperor, Victor was a major reformer. Being a staunch anti-government, pro-business social darwinist, he started by cutting out most possible government involvement socially and economically in the Imperial Constitution. His former party won massive majorities in the upper and lower senates, meaning that his policies, which had shaped the party, held control of the entire legislature. He has yet use his veto power. Militarily, he began a system of Imperial Expansion within Mucro. The advanced training program, which had evolved into a massive academy system where recruits were trained, even harder and far more efficiently than before, in facilities called Comitatus, along with the advanced weapons and equipment of Weapson, gave the Errikan soldiers an edge over the other peoples of the region. The Emperor took advantage of this and, through a series of wars expanded Errikan territory signifigantly. During these wars, he still personally led the troops in many attacks, and was the primary commander on most fronts.

He also developed what would become a standard Errikan policy: the hospitible treatment of "honorable" foes (along with a complete disregard for "enemy" civilians). During the civil war, anyone from the other side had been killed. The Emperor said that this was justice: execution was the punishment for treason. However, the Emperor's new policy demanded that all honorable foes be treated well. It was an entirely alien idea to the region, and was the first action the Emperor took that did not have the full support of his party. However, it was a military matter, and thus completely under his control. It was during this time that the alliance with Jaymeland and Albu-querque was initiated, and Errikland rose to be the primary power in all of Mucro, aside from Higera.

A very short while after the alliance was formed, the Emperor sought colonies outside of Mucro. This was what drew the Errikan Empire into Arterus.

Political Beliefs

The Emperor firmly believed in what came to be the three truths that the NCL adopted: Nationalism, Capitalism, and Christianity. These, along with his firm distrust of government, have driven most of his policies, which have, on a economic and social level, been strongly laissez-faire.

His very strong (and frequently militant)nationalism along with his belief in Social Darwinism seem to indicate him as fascist, but his huge aversion to power of the state (the center of fascist beliefs) destroys these arguments. Unlike other Social Darwinists, he sees the state as a major obstruction and sees laissez-faire capitalism as the best way for "it to work".

However, the exeption to his ideals of small government is the military, which he has constantly expanded. Some of his critics claim that this is because that is the branch of the government that is under his direct control, while others claim that it is because he wishes to expand the business of Weapson, a company he started. Still few deny that he has a strong love of his people and nation, which means that his militarization may be either to protect them or to expand the glory for his nation.

Quotes

• "War is business" -
• "I am deeply insulted that you would think that all I value about my people is their capacity to generate funds for my government! When I said that we had to protect them because they were paying for the government, I didn't mean that we had to protect them so that they could continue paying us! I meant that they were paying us to do a job, and we had damn well better do it! To do anything else would be theft and treason!" -to Arius Cohenius, Operation Saving Grace