cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 14

cahn

Check out the opera clips at Rheinsberg!

(both the real-life place, which

selenak found out hosts a festival for young opera singers! and the community

rheinsberg)

Also! our fandom has been producing lovely fic at a rapid clip (okay, well,

selenak has):

Sibling dysfunction: Promises to Keep and My Brother Narcissus

Sibling dysfunction PLUS sibling M/M love triangle: The moon flies face to face with me

VOLTAIRE! Between the hour and the age

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Heee! This is so great.

Except for the part that's canon. :-((((

But yeah, if these guys had gotten therapy in the 18th century, we never would have heard of them. ~~21st century second chance for everyone to be obscure and happy~~

older Fredersdorf, who time travels shortly before his death, has to admit there's a war going on (and the Glasow assassination attempt also happened recently, which is one of the things he warns himself about).

Even better, we're living in the timeline where youngish Fredersdorf got warned by time-traveling older self about the *successful* Georgii assassination. Fredersdorf gets kicked out of the tent for increasingly insistently trying to warn Fritz off this new hot young thing, without being able to say what his source is.

Consigliere: *knows what he has to do*

Older Fredersdorf never believed alchemy was bad for him, though, so that didn't change. :(

(and possibly some other people dying from 18th century medicine rather than despot)

I can see that.

Older Fritz: Whatever you do, DON'T let Suhm go to St. Petersburg!

Not sure what he would do about Algarotti or Wilhelmine. :/

Voltaire: would get along swimmingly for about an hour of mutual "we're so brilliant at any age, aren't we?" admiration. Then there'd be fireworks.

There is a certain amount of "other self"ness going on with Voltaire and Fritz too.

Younger Voltaire would not accept any advice other than business tips (which companies to invest in).

Lol. Go Voltaire!

Older self Heinrich: *facepalm* And lol about the cool-aid! Don't worry, Heinrich, you may have been his other self, but you stayed true to yourself to the end. Much like a certain someone who is his father's son but also still playing the flute and patronizing the arts, ahem.

Any other ideas?

Katte: What older self?

(I couldn't help it. Poor Katte.)

Émilie: Probably gets along with her younger self? She teaches her and teaches her, so that her time-traveler-educated self is able to progress further than she was on the first iteration (and also knows not to get pregnant later in life), and then the more educated Émilie goes back to give the last one a head start, and on and on it goes. Let's be real, Émilie's the one who invented time travel in this fandom. ;)

Algarotti's younger self to his older self: You STILL haven't found that dream job? And now you're sick and stuck in Italy? I hate Italy! *grumble* At least we're famous, right?
Posterity: For now!

Older Lehndorff to younger Lehndorff: Again, canon.

Older: OMG, I was such a drama queen. Calm down, younger self, Heinrich and you are still BFFs in the future!
Younger: Really?
Older: Yes. Enough with the hyperventilating already. But whatever you do, DON'T let the girl get away! You'll do okay, but she'll be stuck married to a man she despises and you'll be playing "what if" for the rest of your life.

This is fun. :D

From:

cahn

Older Fredersdorf never believed alchemy was bad for him, though, so that didn't change. :(

...maybe Georgii-assassination-timeline!Fredersdorf never lived long enough to find out alchemy was bad for him :P

I love the Émilie, of course she saw the possibility of recursive time travel at once :D

From:

mildred_of_midgard

...maybe Georgii-assassination-timeline!Fredersdorf never lived long enough to find out alchemy was bad for him :P

What I meant was that canonical, our-timeline Fredersdorf, never had reason to believe that mercury poisoning was a thing, *if* he ever had it in the first place, which is just a guess on our part.

But what did you mean, that Fredersdorf died because Fritz did? I was thinking at first defending him (awww), but he has to live long enough to time travel, so...broken heart? :(

From:

cahn

This was before selenak decided Georgii didn't act as part of a conspiracy, so I figured whoever was behind Georgii might eventually decide Fredersdor knew too much or might figure out too much and so got rid of him too, but he was able to time travel right before that. Or osmething. But what you guys came up with is much better :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I see! Yes, selenak's idea is greaaaat. Especially combined with her previous ideas about Suhm.

Aww, now I have images of Fredersdorf learning that alchemy -> time travel might be a thing, and devoting his life to getting Fritz back. He doesn't have a million jobs now that Fritz is gone, so he can focus on his alchemy, meet other alchemists, and generally be more successful at it. And then he tells his younger self that alchemy is the way and the truth and it works! But revised-timeline self never devotes his life to it, and never meets St. Germain, so he only gets the mercury poisoning.

Fredersdorf: This is still the fixed timeline!

Btw, the internet tells me mercury poisoning was figured out around 1810-1820, more than half a century too late for Fredersdorf. :( Who, let's be real, whatever he died of, the mercury can't have *helped*.

From:

selenak

I love the idea that we're in a timeline that Fredersdorf fixed! Though I would suggest that Georgii actually wasn't acting at anyone's behest. He wasn't a spy, he was a hapless go-getter whose lies got out of control, and when Fritz finally caught on, Georgii panicked and killed him. Since he then shot himself, no one ever found out why he did what he did and on whose orders he acted (everyone assumed he was acting on orders). This is also why it takes the Fredersdorfs some time to uncover what's going on, since Older Fredersdorf works on the assumption that Georgii was a spy and that they need to uncover whose assassin he was, lest he simply gets replaced when taken out of commission. This leads to much secrecy and non-explanations, which leads to young Fredersdorf getting kicked out of the tent.

Oh, and also, let's say that the older selves can only speak to the younger selves. No one else is able to communicate with them. (Hence older Fredersdorf not simply going to Fritz himself.) Older Fredersdorf doesn't warn himself from alchemy because in the original timeline, he and an alchemist whom Fredersdorf in the fixed timeline never meets (Saint-Germain?) actually came up with an alchemical method of time travelling. (Since Lehndorff also canonically meets Saint Germain, this is his own time travel chance.)

Émilie independently developes her method by maths and physics, and I love your idea for her too much alter a single bit.

One thing about Lehndorff, though: alas he can't fix cousin Du Rosey getting away, because if he doesn't marry his original wives in the order he marries them, he wipes his children out of existence. No way fond father Lehndorff is going to do that!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I love your elaboration of the Fredersdorf plot, especially Saint Germain! But yes, especially given how we've developed Georgii, his lies getting out of control and suspicious Fritz catching on is perfect.

Émilie <3

I did think of that with Lehndorff, alas. I guess if we have enough parallel universes, instead of a single time track, he can have his ~~cake and eat it too~~ beloved kids and wife of choice too.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I love the idea that we're in a timeline that Fredersdorf fixed!

Me too, although I should point out that ~~Heinrich~~ MT AW ~~hundreds of thousands of soldiers~~ ~~some Saxon civilians~~ some people disagree on whether it was fixed or broken. :P

Loyal Fredersdorf maintains that it was fixed to the best of his ability. Voltaire grudgingly concurs.

Edited Date: 2020-04-21 03:54 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

LOL, yes. Mind you, due to older Fredersdorf travelling back within his own life time, we'll never know what ramifications the early death of Fritz has on overall German history even in the 19th century, let alone later. It might or might not depend on the unsolvable question as to whether Heinrich without Fritz in his life becomes his best or worst self. If you believe in the timeline being elastic but eventually stable, Prussia's rise to European superpower still happens, just with Heinrich as Prussia's Richelieu (to AW's Louis XIII), and hence everything else.