Felipe de Almagro
| Felipe de Almagro | |
 | |
| Physical information | |
|---|---|
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Male |
| Skin color | White |
| Biographical information | |
| Father | Maximillian de Almagro |
| Mother | Clara Blázquez-Almagro |
| Date of birth | 1641 AN |
| Place of birth | Geneva, Alexandria |
| Nationality | |
| Allegiance(s) | |
| Occupation | Politician, businessman |
Don Felipe de Almagro, born 12.I.1641 in Geneva, the then capital of the Empire of the Alexandrians, to Maximillian de Almagro and Clara Blázquez-Almagro, both hailing from cadet branches of the Almagro family of industrialists. Acclaimed as Hierophant of the Humanist Movement in 1722 AN.
Biography
Felipe grew up as one of five siblings and from an early age he was exposed to art, as his father was an avid collector and patron of Babkhan antiquities, funding numerous expeditions to the Euran continent to recover artefacts from the ruins of Raspur and Vey. In common with his siblings he was baptised into the Nazarene faith and received his catechism under the tutelage of the Autocephalous Nazarene Church of Alexandria.
As one of the heirs to the Alexandrian portion of the Osman-Almagro industrial conglomerate, broken up during the Euran Cold War which preceded the Babkhan Holocaust, Maximillian had moved his family to Luthoria so as to further his dual interest in the preservation of the Euran arts and the recovery of Babkhan military-industrial hardware. During this time Felipe attended a private lycée, for the children of the elites, situated in New Berlin, present day Mehrshahr. The academic records of the institution were recovered in 1705 from an archive in the Surenid Confederacy, where they had been stored without any especial care. There was little of note concerning Felipe to be found, save for an end of term report that painted a picture of a diffident, timid, and otherwise unremarkable pupil.
Early life
Felipe was ten years of age when the Alexandrian flu overwhelmed the Empire during 1651. The sole member of his family to survive the cataclysm, and one of scarcely a dozen of the pupils of the lycée, Felipe endured the fate of so many others in Luthoria, being snared by a Surenid raiding party and carried off into the interior to be sold into kul slavery. Passed between the Surenid, Raspurid, and Bassaraid trading caravans that plied the Euran continental interior, Felipe was kept as a tea-dancer and obliged to attend upon the caravan master and his guests according to their pleasure. Once he turned seventeen, and thus attained too great of an age to properly entertain his masters, Felipe was set to tending the camels of the caravan where he could expect that, like so many of those taken captive along with him, he would eventually perish, caught between the harshness of the desert and steppe and the cruelty of his masters. Deliverance came in the form of the Second Euran War. After the Surenid turned upon their Raspurid masters, and embraced the cause of Azad Eura, the mobile columns of the Constancian Home Guard, sent to relieve Raspur from the siege under which it had been placed, soon found themselves embroiled in continual skirmishing with slaver caravans. During one of these skirmishes, an ambush taking place beside a desert wadi, Felipe, by now aged 24, was able to knife his overseer and escape into the scrub surrounding the watering hole during the chaotic firefight. He did not do so wholly unscathed however, as a Constancian guardsman, mistaking him in his Babkhan garb for a Surenid bandit, fired off a round in his direction which struck him on his left shoulder and knocking him clean over. It was only by his sunburnt skin, and his incoherent babbling in half-forgotten Alexandrian, that spared Felipe from receiving the coup-de-grace care of a Constancian bayonet. Instead his wounds were patched up the best they could be and he was evacuated to Nivardom to convalesce in a military hospital. Once he had recovered sufficiently from his wound he was intensively debriefed by the State Protection Authority. It was during the second subsequent period of hospitalisation, after his transfer to Aqaba General Hospital, that Felipe first met Melina Toleli, a junior nurse assigned to his ward. Bonding initially over a shared affinity for the Raspurid brands of Babkhan tobacco considered un-smokable by most Vey-born Constancians, Felipe and Melina eventually drifted into a relationship and made arrangements to stay in touch after his discharge from hospital.
Life in Constancia
Following the end, by mutual exhaustion, of the Second Euran War in 1667, Felipe had become, by dint of his circumstances, a freed slave, a stateless individual, and a man without a job, education, qualifications, or prospects. Assigned a billet in the Displaced Persons Camp outside Aqaba, Felipe was able to find occasional work on construction sites before being taken on as a stevedore in the burgeoning dockyards. Having built a relationship around a weekly rendezvous at a mutually convenient coffee shop followed by an evening spent on the back row of a poorly lit movie theatre, Felipe finally worked up the courage to propose to Melina in 1670 and they were wed at the registry office in the following year. Allegations that the engagement rings were amongst items of jewellery taken in a 1668 smash and grab from a jewellers in the New Town district is purely incidental and does not need to be discussed here. The couple's combined salaries, though meagre, were, taken together with their marriage certificate, sufficient to obtain for them an apartment in the Euranikon Resettlement City. Their first son, Maximillian, was born in 1672. Whilst the child was welcomed by both, the additional strain on their already precarious finances was not.
In spite of his mean station, Felipe unexpectedly came to the attention of no-less a personage than the dictator of Constancia, Jaime Augusto Joaquin Primo de Aguilar. The Autokrator of Constancia was a man who made it his purpose to seek out those surviving members of the Alexandrian diaspora who, like himself, had found their way into Constancia. Under his patronage a community of over five-hundred thousand Alexandrian Luthorians had made their home in Constancia, many enjoying an outsized political influence in a remnant Constancian nation that barely surpassed eleven million souls total. Whilst not every one of those members of the diaspora had warranted the Autokrator's personal attention, the summary of the State Protection Authority's debriefing of Felipe had been included amongst a sheaf of similar such transcripts which had been placed before him by his silentiarios (private secretary). Primo's interest in the region today occupied by the Suren Confederacy had been brought about by the occasional strategic rivalry between Raspur Pact-aligned Constancia, and the Bassarid Empire, which had pledged itself to the USSO, and wherever possible he liked to read the first hand accounts of those who had traversed the northern Euran no-man's land. Whilst not normally given to pangs of sentimentality, the Autokrator had felt the semblance of pity whilst reading the account of Felipe's stolen youth, before finally realising the full import of the man's surname.
For Felipe this sudden interest manifested itself in the form of his sudden abduction, in early 1673, from the second job he had taken in a night-time kebab restaurant by agents of the State Protection Authority. Hooded, manacled, and bundled into the back of a black land cruiser, Felipe had been startled to realise, as the hood was torn from his head, that he had been brought onto the runway of Aqaba Airfield. Frogmarched by plain-clothes officers across the tarmac towards an unmarked white light transport aircraft and ordered aboard, he had been still more startled and alarmed to see his wife and their son, already sat aboard flanked by Krypteia officers. Brusquely told to sit down, buckle up, and remain silent, Felipe had endured the three hour flight to Asterapolis in a state of mounting apprehension, made all the worse by ceaseless bawling of his infant child, and the knowledge that he could neither calm the child nor console his wife.
Asterapolis, situated on the island of Idolgi, served as the capital, in remote splendour, of the Constancian crown, ruling over the reconstituted Imperial State. Only those intimate and immediate use to the regime were ever summoned to the citadel of royal power. The first surprise for Felipe and his family upon being led off the aircraft was being directed into the VIP lounge area of the airport rather than the detention suite. There they were led into a discreet shower and dressing area where clothes more suitable for attending the Imperial Court, tailored to an approximation of their size, were hung on a series of racks. On the dressing tables were also laid out a selection of fragrances and perfumes so that they might not disgrace themselves in front of their betters on account of their proletarian stench.
Although they were never permitted on this occasion to proceed any further than the outer courtyard of the outer palace, the marble-clad antechamber into which they were led was more dazzling in its opulence than anything that either Felipe or Melina had ever witnessed in their entire lives. Awaiting them, sat behind an ornate cedarwood table on a raised marble dais, were arrayed the Kanikleios, the Silentiarios, and the Protonotarios, three of the most senior functionaries of the Office of the Autokrator, and behind them stood a phalanx-like array of a dozen immaculately attired court lawyers. The pair, with Melina still trying her best to sooth their distressed son, were invited to sit on the chairs which had been thoughtfully placed in the middle of the room so that they would be obliged to look up, at all times, to the dignitaries addressing them from the dais.
They began by obliging Felipe to confirm some pertinent particulars about himself. He knew his own name, knew the names of his parents, could hazard a guess as to the year of his birth, knew that he was an Alexandrian by birth, and confirmed that he had been taken into slavery from a school in Luthoria after surviving the plague of 1651. As to the significance of that, he could not say. There were hundreds of thousands like him in a similar situation, having been left with nothing to their name except their name. He was asked, sternly, if it had never occurred to him that he might have been in some way related to the founder of Almagro Industries, one Diego de Almagro, a native of San Martin, deceased on or around the year 1535. Felipe truthfully answered that he had not heard of Almagro Industries, this Diego, nor of San Martin, prior to the present moment. They asked him next if he understood the nature of the profession of his father, Maximillian de Almagro. Felipe answered that he must have been an art collector of some kind, for there were always Babkhan artefacts being brought into the house when he was at home outside of term time. At this, the Silentiarios could not help forebear but to smile. The Kanikleios scowled and demanded to know whether Felipe had ever seen in his youth a series of gilt edged black leather ledgers, with the binding of the spines covered in purple velvet. Felipe, puzzled, confirmed that if he ever had, he could not recall doing so. The Kanikleios tutted at the answer, only to be mildly rebuked by the Protonotarios who observed that, even if he had remembered the ledgers and then by some feat remembered his exact address in Luthoria, those ledgers were still a long way from being anything other than irrevocably lost. The Silentiarios sighed and remarked that they were to congratulate themselves for confirming what they already knew. This drew impatient sighs in response from his colleagues at the table. It was at this moment that Melina, incautiously and perhaps unwisely, ventured to ask why she and her child had been brought to this meeting which she had hesitated for a moment before calling a tribunal. The Kanikleios barked back at her that it was so that she could share in the fate of her husband, for better or for worse he added with savage glee. Seeing her take fright the Silentiarios soothingly added, that in this instance it was like to be for richer rather than for poorer. The Protonotarios looked annoyed at this, as if too much had been said too soon.
At this juncture one of the court lawyers who had been stood stock still behind the seated functionaries, lent forward and whispered into the suddenly attentive ear of the Kanikleos. The man listened, nodded curtly, and finally backed out an exclamation to the effect of “very well!”. He next picked up a small bell from the table and rank it once. Immediately a double set of brass doors to the right of the antechamber swung open and in marched four suited pot-bellied gentlemen, their faces disfigured by ridiculous moustaches, and their heads adorned by blood red fezzes capped with blue tassels. The four men marched across to where Felipe sat and the one leading them, with the most protruding belly and the most luxuriantly curled moustache of the lot, thrust a clipboard holding a sheave of documents and forms into the bewildered lap of Felipe, obliging him to grab a hold of the clipboard rather than let it clatter to the floor, A second man amongst the four lent in and proffered to Felipe a fountain pen. The fattest man amongst the four, which seemed to be the criterion for his leadership position, intoned in an almost monotone drone that by signing the papers Felipe would freely and without compulsion place the entirety of the Almagro family portion of the residual concerns of the Osman-Almagro Shipping Corporation, Osman-Almagro-Mavet GmbH, Osman-Almagro Industries GmBH and Osman-Almagro Engineering Incorporated into the hands of the Honourable Company without prejudice to the interests of the House of Osman in regards to any past, present, or future matters arising thereof. Perplexed, Felipe asked why he would ever agree to such a thing, being thoroughly bamboozled by what was transpiring. The Kanikleios barked from the dais that if he ever intended to leave the damned room he would sign the damned papers. The young infant began to wail, and the fat man, turning to address the dais, asked in a weak and almost pleading voice for silence. The Kanikleios scoffed but indicated that he had said his piece. Turning back to Felipe, the fat man went on to say, in more measured tones, that in return for the consideration shown to the Honourable Company, he, Felipe would be entitled to draw an annual stipend of four hundred thousand Natopian natopos. On hearing this Felipe could barely contain his shock, in so doing he dropped the pen and had to stoop down to pick up it up in flustered consternation. Given the choice between a ludicrous pay-off, and not leaving the room at all, what choice really did he have. The fat man went on to say that, of course, in order to be the ongoing beneficiary of such largesse certain other obligations would have to be taken on board. The Honourable Company required a gentlemen of some experience of Euran conditions and a good Alexandrian name to serve as Resident for the Honourable Company in Susa. Such an appointment would be nominal, with the interests in the new Aldurian colonies being primarily the concern of the Board of Directors, however a well-placed gentleman of the right stock would be a useful future asset. Felipe turned to glance at his wife who, by a certain inclination of her chin, indicated that he should get on with signing the damned papers.
Signing the papers concluded the interview. The fat gentlemen in fezzes, and the lean angry gentlemen sat upon the dais took this as their cue to depart. Of the accompanying phalanx of lawyers, one stepped down from the dais and passed to Felipe a business card detailing the contact number for a branch of the Imperial & Emirati Bank of Alalehzamin and Constancia. He was instructed to call that number in four days time, whereupon all necessary arrangements would be finalised.
The interview concluded, Felipe and his family were placed in a villa on the east coast of the island of Idolgi, where their stay extended over the remainder of 1673 and 1674. To Felipe's great relief his newly opened account with the Imperial & Emirati Bank burgeoned in the manner in which had been promised. The ESB Secretariat took a hand in Felipe's training for his role as Resident. To his surprise a lot of the training focused on the political and cultural side of life in Alduria. He was repeatedly assured that he would have a deputy looking after the day to day business aspects. In any event, ESB Susa had been a going concern since the Iteran Crisis and was quite well established by this point. Owing to time constraints the indoctrination of Felipe and his wife into the company mindset had to be conducted via hothousing methods, which in turn required regular decompression and cool down periods so as to avoid burn out. During this time Felipe and Melina enjoyed one family holiday in Eklesia, whilst Felipe would also partake of weekend trips to the entertainment district of Cario. His one visit to Merensk was presented to his sceptical wife as a business trip.
Alduria
Felipe and his wife had taken up his posting in Susa in the spring of 1675. That same year Felipe applied for Aldurian citizenship under the Law of Graces provision which the Aldurian government had specifically designed to lure in citizens from the Alexandrian diaspora. Although personally sceptical of Aldurian-Wechuan federalism, Felipe adhered to the policy set by the Board of Directors in Aqaba and soon made a point of joining the Coalition for Federal Progress, a grouping of Democratic Socialist Party and 20 independents from Alduria and the Social Democrat Club, the Alexandrian & Caputian Party, and the National & Humanist Club in the Wechua Nation, that supported the formation of the Federation of Alduria-Wechua, which subsequently occurred in 1685 with the Proclamation of Punta Santiago. Rather than stand for election directly Felipe and his wife had lent their efforts in the years leading up to 1685 into establishing independent expenditure-only committees throughout the states of Alduria for the purpose of supporting pro-business and pro Raspur Pact candidates for elected office. This lavish spending was greatly rewarded during the era of the New Prosperity Plan (1685-1700) as the Honourable Company benefited directly from a slew of economic programmes, public-private partnerships, and rampant defence spending, all funded by bond issuances which the Honourable Company's banking affiliates and partners sought to stimulate into effervescence by well publicised “confidence building” purchases.
Following the reconstitution of Alduria-Wechua as the Federation of New Alexandria, Felipe adroitly made a shift in allegiance from the Coalition for Federal Progress to the Federal Humanist Party in 1692, bringing his Aldurian network of political action committees with him. A supporter of the technocratic wing of the party led by Gerhardt Eugen Seydlitz, Felipe had initially supported the dual-leadership solution which had seen Seydlitz partner with the more authoritarian Augustus Strong, whose experiences and perspective had been shaped by the hardships of the Caputian and Wechuan diasporas. Increasingly exasperated by the attacks launched by Augustus Strong and the settler wing of the FHP against the New Prosperity Plan, a strategy which had held up the rural and settler base in the regions whilst losing the cities, Felipe had finally taken the electoral defeat in 1703 as the moment to organise the putsch within the party which forced Augustus to relinquish the co-archonship. With that position now vacant, Felipe finally took the step of introducing his name onto the list for the Alduria region, replacing a colleague who resigned from the Cortes in 1705 in order to take up a four year consultancy post with ESB's financial services division.
Political career in New Alexandria
Member and Deputy of the FHP for the Region of Alduria.
President of the Government (1708-1718) and Secretary of the Department of Defense (1708–1724).
Hierophant of the World Humanist Movement
Elected by the Council of Archons to succeed Fridwald Peter as Hierophant, supreme leader of the global N&H, after being nominated unopposed at the 1722 Humanist Convention in Chryse.
His assumption of the highest grade and office of the Humanist Movement signified the continuing alignment of the N&H with the Honourable Company and the Raspur Pact, as well as a kind of victory for the Community of Goldfield in that a citizen of Nouvelle Alexandrie would inherit the post from a Ransenari subject of the Benacian Union.
Raised to the Imperial Senate upon assumption into office by Mesazon Periklês Metaxas at the start of 1727.
