Fiction:Alexandre I

Alexandre Valéry (born 2714) is a French human soldier, politician, Prime Minister, and the current head of state of the French Colonial Empire. Born in the Le Bren region of Metropolitan France, Valéry was educated abroad in the European Star Republic before he returned to France and enlisted in the Foreign Legion. From 2742 to 2750, he acted as a political consultant and special advisor to members of the Parti Socialiste and eventually won himself a seat in the French Parliament in 2750. Through political cunning and personal charisma, Valéry became a force to be reckoned with in Parliament, responsible for a great many coalitions and parliamentary decisions. His political influence led to his eventual rise to President of the National Assembly in 2781 and Prime Minister in 2794, making him one of the most powerful people in the French Sixth Republic.

As Prime Minister would be instrumental in the implementation of President Laurene Maxime's domestic policies and the two came to respect each other immensely despite sporadic influence wars between them. As time wore on, Valéry became more and more involved in foreign policy, going as far as to subvert the authority of Foreign Minister Jean Delonier to accomplish the administration's goals. In 2800, he was sent to along with a few members of the French staff to negotiate the Alcanti Triad Alliance between France, the Draconid Imperium, and the Tybusen Intergalactic Allied Federation. As tensions between the Delpha Coalition of Planets and the Xonexi Allies rose, eventually leading to the Great Xonexian Schism, Valéry's time was increasingly consumed by keeping the growing anti-war movement in France in check. He succeeded to a point, though he was caught and taken hostage by the Parliamentary coup which overthrew the Maxime administration on June 21, 2802. With the help of Foreign Minister Ballatay, Valéry and his staff fled into exile.

Half a year later, Valéry resurfaced as a central figure in the French colonial independence movement, issuing a rallying call to arms on behalf of the newly-created French Colonial Empire. In the widely televised address, he declared the French colonies free of DCP rule and pledged that they would keep fighting until Metropolitan France was safe. Several hours later, he was named Emperor of the French by the Emergency Colonial Congress, assuming the very limited political powers initially granted to him by that body and the Constitution of the French Colonial Empire.

Early life
Valéry was born in 2714 in the Le Bren region of France, the son of a pair of conservative parents who then moved to the planet Tuseau in Karone region in accordance to France's population laws. As a result, he grew up in what could he later called "the country's least inhabited backwater," and very quickly absorbed many of its conservative values. As a child, he was socially isolated from his classmates and received little support from his family. In public, he later praised his parents' pride and strength, though in private there were signs that he bore some resentment towards them.

At the age of eighteen, Valéry left Le Bren to study at the traditionalist Highton University in the European Star Republic. There, he underwent a transformation, undoing all of his previous conservative education and acquiring a certain interest in numerous academic subjects. History, political science, and psychology interested him especially, though he seemed aimless––having no particular goal or plan for what he was going to do when he left Highton. Valéry's interactions within the social sphere also changed as he went from socially inept to honing a gift for figuring out people's intentions and desires. He was by no means a part of the popular crowd, but his lonesome figure was something of a success among the females of the campus who, along with other things, were attracted to his brooding stares. However, he rarely kept the company of a particular female and was notoriously difficult to keep interested for more than a few weeks, as he seemed to form no emotional attachments with his love interests.

It was at the Leaver's ball in 2738 that Valéry met Connor Hathaway, a lifelong companion and one of the few people he is truly able to call a friend. At the time, Connor was Vice-President of the student body and a member of the school hotshots, but Valéry found in meeting him that there was more to the guy than that. They fantasized about running away to join the French Foreign Legion, and fantasies morphed into plans which consolidated into action. That morning, they visited the FFL's recruitment office and enlisted.

Through the Foreign Legion's arduous training regimen both before and after he became a legionary, Valéry learned discipline and to value his instincts as well as his razor-sharp mind. Connor, on the other hand, threatened to break under the stresses that FFL life placed on him. He would not have made it through basic training had Valéry not propped him up and demanded that he keep going. They were eventually assigned to the same C-38A5 main battle tank, though they knew very little combat given that it was a peaceful time for France. However, in one incident in 2741, they were dispatched to the planet Aprilia to aid one of France's enclaves in putting down an armed insurrection. Their tank was critically damaged in the fighting, and out of the crew only Valéry and Connor were left alive, stranded behind enemy lines. When they were finally found three days later, Connor had been broken by having to kill a rebel in close combat. He barely made the three years of service required for a French citizenship before being honorably discharged and diagnosed with PTSD. Valéry left the Legion soon after.
 * French Foreign Legion

Early political career
After loitering for a while and attempting a career in argumentative writing, Valéry entered politics as a self-styled political consultant who would tag along with powerful figures and advise them on how to navigate the political scene. He began his practice in the provincial council of New Persephonie from 2742 to 2745 and then moved to in 2746 to tackle politics in the French National Assembly. The information and experience he gained during this period would serve him throughout the rest of his life as a politician.

He quickly became indispensable to those who hired him and quickly managed to wriggle his way into the structure of the French Socialist Party and earned himself a seat as a deputy of the National assembly in 2750. From there, he threw himself into the fray of intrigue and politics, deftly forging a network of connections and allies which served to project his own personal influence. By the 2780's, he had gotten himself elected President of the National Assembly and utterly dominated the French parliament.

Prime Minister of France
It was through his alliance with the Pelissier government in the early 2790's which would serve as his final stepping stone to real political power. When Laurene Maxime was elected president in 2794, she appointed him Prime Minister of a nation at war. The Maxime government's first years were heavily intertwined with the Dominatus War, and Valéry spent much of his time keeping the French government in line.

The fact that Maxime was a very hands-on president in nearly all aspects of government left Valéry very little room to maneuver according to his wishes. The two were often at odds during Maxime's first term despite sharing similar ideologies and worldviews. However, Valéry proved his usefulness time and time again by smoothening out crises, undoing her political opponents in lower rungs of government, and exercising his influence behind her back to accomplish France's goals. His favorite realm of politics––international relations––was barred from his position, but that did not keep him from having a hand in France's foreign policy.

Valéry participated in a state visit to the Draconid Imperium in 2795, acquainting himself briefly with Paragon Uriel Ultanos and a few other key Draconis political figures, contacts which would prove useful in the future.

During the East African Civil War, Valéry was instrumental in gathering the reactionary Coalition which intervened in East Africa. When Roreinian arms shipments were discovered on route to the East African Sultanate, a violation of the Orion League embargo, he personally convinced the Roreinians to withdraw their support for the rebel government before bringing the issue to the President, a fact that was discovered only much later.

By the beginning of Maxime's second term in 2797, Valéry and the president had learned to work with one another without stepping on each others' toes. However, many within the French cabinet grew wary of the Prime Minister's growing power both at home and abroad. As France grew into an intergalactic superpower, Valéry's influence seemed to drive everything. Through well-placed allies in such offices as the Economic Minister, the Minister of Immigration, the Presidents of the Senate and National Assembly, and several key ambassadors, he was everywhere and often came close to undermining the President's authority. This fact unnerved Maxime, leading her to replace certain key members of her cabinet after 2797.

France's primary antagonist during the Gigaquadrantic Conflicts was the Delpha Coalition of Planets due to its increasingly expansionist and militarist policies as well as its sheer geopolitical dominance in the. Relations with the DCP were set in a downward spiral with the French Quadrantia Trade Route Crisis in 2799, where a lone DCP ship broke down in the middle of a French-owned trade route and subsequently destroyed a fleet of twenty-nine ships.
 * Early Gigaquadrantic Conflicts

With the mysterious destruction of Halcyon B and the death of Maxime's foreign minister, the Gigaquadrant plunged into an era of tension, mistrust, and war. Much to Valéry's frustration, Maxime kept from appointing a new foreign minister and handled French foreign policy by herself, making it far harder for him to influence it.

Though they nearly considered themselves political rivals by this point, Valéry and Maxime still worked together with great effectiveness during the Gigaquadrantic Conflicts' many crises. During the Neraida Invasion, they formed a common front against those within the French government who preached isolation and denounced any possibility of Orion League military action against the Neraida invaders.

In June of 2800, the President sent Valéry and two other French Marshals to a secret conference held on between the Draconid Imperium, France, and the Tybusen Intergalactic Allied Federation. Once there, Valéry negotiated the Alcanti Triad Agreement, a secret treaty which would change the geopolitical makeup of the Gigaquadrant.

As France informally gathered other supporters and probed its many alliances for support against the DCP, a new development occurred on the galactic scene in 2801. The New Cyrannian Republic and a host of other nations wishing to remain neutral in the Gigaquadrantic Conflicts had met on and formed an organization meant to maintain their neutrality. However, it was well known that the New Cyrannian Republic weighed heavily on the side of the DCP in the looming Xonexi-DCP conflict, which led the French to suspect that the organization was meant as a tool to influence those nations to fight for the status quo. Maxime immediately called a meeting between the newly-appointed Foreign Minister Ballatay and the rest of her cabinet to discuss the issue. The Accords' acquisition of several Andromedan nations proved that the New Cyrannian Republic could pose much more of a threat than originally anticipated, and great changes to French foreign policy were made during that meeting. However, none of the officials present––including Valéry––could provide an adequate solution to the Mou'Cyran problem. After four hours of discussion, the cabinet adjourned.

The next morning, Valéry marched into Maxime's office and he set before her a bold solution to the geopolitical threat the Mou'Cyran Accords posed: a non-agression pact between France, its allies, and the Mou'Cyran Accords as an organization. Appreciating the merits of the offer, Maxime sent Ballatay immediately to seek approval first from TIAF Ambassador Ambrette Marseilles, and then from Paragon Uriel himself on.

Once the proposed treaty was ratified by all three of France's allies, Maxime delivered a rousing speech to the French Parliament announcing her intentions to make the offer in the name of peace––a speech which was then transmitted directly to.

The Mou'Cyrannian response was tentative but positive, turning down the proposed terms of Maxime's treaty. However, after some deliberation, they fronted an offer of their own. Their proposal was a non-aggression pact which added new sections dedicated to limiting the spread of the Xonexi-DCP conflict to the Xonexi Cluster. The ensuing talks resulted in the Treaty of Galactica, which ensured peace and good relations between the two factions.


 * Great Xonexian Schism
 * ''Further reading: Great Xonexian Schism

If war had been averted in the Cyrandia Cluster, the same could not be said about Xonexi. Tensions between the Delpha Coalition of Planets and the Xonexi Allies kept rising until they boiled over during the Orion War in March of 2802. United behind the President, the Maxime Administration––and indeed the nation as a whole––marched enthusiastically off to war, fueled by fervent anti-DCP sentiment.

However, as the war dragged on, Maxime's old enemies began to resurface. Whispers of discontent among the liberal wing of the Parti Socialiste spoke with disapproval of the ongoing war. While Maxime was consumed by the war effort and Ballatay was constantly away on missions in Allied capitals, Valéry held down the fort in Paris. Working with Casimir Gérard, then President of the Senate, the Prime Minister was able to muffle the loudest voices of dissent, though Gérard's incompetence––or his unwillingness to persecute members of his own faction––made him a difficult intermediary.

The war turned against the Allies in the months leading up to June of 2802. Defeats such as the Takeover of Tholfame 22 and the failure of Operation Deviant Rim revived liberal opposition to the war. A growing faction in the French Parliament, led by leftist Deputy Faucheaux, held open meetings, rallied demonstrations, and attempted to impede the conservative-controlled Parliament. The final defeat of the Orion League at the Battle of the Dying Sun and the sudden crash of the GITO economy finally tipped the scales of public opinion. With conservative and liberal senators alike defecting to Faucheaux's camp, Valéry recommended to the President that she use one of her constitutionally-mandated powers and disband the lower house of Parliament, a move which would win them at least a month while new Deputies were voted in.

That afternoon, Valéry personally delivered the Presidential order to the French Parliament, accompanied by Connor and the rest of his senior staff. The plan backfired spectacularly when Faucheaux took them hostage, locking them in a storage room under the Parliamentary building. Fauchaux then used the upper house of Parliament––radicalized by Maxime's sudden move––to stage a coup which would result in the President's death and the installment of Casimir Gérard as Interim President of the French Republic.

Powerless to do anything, Valéry knew nothing of the events on the surface until a group of Republican Guardsmen under Ballatay's command forced their way into the underground of the Parliament building and successfully evacuated the hostages. Under the cover of night, Valéry and his staff were transported to the Glorious Enterprise, Ballatay's diplomatic ship as Foreign Minister of France, and they promptly fled the capital.

Exile
Prime Minister Valéry's disappearance was buried in the chaos of June 21, going unnoticed by the general public. With the help of its wormhole drive, the Glorious Enterprise would journey to the safety of Allied-held space in Andromeda while the exiles pondered their options. They strongly considered reaching out to the Draconis or TIAF and requesting asylum in exchange for whatever political intelligence and expertise they could deliver. However, the decision was put off when news reached them of the memorial service Paragon Uriel was holding for their deceased president on Alcanti. Despite Ballatay's cautious warnings, Valéry resolved to attend.

In the days leading up to the ceremony, arrangements were made. An ancillary ship, less conspicuous than France's premier diplomatic cruiser, was chartered for the trip to the Draconis capital. On June 28, Valéry arrived on Alcanti with a small entourage of Republican Guards from Ballatay's personal detachment. With flowers in hand, he waded through black-veiled crowds until he stood in front of the magnificent marble statue of his former president and friend. It was unusually sentimental for him to have gone to such lengths to come, but he did not weep or shed a tear. As he placed his offerings in front of the statue, he dispensed with the past and returned to his ship resolved to come to terms with the idea that his best days were behind him.

That night, French Andromedan intelligence services found him and dispatched an extraction team to arrest him without telling the Draconis. Without warning, they stormed Valéry's ship and subdued his Republican Guards after a series of intense firefights. Despite not having wielded a firearm in a combat situation in over fifty years, the former statesman was noted in classified reports as having picked up a sidearm and joined the engagement, killing a parachutist at close range and inflicting a wound on another. By the end of the scuffle, he was knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of the head and secretly transported back to French Andromeda.

Schism-era policy
In 2803, at the same time as he assumed the position of Emperor of the French Colonial Empire, Valéry published a book called The Path to Peace. Ghost-written by his communications staff with the help of diplomatic, domestic, economic, and military advisers from all branches of the new French Colonial government, the book outlined the Empire's wartime policy in great detail and would serve as the basis for what would later be referred to as Valérism in France.

Most notably, it contained Valéry's ambitious plan to win the Great Xonexian Schism through France's reentry into the war. The fully-harnessed industrial might of French Mirus, he argued, would tip the scales of the conflict and propel France to great power status in the postwar period. Unlocking Mirus' potential and keeping the fledgeling empire afloat would require hard work and sacrifice on behalf of the other colonies in the form of full mobilization of the French Colonial population, wartime taxes, and innovative economics. Throughout, he was adamant that he would pursue the war to its end and would not let France shirk its responsibilities to its friends and allies. The treatise also heavily explored Valéry's foreign policy and the role he intended to play in it. Like the other sections of the book, it focused heavily on the ongoing war, but not in the way many expected. Valéry dissented from many of his conservative allies by arguing in no uncertain terms that, "the ultimate goal of this war should not be 'victory,' the complete eradication of our enemies and the dismantlement of their empires. History has shown that such settlements lead to even more instability, conflict, and bloodshed. Instead, the ultimate goal of this war should be an equitable and lasting peace."
 * Foreign policy and "equitable peace"

Through lengthy argument and analysis, Valéry fronted the concept of "equitable peace" as the cornerstone of his foreign policy. In the latter half of the book, he warned that once peace negotiations start, the victors of the Great Xonexian Schism will have the unique opportunity to shape the postwar political order before cementing it for the next few decades. Unlike other Allied leaders, Valéry's vision of an equitable peace asserted intergalactic stability as the ultimate goal, stability which would be achieved through self-determination, the spreading of democracy, economic integration, and the creation of new intergalactic institutions. In his penultimate chapter called the "Impossibility of Peace," Valéry argued that the peace process would not work without the involvement of the diplomatic arm of the Mou'Cyran Accords, which would have to be revived through what he called "active neutrality." He argued that passive neutrality, merely containing the war to Xonexi by not getting involved, would not be enough. The Mou'Cyran Accords would have to employ active neutrality and diplomatically engage with both sides of the conflict, pressuring them both to make peace.
 * Involvement of the Mou'Cyran Accords

Yet, that pressure could not be applied equally. He made the argument that the Xonexi Allies and the Delpha Coalition of Planets felt pressure in fundamentally different ways. Being democracies, all three of the Alcanti Triad powers were inherently resistant to going to war. In fact, democratic anti-war pressures had almost kept the Draconis Senate from approving Paragon Uriel's motion to go to war, and had forced the French Sixth Republic to agree to peace prematurely. On the other hand, the Delpha Coalition of Planets, an autocratic government with the largest and most effective surveillance state in the Gigaquadrant, was not subject to those internal pressures. Therefore, Valéry concluded, external pressure would be necessary to bring it to the negotiating table instead of fighting well beyond the point that would be considered sane by democratic standards.

At the same time, once peace negotiations started, the Mou'Cyran Accords would also be needed to restrain the vengeful impulses of the victor and use their considerable influence to mediate an equitable peace and conclusively solve the problems that had started the war in the first place. It would be a messy process, Valéry concluded, but peace would be entirely worth it in the end.

Appearances

 * To Leave a Life Behind (2738)
 * Equals (2801)
 * Fall of France (2802)
 * Nowhere was safe (2802)
 * Time to lead (2802)

Allies
"I see we understand one another."


 * Laurene Maxime - She was a strong-headed and intelligent woman, and as good a leader as any.
 * - He is the only one I can really trust in this world, but his weakness might get us all killed.
 * - The magnificent bastard...

Liked
"There is some potential between us."


 * Uriel Ultanos - You cannot but respect the majesty of the Draconis.

Neutral
"Hm?"


 * Jean-Baptiste Teindas - An exemplary Marshal of France.
 * Adrianne Delacroix - Ruthless and pragmatic, that is my kind of woman.
 * Lucian Chartier - He is good at what he does, but his tendency to question matters of state is becoming tedious.

Disliked
"My patience has limits for people like you."



Enemies
"There are some in this world for whom I have plans."


 * Wormulus II - You are a relic. Thanks to me, your power is gone and soon your empire will follow.

Quotes
"Highton. I’ll be perfectly frank, I hated the place; that’s something I realized the moment I left. I am almost grateful for the Foreign Legion’s long two-hour drills at strange hours of the morning, where sergeants labored over me for months to undo my 'higher education’. Without them, I would have entered the world complacent, disorganized, aimless, doomed to failure. I had no ambition. The Legion honed me into a weapon, taught me that no tank, starship, or missile is more dangerous than the human mind. A stray thought can destroy a life––a train of thought can destroy a civilization; I wield that kind of power with purpose and without mercy."

- Reflecting upon Highton University

"There is something which the Draconis understand that not many do: the difference between wealth and power. Wealth is the trade route which dries up after ten years; power is the empire that stands for millennia. They have earned their laurels, let them sit on them for a while longer."

- During a state visit to the Draconid Imperium in 2795

"It's never a good idea to back a predator against a wall with no means of escape. That's when they become desperate, and a desperate enemy is far more dangerous than a sane and cautious one. The trick is to threaten them with a stick in one hand while offering them a deal they can't refuse with the other, and they will do whatever you want."

- East African Civil War, 2796

"Shakespeare always had a particular gift with words. In one of his tragedies, Macbeth looks upon one of his adversaries and thinks to himself, 'That is a step on which I must fall down or else overleap, for in my way it lies.' That is exactly what I think whenever the letters, "D-C-P," cross my desk. They often come in the form of an act of disrespect here, blatant defiance there, and a general atmosphere of snot-nosed superiority: they have no regard for beings they consider lesser than them. But this––this insanity in the Quadrants is the last straw. Give me time, and I will make them regret their hubris."

- Upon finding out that the Delpha Coalition of Planets was forcefully gaining access to the French Quadrantia Trade Route without paying the toll, 2799

"Everywhere I look––in every corner of the Gigaquadrant––I see the same signs: hard times are ahead of us. Alliances are beginning to fracture, old rivalries are beginning to resurface, and the great tectonic plates that make up the political landscape of the universe are shifting. We might, in the near future, be forced by circumstance to turn on an ally or to wage war against someone we never would have thought of."

- To Marshal Chartier at the onset of the Neraida Invasion, 2800