Hammerblow

Chapter 3

I still quite like the ship, but now we see more even more political repercussions! yay (or not yay if you don't like that sorry)

We, Historia Reiss, Queen of the State of Paradis, hereby waive, now and in perpetuity, all claims of the Eldian Empire...

Historia's pen glided across the paper, each stroke signing away some part of the old empire. Eldia had owned considerable portions of Marley and other countries before the retreat to the Walls. There were colonies– none of which were under the control of their original Eldian ruling class anymore– and regions that might have once been their heartland, in contrast to legations and concessions and trading posts all won with violence or the threat of it.

Of course, it wasn't any real loss, signing away things Historia didn't have. If it divorced them further from the Empire, it was a good thing. Really, it seemed the only good thing they inherited from Eldia was amicable relations with Hizuru. Well, that and the Titans.

Their curse and their blessing, the monsters who killed her friends, and the thing that ensured that they were born at all. The last bastion of some primeval, backward age, wholly controlled by the man who was opening her door.

"Eren. Thank you for coming. I assume you would prefer to be with Lara right now."

"Duty calls." Eren didn't smile.

"We've called on you for far too much, Eren."

"You'd be right to, as long as I can keep all of us safe."

Historia sighed, reaching for a certain collection of papers. "This is a proposal from the military. I'm... not supportive, but they're hopeful. If it's impossible, tell me."

The idea was simple. Brutal. It exploited a known, established ability of the Founding Titan: memory manipulation, and it did so in a way that didn't seem too far divorced from what they knew of the ability. If the Founding could wipe the memories of all of Paradis, could it not, feasibly, wipe the memories of a single person and then replace them? Could it not compel obedience to the regime, or perhaps even surgically remove the seeds of anti-social behavior?

Now, these people didn't know Eren as well as she did if they thought he would consent to rewiring the minds of the people, especially not for this harebrained scheme. Even discounting the mad pipe dream of total societal control, it still rubbed her the wrong way. Was using the ability on death row inmates and the like technically better than the state just killing them outright? Yes, but the thought of turning murders and rapists and that sort into fanatically loyal enforcers of their regime left a bit of a strange taste in her mouth.

As depressing as it may have sounded, the Founding Titan could be a marvelous tool to secure the country, ferreting out dissidents by seeing their memories of secret meetings, memos, or similar. It would be the perfect censor, the perfect judge, the perfect gendarme, the most supreme agent of the state imaginable....

If you were willing to entrust the security of the state to one man.

"I can't believe these people are running the government with you." Eren sighed.

"Is it feasible?"

"I haven't tried memory adjustment, just using the Founding gives me a splitting headache."

"There are proposals to turn them into Titan-sized laborers or to use them as holders for the Beast if you can't change memories."

"They are aware being made into a Titan as punishment for a crime is a Marleyan thing?"

"They are, but it's efficient, you see."

"I'll get back to you." She wondered whose memories he would go after first, as he worked out the limits of his power.