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- Jul 19, 2021
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Steam ID: STEAM_0:1:155865739
Discord User: emiliocola
Character Name: Ernst von Hardenberg
Why should you be a councillor?:
Political RP is honestly what I enjoy most, and I think this is going to be a really fun run of it. I've put a lot of effort into making politics feel alive on Willard before running rallies, building out a public face and persona for elections, giving my characters an actual presence instead of just a title. I've also got DA experience from past, and I think that background, paired with a character I've put real thought into, would translate well here.Discord User: emiliocola
Character Name: Ernst von Hardenberg
Why should you be a councillor?:
Character development is where I feel strongest on v2 I really got into my characters and tried to make him feel like a real person with real convictions, not just a mouthpiece for a faction. I've spent a good amount of time in loyalist-aligned parties with similar values around city politics. I've also been junior faction leadership in the CSF, and a short time in Civil Protection. I've also worked on larger-scale economic RP through the Sector Economic Forum. While also running one of the server's major stores for a time on V2.
I think this loyalist narrative has a lot of potential for v3, and I'd like the chance to bring my own contribution to it, not just for my side of the aisle, but for the city's upper echelon as a whole. I'm looking forward to seeing where the loyalist section goes this time, with a clean slate, mostly new people, and a new system to build within.
Even if I'm not picked for Councilor, I'd love to be put as a collaborator. Or I'll just climb the ladder IC.
Thanks,
Salty
Requests:
- Collaborator Rank
- Collaborator (Tier Five)
- Clothing of my choosing
- A small amount of starting credit
Ernst von Hardenberg
Optimates Party
"Civilizations are not preserved by passion, but by discipline."
Ernst von Hardenberg was born in 1963 in Bonn, into one of Germany's old noble families, generations of civil servants going all the way back into Prussia. By his childhood, noble titles didn't mean much in West Germany anymore, but the family's values hadn't gone anywhere. Public service was what mattered, it wasn't about the money or popularity. He grew up understanding leadership as something earned, not something handed to you. At Heidelberg he studied political science and classical history, and it was there he developed a real fascination with Rome's institutions, with Aristotle and Cicero, and later with Burke and Bismarck. However, Revolutionary politics never appealed to him. He came to believe societies were held together through continuity and hierarchy and respect for institutions, not through the promise of constant reform.
After university, he joined the Federal Ministry of the Interior, spending most of his career in administrative affairs and constitutional compliance. Basically, the unglamorous machinery that keeps a government running. He never chased recognition. He was the guy who made sure things were actually worked. A nation's strength, to him, had nothing to do with what its politicians said in speeches and everything to do with how competent its institutions were. Then, the Seven Hour War happened, and the world he'd spent his career serving came apart. Governments collapsed, constitutions turned into paper, the old international order just vanished. Most people mourned that. Ernst reached a different conclusion, he believed that the old institutions had failed because they'd gone soft, grown weak and divided and unable to command real obedience. The Combine's arrival didn't shake his faith in authority, it just moved that authority into new hands. Rather than fight a war he considered already lost, he chose to salvage what he thought actually mattered, the law and civilization itself. He went to work in the new civic administration, pushing for discipline and order, because he thought stability should come before liberty.
Ernst von Hardenberg represents the ideals of classical conservatism.
Politically, he's a classical conservative through and through. Society, in his view, is an organic hierarchy, and duties come before rights in it. Order comes before freedom. Law comes before equality. Governments aren't there to indulge whatever the public wants this week they exist to protect civilization, which takes competent leadership and institutions built to last. Privilege without responsibility means nothing to him, and neither does authority without discipline. People who show loyalty and actually do their part should rise and people who reject civic responsibility shouldn't expect the same protections as those who do. He doesn't think the Combine is perfect. He thinks it's what inevitably follows when nation-states fail, hierarchy reasserting itself after humanity let chaos consume everything.
As a person, he's composed almost to the point of being unreadable, restrained, disciplined, and rarely raises his voice. He'd rather make an argument than perform an emotion. It's not arrogance behind the confidence, it's certainty, the kind that comes from believing in ideas that have held up for centuries. He doesn't look down on ordinary people, and he doesn't worship the elite either. What he actually cares about is whether someone does their duty.
To Ernst, respect is something you earn by serving nothing else really counts.
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