[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Brett

What part in this do you have for the rest of the Royal Family? What's the succession plan?

I haven't made up my mind about all of them, but as for succession, the Queen regards what she is doing as the lesser of evils, not really something to encourage if there are other options. If she were to die, the senior figures in the conspiracy would keep it running without a royal at the head, no doubt, which would in some way increase their personal levels of legal and political risks, as well as reducing their access to influence and information immensely.

This risk is seen as acceptable because most Courtiers believe that the paranormal has no chance at remaining secret past the year 2020 and are frankly surprised that the situation has lasted past 2010 without evidence coming out in the open from somewhere. It is expected daily that the ever-increasing profile of the supernatural in developing countries, for example, will lead a respected academic or journalist to publish something that gets taken seriously, triggering a rush of investigators who find incontroversible evidence. Hence, the chance of the paranormal being blown open before the Queen dies is generally considered being better than even within the Court.

Originally Posted by Brett

HRH the Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, [...]

My thought was that the Queen turned to her mother and sister as she was struggling with visions at the beginning and frankly shared her fears of losing her mind with her beloved husband, with other members of the Royal Family hearing of it in rough relation to their level of intimacy with her and how much she sought emotional support from them as opposed to feeling a responsibility to shield them from unpleasant things.

Once she realised that it was not so much her sanity as received wisdom about the nature of the world that was at risk, however, that changed. For a brief while, she was willing to share these surprising views with her intimacies, family and otherwise, as long as they were not likely to think ill of her for having such beliefs*.

Once it became clear that this was no mere curiousity and could have an actual impact on the world, possibly for ill, another paradigm shift occured. The people in the know started to take on the character of a conspiracy meant to prepared Great Britain for a future with very different rules. This meant deliberately concealing important data from HM Government while actively taking on investigative (and later, worse) roles within Great Britain that properly belonged to government agencies.

The Queen had become convinced that not acting would be a dereliction of her duty to her people, but she also realised that convincing the government at that juncture would be challenging to the point of impossibility. Hence, her decision to act in a way that it is difficult not to label as illegal and contrary to the traditional constitutional role of the monarch. Her view was that her deeper duty to her people overrode any duty to the specific system of government.

On the other hand, she made a deliberate decision to shield her children from any consequences, if possible. Were her actions to be revealed and her government proved to disagree with her on the need for them, many of her courtiers would be sentenced to harsh prison sentences. Everyone involved accepts that.

The Queen herself would probably not face legal consequences, but if the publicity was negative enough, the fate of the monarchy would be in doubt. To safeguard against that, the Queen hopes that should public perception not accep that her actions were in the best interests of the country, they might instead credit them as motivated partly by senility. If that were to hold up, however, she had to make sure that the Heir Apparent and as much of the other Royals as possible were kept well outside any potential scandal. Thus, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge, in particular, have been deliberately kept in the dark as much as is at all possible.

*Which in practice restricted her early confidantes quite a lot, as any 'proof' being effective depended on people having an open mind about it in the first place or being willing to take anything HM said at face value, regardless of how bizarre.

Originally Posted by Brett

HRH the Duke of Edinburgh is, or used to be, a very able man with a sharp mind and a deal of naval decisiveness. But he seems like a profound skeptic, and I understand that his friends are mathematicians and physicists, not mystics and historians. Also, he is now very old and getting frail. Did you know that he is worshipped as a god?

Even were he the most skeptical man alive, there is essentially no hope for the Queen of concealing anything this large from her husband and partner. Nor would she want to do so, as he is an important source of moral and emotional support for her.

Some hope exists for casting the normally hard-headed naval officer as being more open-minded and even familiar with occult ideas. We might look to an influential early childhood tutor, the Jewish Kurt Hahn, a man of far-reaching interests and a deep attachment to the teachings of Plato. Something may also be made of the Duke's familial history, esp. in the person of his mother, a tragic sufferer from bipolar disorder and later a courageous and active Orthodox nun with... to put it mildly, interesting religious views.

Initially, of course, childhood memories of his mother's worst episodes would have fueled fears as HM confided in him about her dreams and visions, but their relationship appears too close for me to believe anything other than that he eventually accepted her beliefs as legitimate. And having done so; he could do no other than loyally support her to the hilt.

Which does not, however, imply that he is a mere adjunct with no views of his own. No, certainly not. As we shall see once I manage to post a brief history of the Shadow Court, he had a profound influence on the paths taken by the conspiracy, being rather more concerned with potential threat these new discoveries posed than their miraculousness, and consequently taking action to safeguard the Royal Family.

Originally Posted by Brett

I've heard HRH the Princess Royal described as "the best king we shall never have". Also (before her nephews started getting about) "the only real man in the Royal Family".

HRH the Duke of York had a genuine naval career, branching out into diplomacy, and seems capable.[...]

HRH the Earl of Wessex: [...]

On these three, I am not yet decided. That they were aware, in some way or another, of their mother's spiritual crisis in the beginning, seems not implausible, but then, neither does the possibility that she tried very hard to avoid alarming them.

Seeing as they have not been likely to inherit the throne since the birth of William and Harry, it would not be as dangerous for the future of the monarchy if they were involved, of course, so a peripheral role for some of them might well be possible. Or more than peripheral, conceivably, if I see anything that fits particularly well.

Originally Posted by Brett

HRH the Duke of Cambridge? [...] Could he, should he, be being groomed to take over the Shadow Court as well as the Crown?

As noted above, his position as the unofficial heir presumptive next in line after the Heir Apparent, has led HM to avoid, as much as possible, involving him at all.

Originally Posted by Brett

HRH Captain Wales? He's getting to be truly popular with the Services, though perhaps a helicopter-gunship is not the best place to cultivate skills or contacts the Shadow Court needs. Putting him in the SAS or the Paras would not of course be possible. Perhaps the RM is where they would have send him if they were using him to make Useful Friends of that sort. Or perhaps the Blues and Royals are plenty violent enough for their needs.

As it turns out, training as a forward observer with the Blues and Royals is a distinctly commando-ish course, all the more so since Harry actually served in a two-man team near the frontline of irregular warfare operations and called in air strikes during commando operations.

Not to mention that the SAS and Gurkhas are quite prominent in the province where he served, he fought in a close-quarters firefight alongside Gurkhas and the senior commanders he served under were mostly Old Etonian SAS men. So is his private secretary, when it comes to that, a man with a profoundly cinematic history, enough so that his appointment was widely seen as being motivated by security concerns.*

I'm actually thinking about making him have a large role; much to the vexation of his grandmother and many senior Courtiers who fear for his reputation and safety in equal measure.

*Which, however, seems insufficient to explain it, as the Prince can simply have more bodyguards assigned if that was the reason. No, the fact that Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton was Equerry to the Queen Mother at precisely the time when HM, her mother and their closest intimacies had just accepted the reality of the paranormal is rather more to the point for our purposes.