Awesome / The New Order: Last Days of Europe

"One people will we be, - a band of brothers; No danger, no distress shall sunder us. We will be freemen as our fathers were, And sooner welcome death than live as slaves."

Moment Subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

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Germany

• Actually managing to fully reform Germany through the Gang of Four. You fight off the hardliners, Schörner, and even Speer's ambitions to preserve Fascism in one form or another. Your reward? A Germany that has successfully sidelined both Speer and the NSDAP and is well on its way to embracing some form of democracy once Speer dies, and hopefully Nazism with him.
  • Speer's intentions to reinvigorate National Socialism into lasting with his reforms are snuffed with the Gang of Four, making the unrepentant Nazi their puppet. Speer can only yell at them in frustration, and Schmidt eventually implies he's called Speer nothing more than a figurehead to his face.
• Willy Brandt's Slave Revolt is a triumphant resistance against Nazi tyranny. Their super-event is accompanied by a chorus of Einheitsfrontlied, showing the absolute solidarity across nations, languages, and even ideologies, all in the name of liberating Eastern Europe and returning it to the people.
• Villainous example. The final confrontation between Heydrich and Himmler upon the former's victory in the Second German Civil War. Despite Heydrich being one of the worst Nazis in our world and TNO's, seeing Himmler break down in front of Heydrich and his response before killing him was very satisfying.
  Himmler: Reinhard. Reinhard, what have you done? Th-th-this betrayal is the end of us, o-our undoing! The god of Zion w-w-will rule f-f-f-forever! Your wife, your d-daugthers, will be whores! Breeding sows for—
  (Heydrich sucker-punches Himmler square in the face)
  Heydrich: (barely keeping his rage in check) What for? You brought to this point, Henrich. You made the Reich what it is. You halted our mission. We had the world in our grasp, and you stole it away!
  Himmler: It was your fault! You... If you'd just followed orders! But you wouldn't, would you? White Moses! They were right to call you that! A Jew in human skin, that was all you ever were. The arch-inflitrator, Zion's youngest elder, the Cain of an entire civilization!
  Heydrich: No, Himmler. You betrayed our vision. You betrayed Hitler and our people. I've corrected the order of things, and now it will be as it always should have.
  Himmler: I only ever did what I had to do!
  Heydrich: (as he unholsters his sidearm and takes off the safety) As did I.
• The Fall Schwarz event, where Germany invades Burgundy, is appropriately scored with a hectic violin section from "Devil's Trill Sonata", symbolizing the fierce fighting between the vicious Reich and Himmler's nuclear extinctionist SS.

Russia

• Sticking to your guns as any of Russia's non-authoritarian paths can qualify as this. Whether you're successfully reforming the Union as Zhukov or Bukharina, maintaining the fragile democracy of Tomsk or Komi, forming a constitutional monarchy as Kemerovo, Vyatka, or Chita, handing the reins of power to a democratically-elected civilian government as Sverdlovsk, or rejecting the military's influence to keep the Siberian Free Territory egalitarian, it always feels rewarding not to have given in to nastier impulses.
  • Reuniting Russia as Valery Sablin and sticking true to your ideals. It's a long and uphill battle, but if you've mostly kept true to your ideals, you will have created one of the most wholesome and hopeful incarnations of the Soviet Union to appear in this mod.
  • You also have Alexander Men, a charismatic faith preacher from Olomon who forms a Divine Mandate within the remote villages in Siberia. If Men succeeds, he will turn Russia into a benevolent near-anarchist state that runs on Christian ideals without forcing them on anyone. Jews, Muslims, atheists, minority ethnic groups, any of his political opponents who are unwilling to violently and cruelly defend their ideals to the end, and even sexual minorities are all welcome in Men's free house of God, and from one of the hardest starts in all Russia. And if the last obstacle to reunification happens to be the Taboritsky's waking-nightmare Holy Russian Empire, Men will◊ denounce the mad regent as The Antichrist and declare a holy war, proving that even the Lord's mercy has its limits.
  • Constitutionalist Chita, in particular, has one of the most awesome character arcs in the mod. At the mod's start, Tsar Mikhail is a pretender with no claim to the Russian throne, kept under house arrest and isolated from his family and friends by his Prime Minister, Boris Shepunov. Shepunov and the rest of the junta running Chita use him as a prop to legitimize their rule and don’t let him make any independent decisions. As a result, Mikhail is deeply depressed and hopeless, wanting nothing more to do with Russia or politics. However, after Chita unites the Russian Far East, Mikhail has a chance encounter with a sympathetic Tsarist military officer, giving him the opening he desperately needs. Mikhail gradually becomes more active in government while forming a clandestine clique of rival officers to depose Shepunov. When Shepunov gets wind of this, he marches on Mikhail’s residence with a small army, planning to depose Mikhail and replace him with a new puppet. Several of Shepunov’s rifle units and his own lieutenant then turn their guns and arrest him. In the aftermath, Mikhail installs a provisional civilian government and tries his hardest to improve the lives of everyday Russians, now believing that it’s his destiny to lead and heal a broken Russia.
  • Speaking of the anarchists, a true libertarian socialist anarchic Russian Free Territory can crowdfund and crowddesign nukes. And it works, going door to door, consulting everyone you meet until you figure out how to make a nuclear missile, inviting everyone to join in communal labor. It's named "Osvoboditel", "Emancipator" in Russian.
    • On a slightly more mundane level, the Great Siberian Plan decisions and focuses make it possible for the Siberian Free Territory to develop a robust industrial base, which in turn allows them to build a first-rate army that will Curb-Stomp Battle whoever comes out on top in West Russia.
  • Kemerovo generally is sheer awesome. It's a monarchy under a former Soviet Colonel who believes he is the reincarnation of a Viking prince who united Russia in medieval times (or put another way, it's like if Emperor Norton I of the United States actually was a king with his own country rather than simply a well-liked eccentric celebrity). The guiding ideology of Rurik II's government is a bizarre syncretic fusion of Soviet progressivism and feudal monarchism with Muscovite and Kievan aesthetics, and despite Rurik's insanity, he rules the kingdom pragmatically and listens to his advisors. The end result should they unite Russia is a country where the public goes around dressed like it's a Slavic-themed Renaissance fair, but the government runs quite smoothly, workers have rights, their workplace unions have royal backing, the military is competent and well-equipped, and the R&D division produces weapons systems, computers, and radar on par with the three superpowers.
    • Rurik II can deliver an absolutely scathing "Reason You Suck" Speech in a letter to the Führer of Germany◊, in which he lambasts the supposed "Master Race" as a horde of uncivilized barbarians, says the Reich's Cult of Personality is simply desiring validation for their insecurities, claims that their attempts of scapegoating Jews and other "subhumans" will inevitably fail when the people realize their real enemy is "the ugly man whose face is plastered all over their walls", and that the reason their terror bombing of Russia is born out of fear that a resurgent Russia would wipe their Reich from the face of the Earth.
    • One player managed to unify the Kingdom of Rus with some deft (and lucky) political maneuvering by swiping Karelia, Kazakhstan, and Amur, garnering a veritable rogue's gallery of Four Star Badasses from Zhukov to Batov to the Red Napoleon from other unifiers, keeping the Siberian Plan intact, and having more factories than Germany and the United States, to form one of the strongest possible unified Russias in TNO (barring cheats). Germany is in for a very bad time indeed.
    • Later events hint that Krylov was sane all along, and "Rurik II" was just an act he put on to give the Russian people something to believe in besides day-to-day survival. And if his son takes over, the kingdom takes steps towards becoming a British-style constitutional monarchy with actual democracy.
• Russian reunification in itself. In a decade, a Russian warlord clique that rules over a small region of Russia unites Russia under its banner by using both diplomacy and force to create a new Russia under its leadership and banner. Doubly so if the unifier is one of the more morally upright factions: Russia is free from the horrors of the warlord era and is about to experience a new age of freedom and prosperity.
• Being the Sociopathic Soldier he is, most of the death events for Oskar Dirlewanger are a mix of this with the occasional Black Comedy sprinkled on top of it.
  • In one of them, Dirlewanger murders a dog whose owner is a former NKVD agent. His response? Going on a rampage, killing all of Dirlewangers men before putting two bullets in his head, with the event ending with what is presumably Dirlewanger's last words: IT WAS JUST A FUCKING DOG!
  • Another sees Dirlewanger challenged to a duel by a mysterious figure from the wastes known only as the "Ural Ranger," who somehow made his way past the guards and other forces to meet the monster in the war camp. Dirlewanger laughs and accepts, believing it'll just be another tally to his list of kills. Once they draw at around 11:20, with impeccable aim and the quick draw of his pistol, the ranger nails the dastard to the disbelief of everyone around them. As the bandits get thrown into chaos, and the ranger makes his way back to the wastes, many can only ponder, "Where did that ranger even hide the Makarov? His hip?"
• While most of the text accompanying the defeats of Russian warlords◊ is appropriately downbeat, the one for the Aryan Brotherhood reads, "There remains some justice in the Russian Anarchy"— an appropriate send-off to one of the evilest warlord factions in Russia, and one of the worst paths it can go down. It's even better if you're the one who defeated the AB.
• The final battle between Sergey Taboritsky and Alexander Men (The Father) is this, should Men come out on top, of course. Both of them were heavily teased warlords and secret paths, and their reveals showed them to be the complete opposites in terms of demeanor, with Taboritsky leading an Ax-Crazy Imperial Cult in one of Russia's worst paths while Men leads a tolerant and borderline anarchist state based on Christian love and egalitarianism in one of Russia's best paths. Thus, the final battle between Taboritsky and Men effectively turns into a battle not just for Russia's reunification but Russia's soul as well, as what are effectively the worst and best interpretations of Christianity clash. The two also have a special event, where Men fittingly calls Taboritsky The Antichrist before he rallies his forces to wipe out this abomination for good.
• The entire journey of Steve, an American tourist who decided to trek across the war-torn lands of Russia, from Kamchatka to the WRRF, alongside a local sniper called Zoya, whom he hired as his bodyguard. In their journey, they cross the territories of most of the Russian Warlords, collecting numerous friends and trinkets along the way and coming incredibly close to death many times traveling through Amur, Irkutsk, Tyumen, Yugra, the Aryan Brotherhood, among other horrible places. Should Steve make his journey intact, he will write a book about his experiences traveling Russia, titled "Across the Tundra", that quickly becomes a best seller. Talk about crazy adventures.
• On a similar note, Alexander the modern Bogatyr, a former German soldier marooned in Vyatka after the end of the West Russian War, goes on a journey across Russia, lending his fighting skills to helpless and mistreated people across the shattered land, looking for redemption. In the end, he finds it in a snowy church in Omolon, before the Divine Mandate even arises, where Alexander Men promises him that his sincere regret is proof before God that his sins are forgiven, and he ultimately returns home to Vyatka and the arms of the Russian woman he left behind there.
• Mitchell WerBell III and his band of mercenaries can potentially take over Magadan, using it as a springboard for uniting the former USSR under an ideology that could be best described as a democratic Outer Heaven, where soldiers are always needed. Not only do they have the means to pull this off, but they can actually succeed.
• Should Sergey Taboritsky's Western Russian Regency and Yazov's West Siberian Provisional Authority come into conflict, Yazov unsurprisingly declares the Mad Regent an enemy◊ almost instantly and rallies the soldiers of the Black League to defeat the scourge of western Russia to put a stop to his horror.
  "Comrade soldiers, steel yourselves for this task as you uproot and exterminate this evil and end the grotesque excuse of a human being who leads it. Go forth, and save holy Russia! Our cause is just. The enemy will be destroyed. Victory will be ours!"
  Who, if not us?
  • On a similar note, two events that fire if Yazov's Omsk/West Siberian Provisional Authority is victorious over the Aryan Brotherhood or Rodzaevsky's Amur/All-Russian Government of the Far East. For the former◊, members of the Black League line up AB soldiers to gun down and bury in mass graves, while the "Aryans" pitifully beg for their lives in their butchered version of the German language, to which the Black League troops scoff in disgust at them using the tongue of those that seek to destroy the Russian people. Not a single AB member is described as going out with a stoic demeanor, as everyone has their own breakdown before execution. For the latter◊, the Black League utterly decimates Rodzaevsky's fascist blackshirts, hanging them en masse on the very gallows Rodzaevsky executed all of his starting enemies upon, whether the fascists beg for their lives, plead ignorance, outright use the Just Following Orders excuse, or occasionally say nothing in regards to their executions—all while the crowds openly celebrate the slaughter. While these events still make no bones about how destructive the Black League is, it also gives a sick catharsis when they deliver that destruction unto the handful of factions that are objectively worse than they are.
• Although it is currently only possible in the "sandbox mod" debug, and lorewise, Russia is never being able to unify for decades (if not centuries) as a result of its collapse in that route, playing as one of the sane post-Taboritsky Warlords in sandbox mode can be rather rewarding. You not only finish off the remnants of the Holy Russian Empire, seeking to purify Russia a second time, but also take down unsavory figures, from HRE breakaways not beholden to their ideology, like Nikolai Talberg and Ivan Melkikh, to the Redeemed Black League, the Kazakh Purification League, and the Brotherhood of Cain. Additionally, winning as them means that you have managed to restore Russia like a phoenix from the ashes, signifying to the world that Russia's existence as a nation is far from over and that there may yet be hope.
  • Not to mention how awesome some of these factions are. After the brutal regime did everything to silence its opposition, the remnants are still composed of various ideologies that Taboritsky loathed. Boris I seeks to finish what Rurik started in Kemerovo as The Good King, Yevgeniya Taratuta champions for Mother Anarchy, Alexander Zinoviev has ensured that Tomsk's Salons and benevolence have remained, and Nikolai Kardashev genuinely pursues scientific advancement after the less savory "ultravisionary" and plain Mad Scientists were purged.
  • The most notable warlord has to be Michał Goleniewski, a former NKVD agent from Poland, as he makes like Rurik II and proclaims himself to be a royal to establish benevolent rule over Russia. And not just any monarch—he claims to be Alexei II himself. If the vestiges of the HRE paint Taboritsky's regime and beliefs as a massive cult, then Goleniewski should be the ultimate Blasphemous Boast in their eyes. The Mad Regent must be spinning in his grave.
• The Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard in Onega may at first seem merely a puppet state acting as a buffer for Finland, which most of the time exists to be overrun by whoever unites West Russia... but they do have both a scenario and a focus tree (unlike even Finland itself) for if they manage to win against the unifier, and one that proves the Guard leadership actually meant their promises of eventual democratization, leaving West Russia mostly democratic and united into an alliance, if still divided into multiple states. Not the best outcome for West Russia, but considerably better than some others, considering potential opponents for Onega in the war include states like Oktan's Samara, Taboritsky's Ust-Sysolsk, and the Aryan Brotherhood.
• Most music for superevents announcing Russian reunification is appropriately upbeat and awesome, denoting the dawn of a new era. Special attention is warranted by the Humanist Tomsk's theme (the appropriately martial but lively coda to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11), liberal Vyatka's cheerfully raucous bar song, the Siberian Black Army's infinitely optimistic Ukrainian love song, democratic Novosibirsk's aggressively 70s synthesizer tune, and of course, Sablin's anti-authoritarian theme.
  • Until the People's Reunification Council was stripped of its content in the "Unfinished Business" update, its theme, the Soviet drill song "V put'", was the perfect theme for the strange democratic stratocracy that was the PRC. After all, Vasilevsky's Red Army was bound together by friendship formed through military democracy, which worked to protect the Russian people and their freedoms; what better song to evoke that than one that addresses both the soldiers and their loves?
• Before Goring's content was gutted in preparation for The Victor and The Judge, there was Fall Rot, his second invasion of Russia. It opens with thunderous percussion unmatched and refuses to let up for a moment, leading into this intense rendition of Sacred War - itself qualifying as Awesome Music. A suitably grand soundtrack for such a titanic clash.

USA

• While it's extremely difficult to pull off, the OFN can both win out in the South Africa War and successfully decolonize and rebuild the continent, gaining a ton of resources and making the popularity of the incumbent president's party skyrocket. By then, the US will have truly earned its national spirit's title of "The Last Bastion of Freedom".
  • On a smaller scale, the Pacific Treaty with Japan, where, if the player makes the right choices, not only can the United States recover the West Coast ports taken at the end of World War II, they can also ensure Japan leaves Hawaii, finally achieving Eisenhower's hope of bringing the 50th State back to America. This not only boosts the governing party's popularity but boosts national unity and brings the American people out of the generalized despair caused by Kennedy's murder.
• Bormann can choose to try to diplomatically realign the Reich with America against Japan and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, capped off with a state visit. What happens next depends heavily on who the sitting president is and whether or not they accept his offer. While Wallace and Thurmond are left deeply uncomfortable by Bormann's praise for their racial policies, and Bennett, fitting his low-drama attitude, tries to move things along politely, every other possible president gets at least one good lick in when meeting Bormann in the White House.
  • First, if Barry Goldwater is president, he bluntly refuses to allow diplomacy with the Reich under any circumstances◊, citing the memory of his Jewish grandparents fleeing anti-Semitic violence in Europe and the fact that if they hadn't, he'd probably have lost his life as a child in a concentration camp.
    "America does not negotiate with monsters."
  • Second, Kennedy will obliquely criticize German slavery, then more than hold his own in an impromptu debate with Bormann in the White House garden (an Allohistorical Allusion to his brother's Vienna summit and Nixon's "kitchen debates" with Khrushchev), earning the miserly Fuhrer's begrudging respect in the process.
  • Michael Harrington prefers to snub Bormann very directly, shaking hands, posing for a photo, then ushering the Fuhrer and his entourage out of the Oval Office immediately afterward while pretending to be too busy to give them more of his time.
  • Lyndon B. Johnson welcomes him into the White House, then, when Bormann tries to squeeze his hand a bit too hard during a handshake, Johnson silently but forcefully asserts physical dominance over the short and insecure Bormann in a way that leaves the Fuhrer steaming but unable to break his poker face to do anything about it, crushing his hand in his grip and towering over him. This makes the list for beating Bormann at his own game.
  • When Bormann indirectly insults Margaret Chase Smith, first with a passive-aggressive comment about how "who a nation chooses to follow often speaks to the character of its people," then by openly saying that perhaps they should talk to her (male) Secretary of State instead, the Madame President quickly puts him in his place.
  • Finally, and most beloved by the fandom, Curtis LeMay starts things off by swearing at Bormann, calling him "Little Martin" to his face, and demanding he not bring his cameraman into the Office. The two infamously profane men immediately escalate the situation into a furious argument as bitter as it is hilarious, with Bormann literally screaming so loudly that he nearly drowns out his own interpreter and LeMay uttering Khrushchev's immortal "We will bury you!" line. All while the cameras keep rolling, catching the whole thing.
• Talking about LeMay, if he becomes president (after Wallace's impeachment), he immediately signs the Civil Rights Act into law, not caring about how it is political suicide.
• One of LBJ's event chains (provided you are sufficiently strong in resolve for Civil Rights and other Great Society policies) is the mobilization of the African American community as a new political force in America. It takes some effort, but it's possible with their support to flip Southern states away from the Segregationists (including voting out Strom Thurmond in 1966!) and make them a potent voice to be heard. It's a really cool feeling to see the previously marginalized community rally in the 1960s and fight back against discrimination.

Other/Misc

• Any of the harder paths, if successfully pulled off, is this, even if these paths are dark, like Heydrich winning the German-Burgundian War or Omsk reuniting Russia.
• Winning the Battle for Italy can be this for either the OFN or CPS. In a single stroke, the respective alliance has gained a powerful ally in Europe, control over the Suez Canal, and dominance over the Mediterranean. This will undoubtedly give a large advantage in handling the Oil Crisis.
• Iberia isn't doomed to fall into civil war or totalitarian malaise. With the right choices and some luck, it's possible to not only save the union but reform it into a functional democratic federation. The Iberians could even complete the infamous Gibraltar Dam while at it, succeeding where the Nazis had failed.
• The least likely help for South Africa against the Nazi hordes arrives from the North in the form of a hundred Russian volunteers◊. All hail from warlord states of various ideologies and alignments - communist WRRF soldiers and a follower of Rurik II among them, whose overall leader is likely an Onegan anticommunist or a - but have come together to fight for a nation most decidedly not their own, determined to ensure that it does not meet the same fate as the Russian motherland.
• Successfully reforming Japan and the Co-Prosperity Sphere as Takagi is very similar to the Speer route for Germany, except he genuinely means it. Rising from a power struggle as the least likely candidate for Prime Minister, he will begin a path to democracy and institute more liberal policies to make their anti-colonial rhetoric true.
• Absolutely brutal though it is, the torture and mutilation of real-life Karma Houdini Josef Mengele at the hands of Idi Amin can be seen as a ruthless dose of dystopian justice in an otherwise utterly unjust world.
• In Unfinished Business, Free France can begin the liberation of their homeland. After twenty years of exile, De Gaulle and his men will finally be coming home.
• The quote for the success of the Puerto Plata Invasion, where the unspeakably cruel regime of Trujillo is finally overthrown by democratic militants:
  God in Heaven; Trujillo Six Feet Under.
  • Made better by this being an Ironic Echo: A motto Trujillo used IRL to promote his Cult of Personality was "God in Heaven, Trujillo on Earth"
• Successfully getting the good ending to Morita Akio's path in Guangdong. Not only does his reforms allow Guangdong to live up as "The Lion Rock Spirit", but also ensure that the Zhujin and the Chinese have a future under Sony's Guangdong. This is especially true if Takagi takes power, as it increases their chances of prosperity and peace in the Co-Prosperity Sphere.
  • One player managed to somehow grant the rioters maximum concessions, and managed to successfully pacify the riots right before the IJA coup could happen, ensuring that the Zhujin and Chinese citizens have a voice while weakening the IJA garrison.

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