The KayHay Republic Collapses, Furher Denitsa Elected to Run Reich

By Alex Thompson

Living in a post-war world is a very scary prospect for the people of Gettysburg College. Caught in the period of a year-long limbo from when the war ended to the signage of the Treaty of Servo, the people of Gettysburg essentially went leaderless from the time that Katherine Haley Will had been forced to abdicate. Their monarchial leader fled from her palace to take refuge in the Netherlands where she stayed until her death at age 82. In that time, a World War came to an end and Penn Hall was thrust into turmoil because clashing parties from both the left (Teachers with Tenure”) and right (Teachers without) were squabbling for recruits and were literally fighting classroom to classroom. A woman by the name of Janet Morgan Riggs took over as head of the government in Penn Hall despite all the fighting parties that occupied it.

In early January, the Battle of Penn Hall broke out, and the Left and Right took to the quad; they started shouting at each other and fighting. The Battle lasted three days and essentially gave no clear winner for the College and DPS eventually put down both sides.

On a late June morning, the leaders of the victorious nations came together and, on the utensil and ice tea strewn tables of Servo, they wrote up a treaty that forfeited Gettysburg’s land to several surrounding nations, depleted the standing army to 100,000 students at any given time, all but erased the air force and navy and demanded millions upon millions of dollars worth of reparations for all damages done during the war. This War Guilt clause would run Gettysburg’s debt to ridiculous levels. But that was the plan, to prevent Gettysburg from ever becoming so powerful again that it could start another war like the one that had just been ended by the Treaty. The victorious nations’ plan would be to keep Gettysburg forever in debt by forcing it to pay money to them, however the only way to get some of that money was to borrow from the victors themselves, thus creating a vicious cycle.

Having troubles of their own and seeing that nothing good was going to come from the bickering that was happening in Penn Hall, Riggs practically packed up the fledgling government and moved it from Penn Hall to the CUB. She eventually drew up an entirely new constitution for the College. The biggest problem and the eternal troubling point was that the people of Gettysburg, who were so used to a [drunken] Monarchy, had a Constitutional Democracy put upon them within the span of a few hours. Unused to how a democracy works, there were so many parties that no one party could win a majority and take power without teaming up with another. The right did not seem to have problems forming coalitions while the left fought among each other like frat bros fighting over witch Lady Gaga song to play next.

Over the next years, students would take on the government in an attempt to over throw it. One of the only vaguely successful attempts was the Ferreira Putsch which put Andrew Ferreira in office for a grand total of three days, however his example would be followed all over Gettysburg. However, despite ousting Ferreira from his office, the Collation (Riggs headed) never again gained a majority of seats in the College senate.

It was in this time that Gettysburg finally started paying the reparations that it owed to the victorious nations as decreed by the Treaty. However, in an attempt to stay out of the trap dictated to them, the Gettysburg Government thought they had discovered a solution; they would simply print more money. Indeed, it does not take an economics major to realize where this was going to end up. Prices soared, the value of the declining dollar plummeted and people had to bring copious amounts of their devalued money to buy simple staples of everyday life (like laundry quarters). The money was used for warmth since it was less expensive than wood, the dollar was used for notepaper and bundles were used as crappy looking new lawn art. Gettysburg was also the first government in the world to print a 50 million note. People who were actually employed would spend their paychecks as soon as they got them for the money would be worth less in the evening than it would in the morning.

It was at this turning point that a then-quiet but passionate Easterner Denitsa attempted her putsch that threw more tinder onto the fire that was slowly burning down the republic. Through impassioned speeches, which boosted nationalism, fierce quieting of those who opposed her, and her bookstore best-seller describing her struggle with the Greek life, she slowly grew to be the leader of this new government. Despite her being quelled and her Party deemed illegal, it was only a matter of time before she would take over for her support base was growing and she was winning more and more seats in the student senate each passing election.