Cathedral of Christ the Savoir

(The Sword)

This Tether is of note mostly for its unusual nature: while more than a few Tethers out there have been destroyed and later reconstituted, and some even shared the same Seneschal in their first and second incarnations, very few have had an interregnum as long as the Cathedral's.

The first version of the Cathedral was created in the mid-Nineteenth century as homage to Russia's victory over Napoleon. It became a Tether to the Sword during its consecration in 1881, but was otherwise not particularly noteworthy. Laurence chose James (a Seraph Servitor of his who was familiar with the region) to be Seneschal; he performed his duties in an efficient and laudable manner, earning no criticism and only a moderately respectable amount of praise.

Then came the Bolsheviks.

Joseph Stalin only delayed in destroying the Cathedral until a suitably bombastic alternative could be drawn up to take its place. What he eventually came up with would have fit the bill; surviving plans depict a pillared architectural monstrosity resembling nothing so much as a 1980s video game joystick, complete with a statue of Vladimir Lenin doing the hustle at the top*. This structure was never built; World War II and a misbehaving Moscow River pretty much doomed the project.

But that was incidental, from James' point of view. He held off the wreckers for as long as he could, but both Heaven and Hell's networks of influence and oversight had been effectively shattered by the Bolshevik Revolution; the Seneschal didn't have the power to stop the destruction of his charge. He tried his best, but Laurence still had to (sorrowfully and without criticism) strip him of his dying Tether, lest it kill him. It very nearly destroyed him, anyway.

So James calmly, reasonably and coolly decided to destroy the Soviet Union.

Which he did.

The precise details are still classified; Heaven may need to do something similar in the future, after all. But the general gist was that James spent the next fifty or so years displaying a ferocious imagination and crazed genius that had been largely absent from his more prosaic days. There's some question about whether his activities were all that nice; actually, that's putting too gentle a face on it. There are factions in Heaven that are flat-out enraged that the Commander of the Host let one of his Servitors run roughshod over a major Earth nation-state, and from an environmental point of view alone they have some reason to be so. Laurence's only response is to point out the difference between bad and worse - and, Truth be told, he has reason on his side, as well.

At any rate, the Soviet Union 'fell apart' eventually, the Russian Orthodox Church came back out of the shadows and people were pretty quickly calling for the Cathedral to be rebuilt. Odd, that - but not as odd as the speed with which it was rebuilt, in both the getting of permission and the actual physical rebuilding. What wasn't odd at all was how Laurence cheerfully reaffirmed James as the Seneschal once a new Tether blossomed there.

The Cathedral now acts as a central nexus for Moscow: James pursues an open door policy, permitting free use. It's presumed that he wants to encourage goodwill and obligations in advance of the next time his Tether is threatened.

James, Seraph Vassal of the Sword

James is a very polite, fairly cheerful and somewhat quiet angel. His current vessel is late-youth early-middle-aged, wears glasses, maybe a slight hint of plumpness. He almost never raises his voice and never really loses his temper. His duties take up a good period of his time, but James handles them with slightly distracted efficiency. It is almost impossible to reconcile this persona with the angel that single-handedly wrecked the Russian moon program, or strangled Lavrenty Beria with the preserved intestines of Leon Trotsky (trust me, nothing about the death of Stalin that you might have read in the history books is particularly accurate). Many celestials don't try, and instead choose to not annoy him unduly. Which, of course, suits James just fine.

Also, for the record: he didn't set off Chernobyl. He merely knew well in advance that it was going to happen, and did nothing about it except quietly do some prep work among the Ukrainian separatists against the day that it finally melted down.

Cathedral of Christ the Savior: Average (9 Forces, Regular Flow, Celestial Harbor, Noisy)

*No, really: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Soviets

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