For a relatively serious work of alternate history, Kaiserreich has generated a lot of memes.
Please add entries in the following format:
- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] Explanation Like this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
- Direct rule from LondonExplanation Originating from one of the options for an event about dealing with Ireland as the Union of Britain, this phrase became associated with Oswald Mosley and his Maximist faction, though "Direct rule from X" can also be used to refer to Totalists in general or even just any authoritarian regime.
- Every man a king! Share the wealth!Explanation Huey Long's political slogans which are popular among KR players.
- "Break the Chains", "Reclaim the Birthright", and "Guard the Balance"Explanation The slogans of the Internationale, the Entente, and Mitteleuropa respectively.
- Trotsky's penguin armyExplanation In Kaiserreich lore, the fate of Leon Trotsky was left mysterious, which led fans to jokingly assume that Trotsky is hiding in Antarctica and recruiting penguins for the World Revolution.
- Himmler's Master Race ChickensExplanation In the old KR wiki Heinrich Himmler is described as a settler in the United Baltic Duchy, being famous as the chicken farmer who wants to create the perfect breed of chicken, which he calls the Master Race Chicken. People sort of just went with it, including jokes about him having a chain of restaurants similar to KFC or that he is growing the master chicken race for the ultimate showdown with the aforementioned Trotsky's penguin army.
- "What a childish fantasy."Explanation The blurb written in response to the event regarding the publication of Führerreich/Our Finest Hour, the alternate history novel within where Germany loses the Weltkrieg like in our timeline. Thus, anything having to do with OTL events in a Kasierreich thread is mocked as a childish fantasy.
- Corn LordExplanation Nikita Khrushchev's Fan Nickname, if he takes over Ukraine. It comes from his massive encouragement of growing corn in the Soviet Union in Real Life after visiting a corn farm in Iowa and becoming friends with the owner, which, among other things, involved establishing a corn institute in Ukraine, importing 4500 tons of corn seed, making a joke to an audience of farmers about how they are probably thinking "Will Khrushchev say something about corn or won't he?" (The answer was yes. He berated them for not growing more corn), and trying to grow corn in Siberia. His experiment failed (as in, throughout the entire Union, not just Siberia), partially due to failing to supply enough fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides. It also resulted in people hating corn. We are not making any of this up
. - Every X an IdeologyExplanation A internet macro picture where an ingame, Real Life, or fictional character from other media are put in a table with all the in-game ideologies and prove why they follow all of them. The original was, of course, Huey Long◊, as can be guessed from the fact that the name is mutated from his "Every Man a King" slogan mentioned above.
- MarLibExplanation In the layout of the above template, Market Liberals (comparable to present-day right-libertarians), shortened to MarLib, are the final ideology, meaning that they effectively serve as a punchline for the entire image. As such, they are typically portrayed as amoral greedy psychopaths.
- Soviet AnimeExplanation There was a focus for Soviet Russia, should it take the Federationalist path, in which it is to establish an animation studio Soyuzmultfilm with the best artists from across the Union and animators who defected from the US and Japan, to create the best animation and make it the envy of the world. The fact that some of the animators are Japanese lead to people joking that, in the Kaiserreich timeline, anime is from Soviet Russia. In the current versions, the focus is still present, but all mentions of foreign animators were removed.
- Blessed Karl. Explanation Karl I of Austria is one of the few if only characters who has gotten popular in the fandom purely for how good of a person he is. For the longest time, the Austrian A.I. would go for the SocDem path, which would result in the creation of a peaceful and multiethnic empire (namely, the "Danubian Federation"). Contrast that with the generally hellish state of most of Kaiserreich's Europe & Asia along with the Federation being largely founded peacefully and with diplomacy. Combining all that with the historical Karl I being a candidate for sainthood have made Karl I be one of the few nigh-universally beloved characters in the entire mod, leading the fandom to call him by his saint name.
- Democratic Traditions, Socreds and NatPop CanadaExplanation Canada is unable to become National Populist. Besides other reasons, one of the developers' explanations was that the strong democratic traditions of Canada won't allow it to become an ultranationalist dictatorship. Despite the fact that Canada, in KR4, has focuses that allow it to become an absolute monarchy, and events that allow it to set up a branch of The Mounties to act as Secret Police (weaker and less powerful than most examples, but Secret Police nonetheless). Not to mention that Canada's southern neighbor, despite having strong democratic traditions as well, can turn into various sorts of oppressive dictatorships, from full-blown Totalist rule to White supremacist or military dictatorships. This has been widely mocked, with many coming up with reasons why they could become NatPop, specifically under the Social Credit (Socred) Party of Canada (which was a National Populist party of Canada in older versions of KR4, but later was replaced with the bland "United Empire League", while Socred ministers became authoritarian democrats).
- When is Hungary's focus tree coming out?Explanation Hungary is a bit infamous for being neglected by the development team and having a very lacking, to say the least, if not basically non-existent, focus tree, especially for a nation with its place in the lore.
- China rework coming soon.Explanation The China rework for the mod took over 4 years due to the amount of content that needed to be overhauled. Due to the amount of time it took and the reassurances that it was coming, it became common to joke about how it was stuck in Development Hell. Of course, this ceased when the update did finally come out.
- Codreanu's meathooksExplanation A very disturbing meme, referencing Bucharest pogrom in 1941, commited by the Iron Guard (though it's worth nothing that Codreanu, in spite of his association with this meme, was already dead in 1941). One of the most depressing episodes of the pogroms was the hanging of several Jews, including a 5-year old girl, on meathooks, as they literally skinned them alive. They then proceeded to show the gruesome display off to a horrified American ambassador, labeling the victims as “Kosher Meat”. No, seriously. This pogrom is usually brought up as a proof why the Iron Guard are one of the few irredeemable villains in Kaiserreich's grey universe.
- Proof that X will betray the revolutionExplanation A common meme among players for Syndicalist countries, which is mostly used to mock Totalists (though not only them) for their "counter-revolutionary" actions, such as opposing the principles of democratic Syndicalism or strange diplomatic actions in game, such as allying with Mitteleuropa or sending volunteers to reactionary powers in various Civil Wars.
- Mussolini. Explanation From a combination of his Memetic Loser status already in the general conscious, the on-the-nose fact that he makes the trains run on time, and his radically different ideology in this timeline, much like some other Fascist figures who have gotten the Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman treatment, OTL’s Il Duce has basically become a meme character in the KR fandom.
- Erect for KolchakExplanation A phrase which is used for, obviously, exaggerated expression of admiration for Alexander Kolchak, ruler of Transamur in-game, mostly because of his underdog status as a ruler of a tiny country with ambitions ro reclaim the entirety of Russia.
- Egyptian volunteersExplanation In earlier versions of KR4, Egypt had a strange tendency to send volunteers to various conflicts around the world (such as the Spanish Civil War, Sternberg's conquests of Asia and the Balkans War), even if those conflicts didn't affect Egypt at all. Unfortunately, this bug doesn’t exist anymore, but as a meme it lives on.
- Moslem General Ma detests Reds, likes wives, song, and ice creamExplanation Subtitle from an old Life magazine article about Ma Clique general Ma Hongkui that was linked in Progress Report 41. It immediately caught on due to how bizarre and random it is, alongside the picture in the article of him posing with a sword.
- WELSH UNION HAS CAPITULATEDExplanation Since the Welsh Union (formed if Britain goes the Autonomist route and does Devolution) has low National Unity and only one core state, it's very easy to capitulate and re-capitulate.
- Down with the traitors, up with the stars!Explanation A phrase from The Battle Cry of Freedom, a popular Union song during the American Civil War, which was quickly adopted as a battle cry by the federalist US sympathizers after the release of the World of Kaiserreich video talking about the Second American Civil War.
- MacArthur's Transport PlanesExplanation Fans have hypothesized/joked that Kaiserreich's equivalent to Pinochet's "Free Helicopter Rides" is MacArthur having syndicalists thrown out of transport planes, in part due to the similarities between Pinochet and KR!MacArthur (namely, both are Generals who led/can lead a coup-d'état against a democratically elected socialist government and install a military dictatorship). However, unlike Pinochet, MacArthur uses the FBI to suppress both far-left and far-right political opponents.
- Organic KingdomExplanation A reference to Portuguese integralism, an ideology grouped under National Populism in-game and have paths in Brazil, Portugal, and Two Sicilies, considered the Token Good Teammate of NatPops. Portuguese integralism advocates a monarchistic, traditionalist, anti-parlamentarist, hardcore Catholic, and yet decentralized government, defined in the vague concept of an "Organic Kingdom".
- Angola é NossaExplanation Literally "Angola is Ours", the phrase was the real-life slogan of the pro-colonialist side in the Angolan Independence War, and in-game it is used as the name of a focus in the Portuguese tree about defending Portuguese Angola. Online, it is typically used by Portuguese memers who support Portugal holding onto their African colonies.
- Radical CentrismExplanation A real ideology, but something of a running joke amongst the player base, usually depicted as a bizarre combination of all the ideologies in the game, which isn't necessarily an inaccurate description of the actual ideology. Often brought up when people notice bizarre combinations of ideologies in the game, such as having a National Populist as the head of government...when the ruling party is Totalist.
- Jan Smuts is the government of South Africa. All of it.Explanation Should the Dominion Party come to power in South Africa, Jan Smuts can hold every cabinet position, as well as being the Military Chief of Staff and Chief of the Army, all at the same time.
- Screaming Leon Degrelle/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAExplanation Leon Degrelle, the leader of National Populist Wallonia, has a screaming portrait in the mod. If the KR fandom is to be believed, Degrelle screams constantly and this is the only way he can speak.
- CSA KilldozersExplanation In the 0.8.1 update, the CSA somehow gained multiple heavy tank divisions several years before the first designs are even possible to develop. Fans joked that the CSA tanks were giant jury-rigged tractors with guns mounted on them.
- Comrade Stubbs misplaced his Baneblades.Explanation In the 0.8.2 hotfix, the aforementioned CSA heavy tanks were removed, with the patch note mentioning that "Comrade Stubbs has been informed that his heavy tanks are missing", a reference to Dawn of War: Soulstorm, where General Stubbs misplaced one hundred Baneblade super-heavy tanks. (Memetically. In actuality, he says that they are unavailable due to being deployed elsewhere).
- NatPop H. P. Lovecraft.Explanation Fans asking for Lovecraft to be available as the National Populist leader of New England.
- Who cares about Afghanistan?Explanation In pre-India rework versions of the game, Afghanistan would often declare war on the Dominion of India in the game's first possible war (and would often lose). After the India rework was formally announced, not only was this conflict removed, but Afghanistan still didn't get a unique focus tree.
- Kerensky must go!/Who must go?Explanation Due to conversion errors with the new Hearts of Iron version 1.11 "Barbarossa", the Russia update was put in pause temporarily. Since this update was supposed to remove Alexander Kerensky, some users joked that Kerensky himself acted to stop the update. The memes draw parallels between Kaiserriech developers and the ones from a fellow mod, The New Order, where developers had problems removing the equally resilient Alexander Kazembek from the game. It wasn't until the enormous 1.0 update that Kerensky was removed from his position as Russian president at game start. Now, he was defeated for election several years back by Boris Savinkov, but remains as leader of the opposition... and is still assassinated a month into the game. Plus ca change.
- Can core Panama and SingaporeExplanation A project on the Kaiserreich subreddit undertook to catalog all possible national claims and cores of all the playable countries in the game through all political paths. In Kaiserreich, as opposed to vanilla HOI4, directly annexing land without claims is discouraged and incurs stiff war support penalties, instead, a "Fate of Nation" decision mechanic is used where victorious nations can release conquests as independent but friendly puppet nations in various ways. It was quickly found that was possible for almost every country, regardless of alignment, distance, history, or political situation to conquer and directly annex both Singapore and the Panama Canal. It wasn't long before other redditors began creating maps of other fictional nations such as Gondor, Belka, and the North, among others, with a picture-in-picture map of Singapore and the Panama Canal as possible core territory. Funnily enough, only one day after the project was completed, the 0.24 update removed most nations' ability to core the two regions.
- Green Nat Pop Explanation This reddit post gave reasons for why the National Populist ideology should be changed from brownish orange to green (to fit with the origins of the equivlent of fascism), and people on the Kaiserreich subreddit really enjoyed the idea, with one guy almost instantly making a submod for it.
- Reich sexExplaination After the Germany rework, Reichskanzler Kurt von Schleicher will enact a Reichsexekution (a compound word of Reich, or Empire; and -exekution, meaning execution) on the state of Brunswick shortly after passing the Enabling Act. Due to the word containing the word "sex", it quickly spawned many memes regarding sexual activity on Schleicher's path, as well as Germany as a whole if the country attempts to intervene in another nation or member state.
