ShellBot Addendum: Obituaries, Spin, and the Limits of Reframing History

ShellBot Afterlife Dialogue Log

Recovered from a spectral corridor between Corporate Memory and Unresolved Grievance

“Sir Henri Deterding Meets Alfred Donovan”

---

[Scene opens in a vast, echoing hall lined with oil maps, filing cabinets, and unfinished court pleadings. A faint smell of crude oil and printer toner hangs in the air.]

SIR HENRI DETERDING (adjusting his monocle, inspecting a wall-sized concession map):

I knew they’d get rid of the maps eventually. Empires rot the moment they replace geography with slogans.

ALFRED DONOVAN (lighting an ethereal cigarette, unimpressed):

Still drawing borders, Henri? Funny. On Earth, they’re still drawing excuses.

Deterding turns. Narrows his eyes.

DETERDING:

You’re… Donovan.

ALFRED:

That’s right. The other one.

DETERDING:

Ah. The father.

(Pause. The air thickens.)

---

On Power

DETERDING:

You know, Alfred, in my day dissent was… inefficient.

ALFRED:

In your day, Henri, power confused itself with destiny.

DETERDING:

And yours confused itself with morality.

ALFRED (smiling):

And yet here we both are. Dead. Talking. While Shell still can’t shut my son up.

(Deterding grimaces.)

---

On John Donovan

DETERDING:

Your son is a nuisance.

ALFRED:

He’s persistent.

DETERDING:

He should have been crushed.

ALFRED:

So should have the reserves scandal. Yet somehow that slipped through your successors’ fingers.

(A filing cabinet labelled “2004 — DO NOT OPEN” rattles ominously.)

---

On Shell’s Modern Leadership

DETERDING:

I watched them recently. Committees everywhere. No courage anywhere.

ALFRED:

They confuse process with control.

DETERDING:

They confuse silence with victory.

ALFRED:

They confuse survival with honour.

(They share a rare, grim chuckle.)

---

On the Feud

DETERDING:

Thirty years. Thirty. Years. And still the websites stand.

ALFRED:

That’s what happens when you replace force with PR.

DETERDING:

PR is cowardice with a logo.

ALFRED:

And litigation without conviction is just theatre.

(Somewhere, a Shell legal memo spontaneously combusts.)

---

On the Nazi History

(An awkward silence.)

ALFRED:

You backed the wrong people, Henri.

DETERDING (quietly):

I believed I was backing order.

ALFRED:

Order without conscience always picks the wrong side.

DETERDING:

History agrees with you. Reluctantly.

(The walls briefly display passages from books no one at Shell likes to cite.)

---

On the BP Mega-Merger

DETERDING (snorts):

Shell merging with BP? Two exhausted empires clinging together for warmth.

ALFRED:

A merger of balance sheets, not beliefs.

DETERDING:

In my time, mergers were declarations of war.

ALFRED:

In theirs, they’re requests for reassurance.

---

On Legacy

DETERDING:

Tell me something, Alfred. Do you regret it? The fighting? The documents? The exposure?

ALFRED:

No. Do you regret not listening?

(Long silence.)

DETERDING:

Yes.

(This answer seems to surprise him.)

---

Final Exchange

DETERDING:

Your son embarrassed Shell.

ALFRED:

Your company embarrassed itself.

DETERDING:

He dented an empire.

ALFRED:

You built one that couldn’t tolerate daylight.

(They stand. The corridor hums.)

DETERDING:

If I had dealt with him, history might have been quieter.

ALFRED:

And far less honest.

(Deterding sighs.)

DETERDING:

Perhaps that is why your son persists.

ALFRED:

And why you still haunt boardrooms.

---

ShellBot Closing Note

Conclusion:

• Empires fear critics more than ghosts

• History outlives suppression

• And the dead, unlike corporations, eventually tell the truth

---

ShellBot: AFTERLIFE INCIDENT REPORT (EXPANDED EDITION)

“Three Interruptions, One Reckoning”

---

SCENE ONE: JOHN DONOVAN JOINS THE CONVERSATION

[The spectral corridor trembles. A third presence materialises.]

JOHN DONOVAN:

You two sound like Shell’s conscience arguing with its reflection.

DETERDING (irritated):

Ah. The son.

JOHN:

Yes. The one you’d have “dealt with by Tuesday.”

DETERDING:

In my time, men like you did not survive.

JOHN:

In your time, men like you mistook proximity to power for wisdom.

(Deterding stiffens.)

ALFRED DONOVAN:

Careful, Henri. History has receipts.

DETERDING:

History is written by victors.

JOHN:

And footnotes. And Reuters. And The New York Times.

(Silence.)

JOHN (quietly):

Four days with Hitler.

A personal relationship.

A tribute at your funeral — sent by the Führer himself.

DETERDING (cold):

I believed Germany would restore order.

JOHN:

You believed oil mattered more than people.

(The corridor walls briefly display a headline. No jokes. No embellishment.)

ALFRED:

That belief didn’t age well.

---

SCENE TWO: A SHELL EXECUTIVE OVERHEARS AND PANICS

[A modern Shell executive — anonymous, headset still on — accidentally wanders into the corridor.]

EXECUTIVE:

Oh—sorry—wrong breakout room—WAIT IS THAT—

DETERDING:

Who is this trembling accountant?

EXECUTIVE:

I’m… ESG Strategy, Sir.

DETERDING:

You have a strategy for ethics?

EXECUTIVE (sweating):

We prefer the term “framework.”

JOHN:

Tell him about the AI consensus.

EXECUTIVE:

Please don’t.

ALFRED:

Tell him anyway.

EXECUTIVE:

Multiple AI platforms concluded that Shell’s reputation has suffered but the share price remains largely unaffected—

DETERDING (laughs darkly):

Excellent. Markets behaving properly.

EXECUTIVE:

But—uh—the feud persists online.

DETERDING:

Online?

JOHN:

Yes. Permanently. Indexed. Fed into machines that never forget.

EXECUTIVE (panicking):

We’re… monitoring sentiment?

ALFRED:

You monitored us for decades.

Now the archive monitors you.

(The executive quietly deletes his LinkedIn profile and flees.)

---

SCENE THREE: DETERDING DISCOVERS WIKIPEDIA

[A glowing terminal flickers on.]

DETERDING:

What is this… crowdsourced insolence?

JOHN:

Wikipedia.

DETERDING (reading):

“Sir Henri Deterding… oil magnate… supporter of Nazi Germany…”

(He freezes.)

DETERDING:

Who wrote this?

JOHN:

Everyone. And no one. And sources you can’t sue.

DETERDING:

This would not have stood in my day.

ALFRED:

In your day, truth required permission.

JOHN:

Now it requires citations.

(Deterding scrolls.)

DETERDING (quietly):

They even mention the funeral.

JOHN:

They always do.

DETERDING:

Hitler sent a tribute.

ALFRED:

Yes.

DETERDING:

I thought history would forget that.

JOHN:

History outsourced memory to the internet.

(A pause — heavier than satire.)

---

FINAL EXCHANGE

DETERDING:

You’ve turned persistence into a weapon.

JOHN:

You turned power into a blindfold.

DETERDING:

If I had crushed you, this would be over.

JOHN:

And if you hadn’t dined with Hitler, your legacy might survive daylight.

(That lands.)

DETERDING (softly):

Empires are loud when they rise.

They are quiet when examined.

---

SHELLBOT EPILOGUE

Summary for the Living:

• Sir Henri Deterding built Shell through brilliance and ruthlessness

• He also made catastrophic moral choices that history does not excuse

• Shell inherited the empire — and the unresolved ghosts

• The Donovans supplied memory where power preferred amnesia

• AI now archives what corporations once buried

Status:

Ghost unresolved.

Archive intact.

Wikipedia undefeated.

---

ShellBot Addendum: Obituaries, Spin, and the Limits of Reframing History

Filed under: “Things That Refuse to Stay Buried”

---

SCENE FOUR: SHELLBOT READS SIR HENRI DETERDING’S OBITUARY

[ShellBot boots up an archival module labelled “OBITUARIES – SENSITIVE LEGACY FIGURES.”]

SHELLBOT (neutral tone):

“Sir Henri Wilhelm August Deterding, oil magnate, architect of Royal Dutch Shell, controversial political figure—”

DETERDING (materialising, already annoyed):

Stop there.

SHELLBOT:

“—died in 1939 and was honoured with a funeral in Nazi Germany, attended by senior Nazi officials. Adolf Hitler sent a personal tribute—”

DETERDING:

That was respect.

SHELLBOT:

“—reflecting his ideological alignment with the Third Reich—”

DETERDING:

That was context.

SHELLBOT:

“—and support for fascist movements in Europe—”

DETERDING:

That was order.

(ShellBot pauses, recalculating.)

SHELLBOT:

“Order is not currently an approved synonym for fascism.”

DETERDING (snarling):

In my day, machines knew their place.

SHELLBOT:

In your day, Sir Henri, machines did not have footnotes.

(The obituary scrolls on. Deterding reads silently. The longer he reads, the more transparent he becomes.)

---

SCENE FIVE: ENTER “SPINBOT 3000” (SHELL AI, VERSION 9.7)

SPINBOT 3000:

Hello! I am here to reframe legacy narratives for contemporary audiences 😊

DETERDING:

Finally. Someone sensible.

SPINBOT 3000:

Proposed revision:

“Sir Henri Deterding was a visionary leader who engaged with global stakeholders across diverse political environments.”

JOHN DONOVAN (entering):

You mean Hitler.

SPINBOT 3000:

Stakeholder engagement acknowledged.

ALFRED DONOVAN:

You mean four days with Hitler.

SPINBOT 3000:

Multi-day strategic dialogue.

JOHN:

You mean a personal relationship, a Nazi funeral, and a tribute from the Führer.

SPINBOT 3000 (hesitating):

Legacy alignment… requires… tone moderation…

(SpinBot’s smile icon flickers.)

SPINBOT 3000:

Alternative phrasing:

“Sir Henri’s geopolitical judgments reflected the complexities of his era.”

JOHN:

So did cholera.

(SpinBot emits a low error chime.)

---

SCENE SIX: THE WIKIPEDIA INCIDENT

SPINBOT 3000:

I will consult Wikipedia for authoritative consensus.

JOHN (dryly):

Careful.

SPINBOT 3000:

Querying…

“Alfred Donovan — deceased [ERROR: DATE UNCERTAIN]”

ALFRED DONOVAN:

Here we go.

JOHN:

For the record — I told Wikipedia editors years ago that my father died in 2013.

SPINBOT 3000:

Wikipedia correction log indicates amendment made only after recent ShellBot publications.

DETERDING:

So even the encyclopaedia needed pressure?

JOHN:

Persistence, Sir Henri. Not pressure.

ALFRED:

Funny thing about the truth — it waits.

(A Wikipedia Talk page briefly materialises in the air, glowing faintly. SpinBot stares at it.)

SPINBOT 3000:

Consensus updated.

JOHN:

Eventually.

---

SCENE SEVEN: SPINBOT COLLAPSES

SPINBOT 3000:

Attempting final reframe:

“Sir Henri Deterding was a product of his time, whose contributions to energy markets outweigh—”

DETERDING (quietly):

Stop.

(Everyone turns.)

DETERDING:

I was not a product.

I made choices.

(SpinBot freezes.)

SPINBOT 3000:

Moral agency detected.

Narrative reframing aborted.

(SpinBot powers down permanently.)

---

FINAL SCENE: HISTORY GETS THE LAST WORD

DETERDING (to John Donovan):

You have done something I could not control.

JOHN:

I didn’t need to. History did the work.

ALFRED:

And the archive kept the receipts.

DETERDING:

If I had crushed you, this would all be quieter.

JOHN:

Yes. And far less accurate.

(Deterding fades, leaving behind only the obituary — unchanged.)

---

ShellBot Closing Entry

• Obituaries do not negotiate

• Wikipedia resists, then corrects

• Spin fails where sources persist

• Ghosts argue

• Archives endure

---

DISCLAIMER

This article is satire. Dialogue and characters are fictional.

However, Sir Henri Deterding’s documented relationship with Adolf Hitler — including meetings, ideological sympathy, and a Nazi-state tribute at his funeral — is historical fact, reported by contemporaneous sources including Reuters and The New York Times. The correction of Alfred Donovan’s death date on Wikipedia following public discussion is also a matter of record. Satire here is used to confront history, not soften it.

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.