The First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution that came from it would never happen because of the Uptimer warnings to the locals on the Earth in the year 1901. The Serbian officer idiot who labeled himself quietly as Apis was being taken out and shot. Dragutin Dimitrijevic was dragged from his cell in Belgrade, in the Kingdom of Serbia and to the place of execution. Because of this the Serbian Black Hand will not arise. The old Bolsheviks were now also arrested and being taken out and shot. The old Bolsheviks, such as the Ulanov brothers, Iosif Duglahsvilli, Nikolai Bukharin, and Lev Bronstein were now in Imperial Russian police custody and were also being taken out and shot.
The followers of Karl Marx were also having a bad day because the Terran Navy were telling the locals about the horrors of Socialism. Even though the Terran’s were called a bunch of liars by the Socialists. But no one was listening to any of the Socialists.
Kaiser Wilhelm II looked out a window of one of his palaces.
The Terran Federation had started out as Americans and not as Germans. And they spoke American English and not any form of German. Even the Koreans and the all the English speaking peoples were merged into the Terran Federation.
Why? The Kaiser thought.
Why, indeed?
The Uptimers had parked in orbit over the United States and gone to the American leadership and their capital of Washington first but not London or even to Berlin.
Why did they do so?
Why, indeed?
So what happened to the German Empire in their future? Thought the Kaiser.
Something very terrible happened. Thought the Kaiser.
The Terran’s were essentially a bunch of Atheists. They have no use for The Holy Bible or for any Christians, Protestants or Catholics, and there were no commissioned chaplains aboard their ship, just a Marine Sergeant who got five minutes before a combat drop.
We’ll just have to continue to spy on them. Thought the Kaiser.
President McKinley looked out the window at the sheep grazing on the White House lawn. The Congress was now voting on the Roosevelt-Churchill agreement. Some senators, mostly Democrats from the South, had voiced their objections to it. The Southern Democrats hated Marine Sergeant Major Hastings. And the Uptimers could give Machiavelli some pointers on grasping for power. But the Uptimers were already moving on to South Georgia Island according to the agreement.
To Hell with the Congress. Thought President McKinley.
No one at Whitehall in London believed Winston Churchill, the fact that all the English speaking peoples, including the mainline British, had joined the Terran Federation in the future was incomprehensible to the lot of them. The current occupants of Whitehall couldn’t understand that the British Empire wouldn’t last forever. Most of all, the lords couldn’t understand that a member of the royal family was the head of the Omega, or secondary, crew of a Terran Navy frigate.
That the future Terran’s had thought of the occupants of Whitehall as a bunch of inbred idiots was also beyond their comprehension.
Washington, D.C.
September 2. 1915
President Woodrow Wilson did not want to read this document. The document in his hands was the result of a private initiative and worse it was the product of people working on behalf of his immediate predecessor President Teddy Roosevelt. President Wilson had initially objected to reading the document when Roosevelt had presented it to him.
“It’s called espionage, Mister President.” Said his predecessor. “You should try it sometime.”
That cowboy! Thought Wilson. That absolute reactionary cowboy!
The fact was that the document covered the UMCS Resister and her crew, as well as their origins and effects on nations of the present day Earth. And especially the effects of their efforts for the British Empire.
Wilson began to read the document.
1. Their Origin
The Ursa Major Confederation is a constitutional republic based on the two inhabited planets of the binary star system of 10 Ursae Majoris. The planets were named Freya and Eos. These worlds were colonized from the planet Mars in our home Solar System. Mars was in turn colonized by a polity known as The Terran Federation. The Federation was a constitutional republic founded in the aftermath of the Third World War from the remnants of the United States and the United Kingdom along with the former colonies of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In effect the Federation is the reunification of the original British Empire as a constitutional republic.
The planet Mars was found to be a lifeless rock with an atmosphere that would qualify as an industrial grade vacuum here on Earth. The colonization of Mars required the construction of pressurized artificial habitats incorporating greenhouses for food production and atmosphere replenishment supported by nuclear power generation. A consequence of the reliance on science and high technology is their cultural dismissal of traditional theology and all moral codes based on religion.
With the development of a means of faster than light travel the inhabitants of Mars sought to relocate themselves on a world suitable for human life. Another requirement was that this world would be isolated from the Earth as to avoid future political entanglements with the central government or with the older colony worlds near the Earth.
Even though he could feel the blood pulsing through his head Wilson compelled himself to read the remainder of the document.
London
Christmas Eve, 1915
With a glass of wine in hand Winston Churchill read the day’s newspapers in his study.
Although the Frenchman who assassinated Kaiser Wilhelm II had been properly tried and executed the big mystery for other governments and editorial writers around the world was why the German Army wasn’t on the march towards Paris. But for those in the higher echelons of His Majesty’s government it was not a mystery at all. The Germans clearly knew that an invasion of France would fail.
For Churchill and others in the government the evidence for this was clear.
Almost a year ago three documents had been stolen from His Majesty’s Government. Plans for two automatic weapons and a treatise of the development of infantry tactics. As a result the Germans had quickly built prototypes of the weapons and were now issuing them to the newly raised assault battalions.
The German copy of the STEN Mk III was fitted with a simple wood stock and designated as the MP 15. They had also built a copy of the MG 34 far quicker than expected and were now issuing them as the MG 15 machine gun. The assault battalions were also being issued a more practical steel helmet in the place of the traditional Prussian Pickelhaube. And the Kaiserheer was also experimenting with other more practical weapons and uniform items for the assault units.
And finally another of the leading Russian Bolsheviks had turned up dead.
After Lenin was gunned down in Switzerland his successor as the Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky was found in a Paris hotel room with a pickaxe buried in his skull. Given the Freyan affection for literary and historical in-jokes Churchill had to assume that it was their work.
This left only one of the three leading Bolsheviks remaining.
Where the Hell was Stalin?
Northern Mexico
January 10, 1916
For Captain George S. Patton, Jr., it had been an interesting year.
(The remains of Villa would eventually be found hanging from a short rope.)
New Haven, Connecticut
February 1, 1916
Before opening the can he quoted Sargent Zoll.
“‘Let’s give them something to chew on.’”
Ursa Major Confederation Ship Resister, Landfall Base, East Falkland Island
February 5, 1916
In the sick bay of the Resister a man opened both of his eyes for the first time in decades.
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