Sophia-Sanctioned (Time Travel) Shenanigans
New Brandenburg, 2006
The gate activated suddenly, but everybody on the base was prepared. The security detail simply took up positions in front of the gate and waited. The technicians closed the iris, the retractable titanium shield which covered the portal and prevented anything from materializing.
“Receiving SN-1’s IDC, sir,” said Technical Sergeant Walther Tor.
“Open the iris,” said General Osten.
Sophia stepped into the control room just as the iris opened and SN-1, the German Empire’s frontline gate team, emerged from the portal.
“Briefing’s in ten minutes,” she said, “I want to know what they found on that planet.”
All of them got settled in their seats around the conference table: General Osten, Sophia, Major Stefan(ie) Wagner, Colonel Johann Fischer, and Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Kowalski.
“So,” Sophia asked the first question, “You were sent on a recon mission to the planet known by its locals as Tell’arc. Did you find anything noticeable there?”
“Well, sir, our initial recon expedition from a year ago indicated a roughly medieval level civilization situated near the gate,” said Fischer, “There are at least twenty civilizations spread out over the planet, which is much higher than the norm of one or two; that was determined from orbital scans the
Bismarck conducted a month ago.”
“What was surprising, sir, was that we found a former Landesweit Geheimdienst Abteilung (LGA) operative living on the planet, a Captain Kann Wetter, who has set himself up as a king in the style of an 18th century enlightened despot,” said Wagner, “In the probably three or four years that he has been here, the majority of the population of the Tell’arc civilization near the gate has adopted 18th century Prussian culture, and their technology level has been increased to approximately that of Central Europe in the 19th century.”
“Are the local peoples resistant to the rule of Captain Wetter?” said Osten.
“As a matter of fact, no,” said Kowalski, “They call him ‘King Friedrich I’ and believe in a prophecy foretelling his arrival, hence his acceptance.”
“What else does this ‘prophecy’ detail?” asked Sophia.
Stefan displayed a picture of a stone column on the wall. The column appeared to be weathered from thousands, maybe even millions, of years of erosion and weathering, but the blocky inscriptions of Ancient text written on it were still legible.
“We managed to translate the inscriptions using Lehrer’s notes,” said Wagner, “They appear to have been written as a bunch of notes by an Ancient physicist named ‘Janus’ who was experimenting with time travel.”
“Um, why would the Ancients write their notes on stone instead of on paper or a hard drive?” asked Sophia.
“Don’t ask me, I’m not an Ancient,” said Wagner, “Anyways, Janus not only experimented with time travel but also managed to build a prototype of a time machine, using it to travel to different time periods before ultimately abandoning it for ‘design flaws’.”
“Anything useful that he wrote?” asked Osten.
“No, the notes only cover the history of the planet in question, not anything else,” said Wagner.
“Did you guys happen to find the prototype?” asked Sophia.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” said Fischer.
“Then I give you the authorization to conduct experiments on it,” said Sophia.
They moved the time machine, a small cylindrical spacecraft, far away from the Alpha Site in case “complications” happened. The spacecraft itself wasn’t the time machine; it merely housed the small box that was connected to its floor.
SN-1 sat down in the chairs inside the ship, with Conrad and Johann sitting in the pilot seats and Stefan typing in values into the box’s interface. The ship could only be activated by people carrying an Ancient gene, which Johann had.
“Powering up in 3…2…1…now,” said Stefan, pushing a red button.
As Johann switched on the ship and flew into the sky, the air around them warped, and their surroundings blurred for a second before changing slightly.
The time travel device sparked suddenly, causing Stefan to type in a couple values to correct the potential problem. There was some more blurring and warping.
“According to my calculations, we are in the year 1936,” announced Stefan.
“How do we know we are in the year 1936?” asked Johann.
“Sir, we should dial Earth and see what it is like to make sure this thing works,” said Stefan.
“Isn’t the gate buried at this point?” said Conrad.
“Well, we would be rerouted to the Antarctica gate in that case,” said Stefan, “Remember that we found it in an ice cavern?”
“Oh,” said Johann, typing in coordinates for Earth into the dialing device built into the controls.
They emerged from the gate into a small icy cavern in Antarctica. Conrad fired off a small missile at the cave ceiling, blasting a hole to the surface. Johann flew the ship out of the cave and into the sky, where he activated the invisibility device, cloaking the ship from view.
Heading into orbit, Stefan and Conrad began to take notes from the radio broadcasts they heard and what they could see using their high-focus viewfinders.
“Wait, this isn’t right,” said Conrad, listening to radio broadcasts, “From what I’m hearing, there was no 1911 revolution. Something’s not right here.”
“Yeah, and I’m seeing Qing flags spread out across at least three quarters of Africa when in reality there was no Chinese colonial empire until 1967,” said Stefan, “Wait, is that the
Confederacy controlling most of the United States (except for a California controlling most of the West Coast and all of the Yucatan) and the actual United States government itself in exile on
South Georgia?”
“Let me tune in to some European broadcasts,” said Conrad, “Apparently the First Weltkrieg took place in the 1890s, with China and Germany against Russia, Britain, and France, as would be expected. There have already been six Weltkriegs, with the third and fourth happening simultaneously and the fifth and sixth lasting one day each. Britain is fascist, Russia became Syndicalist but reverted to monarchist, France became fascist, and America is also fascist. After getting crushed in one Weltkrieg, Germany became fascist as well under the artist Adolf Hitler. Can you believe a guy like him in charge of things?”
“Okay, I think I found the point of divergence,” said Stefan, “The Chinese broadcasts repeatedly praise the actions of the ‘1836 Reformers’, a group of government officials and military leaders who in the face of adversity managed to implement dozens of reforms that modernized the imperial state between 1836 and 1838, causing China to become the number 1 power by 1845.”
“So we’ve traveled in time and also between parallel universes,” said Johann.
“Yes, sir,” replied Stefan.
“So this is just like our own universe, except China is even more powerful at an earlier time!” said Conrad.
“Actually, there’s one problem with that,” said Stefan.
“Yes?” said Johann.
“Every monarchy is a constitutional monarchy—including China,” said Stefan, “There were brief periods in recent German and Russian history where the monarch attempted to reclaim his power over the government, but the Prime Minister always defeated them.”
“Get us out of here quickly,” said Johann, “I don’t want to live in this world!”
Stefan fired up the time machine again and was accompanied by the same warping and blurring.
Earth below them looked slightly different.
“Okay, where are we now?” said Johann.
“I’m getting broadcasts now,” said Conrad, “It appears that the Confederate States of America is the dominant power in the world, having annexed the United States, most of Africa, and a significant portion of Central America and South America. Its main allies are Britain and France, and its main enemies were America and Germany; when Canada broke free, it sided with America against the Confederacy, prompting a famous general named Daniel Jackson to invade and seize Montreal (he promptly died after the fall of Montreal). Just recently they had changed their name to ‘United States’ for some reason, and slavery was banned since at least 1870, ironically. Also, the Taiping won the civil war and completely annexed the Chinese Empire.”
“Enough said, let’s try to get back to our own reality,” said Johann, “Major, I thought you said this was a time machine, not a universe hopper!”
“I think that’s why Janus stopped his experiments, sir,” replied Stefan, “That’s probably what he meant by ‘design flaw’.”
She pushed some buttons on the device, and they shifted into another universe.
“What is it now?” asked Johann, not even trying to pilot the ship anymore.
“We’re in 1880, in a universe where Germany is the dominant power, having beaten up the Entente early and violently annexed all of the German portions of Austria. It singlehandedly destroyed the remainder of Habsburg Empire by seizing Vienna, causing separatists to immediately tear apart the empire. Mittelafrika is significantly larger than usual, and the United States is a monarchy, I think, or was that in another universe? Also, the Taiping completely destroyed the Chinese Empire, became a Great Power, and promptly went on a rampage, partitioning Korea with Japan, annexing Vietnam and Tibet, and helping Japan conquer Siberia and most of Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the British Raj also went on a rampage, expanding into Central Asia at the expense of the Russians before a huge Sepoy Rebellion broke out and kicked out the British. The British promptly came back and conquered the place again, this time setting up a Dominion of India to manage the subcontinent. However, the Sepoys rose up
again, this time becoming successful in their goals of driving the British out of India, proclaiming it to the world over and over again, sometimes ten times a day, causing Britain to continuously lose prestige despite the rebels not actually doing anything. They eventually fell to below secondary power status.”
“Moving on! Now what?”
“Nothing much happened here, except that the Shogun won the Boshin War, causing the emperor to flee to Hokkaido, from which he conquered Korea, Siberia, and Southeast Asia before coming back to destroy the Shogun. Also, the Taipings won again.”
“Next!”
“A world where Zheng He colonized Australia and California, the French and British have united into a single polity, Castile and Aragon remain independent of each other, the English fled to South America, and the Taipings share control of China with the Ming.”
“Next!”
There was a lurch as they shifted into yet another universe.
“Date is July 4, 1861,” said Stefan.
“That’s strange,” said Conrad, “I’m not picking up any usual patterns of civilization. Life signs are a bit weird, with huge horde-like formations all over the place.”
“I’m taking us down to investigate,” Johann said, turning the ship down towards the surface.
“Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Stefan.
They entered the atmosphere and descended below the clouds, arriving in the skies over England. What they found was a desolate landscape in much of the world. Cities were abandoned, crops were ruined, and dead bodies were lying everywhere.
“What happened here?” said Conrad.
“That,” said Stefan, pointing in the distance.
A huge horde of zombie peasants rampaged across the landscape, laying waste to everything in its path.
“Okay, this is going too far,” said Johann.
“Wait! I think I’m starting to see some civilization!” said Stefan.
The horde came across an equally large army of well-dressed soldiers, which raised their rifles and fired on the zombies. The horde was decimated quickly under the intense gunfire, with the survivors retreating from the battlefield. The soldiers were wearing...pickelhaubes?
“
Prussians?” said Conrad.
Landing in a safe area, they found a government office, where Stefan read some papers on the history of the region after determining that there was no chance of getting infected (they used a Goa’uld healing device just in case)
“Apparently a zombie apocalypse broke out in 1836 in Hanover after traders from Africa brought the plague back with them, quickly wiping out every nation except for Prussia and Spain, the former of which quickly conquered and recolonized everything from the Pyrenees to Greece to Denmark to Italy to Istanbul, as well as Britain. Queen Victoria rules as an absolutist German Emperor and Holy Roman Emperor after the Prussians recolonized England.”
“Okay, we should probably get back to our own universe and time period,” said Conrad, “This is getting insane. What’s next, Germany losing the First Weltkrieg?”
They retreated to the time machine, where Stefan switched on the device, warping them into yet another universe, where they found themselves on a highway with nearby traffic signs in English.
“Okay, we’re in 2012,” said Stefan, “Let’s see what—”
A black vintage 1967 Chevy Impala suddenly screeched to a halt right in front of them, with two young American men, one with long hair and the other with short hair, jumping out and raising shotguns and machetes at them.
“Whoa!” Johann said. “What’s going on?!”
Stefan and Conrad raised their guns and pointed at the men.
“Who are you?” demanded Conrad.
“Germans?” said the man with the short hair in English, “I hope they’re not demons.”
“No, Dean, how can they be demons? They have a freaking spaceship!” said the other man.
“Well, Sammy, how about I ask the questions around here,” said Dean, “And we should probably tell them the truth, as they don’t seem to be the ‘easily persuaded’ type.”
“Okay, who the frak are you two?” demanded Stefan.
Dean hesitated. “We’re the Winchester brothers. We hunt supernatural beings.”
“GÖTT DAMN IT!” Johann shouted.
