Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

Dominion
​

[Ring of Fire + 5 Minutes, May 1628]​

He swayed unsteadily. Doctor Stewart had been pleasantly buzzed up until the cascade of sudden... well he thought it had been heat lightning at first. A little earlier in the year for it, but not unheard of. Then he'd actually looked up. He had been having a good time at the faire. It had been a welcome distraction thinking about, the previous day's, Friday's political science class full of yawning freshmen. Tottering slightly he supposed at eighteen... he supposed he hadn't been chomping at the bit to talk about accountability and looking at the oversight of construction spending.... or whether their were justifications of pork, and political machinery.

Then the cascade of thunder had left him swaying, and he had looked up. He had looked up, and that had been a mistake. He hadn't been drunk, but it had been enough to kill his buzz that was sure. It had been a dome. A giant of dome of... light and fire.


After whatever it was had happened they had heard... what had sounded it like gunshots, which itself was not anything. He hadn't been prepared to pay much attention to that, but it also hadn't been more thunder. So many people out in the county had berms set up to fire from their back porches for rifles hearing a gunshot meant nothing. Then on top of that there were wild pigs, and coyote... and armadillos to talk about... so that didn't mean anything it. Gunshots were pretty normal.

It was the fact it had happened after that... that tremendous flash of light, and thunder clap from hell was what had put them all on edge. Edge was the right word, it had been the shift in his sibling, and the others that put him on edge.


"Well we're not in Kansas anymore." His brother declared looking as they came up over the ridge. There was shift in elevation that shouldn't have been there. It hadn't been there this morning. What they were looking at... that made no sense. They should have been at the or near the county line.

The look Anthony Stewart received conveyed annoyance; not the least of which for the much exaggerated southern drawl which the comment had been delivered in. Viktor Lucius Gunther, formerly of the USMC, did not strike the larger, and still current USMC... but...

Michael however did decide to swat at his brother in annoyance. Or tried to. He stumbled over his feet and missed his shoulder. "Woh, we're you sneaking shots when I wasn't looking?" Tony ribbed him as struggled to right himself. The senior non com laughed and rested his hands on his knees. For a moment the tension easing out of the group.

The Assembled motley band were dressed for the RenFaire, which had left some of them in costume. Some of them in a half assed mixed affair... and a third in what was mostly just normal clothing with the addition of silly hats. It was of course per the trend that some of those costumes were not anywhere approaching historically accurate, which probably annoyed Michael nearly as much.

Michael Stewart was a history professor; a freshly tenured, the celebration of that had been a few months back, one at that. His costume for the University's renaissance faire was historically accurate to a cavalier of England, and as well it should be given the faire was his pride and joy. Oliver Larkin meanwhile looked like he was on the set of fucking Game of Thrones.

"Luke?" The other professor was examining the scene before them. They were not home. This was not the south eastern united states... and then of course the men burst out of the copse of unlikely to be native to the south eastern united states trees. They were armed, and in authentic costumes; a small part of his mind noted. The weapons were battle ready, and they already dripped blood. They smelled of black powder. They ran promptly into the group... well not really there was probably some forty yards between where they had exited the treeline to where they were.

The knife in one hand dropped, and Luke had from his other hand had drawn the concealed forty five automatic, and after that Michael flinched as the gun went into action; he recognized that there were commands being issued but what he wasn't sure. The man holding the ... flintlock he was sure that was wrong... the historical firearm, he mentally corrected, dropped. His comrades joined him, and Lucius had already ejected and replaced with a fresh mag the one he had nearly emptied at them, and continued to prosecute into a two handed grip.

... but Luke was also backing up, which he took as sign to do the same.

Michael Stewart was not a combat arms veteran. He looked and saw that his brother had also produced a larger frame nine millimeter handgun that still looked small in the bear paws of his brother. It was not the Beretta 92 'M9' he had had been trained on, though he knew his brother owned one. Michael had been in the Army Reserve... but that had been during peace time. He had only been in the army he was not afraid to admit because of the ROTC when he'd been an undergraduate. He was a civil affairs officer during those few years, and did not as a rule carry a gun, though he was well aware that was not the case with many of those in Army, Army reserve, national guard... never mind the Marines his brother associated with. "Get back to the cars," The command was even spoken, as if the man hadn't just gunned down a squad of men despite the surprise.

VL Gunther, anyone who called him cool hand luke was asking to be stabbed, was a professor as well, but he didn't sound like a master of lecture right now. Oliver looked at him, then deferring, and nodded, and rounded up the others. It didnt' take them long. The cars worked and they moved towards the road, until they reached the waiting flashing lights of the Sheriff's Department cruiser.

Oliver stepped out and began barking orders at the patrolman... who admittedly was used to seeing his lieutenant dressed up like this... at least it wasn't the 'tactical kilt' this time the detached part of Michael's brain commented as he surveyed his friends.

Oliver shoved his head back in the window, "Alright Bill says there is a some kind of carriage up ahead, and there are more of those fucking weirdos. Best they can figure from everything is it got the whole damned town, and there is an ocean or some shit that way." He jammed his thumb towards one side of the road. "Gonna have Billy hold the fort here, can you give me a ride?" It hadn't been a serious question of course given the situation.

They went on, and came quickly upon the 'carriage' and its lamed horses. "There are more wheel locks, guys." Michael announced as he craned out the window of the large SUV. He was more certain now that that was the correct identification of the antique. It didn't look like it was old though. Weathered, only a little, some of them were down right fancy even, but it surely wasn't more than a few years old, and it couldn't have been made with modern tooling.

The Toyota went into park, and he followed in piling out of the vehicle to look at the carriage's state.

"Yeah, and people ran from this." He gestured to the weird shift of the landscape, "They came from that way," ... where of course there was a strange looking road... well not a road in the modern sense but one that clearly had been run down by a horse drawn carriage recently enough. "Looks like this idiot tried to hack through the door," he gestured to the tarp another deputy had laid over a still form, and judging from the scene had met the business end of the county issued Bushmaster Ar 15 rifle the deputy had on hand.

... given the marked off brass.

"They were some strange looking people, didn't know what to make of them. Think they were speaking German. I think" The deputy grunted his drawl hard tinged with the stress of the day. "Look they're gonna bring dogs up," to search for whomever, "but that ain't natural." He said gesturing towards the changed landscape, and he was right. The gathered assembly of men had been to every continent inhabited by men. They were all quite certain that what they were looking at was not normal.

The for lack of a better term ditch was not really much of one. In the instance of its creation it had been the boundary of a perfect sphere. A sphere that had translocated them across time, and space into a parallel time stream. That wasn't the thing that occupied their attention. The columns of smoke on the horizon were what had their attention now. "Cause we didn't have enough to deal with am I right?" Tony growled.

Then as if that wasn't enough. The deputy showed them exactly what all the carriage had been hauling in it. Coinage that Michael didn't recognize, but also food. Hard bread, and other stuff wrapped up with sausages. The hell were these people... the people with the matchlocks were a problem, and they had definitely heard shots after the... whatever that huge flash had been. Now they were having to deal with. The costumes were definitely authentic looking early modern Europe... continental European not English Renaissance. These looked early sixteen hundreds continental.

He glanced around, and stopped, "What?" He asked.

He didn't get a response

"Field glasses?" Oliver asked, Luke jerked his head towards back at the truck, and Larkin came back with the Stryka around his neck. "Fuck." He muttered more to himself, pulled them over and handed them to Luke pointing to what looked in the distance to be a smoke trail

It was more than one, Michael could tell once they'd been handed over for his chance to look out in the mysterious beyond that surrounded them. Michael took the binoculars. "I can't even see the curve from here," He was talking about the boundary of the dome. "Its-"

"I'd guess its the whole damn county." Oliver Larkin grunted. "And those fires... " Michael noticed the plural, "those. We need to move."



--
Commentary: This is chronologically the day before the other scene, and is a slight revamp of how it was originally posted a while back in the misc thread. This is an old project, and has a fairly expansive cast of characters on both sides besides the 1632 characters. So this is a jump into the perspective of another primary character.

 

Dominion of the Baltic Sea​

Ring of Fire +48
"You see the guy on the horse?" It was kind of rhetorical question even at this distance.

This was second... no third contact, Oliver amended mentally as the Bushmasters cracked. The terrain break was really the definitive matter. They were sitting on high ground, and the enemy had to come up to them... which would have been a bad idea against any sort of rifle never mind semiautomatics with ACOGs.

The terrain was the critical factor, it funneled the attacking for into a break created by the ring of fire out in the open before they had to move up the incline... and it was a steep one. A minimum of two hundred feet of elevation from where where they'd been ripped from north America to... this chunk of northern Germany.

Of course, calling it an attack was probably an exaggeration. Probe might have been more accurate... reconnoiter

"The river would have flooded whatever we switched with anyway." Luke replied from behind the civilian version of the 417, a 7.62 x 51 like the SCAR H that were in the County Swat's team inventory, "without the dam to stop the river, elevation wouldn't make any difference."

That was probably supposed to be reassuring. Oliver Larkin adjusted the glass from the 'mountain side'... before the transition this had really been a big hill, when compared to the nearby blue ridge mountains... previously nearby Blue Ridge, and Appalachia he supposed.

"So where are we?"

"I think," He emphasized, "That that was the baltic." Referring to the body of water the river exiting the dam was now ultimately flowing into. "They flipped us north to south, you noticed that, our lowest point is oriented towards the sea, and the county ridgeline is in the south now." and they were now on the opposite side as a result.

That could be a problem... Michael had gotten lost yesterday driving from one end of the county to the next... probably in part because of that.

Oliver shut his mouth as the electronic ear protection of his peltors dimmed the report from the already suppressed 175 gr's crack. About eight hundred yards down a horse tossed a man and bolted back away from the shift in terrain. "I couldn't tell if you got him, he's not moving. What do you think?"

"I'm hoping that was an officer." Luke replied adjusting his supporting hand and moving the rifle.

He adjusted his grip on the field glasses. "He's still not moving," At this distance he couldn't really see the man's hands, much less register if he had chest movement, but he certainly hadn't gotten up. "He was doing something anyway." Messenger maybe... Oliver figured it didn't matter

"I don't think they know what to make of the topography change anymore than we do."

They being the downtimers not whatever alien space bats thought it was funny to wrench them to the renaissance or whenever. "SO we should be safe from the south?" There was an elevation shift in general, "So what would be to the west of us from here?"

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure we're in north germany, without anyone to talk to I can't be sure of anything else, but if the Baltic is to the north of us... I would guess we're in Mecklenburg, Pomerania." As if to preempt the question they had been asking for two days now, "These are probably troops from the Holy Roman empire or one of the german principalities, and its probably 1627, 28."

"Why?"

"If these are Imperial troops its after the partition." He shrugged from behind the rifle, "I doubt its any earlier these are relatively well equipped soldiers." As if to emphasize that point another guy with a matchlock went down to a 556 fired from further down the line from his and Luke's position. "And that's a bad thing. It means someone is paying them, and it means they're going to keep looking in this direction."

"So what's to the west of us?"

"I'd have to look at a map, and I have no idea how much of topography is changed from... never mind us, but over... call it four hundred years." Even twenty thirty years was enough for topographical changes that you needed to update the maps you issued people... not enough to necessarily stop him from recognizing where they were... except that he had the aforementioned problem of the county having been dropped on the baltic sea. "The best way is to ask someone local what's the nearest big town, and then pin it on the map."

... and hope they hadn't been swapped with the town in question he supposed.
--
He slung the rifle bag onto the couch. Forget regular, AvGas was damn sure going to be a limited resource, but the local airport had put a couple of birds up to try and take pictures. The consensus did seem to be that the whole county had come along. With no real air pollution to speak of and it being fairly clear weather the telemetry looked good... if you got passed the sheer what the fuck of the terrain differential. It was even more glaring from a loitering rotary wing aircraft piping it through the local news channels... and now dominating the great room's big screen television.

"Yeah?"

"It occurs to me that to our south east is the polish border," In the car he had guessed about 'Fifty miles give or take', which to Oliver seemed absurd to have a country that close to you.... but whatever

Michael Stewart looked up from the other couch, "I was thinking more about how you can see the Via Imperia continuing to run north to what must be Stettin."

It was a minute difference.

Political boundaries of different sorts. A city was a place of political power projection. Borders were lines on maps that really were more modern conceptions of who's territory went where, and even then in most places it was pretty easy to just walk across the line and go somewhere else in the modern world, really what was important was the resources, the human capital, the things that generated value... and Stettin was probably pretty valuable.

But the down timers were attacking from the other side. "That makes I'd guess the other one," Michael grabbed for a world history book, but Luke beat the other professor to it.

"I think we replaced Griefswald, to our west should be Stralsund. It would explain the bay to our north, and why these troops keep stumbling into the area. If Stettin isn't under Swedish control already then its before 1630."

"So what were you two doing, you missed the meeting at the university." He remarked to Luke.

"Luke can have my uncle write him an absentee note." Oliver found himself grunting to Michael's question. It was monday afternoon and all... if it had just been a monday then it should have been nothing but regular office hours... but Saturday's crazy ring of fire and the dome overhead had changed all of that, and now they were fighting off invaders from ... wherever the capital of the not really holy roman or an empire was. "The assholes we saw Saturday had friends, and they're rooting around."

"I think they were foraging parties at first, until they realized something was wrong about the terrain."

"I heard gunshots, but."

Michael probably had still been in the up time mindset of the time they had come from where occasional even repeated rifle cracks in the countryside weren't anything to raise a fuss about. That was going to have to change, and quickly, especially with the intermittent power to parts of town. "We're gonna have to do something about the highway, it bisects the county, if you can get on it leads straight through town."

"Not just that, there is the railway too," Luke added. "Any of hte county or forest access roads is going to be a problem potentially as well."

--
Notes: So most likely this will become the standard Wednesday update for August, as opposed to taking place on Friday, and JumpChain will slot into Friday.... or back into Friday I suppose.

This is one half of the monday morning after the ring of fire, the other half will go up after some edits next week probably, but we will begin to deal with logistics, fuel, electricity and so on over the next roughly few weeks of in timeline... and then Swedes in June / july ish.

Also plague, and Wallenstein.

(and I'm sure ATP is aware of this) in addition to being less politically centralized around the monarchy (Poland did have occasionally strong kings, but that was very much personal clout not institution, it was a not an absolute monarchy, we are talking a more classic feudal 'first among equals' type monarchy not 'je suis l'etat' in ideal never mind practice.) the royal house of Poland during the period the House of Vasa would rule through separate monarchs (different branches of the family).

The difference is of course the polish parliament was vastly less inclined to let the Polish king get up to the sort of shenanigans Gustaf Adolf II was allowed to get up to. This is important in universe because it makes a wonderful excuse to obsfucate the realpolitic of treaties that are mostly written for monetary benefit, trade and so forth after a certain cardinal engineers the league of ostend and makes a mess of certain other trade relations that people enjoyed beforehand.

 

Dominion of the Baltic Sea
Ring of Fire series
Prologue​

He looked at the mirror having wiped the steam clear, and glanced at the remnants of the shaving soap, and inhaled the . Was it age? Was it the fact his... that he had no basis to build off of plan for... because right now he looked more tired and worn down than any memory of any deployment, or training period that he could remember.

... and that wouldn't do.

He remembered the gunshots, and the recoil, not so much the muzzle flash. Had one of the double taps been high?... steel and padding underneath might have possibly stopped a slow moving forty five ball. They had all dropped. He had been pretty sure he had hit every one of them.

He might have considered missed one of them entirely but the deputy responding afterward had reported a blood trail... admittedly like he was talking about a wound deer or coyote. It had been ... years since he'd fired a gun in anger.

The notion of failure at the range was unacceptable.

Time travel, parachronics, alternate timeline whatever it was there was almost four hundred years difference between their contemporary modern lives... and whenever exactly this was. Wherever exactly this was.

He had to start with what they knew. It was the early 17^th century. This was clearly northern germany from where the stars were, it was probably spring... maybe early summer. He figured from the fauna it was probably between April and June, cut the middle and guess it was probably May, but even hedging he wasn't sure what difference it made... it didn't matter so long as they could keep the lights running, but it would matter because they were going to have to start planting.

He thought about the grading rubrics for the end of term work. It would have been convenient if they had just jumped from May to May... at least purely from a thinking and keeping track of time perspective... how exactly were they supposed to set the computers, the clocks and calendars in this mess. That settled his thoughts. Industrial timekeeping had been perhaps the definitive cultural shift, in terms of norms, that had come with the industrial period.

He looked at the face looking back in the mirror and turned the faucet back on, watched his face again, and started deciding what he needed to wear today. He thought of what his friends would wear, and made a conscious choice not to go too far, overdo it. Overcompensate. Cammies, battle rattle, were unnecessary... formal attire was equally out... dress like it was a normal day at the office... that might be best.

Viktor Lucius Gunther examined the tired face looking back him in the mirror. High cheek bones gave him a somewhat long face. The blemishes were there, scratches knicks, the scars of almost twenty years across the middle east, and the African sun... not really freckles though besides dusting across his nose, especially compared to his younger siblings.

"Bro, Luke." Maybourne banged on the door to the master bedroom. "Hey."

He tossed the monogrammed hand towel into the basin, and made for the door. "Walt." The other man glanced at the remnants of the soap. "What is it?" He kept his voice flat, but he would have preferred to finish brooding and then wiping the rest off of his face.... and it was brooding... there wasn't a better word for it because he had no idea what the fuck was going on.

"Mikey been by?" Michael Stewart another professor at the university, but it was early for house calls wasn't it. "He was supposed to come by, but his car ain't here."

"Did you try his cellphone," He asked more on reflex than anything... because of course why wouldn't you call him."

"Fucking shit isn't working. Like, I mean," He growled, "Like its the fucking." Maybourne stopped. "Like," He started to repeat himself frustration evident, "We've got some power, but-"

"The Network is overloading?" He guessed.

"That fucking shit man." Walter agreed, "And Mikey was supposed to come over, but we've got limitted power, some of the traffic lights aren't working blackouts rolling through its like we're back in fucking Iraq." He spat.

He hoped that wasn't the case. With a shake of his head he turned around closed the door and went back to finish washing off the soap and getting dressed. After throwing on a red polo shirt that was nothing approaching tactical in character and enduring Maybourne's ribbing over how he still wore or followed the uniform code of the private school three generations of their families had attended they moved down the hall to the great room of the three storey home.

He explained, as Walter had probably already surmised that he hadn't seen the fellow doctor. If the traffic lights weren't working Michael was probably still stuck on the other side of the county. "Traffic is bad I take it."

"Fuck, yeah, chickens with their fucking heads cut off." Maybourne leaned back on the couch, stretched against the tension of his LBT plate carrier. "The sheriff is trying to calm everyone down."

He raised an eyebrow, but didn't immediately respond. He knew where this was going. The current sheriff had for all intents and purposes been anointed into the position. That was how things went. The old man had retired or more correctly he supposed abdicated in favor of taking a seat in the state legislature in order to prepare the groundwork to make a run for the governor's mansion. There were two distinct taxes bases two political forces at work in the county.

There was the urban city, ignore the smaller towns of the county, and then of course there was the county's landed gentry. The old families, and the money they represented. The land they represented, and the investments. The county tax base reflected this. The sheriff's department was a county level law enforcement organization that had been modernizing along the lines of standards more in line with the highway patrol or state police apparatus since Lloyd Harris had really been undersheriff, before Viktor had been born... and of course during Lloyd Harris's tenure as sheriff ... 9-11 had occurred... the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq had followed. 'Modernization' had continued. More than a decade had gone by. It was economics. The county level taxes supported the sheriff's department and much of course had always been the case it represented the tax base of rural land holders.

"What the city doing?" Maybourne issued a string of invectives deriding the situation, and lack of direction. "What's Oliver doing?"

"I half expected his ass to be over here," Maybourne replied shaking his head. "I haven't seen him since last night." It was about nine o'clock in the morning now. "I guess if he's not here, he'd be with his uncle. What do you fucking think about this shit?"

He wondered what was going on with the power first and foremost... most, well maybe not all of the county should have been still running off electricity from the dam built by the TVA back in the thirties... unless they were pulling from natural gas... which... now that he thought about it was in the next county. "I don't know. I'm still finding my sea legs here."

"We got sent to renfaire land, this fucking shit man." Maybourne shook his head. "Are we really back in the middle ages?"

The renaissance... if you really wanted to use that outdated archaic term... he mused. "The early modern period, we're somewhere in northern Germany." There were as Maybourne summarized more of those fucking clowns to deal with... the sheriff, and sheriff emeritus he supposed, wanted them dealt with for national security. The use of the phrase had probably simply been a slip, but he supposed it didn't matter... it was close enough... every one got the fucking idea.



--
Notes: this is an old project... I think it started back in 2014. Its a combination of one of my, or using one of my techno thriller stories setting and characters that I never really went anywhere mixed with 1632. The ISOT 'story' that resulted is quite large, and I was a little against putting here originally.

This is May 1628 within basically a day of the ISOT dropping the up timers into north germany, and that means its basically three years before Grantville gets the same treatment. One thing about the uptimers here, is that they come from a timeline where COVID is not a thing, Trump was never elected, and the Russians didn't invade Crimea in that year (because while the ISOT 'crossover' for this timeline started in 2014 the technothriller story of mine is from before that, so well before COVID and so on.)

Like in the 'Technothriller Timeline' these people are from Biden is elected president after Obama... becaue I assumed that was what was going to happen, that Biden as VP would run, and that ... Cruz would probably be the republican nominee (IIRC, that was a lifetime ago). Anyway yeah not a one for one for our twenty first century. Its not that important. Suffice to say this is 20 minutes into the future from 2014, thrown back to the late 1620s. Over the next ... weekish... I will probably toss the first couple of pieces in this segment over here covering basically the first 48 hours of the ISOT timeline which will entail doing some revisions to the old versions that are over in the misc thread.


As an aside.... I'm looking forward to how two different authors from two different branches of service handles the clusterfuck of the Russia do dumb shit in their next ripped from the headlines novels, but that is probably a matter for some other time.

In terms of this, I'm probably going to work through 28's events until winter, and then the summer of 29 eventually before moving towards the second ring of fire happening per canon in the spring of 31 [Where Grantville is ISOT into Thuringia]

 

Ring of Fire +3 Days
(Part 2)​

Gas & Diesel.

He wondered if he shouldn't have tried harder to buy the Edsel... but no. It would have been a quirk, and he wasn't sure he could have kept it running. Limits. Luke paid little heed to the SUV working its way down the ... or more accurately, up the driveway to the house given the lack of rain creating not just the grind of gravel underneath but an accompanying impressive amount of dust. His large oak table was now occupied by topographical maps that would have been current when reagan had been president. The Army evaluations still delineated the border between Communist East Germany, as well as showing Czechoslovakia as one country. The map though was useful because it showed topography, not for its political boundaries.

If they were in 17^th century... then there would probably never be a soviet union in this world. The Stewart brothers had zeroed in on that fact after the map had been unfurled out of its tube. Tony glanced out the plantation blinds and stepped back, "Thats Walt's truck."

He grunted an affirmative as the non com moved back to the boxes he they'd been digging through since lunch. Tony moved to adjust the slung daniel defense. Mikey was the only one not armed, or at least not visibly, but Luke doubted the other professor was armed, especially since he'd seemed to come from the university straight here. What Tony hadn't done was change into his cammies, which created the odd contrast in attire. "I'm not sure how accurate these are going to be, this is still post industrialization, and the earliest I might have would be from world war 2," Which might have even been inaccurate or off due to faulty measurements, but, "It has the major features."

"Its not my area of study either." Michael replied shaking his head looking through the box. He paused, "The school might have earlier, remember the WW1 project, those should be in the library archive."

He wondered if maybe they had lucked out and someone in the department had done any post graduate research in the napoleonic war, or maybe any Renaissance specialization. The problem was modern cartography had only really begun with the early modern period, and topography had only really emerged in the Napoleonic period. That would roughly two hundred years closer... but frankly it probably wouldn't make that much of a difference... they had been ripped through time, and space and there was no telling how much use any map was going to be beyond the large landmarks. "Maybe, something for tomorrow." It was nearing five o'clock, "Is the school's geothermal," vanity project, "Working?"

"Yes," The response was shaky.

Michael didn't sound confident in his answer.... but then the reason he referred to it as a vanity project was because it was mostly for show. The university was technically powered by green energy, running off a nearly century old hydro electric dam before anyone thought about anthropogenic climate effects... and thus someone had gotten it into their head when they broke ground on the new student center to make it 'Green green' and geothermal... the end result was that it couldn't run the AC by itself in the high summer months of the south...

There was a clamping of boots up the ramp, and onto the deck and the door turned, "Hey Oliver can you move your truck-" Maybourne entered the great room clearing the mud room, and stopped, looking around.

"He got a ride back into town, I've have his keys." Luke replied as they walked outside and down to the gate with the vehicles parked on the otherside, "What have you been doing?"

"I got sent to show the fucking flag." He grunted, with a shake of his head, and a look skyward a direction northways that would eventually reach the baltic... The basic geography seemed to match particularly if Mike was right. That gave them points of reference to work from.

He threw a quick peak into Walter's vehicle, and the gear bags. "There a problem I should know about."

"Look I know the cell phone tower here works, and has power, but there is a radio in there." and while that was probably true, Maybourne seemed to have brought a lot of other stuff in the bed, "I mean I know we don't have satellites anymore, but its about the only thing the county and the city fuckers could get on the same page about."

"What happened in town?"

"The County Admin went at it with the city council, and then the undersheriff tore the police chief a new asshole. Shit," He drawled the word out and slumped against his vehicle, "Fuck Oliver should have been there. Clusterfuck... there is gonna be a fight over who gets to deputize who, and where people live and shit... and." He blew out another breath...

He wondered if Walter had been sent to the city center down town without being told what the sheriff's department had been doing on the now 'western' side of the county. Had the sheriff not told them to keep it from the city? That seemed ridiculous.

Walt's head thumped back against the side, "Stupid motherfuckers. Got to listen to some real unamerican shit from the usual suspects."

"The mayor?"

"No, surpassingly not.... like her and the old man were playing good cop, but the county wants the sheriff's department to protect the farmers market, and the farm bureau needs to meet or something?"

"Walt, there is a good chance Wallenstein," If that was who this was, he wasn't entirely sure if the books he had pulled were accurate, but it made the most sense for an Imperial army operating in the area, "'s troops seem to be foraging they'll try and hit our farms if they find them."

"Yeah, fuck, man I get that." He straightened, "Come on, man this is bitch is heavy I want to back it up."

"Right." Viktor pulled Oliver's spare key fob and unlocked it, before hitting the start button as he pulled into the cab as the motor revved. As it was parked, all he had to do was put it in drive, and move it away from the interior gate that separated the fenced in garden yard and the deck. The sixteen foot gate was opened, swinging both sections out and open to admit the backup camera equipped SUV to the ramp's lip. They turned the vehicles off, and opened the rear section. "So besides a radio what else is in here?"

"Some of this is my gear, my scar is up in the front seat, cause you know ... fucking killer clowns man. That's the," He gestured to a massive storm proof case, "radio, and antenna extension, and a bunch of cables. Apparently the county bought them to replace the shit FEMA had us buy after 9-11."

"I thought you liked going to those emergency management seminars."

"I do... but this is the county DHS's rig. Or their spare... I guess." he shrugged and jumped up into the back of the SUV and grabbed a drag bag to move it out of the way. "So whats with the 417 on the counter in there, anyway, you've got the can on it. And shit that Daniel Tony's carrying, did you just paint that?"

The MK 18 had been painted green, and scrub while he'd been off with Oliver, "Tony found some krylon in the game room, and in his defense he was left unattended."

Maybourne laughed. "Shit, bro. Grab that end, this bitch is heavy." He wasnt kidding. The storm cases were no bullshit supposed to be rated for hurricanes and tornados so they weren't light, but whatever was in here was a couple hundred pounds.

"Who helped you move this?"

"Its got fucking wheels at least." Maybourne grunted before the cased clunked onto the treated deckboards of the ramp without landing on his toes. "Communications redundancy. The old man wants as much of it as he can get. I figured Oliver must be up here since I was getting sent with it."

Lloyd Harris, the retired sheriff... and effectively emeritus to the position had had ambitions to be governor before the ring of fire, and thus had organizational ties through his successor, and the county apparatus. Communications so long as the power held would be a major advantage... not just tactically, and for security, but in the event of a fire, or other natural hazard. "I don't suppose they brought up gas rationing yet?"

"Probably too fucking late for that. I mean... I know BP doesn't have gas, and the indian store on the highway probably sold out by sunday... I'd be shocked if they've got gas." He grunted. "I mean the city cops are directing traffic where the lights are wonky, but..."

All the gas had probably sold out ... before anyone had really figured out that they were four hundred ish years in the past. Biofuels would be possible, salt water solutions and corn.... assuming they could harvest the corn without an issue or not starve, but not just messy the chemistry department was going to have production bottlenecks.

 

Week 1 (A)​

The dusty bin was a pelican case. It had been scuffed, and scratched, and vinyl stickers added to. The inside were peltor com tac III wires to interface for the Harris radios. It was clear though that Mikey didn't have a clue what the fuck he was looking at. His brother, the senior enlisted man did know what the Army Civil Affairs man didn't.

"So?"

"Luke has been paging through that book," In between some snarling about histiography and something about academic interests and something else the older Stewart brother hadn't quite parsed, and then cleared his throat, "Anyway, he's right we're really fucked on fuel in the short term so if you guys are going to the university then carpool." Biking was out of the question, walking was out of the question, even without the security concerns...

Which was the problem.

"Whats in the book?" His brother gestured to the blue cover that was flipped up on the counter top.

"A bunch of guys in stupid costumes, and tin suits." He grunted untangling the wires. "Tin suits who want to shoot us with really big lead balls." He shook his head, and threaded a line through the guide, "Walter makes it sound like there is trouble in town."

Michael paused and exhaled contemplating the third leg of the demographic problem with the county. There was the county seat and the smaller surrounding towns, and the rural spread, but the county seat was home to the university, and that meant a significant population of kids who ordinarily would have been going home for summer and leaving the dorms if this... whatever this was had happened closer to the end of the month. "I ... I, there are a lot of people scared right now, and don't know what's going on."

"You went to Afghanistan the same as the rest of us."

Mike started to shake his head in his older brother's comment "Under the individual ready reserve. And just for the one time, and nothing really happened where I was." He clipped his mouth shut. Tony had left for Paris Island as soon as he'd finished his senior year, and had been near through a contract when the towers had fallen. "This isn't the same thing?"

"Far as I can tell it kind of is." Tony replied with a snort tossing the plate carrier onto the heavy oak table, "The guns are different, sure, but its us, and them," He didn't have an immediate response to that, "Look," They stopped talking as a sweaty pair of former marine officers came back in.

Walter leaned over the box, and pressed a tan box, and glanced at the house's owner. There was a wrinkled expression of disapproval.

"Its the older model. I know its not the latest and greatest." Luke grunted. "Thankfully it does take the newer rechargeables like yours." The batteries of the radio... well they hadn't been great in the desert heat, and if they were in north germany it would be interesting to see how they handled the weather here, but it would probably be less of a drain on performance. "I don't know if we will need it right now." It was monday afternoon.

"You're going to the school tomorrow."

Not because he was teaching. Michael had technically had monday classes but the school had cancelled them. There had been an emergency staff meeting that Luke had missed, but frankly Mike got the impression from the dark greens and browns, and more pointedly the large caliber rifle that ... presumably whatever he'd been doing might have been more a hair more important.

"Fuel, batteries too," When the ring of fire had first hit they had left the the ren faire and hit the agrarian retail store and even without access to cards had paid in cash... admittedly probably a good time for that sense taking cash to the faire had been something of the norm for years... "In all honesty looking at the well, it doesn't seem to have effected the water table." Which was obviously good.

"Ok so tomorrow?"

The university had been bequeathed the old mill building, and indeed everything that had gone along with it at the end, so there was some of the machinery for the engineering and history departments to squabble over in terms of... and it was going to be probably horrifying to see what all exactly the warehouses had been stuff with over a century and a half of collection the school had gathered up through such bequests.

The conversation derailed as Michael glanced out the window, "Uhm Luke... there is a cow."

"Yeah."

"You don't have cows."

"Its one of the McCullochs they've used the south pasture for-"

"Fucking ever. Was there ever a time they didn't." Walter interrupted as glancing out the window, "Like hell a hundred years?"

"Longer," Luke replied, "The McCullochs have always been our neighbors, Fergus McCulloch fought in the revolution," alongside the Gunther ancestor who had progenitated Luke's own paternal line, "and I think they've always had cows," He paused turning from the historical anecdote, "And I think Leroy actually bought the families dairy equipment when my great grandfather got out of the trade."

"Would they still have that?"

"... In a barn somewhere, maybe, I know Patrick," The current McCulloch patriarch. "Upgraded all of his pasteruization, what six seven years ago."

"Its more than one cow though."

"Michael, cows are stupid but they do occasionally find ways out of their pens, in all honesty with everything we can go out there in a minute and make sure its nothing."
--
It had been nothing. The cow had found a spot where a cypress tree had been blighted and had finally given way into a fence and had decided to trundle through said gap out of ... what was now the 'north pasture' and explore ... the heifer had probably been wondering what the fuck was going on.

Luke pulled the yellow electric chainsaw and slotted a battery in, and took it off safe. Chopping the cypress took about a half hour dividing the labor between him cutting and Tony piling. "Yeah see it hit there. This won't even be hard to patch." He pointed to the gathering other cows who had started to congregate at the nose and were now eyeballing the humans as if they were asking 'what the fuck are you doing'. "We just need to make sure they get nosey and want to come over here."

There was a moo.

"Luke."

"Yes Mike?"

Luke turned, and looked at the juvenile bull. "Him, he's going to be a problem." The juvenile was a little over a year old, he was tan, almost russet with a head that looked disproportionate on his body... despite the latter being stacked. A prize specimen of the breed, and back up time worth a lot of money... he was also currently knocking his head against a post impatiently. "I'll go get Mr McCulloch just leave him alone." Luke tossed a look at the dimming sky... and they probably weren't going to get this done today.

Walter piled into the shotgun of the polaris off road vehicle, and they headed down towards the cattle gate,

"So is Tony in the bunk house?"

"Nah I was letting him stay in the lake house." There was a pause, "I mean he was only going to be stateside for so long." Which of course... now they were back in the 17^th century... and if Luke was honest, at least he would have known what to expect being back in Afghanistan.... or hell Iraq, Libya even... going into Mali with the French would have been a known unknown... not this unknown, unknown, "We're here and we'll just have to make the best of it."

"Yeah you said Wallenstein will try the farms."

He leaned forward on the wheel, "Yeah, property rights are a keep what you can hold thing in the army. Wellington's army of scum wasn't exactly a lie." He said referring to the Napoleonic wars.
--
Notes: Due to having caught covid, this is shorter than the original plan, as I had planned to append a revised scene onto this with edits, but with the headach that goes along with the covid i'm having to minimize the time I use the computer.

 

Week 1 (B)
​

The TV showing the county government channel was muted, and it was replay anyway of the morning session of the county assembly... before it had adjourned. The room was a mix of smells. Mostly the mix of gun cleaner and microwaved food.

The city and county governments officially were on the same page about what people should do. People should remain calm, and minimize travel and thus not congest traffic, not use up fuel. Given the facts the roads simply 'ended' at the clear border point, transition between the county line and what was the 17^th century there weren't that many places to go. The European 17^th century, or the 17^th century of Europe... there was already a nasty circular email chain working its way around the faculty of which was a better sociological term across the social science departments.

It was an example though regardless of how severe or out of context a problem was that people were going to quibble, and fight over petty details regardless of social status, or educational attainment factors. People were ultimately people, which was what created the problem of official statements. They had even gone so far as to be the Emergency Management guy, a diminutive little fat man in birth control glasses as his brother had pointed out... and well he had come to the realization that... that the scenario they found themselves in was likely to be made worse by there being active fighting going on.

Hunched over a bowl of potatoes said brother said something that was completely unintelligible, swallowed and let the spoon clink down, "I said," The marine non com, "Oly said that shits already started." There was a pause. "a couple hundred grains of lead hitting cars by the volley."

Maybourne had been right. The semi auto civilian Bushmaster rifles were a tremendous advantage, and that was before factoring in other advantages. It however had forced them to face other problems, again just like Maybourne had talked about.

The city, and the county had immediately started arguing. That wasn't entirely unheard of. The county and the city didn't get along for a large number of reasons... and in truth the resulting mess had really been an argument based off of much earlier grievances. The riots, and the panic had set in by that point in the city. There just weren't enough cops in town to handle, especially not when a bunch of them had been ordered to ad hoc town hall.

Three days without regular power had made that even worse. That wasn't true actually, but for the most part was accurate enough for most people. It was probably for the best that way as well. The places in town that did have power were limited to the various places either on back up power running... and burning precious diesel or other fuel... or those projects running on renewable energy of which there were a handful.

That was the nice thing about the city police having converted all their cruisers over to natural gas several years back at least. That was likely small comfort to most people in town. Those patrol cars weren't much use either, given the situation. There were more mercenaries more soldiers, more fighting to come. The local head of the emergency management agency, for the state that was, not the federal one, had come up with a good idea. Since various food would otherwise spoil without refrigeration, the stuff that they couldn't keep by moving to freezers with power, or whatever would be cooked for the community.

That might have sounded obvious, but it had taken someone actually pointing it out to actually be acted on... and even that had had an argument attached to it. It was that divisiveness which was really the problem with a few thousand people never mind the whole city, the wade swathe of the county who had come along for the ride.

Then of course there was the problem of more panicking people fleeing the city, the down time city, near them threatened by siege... and that had been a riot in its own right. It had been like watching two sets of aliens run head long into each other and then start shrieking and pointing at one another at the surprise of the whole affair... over and over again. Thankfully, or not, most people didn't speak German... not after the ... repressions in the early nineteen hundreds one of the professors had pointed out anyway... and even if they had it wasn't weird seventeenth century German that lacked many of the later introduced technical terms of the language of the later centuries. They'd still been able to get the gist of it... that was how they'd come up with the name Wallenstein... and the name of the nearby town... city whatever... and they'd also been able to get the year.

The meeting of the county farmer's association had ... not been productive. They had ideas sure, but they weren't productive ones. The local medieval combat club had been inundated by people who had confused medieval for Renaissance... but they had also put forward ideas. First no one had had ideas, and then everyone seemed to find ideas, and it became very loud in every gathering.

Tony started to nod reflexively, "Well that's why the psychology department insisted on people going to class, to try and impose structure."

Viktor racked the slide of on the german semi automatic pistol as he finished reassembly, "Impose order you mean?"

"Well the email used the word structure." The tenured professor replied. "But yes,"

"There isn't a point, we'd be better off forcing everyone to attend safety briefs." Tony groaned in exaggerated effect at the statement.

"But the sheriff's department got the guy to talk." They'd actually captured a couple of guys... the bushmasters had been only part of that... and, "And yes Wallenstein is probably going to come on, and that no one is taking the threat of pike and shot seriously." Mikey trailed off, as his brother put the bowl of mashed potatoes down.

Maybourne shrugged, "Way I fucking figure, if you've already got kids jumping off rooftops and soccer moms oding on whatever they're hooked on, its a matter of time before we starting getting rioting. Sooner if the mayor tries to push this nationalization bullshit from the alderman's office." Whether or not that maybe trying to lay hands on gold and concentrating it for the purposes of trade with the down timers was probably one of the few smart things to have been said at that meeting it had been phrased in terms that were never were wise to use in front of Americans.

"Eastern europe already basically feeds western Europe at least for staples. Poland is a major grain exporter as it is, Lithuania made the transition to the three field farm-"

"About seventy years ago, if the book is right." and if it wasn't Viktor didn't really care, "But some time in mid 17^th century. The hanseatic towns are either in decline or are no longer relevant. The bigger question is how do we transport that grain."

"Aren't we within visual distance of the polish border?" Maybourne questioned.

"Grain is bulky its transport<" how it could be transported, "yeah fine, but we're still talking thousands of tons of grain, which we will then have to turn into bread," Tony replied, "There aren't really roads suited for that volume, well the volume we're going to need. We're going to need friends, and we're going to need friends with lots of horses.'

"Griefswald might be able to serve as a port other than that, Stralsund could but its currently under siege by Wallenstein." And that ultimately would be the factor, because in May of 1628 there was no shortage of war in northern Germany, and with war came disease.
--
Notes: This was not the originally planned update, but I'm going to aim to resume updates on wednesday through the rest of this month and get into and through really the first week after transition into the past, but this is short and an ease into this timeline project. This will not effect the Saturday updates of Autumn of Empire's timeline.


Just to reiterate on dominion of the baltic sea, this is a fairly old project this was originally started as a timeline before covid, before Trump was elected, and as a result some of its material is dated in that respect because the real world made other choices.

Anyway its 1628 Philip Julius of Pomerania has been dead for three years, Pomerania is as mentioned severely in decline due to the decline of the Hanseatic league, Stettin is not actually apart of Sweden yet (thats 1630) but that is in the general area to which we're currently referring. In the future, in the summer months the siege of Stralsund will be lifted but not without consequences. Anyway this is an update of the dominon of the baltic sea project with the intention of getting us on track to eventually have this timeline reach the arrival grantville some time this decade.

That is to be completely serious something I don't want to get bogged down on, where frankly the canon novels of 1632 (besides being quite frankly ridiculous in places) stalled out and that the last chronological book number 34 (novels) is 1637 despite being thirty four novels spanning a publication history of over twenty years. To reiterate that Flint died last year, and the canonical series is expected to conclude once the scripts already submitted are published.

On the subject I take a vastly less optimistic view of history than the idealistic flint, and in particular to borrow the summary from the china venture

"Prevent the destruction of the ming empire by the manchu?"

No. Preventing the Ming Collapse is literally impossible by the 1630s if not the manchu then some other invasion or rebellion would have done it. The Ming had litterally not been able to conduct a national level land / tax reform survey sin ce the middle of the 14^th century and had already devolved provincial powers (the same kind of devolution that would perennially plague the manchu) by this point they were already in slow motion collapse by this point by 1636 China was already in yet another rebellion and the Manchu were already threatening Korea there is no saving the Ming by that point

 

Week 1 (c)​

Michael idly reflected that it was a good thing Luke didn't have a swear jar. That was probably a good thing ... or it would have been if paper money hadn't rapidly devalued itself to uselessness as a result of the sudden case of time travel to the early modern era. He leaned back and looked up at the high ceiling, a reminder that this house had been built without air conditioning in mind.

"Fuck." Walter muttered as he continued to model, and check math, "fuck..." He scratched down some details on a pad. He looked at the map again, "Fuck... fucking county administration, gah." The deputy threw up his hands, looking disgustedly at the error message on the computer, "Stupid magical ring of fire bullshit... this gives me a headache, hey mikey any idea when they're gonna get back?"

Michael sat up, "Uhm, no I don't , sorry." All he really knew was that Oliver had... gotten called to do something. He didn't really know what. As one of four full time lieutenants in the county sheriff's department who had been in the county at the time. Oliver was fairly high up there in terms of management ordinarily anyway, and he was Walter's immediate superior. If the Sheriff was as tradition dictated equivalent to a colonel, the chief deputy was the little bird... or occasionally a major... and then major subdivisions were filled out by lieutenants and captains... it wasn't quite one to one the army... but there were certain antiquarian ideas that retained from the young republic... and it was going to bit them in their collective...

"Its gonna bite us in our ass. We don't have enough people. Fuck we didn't have enough people before this shit."

"What are you doing?" He decided to ask.

"Luke has a professional GIS suite, I'm attempting," Since he wasn't here, and since apparently Walt wasn't having a lot of luck "To plug in our geography and population details into the parts of north Germany we replaced ... or at least just their geography."

"I didn't know you did that in the corp."

Walter sent him a dirty look. "Yeah, well... I really need a second set of eyes used to this software. I also only normally have to plug in crime data, and draw circles, so..." He trailed off glaring from printed off maps, to screens, to notepads and scratch work.

"We could go to the university even if its some module that Luke is using for his research I'm sure the geography and political science labs would have them." Presumably it was something about the preponderance of states or areas that adopted hydroelectric, relative to accessible coal deposits, or some other facet of 20^th century electrification waves... but Michael didn't go that far. "What do you have so far?"

"I have our rough geographic dimensions, orientation, the altitude changes, so I know roughly how much land was displaced."

There were rough, very rough, mass calculations pulled up on one of the tabs of another calculating program... never mind how much energy it would take to move that much material physically... it boggled the mind.

Walter got up and sauntered around the map table.

The toilet flushed and Michael's brother Tony walked back into the room air drying his hands. Tony looked at the satellite images of the down, and the various marks that had been drawn on the map with a mix of excitement, recognition, and ... something else that Michael didn't recognize, "I never thought I'd see one of these done like this... outside of the usual training areas." They were height and terrain elevations... it didn't take a genius to figure that Michael would have kicked himself for not realize it sooner... but that made sense.

What was clipped on both man's hips though suddenly stood out. They were radios.... Michael had seen them the other day, but had not at the time made much of them. There were still range limitations, but the cell phone network more or less had stabilized on the basis of what towers were still working.

The mud room door opened and Oliver strutted in wearing shiny new captain's insignia, double bars, which he was exuberantly proud of and announced to them. Walter just complained that was going to make things worse in terms of between the Sheriff's department, and the City Police about who got to deputize who... which was a problem Walter had mentioned before.

"Did you get it working?"

"Do you, do I look like I got it working, bro?" Walter responded to Luke's question, "Can you come the fuck over here, and show me what I'm doing wrong."

While they went and fucked with the computer Michael and his brother turned to Oliver, "So what's popping then?" Tony asked.

"So anyway," Oliver shrugged, "My uncle has county admin calmed down... at least for now. I mean that's gonna go out the window if Wallenstein does something stupid, or people start breaking into liquor stores but for the moment things are okay. As long as the power stays I think they'll manage to not run around like chickens with their heads cut off."

"Isn't your mother-,"

"Yeah, but she believes me when I tell her that our portable radios are magical words of sending," that was a DND joke, "and we will totally know that if Wallenstein tries anything, so we can deal with it." Oliver replied, "I mean like..." He trailed. .. Michael felt the looks as his friends, the marines in the room who hadn't been rear echelon motherfuckers as one time his brother, a little too deep in the Christmas punch has complained, after one argument too many had snapped, "Man I really wish you had bought that tank." He trailed off.

Luke looked at him, and scoffed, "Yeah, I don't think it'd do us a whole lot of good, besides the county MRAPs will get better gas mileage, and that's going to be important. Having a working seventy five millimeter sherman and ammo wouldn't do us all that much good..."

"Tch imagine if Anderson had come along."

"Fuck Anderson, give me Clemson." Oliver snorted, "And no not for the football." The tension evaporated among them... even if it didn't change the fact that their situation was that the Holy Roman Empire could afford to drown them in bodies if that was what Wallenstein chose to do, and they weren't prepared for it.

Tony punched him in the arm, "Hey, I might have given you some shit about joining the army, but like you need to back to the university." The non com glanced, "Luke like I'm sure you're doing stuff, but you too man."
Luke nodded, "There is a lot that needs to be done... I wish we had more specialists in early modern history," Michael could empathize, most of the history department, and political science department were focused on other areas, same with the other social sciences. "Lloyd's right that it would have been better if we had replaced the down time county, not be dropped into the thirty years war, the frontlines of the conflict."
--

The words of a preacher cut down too young echoed in his thoughts; 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.' Politics was inherently dynastic, but especially in old towns. That was true for both parties, and his pulpits, especially the wednesday one, had never been more full than after the Ring of Fire.

People claimed to not want people to starve, but could squeal if things that weren't even theirs to begin with had to be taken for the common good. It could have been worse he had had an uncle who'd told him what it had been like during the DC race riots had been like. There had been nothing like what had happened in April of 68. Not that there needed to be to wreck the inner city economy of a much smaller town.

The Mayor seemed to think she could keep up meeting with the church elders, and that would be enough to help. The whole situation with the food was going to help, but it had already stirred everyone up. The local university administration was bucking the Mayor, that had been apparent when university administration had called an emergency faculty meeting for the following day, and he was pretty sure that had been done to stop any more unilateral decisions until they could figure out what they wanted.

He doubted they would get very far. Not quickly anyway; there were plenty of white liberals on the faculty but then that was why he remembered the quote from King. That they weren't willing to go along with anything unconditional made sense, but at the same time was terrible. Thankfully the church, churches really, were used to food assistance programs... food banks...they'd be able to pick up the slack for the time their own stocks lasted. The problem with that was that the City Council, and their County equivalents had been all too ready to nearly come to blows with one another.

As he thought back of his uncle telling his teenage self the stories of DC during the riots he half way wished that the objections about the militarization of police had started far sooner. Oh the 'Reforms' that old Sheriff, and the current sheriff had worked on hadn't been what white people would have called racist. If anything the 'professional standards' had eliminated most of the old guard in favor of hand picked recruits who had gone off to fight the war on terror after nine eleven. That was what concerned him, what had always concerned him.

The old money in the county still controlled a lot. That network of patronage had once controlled the mills, and the large farms had diversified after the great depression relying on politics to keep them afloat. Their numbers had grown smaller as the years had gone on, but the large farms were still there, and they still controlled who got elected to the County Judge among other things. They were going to be a lot more prickly about property rights than anyone else. The sundering of an already fragile relationship would probably result in a more serious riot down the road.

They were going to have to board up the church windows he realized, which meant without electrical power it was going to get even stuffier in here even accounting for the easier time they were having for the weather.

Unfortunately congregations were getting older and grey on this side of the color line as well. Not as serious as with even evangelical whites had, but enough the churches could do more than organize rallies. Three percent asian. Five percent hispanic... maybe more. Forty five and change for blacks and whites both. That was the city though. County was whiter overall. Worse they were stuck in the middle ages, the European middle ages. Southern Baptist was not going to go over well with the local germans regardless of whether it was a white man or a black man preaching.
--
Notes: This concludes on the religious snippet, because we are talking about a period, and this is one of the things that I feel is overly overly fucking optimistic about in his writings regarding the wars of religion in this period of European history. This is the period that is really the predecessor to the prototype run of 19^th century European Nationalism, and quite frankly Flint doesn't seem to have understood that, and that from a social perspective, let me reiterate that Flint's west virginians and Maley and Doc Nichols (or worse as a cliche) do not hold up they come off as idealized Californians in both speech patterns and also in ideological openness and that is also a problem that extends to the downtimers.

And frankly, its a very American fictional thing (like once Weber, in particular comes on, but some of the others help) with regionalism, but I don't think Flint actually grasped the sheer cultural gulf that existed between North Eastern (coastal americans) versus just Englishmen in the time frame of WW1. Never mind the English cultural distinctions of that period versus modern americans of say the west coast (I certainly do not think he understood the social distinctions of class that existed in England in 1914, and certainly not the class and social distinctions of England of the 17^th century and differing behaviors that entailed)

 

Week 1 (d)​

The new government center had been constructed within the last decade with federal money ponied up to take advantage of green energy initiatives in geothermal... not that that actually worked that well since as it turned out the design was woefully insufficent for dealing with summer heat in the south... which would have been the problem that he'd have normally been focusing on.... was the inevitable oops something failed in the new system... which was his usual double duty. The Sheriff's department had complained about running dispatch through the government center, but they'd wanted that federal funding for upgrades too... they shouldn't have acted like it had been just the city.

Not that city or county asked his two cents.

He had been getting run ragged since Monday... really since Sunday, but they'd wanted to do, news broadcasts that were largely impromptu speeches while people were shouting, and carrying on. As the head of the local office of the state's emergency management he didn't actually report to the mayor, or the executive of the county, and he certainly didn't report to any single member of the state legislature. It was a mostly academic point though. He was five six and all pointdexter. He was not configured to the take charge and start barking orders to people... and that wasn't what his job was. His job was to proffer advice, and make recommendations, which was the opposite of what local governments wanted, they wanted him to pick a side.

The problem with all of the scenarios his office had on hand were about dealing with mundane things like hurricanes. Oh sure there were some copies of the what to do in the event of nuclear war... that had probably been last updated before the Berlin wall had fell, and there were some more modern outlandish things like dirty bombs, but nothing about being transported into the past. Never mind what to do in the event of a war.

That wasn't to say all of the scenarios had been completely useless. Plans for forest fires useful, as were the ones for major disruption of civil services, and how they related to natural gas mains and safety. That had been what most of his people had been working out with the local gas company about how to go about it.

He had given the best advise he could give given the information he had available. The situation did seem very bleak. Without modern necessities society was going to break down. Even with national aid Hurricane Katrina had failed because at every level beginning at the local one there hadn't been a plan, and without local roots the state had had nothing to build off of, and the national program had clumsily attempted to wing it after they'd finally been given the go ahead. By that point the damage had been done. On the plus side they weren't dealing with a hurricane, on the downside they didn't have any kind of higher level aid to come. Most of his recommendations were based off of emergency management guidelines, that presupposed outside help, in the short term they needed to keep people fed and safe. They were sheltering in place, because there was no where to evacuate to, and there was no immediate danger structurally speaking.

In Katrina of course with safer grounds to run to those with the means had done so. The result had been that wide swathes of emergency services had hightailed it out of there with their families before the mandatory evacuation orders by the state had even been considered. That had in turn led to uncontrolled looting, and only compounded other mistakes by the city of New Orleans even after the National Guard had arrived. Everyone here was stuck here, and at home... just without electricity.

If they had been at home in the heat of the south he'd have put more priority on the city civic center getting power back. That way with power to it people could have escaped the heat and sheltered there during hottest parts of the day. Given it was barely seventy degrees outside right now, and cloudy at that, he didn't think summer heat was going to be all that much of a problem. Winter on the other hand... months down the road if they got there... was a terrifying prospect. That would still have been getting ahead of themselves though.

Part of the problem with everything was that most of the large public structures, in contrast to the building, weren't new enough to have been constructed with renewable energy in mind to take load off the grid. The University system had a few on geothermal, and solar. Those were purely supplementary though the University had basically had to cut off its air conditioning because the power requirements for their usual cooling was out of the question in their situation. They apparently did have enough power to run lights, and the computer labs though. Their cafeteria might be the best option for a food kitchen, but right now the university administration was trying to carefully stradle the line between city and county government not wanting to alienate either when it was unclear who was going to end up in charge if they even did manage to figure something out. It didn't help that the univeristy was one of the city's major employers... it wasn't inaccurate to call it a college town... and then on top of that there were a lot of young people here because of the university, or the community college.

That was what... part of what still put government still up in the air of course. He wished they would figure something out, but until they did he could only give advice, and hoped he was making the right suggestions, and that they listened to them.

They had been here ... here ... for a few days now, and people were struggling to make sense of it all, and most people weren't going to good of a job at it. All of the material in his office talked about fundamental basics, but presupposed certain things. Things that everyone took for granted that had now been stripped away. That was made even worse by apparently being surrounded by bloodthirsty savages.

He leaned back into his plush office chair and sagged into the cushions. They had the police for the time being they'd be able to put them at any food kitchen... but given the guys who had attacked them had had guns... okay primitive guns... they were going to have to put them... on the border, which was a really odd notion to contend with. That hadn't really been a FEMA planning topic except jokingly when it came to interacting with the Federal agency... and none of their supervisors had found it very funny so they had had to stop talking about it. He'd never actually thought they'd be invaded... but it wasn't really an invasion.

They weren't in America anymore. There wasn't really an America anymore. Pretending otherwise when they'd been wrenched to who knew when, what was in allegedly Germany. He wanted to curl up under his desk and hide... but thankfully there was enough order he could afford to work without worrying someone might try and hack him into pieces for fun. So no national guard was coming, and he really hoped that the arguments between everyone would chill out.

He looked mournfully at his phone. He regretted that there was no internet, and that the increasing sophistication of the cell phone had largely rendered obsolete mp 3 players... never mind the walkman he'd had back in the nineties. He needed the upbeat rock music to cheer him up, or he was never going to get through all the hard copies of 'what to do in emergencies' that he had piled in front of him.

He also wanted coffee, and then tossed the guidelines for 'social media during emergencies' into a corner... that wasn't going to help him given they had no facebook. He knew now that he'd thought about it he might as well go get some... coffee that was. It wasn't even noon even... he had had coffee with breakfast. He got up and trudged to the break room, as he considered what all had happened at the 'meeting'.

It wasn't like Martial law had been a terrible idea... a wildly impractical one with their manpower sure, but the idea itself wasn't bad. A curfew at least... that was just sensible. Unfortunately people were already throwing sense out the window... and while they hadn't been writhing in panic they had been ready to argue vehemently over small details. So far it seemed like the whole county had come along, and it had happened on a weekend so the workforce who would have been here from neighboring counties wasn't... which really would have been useful to them now.

The City had no interest in listening to the county administrator. The council had no interest in taking orders from the mayor of the county seat. The police chief and the sheriff had nearly come to blows with one another. The latter hadn't even made sense to Patrick Huff, but as a much shorter and pudgier man in glasses he had shut up and let them argue. So had most people It had taken the former sheriff to calm his successor down, and then a ten minute recess turning into a twenty minute one to get everyone calmed down enough to actually start talking about anything productive... and they... all they had by the end of the meeting were ideas. Most of them weren't even really that great ideas... just simple should have been obvious things like the curfew idea that hadn't actually gone into effect until the day after

Patrick Huff looked longingly towards his vice of choice, and groaned. He really didn't look forward to the idea of them running out of caffeine.-
--
They had driven over largely in silence. The radio remaining tuned to the emergency broadcast channel... but truthfully they had harris radios handy and expected if something happened t would be through those that word would come first. Walter's SCAR 17 had its suppressor on it, but was racked in the seat space between, along with an also suppressed HK.

He doubted they would need the rifles.

Oliver couldn't make it, which would slow down moving stuff. Maybourne popped his trunk door, "I appreciate this man." It was wet Wednesday morning. Mayboure had a clean set of olive drab pants, and a matching Massif shirt. Over laid with his plate carrier, and his other gear. He'd gotten time off to do this, which was a little surprising actually.

"Not a thing." The man replied stepping out of the driver's side of the trunk, "And you have a giant shoot me first sign on you."

Maybourne rolled his eyes, "Fuck don't I always." He crossed in front of the truck, "Come on Mary's at her office talking with the partners. Her mom has the kids." The deputy's house was a little under four thousand square feet. Five bedrooms, five baths, two stories... built before the housing bubble went under. The backyard was fenced, and not in a way that practical to drive into the backyard. At least there wasn't a basement. "You think we can move the safe?"

"I want Oliver here for that, maybe two other guys, like how we brought it in." The last thing he wanted was a sixty gun safe being dropped on anyone's toes never mind for it to tip over.

"Yes sir." Maybourne grunted opening the gate to the back. "We'll start with the storage building, and then I guess the pantry." Maybourne's lot was a bit under an acre and a half. It was a picturesque yard, and basically ideal suburban property. Blame the HOA, for that of course Maybourne had joked often enough. "My boy is going to go crazy without the Playstation." He unlocked the storage building, and gestured around. "Its three months worth of food. We can pack up my reloading press. The ammo." He continued talking as they walked.

Loading took, nearly two hours with just the two men. The drive was... eerie in that they were the only car on the road.

Victor Lucius Gunther lived on more rural portion of the county. They hadn't exactly worked out the elevation differential, not for sure, but he was certain they were no longer two hundred meters above sea level. They were definitely higher than the surrounding European land mass, but certainly not by the difference in home and here were. Whatever the differential was he was going to be worried when the rain came in... washouts and floods and mudslides besides.

Acreage spread out before them. Mostly untilled. Part of it was woodlands that his uncle Vince had allowed, starting in the late eighties, sections of to be cut for timber most of the farmland was fallow kept cut by a tractor with a bushhog attachment, and scraped down even over winter, and occasionally seeded with winter wheat. Mostly to draw deer in to fatten them up for hunting season, "Bet you wish you'd planted more this year." Walt grunted leaning to watch the birds fly.

"Not really."

"What?" Maybourne bug eyed him as if the reply had declared the sky was in fact purple.

"Gas, fertilizer, nitrogen treatment, pesticides, I'm not used to handling much more than this. I certainly wouldn't be ready to deal with it on top of everything else thats going on." The ranch style fencing was multi layered most freestanding rectangles that didn't connect to the others. "I doubt I have storage space, and even if I did that still wouldn't address gas to actually handle harvesting, or water for irrgation. Getting right down to it, we can sell seed stock to the locals, but we're gonna need to buy their produce."

Maybourne nodded, "Didn't think of that." He stopped, "Wait your house is on a deep well how would water be an issue?"

His friend shoved a long bony finger out towards the fallow patch, "I don't have anything to irrigate those untended fields, the well is drilled right by the house. I also haven't checked the creek yet either, but it might go dry if its not connected to a source. The dam stops the lake from draining down river , but that's probably why town doesn't have power." or more accurately why it was having power problems.

"Shit." Maybourne snarled. "The fucking idiots in city." He glanced sideways, punched his steering wheel; lightly. "Come on those assholes are why we lose wars. You know it. People like them." He looked like he wanted to punch the door, "boss my kids weren't in Afghanistan with me when they were shooting at us."

He turned the truck off, and stepped off, "Its not like I don't have room." It wasn't a plantation house per se. It was too 'new' to be from that period, but it was old and huge in comparison more modern construction, on the outside anyway, at three stories, brick, and three fireplaces it hadn't been built with modern HVAC in mind, and the rooms for sleeping space were smaller than modern norms for housing construction. "The lakehouse also came."

"Its on propane too isn't it?"

"Yes."

He laughed at the succinct replied, "Nice." He wanted to say something more about that... but wasn't sure how the lake was going to work out. There were fish in it... but...

"I was going to let Tony rent it if he decided to move back here," Maybourne nodded, his wife had been trying to convince Luke to sell the place to her firm since it had come into his possession, and he had moved back to town.

He laughed, "Don't let Mary know you were gonna that." He got out and leaned against his back against the truck and sunk down, thumping his head back, "Shit. So much for hanging out there with the kids this summer. So if the waterways are fucked up boss, what do we do?" Both men abruptly snapped towards the road at the approaching car. The oddity of the noise compared to their previous isolation. Maybourne started to relax as the black BMW convertible came there way, only to stop when the narrowed slits of his friend's eyes became apparent. He'd known that there had been bad blood. It wasn't like the property division had been some kind of surprise. There ways you could get around death taxes if you had time to put it in writing. "Boss?" He asked.

"Lets see what he wants." It was amazing how people you least wanted to see tended to turn up when they had problems, and likely expected all previous issues to be dropped without a word. If that was true normally the veritable end of life as people new it certainly held to that.

Walter made the distinction between the two men pretty easily, family resemblance aside it was the musculature difference really, though the differing tans gave a little contrast to how they looked. There had been less difference in high school, where the two Gunthers had been on different sports, different classes different clubs, but still in the same age bracket. Charles Alexander shared all the usual family traits. High cheekbones, long ish face.

Tony was standing there on the railing of the deck watching them. "Whats up?"

"Lets not move anything off the truck until after he leaves yeah?"

"What if your cousin doesn't want to leave?" Walter shot back.

Viktor grunted conceding that point as he left the rifle racked in the center. This was a different sort of fight.... and probably an opportunity. "Charles."

There ws a crack about using the end of the world as nopportunity to get the gang from high school back together... it wasn't like that.

--
Notes: looking at my original outline because of course this is both an old story, and its tied up, and disorganized across a collection of sub folders on an old computer. The original plan was for Chapter 2 to be just Monday after the ring of fire, and then Chapter 3 to be through out the week 1 of the event.

What will happen is that there will be a second engagement with a scouting party, before we move into machine parts, and metal fabrication down time. I should clarify that in American Vernacular, a civics center is a combination public venue, hockey rink in door soccer stadium presentation concert hall large building its not a 'government/administration building' They were enerally built to have emergency shelters since they proliferated during the cold war but most major government funded buildings (post offices, primary schools, and such were required, I think banks also were required to have fallout shelters if they were constructed in certain zoning areas, transportation hubs as well IIRC)

 

Week 1 E​

The mills closing had been an unpopular but ultimately economic reality. Simply put it had been a practical decision based on world conditions of the late and post cold war. There were people who had, and still people who had argued that the shut down hadn't been necessary... they used all kinds of arguments, emotional down to that the downsizing hadn't been necessary that the steady reduction and transitional period had still been turning a profit...

.. but the writing had been on the wall... it was true there had been 'tax shenanigans' write offs and waivers and the family trust had managed the transition to get out of paying stuff as possible, and that had included the family trust turning the mills over to the university trusteeship ... maybe if they had waited for gentrification to continue the trust could have made a bigger profit but that was an iff... and no one had been thinking like that...

... and it would have been a gamble given the eventual financial recession half way through the war on terror...

Stewart was standing a little further back. He'd grudgingly left the mk 18 back in the toyota, but he had modern single point drop leg, an update from the double blackhawk drop legs of the early war on terror when they'd still been running thin skinned humvees and the old guard were still complaining about being told to wear armor. The Glock was unsuppressed, but had a weapon light and he was a wearing an expensive maritime plate carrier.

It was a far far contrast to Charles's black fancy turtleneck and sports jacket. That was more endemic of the problem. Viktor had gone to OCS on completion of his masters, deferring the nearly complete dissertation, but he'd still gone to the colours like a million other men after the towers, and the GwoT had begun. That wasn't how Charles Alexander saw things. He'd been interning at goldman sachs he had bigger ambitions... so as far as he was concerned, and he'd been vocal about it, Viktor had gone to war not because 'three thousand yankees had died, but just because he wanted to kill people'. He didn't view Tony or Michael the same way, the marine noncom, degree not withstanding, was just dumb muscle... Charles didn't distinguish the technical qualifications to the skill sets involved in Raider applique.

Charles had other ideas too, and while not whole formed, they had potential.

"Its true that the market pressures which made the mill long term unviable no longer exist," What with being almost four hundred years in the past, ... alternate timeline, whatever, "The market conditions which make a mill like this viable and economically productive don't necessarily exist either."

That wasn't to say that in theory it couldn't be made productive, which was something to talk about but there were other other other issues. All kinds of them that would need to take priority in terms of manufacturing before they started dealing with money and heavy capital ventures. They finished up and he closed the door watching the beamer pull away.

They needed to make sure the town didn't starve first. Tony waited until the BMW beyond visual before speaking, "What an asshole."

"Yeah." Luke replied, even as the sergeant turned over the engine.

"Where to?"

"Chemistry department." He replied, "This may not be viable, but between the university and the technical college, we can manufacture modern ammo." They'd end up having to throttle down production of course... they currently had a much higher volume of precursors that they'd eventually use up, but they could produce ammunition... the shortage would be in primers... still even that was doable he just needed to make sure he had a claim on the equipment and the alcohols necessary to do it, and that meant moving.

There were other industrial tasks that could be looked at of course. Screw manufacturing, and the use of 19^th and 20^th century button jigs but ammunition was a consumable... and a modern infantry unit shot a lot of bullets. Drawn brass was easy, and the machines were already set up.

And Tony brought the valid point that even accounting for rechargeable batteries they were going to lose a lot of technology. Night vision gear, tubes, and peq 15s and the other kit modern infantry relied on was going to become scarce as batteries were used up... batteries like 123s were going to be harder to replace... maybe not impossible but they'd require sources of minerals... that he certainly off the top of his head couldn't name a local source for.

They dismounted the Toyota truck to a relatively crowded campus parking lot. He had to wonder how long until the city, or county started weighing siphoning gas from parked cars... and if the cars had been cleared off the road. The gas would remain stable locked up inside fuel tanks for a time... but it wouldn't last forever... and it would be inefficient to dole stabilizer out to individual cars.

Fuel shortages would be a problem as early as the end of the month probably... maybe not for off road diesel but that was largely for tractors... but there were going to be shortages of that eventually. They didn't get very far, he'd started categorizing computer inventory, and writing things down when his iPhone still reading a cell tower signal, and also linked to the University WiFi and configured to accept wifi calling buzzed angrily in his chest pocket.

Forty minutes later he was looking irritably at the bag Walter had just tossed on the table.

Maybourne's first arriving bag was... Luke eyed it. The AR 15 was normal, the pair of glocks wasn't really pushing anything... but the tomahawk was a bit silly even if they had carried them in Afghanistan. The two fixed blade knives as well for that matter. Those were the glaring oddities he saw everything else was for the most part normal for a day bag even the dromedary bags. Normally he just kept bottled water in his car for day to day travel... but too each their own. The pointy objects were... well he had never considered needing to conceal a knife in his belt. Most of this was par for the course.

Maybourne had gone back and opened the back passenger door to the Toyota, and retrieved another bag he had tossed in about an hour earlier, and waved to a deputy who was standing around "Here see these ammo cans they go in the back of your cruiser, right?"

"We should have room," The man replied... clearly hoping that would be the case... and given the way the springs on the suv were struggling already.... Luke spared a glance at the boxed 556 ball ammo. He could guess where the bulk had come from.


"I need an honest assessment of where we stand."

"Beside that it aint normal?" Devil hissed, "That's why I asked about the planting, but you right. Are right," He leaned back and took a swig from the water bottle. "Mass Casualty Event is pretty serious concern."

"No that's not what I meant." He told the other other ex marine present.

"We're gonna throw a drone up Luke its electric they figure its our best option." Oliver remarked he was running his hands through his freshly cut hair like it was itching, and if Luke had to guess he'd probably been in the middle of a hair cut when the calls had started going out. "Its not a great drone, but its something."

He wanted to laugh. It was fucking absurd. When they'd invaded iraq the special mission units had had access to drones... and of course hte modern corp had access to significantly more common drones... never mind Army aviation battalions field what were basically predators of their own... he was under impression they'd been rebranded to mitigate the Air Force complaining... but it wasn't 2001... a small drone could be a couple hundred bucks a good camera and moped engine... the problem was flight time, and resolution.

Someone cursed as they fumbled a barrett and the light fifty dumped into the park dirt. They were at the edge of the line... further south than the last time they'd gotten a call out, and even though he was pretty sure he could guess what was going on. It must have been another of Wallenstein's foraging parties... which meant if it was Wallenstein the army must be close... whatever little drone they were going to put up wasn't going to cut it.

They were going to need to find out what was going on at Stralsund to the north west of them on the coast of the baltic. If the county was pulling ammo from where he was thinking this stuff was coming from they probably hadn't mentioned it to the city, but they probably thought this was going to get bad... or rather that if the early modern army got in among civilians it would be bad, both materially, and psychologically...

The great benefit to the whole fucking mess was that it went both ways. That would be true when a west virginian town called grantville arrived from another alternate earth... that the change in topography, and the oddities it created were such that local mercenaries weren't quite sure how to deal with the change. With a comparable tech base it wouldn't have mattered, they'd have figured it out and then it would come down to which side had more soldiers and the better position... or really the side with the most guns... which was in most respects what it did still end up coming down to.

... both now... and in the future.
--
Notes: whats going to happen in the current version is that this will update through April as we continue to work through May 1628, this first week first post change, including dealing with coverage of both the skirmishes but also the internal face and side particularly dealing with people are in commerical jobs, university students, bankers, the urban population not facing that outward pressure.

This also clearly calls forward to when Grantville arrives in 1631, and pointedly that down time military commanders were not stupid per se and that the geographic transformation of a sizable piece of landscape courtesy of a ring of fire would probably make most officers some caution, there are exceptions to this but that will be dealt with later, particularly as we need to demonstrate the dangers and lethality of volley fire at distance (and this is the early modern period, this is the period of the tercio and pike and shot, guns are commonplace as the standard infantry weapon in the way they were of infantry blocks and lines of a hundred years in the future).

 

The Other Side
A​

With a sigh the police officer looked at him and then closed the door. They didn't need introductions, and settled into irrelevant small talk about how fucking crazy the world was.

A weekend without electricity had driven his students up the wall. In the wake of the Ring of Fire Ren Faire had gone out the window. Never mind the threat posed now by the roving bands of killers... so no most people had sheltered in place unknowing of what was going on around them, and that had started the rumor mill

There were no aliens though.

The Assistant Professor for psychology could empathize that those kind of thoughts weren't that crazy compared to the reality with how things were. Without electricity he too had been going stir crazy. The city's government had instituted a curfew of all things, an actual enforced curfew. He couldn't honestly fathom why they had felt the need to go that far; there wasn't any where to go after all. Neither had his students. The threats from wherever they had found themselves were from people. As far as he could tell there was no serious risk of wild animals, and as long as you drove carefully getting around really wasn't an issue. Still the curfew was in place, and the University administration had demanded everyone abide by it.

That was the problem. You tell kids not to do something and they wanted to do it anyway. What was the university supposed to do? Take their keys? It was ludicrous. You also couldn't just expect them to along with a perceived unreasonable demand. It was authoritarian not authoritative and the young people with all their vim and vigor just wouldn't stand for it. So they were seeing deviant behavior break out.

He really did want to know just what the city council thought they were doing. A weekend by itself could have been dealt with. They would have been good to go with little more than complaints if the power had been back on by Monday morning, but it hadn't. They were coming up on a week now, and the University administration was getting impatient because they were getting pressure from the student body. He was right there with them, since normally most of the students would have left their dorms for summer by this point. That wans't an option here of course.

"Yeah, I hear yah," The detective grumbled as they crunched through the growing dry grass. It was the recipe for a disaster, which was why he was rushing to tell the dean just that. That had been when he'd found the door locked. "Alright, you haven't seen him?"

"No like I said there was supposed to be a meeting this morning." The professor remarked.

The police officer nodded and looked at the office and fished out a master set of keys and unlocked the door. The professor heard it click and immediately started talking about how without the ability to go home, or the ability to relieve stress via the modern conveniences they were going to have a riotous mob of students upending everything around them. The whole thing was driving him up the wall. He barreled through administration waiting and into the Dean's office without even bothering to knock, and right into a suede loafers.

"Oh god." He felt the blood flow from his cheeks as his stomach roiled. Hanging suspended from the fan was the man he'd been coming to vent his frustrations to, the man who hadn't been at the meeting this morning. He hadn't even considered how the man might have been handling the stress. He quickly lost control and vomitted profusely beneath the dangling feet of the hanged man, before scrambling back.

The police officer stepped back, and pulled the walkie talkie radio brick, and started saying something... he wasn't surprised... and it made a certain amount of sense why they had wanted him to contact the police. He let the police officer help him out of the room, and sit down.

It took him several minutes for him to compose himself before he manage without wanting to vomit. "How did you know?" The man asked as the detective tapped at the touch screen of his phone.

It was a pretty typical call... they had started pulling people and slotting a roster as soon as people started making comparisons to the 08 recession, so he wasn't surprised. It was better that they didn't have to run anywhere to get help. "I figure it'll take the coroner the better part of an hour to get here." The detective replied sparing a glance to the office. Ordinarily in a case like this procedure would have been to try and get the man down... try and resuscitate... he'd called it in before the doc had lost his lunch... and speaking of he got up and with a grimace opened the office windows... he would have tried to go find some bleach but he'd wait

That took longer than he had thought it would... not the least of which was since the university was running on limitted power... and thus minimal services. The professor was the chatty type, a mile a minute ... All thoughts of how that might have driven his students up the wall when they hadn't had electricity but parts of the school staff did were gone now. Not gone, really, just at home, without power, or phones... there was no one to call, and that meant physically finding someone. The Meeting of faculty was going to be much more interesting than he had originally thought... and not just because of the spate of suicides since the Ring of Fire.

"I thought that maybe," The man grunted weakly but was talking and that was good, "Technically since it was a faculty meeting a lot of the other university staff wasn't going to bother coming"... He paused and trailed off, in other situations certain faculty probably wouldn't have bothered coming to such a meeting.

"This isn't the first one, we had a guy find some body the day before." That had guy had half ran half stumbled across the concrete footpath towards a foot patrol shouting incoherently about what he'd found.... the lacrosse freshman had been sloshed so it wasn't like they had known. "It took a while to figure out what was what."

"I think, somebody from the business school mentioned that. Something about the switchboard working."

The Campus Police department was was technically certified a fully authorized state police agency. Fifteen officers, including the reserve team, coupled with support staff handling communications. It wasn't a lot. "We don't have a lot of guys," He said, "But the switchboard works, and so does the internet," However that worked. It had taken pulling someone from communications trying to find the chief before someone from the 'detective' bureau to show up and investigate.

It was supposed to be calming the younger man down. Get him acclimated, but Walter Riley didn't think it was working. Too much stress from everything else. He got back up out of the office chair and stood in front of the professor. He was an older man who looked almost elderly, his wiry figure making him look much older than fifty. He'd left the state police after twenty years, and had picked this up as a reserve. This was his first dead body he'd had on campus, and he didn't like it, but it had been his turn at the queue.

He hopped his thumbs into gunbelt as the professor looked at him... really looked at him. The man was looking at the gun under his shoulder. His model 645 full size smith and wesson semi automatic was slung in a Miami classic shoulder holster in what was probably not approved by department regulations. He had in addition to it his department issue smaller glock 19 on his belt as well, with the detective's shield next to it so he might have just been skirting by. Besides who was really going to complain, especially with a body hanging from the ceiling. None of the professors certainly... the people who were now filing in.

There was a voice behind them now, "Do something." Another doctor of psychology squawked at last, "We have to get him down. You can't just leave him there."

Riley rounded, and met the doctor's brown eyes, and then nodded. "You're right," He agreed, "but he's a hefty fellow gonna need a hand." he'd already taken pictures with his cell phone, though it was apparent that it probably was just what it appeared. Getting the body down would have been less trouble if they hadn't had to dodge patches of vomit, while lifting two hundred plus pounds of dead weight of a man.

They rested the man beside his desk, and Riley took a few more pictures with his cell phone. The computer had woken up, but just a login screen nothing he could do there.

The staff formed a sullen queue and left the policeman to his work as they headed to the apportioned meeting grounds in the University's newest building. The Doctor of Political Science, an associate professor, who served as the Dean for his department had his back to them, but the psychologist recognized the head of the ROTC beside him and a handful of other men. The doctor who had called that in made sure to point that out to Riley as the man came forward to talk to them.

He marched forcefully towards them prompting them to turn at this heavy series footfalls, and looked upon them with a sullen expression trying to keep his eyes up and at the new man, but the noise wasn't him trying to be loud it was the men from the coroner's office following him in tow. Three hours. That was how long it took the coroner to actually get to the school from the call in... it was now after one.

--
Notes: This is in part a series of different peepholes into post ring of fire ahead ot the changes over the summer months of 1628. This is a combination of two different versions of this scene technically three if you count both the faculty perspective and CP perspective.

Additionally while it will likely not go up in this I will probably be posting a version, in the misc thread, of a distinct Xianxia branching of the Autumn of Empires timeline. Now that will obviously not be canon to AoE even relative to the original more gaslight/urban fantasy version of the original timeline, but will entail spirit beasts, and the circulation of Qi, and alchemy being a thing that on top of all the other early 20^th century problems one had to deal with following the end of world war 1. I am using the term Xianxia, rather than Wuxia, or Xuanhuan and admittedly depending on progression the latter might be more accurate. This deviation from the timeline won't effect saturday updates, and won't involve gamer or interface elements common place in a lot of the genre thats common place.

 

Dominion of the Baltic Sea May 1628 /
The other side of the coin
Part 2​

The Mayor had just finished another exhausting session with the city council. There had been a wide range of reasons to do it... it in this case was the dreaded nationalization of resources. It wasn't really imminent domain, they weren't taking the land. It wasn't just Lowes either, but people had basically already stripped Walmart of food.

With the dollar defunct there had been a lot of talk about 'barter' economy, but most likely people were likely to hoard things, and the consensus in both the Mayor's office, the city council and various community figures was to avoid that. Lowes had been the big issue because she doubted anyone would have complained... they needed the supplies in order to start winterizing houses they were somehow all the way across the Atlantic so the consensus was that winter without electricity was going to be terrible.

That was guessing, but it was something they had to think about.

They were just trying to get ahead of that. There were other reasons, but the threat of having to deal with winter in six months was the big one. Also without electricity they needed those generators, and the ability to siphon gasoline so again it made sense. That hadn't stopped people from being upset, even though they themselves hadn't been directly effected. The trailers were another thing they needed, those they would be able to hitch to the municipal service trucks and use as a light logging industry. That specific idea had been put forward by one of the men on the city council; his exact motivations for that were unclear. It did seem that he'd been talking with both some local businessmen, but also the members of the local medieval club who had some idea about walls that could in theory be used from the abundance of trees that had both come with them, and if needed the area around them. It seemed a little far fetched, but he had made such a racket over it, that they'd added that idea along with everything else.

It was an amazing thing to watch people make a fuss about it, but was right wasn't easy. In order to help the most number of people they had to do this. Tomorrow things would be better though, since then they would have the generators distributed and they'd be able to better organize food distribution to people in town. Once mothers didn't have didn't have to worry about feeding their children, people would start to come around and things would calm down. She just hoped the county saw it that way.

Besides it wasn't even like Lowes or Walmart were really here to complain. They weren't taking stuff from actual residents they were taking possession of the store's stock, and since those corporations weren't in town they couldn't really complain. She leaned her cheek against her hand as she hunched over her desk, and waited for Paul Ferrer to figure out if the computers would work or not.

She understood why the power had stopped working in a broadly simplified explanation. Nothing they could really do about that. Right after the event the back up generators had kicked over pretty much without anyone needing to do anything and the city's government center continued to function as had cell phone towers. Fuel for those generators had been something to conserve... and in hindsight it might have been a good idea to turn some of them off before they ran them dry. They hadn't acted fasted enough.

Finally she turned on her notebook computer and waited for it to boot up. It took a few more minutes, but then she had wi fi again. Not Internet... or rather only local network connection. Her email chimed a minute later. The perfunctory message was simplistic, a simple test message that had it been from an outside the network sender might have triggered the spam settings... she was actually surprised it hadn't.

She composed one of her own and sent it off.

Five minutes later another message came, with more in depth instructions. She repeated the process of turning her iPhone on and connecting it to the network. The city's app system worked as well, which meant in theory they'd be able to use WiFi in place of the normal cellular network... though only in places that they had wi fi connected to the local network.

It would be dependent on electrical power, and that would be a problem. The city center was obviously going to have to have power, but she wondered exactly how they would provide for even the rest of down town. Well since the computer was working again, she sent off an email query for ideas to the rest of her staff who were supposed to be testing everything. Testing would really mean playing to make sure the App alert system worked.

There was of course no reason why it shouldn't work now that it had power, but given it was now after five and there wasn't anything else to do it made sense to check. Besides most of her staff were under thirty, and even she was already starting to go stir crazy without access to the near constant stream of updates from facebook.

--

The following morning, as a second weekend got ever nearer, a small panic had broken out. The disturbance had its roots in more than one thing, but the kick off event had been the 'nationalization' / seizure of inventory. It wasn't so much the reasoning behind it most people doing the actual rioting that developed by mid morning hadn't put that much thought into it. The people who were just running around with their heads cut off also hadn't bothered with paying much heed to the reasons either. Most the disturbance really was just a way to blow off steam from all the accumulated stress of having been thrown back almost four hundred years.

By the time anyone had found found George Campbell he'd been dead for at least several hours, longer probably, but not much longer. "Looks self inflicted." Merle grunted. The sheriff's deputy had long since holstered his side arm, and the police officer next to him with the shotgun still readied looked a little sheepish.

"Do you see a note?"

The looked around the bank's small office space; it was an older layout. George Campbell had managed to, if this was suicide, make a real mess when he had checked out. The over turned chair, sprawled body, and papers everywhere did give a strong impression that there had been a struggle. Couple that with the fact that it was dark as shit without electrical power, and being limited to only flashlights, and the handful of idiots who had among other things burned a suburban a few blocks down it had made sense to be cautious as well.

Not that if it had been a murder the murderer would have been still sticking around by the time they had gotten here. "No, his ex wife lives in town." The deputy muttered. Technically both the bank man and his family all lived in town. The only reason the sheriff's department were here was how short handed the city was.

It would be good if this was a suicide. Callous as that might have sounded the police officer knew it would not only make his job easier... he mused rifling through the papers with the flashlight in his mouth... and his job being easy when it closed this case would ease things up the ladder. It not being a murder meant there wouldn't be the chief and the mayor breathing down their neck to solve it. He didn't like the idea of trying to solve a murder in this situation. Even with all the technical gizmos, even accounting the wait time for the state crime lab, crimes against people were fifty fifty about getting solved... or more correctly closed.

It took them several more minutes of searching through the dark, but there was a suicide note. It wasn't especially clear... might mean something to the family about why, but it would let them satisfactorily declare it a self inflicted death. The two men backed out of the room, headed out of the local branch office, and locked back up after them.

Not that there was really any point to doing so. Since the Ring of Fire they doubted anyone at the bank had come in before mr. Campbell had showed up to commit suicide, even if they had it wasn't an issue. There were probably employees with keys, but they wouldn't have a reason to break the police evidence seal the officer affixed to the front glass double doors. All the banks in town were closed... in no small part because most of them were apart of much larger financial institutions, which had large corporate facilities in the state capital. A capital which effectively no longer existed... and neither did the even more distant corporate headquarters of Wells Fargo, or Bank of America... or whoever.

Not that there had been much reason for the local county bank, or the farm bureau, or any of the credit unions in town, to open since the ring of fire either. The dollar was worthless without the US economy to back it up. Without large commercial institutions things like mortgages meant nothing, and credit cards were worthless, but so too were the accumulated debts. That would have been the logical way to look at things... except the economy was gone. The dollar was worthless, and without that currency no shops and businesses were running. That was so much more apparent on the ride back to the local command post... which was its actual label though most people settled for precinct... that serviced this end of town.

Everything was closed, and had been closed. The people who worked there were probably going stir crazy. Unlike the local starbucks though municipal services were still working. The only private company still working was the power company, and that was largely in concert with the fire department dealing with natural gas. As a result it was a long stretch of empty roads, driving past empty parking lots. That being stuck at home had contributed to the stress build up that had played a part in the riot, the mayor nationalizing the goods of certain large store chains had probably played a roll only as being the spark that had set the kindling on fire.

George Campbell had killed himself because he knew he no longer had a job. He had killed himself because there was no going back to his normal life. There was no point in pulling money out of the bank's vault because that money wasn't worth anything. That was why he had painted his brains all over the ceiling as he had leaned forward in his chair over his desk.

They'd check the house, but it wouldn't be a priority now. The officer wondered if it should be... suicide and all the man probably had stuff that might be useful to other people. That wasn't in his job description. He held up the plastic evidence bag with the man's wallet, and keys, and gave them a good shake. He wondered how well the neighbors had known the bank man next door.

Merle glanced at him, "Don't worry about." The deputy grunted barely open his mouth as he moved to step out into the parking lot. In a normal situation next of kin should have been their job, but it wasn't going to be their immediate job. The morning had had too much excitement, and on top of that there was no guarantee the wife would be at home. Not saying she wouldn't be either, but they just didn't know. "If it falls to us we can do it around five, until then..."



The Mayor might complain but the police chief was willing to take the heat after people had started setting cars on fire. It was why he brought the shotgun out for the building, but deputy was fishing his county bushmaster out. He watched Merle's line of sight to where it lingered across the street... buildings built back in world war II, some probably before, and some after. Merle looked at him raised an eyebrow "Whats up?" He asked finally.

"I'm thinking this is gonna suck." He was looking at how he had his hand resting his hand on the top of his glock, "You should keep that handy. The shotgun too man."

The cop quirked an eyebrow, he'd never remembered getting ridden nearly this hard by someone from the Sheriff's detective bureau... sheriff's department at all... not this hard... before. "Yeah?"

"Yeah I think so," Johnson replied, he threw a look to the east side of town... what was the west now since things were spun round. "Lets just say, man, that," He snorted, "Nothing... you'll probably see it sooner or later, you'll get what I mean." He said it wasn't just that, and he threw a thumb back down the street of the suburban burned out.

Merle wondered running a hand through his increasingly shaggy brown hair what the police chief would say about that... or the mayor.

 

Dominion of the Baltic Sea​

May 1628 Second Week
The Campus front had a series of immaculate carefully cultivated plants. It was a subtle reminder of political connections, and old family money. Aunts this, grand father that, great grand fathers. Distant cousins galore... that was colonial Americana.

Three hundred years.

Not quite long enough to be sure that Viridian City's colonial forebearers ... not that Viridian had been chosen that had been a post reconstruction branding decision... were in the New World... but it was something that had to have crossed the historical societies mind. Much as it had crossed his own...

He couldn't worry about the timeline changes. That was a headache for the philosophy majors to deal with, he had other things to do. He had practical, engineering things to do. He pulled the door, and listened to the AC going... someone had changed the settings... again... despite the sign saying not to. The inside did not need to be set to sixty five it was bad for the machinery, but people complained and did it anyway.

It didn't surprise him at all.

"This place is pretty nice, boss." The marine non com declared.

His brother was not quite as keen as on the full battle rattle the non com was wearing. Viktor was not wearing the combat gear... having decided to compromise with something more akin to what he worn on executive force protection operations for the unit.... that was to say a low visibility plate carrier that didn't come festooned with molle and toe clckers...

... grenades would have been nice... but they didn't have those... to the sergeants disappointment.

... no he was wearing a suit, and he had a compact sig rifle in the eberlstock on his back. It was in a mud and green colored camo, which he ordinarily still wouldn't have brought to the University... it might have been hunting camo but it was camo, and it still had molle on it. It was a bit too tactical. He had told uncle Lloyd he'd keep a rifle handy though, so he was going to do that... even if he thought it was a bit much. That was part of the reason why his thoughts were on the founding families.

He was wondering if he was overthinking things, and from the look he'd been tuning out the other professor, "Anyway," Stewart said taking a minute to scratch the back of his head, "what I was saying was we're really going to run into a problem with hard currency. Gold and silver coinage."

"Yeah. There aren't any central banks yet." Not in the national banking apparatus that could be depended upon to print up stable currency. If this had been a hundred years ago, well pre Roosevelt there likely would have been other problems but gold and silver would have been more available... though there were probably some gold and silver reserves in the banks... but modern banks didn't tend to that kind of thing it was mostly digital outside of big reserve banks... and they didn't have one of those. "If the the ring of fire had been different we might have gotten the gold mine to come along." The Confederay had mined gold to the north of them, though after the war there had been less financial incentive to mine it relative to more productive sites, and it had remained a quaint historical place to occassionally go find gold nuggests... it hadn't been in the county so it hadn't come along... no easy natural sources of extractable hard currency.

He wondered what the geology department was thinking of. It wasn't a really big department, and he wasn't even sure if they'd all be swept up by the ring of fire... johnny cash jokes aside they really needed to figure out what they were going to do. He wasn't surprised by the riot in town, some degree of civil unrest was normal... cities historically were prone to civil unrest it was probably a psychological facet of population density along with lots of other group behaviors. That was beyond his area of speciality it wouldn't do to overly speculate... and his problem wasn't the atavistic root but so much as minimizing or preventing damage.

It was... he stopped before he started making comparisons that didn't need to be made.

They had problems they needed to find solutions to those problems. He pulled a series of books and looked over at the marine standing at the window. "We have a little bit of time."

The Stewart brothers both turned, "You, are you talking about the currency?"

"In part, but I meant that we can probably buy more time for ourselves, but Europe is small. Think about it we drove eight hours to western Tennesse for your cousin's wedding two years ago." Yeah they'd carpooled for that, but the drive crossed a timezone moving across three US states. "The other thing is well cities are tiny in this period." Some people ascribed too much of that to the plague but really by this point the population had recovered from the Black Death... no it was more the logistics of it. China's combination of canal system and the arrival of New World Crops, coupled with improved wet rice agriculture meant that its eastern cities were 'full size' but most places didn't have that kind of confluence of factors... and China was currently under the Ming dynasty who could barely control their frontier provinces without risking a peasant revolt... which was going to eventually lead to the Qing coming to power... and of course then the Qing would have the same problems... but China was a world away . "I need you to go next door and get me one of those boxes that printer paper packets come in," He raised an eyebrow and gestured to the small mountain of books.
--
Viktor blew out a breath. They were running numbers. Statistics, but they already weren't great numbers. Part of it was the reality of how late cold war technology had changed the everyday shopping experience of most people even if they didn't realize it. The first graphical interface units had been developed in California for the Navy back in the second world war. Not a big commericial application, but they and then the liscening out of LEDs and the development of the transistor had coupled with material sciences had lead to a replacement of not just vacuum tubes but more effective, more work efficent number crunching power.

Computer mini computer terminals eventually to the emergence of the PC in the eighties, and the networks to keep them talking to one another. First in the realm of major shipping ventures, and then by the late eighties into your local service merchandise and other shopping centers.

Travis was a sandy blond haired man a couple years younger than he was. He was an air force vet, and the ME for the county. His original plan had been to go to med school ... well things had gotten complicated. The Global War on Terror had been ... had already begun Travis hadn't been in that first chute of joining up. He'd only come in later after Iraq, after the surge. That had been the war's high water mark before things had gotten worse.... but they had left that world behind.

The thing about Travis though that made all this feasible was he wasn't going to bullshit them when it came to the prospect of shooting their way out of the situation in anything other than short term. Viktor turned around, and caught the blonde man looking at him. "What do you have for me?"

Uncle Lloyd was currently organizing the communal cookeries for the perisphable stuff from the stores which was in part trying to keep everyone on side and foster the community spirit, but also to avoid wastage. The reality was that the county homes that were powered either by natural gas, propane, or the TVA Roosevelt Era hydroelectric would largely be homes that had more than one freezer and probably spare space to store freezable food.

They weren't counting those. They were counting from the printouts of the stores of what had been in stock in inventory in the system when the ring of fire had happened. Which meant that some of that material was likely already gone, spoiled, looted, or whatever before the former sheriff could lay hands on it for his county wide pot luck.

"the good news is immediate famine is unlikely. I would even go so far as to say the Colleges might be able to feed their student bodies over the summer on what they have," He paused, "If their numbers are what they say they are."

The problem was going to be winter... which of course had always been the expectation. The problem was the math going into it. It was the city that was the problem. The city center specifically because of course the urban growth and build up post ww2 hadn't been built with everything in mind, and while there had been some gentrification the reality was the supply side of next day delivery or right on time stocking meant the margins were tight for getting through the summer months by themselves.

That was going to be a problem. It was a known problem. The unknonwn known problem was where the suburbs were going to sit in all this, the gentrified areas to. The food.

"We've got power thats a good sign. We need power restored everywhere though," That had to be the priority because the gas wasn't going to last forever, and that meant bread wouldn't last... which meant they'd need a supply of grain. That meant local suppliers, and in the 30 years war that lay to the east.

... but that was going to run into the same problem on a much smaller scale as feeding France during WW1. Grain was bulky... and they didn't have ships for it, and they didn't have a port even if they did have ships... and while rail might be a possible solution the question was how far could they actually build a rail to? Right now probably not very far. It would have to be by boat, and that would meant baltic grain being redirected from the Netherlands, or the united provinces or whatever the fuck they were called right now... they meant they needed to make a better exchange method. Something that would out bid the Dutch, and make up for their looming shortfalls.

Tony looked at the nine volume collection, "So what are those?"

"An Army buddy of mine did his doctoral on the TVA, thats the full work." Viktor shrugged, "There are a lot of moving parts, and its not maybe its not the best place to start but we're also not back in the stone age." Mikey across the kitchen island raised a beer to that one. "I've got Koistinen complete set, and some other people in that field but a lot of that is the organizational," the political economy, "Side of things." And that was the problem with a lot of doctoral work. It was what it was, they didn't need to be able to make vacuum tubes, but he could see them in a position where they might be benefitted by simple transitor radios... given a couple of years.... but not right now.

He wondered if in the grand scheme of things they even counted as meeting the Shelter requirement, but that was probably to go down the rabbit hole of over thinking things. They had clean water, that was a silver lining he assured himself... but that merely turned to the consideraiton of keep the water clean... of needing to concern themselves not just with human waste, but industrial run off... there was going to be waste generated by anything they did.
--
Notes: So brief update for this one, ATP will probably like that in the next update steam trucks do get mentioned. They don't show up yet, but their strengths and weaknesses are brought up in the first half of the next update... whenever that next update actually goes up.
Other than that ... I opened 1632 Bavarian Crisis probably should go back and reread Baltic its been a minute since then but regardless I'm not sure if it is addressed later, and if it is I'll post a retraction but Edelweiss is litterally a song from the fifties. So Anna Marie of Austria should not be humming it at all frankly even if the up timers had somehow exposed her to it.

Thats my annoyed complaint for the day. The comment on the Qing and Ming is relative to later books in the series, but also tat the EIC has actually opened Canton to trade (by force, in part due to macao being blocked to them by the Portugeese) during the late Ming dynasty... of course before they could capitalize on that the Ming (who as I pointed out were a weak dynasty) were invaded by the Qing and the EIC was distracted by other events and didn't come back for like a century, and as i've mentioned we will eventually get to naval stuff.

 

May 1628 Week 2 (post ring of fire)​

Dominion of the Baltic Sea series / 17th Century Europe​

In the future... years in the future as the decade turned and things sort of reached equilibrium they would look at the other challenges put forward by being in the early modern period. Stewart was currently paging through one of the primers of assigned reading he tormented his freshmen with.

Viktor was staring at a digitized list. An HP Envy 4520, a compact printer connected to the house's wireless, was already churning out pages. Communication was one of those things he expected was being over thought... in the short term. His thoughts about radio while probably not as outlandish as some... well he wasn't sure precisely what the priorities would be.

Modern digital radio stations were too dependent on satellites. That was of course also a facet of commercialization, but even besides that problem there were going to be others. Maintenance and power draw would come to mind to anyone who thought about it... but the reality was not just transmission. It was reception.

They were going to have to make a transition back to wired telephones for home and office to at least some extent. Cell phones would work, either by local internet connections talking to one another even accounting for latency and lag would be annoying but at least it was something, but that wasn't an ideal solution outside of fixed points either.

They wouldn't be able to operate aircraft for very much longer just on the sake of fuel, and he was skeptical there were enough remaining anti fire watch towers or that they were correctly positioned to make up for that. That those tree lines were now not just a fire risk but also a security one was another problem entirely beyond the manpower needed to watch for one or both of those.

Oliver picked up the sheets in the tray and thumbed through them. The first page was nothing special... it was just a reiteration that their transition other than directional orientation was roughly in line with the county dimensions. "Still waiting for those water and soil tests?" T he unspoken part of the question was how important they were.

"Its obviously not that pressing, but I do want to know if it was a perfect sphere... and the water tests are going to be important, but we need to fix the dam."

The dam that had been built by the TVA overhauls not withstanding it was what provided their most reliable source of long term electrical generation. Oliver flipped some pages, "Be like one of those 4x city builders we can build the refrigeration right next to it so the power lines don't get smashed." He observed.

Which while not the best analogy wasn't without validity. Defending the dam from a military perspective was relatively easy. It had wide open sight lines the roads were well situated for defense and there were even old public works buildings that frankly might as well have been bunkers from how the TVA had built them. Concrete would be cheap and relatively resistant to fire and cannon of this era... but even that was getting ahead of themselves.

"What the fuck is this?"

Viktor looked at the page, "Its a boiling vessel, its for a steam tractor," or truck frankly the early 20^th century had from time to time used them interchangeably, "Coal is going to be mess but in braising terms the vessels shouldn't be hard for us to make," Certainly relative to an internal combustion engine, "They're not your dwarf tanks from Warhammer," they were entirely too fragile for that, given the boiling vessels would have to be hand made, but... "in terms of plowing a field, this is the best old tech I can think of to clear land." It was one of the things he had been asked to find.
The advantage was of course there was there was the train museum and the firms that welded either as their business or as part of the business of fabrication.

"Why would coal be a problem?"

"Transportation mostly, Germany's canal system is at best infantile at this stage," and the small canals that did exist were patchwork little pieces transversing feudal principalities, "There is the stirling engine we could use off of wood fuel but that will quickly deplete any sort of forest reserves we have," And if they had to build something arguably any pine stocks they needed would likely be better used for making plywood... but that wouldn't be his call that would be the county's.

Back in the before, back in the 21^st century they had come from... the Germans and the French in the EU had been arguing that reforestation back to previous levels of the 19^th century had met with protests because that meant that Germany and France wouldn't have to do much where as countries like Norway would be on the hook as they had industrialized later. Deforestation was another concern already in the 17^th century here though, as it had been since Elizabethan times as England had already largely deforested, and the Royal navy was dependent on the export of swedish timber stocks ... but that wasn't relevant yet.
--
A modern county... well potentially barring maybe a couple of the weird ones out west simply lacked the necessary resources to be self sufficient. It was a reality of modern transportation capacity making it possible to supply food to the significant population densities, while also still providing the space for... well everything else.

They were electrically self sufficient... ish.

That was assuming they could keep the hydro electric system running, but that meant in turn refrigeration which would diminish food spoilage, but that didn't address needing to b e able to feed the population. Even if they had been autarky was a stupid concept on anything other than a continental scale, and even then was overrated.

Viktor was currently on the fence over which would have been better. Being here in admittedly post medieval early modern Europe was far from ideal, "So there are what like three hundred states?"

"German principalities, something like that," The post napoleonic war had consolidated those down to a tenth of that, and the Germanic pan nationalism had amalgamated that down further... but German as it was spoken now was much closer to english of the period, and english of the period was still very close to old norse... and technically gothic was still spoken. The issue was that all of the languages in question lacked the technical vocabulary that defined their modern up time counterparts or certain simplifications that the languages had undergone with the mass proliferation of literacy in the vulgar iteration of day to day vernacular.

The next question was predictable but still, "So what do we do?"

They were going to need trade partners, and the thirty years war presented a problem even beyond the sorry state of the transportation infrastructure. They were going to need to find someway to trade with the locals for grain foodstuffs... and that was going to be hard even without Wallenstein's army in the vicinity due to those logistical issues. "They're," Wallenstein's 'foraging' parties, "getting better organized," and with limitations on gasoline they weren't going to be using cars which meant they were going to need horses which meant they were going to need fodder, and it was also going to use up veterinary supplies that they couldn't readily replace.

It would push them into, retro tech and its vaguely steampunk aesthetics of the post settling in period as they acclimated to what was and wasn't feasible in the 17^th century... but at least in being in Europe there was access to the market resources both to buy and sell goods they didn't have to do everything themselves.
--
Notes: Update for this, though I do want to say one thing that annoys me about this, is that I formatted the original version of this (this is a fairly old project) about ten years ago, so it is spread through a folder and its done in such a way I wonder what the fuck I was thinking in terms of doing it like that.

Also this is going up because I've got DnD tonigh and am still behind from last week. I'm hoping to have rabid fox's update ready by tomorrow but I make no promises.

EDIT: Also if anything stands out in this post feel free to comment this is an older project, so as with the canonical 1632 series there are limits on what tech is available, that is one of the things to which I attempted to hew towards when writing this originally. (In pure nitpicking terms this is why certain gadets and gear don't show up but unlike with 32 this is a post or a late GWoT US community thrown back in time so there is a lot of civilian available gear in play)

 

May 1628 Week 2; pg 31

There was no denying that Wallenstein's pillagers were getting more organized. Some of that might have had nothing to do with bushwhacking a handful of outlying patrols, but it was also likely that the increased organization was from the unexpected resistance.

The college had different arguments for that, with out dedicated 17^th century specialists to argue authoritatively the argument turned into one of politics and economics that might have been off base, but certainly were well beyond the scope of their current issue.

... which was the fucking foraging party. "Should we light them up?"

"No, not yet." He adjusted the binoculars. They'd split up, divided a roughly company sized group of men down to squad sized formations. It would have been nice to have heavy weapons, a couple gooses would have been nice to have tucked in reserve.... but they didn't have those. The terrain wasn't really ideal for machine guns either, and they didn't have the open sightlines for mortars to be walked on targets... even if they had had those.

They did have radios, and even crappy FCC limited civilian radios were better than nothing, which meant they had a fairly good series of overlapping fields of fire from the spread.

Tony grunted, and lowered his field glasses. "Pft most of them don't even have guns, and god they stink." He shook his head. It made sense though these guys were in the field for probably months on end during a time without modern plumbing. There was no fob with a shower, much less hot water to scrub the grime off for these poor smelly bastards. "Why do they have those pikes?"

"The most likely explanation is Wallenstein sent them to pillage the area." he probably didn't think they needed guns... or he didn't want them wasting gunpowder. He also guessed that not having to carry firearms, and powder, and ammo would let them carry more stuff. There was also the possibility they expected horses as well... but who would be attacking from horseback.

In theory. Too much of the shit they were working on was speculation. Given how many of them there were he could shoot them all day, and it really wouldn't have made any difference. It was the difference between a battle and a war. Tony considered the suroudning... german... countryside the divide between them made a pretty noticeable shift in terrain at the boundary. If the circumference of the circle it formed wasn't so huge they could have done something with it. Without any seabees though there wasn't anything that could be done quickly on that angle, which did suck.

"Why are they even here?"

He was getting tired of the questions. "To pillage stuff?"

"Why? They're from here right?"

Probably not, here, here.... or this part of Germany. "They're supposed to be sieging some city nearby, and they are 'living off the land' which means taking it from anyone who has it." This was not what he should have wasting time with looking down the copse of trees at a bunch of homicidal men at arms. They couldn't be going very far so there had to be a more centralized place a bunch of guys on foot could get to nearby, which complicated the idea of attacking them outright.

It was true that most of them didn't have guns, but that didn't mean much if it lead a bunch more of their friends to them. Then again given the abrupt and noticeable terrain shift caused by the event, and the fact Wallenstein's men were definitely getting better organized in the area tehy were settling in for a long siege over summer. That wouldn't be good for them given how big field armies in this period could get.

Anthony Stewart leaned against his rifle. They'd brought Armalite type rifles; mostly the county's bushmaster AR 15, but some had opted for FN, and a smattering of Daniels rounded things out. There were other options, but no one had seen the point of trying to get inventive and risk someone screwing up. As far as he could figure that was why the sheriff's department was strongly discouraging people from meandering out into the woods, which hadn't set well with plenty of the western wald good ole boys in the face of some nebulous foreign threat.

Plenty of men, and it was predominantly men, were agitating about doing something, but like with the military there was a problem with finding people who were physically in shape enough to do the hard part of the labor. Given gas shortages they wouldn't be using cars much, and that meant a whole lot of walking... even if they could use trucks for part of it, there weren't much in the way of roads so double problem there.

He understood it was an emergency... that he was now apart of an actual Sheriff's posse was probably something not to mention. He wasn't precisely sure that they were on the legal side of posse commitatus, regardless of the flimsy argument of 'marine not army'. Then again htat would only matter if they found someway to get home... and he had accepted that probably wouldn't happen. "This saves me the trouble of getting divorced."

A deputy snorted. "You should be glad she didn't hoc all your shit."

"Shut up." Snapped another deputy. "They're going to hear us."

[The] "Fuck they will." Maybourne snarled shouldering his rifle. "Dumb mother fuckers don't know we are even up here." That was the advantage of the OCP pattern camo the army had adopted in that... it blended really well with the surrounding woodlands of the southeast. Better, way better, than the UCP would have been blending in with trees.

Tony pushed his boot emphatically at Maybourne's ankle, and jerked his nose. "They're are a bunch of them." Maybourne took the hint and adjusted his volume. "Just because they don't have guns doesn't mean we have to fight." Yeah he wasn't buying that line of argument either, and from their looks no one else was. Still they'd been specifically told not to start anything they didn't have to... something about unnecessary risks.

Right now they just weren't seeing anything that merited doing something stupid like giving away their position. At least not when they didn't have to, especially without artillery...

He had no sooner thought that than about four hundred yards right and the holler that formed from the boundary of where uptime carolina met down time north germany a started musket query sounded. It was immediately answered by the section in the area, but not by an announcement over the radio.

More white smoke from a handful of guns and more answers and horse whinnies.

"Can we-"

Viktor qued his throat mike, "All sections you're free to engage."

"Fuck yes." Maybourne hissed before squeezing the suppressed rifle's trigger.

Viktor adjusted his own trusting Tony to keep their base of action covered against close in problems that might crop up and held low to account for his zero on the man in the viddles wagon. The wagoneer tumbled from the bench as the match boat tail zipped into his thorasic cavity.
--
The 'attack' came with plenty forward warning thanks to rovers; portable radios. Tony had been heading out with the rest, and Michael had gotten the message through the wifi connection running their cellphone's text messages. He had been at the university at the time, but he had known it was coming because his brother had been there. So too it had turned out had his students, and indeed the city. That was the difference. Oh the local police force had plenty of veterans in it, but not to the extent of the county Sheriff. That had been a political calculation by the previous sheriff before he had retired. Oliver's uncle had hand groomed his successor though, and he had also reshaped the organization he had lead, and part of that had been pushing to expand the department and significantly modernize it. His definition of modern had been to emphasize locals who had come back from war on terror, courting them to go to college, and work their ass off.

Michael knew that Oliver's uncle was probably even now playing advisor to his chosen successor along with their closest political allies about what to do. There was however another political song and dance going on. There was also other smaller law enforcement agencies to contend with in town though small was the operative word compared to the big two. Hah that was funny in hindsight... he wouldn't have thought of them like that before this. "How's it going Dave?"

"Eh," The Poli Sci prof shrugged, "Not off with the Dark Lord, oh right the war." Dave yawned and stretched, and smelled faintly of marijuana, which he supposed that there were worse ways to cope with the situation of being transmitted through time and space into the middle of war torn Europe. "How is that going yourself?"

"Wallenstein came at us again this morning." He made a point of ignoring the jibe, the Dark Lord moniker meant Luke...

"Did he?" A lot of people had for some reason referred to Albrecht Wallenstein, as Wallenwhatsit or some variation of messing up the man's name up. It really was rather petty, though some of it was legitimately that some people werern't sure how to say it in the first place. "I guess they didn't come in force."

No... generally speaking from what he had gathered they hadn't and nor was it likely that the pillagers would come in force. They needed to hold Stralsund in check. "No probably not, but they have to know something is here, which might have Wallenstein's attention." He wasn't sure why he was telling Dave that... especially given the lapse in the man's drug habit, but he pressed on. The situation as it was, was worth talking about.

Dave's fellows the little gathering of other social scientists throwing together were a mixed bag. Some of them honestly believed they could talk this out, and... "I think we need to talk to the locals. I mean sooner rather than later, man." He leaned back... and for a serious moment Michael half expected the man to produce a blunt and light up, but he just leaned back on the metal bench outside of the hall. "Those Stralsund people have to have some kind of government right if they're enemies of well those guys, and we are. It wouldn't hurt to be on the same side."

That was a different angle than Michael had heard, but then as Dave had pointed out he had been absent from campus rather frequently since the event had transposed them here. Some of the administration were still arguing over whether they should be finishing the semester or already adopting the local calendar day. Not that there had been anyone taking seriously the prospect of going to class. Plenty of kids in the library... though it had power still so of course they were there for the AC while it lasted.

They sat there for a moment as a storm of students... probably freshmen given their ages... came barreling through the doors. At least they had energy. That was nice to see. "So Dave what is your opinion of all this?"

"Huh?" was the intelligent response, "What being stuck in early modern Europe with limited electricity..." Limitted electricity was relative, especially when they were the only ones on earth to have it right now but he got what the other professor meant, "this sucks. I mean, like no shit." He shrugged, "They've introduced gas, and water rationing too. We're not going to be able to go anywhere other than biking and walking." Not that they really had a way to buy and sell gas with the way the city was acting.

Well that was blunt, "I meant the political situation, professionally?"

"Oh, yeah we're gonna be hated by everyone." He declared loudly, and some of the students looked back at him. He threw up a hand to wave a them, "Thats why we need friends. The Holy Roman Empire can afford to bury us in bodies otherwise. Since you said we're at war with Wallenstein that means them."