An Experiment into the Controlled Release of Information about the Future.

I was still on the Terra-forming station orbiting Venus. Myself and the rest of our Temporal Command was in the know as to what was going on, as was the S. American commander who ran the station. However, the station crew had no idea what was going on. Communications with Earth were cut off, something that never happened before. Then they realized that no one can reach the other supply ships or the second Ore Crusher. They knew something bad was up. Things were getting tense, as there was no plan in place to ever take the Temporal Research public. This was particularly hard due to transparency rules most governments had, but there were still rules in place from when military's were still more of a thing. I never fully understood how they kept everything secret, but they managed it.

After receiving word that Earth was gone, and that our remaining Supply ship took on survivors from the European base. The S. American commander realized the situation, we had 5,000 humans on the station, no cloning facilities, and only a couple hundred "Soul" batteries. After consulting with us and the N. American commander over long-range communications. The decision was made to tell his command staff and leadership of the situation. It was not pleasant, but they realized that they were in a desperate situation. The rest of the crew would be informed if we could not solve the problem in a weeks time. It was just a problem with the comms.

Meanwhile, the N. American Commander was broadcasting a wide-band signal trying to get the African and Asian Commands to pick up. They were stubbornly thinking that losing communications with Earth was a technical problem on their end. Fed-up with being ignored for hours, he broadcasted images of the cold, dead Earth on open frequencies. That got their attention and they finally started talking to us, mostly demanding answers. Neither of them had teams in the past either. The Asian Commander agreed to use their experimental clone bay to get the European Commander back because we wanted answers. To avoid more communication delays (still takes several hours to send signals across the system) they decided to pick-up the African Commander and head to Titan.

However, the Commander did not think completely think the broadcast thru. He forgot that we were holding off on telling the rest of the station crew. That was a real shit-show. So, two days after Earth suddenly disappeared. Some of the crew heard the N. American Commander yelling at the other Commanders to "pick-up, we know your there, this is no time for the cloak and dagger Bullshit!" and saw the evidence that Earth was gone. Panic ensued as word spread. None of them realized that Time travel was involved yet, and were trying to figure out what was going on. Asteroid? Accident? Aliens? Mostly, they LIED about the comms being down.

They were pissed that Command was not telling them. So, while the N. American Commander was trying to be diplomatic with people we strongly disliked (and they disliked us just as much), the S. American Commander had to try and calm down 5000 people who just found out that they were the last survivors of Earth. We did not tell them about time travel at that point, just that the situation was being "Investigated" but that our main mission to Terra-form Venus was now even more crucial to humanities survival. This is our main focus, and that we will have to work with the other Commands to survive. Honestly, it was pretty inspiring. There were still rumors that about not being told everything. (where are the other ships? one might have been on Earth, but the second Ore Crusher was munching on Mercury.) But, because of the social unity brought about by people moving to be near other like-minded individuals. They still trusted the N. and S. American commanders, mostly (N. and S. America might have a number of differences, but the people have more trust in their local leaders. If they say that the other is alright, the people generally follow.)

No one had realized the even bigger horror than Earth being destroyed. No one thought to ask the question "where are the Souls that are in the Ethereal plane?"

 

They were gone, they were all gone. Billions of "Souls", gone.....

Even one "Soul" disappearing was almost unheard of. Normally you die, wake up a few days later, rest and gain strength for a couple of weeks, and get back to life. Every few hundred years, you start to get "Really Tired" (not physically, but spiritually) and your "Soul" goes to rest in either "Paradise" or "Punishment" overseen by the "Deity". I won't get into that bit much, what is important is that in my era around 20% of people are at rest (usually lasting between 100 and 500 years). These points are well planed out in advance, as it is rare that anyone go to "Punishment", even rarer for longer than 100 years (also, people remember if you were an a**hole in your previous life, so generally people are more polite. Imagine a society where Canadian's would be considered rude.). So we know that we will be out for 100 years on an extended vacation. Breaks up the year-to-year monotony.

I look back now and ask myself, how did the "Spiritual Science" people not think of this first? They were doing cloning research on Titan. They had a large team studying the connection pathways trying to get us to remember even farther back (remember, we can only remember back 1500 years or so). But, I guess with the everyone trying to figure out why there is a giant elephant laying down in the room, no one noticed the bloody spot underneath it.

It wasn't until after the Supply Ship reached Titan. The African Commander asked "have you tried reviving the last people that died on Earth? We could Interrogate them to see what happened and get clues." The Chief of the Cloning operation checked the plane, only to find it gone....... and without the Ethereal plane, if we died and no battery was available, death would be permanent. We had around 200, the African's another 50, the Asian's 400. 650 "Soul" batteries in total for almost 10,000 humans, many of whom were close to getting a new body due to age... Almost forgot to mention, only 10 clone bays, and it takes 2 years to bring a clone to maturity.

We needed a new plan.

 

We had to make some hard decisions, and they needed to be made fast. And a lot of people were not going to like them in the least.

First, we resurrected the European Commander. Maybe he had some answers to this nonsense, everyone else already proved that we had no agents in the past. It would take a couple of weeks for him to recover from the resurrection.

Second, we still had no idea how long it would take to fix things. We did not entertain the idea that it could not be fixed, and supplies would start running low. African Command and Asian Command were entirely dependent on Earth for food and supplies. The joint American (both North and South) Commands were dependent on Earth for Water and Air. Things were going to run out quickly.

The usual arguing and bickering between the different Continents did not happen. They all realized that they needed each other for the basic necessities.

Titan has water in abundance. It was the main reason Asia set-up their research post their. Where there is water, There can be life. (the first true non-terrestrial life was found there.) Electrolysis was used to get Oxygen for air and Hydrogen for additional fuel. Their clone bays and "Spiritual Science" teams would bring back the mission critical personnel quickly.

The Joint American base was researching food production and eco-system development in preparation for the Terra-forming of Venus. It was not quite sustainable for our population before, but with the added water from Titan, and diverting all our resources from the planet, we could scrap by. People might go hungry, but would not starve. We also had the only 2 ships remaining. (It was really good luck that we had any ships. Usually, they would have all been out but a scheduled crew rotation for the two ship meant that they were in dock.)

The African Command had some of the best talent in the world on their team. Their help actually made the sudden switch from "research farm" to "real farm" possible. They were invaluable in building an Electrolysis system in record time. The thing looked like something out of MacGyver but it worked. They even agreed to "abandon" their base to pool and save resources. They split their team, half lived on Titan and half lived on our station.

Third, and this is where people started to complain very loudly but; we had 10 clone bays, 650 "Soul Batteries", and no Ethereal Plane. Once the batteries were filled, we would have to choose who to save. So the painful decision was made, we would use Natural Birth to fill in the coverage.

Pregnancy is rare in our time, some people prefer it, there even are small nations of people who insist on it even. They still retain all their memories from past lives, but they have to grow up naturally. Most people don't bother and most women don't like having to be pregnant (although, I hear the pay is quite good). So, that was not a fun meeting telling the around 5,000 women that they would be required to give birth from time to time on a rotating cycle.

There was then quite a bit of yelling when it came to Breast Feeding. Especially, after it was mentioned that at any given time around half of the women would need to be wet-nurses. No, we did not have the resources or materials needed to make bottles. But as there was legitimately no way to make formula in the short-term it was eventually accepted........... Side note: Thank you to all the brave Women who gave birth to children. You have given the greatest of services to your community and nation. This is true throughout all ages.

The other downside was that it would take the "non-critical" workers out of the work-force for at least 8 years. At least child labor laws only apply to when people are not born with knowledge of their past lives. But the process of doing it this way means that the knowledge is not immediate. It takes more time to integrate memories. This meant that instead of 10,000 people working together, there would be only 7,900 after thing got going. (2,000 children, 100 child-care workers) Less if we count the time that women needed to feed the children.

Of course, there was a "Vigorous" discussion about not allowing women to take on dangerous or hazardous missions. They were now our most valuable personnel. But, the needs of the human race surviving outweighed all other concerns. When put like that, everyone agreed that survival trumps all.

The news did not get better, no-more-implants for anyone, including "Mission essential" personnel. The surgery require to put them into living beings is risky, usually not a problem when you have an unlimited number of Clones. But a 2% failure rate was just to much of a resource drain. People, accepted that a bit more willingly, although..........

I was still "young", I had just gotten a new body 5 years earlier. But the thought was unsettling, people would have memories of them being "Smarter, Quicker, and all-around Better" but would now be unable to do all the same things they used to.

Seems a bit petty now, especially considering the women's situation, but at the time being born and having to through childhood was not a pleasant idea. No understanding, yet a slow creeping terror that something bigger is going on. Not fully grasping the concepts laid before you; but a deep, dark, sense of déjà-vu pokes at you. Like you are suppose to remember what is going on but can't.

It was a very eventful 2 weeks to say the least.

The European Commander was shocked that all this was done in such a short time, but accepted that the decisions needed to be made quickly and that the Asian Commander had their interests. But everyone was more focused on the big question.

Did the European Temporal Command have agents in the Past, and if so, how the Hell did they mess things up this badly?

 

I have read many things about time travel. The question that almost always comes up is "What would be the first thing you would do with a time machine?"

After 5,000 years, the history of the 20^th century is spotty at best. Before our research mission, we believed that the whole century was one of constant war. We had forgotten that there were two World Wars, believing that it was just one really long war that lasted over a century. I touched a bit on the myths and legends. That the wars had forced extreme technological changes. In 300 short years, we went from an agrarian society to that of a high technology one.

We believed that between 20%-40% of the worlds population would be killed during this time. We believed that the Nazi's had ruled a third of the world thew force, and were cannibals, and developed atomic weapons, and that Nuclear exchanges were common.

We discovered only recently, from this research mission, that the radiation signatures were actually from testing Nuclear weapons. The World Wars may have kick-started the high-tech revolution but they were not the sole driving force.

But one thing we knew, that there had been an "Anti-Christ" on the Earth (closest translation that makes cultural sense). I suspect you already know who I am talking about.

Adolf "Anti-Christ" Hitler

The European Temporal Command went back in time, over 5000 years, and killed Hitler.

They were pretty smart about it to. They researched the legends carefully and found one chance that had a "fair" chance of success (estimate of 20%). They then sent 2 agents back in a Temporal-Wolfhelm machine. The date was early January 1894. Just stop one boy from rescuing a 4-year old child who was drowning. Simple enough, create a cover story and invite the family over to dinner. They had enough gold to buy the neighbor's house, this was the most strait forward thing.

If the mission was a bust, or if they were too late, gather intel and try again later. If they were early, then they would blend in and wait for a chance to strike.

They could not kill him directly, there was to much of risk of being captured (the Wolfhelm did have a self-destruct, but there would be catastrophic consequences if that happened). But this opportunity was ideal. Just a tragic accident.

It might not stop all the wars from happening, but it should have reduced the severity. Right?

But why.......... Why did the Earth turn to ash? HE WAS ADOLF "THE ANTI-FIGGEN-CHRIST" HITLER!!!

Everyone was in shock, their shock turned quickly to rage. If they had succeeded, without the Earth blowing up, then untold BILLIONS of lives would have changed. Just the family tree of one person changing that dramatically over 5000 years would be hundreds-of-thousands, if not millions of different decedents. With Millions surviving that might other wise die, Millions of children would be born who otherwise would not have been. And your life and how you live matters, it shapes you for how you will be in future rebirths. But we would remain the same, and suffer from some of the more problematic paradoxes like "your nation no longer exists, where are you going to trade to get our next meal?"

We will never truly know what happened in that other timeline. But it was even worse than anyone could imagine.

This was also one of the deciding factors in sending our first ever temporal research team to this era (19^th-21^st). We wanted to see if there were any clues as to why this happened.

But, at the time, no one knew why. All we knew was that we needed to build a new Temporal-Wolfhelm machine, go back and prevent the agents from letting Hitler drown.

Now, with no Earth, meant no manufacturing bases or mining operation for materials more easily gathered on Earth. It might take centuries before we could get everything we would need. We would have to build asteroid miners and factories. Heck, maybe even a couple orbital platforms and space docks to build and maintain the ships we would need to haul everything.

In order to restore the Earth, the last 10,000 souls would need leaders to keep things focused on salvation. The 4 Commanders accepted the European Commander's resignation and appointed his 4^th Officer to lead the European survivors (the only one who actually objected to the stupid "kill someone that far in the past" plan). These 5 Commander's then formed and ratified the First Temporal Council.

Their primary objective being restoring the timeline. Their second objective was to ensure our survival. Nothing else would matter.

 

I have debated putting this in. There are still many uncertainties, but one of the main objectives to our original mission was to answer the question, "Why?".

Why did assassinating the "Anti-Christ" Hitler result in the destruction of Earth?

I alluded to this before but, we did not realize that WW1 and WW2 were separate. We had believed that Hitler was responsible for all of the Wars in the 20^th Century. We were not even sure as to the events that led up to him ruling Germany.

We now know more of the truth. The start of WW1 had nothing to do with him, but due to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was in economic ruin. He was charismatic and led Germany into a short period of economic success.

People were still upset at the rest of the world for the suffering they had to endure, and willingly supported a stronger military (though it could be debated whether or not they wanted it for defensive purposes). Even though Germany had violated it's treaty numerous times in regards to military buildup, the rest of the world did not enforce the treaty.

But Hitler was crazy. We had always assumed that him being called "crazy" was just because he wanted to take over the world and the atrocities committed. Oh No, he really was even crazier than that. He was truly insane.

He was massively paranoid, especially near the end. Executing many good and qualified leaders and replacing them with idiots.

He ignored sound advice, instead going for high-risk/low-reward strategies that were doomed to fail. Prioritizing revenge strikes instead of more strategic offensive and defensive maneuvers.

He attacked France and quickly turned the Army around to attack Russia. Now fighting a two front war. (Russia hated Germany, but would not intervene due to the high cost of war.)

An example might be the Blitz on England. Sound strategy on paper, damage vital infrastructure and demoralize the citizens. But it was a waste.

While some of the bombings were against military production, far to much was against civilian infrastructure. The people felt like that they had two choices; surrender and die, or fight until the end. It solidified England.

Germany lost far more planes than the English (thanks to radar technology). Despite their loses, they kept throwing more planes and bombers at the English.

The same was true for just about every front.

Even the "Deity" got involved by "obscuring" the minds of commanders. D-Day should never have been that successful. (Did not help that the soldiers were to dependent on receiving orders to do anything) Then the Battle of the Budge, really there was no way that Germany should have lost that fight.

---

Now we know Hitler did not start WW1 and it would have happened regardless. We believe that Germany would have still been in a desperate economic situation, another charismatic person would have risen but would have been much more competent.

Even though Germany had violated it's treaty numerous times in regards to military buildup, the rest of the world did not enforce the treaty. But they did not attack, rather continued to build.

It is now believed that Germany did not attack France by the late 1930's, or if they did, they did not turn around to attack Russia immediately. We believe that Germany focused more R&D into more practical weapons and fewer "Comic book Supervillian" style weapons.

They developed Atomic weapons just before the rest of the world, and built up a stock-pile.

We found surviving evidence on the destroyed Earth led us to believe that its final moments were engulfed by thousands of atomic blasts. Mostly aimed at Russia, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Japan. North and South America were virtually unscathed. However, and we are not sure how, one of the weapons ignited the Atmosphere.

We will never know for certain the exact history of the destroyed Earth. But this is the best conclusion we could come to.

 

I wanted to give a bit more context to our Culture. So I thought this humorous story about the first, and only, war since the Immortal era began (in full) would help.

Then I realized, that from your perspective this story will probably be quite horrifying. Well, it is only funny in hindsight I guess. Probably won't be funny for a few thousand years.

Also, was way longer than I expected. I had forgotten details until I started writing. (stupid normal brain with no implants or genetic improvements.)

As you know, there are five major Allied regions. For simplicity, I used the continents that each of them were on, but this was not 100% accurate. There are also ten smaller Trading Alliances that occasionally work together, not often though, and are not as wealthy or were not willing to invest in going to space. There standard of living is just as high, but they just focused on other areas of interest.

Each Alliance works slightly differently, but most (not all) operate more like an Idealized version of the USA or maybe the EU. Each individual Nation makes their own goals and agendas, while the organization above them (similar to your federal government) ensures that each nation interacts fairly with other nations in the trading alliance. They also run and maintain the regional infrastructures (rail, ports, etc) and negotiate larger trade deals with other regions. But almost no authority to tell each Nation what they can or can not do.

Like I mentioned before, most people drifted to locations that best fit their personal philosophy and beliefs. The nations then made Alliances with nations that have similar TRADE/ECONOMIC policies, but not necessarily the same political or philosophical beliefs.

It usually works out well in a "you stay out of our yard, we stay out of your yard" kind-of way. So you could have an Ultra-Conservative Nation near an Ultra-Liberal one and never have any trouble because they rarely cross the boarder. There are also strict regulations from the Alliance prohibiting Nations from interfering in elections. Even campaign contributions result in large fines.

Most Nations are a balance of moderate positions though, as everyone still campaigns to attract new citizens. But after this long, most people have settled into their new norm and are not moving.

"International" news works differently as well. Most people only care about their own Nation so 80%+ of news is just that. Then 15% might be important events from other Nations in the Alliance. With the remaining small margin about major stories like natural disasters and world changing technological advances (that the African Alliance probably won't share for another 500 years, haha).

You can read news from other places but...... why would you? The only reason most non-Americans follow American news is because it is the best reality show on television. ( yes, that was a joke. An observational joke that is also true, but still a joke.)

---

With most of the important cultural stuff said lets get to it. I have changed all the names of the Nations involved. Here are the main players.

First Texanada, the Trade Alliance that had to deal with this mess. Not much to say about them, yet.

The first Nation........ Let's call them Albert, the Albertson's of Albert.

Almost everyone is a clone, but there are a few places that hold tight that "Natural Birth" is the best way to go. (the technology for "Soul" capture is still the same. The "Soul" is just implanted a lot earlier.) There is still a few clone bays for emergencies, and they still edit out genetic defects and diseases. Everything else though is all natural.

They are also......... Highly Conservative, with everyone still holding onto "gender roles" of what men and women should do. They believe in many strange things..... Remember, everyone, and I do mean every single person who lives in Albert, all want to live like this. They chose to be Albertson's.

Albertson women are required to give birth a minimum of two times per body-life-cycle to preserve the population rate, and strongly are encourage to give more. There were certain things that were "too dangourous" for women (until they hit menopause) that men were required to do. But they are more like the Women of Sparta from your ancient history books than an oppress people.

Then there was the Nation of Calidonia. They were the exact opposite in almost every way (except trade policy).

Albertson's are a quiet people, they don't care about what other's think about them, while the Calidonian's are loud and obnoxious. For the most part, the regular citizens only annoyed one another.

Remember that I mentioned how one of the very few 'federal' responsibilities of the Trade Alliance was to prevent Nations from interfering with one another's politics. The people of Calidonia were notorious for brazenly violating that rule. While Albert was their favorite target, they enjoyed protesting everyone, anyone, and anything they could, openly defying the Trade Alliance. There were dozens of arrests every year, but they just would not stop. Rumor even had it that 5% of Texanada's budget came from fining the Calidonian's. (Not entirely true, but it was still a very significant sum.)

The final player in all this did not even want to be a player, Zizerland. Yes, that is a play on the name Switzerland because the Zize are neutral in all this. The Zize are not even in the Texanada Alliance, but a nearby one.

Their national boarders are even stranger. Here is a picture of Oman. Not a perfect comparison (because they are not completely surrounded) but you get the idea. Also, they have a pan-handle section that is about 100 miles wide, similar to the Oklahoma pan-handle. They have the misfortune of siting in-between these two nations.

---

Everything was relatively quite for around 200 years prior. The Calidionan's would rage against Albert for "gender discrimination", Albert would file complaints about Calidonia meddling in their affairs, Calidiona would be rebuked (even other Nations who agreed with them thought they were going overboard), rinse and repeat.

But a group calling themselves the "People's Liberation Front" (PLF) decided to take more direct action. They (illegally) bought "Soul Capture Batteries", "Soul detectors/identifiers", a basic Cloning facility, and then started trying to capture the "Souls" of the Albertson women. They were unsuccessful at first.

You see, the "Soul" does not promptly leave the immediate area. It will usually hang around the area for a few weeks to a few years before heading to the "Ethereal Plane". This is a well known phenomenon to anyone in the medical community......... the PLF did not even have a Nurse around.


Also, there just was not all that many "uncontrolled" deaths. Most people die and rebirth on schedule. Accidents happen, but a rare, and usually the person lives long enough to get to the hospital. So their is almost always a Doctor or Nurse nearby, with all the equipment needed to capture the "Soul".

So, several questions about the above three paragraphs. How did the buy this stuff that was so heavily regulated? How did they plan on Cloning a human being without any training? How were they funding this stupid madness?

They bribed a company to give them the equipment for 'educational' purposes.
They believed that what you learned in General Anatomy and Health class was enough. (equivalent to your High School level education)
They told their donors that they were going to use the money to protest against Albert........... They never said how.

When they realized how much more difficult it would be; they formed a new plan, even stupider, plan.
1) Smuggle the "Batteries, Detectors/Identifiers" into Albert. (boarders are not officially as 'open' as the EU, but crime had not been an issue for centuries. There was very little in the way of boarder guards.)
2) Build a bomb with a remote trigger. They did not want to get caught in the explosion and get "Soul Captured" by the local authorities. (Reason: "Gee, I wonder why this Calidonian, who is in the country illegally, was near an explosion that killed a bunch of people. Let's ask them.)
3) Attack a women's luncheon.
4) Capture as many women's "Souls" as they can during the chaos. (Remember, there has not been an attack for almost a millennia at this point. No one knew what to do, the local police were in disarray, it was chaos.)
5) Smugly Smuggle the "Soul Batteries" out.
6) Be worshiped as heroes....... (This did not happen.)

It actually worked, the attack went off without a hitch and the escaped back over into Calidonia, and they got to work cloning, badly.

---

The Nation of Albert was in panic. This had never happened before, and there was no sign of 43 "Souls". They were not in the "Ethereal Plane", not in "Paradise", not even in "Punishment".

They saw this as an attack, but could not figure out who. Could someone have really figured out how to destroy the "Immortal Soul"? And then why attack them?

They immediately contacted Texanada for help, they sent a team immediately to investigate. They tried to keep it quiet, didn't want to cause a panic but......

Within a week, everyone in Albert knew that 43 "Souls" were missing after the explosion. Two weeks, everyone in Texanada knew. They decided to make an announcement and statement to the world to hopefully avoid a worldwide panic and arms build-up. This could lead to a war that might actually kill everyone,

They already knew that normal "Souls" were going through the usual process. People die every day, the "Soul Transfer" process was still working. They asked for help from all Alliances and Nations. For once, every Alliance agreed and wanted to help. We are Immortal, no one was wanting to lose that.

I still like to talk some smack on the Major African Alliance, they are very snooty with a superiority complex to match. But, they were the first to arrive to Albert after the announcement, and they brought everything. Their best scientists, best investigators, best equipment, they even shared everything they thought would be useful. No expense was spared.

Most other Alliances sent support was well, a few experts and a lot of money.

The attack site was still in-tacked, samples were taken but no one knew what to do with the rest. The investigators scanned every last square inch of the site, then studied everything that could possibly be related to "Souls" wandering or getting stuck even.

Video surveillance systems are almost unheard of. Almost no one commits a crime, and when someone does our memory is nearly perfect. In some serious cases, like this, they can hook-up directly to the Brain and get direct access to the memories of a "Soul". This is extremely expensive, and only 'safe-ish' at best. Not dangerous for the "Soul", but can lead to damaging the link between the "Mind" and "Soul". This would cause the person to need to recover in "Paradise" for a few years.

I did mention that no expense was spared, and Africa did bring along their best equipment specifically built just for this. But the process is still a long one, it would take months.

About 10 months after the explosion, they announced that they were unable to identify the attackers, but that the "Souls" were captured in "Batteries". A small relief, but it left so many questions.

---

The rest of the world was on edge for the next several months, waiting for every update. People started to actually freak out a bit.

As the investigation dragged on, updates were becoming fewer and fewer.

Albert suspected Calidonia, but had no proof. Calidonia denied involvement trying to shift the blame elsewhere. Tensions were rising.

---

Back with the PLF. They were hiding in a basement of one of their members.

They really had no idea what they were doing. The first clone didn't have a working liver, and the second was worse. Their genetic editing skills were non-existent.

The third cloned body, somehow, was barely functional. They transferred the first of the kidnapped "Souls" into it.

Confused, the Albertson woman tried to figure out what was going on, and insisted that she get back to her husband.

"It's OK, your in Calidonia. We freed you." The PLF 'medic' said.

Of course, the Calidonian's have a bit of a reputation for their excessive criticisms of everyone. Thinking quickly the Albertson woman pretended to thank them profusely, even though she was in great pain. A 'birth defect' caused the body to develop oversensitive nerve-endings. Every light touch on her body was agony.

She bided her time, and listened to their conspiracy theories. The usual about how Albert prevented women from moving out of the nation by force and how Texanada was aiding them. Both impossible, because the head of Texanada was in fact a woman as well, and half of the representatives were also women. Heck, even Albert had a woman representing them in the Alliance at the time (a post-menopausal woman, because women of child-bearing ability needed to stay close by in-case of an emergency need for children).

They gave her monitored 'Internet' access. She realized that no one would find them anytime soon unless she took drastic action. She was able to find a map online and asked the "therapy" guard where they were. Yes, the guard told her. Why? Because almost no one had kidnapped someone in almost a thousand years, and honestly thought she was converting to the PLF cause.

Eventually, the "therapy" guard was taken off as they thought she was now on their side. They were getting ready to finish clone number 6 and were hopeful (clones 4-10 were all useless, only one clone 'survived').

In the middle of the night, after being gone for just over a year, she escaped. With incredible determination, she managed to make it to the Zizerland boarder and found a small city.

Around 18 months after the first explosion, another explosion happened. This time, it was an explosion of rage and emotion as the Albertson woman gave the investigators her testimony and they documented how bad the cloned body really was.

---

Albert demanded the immediate arrest of the terrorists. Calidonia (whose government did not originally know about what the PLF was doing) refused saying that "it was their duty to liberate people under oppression."

They would later admitted that was just political grandstanding. Trying to get support and sympathy. It failed, badly.

The world had been in a near panic for almost a year. Months more worrying about the hostages, only to find out that it was Calidonia being worse than their usual self's. News stories about Calidonia past grandstanding, fines, and political interference suddenly became world wide news. Something unheard of in my era.

Then, something unbelievable happened. Texanada actually kicked Calidonia out of the Trade Alliance. Something that has never happened before or since in any region of the world.

Was it legal for them to do that? Legal scholars have since said 'technically no', but that a unanimous vote (not counting Calidonia) kind also means 'yes'.

Twenty months after the initial explosion. Calidonia was trying to grandstand, 42 of the women were still missing, and the people of Albert was done being the "quiet old man standing in the corner".

Calidonia was no longer a part of Texanada, Calidonia was stalling for time while the "Daughters of Albert" were in danger. The everyone was losing their patience.

The Prime Minister of Albert, stood on stage next to the brave woman who had escaped captivity two months earlier, and gave this simple speech.

For the sake of our friends and family.
For the sake of our liberty and freedom.
For the sake of our right to live free of fear.
We, the people of the Nation of Albert, do hereby declare war.

(translated of course)

 

So, in the first part. I went over the set-up to the "war". This is where things get funny.

No one has a "real" military. A few places have a "natural disaster/emergency response" organization similar to the American States National Guards of this time period (no weapons). A couple places have a "Ceremonial" military that purely ceremonial. They do have glorified laser pointers that are for show, but useless for anything else.

Of course there are still security forces for doing actual guarding of government and secure buildings, but they are very lightly armed.

With the police, they have 1 real laser pistol for every 500+ officers. They are usually kept locked up unless needed. Police are more geared towards what you call "white-collar" crime as that is far more serious to the overall economy.

Some places have civilian weapons, but they are more for target practice. (only slightly better than the glorified laser pointers seen above.) The people who hunt generally use bows and arrows (or crossbows).

When Albert called their people to arms, (well, there were no arms to speak of.) 30,000 men and 10,000 women (post-menopausal) stepped forward, armed with bats and sharpened sticks. There were 50 (real) laser pistols, a few hundred "Pointy stick launchers" (bows/crossbows), and a lot of pissed off people.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. (Albert Einstein)

He turned out to be only partly right, it was not a World War at least.

The International community were both routing for Albert, but wanted nothing to do with the war. Some places sent food, medical aid, and transportation vehicles. No one sent weapons.

In terms of "re-spawning", Albertson's people never went much for cloning but focused on "natural births". So people would take around 10 years to come back after death. (around age 8-10 most people were able to fully resettle their "Minds" and "Souls". Childhood had not been a thing since we stopped letting "Souls" naturally drift into fetuses.)

But the Calidonian's were in a bad place. They still had full cloning bays, but now no one was trading with them. They were barely handling normal re-population cloning, they could not handle the thousands of extra people dying in a war.

So Zizerland, being stuck between the two, decided to host a peace conference. They did not want Albertson's "military" going through their nation, and were also quite annoyed by Calidonia's insistence that it was just a "misunderstanding". Zize was also, less than pleased that the PLF had gone thru their territory to get to Albert.

Day 1. Albertson made one demand, they did not care about reparations, they just wanted their citizens back. Calidonia tried playing to argue that the PLF was well meaning but foolish in their forwardness, but they had no way of tracking the PLF..... It was like they were saying "yes this is my employee, but I can not stop them from violating international law."

We have much better technology than people in the 21^st century. Better ways of tracking heat signature, better ways of tracking financial transactions. Heck, until this point, most disputes between nation's and regional alliances were economic's based. They could easily have tracked them down.

Day 2 of the peace talks went about the same, except Albertson started organizing their militia forces and started loading the hover ships.

Day 3. Calidonia was sure they were bluffing and held out that the PLF could not be found.

Day 4...... Zizerland became extremely frustrated and gave Albertson official permission to fly in their Air space. No land troops, no stopping for supplies.

Day 5; 7:30AM local standard time, the Albert Prime Minister opened the peace talks by saying that Calidonia had until the hover ships reached the Calidonian boarder to return their citizens. That Albertson's investigators had tracked all the PLF members and would begin the raids. Several nations had volunteered "Non-combatant" observers to ensure that only the PLF and/or Calidonia government agencies were targeted. This will occur in 3 hours.