In America, my family’s strategy was to strengthen those they thought could break the Union. In Europe though, the French Revolution was a clarion call of just how dangerous a revolution of the disaffected masses could be. Many of my family died in it, and we vowed to never allow that again. Any reformer was seen as another potential murderer of noble bloodlines and was stamped out without mercy. This did not improve the mood of the disaffected masses.
Over the years, the gengineers have uplifted most of the dog breeds. The process works best on the larger breeds. I guess there’s questions of brain size versus skull size and such. But they’ve refined the uplifting process pretty good until even the toy breeds can get the full treatments. And I’ve learned to never underestimate the vocabulary of a pissed off Chihuahua. Which, come to think of it, is most Chihuahuas I’ve met.
The Outer Colonies are the true testament of our expansion into the stars. Outside The Wall that contained us, they stretch out hundreds of lightyears to Antares, Canopus, Polaris, and the Pleiades. Clusters of many colonies huddle together for mutual support, or lone stars host colonies that are rarely visited even by freighters. They left Earth far behind, and their links to our homeworld are tenuous at best. They are the future of the Terran race.
We recruited some uplifted timberwolves for the Wolfenheim Project. After Malcolm picked the name, not before. One of Charles’ friends had a snarky sense of humor and suggested them. We also hired more cats than normal since we needed enough for long-term genetic viability. Thank God the wolves slept through the trip, or we might have had a civil war in the fleet. In the end though, they proved themselves a good recruitment.
We beat the Indians. They died by the millions, most to diseases and some to guns. We gave the survivors food, medical care, and alcohol, put them in reservations, and erased the history of a once-proud people. My family called it the “Solution to the Indian Problem.” It was not the only time they organized such a solution. It is merely the only one most who read this will recognize. I did what I did to make certain it never happened again.