Six years into The War, the French sent the first of a new class of battleships to sail with Aneerin’s fleet. He was named after the one of the most corrupt, Machiavellian, conniving, and ruthless leaders that France ever had. And I mean that as a compliment. As it happens, the crew of the Richelieu was actually real friendly to me. Of course, after what the Shang did to Nouveau Paris, we all had a lot more in common than we thought before.
Independence was the first colony outside The Wall, started by the NASA crew that discovered it. The Peloran Contacted them there, and Independence claims to this day that it was First Contact. According to Earth, the Peloran traveled to Earth to make Contact, with Independence’s claims based on clocks misaligned by the time dilation of decades of hyperspace travel. Independence disputes this. I teach history there. Contact is a truly fascinating subject.
The Fermi Paradox asked why we had no contact with aliens. At the beginning of the 23rd century, we wondered if the time was right. We only began broadcasting radio in the late 1800s. We had only been traveling through the stars for a century. Compared to even our own written history, those are miniscule time frames. Did the aliens die before we found them? Were they not yet born? Had we just missed them in time?
I never was much of a beer drinker as a kid. Of course, all I had access to was the crappy three-two beer sold in Minnesota convenience stores so I wasn’t really missing much. When I was assigned to Aneerin’s fleet, I discovered some kind of honeyed mead or something that was really worth drinking for the taste. Then I discovered German beer and German beer maids and realized that there really was good beer, and good reasons to go find it.
When the Germans colonized their first world in 2147, they gave it a very German name. Deutschewelt. German World. While it may not be the most original of names, the great plains of that world grow some of the best grains in all the worlds. Which of course means it makes the best beer in all the worlds. The Germans do have their priorities after all. I’m a brewer there, making good dark German beer so thick that a mug is almost optional. Almost.