The Normans almost won the Hundred Years War. We did well in the early years. We raised the first standing armies since the fall of Rome. We researched new ways to fight, new weapons and new strategies. We advanced. But so did the French. They united as a people and drove us out of the Normandy coast that had been our home for centuries. And so England became our home in every way that mattered.
The Chinese do an interesting version of population control now. It’s nothing like the forced abortions of older centuries, but seems just as effective. In the Core Worlds, only the rich get the Chinese version of the treatments. Anyone else lives and dies in a matter of decades. If you’re poor, the only way to get the treatments is to join a colony looking for more warm bodies. That’s created some rather interesting effects on Chinese culture.
The shores of Xin Shi have the most expensive real estate on the planet. On the sunny side, you can swim in tropical warmth under a never-ending sun, twenty-four hours a day. Or if you prefer, you can relax before a bonfire with a cool breeze fluttering through the nighttime sky. Those who can afford access play every sport imaginable in, under, or over the water. The really rich even build houses under the water, the ultimate way of getting away from it all.
After twenty years of War, we returned home to find our worlds changed while we were away. A deep ice age gripped New Washington. Earth was recovering from a mini-ice age itself, and the western half of America was well on its way to rebuilding. Beyond the physical differences though, everything was different on a mental level. War left its scars, not all of them visible. We are still recovering from some of them.
England became more important to my family during the Hundred Years War. As feudal holders to the French throne, the Normans owed fealty to the French king. But we held the kingship of England in our own right, and we held closer claim to the throne than the new French king. We claimed it, the king disputed the claim, and a war broke out that would last a hundred years. That war changed us all forever.
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