1859 January 17th, 2020 CE
Nashville, Tennessee
Jack flops down onto his couch after another day of work at his office. He grabs the remote and flicks on the TV just in time for the 7 o’clock news.
<<< “... live at seven.”
“Just today, President Hayes had announced an American victory against the Mach Imperium and that negotiations were underway. This comes just a few months after the victory against the Bem Kingdom. In both conflicts, American forces have taken supposedly zero casualties. In his address to the nation, President Hayes claims that this war is one of the most successful wars ever fought in American history. However, with the memory of the Iraq War still fresh, many Americans are doubtful that this is the true end to the war.”>>>
Jack quickly gets bored and switches the channel to look for other more interesting shows. Life doesn’t feel much different from before. Except for the decrease in a variety of produce and some minor problems early on like a decrease in manufactured products, not much change was felt. A ridiculous thing is that some are calling the fact that the United States was transported to another world a hoax. Claiming that it is a government conspiracy to cut Americans off from the rest of the world. They believe that the government employed a special technology to do so and that current events are being made up.
0110 January 25th, 2020 CE
0335 (Early Hour) Start 25th, 196 AE
Aginport, Bem Kingdom
A sand-colored vehicle moves down a busy Bem street. Some Bems gaze at the vehicle for a little while before reverting back to what they were doing. They were interested in what a “car” or a “horseless carriage” as it is commonly called by the Bem, looked like. A few months ago, a lot of people would come out just to watch the cars pass by. However, now, most have gotten used to the cars that conduct patrols to keep order.
In a bar on that busy street, two men look out the window to see the American vehicle pass through.
“I can see why we lost. They are on the same level as the Machians.”
“Maybe even better. News has been going around that the Machians have been defeated.”
“Is that so? Well, either way, our kingdom stood no chance.”
“At least they seem more helpful than the Machians. And hey, they don’t seem to be forcing us to fight their wars or anything. I can’t believe I’m saying this but the future may brighter than before.”
“Yep. I heard from one of my friends who works in hospitals that the Americans are giving us some technology that would really improve our lives.”
“The Machians would never do something like that. They only gave us the bare minimum and even demanded tribute.”
It has been many months since the invasion of Bem conducted by the Americans. Not much on the surface has changed. A distant relative of the King has been placed into power by the Americans. To the general populace, the new king seems to be merely another puppet under another powerful nation. However, there are good signs, the Americans seem to be willing to help with the development of Bem, unlike the Machians who gave them just bones. Medical technology and methods have been shared. Improvements in agriculture and infrastructure have also been provided. The Americans also seem to be interested in trades for food products and some of the raw resources that Bem has.
0826 January 25th, 2020 CE
Washington D.C.
“Mr.President, the goodwill operations in the Bem are going great. The populace doesn’t seem to be hostile to our forces.”
Chief of Staff John Wills is giving President Haye a brief report about the current situation after winning the war.
“That’s good to hear. What about the Mach?”
“Negotiations have gone quite well. The Machian military officials are willing to surrender to our terms. Which includes us occupying their country for a couple of years, having a government under our supervision, and constructing military bases on their land. They haven’t demanded much. They seem to like the fact that we aren’t enslaving them or demanding any payment or tribute from them. However, they do seem adamant about keeping their government mostly the same.”
President Hayes smiles lightly at that report.
“That’s great! Almost too good to be true!”
“We do have two minor problems.”
The smile instantly drops from his face.
“Oh boy… why did I say that…”
“First of all, it seems that the Machian Emperor has decided to abdicate. In this circumstance, we would have had one of his children take over but they are too young to take the throne.”
“Are there any relatives that can take the throne?”
“Well... the military officials did tell us that the Machian Emperor had an illegitimate adult daughter that is living near the town of Isca. We could probably place her on the throne. Although we do have to find here first.”
“That doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. What’s the other issue then?”
“The Magus is demanding a stretch of territory on the border. About 200 miles deep into the Machian territory from the Magus. The Magus claims that it was land that they had lost in the 4th Mach-Magus War that occurred 35 years ago when the Mach invaded them.”
“Do the Machians say it's true?”
“Yep.”
“Are they willing to let it go?”
“Nope.”
President Haye sighs to that answer.
“Goddammit. It’s never easy.”
“The Magus is threatening to declare war on us over that stretch of land.”
“What are the negatives of giving them that land?”
“Other than losing that piece of land to build military bases on, not much. Although the Machians are somewhat threatening to null the progress we have made in negotiations, it’s obvious that they are just bluffing. They have no more power to actually confront us again.”
“Then just give the Magus that stretch of land. I’m not sending innocent Americans to die fighting for another country’s land. Especially after that country tried to attack us.”
“That should be all then… oh wait, there are two other things.”
“What?”
“First, from the Department of Defense.”
“What do they want?”
“Uhhh…” John flips through the folder he is holding. “Well, first of all, they are recommending that we repaint the desert camouflage that we have on our ground vehicles.”
“Why?”
“Well, studying the satellite images, we have found that this world greatly lacks deserts. There are only a couple of small deserts around this world. Thus, we will have to repaint our vehicles.”
“I see.”
“The DoD is also recommending some adjustments on hardware acquisition.”
“What adjustments?”
“Since we don’t have any peer adversaries to worry about anymore, acquisition of stealth fighters and bombers aren’t that important. They are not recommending us to stop. Just to reduce the pace. We will still continue development just in case we ever get transported back to Earth. On the other hand, the acquisition of non-stealth aircraft is highly recommended since they are more suitable for current operations. For example, F-15EXs.”
“That seems reasonable. What’s the second thing?”
“The second thing is about the private sector.”
“Hm?”
“Some companies are expressing interest in the Bem Kingdom and Mach Imperium. They see the new world countries as a lucrative market and a possible place for cheap labor. Originally they were wary of expanding out because of the lack of protection. However, with our occupation of the Bem and Mach Imperium, that issue is gone.”
“I see... well, as of right now, let’s take some time to stabilize the Bem and Mach Imperium before opening the floodgates for these companies.”
Patreon
Kinda saw the private companies wanting to be unleashed upon the new world coming.
President Hayes may want to find some way to prevent them from enslaving the rest of the world. While it appears no one military can stand up to the U.S., it wouldn't be hard to make the rest of the world think you're gonna enslave them all, and basically turn the new world into a giant Afghanistan or similar.
I can't read the author's mind, but this would be a golden opportunity to put a leash on corporations with dreams of 'global domination'.
I have zero problems with somebody wanting to make an honest buck, but recent history has us what happens when the 'ultra rich' decide they want to become 'overlords of humanity' (because they know better than us plebs) rather managing their market share (and building a decent products for their customers).
Thanks for the chap!
Yeah, US being the same foolish US it has always been, conquering countries just to turn them into shitholes because they can't grow a pair and annex the land. Just conquer, occupy for a bit, create a useless puppet government, and then leave and watch the land devolve into sh*t under the useless puppet government they created. Same as always huh. Such strategy can only create future problems...
Well, here's the thing, annexing is so much more than what it seems to be. Just because you have your name on the paper doesn't mean its original people will blindly follow you. There will be many who are fine and don't mind, but there will be significant amount who will oppose that. Annexing means also you will make those people Americans. That's like injecting unidentified virus to your blood veins hoping those are vaccines and not actual harmful viruses. Third is that the US has zero obligation to fix their shits. They are the one to declare war and to threaten to mass murder entire Americans. If anything, Americans have every right to retaliate back by cleansing them to the very last person. Remember, in war, there's no good/bad. It's kill or be killed.
The US government is elected for its people, not for random humans across the globe who are part of a nation so barbaric they'd cleanse the other nation just because of political reasons.
@Triparadox Well then, US could have just sat back in their country and sink every hostile ship that comes, they literally have no need to go out for war. In this world, no country can actually threaten them, they don't even need to take the fight to them basically. And they have little to nothing of value to trade, unless US elevates the whole world to 21st century standards of industry. So what is even the point? It is a massive waste of resources. US don't get anything out of these wars. So well, either annexing or cleansing would have been the better options long term. These countries only have a few million people that sits on a great ammount of land, it is simply better to deal with them now, while they are still in small numbers and ignorant. Setting up schools and indoctrinating the children for the American way would be quite easy at this stage. Hell, even the adult population could be won over easily, just by introducing the rights that they have never gotten before. They can easily see how better they are treated under USA law. And for the opposition, it will be small and insignificant, easily crushed. But if they are not annexed or cleansed, in a century or two, these nations will inevitably reach a similar tech level and population to USA. It is inevitable, with trade and relations, or natural growth, they will reach it eventually. US keeps its place in the world by being technologically superior to its opponents, but that won't last forever. Technology can not keep improving at such a rapid pace forever, and in the modern day we are seeing this happen. The growth has slowed down significantly compared to before, and the tech superiority of US is shrinking greatly. Today, it would be a question who would win if a world war erupted. So well, instead of having to deal with nations down the line, why not just put the effort and resources to annexing now and set up world order under USA flag? Ofc, i know, humans don't think hundreds of years down the line. Politicians even less so, who cares about hundred years down the line, they only care about looking good for as long as they are in office. Leave it to the politicians of future to deal with the problems they created now. Smh...
In conclusion, being the world ruler is much more profitable than being the world police in the long run. So when USA have the chance, it is in the interest of the american public for their nation to become the world ruler. Policing the world is just a massive resouce sink, and these resources come out of the pockets of all americans...
@N0xiety Again, the world doesn't work as you plan. In plain hindsight, it may seem that to be the case, but remember that there are lots of variables that can ruin your plan. If the so-called annexing is so much profitable, there's zero reason why the US wouldn't do it—do you really think after centuries since it was built, you are to be the first to think about it? One simple argument to this is look at how backfiring slavery is. You may think that, what could go wrong? Slaves were literally brought to the US to build the US. They were there to be complete human robots building and serving people with no rights, no wage, and other things (I was not talking about how they were treated actually, but on the matter of principle, they did not have any of those). Notice how it was Americans themselves who actually finally opened up to the idea of slavery is terrible, and that they needed to end that even going as far as to begin an all-out civil war. Now, as I have stated earlier, there are so many problems with annexing countries, so instead they just neutralized the threat and actually aimed for a better future with profitable trade prospect.
Also understand that the US has no interest in becoming the world dominator. As tough as the US is, remember what had happened with German when it was literally raped by allied nations from almost every angle. No matter how tough the US is, there is a significant threat and many Americans lives will be lost in the hope of, not even guaranteed, that idea of world governing—not to mention rebels who are SURE to arise several years or decades later. If that did happen and even if the US won, it would not get away with anything. Remember that once the US declares that, it's literally US vs every other country in this world. If that does happen, people who dislike that ideology—there will be many including civilians—won't just back down and sips tea on an afternoon.
In conclusion, the US attempting to achieve world ruler status is borderline impossible, expensive in terms of war power as well as Americans lives, is against its own view of freedom to pursue liberty, and unreasonable if we consider the US hold off and manages to take down most of the world's military from all countries. Adding the fact that many of its people won't even be interested and may be highly against that very idea, it's reasonable to see that this is not a great way to bring positive things for Americans.
@Triparadox I'm a Historian and one of the 4000 level classes I took dealt with the Atlantic Slave trade...and well the vast majority (as in between 90-95%) of slaves were sent to either the Caribbean islands or South America where the average life expectancy was, on average, 6 to 12 months...in addition for the enslaved Africans sent to the US the majority of settlers/citizens did not own slaves...heck one of the current Political parties in the US was built around the largest Slave owner in Tennessee (said Politician was a paternalistic SOB and that thought is still ingrained into that party...as in they "know" what is best for you and you should just accept it and take the money they throw at you (that will have to be paid, probably by your children and their children etc))...yeah a bit of a rant but I'm also using the experience I gained over years of being both a voracious reader and a child who had traveled all over the world with my Grandfather who served in the US Army for 50 years (as in it's easier for me to tell people the countries that I've never been to (China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and the various 'Stans that came about with the dissolution of the USSR...I do have entry/exit stamps for the Soviet Union...and the separate piece of paper with my entry/exit stamps for Israel (since back in the 70-80's if you tried to enter Saudi Arabia and the other Islamic countries and they saw an Israeli stamp they would deny you entry) I remember going to Tehran and seeing women wearing pants and walking around by themselves...same with Kabul and Islamabad...yeah I'm 50 and still read everything that interests me, which drives my wife of 22 years bonkers sometimes...