America Brings Liberty to an Oppressed World

Chapter 7: Aftermath I

When asked about it, Queen Starleaf admitted that during her father's reign, and before the Eldorian invasion, her people had conducted trade with the dragons, exchanging food and crops for aetherium ore. But they were forced to cut all trade when the Imperium caught interest in the dragons. As for the ore, American scientists were intrigued by this strange material that by unknown means was capable of defying the laws of physics. A literal magic rock. At first American engineers and scientists had no way of figuring out how it worked or the possible applications for it, until they received several examples of tech using refined versions of it.

During the naval incident back in January 2nd between the United States and recently confirmed to be the Imperium, not only did the 1st Battleship Strike Group bring back POWs. They also brought back technology and engineers who knew how it worked. They called it Aetherium Tech.

Aetherium Tech is based around the use of this aetherium ore which has many unusual properties that allow for widespread application in many fields; offense, defense, and detection. To learn more about this tech and how to reverse engineer it, the Americans bargained with the captured engineers, promising freedom and a new life if they complied and worked with American teams studying and trying to repair the recovered artifacts.

So far the Americans had recovered several small caliber guns that fired energized aetherium at an equivalent to 300 MegaJoules with seemingly infinite range, as long as the gun has direct line of sight on the target. These results are nearly identical to the experimental plasma weapons being developed off world. Another interesting artifact was a radar antenna that could even detect the most advanced stealth aircraft. This alarmed the American military leadership since it completely rendered their stealth advantage in aircraft completely useless. However it intrigued defense contractors who believed they could reverse engineer this equipment to not only improve existing radar systems, but learn how to jam them and render objects invisible to detection...again.

Lockheed Martin had to reinvent stealth tech.

In order for any development on this new magic based technology to begin, the United States needed access to a steady supply of aetherium. The best known source at the moment were the same ones the Wood Elves and Eldorians used, the Black Dragons. Though trying to spark up any trade deal might be challenging for the moment, especially if the Imperium were interested in the dragons. Either way, the Americans would find a way.

In the meantime, the 2nd Battleship Strike Group was enroute northeast towards Fire Dwarf territory. According to satellite and air reconnaissance, and what little the elves know, Fire Dwarves are the only nation that have major industry that does not rely on this Aetherium. Something the Americans share in common with them and would like to know more about. The dwarves sharing a border with the Imperium, it was vital the Americans establish an alliance to both deny the Imperium total dominance and establish a foothold on land in the event of war.

According to the elves, the dwarves are a race of beings who admire ingenuity, honor, and show of force above all else. Hence for that reason the United States was going with gunboat diplomacy in its first contact with the dwarves, sending in a battleship and its escorts to introduce its diplomatic envoy. Accompanying them was a small cargo ship carrying several containers of canned and non-perishable goods, since the Fire Dwarves lived in the cold icy tundras, making food a scarcity for their people. The Americans believed that by offering plenty of food and introducing more advanced technology, by dwarven standards, they could easily win the favors of the dwarves, and establish an alliance or trade partnership.

Meanwhile off planet, America's expansion across space has gone undeterred by the events back home. Just recently, the third space carrier for the United States Space Force left the shipyard of the FSSS and has now joint up with other space ships to form the 3rd Interplanetary Strike Group. This new carrier was serving as a test bed for new weapons and systems that will be later integrated into existing space ships during refit.

At Venus (Not actually Venus but a similar planet), orbital mining outposts continued their operations across the now fresh and untouched planet, deploying unmanned UAVs to dig and harvest the surface. Everything collected is processed in orbit before being loaded onto large cargo shuttles to be taken to orbital warehouses for storage and later use in factories.

Mars (Not actually Mars but a similar planet also) has seen progress. The colony initiated by SpaceX has found its roots, now sustainable and with a starting population of 100 colonist. Already there were plans being drawn up for expansion to allow up to a 1,000 colonists in the near future. The dream of this colony was to support the same population count as an Earth built city, supporting a community of 1,000,000 and connected to other colonies spread out across the Martian surface. Then they would begin the whole process again on Mercury.

America's space faring ships continued to explore this seemingly new yet unchanged system they now occupied. With the presence and opposition of its main competitor gone the America's had only grown bigger in their ambitions for space.