Interstellar Age

Erich stood in awe as he looked around him. He had not even been in this era for but a few moments, yet he had accidentally stumbled upon the Germanic League, and by extension the founders of the Germanic Star-Empire.

However, this opinion was not shared by the others, who thought Erich was either some kind of freak at best, or at the very worst, an agent of the EU, sent with the purpose of destroying them. Because of this, they raised their rifles at Erich, many of which were modernized Soviet-Era firearms.

The man named Manfred Hartmann quickly walked away from Erich's side with a cautious expression on his face, instead standing alongside the ranks of his brothers in arms, and in doing so pulling out the pistol he was concealing and pointing it towards Erich's head.

"You know who I am? Just who the hell are you, man?"

Erich did not bother to raise his hands, and instead cautiously reached into his coat, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, but only after assuring the men he was not a threat to them.

"You can put those weapons down. I am not your enemy, rather I dare say I'm the exact opposite. Besides, with such primitive weapons, my body would regenerate faster than you can reload...."

This was obviously a rather jarring statement. Such technology had not yet come into existence, after all genetic engineering of human beings, and by extension Eugenics as a whole was a serious taboo in this era. Any scientist who dared to enhance the human genome would be blacklisted from the scientific community.

Many of the men did not believe Erich, and instead continued to threaten him while demanding answers.

"I'm going to ask you this one time before my men here ventilate you. Just who the hell are you?"

Erich sighed and rolled his eyes. He honestly did not want to come up with a backstory, and instead told the men the objective truth, even if they didn't believe him.

"My name is Erich Jaeger. This might be hard for you all to believe, but I am the product of your little movement. More specifically, I am the Emperor of the Germanic people in the 26th Century. After four hundred years in exile, our people finally return home to conquer Earth under my reign, where we purge it of the undesirables.

I was merely experimenting with... Well, let's just say some advanced form of technology and found myself back here during what will soon enough be the founding of our Empire. Truth be told, we have few records of the founding era. Other than that, the fatherland had become overrun by hostile foreigners.

In all honesty, looking upon the current streets of Munich, it is far worse than I was led to believe. Tell me how much progress have you all made on the first FTL drive?"

The story was so unbelievable that Manfred simply scoffed and rolled his eyes. Erich thought he was going to say something but in the next second he raised his weapon again and shot Erich in the head.

Without Erich's power armor, an intermediate caliber of the 20th, 21st, and early 22nd Centuries like for example the 5.45x39 which was being used by the rifles of the men nearby could have pierced Erich's flesh, albeit it would have some difficulty piercing his bones.

Regardless, the wound would quickly be healed, even before it could cause any real damage to Erich's body. But a 9x19mm Parabellum projectile, which was still one of the most common pistol calibers in the world, even in the early days of the 22nd century, well that simply bounced off Erich's skull, which was too dense for such a meager projectile to properly pierce.

The sight of which stunned the men in the room, all of which freaked out and fired all the rounds in their magazine at Erich. In total, several hundred bullets had entered Erich's body, but they did not make it far, and were quickly expelled by the nanites in his bloodstream, where the wounds they made were quickly regenerated, to the point where it did not even look like Erich had been shot to begin with, aside from all the holes in his clothes that was.

Erich sighed heavily when he saw the men staring at him in disbelief, and perhaps existential dread. However, he simply dusted his coat off and lit his cigarette, smoking it before finally responding to their fear.

"Didn't I tell you that your weapons are useless against me? In my age, our people have evolved to a point to the point where our bodies are virtually immune to the weapons of this era. So how about you guys stop fucking me around and tell me what I need to know? I will reiterate my previous question now, and I would prefer if you didn't try anything stupid this time.

Just how much longer will it be before your scientists have developed the first FTL drive?"

It took some time for the shock to wear off, but there was no denying it after they had tried to kill him. I mean, what other explanation could there possibly be? Erich was indeed from the future, or at the very least, was an alien disguised as an oddly tall man.

Either way, they did not want to think about what would happen if they were to continue to resist this invincible stranger. There was only one problem… Nobody here had any idea what the hell Erich was talking about. And because of this, they were quick to express their confusion, albeit in a very docile manner.

"Listen, man, I don't know what the fuck you are, or where the hell you came from. But we have no idea what the fuck you are talking about! FTL drive? Isn't that some shit straight out of science fiction? Man, the last rocket that humanity sent into space was over fifty years ago! Nobody can afford to waste their resources on such frivolous shit!"

Erich was stunned by this information… By historical record, the FTL drive should be created within the next five years. But if what these men were saying was true, then humanity had, for whatever reason, abandoned space travel as a priority.

If that were truly the case, then who the hell created the first FTL drive?