Original War

Under a UN mandate, an American geological expedition surveys natural resources in a remote region of Siberia, deep in the trackless steppes of Eastern Russia. Instead of oil, they uncover a deposit of a previously unknown mineral. American scientists working for the Department of Defense determine that the mineral matches the substance used to power an extraterrestrial artifact in their possession: the EON (Extraterrestrial Object Nexus). The EON was discovered in 1919 by Colonel Emerson near the site of the Tunguska explosion. Emerson commanded a U.S. military unit responsible for transporting American war supplies from Vladivostok to the Eastern Front during World War I. DoD experiments show that objects placed inside the capsule are transported hundreds of thousands of years into the past. The scientists cannot understand the device’s construction or synthesize its fuel, so the machine—classified Top Secret—is eventually stored away, pending further advances in human science.

The story centers on Siberite, an extraterrestrial mineral that can catalyze cold fusion and power an alien artifact. During World War I, a U.S. expedition to Russia discovers both Siberite and the artifact—EON. EON is revealed to be a time machine capable of sending objects into the past, but Siberite supplies run out and research is abandoned. In the new millennium, massive Siberite deposits are found in Siberia, allowing the U.S. to extract enough for limited time travel. The U.S. plans a one-way mission: send a small force two million years into the past to mine Siberite and transport it across the Bering Land Bridge to Alaska—territory that will one day be under American control. Elite troops are selected, briefed, and told there is no return. The mission creates a new timeline in which the mineral ends up in Alaska and the U.S. becomes the world’s undisputed superpower thanks to an inexhaustible energy supply. In this reality, the time machine is not found by the Americans, but by the Russians. The USSR seethes under American dominance, and outrage erupts when Soviet scientists discover traces of American settlement and Alaskite—the source of U.S. power—in remote Siberia. A Soviet expedition is sent through EON, known here as TAWAR, to drive back the American thieves and reclaim what they believe is rightfully theirs.