THE STAGE IS SET FOR CONFRONTATION:
1) P-K4*
*Chess moves. For greater understanding, may be read in conjunction with a chess board.
The Belgian-Swiss Alliance had entered the movement on the side of the Cantons. Indeed, they had taken it over. Those of broader vision had suspected such a move was possible. That Cantos, a single planet-colony of sixty million inhabitants, could hope to make more than minor gains in that newly settled quadrant was somewhat doubtful. The known galaxy was expanding, and the Cantons themselves had been little more than blind, eager puppets, fed and encouraged from outside, closely watched to see how far they could bend (or simply ignore) the precepts of International Law. Though the damage they did was all too real.
P-K4
As the inhabited regions of Space spread out and became more remote, so the rules and niceties which had guided earlier colonization grew thin and wore away. It was merely a question of how much aggression the reigning superpowers would allow. The Four were still a force to be reckoned with.
2) N-KB3
In the current balance the United Commonwealth held the greatest sway, its advanced technology and more plentiful resources always keeping it one step ahead of Soviet Space. The Americans had been the first to colonize, and first in deep-space exploration, the advantages of which were still paying off.
N-QB3
The New Japanese Republic—-Empire, in everything but name—-was strong, but surprisingly benevolent. For the first time in its modern history this serious, hard-working nation had the room and resources to keep its naturally overachieving peoples busy and content. There was no longer any reason for the underlying brutality of earlier Japanese culture, and in truth many of the more aggressive social and political stances had begun to lose favor among the masses. How long this relative inner calm would last none could say, and few thought to cross them. In romanticized histories of the second World War the saying, "Let sleeping dragons lie," had been used to refer to the United States. It now applied with equal and ironic aptness to the Japanese.
3) B-N5
But the fastest growing, and to many the most frightening of the Space giants, was the metal-churning monster known simply as 'The German States'. Their technology and industrial determination once more bringing them to the fore of the political arena, this born-again superpower, in the eyes of many, was the card on which the growing instability would turn. And the Germans themselves, for reasons not entirely clear, seemed to savor this new role, and to do everything possible to enhance it. Most had believed (not without cause) that it was they who encouraged the Cantons, and therefore they who would soon be making their presence felt in the outlying sectors. But when the time for such a move had come—-the ruthless destruction by mercenaries of half the Canton fleet at Centaurus (so read the propaganda line)—-they had shown no such inclination, choosing instead to remain neutral. True, their moneys and weapons were sometimes involved; but by all legitimate intelligence not a single German squadron or military adviser had been seen within the whole of Andersen sector during the dispute. There could be no denying, however, that their geological fleets had moved in quietly after the destruction of the Laurian ore-planet, recovering valuable mineral wastes that the Cantons could not. The mysterious 'gravity station' had also disappeared.
P-Q3
Historians and sociologists who studied the German peoples had found themselves in sudden demand among the politicians and media of the smaller, more skittish nations; and their separate conclusions had been nothing if not ambiguous. The general consensus among the most respected, however, had been that history's "romantic Huns" were as mysterious and unreadable a people as God ever put on the Earth. No one could know what the Germans were capable of, for good or ill, until they did it. In World War II they had played the part of heinous villains (and done so with terrifying cruelty); in the reshaping of Europe after the collapse of the Communist Bloc, they had acted as generous unifiers, and staunch defenders of the lesser democracies. That this latter posture had finally and decisively cut the political binds and military restrictions imposed by the Allies after the fall of the Third Reich, was a fact that some (though not all) tended to overlook. The one consistency throughout had been an aggressive and self-righteous pursuit of nationalistic goals, based partly, but not solely, on a continuing discomfort with Western humanitarian ideals. "The Germans don't want freedom," the 20th Century author had declared. "They don't understand it. What they want is a strong leader, and a cause worth fighting for." But here again, words could never quite capture the stubborn fiber of the German spirit.
And, of course, those who did not fit the negative stereotype—-there were many—-were human beings just like any other, complete with their share of artists, dissidents, dreamers, idealists and alternative politicians. That those in power continued to be for the most part conservative, flag waving nationalists (as indeed had become the case in the United Commonwealth) did not mean that the Germans had no heart. Many quiet, everyday working people secretly hoped for the emergence of a more moderate geopolitical stance; and few would deny that a truly good German was as unselfish and compassionate an individual as one could ever hope to find. Unfortunately, fierce nationalism remained, and the end result was always the same: subtle but continuous expansionism.
4) P-Q4
But by all appearances this was not to be a (directly) German war.
B-Q2
Yet the shadow of her past, and continued arms build-up, bred little trust among her neighbors.