The year was 1971, a historic year. The country of Germania had always been somewhat fearful of the small country on it's western border. This fear escalated when the commoners there had a successful uprising against the nobility…the country came more and more wary since the infant country of the New Tristian Republic(NTR) cut off all foreign connections and completely isolated itself from the rest of the world.
When the young King Heinez gained rule over Germania, things were not in good order. The young king believed that it would be easy to take control of the NTR, but his royal advisers and friends disagreed, stating that the commoners had taken control using strange weapons and technology.
Heinez did not like this.
The young king then was presented with a way to scope out the NTR when for the first time in a decade, it allowed people into the country. However, it only allowed official representatives to enter, and they were only allowed in a small one square mile area. Heinez then told his best friend to be the representative for Germania.
Naturally he accepted.
Now this young man had a very odd name for the area. His name was Steve…this is because his great grandfather was actually from another world, but that isn't too important for the story.
Now the NTR has a very interesting custom for foreign relations, you see, when a representative from another country is supposed to come out to the NTR, they themselves bring said representative from said country. Free of charge. Since the NTR had completely isolated itself, nobody actually knew this. This is why good old Steve was surprised when a strange flying machine descended from the sky bearing the NTF flag.
The NTF pilot explained that this rotor flying machine was called a helicopter.
It was loud but quick and surprisingly comfortable. This worried Steve…greatly.
In under an hour the flying machine had managed to traverse a trip that would've taken days on horse back.
Admiral Sean Winters of the NTR Air Force and National Aeronautics and Space Foundation was doing final system checks before the grand event later that night: the launching of a moon rocket. Already the NTR had put a satellite in orbit, and a man, but that was in secret, and not as grand as a moon launch.
It had to work in one go, this was the first time that the NTR ever let anyone from the outside world in and representatives from nations across the world were here to witness it.
"How does it look?" That was the voice of his grandfather Johnson, the current president. Sean turned around. The Guards were quite flinchy despite their family relationship.
"It looks fine. We could launch right now if we wanted to and it'd probably work." They tested this model for a year and were absolutely sure that it couldn't fail.
"Despite the fact it's in the hangar right now?" Johnson chuckled a bit.
"It could probably go through the roof, honestly." Sean shrugged, "damn I can't wait! Pretty soon we'll have the internet!"
"In all my years of knowing you, you have never once told me what this 'internet' is and why you seem so fond of it."
"That's because it's way too complicated for me to explain to someone who hasn't even seen a real computer."
Johnson rolled his eyes. "Anyway, start preparing the astronauts, the launch is in two hours."
Steve was lead to a field covered with folding chairs and given a pair of darkened glasses.
"What are we waiting for?" He asked, an accent strong on his lips.
"Ah, we are awaiting the grand event. You will like it, ja?" A tall middle aged man in a very decorated suit responded, "I am General Daniel if you are wondering."
"Oh! Good to meet you, comrade," Steve stuck out his hand and Daniel shook it, "I am Steve, the representative for Germania."
"Steve huh…"
"What?"
"It...is nothing." The General shook his head before letting go of the other man's hand and walking off, "well I must be somewhere."
Steve nodded then glanced at the Tristianian guards. They wore no apparent armor besides a helmet…not unlike the Germanian army since they replaced swords with rifles. He shook his head, what was coming of this world?
One hour later.
The three astronauts walked out on to the elevator. The adrenaline was already flowing through their veins. Out of the group, only one had already been to space, but he had not been on a space walk…yet here they were, fresh off of the training program and already going to spend upwards of a month in space and on one of the twin moons.
That fact still amazed them and greatly worried Steve who had already sent a pigeon message back to Heinez.
"The launch will commence in one minute." The voice was unnaturally loud, as if some wind magic had amplified it…but yet again it was just one of the many inventions of the Tristianians.
Steve looked in awe at the massive machine that was supposed to get three men to a moon. The fact that they had this ability terrified him. He wasn't surprised to see the other representatives squirm in almost certain fear. He only hoped that Heinez would see this and prefer to ally rather than to fight.
"Thirty seconds to launch."
It was absolutely amazing that something could be so tall. He could swear the "rocket" was taller than any mountain.
"Ten seconds."
He glanced over to the Tristianian guards, they were squirming with excitement and had brought out some strange tubular device.
"Five…four…three…two…one…launch!"
It felt like a massive earthquake as the heavy thing slowly rose from the ground…and then the tower it was attached to disengaged and the thing rose into the sky faster than a dragon could. It only sped up until it could no longer be seen.
"You will stay here for several weeks to witness the moon landing."
One week later.
The landing pod touched down onto the dusty surface of the moon. Cameras had been set up inside and out of both the command pod and the landing pod. All eyes were on the astronaut as he descended.
His foot landed onto the grey dust. This was it. Years of training and preparation led to this moment.
He took a deep breath before uttering what Admiral Sean had told him to say, "uh, one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind!" He took a quick bound before planting the NTR flag into the moon.
Soon the other astronauts stepped out of the landing pod.
King Heinez read the letters over and over. The NTR had somehow created a machine that could go to the moon. This was not good in the slightest.
He could only think of one way to stop the NTR from becoming too powerful.
War.