American Strategic Deception Bureau

　Obviously, as a half-baked intelligence officer, although Firi knew how to gather intelligence in bars and brothels, his efficiency was too low, and smoking and drinking were harmful to health. In addition, such places were full of all kinds of people and criminals, and personal safety was not guaranteed.

　You have to remember that the United States is currently in the midst of a chaotic "Age of Assassinations," a period of disorganized order. Not only is public security abysmal, but there are also daring assassins everywhere who seek to gain prominence by assassinating celebrities. Mayors, congressmen, and generals are being assassinated on a regular basis.

　At first glance, Fieri, the former commander of the US Army in Vietnam and the Federal Space Force, seems to be quite important, and his photos have appeared in magazines and newspapers several times. Who knows if there will be a bold fanatic or extremist organization who, after recognizing him, wants to become famous by assassinating him?

　Therefore, for safety reasons, try to go out as little as possible in the short term, especially avoid going to those smoky and polluted entertainment venues.

　Then, like those "keyboard politicians" in later generations who concentrated on surfing the Internet, in order to know what was happening in the world without leaving home, Firi had been using his own private radio station intensively during this period, listening to the voices of the people through those "ham" chat friends. In order to "listen to both sides" as much as possible, he also joined several "chat groups" at the same time to avoid being trapped in an information cocoon.

　Today, Fili took the time to turn on his private radio, adjusted the frequency and "joined the group" in order to understand what kind of response the many "pseudo alien travelers" he had recently fabricated using "virtual time travel" had caused among the American people, and how ordinary people felt about this matter.

　Unfortunately, although the chat in the group was lively, it was like the internet forums and WeChat groups of later generations. No matter what the initial topic was, once the chat lasted for a long time, it would inevitably go off topic.

　After he brought up the topic of "traveling to another world" in the chat group today, it didn't take long for the topic to go off the track.

　So, after patiently listening to the off-topic chat for a while, Fili finally couldn't help but cough dryly and spoke again to correct the topic.

　“Ahem, I think, instead of predicting the distant future decades later, let’s talk about the topic of traveling to another world first!

　What do you think about the rumored Polish-speaking magical world? OVER! "

　Just as outrageous as the ancient navy. OVER! "

　"Alas, every nation has its own good fortune. Before Columbus discovered the New World, no one ever considered the Spanish to be a maritime nation. Even earlier, wasn't the British also severely plundered by Viking pirates, and could never defeat the Norse in naval battles? OVER!"

　"However, ever since those two Polish poems from another world were widely circulated in newspapers and magazines, all kinds of Polish ballads have suddenly become very popular! It just so happens that I minored in Polish in college, so I've had a lot of opportunities to make money recently.

　Many people at school have asked me to translate and write things in Polish, and with this extra income, I've finally been able to make a better living. OVER!

　"Congratulations, brother. When God closes a door for you, he also opens a window for you. OVER!"

　"Yeah, recently people who can speak Polish have suddenly become the most popular guys in school, and it's easy to pick up girls.

　Furthermore, parchment has suddenly become a hot commodity. In the past, I'd only seen people using parchment to make copies of the Declaration of Independence as decorations (the American Declaration of Independence was written on parchment). But now, those rolls of parchment that had been sitting in my uncle's stationery store for years, unsold, and yellowed and moldy, are being sold, too, and are fetching more than brand new parchment. OVER!

　"Wait, brother, those streets near the USC campus in Los Angeles have been flooded with vendors selling 'scrolls from another world' lately. Could those parchment scrolls with wet ink in their hands be the ones you wrote? OVER!"

　"

　Ahaha, this, who knew? OVER! "

　(In fact, in the world of The Witcher, there are two groups of modern humans who landed on that continent. The northerners spoke Polish, which evolved into the northern nations, while the southerners spoke another language, possibly Dutch or Low German, which mixed with Elvish and evolved into Nilfgaardian. The war between the Nilfgaardian Empire and the northern nations may have been a battle between the Dutch and the Poles. However, since there are relatively few people who speak Nilfgaardian, the common language of humans in that world is still Polish.)

　"Anyway, although we don't know exactly when that group of lucky Poles went to another world, how they defeated the elves and dwarves, conquered a continent, and even learned magic, this is ultimately someone else's luck. We can't steal it even if we want to! OVER!"

　"Ah, I guess the Poles, now living under the clutches of Russia, will only become more envious and jealous of their fellow aliens. OVER!"

　"As far as I know, the Poles have recently published a lot of smug and boastful articles, boasting about their national character being superior to the rest of the world! Damn it, if the Poles were really that superior, would their country have been partitioned and destroyed three times? OVER!"

　"Really? What's there to envy about a life stuck in the Middle Ages? Unless you can become a magician. OVER!"

　"Furthermore, the 'celestial conjunction' that takes people to another world is completely random. No one knows when they will cross over to another world, nor do they know whether they can return. Otherwise, why didn't the FBI and MI5 hide this information?"

　Now, many people interested in history are discussing whether those legendary armies and expeditions that vanished overnight, cities and temples that suddenly disappeared, as well as disappeared islands and missing ships, have all fled to another world. OVER!

　"By the way, there's also our crashed spaceship. I wonder if it's gone to another universe. OVER!"

　"Spacecraft? Oh, you mean the Apollo 12 that crashed a few days ago? OVER!"

　"Yeah, I'm a NASA engineer. I just lost my job because of this shit. OVER!"

　After the "successful" Apollo 11 moon landing last year, the United States' manned space program fell silent for a while. Due to financial difficulties and political instability, no new spacecraft was launched for over a year. As a result, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was left idle for a long time.

　It was not until October 1970, as the domestic situation gradually calmed down, that President Nixon instructed NASA to carry out another manned space expedition as soon as possible in order to whitewash the situation and demonstrate national strength, in order to boost morale and let the world know that the United States still stands at the pinnacle of human civilization.

　So, after days of laziness, NASA, as if whipped on the buttocks, hastily launched a new manned space mission. Specifically, it used a remaining Saturn V rocket from the Apollo program to launch a "prototype" of an Apollo lunar landing spacecraft. It would then fly in low-Earth orbit for twelve days, allowing two astronauts to greet the nation with a Merry Christmas from space.

　However, as a lunar landing spacecraft, the Apollo spacecraft was not designed for low-Earth orbit, and the thrust of the Saturn V rocket was obviously a bit excessive - this time there was no need to go to the moon, only to orbit the earth, and there was no need to accelerate to the second cosmic speed.

　To this end, NASA not only had to remove the extra lunar module on the spacecraft and replace it with an experimental module of similar weight, but also cut off the third stage of the Saturn V rocket, using only the first and second stage rockets to lift the spacecraft into the sky, and also used the extra

　The payload capacity was a spy satellite.

　Next, it is a matter of calculating the launch window, planning the orbits of spacecraft and satellites, modifying spacecraft and rockets, etc. in a hurry and against the clock.

　As a tribute project, all these modifications and re-planning had to be started from scratch and completed hastily in just over a month.

　What's worse is that because a civil war had just broken out in the United States, many companies and laboratories were affected by the war or the economic collapse, causing NASA's supply chain to be in a mess. Many spare parts could not be bought new, and they had to make do with used ones.

　As expected, the launch went awry. The "Christmas gift" spacecraft failed to enter orbit on December 16th, the day of its launch. It subsequently exploded and plunged into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, taking the two astronauts with it.

　As soon as this incident happened, news media around the world, while expressing sympathy and pity, could not help but sneer and lament that NASA's technological level had plummeted - less than two years ago, NASA was still able to achieve manned lunar landings, so how come sending people into orbit is so dangerous now?

　"Speaking of which, NASA was a bit too rough this time, weren't they? They've launched so many Apollo spacecraft before. Logically, they should have accumulated a lot of experience. This time, they didn't have to go to the moon, they just orbited the Earth a few times. How could they crash? OVER!"

　"Well, if we really launched it to the moon, maybe we wouldn't have made such a big mistake. But this time, we're going to use the lunar lander as a low-Earth orbiter. We're going to have to dismantle the lunar module and replace it with a makeshift experimental module, which involves a lot of data calculations. OVER!"

　"So, you made a mistake somewhere? You misplaced a decimal point? OVER!"

　"Well, the cause of the spacecraft's crash hasn't been determined yet. But we've now roughly figured out why the launch failed to reach orbit. A lot of the data we obtained was in imperial units, mixed with metric data. Add to that the conversion errors, and it's inevitable that something will go terribly wrong during the rocket launch. OVER!"

　"You have trouble converting between imperial and metric units? If you don't even have this ability, are you still qualified engineers? OVER!"

　"You do the math! Calculate the final price of seventy-seven ounces of chemical, assuming three pints weigh five ounces each, at four shillings and seven pence per pound, and describe the specific method you intend to use to murder users of the British system. OVER!"

　"Well, okay, I admit, mixing two different measurement systems, one of which isn't even decimal, is crazy. OVER!"

　"What's even crazier is the prices right now! I just heard gas prices are up another 20%! I hope bread doesn't go up to $50 a piece. OVER!"

　"Yes, if the price continues to rise like this, next year I might have to take my children to the church to get relief food.

　OVER!

　"That's assuming the church can still distribute relief food at that time, brother. OVER!"

　-

　In short, sitting in front of his own private radio station, listening to the "ham" chat friends from all over the country just talking about the "magic world" for a while, and then the conversation went off topic again, Fili couldn't help but smile helplessly.

　——Ah, what a familiar feeling of confusion and powerlessness.

　Just like the chat group owners in later generations, they are always unable to control the chat topics in the group all the time!

　Clearly, the average American isn't completely unconcerned with the "Polish-speaking magical world." But they're at least not very interested, as they believe they're unlikely to ever experience the experience of traveling to another world. So, they're more concerned with prices, income, and public safety.

　Even if they must care about the matter of "time travel", they are still more concerned about the British frigate that "travels to the future" (Cyberpunk 2077) and brings back future information from the next century - after all, this is closely related to them, and most people feel that they can live at least to the 21st century.

　From the real estate investment farce in Morro Bay (Night City) to the decline of confidence in the entire United States, all show the restlessness brought about by this "time travel".

　In fact, these future information from the world of "Cyberpunk 2077" appeared inadvertently after 1970, and it not only made Americans and British people agitated, but the whole world was undercurrent because of this.

　Thinking of this, Firi couldn't help but look up at the world map on the wall that was filled with annotations by him.

　If studying can get you to a high position, then why do you still need to study? You will definitely play all day.

　Chapter 547: A World in Turmoil Due to "Travel" (Part 2)

　It is now the end of December. The disastrous year of 1970 is about to pass, and a still turbulent yet magical new year is about to come.

　First, as the United States officially began its significant strategic retreat, wars around the world were gradually cooling down, or even deteriorating. Many locals mistakenly believed that peace would come with the departure of the US military. In reality, however, the moment the US troops left, anti-US forces began to fight among themselves.

　It’s just that because there was no direct military intervention from major foreign powers, the technical level and command art of the war were reduced.

　For example, after the Fourth Middle East War, the Arabs had just defeated Israel and recaptured Jerusalem, thanks to the Soviet polar bear's intervention and the American bald eagle's abandonment. But then, faced with the devastated Holy Land, Palestinian armed factions immediately erupted in infighting. They chanted slogans of Allah and jihad, and the chaotic clashes left the Soviet troops stationed in Jerusalem stunned.

　And around Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Syria also fell into political chaos after the Fourth Middle East War. In the chaotic times with frequent military mutinies, various rebellions and coups broke out everywhere, and the power of the rulers of various countries was like a flame in a storm, and it could collapse in an instant.

　The only thing to be thankful for is that the Arabs in various countries still have some sense of propriety. Although there is chaos, at least they have not yet dropped nuclear bombs on each other on a large scale.

　Even the military coup that overthrew Egyptian President Sadat involved little more than a gunfight in Cairo and the introduction of tanks into the streets.

　But how long this rationality and restraint can last seems to be a matter of concern.

　Further north in the Middle East, Türkiye, a NATO member, has also entered a state of civil war, and it is a horrific nuclear civil war.

　- After another round of peace talks broke down, the Kurds bombed the Turkish capital Ankara with a Soviet atomic bomb. The Turkish government forces also bombed Kurdish cities with US-aided hydrogen bombs and announced that they would "temporarily" close the Bosphorus Strait in response to the war.

　Once this passage connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean was closed, it would invisibly cut off the Soviet Union's most convenient channel for projecting power into the Middle East. The fruits of the Soviet Union's victory in intervening in the Fourth Middle East War would inevitably be greatly reduced, and there was even the risk of losing all its money.

　But at this time, the Kremlin seemed to have lost most of its interest in managing the Middle East and began to focus its attention on Europe.

　——After the British frigate that traveled to the world of Cyberpunk 2077 returned with boxes of newspapers and books, the whole world knew that the reunified Germany would use the platform of the European Community to dominate the world again at the end of the 20th century and make the whole world use the euro.

　In this regard, the people of East Germany, West Germany and Austria, as well as the EC officials in Brussels, were naturally excited, ambitious and full of confidence in the future after seeing the bright future of "Europe leading the world again and Germany leading Europe".

　EC officials have also become more aggressive and motivated in pushing for the removal of trade barriers and the coordination of transport systems and economic policies.

　Although France felt somewhat sour about Germany's resurgence, it ultimately recognized the greater interests of "Greater Europe"—since France had been able to ally with its old rival, Britain, during both world wars, it seemed reasonable to establish a Franco-German alliance in the future.

　After all, a thousand years ago, France and Germany were both part of the Frankish Empire! Truly one nation!

　As for other countries in Western Europe, they are even more filled with excitement and anticipation for the "return of destiny", and internal conflicts have been eased a lot under the bright prospects.

　Eastern European countries also secretly broke through the Iron Curtain and sent people to contact the European Community to test whether they could have a place in the future "Greater Europe".

　Meanwhile, Europeans, once terrified of the Soviet army, emboldened by this "knowledge of the future," began to despise this steamroller on the Eastern European plains. Since the Soviet army would degenerate into a useless force in just twenty years, so defeated that it couldn't even defeat the Soviet Petrochemical's security forces, then, by analogy, even the current Soviet army might not be anything to fear? Was the so-called "iron torrent" nothing more than a paper toy?

　For the Warsaw Pact led by the Soviet Union, a military alliance built on power and force, the loss of military deterrence by the leading country means the shaking of hegemony and even a severe blow to the foundation of the entire Warsaw Pact.

　It's foreseeable that in the coming days, the number of rebellious individuals in Eastern Europe and even within the Soviet Union will increase, and the Kremlin's voice will become increasingly irrelevant. Suppressing the "Prague Spring" a few more times will be futile—as long as everyone treats you as a dead end in the futures market, no matter how much you flex your muscles and wave your fists, you won't be able to scare anyone!

　The Soviet Union, on the other hand, had mixed feelings. Over twenty years earlier, in the Soviet-German War, 35 million Soviet soldiers had perished, wiping out a generation of young people, before they had finally brought Nazi Germany to its knees and hoisted the red flag over Berlin. Could it be that, more than two decades later, Moscow would once again face a new Germany that had unified Europe?

　The Nazi swastika flag is certainly abominable, but the Iron Cross of the Second Reich is not necessarily much better!

　why

　How could fate have so generously granted Germany three opportunities to compete for world hegemony within a century? Could it be that God is a German?

　But Brezhnev, now the leader of the Soviet Union, a widely acknowledged mediocre leader, couldn't find a solution. He only became more aware of the Soviet Union's severely ossified system, but he didn't know how to reform it (Kosygin's reforms, under his rule, only worsened). He also didn't dare to disarm or challenge vested interests. This was a legacy of the compromises and forced decisions made during the Soviet Union's founding, and the aftermath of Stalin's era. Then came Khrushchev's disastrous reforms, and the subsequent stagnation and muddling through since Brezhnev came to power...

　To this day, the tumor called corruption and rigidity has already penetrated deeply into the bone marrow of this country. In order to eliminate so many cancer cells that have almost spread throughout the body in one go, the Soviet Union needs more than just an operation and a major blood transfusion. Instead, it needs to cut off its head and limbs, burn all the Soviet Union’s social, political and economic systems to ashes, and then rebuild a new alliance from the ashes and ruins.

　It was obvious that the capitalist camp across the Iron Curtain would not give the Soviet Union the opportunity to cure its disease by scraping its bones or to make drastic changes. Instead, they would take advantage of the Soviet Union's internal turmoil to attack and knock out this seriously ill bear with a single blow - not to mention that Brezhnev did not have the courage to fight to the death.

　In the end, Brezhnev could only allocate more resources to the "Soviet-German Friendship House" (the Soviet intelligence agency in Germany, where Putin had worked when he was young) - even if he could not prevent Germany's rise again, at least he had to leave some connections in Germany and make more good friends.

　In addition, while the Soviet hegemony is still there, we should distribute more welfare benefits so that everyone can have fun together and make the people happy.

　Just think of it as their last meal - in twenty years, their daughter and granddaughter will be doing striptease in underground bars!

　The only thing that can make the Kremlin feel psychologically comforted (gloating) is that the future fate of the White House seems to be worse than its own?

　As we all know, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union was a war of ideologies. According to the timeline of Cyberpunk 2077, the Cold War ended with the Soviet Union's ideology failing, but the nation survived. The US ideology won, but the US itself was divided and destroyed.

　——The cruel world of "high technology and low life" in cyberpunk represents the "capitalist spirit" taken to the extreme!

　So, is the ruling class of the United States willing to resolutely choose division and national destruction for the victory of the "capitalist spirit"?

　Regarding this puzzling issue, the Soviet Union looked like it was watching a joke, while the United States was so hysterical that it was about to go crazy.

　——The Americans’ self-confidence in being “God’s chosen people” and “the city on the hill” has been completely shattered by this bleak future!

　Fortunately, Germany is also a relatively open capitalist country, and Japan, at least for now, is still under the thumb of the US military stationed in Japan. Therefore, American capitalists continue to intensify the transfer of industry to West Germany and Japan, while also seeking to obtain dual German-American citizenship so that they can slip back to Germany and continue to rule the country if necessary... and also see if they can use the power of the occupation army and hegemony to infiltrate the core of Japanese power.

　Don't all the prominent families in Japan claim to have Chinese or Korean ancestry? Now, why not add a few new members from the United States?

　But no matter what the capitalists think, at least the support of the people of the United States and the Soviet Union for the Cold War has completely collapsed and returned to zero.

　Anyway, even if we win the Cold War, it will be in vain, as it will only allow a third party to take advantage. So what's the point of having a Cold War?

　In this situation, many people who have studied history cannot help but recall the mutually destructive struggle for supremacy between the two ancient civilizations of Rome and Persia, which ultimately only contributed to the rise of the Arabs: Since the result of the US-Soviet Cold War was the reversal of World War II, why fight another Cold War?

　What's more, the depressing future in which one or two superpowers fall at the same time is not that far away, but just over 20 years away!

　With this in mind, ordinary Americans have even less enthusiasm and interest in the Cold War and the US-Soviet rivalry.

　Of course, while Cyberpunk 2077's impact on the two superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, was primarily a negative blow that eroded confidence, it also had some positive effects—namely, it successfully stimulated (or distorted) the key technology development areas for the future!

　After all, in the world of Cyberpunk 2077, the most eye-catching thing is definitely not the spaceships, nor the hovercrafts, but the dazzling "prosthetic technology" and bionic robots! What kind of cyberpunk is it if you don't modify your body to the point of leaving only a few pounds of flesh?

　As the precursor technology of cyberpunk, all kinds of cool-looking and powerful prosthetic limbs, as well as plug-and-play artificial eyes and organs, naturally attracted the great attention of "old-era humans", who believed that this was the correct direction of future scientific development.

　——For the scientific community, one of the most troubling things is that it is uncertain where the future technology tree will go.

　If you can't find the right direction for the future, then you won't know which goal to work towards, and you may waste time and money but gain nothing.

　Scientists at the end of the 19th century did not know whether the electric motor or the internal combustion engine would replace the steam engine and become the mainstream of the next era: so they wrote "

　Jules Verne, the author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, wrote the Nautilus as a pure electric submarine, and also wrote a lot of science fiction vehicles as electric... But unfortunately, even a hundred years later, electric motor and battery technology did not reach this level.

　Similarly, Americans during World War II could not imagine how popular computers would be in the future, and even thought that five computers would be enough for the country.

　Next, Japanese scientists at the end of the 20th century bet on hydrogen energy and vigorously developed various technologies related to hydrogen energy, and they also believed that hydrogen energy had great prospects... But because they clicked on the wrong technology tree, they faced the embarrassing outcome that a large number of hydrogen energy patents would become useless.

　Therefore, on the one hand, scientists are keen to explore the future, but on the other hand, they are trembling with fear and anxiety, fearing that they have stepped on the wrong technological tree.

　But now, with the ready-made "future intelligence", everyone knows which direction to work hard on!