By February, Oskar did something that did not come naturally to him.
He stopped.
Not completely—he was incapable of that—but enough to notice the silence when he let it exist.
For the first time since awakening in this world and begining his insanity, he resisted the urge to personally fix everything, and hover over every workshop like an anxious god. He did what any competent ruler—or chief executive—eventually had to learn to do.
He trusted his subordinates to do their jobs, and make decisions for themselves.
And to his relief no businesses or factories collapsed. The ministries did not burn. The railways continued to run. The German Work's shipyard kept functioning even without his guidance.
Germany, it turned out, could breathe for a moment without his hands wrapped around its throat.
More importantly, his family needed him.
The children needed a father who was present, not just legendary. The women needed a man who slept sometimes. And Karl—poor, loyal Karl—needed to be dragged to Pump World before he completed his transformation into a soft, overfed bureaucrat with excellent opinions and no endurance.
Oskar had noticed the weight gain. He planned to be cruel about it, lovingly.
But rest did not mean idleness.
It meant redirection.
Steel and engines had their place. Now it was time to build something more dangerous.
Stories.
If Germany was going to modernize, it needed more than machines. It needed memory. Context. A way to understand itself that did not rely solely on uniforms and marching songs.
Oskar did not want entertainment for entertainment's sake.
He wanted education disguised as wonder.
And for that, words were not enough.
Pictures mattered.
Sound mattered.
So in early February of 1908, Oskar found time—somehow—to pay a visit to a man whose workshop smelled of oil, chemicals, and pigeons.
That, more than anything else, told him he was in the right place.
The room was cramped and alive with disorder. Brass parts lay on felt like surgical instruments waiting for a patient. Glass plates dried on wooden racks near the window—square, fragile, and expensive, like little panes of captured time. Wires coiled across the floor like sleeping snakes. In the corner, a cage of pigeons regarded the intrusion with the smug indifference of creatures who had watched empires rise, fall, and fail to feed them on time.
At the center stood Dr. Julius Neubronner—spectacles askew, fingers stained dark with developer fluid—holding a camera no larger than his fist.
When Oskar stepped through the doorframe, the doctor dropped to his knees in such sudden panic that he nearly knocked over a tray of glass plates.
"Your Highness, I—"
"Ah, forget it. Up you get, Doctor," Oskar said, already removing his gloves and moving deeper into the room. He was enormous in the space, a two-meter presence ducking instinctively under a hanging lamp. "No titles. No kneeling. Just show me what you're building before the pigeons start judging me."
Neubronner blinked… then brightened, like a man finally permitted to speak his true language.
He scuttled across the floor, rummaging beneath benches and stools, emerging with parts as if from hidden burrows. A strap. A tiny shutter assembly. A casing. A timer. The sort of delicate engineering that made accountants sweat.
Then he produced it: the famous pigeon camera.
A mechanical marvel—timed shutter, lightweight body, clever balance so the bird could actually fly without becoming a feathered brick.
Neubronner strapped it onto a pigeon with a tenderness usually reserved for children.
"Behold," he declared, voice reverent, as if unveiling a crown jewel. "The future of reconnaissance."
The pigeon immediately made a noise of disgust, launched itself across the room, and slammed into a shelf.
Two other pigeons panicked and followed, turning the workshop into a whirling storm of feathers and contempt.
Oskar watched for a moment, then nodded slowly.
"It's brilliant," he said.
Neubronner's chest swelled.
"…But," Oskar continued, calmly, "you're thinking too small."
The doctor froze as if someone had turned off the electricity in his spine.
Oskar lifted a standard glass-plate camera from the table. It was heavy, awkward, dignified in the way steam engines were dignified—powerful, important, and absolutely uninterested in whether you were having a good day.
He turned it in his hands.
"This," Oskar said, "is not a camera problem. It's a human problem."
Neubronner blinked. "A… human problem?"
Oskar nodded, and for once he explained it the way he explained engines—plainly, without poetry, as if talking to a tired mechanic.
"A camera is a box," he said. "Light goes in. Light hits something sensitive. The sensitive thing changes. Later you wash it in chemicals and the image appears. That's all."
Neubronner stared, offended on behalf of art.
Oskar held up one finger.
"But the problem is not the box," he said. "The problem is that the box is a liar."
The doctor opened his mouth.
Oskar cut in, counting the sins on his fingers.
"First: exposure. You're asking ordinary people to guess how much light is 'enough' light. That's like asking a farmer to guess the exact moment a loaf is baked without ever seeing an oven."
"Second: film. Or plates. They're inconsistent. Temperamental. One batch is brave, the next one is cowardly. And people blame themselves."
"Third: shutters. Half the time, the shutter says 'one-hundredth of a second' and behaves like an old man climbing stairs."
Neubronner's face slowly changed from defensive to horrified.
Oskar leaned forward.
"People don't hate photography," he said quietly. "They hate ruining photographs."
That landed.
It landed because it was true.
In 1908, a photograph wasn't a casual thing. It was money. Time. Risk. A stiff pose held too long. A plate that might crack. A moment that might vanish because someone's hand trembled or a cloud crossed the sun.
So Oskar began listing improvements—not like a prophet unveiling mysteries, but like a craftsman explaining why doors stick in winter.
"Make film that behaves the same every time," he said. "Same sensitivity. Same result. No surprises."
"Standardize it. One size. One loading method. One frame count system. You should be able to teach a child in two minutes."
"And stop writing instructions like you're speaking to a university professor. Write them like you're speaking to a tired man who worked twelve hours and just wants a picture of his daughter before she grows up."
Neubronner lowered himself onto a stool as if gravity had finally remembered him.
Oskar wasn't finished.
"Put markings where people can see them," he said. "Street. Portrait. Landscape. Give them a simple dial. Give them a click when the film advances so they know it moved. People don't want art. They want certainty."
Neubronner swallowed.
It wasn't glamorous.
It was worse.
It was practical.
And practical was how empires conquered.
Then Oskar's gaze drifted to the other side of the room—where a crude carbon microphone lay beside a recording horn like a forgotten organ.
He tapped it once.
"This," he said, "is not bad. It's just neglected."
Neubronner hesitated. "Your Highness, microphones are… difficult."
Oskar smiled faintly.
"No," he said. "They're just honest about what humans are."
He pointed at the microphone.
"A carbon microphone works like this," he said. "Sound hits a diaphragm. The diaphragm squeezes carbon granules. The squeezing changes how electricity flows. The changing electricity becomes a signal. That signal can be recorded."
Neubronner stared.
"That's… it?"
"That's it," Oskar said. "And right now you're losing half your sound because you're treating the carbon like gravel instead of an instrument."
He began listing improvements again—simple things that sounded almost insulting until you realized no one had paid for the insult to be fixed.
"Granules sorted by size, not scooped randomly."
"Stable pressure, so the sound doesn't crackle like a fireplace."
"Shielded wiring, so electricity doesn't pick up every stray hum in the room."
"A proper stand, so the thing doesn't wobble every time someone breathes."
"And—most importantly—rooms that don't echo like cathedrals. You can't record a clean voice if the walls keep shouting it back."
Neubronner's mouth was slightly open now.
Oskar spread his hands.
"We don't sell parts," he said. "We sell systems."
If the Americans shouted, Germany would listen better.
Silence filled the workshop for a moment—broken only by a pigeon making a sound that could only be interpreted as disapproval.
Neubronner finally found his voice again, cautious and burning with the question that mattered.
"And… what does Your Highness want in return?"
Oskar smiled—not kindly, not cruelly, but with the calm certainty of a man who already knew the outcome.
"Sixty percent," he said. "Complete industrial backing. And in exchange—"
He leaned closer.
"I'll make German cameras and microphones the language of the modern world."
A pause.
Outside, a pigeon fluttered its wings.
Neubronner extended his hand.
History, quietly, shook it.
History rarely noticed these moments.
It never noticed the first bolt tightened.
Only the machine that followed.
Later in February, Oskar finally met the Tolkien brothers—Ronald and Hilary—and Edith, along with the two "guardians" he had appointed so quickly it was almost insulting to the concept of paperwork.
They arrived in Potsdam thin from travel, cheeks reddened by winter, eyes bright with the kind of restless hunger that only young people and hungry writers possessed. Their guardians—an efficient married couple with calm faces and sharp shoes—stood behind them like polite bayonets.
Oskar took one look at Ronald and felt something very un-princely: disappointment.
Not in the boy—never in the boy—but in the skull.
He had expected… more.
A head like a cathedral. A myth-making dome. Some visible bulge of destiny, as if great literature required extra bone.
Instead, Ronald's head looked perfectly normal.
Oskar stepped forward and, before anyone could stop him, put his massive hand on the boy's head—palm spanning crown to temple like he was checking a melon at a market.
"Damn, son," Oskar said, squinting as if truly confused by the universe. "I thought your head would be bigger."
All three "children" froze.
Hilary stared as if the prince had just committed murder.
Edith—who was actually eighteen, and therefore technically closer to "young woman" than "child"—made a sound between a cough and a laugh, then swallowed it like it might get her shot.
Ronald went stiff as a board, eyes wide, because having a two-meter-tall imperial prince grab your head was not part of any normal school curriculum.
Oskar tapped the side of Ronald's skull once, thoughtfully.
"Peanut-sized," he declared. "Absolutely criminal."
Then he grinned, eyes gleaming.
"…Which means the wonders are hidden inside. That's even better."
He removed his hand as if releasing a captured animal back into the wild.
"Welcome aboard," he said briskly. "The Oskar Imperial Writing Squad. Congratulations: you three are now my young pupils, my national history writers, and—if you survive me—Germany's future myth-makers."
They blinked.
Oskar continued like a man ordering trains.
"You are not here to write boring textbooks," he said. "You are here to write history the way humans actually swallow it: as story."
He counted on his fingers.
"Adventure. Romance. Crime. Horror. War. Exploration. Children's tales. Folk myths. High drama."
The guardians exchanged a glance that said: We are going to die here.
Oskar didn't notice—or did, and didn't care.
"In my world," he said, "books have a structure. A purpose. A target. A tone. Not random rambling. Every story teaches something. Not like a schoolmaster—like a campfire."
He leaned closer, conspiratorial now, as if sharing a secret rather than drafting a national cultural policy.
"And Ronald," he said, pointing at the boy, "you… you are going to help me do something very specific. One day, you will write a book so good that even my enemies cry when they read it. And then they'll wipe their eyes and go back to hating me, but at least they'll hate me with culture."
Ronald swallowed hard.
"Yes, Your Highness," he managed, voice small but sincere.
Edith, bolder, raised a brow.
"And what do we get, in exchange for… being turned into state-sponsored authors?"
Oskar liked her immediately.
"A mansion," he said.
They blinked again.
"A proper house near Potsdam," Oskar continued. "Warm rooms. Good food. A library. A desk that doesn't wobble. And tutors."
He gestured to the guardians.
"These two are your caretakers and teachers. They'll keep you alive, keep you disciplined, and keep you from doing anything too stupid with foreign newspapers."
He paused.
"And because Germany is Germany, you will also do the ten-year citizenship track like everyone else. Language, law, conduct. Work hard, behave, and in ten years you can become citizens properly—if you still want to."
That last line sounded casual.
It wasn't.
It meant: I'm giving you a future—now don't waste it.
The three accepted.
Not because they fully understood what they'd just agreed to, but because the alternative was going back into a world that had already tried to swallow them.
And because there was something in Oskar's madness that felt… strangely sincere.
He didn't just want writers.
He wanted builders of worlds.
However in between working out at the gym and coaching Karl on his workouts, Oskar had found time for another small project. It was then, in early March of 1908—without announcement, without ceremony, without a single imperial speech—a book began appearing.
Not loudly.
Not triumphantly.
Not like propaganda.
It appeared the way rumors did.
In shop windows, where passersby slowed without knowing why.
In libraries, placed face-out rather than spine-out, as if even the librarians felt it deserved to be seen.
In university halls, on desks where professors normally kept foreign journals and forbidden ideas.
On private tables where men stored their most expensive sins.
It did not arrive escorted by banners.
It arrived alone.
The book was enormous—heavy enough that you noticed its weight immediately. Thick paper. Wide margins. Ink laid down with care rather than speed. The sort of book that did not want to be read quickly.
And on the cover, in restrained, almost modest lettering:
ATLAS
Below it, in smaller type:
The Speculative Chronicles of the Lost Ages of Man
A Thought on What the World Might Have Been
No claim of truth.
No declaration of authority.
No challenge to church, crown, or academy.
Only an invitation.
It cost ten Marks.
That was real money in 1908—enough to make a factory worker pause, enough that a peasant might have to choose between the book and a pair of boots, enough that even professors raised an eyebrow before paying.
And yet, it sold.
Because this was not just a book.
It was a world you could hold.
Inside were not merely texts, but visions.
The opening pages did not begin with man at all.
They began with the Earth itself.
Not a diagram.
Not a sermon.
But a sequence of paintings:
A molten globe cooling beneath black skies.
Steam rising as oceans formed.
Continents drifting slowly, inexorably, across time—shown not as theory, but as motion, each plate colored and labeled, arrows marking epochs instead of borders.
Oskar never claimed certainty.
He used phrases like "Imagine, if you will…"
"One possible past…"
"If the Earth behaved as stone and pressure suggest…"
Then came life.
Simple things first—shadows in shallow seas, algae-like forms spreading green across ancient waters. Then stranger shapes, half-recognizable, half-alien. Fish with armor. Insects the size of dogs.
And then—
The Age of Giants.
Dinosaurs, yes—but not as carnival monsters. Not roaring caricatures.
They were drawn like kings.
Massive, patient creatures moving through forests untouched by man. Herds stretching to the horizon. Predators stalking with the inevitability of gravity rather than malice. The illustrations were colored—muted earth tones, greens, ochres—nothing garish, nothing childish.
Men stared at those pages longer than they cared to admit.
Then the end came.
Not punishment.
Not fire from heaven.
But change.
Cold.
Dust.
Darkened skies.
The giants faded.
The book did not gloat. It did not dramatize. It simply showed absence.
Then came ice.
Glaciers swallowing continents.
Mammoths moving like living hills across frozen plains.
Sabertooth cats stalking beneath aurora-lit skies.
Stone Age humans appeared—not as savages, but as fragile survivors. Huddled around fire. Painting cave walls. Looking upward with the same questions modern men pretended they no longer asked.
The discovery of farming was not described as "progress," but as a trap that worked.
The first cities were not triumphs, but compromises—crowded, fragile, brilliant, filthy.
Bronze followed.
Then iron—shown first not in furnaces, but in meteor fragments, black stone fallen from the sky, hammered into blades that changed everything.
Empires rose.
Egypt, drawn not as myth but as labor—fields, canals, stone dragged by thousands of hands.
Mesopotamia, its cities glowing like islands in a dark world.
China and India, vast and continuous, barely pausing between dynasties.
Greece, brief and brilliant.
Alexander's empire expanding like fire across dry grass—then collapsing as quickly as it had ignited.
Rome rising not by genius, but by administration—roads, law, habit—until even that machine ground itself down.
The Americas were not forgotten.
Mound cities.
Terraced fields.
Civilizations rising and falling without ever touching Europe—shown as complete histories rather than footnotes.
Every age ended the same way.
Complexity rose.
Resources strained.
Elites hardened.
And then—collapse, fracture, forgetting.
The final chapters approached the modern world cautiously.
Steam.
Smoke.
Iron rails.
Factories.
Cities swelling beyond what their lungs could handle.
And finally, the last page:
1908
No crown.
No triumph.
Just a question printed beneath a world map still in motion:
"If this is not the first age of man… what makes us believe it will be the last?"
What unsettled people was not Atlantis.
Not dinosaurs.
Not even the suggestion that the Earth was far older than their grandparents had been told.
It was the tone.
Prince Oskar did not write like a man revealing truth.
He wrote like someone remembering a dream humanity had forgotten it once shared.
The reaction was immediate—and different everywhere.
In Germany, schoolboys treated it like scripture, tracing maps until the corners softened. Teachers argued whether it should be allowed in classrooms, then quietly used it anyway because it made children ask better questions.
In Russia, illiterate peasants bought it for the pictures alone. They gathered at kitchen tables and pointed at mammoths and glaciers like icons, arguing in whispers about whether such worlds had truly existed—or whether they were warnings painted in color.
In England, gentlemen read it aloud after dinner and went silent in a way that made brandy taste bitter. One reviewer called it "dangerously calm."
In France, artists tore out illustrations and pinned them to studio walls. Philosophers debated whether the book was pessimistic or simply honest. One journal wrote that it made history feel "less like a ladder, and more like a tide."
In America, teachers praised it as education while industrialists frowned. Progress, the book implied, was not immortal—and that unsettled men who believed it was.
In Rome, the book was read carefully.
It was not condemned.
It did not deny God.
It merely made Creation feel vast enough to dwarf human arrogance.
By the end of March, the first print run was gone.
By April, translations were underway.
By May, ATLAS no longer meant a single book.
It meant a question whispered across continents.
If the world has risen before…
what happens when it rises again?
Oskar made no public comment.
He returned to his factories, his ships, his children.
But privately, he laughed like a man who had discovered another machine that printed money without steam or steel.
History and most importantly Dinosaurs.
Within a week, AngelWorks shops were filled with toys: wooden dinosaurs, cloth dinosaurs, rubber dinosaurs that squeaked when squeezed. Accuracy did not matter. Wonder did.
Luise demanded a dinosaur wearing an officer's cap.
Tanya approved a "Royal Dinosaur Nursery Set."
Anna, deadpan, asked whether dinosaurs required winter coats.
Oskar declared, with absolute sincerity, that they did.
And across Germany—and then the world—people went quietly mad with wonder, holding a ten-mark book like a relic, staring backward across deep time, and realizing that history was not a straight road at all…
…but a vast, repeating circle, waiting patiently for the next name to be forgotten.