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Censored Addendum to Yoshimoto Hano's History of the Empire
by Filip Wiltgren
Filip Wiltgren is a writer and tabletop game designer based in Sweden. When he isn't writing or making prototypes, he spends time with his wife and kids, or blogs at wiltgren.com. This is his second publication in Daily SF.
Imaginary Concepts, People, and Places
Hitler
You've never heard of him. A bit like Anton Drexler, but shorter. Had a squeakier voice, too. Did about the same things but failed miserably.
Nuclear Weapons
The whole idea is that you can separate the indestructible elements of life. So you could take a rice atom and cut it open and all this energy would be released in a great, fiery flash. It would be like transforming Earth or Wind into Fire and the rice atom would vanish. Ridiculous idea.
Dogs are like cats, or rats. Like a rat-cat, but social. Liked humans and looked up to us. Acted as eyes for the blind sometimes, but without the need to put them on your face. Quite nice, really. Liked to be petted but drooled a lot, ate shoes and ran beneath tanks to explode them.
America
That's where the Sunrise Provinces and Vinland intersects. Lots of revolutions, revolts, and civil war. Quite like now, come to think of it. They waged war on Hitler and His Imperial Majesty, may He guard the Light of Heaven.
Huguenots
White barbarians who threw each other out windows. Called it defenestration to make it sound official.
Submarines
Boats that go below the water. How silly is that?
China
A mythical nation on the mainland. Built an army of clay soldiers to protect it.
Socrates
Imaginary, barbarian name for the philosopher Ning-Jiang. Ning-Jiang was born in the far western provinces and rose to prominence in the early Imperial court with the philosophical model of the atom.
The Imperial Time Corps
Completely imaginary, the stuff of bunraku and kami-tales. Does not exist by edict of His Imperial Majesty.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, December 29th, 2016
Author Comments
This story started as a faux listicle, "7 Things That Did Not Happen", and got a lot of question marks from my beta readers. Apparently the connection between Russian AT dogs, the 1618 Defenestration of Prague, and the Imperial Japanese Time Corps isn't as widely known as I imagined. Big thanks to everyone who helped this story get better, or informed me of how sick it really was.
- Filip Wiltgren
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