After the tank trials and the airfield demonstration—after the handshakes, the contracts, the signatures that would anchor German supremacy for years—Oskar still wasn't finished.
He never was.
The private train compartment rocked gently as it cut through East Prussia's winter-green countryside. Beyond the glass, fields slid past in disciplined strips, villages appearing and vanishing like brief thoughts. They were heading toward German Works, near Danzig, on the left bank of the Vistula—the old shipyard that had been turned into a steel fortress by Oskar's money and Brutus's brutality.
The ride from Königsberg was short. The Kaiser would continue onward to Berlin from Danzig. Oskar and Tirpitz would remain behind, peeling off like a knife from its sheath and driving straight into the shipyard's heart.
But the time was enough.
Enough time for Oskar to reach under the bench, draw out a hard suitcase, and set it on the polished table between them with the careful ease of a man who knew he could rip the suitcase apart if he wasn't careful.
Wilhelm II looked up from his papers. Tirpitz, who had learned by now that Oskar never opened a suitcase without changing someone's life, set down his cup.
Oskar met his father's eyes.
"Before you go, Father," he said quietly, "I want you to see something. I want you to see my small box of miracles. Just a glimpse of what comes next."
The Kaiser's moustache twitched. Tirpitz leaned forward a fraction.
Oskar flipped the latches.
The suitcase opened with a soft click—no theatrical flourish, just precision. Inside, nestled in fitted compartments, lay a miniature world.
He lifted out the first piece: a small, clean structure, made of small black-and-white bricks, sharply angled like 21st century architecture in miniature. Across the front, in neat lettering, it read:
BUS STATION
Then he placed two tiny double-decker buses beside it—metallic, solid, their paint an unmistakable shade:
Prussian blue.
Not bright. Not childish.
A color with discipline in it. The color of uniforms, of ink seals, of official certainty. A color that told the mind—without needing words—that the state was stable, enduring, adult.
Wilhelm II stared at the little buses as if they were a joke he hadn't yet decided whether to laugh at.
Tirpitz frowned, the expression of a man trying to classify what he was seeing in the only categories he trusted: weapon, ship, engine… or nonsense.
"What is this?" the Kaiser asked at last.
"A model?" Tirpitz added, skeptical.
Oskar smiled—quietly, almost pleased with himself.
"You can call it a model," he said. "But it's also a demonstration."
He tapped one of the buses lightly with his finger, making it roll a few centimeters across the table.
"You remember the road of advancements I have made," Oskar went on, voice smooth and almost conversational. "Nylon. Better metallurgy. New infantry weapons. Three-hundred-eighty millimeter naval guns. Synthetic fuel. Rubber. Aluminium for aircraft and armor."
He didn't say it like a boast.
He said it like a list of steps you climbed.
"Now," he continued, "what comes next isn't only war machines."
He gestured at the buses.
"It's the everyday world."
Wilhelm II's eyes narrowed.
Oskar nodded once, as if confirming something he'd already decided years ago.
"I promised the people buses," he said. "Public transport as a right. Free transport for loyal German citizens. A visible reward from the state—for order, for discipline, for belonging."
Tirpitz's eyebrows lifted slightly. Even he understood the political genius of it: a modern empire that moved its people like it moved its steel.
But Oskar raised one hand before either man could get stuck on the buses.
"However, that isn't the real wonder here. Instead it's the bus station," he said.
He slid the bus station closer, turning it so they could see the seams—not cracks, not weak joints, but a peculiar kind of structure. The station wasn't carved. It wasn't forged. It wasn't even assembled with screws.
It was built out of small interlocking bricks—precise modular pieces that snapped together with unsettling stability, as if the building wanted to be dismantled and rebuilt endlessly without losing its strength.
Wilhelm leaned in.
Tirpitz leaned in too, the frown thinning into curiosity.
Oskar held one brick up between two fingers.
"This," he said, "is your first look at something I call… LEGO."
He let the word sit in the air.
Then, with the faintest edge of amusement, he added:
"From Danish," Oskar said. "It means play well. A small message to the Danes to behave… and because it sounds good."
Wilhelm II and Tirpitz stared at the miniature station and its Prussian-blue buses as if Oskar had placed a riddle on the table and then refused to provide the answer key.
"Legos?" Wilhelm repeated, smoothing his mustache as if the word itself had disturbed it. His eyes narrowed—half suspicion, half reluctant curiosity. "What—why? Is this another children's toy of yours?"
Tirpitz nodded slowly, his gaze still fixed on the bricks, studying them the way a naval officer studied an unfamiliar mine.
"The buses, I understand," he said carefully. "Public transport. Order. Efficiency. The Social Democrats will applaud, the workers will feel rewarded. That part makes sense." He extended a finger and tapped the little station once. "But these." Another tap. "These bricks. What is the point? What do aluminium and nylon possibly have to do with this?"
Oskar's smile widened just a fraction.
It was the expression of a man who enjoyed being underestimated—because it meant the next sentence would sting.
"Because these," he said evenly, "are not made of ordinary plastic."
He reached into the suitcase, lifted a single brick between his fingers, and held it up to the light.
"They are made of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene. ABS, for short. Strong. Flexible. Dimensionally stable. It does not warp. It does not rot. It does not forgive sloppy manufacture." He lowered the brick slightly. "And it teaches people how to think."
Wilhelm blinked.
Tirpitz frowned, as if he had just heard something dangerously close to philosophy.
Oskar leaned forward—not animated, not theatrical.
Certain.
"Yes, I know," he said calmly. "That sounds vague. But the principle of what these can do is simple."
He gestured toward the little interlocking world on the table.
"With these, there is no single correct path. You can follow instructions… or ignore them completely and build something absurd. A tower that shouldn't stand. A bridge that looks wrong. A machine that fails."
He paused.
"And nothing punishes you for it."
He picked up a loose brick and pressed it onto the station.
Click.
The sound was small.
Almost trivial.
But it cut through the quiet of the train like a pin dropping.
"That," Oskar said, tapping the new piece, "is progress you can feel. Stack. Connect. And suddenly your idea exists in the world."
He snapped on another piece.
Click.
"It's immediate," he continued. "Rewarding. Addictive."
Tirpitz's eyes followed the brick without permission. He looked annoyed that he was interested.
"The rules are simple," Oskar went on. "Studs. Slots. Pressure. Fit. And from those rules comes endless depth. Bridges. Machines. Cities. Systems."
He set the growing model down and spread his hands.
"Structure with infinite outcomes," he said. "Its a little taste of freedom to make whatever you wish. And people love a little bit of freedom in their lives."
Wilhelm's skepticism weakened into something quieter. Something almost boyish. His gaze stayed on the station, as if his mind had begun imagining possibilities without asking his pride for permission.
For a moment neither Wilhelm nor Tirpitz spoke.
Outside, fields slid past in green and grey bands. Inside, the little bus station sat between them like a quiet challenge.
Then Oskar let the final blade slide out—casually, as if it were an afterthought.
"And yes," he said lightly, "it will make Germany wealthier."
Wilhelm's eyes flicked up.
Tirpitz's mouth twitched.
"Rich enough," Oskar continued, "to build more things, to fund busses,—"
He smiled, almost gently.
"—and to purchase whatever the military requires without asking permission from anyone."
Wilhelm leaned back slowly, eyes returning to the bricks as if they had changed shape while he wasn't looking.
Tirpitz exhaled slowly through his nose. A reluctant smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, the kind that appeared when a man realized he was witnessing something he did not yet fully understand.
"A children's toy," he muttered, turning the little construction over in his thick fingers, "that teaches engineering… discipline… patience."
Oskar's grin widened, proud and utterly unapologetic.
"Exactly," he said. "A toy—yes. But also a manufacturing proof."
He lifted one brick, turned it slowly between finger and thumb, and spoke with the offhand tone of a man discussing weather.
"If I can mass-produce this—with this level of precision, this consistency, this repeatability—then I can mass-produce nearly anything. Components. Casings. Instruments. Standardized parts for radios. Better insulation. Better connectors. Entire systems that used to be handmade and unreliable."
He set the brick down again.
Click.
"Infinite applications," he added lightly, as if the word infinite wasn't ridiculous. "But for now it's just a prototype. A small taste. Just something to show you a glimpse of the future, that's all."
The silence that followed was strange—not reverent, not awkward, but heavy, as if something important had slipped quietly into the compartment without knocking and was now standing behind them, listening.
Then Wilhelm II did something none of them expected.
Slowly—almost furtively, as if hoping no one would notice—he reached forward and pressed a single brick onto the small LEGO station himself.
Click.
The sound was absurdly soft.
And yet it echoed.
The Kaiser did not comment. He did not smile. He simply stared at the tiny structure for a long moment, as if weighing empires in plastic.
The click said enough.
Oskar, meanwhile, was still wearing a grin far too large for the moment—wide, boyish, borderline stupid. As casually as if he were about to produce a cigar cutter, he turned back to his suitcase.
There was a click, a shift—and from a hidden side compartment he produced two small plastic containers.
Modern. Translucent. Something that should have been completely impossible in 1912.
One was filled with colorful pills—reds, yellows, whites—like sugared candies.
The other held blue pills.
Before Wilhelm or Tirpitz could even open their mouths, Oskar pointed cheerfully at the colorful container.
"And this," he said brightly, "is my next miracle, and our country's new solution to many deadly infections. And its called antibiotics."
He spoke as if introducing a new brand of biscuits.
"No more will minor—or major—wound infections kill people at the rates they do now. Safer surgeries. Safer childbirths. Fewer deaths from things that should never have been fatal in the first place."
He waved the container slightly.
"All thanks to me, of course," he added without shame, "but also to a doctor named Paul Ehrlich—and also thanks to us finally accepting the rather obvious truth that microbes fight each other. Some of them make chemicals that kill their rivals."
Wilhelm blinked.
Tirpitz leaned in.
"So," Oskar continued, warming to the subject, "we simply grow these microorganisms in large tanks. Feed them sugars, nutrients, oxygen. Keep the temperature and pH just right. Then the organism produces the antibiotic, and we harvest it."
He paused, considering.
"It's a bit like mushroom farming," he said. "Only less pleasant-smelling, more sterile, and significantly more important to the survival of civilization. Slightly more complicated, but the point is—"
He snapped the lid shut.
"It works."
Wilhelm II straightened immediately.
"So on a battlefield," the Kaiser asked, eyes alight, "attrition could be reduced? Soldiers saved? Men returned to the line instead of buried?"
Tirpitz nodded at once, already imagining steel decks and wounded sailors carried away rather than written off.
Oskar felt a faint, unwelcome chill.
Of course they went straight to war.
"Yes," he answered anyway. "Of course. In the future, I intend to attach dedicated combat medics to units—people trained not just to bandage, but to save. On battleships as well. Real medical teams. Proper tools."
He gestured vaguely.
"Better syringes for morphine. Cleaner equipment. Knowledge. Organization."
Wilhelm nodded approvingly.
Then his gaze drifted.
To the blue pills.
His brow furrowed.
"And those?"
Oskar's face lit up.
He slid the container across the table toward his father with theatrical enthusiasm.
"And this," he said proudly, "is the Oskar Industrial Group's first version of what I am calling Viagra."
Tirpitz froze.
Wilhelm stared.
"It will invigorate a man's libido," Oskar continued cheerfully, "and help him satisfy his women in bed."
He produced another identical container and placed it gently—respectfully—into Tirpitz's stunned hands.
The two old men sat there in silence, holding plastic containers filled with impossible blue pills, their expressions caught somewhere between disbelief, embarrassment, and dawning interest.
Neither of them refused.
Not a word of protest was spoken.
History would remember many things about Wilhelm II and Alfred von Tirpitz.
Their moral restraint was not among them.
Unfortunately—or perhaps mercifully—the train soon slowed.
Brakes hissed.
Voices rose outside.
Danzig.
The journey ended there. Paths diverged. Secrets were pocketed. Thoughts raced ahead into futures that had not existed an hour earlier.
And Oskar, packing his suitcase once more, still wore that ridiculous grin—
—as if he had not just handed humanity plastic bricks, antibiotics, and erectile dysfunction medication in the same afternoon.
As if it were nothing, and he wasn't done yet.
The brakes sighed. The carriage rocked once, then settled. Outside the window, Danzig slid into view—cranes and masts against a cold Baltic sky, smoke drifting over the Vistula like a permanent veil. The station platforms were busy with port-men and soldiers, but even their movement seemed to pause for the imperial train.
Wilhelm II rose first, tugging his coat straight, Kaiser again in posture if not in mood. He clasped Oskar's shoulder—firm, paternal.
"Try not to overturn the shipyard today," he murmured, half a joke, half a warning.
Oskar's grin twitched into something warmer.
"I'll do my best, Father."
He leaned in, lowering his voice just enough that Tirpitz could pretend he hadn't heard.
"And good luck with Mother," Oskar added innocently.
Wilhelm froze for half a heartbeat, moustache bristling. His eyes flicked toward Oskar—then away again, as if to deny the entire concept with sheer imperial dignity.
"Hmph," he said, stiffly. "You are… incorrigible."
The doors opened. Cold air rushed in, and Oskar along with Tirpitz stepped out of the train, into the bite of Baltic winter, flanked immediately by the Eternal Guard.
Wilhelm watched them go. A Muscle Motors A-Class car waited at the curb with the engine already running. The driver did not ask questions; he never did anymore. He opened the rear door. Oskar and Tirpitz slid inside, coats brushing leather, the car settling slightly under Oskar's weight like it was making peace with reality.
The convoy moved at once—escort motorcycles gliding ahead, another car behind, a small chain of disciplined motion threading out of the station and toward the river.
Danzig's streets passed in clean blocks of brick and frost. Beyond them, the industrial skyline rose—cranes, slipways, gantries—German Works waiting like an iron cathedral.
Inside the car, the mood shifted with the same inevitability as the city around them.
No more toys. No more jokes.
Tirpitz adjusted his gloves, eyes forward.
Oskar spoke first, cutting straight to the bone.
"So," he said quietly, "how are the Navy's war preparations?"
Tirpitz didn't bother with modesty. Not with Oskar. Not anymore.
"Proceeding smoothly, Your Highness," he replied. "The Fleet has intensified training at every level. Gunnery drills. Night maneuvers. Damage-control exercises until men dream of flooding compartments. We are preparing to be able to sail and fight immediately if war breaks out—whether in 1914 as you have warned, or later."
Oskar nodded once, satisfied.
Tirpitz continued, voice steady, almost grimly proud.
"Britain has accelerated construction, yes. But the gap has narrowed. We now possess a substantial modern battle line: Nassau, Heligoland, Kaiser, König—supported by Blücher, Moltke, and Derfflinger in the battlecruiser arm."
He named them like a man reciting the bones of a creature he had raised.
"And more are coming," Tirpitz added. "Bavaria and Mackensen are under construction. Once they commission, we will possess—on paper—twenty-four battleships and twelve battlecruisers of modern type."
He glanced sideways at Oskar.
"In raw numbers of modern capital ships, we approach parity. In performance, we are… superior. If we fight correctly, a decisive victory is possible."
The words carried weight. Even Tirpitz rarely allowed himself to say them so plainly.
Oskar listened without smiling.
He knew better than most that victory on paper was not victory on water.
"Numbers are only the start," Oskar said. "Crew quality, intelligence, doctrine, luck—those decide battles more often than armor thickness. Still…"
He exhaled softly.
"It is good to hear we are where we planned to be."
He leaned back, eyes briefly unfocusing as the car rolled over cobblestones.
He had confidence in the fleet he had helped build, but he felt no comfort in that confidence. Sea war was too uncertain—too dependent on weather, timing, mistakes, signals missed by seconds.
If he could avoid a decisive battle at sea entirely, he would. Speaking was much more preferable to war.
But he knew the world rarely allowed such preferences.
Tirpitz hesitated, then asked the question that had been gnawing at every naval planner.
"Your Highness… Bavaria and Mackensen will not be ready until late 1914, perhaps early 1915. If war truly begins in the window you predict… will they arrive in time to matter?"
Oskar's gaze sharpened.
"Do not worry," he said. "This war if it comes, it will not begin with a decisive battle at sea. It begins with positioning."
He gestured faintly, as if moving pieces on an invisible map.
"In the early phase, our battlecruisers and submarines will do the first work. Britain will not rush to meet our main fleet immediately—not until she gathers her strength and chooses the terms of engagement close to home."
He paused.
"And that delay is our opening."
Tirpitz's eyes narrowed, following.
"We strike trade," Oskar continued. "We make them bleed at sea-lane level. We force them to defend routes they assumed were safe. We strain their empire's arteries until they must respond."
He looked out the window toward the cranes rising over the Vistula.
"Eventually," he said, "they will seek a decisive battle—because with trade strangled, Britain cannot endure a long war. And when that moment comes…"
His voice was calm.
"…we will be ready."
Tirpitz let out a slow breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"Good," he murmured.
The car rolled on for several seconds in silence, the muted rhythm of tires over stone filling the space where words had just rearranged the future.
Then Tirpitz spoke again, carefully.
"Your Highness," he said, "have you given any thought to the successors of the Bavaria-class battleships and the Mackensen-class battlecruisers?"
Oskar did not answer at once.
Outside the window, the cranes of Danzig crept closer, steel arms frozen against the winter sky.
"According to existing plans," Tirpitz continued, "once those classes pass their midpoint of construction, the next generation of capital ships must be laid down. The yards will expect direction."
Oskar exhaled softly.
"Let us wait," he said at last. "The next class of capital ships… may be the last."
The words landed heavier than any shell.
"What?" Tirpitz turned toward him, genuine alarm breaking through his discipline. "Your Highness—do you mean to say we will not build further battleships?"
Oskar nodded once.
"Yes."
For a moment, Tirpitz could only stare.
Battleships were not just weapons to him. They were identity. Purpose. The distilled expression of sea power. The idea that they could be nearing obsolescence felt like being told the ocean itself was about to dry up.
"Impossible," Tirpitz said quietly. "Capital ships are the backbone of naval warfare. They dominate sea lanes, bombard shores, decide wars."
"They have," Oskar corrected gently. "Not will."
Tirpitz shook his head, still stunned. "Even if aircraft grow stronger, these ships displace tens of thousands of tons. They carry armor measured in hundreds of millimeters. How could such things be rendered obsolete?"
Oskar turned fully toward him.
"You saw the F-2 fighters," he said. "You saw the H-1 bombers."
"Yes," Tirpitz replied. "They are impressive. Revolutionary even. But—what does this have to do with battleships becoming obsolete?"
Oskar did not raise his voice.
"If aircraft can take off from the sea," he asked, "and attack surface vessels from beyond gun range… how does a battleship fight back?"
Tirpitz frowned. "How would they take off from sea? And besides, as impressive as your aircraft are, they lack the range. They would run out of fuel long before they reached a fleet at sea. And even if they reached it—how could such light machines threaten moving armored ships?"
Oskar met his gaze steadily.
"Marshal," he said, "they will not fly from any island or some piece of land."
Tirpitz stiffened.
"They will fly from ships."
Silence fell again—deeper this time.
"What ships?" Tirpitz asked.
"Platforms," Oskar replied. "Floating airfields. Ships built not to fire guns, but to launch aircraft."
Tirpitz stared, disbelief warring with comprehension.
"Aircraft… from the sea?"
"Yes," Oskar said. "Bombers equipped with torpedoes. Fighters to protect them. Once a fleet is detected, the aircraft launch, strike from hundreds of kilometers away, and return. The battleship never sees its enemy."
The words sounded heretical.
Tirpitz swallowed. "You are describing something that would overturn everything we understand about naval warfare."
"I know," Oskar said quietly.
"And you claim," Tirpitz continued, voice strained, "that such ships are already being built?"
Oskar nodded.
"Yes, infact it's happening right now even as we speak."
The car slowed.
High walls rose around them—concrete and steel, guarded gates sliding open under the watchful eyes of sentries. They entered the German Works shipyard, the vast complex stretching along the left bank of the Vistula like a mechanical city unto itself.
Warehouses the size of cathedrals lined the roads, their interiors lit and heated, shielding thousands of workers from the December cold. Slipways disappeared beneath massive roofs, concealing hulls too valuable—and too disruptive—to be seen from above.
The car came to a stop.
Tirpitz stepped out as if in a dream.
It took him several seconds to accept that what Oskar had told him was not theory.
Then the warehouse doors opened.
And theory became steel.
Inside, beneath towering beams and crane rails, lay a ship unlike anything Tirpitz had ever seen.
It was enormous—longer than most battleships, broad-beamed, its hull rising like a cliff from the slipway.
But there were no turrets.
No heavy guns.
No barbettes.
Instead, the deck was flat.
Endless.
A smooth, uninterrupted plane of steel stretching from bow to stern.
Men in Prussian-blue workwear swarmed across it—thousands of them—helmets on their heads, safety harnesses clipped, tools flashing in the light. From a distance, they looked like ants crawling across the shell of some vast metallic creature.
Tirpitz stopped dead.
His breath caught.
"Is this…" he began, then had to stop himself.
"…is this one of your aircraft carriers?"
Oskar nodded.
"It is the first."
Tirpitz stared upward, struggling to reconcile what he was seeing.
"It's enormous," he whispered. "And yet…"
He gestured helplessly at the empty deck.
"…it has no large guns."
Oskar stood beside him, hands clasped behind his back, watching the workers with quiet satisfaction.
"It doesn't need them, my man," he said.
Above them, cranes moved, steel plates swung, and the future of naval warfare took shape—one rivet at a time.