Last Resort

It’s March 1865 and the American Civil War continues to ravage the United States, reaching a body count of over 600,000. Abraham Lincoln has reached his breaking point. Over the course of the war, his patience has been increasingly tested, pushed to the limit. Lincoln has grown tired of watching his country get torn apart as thousands of Americans die every day for a cause that seems lost. Lincoln wants his country back and is about to find out how far he is willing to go to get it.

Today, the Battle of Waynesboro rages on in the Southern state of Virginia. The third month of the year begins with blood and cannon fire. The Union army is a dominant force in the battle.Just nine of them will die while 1,500 Confederate troops will be killed. Lincoln’s army is just steps away from victory, but Lincoln is frustrated. The war has taken its toll on him, both physically and psychologically. He has grown tired of idly watching on as young men die for a cause that seems lost. He’s lost all hope and; unbeknownst to Lincoln, he has just over a month to live.  

Lincoln sits in his Cabinet Room, imagining the unspeakable horrors that the men are seeing in Waynesboro, along with the horrors that have been seen throughout the course of the war. Gettysburg; a three-day battle, took the lives of 51,000 men. Antietam resulted in the deaths of 22,717 men in just one day, the single most horrific one-day battle of the entire war. All of them happened on American soil and took only American lives. Lincoln has tried to make peace with the Southerners, but they want something he can’t give them; not willingly. The Southerners want to divide his country, start their own. They’ve already achieved part of their goal, they just have to make it official. North and South have polar opposite views and radically different beliefs, but both of them are fighting for what they believe in. The South seceded on December of 1860, infuriating Lincoln and his supporters in the North. The fate of the country was at stake. Ever since, Lincoln and his Northern army have been fighting hard trying to hold the country together, the fate of the Union is in the balance. Regardless, the war rages on. Lincoln needs to find a surefire solution and fast.

Steven Kerling has been responsible for the creation of weapons to be utilized by the Northern army since the beginning of the war. As one of President Lincoln’s closest friends, Kerling develops various death machines that have brought destruction upon the South. The hand grenade, the rocket, and the land mine were some of his more successful creations (all of which would be improved continuously throughout history until they were eventually perfected in the 20th and 21st centuries). Today, Kerling has requested a personal meeting with Lincoln. Unlike most of his creations, it is a weapon from the past rather than a weapon for the future. If he can perfect it, the North could end the war in a matter of hours.  

Abraham Lincoln arrives at Steven Kerling’s weapons development facility in Lake Heritage, Pennsylvania, just over three miles outside of Gettysburg. Kerling has invited him here to see something extraordinary. “I think I have found what you need to end this war”, Kerling had said to Lincoln in a telegraph. “It’s a very destructive option, but it will certainly minimize casualties, on your side at least. It will no doubt damage the South and could be irreparable. Prepare yourself, Mr. Lincoln, because this is going to sound absurd: I have found a way to recreate dinosaurs, enormous reptiles that walked this green earth 65 million years ago. Yesterday, I successfully completed the creation of two harmless herbivores: a small Iguanodon and an incredibly massive Brachiosaurus. The beasts are contained at my facility. I would love for you to come here and see them.”

Lincoln now stands in the facility, looking in awe out a window. The Brachiosaurus can be seen a few meters away in an enclosure near the building, craning it’s massive 30-foot-long neck above the tops of trees in order to pluck the leaves off of them. “This is incredible, Steven.” Lincoln whispers a compliment to Kerling.

“Just think of the damage a beast like this could do to a camp of rebels,” Kerling says. “This is a herbivore; of course, so it won’t have any desire to kill. Nevertheless, if this thing so much as walks into a rebel-occupied area, it will unintentionally step on anyone near it.I am glad I could find you a suitable solution to your problem. As for carnivores, my team and I plan to begin production on Velociraptors next week.”

“Excellent.”, Lincoln says, turning back towards the window to watch the Brachiosaurus devour the leaves off of a tree in the artificial environment that it has been placed in.