Fearful that Germany might become trapped between France, its old enemy to the west, and the growing threat of Imperial Russia to the east, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the officer corps and colonial administrators to expand her territories outside her traditional borders. With little land of any great strategic or economic value left by the greedy British and French, a plan was presented to take Germany in a new direction—to the stars! The new navy required to pave the way to the other worlds would be christened the Kaiserliche Äthermarine (Imperial German Aether Navy).
