The Last Day of Creation

**The Last Day of Creation** (in original German: **Der letzte Tag der Schöpfung**) is a Science fiction novel by German writer Wolfgang Jeschke that was first published in 1981. Plot of the novel served as an inspiration for Original War especially for American Campaign.

## Plot

The book is structured into three parts.

The first part describes several anomalous ancient artifacts that turn out to be remnants of modern era items: a part of a pilot's breathing apparatus worshipped for centuries as a Catholic saintly relic, a clearly recognizable trace of a Jeep discovered during archaeological works on Gibraltar, found in the same layer as an early hominid skeleton, and an equally old grenade launcher of a model just introduced in the US Army. William W. Francis, an ambitious officer of the US Navy, becomes convinced that time travel is possible and manages to launch a secret project to develop a technological device able to transfer people and materiel through time.

The second part describes the project "Chronotron", the successful implementation of a time machine, which is at first able only to move things into the past. It is believed that time transfer into the future will be solved soon. The American administration decides to move oil pumping machinery 5 million years into the past, set it up on oil deposits in the Middle East, and transport the oil through the then dried-up Mediterranean Basin to the shores of the North Sea, where reverse time machines will push it to the modern era. The massively expensive project is kept strictly secret. Objections of scientists that time transfer into the future may be just a dream, that the project could exhaust the country in a new arm race, and that the history of humankind may be irreversibly changed, are ignored.

The third part introduces Steve Stanley, a military pilot picked up to participate in the project. His task is to protect the installations and specialists transferred into the past. Stanley successfully descends into the prehistoric Mediterranean. He is surprised to arrive in the middle of an all-out war, where newcomers are chased by nuclear artillery. He learns that the plan went completely wrong: isolated groups of Americans were scattered through time more widely than calculated, the reverse time transfer is impossible, and worst of all, the Soviets, allied with the Arab countries, send teams of mercenaries to thwart the plans of the Americans and defend the oil reserves. A harassing war then breaks out between the two camps who do not hesitate to use nuclear weapons which contaminate the whole region and give the protagonists the impression of living a delocalized Third World War.

The pipeline project is gradually abandoned, because the equipment, sometimes arrived a few decades earlier, is rusty and unusable and movement is made difficult by adverse harassment. Deep down nobody believes in the project anymore. Currently the only objective of teams still on site is survival in a hostile environment. Time only counts from the "first recorded landing", some decide to abandon the project and start a family. Professor Singer tames humanoid monkeys, ancestors of Man and teaches them the basics of language. Others migrate north to found a new civilization there. The most optimistic, accompanied by women and children, decide to found a colony, the new Atlantis, located in the Bermuda region where the temporary repatriation of the teams in place was originally planned. The two main characters, Steve Stanley and Jérôme Bannister, decide not to join Atlantis, preferring to explore the African continent at the risk of their lives. Stanley meets an envoy from the Vatican there who tells him that he can bring him back to his present, but he decides to stay in the heart of the African continent with his friend Goodluck the apeman.

## Characters

### American

* Steve Stanley
* Alan S. Walton
* Jérôme Bannister
* Salomon Singer
* William W. Francis
* Jane Brookwood
* Lucy

### Animals

* Goodluck
* Blizzard

## Links to Original War

* Steve Stanley is a strong inspiration for John Macmillan. He is picked up for the expedition because he has no relatives or other close people but finds love just before departure.
* Conflict is between Americans and Arabian-Soviet alliance.
	+ In some versions language versions (primarily from East European countries) Soviets are omitted from the story and Americans face only Arabs. Notably its the case for Czech and English versions.
* Americans are training Apemen.
* There would be a character named Wolfgang Jeschke in the Arabian Campaign.
* Artifacts are found during the book.