The Thirty Years War continues to ravage 17th century Europe, but a fresh force is gathering power and influence: the Confederated Principalities of Europe, an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, as well as the Western world Virginians through the 20th century led by Mike Stearns who have been hurled centuries in to the past by a mysterious cosmic accident. The CPE gets the know-how of 20th century technology, but desires iron and metal to help make the machines. The iron mines of the higher Palatinate were about 1634: The Bavarian Problems rendered inoperable by wartime harm, and American know-how is needed at that moment to pump them out and get the metal flowing again-a mission which will prove more complicated than anyone desires. In the maelstrom that’s Europe, even a 20th hundred years copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica can precipitate an emergency, when readers learn of the 1640 Portuguese revolt, a crisis which will involve Naples aswell. Another aspect: Albanian exiles in Naples, motivated by the People in america, are plotting to recuperate lost Albanian turf, that may precipitate another problems in the Balkans. This troubled century was full of revolutions and plans to get more revolutions prior to the People in america arrived, and offered every would-be groundbreaking an example of a revolution that succeeded. European countries is a pot arriving at a boil, and Mike Stearns will have his hands complete seeing that it doesn’t boil over on to Grantville and the CPE.