SMS Amerika

This article contains spoilers through book 7, Iron Grey Sea

SMS Amerika Prior to Coming to the Alternate World
The SMS Amerika appears to have come from a third world, closely paralleled to the one the USS Walker came from. However, in the alternate world that the Amerika came from, the United States never entered WWI and the SS Amerika was removed from passenger service and commissioned as an armed cruiser of the Imperial German Navy. She was commanded by Kapitan Adlar Von Melhausen. During WWI she captured the crews of 9 British vessels, who were kept on board as prisoners while their ships were scuttled. During that war she was engaged in battle with the RMS Mauritania, which resulted in both ships being damaged. It was during that battle that the Amerika entered the storm which brought her to this alternate world, 28 years prior to the time the USS Walker and Mahan crossed over.

Author Taylor Anderson gives his reason for made up ships thus on his Discussion Blog http://www.taylorandersonauthor.com/blog/discussions/ On January 06, 2015 he wrote :

"... I would personally prefer to “add” a destroyer to the list of those involved for the same reason that I have always used ships with no wartime record: Any ship actually there would have had an actual CREW of real people, and I would–personally–feel uncomfortable with shanghaiing their lives, so to speak. I’ve come close a time or two, in a manner of speaking, with Santa Catalina (Blackhawk) and Amerika, both of which DID have “post divergence” records, but the way I used them, they are NOT the same ship. I may even IMPLY that some . . . mysterious ship could be a well-known one, leaving it to the imagination of the reader to decide, but that’s as far as I’ll go. Even Surcouf is an analog. They CALL it Surcouf, because that’s what she looked like, but . . . wherever she came from, either that was not her name, or she was one of the other planned vessels of the same design. This is a rule I’ve always tried to keep, and I mean to continue doing so in this series. Maybe it’s because I grew up with so many veterans of WW2 and the inter-war years. I have known too many of them to change their service records."

SMS Amerika in the Republic of Real People
Having arrived in the new alternate world the Amerika, with her German crew and British prisoners, found her way to the Republic of Real People, or Volksrepublik, in what we know as South Africa. She is currently moored in the capital city of Aalek-saan-draa and is use as the Republic's "War Palace." Steam is maintained on her boilers to power electrical generators and pumps, and her engines are tested twice-yearly; although, she has not been to dry dock in the 30 years she's been in the alternate world and it is unknown if she is seaworthy yet.

First Appearance

 * Iron Grey Sea (Book 7)