Sneaking into the Eastern Empire as a researcher turned out to not be that difficult. Elliot had expected to need to come up with an elaborate backstory or perhaps try and bribe someone to get him into a lab. None of that was necessary though, because even though humanity was divided up into distinct empires, there was a palpable and real sense of purpose that drove them all to work together.
Elliot still has trouble recognizing this version of humanity, and was so different from all the eras he had the opportunity to walk through before. In his experience humans were pretty selfish in general, and as a group this played out and horrifying ways against each other. Yet here, despite being divided up into military empires, he now understood that each one was tackling different problems for the sake of all humanity.
