[ In spite of having met not just Harlan, but multiple people from the year 2000 and beyond a good many times, it still takes a second for '98, presumably 1998 to not sound surreal. He would have been ninety-two years old, then, had he lived to see that space station launch. Obviously that would have been impossible for a handful of reasons, but he's still compelled to do the math each time, like it's the only way he can put himself and the span of technological progress each in their respective place.

Von Braun? Alfons thinks, frowning thoughtfully. The name doesn't sound familiar¹, but before he can mull on it thoroughly, the next point catches his attention fully. ]

Has "world"— has what— [ give him a second to follow his train of inference to the end of its tracks. ] You don't mean the Great War, obviously. 1914 to 1918. Are you telling me there's an even greater war?

[ The joy's run out of his expression with the color in his face, a nervousness already beginning to churn as he thinks about all of the plans and rumors he didn't pay enough attention to... about November eighth. Could it be that the planned putsch² succeeded—? ]

( ¹Von Braun was born in 1912 and Alfons in 1906, so he would've been 11 or so. Probably being annoying in class or sucking up to his teachers, or something...

²This one. It did not! )