Albert Einstein
Cast: John Milford, Larry Gelman and Smokey Miles
Name: Albert Einstein*Date of birth:* 14 March 1879, Ulm*Nationality:* German*Affiliation:* Allied Forces / Germany*Occupation:* Theoretical physicist*Title:* Doctor*Specialisms:* Time manipulation, Chronosphere and advanced technologies*Related inventions:* Chronosphere, Prismatic technologies, Weather Controller*Conflicts:* Second and Third World Wars*Games:* Red Alert, Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge, Red Alert 3
Fate: Erased from history in October 1927 in the Red Alert 3 timeline
Albert Einstein is a German physicist and one of the most important scientists in the Allied Forces. His research into the manipulation of space and time is behind some of the most powerful technologies in the series, but also the profound temporal alterations that shape the Red Alert universe.
His story is inextricably linked to the series’ various timelines: Einstein alters the past for the first time; the Allies then capitalise on the consequences of his research; and the Soviets, in turn, alter the past by eliminating Einstein himself.### Red Alert - The Man Who Changed History
In 1946, Einstein took part in a secret American project based at the Trinity Site in New Mexico. His research led to the development of the first technology capable of transporting an individual through time.
Convinced that he can prevent the horrors of the Second World War, Einstein uses his invention to travel back to 1924.
His target is Adolf Hitler.
Upon his release from Landsberg Prison, Einstein met the future German dictator and shook his hand. This simple contact erased him from history, thereby preventing Hitler and Nazi Germany from unleashing the war as we know it.
Einstein then returns to his own time, convinced that he has created a better world.
But Hitler’s disappearance upsets the geopolitical balance in Europe. Without Nazi Germany to act as a counterweight in the East, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union become the continent’s leading expansionist power.
Stalin eventually launches a massive invasion of Europe, triggering a new Second World War pitting the Soviet Union against the Allied Forces.
Einstein is therefore indirectly responsible for the world of Red Alert: he prevents one world war but, through the unforeseen consequences of his intervention, brings about another. During the conflict, his knowledge becomes vital to the Allies.
The Soviets quickly realise the scientist’s importance and manage to capture him. The Allies organise an operation to free Einstein and recover the plans for his Chronosphere.
Once back with the Allies, Einstein continues his research into this technology. He helps to refine its control system, turning it into a genuine strategic weapon capable of instantly transporting military forces.
He also studies the Soviet Iron Curtain, helping the Allies to understand how it works, and oversees the research carried out at the main centre dedicated to the Chronosphere.
The Chronosphere ultimately becomes one of the decisive weapons in the Allies’ victory over Stalin.
But Einstein has also just set an extremely dangerous precedent: history can be rewritten.### Red Alert 2 - The Allied Scientist
Several decades later, Einstein is still working for the Allied Forces.
At the start of the Third World War, he has a laboratory in the Black Forest, Germany, where he continues his research into the Alliance’s most advanced technologies.
The Soviet invasion of the United States by Alexander Romanov once again makes his work essential.
Einstein significantly improves the Chronosphere used during the previous war. The new version can carry a much larger quantity of equipment and eliminates several dangerous flaws from the first generation.
Research into the Chronosphere also gives rise to other technologies, notably the Chrono-Miner and the Chrono Legionnaire.
Einstein thus becomes one of the key figures behind the Allies’ enormous technological advantage.
His work is also linked to Prismatic technologies, which notably enable the development of Prism Towers and Prism Tanks.
Finally, he develops one of the most extraordinary weapons in the Allied arsenal: the Weather Controller, capable of manipulating atmospheric phenomena to unleash gigantic electrical storms.
Einstein himself is concerned about the power of such an invention. In his view, science should not be a weapon; but faced with Romanov and Yuri, he believes the Allies no longer really have a choice.
The perfected Chronosphere ultimately plays a decisive role in the Allied victory: it enables an invasion force to be transported directly to Moscow, where the Allies launch their offensive against the Kremlin.
Einstein thus becomes, even more so than during the war against Stalin, the technological architect of the Allied victory.
Yuri's Revenge - A New Temporal Manipulation
The defeat of the Soviet Union does not, however, bring the crisis to an end.
Yuri reveals his global network of Psychic Dominators and attempts to bring the whole of humanity under his control.
The Allies once again turn to Einstein and his mastery of temporal technologies.
His laboratory develops a time machine enabling the Allies to return to the start of the crisis and prevent Yuri from activating his network.
Einstein, however, is particularly wary: he knows better than anyone the unpredictable consequences of altering history.
His concern is entirely justified, as his own intervention against Hitler had already demonstrated that a seemingly beneficial alteration could have catastrophic consequences.
The Allies nevertheless use the machine and create a new version of the Third World War in which they have a chance of stopping Yuri.
Einstein then continues to support their operations.
Yuri, too, realises the scientist’s exceptional value and eventually captures him in Egypt, near the Great Pyramid. He seeks to exploit his intellect to perfect his own technologies.
The Allies intervene, however, and manage to free Einstein.
Following Yuri’s defeat, Einstein therefore remains alive and continues his work in this new timeline.
But his temporal manipulations have now demonstrated to everyone that it is possible to radically alter the present by removing a person from the past.
This knowledge will ultimately have fatal consequences for him.
Red Alert 3 - The Man Who Never Existed
In the timeline leading up to Red Alert 3, the Soviet Union is on the brink of defeat.
Anatoly Cherdenko, Nikolai Krukov and the scientist Gregor Zelinsky therefore decide to use their own time machine to replicate exactly the strategy once employed by Einstein.
They travel back to October 1927, in Brussels.
Their target is Albert Einstein.
Cherdenko meets the scientist and shakes his hand.
Einstein is then erased from space-time, just as he himself had erased Hitler a few years earlier.
The irony is therefore complete: Einstein disappears from history using the very method he himself had invented. When they return to the present, Cherdenko, Krukov and Zelinsky discover a radically different reality.
As Einstein never developed the technologies that had ensured the Allies’ military dominance, the Soviet Union did not suffer the same defeat. Cherdenko is now Premier and Moscow has once again become a superpower.
But, like Einstein before them, the Soviets discover that altering the past produces consequences that are impossible to foresee.
One of the most significant is the absence of nuclear weapons, the development of which did not follow the same trajectory without Einstein.
Even more seriously, the global balance of power has completely shifted and a new technological superpower has emerged in Asia: the Empire of the Rising Sun.
The latter is taking advantage of the war between the Allies and the Soviets to launch its own global offensive.
Einstein therefore plays virtually no part in the story of Red Alert 3 after his introduction: his absence is precisely one of the fundamental elements of the plot. The Allies must now fight without the scientist who had ensured their technological superiority during previous wars.