Story DarkStar in the Great War: American Front

[DarkStar]

DarkStar in the Great War: Major General​

U.S. Army Headquarters, Near Richmond, Virginia, United States of America, Summer 1915

The command tent smelled of canvas, tobacco, and ink. Major General Daniel “DarkStar” Stark stood over a map table, his blue uniform crisp despite the Virginia heat, his dark eyes tracing the jagged lines of Confederate trenches south of Richmond. At thirty-five, Stark was an anomaly—a South Boston clerk’s son risen to high rank through a mix of ruthless ambition and a knack for machinery. His nickname, “DarkStar,” whispered among the ranks, came from his grim demeanor and the bleak, poetic dispatches he sent to his staff, penned late at night in his tent. The U.S. Army was pushing to break the Confederate lines, and General George Armstrong Custer, the white-haired lion of the Army of the Potomac, had pinned his hopes on barrels—clumsy, ironclad machines that Stark had helped refine.

Stark wasn’t like the other officers. Most, like Custer’s aide, Colonel Abner Dowling, came from West Point or old Northern families, with wives and social connections. Stark had none of that. In Boston’s crowded tenements, he’d been invisible—a scrawny youth ignored by shopgirls and debutantes who favored men with wealth or charm. He’d spent evenings in dim libraries, reading engineering tracts and writing bitter verses about a world that rejected him. A scar on his jaw, from a childhood brawl, marked him as flawed in his own mind. The war had given him purpose, a chance to command men and machines, but it hadn’t erased the resentment burning in his chest—against the CSA, against society, against the women who’d never seen him.

“General Stark, sir,” said Dowling, stepping into the tent, his round face flushed. “General Custer wants you at the ridge. Barrels are ready, but he’s impatient. Says we hit the Rebs at dawn.”

Stark’s lip curled. “Custer’s always impatient. Thinks he can ride over the Rebs like it’s ’81 again.” His Boston accent was sharp, cutting through the tent’s stuffy air. He’d clashed with Custer before—the old man’s theatrics grated on him—but Stark’s skill with barrels had earned his place. Custer’s First Armored Regiment, thirty Mark I barrels, was Stark’s domain, and he’d drilled the crews to precision.

Dowling hesitated. “He’s got a point, sir. Rebs are dug in deep—machine guns, 3-inch guns. If the barrels don’t break through, we’re stuck.”

“Then they’ll break through,” Stark snapped, tapping the map. “My crews know their work. Tell Custer I’ll be there.”

Alone, Stark stared at the map, his mind drifting. In Boston, he’d watched girls like Clara, a tailor’s daughter, laugh with officers at church socials, their eyes sliding past him. They’d see me now, he thought, but it’s too late. Rank hadn’t filled the void; it only sharpened his anger. He pulled a notebook from his pocket and scrawled: Steel and fire bow to me, but the world’s heart remains cold.

At dawn, Stark stood on a ridge overlooking the battlefield, his field glasses trained on the Confederate lines. Custer, resplendent in a tailored uniform, his white hair gleaming under a wide-brimmed hat, paced nearby, barking orders. “Stark, your barrels better smash those Rebs to kingdom come!” Custer growled. “I want Richmond by Christmas!”

“They’ll do their job, General,” Stark said, his voice flat. He didn’t care for Custer’s bluster, but the old man’s obsession with barrels matched his own. Stark had spent months tweaking the Mark I’s treads, training crews to fire on the move. If anyone could crack the Reb lines, it was him.

The barrels rolled out at 0600, their engines roaring like angry beasts. Stark watched from the ridge, his heart pounding as the Mark Is churned through mud and wire. Below, Confederate trenches bristled with machine guns, and their French-built barrels—sleeker, faster—lurked behind earthworks. Stark’s radio crackled with reports from his commanders: Lieutenant Irving Morrell, a sharp young officer, led the left flank; Captain Sam Carsten, a former sailor, held the right.

“Reb guns, 300 yards!” Morrell’s voice buzzed. “Taking fire!”

“Hold steady,” Stark ordered into the radio. “Target their emplacements. Keep moving!” He’d trained his men to ignore the chaos, to drive through shellfire. But as a Confederate 3-inch gun boomed, a Mark I erupted in flames, its crew spilling out, screaming. Stark’s jaw tightened. Losses don’t matter, he told himself. Only victory does.

The battle raged for hours. Stark’s barrels punched through the first Rebel line, their 6-pounders blasting machine-gun nests to splinters. But the Confederates countered, their barrels rolling forward, turrets spitting shells. A Mark I took a direct hit, its treads blown off, and Stark cursed under his breath. Custer, beside him, slammed a fist on a crate. “Damn the Rebs! Push harder, Stark!”

“They’re pushing,” Stark said, his tone cold. “Unless you want to drive one yourself, General, let me work.” Custer glared but said nothing. Stark’s reputation—ruthless, unyielding—kept even the old lion at bay.

By noon, the offensive stalled. The barrels had gained a mile, but Confederate anti-barrel guns and mud slowed the advance. Stark descended to the forward command post, barking orders to reposition the remaining Mark Is. Morrell approached, his face streaked with soot. “Sir, we’ve got a gap on the left. If we swing two barrels wide, we can flank their guns.”

Stark nodded. “Do it. No mistakes, Morrell.” He envied the younger man’s ease, his confidence—qualities Stark had never had. He’ll have a wife waiting, Stark thought bitterly. I’ll have nothing.

As dusk fell, the attack faltered. Stark’s barrels held the ground gained, but Richmond remained out of reach. Custer stormed into the command post, his face red. “A mile? A mile, Stark? I expected more!”

“You’ll get more tomorrow,” Stark said, his voice like iron. “Barrels need repairs. Crews need rest. Unless you want them breaking down like in Kentucky.”

Custer huffed but backed off. Alone, Stark sat by a flickering lamp, his notebook open. He wrote: I command steel, but not fate. The world sees me, yet I’m alone. He thought of Boston, of Clara’s laughter, of a life that had never wanted him. The war had given him power, but not purpose.

Morrell lingered nearby, cleaning his revolver. “Good work today, sir,” he said. “Those barrels—they’re the future. You’re making it happen.”

Stark snorted. “Future don’t care about me, Morrell. Or you. Keep your eyes on the Rebs, not my back.”

Morrell frowned but nodded. As the camp quieted, Stark stared at the map, the lines blurring. He’d fight on, for Custer, for the USA, for himself. But deep down, he knew: no victory would make the world see him.

 

[Skelly]

 

[KangaEvenKoala]

I prefer the MCU version

Spoiler

Sure. Here’s a story that places DarkStar—a fictional character loosely inspired by your request—into a reimagined version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) during the Infinity Saga, with a twist of alternate history and a mix of Civil War-era military flavor. In this version, barrel tactics are a proto-mechanized form of warfare, and General Custer lives far longer than in real history, becoming an early strategic mind in this steampunk-meets-superhero universe.

DarkStar: Barrel of Fate​

Setting: MCU Earth, Alternate Timeline — Post-Civil War Era, during the buildup to Avengers: Infinity War

Chapter 1: The Yankee and the General​

In the shadow of Wakandan vibranium mines and beneath the thunderous flight paths of Stark Industries’ drones, the world churned toward an inevitable confrontation. But history, as it often does, had split down an unfamiliar line.

George Armstrong Custer, long thought to have died at Little Bighorn, had instead been rescued by a mysterious time-displaced entity known as The Watcher, and granted forbidden knowledge of coming wars. Returned to his era with visions of mechanized "barrels"—early tanks powered by arcane energy and stolen Chitauri cores—Custer formed an elite battalion known as The Iron Line.


Among his inner circle stood Major General DarkStar, a grim-faced Yankee from the Northeast with a cold, analytical mind. Once a failed academic and isolated recluse, DarkStar had found unexpected purpose in war. Though few liked him, none could deny his logistical brilliance and his eerie intuition in battle.


His online monologues—once typed in dark corners of the digital world—had become battlefield sermons, haunting speeches about futility, survival, and power. He saw in the barrels not salvation, but inevitability.

"The universe is indifferent," he'd say, atop a steaming war barrel. "But in that indifference, men like us matter more than gods."

Chapter 2: The Avengers' Dilemma​

In modern-day Manhattan, the Avengers scrambled for allies. Thor, fresh from Sakaar, spoke of a coming storm. Tony Stark, troubled by strange quantum signals and Stephen Strange’s warnings, traced the disturbances to an old battlefield site near the Canadian border.


There, buried in permafrost and half-forgotten war records, was Project Barrelstorm.

"These... aren't Hydra weapons," Stark muttered as he uncovered shattered Custer-tech. "This is American. Pre-Industrial. Post-sanity."

Shuri of Wakanda examined the energy residues. “Someone fused early vibranium etching with Chitauri tech. That’s a level of temporal interference we’ve never—”

“Major General DarkStar,” interrupted Steve Rogers, scanning the file. “He disappeared in 1881. No body, no grave. Just... poetry and craters.”

Chapter 3: When Titans Fall​

As Thanos descended on Earth, a new front erupted in the Montana Badlands.


DarkStar, alive and untouched by time thanks to a chronal stabilizer buried in his spine, emerged from a dust-choked cave, riding atop an ancient barrel walker—its treads fused with dragon-glass, its cannon pulsing with gamma echoes.

Custer had died decades earlier, betrayed by a time-fracture that drove him mad. But DarkStar lived on, protector of the Last Arsenal, a hidden cache of anti-Titan weaponry built in the shadows of history.


When Thor, Cap, and Stark confronted him, they found a man with no allegiance to gods or empires—only cold, precise resistance.

“You think you're heroes. But the cosmos doesn’t need heroes. It needs counters. I am a countermeasure.”

In a moment of bitter alliance, DarkStar joined the fight at Wakanda. His barrels tore through Outriders like steel leviathans. When Thanos arrived, DarkStar faced him not as a soldier, but as a statistician of war.


He launched a final salvo—a Chrono Barrel loaded with entropic energy. It struck the Titan’s armor but failed to kill. Still, it delayed the Snap by 13 seconds—long enough for Wanda to destroy the Mind Stone, almost changing fate.

Almost.

Chapter 4: Dust and Echoes​

When the Snap came, DarkStar remained. Not spared, not chosen—just forgotten by fate, too far from destiny’s center.


He wandered the ruins of old battlefields, collecting fragments of fallen barrels and rewriting old battlefield theories, awaiting a time when tactics, not magic, would decide the shape of worlds.

Epilogue: Post-Endgame​

After Tony’s sacrifice and the return of the vanished, a younger genius—Riri Williams—uncovered DarkStar’s journals.

In them, she found not hatred, but hard-earned clarity:

“If the gods refuse to act, the barrels will roll. And I will be their ghost.”

DarkStar lives still, somewhere in the shadows—Yankee iron and Northeastern cold burning beneath a steel sky.


Would you like a sequel, perhaps with him facing off against Kang or even influencing the Thunderbolts?