Frank Stockton's The Great War Syndicate centers around steamship warfare in the late 19th century, between Great Britain and the United States war over fishing rights in the Atlantic Ocean. A group of billionaire capitalists, a War Syndicate, who offer to assume the expense of a war for the United States after a gunfight erupts between two vessels off the Canadian coast - "the American flag had been hauled down by Englishmen, an American naval vessel had been fired into and captured; that was enough!" It turns out that the syndicate has super weapons and stages, for observers from both sides, examples of how future wars are futile. Frank R. Stockton was an American popular novelist and short-story writer of mainly humorous fiction, best known as the author of the title story of a collection called "The Lady, or the Tiger?."