Tag: future history

“The Fallen” 5/9

Another larger segment going into the weekend. Realizing that I’m not finishing in 2-5k words but closer to 10-15k, I need the story breathing down my neck to keep me motivated. Ideally, I’d like to ship this to my copyeditor no later than December 31. That will give me five months to write two more – one of which may be another short story collection; there are loose threads everywhere, and one thing I DO NOT want to is get any further into the future. It’s just too complicated.

Allie finally walks on a new world – for her. Between the cavern, the building, the fish and leaves, and Squiddy, I understand Aurie’s caution: there’s no telling what the Hero might be inadvertently carrying. I suspect that, as I have done before, I’ll skip the speech (for anyone reading along, it would be a boring recapitulation, and we’ve already had one, which is enough) and move directly into first family politics (Aurie’s husband, Jimmy, is 2 yrs older, so a solid 70, but he, too, has been around Henge and, of course, very close to his wife) and then how international politics about the shrine are shaping up. That will act as an outline to me for everything up to the epilogue.

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Podcast 9: Why Monarchy?

A short introduction as to why so many countries in the future are monarchal in nature. Is it that I hate democracy or republicanism? No. I am just honest enough to understand that those forms of government do not scale up past the level of a city or county.

And that it is best for a government to look to its children and grandchildren, not the next election.

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Podcast 4: The Humans of Machine Civilization

A whole thirty minutes! And this is just the barest overview! We begin with Lily & Callie, broaden to their parents and families, then off to the surviving city-states of the former US, and finally a quick look at the rest of humans on Earth.

Very ambitious, but also a good start. I could spend thirty minutes on each main character, so was pleased to keep things under control as well as I did. Machine or human, any story is about people. For reference, a stemma, or family tree, is just below.

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A Haunting Past

Of the two most famous Inklings, it was said that Lewis would sketch a scene by saying “The children stood in the forest. A chill wind blew.” Tolkien, on the other hand, would spend the next twenty pages not only telling you the history of the forest, but then go on to describe each and every leaf.

An exaggeration, but to make a point. My writing style can, charitably, be called more Lewisian; not so charitably, “the son-of-bitch-writer never explains anything!” Guilty as charged. I have a story to tell and my characters would be rather miffed at me if I take time to describe the leaves on the trees.

A positive of that, though, is in the million of tiny cracks and folds of my novels, there lurk hundreds of more stories. Back in January, I realized that over the course of five years being in Machine Civilization, I was able to pull together a short story collection. Below the fold is another example. Based upon “real life” – whatever that means – events, I was able to peek in on an interaction between Faustina and a civilian in a far flung corner of her imperium. This takes place about halfway through “Empress Crusade;” it is not in the book, but it is canon. Fodder for my next collection!

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No such thing…

My tiny handful of regular readers know that since I became a writer, one salutary fact has been rammed down my throat: there are no such things as coincidences. As a young godless materialist I would shrug and call an event a “statistical outlier.” Once I was a Catholic Christian, I fell back on “we cannot see God’s ways.”

In my second year as a writer, when I was 49 years old, I realized: fuck me.

Time and time and time again, I would see something and it would show up first in my writing and later in meatspace. God, obviously, is trying to make a point to me. One, admittedly, I am still learning. Saying all that to say this…

Four hours ago, see the post, I completed the raw manuscript of “Goddess’ Crusade.” The core battle of that novel is how Faustina recognizes her opponent has an overwhelming advantage of armor and considers what she can do to neutralize it and win. Being her military father’s daughter, she plucks an example from history and plans accordingly.

Five hours later, tired and just wanting to relax, I retire to my basement to watch a few videos before going to sleep. Ah! A new video from Kings & Generals… it’s about… about…

Fuck me. Pharsalus. There are no such things as coincidences.

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Winter quarters

Where an army or units of it would go once campaigning season was over. Often for the purpose of making sure a subdued people stayed subdued. Faustina needs to make a tour of her dispositions before riding back to Knoxville to play politics* and I realized I was unsure where her legions and auxiliary units are. So… another map! Cannot talk history without a map and that includes future history!

*Besides general opposition to what she has done, there is specific opposition to her recruiting Legion Six.

Deep history

I call Machine Civilization a future history for a reason. All parts of every story connect in hundreds of ways, some I do not see, to every other story. I first met Karl in The Fourth Law; one of the orphans seen to by Lily Barrett. A tendency toward fat but also one of her karate students. He makes another appearance in “Empire’s Agent,” the long short story which lends its name to the book’s title. There, he meets Arpad Rigó from the newly remade Habsburg Empire. “I have to get this boy into the army!” Rigó thought. In trying to make an end of Goddess’ Crusade, I find, years later, he did.

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A MachCiv Wiki

An old friend suggested that this morning. I’d been going on about Faustina’s doings as I am trying to complete the MS for “Goddess’ Crusade,” and, confused, he said: why not make a wiki for your entire future history?

As he has a history of most always being correct, I pushed that to the back of my mind and kept on writing. About two hours ago I hit another stopping point (General Hartmann threatened the remaining population of Atlanta with death or evacuation; ethnic cleansing, either way) and I was not sure what comes next.

Pulling out a copy of the partial stemma of my works, see below, I guess it could serve as a basis of a wiki, for many of the major players. I will also have to describe the three tribes of AIs as well as the three (now two) corporations in Japan who took differing approaches to machine thought (Tohsaka, Somi, Neuroi). Then there are all the places where the stories take place, up to and including Mars. Dang: that means I’ll have to describe the constructs of tribes Tohsaka (the Path and platform, rotating difference engines, archery range, airstrip, Henge’s beach…) and Mendrovovitch (the ruined city, snowy steppe, Kuban’s restaurant…).

This is going to be quite an undertaking but I see now that it will allow me to keep a hand in writing during winter 2021 when I am focused on recording and editing audiobooks of my works. Yet another genius idea from the creative mind of Will Deonne!