TMarkos

October Schedule (TL;DR - I'm moving, so delay + skip week)

It appears that I'm behind schedule once more as we head towards the end of the month!  It's been a busy month with work, but increasingly the problem has been that I'm moving - not a large move, but any time you have to uproot yourself and move to a new location it's a bit of an ordeal.  The preparation has been an added source of stress, cutting down on my writing time and distracting me during what time I manage to steal.

So, unpleasantly, I think I need to take a skip week...

Chapter 81 - Radiodrome

The white wolf and the black hound were speaking one day, when the raven came to greet them.  He wished them a good morning, and asked what they spoke of.

The hound replied that they spoke of hunting, which was dear to them both.

The raven said that he did not see the sport in such a thing, for it was trivial to track prey from his perch in the sky.  There were none, he said, that could hide from him.

The hound and the wolf smiled and laughed, and told the raven th...

Chapter 80 - Comings and Goings

There is an odd contradiction in our mythology of leadership - that our best leaders should be praised as human, while our best leadership is praised as impartial.  It is an odd juxtaposition, and counterexamples of inhuman or biased leaders receive more attention than those who manage to straddle that divide.

Why should our best leaders be made better by setting themselves aside?  If they are, as we claim, noble and decent human beings, then surely their decisions would all b...

Delay + C. 77 Supplement

Another busy, rainy week.  I'm very behind on supplements and writing both, but I've managed to square away this rather fiddly supplement for chapter 77.  This comes prior to the circular quoted in the epigraph of chapter 78, and provides a map of the region that Mike is shortly to be tromping around in.  

This week's chapter will be delayed, likely until Friday once again.  Thank you very much for your patience!  I will release earlier if I happen to finish ear...

Chapter 79 - Human Nature

You cannot conquer a people.  This is often how it is phrased, but our own experience under Ghar’s boot taught a different lesson.  Land is conquered, people are subdued.  Some of these people rage and wither under the harsh light of change, others sleep dormant, waiting for their hour.  This second faction is by far the largest and most dangerous.

Ghar’s mistake was to assume that a span of years would render these sleeping seeds impotent and safe; history has s...

Chapter 78 - Esse et Videri

Efforts to locate Stellar are ongoing, with any remaining assets in western Daressa and Qalo retasked to support this effort.  No direct sightings have been reported, but agents have established that BAZ personnel have infiltrated and set up wireless monitoring stations within Daressan territory and along the coast.  Our agents have been instructed to monitor Mendiko activity silently, and to set up similar stations in the interior where possible.  As there is now confirmation ...

Chapter 77 - The Parts Important to the Apple

A man came upon the Great Shield laboring in a mountain pass, breaking rocks that had fallen upon the trail.  He stopped, for the path was still blocked, and gave the holy man his greeting.

“How odd it seems,” the man remarked, “that I should chance upon the Shield of Men as he is breaking stone asunder.  Is not your power in solidity and strength?  How can you bend your soul to destruction when it does not give you this power?”

The Great Shield paused in hi...

Delay this week!

This week has been unexpectedly busy between work and life stuff, and my writing time has dwindled as a result.  77 is an important chapter for the upcoming arc; I don't want to try and rush it out.  I will target Friday, and as usual will release it earlier if it is done earlier.  Please enjoy your consolation Jeorg, and thank you very much for your patience, your readership and your support.  

Chapter 76 - Company Kept

The mockingbird was riding atop the boar’s haunches one day, talking of unimportant things, when it spied the raven sitting solitary on a branch.  It flew up to greet the raven, wishing it a good morning.

The raven returned the greeting, but said nothing more.

This irritated the mockingbird, who had hoped for conversation.  He scolded the raven for being unfriendly, and said such a practice would see him alone and friendless.

At this, the raven turned to set his ...

Chapter 75 - Adversaries

There is no man who can stand against the will of history.  One may dam the river, seek to divert it, channel it through painstaking effort - but in the end, men may only alter the minor details of its course.

The reclamation of old Ghar has been a long and tortuous course, and the future shall prove no different.  Holding actions and barricades spring up in our path, years are spent squabbling over inches.  Ultimately none of it matters; the river always reaches the sea....

Chapter 74 - As Dawn Breaks

Multiple sources have now confirmed that Leire Gabarain has died under violent circumstances, and that Mendian knows the identity of Stellar’s new bearer.  A reliable single source indicates that the bearer is outside of the Mendiko power structure and hostile to them.

This represents an unprecedented opportunity in the domestic and foreign arenas.  Cohesion in the Batzar will suffer greatly as long as Stellar remains with a hostile foreign force, potentially compromising th...

Chapter 73 - Kill Them All

A man chanced to walk beside the Caller on the road one day.  At first the man held fear in his heart, and did not speak in the Caller’s presence.  The Caller’s kind voice calmed the man’s fear, though, and soon the two were talking as old friends while they walked.

The man noticed that the Caller would stop to inspect the trees at the roadside, speaking to them with words that no man could hear.  They grew strong and tall at his urging, and the man felt the light o...

Delayed Post

I really didn't want to do this to you after that last chapter, but this week has been completely nuts and I lost a lot of my writing time to work stuff and dealing with some prep for an impending move.  As with the previous delayed chapters, I will post it by Friday.  Please accept this consolation Jeorg as an apology for leaving you dangling on that cliff.  

Thank you very much for your readership and support!  I'll be back soon with the chapter.

Chapter 72 - Balance

I have delayed setting these words to the page for too long already, though my posterity has seemed a faraway thing in these first days of my tenure - even now my mind rebels, though I force my hand to write what it must:

So begin the Annals of the Sixteenth Star, in this six-hundred and forty-fourth year of the Mendiko peace.  Ironic that it should be called that still, when to our south the War rages on, but we were never talking about anyone but ourselves when we erected that pr...

Chapter 71 - Of Monsters and Men

Fear is an oft-misunderstood facet of war.  People think foremost of the fear that a soldier feels when faced with the enemy, but that is only one piece of a larger whole.  There is the fear that builds before the charge, the fear that lingers on the eve of battle.

But even those are the small, personal fears of a soldier.  They may shape his life, divert him from his path or reinforce his faith, but ultimately they are constrained to his heart.

The fear that shapes...

Chapter 70 - What They Offer

One summer day, the tortoise came upon a village of men.  He saw that they had cleared away the sweet brush of the forest and laid fences around their lands, that none might walk on the crops they jealously guarded.  He saw that they took animals from the forest and ate them, and chopped down the mightiest trees.

The black hound saw the tortoise watching and came up to greet it, but was surprised to find the tortoise full of ire against the men and their village.

The tor...

Chapter 69 - Footsteps

The Book holds many lessons on life, but each man reads from it his own truth.  Many a young scholar has come up to me, troubled by this assertion - for is not the Book an immutable Truth, fixed and perfect?

It is, and it is not.  The Book is a mundane object, filled with mundane text.  It has been printed by men on paper men made, bound in leather by a man.  Its contents have been translated, written and rewritten by human hands.  Within its pages one may read ...

68 - Changes of Heart

A man came up to the Caller and the Speaker one day, presenting himself before the pair with a plea for assistance.  “I am but a humble man,” he said, “and the levers of the world strive to crush me at every turn.  I do not know whether it is wiser to ask that I be made greater or the world lesser, but I cannot proceed ahead as I am.”

The first to respond was the Caller, and he spoke thus: “The world cannot be made lesser, for it is precisely as it must be.”

...

Chapter 67 - Vows

Ardalt’s withdrawal from the continent is complete for all material resources.  In the final tally we anticipate 92% of material troops have been successfully evacuated, with an additional 2% en route.  Additionally, 81% of inconsequential personnel have been successfully returned to Ardalt.

Those remaining are largely trainees, low-value officers and Institute behavioral teams; those teams represent an additional half-percent of ensouled troops and will execute a tactical w...

Chapter 66 - Anomie

I note that at this point in my address, many of this body’s members have suffered a deficit in their attention.  I can hear conversation, see wandering eyes as I look out over the floor of this dignified house.

I would ask you gentlemen, and you know who you are - do you not recognize the import of what is happening to this country?  Does its significance fail to register with you on some level?  It is perhaps my failure as a speaker that I have not conveyed it properl...

Schedule for June & July

Hello everyone!  This busy month is wrapping up, and I thought I'd take a moment to collect a few schedule things into one post so I'm not spamming you with multiple updates as has been happening lately.

First, for visibility, this week is going to be delayed to Friday again.  It's been busy and today was not a productive writing day, so I'll work hard to get everything put together for the 24th.  I will be trying very hard to get the next post o...

Chapter 65 - Abduction

To assign blame in the wake of tragedy is natural.  Indeed, men are often more interested in identifying the responsible party than they are in addressing the root cause of the calamity in question.  Guidance on the subject varies across cultures, but most agree that the responsible party is the one who, by action of their will, might have prevented that harm from occurring.

This is all very well for such clear-cut things as murder, gross negligence, et-cetera.  But not a...

Delay this week!

We were so close!  This month continues to be busy, though, and I've had to reluctantly rewrite a large chunk of the work I did over the weekend as the chapter has firmed up.  Good chance I'll have this one out on Thursday, but as usual it'll be here no later than Friday.  

Thanks again for your readership and your support, I'll follow back up with the chapter in a day or two.  

Chapter 64 - Involution

War is a construct of sacrifice.  Whether it is men, materiel, land or resources, loss and gain define the motions of war.  Economics is a helpful guide, here; at its most primitive it is easy to understand that one should secure a positive return on investment in order to progress in war.

It is so apt as to hardly be a metaphor at all, but many struggle with the notion of evaluating the worth of human life in such cold terms.  How many lives is land worth?  How many...

Chapter 63 - What Was Lost

The white wolf passed through the forest, making no noise as it traveled.  It approached the boar, who was surprised at its silent approach.  The boar jumped up and ran squealing through the forest.  The wolf watched it go into a bramble patch, then continued on.

Next it came upon the black hound, who went quickly towards the town where he lived with men.  The wolf watched it go past the town’s edge, then continued on.

Afterwards the white wolf came across th...

Chapter 62 - What Was Gained

A man may find happiness everywhere he looks, yet he will not find his happiness save in the proper place.  Many content themselves thinking they have found true joy while sipping at the tepid water of contentment.  They know no better; the man who has never trod a path will delight at every meadow or deer trace that spares him passage through the bramble.

Yet when they first set foot upon their path, their eyes are opened.  The way ahead is clear, the destination plain e...

Delayed Post (Friday)

I feel like I've been posting too many of these!  Life continues to be life, however, and a confluence of busy things this week has left me behind on my writing.  I am happily mostly-recovered from COVID, so there's that at least.

Same deal as prior posts; I will target Friday for the chapter release and don't anticipate any delays next week.  I'm sorry for the inconsistency in recent weeks!  This month may be a bit rocky in terms of my total workload, so I will try ...

Chapter 61 - We All Fall Down

All forces that may be evacuated from Leik without harming the overall war effort have been removed as of Gleaning 27, save for highly mobile special units.  Those committed to the defense of the city are largely degraded units, conscripts and otherwise-compromised resources.

The remaining battalions of ensouled troops are a detached contingent from Sever’s forces led by Oberst Galen Wahl.  While a competent asset, Wahl’s forces have been graded 5-D-RED on an index of poli...

Chapter 60 - Linchpin

Great masses of men are predictable in their movements; politics is largely a science if one can manage the proper nuances of data collection and interpretation.  The median will of a people is at least theoretically knowable.  Yet time and again even those with the data and intellect to parse it are incapable of predicting more than generalities.

This is not a failure of their science, but rather a failure of the masses: they do not exercise their own will in most matters. &n...

I have COVID! 🎉🥳🎊

I have managed to acquire a case of COVID-19, and while I feel fine thus far I am going to prioritize getting proper rest and nutrition this week - which also means that I will not be putting in the amount of chapter work I had planned today, so I'll be releasing chapter 60 on or before Friday this week.  

Assuming no other major developments, we'll be back on schedule for next week.  Stay safe out there, everyone!