What I Wrote about and Why

Another big problem is that such a plot was one to draw James to act, but when you are a god, you can pretty much do anything, so the Mary Sue problem appears. Even trying to limit it did not solve it, as the empire had all its issues solved and they could bring to his assistance some impressive forces. The only recourse was to make out the empire as incapable of solving such issues, but that did not sound right. So often I thought that even the bullshit powers that the denizens of the World of Darkness have can be overwhelmed by Astoria's vast array of tech and trained people. So, this story was not posted, even though I had it all done and half the epilogue. It just did not ring right. That's the problem with a utopia. When they have overwhelming power and every problem inside them is solved before anyone can even raise a complaint, drama is impossible.

Rise of the Star

Ooof. Initially, I wanted James's Descent to include this part, but it felt like a disservice to the audience, especially since the story starts being less about James the further you go. Yes, he comes to help out, but you can't have the guy whose name is in the title essentially become a side character in such a story. I never much thought of these events in detail, so that was the initial challenge. After re-reading Deviant Empire I noticed that the story would contradict some established facts, but very small and off-hand facts. But that was not the big challenge.

The big challenge was deciding HOW to even tell it. I had no less than five false starts, going with an omniscient narrator, then focusing on the people, then focusing less on the people, then deciding to have Will learn that history from a series of storytellers, then deciding to stop thinking that each chapter should focus on a period and rather focus on an event, and then I returned to focusing on people around events, but this time exclude any knowledge they don't have... finally not needing to drop infodumps constantly. And then I changed my mind again.

If I focused on people, it would just take forever, because imagining that all these things were done in the span of weeks was difficult, so far too often I might find reason to fill the time. You could write five books just about Tasha's time on the Genesis, and from the perspective of the empire, Dawnlight was the peak of her importance. True, she did a lot of other stuff, but RotS was supposed to be about the empire, with only the momentary glimpse into people's lives. Think of it like seeing it from James's perspective. He mostly sees the big growth of this empire with focus only on notable events, but I still could not consider him a protagonist of this story.

How the events went was a far smaller challenge. A bit of back and forth, but it became set. Dawnlight, then the Gull, then the war with the Raff, Galactic community, fortune system, utopian consolidation, megastructures, rest of the galaxy uniting against them because they were doing too damn well and finally have God trying to wipe out the world by killing everyone with APEX and them fighting back so hard they put the big guy on pause. But with so many events, I realized that if I focused too much on people I would have to write a lot more... which was not a problem for me, but people would get tired of reading, the outside narrator would have to constantly drop infodumps that might take the entertainment away, the narration with Will had a solid start and I even managed to finish chapter one and go into two, but then I felt like I was doing a disservice to the characters in the story, one more idea and finally I decided over the Christmas break.

But mostly, this was filler, if some really good filler. What happened in-between James coming back angry and Will getting on the ship. Yep, you can consider that epilogue section to essentially be a prologue for DE. I was recommended I write one, however I did not find it "natural" until this point. Now you could see all that came before and what this meant.... Also it might give spoilers to that story. Finding James was supposed to be a big plot twist, but if you read JD and RotS, he's a FACT that you keep expecting to show up.

I wanted it to be my best work so far and a good finisher for the "series" of books and I sure put the effort into it. The story of the empire does not end here as one can still go on and imagine even more impressive events or smaller adventures during those times. But I wanted to close the circle and end right where we began.

Of note is also that I constantly thought that I sure wasn't giving my best and that this stuff will probably be hated, but people kept coming with the good comments and the faves and I got a full 2-page essay on why someone likes my work. I sure had reason to not have focus as I was struggling half of the month with the pain of a wisdom tooth extraction, one that did not come out easily. But, then again, I had the flu while writing DE and collapsed for an entire day during that time and now that series is just a few scores away from being HOT across the board, which is apparently quite the achievement here. So I guess you guys like my stuff.

Secrets of the Empire

Oh, I bet you were waiting for this one. Does the empire have some big, terrible secrets to make this utopia not quite so? Are the twelve planets... THIRTEEN! Why do I keep forgetting such a small number? This isn't the Imperium of man to have millions of planets. But, are the thirteen planets merely the "noble" area where everything is available and beyond that there are thousands of worlds on which serfs toil to give them everything, making 40k look pleasant by comparison? Is James not so incorruptible and has instead fallen long ago, requiring a thousand children be sacrificed to him daily, fervently given to him by a zealous population that continues to fuck with no concern to make more? Is Satan actually evil and planning to fuck him over in some grand, cruel way? Un-sadly, I must disappoint any such notions as what you see is what you get. Those ten worlds can out-produce a hundred lesser-improved planets, as even their megastructures pale in production compared to the people, the hyperforge producing only five percent of what Athuras can make while being a literal gigastructure made around a neutron star. And James is very much still righteous and defiant of God's infinite corruption, with Lucy having plans, but in all of them, the Outsider can only improve in position.

But there are secrets. And those are that the empire's other two very common practices are bestiality and underage sex. I could not portray those as they are against the rules and I'm in no way protesting those rules. Will's journey was not negatively affected by the exclusion of these subjects, but there is an uncensored version of DE out there where he and Win have some fun with those two subjects... and Ahri has a bigger role in that version. But excluding these did make some facts slip through the cracks, like telling one about how the Raff spread, being a sexually-transmitted parasite that can reshape animals into their much more humanoid and intelligent shape, dormant in already sapient species but ready to uplift animals to sentience. This is why animals in the empire get treated to be immune to it and there are some Raff on Earth that did not arrive there via ship. Also, how the Gull reproduced before they encountered other species, as they can breed with ANYTHING. They fucked the animals on their planet, evolving as such because their males were... very unpleasant. And one can only claim ignorance to say that you can have a casual sex society that does NOT include children. What, do you lock them away in some prison until they reach an arbitrary age when they can engage? But, this isn't here to try and make a case for that practice.

While the stories presented here did not suffer for the lack of mention of these subjects, even if there were some uncensored versions of those stories... no, don't worry, WIT does not have an uncensored version... Sophie does not have an island of astorian children where she invites politicians to have fun and then blackmails them with that... but, these stories could still be presented with no big change. However, there were stories I could not present, like the one of Clayton taking shelter in one of those bunkers with his family and slowly coming along to those beliefs, a story that included his teenage son and ten-year-old girl. I could never present the astorian education system in detail as sooner or later I would hit that wall. This is a reason for me migrating to another platform that allows such depictions. And let me just say that without those rules there is far too much rape in those stories, to not say just lack of quality. Though one story did impress me until it turned out to be vegan communist propaganda made by someone who has no idea how the world works.

Also, this was why you had such an obvious skip after Lucy arrived in that epilogue of JD to her meeting James, as while Satan might be a plentifully old figure, their choice of body might have a problem with those rules. However, James's displeasure at any sexual act with her is not from her presenting as a 12-year-old, but from being BLOODY LUCIFER. But he had his indulgence of those two practices even during the times of the colony. What, you think that lab encounter was the first time he had with Fiona? Not at all.

I would also say that there was a deliberate obfuscation of some facts, but that was only in the writing process, hiding some information through obscure references so that only those "in the know" might piece them together. Some were simple and subtle, like the mentioning of streets named after famous africans meaning that James was in the 'hood and not just n-bombing proud black gangstas to their face, but also cutting them down by the dozen after they did what they would obviously do, how the country with obscenely high conviction rates was actually Japan and he slaughtered practically its entire legal system, while some were incredibly arcane like the one mention of the country who rebelled at the wrong time was a reference to this youtube series that showed the history of the roman empire and the rebellion in question was the one where Israel rose up while Hadrian was mourning his favorite femboy, and yes, James slaughtered most of their higher-ups to the tune of a techno remix of Hava Nagila. I'd say that we can point to no country in the world and say that there is no evil there, as even in mine it is fairly well-known that few who are doing any good in government last long enough, as even last month I heard that the mayor of my hometown was removed because he fought against corporate interests. So there was another secret, the one that he didn't exclude people of particular types, excusing evil because "oh, they had it bad before", and neither did he kill people just because they fit a type as there were still black people, jews and japanese after he was done, but the US government sure had a lot of important people of jewish descent die. Also, there was a very small joke to the current presidency of the US, but I kept it minimal because any such reactive works can suffer from no longer being relevant once things change. Why I did not make some scene of the astorians meeting the president. Just couldn't keep it neutral in any way, so I just didn't.

But, there you have it. The big secret of the empire. The fact that in it you can go to parks and fuck two things that over here is against the law in most places. Parks specially made so you can go fuck animals, but nothing for the other option. But, don't equal those to abuse as there is still a consideration of consent and those who came on the ship asking where the kids were did not live long after that. But, then again, incest is also against the law in a lot of places. It's still a utopia for all the other metrics, and whatever criminal elements survive more than a month need to be more eager to protect people than actual security officers.

You can keep your thoughts on that aside as it would be an unfair argument since I cannot portray how things go in the empire regarding that subject on this profile while others may speak against it freely. Is a battle fair if your enemy must obey rules that disarm them and not you? Find the other stories and comment on them.

Future plans

So, what do I plan to write from here on out? I haven't yet decided much. But I do have two ideas. One is the previously-mentioned story based on another RP with an older family man who took shelter in those bunkers during James's genocide, one to start with a complete fear of what is, from his perspective, literally Cthulhu coming down to kill people with no rhyme or reason, only slowly coming around to see that the way of the empire ain't so bad and his family is ALSO fucked even if he was doing pretty well.

Another idea is to have a copy of James show up in the empire as a guest, with a lot of effort done to get him and hide the fact that James became a literal fucking god there, one where the guy gets his break and wanders around, poking at every planet to see if it really is a utopia, finding a community to take him in and finding this incredibly kinky girlfriend. I could possibly post that story here as well since the parts about fucking some illegal things is not so important to the plot, but I feel like I have gone far too long by excluding those factors.

Or I might indulge in some other story ideas like James and his heroes going around places and indulging in a lot of sexual shenanigans, possibly restart that run of Vast Expanses with James and this time go max degeneracy. Yes, I made VE into a full RPG system and had Eli as the first try of it... oh, what early strangeness there was back then, but it also led to quite a lot of adventure. Shame I lost the logs for that. But these are mostly things I write for fun rather than to publish.

If we're talking what's next in the history of the empire, I put that epilogue in RotS to show their path, but I have no idea what to write at a point where these people transcend humanity. Or I just don't want to exert the effort. I write this stuff for the sex, not to make a toy line. I'm sure that if I was to have Will's journey occur at a time when the astorians were to humans what humans are to insects we would have had a whole other thing.

But, what comes here for the empire is that I am offering it as a gift. I've checked with several publishers and while there are a good number of them that would allow me to get actual books published, the two big rules of all distributors will make all four of these books go nowhere. Can't portray incest as good nor portray violence against women as good... why WIT can't be published either because Eva breaks the bones of women in the night. At least that saves me from people stealing them and publishing them on amazon. So, if anyone has a good idea of what should happen in the empire, a story they want to make in such a setting... feel free. Just remember that there were trying times and not EVERY problem was solved by James... as there could have been dozens of stories where some defiant little shits brought down some amazing plots, as the rest of space is open for anyone to exploit free from empire infrastructure, so there could be some crimes against humanity done out there with only a minor nudge from the Outsider that someone check on them. I'd say the only misuse is to turn the casual sex into free use, like in good old republic times, relying far too much on the incompetence of security and government (how about instead making them busy, perhaps on purpose so the other plot can happen) or having the audacity to think that James won't notice when he has personal fucking alerts for this. And I will personally shoot the person to make James actually evil. He can SEEM evil to some people who have no idea, or evil to those who do abuse of fellow man callously, but this whole idea lives and breathes on the thought that the Outsider is un-fucking-yielding. He can be an ass, but he is kind.

So, feel free to write smaller or bigger stories in the empire, stories of casual family life or bigger plots, stories of plentiful incest and casual sex. There's three thousand years of history where a lot could happen and I could spend lifetimes telling stories in this setting, so why not let others do it? We have far too many dystopias and need some proper good places where man can rely on more than himself. Yes, I am aware that utopias have a lower potential for drama, but I'd like to hear stories of things going well. And feel free to send them so I can give them a read to either pick apart some unfitting facts or give a thumbs-up of approval.

Closing Remarks

When I started the story of James I never thought it would get here. I'm still proud of it and where it has arrived, proud of the empire as a setting and entity and do not consider the effort in vain. A friend told me this is the best setting ever and that might be debatable, as a lot of people on the website I rp on don't like it because they want sex to be a challenge.

Still, I'm quite satisfied with where it arrived. I made a setting, hopefully one that a lot of people like as more than an idea, one that they might dream to one day wake up in as the lucky guest. I've made a character which is both incredibly inspiring and humane, one that I feel that many might welcome as an overlord. But I do hope that I gave some hope. It sure is not the end for us, and all that I imagined in the empire... other than the advanced technology... is probably doable one day and we can look to our future as bright rather than thinking it's gonna just keep getting worse. I already see plenty of defiance all around in stark contrast to that previous degeneracy. And I doubt my work instigated all that.

For those of you who think "I should be paying money for this" I have opened a link to offer some financial support, available on the profile, but I wave to it only as a fact and you are free to continue experiencing this for free. Heck, I would enjoy praising comments (or any comments) more than a five dollar donation. All of those comments left on my works have touched me so thoroughly and I would like to see more, even if there is less praise in them. Unless someone wants to just bash the work with no substance to them... actually, no... post those too, I want to have a laugh before they get sent to the shadow realm.

Do I wholly believe that the things here should be practiced in real life? Not at the moment, but maybe in time... if people learn how to do it properly... it can. Neither have I engaged in any of these nor do I support it happening unless someone can show some extensive proof that they aren't fucking something up. I am fully aware of why everything I write about is taboo and illegal, of why I can't even mention the word with my family. And the calls to defiance need not be violent, unless the enemies choose to escalate it. All beliefs are valid, but what you do with them defines its value.

But, the empire wishes to be a setting of hope, and I do believe I have given that.