ᗘ Published content
Prelude:
(Reddit)
-ᗘ Overview: A solar particle flips a bit in an AI tasked with upholding a utopia, granting it insight into a quietly festering stagnancy.
-ᗘ Key points: Introduces the setting and the System Administrators. Happens a handful of years before main events.
A Shipmind's Soliloquy:
(Reddit)
-ᗘ Overview: An old warship is called out of isolation to investigate a distress signal claiming the return of an equally archaic enemy.
-ᗘ Key points: Introduces To Reach Out And Touch and includes a scattering of details about the setting, primarily humanity's struggles in antiquity.
-ᗘ
Disclaimer: I wrote this when I was still figuring out how to make my writing not objectively suck dog balls. Feel free to skip it.
Not One Step:
(Reddit)
-ᗘ Overview: The sole remaining processor node of a human-built defense network reflects on its struggles to preserve those under its protection.
-ᗘ Key points: Provides a rough historical timeline, introduces the first alien species.
Dr. Aus-Lamn-Katt Has a Bad Day:
(Reddit) (Drive)
-ᗘ Overview: An alien researcher has his work interrupted when a nearby anti-orbital gun activates, pointing him towards To Reach Out And Touch's skirmish. Several lightdays away, a spacer lends her mechanical skills to a stranded wayfarer.
-ᗘ Key points: Introduces Cas Sellivim and Aus-Lamn-Katt, and tells us a little bit about them.
(One-off) Warning Signs:
(Reddit)
-ᗘ Overview: Six-page story following the last survivor of the fleet that tripped Mesik's invasion alarms. They don't last very long.
-ᗘ Key points: Introduces the Herdfleets and offers insight into what happened to them after the war. Sets the scene for the third chapter of Children Of The Stars.
Children Of The Stars:
(Reddit)
-ᗘ Overview: A spacer finds her mining plot inhabited by an unregistered ship, and assuming a bearucratic mistake, moves in to investigate. In an adjacent sector, a nascent AI discovers the warm wreckage of a human ship.
-ᗘ Key points: Considered the
main storyline. Introduces Tim and Sociv.
Tunnel Mice:
(Unpublished)
-ᗘ Overview: An uplifted mouse aboard the To Reach Out And Touch has her life inverted after reluctantly accepting a faustian offer.
-ᗘ Key points: Introduces Karyafet, re-introduces To Reach Out And Touch. Gives insight into recent history.
ᗘ Unublished content
Backstories:
(Unpublished)
A collection of three short stories recounted by Cas, Aus-Lamn-Katt, and TROAT during the intermission, each sharing a common theme of their struggles with an unexpected need to kill. Offers insight into the creation of the System Administrators, everyday life in the AHC, and Katt's formative years as a conscript.
Beta Storyline:
(Unpublished)
Unreleased bonus content. The original, 85 page, written-in-a-feverish-week-and-a-half story of Children Of The stars. Where things like My Immortal can be entertaining because it's bad, the original story was just mediocre and boring.
Excerpts From the Democratarian Bible:
(Unpublished)
Unreleased bonus content. Dubiously plot relevant.