Triplets

But only in the literary sense.

I am way too old to accomplish such a feat in any other fashion. Thank. Goodness.

You see, what happened was this . . . the last book in the huge series ended with my heroes dealing a death blow to a particularly nasty Cross Dimensional Empire. Not that either side quite realized it yet . . .

So I pranced off, happy to have wrapped up a mini-sub-series inside the larger and turned my atention elsewhere.

I should never have taken my watchful gaze off the Evil Empire.

Oh, it’s still falling, but it decided the Great Fall must be chronicled from the inside.

Arg! No!

But the Muse (AKA my subconscious) was all excited, and working out how it happened on several different worlds. The end of the elites’ ability to control the masses is in sight, the manufacturing facilities that produced that controlling substance have been destroyed. No more brain chips. Their way of life is gone.

Now they’re self-isolating and beefing up their security as neighboring worlds start raiding each other for rare commodities and the proles are revolting and some worlds are isolated and scrambling to survive . . . and . . .

People don’t always react the same, groups of people don’t react the same, nations, and also (in my fiction) Worlds. Even if the stimulous is identical, there will be a HUGE spread of reactions.

I mean, I see this in daily life, it shouldn’t have surprised me to have it ambush me in fiction. I’m just lucky it’s only showing up as three stories.

So far.

I mean, I started with the teenage boy, delighted to find himself (with a couple thousand other people) suddenly marooned, and poorly preparred to be pioneers. Unlike his arrogant jerk of an older brother, not the mention all the adults who are trying to stay in control. So now the whole group has split into three: the collectivists, the individualists, and the bandit gang. The honorable, the ambitious, and the vicious individuals showing up within each group. Well, not much honor in the bandits.

Or this other World, with the weakening of the old elite, the new masters are leaping in to take control and kill every single member of the old ones, and organize the former serfs into an ideal society . . . While a good man, who was as trapped in the poisonous old way as the enslaved workers, tries to save his little cluster of people from the vengeful new masters.

And then there’s the Imperial Agent on a cutting edge Research World. His own boss is now out of contact with his superiors and their world is such a tasty tidbit for the worlds around them to take over and start building their own empires. Pity they imported most of their food . . . And he keeps getting distracted by a murder investigation with himself as the main suspect.

All of which would be interesting to write, but all three at once? Bouncing back and forth as my subconscious comes up with a new idea for the one I’m _not_ working on right now. “Oh! The good man is devote? Good idea, you know, it’s kind of inconvenient right now for me to be studying the practices of the Russian Orthodox Church . . . surely you’ll let me finish the battle on the Research World first, right?”

Hahahahaha!

Well, it beats Writer’s block. Right?

Right?

Oh, yeah, Let’s come to a screeching halt about half a chapter from the end of the story. Well, what the heck, in “order they ought to be published” this will be the last one, so no problem.

Hey subconscious? Why don’t we get back to one of the other stories, eh?

Eh? Here Muse, good little Muse! If we write in the morning, there could be chocolate in the afternoon! C’mon, Musey here kitty kitty . . .