A: TAS is fundamentally not a romance story.
As such, there is no big focus on any romantic storylines nor will it be a big factor in the grand scheme of things. There is also no intended romance for the story as a whole; as in, I do not force any romance to occur.
If characters, be they Karania and Thea or any other character, have romantic interests that align, then romance can and likely will happen, but they will not be a focus of the story at all.
For Thea, specifically, romance isn’t even a thing she >understands< yet. She’s like a nerd that has only read about romance in scientific literature or seen it in video games before.
There is 0 actual experience or even emotional maturity to understand the feelings that could be love or anything at that level.
As such, it will take a while before Thea matures enough for that to even be a viable thing.
At this point in the story, Thea is primarily concerned with making friends and trying to keep them; it’s her #1 goal when it comes to Karania and the rest of Alpha Squad.
Thea is an anatomy enjoyer for now, nothing more.
Q: What are the Merit costs for respawning "IRL" and how do they compare to other Faction Traits?
A: The Merit costs for [Soul Transfer] are determined by four major factors:
- Distance to the nearest respawn chamber.
- Amount of times you’ve died before.
- Your Point Value as determined by the System.
- Any potential Upgrades taken when your Faction Trait evolved alongside your Tier.
At baseline, [Soul Transfer] is the most expensive Faction Trait available to Humankind as of right now, as the Power Level it has is on the far upper-end of what is possible.
The sheer amount of downsides the UHF had to take in order to get the [Soul Transfer] Trait to begin with, speaks to that Power Level.
For your average Marine, it is recommended to have at least 350 Merit saved up for your first deployment in real-space. You will not be allowed to partake in Ship Duty month without having at least 350 Merit available for respawns; nor will you be deployed planet-side.
Alpha Squad members are generally advised to have at least 750 Merit or more, as their elevated PV compared to the average Marines will increase their [Soul Transfer] costs somewhat.
Q: You mentioned the UHF is the only Faction that can effectively mass recruit Integrated members, what is the ratio of UHF Integrated Soldiers to other Factions? How big of an advantage is this?
A: What I specifically said is that the UHF is the only Faction that can effectively mass-INTEGRATE new people; not recruit them.
Recruiting people is far easier for other Factions, as they don’t really care that much about whether you will actually manage to Integrate or not.
The UHF is very much concerned about recruiting only those members of society that can actually, realistically get to the necessary level of power to be recognized by the System and Integrated successfully.
Since the UHF does not field Unintegrated Soldiers offensively, only relying on them in defensive battles where there is no real other choice to do so (try telling your American friends to lay down their arms when their planet gets invaded and see if they follow that order; or whether they’ll follow your orders to organize and properly mount a defense instead), the amount of people they have available is fairly limited compared to other Factions.
The UHF makes that up with higher average power of each individual Marine they have.
Since they are all Integrated from the get-go and no Battlefield slots are “wasted” on Unintegrated Soldiers, the UHF has an easier time getting more powerful individuals.
The main problem with that approach, of course, is that quantity is a quality of its own.
It’s theoretically a nice idea to have only elite-level Marines in your army, but when you’re stretched thin across an entire Faction’s border that stretches hundreds upon hundreds of Star Sectors, the lack of readily available forces is a big issue.
When it comes to ratio, it is hard to really quantify it in simple terms, as it is a lot more complicated than simply being a hard number.
Integration happens as a result of meeting specific requirements, as well as a strong emotional connection to allow the System to find your Soul inside the Void and Integrate you.
As a result, a lot of Unintegrated Soldiers from other Factions, Integrate in the middle of battle; or die.
As such, their ratio doesn’t really come into play when you look at something like the year-to-year amount of newly Integrated people. Since all the ones that didn’t manage to Integrate most likely died on the Battlefields somewhere.
Generally speaking, however, the UHF’s methods do result in a slight advantage in terms of average power level for their Integrated Marines, compared to other Factions. They are, at average, around 10-15% “more powerful” in terms of PV than other Faction’s Integrated Soldiers, as a result of the UHF’s stringent recruiting habits.
In terms of numbers, however, the UHF is on the lower-end of fighting-capable personnel, for the aforementioned reasons.
While the UHF can mass-Integrate effectively, their actual pool of candidates is a LOT lower.
Where the UHF has a 90%+ Integration rate for their chosen recruits and other Factions might have maybe a 1-2% Integration rate, the sheer difference in numbers is what is ultimately causing problems for the UHF.
90% of 10,000 is, after all, still a lot less people than 1-2% of 1,000,000.
Throwing bodies at the problem has worked really well for the other Factions over the centuries, so that’s the most preferred way of handling it.
Some Factions also employ a hybrid approach, combining the UHF’s and other Faction’s recruiting habits, but they usually end up somewhere between the two extremes.
With slightly better Integration rate and power-per-unit, but slightly less overall numbers.
It’s all a give and take, at the end of the day. You have to give up quantity to obtain quality and vice-versa to certain degrees.
Whether one approach is better than another, is hard to say.
We will likely just have to wait and see who wins the Galactic War…
Q: Can you lose/gain Faction Traits like say a UHF member defected to the Stellar Republic?
A: Yes.
If you are considered no longer part of the Faction by leadership personnel with elevated rights to make those decisions, you will lose your Faction Trait after a certain amount of time (generally a month of grace period, so people can’t just grief subordinates they don’t like).
You can also gain a new Faction Trait, if you do not already have one or want to replace your old one (you can’t have more than 1), by spending the prerequisite two years of time inside an HQ-marked territory of the new Faction.
This is also the reason that Thea spent two years in basic training at the UHF Station, as it is marked as an HQ by the System and thus, qualifies as a place that can give access to the Faction Trait.
Q: Due to your writing style, and how much I actually enjoy your writing style. (and how much that I would like to either emulate or recreate your writing style.) How do you not get confused with all of the Stats and Abilities everyone has? Do you keep them all on separate Word Doc or what? Thanks!
A: Essentially, yes.
I have multiple Word Documents and Excel Sheets (they are amazing for short-hand information and Stats!) that note down all the important Attributes, Stats, Abilities and the like.
It is very important to keep proper notes for a discovery writer like myself, as I can’t rely on pre-planned power ups or timings on when specific Abilities, Attributes or Stats will suddenly become important.
Every chapter I write, I update my notes as I go, to make sure that they are always up-to-date with the newest thing I wrote.
That does, unfortunately, mean that a lot of the older information is no longer available (except in google history, but who knows how long those stick around), but it’s a sacrifice you gotta make when you’re attempting to keep things organized.
Can’t exactly make a new copy of everything every single time there’s a minor update, after all.
So the most important part: Keep updating your shit!
It’s always better to have more notes to reference than to be missing an important piece of information ‘cause you forgot to write it down.
Q: Would Rachel Masters (or anyone else) replacing a member of Alpha Squad be one of the events that is determined by a dice roll? Or would the outcome be a natural result of their Abilities being fully displayed
A: A bit of column A and a bit of column B, here.
Whether or not dice come into play with events in TAS is generally based on a single question: “Is there a realistic way for this to end up in multiple different ways?”
If a character’s capabilities are so far above another one’s that there is no realistic way for the second character to even do anything, then there will be no dice.
Take Thea’s first death in the Assessment, for example:
The Ace killing her at the Control Station.
There was no dice rolling involved, beyond the point where the two of them met in the same place.
While the initial “Is the Ace around this area?” was influenced by dice (not a direct dice roll, but a result of a different one; specifically “Who is the Commanding Officer of the Control Station”), the actual encounter between the two of them was not.
It was merely a natural consequence of the World’s Rules and the Character’s goals and aspirations clashing.
And Thea simply had no chance of survival, when they did finally meet. So there was no dice involved in that at all.
As such, to get back to your question, there will generally be dice involved as long as the events have a realistic chance of ending up one way or another, without breaking the World’s Rules or the Character’s capabilities.
If Rachel (or whomever) is simply THAT MUCH better than the corresponding person in Alpha Squad at whatever Challenge will occur, then there will be no dice; simply consequences.
Otherwise, there will be dice.
Q: Do Battlefield Psykers still have a Squad that they are attached to or do they behave like Aces and act more independently? I'm curious because it seemed like Battlefield Psykers might be valued as much as an Ace in terms of combat power.
A: Once again, a bit of column A and a bit of column B, here.
Battlefield Psykers are still part of a Squad, yes, but they also behave somewhat like strategic assets (such as Aces or Elite Squads).
The sheer presence of a Battlefield Psyker in your Squad, makes the Squad the equivalent of an Elite Squad, specifically named a Prime Psyker Squad.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
There are also Psyker Squads, which have Psykers in them, but Prime Psyker Squads are specifically those that have Battlefield Psykers (one or multiple) in them.
They often have a direct line of communication to a member of the strategic brass (for example, Staff Sergeant Venn or Legate Kuan for the Assessment) and get their orders directly from them.
At times, the individual Battlefield Psykers are also pulled away from the Squad, similar to Aces from theirs, to take part in more clandestine operations or even Battlefields, if the UHF requires them to do so.
It happens fairly rarely that a Battlefield Psyker is sent to a Battlefield without their Squad, however. It’s generally not considered a smart move to deprive a valuable asset of their most staunch supporters and defenders.
Q: Are Recruits banned from promoting to Tier 1 until the 1-year training period is over? It seems that it might be awkward to have a Squad that has some people higher Tier than others but on the other hand unfair to prevent the higher-level Recruits from progressing.
A: Yes.
The UHF bans Recruits from advancing to Tier 1 or choosing their Class until the end-of-year ceremony has concluded.
This is done for a myriad of reasons, but two main ones:
- Keeping the Recruitment Drive as a single Unit, rather than having some people advance earlier than others and causing issues that way.
- Making sure that the overachievers actually get the best possible options for their Classes.
While you can, technically, choose a Class immediately at Level 10 and promote to Tier 1, it’s not actually a smart decision to do so.
Classes are locked and unlocked based on a variety of requirements, including Attributes of course, but also things like Skills, Ability Levels (and their Alterations) and Accomplishments.
By forcing everyone to remain a Recruit at T0 for the entire year, the UHF makes sure that the overachievers that get to Level 10 early spend enough time truly working on their Allbright System Profile (and themselves) to unlock as many powerful Classes as possible.
Some Classes might require Advanced Physics or Chemistry Skills, others might require you to have all of your Active Abilities with Capstone Alterations (Level 20 Abilities), while again others might need you to have a specific Platinum-rank Accomplishment.
All of these things are possible requirements for Class unlocks, so choosing a Class the second it’s available is often the worst possible choice you can make (though not always).
As a result, the UHF doesn’t allow anyone to Class/Tier-up until the end.
The System 101 Classes that the Recruits will take part in over the course of the year will also divulge a huge amount of Class-information, in regards to popular Classes the UHF already knows about how to unlock, to help everyone work towards them that might fit their specific roles and interests.
Q: What is the end goal of the Story? Normally I can see the direction it's heading in, but not at the moment.
A: That’s a bit of a loaded question, but the general gist is this: Find out what the Allbright System considers “The Ultimate Warrior” and what it needs them for.
That is the ultimate, super long-term end goal.
The more fitting question, however, would be: “What is the current most-pressing goal of the Story?”, I would argue.
We don’t really care about the Allbright System as a whole yet, nor what that “Ultimate Warrior” thing might mean, because we are far more worried about small-scale things like the Galactic War.
The current goal of the story is to see who wins the Galactic War and what happens when the Emperor returns; who will be alongside him when the Bubble pops and what happens when Humanity first meets actual Aliens from beyond it.
TAS, much like every good story ever written, is more about the journey than the destination; so I would highly recommend narrowing your lookout a bit to things that are more pressing of concern for our characters right now.
Worry about “What happens to Thea” or “What happens to the UHF during the war” rather than “How will this all end in 20 years?”, because that last question will take far too long to answer for you right now; it will simply sap your enjoyment because you feel like there’s no real direction, when there is quite a lot of it freely available for the taking.
Q: How do you come up with such insane amounts of detail? You've written a tremendous amount for what has been a short time (in world) and for the most part, the details add to the world. So how?
A: That’s a tough question to answer, but the TL;DR is quite simple: I’m a yapper at heart.
The long answer is more complicated and actually goes back over a decade ago.
TAS is a world I have been building for around 12~ years by now and it started out as a homebrew setting for the TTRPG “Dark Heresy” (Warhammer 40K).
I never got to actually play in this setting ‘cause people kept bailing on the groups, but I really enjoyed Worldbuilding as a hobby, so I just kept building on top of it, with the hopes that one day I would be able to actually set a game in this world.
When four to five years later, no games had ever managed to be scheduled and it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, I simply decided to use this world as my Worldbuilding playground, as I had done for the previous years as well.
I decided to play the game by myself, but in a less rigid way.
I created a character in this world and simply explored the world from their eyes: The original TAS story, so to speak.
That character’s name was James McKay.
It allowed me to continue building the world, not just from a macro-level, as you usually do in Worldbuilding exercises, but from a micro one as well.
There are a ton of questions and things about worlds you never really think about, until you are actively engaging with it at a character-scale.
For example, “What do the people eat?” or “Where does the food come from?”.
These are questions that you don’t necessarily ask yourself when you’re building a world for the first time, but when you’re “writing a story” in your head, following a character in minute detail from moment-to-moment and event-to-event, then these questions become second nature to you.
And the questions require answers; which results in details for the world.
So when I started writing TAS, which is technically the sequel to my previous, self-created story inside my head for the character of James McKay, I already had around 10 years of Worldbuilding, 5 years of Macro and 5 years of Micro exploration, to pull from.
This naturally results in me being able to give a ton of details for things that other authors might not ever even have considered for their novel worlds, simply because I had far more time than other authors to think about my world.
Most novels or books are written in around 1~ year of time, with maybe 6~ months of pre-production to use.
TAS Arc 0 + 1 was written over nearly 2 years with 10~ years of pre-production.
That’s basically what it comes down to.
I know a lot about the world, so details are second-nature to me telling the story set in this world.
It doesn’t mean that this approach is better than others, for example, it ends up being FAR more wordy as the 850k~ words of TAS will gladly attest, but it ends up with a story that hopefully feels very grounded in a world that feels more real than most others you might have encountered.
That is the goal of my writing: Realism in Scifi/Fantasy.
Not in the sense that physics needs to make sense, but that the world ITSELF feels real and grounded in its own rules; that nothing simply exists because the author said it does, but rather because it’s a natural consequence of the world itself.
So when it comes to the “How?” of your question; if you want to emulate this, I would say this:
Think of everything you add to your world from both a Macro and Micro perspective.
Ask yourself “Why does this thing exist?” and if you can’t find the answer, ask yourself if it truly should exist. If it should, then figure out WHY it should and how it makes sense in the world.
Don’t simply add things for the sake of adding them, but ground them in your world’s very existence and rules.
That doesn’t mean things can’t be fantastical, of course.
You simply have to add the surrounding framework that supports the fantastical.
Psykers exist in TAS, because the Void does.
The Void is one of the core rules of the world I have created, so there is nothing that needs further Macro/Micro analysis there as it’s direct cause and effect.
The Void exists, ergo, there needs to be Psykers because they are a direct consequence of the Void’s existence.
With Psykers existing, there are naturally parts of the military that use them as weapons. So you end up with Battlefield Psykers.
With Battlefield Psykers, you naturally need something that can beat them that isn’t a Null (also a consequence of the Void), so you end up with Null Serums; a drug specifically made to combat them.
Following that line of thinking at least 5-6 strings down, will give you more detail than you will ever know what to do with in your world, but sometimes, this level of detail ends up being amazing for a story like the one I’m writing.
I can introduce Null Serums out of the blue, without them feeling like Deus Ex Machina bullshit; because as a reader, you are already aware of Psykers, Battlefield Psykers and the dangers they pose, as well as Nulls.
So it only makes sense that non-Nulls would want something to fight against Psykers with -> You end up with a drug that emulates their Psychic Nullification abilities.
It’s all natural consequences and logical progression.
That’s how you end up with tons of detail like the stuff that exists in TAS; while still having a grounded and real world.
Q: Did Thea cause the invasion by the warp beings with her awakening? Or were the visions simply her pre-cog running wild?
A: They were legally distinct Void beings; thank you very much.
We will learn more about this (very) early on in Volume 2! Runepriest Vedun will go over the incident together with Thea, to break down what she experienced as part of her Psyker Training.
It will likely be one of the first chapters in the second Volume (probably pre-Chapter 10).
Q: How often are real, non-simulated, battles and wars being fought by the UHF? And is that average for a Faction, low, or high?
A: All the time.
We are only seeing simulated battles, because Thea just got into the UHF and is still a Recruit and she’s our POV.
Once Volume 3 rolls around, in which Thea will be officially T1+, we will see very few simulated battles anymore. It will practically all be real-world battles on planets across the galaxy.
As for whether the UHF has a lot of battles going on… It’s in the upper half of Factions in terms of constant warfare.
Both the Stellar Republic to their left and the Celestial Dominion to their right are also pretty large Factions, so they have a lot of personnel to really make life hell for everyone involved.
With the galactic war coming to a close in the next 60~ years, things are also heating up quite a lot, so the amount of battles is rapidly increasing.
This is actually one of the main reasons that the UHF decided to finally recruit from Midworlds, as they simply need more Marines to fight all the battles that are starting to pop up left and right.
Q: I still don't understand what is and isn't "real" in the conflict between the Factions. So far, everything has been simulations, right? And sometimes the ship they're on is too. And sometimes not. Is there any real differences for the combat "rules" in simulations vs real fights? Like for losing Credits to be ressurected, are they the same in a shop simulation as they are in real fights?
A: Great question!
So far, everything we’ve seen from Thea’s perspective has been a simulation, barring the brief moment where she woke up aboard the Sovereign after her Integration.
From Arc 1 - Chapter 0 to Arc 1 - Chapter 8, she is on the real-space Sovereign, while from Chapter 8+ onwards, she is inside the DDS’ recreation of the Sovereign.
There are no real differences for the combat rules in regards to the Assessment, specifically. They are specifically set up to be 99.999% accurate to real life, as otherwise the System would not allow for Credits/Merit/Accomplishment gains at that level.
For other simulated battles, which we will see more of during Volume 2, or the Cube Trial that Thea was a part of, the rules are a bit less 1:1 to real life, but still kept EXTREMELY close in order to provide a realistic training exercise for the Marines.
As mentioned with the previous question, once Volume 3 rolls around, we will leave behind much, if not all, the simulated battles in favour of real-space warfare.
Volume 2 will already feature quite a lot more real-space than Arc 1 did, as there will be the month-long ship duty for the Recruits to take part in.
This is actual duty on the real-space Sovereign, to get used to space travel, Void incursions and the like; with no DDS involved.
Q: Thanks for the lovely read. How likely is an Audiobook version in the future?
A: Very.
Q: For the other Recruits, how closely do you keep track of them? Have you been playing them out/rolling for them alongside Alpha Squad?
A: Some of the other Recruits receive similar treatment to Alpha Squad, yes.
That includes people like Tiberius Soren and Rachel Veronica Masters, as well as named characters such as Astra, Ian, Major Quinn and Major Daxton.
For the “no-name” background characters, they only get very simple rolls based on a spreadsheet that effectively gives them a very very low chance to become relevant, but leaves things open for RNG to take the wheel in extremely rare circumstances.
There’s just not enough time or realistic reason to spend a ton of effort/time on a thousand different Recruits, so only the ones towards the top-end, that could actually be relevant to Thea and the rest of Alpha Squad or the previously named characters, get any real development.
We don’t need to know how Recruit #763 is doing; that guy doesn’t matter.
Q: Do you plan to quit your work in the future and do only writing for a living?
A: While I would love to do so, I have been burnt by content creation in the past, so it will likely not happen.
I would only seriously consider it, if my writing ends up making SUBSTANTIALLY more money than my current full-time job.
At the moment, the split is around equal, so unless we somehow explode in popularity over the next year or two and the Patreon numbers double up, we are unlikely to get to a point where I would consider it a viable-enough risk to take.
Content creation is a fickle beast, as you are entirely reliant on the whims of people that you have practically 0 influence over. There are no laws that protect you from losing everything in an instant to an overeager mod on RoyalRoad or Patreon; nor are there any laws prohibiting the people that pay you from simply stopping to give you money.
As such, it’s a really risky move that I simply cannot take at the current moment.
I will continue to evaluate the viability of this throughout my career, however.
Rest assured on that front, as I would like this more than anyone—trust me on that.
Q: Are there ways to upgrade the Faction Trait?
A: Yes.
We will learn more about this over the course of Volume 2 and will get a close look at the upgrade options available to Thea and Alpha Squad towards the end of Volume 2.
To upgrade the Faction Trait, you need to Tier-up, so it won’t happen anytime soon, but rather, has to wait until the end-of-year ceremony.
Alright that’s it for the questions for today!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this yapping/Q+A session and I’ll see you in the next one (if there is one)!
Thank you for your continued support!
Patreon!
discord.
discord, regardless of whether you're a Patreon supporter or just an avid reader of TAS!