Some Desperate Glory

Abstract

Some Desperate Glory tells the story of Valkyr (Kyr), a young woman training to become a soldier in Gaea Station, a rebel human compound ruled by Kyr’s uncle, Commander Aulus Jole. After the majo species destroyed the Earth and its fourteen billion inhabitants some decades prior, Gaea Station became the only bastion that still fights the war against this enemy. When Kyr is unexpectedly assigned to the Nursery role, she also discovers her brother Magnus had supposedly deserted Gaea Station but had secretly been given the job of fighting the war somewhere else by killing human traitors. Kyr herself flees in search of her brother rather following Gaea’s careful breeding program and bearing the future soldiers in this war. In the company of Avicenna (Avi) and Yiso, a majo prisoner, Kyr reunites with her traitor sister Ursa and with Magnus. Kyr takes it upon herself to destroy the Wisdom, a supercomputer that makes decisions for the majo based on what is best for them, which included the decision to destroy the Earth. During Kyr’s attempt, Avi decided to end the war by winning it, hacking and using the Wisdom to destroy the majo, killing trillions in the process. With this catastrophic outcome, the Wisdom, which controls spacetime, sends Kyr back to the day the majo destroyed Earth, where she prevented the event and altered the timeline. With an unsatisfactory outcome, the Wisdom sends Kyr to Gaea Station before she had been assigned Nursery. In this reality, the Wisdom had destroyed itself and Kyr had one last chance to make things right for humanity and the majo. She leads a revolt on Gaea against Commander Jole by removing women and children from the station in an attempt to end the breeding program. Throughout this whole process, Kyr, who had been a fervent believer of Gaea’s cause, begins questioning Jole’s true intentions and understands the war was a sham and that the majo species are also people and not merely the enemy. The story relies heavily on scientific experiments, both biological and technological, from the genetic engineering that creates super soldiers to be used in the war to the artificial intelligence of the Wisdom and the simulations run in Gaea that prepare the children to fight the majo. Training in the station includes lessons on how to treat wounds and the maintenance of the station’s ships. The novel also takes a stance on the complex relations between human and alien species, which sheds some light on life beyond the planet.