Arc 8 Notes - The Hegemony

Arc Eight: The Hegemony

Chapters 300 - 350

This arc was all about the Ravens building their nation-state together, and leading it towards the future. Although the arc touched on things such as leadership, ownership of property, or individual freedoms and responsibilities, it also never got too deep in any of them.

The novel is political, but I never intended to get deep into the inner workings and structure of an ideal government. What I did do is take my own preferences for what I think the ideal government is, and model the Corvus Republic after it.

And that's some mixture of anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-socialism.

If you're unsure or unfamiliar with anarcho-syndicalism, it's a political philosophy that leans towards unity, direct democracy, & self-management. There are also aspects of anarcho-socialism (perhaps more commonly known as libertarian socialism) in the nation-state.

It shares some leanings with anarcho-syndicalism, but also goes deeper into egalitarian philosophies. For example, the lack of social classes. There's no distinction or hierarchy between citizens, regardless of the size of their ledgers, the work that they do, or which ship they're stationed on.

I've also dipped into the aspect of free love, which you might recognize as a hippie philosophy. It also is very much a deep aspect of anarchism, and absolutely needed to be in here. In fact, I've been holding back on forming real relationships with my characters, specifically because I wanted to highlight them in this arc, where everyone is most free.

Certainly Freya and Lucifer, but also Azrael and Kali.

I wanted there to be a bit of a reversal with Freya and Lucifer, though I probably could have been more obvious about it. It's probably too subtle, lol. But basically, when they come together, Lucifer is the dominant one, who is often demanding and pushy.

By the end, it's Freya who becomes the dominant one. I always intended for her to be the 'dom' in the relationship in the first place. This sort of reversion and flip is there, but not sure if anyone actually keyed in on it, haha. I'll try to amp it up a bit more in the manga version.

I also messed up with the Azrael/Kali romance. I initially intended for them to have a chat with each other in the previous arc. It was where Kali was going to confront Azrael about her fear of intimacy - that she couldn't be with a male figure, and not go into panic attacks. All she could picture was her father, no matter what.

Azrael being who she is, would have tried to help Kali and ease her emotional suffering and pain. Of course, Kali would have realized that the only person she could fully trust and be comfortable with was Azrael. No matter who she was with, she never felt that panic with her. That would have been the true beginning of their growing feelings for each other.

It would have been awesome. But I completely forgot, like an idiot. I'll definitely be adding it back in the manga version.

I'm particularly proud of the creation of the Corvus Republic's constitution (named Articles in the novel), which was honestly the conglomeration of different constitutions from around the world. Though more than half of the ideas were lifted out of the more left-leaning EU countries.

It contains what I feel best represents anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-socialism

I originally was going to make it into two parts, with one that explains the mechanics of voting, leadership, citizenship, amendments, and so on. It would certainly be interesting for people to read, but I wouldn't translate very well at all in comic form.

Same with the constitution itself, tbh.

So while it's visible here in the novel, it likely won't make this hard of an appearance in the manga version. Unless I can figure out an interesting way to show it.

There were times when I wanted to expand on the inner workings of the Corvus Republic, and how the different ships interplay with each other. IE how Raijin's technological advancements intersect with Azrael's medical ones. But not just them - specifically, how the ships they lead go about building new things.

I also wanted to get into the economy of their OmniCast, which reduced the amount of combat and violence, and replaced it with more fun-loving exploratory content. There would have been a shift in audience, in both galaxies.

I also wanted to have a chapter that introduced the trade ship they added to the fleet, The Stalwart Fiddler. Which does lots of trade, just like the Spirit of Amelia used to do. Except they also provided smuggling services for people who wanted to escape whatever situation they were in.

For example, they would go into a planet to trade medicines with a local settlement. At the same time, the ship's operatives would work to get anyone secretly waiting for a ride out. It would have been very much in the vein of the underground railroad.

There was also a chapter I wanted to write about the wolves themselves, particularly how Raijin and Azrael have helped them. I also seriously wanted to show a wolf pup - almost newly born - go exploring on the Raven's Refuge. And it would have been in his or her POV. It was supposed to be a little cute, slice of life type of thing.

I have been sneaking in small bits here and there that fill in the gaps, and I may even decide to expand these once I get to editing the story for the manga version. But unfortunately, they won't be in the novel. And while all that stuff is absolutely awesome, none of them are critical to the end. All we need to know is the general gist of how positive the Corvus Republic is for everyone involved.

In the end, I decided to scrap writing out those chapters because I want to start moving the story towards the conclusion. Which we are certainly getting closer and closer to.

I'm estimating that there will be about 500 chapters in total, probably no more than that. Could actually be a bit less, maybe more like 480. We'll see how things go. But yeah, the story is starting to draw towards a close.

How exciting!