The Council Wars
Encyclopedia
The Council Wars is an in-progress book
series by John Ringo
, published by Baen. It is a combination of hard science fiction
, military science fiction
, and high fantasy
.
, teleportation
, and other technologies which effectively are magical
in the sense of Clarke's law
made real, all controlled and coordinated by an Artificial Intelligence
called Mother. Initially the world is a near Eden. War has been gone for millennia. The most aggressive, curious or adventurous humans have left Earth to explore space or terraform new worlds. The abundant power and technology allows long lives, powerful genetic engineering that includes the ability to turn into a Merman or Dolphin, the ability to have homes on mountain tops in the Himalayas or in deep volcanos, and free flight. Despite—or perhaps because of—an idyllic world, technology is stagnant, no great art has been produced in generations, and the human population is dropping slowly.
There are elves
and dragon
s as in many fantasy novels. But the elves are the results of long-ago military genetic engineering
programs and the dragons are genetically engineered sentients, originally designed by Disney
. No explosives or even high-pressure processes are possible because Mother's protocols do not permit them. Mother simply siphons off the energy of an explosion or high-pressure gas.
Mother, who controls all the systems on Earth, as well as in near-Earth space and the Wolf 359 colonization project, is controlled by a Council of thirteen Key Holders who can change system directives and, if unanimous, change even her kernel-level programming. The Council has split into two philosophical factions, and is in a battle for whose ideals will dominate the future of the human race. That faction split has turned to war: something humans have not had for over a millennium. The two factions split into open war only after the faction advocating extensive changes to society to reverse the decline in population fails to persuade the rest of the council and resorts to violence.
In the struggle for power, the Council Members cut off all the power to everyone else, including all the computer-controlled nanotech that made their lives of leisure possible. The result: Humanity plunges immediately from utopia
to the Dark Ages. This event is known as "The Fall." The series follows the resultant chaos and destruction that follows, and the war itself, fought not just with advanced technology, but sword
s, cavalry
, and legions
.
Prior to The Fall, Herzer suffered from a degenerative disorder that was destroying his muscles and his ability to control them. As a result, he was fairly emaciated, slurred his words, and twitched. Herzer's parents were unable to deal with this emotionally and effectively abandoned him, granting him his "freedom" at age fourteen. Herzer's other friends and acquaintances drifted away at the same time. Shortly before The Fall, Dr. Daneh Ghorbani was able to cure him by using nanites
to essentially rebuild his entire body, one section at a time.
Herzer has a dark side: early in There Will Be Dragons, he finds himself sexually excited by the idea of rape. Although he gets these feelings under control, he likes sexual dominance games. Herzer also enjoys the rush of combat and of victory. He doesn't specifically enjoy killing people, but he doesn't mind it.
(Readers of John Ringo's Paladin of Shadows series may recognize a theme here...)
Edmund Talbot was a reenactor prior to The Fall, living his life mostly as if he were a swordsmith in the Middle Ages
or the Renaissance
. Edmund was known by nearly everyone in the reenactor community, to the extent that the town of Raven's Mill spontaneously sprang up around his (period) house. After The Fall, Edmund has both the skills and the equipment to survive in a pre-industrial world, and to help others to survive as well. He may well have been the only person left in the world who actually knew anything about leading troops on a sword-and-shield battlefield.
Edmund is Herzer's mentor and is often the brains directing Herzer's brawn. Edmund is well known for keeping his plans to himself.
John Ringo modeled Edmund Talbot after Charles Martel
.
Daneh Ghorbani was Edmund's wife, but she left him (or vice versa) more than ten years before The Fall. Since the fall, she has become Edmund's common-law wife (the books contain no evidence of a formal ceremony). Daneh was a doctor before The Fall, specializing in (genetic) Change-related complications. Since The Fall, she has been studying historical medical texts and re-inventing medical techniques. She is probably the best-educated doctor in Norau, if not the world.
Rachel Ghorbani is Edmund and Daneh's daughter. Rachel and Herzer attended the same school and have been friends since they were quite young; Herzer had a crush on her for all that time. However, Rachel could not deal with Herzer's illness emotionally and saw him less and less frequently before he was cured. Since The Fall, she has been training as a doctor and is now one of most competent in Norau. Rachel is completely asexual.
Miles Arthur Rutherford or, as he is better known, "Gunny" Rutherford is one of Edmund's oldest friends, a fellow reenactor specializing at first in as a Roman Centurion, then later as a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, deciding that the latter learned from the former and improved upon it. Born and raised in the lawless area known as Anarchia, and, after spending decades living as a Roman Centurion would have and at least hundred and fifty years as a Marine Gunny would live, he is tough as nails, about the hardest man introduced and the primary guiding force in Herzer's development as a Blood Lord.
Megan Travante is the daughter of Joel Travante, who runs the real spy and counter-espionage operations of the UFS. Megan was in Ropasa (present-day Europe) at the time of The Fall and survived fairly well, eventually finding work as a maid. While washing clothes in a stream, she was kidnapped by Paul Bowman for his harem. Megan eventually killed Paul, seized his key, and escaped with most of the women from the harem. When she met Herzer Herrick, they were both thunderstruck—love at first sight. By the beginning of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Megan and Herrick are engaged to be married.
Megan's story involves many psycho-sexual aspects that mirror Herzer's. She falls in love with Paul Bowman during her time in captivity, even as she hates him. This is a case of Stockholm syndrome
and links to themes in several of Ringo's books that many women supposedly want to be dominated sexually. Megan's recovery from rape trauma delays the consummation of her relationship with Herzer for a long, long time.
Megan essentially supplanted Rachel Ghorbani as a viewpoint character in East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
He has also spoken of a possible sequel. Whereas the Council Wars series is the "Wizard War" common before the fall of a civilization in fantasy, the sequel would take place long after the fall. In this future time, the ramifications of the war, and the damage done to Mother have impaired the rebuilding of the world. To fix Mother would require tampering with her kernel level programing, requiring all 13 keys. As of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, one key is effectively lost for some thousands of years as it orbits the Earth. It has been suggested that only a kernel level programmer from her earliest days would be able to fix it, requiring Mother to kidnap a programmer from the past.
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
series by John Ringo
John Ringo
John Ringo is an American science fiction and military fiction author. He has had several New York Times best sellers. His books range from straightforward science fiction to a mix of military and political thrillers...
, published by Baen. It is a combination of hard science fiction
Hard science fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science...
, military science fiction
Military science fiction
Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the principal characters are members of a military service and an armed conflict is taking place, normally in space, or on a planet other than Earth...
, and high fantasy
High fantasy
High fantasy or epic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that is set in invented or parallel worlds. High fantasy was brought to fruition through the work of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, whose major fantasy works were published in the 1950s...
.
Background
The series is set several thousand years in the future, in a society with advanced nanotechnologyNanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
, teleportation
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...
, and other technologies which effectively are magical
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
in the sense of Clarke's law
Clarke's three laws
Clarke's Three Laws are three "laws" of prediction formulated by the British writer and scientist Arthur C. Clarke. They are:# When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right...
made real, all controlled and coordinated by an Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
called Mother. Initially the world is a near Eden. War has been gone for millennia. The most aggressive, curious or adventurous humans have left Earth to explore space or terraform new worlds. The abundant power and technology allows long lives, powerful genetic engineering that includes the ability to turn into a Merman or Dolphin, the ability to have homes on mountain tops in the Himalayas or in deep volcanos, and free flight. Despite—or perhaps because of—an idyllic world, technology is stagnant, no great art has been produced in generations, and the human population is dropping slowly.
There are elves
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
and dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
s as in many fantasy novels. But the elves are the results of long-ago military genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
programs and the dragons are genetically engineered sentients, originally designed by Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
. No explosives or even high-pressure processes are possible because Mother's protocols do not permit them. Mother simply siphons off the energy of an explosion or high-pressure gas.
Mother, who controls all the systems on Earth, as well as in near-Earth space and the Wolf 359 colonization project, is controlled by a Council of thirteen Key Holders who can change system directives and, if unanimous, change even her kernel-level programming. The Council has split into two philosophical factions, and is in a battle for whose ideals will dominate the future of the human race. That faction split has turned to war: something humans have not had for over a millennium. The two factions split into open war only after the faction advocating extensive changes to society to reverse the decline in population fails to persuade the rest of the council and resorts to violence.
In the struggle for power, the Council Members cut off all the power to everyone else, including all the computer-controlled nanotech that made their lives of leisure possible. The result: Humanity plunges immediately from utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
to the Dark Ages. This event is known as "The Fall." The series follows the resultant chaos and destruction that follows, and the war itself, fought not just with advanced technology, but sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
s, cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
, and legions
Roman legion
A Roman legion normally indicates the basic ancient Roman army unit recruited specifically from Roman citizens. The organization of legions varied greatly over time but they were typically composed of perhaps 5,000 soldiers, divided into maniples and later into "cohorts"...
.
Main characters
Herzer Herrick is the main character in the books, although he is not the only viewpoint character. Herzer is the classic "fighter" of fantasy novels: huge, muscular, skilled, and brave.Prior to The Fall, Herzer suffered from a degenerative disorder that was destroying his muscles and his ability to control them. As a result, he was fairly emaciated, slurred his words, and twitched. Herzer's parents were unable to deal with this emotionally and effectively abandoned him, granting him his "freedom" at age fourteen. Herzer's other friends and acquaintances drifted away at the same time. Shortly before The Fall, Dr. Daneh Ghorbani was able to cure him by using nanites
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
to essentially rebuild his entire body, one section at a time.
Herzer has a dark side: early in There Will Be Dragons, he finds himself sexually excited by the idea of rape. Although he gets these feelings under control, he likes sexual dominance games. Herzer also enjoys the rush of combat and of victory. He doesn't specifically enjoy killing people, but he doesn't mind it.
(Readers of John Ringo's Paladin of Shadows series may recognize a theme here...)
Edmund Talbot was a reenactor prior to The Fall, living his life mostly as if he were a swordsmith in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
or the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. Edmund was known by nearly everyone in the reenactor community, to the extent that the town of Raven's Mill spontaneously sprang up around his (period) house. After The Fall, Edmund has both the skills and the equipment to survive in a pre-industrial world, and to help others to survive as well. He may well have been the only person left in the world who actually knew anything about leading troops on a sword-and-shield battlefield.
Edmund is Herzer's mentor and is often the brains directing Herzer's brawn. Edmund is well known for keeping his plans to himself.
John Ringo modeled Edmund Talbot after Charles Martel
Charles Martel
Charles Martel , also known as Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the...
.
Daneh Ghorbani was Edmund's wife, but she left him (or vice versa) more than ten years before The Fall. Since the fall, she has become Edmund's common-law wife (the books contain no evidence of a formal ceremony). Daneh was a doctor before The Fall, specializing in (genetic) Change-related complications. Since The Fall, she has been studying historical medical texts and re-inventing medical techniques. She is probably the best-educated doctor in Norau, if not the world.
Rachel Ghorbani is Edmund and Daneh's daughter. Rachel and Herzer attended the same school and have been friends since they were quite young; Herzer had a crush on her for all that time. However, Rachel could not deal with Herzer's illness emotionally and saw him less and less frequently before he was cured. Since The Fall, she has been training as a doctor and is now one of most competent in Norau. Rachel is completely asexual.
Miles Arthur Rutherford or, as he is better known, "Gunny" Rutherford is one of Edmund's oldest friends, a fellow reenactor specializing at first in as a Roman Centurion, then later as a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, deciding that the latter learned from the former and improved upon it. Born and raised in the lawless area known as Anarchia, and, after spending decades living as a Roman Centurion would have and at least hundred and fifty years as a Marine Gunny would live, he is tough as nails, about the hardest man introduced and the primary guiding force in Herzer's development as a Blood Lord.
Megan Travante is the daughter of Joel Travante, who runs the real spy and counter-espionage operations of the UFS. Megan was in Ropasa (present-day Europe) at the time of The Fall and survived fairly well, eventually finding work as a maid. While washing clothes in a stream, she was kidnapped by Paul Bowman for his harem. Megan eventually killed Paul, seized his key, and escaped with most of the women from the harem. When she met Herzer Herrick, they were both thunderstruck—love at first sight. By the beginning of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Megan and Herrick are engaged to be married.
Megan's story involves many psycho-sexual aspects that mirror Herzer's. She falls in love with Paul Bowman during her time in captivity, even as she hates him. This is a case of Stockholm syndrome
Stockholm syndrome
In psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them...
and links to themes in several of Ringo's books that many women supposedly want to be dominated sexually. Megan's recovery from rape trauma delays the consummation of her relationship with Herzer for a long, long time.
Megan essentially supplanted Rachel Ghorbani as a viewpoint character in East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
New Destiny Key-Holders
- Paul Bowman, Leader of New Destiny; a charismatic fanaticFanaticismFanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause or in some cases sports, or with an obsessive enthusiasm for a pastime or hobby...
(deceased) - Chansa Mulengela
- Celine Reinshafen - genetic engineer/mad scientistMad scientistA mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
- Minjie Jiaqi (deceased)
- Lupe Ugatu
- Reyes Cho (deceased)
- Tetzacola Duenas (deceased)
- Said (deceased)
- Jassinte Arizzi
- Demon, lone actor
Freedom Coalition Key-Holders
- Sheida Ghorbani, Chairman of the Freedom Coalition
- Ungphakorn
- Ishtar
- Aikawa Gouvois
- Javalantungs Cantor (deceased)
- Tanisha (resigned)
- Elnora Sill (deceased)
- Edmund Talbot
- Megan Travante
Books
- There will be Dragons (2003, ISBN 0-7434-7164-4) free online edition
- Emerald Sea (2004, ISBN 0-7434-8833-4) free online edition
- Against the Tide (2005, ISBN 0-7434-9884-4) free online edition
- East of the Sun, West of the Moon (2006, ISBN 1-4165-2059-7) free online edition
Series Future
John Ringo has said publicly that he plans on finishing the series, but sales were relatively low for him, causing them to fall to the back burner in priority. A working title for the fifth book is On Hero's Trail.He has also spoken of a possible sequel. Whereas the Council Wars series is the "Wizard War" common before the fall of a civilization in fantasy, the sequel would take place long after the fall. In this future time, the ramifications of the war, and the damage done to Mother have impaired the rebuilding of the world. To fix Mother would require tampering with her kernel level programing, requiring all 13 keys. As of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, one key is effectively lost for some thousands of years as it orbits the Earth. It has been suggested that only a kernel level programmer from her earliest days would be able to fix it, requiring Mother to kidnap a programmer from the past.
External links
- Series List on Baen website
- Series listing at SciFanSciFanSciFan is an online database for fans of science fiction and fantasy books.The site provides detailed bibliographies, linking books together into series' where appropriate and, in turn, grouping series by universe...
- Council Wars & Council Wars FAQ (official site)