Cover

The long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end.

Peace and order are now figments of the past. Corruption, deception, and insurgency hum within the once steadfast leadership of the Hives, nations without fixed location.

The heartbreaking truth is that for decades, even centuries, the leaders of the great Hives bought the world’s stability with a trickle of secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction could ever dominate. So that the balance held.

The Hives’ façade of solidity is the only hope they have for maintaining a semblance of order, for preventing the public from succumbing to the savagery and bloodlust of wars past. But as the great secret becomes more and more widely known, that façade is slipping away.

Just days earlier, the world was a pinnacle of human civilization. Now everyone—Hives and hiveless, Utopians and sensayers, emperors and the downtrodden, warriors and saints—scrambles to prepare for the seemingly inevitable war.

Ada Palmer

The Will to Battle

Terra Ignota - 3

ePub r1.4

Watcher 15-01-2021

Original title: The Will to Battle

Ada Palmer, 2017

Cover art: Victor Mosquera

Digital editor: Watcher

ePub base r2.1

TOP SECRET MATERIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION

THE WILL TO BATTLE

A CHRONICLE OF EVENTS, begun in JULY of the year 2454

Undertaken by MYCROFT CANNER, at the

COMMAND OF CERTAIN PARTIES.

ALL CLASSIFYING BODIES MUST DECLASSIFY THIS DOCUMENT BEFORE IT IS CONSIDERED DECLASSIFIED.

ALLIANCE TOP SECRET

CLASSIFIED BY: Censor Jung Ancelet Kosala; S.O. 2454-147

REASON: Military Operations, Poly-Hive Security Vulnerabilities

DECLASSIFY: August 1, 2504, subject to Senatorial approval

EUROPEAN UNION TOP SECRET—Très Secret Défense

CLASSIFIED BY: Their Majesty Prime Minister Isabel Carlos II

REASON: Hive Security Vulnerabilities, Inter-Hive Relations Risk

DECLASSIFY: August 1, 2504, subject to Parliamentary approval

GORDIAN SECRET—Geheime Verschlußsache

CLASSIFIED BY: Executive Chancellor Carlyle Hassal-Krane

REASON: Inter-Hive Relations Risk

DECLASSIFY FOR RESEARCH ACCESS: August 1, 2459

DECLASSIFY FOR PUBLIC: Five years after the death of J.E.D.D. Mason

IMPERIAL TOP SECRET—SECRETISSIMA

CLASSIFIED BY: DICTUM ABSOLUTUM

HUMAN TOP SECRET—Ultra Secreto Humano

CLASSIFIED BY: President Vivien Ancelet

REASON: Military Operations, Hive Security Vulnerabilities

DECLASSIFY: Ten years after stabilization of current crisis

UTOPIA TOP SECRET—Cosmic Top Secret

CLASSIFIED BY: Ichabod Hubble, Harbinger Peacebonding Constellation

REASON: Safeguarding Nuclear Facilities and Weapons of Mass Destruction

DECLASSIFY: After weapons systems are no longer a relevant threat

TOP SECRET MATERIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION

This Document is certified Potentially Harmful by the Cousins’ Legal Commission, and its circulation in any form is banned for a period of five years, renewable pending review.

Cause for certification: potential harm to the public peace, potential harm to minors herein portrayed, potential harm to Servicers herein portrayed, potential harm to Cousins herein portrayed, potential harm to real and living persons herein portrayed.

Private access may be granted by judicial order.