[MarcoSkoll]

Well, that took more than a year. And anyone who had read this previously has probably now forgotten all of it.

This instalment constitutes a certain amount of info-dump as part of the scene-setting. I'm already questioning the way I've written it, and I may soon decide to re-structure it into a conversation with Rae, but this will do for the moment.

(There has also been a slight retcon in the first post, as for some reason when I started this story, I had the millennia of the Age of Apostasy wrong).

[Kallidor]

I very much like the idea of the current timeline being ancient history, it makes everything taking place seem that much more interesting to me, gives it more of a Horus Heresy feel. Also reminded me of my favourite Bismarck quote: "What we learn from history is that no-one learns from history."

I didn't think the information detracted from the overall narrative, and whilst I enjoy reading about these ideas of how things can work in the Imperium, I always find my own attempts can be pretty laboured, but you've managed to get it all in with just a few sentences.

Good stuff and here's hoping the next instalment doesn't take another year!! 

[MarcoSkoll]

I very much like the idea of the current timeline being ancient history, it makes everything taking place seem that much more interesting to me, gives it more of a Horus Heresy feel.

Yeah, it's actually strangely compelling to write in a time other than the "present day".

I haven't done it too much before though. Going backward makes it pretty easy to be anachronistic - for the example I normally use, the first Eisenhorn book starts in 240.M41, but mentions Tyranids (Tyran isn't destroyed until 745.M41) and Amalathians (there's no exact date for the conclave on Galthamor, but it spurred Lord Macharius' crusade, so is almost certainly between his 386.M41 inauguration and the crusade's start in 392.M41) - and going forwards doesn't really mean a lot unless you can fill the gaps in.

Jax's unique perspective is a very useful tool for that. It's already been touched on but, as will become more apparent later, her mind just doesn't work like a normal human. Her mutation's approach to not ageing is often rather literal - her memories don't (and can't) fade with time. She can recall conversations with Inquisitor Skoll as well as she can recall the ones she had with Rae yesterday.

This leads to a very unusual perception of the passage of time. Her memories don't ever feel "old" to her, but she can also remember every single day in-between.
So sometimes the way she thinks about time is like a twenty-four year old (for example, a year still feels like a long time to her*) and sometimes a twenty-four hundred year old (because she really can refer to things that happened that happened in the millennia before last).

* Which is possibly why she hasn't become completely detached from mortal humans. While she far outstrips a normal human lifespan, even with rejuvenat, it's still a long time to her. (Fairly unusually for an immortal character, who tend to start using comparisons with mayflies). However, more on that later in the story.

Good stuff and here's hoping the next instalment doesn't take another year!!

Hopefully not. A lot of the later story is actually rather well drafted out, and I'm starting to get more assertive about filling in the gaps.

[Kallidor]

Logically it makes the most sense that, even though she ages differently, a year is still a year so it isn't exactly like those years zip past; plus she does thing at human normal speed, so sitting around doing nothing for a few hours should still be boring!

Also, the concept of memory not aging, and thus making her still think a young person way is very interesting, not something I recall much from any other literature that deals with immortal/long lived characters. They all come across as you have pointed out, so to have someone in a sort of perpetual tweens is pleasantly different.

[MarcoSkoll]

Logically it makes the most sense that, even though she ages differently, a year is still a year so it isn't exactly like those years zip past

Psychologically, humans tend to assess the passage of time in relation to how long they've been alive. Something happening ten years ago is measured by a very different yardstick depending on whether you're twenty-six or eighty-six.

In any case, I'm hoping to have a new post up fairly soon, although I'm not sure how big it'll be - it depends how many of the drafted passages I can stitch together.

[MarcoSkoll]

Bleurg. I completely forgot that I had this passage in a reasonable state of affairs, so I've been sitting on it for ages.

However, it's at least less than a year this time... hopefully I can improve again for the next installment.

[MarcoSkoll]

And posting an update to a story that no-one remembers, and even fewer care about.

However, I have actually had huge chunks of Ad Vitam Aeternam written for years, so I'm at least trying to patch a few bits together in the spirit of trying to get The Conclave up to some kind of speed again.

(The question of how canon friendly the story is, given I started writing it nine and a half years ago... we'll have to see).

[Dosdamt]

And posting an update to a story that no-one remembers, and even fewer care about.

However, I have actually had huge chunks of Ad Vitam Aeternam written for years, so I'm at least trying to patch a few bits together in the spirit of trying to get The Conclave up to some kind of speed again.

(The question of how canon friendly the story is, given I started writing it nine and a half years ago... we'll have to see).

You've jumped years forward. It's your speculative fiction based on 40k. Go nuts. Have fun. Run with it. It's an interesting premise and I'm interested to see more!

-Ben

[MarcoSkoll]

And, somehow, two instalments in consecutive months (by my clock, anyway)...

[Mentirius]

Hey, just to say you posting this reminded me to finally get around to reading the full IC thread.   I'm sorry it took me so long!  It is great, I love how rich the character development is and I will keep up with it in future.  The central premise is a really interesting, the narrator is relatable and these are all people I'm happy to spend time with as a reader.  I don't see myself forgetting the story so far any time soon.

Also - not that it matters, as Ben rightly pointed out before - I couldn't see any canon conflicts with new GW material, or none I'm aware of.  Given how far into the future you are, I think you'd have to include something pretty extreme from between M41.999 and M42.111 to run any risk of that being a problem.  I didn't find anything from GW dated later than M42.111, hence setting our story in M42.120 to place ourselves slightly in the future.  The Great Rift opened at the turn of the millennium, Guilliman came back to rule as Regent in early M42, then spent the next century leading the Indomitus Crusade to retake parts of the Imperium - those seem to be the fundamentals of the new stuff, if you leave aside the Eldar death cult, but anything could have happened since then and you're deep in M44.  Given how much the 40K universe seemed to change between, say, M41.990 and M42.090, piling two thousand years onto the timeline pretty much allows you to do away with anything you like in the course of history.  E.G. Plenty of people were trying to close the Rift, maybe someone succeeded.  If that happened within even a couple of hundred years, maybe the whole thing isn't thought of as a big deal from the perspective of people in M44.  The way I see it, there are infinite possible futures until you get there, so from a present-day 40K perspective you aren't necessarily creating destiny, merely exploring possibilities.  We're actually in more danger with M42.120, in case GW subsequently decides Belisarius Cawl closed the Rift in 115 or something and it turns out we wrote the bugger in for nothing...

(I know the Imperium technically writes dates with the millenniun at the other end but I've hard to start doing it this way round for the sake of my sanity!)

Keep up the good work, anyway.  Just wanted to reassure you your work isn't going unread!

[MarcoSkoll]

Also - not that it matters, as Ben rightly pointed out before - I couldn't see any canon conflicts with new GW material, or none I'm aware of.

Well, my notes go well beyond what's actually been polished and posted up.

As it is, my WIP document runs to 53 pages, of which we're only currently on page 19 - and some of those first 18 pages include sections about the intervening history that I chose to edit out for being more "tell" than "show"; I had originally intended to work them back in in a more fluid way, but at this stage I may well end up writing them out entirely.

For the most part, the significant details about the last two thousand years can probably be summed up as: The Imperium hasn't ended. And perhaps some of what Jax herself has been doing in that time.

After all, you don't need a history lesson in order to watch a Bond film.

Just wanted to reassure you your work isn't going unread!

Much appreciated.

[MarcoSkoll]

Alas, although I've got a lot of writing done, there may be a delay going forwards, as I'm starting to show signs of carpal tunnel syndrome from all the time working at a computer over the last few weeks.

I'll try to get things out at some point, but obviously I'm not planning to injure myself to do so.

[Mentirius]

That is entirely fair - eager as I am to find out what happens, I don't think anyone has a problem with posting delays resulting from health concerns.  I imagine the number of people suffering carpal tunnel or similar must surely be on the rise right now.

On the upside, it is good to hear you have so much story already drafted.  Ben and I have been trying to keep well ahead of the posting schedule ourselves, to mitigate any writing dry spells along the way.

[MarcoSkoll]

And as my wrists have somewhat recovered, another section.

I promise we'll get to something resembling an actual plot eventually.

[Mentirius]

Foreshadowing is plot, as far as I'm concerned.

I must admit, all this character development has me rather worried about this mission!  In my experience of 40K fiction, the more time I spend getting to know a group of decent people, the worse the situation is ultimately going to get...I hope Rae will be okay down there. 

I do love the idea of an obvious mutant doing Inquisitorial work and all the difficulties that must entail. 

Good to hear the wrists have improved, anyway.  I've been rather nervous about the odd achy twinge myself with how much time I've been spending at a mouse/keyboard recently.