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This is a very large drawing of the protagonist of Illusory Ideals, my
sci-fi/fantasy/political work-in-progress. (And yes, it
really is that hard to classify it.) Or rather, "Verdyne" is
her nom de
guerre, with its origin fairly obvious from this picture.
She's what I'm calling a sorceress, but the setting
is a different planet in a far different part of our universe, and a
form of energy is there in abundance that the locals first
called "magic" for lack of a better term. Verdyne and her
compatriots are the descendants of about 500 people who were dumped on
this planet 1800 years prior, by means of a series of space-wormholes
connecting the planet to Earth, and as the first earthlings arrived
there in about 200 B.C., they had no clue what the ''magic" energy
really was. This society has grown and advanced tremendously,
and scientist-sorcerers now know precisely what their "magic" is (and
no, I'm not telling!), but old terms are hard to get rid of.
The central plot issue is a society-wide political conflict. After a revolution about 60 years ago, the revolutionary leaders have become paranoid dictators, and the ineffective Resistance is far too focused on preserving the status quo than bringing about the end of the dictatorship. Verdyne is an 18-year-old who manages to inspire people to flock to her banner. As she digs deeper into the true history of her society, the dictatorship, the Resistance, and the monarchs that were deposed in the last revolution, she learns some things that all but destroy her faith in humanity. But with her own growing political influence, as well as the stupendous magic power she learns to tap into, she finds herself faced with some of the same choices that she condemned the old political leaders for making.
Is it worth it to do questionable things to a good end?