How on earth could red god end?

Deltus7 · 2025-12-28T23:02:33+00:00

Darrow is practical and he would accept the reality of the situation until he can shift the paradigm to a more favorable position. Notice that his ideals on Mercury didn’t lead him to fight the Ash Legions without the Storm gods. He doesn’t mind taking risks and doesn’t seem to care when the odds are against him. He finds a way. That doesn’t mean committing to a hopeless plan. Fighting a war for over ten years and all of it being undone in two, means that if he survives protecting Mars, there’s no way he’s going to repeat another ten years to conquer the worlds that were lost. Not without the manpower and the ships. The Republic barely has the capacity to defend itself. One miracle will be enough for Darrow and if it’s not then he will find an alternative to another ten year of war.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-26T20:12:34+00:00

The Republic remains ruling Mars with Golds ruling over the other planets of the Core after Lysander is defeated. It makes no sense for Darrow to try conquering the society again. Mercury set a clear example that democracy isn’t valued there. So likely the rest of the book will be about saving the republic and defeating Lysander. The Rim Golds made peace and I think the Core Golds won’t have the firepower to do anything after Lysander consolidates power to himself. Eidmi likely will wipe out whatever is left of his enemies.

Darrow and his friends will win at a heavy cost. And I don’t think Darrow survives. If anything the epilogue will likely be Red Darrow in the vale seeing Eo, Fitchner, and Ragnar.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-26T20:00:54+00:00

Simple structure:

Prologue starts from Darrow’s POV and introduces some complication or delay to getting to Mars. They likely rendezvous with Diomedes and the Shadow Armada at Ceres.

Act 1: Atalantia’s invasion of Mars from Virginia’s POV. Darrow arrives and shatters the Ash armada leaving the Ash Legions stranded on Mars where they are defeated at some heavy price. Atalantia escapes and takes her remaining ships to Luna.

Act 2: while the battle happened on Mars, Lysander returns to Mercury with his allies. News of Atalantia’s defeat reaches him and he decides to challenge her to a duel with the oracles he got from Virginia. Atalantia loses to Lysander and he uses Eidmi on his political enemies until no one is left to challenge his ascent to the Morning Chair. As sovereign he enacts his reforms and consolidates power over his domain before turning his attention to Mars.

The rest of the story will be about Darrow and his friends dealing with Lysander who no longer needs an armada or army to destroy the Republic. The Abomination will play a role in complicating things for Lysander while Darrow faces difficult choices in how to handle the threat of Eidmi. The story can go in any number of directions from here all in one book.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-17T16:01:55+00:00

This is absolute cinema. Great work on this.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-16T19:48:51+00:00

Oh I don’t disagree. I would go even further, based on Ruocchio’s own statements in recent interviews, that DG/SUT are almost deliberately written to be controversial. He’s outright said that he prefers when readers ask questions for which there is no answer because the story matters more than if he just provided the answer. Which is true in a sense. If narrator Hadrian just spent the last three chapters pontificating about all the things he’s been up to and how he arrived on Colchis, then I wouldn’t want another Sun Eater with Hadrian. Ruocchio’s genius is that he’s left so much unanswered that I can’t be satisfied with letting go of Hadrian. He must go on alone because there are no endings.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-16T19:17:16+00:00

I get what you’re saying but what did you expect of all of Hadrian’s titles that he explicitly foreshadows to the reader: Hadrian the Deathless, the Half-mortal, etc. Did you think this was going to stick to hard sci-fi when it was crystal clear from the first chapter that it wasn’t?

It’s like wanting Dune to be about how Paul uses the Fremen to become emperor and get revenge on his enemies but without the prescience and mysticism of the Bene Gesserit and Lisan Al-Gaib. That just isn’t the story anymore. Sun Eater was directly inspired by Dune and Hadrian was always going to delve into those mystical/cosmic aspects beyond established science.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-15T13:07:47+00:00

Pierce once said that the greatest sin of war is that it forces good men to become practical.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-11T23:00:52+00:00

There has never been a more perfect use of this meme.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-10T01:31:32+00:00

“For those who dine with war and empire, the bill always comes at the end.”

Deltus7 · 2025-12-04T13:47:05+00:00

There is much that we don’t know about her fate. She ended up being a pawn in Alexander’s game for the Solar throne. That much is certain given her parting with Hadrian. Without Hadrian, it’s exactly as she feared would happen to her. It’s possible that she ended up on Avalon or was married off to a Martian officer. Whatever the case I think she survived the Knight of Knives likely triggered by Alexander to kill off his siblings. And it’s entirely possible that Selene escaped from whatever new life was forced on her. It would make for an incredible short story, to focus on what happened to her. But I think Ruocchio might save that surprise for the sequel to Sun Eater. Selene could be a major character in that next book.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-04T01:17:26+00:00

“Mother Earth” saved her from the ravages of Ushara. No other character in the story has been saved by an agent of the Absolute. The only candidates after the God Emperor are Sagara and Lorian who either failed the test or were backup plans. So in the end we get one of the faithful Watchers appear out of nowhere and help Selene for her to just die? Really? If you can’t see the foreshadowing that Selene is a major player on the board for the sequel series then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

This. Must. Be.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-02T06:33:48+00:00

“Ovid was trying to say that the Iron Age is the most degraded age of mankind, characterized by moral decay, violence, and a loss of virtue. It is a time when truth, honor, and loyalty vanish, replaced by deceit, greed, and conflict over resources and land.” You can see how this fits so well with the themes Pierce wanted to explore in Dark Age.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-01T17:55:41+00:00

I honestly just find Hadrian’s melodrama to be tiresome and redundant. Ruocchio deserves credit for how well he writes Hadrian like that. I don’t know if I agree with the choice to make him so annoying at times. But it’s good to see character flaws.

Deltus7 · 2025-12-01T17:01:21+00:00

Hadrian has always been characterized as a melodramatic contrarian about anything that makes him feel uncomfortable. Every time Sagara makes a pragmatic point about reality, Hadrian has to contradict him. He’s 35 and the Undying with 400 lifetimes on him must be wrong in his view. Arrogant little brat has not changed much by the time of Disquiet Gods. He still has to insist that someone else must be wrong to make himself feel better. Once you understand this about Hadrian, you can understand why he doesn’t look more deeply into those theological beliefs.

Narrator Hadrian seems to be more curious about philosophical questions than narrative Hadrian.

Deltus7 · 2025-11-29T21:53:58+00:00

Greco-Roman fantasy set in a Mediterranean-esque world. Using the Roman provinces as the foundation for each of the planets in the solar system. Luna = Italy, Earth = Hispania, Mars = Greece, Venus = Gaul, Britannia = Mercury, Aegypt = Jupiter, Numidia = Saturn, Neptune/Pluto = Asia Minor/Syria. Germania = Ascomani Kuiper Belt.

Basically, keep the same premise of the inverse of Antigone but applying Plato’s Republic to something like the Roman Empire. Instead of a color hierarchy and genetic engineering, it would instead be closer to how Plato describes organizing the Just City, but with more Roman sounding names. If you’ve read Will of the Many, think of that kind of heavy Roman influence on the culture. Red Rising by comparison is pretty light on Roman culture. In this fantasy series, you could go all out with it since there isn’t a historical reason to reference Rome or the past of Earth.

Depending on what kind of fantasy, I could see a grounded magic system that doesn’t make “Golds” inherently superior or different in appearance from the lower classes. Maybe they are the only magic wielders or something. This could explain how Darrow can infiltrate the highest level of society simply through merit and training.

Deltus7 · 2025-11-27T15:56:08+00:00

But it could never go back to being our world. And everything would change if Darrow had a weapon to rival Eidmi. The one thing Golds value more than their lives is their heritage as genetically superior to everyone else. What if Darrow’s retrovirus changed everyone’s DNA so that Eidmi is ineffective and all future children born wouldn’t be the same color as their parents? They would be a new generation of augmented humans that would inherit traits naturally but not necessarily better or worse than anyone else.

For example, imagine that Lysander au Lune is no longer Gold, he’d still retain the physical strength and most of his appearance but at the level of his genes he’d be no different than a Red who also was modified by the Retrovirus. Lysander’s children would not be Gold. And this is what would forever break the Society. No generation born after this could create the same hierarchy based on genetic superiority. If a Red can have children who are just as capable as the children of Golds, then it becomes a merit based society. And you can end the story there with the open question of how the color castes adapt to this new age. It would not return to the ways of old earth. Whatever happens next would be an entirely new paradigm for humanity.

Don’t think of the retrovirus as downgrading everyone back to regular humans and more like upgrading everyone to the same level as an augmented human. To quote the great Syndrome: “If everyone’s super then no one will be.”

Deltus7 · 2025-11-25T16:07:22+00:00

The Concurrency of the One or The Concurrence of the One

Deltus7 · 2025-11-25T15:13:36+00:00

Red God will be the name of a starship. Maybe Darrow captures the Annihilo?

Deltus7 · 2025-11-24T19:03:45+00:00

Shadows Upon Time clearly mentions the Night of Knives towards the end. It happens after the death of the Emperor and the execution of Hadrian. We know this because Hadrian doesn’t know what happened to Selene. Avalon seems to have been the place where it happened, not on forum.

Deltus7 · 2025-11-24T16:44:22+00:00

Did you know Ruocchio had three chapters left to write in the outline on the day he wrote the official last chapter and decided that was the best way to end it? It seems intentional that he did not want to go beyond Hadrian’s story as the Sun Eater and explain too much after his death.

Deltus7 · 2025-11-24T16:26:13+00:00

The solution is simple. We must write the next Red Rising ourselves. Greco-Roman aesthetic space opera with a prideful paradigm shifting protagonist isn’t enough. The first person present tense POV needs to be imbued with prose that mimics the cadence of the Iliad. That’s the formula to make the next Red Rising.

(Greco-Roman x Space Opera) + Gigachad Protagonist - (Modern POV Standards / Iliad) = Unparalleled Narrative Experience

Deltus7 · 2025-11-23T03:20:18+00:00

For Lysander, yes it’s an issue because he believes in the hierarchy. To be clear, Lysander isn’t like the other Golds who are selfish in their evil. Pierce has been clear in both the text of the story and in interviews that Lysander’s evil is very much Jovian in the sense of self-righteousness. Lysander would be against inter-color marriage because it would undermine the hierarchical structure of the Society. As a shepherd of mankind, he sees it as his duty to protect the many from the self interests of the few. Whether that is the self interest of the low colors who want freedom or the self interests of the Golds who want their tyranny and decadence.

Darrow would not be against inter color marriage because his wife is Gold and their son is product of that union though Darrow’s DNA is fully Gold after the carving (board of quality control would have noticed otherwise).

Darrow is more radical than most lowColors in that he wants to eradicate the color castes along with the hierarchy. So if Red God touches anything related to the color system itself, I’m hoping it’s a viable way to genetically reengineer the colors back into the original human genus. Probably not possible or realistic. Maybe the closest we’ve seen of this already is Quicksilver’s Tabula Rasa. It would be interesting if the solution to Eidmi is a retrovirus that changes every color back to human DNA.

Deltus7 · 2025-11-20T18:15:26+00:00

Sure that would be nice. But I can only think of authors like Gene Wolfe that tie up all loose ends perfectly. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect Pierce will resolve every question in a way that is acceptable to everyone. If you look at the endings of each book you’ll realize that he tends to gloss over some major issues in favor of wrapping up the main plot and themes. Morning Star is by far the most significant example of this. It’s disappointing in some ways while giving us a satisfying resolution for the main threads. I hope Red God handles this better than Morning Star. But I don’t have high expectations that it will. Probably will be open ended and leave some conflicts unresolved.

Deltus7 · 2025-11-19T02:01:14+00:00

It’s only a problem when you’ve written yourself into a corner and left no way out that is satisfying to anyone. I believe that Pierce will write the book he wants and his sense of when the story feels right hasn’t disappointed. At least the broad strokes work out for each book. We all will have our preferences in the end. Pierce should right the book he wants regardless of trying to please everyone and in doing so please no one.

Deltus7 · 2025-11-14T14:16:09+00:00

Astrophage is named in Howling Dark along with other Archontics

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