The Cytherean War #4: Cytherea at Night

Author Comments

I wrote "The Cytherean War" with the intention of creating a military science-fiction story told from a different perspective. In my experience, military sci-fi tends to focus on front-line soldiers, weapons-developing scientists, high-ranking generals, or other characters who are connected to a traditional military structure. I feel that this is a mischaracterization of what war looks like in the modern day, let alone the future. I wanted to write a military sci-fi story that captured modern warfare more fully.

I opened with the perspective of a bystander, I feel it is important to remember that most "normal" people don't want war at all. A diplomat turned terrorist was a challenge to write without becoming melodramatic but I wanted to explore what could be considered a "justified" extremist. Morty--the cowardly mathematician--is an exploration of the warfare of drones and UAVs, in which soldiers are redundant and operators need not even see their targets. Finally, regardless of whether the Cythereans or the People of Earth were correct, I feel the true victims of war are always non-combatants, and I tried to convey the true helplessness of someone in this situation in "Cytherea at Night."

I chose to utilize a near-future setting devoid of any true "hyper science" such as FTL in order to preserve the gravity of the story and to keep the focus of the narrative on the conflict rather than the technology.