Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

The Reavers

The cyborg corporation: Cybernetician Yeller's pets and the Gurgles as an exploit, drop troopers grinding for citizenship, a warlord who is 99 per cent machine and replaceable from 'the Initial', processing isolated in any organ, Ditch Digger sentry dogs and mini nukes — and Epitome Tagg, secretly one of them.

Segment appearances

Chapter 1 — Porthus; Welcome to Faction Wars
Chapter 5 — Dante; Sir Rendlegore
Chapter 8 — Larracos, City of Dreams
Chapter 14 — The flag room and the Ramp-Up
Chapter 15 — The Rolling Battle Formation Ball
Chapter 18 — The minor quorum; code red
Chapter 20 — Christmas Morning; the Ramp-Up
Chapter 21 — The southern trenches; rot stickers
Chapter 22 — Colonel Boomer
Chapter 29 — The Bamboozle
Chapter 30 — Comrades
Chapter 31 — Drop troopers; Tripper
Chapter 32 — King Rust arrives
Chapter 34 — The king's message; Rosetta's whip
Chapter 39 — Alliances break; Operation Snake Pit
Chapter 42 — The warlord council; Princess Vinata
Chapter 56 — Justice Light; the Nest
Chapter 59 — Operation Ruin
Chapter 60 — Meatus; the King's Point erupts
Chapter 61 — The War Mage Rebellion
Chapter 62 — A non-team entity
Chapter 63 — Into the Madness
Chapter 64 — The crystal shows itself
Chapter 65 — Bear Witness
Chapter 66 — Rolling Battle Formation
Chapter 67 — Hey, Dickless
Chapter 69 — Interlude — Several days earlier; Interlude — Rosetta; Zarogoths
Chapter 70 — City of Broken Dreams
Chapter 73 — An act of fiendish cruelty
Chapter 75 — Stayfast Ink
Chapter 76 — The Oak Fell
Chapter 77 — Not yet
Chapter 78 — The Scavenger's daughter is with us now
Chapter 79 — Tart
Chapter 80 — Inside the dragon
Chapter 81 — Executive Order 11905
Chapter 82 — Ursensus
Chapter 83 — Psamathe confesses

Progression

Rot stickers raised as pets and released as biological missiles with the Gurgles (ch. 21); cyborg drop troopers grinding four hundred cycles for citizenship, Warlord Fang's guard, and an AI that apologises for the genre (ch. 31); the Initial, a chunk of brain new citizens are peeled from (ch. 79); Ditch Digger sentry dogs with optional nukes (ch. 80); processing isolated in any organ, which is why the real ones keep coming without heads — and why Tagg can live in a heart (ch. 81). A mega-monopoly with the Dream, if the rumour is true (ch. 83).