For the antagonists, I had a plethora of choices. The sector governors, surely. But the Emperor has a lot of controls on the sector governors, and they would ultimately buckle rather than face the wrath of the Throne. The consummate practical politician, Manfred von Hesse, was the key to that. The play-acting descendants of the Alliance royalty, too, would fold. Alfred Rottenburg was the key there. But where was the major antagonist, the truly dangerous one?
The moneyed interests come in here, on both sides of the action. Franz Becker, the heir of Otto Stauss, is merely awaiting the call to come in on the side of the Throne his family has always supported so strongly. The flip side of that is the plutocratic families of the former Democracy of Planets, nursing their resentment over centuries, bitterly opposed to the Throne.
Then there was the question of how to defeat them. With a billion-plus descendants of those executed by Trajan for treason at the end of the Sintar-DP War, would the Throne have to execute them all? My rejection of that conclusion early in my thinking came out in my writing, in the scene in EMPIRE: Renewal when Burke executes six of the twenty-four spies found in the Imperial Palace, and in her later reaction.
But how to turn aside the conspiracy? Surely, after centuries, the bitterness had in many quarters become pro forma. But how to turn aside the major players? There would have to be a powerful epiphany.
That came in the form of Sean Boyle’s selfless, and ultimately fatal, act to defeat the plans of Maire Kerrigan, his grandmother and leader of one of the families. With the loss of her beloved grandson in effect at her own hand, his letter to her deconstructing her opposition to the Throne, and the Throne’s posthumous award of the Gratitude of the Throne to Boyle, she had the epiphany the plot needed. The Empress’s ultimate threat sealed the deal.
Will I write another EMPIRE trilogy? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Not, at least, one at the top of the power structure. The Western colonies, and their ultimate future, hold some allure, but we’ll see. I never know until I know. Then again, I didn’t anticipate writing the third and fourth trilogies when I set out to write the first two.
I hope you enjoyed reading EMPIRE. I very much enjoyed writing it, and discovering the story as I wrote.
Richard F. Weyand
Bloomington, IN
December 1, 2020
EMPIRE: Resurgence Page 28