Brakespeare Apocrapha - from the archive

Section

Word Count (rough)

Chapter by Chapter breakdown

Comments

Prologue

17,000

In which the Celestis are invited on a fishing trip, Scarrett’s head is recovered from a time-ship in the far future.

Written in draft

1

Scarratt is introduced, both in the memories being interrogated by Mirraflex from the head, and in ‘present time.

2

Neboiath is introduced

3

Scarratt’s briefing commences, in the web of LInecrux, the web has been chosen because it permits the introduction of Scarrett to the whaling vessels without the ego-destruction of confronting their scale in one step. [This is also useful to the reader.]  A mystery about House Linecrux is introduced, where are they all?

4

4,250

The Faction inducts Neboiath, or is it the Faction, some doubt is introduced. Why do the Priests wear yellow – connection to House Linecrux implied. Neboaith learns more of the voyage, and of the uses made of the materials produced by the threshers.

5

4,250

Scarratt is shown (outside of linearity) the salvaged remains of himself and his ship, an experience he must forget (he is told) except at the deepest levels on returning to basal time. In the Captaincy of the Brakespear Lineacrux is offering him the chance to avoid that future.  Scarratt debates with himself (the head), which Linecrux have acquired from Mirraflex [for an undisclosed favour]. Is the head, him?  It has his memories.  It reminds him of the windows he has himself left in time to fulfil certain promises, including one he has only dreamt of.

6

4,250

7

4,250

8

4,250

9

4,250

10

4,250

11

4,250

12

4,250

13

4,250

14

4,250

15

4,250

16

4,250

17

4,250

18

4,250

19

4,250

20

4,250

21

4,250

Whaling Ship versus Leviathan, a bridge level view of the ‘War in Heaven’ encapsulated into

a hunt.  The message from The Enemy decoded.

- it is an acknowledgement to Scarrett that the Brakespear is now regarded as neutral ground.

The sessation of the Empire of Battles, a crucial blow to the Brakespear in mid-hunt, or something forseen?  The moment when the galaxies flare, the target the Brakespear, itself, ‘rolling’ so that the rebel galaxy is severed, and “falls” into the ‘gravity’ of the Leviathan.

22

4,250

The Celestis Empire, all twenty thousand words of it, is embedded as a ‘skin patch’ into the hide of Leviathan.  ‘He’ will spread until he establishes control over it, and in turn he will be controlled by Entalodora.  Scarrett rejects her offer of joint control of the Beast, while he salutes her intent, he questions whether mere multiplication of power, on greater and greater scales, can in itself generate more ‘freedom’. She asks what else there is, and he kissing her for the last time, responds ‘duty’.  He does not, clearly mean, to Linecrux or to his orders, but where he conceives his duty as lying is only made clear in the epilogue.

23

2,250

Nebaioth and Scarratt, dine together, the food is laced with their mutual memory-chains. At the end of the meal one of them, must go in the time-ship, back into the spiral to become the head, salvaged by Mirraflex.  The novel ends with one of them making this sacrifice, which is made to the ideals of linerality, and to the future. As the one making it says: “We can not take up the challenge of Entaladora’s manifesto on the basis of destruction.  Linecrux and Mirraflex may have believed that they could rip whole worlds out of the Spiral without consequence, to build their whaling ships, but to us every life has its consequences and we will not avoid our fate.”

By going back, to bear witness to himself, Scarrett enables his own keeping of the promises he made in the flashbacks in chapters 1-5.  [The reader should now realise that we have actually seen these promises kept within the book, for example – the promise to the Goth tribes, not to permit them to end in The City, seen in chapter 4’s flashback, is granted by relocating them to the Ship: they are the wild tribes that prey on Neboiath’s people in Chapter 2.]

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