Jotnar: Cursed Survivors Turned Vengeful Warriors
Building a World
When writing a new story, there's always a bit of a struggle involved in building the world. This is the way it's supposed to be; world-building isn't easy in storytelling, and it's something I've had to work on over the past two decades I've been writing.
World-building is a whole lot easier, though, when you're in the same world and just focusing on a different part of it or turning the reader's attention to new characters. There's so much you've already created and built upon that it's easy to conjure those things up and put them to work in bringing a story to life.
That's the case with Jotnar, the new short story I released this past week. It's the start of a series set in the same universe as Scions of Oth. This means I have a lot of established setting and world elements to work with, allowing me to focus more on what I enjoy: the story.
Who are the Jotnar?
Quick warning here: There will be some minor spoilers for events that happen in the Scions of Oth series. If you're in the middle of reading that series, you may want to read the following brief TLDR and leave it at that.
TLDR; The Jotnar were once chosen by the Grakhon to become their human-hunting force, imbued with genetic and physical enhancements, but then were able to become liberated from their masters in one way or another. The Ceron Space Corps has started to collect these tortured souls, fitting them with power armor, training and organizing them, and during them 'Jotnar'. They are humanity's best hope at fighting the Grakhon.
⚠️Minor Spoilers Ahead⚠️
The Fall of Ceron
Humanity fought a war with the Grakhon once before, approximately 30 years prior to the events of both Scions and Jotnar. That war ended in a peculiar fashion when the Grakhon just stopped fighting. Abruptly. With no explanation as to why.
Life went on in the Conglomerate after that with a tentative optimism. Perhaps the Grakhon had seen what humanity was capable of and decided it wasn't worth it? Maybe they were intimidated by us and ran off to cry to mommy? Any number of explanations were given at the time.
And they all turned out to be wrong.
The Grakhon operate on their own time scale. That 30 year lull in the fighting wasn't an opportunity for them to retreat; that was just how long it took their full forces to arrive from their homeworld. For them, the war never ended. In fact, for the Grakhon, it could hardly be called a 'war'.
Humanity, in all its might and glory, could not stop the overwhelming numbers the Grakhon had. Ceron and every other planet in the Conglomerate fell one at a time to the Grakhon's extermination.
At this time, humanity teeters on the edge of extinction. The Grakhon would merely have to say the word to make it happen, but they have other plans in mind for humanity.
A Grakhon ziggurat structure established on Ceron after the fall.
The Great Order
The Grakhon are physically imposing creatures, capable of crushing humanity at every scale. An individual Grakhon is nearly unstoppable on the battlefield. The only real hope in that situation is to run away and hope you're faster.
It's the same thing in space, where the majority of Grakhon vessels could mop the floor with any fleet humanity can muster. They have the superior numbers and firepower in all cases.
So what gives? Why not just eradicate humanity and be down with it?
Well, like a kid who has all the cheat codes set to god mode, they've gotten bored. Committing genocide on a mass scale isn't fun anymore, not when there's no real risk to you. The Grakhon have set their sights higher than that, aiming for a lofty goal that is actually a challenge.
The Great Order is the Grakhon's mission, their purpose. Not simply to erase all life from the universe, but to force it to conform to their vision of how things should be. In their eyes, they are the Great Filter that all life must pass through. They are the scale on which all sentience in the galaxy is weighed.
Humanity is being tested.
A member of the Chosen, complete with chitin exoskeleton and other modifications.
The Chosen
When the Grakhon were encountered the first time around, the civilization of Laneth was decimated by them. Originally, the other members of the Conglomerate thought that Laneth had been completely wiped out, but disturbing news soon came from the front as the first war began.
The Grakhon had not simply eradicated the Laneth population, but rather, a remnant remained. And that remnant was subject to all manner of torture and experimentation, the type of horrors one can only imagine.
In hindsight, this was the first experiment, the first fruits of what the Grakhon would later refer to as the Chosen.
When they returned, the Grakhon captured and seized tens of thousands from among the billions they exterminated. While some planets were destroyed wholesale, others were picked apart.
Individuals who showed promise were subjected to the chitin infection, a symbiotic lifeforms torn from the Grakhon's own flesh. Most who received this gift could not survive it, but those who could were blessed with super-human strength, agility, and durability. It also became a source of an undying bloodlust, triggered at the sight of fellow humans who had not undergone the same change.
Additional modifications had to be made, though. It wasn't enough just to give them the chitin. The Chosen had other modifications made to them to make them more docile in the presence of the Grakhon, to make them obedient to their orders, and most crucially, to make them able to understand and interpret Grakhon speech.
Agent Blackwood, director of the Jotunn Project.
The Jotunn Project
While most of humanity fell to the scourge of the Grakhon, there was a remnant that managed to survive. The Ceron Space Corps was stripped down to the bone. With the Admiralty and Adjudicators gone, the responsibility for saving humanity has fallen to those farther down the chain of command.
The problem the Grakhon present, though, remains unchanged. There is no way to match them physically. Running and hiding can only get you so far; eventually you have to face your enemy and fight him
Desperate times call for desperate measures, but sometimes that means you sound insane when you propose a suggestion. Luckily for Agent Blackwood, everyone had already discounted him when he brought his idea to that table.
The Chosen were the only ones close to matching the Grakhon's strength and power. If one could be captured and liberated from their alien masters, would they be willing to fight for humanity?
That idea was the spark, and a failed super soldier initiative proved to be the tinder. The Jotunn Project had been abandoned a decade ago. The participants couldn't withstand the armor system that had been developed for them, and conventional warfare proved to be more cost-effective and efficient.
But the Chosen aren't regular humans, and if you've got the dress why not try it on?
The Jotunn armor system.
Alex Kaine
Alexander Joseph Kaine was a former marine before he was made one of the Chosen. After being captured by the Space Corps, he's now undergoing a new experiment that seeks to turn him from humanity's worst fear to their savior.
Blackwood succeeded in convincing the new Admiralty that they needed to try something crazy, and the Jotunn project was given the green light. But every Chosen they have captured so far has perished in their custody. That is, until they captured Alex Kaine.
If everything goes according to plan and Alex survives the Jotunn Project, he will become the first to be called Jotnar. And the hope is that he'll be the first among many. His test is simple: slay a Grakhon praetor and prove that humanity can stand up for itself.
But Alex is a troubled soul—as one would expect when you've survived what he's survived—and there are wounds he's yet to recover from. Wounds of the soul that don't just get better over time. Pretty soon, the cracks are going to show in his stoic facade. Can he save the world when he's haunted by what the Grkahon did to him? What they took from him?
You'll have to find out.
