The Institute War
The Institute's war-game, its rules now set: not to kill but to conquer eleven rival Houses by taking slaves and holding your standard.
Story so far
With the Passage's culling done, Fitchner sets the war's true rules. Twelve Houses, each named for a god and holding a castle across the terraformed valley below floating Olympus, must conquer the valley — but the point is no longer to kill. Ruthlessness is allowed and accidental deaths forgiven, but there are to be no scorcher-murders and no hanging the living, with MedBots on standby to save lives.
The aim is to prove not who kills but who leads: to manage armies, provisions, and justice like Alexander or Caesar, and to make one tribe of twelve by taking slaves. Each House guards its standard — the instrument that binds the conquered into slaves — and its castle, while the Proctors watch and meddle from Olympus, staging pranks and picnics of their own. Darrow, who first names the slaving strategy, must win it as Primus.
The opening skirmish comes when House Ceres baits him and Cassius with a picnic ambush.
Appearance
A war among twelve castled Houses across a terraformed highland-and-plains valley of rivers, forests, and mist, fought to conquer rather than kill, watched from the floating mountain Olympus.
Role
The Institute's overarching war-game and the arena of Darrow's rise, now governed by rules of conquest.
Relationships
Sources — 2 recorded facts, by chapter
- The Institute's central war-game: twelve Houses in twelve castles fight to dominate a terraformed valley — a live study in seizing an empire.
- The Institute's war-game, its rules now set: not to kill but to conquer eleven rival Houses by taking slaves and holding your standard.