Michael Penick – arter
Darrin Moore – colorer
Travis Lanham – letterer
Karl Richardson (Cover A) & Rael Lyra (Cover B) – coverers
Dafna Pleban – editor
Eric Harburn – assistant editor
I like this! Insurrection v3.6 opens on Sparta in 3000 C.E., and the intro narrative is nice & concise, so here you go:
The fourth millennium has been a golden age of scholarship and philosophy. Poverty, pollution, and armed conflict have been all but eliminated on earth. But off-world, geo-economic blocs wage war for control of the precious silicates and ores that makes this utopian age possible. Battles are fought… and soldiers die.
And while I’m quoting, here’s an excerpt from a CBR interview with the creator & co-writer, Blake Masters:
"The idea was to extrapolate into the future a world where multinational business conglomerates have replaced traditional nation states, and combine it with an epic 'Roman Empire' social structure, only where the role of 'slaves' would be filled by sentient machines," Masters told CBR. "The result is a world where the machines, called AUTs, are actually more human and live more vibrantly human lives than their cosseted masters who passively numb themselves with vids and exist in state of sterile ennui."
"What happens is, the large economic blocs that control life on earth, the 'Glomrat' and 'Retsu,' fight battles for control of scarce, off-world mines using their machines as surrogates," the writer continued. "Now, since no humans are in danger, the 'cost' of these battles is pure dollars and cents, a line item in the corporate budget, 'equipment lost during a hostile takeover.' So they are not 'wars' in the eyes of the corporation. The twist is, to the machines doing the fighting, it is war. Friends are killed, lovers lost. But to their human masters, a toasted AUT is the same as a broken toaster."
"Insurrection v3.6's" point-of-view character, Masters told CBR, is an AUT who rebels against this order. "The AUT messiah of this series is a Team Leader Model v. 3.6, who goes by the name 'Tim.' Ergo, he is Tim v. 3.6 and the revolution he leads is Insurrection 3.6."
That’s more than enough about the plot to decide whether or not this is your cup of revolution. It’s mine.
"What happens is, the large economic blocs that control life on earth, the 'Glomrat' and 'Retsu,' fight battles for control of scarce, off-world mines using their machines as surrogates," the writer continued. "Now, since no humans are in danger, the 'cost' of these battles is pure dollars and cents, a line item in the corporate budget, 'equipment lost during a hostile takeover.' So they are not 'wars' in the eyes of the corporation. The twist is, to the machines doing the fighting, it is war. Friends are killed, lovers lost. But to their human masters, a toasted AUT is the same as a broken toaster."
"Insurrection v3.6's" point-of-view character, Masters told CBR, is an AUT who rebels against this order. "The AUT messiah of this series is a Team Leader Model v. 3.6, who goes by the name 'Tim.' Ergo, he is Tim v. 3.6 and the revolution he leads is Insurrection 3.6."
That’s more than enough about the plot to decide whether or not this is your cup of revolution. It’s mine.
The art is pretty slick & clean. The line work is precise and almost ascetic, which suits the stark landscape. Penick does a nice job with the spaceships and steel and cables and cavernous underground depots, and Moore’s coloring produces a delightful visual pop, particularly the outdoor/outer space scenes. I like the circular close-up panels with the white & black border.
And the script is really engaging. It reminds me a lot of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War books, which I totally dig. Masters writes very full & natural dialogue, so where your (my) typical sci-fi adventures are bogged down by dull explanatory narrative, Masters conveys everything in swiftly flowing verbal exchanges.
And if you peel back the sci-fi, I think you’ll find some prescient points. Substitute the U.S. for Masters’ earth, and the rest of the world for Masters’ off-world, and you get the now. The idea that wars are only wars to those fighting them echoes the disconnect between current military conflicts and the homelands that produce the soldiers who fight them. Or maybe I’m just foolish and there is no disconnect. Is there a disconnect? I feel like there’s a disconnect. Either way, Masters’ setup makes the AUTs immediately sympathetic and the humans not so much.
And if you peel back the sci-fi, I think you’ll find some prescient points. Substitute the U.S. for Masters’ earth, and the rest of the world for Masters’ off-world, and you get the now. The idea that wars are only wars to those fighting them echoes the disconnect between current military conflicts and the homelands that produce the soldiers who fight them. Or maybe I’m just foolish and there is no disconnect. Is there a disconnect? I feel like there’s a disconnect. Either way, Masters’ setup makes the AUTs immediately sympathetic and the humans not so much.
I edited this on 3/11 to add some bits about the art, which I shamefully neglected in the original post.
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