Kanti (Patreon)

Note: This post may be edited later to recap progress, so you may receive additional e-mails about it. If you came here because of an update e-mail, scroll down to the bottom. I'll make it clear what's been added.

So, guys, that's where I am on a fourth Kanti book. I promised you a chance to discuss and brainstorm with me and I'd really like the help! I want to write a fourth Kanti Cycle novel, but without a complete story, it's hard to invest the effort.

So, where are we now? Let's recap the major events and the key plot points I've included:

• Tikkatikkachitter has lost her mate and wants to have a pup.
• Kanti is initially prickly about this. He feels bad and wants to be kind to her, but he can't just ignore who she is.
• Kanti wants to trade sourang scientific technology that could free the geroo and she agrees to the deal.
• Kanti and Tikkatikkachitter have some sort of adventure that I've yet to detail but would certainly last several chapters. They have a lot of sex (but consistent with the rest of the series, it won't be explicit) and though they do not fall in love, Kanti's prickliness toward her fades. He starts to think of her as a friend.
• Tikkatikkachitter shows her "technology" but it's a whole lot less technological than Kanti had hoped. It doesn't seem like something the geroo could duplicate, but the scientists are excited by the prospect, regardless.
• The scientists want more from Tikkatikkachitter and sensing something to gain, she plays hardball, demanding one hundred slaves as payment.
• Kanti blows up, infuriated that she is still who she has always been. Though he may have been looking at her through fuck-tinted glasses, she hasn't changed.
• Captain Numea kicks Kanti out of negotiations and says she'll deal with it.
• Kanti and Tikkatikkachitter will be trapped aboard the ship for the next two weeks before the commissioner's next visit.
• We overhear Numea setting up an alternate strategy instead of negotiating with Tikkatikkachitter: the captain will take her prisoner and use her as a non-consensual lab rat.
• Numea ignored Kanti's instructions and tries to find his real name.

Woof! That's a lot of stuff set up here!

So, now what do we do? When I first thought up this storyline, I followed it to a really obvious conclusion—and this would have worked great too, had it not been for you meddling kids! I mean, had this been a single novel and not set in an existing universe:

• The scientists replicate sourang "technology" and start genetically tampering with the crew to make them sulfur resilient.
• Kanti helps spread the formula to other ships.
• The krakun get wind of this and realize that not only are they losing control over the geroo, but their planet is about to become infested with them. They've never been able to get rid of the sourang who are now endemic to Krakuntec and the krakun are worried things are going to get a whole lot worse.
• The krakun decide that the safest solution is to purge the geroo, killing off all geroo slaves in the empire—planetside and on all ships (millions of geroo).
• Some sort of adventure ensues where Kanti—responsible for all this mess—tries to fix things.
• Many people die, but many more are freed.

But of course, that plotline is rather world-breaking. It would wreck future stories, so I won't do it.

So, what can we do?

We're going to talk future possibilities now, so if you hate ***SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*** then you should navigate away now. But if you still want to help, read on.

The most straight-forward approach is that Numea straps Tikkatikkachitter to a bed and starts cutting out tissue samples to figure out what makes her work. Tikkatikkachitter is totally victimized.

I could possibly have the scientists realize that Tikkatikkachitter is pregnant. She wouldn't be far along, but if we wanted to go that direction, I could easily adjust the timeline. Kanti could have been banging her for weeks before they head out on their adventure. They don't have to leave immediately.

If we went the pregnancy route, then I'd really play this up. She knows she is pregnant and is happier than we've ever seen her previously, glowing, She's excited about the prospect and we could have the scientist's experiments either abort the fetus or maybe they take it intentionally to study it? It's hard to say. So many possibilities. Alternatively, she keeps the baby and this is what propels Kanti into action.

Kanti isn't stupid. He understands that the potential good that can be accomplished by this evil is huge. The captain obviously feels that it is worth it, but Kanti can't just walk away. Perhaps he spends most of the two weeks trying to visit Tikkatikkachitter but he's turned away. He doesn't know where they've taken her and no one will say.

Kanti searches the ship using his love of engineering crawlspaces and eventually discovers the truth. Tikkatikkachitter has been a real shit and maybe she deserves this, but it's still morally wrong.

Also, if the scientists haven't taken the fetus, they could be planning on letting her go to term so that the pup will become a second lab rat. That would piss Kanti off to no end. The pup would kinda be his son and would be completely innocent. They would be enslaving the pup in an effort to beak free.

Here's the diciest issue the story faces currently: despite it being morally wrong to take Tikkatikkachitter's liberty, the potential gain is huge. It's still wrong and Kanti will never be okay with this—he did, after all, turn down Blaze's offer of everything-you-ever-wanted if he went against his morals—but will the readers accept this? The gain is so huge that it's a bit like asking if you'd shoot baby Hitler. Kanti would never do that, but most good people would. The trade-off of one life for many is difficult to argue.

Also, I dangled that bit about Numea finding out who Kanti is. I'm not sure where I'd go with that and it could be deleted during editing, but it has potential. Maybe she does find out and then Sarsuk finds out? This could put lots of people in danger: the cleaning crew, friends/family aboard the White Flower II, geroo on board the Meteor Lake I, who knows?

All that said, what do YOU think I should do with this? What would make a great story that YOU would enjoy? Please leave your comments here or DM me if you want to remain anonymous. I want to hear them, so don't hold back. Crazy ideas are fine!

ADDENDUM 1:

See? I knew there would be some of these!

I forgot to mention that if we go the route of Kanti-rescues-Tikkatikkachitter, it would be an opportunity for her to grow. She could learn that losing your civil liberties sucks and she doesn't want to own slaves anymore. This could lead to a new era of closeness between Kanti and Tikkatikkachitter. He could help raise their new pup, the pup and Rahua can become best friends and a regular feature around the barracks, etc.

I don't know if the samples the scientists took over the two weeks of her internment would be enough for them to invent a serum of their own. That's hard to say. It would certainly take generations of Earth scientists to accomplish such a feat, but hey, it's sci-fi. So it's not like stealing her away is giving up the hope of them ever escaping. The newfound closeness between our MCs could mean that she would want to help, just so long as it doesn't cost her her freedom.