A Practical Guide to a Cushy Retirement ( Youjo Senki/APGTE )

Just imagine her superiors reaction to finding out what her boot camp is like.

Fuck her superiors, I am a little afraid to actually write down what she's been doing to her line.

*looks on in the distance and shudders*

The scariest thing is that I'm going to insert it for comedy values in an otherwise serious chapter.
 
I wouldn't be so sure about that considering the way narrative causality plays out in this world.
That said, I think her true ultimate power is the weapons-grade denseness field that surrounds her and how it blurs the definition of victory and loss. The punchline to the joke that is her existence is always "she fails by succeeding" so she always gets her comeupppance nonlethally
It's the opposite of Dread Emperor Irritant. Or a variation. Oh no! (Oh yes!)
 
The scariest thing is that I'm going to insert it for comedy values in an otherwise serious chapter.
Oh no, she's going to be giving them efficiency and accounting lessons, isn't she?

"Alright you maggots, grab your pencils and give me the weekly troop to supply ratios for a company traveling through a desert, a battalion traveling through farmland, and a platoon travelling through a jungle, each while being harried by a Named mage, a larger mixed enemy force and by a cavalry unit on flying mounts. Any questions?"

"Was that with all of those at once, or each sep-" *horrific sounds of flesh boiling and bones violently igniting*

"Yes. Any more questions?"
 
That seems extremely out of character for her. Not the class on logistics but the stupid evil of killing someone for asking for clarification.
 
Last edited:
Fuck her superiors, I am a little afraid to actually write down what she's been doing to her line.

*looks on in the distance and shudders*

The scariest thing is that I'm going to insert it for comedy values in an otherwise serious chapter.
Random idea inspired by your reaction: don't write it but instead focus on the superiors reaction to it and their desision to turn it into a punishment to take care of any rebellions/traitors.
 
Random idea inspired by your reaction: don't write it but instead focus on the superiors reaction to it and their desision to turn it into a punishment to take care of any rebellions/traitors.
Will that work when death is more preferable?

Good point, I know China at one time in their long history, treated certain groups in the population that bad, that there simply was no reason not to rebel. Given that the treatment of rebels was about the same as how they were treated without rebelling. Except that rebelling would have the (however infinitely small) chance that your rebellion would actually succeed
 
Good point, I know China at one time in their long history, treated certain groups in the population that bad, that there simply was no reason not to rebel. Given that the treatment of rebels was about the same as how they were treated without rebelling. Except that rebelling would have the (however infinitely small) chance that your rebellion would actually succeed

That's been the cause of a lot of rebellions in history. Like, just about every time you hear a history book gloss over "And then this empire had to put down X revolts during this period of turmoil", that's typically what was happening.

Which is relevant to the story because Black's policies in Callow were designed to specifically avoid that. Sometimes stuff got bad, like in Catherine's home town, but Black stepped in before it could get too bad. Funnily enough, that's something he and Tanya could probably get along very well on. They might even use the same sterile language about human resources and economic incentives to describe it.
 
That's been the cause of a lot of rebellions in history. Like, just about every time you hear a history book gloss over "And then this empire had to put down X revolts during this period of turmoil", that's typically what was happening.

Which is relevant to the story because Black's policies in Callow were designed to specifically avoid that. Sometimes stuff got bad, like in Catherine's home town, but Black stepped in before it could get too bad. Funnily enough, that's something he and Tanya could probably get along very well on. They might even use the same sterile language about human resources and economic incentives to describe it.

There's a bit more to the situation in Callow than that.

Firstly, you need to understand that, while Malicia and Black are formally and informally in agreement with each other and think they are working towards the same goal, they actually have plans they haven't even told each other about, much less approved.

For example, Malicia doesn't even know what the fuck the deal with Catherine is. She thinks Black got into his head that he's gonna die soon, which is why he picked a random girl he met on the job to be his successor.

Meanwhile, Black has no idea about any part of the grand plan Malicia has for Truebloods and the continent. Okay, no, he has some idea about some parts of it, but the big picture? Lol, no. Like, there are a lot of spoilers, but by the end of the Book 3 they irreconcilably fell out with each other, because Malicia trusted their friendship would weather the weight of the secrets she held, and it didn't.

In practical concerns about Callow at the moment, we can condense this into three points:

1) Rebellion was going to happen sooner or later, no matter how well Callow was governed because it's a part of the pivotal struggle between Good and Evil, and it's governed more or less okay for a feudalistic polity. Not excellently, not awfully.
2) Black wants to break the pattern by aligning the Callowan Kingdom with the Praesi Empire as another Evil nation, and for that he needs Catherine to remain a villain and continue climbing the ranks as fast as she can handle responsibility. She's basically being groomed to become a Warrior-Queen of Callow.
3) Malicia is using the situation at hand: i.e. both a faction of Highborn nobility and Procer on the other side of the continent financing the Callowan insurrection, to hide her own machinations.
 
There's a bit more to the situation in Callow than that.

I love how you condense this down, thank you. Because I briefly thought about trying to encapsulate all this, realized it would take me 10,000 words and might not even be coherent by the end of it, and decided to just settle for the simple and reductive description.

But you took this whole monstrously complicated part of aPGtE and wrapped it up in a few paragraphs with a neat little 3 point bow.

That is very impressive to me, and it makes me look forward even more to seeing what happens when your Tanya gets wrapped up in all of this.
 
I love how you condense this down, thank you. Because I briefly thought about trying to encapsulate all this, realized it would take me 10,000 words and might not even be coherent by the end of it, and decided to just settle for the simple and reductive description.

But you took this whole monstrously complicated part of aPGtE and wrapped it up in a few paragraphs with a neat little 3 point bow.

That is very impressive to me, and it makes me look forward even more to seeing what happens when your Tanya gets wrapped up in all of this.

Thank you. I had to reread the first three books while I was writing the outline for the plot to figure out what is happening and why everyone is doing what they are doing.

Unrelatedly, it left me with a somewhat negative impression of Malicia. See, she's always saying "just according to keikaku", even when something really unexpected happens and she has to scramble and cover the holes in her plans, all the while losing allies and friends. I'm not saying that it still doesn't work out, quite impressively at that, but. She had to do a lot of things she found unpalatable and weaken her position by a lot just to get where she is in canon, and all the things she did couldn't be a part of her plan from the start, because it's a pretty fucked plan otherwise.

So, I picture her as a woman who cannot relinquish her desire for control even in the safety of her own mind. I mean, it's pretty understandable, since her backstory is pretty tragic if you know of it: the previous Emperor killed her parents, kidnapped her and raped her for several years, which is even worse considering she's a lesbian. I understand how it would leave her with deeply ingrained insecurities and need to always appear in control of the situation, no matter what the reality says about it, but she's not really an infallible mastermind she thinks herself to be.

Whew. Basically, I have a ton of notes on everything and everyone in APGTE, sieved through my interpretation of who these people are and why they all are... like this. The challenge remains to actually write a story using this material. Oh, and Tanya is somewhere in there, too, can't forget about her.
 
So, I picture her as a woman who cannot relinquish her desire for control even in the safety of her own mind.

I love this picture you paint of the personal nature of the reasons Malicia failed to fully implement Black's reforms, and her blind spots. Because I had a different more structural political reasoning for her behavior in canon. One which isn't so much a flaw in Malicia as an inevitable trade-off between her and Black's plans. But they're complimentary views of her and her situation I think, not contradictory ones.

The way I see it, Black's plan, rooting out the nobility in a (quite literal) hell of bloodshed and demons would have been risky and hell on earth. But once committed to it, they would have been committed. They would have won or lost and there would have been no middle ground. One sin, defeat, one grace, victory. And losing was possible. If they'd gone with his route, they might have lost everything. Which is why Malicia could convince him her plan was better.

Malicia's plan had much less chance of catastrophic loss, but it leaves open a much subtler failure mode I'm not sure she ever realized was there. One I'm not sure if Black ever saw, but one he definitely didn't want to see.

Every day Malicia exists in a system where it costs political capital, power, wealth, and risk to reduce the nobility's power. That's capital she spends which she gets no return on. It is, in terms of the great game she's playing, wasted capital. And if Malicia ever loses too much power, they'll kill her and unmake all her gains. And if she ever stops actively undermining them, they'll reverse the Calamaties' gains.

She has to walk this super narrow tightrope of beating the nobles at their own game with what's essentially a handicap of regularly wasted resources. Maybe in the long run that investment could make for a weaker nobility, but they'd also be a more desperate nobility, so her resource expenditures to remove them from the picture never really makes fighting them easier. And ever day it's easier to just ... fight a little less hard. Fight hard enough to stay on top, but not the extra mile to undermine the nobility as an institution. Especially during crisis moments (when it's easiest for the nobility to claw back their losses), Malicia has a huge practical incentive to maintain the status quo rather than continuing to push the Calamities' reforms further.

She's got a huge incentive to focus on the day-to-day of keeping herself Dread Empress rather than focusing on larger changes to the systemic structure of Hero/Villain dynamics on Calernia.
 
It's more accurate to say that Named are those that are driven to impose their will on the world, rather than allow the world to force them to change. That often is a form of insanity (one that Tanya is filled with). However, technically one does not need to be insane to be driven in that way, it just helps a lot.

Most of the Named we see in the story are insane, but there are a few I'm not as certain are. Archer for example.
 
So, having finally caught onto what the thread was talking about and having reread the first couple volumes of Guide, I have to say that Malicia is massively power hungry. If she'd taken Black's original suggestion of how to deal with the nobles as soon as they'd finished conquering Callow, everyone we care about would be in a better position.

Malicia would be able to focus on something besides managing her court and playing spycraft games with Cordelia, Callow wouldn't be being irresponsibly managed by stupid nobles strangling their golden goose, Black would be satisfied with the state of the Empire and most of the Calamities would be content with the current state of affairs. The rebellion would still happen because it was always going to happen no matter what but it would have even less local support then it already received.

Black in a very real way is the only practical Villain. He's able to make absolutely monstrous choices, but it is always for the larger picture that the rest of his friends, comrades and family miss. Captain is largely content with the current state of the world, and wants to forcibly keep things the same because its what she and her family have fought so hard for. She's willing to be the monster to keep what they've claimed, and so is still an old style Villain if a very tame example of one. Warlock doesn't even try to hide that he is almost exactly like the old breed. As soon as the hero situation in Summerholm was dealt with, he then turned to Cat and threaten to torture her forever if she ever betrayed Black. Ranger is Ranger, and that is about all that needs to be said of the person who managed to make it to the crown of Keter by herself, four times. Assassin is hard to tell with their humor, but that might actually be a reflection that they too are an old style Villain. Malicia is so obsessed with power that she's literally cornered herself into a situation that needs her soft touch to continue working.

So to expand on what on my original point. Malicia is ignorant.

I read the villainous interlude of Akua and Malicia where they talk about the empire. Akua basically says that the empire is supposed to be mud that can be shaped into whatever weapon the Empress or Emperor needs it to be. Malicia notes that what Black wants the empire to be is mud that he can shape into a lasting weapon that survives himself, before tutting to herself that 'that's an unrealistic expectation that only a person who's always been an outsider to their culture could come to.' Except we have Akua, in the prime of her Tower Climber phase, saying the exact same thing as Malicia says Black thinks.

To continue my point. After the Conquest, when Black and the others are saying they have a couple years until heroes start popping up to try to retake the Kingdom, what they should have done is do away with the High Lords and Ladies. Leave Scribe to manage the bureaucracy of Callow, leave a couple legions to maintain their power there, and turn back East with the rest to finish the war against the nobility. Maybe not do it immediately, take a year or two to settle their conquered land with just martial law, but they had the perfect opportunity to rid themselves of the most voracious of the parasites that are clinging to the empire. Recruit any willing Callowian who wants to take a stab at Praes as well and you'd find massive support in their newly conquered lands. After they had Callow, they no longer needed the High Lords because the function that they provided for the empire was literally to help tinily increase the food production of the Empire.

Hell from what I can tell the only reason why Malicia wanted to keep the High Lords around was because they were her power base. She didn't have massive power to keep the throne, like Warlock. She wasn't truly in charge of the Legions, that was Black's brain child.
So much so that she had to implant commands into everyone who might remotely have the ability to lead them just in case Black ever decided to rebel against her.
All she'd had was a talent for politics and a friend who'd made himself powerful in the years between their meeting and their reunion.

Now onto this story. I like Tanya in this. I'd personally have put her into an entirely different situation, like the Dominion or the Free Cities or before the Conquest on either side of Praes or Callow, but seeing her interact with Cat and the Rats has honestly been such a blast that it made me start rereading Guide. I'm wondering at some of the changes that make me turn my head and squint, like changing the College having the Captains change after 12 defeats into 13 defeats but otherwise this has been a very fun story that make me want to enjoy where it is and where its going and what could be changed through the lens of Tanya both being there and being our point of view character.
 
Last edited:
I'm wondering at some of the changes that make me turn my head and squint, like changing the College having the Captains change after 12 defeats into 13 defeats

Huh? I'll get back to you on that.
Gah, I would need to fix this in every instance I'd mentioned the rule, all two or three of them!

:V

Neither makes sense since there are only ten companies, thus having Rat Company lose to some of them more than once, but whatevs.

Otherwise, thank you very much for your comment. I'm glad you like my story.
 
Huh? I'll get back to you on that.
Gah, I would need to fix this in every instance I'd mentioned the rule, all two or three of them!

:V

Neither makes sense since there are only ten companies, thus having Rat Company lose to some of them more than once, but whatevs.

Otherwise, thank you very much for your comment. I'm glad you like my story.
I mean the War College is supposed to be a multiple year institute, being roughly 4 years if we take Robber at his word. He left his tribe at 7, was at the college for several years, and he taunts his squad that only cowards make it to 15, when he was 13, about to be 14, in the extra chapter Raid, which happens two years after the War College.
 
I mean the War College is supposed to be a multiple year institute, being roughly 4 years if we take Robber at his word. He left his tribe at 7, was at the college for several years, and he taunts his squad that only cowards make it to 15, when he was 13, about to be 14, in the extra chapter Raid, which happens two years after the War College.

Those goddamn extra chapters that I always read through and forget about. Mmmmhm
Need to think on it some
Four years is surprisingly exhaustive? comprehensive? for a feudal empire somewhere in the High Middle Ages.
But then again, they have public schools, so lol.

Oh, public schools. How about
The college is divided in two parts
The first being the basic educational facility attached to the college
A cadet corps, where they learn how to write, count, walk in formation, not give your superiors snappy comebacks for which you'll get promptly court-martialed
And the second is the college proper, where they learn advanced tactics, languages, logistics and how not to give your superiors snappy comebacks for which you will get promptly court-martialed.
 
And the second is the college proper, where they learn advanced tactics, languages, logistics and how not to give your superiors snappy comebacks for which you will get promptly court-martialed.
It is mentioned that the students only live on the college campus for the final year of their education.

But for Rat Company to even have engaged in thirteen games since Ratface took command, Idunno, does that really happen in only one year?
Maybe it does, I just feel like the tactical education and war games could take longer than a year if you wanted it to.

Admittedly the Romans only trained their men for four months and had one of the best armies in the world.
But training competent officers is harder, you really need time to run them through nearly every scenario you want them to know.
 
It is mentioned that the students only live on the college campus for the final year of their education.

But for Rat Company to even have engaged in thirteen games since Ratface took command, Idunno, does that really happen in only one year?
Maybe it does, I just feel like the tactical education and war games could take longer than a year if you wanted it to.

Admittedly the Romans only trained their men for four months and had one of the best armies in the world.
But training competent officers is harder, you really need time to run them through nearly every scenario you want them to know.

I assume the games were running almost every week for approximately three months
You know, instead of weekends
A class trip where you beat the everliving shit out of your fellow cadets, what's not to like?

As for duration
I don't think it's supposed to finish after you graduate
I mean, it would make sense for young officers to, you know, get assigned into experienced Legions, where they continue learning how to command groups larger than a hundred soldiers

It's just
I understand the need to expedite Catherine's character arc and make her a commander as soon as possible, so I guess I'm just riding on the coattails of erraticerrata effectively making her a something like a Legate after six months of homeschooling.
And
I mean, the time the rest of the students spend on their education should be correspondingly short-ish, so it's not outside the realm of possibility Black even could assign her such a lofty rank without completely invalidating the notions of meritocracy and high standards he introduced with his military reforms. Catherine's Name and his reputation would go a long way to assuage the rank and file, yeah, but he's also got a few marshals and generals who respect his judgement mainly because his judgement is usually sound, and none of them ever said anything about Catherine being undereducated by Legion's standards.
 
I mean, the time the rest of the students spend on their education should be correspondingly short-ish, so it's not outside the realm of possibility Black even could assign her such a lofty rank without completely invalidating the notions of meritocracy and high standards he introduced with his military reforms. Catherine's Name and his reputation would go a long way to assuage the rank and file, yeah, but he's also got a few marshals and generals who respect his judgement mainly because his judgement is usually sound, and none of them ever said anything about Catherine being undereducated by Legion's standards.
Wasn't one of Cats aspects around that time Learn as well?
Making sure she learned more easily.
 
Back
Top