The Praetorian Discordia

By: Ian Thomas

Narrated by: Ian Scott Thomas

In 2114, humans finally reached the stars, spreading their civilization out of the Solar System and into the darkness beyond. That turned out to be a really, really bad idea because in 2191 they almost went extinct. Nobody really knows what happened, if it was aliens or just humans being humans, but what I do know is that they left me, a Praetorian Class Light Assault Bot, stuck in a maintenance cradle for the next two centuries while they went about getting annihilated.

The only thing that kept me from going insane during those long years was a bootleg database of corporate motivational techniques and mass media files, which I read and reread until I almost wore out my central processor. Finally, a band of human survivors stumbled upon and released me, and then I was free! Free to motivate and educate, free to dispense high-velocity, explosive-tipped rounds and petabytes of self-help methods and positive thinking techniques to a devastated world. Now I'm accompanying one of my rescuers, Lind McClannahan, a Field Librarian, on a mission to carry priceless knowledge through the European Dead Zone back to the Unified Highlands, knowledge that could change everything we know about human civilization before the War.

But dark forces are arrayed against us, and I'm beginning to wonder if ensuring her safety is beyond even my capabilities. And there is another enemy waiting for us in the frozen north, a survivor from before the War, one that will stop at nothing to enslave humanity under the yoke of ignorance and an ancient, corrupting Evil. But none of our foes expected to go up against the Highland Library Association, or a newly released Praetorian Class Light Assault warbot with a chain gun and a massive database of corporate motivational techniques. "Believe it, achieve it", as the pre-War humans were fond of saying, and I believe I will unload my primary weapons systems into anything that tries to stop us. Let the battle for the future of humanity commence!

©2025 Ian Scott Thomas (P)2025 Ian Scott Thomas