Escalation: The Fine Line Between Strong Leader And Despot

Forged Series: Character Profile, Julia Ryker

Julie (Acantha) Ryker

• Pronouns: she/her/hers

• Age: 45

• Birthplace: Bannock, Bannock Zone, United Pacific Territories

• Occupation: Grand Governor of the UPT

• Relationship profile: married

• Family: General Milo Ryker (husband), Zeke Ryker (son)

• Hobbies: staring into space (a.k.a. meditation) as there is no time for other hobbies; she has a country to run.

• Personality Traits and Quirks: She is diminutive in size but has a fierce handshake. Her code name used by her security detail is “Voltage,” as her words are known to strike like lightning—You can feel the tension building like an electrical charge that raises the hair on your neck, but the zap comes out of nowhere and can be deadly if you don’t take cover. She places a lot of value on her curated public image. When she felt the pressure from her supporters to have a child, she didn’t want her political career to be sidetracked by a pregnancy. Instead, she chose to have a surrogate carry her son.

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Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Escalation

2 March 2134 09:32

Julia stood behind the video forensic experts and seethed. Her left eye twitched, and yet she couldn’t tear her gaze from the screen. They were playing the infernal recording on loop, though someone had mercifully muted the audio.

The cramp in her jaw from clenching her teeth reminded her of a spillway’s pressure gauge slowly inching toward its danger zone, proclaiming an imminent disaster. She wanted to scream. She wanted to destroy something. Anything. But she knew lashing out would not help the techs find clues faster, so she forced herself to remain still, arms crossed and nails digging into her palms.

Questions shot through her mind in rapid fire. How the hell did those bastards obtain a video of us? And how did they access the national media stream to broadcast it? How much damage has this caused? What’ll be next?

The tech slowed the replay and zoomed in on a reflective surface in the background. Something had caught the tech’s attention. He played the segment forward and back several times before moving to another portion of the recording.

Beside him, another programmer studied the data behind the broadcast, trying to discover how they’d managed the unauthorized broadcast. More importantly, they needed to eliminate that access.

The air was thick with tension. Hell, the entire country was feeling the pressure.

Intel of building unrest had increased over the last couple of months. Reports from around the country didn’t speak of direct rebellion but hinted at the Underground’s increasing boldness. Their intent.

She sensed it. Like waiting for a watched pot to boil.

The public was unaware of how close to the surface trouble was bubbling. Until now. This hijacking of the media stream spoke volumes. An attack was coming.

Milo paced behind her, grumbling curses with each pass, though she couldn’t distinguish the words. His agitation grated on her already frayed nerves. She finally had enough and whipped her head in his direction. The action halted his steps, and they glared at each other. After twenty-two years of marriage, a silent conversation was all that was needed.

Milo huffed and exited the room.

Julia saw with satisfaction that the two techs—still glued to their computer screens and working feverishly—visibly relaxed. Not having General Milo Ryker breathing down their necks was undoubtedly a welcomed respite.

The one examining the recording pulled his earclips off, and they all heard Milo’s drunken, maniacal laughter from the computer's speaker.

Good thing he left the room.

The tech paused the vid and rotated in his chair. He blinked like an interrogation lamp blinded him, his gaze bouncing off her quickly before refocusing on his screen. He cleared his throat and said, “They used a superzoom lens.”

“From where?” Her voice was raw with anger, and she noticed the tech flinch.

“My best guess? About four hundred meters to the south.” He pointed to the property map displayed on his curved screen.

The tract of land where the New York Canal ran along the edge of the Ryker estate was elevated above their home. The access road along the waterway would provide a wonderful vantage point. And easy access. Julia doubted any evidence would remain.

“The audio, though…” The tech unpaused the vid, his voice squeaking with uneasiness. “The sound quality would indicate a mic in the house.” Background sounds of rustling clothes, shoes brushing on the carpet, and ice clinking in Milo’s glass of whiskey were distinct. Luckily, this segment didn’t contain their voices, so she didn’t have to hear their conversation. Again.

Julia remembered the night in question, arguing with Milo as they plotted a way to increase regulation on content from the Wilds to silence any dissenting agenda. Milo had been drinking—not unusual—but that particular night, his voice was heavily slurred. Yet she recalled his words of encouragement to “silence the sticks” with more red tape and fees. She’d been almost gleeful in her agreement. The recording captured the gist of their conversation—their mocking laughter and jeering contempt for the population of the Wilds damningly clear.

Julia felt nauseous, not only because of their conversation—though she knew the narrative could be controlled—but also because the breach of privacy was unacceptable. The Underground had access to their home. To their private conversations. The intrusion made her skin crawl.

To make matters worse, they’d hacked the government media center and took over the feed for a full seventeen seconds before officials could shut them out and stop the broadcast. But that’s all the time they needed; the damage was done. The live broadcast of the vid was during peak viewership in the morning feed. Millions had seen it. A vid painted neither Milo nor herself in a favorable light, not just planting a seed of distrust but fertilizing and watering it. She dreaded what would germinate.

The fallout could quickly spiral out of control.

“Stan,” Julia said through gritted teeth.

“Ma’am.” The head of the Ryker security team stepped up from the shadows to Julia’s shoulder. His ability to hover in the background unnoticed was one of the reasons he’d risen through the ranks of protective services. That, and he could drop an assailant into submission in half a heartbeat.

“Find the bug.” Julia’s irritation was evident in the steel edge of her words. The fact that Stan’s team had allowed the breach made her blood boil. “And who planted it.”

“Ma’am,” Stan replied with a respectful dip of his head as if he knew his head would roll if he didn’t find who was to blame.

Pivoting on her heel, Julia strode from the control room and mentally ticked off the other most pressing matters.

First, they’d need to increase security—at home, work, everywhere. Zeke would also need additional security. Her son would hate it. He already complained that he felt smothered by his protection detail. She wasn’t about to coddle him, though. The Underground would consider her son a weak point to exploit.

One saving grace was that Zeke was well-liked by the public, so the Underground might consider harming him as detrimental to their cause to discredit her. Unless they intended to put a spotlight on her lack of maternal skills… No, they wanted to attack her leadership abilities, not her parenting style. Still, she was concerned about her son’s safety.

Black dots encroached upon her vision as a migraine threatened to crush her skull. She pinched the bridge of her nose but kept walking.

So, she’d need to increase his guard detail and reassess the rest of their security protocols.

Second, damage control needed to be swift. The Underground could not get away with this breach of the communications network. She swiped through her Omniband to contact Samir Lut. This would be a public relations nightmare, but Samir would figure out how to spin this latest debacle. Maybe claim the vid was falsified, altered, or taken out of context.

Though the taxes were in place. And the additional steps in approvals—adding red tape to the process and delaying Wild-created content—were real.

A humorless chuckle rattled her chest. The plan she and Milo conceived that night was working flawlessly. They just needed to prevent the Underground from disseminating any more anti-government rhetoric. Her ambitious policies to control the narrative, exposed as dictatorial treachery in seventeen seconds of Underground propaganda, would take several months to dismantle through legal channels, assuming the public demanded a repeal of the policies.

If only she had access to what Tello and Finn had their teams working on . . . Squashing the protests of her policies would be so much easier.

The chair complained with a groan as Julia collapsed with a frustrated sigh. Why did I want this appointment? Oh, yeah, because the grand governor reports to no one. And how do I hold on to that power? “With both hands,” she said under her breath, clenching a fist until her olive skin turned white over her knuckles.

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Character Inspiration and Role

When creating the world of the Forged series, I wanted to show the strength of women in leadership roles, but I also needed a villain. Thus, I chose to include women with various levels of moral clarity, including a morally gray leader. For inspiration, I looked to India’s Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi (who had no relation to Mahatma Gandhi), to find a framework for a female authoritarian leader. She served a total of four terms as Prime Minister before being assassinated in 1984. During the 21 months of a declared state of emergency (1975-1977), Gandhi consolidated power with the implementation of several unpopular policies that included large-scale reproductive sterilization, censorship of the press, and invasive surveillance of the population. And since history has a tendency to repeat itself, I chose to borrow from her playbook.

When it came to her physical characteristics, I wanted a diminutive figure with striking, sharp features, a feisty personality, and a Greek heritage. Think Tina Fey or Anna Diamantopoulou (Greece's European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, and Equal Opportunities in the early 2000s).

With her free hand, Julia brushed a wave of dark hair behind her ear. The movement drew my attention to the dark circles under her eyes, which contrasted with the rest of her face. Her complexion, though similar in tone to mine, appeared washed out like driftwood bleached by water and sun. I bet she didn’t have much time for enjoying the great outdoors. She probably spent her days going from one meeting to the next. And her nights were for stressing about the following day’s agenda.

Excerpt from Merged, book two in the Forged Series, coming from Provender Press in 2025.

Time and again, history has shown us how those in command get a taste of the power they wield and become desperate for more, ruling with iron fists to squash any dissent. Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. Dictators from Chili, Spain, Libya, Iraq, North Korea. The Forged series, though built on hope for the future, explores how an autocratic leader with a science-based ideology could manipulate society and government structures for her benefit.

Julia didn’t start her career as a power-hungry autocrat. In fact, her college study focused on improving hydroelectrical power systems. Her development of an efficient, large-scale hydroelectric-powered battery energy storage system, or B.E.S.S., led to her appointment to the Power Grid organization, through which she quickly moved.

At age 23, Julia was elevated to the Power Director position, giving her a taste of the power afforded to those in leadership roles. As zone governor and then the country’s grand governor, her character arc delves into how the pull of power corrupts her leadership style. Under her administration, the government is increasingly oppressive, issuing policies and taking actions that directly threaten the freedoms of the UPT citizens, especially those of the protagonist and others in the Wilds.

As we see in this short story, Julia Ryker is not unopposed. Her grasp on the country shows signs of weakening—amid rising tensions between urban centers and the Wilds, the growing Underground movement threatens to expose dangerous secrets that could challenge the oppressive Ryker administration, changing everything.

To learn more, you’ll need to read Shattered, book one in the Forged Series, coming in 2025. Until then, you can check back here for more insights and sneak peeks!

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What I’m reading

Here are some other dystopian and SciFi fiction pieces available on Substack that you might enjoy. Plus some thought-provoking non-fiction.

1. The Cooperatives - First off, I binged

   Claudia Befu
   ’s four-part, eco-fiction sci-fi mini-series and was thoroughly entertained and fascinated by the Ghost, an AI “officer” portrayed with a complexly woven sense of humanity.

2. More on Practical Utopias - I came across this older post from

   Margaret Atwood
   (yes, the Margaret Atwood) talking about creating “future worlds that would be better than what we have, and that could actually work.” Her discussion about world-building touched on how I (unwittingly) developed the Forged series—a practical utopia going “pear shape” as we hop into the storyline. Talk about feeling affirmed in my efforts! And if she were to ever read my series, I would hope Margaret would agree that I hit the mark with my experimental view of the future.

3. Collapse Will Look Nothing Like the Movies - As a writer of an “after-the-fall-of-society-as-we-know-it” type story, I spent a LOT of time figuring out how society collapsed—I wanted it to be plausible. Read this take on societal collapse from

   The Honest Sorcerer
   , who points out how the breakdown of civilization will not be an immediate, overnight event. And to some extent, authors of post-apocalyptic stories need to balance acceptable/recognizable forms of entertainment with realistic and hopeful futures. That being said, this essay is a treasure trove of dystopian world-building inspiration.

4. Skinny Ned and Just Joan - This is a heartbreaking, uplifting short story from

   Terry Fries
   of
   The Underworld Vents
   .

5. The Accidental Salon: Life on Substack -

   Gloria Horton-Young
   ’s essay on what it means to be a writer and connect with readers on Substack had me laughing and wanting to share. Have a read. And a laugh.

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Questions

1. What’s your favorite post-apocalyptic movie(s)?

2. Who is the person with whom you can have full conversations without uttering a word?

3. Having others review your work is equal parts exciting and frightening… If you are a writer, who is your toughest critic? If you are a reader, have you written a review (GoodReads, Amazon, to your book club)? Interested in being an ARC reader for a dystopian story set in the Pacific Northwest? I’m collecting names…