Jaycee Woods

An unintended consequences of a stream of consciousness rounded out Cyrus’ character in my draft Boudica and The Butcher.

I realized that an urban rebel army didn’t make sense if it didn’t include a contingent of illegal aliens. Not from the invading wave of military aged men talking point but simple demographics.

Being pro-immigration myself, I didn’t want that aspect of the novel to seem like knuckle dragging nativism, especially as the siege of Pilgerruh leads to a breakdown of the rebel army into warring nation-of-origin gangs as a simple logical consequence of fighting over limited resources.

Thus, I decided that I needed to make some of the Union side immigrants to mute the political implications of my other choices.

I had already named Cyrus (The Butcher’s XO). To me that is a Persian name, so I decided he came from Iran. As Cyrus had already been created as a chemistry professor before the war (wanted him to be a hard science guy), I determined his reason for immigrating…a defector from Iran’s chemical weapons program. In researching industry in Cleveland (which became Pilgerruh in the story), I found that it had a chemical industry still; this led to the idea of Cyrus’ role in The Butcher’s plans related to considering poison gas attacks, making napalm, and formulating explosives to blow the river bridges.

Sometimes I am surprised how one small idea has rippling effects throughout the story.