A look at the Universe of Agent

The main character of Agent, named Xai, references her agency on multiple occasions but we don’t take a deep dive into the Agency in the first story. Put simply, the agency matters, but there are more pressing concerns in the story. So who does Xai work for, what is a Directerate, and what role will they play in the future novel?

Xai’s agency is the RCC (in Universal Standard. Like all Reptonian words, it actually has a completely different context in its home language and is never directly translated, more on that another time). The RCC is tasked with the preservation and guardianship of the People’s future above, beyond, and sometimes against all other concerns. Agents are trained from hatching to do whatever it takes to achieve their ends.

This is one of the reasons Xai is such a compelling character in the role of “protagonist” because Xai is not, nor ever will be, a good person. She is trained to do whatever needs to be done, including mass genocide, to secure the future of The People (species). Agent makes it immediately apparent Xai is not your standard aw shucks gee willickers protagonist. This, after all, is one of the villains of Invasion.

Agent deals sparingly with the labyrinthine politics of the RCC but don’t worry, that comes later. I chose to use Agent to introduce you to both the character and her Agency because when Invasion and its two sequels roll around, they play significant, complicated roles. By introducing both in a serialized story format I hope to avoid the potential giant wall of exposition that might otherwise be tempting.

Agent shows us a look into Xai’s personality, motivation, and thought processes before she becomes the person she is in Invasion. It also shows what the RCC is like before the novel and indeed how Reptonian politics are, in the 1930s, already moving towards the invasion and occupation of Terra.