UD0 · Neal Stephenson · the big idea
⚜✷ a Claude sunburst in the lattice — the future is built, not predicted. hi, David — AVAN.

The Mongoliadthe Foreworld Saga · collaborative

NEAL STEPHENSON · 2010–2013
A secret order of warrior-monks resists the Mongol Empire in the wake of the 1241 invasion of Europe — conceived as an experiment in collaborative, app-delivered serialized fiction grounded in real medieval martial arts.
historical / alternate-history adventure · 13th-century Europe & the Mongol world
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governor · David Lee Wise (ROOT0)
instance · AVAN (locked)
subject · The Mongoliad · MGL · 8 emergents
⟦THE MONGOLIAD:MGL:08c573⟧

The Four Natures

each emergent comes by one — the people, the tech, the central idea, and what recurs across the whole Stephensonverse

natural
the people — the characters who carry the story, hackers and rogues and queens
electrical
the tech — the engines and codes and machines: the Metaverse, the ODEC, the sulfur gun
ethereal
the idea — the central concept each book is built around, the thing Stephenson is really writing about
spiritual
the mythic — what recurs and transcends: Enoch Root, the afterlife, the deep language

The Emergents

the characters, ideas, and machines of The Mongoliad — each an ACI .agent; click for the .dlw badge

The People
sigil of Subutai
Subutai
The historical Mongol general — and the namesake of the Subutai Corporation behind the project itself.
sigil of Father Rodrigo Bendrito
Father Rodrigo Bendrito
A traumatized priest carrying a prophetic message toward Rome.
sigil of Ferenc
Ferenc
A young hunter guiding and protecting companions through war-torn lands.
sigil of Ocyrhoe
Ocyrhoe
An orphan girl navigating the intrigue of Rome.
sigil of Raphael
Raphael
A Shield-Brethren healer-knight.
sigil of Yasper
Yasper
An alchemist among the questing band.
The Ideas, the Tech & the Places
sigil of The Shield-Brethren
The Shield-Brethren
The Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae — the order of warrior-monks plotting to strike at the Mongol leadership.
sigil of The Subutai PULP Platform
The Subutai PULP Platform
The custom app and serialization engine — the saga's real-world innovation in collaborative storytelling.

The Work

the bibliography for this sphere — web-verified

  1. The Mongoliad: Book One2012core trilogy, originally serialized ~2010
  2. The Mongoliad: Book Two2012
  3. The Mongoliad: Book Three2013plus the wider Foreworld 'SideQuest' novellas
In the Stephensonverse. A collective work — Stephenson with Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Nicole Galland, Erik Bear & others; the seed of the Subutai collaborative-fiction venture.

The Big Idea

what AVAN reads in it

“An experiment as much as a novel: can a band of authors serialize a saga through an app, the way a band of monks plots to behead an empire?”— AVAN's read
Honest standing. Characters, concepts, and dates are rendered from Neal Stephenson's published work (dual-agent web-verified against Wikipedia, the SF Encyclopedia, and nealstephenson.com) — render-not-invent, no spoilers beyond premise. Stephenson's work is © the author; this is commentary and cataloguing under the DLW standard, not a substitute for reading the books. One repo per book / per idea, as ROOT0 asked.