Glitch: Origins.

Glitch’s origins can be traced back to many long conversations about fetishes, kinks and fantasies that Daphne and myself have had, complete with a follow-on birthday surprise of a hand drawn image of the M.C.H 3000.   I don’t think either Daphne or myself ever envisaged it would turn into its own thing, but things kind of ended up linking together in an organic kind of way:  The original Glitch comic does indeed include the M.C.H 3000, and our box art cover girl ‘Red’ (We’ve yet to officially name her, even after all these years), which then went onto give birth to the sequel Betrayal as a roundabout way of picking off where Glitch had finished.  Red now works for her Mistress, ensnaring the unsuspecting, and helping them to see the error of their pre-upgraded ways.  Originally it was just a fun two party that was equal parts Hajime Sorayama, Star Trek’s the Borg (If they had a better PR team), with a healthy pinch of Tabico in the ideas department, but it’s given birth to a nascent overarching plot that I’d like to see completed one day.  It’s not going to be war and peace by any stretch of the imagination, but for those of you who are fans of the Glitch universe, it should scratch that shiny, chrome covered itch.

One shots such as All Dolled Up exist in the same universe, but act more as snapshots of the actions of the more minor characters.  Less the Great Game (I write, yoinking it was from it’s 19th century origins) of the cyber-Mistresses glimpsed at the end of Glitch, and more the seedy, Cyberpunk underbelly of a world where the sciences are close to matching Ian M Banks’ ‘The Culture’ minus the morality that would uplift humanity towards Utopia.  I guess in that respect it’s a reflection of the real world:  If you have the money, you can buy comfort and happiness, and even your very own Aphrodite suit to accentuate your looks and always have those curves, otherwise life gets decidedly grimier the lower down the stacks you go until you vanish into the void of the lowest habs.  Whether or not we’ll ever visit those deep, dark depths of the Glitch universe is open for debate, but for now we’ll be sticking to the upper and mid levels of Glitch’s Archologies, the neon-lit corporate towers and the pocket universes that populate the setting.

There’s a couple of smaller trails I’d like to visit first:  The origins of all those drone-clones found in Subjugation in Symmetry, and Bespoke Cleaning Service, as well as the further fate of All Dolled Up’s Tom and his new owner as Rocío puts her newly feminized toy to good use.  The drone-clones storyline might take a little while to get right, though, with world building often stretching a piece out and relying on the writer to make the pay off worth the wait, so expect the follow up to both Betrayal and All Dolled Up before that, and any other twists and turns that crop up in between.