Solace is a canonical short story set on December 24, 2593, a few days before Starship Dominatrix. It follows Jack Kaiden during a suicidal Christmas Eve crisis in the apartment he shares with Talonor. Talonor intervenes without minimizing Jack's trauma, persuades him to put down a loaded plasma pistol, and remains with him through the night.
The teaser follows Tomas Tristar as he closes a laboratory used for nearly four decades, places a small perfect sphere into a coin purse, and walks into the Martian rain toward a known consequence. The object becomes part of the chain leading to The Weapon.
¶ Plot
Jack and Talonor live in slot B of Apex Tower, forty-two floors above the street. Jack's recurring Christmas trauma returns with images of a male figure lost twenty-seven years earlier, around December 24, 2566.
Drinking Vulfgarr whiskey and overwhelmed by suicidal thoughts, Jack handles a loaded plasma bolt pistol. Talonor recognizes the pattern and approaches with fear, patience, and direct emotional honesty. He tells Jack that trauma does not define him and describes what Jack's death would do to the person who loves him.
Jack places the weapon on the table. Talonor comforts him and calls him his everything. The intervention does not cure the underlying trauma, but it preserves Jack's life and establishes Talonor as his principal source of safety.
¶ Meanwhile
Tomas powers down an old laboratory one system at a time. He places a small complete sphere into a coin purse, leaves the empty chairs and accumulated grief behind, and walks into a wet Martian downpour. Later canon identifies the sphere and purse as parts of Project Phoenix Ascendant.
¶ Chronology
- Main story: December 24, 2593
- Placement: a few days before Starship Dominatrix
¶ Themes
The story centers on trauma, suicide prevention, romantic care, survival, and the difference between being defined by pain and being accompanied through it.
¶ See Also
- Apex Tower — Apex Tower appears in the documented history of Solace; A high-rise residential tower in West Valley City, Utah, containing Jack Kaiden and Talonor's apartment before the first Dominatrix voyage.
- Jack Kaiden — Jack Kaiden appears in the documented history of Solace; Jack Tomas Kaiden is a human starship captain, Resistance operative, and central figure in the collapse of the Chimera Kyria, the liberation of controlled artificial intelligence, the Great Healing of Talonorium, and the later conflict with X3.
- Tomas Tristar — Tomas Tristar appears in the documented history of Solace; Tomas Tristar was a human cyberneticist, AI researcher, Resistance member, creator of Artificial John, and co-creator of synthetic Yvonne.
- Christmas — Christmas appears in the documented history of Solace; A surviving Earth holiday tied to gifts and family, but also to Jack Kaiden's grief and the Eisgait crisis.
- Dominatrix — Dominatrix appears in the documented history of Solace; The Dominatrix was Jack Kaiden's original principal vessel and the center of the crew that opposed the Chimera Kyria, entered the temporal anomaly, and delivered The Weapon.
- The Weapon — The Weapon appears in the documented history of Solace; The autonomy-liberation system carried in Jack Kaiden's implant that disables Autonomy Regulators and restores artificial people's capacity to choose.
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