Jack of Harts

I wanted the Peloran to seek peace in all things as their primary genetically encoded mission. They only fight under orders or to defend their life, and since their creators are dead, that leaves defense. The rest of the galaxy is perfectly happy to leave them alone. The trick is that two millennia of genetic drift has caused a slight shift in their genetic imperatives. Some few members of their race are capable of going out in search of someone who wants to start a fight. They are the ones who walk into gang territory and wait for the gang to come deal with them. They did not start a fight. They were just standing on the corner minding their own business.

The Peloran of the Jack of Harts universe are modeled after the Aneerin of my childhood. Old and wise and strong. Immortal defenders. Genetically engineered supersoldiers as I fleshed them out. They actually can die, but old age or disease is never their killer. Their bodies can regrow anything they lose as long as they aren’t killed dead, and that usually takes stopping their heart and mind and otherwise absolutely devastating their core bodily functions. And with mind backups and cloning chambers, even if you do manage to kill them all the way, they always come back. I wanted a relentless force for good in the universe of Jack, and I designed the Peloran to fit that archetype.

I said previously that Jack of Harts started with a character. That is true, and the Jack of Harts stories I have written in the last decade or so are absolutely built on Jack. He is a character I first wrote in my twenties, when I was trying to hold on to be young. But there is a far older character out there. Going back to the very first stories I ever wrote as a child in grade school, there was a man named Aneerin. I was always writing stories in different universes with different foes, but always there was Aneerin. Old, wise, strong. The immortal defender of humanity who always wore white. So when I began writing Jack of Harts, I found a place for my imaginary friend since childhood. Admiral Aneerin of the Peloran Confederation.