Drunk History: Birth of the Imperial Radch

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/5893840.
Fandom: Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, fused with Drunk History.
Rating: Teen and up, simply because of the drunkenness. Oh, and the profanity.
No warnings, apart from the drunkenness.
Published 2016-02-05 as a birthday gift for epershand.
Words: 2,281

RECENTLY, LIEUTENANT TISARWAT DRANK A BOTTLE AND A HALF OF ARRACK AND DECIDED TO TALK ABOUT A HISTORICAL EVENT.

Really? You’ve been saying that for hours and instead you just kept getting drunker.

Breq I know what I’m saying, okay, you don’t have to keep telling it back to me, that just makes it take twice as long. I’m going to do it now. Now is the telling of…the time of…okay go.

My name is Lieutenant Tisarwat, and today I’m going to tell you about the rise of Anaander Mianaai.

A long time ago, there was this place called the Radch. A different one. I mean it was the same, but it was different. It was an atmosphere. I mean a hemisphere. I mean a Dyson sphere. It was a Dyson sphere. And it was perfect.

It wasn’t really perfect but, home sweet home. You know? That’s not what I mean, that just popped out. It wasn’t perfect because they liked it there, it was perfect because everything else was against their religion. Like, if you left the Dennis sphere, you were impure or maybe even dead. Or maybe a corpse.

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be confusing. I don’t. I don’t. I really want to do a good job. It’s just hard to talk about this it’s so long ago. Like I still remember it because it’s so important, it’s like, Big Key Memory, but there’s all these thousands of years of other memories in the way and I don’t know if it’s true. Or I think it’s true but that’s, it’s like triangulation, it’s like when you stare at a star for a long time and it moves and then you know how far away it is.

Anyway I don’t know all of what happened back then. They didn’t even use the same system to number years and I can never remember how theirs worked. It had to do with some other religion no one practiced any more. It’s complicated. I’m getting off track. What did I say I was going to talk about?

So there was this person named Anaander Mianaai, and she was a normal person. I mean she was a normal number of people. She was one person. That was the usual number of people back then. But also she wasn’t normal, because she wanted to be Lord of the Radch, because there was power in it.

NO. No one was that big a deal. It was basically a theology. A theocracy. It was ruled by priests. Everything had to be pure, because if you weren’t pure, then you weren’t. That was a big deal. Everyone was like, this is what I believe in, and it’s right. Like, it’s right. I know it is, because of the priests and shit, they told me so. And I just take it as their word is true because I believe it. That’s what they were like back then. And then Anaander Mianaai stands up and says, right but what if I’m actually more important than you?

And people freaked out. No you don’t understand, they FREAKED OUT. Like it’s a miracle they didn’t just shoot her, because you could do that to someone back then if they just like, crossed their eyes at an icon or whatever, because of how it was a theocramy. But she was like, look, if I’m better than you, it’s the will of the gods, and if I’m not, the gods will just kill me or some shit.

So some people were saying, give her a chance, and other people were saying ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT, a lot of people actually. It was a big controversy. So then Anaander Mianaai says let’s have a debate, but it was like one person against the whole government, and the government said how would we even debate you, like you’re just a dumb person and we are a million priests. So Mianaai says, I’ll show you I can do it. She challenges this one priest to a public debate. Or I mean she challenged all the priests she met, but she finally found one who would do it. So they have a debate, and the priest is like, This is the way it is. Amaat, Aatr, Toren, Kalr, you know the deal. You know me. And Mianaai is like, sure. Yeah. I mean, I respect that. But have you also considered maybe you’re wrong. She said, blah blah blah, I am the sword of justice, shit-for-brains. Deal with it. And it blew everyone’s minds.

She said a lot more than that but you know. I mean I guess you don’t know, because no one actually knows this story. I could probably be killed for telling this story, not here in the republic but you know, back there. And also it makes my head hurt to tell it but Imma do it anyway because you deserve to know. Oh, gods. I’m too drunk to tell this story, but also, I can’t tell this story and not be drunk. Ship. Ship. Ship. Will you help me when I’m drunk? I mean I’m drunk now, but will you help me when I’m done? Can you just...can you just get someone to bring me some tea.

Okay. So what happened was, there was this debate, and basically Anaander Mianaai won hands down. Like she learned all this shit from years of study but also she was just super, super clever. And the priest she was debating was like, you know what, I need to think about what you’ve said. So she did. And she had a lot of private meetings with Mianaai after that and was like, this person is the sword of justice. I believe you, and you believe her, I mean you should believe her.

Everything that happened after that was really boring, and also easier for me to think about when I’m not drunk, so I’ll write you a paper about it for the archives or something. Like it’s important to know but what you need to remember is that Mianaai was really smart and super, super charismatic, and she ended up taking over that temple and then another one and eventually she was basically in charge of a whole continent, which was as big as anything was back then. Like there had been priests who ran continents before but not anybody who was in charge of anything bigger than that. So she gets to be in charge of the continent and people are like, okay, like I support her in a normal way. Like she is a normal person in power. And her House is super thrilled, they’re like, we have risen so high and we’re going to inherit all this money and power and clients when she’s dead, this is sick, thanks Anaander.

But they had another surprise coming because Anaander doesn’t plan on ever dying at all. She’s got this system where she can GROW MORE BODIES and it’s a secret for a super long time, until this one day she’s like, okay everybody, I am super old now, gonna pass the torch, let me introduce you to my heir. And the members of her house are stoked, and Anaander Mianaai has this big reception on like a balcony so everyone can see her, which is very old school because they had viewing devices everywhere by then but people still liked to show up for stuff for a special occasion. And Anaander says, here we go, here is my heir. And out walks this person who looks just like her. And the Mianaai house are going, who is this, we have never seen this kid before. We know your whole family and shit, and this person is just like a tiny kid. And she goes, this is my heir, Anaander Mianaai.

So that was a big deal, but the point is, there are now multiple Anaanders and they start to take over the planet, and like I said, this stuff is boringer, I’ll write it down sometime, but eventually Mianaai takes over the whole system. All the planets, all the stations, she’s in charge of all of it. It has never happened before.

So she keeps growing bodies for herself and the more she has the more places she runs, until she is just in charge of everything, and her House is going well, shit, okay, we’re not going to inherit her position but we are richer than fuck. And then she says something really just like shit-yourself ridiculous, which is, I’m going to leave the system, the gods want me to take over the whole fucking universe. I have to spread the civilization and the Amaat and whatnot.

And nobody knows this, okay, like NOBODY, but that was the first time there was a division inside Anaander Mianaai. She’d had a big internal fight about it. She wasn’t as spread out then as she is now, but she didn’t have as good a system for keeping in touch with herself. The technology was still kind of, like, fudzled. There was part of her that didn’t want to take over the universe at all. She just wanted to stay home and high and pure and dry and keep her gloves on. Because there was death out there. There was death and impurity and dishonor and everything that wasn’t sanctified, and once you’ve left you’re not really supposed to return because you’re, like, gross.

And nobody else will ever ever ever tell you this but she actually fought a tiny war with herself about it. The one part of her was going, we have achieved purity throughout the Radch and we have to spread it to the universe, just imagine how many millions of people we can be in charge of, we can organize whole planets and systems of trade with no councils or parliaments or bishops or shit, just decide it all ourselves, and we can do exactly what we want. That’s a big deal for her. I don’t know if someone made her eat skel when she was little, or what, but she REALLY hates having anyone make her do anything. So the idea that the whole universe would have to do what she said and she could go anywhere she wanted and things would be done her way and she could make all the decisions forever, that was like a huge fantasy for her.

But the other part is saying, you are, slash I am, fucking nuts to even consider this. Like, what is perfection, it’s not having everything all the time forever. You don’t buy up all the porcelain anyone is selling everywhere and then say you have the perfect tea set. Where would you even keep that, dumbass, your cabinets wouldn’t hold it all. What you do is you get all the right parts you need to make it complete and then you keep it safe and contained and you dust it, you don’t just water your plants with it or leave it all over your house or take it into battle.

So this got super heated until one day one of her was just writing a speech about this new empire she was going to found, and her other body just snuck up and said, hey. What are you doing. Your ideas are wrong. And then...Anaander Mianaai fired a bullet...right into Anaander Mianaai.

I mean, she didn’t kill her. She killed that body but it turned out it was way more complicated than one body having a weird idea. So that didn’t really do anything at all, I guess, because there were more than two Anaanders still and some wanted to stay and some didn’t, but she did get pretty spooked, all of her, because she was like, damn, I really don’t want to keep shooting my own bodies and growing more, what a fucking enormous waste of time. So basically they were like, fine. We can do both. You feel that strongly about it, I’ll just leave you behind, and I’ll go conquer the stars, and you stay here, and in a thousand years we’ll see who is richer or happier or whatever. It’s not really clear to me how she was going to measure that, but that’s what she said she was gonna do.

So part of her stayed where she was, and the other part called her family and said I love you and I’m gonna miss you, which I don’t think was true but she said it anyway. And then she flew off.

She did go back after a thousand years. And she still does that sometimes, goes and meets up with herself, but I’m too drunk to talk about that now. It’s too weird. It’s like the most fucked-up family reunion and I don’t like remembering it, and she doesn’t want anybody to know any of this, but I’ve told you. I wanted to do a good job. Did I do a good job, Breq?

Notes

There is a podfic of this story, recorded chiefly by caminante with me appearing as Breq. I have not made plans to post audio here but I recommend checking that version out.