#iruvage

[krismur]

Iruvage's ship from Exordia by Seth Dickinson

Dickinson almost certainly visited the Atomic Rockets website while writing the book, because the Exordia craft are explicitly listed as using a Flow-Stabilized Z-Pinch fusion drive with Spin Alignment.

[pizzazzterbi]

Y'know it is really fucking funny to me that Seth Dickinson did some similar "I will have the audience and the cast both go 'What the fuck' at this guy" shit for Tezzeret and Iruvage. Magic's most shitheaded scheming metal wizard versus the Exordia's most average accomplished footsoldier who quite literally proudly eats babies for fun. And they're both so fucking flamboyant about it.

[crepusculesque]

I love Iruvage as a villain because he just leans into it so hard. Out of the khai we see in the book, Ssrin is rebelling against the Exordia and Maessari seems like she's coldly carrying out her orders - like threatening a planet with nuclear annihilation is a normal Tuesday afternoon. But Iruvage knows explicitly that he is an objectively bad person, that his actions are evil, and that he is going to literal, actual capital-H Hell when he dies, and he decides to ham it up. He plays fucked up cat and mouse with the Chinese special forces team. He taunts Davoud and Clayton relentlessly even though they're nominally on his side, and then toys with the fighter pilots, and the Spetsnaz guys, and even Ssrin when he thinks he can get away with it.

Iruvage says to everyone, "I know that I am objectively marked by the universe as evil, so I'm going to be as monstrous as I possibly can, because it all ends the same for me anyway. And I'm going have some FUN on my way downstairs."