THE DEEP SERIES

DEEP Background

 

Tide Rising is the first novel in the DEEP series. It is scheduled for launch in Spring, 2026.

High Tide and Flood Tide will be released at a later date.

 

The Tank: The haven of the Synchronic elite. Sheltered under a climate-controlled bio-dome and sealed off from the chaos of the Swarm by an immense fortress of technological and engineering mastery, the Threshold, the Tank is home to the intellectual elite, themselves stratified into sub-classes according to their social worth.

Living space is a privilege enjoyed by the few, allocated according to status. Tecs enjoy a life of luxury in the rolling acres of the Pod while Hands scrape a living shoulder-to-shoulder in the cramped Prolers.  

At the pinnacle of it all sit the Greats—the custodians of DEEP.

 

The Swarm: The anarchic hellscape beyond the Threshold, where the Discordant underclass are left to fight for survival in barely-controlled chaos.

Ostensibly policed by the Eyes, the Swarm has no social order. The divide and rule tactics of the Eyes have turned it into a place scorched by mistrust and drowning in suspicion.

 

Plemmyris: the stronghold of the Discord rebels, the Tide, led by their enigmatic leader Lev. Set far in the Haven mountains, pastoral life in Plemmyris isn’t the idyll it first seems. Hardened by centuries of oppression, the Tide show no mercy to their enemies.

 

DEEP: the all-powerful, God-like artificial intelligence that rules everything connected to a cereb-device. Having evolved through different iterations since version 1.0, DEEP’s past is as murky as everything else in the Tank and beyond.

 

Decagon, Octagon, Hexagon: the casino chip-sized cerebrum devices all Synchs wear on the napes of their necks, with colour and shape denoting social class—red Decagons sported by the Eyes, green Octagons for the Tecs, with Hands marked out by their blue Hexagons.

Everything occurs via these devices in simulated (Sim) form visible only to the user—communication, entertainment, education, work.

Music is experienced as a fully immersive, three-dimensional experience.

Memories are logged and can be accessed at any time.

 

Whirl: Out in the Swarm, Discords use the technologically inferior but equally omniscient Whirl devices performing similar cognitive alteration functions. For many Discords, ‘plunging’ in a Whirl Sim is preferable to facing the reality of life in the Swarm.

 

CogComp: the Cognitive Competence tests issued by the Eyes are mandatory for all Synchs, especially Tecs. Failure to meet the basic requirements of a CogComp can lead to memory correction or worse—exile to the Swarm. How the outcome of such tests is determined remains opaque, like much else connected to the Eyes.