Maggey Potter’s Reviews > The Empress > Status Update

Nemesis and Tyrus get married once she returns from the Sacred City. Tyrus has lost his ability to feel sympathy or guilt due to his forced drug use. He murders thousands of people with Reselvant Mist and blames Senator Pasus for the deaths. Tyrus can gain control over him and regain his freedom from under his thumb. Tyrus is still corrupt and evil. He stabs Nemesis when she questions his decision to murder people.

Tyrus and Nemesis's escape plan fails and Tyrus gets left behind to remain under Pasus's control. Nemesis sticks to the plan to bring the Interdict back to prove Tyrus's innocence. When she arrives she witnesses the Interdicts murder and is stranded in another star system. 4 years later, she returns to Tyrus and the drugs poisoning him have damaged his mind like she feared. The man she left is gone.

The vicars in the empire are refusing to support Tyrus, so he can use the sceptor to command the machines. With no machines online the starships are failing and his enemies know he is weak. Tyrus and Nemesis travel to a distant star system to prove a religious myth wrong so they can blackmail the vicars into supporting him. They discover the Sacred City isn't a myth at all and all the stories are true.

Tyrus is a new young Emporer and wants to start a new era in the Empire. He doesn't believe in destroying science or ancient knowledge. He wants people to think for themselves and repair things without machines running everything. The royal scepter is supposed to control all the machines in the galaxy, but Tyrus cannot get it to work. His enemies will strike now that they know he is weak without the scepter.