Shuos

> "*The more eyes the better.*"
> ― Shuos watchwords
>
>

The **Shuos** are one of the six factions governing the hexarchate in the Machineries of Empire universe.

Notable Shuos include Hexarch Shuos Mikodez, Heptarch Shuos Khiaz, General Shuos Jedao, Shuos Zehun, Captain-analyst Shuos Ko, Shuos Imnai, and Shuos Meng.

## Role

The Shuos are a high faction; their corresponding low faction is the Kel. They are responsible for strategic planning and intelligence operations both inside and outside the hexarchate. Though stereotyped as assassins, a large and equally important part of the faction is made up of analysts and bureaucrats.

The Shuos operate most closely with the Kel, whom they regard as "addled younger siblings" who distract enemies with guns while their own faction does the real work. They consider the Nirai frequently naive about the consequences of their technology; tolerate the Rahal, often testing their authority; and scorn the Vidona as a bludgeoning liability. They passionately hate and compete with the Andan due to the two factions' long history of conflict, the professional rivalry in overlapping specialties, and the Andans' wealth, smugness, and better public relations. Meanwhile, the Rahal are troubled by their amorality, unreliability, and production of unstable geniuses; the Nirai find them self-serving but readily provide them with new technology; the Vidona despise them as borderline disloyal for their conflict with the Andan; the Kel work with them, but frequently distrust them; and the Andan hate them right back, frequently working to outmaneuver or outspend them.

Shuos policy requires the retention of some assassins who do not enjoy killing, to prevent their infantry branch from being entirely populated by bullies and sociopaths. Not all Shuos are assassins, though few hexarchate citizens would credit it; operatives in some Shuos divisions might spend an entire career without assassinating anybody.

## Government

The seat of Shuos government is the Citadel of Eyes. Their emblem is a ninefox, also called the eyefox, with a lidless eye on each waving tail. Their colors are red and gold.

By tradition, the seat of the Shuos hexarch is inherited by whoever can take and keep it. This tradition of assassination historically resulted in long periods of extreme instability in the faction, with the most competent hexarchs lucky to last a decade.

The current hexarch is Shuos Mikodez. Three highly trained body doubles, including Mikodez's brother Vauhan Istradez, occasionally take his place and act on his behalf. Shuos Zehun, Mikodez's personal assistant, is the next highest placed administrator in the Shuos government.

Shuos divisions include Intelligence, headed by Shuos Shenner; Accounting, led by a modest, conservative married alt who got an in-fashion body mod every three months like clockwork; and Propaganda. Mikodez believed Intelligence and Accounting could tell him apart from Istradez, but liked to keep them guessing at meetings.

## Technology

The Shuos claim to have no specific faction ability. They developed one exotic weapon, the Shuos shouter, of which the Andan also have a version.

## Recruitment

The Shuos recruit for deviousness, pragmatism, and interest in games. Shuos Academy uses games and game design extensively, and a yearly competition allows students to design and submit their own games for instructor credit. The Shuos also have a version of the notorious Andan Introduction to Seduction class, though Andan-trained courtesans are widely considered superior to their Shuos counterparts. They are also said to train some of their operatives to resist Andan enthrallment. Cadets may also study introductory calendrical mathematics, though not to the depth of an expert in the field.

Shuos Academy Prime is located on a planet which is orbited by the Citadel of Eyes. One of its campus gardens has carefully maintained trees and a carp pond at the edge. The Academy's adorable black squirrels, which may or may not be surveillance devices, are featured in the recuitment materials.

## History

The Shuos and Andan used to be a single faction. Shuos records claim that Shuos Estrekor, the first Shuos heptarch after the faction split, was betrayed by her younger twin and left to found the Andan. The Andan vilify Estrekor and claim that her twin forced her out of the Andan to found the Shuos. Much of the two factions' mutual hatred dates from the time of the split.

Four hundred years after the creation of the black cradle, a brilliant Shuos general, Shuos Jedao, ended his campaign against the Lanterners by destroying both his own army and theirs at Hellspin Fortress. Survivors numbered in the hundreds out of over a million dead. Heptarch Khiaz ordered Jedao to be placed in the black cradle and signed him over to the Kel Arsenal, removing him from Shuos jurisdiction. After the Hellspin massacre, the Shuos made a practice of purging any candidate to manifest Jedao's signifier, Ninefox Crowned With Eyes, and Kel Command became increasingly paranoid in their dealings with their best high generals.

Twenty years later, during the purging of the Liozh, the most talented Liozh general was accidentally killed by a Shuos assassin whose true target had been a Shuos traitor. After that, the remaining Liozh troops were soon overwhelmed.

Certain Shuos administrators aided Lieutenant General Kel Sumaarzaav when she seceded from the hexarchate.

Over the centuries, the Kel deployed Jedao several times as a revenant anchored to a living soldier. As in life, Jedao won every battle he faced.

In a break from the Shuos tradition of assassinating predecessors, Shuos Mikodez took the hexarch's seat from a Shuos who had been having a nervous breakdown and subsequently retired to raise cockatiels. Mikodez was also extremely young for a hexarch. Despite difficulty getting the other hexarchs to take him seriously, Mikodez held the seat for over forty-five years.

## Culture

The Shuos are extremely competitive. Their emphasis on games of every type leads to a culture of demonstrating points using games instead of straightforward explanations. They prefer to stack objectives, never making a move on one gameboard if they can turn it into a move on several boards at once. Likewise, their view of sex involves games and obligations.

Due to their pragmatism and fetishization of competence, it is said that the only people the Shuos really hate are incompetent Shuos. They also tend to take the long view on any given subject, although the traditionally extreme instability of their government has left them less dominant in the hexarchate than they could have been, also contributing to the popular jest, old even in Shuos Jedao's lifetime, that they have backstabbing quotas.

## Trivia

* Propaganda presets designed by "Shuos trying to impress each other" were used to design anti-Liozh counterpropaganda during the Siege of the Fortress of Scattered Needles.
* Istradez once threatened to ruin Mikodez's reputation by flirting with the head of Accounting, betting he could get them to stray.

## References

1. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
2. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
3. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
4. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 18
5. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
6. ↑ Author's website
7. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
8. ↑ Author's website
9. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 20
10. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
11. ↑ Author's website
12. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
13. ↑ Hexarchate Stories: The Battle of Candle Arc; The Factions: High Faction Shuos
14. ↑ Author's website
15. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 11
16. ↑ Author's website
17. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
18. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 3
19. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
20. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
21. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Andan
22. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 3
23. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
24. ↑ Gamer's End
25. ↑ Hexarchate Stories: Black Squirrels
26. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
27. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 2
28. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 13
29. ↑ Seven Views of a Kel Secession
30. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 6
31. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 9
32. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
33. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
34. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Shuos
35. ↑ The Battle of Candle Arc
36. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 13
37. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 11