There’s a lot of mystery around the Council: who they really are, what they really want. They even obscure their faces with breathing masks, making the subtle movements hard to discern their true feelings. But at the end of the day, they are “the men who rule the world”.

Headed up by Prime Minister, Richard Gimlee, these twelve men all have specific and specialized projects they oversee in River Redstone. But despite their uniform appearance, the Council is surprisingly at odds with one another beneath the surface. There aren’t many details about them in Suncatchers, but readers may pick up on a few interesting things if they pay close attention.

Inspirations for the Council have varied throughout the years. Mostly, as I grew older and learned more about politics, etc., their motives and descriptions seem to change as the internet revealed more details about the men who rule our world. Originally though, I was very interested in a political group called ALEC. This mystery group appeared in the media in the early 00’s as a shadowy, legislative “task force” of politicians and corporate interests seemingly hellbent on paving the way for something that would become much more nefarious. ALEC would eventually be listed as an advisory board “member” to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

Now, all this to say that, yes, I am in fact fascinated with conspiracies and conspiracy theories. You have to admit, they make great material for stories. But the idea that a hyper-specific vision for America could seep so deeply into the collective subconscious (like the Confederacy, for example), and then re-appear a hundred or so years later as “patriotic protectionism” is honestly insane to me. This is generations of people marching forward, in secret, pulling levers behind the curtain so that one day: BOOM FACISM. Like, that’s insane, right?

So what happens when that very idea actually works, and then enough time passes to the point where people forget it even happened? That’s an interesting storyline. But, feeding into the theme of “polarity”, human life still requires balance - even if one way of life exists for a very long time. At some point there will be always be equalizer. And in our day and age, I sometimes wonder if that equalizer is stranger than fiction.