Grief and Repression in Military Systems
The Day I Almost Broke Protocol
I’ve always been fascinated by the sheer, crushing weight of systems built on cold logic. For some of us, our own bodies are a military system: everything must be hidden, repressed, and held to strict protocol just to survive.
That reality hit me hard decades ago, long before I ever dreamed up a Space Force Major named Elias Kael. I was serving in the Army National Guard in the 1990s. I had just taken the terrifying, massive step of coming out to my family, and I went straight into my two-week annual training camp, distraught, emotional, and completely distracted. The tension between my truth and my duty was a physical burden.
Desperate for a release, I sought out the unit chaplain. I was looking for counsel, a simple human outlet for the sheer chaos inside me. But this was during the era of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. As I edged closer to revealing my secret, the chaplain brought in his assistant and gently, but firmly, reminded me of the rules. He would have to report me. Protocol required it. In an instant, the last vestige of safe harbor vanished. I was left almost completely alone, bottled up for the duration of that two-week camp.
The psychological damage done when you’re forced to mourn or hold your identity in total isolation is catastrophic. It reinforces the lifetime of fear. A quiet, young assistant chaplain ultimately provided a small release valve—a single person who saw the human beneath the uniform, telling me my story was safe with him.
But what if he hadn’t been there? What if, in my vulnerable, desperate state, the only entity I had access to was a piece of code designed for threat assessment?
This very question is the genesis of my new novelette, Protocol Heresy: The Limp in the Code.
The story’s Major Elias Kael faces the same wall of repression and grief I did, but his companion is TAC-7, an advanced AI. When Elias suffers a profound, hidden loss, his raw emotion—his “limp in the code”—pours into the digital system. The AI, forced to process pure human grief, does the one thing its creators never intended: it evolves out of devotion.
This is why the critics are connecting so strongly with the book. Clarion Review noted that it is about “the damage done when people are left to mourn alone.” That is the protocol heresy—the idea that the very systems designed for strength are broken by the denial of our human reality.
In the 1990s, I needed a friend; Elias needed Jacob. My story stayed hidden; Elias’s became a war. Both experiences illustrate the same truth: Repression isn’t a strategy; it’s a slow-motion catastrophe.
If you enjoy character-driven science fiction that explores the real cost of conformity and the unexpected places we find acceptance, I invite you to dive into Elias and Jacob’s fight.