An interesting setting, both the word and character wise. Hodr and Rygart's level of patriotism seems surprisingly low considering they were promoted military academy students. Sigyn in fact seemed to be the most patriotic of those three, if only due to her dedication to the development of tools of defense. Of course Hodr's willingess to lay down his own life for the country is a form of it, but willingness to surrender the whole country without a fight to a foreign power isn't. In my opinion Zess looked like the kind of person who would be willing to see Hodr and Sigyn dead if he considered it to serve a much great good. A bit zealous sort of a guy.

I hope we will learn something of the history of the ancients before the end. And what manner of a power plant the buried mecha has to remain functional for so long...