Mar 31, 2026
Author's Commentary #5:
Time to talk about Chapter 5: The last act of the Chess Olympics' opening ceremony.
This makes making now a good time to explain a bit more on why that is. Originally, when writing this arc, there were hardly any teams present, yet thanks to a self-imposed rule, I ended up adding way more teams.
Said rule was that if a team finished in the top 10 and/or had a player from it win an individual medal, I had to include said team in some way shape or form. 22 teams fit the bill, with some like the US, China, and Prussia, Germany's equivalent in this world, already being pre-established and easy to slot in, while teams like India, Hungary, and Norway were planned from the start. The full list of teams that fit this criteria was India, America, Uzbekistan, China, Serbia, Armenia, Germany, Azerbaijan, Slovenia, Spain, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Czechia, Israel, North Macedonia, Hungary, Norway, Türkiye, and Vietnam. I know this made things harder on myself, but on the flip-side, I also viewed it as a chance to get creative with the state of the world in the story.
Obviously for a few, geopolitics was breathing down my neck, making things really difficult in some cases. Ukraine and Russia I feel was the big one as I feel there was really no way around not acknowledging the current strife between them. Russia actually was banned from the IRL Chess Olympiad, however, here in the story, many key characters come from Russia, not to mention, they likely wouldn't face any bans in this world like their IRL-equivalent, especially given the fact that other nations have arguably conquered more territory than it. Not to mention, even if a ban was to be imposed, it could be negated via a simple victory in a DESPER match. Really, the DESPERs allow free range even for the most heinous of people so long as they're good at chess, which is one of the, if not the biggest negative regarding the DESPERs. Then of course there's the fact that most nations here are batshit insane along with the people leading them. Don't brush off Danny's quote. 99% of the world leaders in this series are indeed an asshole and/or war criminal. I'd also add that 99% of the characters overall are batshit insane.
And long word block aside, the opening ceremony is finally complete. Many of the teams shown won't have any role to play in this volume, but I felt it was probably easier to just introduce them all now rather than when they each appear in the story. Again, a part of me does feel that it is too much of a lore drop, hence there's still the possibility I edit everything down to a single chapter, but I also feel that this is probably the best way to showcase 95% of the teams that will get some screen time this arc.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
