A teaser from chapter two...

[robkelk]

Which is quite possible - canon portrayals certainly made them look like a back-stabbing bunch (the Zoicite and Nephrite relationship excepted).

Leaving me wondering what they were like before Beryl corrupted them ... or did Endymion just have pathetic judgment when it came to picking subordinates for positions of trust?

To be fair, ten millennia of confinement probably doesn't do much to develop the finer points of the human psyche. (I'm just guessing here, of course.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012