INSIDE, PART 3

IN-BOOK MENTIONED CONNECTIONS

INSIDE-SPECIFIC LORE

MANUSCRIPT SECRETS (DEEP LORE)

OFF-PAGE GOODIES (HEAVY SPOILERS)

• Eight Group Nationalitites: The Eight Group is comprised of many different East and South Asian nationalities. A large number of them came from the hidden society where Mark and Josh lived in hiding from the Commission, but when the Commission decided to create the Eight Group, they pulled everyone of Asian descent from the holding cells, so the nationalities of the Eight Group vary significantly.
• Dana's Bullet to the Leg: While canonically the reason Mark shoots Dana in the leg rather than in the head is because they were in a public space and Mark did not want to cause too much of a scene, and Mark also understands that killing Dana outright will not dismantle the Commission of the People, the truth is the author just needed to keep Dana alive for the story to continue. She admits this 100%.
• Mark Meets Eina: Mark admits that he knew Eina was finished and did not say anything to anyone in the revolution. He does not give a reason for this because it is a complicated situation. There was going to be a story included in Inside the Commission that showed the interaction, but per the author: "Mark would not let me get into his head enough to properly write it." Mark used his security clearance to get into the Dome when Eina was alone with every intention to kill him with a shot to the head. However, when he was face-to-face with Eina he felt both terrified and awestruck at the power he felt from Eina. He came to an understanding that regardless of whether Lily's revolution succeeded or failed, Eina would destroy the Commission of the People. For that reason, Mark decided not to harm Eina, figuring that he was something of a final resort in the battle against the Commission of the People and Dana.
• Dana Staging Attacks: Starting in Chapter 72 with the tagging of the school there are incidents reported on that are claimed to be the work of the Central Angels. All of these are Dana staging media stunts and stories to turn the American people against Lily's revolution. He took inspiration from the way Bryant Morris did the same for the Coalition in book 3 of the Coalition Trilogy.
• Chris Attacking the Capital: The devastating attack in Chapter 73 when Mykail's brother Chris attacks the government buildings was a staged attack. Dana did not inform many of those in government of the attack to make it as authentic as possible, making the casualties part of his game to play the media against the Central Angels.
• Character Death Spoiler: During Josh's death, he is pleading with Mark to shoot him because the pain is too much to bear. Mark cannot bring himself to do it because he is worried about making Josh "just another person he's killed."
• Becca's Coerced Betrayal: It is revealed in detail in Inside the Commission that Becca's betrayal of Lily and the Central Angels is heavily coerced by Dana and that during the phone call with Lily in Chapter 75, Dana is sitting next to Becca while she tried to explain herself to Lily.
• The Traumatic End: The original ending for this book was meant to be tragic, traumatizing, and overwhelming. There were several different endings entertained (which are explained in the author's note at the end of Alternate Part 3), but ultimately, the terrifying "realism" the author was trying to capture with what happens when an idealist seventeen-year-old girl goes against a corrupt government, even for all the right reasons, it felt cheap to make it "work" as a typical YA dystopian did. So the author pulled out all the stops and made the original ending horrifying and heavy. This was to avoid making things feel "cheap" by getting nervous about following how horrific the Commission of the People really is.
• Chapter 80: The exhausting venture of getting through Chapter 80 is intentional. The chapter breaks are meant to offer some relief from the endless slog, but time is supposed to become impossible to discern once Lily is captured by the Commission of the People and the days are meant to blend together.
• Morris' Journal: Bryant Morris' journal, which Dana shares with Lily during her captivity, is actually the formula and timeframe Dana is following in Lily's own testing as he is determined to make Lily just like him. It was the book she set aside when snooping through Dana's office when she stole the experiment file for #41141.
• Eina's Sister: Eina's sister is the next D.E.M.O.N. created and as discussed further in Inside, they will try to breed Eina and his sister to see if the same genetic modifications can be passed onto offspring (ignoring the inbreeding problem). However, this inbreeding as well as the way the Commission handles demon bloodlines as the program grows leads to a distorted cultural belief within Eina's Bloodline (eventually the Kaneaka Clan) where inbreeding was not only common but the only form of procreation acceptable within the clan. This is discussed in Book 5 of Dimension Guardian.
• Eina's Hallucinations: In Eina's conversation with Lily in the Dome, he talks about how the red dragon talks to him. This is not a hallucination. This is the Overseer talking to Eina to prepare him for the Overseer's plan regarding how to handle the devastation of the Second Shift. The Overseer is in their purest form a red dragon.
• Lily's Hallucinations: Lily hallucinating her fallen friends follows heavy symbolic lines based on which friend she sees at which time as everyone in Inside has a symbolic representation. For a detailed breakdown of what each hallucination and friend represents, please refer to the "Long-Winded Author's Note" in the Inside Special Expanded Edition or the Inside, Alternate Part 3.
• Lily's POV Shift: The further Lily's mind breaks as her experimentations continue, the more distorted her view of the world becomes. There is a point where the narrative shifts from third person past tense to third person present for only Lily's actions while everyone else is still written in past tense and then when Lily completes her transformation into the person Dana wanted, the entire narrative shifts into third-person present tense through the rest of the novel.
• Veronica Harris: Veronica Harris is the Overseer in disguise, which is why they are not intimidated by Dana's advances. Generally speaking, the Overseer is male, but in this part of the timeline when dealing with the Second Shift, the pattern of his magic must shift to a feminine pattern when he gets close to the epicenter of the Second Shift in order to properly deal with the damage. For more information on the differences between masculine and feminine magic in the Amiverse, visit the magic lore pages.
• Veronica's Tattoo: Veronica's tattoo of a red dragon is not just to signal that she is the Overseer. In order to be in proximity to humans, the Overseer must don a multitude of spells to limit the amount of magic they exude so as not to destroy anyone in close proximity. As the concept of power limiters has not yet been made by this point in the Amiverse, the dragon tattoo is the representation of the magical warding the Overseer has used to suppress a majority of their magic. This is also why, when Dana touches it, he recoils in fear. He feels the overwhelming power behind the mark and it is the only thing he has found that truly frightens him.
• Physiology Changes: By the end of the novel, both Dana and Lily have no need to sleep or eat. While it's a variation off the internal Amiverse Lore for vampires, this is because one of the tests that Bryant Morris did was to test the effects of compounds found in vampire blood on humans. For vampires in the Amiverse, the curse allows their body to age to the point where they are physiologically the strongest and then it halts the aging process (this age is different for every vampire). That test also affected the need for Dana or Lily to eat or sleep, but it also keeps them from aging. *This is also the same trait that D.E.M.O.N.s have, where they age to the point where they are physiologically the strongest and then the aging process stops.
• International Support: There is an international meeting to discuss the D.E.M.O.N. project near the end of the novel. This will eventually become an international business where certain countries own certain bloodlines. For instance, the Kaneaka and Kage bloodlines (the two first ones) are co-owned by America and Japan, which is why the names appear Japanese in how they are written, but by the time the demon clans move to their own world (shown in Dimension Guardian), the pronunciation of those names is a combination of cultures due to the evolution of the demon languages.
• Clark's Fate: Clark becomes the progenitor of the Kage Demon Clan. When the Overseer asks him for the name he has chosen he says Jyara, which will eventually become Jyara Kage, the first of the Kage bloodline and the ancestor to Juki Kage.