The dystopian science fiction author who warned us about war propaganda
K.A. Riley wrote the dystopian science fiction Resistance Trilogy, an indie series that remains popular to this day. And it came with a key warning.
I made a late-night trip to the gym on Tuesday night and Sean Hannity was on the air spewing the usual war propaganda. Because of course, he was. His boy toy launched a strike on Iran to please Israel, and he’d just love for his “Messiah” to show up on a white horse as part of his subjective “biblical prophecy.”
At the bottom of the screen, I—predictably—saw claims like, and I’m paraphrasing, “Trump: We are ahead of schedule in Iran.” “We are sinking the Iranian navy.” “Most of Iran’s military assets have been destroyed.”
You get the picture, and I’m sure you’ve read the same old script more than a few times. We’re getting a repeat of happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and if you want proxies—Yemen and Libya. Hell, we can even throw Ukraine in there, albeit under different circumstances—because once upon a time, Fox News lied to us and all but claimed—again, I’m paraphrasing—that, “Ukraine was mopping the floor with Russia.”
Roughly two years after they gave us that vibe, Trump himself uttered the now-famous, “You’re not winning,” lecture to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Why? Because the Russians have been having their way with the Ukrainians—despite sustaining heavy casualties. Funny how often the script flips.
Know who saw through the B.S.? An indie sci-fi author named K.A. Riley. I don’t agree with everything Riley says, as climate change, pro-altruism, and pro-vegetarianism, and anti-capitalist vibes are part of her themes. And that’s the tip of a larger iceberg. Still, Riley called foul in her Resistance Trilogy and did a damn good job doing so.
The Resistance Trilogy exposes war propaganda on all fronts
A little background: the Resistance Trilogy is set sometime in the not-so-distant future, where the infamous Eastern Order attacked America and sent it into a living hellscape. To win the “war,” the government recruited all surviving children into their “ranks” the moment they turned seventeen—whereas they had since assigned every kid the same birthday.
Here’s the kicker: the news is constantly playing in villages, always featuring smiling reporters along with the president, who are assuring survivors that their side is winning and that the war will be over soon. Apparently, the U.S., with its mass conscription tactics, is crushing the Eastern Order, even if the recruiters keep coming back every year to round up the new “seventeens.”
Come Book II, Render, the main characters, who’ve escaped the recruiting facility when they found out the entire war was a lie—go figure—return home to find their village destroyed. Every kid still living there was brutally murdered in an awful strike. Or, almost every kid.
Later, they find out the protagonist’s love interest’s little sister, Wisp, survived the onslaught and is now leading a resistance faction against the government—who just claimed there was an Eastern Order. Wisp, a tactical genius despite being just thirteen years old, noticed that similar—sometimes the same—news cycles played over the course of the year.
While she sensed the patterns and tried to warn the others before the deadly strike killed them all, they told her she was crazy. These kids sincerely thought their side was winning the war and that the Eastern Order was on the cusp of getting destroyed.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and it would never be the case.
One look at recent history paints a dreary picture
In a previous post, I outlined how the U.S. and its allies captured and ultimately had Saddam Hussein killed in 2003 and 2006, respectively. I also outlined how they eliminated Osama Bin Laden in 2011, but felt the need to stick around Afghanistan until 2021—and when the Taliban took over again, you wouldn’t believe the number of neocons praying Joe Biden would reverse course and “kill them all.” I actually had someone tell me that they hoped it would be the case.
At this point, the Deshaun Watson trade has a better track record for the Cleveland Browns than America and its allies do of stabilizing the Middle East.
Since it escalated its military adventurism in the Middle East shortly after 9/11—which in and of itself was retaliation for America’s reckless interventionism in the region—instead of stabilizing it and bringing about “democracy,” it’s done the exact opposite.
Regardless of how the conflict in Iran plays out, don’t think for a single second there’s going to be a swift victory coupled with stabilization in a nation whose affairs America started meddling in back in 1953. If anything, Iran is the next country in the Middle East that America will—in a best case scenario—tear apart and add billions if not trillions of dollars to its already-staggering national debt.
So don’t let the smiling talking heads—particularly on Fox News—lie to your face and tell you otherwise. Don’t believe the Trump administration when they use vast hyperbole to “assure you” that everything is fine and ahead of schedule.
They have played this game before, and K.A. Riley drove that point home in her Resistance Trilogy. And if you want any proof, Trump’s basically echoing today what Joe Biden said four years ago regarding Ukraine—whatever it takes to defeat the enemy.
The reason Riley’s story hits so hard is because we already live in a world where the news cycle functions exactly like the broadcasts in the trilogy. If you want to understand how propaganda works during wartime, K.A. Riley’s Resistance Trilogy is a great place to start.
Riley’s story isn’t just dystopian fiction—it’s a mirror
One that reflects how governments manufacture narratives, how media and even academia amplifies them, and how entire populations can believe they’re winning a war that was never meant to end soon.
Stories like this matter because fiction often tells the truth long before the headlines catch up.
If you enjoy dystopian fiction that questions authority, challenges official narratives, and forces readers to think critically about power, that’s exactly the kind of storytelling I build inside my DIY project: The Rebel Lore Vault.
Inside the Vault you’ll find my own worlds—stories like Beyond the Lost Horizon and Wind Wielder—where characters confront propaganda, corruption, and the systems that try to control them.
This article first appeared at The Rogue Scribe.
