6 Stories, 6 People, 1/6 of the Way — An Honest Check-In on the 36 Stratagems Series

1/6 done. 30 to go.

After shipping #6, I did the math — 6 stories out of 36. Exactly one-sixth. I have a habit of pausing at every milestone to write something down, otherwise I forget.

When the old series ended, I wrote a recap called "15 AI Stories Later, Some Honest Words." This one follows the same rule — say what worked, say what didn't. No point lying to myself.

Why I Switched Series

Somewhere around story #14 of the "AI, Ego & Regret" series, I started feeling something.

Not that the 15 stories were bad — I don't regret writing them. Some had villains who actually fought back. Some had protagonists who were pawns and didn't know it. Some wins weren't even technical — they were political plays. Every single one, on its own, I'd stand by.

But around #14, I caught myself asking a different question. Not "what's the next story about" — but "why does every story run on the same engine?"

Every win followed the same structure: System breaks → protagonist gets called in to fix it → someone finally sees their value. No matter how good the journey was, the engine never changed. It wasn't about losing. Each story ended with a win. It was about repetition — same structure, 15 times in a row. You win. You also get bored.

Then I wrote #15. Lena's first appearance.

She was different. She wasn't waiting to be rescued — she had cards in her hand from the start. Writing her felt completely different. It wasn't about turning things around. It was about who moved first.

I only understood the difference later: the old series was "waiting to be recognized." The 36 Stratagems is "setting up the board yourself."

Before #15, my characters were all waiting for the system to prove they were right. Lena didn't need the system to prove anything. She was the system. Not a technical duel — a mind game. She wasn't there to fix things. She was there to win.

After that story, I knew I couldn't go back.

So I started this series. 36 Stratagems — six protagonists, each using one stratagem in their first appearance. They all won. But later, when they cross paths, someone wins and someone loses.

Whether they know which stratagem they're using or not — I know. And so do the readers.

Six Boards

Mark (#1 Deceive the Heavens to Cross the Sea) — He wasn't there to read the report. He saw 44 matching entries from a public dataset and a sticker on Torres's computer. The VC hadn't even finished talking before Mark had already placed his pieces.

Derek (#2 Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao) — He promised an impossible 95% accuracy target. Not out of naivety — he was trading that number for 18 days of peace. He knew exactly what he was gambling against.

Lena (#3 Kill with a Borrowed Knife) — Three knives placed in advance. The ops director went after the budget. The security architect went after the compliance red line. The demo let the data speak for itself. She never raised a finger.

P (#4 Wait at Leisure While the Enemy Labors) — P saw through both vendors in the first week. But P didn't speak — because if you know too early, no one believes you. P waited three months for the data to become its own evidence.

Leo (#5 Loot a Burning House) — An anonymous message at 1 AM. One glance at the failure pattern and he knew what was wrong. Not because he was smart — because he'd seen the exact same trap five years ago. While everyone else was still looking for the root cause, he was already driving out the door.

Alex (#6 Make a Sound in the East, Strike in the West) — A yellow I/O alert. He used it to trigger a full investigation. Everyone watched the dashboard. He watched the pipeline. By the time the team finished checking I/O, he'd already changed the config from 0.7 to 0.0.

The numbers:

Total: 1,110 views / 295 reactions / 143 comments

Honest take: #4 had the most comments — 36 in total, ranging from detection-vs-coverage debates to "if you know too early" to taxonomy mismatch. That one hit people in different ways. #2 was the one I feel worst about — Derek's situation was real, but the numbers didn't catch up. #3 too — Lena's prequel, same story, great piece, quiet launch. Different stories have different rhythms. Not a problem.

The Hardest Part Isn't the Stories Themselves

It's getting six people through 36 steps in the same universe without stepping on each other's toes.

That's the biggest difference from the old series. The old series was beads on a string — each story independent, one line. The 36 Stratagems is a web — six threads running at the same time, knotting at specific points.

The six characters were pulled from the old series. The two series share the same universe. Every character's personality and background was locked in the teaser post. I set my own rules.

The outline went through several versions. Who meets who. Who helps who. Who sets who up. Each version got scrapped. Because you're not trying to write N good stories — you're trying to write N good stories that don't contradict each other in the same world. The first six were easy — solo acts, one stage per person. Then the network starts.

The six stories you've seen? Not the first draft.

The Series Started Writing Me Back

There's something I didn't expect about this series. Before I started, I thought I was "designing" six characters — giving each one a stratagem, deciding where they'd cross paths. I was the chess player. They were the pieces.

Then it shifted.

I started using the same tactics I was writing about in real life.

One concrete thing. There's a senior exec who's exhausting. He loves good-looking reports. So I gave him good-looking reports. What he saw and what I was actually doing — two different things.

I was writing Alex using "Make a Sound in the East, Strike in the West" — a yellow alert to pull the team toward I/O, while he changed the config at 2 AM. Then I caught myself doing the same move in real life.

Kinda funny. You think you're writing fiction. Then the fiction starts writing you.

Not a coincidence. I realized later — I couldn't have made up those six characters' moves out of thin air. You can't write the feel of a move you've never pulled yourself. Lena's borrowed knives, P's patient waiting, Alex's misdirection — I didn't invent those. I've seen them, used them, or been burned by them.

What happens when the 36 Stratagems is done? Probably relief — but not emptiness. Because the third series is already stirring. Too early to talk about it though.

That's enough on that.

The Comments Section

The first one in was leob. "Intriguing!" Three words. Then he showed up for every single one. On #2: "choose your battles wisely." On #3: "another banger." On #4: "all-you-can-eat." On #5 he recognized Adyen and said the world is small. On #6: "quieter but subtle." He's been here since the very first Regret story. Never missed one.

Divyanshi has been here since the teaser — seven for seven. On #1 she called out the "benchmark trap." On #6 she wrote "absence of alerts is more dangerous than presence" — some lines I didn't realize were that heavy until she read them back to me. Every single one is a long read. Every single one goes to the deepest layer.

mote showed up for four stories. On #1 he dissected the RabbitMQ-to-Kafka benchmark gaming. On #4 he unpacked taxonomy mismatch. On #5 he walked through the topology blind spot. On #6 he explained confidence threshold degradation — clearer than I did in the original piece.

UnitBuilds dropped what he called a "mic drop with four tables" on #4, then left a few hundred words on #6 — from log tagging to his own project V.A.L.I.D. We went back and forth for a few rounds. It's practically becoming its own mini-series.

Mykola Kondratiuk went deep on the teaser and #1. "Smarter agent, same wall" — he summed up what this series is about in one sentence.

Mike Czerwinski wrote a long analysis on #1, unpacking "production noise as integrity signature" better than I could have.

Vinicius Pereira broke down detection rate vs coverage using Goodhart's Law on #4. "Whoever raises it inherits the bad news" — went straight into my notes.

Self-Correcting Systems analyzed Lena on #3 — "refusing to argue on the surface someone else picked for you" — accurate enough to quote.

Natasha0824 left a long comment on #4 saying "if you know too early, no one believes you" helped her make a real-life decision. I read that one a few times.

gramli — Lena was your favorite, and seeing your name pop up on #3 made me think "okay, this one's working." Thanks for reading deep.

There are more. Hemapriya Kanagala showed up across three posts, catching the connections between characters. Evans Owusu linked his own product on #2 — got 5 likes, the highest on that post. Kartik N V J K said "misses over hits" on #4. Alex Shev wrote "a monitoring POC without tests is theater." yusuftmle — "production data is dirty, this data isn't" — glad that landed on #1. Theo Valmis — "the benchmark having everything figured out except the truth" — caught the core problem in one sentence.
Mudassir Khan — "production data is dirty, this data is not" — asked which stratagem maps cleanest to eval contamination.

Every comment, long or short, pushed me to write the next one.

And thank you to everyone who liked, shared, or just read quietly — those reactions are what keep the next one coming. 🙌

And one more — Gabriel Weidmann. You were the first person to actually buy a coffee. Two cups worth. I stared at the number thinking — one more and it's a third cup. Then it hit me: "The Third Cup" is the name of a café in this series. Some coincidences you can't write.

What's Next

30 more. In order. One stratagem at a time.

From here on, it gets real — six people aren't on separate boards anymore. They start to meet. Help. Set up. Win and lose.

The breadcrumbs are already placed. As for the third series — that's 30 stories away. Too early. But it's not empty.

About the Book

The old series is fully polished. Two things are still stuck: picking reader comments for the opening pages, and the cover design. I've had AI generate a few cover concepts — none quite right. Anyone have cover design ideas? And pricing — never published a book, no idea what's reasonable. If you've been through it, I'd love advice. Paving a path beyond the day job, honestly.

Thanks for reading this far.

P.S. English isn't my first language. I use AI to polish the writing. Appreciate you being here. ☕ Buy me a coffee