The Will to Battle is the third novel in a science fiction quartet called Terra Ignota, written by the American author Ada Palmer.
Set in the year 2454, the Earth of the Terra Ignota quartet has seen several centuries of near-total peace and prosperity, but is preparing to go to war.
After the events of Seven Surrenders, the world is experiencing escalating tensions, threatening to burst into war at any provocation.
All sides agree to a truce until the Olympic Games in August, in order to prepare and reduce the lethality of the war.
However, the tensions among political groups, such as over distribution of land, population, and income, has escalated into preparations for a global war.
For instance, Chagatai is referred to using "she/her" pronouns because of their fierce, lioness-like strength when protecting their nephew from attack.
[1] Also, in its chapter at the start of Seven Surrenders, Sniper advises the reader to not "trust the gendered pronouns Mycroft gives people, they all come from Madame".
Mycroft's sanity is waning and throughout the text he has numerous dialogues with deceased friends, such as several of the Mardi bash', Thomas Hobbes, the reader, and sometimes conversations among these.
Ten days after the events of Seven Surrenders, newly elected Humanist President Vivien Ancelet visits Ockham, now Prospero, Saneer in prison.
Mycroft and Saladin even recruit black market traders to keep supplies flowing to civilians if mainstream channels fail.
At a second emergency session of the Universal Free Alliance Senate, urgent matters are chaotically negotiated: Achilles, watching with Mycroft and the Servicers, notes that the bull's eye symbol marks the moment when sides in the conflict take clear shape.
Over a hundred thousand Servicers choose to swear loyalty to Achilles and begin military training as Myrmidons.
Mason but is prevented by Utopians wearing Apollo's Delian sun symbol, signaling their readiness for conflict.
Mason and Sniper negotiate to cool things down and give both sides more time to prepare and reduce the danger of the war to come.
Dominic and Cornel MASON negotiate to end the Mitsubishi strike, kill the set-set ban, and pass the Blacklaw motion to declare Sniper an enemy of the Alliance (though this immediately gets held up in court).
Mason goes back to the Rostra in Romanova and declares that as his enemies predicted, he intends to takeover and re-make global system to build a version that does not need the O.S.
However, he proposes that all sides wait until the end of the forthcoming Olympic Games, as was the tradition in Ancient Greece.
Mason, Mycroft, and Achilles meet Aesop and Papa during a visit to Antarctica's capital Esperanza City.
The group meets with Lesley, disguised and ghostwriting as Sniper because it has been missing since it and Tully rescued Mycroft.
The Cousins, Europeans, Mitsubishi, and Humanists submit their proposals for government reform (or lack thereof) to the Alliance Senate.
Throughout April, May, and June Martin Guildbreaker endeavors to deduce and trap Mycroft's second attacker, whom he believes may also be Sniper's kidnapper.
Though Prospero goes free, Papa immediately arrests him for concealing and aiding the murders Thisbe committed against her lovers.
During the rescue efforts, Mycroft's tracker indicates his death (though a note in the text reveals otherwise), necessitating the Ninth Anonymous' narration of the final chapter.