Sipho’s Comments (group member since Jan 05, 2025)

Sipho’s comments from the Armored Piercing Taskforce group.

Just wanted to write a little heads up that I'm back to working on Armored Piercing 3. Right now, I'm working on an outline that's about 60 pages now, which covers about 850 pages of the original draft. It has been a lot of work because I have to reconcile the book to fit with the storyline so far with the published versions of AP1 and AP2. This has oddly been more complicated than working on AP4 earlier this year. With AP4, I mainly had to worry about what to write next. With the second draft of AP3, I have to worry about AP1/AP2 while also not contradicting what I wrote in AP4.

At the very least, I'm making progress on the outline everyday. Some days, I'm able to write multiple pages, while others, it's just one page or less. The way I write my outline is by re-reading the first draft and then making notes on changes and new story beats I want to add. When I finally get to start writing the second draft, it will be the first time I've written a book with a full detailed outline guiding me. I'm a pantser writer, so writing within a lot of constraints is a new thing for me. For AP5, I'll likely plan to start writing it when AP4 is nearly ready for publishing.

It's been over 4 years since publishing AP2 and I appreciate those who have been waiting patiently for AP3. I promise to make AP3 worth the wait!

Just wanted to give an update on my writing progress on Armored Piercing 4. I was finally able to finish it on August 19 and it stands at 1465 pages, which is the longest book I've ever written. It's kind of hard to believe I actually finished it, since I've been working on it for 8 years. I wrote the last 400 pages this year alone. I'm very proud of myself for this accomplishment!

These insurgents sure love their #alpine environments, but there's no place they can hide from our drones. If only our drones stopped needing to be "rebooted" in the middle of missions.

The network has been hunting Sekret Poryadok for years, but we barely made any headway. Makarov Guryev has been our only win, but that's because the rest of the order turned on him. They have deep ties in my country, but how far does this #bloodline stretch to? That answer will be hard to uncover.

The recent #chain of events in the Middle East has gotten people on edge. As expected, faith in the "hunt for Shadow Company" has drastically decreased. Soon, Armored Piercing will be reprioritized and our real work can begin.

We've been hunting Shadow Company for 5 years and our superiors are eager to declare victory. Leads have been drying up, which is giving our knucklehead politicians more reasons to move on to "relevant threats." I don't believe for a second that we're done with Shadow Company. I've got a feeling they're #connected to the terror attacks in the Middle East.

Sipho Morgess has been a thorn ever since he and his cohorts killed Shepherd and Jones. He's the face of the "Armored Piercing" task force. He remains suspicious of the narrative of Shadow Company being a thing of the past. I have a plan in motion to take him off the table completely. One way or another, his death will serve as a #martyr for the Middle Eastern campaign.

War used to be so simple. Now it's #complicated.

Enemies used to be the ones at the end of the barrel of my gun. Now they're the ones who watch my six.

Shadow Company must be stopped.

Operation Smoke and Mirrors has been successful. The international focus on a #fragmentary Middle East provides the perfect cover. Within a few months, the world will be awash in a new world war.

Watching your comrades die is a normal part of being a soldier. Each death brings immense pain to loved ones back home. I wish I could #save them all, but no amount of training can make that possible. Best I can do is bring them retribution. Shadow Company is the latest enemy on that list of vengeance.

I thought going rogue was a good idea at first. The General's inaction left me and others enraged. Now we're engaging in firefights around the Middle East. No backup and no support from home. This was #reckless, pure and simple. Will we even survive this?

Our governments are being run by a bunch of clowns. They've already forgotten the war Shadow Company nearly ignited between Western allies. None of the enemies we've fought ever accomplished such a feat. And yet, they're more concerned with the "terrorists" in the Middle East. Somehow, our fight against Shadow Company is being #eclipsed by cosplayers like the FSI and Fists of Kabul. Maybe we should go rogue again.

I lost my wife in the Red October attacks. She wanted to go to a restaurant in a part of town she never visited. If I didn't encourage her to go, she'd be alive today. The Zaeed Front is responsible for all this #destruction. The Front may be defeated, but its leader, Maul Zaeed, is still alive. I've been looking for him for years. One of these days, I'll find him and put a bullet between his eyes.

My former president now leads a terror group called the #Reapers. After the State Duma and Federation Council gave him the boot, he became a terrorist. He was once part of Sekret Poryadok, a shadow organization that killed my father. Clearly, they've turned on Guryev. If I can bring him in, I'll be all the more closer to avenging my father's death.

We've been on Merlov's #trail for nearly three months, but he somehow managed to outsmart us. We knew he was up to something big. A new war was inevitable, but none of us guessed it would be World War 3. The UK is going up in smoke. The rest of Europe will soon follow if we don't put a stop to this.

My 1st draft for AP3 is 1200 pages. It'll take me a long time to edit it, so I'm thinking about splitting the book up. Maybe have each part be 200-300 pages each. Since I haven't published a new AP since 2021, I figured this would be a good way to get more books out for the series. I thought of some spin-off ideas, but I rather continue the series than write prequels.