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The Tribes
Book One: The Catastrophe
Author’s Notes: An Interview with Rick (Ratty)
When The Tribes first appeared on Rat Tales, readers were introduced not merely to woodland mischief, but to the memory of a fallen civilization, a luminous city, a catastrophic crossing, and a scattered people now living quietly among ordinary trees.
Behind this layered fantasy stands Rick (Ratty), whose long walks through suburban nature parks gradually evolved into a mythic narrative of exile, intelligence, and endurance.
For this Author’s Notes feature, we sat down with Rick to discuss the origins of The Tribes, the evolution of its themes, and what readers might discover beneath the fur and branches.
Interview
Interviewer: The Tribes opens not as a simple woodland story, but as the memory of a fallen civilization. When did the idea first come to you that squirrels might once have possessed something far more advanced than trees and acorns? Was there a particular moment or thought that sparked the origin of this story?
Rick (Ratty):
It began about fifteen years ago when I was hiking regularly in my local
suburban nature parks. There are a lot of squirrels there, more than most
people probably notice. But if you spend enough time in those parks, you begin
to see something beyond quick movements and twitching tails.
You start to see personality.
Some are bold. Some are cautious. Some are reckless. Some seem almost calculating. If you observe them long enough, you begin to recognize individuals, not just “a squirrel,” but that squirrel. And once that happens, they stop feeling like background wildlife.
They begin to feel like characters.
I’ve always had a vivid imagination, so naturally I began inventing little stories about them in my head while I walked. Conversations. Rivalries. Secret missions across the branches. Over time those playful imaginings became more layered. I started wondering what their world might look like from the inside, not as animals reacting to us, but as beings with their own history.
And that’s really where The Tribes began.
Interviewer: At some point the story shifted from playful woodland imagination to something far more mythic, an advanced civilization, dimensional travel, sabotage, exile. What drew you toward giving these squirrels a lost golden age and a catastrophic fall?
Rick (Ratty):
I’ve always been drawn to fantasy and science fiction. Those genres naturally
explore hidden histories, advanced civilizations, and realities layered beneath
the ordinary. So, once I accepted the idea that squirrels might secretly
possess intelligence, it felt almost inevitable that they would have some kind
of forgotten or concealed past.
In my mind, if they’re intelligent enough to consistently deceive humans into believing they are merely instinct-driven animals, then that intelligence has to come from somewhere.
And if it comes from somewhere, it probably has a history.
The idea of a lost golden age felt right, not just for spectacle, but for contrast. Watching them leap between branches feels simple. But what if that simplicity is adaptation? What if it’s restraint? What if what we see is not primitiveness, but survival after something greater was lost?
That question interested me far more than a simple woodland tale.
Interviewer: The fall of Luminbough carries weight. It isn’t presented as a simple accident. There are hints of sabotage, of brilliance tipping into disaster. Was that element always part of your vision?
Rick (Ratty):
That part developed as I began actually writing the story.
At first, the fall was more abstract, simply a great loss. But as the narrative unfolded, I realized the story needed intrigue. It needed a mystery. Something readers could speculate about.
Was it truly an accident? Or did someone make a subtle change, just small enough to go unnoticed? That question created a deeper current beneath the surface of the story.
History often leaves incomplete records. We fill the gaps with interpretation. Suspicion fades into story. Story fades into history.
So I left it open.
Is there a villain? Or was it simply the risk of brilliance?
That uncertainty feels more powerful than a definitive answer.
Interviewer: Flynn stands in sharp contrast to the elders, impulsive, irreverent, dismissive of history. What does he represent within The Tribes?
Rick (Ratty):
Flynn is the classic adventurer. He’s the type of character you’d expect at the
center of a movie, bold, curious, always leaning toward the next leap.
But right now, he’s young.
And youth often looks like foolishness from the outside. It looks dismissive. It looks impatient with history. Flynn brushes off the Catastrophe because he didn’t live through it. To him, it’s distant background. To the elders, it’s everything.
That tension matters.
He isn’t just comic relief. He represents momentum and curiosity. But that energy hasn’t matured yet.
We’ll see much more of Flynn in future stories. He is tied not only to what the Tribes have been, but to what they may become.
Interviewer: There is a quiet undercurrent in The Tribes about adaptation after collapse. Do you see the story as purely imaginative fantasy, or does it reflect something about the human condition as well?
Rick (Ratty):
It is imaginative fantasy, but it contains human elements.
The idea of a fallen civilization isn’t unique to squirrels. Many humans believe, in one way or another, that we have fallen at some point in our past, technologically, spiritually, morally, or symbolically.
That theme repeats across cultures and mythologies.
In The Tribes, the squirrels adapt. They simplify. They survive. They choose endurance over brilliance. That tension between progress and caution, curiosity and restraint, that feels very human to me.
So yes, it’s fantasy.
But like most fantasy, it carries reflections.
Interviewer: Finally, if readers take one thing with them as they follow The Tribes, what would you hope it is?
Rick (Ratty):
From the squirrels’ point of view, I would hope readers take away hope.
They fell. They lost something magnificent. Their golden age ended in fire and fracture. And yet they endure. They adapt. They form tribes. They build new lives from bark and instinct instead of luminous architecture.
A fall does not mean an ending.
It may mean a beginning.
And from the human point of view, I would hope for respect.
If you spend enough time watching squirrels, you begin to see more than twitching tails and scattered acorns. You see intention. Awareness. Personality.
We assume superiority very easily as a species.
The Tribes suggests another perspective: that what we see may not be the full story. That intelligence might wear humble disguises. That survival might look like simplicity.
Perhaps we should look more carefully at the creatures around us.
Closing
As our conversation concluded, it became clear that The Tribes is more than a woodland fantasy. It is a meditation on memory, resilience, curiosity, and the unseen histories that shape survival.
In Rick (Ratty)’s telling, squirrels are not merely inhabitants of trees, they are heirs to a lost brilliance and architects of a patient future.
And perhaps, as readers, we are invited to look a little closer at the branches above us.
