Severance: A Hardlands Prelude

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

SEVERANCE: A 24-Hour Radio Drama Experience Day Zero as a radio play narrated by Major General Michael Monash—but not the young officer you meet in the story.

This is the voice of someone older, speaking from a future shaped by the events you're about to hear, looking back at the 24 hours that changed everything. This isn't traditional audiobook narration. You'll hear testimony from six key figures who lived through Day Zero—some voices flowing naturally, others feeling like carefully edited fragments. The format deliberately echoes wartime radio broadcasts, complete with the crackling urgency of voices under pressure. But here's the question that haunts every word: What are you really hearing?

The narrator claims this is exactly how it happened, insisting these are authentic voices and unvarnished history. But he's someone who lived through what came after, someone who made hard choices in harder times. And every storyteller, especially those who've seen the consequences, shapes the tale to serve the telling. Some character voices feel spontaneous and real. Others sound reconstructed, testimony that's been preserved and perhaps... refined.

In an age where any voice can be recreated, where memory becomes narrative and narrative becomes truth, how do you know what's authentic? The radio-play style isn't just artistic choice—it's perfect cover. The medium raises the question while telling the story. Is this history or propaganda? Testament or reconstruction?

The answer might be: What's the difference?