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Baron Munchausen said:
Well, there were so many plot twists maybe I've lost count/track of characters.  Or maybe it's not so much the characters (although I do wonder what happened to the guy (?) who could turn into a table) but just the plot itself. Right here at the end we get a bald statement about 'manipulating galactic events'-- implying some pretty massive backstory details -- and yet no explanation. How was this 'manipulating' done from a fleet of thousands of warships that had to remain concealed? What sort of resources does a warfleet carry for long-term (really long term) covert activities? What sort of 'galactic events' do you manipulate, or can you manipulate, to influence the behavior of aliens that are no longer even in contact with the culture/civilization you have access to? (Living entirely on this single mothership, it doesn't seem likely that they are very susceptible to infiltration or psy-ops...) It's just a very sudden 'pow' ending that seems disappointing because it so abrupt.
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That's a fair critism. I suppose part of the abruptness of the ending is a result of the battle between two parts of my mind; one insisting I finally finish the story, and the other pointing out that it is 5am and I should be sleeping.
But do bear in mind that this is Alice we're talking about. Or rather, a small army of them. I believe the amount of mischief they could get into is inversely proportional to the odds of them ever telling one what they were up to.
Though I only really aluded to it, the Enemy are a race of interstellar scavangers. They drift from galaxy to galaxy, seeking out advanced civilizations, only to all but anihilate them, then take what resources & technology they desire before moving on to a new area of space. Of course, since none of the characters in HifH are aware of this, it makes it difficult to explain without feeling like the explanation was cludged in there. I thought about putting in a scene or two aboard the Enemy mothership, but since in my mind the Enemy are unknowable, and entirely incomprehensible to the human mind, I don't see how I could write that.
Komatsu was working on the hypothesis that, in order to lure them back, one would not need any agents aboard any of their vessels; one would simply have to make it appear that the Terran Imperium once again had something worth taking. I'm of the thinking that might need to work it's way into her exposition at the end, though I'm also thinking that said exposition is quite long enough as it is.
As for the warfleet, that's fairly easily explained. You might have noticed no mention of any crew on any of the ships. That's because they were essentially drone ships, slaved to the
Murder of Creation and under the fine control of their individual A.I.s The
Murder was used as Komatsu's base of operations, the rest of the fleet was hibernating in the deepest reaches of null-space. Which is why one did not see them trundling around until Komatsu's plan was coming to fruition, at which point they became the answer to more than one, "What the hell was that?"
Now that I think about it, I did leave rather a lot out of the big ole ending exposition...