Welcome to the second entry of Crafting the Celestial Saga where I give you a behind-the-scenes look at the series. The second entry is about the first chapter from Dawn of the Seekers featuring the Battle of Yulon. If you have not finished reading Dawn of the Seekers or plan on reading it in the future, you may want to avoid reading Crafting the Celestial Saga until you do.
As I had mentioned in the previous entry, watching Star Wars made me realize I was missing an aspect of fun in the first draft that ultimately went unfinished. When I restarted the story, I looked to my favorite Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith, for inspiration!
Revenge of the Sith opens with a huge space battle over Coruscant as Anakin and Obi-Wan fly through the battle to rescue Chancellor Palpatine. In Dawn of the Seekers, there is a huge space battle over a planet called Yulon where the book’s heroes, Nova Team, fly through to rescue a United Celestial Alliance senator. Revenge of the Sith opens with Anakin and Obi-Wan flying their Jedi Starfighters along a Venator-class Star Destroyer and I wanted to mirror that with Nova Team flying their transport along the Gridlock.
There were a few changes from the second draft so let’s jump in!
- Section One: Chatty -
The first thing I noticed from the second draft is that it is very chatty. It was dialogue heavy and often times the dialogue wasn’t the best and it just seemed like it was chatter to have chatter. I did write it in a script format, and I’ll get more into the reason for that in the next entry. One thing that I love about writing is that you can see how far you have developed your writing skills over the years and when it comes to dialogue, that is definitely an area where I have improved, if I do say so myself.
In the finished book, I cut down the chatter quite a bit and only included meaningful dialogue. Some things were added for a joke or an Easter Egg, but overall, it was not as chatty as the second draft and the dialogue was better written. Again, in my opinion being able to see how my writing has evolved over the years.
- Section Two: Why the Senator was captured -
The major change that occurred from the second draft to the finished book is why Senator Robert Hensley was captured. In the second draft I had Senator Hensley get captured because a UCA ship stopped at Yulon to refuel and had discovered the location of a Kaltari weapons facility. That ship’s long-range communications had been knocked out so the crew went to see the Senator to relay that information.
In the book, Senator Hensley was the representative from the UCA who was going to meet with the Kaltari Emperor, Taufin, for peace negotiations. Taufin was killed by his son, Malaton, who did not want these negotiations to take place. In response, Malaton had dispatched a fleet to capture Senator Hensley for execution. Of course, at this current point in time in the book, the United Celestial Alliance had not learned that Taufin had been killed and his son had taken over as Emperor.
The weapons facility ended up being found after the events of chapter three thanks to the actions of Ithaca Team who did not exist in the second draft.
- Section Three: John Banks and Eagle Squadron -
Another story aspect change was that in the second draft, John Banks of Nova Team was meeting Commander Anthony Green of Eagle Squadron for the first time after the Battle of Yulon. In the second draft John was still the newest member of Nova Team and a skilled pilot. It was after the Battle of Yulon that Commander Green asked John to join Eagle Squadron.
When looking over the Battle of Yulon when writing the book, I realized that I mentioned a few times that John was a skilled pilot, but I didn’t do anything to show that. So, in the book I wrote a whole segment where John flies a shuttle that wasn’t necessarily meant for combat as a combat shuttle. He uses his ability as a skilled pilot to make the shuttle fly as gracefully as a single pilot fighter would. In the book, John also had a history with Eagle Squadron having interacted with them and run drills with them on multiple occasions. It seemed a little out of nowhere in the second draft when John joined Eagle Squadron especially given the fact in the second draft, John didn’t do anything remarkable to warrant him joining the squadron. In the book, I made sure to state that there was an established history and wrote an action sequence to let John show why he belonged to be flying with the best pilots in the United Celestial Alliance. John ended up joining Eagle Squadron in a later chapter instead of immediately following the Battle of Yulon.
- Section Four: Ammunition -
Mass Effect was another huge inspiration to me and one of the main reasons I wanted to be a writer. Mass Effect ended up inspiring how the weapons worked in both the second draft and the final book. In Mass Effect 2, thermal clips were introduced to the series as a form of ammunition for their weapons. In the second draft I had what I called battery packs that were used as ammunition for the weapons. In the finished book, I took inspiration from the first Mass Effect that had an overheat and cooldown concept for all of the weapons in the game.
It was a small change, but I felt like an overheating and cooldown function was more futuristic and cleaner for a universe that emphasizes using clean energy, protecting the health of planets and their ecosystems.
- Section Five: Special Forces -
I would now like to talk about one of the things that I think matters most in the story and that is how special forces are handled.
A lot of times in media, special forces soldiers are shown as the best of the best, emotionless robots, or as loners. In the Celestial Saga, I wanted to explore how the characters who are part of the special forces may be the best at what they do, but they are still human, or whatever alien species they may be. I didn’t want a bunch of emotionless robots running around the galaxy and I wanted characters that people could relate to. The members of the special forces in this story may not be the strongest, smartest, or even the bravest characters, and that is something I made a point to state in the book.
Physically I can’t relate to a character who has superhuman strength or is a certified genius, I can relate to someone like Ethan who I made a regular guy who just wants to do the best he can in life. I made all of the characters that way for a reason so that ordinary people could relate. There is nothing extraordinary about the members of Nova Team, they are just ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. They work well together, complement each other’s talents, and that is where their true strength comes from. They’re friends, they’re family, they depend upon one another and that’s how they make it through the day.
Now you may be thinking that I contradict this story element with the character of Daniel Robinson who I made as a character with above average intelligence. There were a few reasons for this which I will talk about more in the next entry about chapter two where we learned about the members of Nova Team.
Back to the main point, the human element of the characters is what I consider to be the heart and soul of the Celestial Saga. They’re people who you could meet walking down the street, they make mistakes, they don’t think that they’re better than anyone else. They are simply just people and that is something that I think an ordinary person like me can relate to. They don’t have mystical powers, they don’t have enhancements or a super suit of armor, they are simply regular people going about life.
I wanted to explore the character’s feelings and emotions to humanize them. I’m happy to say that this story element was noticed by readers and has been well received so far.
- Section Six: The Gridlock -
A great thing about science-fiction is that you get cool spaceships. One of those in the Celestial Saga is the Gridlock. The Gridlock is a massive hulk of a ship which has pieces of other United Celestial Alliance ships that were destroyed in battle welded to it. It’s a way to honor those who had fallen and keep their spirits alive.
The Gridlock is described as an eyesore later on in the book and is used to hide other UCA ships behind it until they are called upon to attack. It can also be used to take incoming fire from enemy ships to defend other UCA ships in the line of fire.
With that thought in mind on how it was used to conceal ships and take heavy amounts of damage, I thought about how a ship like this would be a massive inconvenience to the Kaltari in battle. When thinking of the name I thought about traffic jams and how inconvenient those are. This giant hulking ship holds up the Kaltari from attacking UCA ships and it also keeps UCA ships behind it in waiting. I decided that the Gridlock was a fitting name for a ship of this design.
- Section Seven: Naming the Spearhawks -
Now naming things isn’t my strong suite. In the first entry of Crafting the Celestial Saga I mentioned how I was terrible at naming things and the series itself had gone without a name for many years. One thing I noticed when writing the book is that I referred to the Kaltari and UCA single pilot fighters simply as single pilot fighters. While this worked for one side, I found it confusing when I was referring to both sides single pilot fighters in the same battle at the same time.
I decided to give the UCA single pilot fighters a name and started down that path. I first started looking at Halo and how the UNSC name their vehicles after animals or insects and the Covenant name their vehicles after spirits. The UNSC has the Wasp and the Hornet, which allowed for two additional passengers, and the Covenant had single pilot fighters like the Seraph and Banshee. Neither one of these naming schemes fit what I was going for exactly and while Halo was an inspiration, I obviously didn’t want to directly copy from it.
So, I turned to mythology and started looking at winged creatures from various mythologies. From Greek Mythology there was the griffin, phoenix, and pegasus that came to mind. The griffin can also be found in Egyptian, Indian, and European Mythology. I also learned about the minokawa from Filipino Mythology. This was my first-time learning about the minokawa, and I thought it was a pretty cool creature. The minokawa is strong and mysterious with mirrored eyes. It has sword-like feathers and a body made of metal. The minokawa is an evil creature whose goal is to destroy life itself. Every night the minokawa tries to eat the moon and the sun with the ultimate goal of descending onto the Earth and eating all of humanity. The minokawa is a symbol of destruction, but sounds really cool, right?
Unfortunately, as cool as the minokawa may be, naming a single pilot fighter after a symbol of destruction for the organization in the Celestial Saga that is supposed to be the good side did not seem like the right idea. I also found that the other winged mythological creatures I knew of or was reading about were not clicking as a fitting name either. I love Greek Mythology and learning about Ancient Greece in general so not being able to find some inspiration there was a little disappointing. You can find references to Greek Mythology and Ancient Greece throughout the Celestial Saga though.
However, reading about the minokawa and the naming scheme for vehicles that the UNSC uses in Halo started connecting things. I love hawks, I think they are awesome birds of prey and I wanted to do something with them in the story. I thought about the minokawa and how it has sword-like feathers. Halo has a ship called a Longsword, so I didn’t necessarily want to use sword in the name in order to avoid similarities. Many cultures, such as the ancient Greeks, used the spear as a main weapon of combat. Going back to the minokawa and its sword-like feathers, I replaced that with a spear and the Spearhawk got its name.
My golden retriever brain has strange ways of connecting the dots when it comes to naming things when using traffic jams and birds with sword-like feathers for inspiration.
- Section Eight: The First Chapter in General -
The first chapter in general I wanted to be a fun introduction to the universe of the Celestial Saga and I could think of no better way to do that than paying homage to my favorite Star Wars movie. After I restarted it for the second time that is with what became the finished book.
Looking back at this chapter, I enjoyed how simple it was. It was a nice little introduction into the universe, you get questions that need answering like why the peace negotiations between the Kaltari Empire and United Celestial Alliance didn’t occur. As the author its enjoyable knowing that I have the answers to these questions, but the characters and the readers have to continue on their journey to see how the events unfold.
That will wrap things up for the second entry and I hope that you will continue reading onto the next entry. The third entry will be about chapter two of Celestial Saga: Dawn of the Seekers titled Halls of the Ever Star. The story slows down a little after an action packed first chapter as we learn more about the members of Nova Team and I will talk about why its my favorite chapter from the book. If you have any questions, please feel free to use my website’s contact form and I will address them in a future entry.