Crafting the Celestial Saga: An Uneasy Feeling

Welcome to this entry of Crafting the Celestial Saga where I give you a behind-the-scenes look at the series. This entry is all about chapter nine of Dawn of the Seekers, An Uneasy Feeling. I am someone who hates spoilers so I would like to warn you that spoilers for Dawn of the Seekers follow. 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.

In this chapter, we get to see an interaction between Captain Stanton and Fleet Admiral Devroe, we learn about a potential upcoming plot point, and how some of the UCA’s military leaders have grown to trust each other.

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- Section One: The Purpose of this Chapter -

I will admit it; this chapter is essentially filler. It was a later addition because I felt like the story needed a little something extra and I thought this would be a good way to let the reader know something is happening on Gra Ingra along with what is happening with Nova Team. It was my way of showing that while events seem separate in the story such as the potential conflict with the Coalition of Free Species, the war with the Kaltari Empire, and the threat of the Conclave, they are actually all sides of the same coin. Malaton was orchestrating the players in his plan, the residents of the Milky Way just haven’t realized it yet.

I also wanted to use this chapter to speak to the character of some of the characters. In it the reader learns how much Captain Stanton trusts Ethan Richards and the reader learns how much Fleet Admiral Devroe trusts Captain Stanton. These are three key characters of the Celestial Saga, especially since I refer to the first trilogy as the Ethan Richards Trilogy, so I wanted to show how the characters trust each other or are learning to trust each other. It’s a large part of the story going forward.

- Section Two: Run Now, Hug Later -

“Run now, hug later,” is something that I say when I am watching movies. A lot of times there will be people running for their lives or in a huge fight and they take a moment to hug or talk to the person they were separated from and are now reunited. I always found this silly as whatever is chasing them or the war seems to stop while the characters have their little reunion. If I was in a situation like that, I would think there would be time to celebrate once we get out of there alive. So, let’s focus on that first. That’s why in this chapter I have Fleet Admiral Devroe think to himself that there will be a time to mourn and a time to fight. He could dwell on the lives that were lost at Jumper 9, but that wouldn’t do anyone any good at the moment. He had to focus on meeting the leader of the Coalition of Free Species and the war overall. Fight now, mourn later.

- Section Three: Flying off Alone -

While this chapter didn’t exist in the finished script, there was a change that I made to how the story played out. In the finished script, I had the Ever Star stay behind to collect the shuttle that Nova Team used to go to the Seekers’ ship. My thought behind that is the UCA is an organization that believes in cleanliness, so they weren’t going to litter in space by leaving a shuttle floating around out there.

However, that didn’t make any sense. Why would Captain Stanton allow his favorite special forces team to fly off into the unknown with a group of aliens they just met? Especially if the Kaltari were going to be there in full force like they suspected. Not to mention I had said that the Seekers’ ship was damaged. That was just a little plot point I elected to ignore at first that was fixed in the final version of the story.

- Section Four: Not just a Ship -

While this chapter may have been filler, it did allow me to write something that I thought was cool in how Captain Stanton could feel the shift in the Ever Star’s momentum as she made the FTL jump. That went a long way in showing how the flagship of the series is more than just a ship, she’s the Ever Star, a main character of the Celestial Saga.

From the beginning that was an important story element that I wanted to show. That’s why I make sure to refer to the Ever Star by name and not as “the ship” or some version of that. I want the Ever Star to be to the Celestial Saga like the Normandy is to Mass Effect or the Enterprise is to Star Trek.

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An Uneasy Feeling is a short chapter, and could be considered a filler chapter, but it did allow for some small character moments while setting up a plot point for the climactic finish.

That will wrap things up for this entry. The next entry will be about chapter ten in the book, the Tower. I hope you enjoyed this entry of Crafting the Celestial Saga, and I hope you will return for the next. If you have any questions, please feel free to use my website’s contact form and I will address them in a future entry.