Crafting the Celestial Saga: Diplomatic Meeting
- Alex O'Connor
- Aug 2
- 8 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
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 eleven of Dawn of the Seekers, Diplomatic Meeting. 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 of the book, the Coalition of Free Species (CFS) takes center stage as Fleet Admiral William Devroe initiates a prisoner exchange. This chapter also presents the event that leads up to the climactic final battle!
- Section One: Changes -
Diplomatic Meeting, or a chapter like it, did not appear in the previous two drafts for Celestial Saga: Dawn of the Seekers. This was something that I added into the book version of the story specifically. The second draft, or finished script, was intended to be a video game so having this chapter be a long cutscene wouldn’t fit the pacing of what would have been an FPS game. Making the change to a book instead of a game truly allowed me to do everything with this story that I wanted, and more. This chapter did undergo a few changes during the writing process.
At first, the meeting between the United Celestial Alliance (UCA) and Coalition of Free Species was mentioned. Later on, I decided to make it a chapter of its own. However, I was looking at the long-term impact of this chapter. I had the idea of Fleet Admiral William Devroe meeting with a random guy from the CFS. I never had any intention of using this character from the CFS again.
When I was writing Jumper 9, I kept flipping between naming the comms officer who was communicating with Nova Team or not. I used the name Kameron Reed for the comms officer. I kept writing it, deleting it, re-writing the name, and so on. I don’t know exactly what it was, but the name stood out to me, and I had a feeling that a character using this name was meant for something more important than to be a one-off comms officer. I thought of a little subplot between the comms officer and Ciro Ruiz but ultimately scraped that idea. So, I wrote the name Kameron Reed down to save for later when the time felt right.
As I was thinking about this chapter, who Fleet Admiral Devroe was going to meet with, and plans for a future entry of the Celestial Saga, things started to click and fall into place. Kameron Reed made her grand entrance as the leader of the Coalition of Free Species. All the other pieces of thinking about this chapter, along with future installments, just clicked as her character appeared in my mind’s eye fitting those spaces.
After that, I started imagining the conversation she would have with Fleet Admiral William Devroe. Especially since she was a former captain in the United Celestial Alliance. I started thinking about how she was in the unique position of being in a leadership position for both parties involved. It ended up becoming a fun political scene with the dialogue involved.
The ending of the chapter remained the same as it was intended before the introduction of Kameron Reed. The Kaltari would arrive and cause the system’s star to go supernova. I had intended for the CFS and UCA to work together, but with the introduction of Kameron Reed, that opened up so many possibilities for future chapters which I will discuss when we get there in Crafting the Celestial Saga.
- Section Two: Kameron Reed -
Kameron Reed was the third to last character I created for the story. The other two being Ryden Klauss and Skip. Those three were added in a few months before the release of Dawn of the Seekers in 2023. Creating Kameron and Ryden filled so many gaps in my head for the future entries of the Celestial Saga that I have planned. I’m not sure if it was due to the fact that she was the first new character I had created for the saga in ten years, or just from how complex I made Kameron, but she ended up becoming my favorite character in the Celestial Saga. (Sorry, Ethan.)
Writing the dialogue that I had for her, playing the Devil’s advocate, as she conversed with Fleet Admiral Devroe was so much fun to write! It also was a fun test to myself as it was some of the most complex dialogue I had written to date. Writing a character who is ultimately good, appearing bad, and the good guy (Devroe) not knowing what side she is on, was a fun challenge to create. As I had mentioned, this chapter did not appear in the first or second draft of Dawn of the Seekers, so it really allowed me to go wild with what I did with it.
Kameron has the unique perspective of having served in the United Celestial Alliance and later becoming the leader of the Coalition of Free Species. It wasn’t necessarily a title she was looking to fill, but some are born great, and others have greatness thrust upon them. There was a role that needed to be filled, a job that needed to be done, and Kameron Reed was there to do it. While she had to leave the UCA because she was tired of the war and seeing what it had done to friends and the worlds they lived on, she still has a lot of respect for the UCA. Afterall, they are the governing body, and she knew that poking the bear was not a good idea.
She never had any intentions of having the CFS go to war against the UCA. The CFS was created for those looking to escape the war and the rule of the UCA, she was not going to have them enter a fight they did not want to. Her advisors, however, aren’t exactly on the same page. She ultimately has the final say on whether the CFS attacks the UCA or not, and she never authorized any such action. Nor would she. That’s why she believes that the rumors of the CFS attacking a UCA base or even going to war with the UCA are just that, rumors. Once she hears the confirmation from Fleet Admiral Devroe that a UCA base had been attacked by non-Kaltari forces, she suspects that something may be going on within the CFS and planned to investigate after the meeting was over.
This would have to wait as the Kaltari fleet arrives, launching an attack on Gra Ingra. She kills the Kaltari operative that Fleet Admiral Devroe had brought to face justice for the bombing that occurred at the end of the chapter titled Ithaca. She turns her gun on the UCA which causes both sides to raise their weapons. Fleet Admiral Devroe is able to talk both sides down. Kameron starts to think going to war with the UCA would be a good idea since Gra Ingra wanted no part in the war against the Kaltari and now the Kaltari were attacking. She blamed the UCA for this, but knew she needed their help to evacuate the city.
This inner turmoil that Kameron has is explored throughout the next couple of chapters as the Battle of Gra Ingra is just getting started.
- Section Three: A Place to Fight -
This is something that I could technically talk about in the next entry of Crafting the Celestial Saga, but I will talk about it here since this is where the fight really begins. The final battle happening on Gra Ingra, along with the planet’s destruction, was a change that I made for the final version of Dawn of the Seekers. In the second draft, the final battle takes place on a planet called Italia.
One night, I had a dream that featured a battle, along with a character entering the battle in a way similar to ODSTs from the Halo franchise. This battle was taking place on a planet that looked like it was Italy during the Italian Renaissance, which is one of my favorite time periods to learn about. For the Celestial Saga, I had changed this dream slightly on how the characters, which would be Nova Team, entered the fight. Italia was going to be a tourist planet where you could have an authentic experience like you were living in Italy during the Italian Renaissance. It was very Assassin’s Creed II.
What would the reader’s connection to Italia be? What would the impact of Italia being destroyed be on a larger scale to the universe of the Celestial Saga? Why introduce a new planet this late into the story? These were questions that I asked myself before arriving at the conclusion to scrap Italia being the place of the final battle and use Gra Ingra instead. The reader has already been to this planet, they have learned the importance of the planet, and now they get to see how this place played into the larger picture of Dawn of the Seekers.
Going back to a place that was already known felt right. Plus, thinking about Malaton’s plan that he has for the Milky Way, it would make more sense in the long run. Dawn of the Seekers had already spent an entire chapter here, it is mentioned in a few places about the growing animosity between the CFS and UCA, so going back to Gra Ingra felt right. You start to see how this has larger implications within the Celestial Saga throughout the book’s final chapters and start to wonder how it will play out over the course of the saga.
Oh, and Italia still exists within universe.
- Section Four: Timing -
One of the cool things that happens over the final act of the book is that there are a lot of events taking place at the same time. While I explored this story telling mechanic on a smaller scale during chapters like Ithaca and Three Team Raid, the final chapters of the book feature it on a larger scale. Chapters such as the Tower, Diplomatic Meeting, and Ship a hoy, Nova Team!, all take place at the same time. There are pieces of dialogue or mentions in the book on how the chapters intertwine with each other.
This was a fun experience for me as a writer as it was the first time that I had ever done something like this. To me, it was fun to write how these characters are having different experiences at different places, yet they all meet at the same time and place to finish the story. In my head while thinking of the story, it hadn’t dawned on me how much was taking place at the same time until I wrote it on paper. It was just a fun and cool experience!
- Section Five: Setting up the Final Battle -
We’ve almost reached the end. The ending of Diplomatic Meeting sets up the ending for the entire book. The Kaltari have launched a massive war machine into the heart of Gra Ingra’s capital city, the Kaltari fleet has arrived with a weapon that causes a star to go supernova, and the UCA now has to help the CFS evacuate the planet.
This is what the story has all been building up to. The epic confrontation on the streets of Gra Ingra. Good versus evil. UCA versus Kaltari Empire. I laid the groundwork for this battle throughout the story. The facility on Kalfuri is where the City Destroyer was constructed. Julal talking about the Conclave’s weapon that causes a supernova would become a frightening reality in the Milky Way Galaxy. The only difference is that Malaton had Kaltari scientist make a slight adjustment to the weapon to delay the reaction. Afterall, it was part of his plan to die. More on that in a future entry.
Diplomatic Meeting was a fun chapter for me to write as I was able to introduce my new favorite character. Seeing how it changed over the course of writing the chapter, as well as the book as a whole, was something fun to watch as well. Also, as a writer, arriving at the final battle felt like a nice payoff for writing everything that led up to it.
That will wrap things up for this entry. The next entry will be about chapter twelve in the book, Ship a hoy, Nova Team! 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.
