Crafting the Celestial Saga: Doom's Prophet

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 fourteen of Dawn of the Seekers, Doom’s Prophet. 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.

Doom’s Prophet features the conclusion to the climatic battle for Dawn of the Seekers. Nova Team races against the clock to rescue Julal and stop Malaton. The United Celestial Alliance (UCA) and Coalition of Free Species (CFS) continue to evacuate the city of Willow and Gra Ingra as whole.

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- Section One: Changes from the Second Draft -

The final version of chapter fourteen in Dawn of the Seekers technically takes the place of two chapters within the second draft. In the second draft, I referred to the Arashi as the Guardians and they had designed the planet of Italia after Earth’s Italian Renaissance shortly after arriving in the Milky Way. There were ruins on the planet that UCA scientists had been trying to study since the discovery of the planet. Their attempts to gain access to these ruins have so far been unsuccessful. Since Malaton is working for the Conclave and Bala was still alive to help him, he gained access to the ruins.

The ruins contained a map that showed the location of the outposts that the Guardians had placed throughout the Milky Way. Nova Team fights against Malaton’s elite soldiers as Malaton makes his way back to the Doom’s Prophet. Nova Team takes a Kaltari shuttle to the Doom’s Prophet where the first thing they do is break the other Seekers out of the holding cells. Ethan has Julal and the other Seekers get off the Doom’s Prophet while Nova Team goes after Malaton on the bridge.

Ethan and Malaton exchange words during their fight. Ethan calls Malaton a monster, Malaton states that because Ethan is letting vengeance consume him, that is the beginning of making a monster. Eventually Malaton ends up in a precarious position where he is hanging out of a viewport on the bridge. Ethan kicks him causing him to fall to the depths below.

In the second draft, Italia is the only planet to be destroyed in the system. The Kaltari’s superweapon is a planet killer versus a weapon that can cause a star to go supernova. My initial inspiration for this was 2009’s Star Trek when Nero destroyed Vulcan. Nova Team holds themselves responsible for the destruction of Italia since they couldn’t stop Malaton back on Jumper 9.

If you have read Dawn of the Seekers, you can see how some of these events remained the same and how they changed a bit for the final version of the story. As I’ve mentioned in previous entries of Crafting the Celestial Saga, the final battle taking place on Italia was cut. I also cut the chapter where Malaton and Nova Team enter ruins left by the Arashi. Many years ago, when I was talking to a co-worker, I was telling him about the story and how I had an advanced race called the Guardians. He had told me that I had to come up with a cooler name for them. Eventually the Guardians became known as the Arashi, and I never looked back.

With the cutting of the ruins, that also meant the map room was cut as well. For the final version of the story, I had the device that was on Jumper 9 contain a map leading to the Arashi vaults within the Milky Way. I believe my original plan was to have numerous Arashi outposts throughout the Milky Way. This number was heavily decreased for the final version of the story.

In a previous entry, I mentioned how all of the Seekers that arrived in the Milky Way from the Inaris Galaxy survived the events of Dawn of the Seekers. In the final version of the story, that is not the case. Ethan has all of the Seekers leave the Doom’s Prophet while Nova Team sets off to deal with Malaton. In the final version of the story, Julal goes with them to the bridge to fight.

Vengeance was a heavy theme in the second draft. Ethan had his mind set on killing Malaton to get revenge for Malaton killing Jamie Harper. In the end, I did not think that this was characteristic of Ethan and dropped his desire to get revenge. At least, dropped it to the point where it wasn’t a central factor that was driving him. In the final version of Dawn of the Seekers for Ethan, killing Malaton was a last resort. He saw how keeping the Emperor of the Kaltari Empire alive could end the war.

Since Jamie was Daniel Robinson’s best friend, it made more sense for Daniel to be set on getting revenge. Which is something I mention in the story, especially with how Daniel wants to spring into action on the bridge of the Doom’s Prophet. Julal also wants to get revenge on Malaton for what he did to the Seekers. I still did not play too heavily into the theme of revenge in the final version of the story as it wasn’t what I wanted the focus of the story to be.

In the second draft, Malaton was left hanging out of the viewport of the Doom’s Prophet, much like he was in the final version of Dawn of the Seekers. However, in the second draft, Ethan kicks him out of the window instead of Malaton willingly letting himself go. This was a necessary change in part to drop Ethan’s desire for revenge from the final version of the story and to go along with the plan that Malaton developed. I also didn’t want Ethan to be viewed as a stone-cold killer which is why I changed how Malaton falls. I had made a similar change with the dealing of the Kaltari captain aboard the Vrenner as well.

In a previous entry, I mentioned how I gave Malaton a god complex. In the second draft, he mentions how he is working for his masters. Ethan asks Malaton that if he fancies himself a god, why does he have a master? Malaton obviously didn’t like this very much and wanted to kill Ethan for what he said. In the final version of Dawn of the Seekers, I dropped Malaton having a god complex as I felt it was unnecessary and that he was a more compelling villain without it. Something I allude to in the story is that Malaton has a larger goal at play that will see him bowing down to no one.

The rest of this chapter in the second draft includes the final chapter from Dawn of the Seekers so I will discuss the remaining portion in the next entry of Crafting of the Celestial Saga.

- Section Two: Malaton’s words to Ethan -

While I may have changed Malaton having a god complex for the final version of the story, one thing I didn’t change is the conversation about monsters that Malaton and Ethan have. There’s a quote that says every villain is a hero in their own eyes. Malaton states this fact to Ethan, that while Ethan views Malaton as the villain, Malaton says that everything he has done is for the good of the Kaltari Empire and the Conclave. Malaton tells Ethan that he thinks that he is righteous for fighting for the side that he thinks is good.

The fact is both have taken lives in the war. Malaton is viewed as a monster by the UCA because he is the villain in their eyes. Malaton has waged war, takes no prisoners, and leaves no witnesses. Ethan is viewed as a monster by the Kaltari Empire since he fights for the UCA. Both have taken the lives of their enemy, and both will take more lives before the war between their two sides is over.

Ethan thinks about the Kaltari captain who was aboard the Vrenner. He had told the captain that if he gave them information, he would allow the captain to live. Which he did, but the captain wasn’t able to make it off the Vrenner before it collided with another ship. He had been true to his word in allowing the captain to live, it was up to the Kaltari captain for how long that was going to be.

However, Ethan is less of a monster than Malaton as he does not attack civilian populations, cause the extinction of a species, or doom a whole planet to an impending supernova. The importance of this conversation was to show that the saying is true, every villain is a hero in their own eyes. The Kaltari Empire views Malaton as a hero just like the UCA views Ethan as a hero. To the other side, they are the villain, they are the monster.

This was dialogue that I had thought about changing or cutting altogether at various times. I even thought about going back and cutting the scene with the Kaltari captain. I didn’t want to risk Ethan being viewed as a bad guy since he and Nova Team are the heroes of this story. Ultimately, I kept the dialogue in because even heroes have flaws. They have to make questionable calls and maybe they are a little more coldhearted at times. Once I wrote the scene, I felt confident that Ethan wouldn’t be viewed in a negative way here.

- Section Three: Nova Team fights Malaton -

We’ve arrived at last to the battle between the heroes and the big bad evil guy. Nova Team squares off against Malaton as they get to see his raw strength firsthand. Even with the injuries he sustained against his fight with Jamie Harper, Malaton is a formidable opponent. It takes all of Nova Team to take him down and even that was nearly not enough.

Every member of the team gets a crack at Malaton, some more than others, and Malaton gets his fair share of hits against them. One thing I really wanted to stand out in this fight is a moment that Daniel gets to release his rage. He punches Malaton hard enough repeatedly that he breaks his own wrist. This didn’t mean that Daniel was weak or was punching in bad form, this was to show how strong Malaton was physically. Malaton took blow after blow and still wouldn’t yield. Daniel gave those punches everything he had as he let his rage out for Malaton killing Jamie.

Malaton manages to get the upper hand against Nova Team before John Banks arrives with help from Eagle Squadron to allow Nova Team to recover. In a PG-13 movie, you’re allowed a f-bomb or two, and here I wanted to play it in a humorous way. John starts to deliver his best Predator line about how ugly Malaton is before the four-letter word is drowned out by the sound of the transport’s weapons firing. This was my way of including a classic movie moment where the f-bomb is obscured by a sound.

As I mentioned above, in the second draft, Ethan kicks Malaton in the chest to cause Malaton to fall to his death. In the final version of the story, Ethan offers Malaton a chance to join the UCA against the Conclave and live. Malaton refuses as he releases his grip and plunges into the burning sea below. This was to continue to build the mystery around Malaton and what his ultimate plan was. It was Malaton’s intention to die that day, or at least make the galaxy believe that he was dead.

- Section Four: Trusting the Last Seeker -

On the blurb for Dawn of the Seekers, I mention how Nova Team courts the boundary of friend or foe. This came into play in this chapter. After the events of the Tower, Nova Team wasn’t sure if the Leoan (Seekers) were friends or foes. Therefore, they were courting that boundary as they set off to rescue Julal on the Doom’s Prophet.

Rescuing Julal is something that Nova Team knew Jamie Harper would have wanted. Ethan makes the decision to trust Julal and release him from the cell he was being held captive in. Julal helps Nova Team for the rest of the chapter as he wants some payback on Malaton.

In the second draft, all of the Seekers survived, and Nova Team trusts them right away. In the final version of the story, only Julal remains, and he has to convince Nova Team that he is not a threat. He further does this in the story’s final chapter as well.

This was just a small piece of tension I wanted to have to see if Nova Team was going to further associate with who the title of the book is about. Jamie had been that driving force for Nova Team to work with the Seekers. Without him, one had to wonder if that relationship was going to continue, or if it would fade out. Nova Team ensured that the alliance that was forming between the UCA and Seekers would continue.

The changes to this chapter allowed me to show what a Leoan is capable of in combat. Julal’s combat style is heavily inspired by Yoda from Star Wars’ Prequel Trilogy. Julal uses close quarters combat while jumping around and moving quickly. The Seekers really didn’t do anything in the second draft, so this was my opportunity to let one shine. It was fun to write Julal’s action sequence in the hallway leading to the bridge. Plus, everyone loves a good hallway fight.

- Section Five: The Dog -

Chapter fifteen introduced one final character for the debut of the Celestial Saga and that was a dog named Skip. It seems like an odd character to introduce, a dog in the middle of a crumbling city who gets picked up by Carter Jensen of Hades Team, but that was the exact reasoning. There’s a saying that goes something like, “I don’t trust a person who doesn’t like dogs, but I trust a dog who doesn’t like a person.” I am a firm believer in this saying as if my dog doesn’t like you, odds are I’m not going to like you and vice versa.

So, I thought what better way to show a change in someone’s character than having a dog trust them! The reader has seen Carter Jensen make character changes throughout the book. This was the final icing on the cake to have a dog that is in the middle of a war-torn city trust him enough to go with him. Carter even wants to see if he could find the owners but knows that there isn’t enough time.

The old Carter Jensen wouldn’t have rescued a dog in this situation. He wouldn’t have even cared about the dog. He wouldn’t have even cared if his team had survived the destruction of the City Destroyer. He would have proceeded to the evacuation area and left without a second thought. Instead, he now checks on his team first to make sure that they are okay, is happy to see that Kameron Reed is okay, and takes the dog with him so that they save one more life.

Dogs are an ultimate representation of what is good in the world. Having one trust a human character like this shows the good in the person.

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Doom’s Prophet saw a star go supernova, the big bad evil guy meets his end, and the change of heart within a troubled character. Nova Team had to race against the clock to stop Malaton before the planet was caught in the burning star. After events like the ones featured in this chapter, it’s hard to think about what’s next. Luckily, the final chapter of the story will answer some of those questions.

That will wrap things up for this entry. The next entry will be about chapter fifteen in the book, a Galaxy on Fire, and the epilogue. 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.