Crafting the Celestial Saga: The City Destroyer
- Alex O'Connor
- Sep 1
- 8 min read
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 thirteen of Dawn of the Seekers, the City Destroyer. 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.
This is an action-packed chapter as Nova Team, along with Hades Team and the Coalition of Free Species (CFS), have to take down a massive Kaltari war machine. Tensions rise between the United Celestial Alliance (UCA) and CFS while Fleet Admiral Devroe issues a controversial order. The forces of good work against the clock knowing the system’s star could go supernova at any second.
- Section One: The Second Draft -
In the second draft of Celestial Saga: Dawn of the Seekers, or finished script as I like to call it, this chapter was only six pages long. In the final version of the story, this ended up being the longest chapter in the book. The overall goal remained the same, stop the City Destroyer, while the events that played out did not necessarily stay the same.
In the second draft, Nova Team are the first UCA forces to arrive on Italia to clear a landing zone for the others. They make their way to a building tall enough to jump onto the City Destroyer and do so. They fight their way through the City Destroyer where they find the power source that the Kaltari took from Jumper 9. They destroy the power source by shooting it and find a transport to get off the City Destroyer as it falls to the ground. This allows for the UCA to begin landing troops.
In the final version of the story, Nova Team still uses a building to jump onto the City Destroyer, but they don’t do it alone. Hades Team who had already been on Gra Ingra’s surface, are there to help along with Kameron Reed and the forces of the Coalition of Free Species. Eagle Squadron helps out as bait to lure the City Destroyer to the building. As I had mentioned in the previous entry, changing the location of the final battle from a tourist destination to a planet that had already been established within the universe provided more of an impact to the story’s climax.
I also abandoned the Arashi power source concept from the second draft. For the final version of the story, the device on Jumper 9 would have helped the Seekers in their quest to find the Arashi vaults. This was one of numerous changes to Dawn of the Seekers that helped the story have more depth and meaning.
Including others to fight alongside Nova Team helped grow the scale of the fight and provide moments that were pivotal to character development and the future of the Celestial Saga. The reader gets to see the change in Carter Jensen to become the leader that he was supposed to be. The reader also gets to see how Nova Team, specifically Ethan, has an impact on the internal conflict of Kameron Reed.
Something that I have recently realized is that one of the things I have loved the most about writing the Celestial Saga over the years is when characters with separate storylines come together. We really get to see that shine in this chapter. Nova Team, the central characters, were off with the Seekers looking for vaults. Kameron Reed and Fleet Admiral Devroe were keeping the peace between their respective sides. Hades Team was there to provide tactical support wherever they were needed. The characters are off doing their own thing before coming together in the end to fight for Gra Ingra. It’s been fun to see how that plays out over the course of the three books in the Celestial Saga so far.
- Section Two: A Love Story -
One thing I dislike about most movies and TV shows is that there can’t be a normal, good old-fashioned romance. There always has to be some sort of love triangle or some reason why two people in love can’t be together, that seems like a stupid reason. There also is frequently some event where one of them does a horrible thing to the other and then they break things off. For the Celestial Saga, I didn’t want to do that with Ethan and Jennifer. The two of them have been in love since the first time they saw each other, and I didn’t want to see anything get in their way.
Throughout the story, I mention how in love the two are. From their walk in the Halls of the Ever Star to Jennifer coming to rescue Nova Team at the tower. It was important to me to show a romance, a love story, that was beautiful from the start. There aren’t external factors playing to keep them apart, there is no one else involved, it’s just two people who are madly in love and everyone knows it. Sure, they’ve had their ups and downs throughout the years that they’ve been together, but they’ve always been there for each other and will always work to make things right. Neither one of them has done something to cause so much pain to the other that they never want to see each other again either. I just wanted to have a relationship that is not toxic and seemingly works well to be featured in the story.
I know that this isn’t how love in the real world plays out more often than not, but for the love story between Ethan Richards and Jennifer Anderson, it’s that fairytale romance that I wanted.
- Section Three: Inspiring Change -
I had mentioned earlier in the story how Nova Team inspires those around them. I had also mentioned how Carter Jensen vowed to change. While we already saw this change in Carter happening during the events of the Tower, here the reader gets to see it fully on display. The old Carter Jensen would not have helped Nova Team or the CFS as nicely as he did. The old Hades Team would have found the most destructive way to take out the City Destroyer with no regard to what happened to the city or those around them. Granted the city of Willow is doomed due to the impending supernova, there were still civilians to be saved.
Ethan notices the change in Carter when they take over the command room of the City Destroyer. He sees Carter acting like the leader he was always supposed to be. Carter is playing nicely with others, issuing orders that make sense and help the larger picture, not just seeing what kind of chaos he can cause. It was an example that I wanted to show for the change that Nova Team, specifically Ethan, inspires in others.
Ethan has a couple of conversations with Kameron Reed throughout the chapter. The final one that they have on the City Destroyer lets Kameron know that Ethan had heard what Ryden had said on the streets of Willow. Despite Fleet Admiral Devroe going against his word, Kameron starts to believe in the UCA again thanks to Nova Team and Hades Team.
This is another example of how Ethan and Nova Team inspire change in others. Kameron, while still conflicted, by the end of the story is fighting the urges to go to war with an organization that was there to help. These conflicted feelings within her are a direct result of Nova Team staying to help them. She saw how the defiance of both Nova Team and Hades Team not evacuating caused the rest of the UCA to defy the order given by Fleet Admiral Devroe as well.
Nova Team, Ethan Richards, they all inspire change to make others want to do better, to be better. I wanted to have characters that inspired this in other people and having the events of Dawn of the Seekers play out the way that they did allowed me to do so. Especially the changes I made with these final chapters to include characters such as Kameron Reed and a setting such as Gra Ingra.
- Section Four: The Order -
Speaking of the order that was given by Fleet Admiral William Devroe, that order was to pull all UCA forces off Gra Ingra to avoid the supernova. Fleet Admiral Devroe had the best intentions in mind as far as the forces of the United Celestial Alliance goes. He wanted to prevent the people and ships under his command from getting fried. However, this order went against his word that he gave to Kameron Reed that the UCA would help the CFS evacuate the city. Without the help of the UCA, the civilians living in Willow would have little to no help to get off the planet. This order could also be viewed as going against the principles that the United Celestial Alliance upholds.
A fun fact about this order, it came as a surprise to me. In my head, Fleet Admiral Devroe is like Admiral Hackett from Mass Effect or Lord Hood from Halo. Someone who you know is in charge, but can still make a bad or controversial call. I ended up just kind of writing the words on the page without the intention of doing so, liked where it was going, and rolled with it. I didn’t want Fleet Admiral Devroe to be viewed in a negative light, however, this provided the opportunity to cause some suspense in the final moments of the story and show how the actions of Nova Team and Hades Team inspire the rest of the UCA.
Seeing the defiance of those two special forces teams, followed by the actions that Captain Stanton takes, has the rest of the UCA Seventh Fleet defy Fleet Admiral Devroe as well.
- Section Five: Two New Members -
As Nova Team makes their way to the Doom’s Prophet at the end of the chapter, Ciro Ruiz and Jennifer Anderson officially join the team. Ciro gets inducted by Nathan Ward as the other members of Nova Team agree. Ciro had earned his right to join the team having stuck with them since Jumper 9 and proven his abilities. Jennifer had always been a member of the team, but she was now recognized officially as there was no way she would be able to return to her regular duties after the events of the day.
Having Ciro and Jennifer join the team in a more organic way was a change I wanted to make in the final version of the story. I had mentioned in a previous entry that I originally threw Ciro into the mix, but in Dawn of the Seekers, had him be stationed on Jumper 9 which allowed him to organically get thrown into the mix. I had always intended for Jennifer to come and rescue Nova Team at the Tower, which is how she was going to officially join the team for the rest of the events of the story.
This chapter featured plenty of action between special forces fighting on the ground to Eagle Squadron soaring through the skies. We get to see how the characters converge in Dawn of the Seeker’s climatic battle to aid in the evacuation of a planet and stop the Kaltari. We also get to see the internal conflict within Kameron Reed as she struggles between going to war with the UCA, or trusting them to be the organization that they are supposed to be. The race against the clock is in full swing as Nova Team sets off to rescue Julal and stop Malaton before the system’s star goes supernova.
That will wrap things up for this entry. The next entry will be about chapter fourteen in the book, Doom’s Prophet. 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.
