Love as a History Altering Force

Throughout the ages love has had the same effects on civilization as a force of nature. Emotion drives decisions, incites wars, launches ships... 

Empires fall or triumph because of the liaisons of its leaders. History is brewed in the caldron of love, honor and betrayal.

Draxian society is also a slave to the forces of love. An ancient pact that has defined Draxian generational monarchy for 120 centuries sets the story in motion. 

The pact was actually a final love letter from a king to his mate...

A love letter she would never see.

A Journey Ends

As I continue "head-writing" the second and third novels in my generational trilogy, I'm wrangling with one unavoidable aspect -- the death of important characters. It can't be sidestepped in a storyline that covers nearly a century in the transformation of one planet, but that reality doesn't lessen the impact of these terrible losses.

I remember a popular generational series I read as a young adult (anyone remember The Bastard?) As a reader, I ate the series up....until the anti-climatic death of the title character. Then I had difficulty reading on or caring where the story led. 

As an author, it's my responsibility to learn from that experience and ensure the deaths have meaning and/or dignity and the passing leaves the reader with a sense that this character has accomplished their purpose in their time before they "go to the stars," but the day has come when they must hand the reins off to those who will follow them. 

Lately, one of these characters has been asserting her will in my subconscious by showing me scenes from her end days, and "suggestions" for how she'd like it all to unfold. At this point in the story, the focus has shifted to later generations, but she's still very present and still very much a guiding hand and a powerful influence, and her loss is going to be felt very deeply. It's up to me to ensure that her legacy lives on, and the role she played in shaping an empire and preparing it for a bold and uncertain new future casts an indelible mark that will echo down through the centuries.

If you've read any of the books in my Inherited Stars series, you may have a clue who she was. Her actions are still causing ripples fifteen hundred years later, and her legend is either adamantly affirmed or vehemently denied, depending on the particular character's beliefs.

Remember Cleopatra's death scene in the 1963 film? It's a very different death in a very different civilization (and this character most certainly did not commit suicide), but I think it provides some inspiration for how this scene might unfold.

Thanks for stopping in.

[Republished from Spacefreighters Lounge, July 2021.]

Living with World-Changing Prophecy

Some of you may remember that 2012 was the year the world was supposed to end...on 12/21/12, by most accounts. Inspired by that prediction this post, written in early 2012, talked about Living with World-Changing Prophecy and garnered over 795 reads. 

That experience gave me some great inspiration as I was crafting this novel. Later that year, Draxis was named as a 2012 RWA Golden Heart finalist, my third and final Golden Heart adventure. 

Probably high time I get back to it. :) 

_________________

Something's coming. Something BIG!

Or not.

Lately I've been living a sort of immersion scenario while I work on a novel that reflects on the current uneasiness in our culture surrounding an upcoming date on our calendar.

Let me explain...

Living With World-Changing Prophecy

2012

We're living in a time where our world has gone edgy with expectation.

Many cultures of the past--the Mayan, the Hopi, the Chinese, and others--have all hinted that on one particular date in the future something big is going to happen. Many researchers agree they are all pointing to the same date--December 21, 2012.

12-21-12

Eleven months from now.

No one really knows exactly what will happen, only that an ancient calendar comes to an abrupt end on that particular date.

Some forecast doom and gloom in the eerily prophetic Mayan calendar--a calendar that has supposedly marked every major astronomical event for eons. 

Its terminus has been put forth by some to correlate to an energy surge from alignment with the galactic rift, a polar shift, intense solar flares, impact by a stray comet or errant asteroid, a direct hit from a gamma ray burst, an overdue super-volcanic eruption, shut down of the ocean conveyor and the inevitable instant ice age, or the mysterious planet X that's supposed to come swooping in from the edges of our solar system and barreling through the orbital planes of the inner planets to collide with Earth.

Some believe it will be a change for better, for enlightenment, for the next step in human evolution.

And then there's the school of thought that nothing is going to happen at all. It's just going to be another date on the calendar.

After all, how can an ancient society predict what's going to happen in the future--long after their civilization has ceased to exist? How can they know?

There's actually a precedence for that, according to some researchers. They're studying a sudden spike in global consciousness the morning of September 11, 2001, hours before the events of that day actually occurred. They claim random event generators can predict catastrophes that are yet to happen. [Read more.] 

Are they just quacks, or is there really a way to tap into a global consciousness and "see" events that are yet to happen? Are some people wired to tune in to the future?

Was Nostradamus a prophet who predicted the rise of Hitler and other upheavals in history, or merely a very clever creator of enigmatic words with symbolism that could be interpreted or twisted in any way to mean anything a person chooses?

The Great Prophecy of Draxis

In my novel, Draxis, the people of this fictional society are living with a prehistoric prophecy that might be coming true. And just like the theories surrounding 2012, many are jittery and fearful. They aren't sure if the change that's foretold will result in annihilation, or glorious evolution...or if anything will happen at all.

The Great Prophecy was written by a philosopher-visionary named Hamaden Sarcassius sometime before 10,000 BC by our time scale, the text carefully preserved for over twelve thousand years.

Who Sarcassius really was is lost to the centuries. He was referred to as one of the great priest-prophets of his time. But was he? Heck, maybe he was mad. Or maybe he had ulterior motives for penning his prophecy. Or maybe--just maybe--he had the gift of vision and sent a dire warning to his people across a great expanse of time that something was coming--something the Draxians needed to prepare for.

The events of the Great Prophecy center around a person identified only as "the Flame," who according to the scripts will make a single decision that will end their world in oblivion.

The novel opens as the one who many believe may be "the Flame" wakes up on Draxis after being abducted, drugged and hurled through space and time to be thrust into this maelstrom of fear and fanaticism spurred by her arrival.

The parallels between the Draxian empire and our present day culture are easily drawn. Two societies living with the fear, apprehension, skepticism and denial surrounding a world-changing prophecy and the potential Armageddon it portends. Or doesn't.

No one on Draxis really knows for certain what the words of Sarcassius mean.

And no one on Earth really knows what the end of the Mayan calendar indicates.

We live in interesting times.

Write what you know.