Book 8 Trivia and Creative Process Notes (Patreon)

Alright, some trivia for good old book 8.

I had moved the battle of Asaria to this book. And ended up moving it back. AGAIN. And there may, in fact, not even be a battle of Asaria at all.

A bit of trivia I wasn't sure whether to put in book 7 or book 8, but the Flickerlight was originally the Continuum, an Infinity-class cruiser (or rather, a ship made to resemble one), one of the ships Alexandra had designed to accompany the Dawnstars into battle, crashed near Rebirth in a gigantic impact crater she was supposed to look into, back when I was trying to keep everything centered around the city and hadn't decided to actually range out and having her start exploring and conquering the world in earnest. Hilariously enough, this ship is still technically referenced, the ruins of Seraph-4 (the ones Alexandra is on and Seraph commanded) were called Angel Fall Ruins in book 1 and 2, and that was because of that ship, which was commanded by a High Seraphim (who were scrapped as a concept, merged/replaced by the Honor Guards, and...I can't go into more details because it would mean going in depths in the Gods, their military, fleet organization, combat tactics, hierarchy and their technology, and how it evolved throughout the process of writing this story) and was shot down during the opening stages of the Great Night.

Next up, the UDC ! I actually hesitated when to make them go boom. It is one of those pivotal moments that might not seem like much, but the entire story hinges on it. It's the starting shot for what I now call Stage 4 (Stage 1 being dungeon stuff before Alex gets involved in surface wars, Stage 2 the war with the Republic, and Stage 3 the Asarian Civil War), and oooooohhhh boy this is going to get interesting.

The UDC has imploded into civil war earlier than originally planned however, which is part of why the battle of Asaria did not take place. That, and Alexandra actually taking the human troops with her, contrary to what was originally planned, which was to have the golem force march north as fast as possible, made it a time issue.

The UDC's attack was also a remarkably late addition to the story. Originally, they were supposed to reinforce Sunrise directly, but I decided on this instead, having them try to solve the problem themselves without 'involving' surface dwellers, which made a lot more sense.