Excerpt from Arelia Rifts

Here's an excerpt of the first two pages of the short story prequel for Abel's story. I just wanted to share it to show the level of description and the style of writing.

The snow fell softly on the metal grating, sliding through the diamond gaps of the floor and dropping to the ground below. Abel looked over the side of the balcony, watching the people walking around below. Lowtown, the working class district of Auril, was in full bloom.
He wrapped his tattered cloak tightly around his body to keep the freezing chill from his bones whilst waiting for Leon, his new partner. This was to be his first mission as a new member of the Order of Terra, but he had no information about the mission, as Leon was to be his commanding officer. A single white bird flew through the small gap between the concrete spires of the tower across from him.
The footsteps of a hundred people echoed through the area as they walked along the road suspended above Abel, who turned around and walked to the wall on the other side of the walkway. A large graffiti painting was spread across the concrete depicting an image of an Emperor's Guard member beaten to the ground.
“There really is a lot of bad feeling against the Church here.”
A deep, rumbling voice shocked Abel into turning around. A relatively tall but slender man with gray hair stood in front of him, wrapped in the same style of cloak as Abel. He stretched out his hand and nodded in a polite manner.
“My name is Leon. You must be Abel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. So tell me, why do you want to join us? What is it that makes you, personally, hate the Church?”
Abel shuffled on the spot as Leon spoke. His hands were dry and his body tightened. Shaking his head slightly and tilting it down to look at the metal walkway, he breathed heavily.
Leon's eyebrows raised and his head tilted to the left. Abel rubbed his eyes with his hands, breathed again and lifted his head back up.
“I'm sorry, but I don't really remember much about my past.”
Leon smiled a little, chuckled and shook his head before nodding, his hair flicking over his face. He took out a handgun from under his cloak and handed it to Abel, the brass cogs and the metalwork design made it look very ornate with a brown casing.
“You will need this,” he said. “Its a standard issue handgun for the Order.”
Abel stared at the handgun, but gave it back with a polite smile. Pulling his cloak away from his body, he revealed a long sword with cogs and wheels around the hilt.
“I prefer to use this, sir, if that's alright.”

Image belongs to Big Huge Games

Arelia-9 In Greater Detail

So, since I gave a bit of information about Arelia-9 because, I figured I would keep you updated. Auril itself is the largest place on the planet of Arelia-9, but not the largest. As mentioned before, there are small landmasses made of ice that are scattered around the planet, where some people choose to live instead on staying in Auril.

In terms of the planet as a whole, Arelia-9 is largely left to its own devices as it was an inhabited planet before the Empire arrived, so once the city of Auril had been constructed and the Church of the Emporer had established itself on the planet, it was left to control the planet itself. The Chief Bishop, Karl Franz, established the Arelia-9 Limitations Act, which explains that technology advancement is limited only to the Church, and that anyone caught using or owning technology who is not sanctioned to do so by the Church will be branded a heretic. Therefor, whilst the Hightown districts of Auril where the Church members are houses is technologically advanced, in terms of the universe, the rest of Auril, and indeed Arelia-9 itself is not. Many live in houses resembling that of the victorian era England if they live in Auril, whilst those outside of the city and those who were native to Arelia-9 live in homes more like the ancient vikings.

The Lowtown Districts consist of numerous levels, filled with houses like these

There are a lot of people who hold animosity toward the church amongst the native people of Arelia, which makes it very easy to hide Order members in their villages. Due to this, the Church tends to send raiding parties into the villages in search of "heretics", increasing the bad feeling toward the Church, the Emporer and the Chief Bishop.

The native Arelians live in villages like this, atop the ice-formed landmasses scattered around the ocean.

Of Magic and Arelia-9

Here's a little bit of world-building information, containing general stuff about the Empire, the explaination behind the 'magic' that makes my world a science fantasy one, and finally a few details about the world of Arelia-9, where Fragment is set.

"Magic" within the Starfall universe comes from the Aurora Stones, a crystalized version of the Aurora Element that can br found on a variety of planets throughout the Empire's territory. The stones are placed into bracelets and then feed the enegy of the Aurora Element into a person's body. These bracelets, however, are only given to the Psyker class of soldiers and military police, although many are stolen by less official groups, as well as the Order, so that the 'playing field' is levelled. The negative aspect of it is that it drains energy from your body, tiring you out completely which makes using it in aggressive situations very dangerous. A second downfall is that the long term exposure to the Aurora Element can affect the mitochondria in one's body, causing various permenant changes to them.

Materia from Final Fantasy acts as a major inspiration for the Aurora Stones

Aurora Stones are also used to power a variety of difficult machines, used in conjuction with steam engines to power trains, airships, spacecraft, factories and all other such machines throughout the Empire.

Now devling into the world that the Fragment novel takes place in, Arelia-9, we will start with the weather system. Due to the planet's distance from the nearest sun, it is a very cold planet covered in a perpetual blanket of snow. Sunlight does reach the planet, but offers little in the way of warmth, and is largely blocked by the permenant layer of dense clouds. The average temperature on Arelia-9 ranges between -5 and 5 degrees celsius in the summer season, and -25 to -15 in the winter, with no spring or autumn.

Picture by James Paik showing how I envision the industrial district of Auril.


In terms of geology, there are a number of small patches of land made from the sea freezing, and two large continental islands that are linked by a large bridge and together house the city of Auril. The planet itself has the largest amount of frozen, natural gas in the Empire (needed for the gas lighting and heating) as well as a huge amount of water (needed for the steam engines that power technology), so the lower levels of Auril on the southern continent are filled with gas mines, with the second floor filled with the lower class housing and working districts. The northern part of Auril houses the upper class, the military (army and police), the education facilities and more.

Picture by Remi on Coolvibe that shows my vision of the lower class housing district.

Within each district of the city are churches dedicated to Emporism, and it is Empire Law that you attend the hearings at your church. Should you not attend (as registration is taken at every church) then you will face execution as a heretic.

Picture by Tyler Edlin on Coolvibe that shows how I view the upper class, northern part of Auril.

The city itself, as with the rest of the Empire, revolves around the usage of credits rather than coinage or notes. However, credits are distributed by the Church of the Emporer based upon your social level and current employment. This is so that the Church can govern the level of citizens who are in each social class, keeping the poorer people for use in the military, promising them that the Glory of the Emporer will grant them a better life, whilst telling the richer people that the Emporer has blessed them for their work, keeping them happy and loyal and ready to expand the economic aspects of the Empire.

Meet The Characters: Abel Connor

Well, here's some information about Abel Connor, the hero of the first novel and the prequel short story. Feel free to criticize as well as ask more questions for him to answer.

ABOUT
Character's Full Name:
Abel Connor

Reason or meaning of name:
Named after the secnd son of Adam and Eve because he was the second son of his parents.
 
Nickname(s):
None
 
Birth Date:
19 January 2136
 
Place of Birth:
Auril Lowtown
 
Ethnic Background:
Caucasian Human
 
Religion:
Terranism
 
Degree of Religious Practice:
Oathkeeper
 
Current Address:
Apartment 16, Block 346, District 14
 
Does s/he rent or own?
Rent
 
Brief Description of Home (apartment, trailer, house, other, etc.):
Four room aparment shared with his team mates. Contains a small cooker, a fridge, a television and some beds.
 
Does s/he live with anyone?
Initially his two team mates, with them increases to three.
 
Describe the area in which s/he lives (big city, town, rural, other):
Lower class housing district of the major industrial city Auril
 
Is this his or her ideal home and location? If not, what would s/he prefer?
Not at all, as he would prefer to live on a warmer planet where the Empire had not extended its reach to.
 
Home decor:
Inexpensive

When someone walks in, what's their first impression?
"Where is everything? The place is empty!"
 
Any Pets?
Yes, a small bassest hound called Nine

How important are they? How well are they treated?
He loves Nine completely, and would often feed Nine instead of himself.
 
Current Occupation: Soldier (works undercover as a mechanic)
 Current Employer: The Order of Terra
Income Level: Bracket 2 (300 credits per month)
 Education: College Diploma in Mechanics and armed training from the Order
Marital Status: Single 

A little more information

Just thought I would give you a bit more information about the worlds. In the end, it is heavily inspired by steampunk, to the point where the history (which will be explained through the novels) leads to steampunk space exploration. A brief explaination of this is that the corruption of the Undying in the galaxy increased the desire for exploration in all races, leading to various different races creating different styles of steam-powered spacecraft and vehicles, devices, etc, and once they have successfully mastered space travel, they began to create and design steam powered colonies. It the Undying's presence in the galaxy that also created the Psyker abilities that turn my stories into Science Fiction/Fantasy.

Below are some images I found on google that show the sort of things I envision for both on and off planet travel.

Fragment - Arelian Rifts

Just annoucing that in a little while (relatively) I will have a finished prequel short story detailing Abel's first mission as part of the Order of Terra, titled Fragment - Aurelian Rifts. I will be publishing it via Smashwords in the near future, and will keep you all updated with the process on both it and Abel's main story, Fragment.

So far, Aurelian Rifts is 30% finished on the draft, then I just need to edit it and publish it. Once published, it will be in ebook format only, but I will post a link to the Smashwords book page in this blog.

Another Update - First Novel To Be Written

Hi there everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that the descision on which of the stories I will start with has been decided. I will first write the story that takes place in the middle of the galaxy's timeline, giving it the most backstory/future prospect ratio and also the most exciting plot and deep relationship. So, here are some brief details about the story and a very brief description of the main character. Now, remember that my stories are Militaristic Science Fantasy + Romance

General Description of the galaxy:
With the home planet of the humans, Terra, having been destroyed the humans created new homes through the galaxy after becoming part of the Asuri Empire, a galactic empire consisting of the Turian, Human, Seran and Arcan races. With their prowess in physical combat, humans soon became a major part of the Empire with many acting as the forward assault teams of the Empire's military. However, the xeno-races of the Empire resented humans for many reasons, and did not give them power in the empire, with everything dictated for them. Whilst many people on many stations and planets did not care about this as they had prosperity, over time the prosperity began to disappear, which gave birth to the 'terrorist' organization known as the Order of Terra. The Order has no main base, instead relying entirely on secrecy and hidden communcations to carry out their work, spread over every planet in the Empire.

General Description of the plot:
Abel, Leon and Shin are sent to carry out a strike on an Empire weapons facility. Once completed, they return to find a new recruit in their hideout, Alice. They are sent on a mission to take out a group of Empire Psykers who are close to revealing the Order, but after completion of the mission, they witness their hideout town obliterated by the Empire fo housing the Order. This event drags the galaxy into a gorilla style war between the Order, angered by the indiscriminate killing of humans by the Empire, and the Empire who want to remove the order.

This draws the group into the war as gorillas, leading them into battles with the Emperor's Chosen special unit, consisting of Amaranth, Lucia and Charon. The story then tells of the groups mission to remove the Emporer's Chosen from the situation, whilst also trying to stop the coming of a race called the Undying Choas.

Brief Description of the main character
Name: Abel Connor
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Weapon: Long sword
Class: Sword-Psyker
Bio:
Born into the powerful Connor House of the Asuri Empire, he threw away his history when he realized that the power of the Asuri Empire was held by the houses and the other races apart from humans, rather than being shared amongst all the citizens. He leaves the Connor House and forsakes the Empire, joining the Order at the age of 17. He is a very quick fighter, able to move with speed and use psyker abilities. In terms of personality, he is a determined young man, but ignorant to many things. For example, he did not realize that the missions he was carrying out against the Empire would help lead to an all out war between the Empire and the Order. He spends his time with his friend Leon or training with his rival, Shin. When he first meets the new recruit, Alice, he does not like her as she appears clumsy and makes his life more difficult. However, over time he grows fond of her.