Prelude to the End

Okay, I don’t know what happened exactly, but this post is going out more than a bit late. I had one done for this morning and it up and disappeared. So, let’s try this again…

Today is about doing a bit more explaining about where the Second Star Saga comes from.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the idea for the story actually started in 2011. I had the idea that I would write a story that takes advantage of the whole Mayan Calendar doomsday prophecy. In looking for a different vehicle for telling a story, I wanted to do something with a little more surrealism to it; a little more mystery and suspense.

To that end I needed something of reality to anchor my story to. It needed to be both real in the sense that it exists out in the world as an at least plausible story, and that it had a sufficient supernatural base to build on. The original Book of the Shadows was built up on the Yu-Gi-Oh story, which itself borrows from ancient Egyptian mythology and the mysticism surrounding the religion and practices of the ancient Egyptians. However, my story focused more on the specific pieces of the anime, which in turn meant that what little tangible connection was had between the story I was using and the history it was drawing on was minimalized.

There were any number of possible realities I could have looked to and twist to meet my goals. But when you think “end of the world” without literally ending the world, only one thing comes to mind – regime change.

Most of us have not, nor ever will, live through large scale, violent, regime change. We of course know what it’s like to go through regime change, as it takes place one every four to eight years, but violent regime change, change bought about by war and revolution, is something few of us will ever experience. But in many respects it is something that can be described as the end of the world, or at least as it was known.

Why pick Russia? Well, as I described before in talking to others about storytelling, telling the story of an autocratic regime is easier than telling that of a democratic one. Given that, I also needed a place whose relative power in the world was sizeable, such that disruptions there could have large ripples worldwide. Finally, I needed a place with a good supernatural myth to help build on.

With Russia you have the former monarchy of the Romanovs. You have the tumultuous trials the nation faced in the decades afterwards, struggling to reform itself following the Bolshevik Revolution, the lead up to communism, the Cold War era, and finally their heavy handed democracy, making it a viable candidate for a world power with the propensity to change in dramatic ways. On top of that there is the ceaseless conspiracy theory that Duchess Anastasia survived the execution of her family. Finally, there is the Tunguska event in the early 1900s; the probable airburst of an asteroid over a remote area in Russia which has since given rise to any number of theories ranging from aliens to secret government experiments to time travel.

This all makes the choice of Russia a useful vehicle for the story. I did have the option of going with England, the whole Camelot thing, but that has been done so regularly I didn’t feel as though I could end up differentiating it enough from everything else out there.

The final real incentive to me for crafting this story was to get to use a number of more eclectic figures in anime, manga, and video game culture. I had a small role for Sai Hinoki of the Betterman series in my original Book of the Shadows story, but I felt I could use her and the Betterman story to greater effect. I had also at the time become familiar with the Persona series, particularly the anime Persona Trinity Soul and later Persona 4. Their general stories mesh fairly well with that of the Betterman saga, so I started to look forward to blending them together.

To top it off there were a number of art pieces I’d seen around the net that were inspiring. In seeing them I had stories bubble up in my head and was in need of an outlet, thus they came to be included as well.

I think Second Star Saga is a very good story – at least as far as it exists in my mind and as I’ve planned it. I certainly have to live up to my end of the deal by writing it out in great effect. I am hoping for some good feedback on the story so that I can make improvements to make it better.

Some more pictures coming this way tomorrow for the launch celebration. See you tomorrow.