I don’t believe I’ve talked about the Three Pillars in any depth and now is as good a time as any to do so. We all have a multitude of influences in our lives and as a writer, there are three other authors who I consider the foundation on which I have built my work.

The first is probably the most obvious: JRR Tolkien. Tolkien managed to capture my imagination in a way no other author has. There are a number of people who criticize his style as dry, but I never thought that, even as an 11- or 12-year-old when I read through LotR for the first time. I particularly love Tolkien for the depth of his worldbuilding and that vast interconnected mythos he wove. My own great love of myth and legends is echoed by his own and he no doubt had an influence on my desire to study linguistics as well. The worlds crafted in my peripheral materials surely can’t compare to Tolkien’s legendarium, but you can surely see his touch.

Next up is Frank Herbert of Dune fame. I was older when I started reading Herbert, around the latter part of high school if I recall. Like Tolkien, Herbert has a lot going on when it comes to worldbuilding, but what I draw from him more his crafting of intrigue, the “plans within plans, wheels within wheels” and his portrayal of prescience and the twisted web of fate. Some allege Herbert is an iconoclast against the monomyth while Tolkien would be more of a codifier of it. If you accept this premise, then I guess it would make for part of a dualistic cosmos from which my stories spring.

Third is Rumiko Takahashi, the mangaka behind such works as Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha. Takahashi’s inclusion among Tolkien and Herbert may seem a bit idiosyncratic, but Takahashi is an author with considerable range, from the romantic comedy of a gender-bending martial artist to the horror of her Mermaid series to the simple everyday slice-of-life pieces found in her short stories. I particularly like her ability to craft characters and play those characters off each other.

And there you have it, my Three Pillars. There are other influences, of course, but these are the main sources I draw inspiration from. For those of you creative types out there, who do you consider your primary influences?

Now that we’re getting into Gamaliel’s section, I believe it’d be helpful to outline some of the beliefs of the Church of Holy Light to elucidate the sort of belief system that drives characters like Gamaliel.

Photianism is basically a sort of Gnostic heresy that arose when the Neoplatonist scholar Photios of Kairos made a pilgrimage to Antioch to study the Way and developed a syncretic fusion of his Neoplatonic background and Wayfarer orthodoxy. Whether he had any exposure to any surviving Gnostics is uncertain. It is possible, though, as the Church of Antioch was still relatively young in those days and did not have the power or influence to purge heretics for centuries to come.

If you’re familiar at all with the basics of Gnostic doctrine, a lot of this will sound pretty familiar. The crux of Photian doctrine is the following maxim: “God is Spirit, Spirit is Light, God is Light.” All light is an emanation from God and it is the Light that is Spirit that quickens physical matter. Though there is no specific mention of the Demiurge (that is, the creator of the physical world) in the earliest Photian writings, it’s generally accepted that God who is Spirit couldn’t have been the one responsible for the physical world as physical matter is despised. The overarching goal in Photian doctrine is the transcendence of the physical world so that the Light that is Spirit can be reunited with God.

As you might imagine, anything concerning the physical world is viewed with contempt. Women are particularly reviled, the most extreme Photians going so far as to call them ‘Light-trappers’ for their role in clothing the Spirit that is Light in fleshly shells. Now, of course there are plenty who see the practical infeasibility of universal celibacy among the ranks of the faithful, but celibacy is strictly observed among the clergy and contact with females is kept to a minimum.

After Photios’ death, his successor Zacharias commissioned the Book of Light, a reworking of the Bible to better align with Photian doctrine. One thing that plagued Wayfarer scholars on the Planet was their inability resolve the places mentioned in the Bible with the actual geography of the world. This led to the notion that the Planet was on a separate celestial sphere than the one depicted in the Bible (i.e. our Earth). The Photians, however, simply replaced the locations from Earth with those on the Planet. In fact, the whole timeline of sacred history was advanced to match up with the contemporary world.

Zephyr became Canaan, Notos became Egypt, and Euros became Mesopotamia, to include Ur, Chaldea, and Assyria. So, for instance, according to the Photians, Abraham hailed from Euros and moved to Zephyr, only for his descendants to settle in Notos before their liberation by Moses, who then led them on to reclaim the Promised Land of Zephyr. The Dwarves (i.e. Nanoi) of the Delate Mountains became the Hittites, the Dwarves of Vione the Amorites, the Elves (Xotikes) of Goldleaf the Jebusites, and the other Canaanite tribes assigned to various pre-Zephyrian humans. Among the cities of Zephyr, Hesperia became Jerusalem, Ephenes Bethlehem, Kairos Nazareth, and Nulos Shechem. (Every city in Zephyr is given a biblical analog, but I’m only mentioning the major ones for the sake of brevity.) Moreover, Elbana in the Central Continent becomes Syria, Bythia Asia Minor and Antioch Rome. (This plays into the upcoming part of the narrative.)

Now, you might have been wondering about all this talk of ‘the Lucifer’, perhaps even wondering if the Photians were devil-worshippers. Recall that ‘Lucifer’ means ‘Light-bringer’, which is not meant as the former name of a fallen angel of anything like that. (By the by, angels are referred to Eudaemons and what we would think of as demons Cacodaemons.) Basically, the Lucifer is Christ, though interpreted through a Gnostic lens. Old Testament mentions of the Angel of the Lord are recast as ‘the Lucifer’ as well in keeping with the belief that the Angel of the Lord is a pre-Incarnation Christ. Rather than being known as Lucifer, Satan is called the Noctifer (that is, ‘Night-bringer’), but this you probably have figured out already.

I mentioned before that the timeline of sacred history was advanced to match up with the contemporary world. Well, Photios is made to replace St. Paul and so the account of Paul’s ministry becomes muddied by Photios’ own history. Grand Patriarch of Antioch Lucas II takes the place of St. Peter and his predecessors Ioannes V and Andreas II take the place of Saints James and John (the multiple Saints James and John all being conflated in the Book of Light). The early conflicts of the real-world Church’s Jewish and Gentile factions are recast as the battle over doctrines of matter and Spirit and the final split is a decisive one, as Grand Patriarch Lucas condemned Photios’ heresy and Photios in turn ‘excommunicated’ him (which was of course wholly symbolic as the Antiochians never acknowledged Photios’ legitimacy, but much was made of the move among the Photians).

Another part of the history is that King Zephyr was made to represent the Seleucids and so the Photians, following a corruption of the account of the Maccabees, attribute great persecution to his reign of the pre-Church faithful which had no basis in actual history. The Creonic Dynasty was conflated with the Hasmoneans. You would think the royal family would dispute this, but Archbishop Zacharias succeeded in converting King Croesos IX, who was content to believe the Church’s stories about King Solon IV calling for the murder of all the infants in Ephenes (the Massacre of the Innocents attributed to Herod in the Gospel of Matthew) among other things. Croesos’ zeal for his new religion is why the Church enjoyed such preeminence until the time of Solon VI (and, yes, the fact that ‘Solon’ was the name of the Photians’ Herod didn’t go unnoticed).

This is far from a comprehensive account, but it should make things a little clearer going forward. If I judge it appropriate, I may delve into further details at a later date. Stay tuned.

Warning: Spoilers for the short story “Happy Little Family” ahead.

I was terribly reluctant to put up “Happy Little Family”. To call the subject matter touchy is a wild understatement. I know there are many people out there who use dark elements like rape and the varying degrees of sexual assault for nothing more than cheap exploitation. If the statistics I see have any truth to them, you don’t have to look far to find someone directly affected by this sort of abuse. While I don’t consider myself to be politically correct, I don’t make a point to offend just for the sake of offense. I also don’t want to needlessly inflict further pain on those who have already suffered.

I certainly don’t speak from first-hand experience on this subject. I’ll readily admit that I don’t truly know what it’s like. You might ask why I put Lydia through the experiences alluded to in “Happy Little Family”. Lydia has a lot of psychological damage, that much is readily apparent from the main series. When I thought on what would break a person so severely, I looked at her situation: a deceased mother, a father who is a Special Forces officer, a sister with her own military career, an entirely disconnected extended family. What would happen to this little girl during her father’s many deployments? He had little choice but to turn to the other families on post. Most of the time, it was fine, but not always. There are many disturbed people out there who only need the opportunity to become monsters. Naturally, if a man like Luka Han found out, the offenders would be a pile of hamburger and decorated officer or not, murder isn’t a rap you can beat, most generally. Even as a child, Lydia knew this much and that’s why she didn’t speak up. However, this isn’t something you should bury, no matter who the perpetrator is. I know that’s easier said than done, but no form of abuse should be borne in silence. Unfortunately, you can’t always count on the authorities to come through for you, but you have to try. Also, though I personally don’t have much positive regard for the psychiatric profession, I recognize that there are some therapists and other specialists who can help with coping and healing. I certainly don’t mean to portray Lydia’s approach as the correct one, though at least for a time she found the willpower to stop being needlessly self-destructive in lieu of facing her problems.

I doubt I’ve acquitted myself well to any critics who may emerge, but I did make use of a beta reader–a woman–to judge whether or not the story should be made public. I recognize it’s a minuscule sample population, but I did want a female’s perspective. No, I don’t intend to approach special populations as a supplicant seeking approval before I even blow my nose, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to get the perspective of someone who might be unduly affected by your work.

I mentioned before that I’d be doing a commentary piece following the release of Chapter 21 of Tico3. With the introduction of the Martian Militia back in Chapter 18, I really thought I should provide a little more detail. You get a little bit in the narrative of Chapter 21, but I wanted to take it a step farther.

The Earth Union has a number of paramilitary organizations. Most are the enforcement agencies of cabinet-level ministries, but there are a number of exceptions. Today we’re going to be talking about two similar organizations: the EDC and the Martian Militia. Though the Militia is more relevant to Tico3, we’ll start with the EDC.

The Earth Defense Corps was founded in the aftermath of the Lunar Revolt. Tensions between Earth and the Colonies were running high and reactionary elements agitated to form a secondary line of defense against a perceived Colonial threat. During the Sheol War, no small number of native Earthers refused to serve in the Colonies and the EDC was touted as a ‘true Earth army’. Because service in the EDC counted as an alternative federal service, it was a handy destination for Earthers looking to dodge the draft while still claiming they were soldiers.

The Martian Militia was formed essentially as a reaction to the reactionaries on Earth. Once Ricardo Banderas, a native Martian, became the first Colonial to be elected World Council Chairman, he authorized the formation of the Martian Militia. The concept was basically the same as the EDC, but there is a bit of a separatist undercurrent. It’s not really something that’ll be treated in any depth in Tico3, but it may come up elsewhere.

Naturally, the regular military doesn’t hold these paramilitaries in high regard and the feeling is mutual. Toss PMCs and local law enforcement into the mix and you can have some fraught joint operations. The Argyre Campaign has this in spades and I could almost write a full novel just on that. Maybe I’ll even go that far one day, but for now we just get some glimpses to paint the larger picture of the Battle of Mars.

I never go into too much depth regarding the political system of the Earth Union because A) I try to avoid info dumps in my writing, and B) I really try to avoid irrelevant info dumps. For the most part, what goes on in Atlantis City doesn’t apply to the day-to-day lives of the characters of the Tico series. Well, it does apply, but rarely in the sense that a working knowledge of the system is necessary.

At the beginning of the New Era, a one-world government emerged from the pit of the Blackout, an undefined period in the late 21st Century that’s been wiped from all records. I don’t plan on committing to exactly what went on during the Blackout, but I will say that it wasn’t pretty.  I will say that the global population as of the NE 010 census was 7.6 billion. Those of you aware of demographic trends should be able to infer some stuff from that.

The Earth Union was originally composed of ten supranational ‘provinces’, the borders being the result of some rather intense wrangling prior to the Union’s formation. Each province is represented by a member of the World Council. Add in the Chairman and Vice-Chairman  and that makes twelve. The Chairman’s role as a member of the council means that the Union doesn’t have quite the same degree of separation of powers as, say, the United States, but it isn’t too far off as the Chairman has considerably autonomy in the administration of the executive branch.

As the Union expanded out into the Sol System, the World Council was expanded as well. Luna was the first to be added when it was given special provincial status and a nonvoting seat on the Council. As its status would imply, Luna is a bit of a special case in that it’s viewed as a Colony but legally regarded as one of the provinces of Earth.

The planetary spheres beyond Earth are dubbed ‘regions’. The first was Mars, which gained a nonvoting seat on the Council in 021. As colonization progressed, the number of regions increased to the current total of nine. In the aftermath of the Lunar Revolt, the Colonial Bloc was established to represent the rest of the Colonies (which were never projected to have a sufficient population to warrant individual representation) and, of course, given nonvoting status.

While the Colonies had a voice on the World Council, they didn’t have a vote until the Colonial Bloc was enfranchised in 070. Although it was originally intended that the Colonial Bloc would provide the sole vote for the Colonies, the Councilors from Luna and Mars were enfranchised in 081 and thanks to the population boom on Ganymede, Jupiter was given its own voting seat right out of the gate in 101.

Though officially part of the Earth Sphere, Luna has historically held solidarity with the Colonies. The bad blood from the Lunar Revolt never really went away, you see. Typically, the ten provinces of Earth will unite in lock-step to defend Earth’s privileges first and foremost, but occasionally there will be breaks depending on the political winds of the moment. (The political parties are a can of worms I’ll save for another day.)

Where we find ourselves in Chapter 20, the Earth Sphere isn’t going to sacrifice a single ship of Fourth Fleet to defend Mars. All the provincial Councilors agree on this and the Councilor of the Colonial Bloc, Ragna Nilsson, isn’t willing to support Mars’ Councilor Vincentez 100% on his call for more aid and Jupiter’s Councilor Lau isn’t going to stick his neck out either. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to decide how reasonable they’re all being about this.

This really only scratches the surface, but it’s at least something to get you started. When I get to writing Avni, you’ll see a lot more of Union politics in action as Tziona Avni is up to her neck in the stuff. I’ll probably do more posts like this in the future and shed a little more light on how the Union operates. Stay tuned.