Angel Blade started out as a simple idea for a web comic for an older gaming website. During the prototype phase the webcomic was called ‘Project Wildchild’. The primary character “Sweiza” was meant to be the website’s mascot; the web comic would eventually be called “ANGST” after her Valkyrie name. The original screen play “An Angel Named Sera Tonic” was meant to be the rough draft of the web comic. The gaming website turned into too much trouble (more than it was worth) and turned into too much of a time consuming chore; labors of love sometimes end up this way. As it was, the web comic never manifested and Sweiza never appeared on the front page. The first draft never reached a refined state and still exists in the first draft, or ‘screenplay’ as I like to call it.
The idea had always been there to finish the story so to speak. I’m not very quick to move to working on things, so the years went. Once the main website was decommissioned, once I had a job with long hours, and once COVID hit, I had a lot of free time or time to think of story ideas. I started posting chapters to FictionPress, but was never happy with the website and eventually deleted my account. I switched over to an application called “Scrivener” which is meant for novel authors. I had read some stories by self published authors on Amazon and wondered about publishing “Angel Blade” as a novel. After a point I eventually found ‘RoyalRoad’ and the story, among others, looked like an actual option for an audience. The rest is history.
—
Some key takeaways:
The original screenplay is on RoyalRoad as a oneshot. It was meant to be a draft. It serves as ideas for the novel series “Angel Blade”. Because it was meant to be a draft and is used as a one shot, there are ideas in it that might be drastically changed or only loosely associated with “Angel Blade”. I choose not to update the original draft because I feel it would be sacrilege to the novel’s origins. While I could create a first chapter that is similar, it would also lock in future ideas that I might not be able to change; much of the novel is based on that screenplay, but not strictly. You get the idea.
Angel Blade and the original draft were meant to be one novel written as a play. Roughly speaking it was supposed to be ninety nine acts. It was later split into three novels in chapter format. At the time of writing this ‘about’ text, the first novel has been written and I’m roughly one fifth to one third of the way through writing the second. The original ideas for Salmira, the Salmar System and Cryborgs were tied to another novel. Ideas in that novel were from a much older idea from roughly over twenty years ago. However, I decided to make “Angel Blade” take place in the distance past of that novel. The different ideas became a book series. I intend for there to be five sub series, with three books each for a total of a fifteen book series titled “Ocean Salmira”.
—
In the original story, Salmira and Salyra are brought into this dimension due to an experiment gone awry on a space station. I still have the original draft for that novel. Right now it is in an ad hoc hiatus status until I can figure out how to rewrite it for “Future Shock”. At some point there will be space ships and a space faring civilization in “The Eye of Salmare”. At the time of writing this, it would be assumed to be fifty millenia before they break out of the original black hole which serves as their prison.
Speaking of which, the black hole as a dumping ground for a prison and colony ship, is based around the British Empire doing the same with their prisoners and other social refuse to their colony of Australia.
The war between Salmira and Salyra is about as old as their idea (over twenty years ag0). Sometime prior to the present, there are two scientists, they exist in different factions. One has a starship that is meant to extinguish a star. The idea was never fleshed out until recently. Now it is just a ship that blew up several of the moons and would have been used as an instrument of destruction to the continents below. Originally, Salmar was the name of the star as was Salyra the opposite star system over. Each star system had a symbol; Salmar used a V and Salyra an upside down V. Together they formed an X with both overlapping each other with a diamond in the middle. This forms the basis behind the Vorkera Boomerang and later the dual bladed boomerang that forms a shuriken.
Speaking of which, the idea behind Salmar and Salyra was originally used for a star system in a novel I was working on back in 1996, it was called the “Story Gazette”. Surprise surprise. Gazette was used from an episode in the PBS kids show “Ghostwriter”.
Vorkera was originally meant to be a villian for a Sailor Moon fan fiction sometime in 1998 or 1999, I forget. She was meant to be the Grim Reaper with a scythe. She is supposed to have a sister named ‘Vorcery’. Vorkera, Vorcery and Salmar, are all based off of names related to ‘Sol’, ‘Solar’, ‘Mercury’, ‘Venus’ and ‘Mars’. Eventually the idea for the names was reworked into Angel Blade. It only seemed fitting since they had a similar background.
Overtime as ideas became fleshed out for “The Story Gazette”, it became its own little world. I was into Star Trek at the time, so different worlds within the Salmar System were colonized. Starships were also plentiful, as were ancient relics from previous civilizations. You can’t blame me for having an imagination and loving fantasy RPGs.
At some point I wanted the heroes of the present to be able to time travel. I had read the phrase “Unto the Nth Dimension” used in the short story that serves as the prelude to the game “Starflight”. “Nth” is something that represents the latest number in series; quite literally it could mean infinity. The name stuck. The “Nth Gate” was born and heroes could travel through time. However, it was considered a relic lost to time unto itself.
During my anime rpg days, Vorkera was introduced as a character that wielded a very powerful hammer of lighting. It formed in the hand as a bolt of lighting and could be thrown like a boomerang. It quite literally was based off of “Thor’s Hammer”. Incidentally, various elements of Norse Mythology had started to work their way into the story. Rather they were older civilizations.
Norse Mythology? I accidentally saw a book for it at the library sometime in 1996 while about the same time I found the Japanese network “NHK” on satellite. I was looking up language books and ran into Norse Mythology. It was quite coincidental, I was looking up information on Green and Roman gods. Norse Mythology was included in the book and some of it stuck. I started researching it some years later.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
The name “Angel Blade” refers to the Vorkera Boomerang; it is named after Sweiza’s counterpart name “Vorkera”. Angel refers to the original novel name “An Angel Named Sera Tonic”, the blade the boomerang.
During the original first few chapters, I didn’t know what name to refer to as Strife. She was the Valkyrie of legend, but she needed to have a backstory. I had trouble with multiple names. Eventually I started shifting through them between writing it. The excuse has always been that the novel is written from Sweiza’s point of view; names are her understanding of them.
Multiple names? Characters are known to have multiple names due to the fact originally it was hard to know what to call them. Different characters have different facets, or rather they earned them or they were written over time. For some they were given them deliberately or I had issues with their facets at a later date. This is best described as how you can know a teacher as a student, but outside of work she is a different person, but really is supposed to be your teacher. Similar to how to your friend is your friend, even when he’s on duty, but as a cop his job comes first (or it is supposed to). Sometimes there is confusion and overlap. I’ve deliberately included this sometimes. Even characters in the novel have issues keeping track sometimes.
As it just so happens, Odin has over two hundred different names and identities in the original mythology. Pure coincidence, but a useful one.
Speaking of which, the original idea and first novel were only loosely rooted in Norse Mythology. I intended to borrow elements from it. This kept it nice and neat and I was free to write the world as I needed. Eventually I needed location information, different civilizations, character bios and the like. By the time the second book came around, Sweiza’s world was thrown into full blown Norse Mythology. The idea behind loosely adapting the mythology and borrowing from it still stands. I try to keep it as true to the original as I can, but there is a caveat that I will explain shortly.
Once Salmar was dumped to her final prison in a black hole, her counterpart or ‘sister’ was dumped there soon after. Salmar is a transdimensional being from the fifth and sixth dimensions that intersects our own. This lets her see multiple time vectors and see time branch out based on decisions made. To her, a million years is the blink of an eye. However, she is shunned by her people and left in our dimension and cut off from her own. Therefor she only has the ability to jump forward or back in the current time frame (the past, present or future). She can alter time, but only from that moment in time. She’ll have to jump further back or ahead to alter things. In some instances in Angel Blade, she has already jumped further ahead and has some idea of different outcomes. She has also altered the past many multiple times. She is stuck in an infinite time loop.
Regardless, her counterpart, her ‘sister’ is dumped into the blackhole with her. Salyra is tied to this dimension permanently. She is more or less banished here. She is technologically oriented. She is the one responsible for terraforming the planet.
The story goes that the original prison ship is called the “Ymir”. It has three computers, ‘Odin’, ‘Loki’ and ‘Thor’. These all make decisions and override decisions for each other. Odin plans the world. Loki builts the world. Thor enhances or changes the world. Loki eventually becomes sentient, but becomes corrupt. It is cut off from Odin and Thor to prevent the corruption from spreading. However, the damage is done. Ymir crashes into an area in the sea; a vortex is erected around it to protect it from outsiders. This area is known as the “Yawning Gap”. The vortex pulls wind from Muspell and Niffleheim.
Odin eventually became corrupt also. Civilization was built around what it understands to be an ancient civilization based on Norse Mythology. Odin has become corrupted over time, but continues to function, much like Loki. They now believe they are gods. The super computer ‘Thor’ was subservient to Odin at this point. It was also split up to prevent it from becoming corrupt. It exists as one through many in the form of ‘Sentinels’ in the island of Thor, better known as Asgard.
Modern day civilization as we know it, is built up on the myths and legends created by these computers. However, myths and legends are rooted in fact. This lets the author get by with pulling from Norse Mythology, while it isn’t always one hundred percent a transplanted copy in the novel. I prefer to borrow from it loosely and pay homage to it, rather than borrow directly. It keeps it original. However, if it makes a good plot point, it is included directly.
After a point though, I wanted to include the major plot points of the Norse Edda’s (Elder and Younger Edda) to also be part of the backstory. They eventually became one and the same with Angel Blade. However, if one of the Edda plot points interferes, Angel Blade takes precedence and I write it accordingly. The idea is to make it fit into a futuristic civilization.
Norse in this case represents the land and history; Angel Blade represents the future plot that will become history for future novels. It becomes fun to tie together my novel with Norse Mythology, especially coming up with creative ways to do it!
Incidentally, Odin is tied under Salmar and rebelled against her. Loki is closer associated to Salyra, but as far as the computer knows, Salyra is dead, so it is functioning on its own. At the start of the novel, Salmar is already considered a banished Valkyrie by Odin.
Salmar cannot enter Valhalla, it is protected by a shield. Odin has also been working on experiments using “Nth” technology. This technology can hurt Salmar and attack her ship in space. Therefor she is constantly blitzing around in time to outsmart Odin. She enlists the aid of a certain Valkyrie to help destroy the shield, prevent Gungir Tower from reaching completing, and otherwise thwarting Odin’s plans. The rest is as you read it in the novel.
All living beings and some inanimate objects (even the air itself) are infused with nanites on this planet (Avalan). These can help further strengthen an object or person and allow for magic by modifying molecules and in turn elements and in some cases energy. This allows for longer lifespan, the ability to use magic, and then some. This forms the idea of the ‘Cryborg’ in a later novel; it is effectively a robot fused with the organics of a human. In this case, and a good example, is a Valkyrie. A Valkyrie effectively must be killed in order to become one. This must be done by another Valkyrie. The Valkyrie’s essence (nanites) are effectively transferred from that Valkyrie to the new one. As the Valkyrie is dying, their body undergoes a type of formatting; in this case they see it as their trial. When they are reborn, they have greater strength, the ability to use magic, and live a longer lifespan. They are effectively a genetically modified cyborg for all intents and purposes.
—
These are some plot spoilers, but many of them will simply not make it into Angel Blade, but will be shown in future novels. Some I might forget (humans are tricky like that). But it is nice to know how the current novel got to the way that it is.
Incidentally, I write these interludes to flesh out ideas or to give them some backing when they are otherwise just ‘intangible’ ideas in my head. Often times when I am stuck on a current plot point, I also do this to take a break and prevent myself from getting burned out.
I’ll update this in the future if it is warranted. I’ll probably rearrange it to be at the end of “Angel Blade II”, when the novel is finished.
-Daven Rogue