I’m not really sure how Justicia Adamante came to be. I remember the first original draft of Divine Avenger (the short story thing [where Strigoa was a man, there were three Avengers, and Alaura was four separate characters] I still disavow) Avalon acted mostly on his own, but under direct orders from the Council. I mean, Beowulf and Hercules (scrapped characters, mostly; they might make a return though) were there, but they were his subordinates, kind of like a Jedi-Padawan sort of working relationship.
A key difference was that unlike the current incarnation, those Avengers were public knowledge. There was a large hall with paintings of all the previous Avengers that was pretty much open to the public; Michael was supposed to be the first (as opposed to Roland), and he was Avalon’s father (as opposed to Albion). As you can expect, I wasn’t exactly excited about it; hell, besides Samael being an unstable prick, and Roland being a misanthrope, there was very little that I reused from that draft.
The earliest inspiration I can remember for Justicia Adamante (at the time called Libramen Justicia. God, I hated that name) is Celestial Being, from Mobile Suit Gundam 00. This was a small, paramilitary group, armed to the teeth with powerful, cutting edge technology. They existed for the sole purpose of exterminating war wherever it existed. Libramen Justicia (I’m going to refer to it this way, in order to differentiate the original incarnation from the current one) existed to destroy wars, whereas Justicia Adamante exists to destroy demons.
The concept of the Divine Avenger hasn’t really changed since its inception; like Justicia Adamante, the scope changed, but the mission, the destruction of evil and its agents, didn’t.
Originally, before the universe was fully-defined, the the Divine Avenger was angel that served as god’s bounty hunter, and guarded the key that led directly into hell, much like the angels Abbadon and Apollyon (see how everything’s tying up?). This was to give him a sense of importance, as well as to give future possible readers a taste of his powers. He originally wielded the blade Excalibur, much like Magnaangemon from Digimon Adventure.
Later for some reason, I decided I didn’t like it. Instead I changed him to be just an assassin, albeit a powerful one. I remember at first that the Divine Avenger rank was an order in and of itself; it was an order, kind of like the pope crossed with a warrior (a similar concept existed in Multiverse). There could only be one at any given time, and he wielded absolute, independent, and autonomous authority; only the government, through unanimous vote, could countermand his authority.
Yep. Somehow I’m back. Guess you can’t really stop blogging after a while. Or maybe I’m somehow hoping that when I post this my readership will increase by a minimum 400+ more readers. But oh well, one can hope.
It’s been an odd few (nine) months since I last blogged. I finally passed my two most dreaded courses (financial math and stats), with both with ‘a C for Champions,’ as we say down here. Which explains why Divine Retribution still hasn’t left the hard drive and has remained as a digital iteration of my thoughts and desires. I can also blame Halo 4 (and Crysis 3 now), which has done little to help my case. Fuck.
Don’t get me wrong though; I have done some remarkable progress during my time away. For one, I finally settled with the name for my final new character for Divine Retribution, Valeria Vernice, once known as Aurora, Blessed With Dawn’s Light Eternal, Agatha Harmonious, among other dreadful names. I’ve learned some more about the writing process, and have refined mine to a much better, more efficient degree than it used to be.
To my (currently imaginary) audience: sorry I keep missing my deadline. Last sunday I was supposed to go vote for the lesser of two evils (thanks to the excellent two-party system!) and I took the badass path of the protest vote. Needless to say, the lesser evil won (his wins are the purple provinces). Tan-fucking-fastic; ‘Papa,’ as he likes to call himself, shrunk the economy by 20%, left office with a 10% approval rating (he used to be Pres from 00-04) and has the gall to insult Pres. Obama. Keep in mind, I don’t like him; I’m more of a Ron Paul (on a side note, if half the things I’ve heard about Texas are real, I think they can pretty much thwart an invasion on their own) and Gary Johnson supporter. But meh, you didn’t come here to talk about politics; you want fantasy!
Today, I’ll be talking about the Divine, specifically the Alizarin Warriors (that’s their full title). To sum it up quickly: imagine you’re playing Yu-Gi-Oh and you draw the cards ‘Ancient Spartan Training,’ ‘Protoss weaponry,’ (both equips) and (monster) ‘Mandalorian Jedi.’ Now, summon Mandalorian Jedi (after sacrificing some noobs), and equip PW and AST. Now you can special summon the Alizarin Warriors. Special effect: it takes shit from no one.
Divine are a combination of all the above. On the Mandalorian side, we have HONORABLE PARTICIPATION in war as a sign of pride in a community; the Protoss inspired the way they use their weapons (like their Dragoons being wounded warriors that still wanted to fight) [I considered turning Jayson into something similar for Retribution, to be honest], and the Spartans inspired their upbringing.
“What’s an Alizarin Warrior?” You ask me.
Well, it’s everything us wannabe soldiers (in case none of you may have noticed, I’d kill to e n l i s t) would like to be. Alizarin Warriors are (very often) career soldiers; they don’t usually raise a family, and they often live short lives. But they are often the most skilled soldiers you’ll ever meet, and they are NOT people you want to fuck with.
Such a lazy bastard, I am. Though I finally made it to chapter 8 in Divine Retribution, I still need to fix 4-5-6-7. Yeah, some good that’s doing me, being that far. A part of me wants to blame the Nuzlocke Challenge; that thing’s incredibly difficult. I’ve had to release six of my Pokémon already. I just noticed something as I was writing this: I usually write on iWorks Pages. I typed Pokémon and autocorrect kicked in! ._. I looked up Pokemon in the dictionary, and it’s actually there too. What the fak? 0.o
All right, moving on to the ‘important’ stuff (pretentious mode: on). 8 chapters in, three are ready (if we include 0, the prologue), another is halfway. Hopefully by the end of this week I’ll have them all ready; 0-10 is actually looking really good, a lot more than I was expecting. Once this is done, my editors will take over and fix it. Though they still need to finish Centurion.
Moving on, some good news for those of you who’ve already finished it. I bought a flute (let the ‘blow’ jokes begin… -.-’) and this is good news because we will see a lot of Samael’s audiomancy in the coming novel. Like, a lot. He actually gets his old flute back, the Morning Star (guess the trivia), and judging by how batshit crazy he is (and he’s gotten a lot worse), I’m pretty sure you can expect something far more devastating than him blowing up a city with a few thousand humans (you know, because no one cares about humans in this series).
Depending on how college fucks me over this week, I might be over with these ten chapters soon. That’ll give me time to hit Pantheon and Fenix, as well as organize my thoughts thoughts for part 2 of Retribution (Crimson Legion).
Oh, you know how I constantly mention the mandatory crysis breaks? I finally hit level 50 in Crysis 2 MP. BOO-FUCKIN-YAH! Now to wait for the 6 months after achievement and I’ll have 100%ed that game =D
Speaking of which, ‘tis calling me. I’ll not miss another blog post again (pinky promise).
Though it’s not final (“Don’t tread on us” is going; looks too much like a last minute addition), this is the Argent Violet’s emblem. In case you didn’t notice it, it’s based heavily on the US Gadsden Flag, especially the snake’s symbol.
“I recollected that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids—She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance.—She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.—As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her, she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal; and even when those weapons are shewn and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal:—Conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of stepping on her.”
Benjamin Franklin summed it up pretty well. If you recall in chapter 4, Power Play when Avalon was being interrogated by the Violet’s board, he was surprised by the ECS suits and their advanced cloaking technology, as well as their ability to jam Roland’s spiritual ether. Given the Violet’s relatively small manpower (in comparison to Empyrea), they are usually not aggressive. Even so, despite their smaller numbers (the total falls somewhere between the US Marine Corps, and the Spanish Armed Forces) and substantially inferior army (though the tech gap has drastically decreased), they have proven themselves to be extremely dangerous adversaries, as evidenced by the events that took place in the Great Plains.
Admittedly, the Violet (and by extension the Sovereign Protectorate of Amaranthia) is not the United States (though it has an enclave in there). It’s a collection of enclaves in all continents, that’s loosely governed by a federal system. Though the Argent Violet poses as a PMC, the organization is really Amaranthia’s defensive branch. It’s structured like the Canadian Forces, in that there’s one service that encompasses all branches. As mentioned before, their numbers are something along the lines of the USMC and the Spanish Armed Forces. Despite their relatively small numbers though, they are substantially well-equipped, especially in comparison to other nations. At this point in time, only Amaranthia has managed to develop full-stealth technology, versus the radar absorbent material most stealth fighters use. And this will be explained and expanded upon with much more detail in both Centurion and Retribution.
Given their status as a PMC, as well as the secrecy of Amaranthia, the ‘Board of Directors’ (really a front though; there are no shareholders, or stockholders, or CEOs) is composed not of businessmen (though Roland will tell you otherwise) but former officers of conventional armed forces (e.g. US Army, Russian Air Force, Canadian Forces, et al), as well as high ranking statesmen and -women of the countries with an Amaranthian enclave. Aldrin’s power within the US Senate (admittedly, I don’t understand very well how the US government works), and General Parker’s high rank within the US Army means that they can choose to involve the Violet over the US Armed Forces. (See Reykjavik Accords from the Tom Clancy universe). This is because the Covenant of Empyrea absolutely refuses to let Humankind as a whole discover anything magical in nature, a mission which Commander Alaura Lothar takes pretty seriously as well (anything that goes on myvideo gives her a headache).
Oh, I thought I’d point this out. Aldrin’s a representative within Amaranthia, and a Senator within the US Senate.
All right, all for today; see ya next time.
8. Harbinger is a new chapter in the Divine Centurion short-story/novelette… thing. I added it because i felt like it gave it more closure than it’s original ending, 7. A Welcome Presence, and at the same time, it was A LOT MORE ominous. Like wow, shit just got real. and stuff.
5. Divine Judgment is a chapter in Divine Retribution (and was originally meant to be the title of the third and final installment in the series) that I had to rewrite. Originally it was called the Red Myrmidon, told under ********’s perspective (cheap censorship -.-), but then i rewrote so that it was Alaura’s instead. This was actually a pretty good idea, because i feel like i need some more practice with her.
I think you folks (though right now i’ve only one follower, and she probably won’t read my book any time soon) will enjoy Divine Centurion. Hell, I’ve had a brilliant idea about it too: I’m releasing DC and Multiverse: Pantheon in tandem as free downloads and smaller-dimensioned paperbacks (giving you folks options here). For those of you who are wondering, Pantheon will be the prequel to Multiverse: Fenix, which I am also working on. Not as diligently as I am working on Divine Retribution, but you get the point.
But Multiverse has its own blog so fuck it; back on track.
There’s a total of 14 important characters in Divine Retribution, a +2 increase (I’m a skilled mathematician) from Divine Avenger along with six factions: Covenant of Empyrea, Justicia Adamante, Sovereign Protectorate of Amarantha, Enlightened Army, **** ****** and ******* ******* (cheap-ass censorship). Obviously there’s going to be a few more, such as the guys from Centurion, who won’t be THAT important but their presence will still be felt. Five of them are new (because Araqiel was technically never a character, just a voice), while the others are part of the old cast (Alaura, Jayson, Strigoa, etc). It’ll be interesting to see how these new characters react with the old guys, as well as how the old cast reacts to the shit that’s going down; I mean, Jayson had his blade broken, Alaura’s stuck dealing with a war against an enemy she’s got no chance of beating on her own, Catalina’s a dangerous fucking bitch (her sword’s name is Fiera, which means fury in spanish. Go figure), and Samael is as lovable and wuvable as he always is. Oh God, I’m starting to sound like him now. MANDATORY CRYSIS BREAK .0.
Anyways, later kids. =]
PS: There’s also the **** ****** which is just plain fucking awesome.
I’ve been doing some good writing this entire weekend. I got one chapter done and another halfway through. This brings us to a grand total of 5. I’m calling this particular section Disavowed, though it’s still a working title.
I’m actually having some good fun here; new characters make things pretty cool because they open up new possibilities and scenarios between previously established characters. What makes it such a pain in the d*** is giving them personalities. Selene in particular has been rather difficult, but I think I’m doing good. Of course, that’s all up for debate. But I really think you guys will like Selene. And Catalina. And Hyperion. And Aurora. And—
Whoa! Spoiler alert!
Secondly, I may finally begin that little video commentary about my writing on my youtube page i once hinted at. If I didn’t hint at it, I’m hinting it now (I have a tendency of losing track of what I do. I blame Crysis 2). I probably won’t make them in my own voice because it sucks when it’s played electronically. So pike that; I had the ingenuity to find a way around it. If anything though, I can promise you a few laughs. The dialogue is top-notch, and my teachers always said my writing voice was strong. I hope you felt the same way too when you read my books.
All right folks; Crysis 2 is calling me, so I shall leave you be. See you next sunday, folks.
Which reminds me, 
I figured this little ordeal deserved a mention.
When I finally got Divine Avenger printed for the first time (Dec 28 2011), I thought I’d killed most of the mistakes. I mean, I’d spent more than three months at it (principle editing was done done in October, but I kept at it ‘till late late Jan.) checking out for typos and the like. But it turns out I hadn’t.
Mid October, I had this… odd glitch happen where I lost all the apostrophes in the entire document. Permanently. Like bam, out of no where. At first, I thought it was just a word or two, but then I realized it was the entire final document. ‘Ah, that should be easy,’ I told myself. ‘I just have to use the original chapter files and—’
That’s when I remembered that some original chapter were VASTLY different to the final product’s. “Why change them directly when I can keep them in their imperfect forms as mementos? I’ll just edit them on this document,” I’d told myself.
To quote Benjamin ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw, “As the exasperated Chinese zookeeper said to the last male panda on the face of the Earth, ‘FUCK THAT!’”
Eventually I pulled through and after what seemed like an eternity, I got most of them. And so it was published on Jan 30 2012.
But my troubles weren’t over. My friends who bought the first edition mentioned missing apostrophes (thankfully not spelling mistakes, just that). I figured, one or two wouldn’t kill me; hell maybe no one else had noticed them. But I still went back from time to time and fixed things myself; I’d rather not take any chances whatsoever. I did that at least three times. But two weeks ago (April 4 2012, to be precise), I decided to reread the entire thing from start to finish (after for the past times simply nitpicking specific chapters -.-)
Name: Catalina of Fiera
Age: 3600
Rank: Centurion Captain, First Class.
Species: Divine
Physical Appearance + Distinctive Features: Catalina is a remarkably beautiful woman, far exceeding her people’s already high standards. Though unusually short for a Divine, her red hair -a sign of good fortune for amongst Divine- and sanguine eyes make her a sight to behold, even to the other races. Catalina is slender yet strong, and is just as powerful as any Divine man.
Personality: Arrogant and aggressive; treats her soldiers with respect and courtesy, but consistently refuses to take orders from Alaura and her staff. She has no compunction about working with any other race; she simply believes that Humankind is the Grigori’s legacy, and they would do best to destroy them down to their very last atom. Even so, she is respects their fighting spirit and resourceful guile, and believes that had their legacy not been marred by the Grigori, they would’ve made a fine addition to the Covenant of Empyrea; she even grudgingly admits that several of them follow the Empyrean Scriptures’ messages. Her Centurion Spirit makes her hard and brash, but she is quite humble, even beloved, amongst her men. Her training alongside Romulus, Borne to the Sun’s Shadow, has also proven invaluable; he has turned an already mighty warrior into a ‘person of mass destruction,’ if you wish. I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who has the misfortune of invoking her fury.
Special Talents:
Weapons: Fiera. A five-foot Zweihander of incredible density and breadth. The blade is so large and heavy, that simply wielding it is a feat in and of itself. It is colored red and blue, as a symbol of justice and order, while her personal creed is inscribe upon its length, as is Divine tradition. It reads, “Guerrero sin espada no es mas que un mendigo.” Warrior without blade is naught but a beggar. Curious; it is no surprise though, given her defiant nature.
Affiliation: Covenant of Empyrea, Crimson Legion, Thirty-second Century, the ‘Praetors.’
Biography & Service: -Classified under Subsection 53 of the Prime Article; pending proper review.-
