Admittedly, “Home Front” was not the story that I intended to serve as the follow up to the first book.  Because “Moments of Transition” was getting a little on the lengthy side, I started to cut things out of the story; the first thing to go was the storyline involving the Corathi.  After Za’lon discovered that the Eqra were mentioned in The Tome of Na’zar, she went to Captain Hunter with the news.  My original concept was to actually investigate the Corathi connection to the Eqra at that point in the story, but in the book, Zack ends up telling Za’lon that it’s an interesting find, but they would have to deal with it later.  Because it was just too much of a diversion—both for the Starlight and for me.  I intended to follow up “Moments of Transition” with that story about the Corathi, but, in the end, it didn’t happen.

 

“Family” [TNG]

“You Are Cordially Invited” [DS9]

“The Gift” [VGR]

“Home” [ENT]

“Rising Star” [B5]

 

Each of these episodes have something in common: they’re quiet little stories that follow a momentous event in their respective series, and each gives the characters a chance to deal with the aftermath of that event. As much as I wanted to jump straight into the stuff with the Corathi, there was simply too much emotional baggage leftover that needed to be dealt with, and I didn’t want to sweep it under the rug. That would’ve been a disservice to both the characters and the story. I needed a “Family” of my own for Starlight Universe.

 

The downside is that “Home Front” is a very… mellow story, and any criticisms leveled against it because of its leisurely pace are certainly valid.  This is not to say that the story is bad.  I honestly believe that “Home Front” is a quality story.  I’m simply willing to recognize that this sort of tale is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.

 

Besides, mellow as “Home Front” might be, it does have its fair share of action.

 

While I had most of the various storylines fleshed out going into this episode, the Courtney/Jordan plot thread from “Destinies of Flame and Sorrow” was more of question mark. I went through about a dozen family activities in search of the right storyline.  They had lunch in a flower garden.  They went digging for dinosaur bones in Montana.  They watched paint dry.  It was all a little too cutesy for its own good, and, despite my best efforts, there was no gravitas.  Their story was not building to anything of consequence.  Around this same time, I realized that the distinct lack of action might be problematic for the story, and anything I came up with for Courtney and Jordan would only serve to amplify that.

 

Enter Kumi Shibata.  Initially, the good doctor had nothing to do in “Home Front.”  As she is not a very introspective character, Shibata didn’t have any impetus to go soul searching like Cortez or Hunter, and she therefore stayed out of the story.  But then I got to thinking, what if she did have a story? It didn’t take long for me to brainstorm some fun ideas that took advantage of her eccentricities, and before I knew it, the voyage to Uranus was at hand.  You can kind of tell that this was a late addition to the book since it doesn’t even start until about halfway through, but… whatever.  This was my opportunity to add some much-needed action into the book, and, as a bonus, I could bring Courtney and Jordan along for the ride.

 

This was also my chance to do something that I have wanted to do since the early days of my Star Trek fan fiction: have two ships beat the hell out of each other in an asteroid belt.  As an added bonus, this was also my first attempt at having two smaller vessels engage in combat.  I’ve done plenty of huge fleet battles; I’ve written plenty of one-on-one fights, too.  But I’ve never had fighters go at it like something out of Star Wars or Babylon 5.  I think the end result was a lot of fun; it’s not the most intense battle I’ve ever written, but for a story in which nothing happens, it made for a good climax.

 

And yes, I’ll fess up:  the only reason I picked Uranus was for the trite and tired jokes.  I’m sorry.

 

Something that I’m not sorry about is the scene that opens up Chapter Three.  In the past, I have rarely touched upon religion in my writing… mostly because I am not very religious myself.  But with Starlight Universe, I’ve decided to take my characters into some territory that is unfamiliar to me.  Roger Thompson is one obvious example; his proclivity for firing up a big fatty is… well, not something that I would ever do. Captain Hunter’s foray into religion is also something that is experimental for me.  As such, his conversation with Father Steve at the beginning of Chapter Three was very difficult for me to write. It required an exceptional amount of research to make it feel genuine, and I’m very proud of the end result.  I don’t intend for SU to ever become preachy, or anything, but I feel like this sort of intelligent conversation is the right way to tackle these opposing viewpoints.

 

Getting a feel for Thunder Bay was also a bit of a challenge.  While I have been to Canada, I’ve never been to Thunder Bay (outside of a trip via Google Earth).  Thankfully, Northern Michigan is not entirely dissimilar from Thunder Bay and vicinity, so I was able to merge my various experiences into something that I hope felt like the real thing.

 

As you might have guessed, I am from Michigan, so it was no coincidence that Za’lon was admiring it from orbit.  Or that the majority of the Cortez/Corbin/Galloway plot takes place in Michigan.  Or that Corbin and Thompson are both from Michigan.  Incidentally, in an effort to make the cast a bit more diverse, Corbin and Thompson are the only major characters who hail from the United States (or what’s left of it in the twenty-fifth century). Captain Hunter is Canadian, Galloway is Korean, Shibata is Japanese, Mitchell is Australian, Cortez is Belizean, Dexa Rai is Nepalese, and none of the other major characters are from Earth.

 

And whatever happened to the United States?  I don’t know if I’ll ever get into it in the series, but I did touch upon the System Wars in “Home Front.” Suffice to say, the USA did not fare well in the conflict.

 

If you have been a longtime fine of mine, then you are undoubtedly familiar with Star Trek: The Final Frontier. Starlight Universe is a bit of a spiritual successor, and “Home Front” really started to double-down on that.  Not only is there mention of the Alteran Expanse and Ka’Tula Prime (and an obscure reference to Byzell VI), a very familiar face appears at the end of the episode.  With “Home Front” complete, I feel like I’ve built enough of a foundation for Starlight Universe to stand on its own, so now I can start to incorporate more of the characters and lore from The Final Frontier.  Or, in other words, shit is about to hit the fan. Stay tuned for more!

 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel with Starlight Universe.  I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from Star Trek, Babylon 5, Mass Effect, Stargate, and Halo. So the universe is definitely a comfortable one if you’re familiar with those franchises.  Coming up with unique new technologies is simply not my forte.  I’m much better at dealing with unique characters, so I want to do that in a setting I’m familiar with.  That being said, I’m not totally without new ideas.  I think that the phase transition is an interesting concept (that I hope to do a lot more with down the road). But the virtual world is another interesting piece of technology that is unique to Starlight Universe.  I mean, we’ve definitely seen characters enter a virtual world before in other series… Star Trek has its holodeck. There was that one episode of Stargate where O’Neill and company were hooked up to some sort of virtual reality machine? Maybe? That memory is a little fuzzy.   So, the concept isn’t entirely new, but I think the idea of being able to enter and exit the virtual world via a neural implant is both unique and kind of cool.  How it works will probably remain a bit of a mystery.  As we have seen, it can be used to communicate over very long distances.  I’m assuming that the Starlight’s computers are of the quantum variety, and there is some form of quantum entanglement allowing for instantaneous communication across the Orion Alliance (when it’s convenient for the plot).  One other thing that I’d like to point out is that technology in Starlight Universe works.  As in, it has been rigorously tested by the Orion Alliance and approved for use by the general population.  The virtual world is never going to go haywire*.  The quantum teleportation systems are not some sort of death trap that sends characters to parallel universes or merges them into Tuvix.  This stuff is safe.  This also means that there is never going to be a “holodeck episode” or a “transporter malfunction episode” of Starlight Universe.  Sorry.

 

*I realize that the virtual world did go haywire in the beginning of “Home Front,” but that was because Black Sun is a buggy pile of shit.  It’s like when a game crashes your PC; there isn’t (usually) anything wrong with your PC.  It’s just a critical error in the game.