SOME SINS ARE NEVER FORGIVEN
STAR HORIZON
Am I human? A young bio-engineered soldier, deemed as a soulless commodity by his natural born overlords, intends to find out.
In the year 2750, an advanced civilization, the Starry Empire, uses a self-conceived loophole in the scourge of slavery—humans genetically engineered for a particular kind of service and then classified as being various kinds of sub-human. Kor, a bio-engineered soldier, will soon exchange the relative freedom of youth for a life of duty and death. But Kor pushes back against surrendering to the expected life and becomes a nexus of disruption. Events escalate beyond his intention, and he embarks on an odyssey that puts at risk everyone Kor loves, everyone he wants to save, and his chance at ever seeing himself as truly human.
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MEET THE
CHARACTERS
KOR
Kor is a sub-set human Militant designed to be an elite soldier for the Starry Empire. But the desire for freedom sets him on a rebellious path.
Sub-set humans enjoy a degree of relative freedom within the Starry Empire under an agreement known as the Blue Compromise.
But Kor is about to be anointed a man before his Steel Rose clan. On that day, he must register his name to the "death pool", the empire's candidate list used to draft Militant men into service for the Brigades. The approaching day weighs on his spirit.
Earther music calls to his passions, and he sneaks away into the heights to carve a flute during the midnight hours. At other times, he retreats to his Painted Garden and dreams of different futures where he does not have to serve and to kill on command.
Kor is determined to manifest his dreams in ways only his heart knows are possible.
JETH
Jeth was a scientist long ago. He created what came to be known as the Cosmic-Song, a container holding a vibrating matrix, the source of all creation. He wanted himself and his wife to pass their consciousness into the matrix to evolve, expand, and explore their love forever.
Eventually, they would evolve into a god form. But an assassination attempt gone awry missed Jeth and killed his beloved Sala. In a desperate attempt to save her life, Jeth transferred Sala's consciousness into a biological hive mind intended as a life-extension safeguard while he worked on the Cosmic Song.
But Sala viewed the transfer as a violation, as a kind of rape. She rejected her former human self, murdered Jeth and threw his consciousness into the Cosmic-Song, a prison of everlasting void. Jeth has persisted in the void for hundreds of thousands of years, clinging to sanity and dreaming of the day when he could exact his revenge and claim all that the universe owed to him for his suffering.
CHARRONA
Charronna is a rare natural born (non-engineered) telepath with an unusually high rating. She was taken from her parents at an early age to be trained as an elite agent of the Starry Empire.
She is forbidden to see her parents or have romantic relationships. Once taken, the State became her singular devotion though with ample rewards.
The training is harsh, loveless, and designed to hone her into an uncaring instrument of the State. Bits and pieces of her humanity survive but she has awareness that little of it remains.
She is a frequent customer at the Sweet Crave Salon where she enjoys the company of simple-minded but well-built lab-spawn.
Despite a hardened heart, deep down Charronna wishes to liberate herself as much as possible from the Starry Empire’s ruling Chorus and their Smiling Court. Her biggest fear is that she is a monster and that she’s too far gone to ever recover.
ZAXA
Zaxa is a White Mother hive mind composed of millions of interconnected milky white scarabs known as uulli. Uulli come, uulli go, but the mind goes on forever. These scarabs often change color from elevated emotion or stress.
A long time ago, Zaxa was Sala, a human woman. But when Jeth, Sala’s betrothed, cast Sala’s mind into a White Mother to save her life, she soon evolved into Zaxa, and she rejected her humanity.
Insane for revenge at what Jeth did to her, she murdered him and cast his dying consciousness into the Cosmic-Song, an artifact of his making designed to uplift a human mind into a god-like state.
Zaxa attributes humanness to weakness, to betrayal, to vulnerability, and to having no control. She orchestrated the deaths of tens of billions of humans during an ancient war as she sought to rid them from the galaxy.
The Cosmic-Song was lost during the war she initiated, but she yearns to recover it in order to become the Mother of the Universe.
SENTINEL
Sentinel is one of the Starry Empire's ruling Chorus (triumvirate). Driven by a need to matter more than anyone else, she is the most powerful of the three rulers and manages the natural born worlds.
Contempt best describes her view of other people, including her husband. She is not cruel just to be cruel, but she will do whatever she feels is necessary to protect civilization from perceived threats.
Her transforming event was a betrayal by her brother with whom she was close; she then lost the ability to truly trust anyone. As a result, she always carries a level of paranoia which pushes her to consort with increasing frequency the Society of Truth and Gnosis, a class of Psians able to perceive possible futures along with their probabilities.
She is a powerful woman and will never back down to anyone.
BLESSED ONE, POLARIAN EMPEROR
The Blessed One has existed for countless millennia. He began existence as a genetic clone of Jeth. For millennia, the clone's consciousness transferred into a young host.
Over time, many "shadows", the lives of the young hosts before the transfer, accumulated. Older shadows tended to fade, including the first shadow such that the Blessed One lost connection to his origins.
But during the great flight from the home world, he had seized the Cosmic Song. As the centuries passed, it became a holy relic.
Eventually, the emperor realized it could elevate his consciousnesses to god-hood which would also allow the expansion of the many shadows. But the attempt failed, he was once again forced to flee.
He became a stillborn creation with long life, and he could no longer transfer consciousness. The emperor is at last dying. He has one last chance to recover the Cosmic Song and achieve his ancient dream.
BROC
Broc is leader of one of the Militant high clans, Crew Defiance. The clans of Iron Star, Steel Rose, and Crew Defiance have a historical alliance dating back thousands of years.
Together, with the support of other key clans, they have ensured that Militants serve the Starry Empire as required while maintaining internal order. But the arrival of Earthers, a failed rebellion against the Starry Empire, and increasingly assertive religious orders have upended longstanding political stability.
As Zorn, his world, threatens to unravel, he embarks on a dangerous road to lead the resistance in a fight for freedom for the clans and for the restoration of local females whose fate in the genetic re-engineering projects was the worse of any group of people throughout the Starry Empire.
DEX
Dex is by a year the younger brother of Jude. Unlike Jude, Dex is more reserved and less willing to take chances.
He has a good heart, and he loves Jude, and he is part of the inner posse surrounding Kor and Jude. Like Jude, he grew a clipped beard, but his motivation was driven mostly by a desire to be like his virtual twin older brother whom he admired and adored.
He is willing to show defiance, and has no love for the priests, but only at the margins. The obedient life of a Militant, written into his DNA, calls to his mind. To live is to fight is die!
JUDE
Like Kor, Jude is a Militant, one of the brown-bronze men of Iron Star and is the eldest son to one of the clan leader’s brothers. Iron Star is a powerful clan and a long-standing ally of Steel Rose.
To renew that alliance, the respective clan leaders betrothed Kor to Jude though they in truth loved one another and would have chosen no one else.
Jude is playful, enjoys riding ocean waves and dancing away the night, while pushing the rules to their limits. He grew a clipped beard like other younger men in the secular clans had done to show displeasure with the increasing interference of the religious orders into the governance of Militant society.
He tagged himself with the triple triangle brand belonging to a politically aggressive wing of the religious orders in a daring show of disdain. But though he has a rebellious streak, he expects to live the life ordained in the Blue Compromise and serve the Starry Empire as required.
RAVEN
Raven is a devoted slave to the Polarian Emperor (the Blessed Master).
For the first eighteen years of his life, he had no name, referred to only as a number, but when the Blessed Master, the one true Living God, commissions him for a sacred and secret mission, he is granted the name of Raven.
The Living God is the one true pathway to Paradise, but though he is ancient, his gnarled and warped body is at last dying.
Salvation requires the Cosmic-Song, and Raven must find and recover it at any cost.
He is honorable in his own way, but in the end, he serves his master. Moral codes are important and measure the worth of a man, but the Blessed Master’s desire trumps all.
NOI
Noi is a telepathic Prophet class Psian sub-set human. Unlike most classes of Psians, Prophets have trouble shielding themselves from foreign minds when bonding.
They take another’s disgust, dreams, passions, anger, hopes, their everything. However, because of their empathetic nature, it is almost impossible to lie undetected to a Prophet even without a direct mental bonding.
For this reason, the Starry Empire’s security apparatus places a premium on deploying Prophets. The Starry Empire coerced Noi into serving the starry empire by holding his family hostage.
A faith believer following the Harmonist Way, an unsanctioned group that practices in secret (a challenge among telepathic humans), he tends to be calm even while under duress.
A gentle but mentally strong man who prefers to garden and to meditate, his most cherished creed is to never bring harm to others. But when serving the Starry Empire, personal creeds count for nothing.
BAPS
Baps was part of Kor’s and Jude’s inner posse. Unlike the others, who hailed from one of the high clans, he is a second-tier Emergent from Clan Gallant.
Baps was a party boy, very sociable, renowned for his tabletop dancing, passionate, opinionated, intense, and he loved his mates. But that was before his ascension ceremony into manhood.
He is six months older than Kor, and once he crossed to the other side of the divide, he lost interest in "boy stuff". A Militant by design, he fulfills his purpose by living the expected life.
Unlike the others in his posse, he regularly goes to temple, and he considers himself devout. But he carries a dark secret that simmers into resentment and anger.
SALA
In a history all but forgotten, Sala was a young woman engaged to Jeth, a brilliant scientist. She decided to marry him in part because Jeth was the lead scientist in one of the most prestigious schools, giving him a level of high status.
But in terms of chemistry, it was a strained match.
Jeth adored Sala but spent too much time in the lab working on his Cosmic-Song project to elevate human consciousness to God-hood. When assassins nearly killed Sala, Jeth transferred her consciousness into a biologically renewing White Mother hive mind.
Sala woke up disoriented and angry, and feeling like she had been violated. The hive mind worked differently than a human mind and Sala lost touch with her human origins.
Eventually, she killed Jeth and tossed his consciousness in the artifact of his creation. Sala evolved into Zaxa, and Zaxa cast her human self, all that she was when she was the woman Sala, into the Cosmic-Song to rid herself of weakness and to torment Jeth for eternity.
SPARROW
Meagan Alessandra Hayleigh Baxter the Second (Sparrow to her friends) is daughter of Malcolm Baxter.
The Baxter Dynasty rules Hermes, a powerful world in the Earth Confederation and a member in the Resurgent Coalition, a group of interstellar colony worlds maneuvering for independence from Earth-Sol cultural and political dominance.
Her father is white with white-blonde hair and her mother is Latina, a pairing that resulted in startingly blue eyes set within a creamy light brown complexion.
Malcolm decided to send his only daughter to Isulder, a Polarian League world for education. Malcolm's motive was in part to isolate her from Earther influences.
Though resourceful and daring in spirit, Sparrow lives in the shadow of seven brothers and an overprotective father.
HARMONY
Harmony is one of the Starry Empire's ruling Chorus (triumvirate). She is gender fluid, male by birth but prefers a power androgynous or female look.
In the division of power, she oversees the sub-set human worlds. The author of innumerable wicked deeds, she longs to be something other than a villain, but the affairs of State require an armored heart.
Harmony worries at the long-term stability of the Starry Empire given the cultural pressure and influence exerted by Earth. The Earthers have a much more dynamic culture and its aggressive expansion poses a problem for a static empire that carefully manages advancement and the pace of change.
Harmony does not believe the empire's model will sustain the outside pressures and believes new ways must be considered; otherwise, a collapse is inevitable.
But Harmony is not yet clear on how to manage transition to an acceptable alternative. She is not a change-for-sake-of-change kind of person. Harmony keeps her opinion closely guarded.
DEMI
The Demi is the highest rank in the sub-set human Creator class. Typical of her kind, she has pearl-gray skin with yellow-golden eyes. She can sense out of balances, disturbances in patterns, and is able to direct energy flows with acupuncture needles in herself and others.
Demi is gender fluid though she leans toward identifying as female. The Demi is a rank, and she is referred to as if it were her name. Unlike many Demis, who are tasked to live life in "the gray”, in a balance of light and dark where shadow cannot be, she has favorites and preferences.
She lives on the margins of both light and shadow, a dangerous but rewarding place for this Demi to be. She is an agent of Harmony on a quest to understand the deep imbalances in the empire and to find a path forward.
Demi, however, has a private agenda and secretly wishes to unleash upheaval in the system. She wants to reclaim her name.
HOZO
Hozo are insectoid servants created by and for the White Mother hive minds. The Hozo break down into different classes and sub-types.
The primary classes are Warriors (sub-types of royal guards, fliers, defenders, fighters, shockers, predators, wraiths and swarmers), Observers (sub-types of seers, snoops, seekers, and snitches), Caretakers (sub-types of attendants, carriers, nurturers, providers, and healers), Drones (sub-types of emissaries, workers, pilots, builders, and basics), Initiators (sub-types of dreamers, painters, dancers, singers, and provokers), and Ambassadors, reminiscent of an upright praying mantis and the only type of Hozo with agency.
White Mothers control Hozo through conscious and sub-conscious intention, however, Hoze can operate without focused direction based on their perception of their White Mother’s want.
MEN’OP
Men’op is a young male Dorram, one of the races in the alien Commonweal alliance. The Elder Brood, a matriarchy, rules the Dorrams, but Men’op lusts for importance and to that end he secured membership into the Guild of Truthful and Accurate Media.
Dorrams evolved from caves; they have poor eyesight, but excellent hearing and they can “see” soundwaves.
As a rule, Dorrams are not aggressive nor command much of a military, but they have a potent weapon: the interlock. During an interlock dreaming, Dorrams (usually females) perceive futures like the Society of Truth and Gnosis Psians.
During one such interlock, danger emanated from the outer regions of the Commonweal in a backwater region known as the Periphery. Against his desire, the ruling Elder Brood orders him to investigate as the dreaming identified Men’op as playing a key role in the futures (both favorable and unfavorable) to come.
Men’op is determined to make a name for himself though he would rather be anywhere else.
LOM
Lom is the Chair of the Commonweal, a longstanding galactic alliance of alien races. He’s a Nevran, a reptilian species renowned for their engineering skills and grand monuments.
The politics of the Commonweal involves many races with competing agendas, and managing the civilization requires constant work and vigilance.
Though not a bad person, his overriding moral consideration is maintaining stability.