Klok Blog: Themes of the Cryoverse!

It's been two weeks since the last Klok Blog! Today's post is patron-only, and that's mostly because it will include information about future stories set in the TLP side of the Cryoverse!

I've been writing Cryopod since late 2016; four years in total. In that time, I've periodically learned to focus on new and unique aspects of writing, using those moments to temper myself and improve my quality as an author. For example, I once spent several months learning to purge 'passive sentences' from my stories. They still pop up occasionally, but for the most part I don't use them anymore.

Ex:

The syringe was taken by the doctor and administered to the patient.

vs

The doctor took the syringe and administered its medicine to the patient.

Stuff like this, I've put into practice time and again. Recently, about 6-8 months ago, I started looking at a new writing concept, one I hadn't tackled yet, one that focused on the 'themes' inherent in any given story.

Themes are a bit hard to describe. It took me a long time to assimilate the concept of themes into my brain so that I could identify themes in other people's stories, as well as my own. Themes tend to revolve around repeated messages in any given story; core concepts that guide the story's message. For example, you might read a story about a retired war hero who struggles with PTSD. The story's themes would likely reflect on how the PTSD affects him, making him sensitive to noise, coloring his views of the world, and so on.

Themes are also sometimes called motifs. The themes and motifs of stories tend to give them strong through-lines, linking the actions of several characters and incidents together to help paint a cohesive picture. All stories have themes and motifs, even if the authors don't realize it. The difference between a good author and a bad one often comes from whether the author can identify various writing techniques and apply those techniques to their own work, for better or for worse.

With that in mind, I thought I'd use this post to focus on my work, primarily the Cryoverse, and show what I've learned by applying the visual filter of theming to my past, present, and future stories.

So, with that in mind, this will be the flow of the post:

First, I'll talk about Cryopod's themes. If you haven't read Cryopod yet, expect huge spoilers. For TLP readers, you might want to skip this section.

Following that, I'll talk about TLP. This will not have spoilers in a specific sense, but it may have spoilers in a broad, general sense.

Finally, I will talk about a pair of future stories in the Cryoverse; both of them being successors to TLP. These will definitely be spoilers, and will only be available to patrons. Even if you are a patron, if you're a big no-spoiler-purist, you may wish to avoid these. Nevertheless, since I've only started the process of the future TLP successor stories, these spoilers will be somewhat vague and unspecific, so they probably won't ruin your enjoyment; maybe just increase your anticipation instead.

With this short TL:DR out of the way, let's start with Cryopod!

The Cryopod to Hell was the first story I ever wrote. It was a work that I poured copious amounts of time and effort into, and eventually led me to become a prolific writer, someone who pumps out, on average, 2,000 words a day. However, as my first work, it was also my least-focused, at least for the original version (Cryopod Classic) and thus the one that I had the hardest time identifying themes for.

I won't even try to identify Classic's themes. Instead, I'll talk about Refresh, since that came out after two years of Classic, when I had improved my writing craft by leaps and bounds.

Cryopod's 1st Theme: The Concept of Immortality.

One major running theme in Cryopod, both in its Classic and Refresh incarnation, is an exploration of what it really means to be immortal. As I've written in a past blog, I have several views on what it would mean to become immortal. I think different people would react in varied ways to the concept of never suffering a biological death, which leads to a lot of interesting character traits. 

Without naming names, some characters in Cryopod become slow, plodding, sloth-like beings. They consume good food, live wastrel lives, and don't really "progress" themselves in any meaningful way. They tend to stagnate and live debauched existences, pursuing only moment-to-moment pleasures.

On the other hand, there are also hyper-attentive characters, beings who pursue knowledge and personal advancement to an infinite degree. These characters also live lives of consumption, but unlike the former examples, they consume knowledge voraciously, intending to reach the pinnacles of power, wisdom, and knowledge.

To summarize Cryopod's theme on Immortality, I like to use this phrase:

"Immortality is truly never-ending; Infinity is far more mundane than we can possibly imagine."

Moving on, we reach the next of Cryopod's major running themes.

Cryopod's 2nd Theme: The Price of War.

War is a multifaceted issue, one that rarely gets much nuance in the discussions of daily life. There are good guys, and there are bad guys. Sometimes it's not clear which side is which, but people will still always try to put "their side" on the side of Good, and "the other side" on the side of Bad.

This is where another phrase comes to mind:

"Rarely are there right or wrong sides in a war, but always, both sides will have victims."

Cryopod's view on war, and thus mine, isn't about good guys or bad guys; it's about the victims. We might not always be able to identify who are the aggressors, and who is in the right or the wrong, but we can always spot the victims; the people who have suffered the most senseless deaths, injuries, and losses. Often, they had nothing to do with the initial conflict and are merely pulled into the wars by way of proxy.

One example: In Cryopod Refresh, the conflict between demonkind and angelkind is a tale of "his fault, her fault." The Angels enslaved the demons. Then, the demons escaped, grew more powerful, and came back to slaughter many of their captors. So far, so good, right? The angels are clearly the bad guys; they paid their penance.

But then, the angels and the demons continued fighting. Thousands of years passed, and soon, many unrelated parties got roped into this grand war. Perhaps the demons were in the 'right' to fight back, but their senseless slaughter of angels at all costs, along with humans and Titans, made them violent and bloodthirsty monsters. At this point, one might be able to argue the demons had more than 'paid the price' and now their actions were going too far.

By that point, it didn't matter who started the war. All that mattered were the rising costs, and the unending loss of lives.

After thousands of years of warfare, the aggressors didn't matter; only the victims. This theme plays out not only in the demon-angel wars, but in all the other wars within Cryopod.

Cryopod's 3rd Theme: Team-work makes the dream-work.

'Friendship is magic,' some might say, but this theme actually has nothing to do with that anime-style trope.

No, instead, this theme is all about what happens when an individual has to go up against a team of people working together to meet a common goal. Rather than being a philosophical theme, this one is more of a story mechanic. I've read many novels where the Hero gets the killing blow and all the glory. But in actuality, I like it a lot better when all the members of a team are competent and they strongly help the Hero with his ultimate success.

Thus, I came up with this phrase to describe Cryopod's third theme:

"When two or more people work together, their might doesn't combine; it multiplies."

I really like seeing a bunch of people function together like a well-oiled machine. There are plenty of instances in Cryopod of one character kicking ass, but oftentimes, during the biggest, most important battles, the ultimate wins and conclusions come from a concentrated team effort.

For example: Amelia is defeated by all of the demons working together, along with Jason helping out in his own way.

When Uriel attacks, all of the demons combine their efforts to defeat her. Ose lands the final blow, but she could not have succeeded alone. (The other demons at least weakened Uriel somewhat, making her easier to take down)

When the demons attack Heaven, during the War in Heaven, all of the angels and all of the demons have to work together to finish the battle. Satan lands the killing blow in the end, but he would not succeed without tying everyone else into his plans.

This is one of Cryopod's stronger story mechanics, and one I consider an important part of its battle-structure.

Cryopod's 4th Theme: Debt and Blood.

This motif is somewhat similar to the first theme, since it mostly revolves around past grievances. It goes a little something like this:

"The longer one allows debts to accumulate, the more blood one will need to repay them."

In Cryopod, there is a long-running theme focused on what happens to the oppressed and victimized masses. Eventually, they always rise up, rage in their eyes. This is because their oppressors have accumulated countless blood debts. When the reckoning comes, the hammer of justice falls with impunity.

The angels oppressed the dragons, the titans, the demons, and even the humans. In the end, they faced extinction.

The demons defeated the angels, took control of the Earth, and enslaved the humans. What will the ultimate result be?

Only time will tell.

...

Cryopod has many themes. I found these four through careful introspection, but I'm sure an attentive reader could identify plenty of others, if only due to the story's size and scope.

Now, with Cryopod setting the bar, let's move on to The Last Precursor and its future successors.

The Last Precursor is a very different story from The Cryopod to Hell. They share the same universe, and they expand and improve on each other's lore in huge, important ways. However, in terms of theming, TLP is much stronger than Cryopod, and far more focused in its execution.

Unlike when I first started writing four years ago, I began TLP by focusing on a simple idea: What if a powerful, badass Terran arrived in a galaxy of weaker beings, a galaxy in which all the rest of humankind had perished? 

This simple idea gradually expanded. I decided to theme the story around loneliness, isolation, and the sense of loss a person might feel upon finding out all of their species had perished. Unlike in Cryopod, where Jason also wakes up in the far future, Jose does not have godly superhuman abilities capable of shifting the void and making the Creator blush with envy. He's a relatively normal person, albeit with body-enhancing cybernetics.

Most importantly, Jose is a soldier; a grunt. He's someone who has fought in so many wars and killed so many people that death and destruction mean nothing to him. He kills without batting an eye. He's a hugely different person from Jason Hiro, not only in his age and experiences, but in his mental fortitude, wisdom, and personality.

This afforded me lots of opportunities to really play around with having a highly intelligent central protagonist. What would this seemingly unstoppable juggernaut's weaknesses look like?

TLP's 1st Theme: Loss.

Jose Rodriguez, as stated before, arrives in a galaxy where all of his fellow crewmates have died, along with his family, his culture, and his species. Immediately, a sense of loss befalls him.

The phrase I would use to describe this is as follows:

"Sometimes, it can be impossible to move past the deaths of loved ones. Even so, persevering can lead to a brighter future."

Not only is TLP about the theme of Loss, but also about moving beyond that loss. Dwelling on everything you no longer have is the first and most logical choice many would make. However, for Jose Rodriguez, his story is about advancing his mind, making new friends, and carving out a new place in the galaxy for himself. He might be the last human, but that also makes him the one person who can keep humankind's legacy alive.

Speaking of which...

TLP's 2nd Theme: Remembrance.

Not only is TLP about Loss and moving beyond it, the story is also about the burden someone may, and possibly should feel upon realizing they are the last survivor of a tragedy.

Irvin Yalom once said:

"A person dies twice: once when they take their final breath, and later, the last time their name is spoken."

Jose Rodriguez doesn't only continue to live for himself, but for the sake of those he's lost. He could end his life, and thus his pain. He could, perhaps, meet his loved ones once again in the Great Beyond. 

But if he did that, they would essentially die forever in the physical realm, as he would have been the last person alive who remembered them and spoke their names.

Therefore, Remembrance is TLP's second major theme.

TLP's 3rd Theme: Grief.

The third theme probably sounds a lot like the first, but it isn't. This aspect of grief lies not within Jose needing to grieve, nor his desire to do so, but rather, the most successful mechanism at his disposal to assist him in his grieving.

The relevant quote goes like this:

"When one has reached the end of their rope and all hope is lost, sometimes it takes a helping hand to climb up from the abyss of despair."

In this context, 'grief' is not about Jose's need to cope, but about how the tool that will help him to do so must come from bonding with others. Jose no longer has any friends or family to lean on in his weakest emotional moments; therefore, developing a solid base of new friends can and should be his best solution.

TLP focuses heavily on loss, remembrance, and grief. The story is really a sci-fi tale of what might happen if a comatose person woke up in an alien world, one they're completely unfamiliar with, in which everyone they've ever known has died.

In that respect, while I may only point out these three themes for TLP, they are much stronger and better interwoven into the story than Cryopod's themes. This is just one aspect of my writing improvement over the last few years that TLP improves and expands on. It's something I'm proud of!

...

And with that in mind, I will move on from TLP to focus on its successor stories. From here on out, you can expect synopses and rundowns of what those successors will entail.

SPOILER WARNING!

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The above title is WIP. It can and probably will change in the future. For now, it is the title I am choosing to use for TLP and its successor stories.

Cyborgs and Demons is the second planned story in the TLP side of the Cryoverse. Set before the events of TLP, it is a prequel novel which will focus primarily on two dual-protagonists and one side-protagonist. Namely, Nicholai Azaram, Evelyn (Last name currently undecided), and Jose Rodriguez.

This story takes place thousands of years before the final mission that Jose and Nicky-boy embark on, the one which results in their crew perishing inside the plasma storm, where ultimately only Jose survives.

I have not entirely decided many aspects of the story. However, what I have settled on is quite solid and unlikely to change.

Nick and Jose are dispatched by Ramma's Central Command to a world in another universe; one of many universes in the multiverse known as the Cryoverse. (Tired of the word 'verse' yet?)

On this world, Nick finds that there is a human civilization, one that is extremely primitive, weak, and enslaved by an ungodly horde of demons. Demonkind has annihilated the angels, wiped out the Titans, and laid claim to the whole planet. Humans are little more than chattel beneath their feet.

The story is one which will focus on their efforts to free humanity from the demons; mirroring some of the events which take place within Cryopod, but without the unlimited power of Wordsmithing at Nick and Jose's beck and call.

Cyborgs and Demons' 1st Theme: Endurance.

This story is all about suffering, pain, and the horrors of slavery. In TCTH, we often hear about humans being enslaved. We even see those horrors a few times. However, this story will be far more visceral and mature. It won't be an action-packed thriller focused on humans kicking ass, but instead a slow and steady resistance force built up over time.

As such, the quote I've chosen is:

"Humanity will always endure. No matter the hardship, humans never give up."

In this world, humans are nothing but vermin; infinitely worthless. They have no magic. They have no technology. They are slaves, through and through. 

Even so, despite the boots stomping down upon them, humanity never gives up. They persevere, grit their teeth, and hold out hope for a future where they will rise up and take back their freedom from their demonic oppressors.

Unlike the universe Jose originates from, this one never had any human superpowers, any truly incredible civilizations and tales to inspire the people's hopes and dreams. Nevertheless, for some reason, they always hold out dogged hope in their capacity as a species.

And that brings us to our second theme.

Cyborgs and Demons' 2nd Theme: Hope.

As stated above, not only does humanity endure the neverending boot of an oppressor species, they also hold out hope in their hearts that someday, somehow, they can change their lives for the better.

Thus, the second quote:

"Even when all seems lost, a mere spark of hope can ignite the fires of a revolution."

Nick and Jose's appearances don't just give the people a pair of powerful leaders to look up to; they also embolden them and inspire their hope. No longer will humanity be content to sit back and give themselves up as slaves!

And this brings us to the final theme...

Cyborgs and Demons' 3rd Theme: Resolve.

Have you ever dealt with someone who, over time, slowly got on your nerves, more and more? Did they ride your ass and harass you? Did you begin to grow angrier and angrier, resolving to one day take care of them once and for all?

If so, when that day came, if it did... how did you feel? Wasn't it cathartic, finally getting that weight off your chest?

The third quote is as such:

"The harder an enemy stomps their boot against humanity's back, the harder humans will fight back."

Humans are tough bastards. We've spent generations enslaving and genociding one another, performing all manner of back and forths. Countless times, a subdued populace would reach their limit, rise up in revolt, and overthrow those who oppressed them.

Why?

Because all humans have a breaking point; a moment of no return. Stomp us hard enough, and eventually, we will grab that boot and twist it with all our strength. Even if we lose our lives in the process, we'll make sure to break that leg and make our oppressor suffer.

...

Cyborgs and Demons is going to be a fun novel to write. I'm looking forward to it, especially as it follows in TLP's footsteps of having an extremely simple but solid premise, one which will further allow me to expand the Cryoverse, bringing several Cryopod characters into the fold in new and exciting ways.

But what about the story after Cyborgs and Demons?

Would you believe me if I told you... I already have a strong sequel planned?

This title may sound familiar to long-time readers of mine. Perhaps you may recall a recent Patreon post I made where I listed a bunch of ideas I had for stories. One of those ideas was this:

This story idea has been in my head for a while now. It will involve a fun magic system, a cool premise of two characters body-swapping, and so on. But how could I tie it into the Cryoverse?

...

Hmm.

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Aha! A brain-blast!

One day, I was reading the synopsis, and it struck me like a bolt of lightning. I had randomly named my character Joseph Lightbringer. I don't know what's up with me and J-names, but there it was, staring me in the face. I was thinking of changing it, when I realized...

"Hold on. Joseph Lightbringer. Jose Rodriguez. Jose-Joseph. Could they be... related?"

Boom! There's the tie-in.

Here's the new story premise:

Joseph Lightbringer, son of Jose Rodriguez, is the greatest mage among all of humanity's wizardly forces. However, in a tragic moment of weakness, he suffers a terrible wound fighting some foe (yet to be decided; it's a WIP premise and will definitely change a lot). Before his death, Joseph stakes his life on one last-ditch bet, sends his soul away, and hurls it toward an unknown destination.

Time passes. Jose's soul tears through time and space, eventually arriving in the distant future, tens of thousands of years after his death. There, he finds his life fires dying, and realizes he has to quickly find a body worth inhabiting. As luck (or fate?) would have it, he stumbles upon a young woman, perhaps 25 years of age, fleeing a group of psychotic enemies. (Blood-mages? Idk, it's WIP).

Joseph pursues them, and watches as the woman tumbles off a cliff. She crashes to the bottom and dies. However, before her body can lose its full life potential, Joseph takes over and inhabits it, deciding she'll make a decent enough vessel. To his surprise, his inhabitation ends up drawing her soul back, which brings her back to life!

Now, humanity's greatest mage must life in an unknown world, sharing a body with a woman he's only just met. Every day, they swap control of her body, likely due to some unknown magical byproduct of his assimilation.

This story is actually planned to be something of a Freaky Friday-esque comedy, with lots of funny moments involving a man and woman sharing the woman's body.

...

However, the world Joseph arrives in is one that is very different from his memories.

In what way?

I'm not actually sure. Either humans and demons will have learned to coexist, and thus there will be a new threat from the world he left, or perhaps the demons will be newly empowered and even more fearsome. I've yet to decide.

However, I still have some cool theming ideas!

Lightbringer's 1st Theme: Benefits.

One of my favorite stories, Reverend Insanity, has a cool motif going that it repeats constantly.

"There are no eternal enemies, only eternal benefits."

I plan to mimic this in some way. Perhaps Joseph will struggle with his bigotry and hatred of demonkind, who are now humanity's allies. Or, perhaps they're now humanity's allies, but the woman Joseph shares his body with wishes to end the wars, and thus he must struggle with his bigotry.

Either way, the story will -probably- focus on setting aside one's prejudices to look for common ground on more important issues.

Lightbringer's 2nd Theme: Biases.

As stated before, I plan for Joseph to struggle in some way with his hatred of demons. What form that will take; I cannot say. However, it will likely end up an important running theme, best stated as such:

"Sometimes, the person you thought was your enemy was only in that position because of your preconceived biases."

Perhaps there will be many misunderstandings and moments where Joseph assumes the worst of someone, all because he initially looks at them with a hostile eye. These could be excellent learning and character moments for him; an old man who has lived a long life.

Lightbringer's 3rd Theme: Sharing.

This one might feel a bit more disconnected, but I think it ties into the first two. At some point, it's likely Joseph will have to not only set aside his biases, but work side-by-side with a former enemy. At that time, we will learn the following concept:

"Sharing is caring; those who share their knowledge amongst one another will inevitably be better equipped to deal with hardships down the line."

Even if he hates his former enemies, Joseph will begrudgingly share his knowledge with them, thus empowering the group as a whole to fight and defeat whomever is at the top of their enemy itinerary.

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Cyborgs and Demons, as well as Lightbringer's Return, are both highly WIP stories. I most likely will change huge chunks of their plots, premises, and characters as time passes. Already, I'm laying down the foundation for them in TLP, so they will be a ready part of the canon and filled with fun and interesting mysteries once readers reach that point.

For now, though, I hope my readers will feel some level of excitement at these cool reveals! I hope you guys will get hyped, knowing that I've planned so far ahead for the Cryoverse's future, and we'll not be running out of content any time soon!

Many thanks for reading this far! I'll be returning to Cryopod for the next two weeks, then back to TLP for the second half of the month.

Thanks for supporting me, and thanks for reading my work. It means the world to me.