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The angels and demons in the series are ethereal beings with (ethereal) wings, and angels can take physical form to make themselves look human, but with wings. Both angels and demons can fly in their ethereal state, and angels can fly in their physical form as well.

Demons lost both their ability to assume physical form and their physical/angelic beauty when they lost the War in Heaven, which many (most?) Catholics believe happened at the dawn of Creation. Augustine believed the separation occurred when God separated the day from the night in Genesis, a metaphor for good and evil.

Demons in physical form are the corporeals, which are dead human bodies, so whatever a living human can do in the story, a corporeal can do too, which excludes walking on water, which is a trick only Connor can do. Corporeals are generally much stronger than humans and perhaps faster (I haven't decided their speed yet). The only time demons in a physical form can fly is if they possess a (non-human) animal that can fly (e.g., the demonic locusts Connor fights at the Sea of Galilee during the prologue, and the demonic birds that attack their vehicle on the road in Israel).

My demons don't heal the sick. But they can heal signs of decay in the dead carcasses they wear as bodies. Also, for corporeals to work in the story, they can access/inherit the memories of the dead hosts if they get to the bodies quickly enough (before the brain cells die).

To ensure consistency across the trilogy, I had to make it that demons can modify the bodies they inhabit. In the case of human bodies, they modify the bodies to "heal" limited signs of rot in corpses; in the locusts, they are able to create scorpion-like stingers at the back of locust bodies. I suspect the author of Revelation didn't intend for demonic locusts to be demon-possessed living locusts with modified tails, but it avoided a big inconsistency of having demons be able to assume the physical forms of lower animals but not the physical form of humans, hence they can "modify" whatever creature they inhabit, rather than changing themselves from ethereal into physical form directly.

Given how severe the corporeal bishop's reaction to swallowing holy water was, it should cause something far more severe than itching, even in De Rosa. However, I don't yet take advantage of the fact that even Satan is at least somewhat susceptible to holy water. In early version of the book's first draft, I had something similar to itching for De Rosa's reaction to that Christian chain locked around his neck, but readers knew almost immediately that he was a likely bad guy. So, I modified the effect of the chain to cause him stigmata pain/wounds whenever he murders one of the cardinals.

For what it's worth, demons cannot kill the pope, not even Satan. It would be too painful to try since he is the Vicar of Christ (he's protected from demons by God). That's where Connor comes in. Satan uses Connor to try to kill the pope, although the little demon-spawn couldn't go through with it when the time came.

While the chain in Revelation does seem big from a literal reading, Catholics view much of Revelation as figurative anyway. It therefore seemed reasonable (and convenient!) for me to define that chain to be a simple necklace with a Christian cross on it that Satan cannot remove and that causes him painful wounds to reflect the murders he commits in the book. A supernatural necklace with a cross is, in my mind, more powerful than any physical chain. In the final scenes involving Satan and his demons in the trilogy, they're all teleported to an asteroid, and all have Christian crosses secured around their corporeal necks, preventing the demons from escaping their dead host bodies and the asteroid as it spirals into the black hole.

Many Catholics interpret Revelation to be a spiritual story more so than a simple physical one, including the idea that there is no physical massing for a battle against Christ on Armageddon either. It's the reason, my final battle of the trilogy will be Satan's forces against Connor's forces, ultimately interrupted by Christ's return, not Satan and Connor against Christ. God the Father gives the angels the option to fight for Connor, which some of them do, led by Michael the Archangel.

The following is long because I'm filling in a lot of blanks based on what I've decided for the story, some of which you may not know or remember. I think it holds together pretty well. Skim as needed.

In the series, demons are no longer able to take physical form (part of what they lost after the War in Heaven), unlike their angelic counterparts. As a result, Satan came up with the idea of corporeals - demons taking control of recently dead bodies and making them appear alive. Ordinary demons can only keep that up for a few months before the tendency of a corpse to rot exceeds their ability to heal the decay. More powerful demons can keep it up longer, although I don't go into details other than the fact that Satan, who also wants/needs to take physical form at times to carry out his plans, has the ability to maintain a corpse indefinitely. That's why Angelo De Rosa is able to keep his physical body from falling apart. In fact, at some point in our recent past (e.g., a century or two before Connor is born), Satan became trapped in the De Rosa body when Michael the Archangel slipped a Christian necklace (a chain in the Apocalypse of John/Book of Revelation) around De Rosa's neck.

One advantage of corporeal form is that it protects demons from the pain of stepping onto holy ground, which is why De Rosa can set foot in churches as part of his job as commander of the Order of the Black Cassocks, a special forces team within the Swiss Guard. The order was created centuries ago as a team of priests to hunt and expose corporeals and is led in the present by none other than the ultimate corporeal. The reason Satan is willing to get his hands dirty is that this is his carefully crafted plan to have Connor eventually become the head of the Catholic Church (then convert the rest of Christianity and eventually people of all faiths). Needless to say, Satan has a vested interest in winning the Last Challenge.

Satan misinterpreted a hint given him by God for how to win the Last Challenge. God told him to become the shepherd who saves the drowning lamb, a reference to Connor. Satan assumed that meant he had to make Connor as powerful as possible so that Connor would side with Satan in deciding the Last Challenge, which God and Satan agreed would be decided by Satan's spawn, the Antichrist. There are actually two challenges: a fake one to divert the Church, and the real one. The fake challenge is that Satan supposedly bet God that not a single living priest will be found worthy of Heaven during the End Times. Satan uses that to steer the meeting into recommending that the Emissary of the Lord, when he comes, eventually be made pope. Satan suggests that in the meeting to ensure God "wins" the challenge (since the Emissary is sure to be worthy of Heaven).

Given the above, I think it makes sense for Satan to personally oversee key parts of the plan, in this case as Archpriest Philip of Rome. The real Philip is killed by Satan after Satan brings the Augustine documents to the Lateran Palace, where "Philip" received them and will steer the attempt to reconcile Augustine's holy vision with the Apocalypse of John, just as Augustine "suggested" in the letter he sent along with the detailed scroll documenting his vision. Only the letter actually appears in the book (as part of chapter one), though the scroll is referred to a number of times in the story. I may yet use quotes from the scroll as chapter epigraphs. Satan also killed Augustine and briefly took over Augustine's corpse to write the documents and set the above events in motion. Having taken over Augustine's corpse and done it in the year 430 (when the real Augustine died), Satan acquires the ability to perfectly forge Augustine's handwriting, and when the documents are retested in the distant future, not only does the writing match, but all testing will confirm that the paper and the ink are from 430.

Naturally, all of the above is done under deep cover, so there will be few hints that Satan is in the story in different bodies over the centuries to minimize suspicion among humans about any one corporeal hanging around "too long" for an ordinary human. When Satan gets trapped by Michael, that becomes his "permanent" corporeal form for the duration of the trilogy.

It is indeed tricky (and perhaps unfair) to be in Satan's and Connor's points of views since neither can think of themselves as Satan and the AC. I only use their points of view once each early on (Satan at the meeting and Connor at the youth seminary). I could have written those chapters to avoid their points of view, but I thought it would be a nice touch for the story and sets up Connor as the likely Emissary of the Lord. In his case, I drop quite a few hints in his first chapter (chapter three if you don't count the prologue in the Holy Land) that he is in fact the Antichrist, although I doubt anyone will pick up on it on first read. It reads like the POV of a teenager who is probably the Emissary but doesn't realize it yet. Augustine prophesies that the Emissary will eventually engage in a battle to the death against the Antichrist; although Augustine supposedly doesn't know who wins that battle, he does foresee that the AC is far more powerful than the Emissary, and Augustine doesn't see how the Emissary can survive that battle. I wonder who wins that battle. :-)

If you haven't already read it, please have a look at Connor's chapter (three) in the Emissary - Strongest Start book. Let me know if I'm being "fair" to the reader. I'm still rewriting chapters one & two, so skip those for now. They probably haven't changed much since you first read them.

Thanks
Dirk

To those reading this thread and the book, would you consider the following to be a "cheat"?

I wanted to get people's thoughts on a potential issue that came to light regarding my "corporeals." In order for demons to be convincing when impersonating a dead host, I chose for the demons to have access to the memories of the host.

I'm rewriting my chapter 1 (the rather boring meeting of the four theologians to discuss the supposed Augustine documents) to be darker/more intense. In doing so, I'm in Satan's POV, who will impersonate the dead Archpriest Philip, and I'm describing the council chamber Satan enters to prepare for the meeting as a "suffocating gloom that permeates the chamber like a dense, cold fog". In this case, Satan is momentarily struck by an "unbidden memory" from the dead priest's brain, triggered by the sight and feel of the chamber which is reminiscent of the catacombs where the once-living priest helped oversee the burial of thousands of rotting bodies of Romans who died of starvation in 4008 during a three-month siege of Rome.

Naturally, I need Satan to remain under deep cover during the meeting, so I don't explain in the opening that it's the memory of his dead host, not Satan's own. That will come out later in book one, maybe at the end.

In chapter one, I word the above largely from the dead archpriest's POV, not giving any hint that it's Satan experiencing the priest's POV. Not until Satan shrugs off the unbidden memory, do I return to Satan's POV, which is him impersonating the priest, again without giving any hint of who he really is.

If you read that and later learned it was the POV of the dead priest, not Satan, would you consider that a cheat? To me, it's a natural extension of corporeals having their dead hosts' memories: certain sights, smells, feel, tastes, etc. can trigger a memory from the dead man. Naturally, having this happen allows me to further bury the presence of Satan since the priest's POV spans the twenty years between the siege and the death of Augustine. The result is that I describe key events that span twenty years of the priest's past as if Satan had actually been there in 408.

Thoughts? Am I cheating?

Thanks
Dirk

Well, it is a "what if" story. As in "What if the facts are total crap?" LOL. Seriously, I had planned to run the chapter through several AIs between now and whenever I finish the book, which is still several years away. For now, I'm going to run the revisions through Copilot as well, which is already built into my Microsoft Office subscription. I can also verify the details by looking at where Gemini got its info. Despite its staggering stupidity above, there are certain areas where it is very reliable already, so hopefully it's just a matter of time. For example, software support for debugging computer problems I was having recently was virtually flawless. Admittedly, I would never have even tried writing the chapters in 430 if I'd known it was as bad as it is. It took much longer than it should have.

The other alternative to Connor being a reincarnated Adam is for Connor to have his own unique soul and be in "harmonious communion" with Adam, an effect Connor doesn't realize until well after he fails to smother the pope, although Adam's influence is there even in chapter 3 (the intro to Connor at the seminary). Connor tolerates the bullying by the antichristlings to draw their attention away from the other boys, who fear them, except that Connor doesn't know why he wants to do it nor why it makes him feel good about himself. He thinks of it as almost instinctual. That's Adam's influence.

Although the forged Augustine documents made the untrue claim that the Emissary would be in "harmonious communion" with Christ, God could turn around and use that same concept with Connor and Adam.

Among several downsides to giving Connor his own soul, though, is that I would no longer be able to include the idea that, although, Satan demanded a soul from God for the Antichrist, Satan forgot to specify that he wanted a "new" soul, which is a key reason Connor is not the evil SOB that Satan genetically bred and trained him to be.

Perfect advice, especially because it's so much more enjoyable when you're writing something you're passionate about.

You can use the time you spend writing to also learn the craft surrounding all of it. It's a steep learning curve, but you can learn as you go, which is what most people do, whether that's proper punctuation and grammar, the "art" of storytelling, reading other authors' works not just for enjoyment but also to study how they write, using a writers' site (whether this one or another), where you'll learn a great deal. Over time, you can read books on writing and even take courses if you see the potential value in those. Most of the best writers on this site, including published authors, learned by doing most or all of the above (usually incrementally over time), much of it centered around being a member of one of these sites.

Also, be prepared to write several drafts of your story, although you'll have to decide how far to take that. If you're like most people, by the time you finish the first draft, you'll have learned enough that you'll know whether you need (or just want) to write another draft.

For the record, lots of us start out thinking it won't take too long to write that first book. Also, I suggest keeping open the idea of making it publishable. If nothing else, it's harder to do, and you'll learn more about the craft of writing doing it.

Before you begin posting, please have a look at an article I posted in the Premium forum with tips to maximize the number of reviews you can get here.

Feel free to send me a connection request if you have any questions, or post them in the Premium forum (that's one of its uses, so don't hesitate), where the maximum number of eyeballs will see it and perhaps respond faster than I can. I'm one of the other writers, but also volunteer time to do user support.

If you'd like to have ongoing discussions with others about your story, feel free to create a brainstorming thread in this forum (named after your book's or series' title). Take a glance at my either of my threads (The Archangel Syndrome and Savior of the Damned) to see how we use them.

Welcome aboard.
Dirk

Hi cecila, and welcome to the site.

I haven't published yet, but hopefully someone else on the site can provide a few answers based on actual experience.

I assume this means you're going the self-publish route? Professional publishers, if you went that way, would normally handle the details for you at their expense. While there are smaller "publishers" that offer "packages" to help you deal with all the details of publishing, beware some of those companies run scams. If they're a true publisher, they ought to handle all that at no cost to you, although naturally you'd still have to be involved. The others should be thought of as service providers, not true publishers. Service providers would naturally charge fees for their efforts (editing, cover design, etc.). Whoever you engage to help you publish your work, be sure to read the fine print of any contract to ensure you still own your work at the end of the process. And google for complaints and reviews against these companies. Also, try to get copies of whatever they produce for you (e.g., cover design image files) in case the service provider ever goes under.

Also, check out Amazon's self-publishing capabilities. They may offer support to help you create audiobooks since they obviously do sell them.

The other place to ask those same questions these days is with one of the major AI implementations (e.g., Gemini, Copilot, ChatGPT). The caveat is that the AIs sometimes (too often) give wrong answers to questions, so you need to be careful to verify the information it gives you, either by asking more than one AI, by checking the reference sources that the AI used for the answers, and/or by drilling in with more detailed questions. If you haven't used an AI before, they allow you to have lengthy back-and-forth conversations with them, so you can ask the AI more specific questions based on whatever initial answer(s) it gives you.

Also, there are probably forums on Reddit that should be able to answer some of the same questions. Just be sure the person answering knows what they're talking about. Unlike me. :-)

Hope that helps.
Dirk

Bill I didn't get far with the story (chapter six) before most of last year got away from me, so some of these questions are no doubt due to not having read the next fifteen chapters yet. Where is the story headed? There's no "book blurb" in the content summary as a guide. Aside from being sci-fi, is it a feel good story, a humorous story, is it YA or adult, something dark at the end, a murder mystery vs a thriller, romance, a nasty space COVID awaiting everyone once they reboard from shore leave, and so on? Also, does it lean more toward hard sci-fi or space opera? I tend to think of my Archangel story as "grounded" space opera, meaning I make some effort to explain things without descending into Data-babble mode.

I'm working with Pam at present on her Crystal story and the usual influx of new posts from trial members, but I'll try to get back to your book (and mine, lol) soon.

One of the things to do with any of them is to google for complaints against them. Some are scams, usually the ones that charge you money for book production and marketing.

Also, use Google's Gemini AI or ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot and ask those very same questions you did here. You can probably even ask them about complaints against specific companies, genres they publish, whether they accept submissions from authors or agents only, bestselling or successful books they've published, royalties they pay for first-time authors (if known), and so on.

Although it doesn't hurt to ask which publishers the AI thinks would be best for your book, treat the recommendations with a big grain of salt; I use Gemini for a lot of different things and it tends to give lousy recommendations at times depending on the subject matter.

You can also get help from the AI for writing what it considers effective query letters, although check every publisher's website for additional submission requirements and follow those in particular. You can also post potential query letters here for feedback.

One way to deal with the errors AIs can make, is to use more than one of them, but you have to use your best judgement too. You can usually identify useless information by asking more/deeper questions.

Also why are you limiting yourself to Houston publishers only? Many times a great book may require approaching dozens of publishers before someone bites, which was true of the first Harry Potter book and Dune, two of the biggest-selling books of all time.

Have you run your book through a workshop site like this one? Not only can the writers (including published authors!) give you feedback, but it would eventually allow you to state in the query letter that your book has gone through the ringer of a professional workshop site.

If you're not sure if a site like this can help you, post your first chapter here and begin to review the posted work of other active writers. While you may get a free review or two as a new member, the best/fastest way to get feedback here and on any workshop site is to review the work of others. They need feedback too and usually reciprocate. Active writers are the ones who have works currently scrolling by on your home page; if they're posting, they're almost always ready to reciprocate.

Regardless of where you post, be sure the posted work is hidden behind a password-protected wall like this site, otherwise your work may get exposed to internet search engines, which could effect your ability to find a publisher (they won't take anything that's already available for free on the net). FYI, the sister site to this one, known as Booksie, is open to search engines and the works there can be accessed without being a member, so don't use it if you hope to find a professional publisher or agent as they may balk.

If you decide to post here, be sure to have a look at an article I posted in this forum (pinned near the top) with tips on how to get the most reviews on this site. The biggest are to post to the Premium group using points, keep the chapter sizes reasonably small, and review, review, review, but there is other advice there as well gleaned from long-term members here.