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JP, Christine,

Mike has multiple pages of stories up under his portfolio (many actually). It's on the second page. Published with points.

Woohoo! Done with Revelation study guides. Sick to death of them. The last one really needs an editor. 800 pages of repetition and rambling and endless chapters, although the author made a cool case that cell phones are the mark of the beast. It turns out that when you convert www to Hebrew letters, you get the sequence 666 (w in Hebrew is the sixth letter of their alphabet). The mark of the beast will be required to buy and sell goods in the Antichrist's era, and any web-enabled smartphone gives you access to e-commerce on the global 666 network, which is filled with all kinds of immoral and anti-Catholic content. He argues that the mark of the beast was mistranslated from the original Greek and actually refers to phylacteries, the religious objects frequently worn by many ancient Jews, including John, on their hands or heads. So the cell phone is the mark on the hand, and Google Glass was the first instance of a mark on the head. The book is painful to wade through, so I'll save it for when I'm bored.

I've got it. I'm going to make Aussie/Michael a galactic news anchor. After all, she and whoever controls her are trying to change events in her time, so where better to put her than reporting the events of her time. She'll be the one impersonating Saint Michael the Archangel et al and I'll drop hints in her broadcasts that it's her doing so. Rather than involve Hinkley in this unrelated subplot, I have a much better candidate: Dr. Jorge Francis, the religious scholar and historian who lives in the year AD 7329 and regularly researches and writes about Joseph and Apollo and their effect on history. His reports already appear as epigraphs in recent drafts, although I'll probably do more of them in the next pass. Talk about a perfect fit. The last book in the series was always intended to be set in AD 7329, long after Joseph and Apollo are dead.

I can die happily now.

Short of making her a roving reporter, I'm currently at a loss for a role for her. If I put her near Joseph (e.g., his assistant) it then begs the question why him and not Apollo.

I don't have a single Darth Vader. I have Nero, whose purpose is to drive Apollo and Joseph to finally begin their journeys by way of the first attack on New Bethlehem. At that point in the story, Admiral Lupus takes over until the very end, bombing 20M people on Magellan and then destroying New Bethlehem. Aussie was intended to play a contributing role by arming terrorists/rebels to ratchet up the chaos throughout the story. She wasn't intended to appear until the very end, at which point she's on the run and becomes Caligula's robopilot when he flees for his life. Her 'character' arc isn't working, IMO.

Potentially, Professor Hinkley could secretly continue to run his company, jumping around time to bring futuristic inventions to market. Him running Acme eliminates the need of another character to do so. It simplifies that aspect of the story. He founded Acme, invented time travel, and is believed to be using the latter to keep his monopoly on tech.

No, I want The Prophecies to foretell actual events, even though they don't get into specifics, like naming Joseph and Apollo. Also, if I add another character, it will further complicate the story. I already have Hinkley bouncing around time and Queen Aussie running Acme, receiving instructions from the future and communicating with Joseph and Apollo, pretending to be Saint Michael, among others.

In the current draft, a mysterious character named Aussie pops up every few chapters to cause carnage, leaving 'Queen' Aussie (CEO of Acme) to deny any involvement, yet Acme's share price goes up every time there's an attack because governments buy more weapons. Neither Aussie nor Queen Aussie appear physically in the story (until the end), but rather through events told in news broadcasts. The two Aussie's are one and the same, of course. The authorities eventually come to that conclusion and Aussie takes off, assuming the role of robopilot for Caligula, who goes on the run across the galaxy because he was indirectly responsible for the destruction of New Bethlehem.

In theory, all of this should remain in the book, otherwise there's no reason for Aussie to appear, not even in news broadcasts, until the reveal at the end of book three. However, I don't care for how Aussie currently appears in the story. She doesn't really tie into the story. I need a way to use Aussie to give the reader clues that she is the one haunting Joseph and Apollo.

I'm considering Britannia because Joseph's home world is a monarchy that serves as the head of the church on his world, based on and descended from Queen Elizabeth. If I introduce Brother Hinkley and the Third Testament early enough in the story, I think the reader will give me some latitude when Jesus appears to Joseph, apparently fulfilling one of the crackpot prophecies of the Third Testament. Ponder I must.

Another twist. What if the Professor jumped through time and was responsible for the Third Testament of the Church of Britannia? I could use 'Father Hinkley' as the historical prophet who wrote the Third Testament. This makes him the one who has been messing with events throughout time. After writing the Third Testament, he entered a monastery and was never heard from again.

This keeps getting better and better. If Jesus had kids, as the Church of Britannia believes, then Joseph and Apollo could be His descendants. I could hint at it by suggesting that the Church has been looking for His descendants for almost two millennia, believing that they are the last hope for mankind.

It just occurred to me that Queen Aussie could serve as the 'artifact' in Seabrass's post above. Since Acme, Inc. manufactures everything in the book, and Professor Hinkley is thought to be alive in the future, sending back messages in time to his company, Aussie could include programming from the future. That might be worth dropping my original ending to the series in favor of an AI god.

I would probably drop the whole drag queen bits, though, since they're not working in the story, in my opinion. I especially dislike her in the prologue, in the middle of a desperate battle.

I'll still need to hijack a religion for Aussie's plan to work. That will entail doing something about the irreverent chapters. I would add something to the Church of Britannia, such as a Third Testament to their Bible, addressing why Jesus didn't return yet, and hint that the Church has found some evidence that Jesus was married and may have had children.