Monday, September 14, 2015

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What made you pick the name “Harmonic Wars”?
A: This is a really complex question, but here is the short answer: The advanced ancient society that I created for this series had advanced knowledge of sound technology. All things in the universe vibrate, because everything is in constant motion, at least at the subatomic level. With this in mind, they understood not only about those vibrations, but also about the importance of harmonic resonance. They learned how to control harmony and dissonance at the subatomic levels like we understand magnetism today. The north pole of a magnet attracts the south pole of another, but two north poles will repel each other. The ancients used this knowledge to build many of the great structures that still survive today as they levitated the massive blocks of stone into place. We can see early examples of scientists doing this today with sound and ping pong balls or even drops of water. Changing the frequencies has an impact of the object being levitated. Check out videos of “cymatic experiments” for a greater illustration.

Q: What are “Cymatic Experiments”?
A: The short answer, it is the study of sound as it impacts matter placed on a membrane or metal surface. The higher the frequency the more complex the patterns become. For a better explanation check out Wikipedia.

Q: What is the meaning of the symbol on your cover?  
A: The “Great Circle” was the symbol for the Holy Warrior, who was an urban legend in the society I created for this series. Most believe that the Holy Warriors are all gone, but one remains in this solar system. To be a Holy Warrior, one had to be purified in a hopeless battle against the odds and remain faithful to the will of the Light (Creator). 


The symbol was a carved wooden circle with a twisted crystal triangle in the center. When the Holy Warrior earned the “Blessing of Light” in battle, the crystal triangle in the symbol changed from clear to the same color of the crystal blades of the Qatassendor, the weapon of the Holy Warrior.

The circle had dark flames that spun off the outside in a counter-clockwise motion while the inside of the circle had light-colored flames that spun clockwise toward the twisted crystal triangle in the center as if drawn to it. This represented the “Circle of Life” that surrounded the “Creator” and served as a reminder that people lived in the circle of life and served the Creator at the center. Those who rejected the Creator were cast out, but all were welcome.

Q: At the beginning of “Guardians of the Crystal Skulls” some of the names are difficult. Is it going to be like this the entire series?

A: The short answer is No! Many of the characters are from the Mayan culture, and I tried to stay as true to history and cultural norms as possible. For instance, the Mayan King Ukit Took at the beginning of the story is the actual name of the last known king of the Mayan culture, at least in my research. I couldn’t find much about any wives he may have had, so I made Ana the Queen since I was already committed to that name. However, I wanted the name to have more of a royalty feel to it, so I created the maiden name “Ana’ka Tua’agar”. By adding the surname “de Took,” it’s supposed to mean she now is married to the “Took” family. I only refer to Ana’s full name once at the beginning, then after Chapter 5 she drops the formal name and adopts just Ana. For those who have problems with any other pronunciations, go check out the glossary at the back. I spent a great deal of time making sure to include a comprehensive glossary that is organized by topic to make things easy to find.

Q: You said you were already committed to the name “Ana”. How is that?
A: Harmonic Wars is a series of books, and “Guardians of the Crystal Skulls” (GoCS) is actually the second book in this series that I wrote. My first try at this storyline was actually “Ghost Warriors” (GW), which will now be released as the second book in this series to keep things in chronological order. When I wrote GW I placed no limits on myself. In doing so, it greatly helped my creativity but the book was huge. When we got to somewhere around page 1,000, my publisher Michelle Gamble at 3L Publishing said “Time Out!” She cautioned me on the tremendous hurdles I would have to overcome in marketing and selling a book that large. So the best thing I could do to introduce the storyline was to write a prequel. And so, GoCS was born.

Q: How many books will be in this series?
A: I have four books planned, which I hope to release one every year. I have ideas for at least two more trilogies after these four are done. The second book is already in draft, and I have outlines completed for books 3 and 4.

Q: The story is about absolute good vs absolute evil for control of the universe. What role models did you use for good and evil?
A: I could not find better role models than angels and demons. The angels I describe are awesome warriors as I envision God intended. Remember that the angels are God’s army. Likewise, the demons are wicked looking.

Q: You claim that something happened while you were first introducing the angels and demons. Tell us about that.
A: Something absolutely did happen. I was really stressed out about getting the introduction of the angels and demons down correctly. I didn’t want to write a story that was in contradiction with my Christianity, so I included it. When I was writing a particularly evil part of the story my MacBook Pro died. I lost about 2 weeks worth of work, but I was able to recover all but the final scene I had been working on. While my MacBook was in the shop, I continued working with an old PC that I pulled out of storage. I still had a good outline to work from, and all I had to do was recreate that final scene. Saving often, I continued with the story. As I got to the same point in the story, the power supply on the PC fried. I stopped working on the story while I talked to my Pastor about the project in general. Since I was writing a SciFi story and was not trying to pass my story off as a theory or truth, he said it was literally no different than C.S. Lewis’ Narnia story. He suggested that I continue and just have fun. I never had a problem after that, but it was a little tense until I got the computers up and running again.

Q: Is this a religious book?
A: No, it is a SciFi book. Neither will it be part of your reference library from a science standpoint…it’s a SciFi book, but there are facts associated throughout. Just as the good characters in this book do and say good things, the evil characters do and say evil, even shocking things. It is designed to make a person think about the possibilities.

Q: How is this a multidimensional war?
A: I spent a great deal of time thinking this out, in true SciFi fashion. I envisioned that there were thousands of dimensions with infinite possibilities. That allowed me to bring the war between good and evil to multiple dimensions, making us all pawns in a much larger ongoing battle.  

In this figure, you can clearly see that some of the dimensions belong wholly to the
 “Realm of Light” or to the “Realm of the Dark”. Likewise, there are many dimensions that are not completely decided for the Light or the Dark, but they’re leaning in one direction or another. The truly contested dimensions are balanced and struggling to go to the Light or to the Dark. These contested dimensions are where the battles between the Light and the Dark are the fiercest. We live in the “Isle of Man” which happens to be one of several thousand dimensions that are contested, but we’re beginning to lean to the Dark.

Q: What happens to a dimension that goes to the Dark?
A: The Creator takes those who still stand for the Light, then He lets the rest fall. This is a race to see who collects more souls. Currently, the Light has more souls. The Isle of Man has a huge number of souls, and the Dark wants control of this dimension desperately. If the Dark gains control then he will be close to tipping the scales in his favor, then all will fall under the control of the Dark. Evil will rule, or so they think.

Q: What about this “Land of Dreams” that you speak of?
A: Again, another flight of fantasy. I had 13 characters who were Guardians of the Crystal Skulls, so I had to make them awesome. I thought the ability to be a Dream Walker would be cool. I placed the Land of Dreams as a realm of its own that permeated all of the dimensions, and could be accessed by anyone regardless of the dimension they lived in. When people have nightmares about monsters, maybe they were actually interacting with beings from another dimension? It seemed like a really cool added layer. Then I made it so that Dream Walkers could access it at will, and I gave it two sides. Dream Walkers could use it to manipulate the active dreams of people sleeping and to gain information and push people to do things through the power of suggestion. But they could also walk in a dreamy haze that is more or less parallel to the waking world, but invisible to them. In theory, a Dream Walker could be standing beside you in the Land of Dreams spying on you. I think that’s cool!

Q: What are Anti-Grav Suits?
A: What if you had absolute control of all matter at a subatomic level out to about a 50-yard circumference? You could feasibly burst things into flame or freeze them by speeding up or slowing the movement of the electrons. At least in my story you can! The Anti-Grav Suits are designed specifically for descendants of the Balsarius in order to keep them from the hands of the sworn enemy, the G`Alad. In theory, a person wearing an Anti-Grav Suit could also make new forms of matter, or change items from a solid, to a liquid or even to a gas and back again. Remember that the humans in this ancient society also had mastery of frequency and harmonic resonance. So they could also use the Anti-Grav Suit to levitate objects, including themselves. All of the Guardians wear Anti-Grav Suits, as does the Elder of the Warrior Guild for the peaceful Balsarius, the Shihan Marcus Kahn.

Q: How is the empathic nature of the Guardians significant?
A: They can not only sense emotions in others, but they can project their emotions into other people. Can you imagine how devastating it would be to be able to project emotions to overwhelm your opponent? Sending wave after wave of gripping fear into them just as they begin an attack? Or doubt? Confusion? All of these things could help to falter a charge on the battlefield. Additionally, the Guardians can project nothingness so complete that it would leave their enemy standing there senseless like a drooling idiot. When you add this to their abilities with the Anti-Grav Suits, they become formidable soldiers.

Q: Why Crystal Skulls?
A: For the most part, society will see a skull and have visions of death and for good reason. However, in Harmonic Wars, the Crystal Skulls are a gift from the Light to be used as a weapon against the Dark. Throughout the book, I hid meaningful numbers and multiples of numbers. One of those is the number 13. The legend of the 13 Crystal Skulls has been written about several times, and it fit my requirement for a meaningful number. In the Bible, there were 12 Apostles, but if you add Jesus, there were 13 in the group. Even after Jesus was crucified and after Judas hung himself the remaining Apostles elected Mathias to replace Judas. But I believe that God likes to keep numbers consistent, so He added Paul, making the number once again 13. There are 12 Zodiac signs, but did you know there were originally 13? You may find the numbers 3, 7, 12 and 13 and multiples of those numbers throughout the series.

I made a theme about crystals in general throughout the series. Shihan’s weapon, the Qatassendor (Kah TAH sen DOR) had crystal blades the same color as the triangle in the center of the Holy Warrior symbol. This is also a throwback to some of the research I did on ancient sites. All of the mysterious structures around the world are built using large stones with a high quartz content. Quartz has many properties associated with modern electronics because it gives off a consistent frequency. It can also save massive amounts of data if we can ever learn how to use it. Lastly, it will chime like a bell if struck. I wonder what structure is harmonically tuned and reacting when those obelisks in Egypt are resonating? It's a reference to harmonic resonance.

So, the number of skulls and the use of crystal fit the general theme that I wanted to use for this series.

Q: What was your motivation for writing this book?
A: I was watching a documentary of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and I was blown away by the high level of engineering that was used in its creation. Then, as I began to research more about the Great Pyramid I found that the narrative of traditional historians and archeologists quickly began to fall apart when looked at from a practicality aspect. The Great Pyramid is made from some 2.3 million stones weighing anywhere from 2-70 tons each, all cut with copper chisels. That’s like using a plastic knife on a redwood. Yes, you can probably do it, but human ingenuity will take over very shortly and a better way will be found. Also, they claim that it took 100,000 people roughly 20 years to complete the structure. That means a stone had to be cut, transported and placed about every 2 minutes. Some of the larger granite blocks weigh 70 tons and were brought across the desert from the Aswan quarry some 500 miles away…manually, before the invention of the wheel. That’s an incredible amount of work to put a dead guy inside. At what point does human nature take over and say “That’s good enough for government work”?

The last and most important detail is that the Great Pyramid was built by the Egyptian 4th dynasty and its perfection was never matched. In fact, many of the pyramids built by the 9th dynasty are falling apart, but not the Great Pyramid. Did they just forget how? That seems unlikely based on how human nature works. People learn how to do things, then improve on them, so that the later models are nearly always better than the previous one. That’s almost how it worked with the automobile industry, except for the cars of the 80’s.

Q: Is this where you got the idea for the Pyraportals?
A: Yes, but only when I looked at the work that Nikola Tesla did on the Wardenclyffe tower. It has been said that Tesla routinely was able to illuminate light bulbs from miles away WITHOUT any wires by transmitting the electricity through the ground or through the air. Our ancestors would not build a structure like the Great Pyramid to such exacting tolerances some of which were down to .001 of an inch just to bury a dead guy inside. But they might do it in order to recreate a machine or a once lost power source. Those who understand the advantage of a society who controls electricity would work very hard to recreate it. So in this series, the pyramids were power plants that generated vast amounts
of energy naturally from the earth. It could discharge that power through the sphere that was used as a capstone, for either a weapon or to power a wireless worldwide grid. Inside the “King’s Chamber” there was a crystal altar that served as a portal capability that was disrupted at the beginning of the war. The picture here is from the famed "Gates of Paradise" by sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, on the Baptistery of San Giovanni depict a different scene from the Bible. The scene in this panel is Noah’s Ark, which strangely enough is represented by a pyramid. This door is some 500 years old, so how did they make this huge leap of faith?

Q: How can a highly advanced society disappear from existence without any trace?
A: That’s the easy part, and could happen so very quickly even today. How many structures have we built in the last 50 years that would survive 200 years without a massive amount of maintenance? None. In fact we have not built anything that would last for even 100 years, much less thousands of year. If there was one well placed electro-magnetic pulse weapon placed in the U.S. by a terrorist organization it could take down the entire power grid. It wouldn’t stay down permanently, but the chaos it would create would be devastating. It might take years to fully recover. All one has to do is look at the recent riots in Baltimore, Oakland, and Ferguson. Look what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Imagine what would happen to an entire nation without electricity. Gas pumps stop, water pumps stop, so food and water is non-existent and there will be no help for the short term since the infrastructure and supply chain will no longer be operable. Most citizens only have enough food to last a week, if not a couple of days. But they do not have a stocked supply of water. As citizens become thirsty, things become desperate very quickly. 

Now, go one step beyond that, and make the attack a coordinated “Al Qaeda” style attack on all continents. Or better yet, a super-massive solar flare could take out all the power grids worldwide. It has happened before, and will happen again. As ordinary citizens struggle for survival, people will very soon forget about the luxuries we now take for granted. Those type of things would be talked about as a memory of the “good ole days” as grandparents tell their grandchildren fabulous tales about electricity, clean running water, indoor plumbing, and magical things like the internet.

Q: Certainly we would have remnants of that former society long after the governments fell?
A: Sadly, I don’t think so at all. How much do you really know how to do, or do you just look up everything on the internet? Most people don’t have to remember how to do things, because the information is so accessible. We don’t print it up, even. We save it to the cloud along with all our pictures from our phones. Most of the book stores have all folded with the advent of the e-books. Newspapers and magazines are all heading virtual as most people don’t want hard copies anymore. Do you know how to make soap? When to plant certain crops for the different zones? Do you even know what zone you are in? Certainly some know these things, but not everyone by far. How about cement? Can you reload ammunition for your gun, or make gun powder? Can you make repairs to your car? Can you manufacture the parts you need? Even the simplest of things become impossible to make like paper. The more abilities we lose the harder it will be for us to be able to maintain our existing structures, much less be able to access our histories.

There would be pockets of civilization that would continue, but eventually, they would retreat to the safety hidden fortresses so that they did not have to share their hoarded wealth with the commoners who had all but forgotten about the excesses of the past as they struggled for survival on a daily basis. For the most part, I believe within two generations we will have forgotten much of where we once were. We are but a couple of generations from WWII, and yet even in this day and age we’re having debates on whether or not the holocaust really happened. It’s sad, but true.

Q: What about the theories of ancient aliens building the Great Pyramid and some of the other structures around the world?
A: I’m willing to consider it as a possibility, but only one of many since there are so many unanswered questions about our past. It is harder for me to accept ancient aliens, than to accept the fact that our ancestors may very well have been more advanced than we are even today. Look at how far we have advanced in the last 50 years. We went from a society that barely had color televisions, certainly not even a TV in each house, to hand held smart phones in nearly everyone’s hands with more raw computing power than the most advanced computers in the 50’s and 60’s, the size of which would fill a room and still not be nearly as powerful as we now carelessly throw around daily. But most historians and archeologists would have you believe that in the last 12,000 years humanity has never been this advanced before? I find that much harder to believe, considering the advancements of the last 50 years alone.


Have you ever played “Pass It On” in school? The teacher gets the entire class into a circle and tells a secret to the child beside her and instructs the students to whisper the secret to the person next to them, and so on. By the time the secret passes through 30 students a mere 10 minutes later, it is unrecognizable from the original words whispered. This was how our history was passed down for thousands of years. Imagine how much things would have changed over 4,500 years much less 12,000 or more.

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