History
One of the major point-of-view characters in The Spider and the Fly was Tsarl Drathir, the head of the Convectorate Intelligence Ministry (CIM). My amazing readers will remember that he was a part of the Asraad caste, the purple-scaled rulers of the Convectorate. His commando escorts were Baalir, the red-scaled members of the warrior caste. And finally there are the Marid, the green-scaled Tarreen who typically serve as engineers, scientists, or technicians.

This caste delineation is heart and soul of the Pact. During previous eras, such as the height of their original Empire, Tarreen society was incredibly chaotic. Civil war and conflict were common, and that chaos was ultimately what allowed the Elari rebels and the early Sarafan to topple the Empire (the psychic powers didn’t hurt either, of course). The Tarreen retreated to a new home world they called Exodus, and for decades they continued to slaughter each other in droves.

Eventually, the leaders of the disparate factions came together and created the Pact. The idea was both simple and incredibly complex. They planned to arrange society into three basic tiers—leaders, technicians, and warriors—and they would implement one of the greatest genetic modification programs in galactic history. Over the next two centuries, the very definition of  “Tarreen” was redefined. A species with as much diversity and variation as humans was reduced to three very specific subtypes…and eventually the Convectorate was born.

Modern Day
Today, the castes are virtually immutable. The Asraad retain nearly all positions of power from planetary overseers to sector prefects to the enigmatic Hierarchs who rule the whole shebang. The only exceptions exist within the Conclave. The Ministry of Defense is often represented by a Baalir, and the Science Ministry is often represented by a Marid. This remains the case in the present day. Defense Minister Akala is a hardened Baalir warrior noted for her service in the many border skirmishes against the Norgon, and Science Minister Curaad is a Marid biochemist made famous for his many contributions to research over the past few decades.

Still, as the newfound human-led rebellion gains strength, the long-standing alliance between the castes has finally started to crack. And Markus remains convinced that breaking the Pact may be the only way to truly bring down the Convectorate…

Stay tuned! I hope to have the first chapter available for you to read by sometime in June.

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Timeline:
“Wise is the civilization that remembers history. Wiser still is the one that learns from it.”
—Elari proverb

 
The current standard galactic calendar is divided into four eras, each correlating with a major shift in galactic politics and the rise of a new superpower. While many of the exact dates are contested, the Convectorate Ministry of Truth has gone to great lengths to stifle any meaningful debate.

 
The First Era (Elari Collective)

0: The Elari successfully test the first jump drive, and the era of interstellar travel officially begins.

35: The Collective completes construction of the first jump corridor network, allowing high-speed travel between almost a hundred star systems within the Elysian sector.

152: On a distant world called Avernus, the Tarreen develop their own jump drives. The planet almost immediately erupts into civil war as disparate factions vie for control of this new technology.

177: The three most powerful Tarreen factions—the Asraad, the Baalir, and the Marid—merge into single government. The Tarreen Empire is born.

248: First contact between the Elari and the Tarreen occurs within the Archerus system. A tentative peace is reached, but a vocal faction with the Empire demands a war of conquest.

391: The Elari Collective and Tarreen Empire fight their first major battle within the Nomari Nebula. Neither side scores a conclusive victory, but the first true interstellar war begins.

486: After nearly a hundred years of bloody battle, the Elari Collective crumbles and the Tarreen secure control of most of the inhabited galaxy. The First Era comes to an end.

 
The Second Era (The Tarreen Empire)

555: A massive Elari slave uprising is put down on their home planet of Elaris III. Rather than destroying the planet outright, the Tarreen begin a massive terraforming operation to make the planet more suitable for their own physiology.

712: A band of escaped Elari rebels calling themselves the “Tears of Elaris” begin giving jump drive technology to many primitive but sentient species previously ignored by the Tarreen. Their hope is to eventually find allies and topple the Empire.

723: The Elari rebels detect psionic activity within an obscure race called humans upon the planet Keledon.

738: The most influential human psychic, the Seraph, leads a small force against a Tarreen armada within the Nomari Nebula and crushes them. War immediately breaks out across the Empire.

747: The Seraph is slain in battle while liberating Elaris. Soon after a brotherhood of human psychics calling themselves the “Sarafan” form in secret and begin to consolidate power.

750: Within just ten years the Tarreen are broken, and their scattered fleets retreat to lick their wounds and rebuild. The Second Era comes to an end.

 
The Third Era (The Sarafan Dominion)

752: The Sarafan seize control of the human government, and they form a mostly human coalition intent on unifying the races in the chaos following the war.

755: The Unification Wars begin as the Sarafan launch a military campaign to conquer known space.

764: The Sarafan Dominion formally comes to power. Despite a relatively small population, humans now control the remnants of the vast Tarreen Empire.

789: After a forty-year journey across deep space, the Tarreen arrive on a new world called Exodus. A civil war erupts almost immediately thereafter.

811: The Tarreen factions finally achieve peace beneath the tenets of “the Pact,” a caste system arranged beneath the rule of the Conclave and eventually the Hierarchy.

926: The Dowd Insurrection: when the faceless aliens refuse to submit to Dominion control, the Sarafan psychically compel them to ravage their own planet. The survivors flee into the Terminus Reach along the far fringes of the galaxy.

1043: As part of a political movement sweeping across the Dominion, the Galactic Assembly is formed, giving modest political representation to non-humans. The Assembly has little real power but is a sign of things to come.

1071: The Keledonian Rebellion begins as the Great Houses forge an alliance to stand against what they see as an overly moderate Sarafan. They call themselves the Mire, and Keledon declares its independence from the Dominion.

1074: The Mire leader, Krucius Foln, orders the destruction of Kalifax. Mire agents sabotage the planet’s defensive grid, and a psionic superweapon called the Irix Seed eradicates most life on the planet.

1079: The bulk of the Mire fleet is crushed in a single engagement near Keledon Prime, but the damage is done. Rebellions erupt across the Dominion and are brutally put down.

1104: The Tarreen return in force with the invasion of Keledon. The planet is subsequently laid to waste, and a bio-engineered disease called the Pandrophage cripples the Sarafan leadership.

1107: The Damadus launches

1109: The Dominion crumbles with the destruction of Eladrell. The Convectorate is founded shortly thereafter, and the Third Era comes to an end.

 
The Fourth Era (The Convectorate)

1160: “Queen” Anara Gantrell establishes “New Keledon” along with a handful of other human survivors and her son, Davin.

1193: Markus born

1196: Jenavian born

1200: Selaris Gantrell born on New Keledon

1201: Anara Gantrell dies

1203: Aliens invited to New Keledon for the first time

1214: A half dozen Mire bases are raided and their fleet is all but wiped out at Mirador II. Markus sees the treatment of the humans and starts to turn.

1216: Markus defects at Typhus IX

1218: Selaris invites the Mire to ally with the Nowhere Council

1219: Davin Gantrell dies

1220: The Spider and the Fly

1221: Rebellion

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THE LAST SACRIFICE is the epic conclusion to the acclaimed Shattered Messiah Trilogy (183,000 words).

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I’ll offer another requisite (and hopefully obvious!) spoiler warning to those who haven’t read TLG and TLE. It doesn’t reveal much about the plot, but it probably won’t make any sense without context from those books.

Enjoy!

The Last Sacrifice – Birth of a Chosen

A (probably) obvious spoiler alert to those who may not have read The Last Goddess or The Last Empress yet – you might not want to read this until you finish. So what are you waiting for? Get crackin’!

The Last Sacrifice – Prologue

Coming this January!

Here’s an early vector line version to give you a glimpse. The geography obviously isn’t complete yet and there’s a lot of texturing/coloring to do, but at least you can see where the countries are!