What is Genesis Dissentire?

In a nutshell, Genesis Dissentire is a cyberpunk story about a resistance force trying to take back their planet from a Big Brother-type dictator.  The story has been in development since 2013, usually waiting around on the backburner while my other projects take the spotlight.  

The initial concept for Genesis came about in 2008 while I was in junior high and revolved around a wolf-dog named Aura and how she and a wolf named Cozac teamed up to fight these dictator-type wolves that were taking over/regulating the packs in Alaska.  I stopped writing the story halfway as I got distracted by other things, but when I came back to the notebook I had been writing it in six years later, I thought the concept was still good, so I took it and turned the characters into humans and put the story in a sci fi setting.

Concept art from 2013

The story has been in Development Hell since 2013, but took a more cyberpunk turn when I was in college and has slowly been becoming more concrete as I chip away at it.  I'm hoping to make it a webnovel in the near future once I finish the current one I'm working on, Haddock & Isolde.  Genesis follows Arcadia and Magnus, both on opposing sides and how they come to fight against Unity and Ducard during the course of the story.

A brief (non-spoilery!) idea of what Genesis Dissentire is about:

The story takes place sixteen years after a popular and ambitious general named Athanasius Ducard overthrew the ruling houses of the planet Genesis, setting up his new regime called Unity that promised to drag the world out of the a technological slump and class disparity.  

While Ducard began to make reforms to the government and exercise his power, a few people saw that this wasn’t for the best and spoke out against his policies and hostile takeover.  This included Magnus Hasson’s parents.  Magnus’s mother and father were one of Ducard’s most vocal opponents during the transition, so Ducard orchestrated their demise by staging an assassination using Rogue fighters attack the Hasson’s apartment and murder the Hassons.  Ducard requested that the teenaged Magnus be spared; he was blinded with shockers and lightly beaten before the assassins left.  

 Ducard extended his “gracious hand” and invited Magnus into the Unity Sanctuary—a place for youths orphaned during The Purge to go where they received housing and schooling, while simultaneously being indoctrinated by the government.  Additionally, Ducard also has the boy implanted with a device on his temple that allows him to “see”; the technology isn’t that great, so the images of people/living things look grey/ghostly against the solid background.  Ducard used the deaths of Horatio and Renae Hasson to twist their son to serve him by his side, as Magnus eventually joined the Unity military after aging out of the Sanctuary Program.  Magnus blamed the Rogues for his parents’ deaths and consequently hates them with a passion. 

Arcadia grew up in the Midlevels of Edom, a more rundown part of the cityworld that was greatly affected by The Purge.  Arcadia’s parents are tech repair shop owners who weren’t really affected by the change of regime.  Her father, Varian, works with the Rogues in their city (the Freedom Fighter faction), and runs the repair shop while her mother, Jocasta, deals with the finances and helps out as a nurse at a local clinic.  Jocasta and the rest of the family know nothing about Varian’s moonlighting Rogue activities, believing that he leaves every other night to look for new clients and partners for his business.  

Arcadia assists her father in his repair shop by doing the programming, and has taught herself some hacking techniques that she uses for other activities: she is also secretly involved with Rogues, but not the ones that are in her father’s circle.  Arcadia joined some “Graffiti Rogues” while she was a teenager and has been running around with them ever since, doing minor nano-graffiti and troublesome hacking to pester the local police and Unity garrisons.  She was just starting to get into a relationship with her childhood friend, Kord, when her life came crashing down around her.  Her father is charged with treasonous crimes and arrested by the new General of Edom, Magnus Hasson, taken away to one of Genesis's more notorious detention centers.

If you liked what you read, I hope you'll stick around for the webnovel when it comes out!  I'll be posting plenty of concept art on my tumblr, instagram, and dA accounts in the meantime! :)