Are you, like me, a science fiction buff? I still remember when Star Trek first aired on television. I looked so forward each week for the next episode. Then came Space 1999, then Star Wars, then Dune, and then Battlestar Galactica. Next came the litany of Star Trek and Star Wars movies. Needless to say, I loved them all. There are so many others I could name, but I think I’ve already dated myself. You get the picture though, right?
Of course, I wanted to write a science fiction series. Yet, the question came as to how I would do that when I don’t really believe there are aliens or other occupied worlds because I don’t see that being supported in the Bible. But there is always that inkling in the back of my mind of a what if possibility. One evening when dining with friends, I let that what if hypothesis go forth in my brain and imagination. Our ideas went far and wide and even verged on the ridiculous. Yet, one thing came to light which I agreed with wholeheartedly: if there are aliens and God is the God of the universe, then they, too, would serve the same God as we do.
That became the genesis of my science fiction series the Erabon Prophecy Trilogy. The story is, of course, set into the distant future. In the first book Myeem, an astronaut is flung into the far reaches of the universe due to an interstellar gate accident. He then finds himself on a foreign planet with no hope of getting home. As he tries to understand this new culture, and their anatomical differences being so different from his own, he finds other strange things that shock him. One is that several of their words seem to sound very similar to Hebrew, and second, to his greatest surprise, he is somehow touted to be the prophet these people are expecting to arrive before their deity, Erabon, returns to them.
He then discovers that those in this solar system used to be united on a single planet, but due to a civil war they became divided across six different planets with a moratorium on space travel. Yet, the prophecy indicates that a prophet would come and unite them all once again and usher in the return of Erabon.
Each planet challenges him in many ways and often puts his life in jeopardy. He and the friends he gathers on each planet travel to each subsequent planet to help them know what their deity, Erabon, has left for them and how he wants them all to reunite and usher in his return.
The first book, Myeem is about his experiences on Myeem, a water planet, and on Eremia, a desert planet, where he undergoes several exploits to get individuals on each planet to unite and understand the message their deity, Erabon, has left for them.
The second book, Sharab, is about his travel to Sharab, the fire planet, and to Ramah, the mountainous planet, where he again undergoes many trials to help those individuals unite and understand what Erabon wants from them.
The third, and final book, Qerach, is about he and several of his friends traveling to Qerach, the ice planet, and then to Aphia, the air planet. Again, he must convince those on these planets to also unite so they can prepare themselves for Erabon’s return.
He completes his mission and Erabon does return and sets up a utopian-type planet where they can all live in harmony and unity. The theme of unity through diversity is throughout. While, I feel, this trilogy is a fast-paced, fun-to-read story, there is more to it as well. Just like these followers of Erabon became fractionated, so have the followers of Christ become fractionated as well. Perhaps we need to take a lesson and understand how we can unite in Christ once more like they were in the early church in the book of Acts.
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Visit Books & Words to Inspire by Randy C. Dockens