Today marks the book birthday of Lights Out, a short but pivotal work in the Fallen Empires saga—and a science fiction origin story that quietly reshaped how the enemy would be seen going forward.
This is not a victory tale. It’s an initiation.
And years later, Lights Out still marks the moment when easy answers stopped working.
What sparked Lights Out? ⚔️
The story began as a single scene written for Origin of Pietas: eight special operations soldiers sent into a sealed room with no breathable air, tasked with placing a supposedly unconscious enemy into a lifepod.
That enemy was Pietas.
In under a minute, he dispatched seven soldiers using psychic ability and physical force. The last—identified only as Six—survived not because he was stronger, but because he held the final leverage: a code capable of annihilating Pietas’s mother, already locked in stasis.
Six won through endurance, timing, and moral pressure.
Like many science fiction origin stories, that moment refused to stay contained. Especially by what came after.
Who is Six—and why does he matter? 🪖
Six was never meant to be a hero. He was a mortal soldier doing his job.
While guarding Pietas’s lifepod during transport, Six discovered the truth: Pietas wasn’t in stasis at all. He was being tortured—forced to experience death and rebirth repeatedly. His nature would not allow him to permanently die.
When Six realized the mission was built on lies, he removed all insignia from his uniform. Whatever happened next, he would not let a fellow soldier suffer alone.
This science fiction origin story is where a friendship began—between a human soldier and the future leader of an enhanced race. That relationship would later redefine how both sides understood honor, loyalty, and the cost of survival.
What does the title Lights Out mean? 💡
The title carries several meanings:
- It was the mission name—an attempt to permanently extinguish the “enemy of humanity.”
- It marked the end of the Ghost Corps, a unit of resurrected special operations soldiers who only existed after their own “lights out.”
- And it reflects the moment moral clarity fails, and consequences take over.
As a science fiction origin story, Lights Out doesn’t offer clean triumphs—only irreversible choices.
What surprised readers most? 👁️
Many readers expected a monster.
Instead, they found a man.
Pietas is cold, haughty, and openly contemptuous of humanity—but not without reason. Treaties were broken. Promises were violated. Honor mattered to him, even when it didn’t to others.
Throughout the saga, a realization echoes again and again: “You’re not who we were told you were.”
That realization begins here, in this science fiction origin story, long before allegiances shift or histories are rewritten.
Why does Lights Out still matter? 🧱
Because it introduces the human lens.
Six is grounded, approachable, and unmistakably human—the kind of person you’d want to share a drink with and just listen to. Through his eyes, the enemy becomes more than a symbol. Once that door opens, it never fully closes.
Lights Out is an origin point in Fallen Empires—and the first step on a long road that eventually leads to the Immortal Empires saga.
Thank you for remembering where it all began. 🖤
Death is just a setback.
Book Hooks is a weekly cooperative blog hop hosted by members of Marketing for Romance Writers as part of the MFRW Authors Blog.
Sometimes it’s instructive to look back on our inspirations… we don’t always see the echoes and the ramifications.