The Epic Universe

Quite a few people have wanted more information about the time period that Epic takes place in. Lee's been kind enough to elaborate on this issue.


One of my big goals with Epic was to create not only a world, but a time period. The book 1984 was a great novel, but the year 1984 came and went without Big Brother. There was no HAL 9000 in the year 2001, and unless technology goes warp speed in the next two years, there won't be one in 2010 either. I wanted to avoid that, so I created my own time period: Old Era and New Era.

No one will ever know what OE and NE years align with calendar years as we know them. So far as I'm concerned, there's no equivalent. I took a lot of time to create a time period, by mixing not only present and future tech, but sticking past technology in there as well. Operatives are able to see in darkness using "True Color Vision," yet a small rotating fan still cools the office of General Hutchin. Cigarettes have gone extinct, being replaced with non-harmful metallic "sprigs," yet operatives still call their loved ones on telephones.

There's no need for you to know when the Army, Navy, and Air Force as we know them dissolved. It could have happened ten years before Dawn of Destiny, or two hundred. No amount of world history matters to the plot of Epic prior to the start of the Alien War. What matters is the here and now, in the imaginary time period that the book exists in - a mishmash of past, present, and future as we know it in the real world today. A time all its own.

The mystery of speculation is far more intriguing than any extent of world history I could create. Take for example the "Force" in Star Wars. It was an amazing realm that fascinated everyone...until George Lucas tried to explain it, and it lost all its magic. I don't want to make that mistake.

The same thing applies to the rank structure. I don't follow Army ranks, or Navy, or Air Force. I follow EDEN's, which is a ranking system all its own - one that shares rank titles with real world agencies of today, and also with rank titles that defy anything we currently have. I make no attempt to mimic anything that currently exists. In fact, I try my best to ignore it. What's important is that the rank structure in EDEN stays true to itself. Colonel Lilan and Major Tacker are higher ranks than Captain Clarke and Commander Baranov, because Lilan and Tacker are in command of a platoon - not a squad, as is the Fourteenth. It makes sense in the context of the Epic world, and that's all that matters.

So as you can see, I'm not a fan of unnecessary back story. So what is unnecessary? If I explain how global politics came to be, what happened to lead up to the present age, and what happened to all the agencies of yesteryear, yet it doesn't affect the fact that Scott Remington left behind his love to fight in a war...then that's what I would call unnecessary.

I'll tell you what you need to know to understand the story of Epic. Sometimes it will involve back story, because sometimes back story is very important (such as how the war began in the first place). But when it comes to minutiae for the sake of minutiae...that, I try to avoid.