When Star Wars invaded and conquered Sentrys of Terrene

Another Star Wars Day has come and gone, unless one counts Revenge of the Sixth. Yet, its influence on some awesome works never fades.

Here I am, writing this article on May 8th, and a few days have passed since Star Wars Day on May 4th. But I didn’t want that to stop me from writing his post about my Star Wars-influenced trilogy, Sentrys of Terrene, which kind of serves as the halfway marker in my greater Elementals of Nordica series. 

Oh, and before I go any further, I wanted to remind you that, yes, Sentrys is spelled correctly in this sense as opposed to Sentries, but that’s a tale for another time. Today, I wanted to tell the story of just how Star Wars influenced Sentrys.

Sentrys of Terrene was never supposed to be a thing

In Wind Master, Sion Zona stumbles on the World of Terrene after he crosses an ancient, crumbling archway, taking him there from his home world of Eidolon. Sion crosses an Iberian soldier – the Eidolonian equivalent of Russian – and he interrogates him. 

The soldier reveals the tragic story of Terrene and the events leading up to it. I’d dive into detail here, but if you look at modern-day global events like the never-ending East vs. West in terms of geopolitics, I don’t need to go much further. You get the gist.

But, take those geopolitics and multiply them by 10, and you’ll understand just how bad things got for Terrene. I initially thought of it as Charn, from The Magician’s Nephew, just a more modern version of it. 

And that was that. Terrene was the Lost World, and one that served as a warning not only for Eidolon, but also the Worlds of Rondure, Terra (Earth), and Catenary. Or better yet, a foreshadowing of what was coming to them.

A dystopian fantasy idea hatched in the months before that

In November 2021, my life was in the ultimate rut, and to pass the time, I started outlining this dark, post-apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction series. Not long after, I began writing in the Star Wars niche as a freelancer. 

And while I watched and found Star Wars somewhat entertaining, getting into the nuts and bolts was rather cool. At that point, I tweaked this series into a military science fantasy that held onto those dark, post-apocalyptic dystopian elements. 

After giving it more thought and digging deeper into my edits of Wind Master, Book II in Elementals of Nordica, I thought to myself, “This outline makes for a good story of Terrene.” So, I dropped its Charn-like state in which about 99.9 percent of the world had gone extinct and its survivors were, well, in survival mode, to one that instead held a centrally-planned dystopian society. 

I was writing a lot about the time about Star Wars’ original trilogy, and I came up with a storyline that most of the Elementals who walked this world perished. These Elementals, deemed Sentrys, kept Terrene from diving into an all-out war until they didn’t, and the ultra-powerful nations of Avarice (West) and Vranom (East) and their allies made the entire world a war zone. 

Beyond that, a well-respected Sentry Master named Lars Ras-Svendson was a war hero, pushing back against Vranommian invasions onto Avarice’s soil. His actions, specifically in the Battle over Vora City – the Avarian capital, put a dagger into Vranom…until someone used a little mind trick. 

Lars was a target from the time he started training

In creating the Sentrys of Terrene trilogy, I worked backward, crafting Lars’ full backstory. How did he go from being a well-respected Sentry Master to ending up in a Darth Vader-like armored suit? 

Of course, I didn’t want to make Sentrys a carbon copy of Star Wars, since that would be no fun, even if the genre itself was already different – lesser on science fiction and zero space opera concepts. Still, it had to be its own original story with concepts borrowed from Star Wars and other influences. 

For one, I wanted to link this story to my shared universe, which includes Sentrys of Terrene, plus my five other series from the “Original Six,” if we’re using terms from my day job. So, it needed to integrate with Elementals of Nordica, Cymraeg Tales, Catenarian Chronicles, Chronicles of Rondure, and Terrian Chronicles.

So, for the changes in the story, Lars’ character couldn’t be an Anakin Skywalker. Instead, he:

• Was the son of Avarian aristocrats
• Is 18, not nine in the prequel short-story cycle
• Was rejected for Sentry Commander training several times because of his family’s upper-class status
• Fell in love with a girl his age whom he’d been on good terms with for a while
• Had two kids, but they were a few years apart in age
• Was already a Sentry Master before he became a Rook, something they call Sentrys who are in Sentry Commander training
• Was not Sentry Commander Ren Elk-Jaer’s only apprentice
• Earth and supernatural attacks caused his permanent disfigurement
• His suit differs wildly from Darth Vader’s
• His Venn Order comprised more than two individuals

Yet, our Darth Sidious-equivalent, Venn Hagg, targeted Lars from the moment he started training, perhaps even before. A friend of his for a while, Hagg (known to Lars as Misha), knew his weaknesses, and she preyed on them. In the end, it’s what caused Lars to shed his identity and turn to the Venn Order.

Star Wars Day always reminds me of my Sentrys of Terrene premise

2025 was all about rebranding Sentrys of Terrene to give it a Star Wars-like feel, but rooting it into the post-apocalyptic dystopian world that the trilogy takes place in. This has me primed for some cool, Sentrys of Terrene fun when Star Wars Day arrives in 2026 and beyond, making further comparisons to the series and, of course, centering all my content around this short but intriguing trilogy. 

So, if you haven’t yet read my Sentrys of Terrene trilogy, get started today with The Rebellion Awakens, available on a plethora of online stores for just 99 cents.