Paladin follows a retired Navy commander battling to save Earth and humanity, who is transformed by a mysterious alien intelligence into an extraordinarily powerful defender of Earth; however, he may not survive this transformation. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The main inspiration for Paladin was my children. My children are of mixed racial backgrounds, and I wanted them to have heroes who reflected the world they were growing up in. I believed the next generation was going to be increasingly multicultural, and I wanted that to be represented naturally in the characters I created.

I wanted my children, who are half Asian and half whatever I am, to be able to look at the heroes in the story and see people who looked like them and came from backgrounds like theirs. That was really the foundation of The Ocoda Chronicles. The science fiction, the ships, the alien civilizations, and everything else grew from that original idea.

What inspired the different alien civilizations and philosophies introduced in Paladin, particularly their contrasting views on violence and intervention?

One of the ideas behind the different civilizations in The Ocoda Chronicles is that things are rarely as simple as they first appear. I didn’t want the story to have civilizations that could easily be divided into good and evil. Each has its own history, beliefs, motivations, and reasons for the choices it makes.

A larger theme throughout the series is consequence. Every decision has an effect, whether it is made by an individual, a government, or an entire civilization. Even actions taken with the best intentions can have consequences that no one could have predicted, sometimes far into the future.

That idea becomes increasingly important as the series develops. Characters begin to discover that events they thought they understood were actually part of something much larger, and that decisions made long before them continue to shape the present. I wanted readers to question their first impressions and understand that the consequences of our actions can travel much farther than we ever realize. Basically I don’t follow cookie cutter plots.

What ethical questions did you want to raise about artificial intelligence, biological transformation, and the responsibility that accompanies advanced technology?

One of the ideas I wanted to explore is that technological change is inevitable, and people often fear what they don’t understand. Artificial intelligence is a good example of that. A lot of people look at it as something threatening, but I see it more as another stage in how humanity learns, adapts, and evolves.

Throughout history, people have resisted major changes because they were unfamiliar or disruptive. But you can’t stop progress simply because it makes you uncomfortable. The better choice is to understand it, learn how to use it responsibly, and adapt with it.

Caleb’s connection with Paladin gives him access to knowledge and abilities far beyond anything he could have achieved on his own, but I don’t think people need something like Paladin in order to grow. We already have the ability to learn, change, and expand what we understand. The real limitation is often whether we are willing to open our minds.

That is part of what I wanted the story to examine: not just what advanced technology can do for us, but whether we are mature enough to use it wisely. Technology itself is not automatically good or bad. What matters is how we choose to use it, how we adapt to it, and whether we allow fear to stop us from moving forward.

What aspects of Caleb’s transformation, the alien civilizations, and the larger conflict are you most excited to explore in future books of The OCODA Chronicles?

Caleb is where the story begins, but The OCODA Chronicles is not really a story about one man. As the series develops, it becomes a story about an entire family and the people who become part of that family along the way.
The first two books are really the building blocks of the universe. They introduce the characters, the civilizations, the technology, and the conflicts, but as the story grows, it becomes much more personal. There is adventure, but there is also loss, pain, joy, understanding, and change. People are lost along the way, new people come into their lives, and every experience changes the family in some way.

One of the larger ideas I wanted to explore is the difference between living in the past, living in the present, and preparing for the future. If you spend your life focused on what has already happened, you can lose the moment you are actually living in. At the same time, the future is something we all have a responsibility to prepare for. We cannot control everything that is coming, but we can learn to understand it, adapt to it, and accept what life gives us.

In the end, the series is less about what the world is and more about what it can become. That applies to the characters, the family, and the larger universe around them.

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