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Inspiration can come in the most unlikliest of places at times.

Yesterday I was exchanging two DVD's for a Gundam DVD. Volume 1 of 'War in the Pocket' and after the exchange I was watching an old tape of Gundam F-81 that I had not finished watching. After watching these for a bit I found myself on wikipedia looking up 'Gundam'.

A little nugget reached out to me. Gundam had come out in the 1980's as a three volume set of novels. I remember seeing two of them, but not the third. But that's not the nugget that grabbed me.

It showed that in translating the novel series the character of 'Char' had been translated as 'Sha' in the book. Interesting as I get two different feels of the name.

'Char' seems like it should be associated with burning, or war. And I guess for Gundam it is. But 'Sha' seems more spiritual. Like it should be the name of a priest or something.

And I found myself thinking that perhaps a character could represent the spiritual and moral compass here. perhaps provide guidance to Seth before the attack. He might be killed off around the beginning, but the rest of the story could show if his words hold, or if the sadism of Janus wins out. So I think I'll tentatively add the character of 'Sha'. A member of the 'Order of the word' which would provide a link to the teachings of the Book of the word and other possible faiths.

Going back to another addition Sha would have no last name or house name. Essentially when he joined the order all ties to the previous life are severed and his existance from then on out is in dedication to the teachings of the lords. Spiritual orders will be provided a one name basis if they want. Another would be war orphans.

Since war orphans have no house or family of their own that they may know of, kind of like Starbuck in 'The Man with Nine Lives' until he found Shameleon, they would only have one name as they build a family or house of their own. If Starbuck knew of Shameleons identity his name would come out like this.

Starbuck san Shameleon den (House unknown)

But since he doesn't Starbuck remains 'Starbuck'. And he could be determined as founder of his own house.

I've also decided that the term 'house' signifying family house, would be referred to as 'den'. In some ways 'den' can be referred to as 'home'. So using Dalton from Richard Hatch's novels her name would probably come out like this...

Dalton sa Starbuck den Shameleon.

With this it would be obvious as to why one name would be preferred. But I think it works. We'll see when the ideas are applied.