Blur Havok: Inciting Incident
Leah went through three different name changes.First was “Victory”, which was changed because there was a point where there were four characters whose names started with “V” (Vasquez, Velanna, Vanessa {See below}, and Victory).
The second was “Kamila”. This name was changed for no particular reason.
Finally, Leah was chosen purely because the editing process for Inciting Incident and The Nexus Campaign was quickly approaching and names needed to be locked in.
“Leah” means “weary” and “Emory” means “leader”.
Izabela was originally named “Vanessa Bella”.
Leah is the first new character in Blur Havok since Velanna in 2014.
The picture Leah has of her son Malcolm in a train conductor costume was inspired by real photos of the author as a child.
Unlike Paragon War, Synthetics are portrayed as agender and inhuman (using pronouns like “it” and “they”, regardless of physical attributes) to show how Leah views the Synthetic race.
Inciting Incident was originally going to be a short story like Bria: A Blur Havok Story and “I Needed You”, but the story became far more expansive. It is now the first entry in the “Blur Havok Novella Series”
As stated in the trivia section of Paragon War, the first draft of that book was written without any lore established. Inciting Incident was written after the lore was built.
Savoy is the first Blur Havok character to say the “C-Word”.
As with Paragon War, all characters in the novella have fantasy voice actors:
Leah Emory: Sumalee Montano
Councilor Vasquez: Holly Hunter
Malcolm Emory: Phil Lamar
Han Zhao Lang: Nolan North
Ana Lebedev: Vanessa Marshall
Savoy McMillan: Ed Skrein
Vinton Degon: Ciarán Hinds
Izabela Parrilla: Gina Roderiguez
(There are more in the “Spoiler” section)
Originally, the guard that eyes Leah after she kills Jan was a no-name character who had no influence on the plot after that point. It wasn’t until post-Inciting Incident content was being planned that this guard became Izabela.
Izabela is the first Blur Havok character capable of speaking fluent Spanish.
Dr. Alex Conroy is not a new character. He was created in 2010 within the old lore. There are some plans to revisit his character in the future…
Feeling like Sumalee Montano (Arcee in Transformers Prime) was not a good fit for Bria, the author definitely saw Sumalee voicing Leah and did not want the voice actress to go unnoticed.
Spoiler Trivia
Leah was designed to look like she could hypothetically be Alastor’s mother.
Alastor is wearing his casual outfit from Paragon War in the climax of Inciting Incident so that his description is instantly recognizable to readers who have read Paragon War.
“Jack” is the name the author uses when he either does not want people to know his real name or when he is at a restaurant and is 90% sure the employees are going to pronounce his name egregiously wrong.
Fantasy Voice Actor Spoilers:
Jack Taylor/Alastor Hacon: Donald Glover
Ryze: Patrick Seitz
Fel: Tara Strong
Alastor was designed to come across as more of an antagonist in Inciting Incident. This was done by design:
Alastor’s posture is way more nonchalant than in Paragon War.
Alastor is more insulting and snarky than usual.
Alastor fights unfairly.
Alastor even seems to “play” with Leah; not taking her seriously or using the full extent of his power.
Alastor originally had the ability to warp long before 2017 in the Old Canon. But to hide the reveal of Alastor being Jack, the Official Canon has changed this.
Leah has difficulty fighting Alastor for a storytelling reason; it is to show how powerful Alastor is compared to a regular human.