E.K. Bao

DEVELOPMENT OF HAPPIA
PHASE 0 & phase 1

HAPPIA first originated over many years over the following idea: "what if there were a people that knew only war, despite not being warmongers?"

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Much of this likely stemmed from my inherited Vietnamese identity and our millennia-long history of war and the fight for independence from larger foreign powers. The worldbuilding ideas of this eventually took on a unique flavor, eventually culminating in how the super-people are portrayed in HAPPIA. It is less about their individual powers and capabilities as is popular across media today, and more so about their collective agency and the wider consequences and implications when others come into the picture.

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The current development of HAPPIA as it is now may nearly not have happened at all if not for a very specific set of circumstances, and almost would have been shelved into the back corners of the mind as an occasional personal project forever.

Nonetheless however, the opportunity came about, and around April 2025, HAPPIA first took shape and form in a more solid and official manner. It became shaped by both the personal and ongoing current global events and affairs of the time and past few years.

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HAPPIA ended up exploring a wide myriad of themes, such as to do with philosophy, war, identity, collapse, colonialism, and the monopoly over truth and narrative. As such, it is more "speculative and literary fiction" than it is "science fiction", of which the latter only serves as the backdrop and setting.

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The framework for the entire series was outlined from around April to June 2025. Work on writing the novel out began in mid-June 2025 and concluded in its entirety in early October 2025. Its chapters and additional writings have since been scheduled for weekly serialization on Royal Road in order to gauge and test readership, which has thus far maintained consistent views well into the novel.

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​The writing process was arduous and not always enjoyable; many days were spent in front of the computer, often for twelve or more hours. Edits, tweaking, and polishing are typically done at the same time as writing it out, and repeated again the next day before moving onto the next chapter. In some sprints, three chapters a day were achieved for multiple consecutive days. Generally though, the goal was to maintain a consistency of completing at least one chapter per day, though making time for life and family was an added challenge to this.

No AI was used to write or otherwise generate any part of the story; it does not match the standards of quality required and demanded of HAPPIA anyways.

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As it currently stands, HAPPIA​ is a complete 177,000+ word, four part novel, awaiting responses from literary agents with the goal of being published.