The Righteous Violence of In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight

Can violence ever be righteous? That is the central question behind In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight, a religious science fiction story about vigilante justice, human trafficking, corrupt empires, and the terrible cost of refusing to compromise with evil.

Zedekiah Wight is not a safe hero, and he is not meant to be. He is a prophetic privateer in a fallen galaxy, a man whose enemies call him a pirate, a terrorist, and a madman—but whose violence is aimed at the powerful men and institutions that have made themselves untouchable.

Where the Idea Came From

The idea for Zedekiah Wight came partly from my love of Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane stories, and partly from my frustration with the lies, hypocrisy, and gaslighting of the modern world. I wanted to take the idea of the grim, scripture-haunted avenger and put him in a far-future space opera setting: a galaxy of corrupt governments, predatory banks, human traffickers, decadent elites, and ordinary people who have learned to look away. Zedekiah became my answer to that world—a man who refuses to call evil good, even when everyone else does.

How Righteous Violence Shapes the Story

In In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight, righteous violence is not clean, polite, or comfortable. The story begins with Captain Victor Andrecek and his crew discovering crucified bodies drifting through space in EVA suits, each one fixed to a repurposed missile and marked with scriptural warnings from Isaiah. At first, Zedekiah appears monstrous: a religious madman leaving medieval punishments in the middle of a high-tech galaxy.

But as the story unfolds, Andrecek begins to see that Zedekiah’s violence is not random cruelty. Zedekiah does not kill ordinary crewmen for convenience. He does not murder indiscriminately for loot. His targets are the people responsible for trafficking, corruption, slavery, and institutional evil—the crime lords, financiers, and powerful collaborators who profit from human suffering while hiding behind layers of respectability.

That distinction matters. The story is not asking readers to enjoy violence for its own sake. It is asking what justice looks like when every official channel has been compromised. When Andrecek discovers that the sealed cargo he nearly smuggled was actually a shipment of cryofrozen slave girls, the moral center of the story snaps into focus. Zedekiah’s crusade is brutal because the evil he fights is brutal. His violence is terrifying because the system he opposes has made peaceful accountability impossible.

And yet, the story also draws a hard line between justice and revenge. When Andrecek finally has Saif Al-Da’ib in his hands, he wants to kill him out of rage, guilt, and hatred. Zedekiah stops him. “Revenge is not justice” becomes the key to the whole theme. Righteous violence is not anger baptized by a good cause. It must be restrained by moral purpose, aimed at the guilty, and guarded against the soul-destroying pleasure of bloodshed.

What Righteous Violence Says About Us

The theme of righteous violence resonates because most of us know, deep down, that evil is not always defeated by polite systems and respectable institutions. Sometimes the people who write the laws are the ones breaking them. Sometimes the people who claim to protect the innocent are the ones selling them. In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight gives voice to the anger we feel when justice is delayed, denied, or inverted—but it also warns that anger alone is not enough. If justice becomes revenge, the avenger risks becoming another monster in a galaxy already full of them.

Why This Theme Matters to Me

This theme matters to me because I believe there comes a time when the lies, hypocrisy, and gaslighting become too much to bear. At some point, a person has to take a stand. Zedekiah Wight is that stand for me. He is politically incorrect, scripture-soaked, uncompromising, and dangerous—but he is also a man who sees evil clearly and refuses to make peace with it. In a world where so many people are pressured to stay quiet, look away, or call darkness light, I wanted to write a character who does not flinch.