Clarian Rising
The award winning Clarian film featuring Aura Raines. Aura’s exploits are legendary, yet she is more than the commander and pilot of the heroic Clarian space fleet or a friend to geocachers all. Her love story with Semjase has melted hearts throughout the galaxy.
This interview offers us a chance to speak about what the film has meant,
Kaelen Vane: Welcome back to Deep Space Transmissions. I’m Kaelen Vane, and with ne today is Aura Raines. Unless you’ve been in cryo-sleep for the last cycle, you know her as the creative force behind Clarian Rising.
Aura Raines: The reaction has been surreal, Kaelen. Honestly, when we were shooting the atmospheric sequences in the outer badlands, we were just trying to keep dust out of the primary lenses and keep the actors from freezing. The idea that someone on a mining rig near Europa is watching right now? It hasn’t quite settled in yet.
Kaelen Vane: Clarian Rising deals heavily with the themes of cultural displacement and the rights of all, across multi-planetary systems. It is a narrative that feels intensely personal, yet massive in scope. How did you decide to make it a picture?
Aura Raines: I had help. When Semjase looked out of the airlock and realized she can’t distinguish her home star from the background field anymore —it meant so much to me that I wanted to share it with others. We wanted to share that interplanetary justice and the rights of androids start with each of us.
Kaelen Vane: The visual language of the film makes the emotions real. Shooting in high-gravity terraforming sites couldn’t have been an easy production choice.
Aura Raines: It was a nightmare logistically, to be completely frank. [Laughs] The insurance underwriters almost pulled the plug twice. But you can’t fake the real micro-dust or the specific way cast shadows fall under a twin-star exposure. The actors moved differently because and felt differently because the environment demanded it.
Kaelen Vane: It certainly shows in the final cut. The sequence on the salt flats of Oakhaven draws you in through its realism. How did you align everyone’s styles?
Aura Raines: It was all about grounding them in the core dynamic of the Clarian narrative. Every actor brought their own dialect, their own physical mannerisms shaped by their home environments. Instead of smoothing those differences out, we leaned into them. Clarian Rising is ultimately about a fragmented people trying to find a shared vocabulary. The cast didn’t need to act that out; they were living it on set every day.
Kaelen Vane: we are left with so many things in a delicate state. hanging in a delicate balance. You are close to Terrans, is there any progress that bring them into the federation?
Aura Raines: We were offered the chance to film there if we made Trump the star. Our talks stalled when he couldn’t find Clarian in the map and called us communists.
It is one reason we adopted the peace through geocaching program. If we can help get people involved in a game with no winners or losers, perhaps they will realize that their problems can be solved through cooperation.
Kaelen Vane: We all hope that Terran disputes don’t affect the supply of chocolate. Thank you for taking the time to dock with us today.
Aura Raines: Thanks for having me, Kaelen. Clear skies.
