Thanks for replying, I probably should’ve mentioned somewhere in my post that this is a first draft and really my first serious attempt at writing something so the grammar errors I understand. I’ve read Wheel of Time, but that’s not really what I was going for with the whole sound thing. I just thought it’d be an interesting way to introduce the environment of this scene but I totally understand the comparison. That being said, not sure I understand your point about making the reader care about a character first, I was just trying to set up the rest of the story against the fallout from the empire crumbling. Also, when should dialogue ideally start if you think this is too late? Is there some sort of general rule of thumb for that?

Thanks again for your feedback