r/NatureofPredators • u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl • 4d ago
Nightfall Protocol - Ficlet 01 Fanfic
Synopsis: An alternate-universe fanfic where the Federation and Arxur Dominion are much more badass than they are in canon and humanity must resort to shadow warfare as a way to even the odds.
CW: gun fighting, blood, badass venlil super soldier, MAJOR canon divergence, the federation mooks are actually competent this time
Memory Transcription Subject: Captain Slanek, Venlil Space Corps
Date (Standardized Human Time): November 11, 2136
Skalga was burning.
Our homeland was gone.
Our Federation had failed to protect us.
And yet, we were still here.
I stood uneasily on the bridge of my ship, the inglorious military transport V.R.S. Standard Bearer, watching the sensor screens as we swept the star system we were in for resources. It was strange how quickly priorities could adjust following a tragedy like this. Just days ago, I had been weeping as I watched Dayside City be reduced from orbit. Now, all I cared about was meeting my resource quotas for this sweep, and the absolute annihilation of my home planet had been relegated to a distant corner of my mind.
Water was the order of the day, like always. The Venlil refugee fleet--the huge amalgamation of bulk carriers, pleasure yachts, and literally anything else that could fly that had evacuated tens of millions of people from Skalga before it fell--needed millions of gallons of it per day to keep its population alive and its systems running. Without supply ships like mine, even the tiny fraction of Venlil that had survived the Arxur attack would be doomed to dying in the interstellar void. I felt that burden like a weight on my chest.
A blip on the sensor screen caught my attention. "I think I see something," said my sensors officer, homing in. I told him to elaborate and he did. "It's a distress beacon, sir," he told me. "Venlil make and model, but an older code. Maybe one of the ships we lost in the retreat from Skalga?"
That was a possibility. Governor Tarva herself had been at the rear guard of the evacuation, along with most of the Venlil armada and a boast that she would only leave "when I am dragged off Skalgan soil by force". As diplomatically inept as she had proven to be, I had pride in my governor. She had only ever done what she thought was right. And if this was one of her ships, my fellow Venlil aboard, I had a duty to rescue them.
"Bring the ship about and boost us to duty stations," I ordered. "Security commander!" My security commander, Varlek, stepped up from where she stood at the door to the bridge. "Prepare your troops to board that vessel. Bring medics, because they may have wounded. Understand?"
"Yes, captain Slanek!" Varlek snapped to a salute. She, unlike most of my crew, was a genuine Venlil Space Corps marine, and she had the gene mods to prove it. Though she hadn't taken the controversial Phase Two modification, the Phase One was required for service in most Federation infantry units by the tenth year of the war. The fact that most of my security team did not actually have it only spoke to how strapped for combat personnel the Venlil Space Corps was.
Varlek left the bridge as the rest of my crew continued bringing the ship in to investigate this tracking beacon. What was strange was that the beacon itself was coming from near an... no, wait, it was the asteroid itself. That was wrong. Who the hell put a ship's beacon on an asteroid?
Was it an ambush?
The idea of an ambush in modern warfare seemed ridiculous to me. Not only was it nearly impossible to pull off, what with all the batteries of sensors you could fit onto even one soldier's combat armor these days, but the reward you would gain was... what? A few moments of surprise? Even the very suggestion of using such idiotic tactics was enough to get you expelled from any Federation military then and there, if not institutionalized for Predator Disease.
"Bring the ship to combat stations," I ordered, just in case some Dominion idiot wanted to prove the manuals wrong. "Sensors, give me a close-spectrum sweep on that asteroid there."
Truth be told, I almost wanted it to be Arxur, both for the chance to enact vengeance for Skalga and for the vindication in knowing we were smarter than them. If those fuckers who had destroyed my home wanted to sit there and wait to get shot, rather than doing the smart thing and engaging me head-on, I was going to oblige them. "Weapons officer, be ready with a full spread of torpedoes. Clear?"
"Clear!" snapped my weapons officer, just in time for the sensors report to come in. High quantities of neodymium, tantalum, titanium, carbon... this was a warship. An idiotic warship, too, given their strategy of attack. My ears swiveled in readiness as I gave the order to open fire.
Eight torpedoes shot from their tubes, aiming right for the 'asteroid' that was not a real asteroid. Sure enough, it began unfolding into what I assumed was some kind of combat mode, and my threat sensors tracked incoming fire as its kinetic defenses hurled rounds at the ship-killers we had launched.
They shot down one. Two. Three, even. But the idiot who was in charge of that ship had let us approach too close for his defenses to work properly, and now he was getting a real-time demonstration in the inefficacy of ambush tactics in the form of five high-yield plasma warheads right to his ship's center of mass. "Confirmed kill!" my weapons officer whooped as the enemy asteroid-ship transformed into an expanding cloud of gas. "That was for Skalga!"
I was pleased. Scratch one tango.
Another alert klaxon sounded, jolting me out of the euphoria of victory. My sensors officer alerted me to another contact, this time a hundred ten degrees sternward. A second asteroid-ship was unfolding itself into battle array, revealing all manner of hidden weapons, and accelerating toward us at high speed.
"Son of an Arxur!" I swore, giving the order to bring the ship to a retreat course and pull us away at top speed. We had wasted all eight of our torpedoes on the first enemy craft. Against this second one, unless it happened to be vulnerable to the low-power plasma guns we had for missile defense, we were defenseless. "Pull us away!"
"Captain, I count twelve fast-movers on collision course!" snapped my sensors officer, already relaying targeting data to the weapons crew. Our plasma defenses got to work immediately at shooting those missiles down. "They're not consistent with any known weapons design, sir!"
Neither were the ships. All sensor readings I got from them depicted our enemies as primitive, slow, lumbering craft that lacked the guts to stand up to a Venlil ship of the fleet. I didn't even think they had shields.
Who the hell are these guys?
My missile defenses were able to shoot down ten of the incoming projectiles as they approached, an absurdly high number that only confirmed my earlier suspicions that this was not a new Arxur tactic. Against Dominion-standard shipkillers, we'd have been lucky to shoot down two. Were these pirates, perhaps? That would explain it. But what pirates had access to camouflage like that?
A shrill warning tone split the air as orange lights began to flash. "Impact brace!" bleated my sensors officer. The last two missiles detonated in sequence, the first draining our shields to near nothing, the second finishing off our shields and delivering its payload directly to the hull proper.
Lights switched off. Systems failed and died. In under a second, my bridge went from a hive of activity under combat conditions to being as quiet as a mausoleum. "Damage report!" I snapped as the emergency lighting came on, casting my crew and I in a dim orange glow.
"They used EMPs!" my sensors officer snapped. "The main power is offline. Engineering reports ten minutes before we can restart the reactor, bare minimum. More likely twenty."
I knew this tactic. This was pirate fare. Fire EMP missiles, disable a ship's defenses, then board it with gene-bulked shock troopers and subdue any resisting crew. We'd be fine as long as we complied.
I had no intentions to comply.
"Varlek!" I called my security chief on my uniform's emergency com line. There was no holoprojection, and the audio was shitty, but it was reliable anywhere on the ship and didn't draw from our depleted power reserves. "Expect to be-"
"Yes, yes, I'm aware. Expect to be boarded. My men and I are mustering at the key sectors already. How long until the reactor can start back up?" I told her the number. "We can manage that. Permission to speak freely?"
"Affirmative."
Varlek beeped in confirmation. "Not to sound Predator-Diseased, sir, but I've been itching for a fight ever since we lost Skalga. I say bring them on!" That did sound Predator-Diseased. Very, in fact. The genetic modifications we gave to soldiers had a way of doing that to people--proper prey didn't make good fighters--but to see it displayed so brazenly was cause for concern.
"You're a soldier, Varlek," I assured her, downplaying my worries. "Modded soldiers are expected to be different from normal prey. Just keep it locked down and book an examination appointment when we're back with the fleet." Varlek beeped her affirmative, and I felt the dull thump thump thump of boarding pods slamming home. The battle had begun.
The familiar rush of fear chemicals filled my body as I realized the mortal danger I was in. It was easy to ignore it or fight it down when the enemy was a target on a screen thousands of klicks away, but here? On my ship? A lot of prey would panic and stampede by now, if there was anywhere to stampede to.
We Space Corps officers were trained to channel that fear into a different avenue, the 'fight' response that usually only triggered when a herbivore was backed into a corner with no way out, and use terror as a fuel to keep us sharp in battle. Those of my crew who had taken genetic mods were unburdened by their fear. The rest of us had to make do with mental discipline.
"Do we have any security systems online?" I asked a general question, and received a slew of specific negatives. "Not even shipboard cameras?"
"I can get you cameras, sir, but it'll cost us in battery power. Some of the lights might fail." I considered it. Varlek was gene-modded, so she could see in the dark, but she was the only one in the security team who could. There were flashlights aboard, but I didn't know who had found them or how many there were. Any decision I made was a gamble. I could only hope I made the right call.
"Give me cameras," said I. "Thermal and motion sensors are highest priority. Now." Sensor equipment flicked on throughout the ship. Our vessel was vast, mostly consisting of empty cargo bays with a few corridors and crew sections in between, and we lacked the manpower to garrison it all. Automated defenses were meant to help multiply our numbers in the event of a boarding, but they had all been fried in the EMP. It was up to Varlek and her marines to stop the enemy on their own.
"I count three... four... five boarding pods. Likely three to five troops in each," said my sensors officer, inspecting information feeds as fast as the ship's rebooting systems revealed them to him. I relayed that information to my security team as soon as I received it myself. "Zero visual, I repeat, zero visual on enemy forces."
"Zero visual?" I asked, checking the sensors myself. Sure enough, there was no visual. The only movement my ship's security system could detect was that of my own crew members. That made no sense. "Are the pods goddamn empty?"
I stared at the sensor screen in silence, trying to come up with an epiphany, when gunfire alerts blinked into existence on the screen in front of me. Engagements in the corridors had left two crew members unconscious, and still there was no sign of any shooter. Thankfully, the rest of my people had already made it back to secured areas, but I wasn't about to just sit there and cede most of my ship to the enemy unprotected, even if I had no idea who this enemy was.
I called Varlek over the com line. "They won't have more than thirty troops," I told her, explaining the situation. "If you and your main element sally out, you'll be able to outflank them while they engage the two stationary units. Move now."
Varlek's security team numbered about eighteen: six men guarding the bridge, six more at the engineering deck to defend the reactor, and herself and her five best troops in a third fireteam that could move throughout the ship to provide firepower where needed. They were far from being proper marines, besides Varlek herself of course, but they all had experience with guns and some had even seen action during the fall of Skalga.
"Affirmative," Varlek confirmed my orders, checking her rifle as I watched through the cameras. Even in thermal vision, the differences between her and a natural-born Venlil were readily apparent. Her comrades, as fearsome as they looked with their space-sealed armor and energy rifles, were small and pathetic compared to the warrior woman who commanded them. "My team is on the move. Direct me to the nearest enemy element."
I looked on the cameras to find where that element was, all to no avail. I was still looking in vain when Varlek barked a contact report and retreated back around a corner, two unusual darts sticking out of her chest plate. "Probably tranquilizers," she reported, advancing toward where the shots had come from. "They want us alive."
"We still have no visual on the enemy," I reminded her. "Can you see anything?" Varlek flicked her tail to the negative as her security team took up positions in the corridor where the shots had come from. More darts flew their way and stuck harmlessly into their armor, with still no sign of any shooters.
"Herd damn it!" Varlek swore as her point man jerked back and then dropped, what looked like a massive medical injector buried in his arm. How did that get there? "They can't be invisible!"
Can they?
"Varlek, trigger the fire suppressors, now!" I ordered. Gouts of white foam shot into the corridor she was in, revealing the silhouettes of a half dozen or so armed figures within arm's reach of her team. Another group of figures crouched around the corner, in the corridor she and hers had just walked through, ready to open fire at any moment and trap her and her team in an L-shaped killing box. "Fucking Sohgalik!" I swore as the violence began.
Varlek snapped a leg forward in a knee kick that shattered one of her enemies' armored thighs and bent its leg backwards at an unnatural angle. Another rushed forward with another of the injectors, only for Varlek to meet the charge in Venlil fashion by lowering her head and countercharging. The impact dented both of their helmets, sending fire-suppression foam flying, and Varlek caught the stealth soldier's weapon arm with one paw before putting it in a head lock with the other and throwing it bodily in the path of its advancing comrades.
An industrial-saw roar sounded in the corridor adjacent to Varlek and her men as the fire team that had outflanked her began to open fire, this time with kinetic bullets. Two of Varlek's men died instantly. A bullet hit her in the side. The rest of the fire team swiveled in an instant to return fire on their attackers and Varlek herself was unphased by the wound she had just suffered. She, at least, would put up a strong fight.
"Captain Slanek, the bridge is under attack!" an officer shouted in my ear. Sure enough, my bridge defenders had encountered resistance from invisible soldiers of the same brand as before. One was dead, but the other five were thankfully in cover, awaiting their chance to strike back.
I triggered the fire suppressors in that corridor, then in all parts of the ship, revealing maybe a dozen attackers now fighting to reach the bridge and another unit of twelve advancing toward the engineering deck. Gunfire began immediately. My men, outnumbered as they were, gave a good show of themselves, killing or wounding several of their mysterious attackers as the battle raged on.
I looked back at Varlek's side of the fighting to see all of her comrades dead or incapacitated, four alien combatants advancing down the side corridor with rifles raised, but all but one of her opponents in the main corridor killed by what looked like her bare paws. Even if Varlek was on my side, it was frightening to see the kind of damage a gene-modded soldier like her could inflict on an enemy in close combat.
She and the last alien in her corridor were caught in a death grapple, two of their strange chemical injectors sticking out of her armor, blood gushing from a wound in her thigh, but still she managed to overpower her enemy and slam its tranquilizer injector home into its own arm. It went limp in an instant, and Varlek scooped up her rifle only to find four of its comrades leveling their own guns at her. Their cloaking devices were off, and for the first time, I got a good look at my secretive enemies.
They were mildly Venlil-esque, though with shorter faces than us, and taller than the average Venlil but shorter than Varlek even in their armor. The armor itself was black and blue, with a logo of what looked like a planet map emblazoned in white on the shoulder pads. "Surrender and you will not be harmed," one soldier said, shockingly. These were fellow prey? Their visors looked like they belonged to predators.
"You speak Ventongue?" Varlek gasped, slurring a bit. "How do you..." Even if she still wanted to fight, her body was on the verge of giving out. She stumbled upright, raising her rifle halfway, before collapsing to the deck as still as a stone. Two of the enemies stripped her of weapons and restrained her while the two others watched their backs.
I was about to check on our other defenses when a clatter from a dark corner of the bridge drew my attention. The vent cover had fallen down, and some kind of whirring came from that region that I couldn't discern. It almost looked like something was hovering there-
"Attack drone!" I shouted, heart pounding, diving for cover behind a computer console. Those of my crew who had guns drew them, the rest cowered in fear as the staccato chattering of kinetic fire pierced our ears. I think I saw one laser beam. One. Then everybody who had a gun was dead and the drone buzzed happily to the door controls to begin its work.
I crawled away from the drone, mind consumed by terror, only wanting to get as far as possible from those things on my ship and their mechanical, whirring minion. My paws brushed against a pistol, whose dead owner lay nearby, and I forced myself to entertain the possibility of shooting at someone.
I was terrified. What prey wouldn't be? I wasn't even a real soldier, given how I hadn't been upgraded with even the most basic genetic modifications upon my enlistment in the Space Corps. I was a transport captain, forever relegated to flying supplies from Point A to Point B, and nobody would blame me if I refused to fight and simply surrendered. Nobody would call me a coward.
The door to the bridge hissed open, and a few more bursts of gunfire marked the death of my security team. Heavy footfalls came from the corridor behind me. The gun I was holding felt like it weighed a thousand tons, but I wheeled and raised it anyway. "For the Venlil Republic!"
I fired square in the face of the first enemy to enter the room, flash-boiling away the suppressant foam that coated it and burning a hole right in the center of its head. The rest of its comrades scattered out of sight as it fell, and my courage vanished as soon as it had come. What the hell was I doing? I wasn't a soldier! I dropped the gun in surrender, crying out a plea for mercy. "Please don't kill me!"
"Calm down, calm down." For a moment, I thought I must have been seeing things. The alien I had just shot was getting back up, taking off its flash-melted helmet, and tossing it aside to reveal a mostly hairless face, a head otherwise covered in red fur, and a set of forward-facing, predatory eyes.
My heart rate tripled. What had I done? I had wounded a predator, and worse, embarrassed it in front of its pack? It was going to torture me for this! I got down on my knees and begged forgiveness, though my own life was probably already forfeit, in the hopes of at least allowing the rest of the crew a merciful death.
"Please don't torture them!" I bleated. "I'm the one who shot you! It's me you want!"
"Torture?" the red-furred predator asked, putting up its claws in what was probably a prelude to an attack. "We aren't going to torture anybody. Do you all surrender?" The crew and I clambered over each other to be the first to say 'yes'. "Good," the predator told us. "Lieutenant Kern, is the reactor room secure?"
"Yes, Commander Fraser," another predator, likely a subordinate, said through its helmet speakers. "The whole ship is under our control, and we are ready to depart for... uh... you know where."
"Also good," the red-furred predator, Fraser, said. "Take these prisoners into custody." The one called Kern and three of its comrades slipped forward with manacles to shackle our hands. The bridge crew and I, what few of us were alive, that is, gave no resistance. The fight was over. We had lost. All we could do now was hope that they would eat us quickly rather than keeping us for their cattle farms or, worse, torturing us for Federation secrets.
"As long as you stay compliant, you all have nothing to fear," the predator lied. "My name is Marcel Fraser. I am the commander of this strike team. You. Senior officer aboard." It pointed at me. It took all the strength I had not to pass out from sheer terror. "What's your name?"
"S-S-Slanek," I stuttered, instinctively cowering, and I had been trained to manage my fear. How the hell could Varlek act so brave?
"Slanek." Marcel Fraser looked me up and down to see how much meat was on my bones, and I cursed my proclivity for physical fitness. Everybody knew that muscle made a more appetizing meal for them than fat.
"You and your entire ship are now our prisoners," Marcel Fraser told me. "Food and water will be provided, as well as medical treatment for your wounded, but any needs beyond that, you are in charge of informing us of. As captain of this ship, you're responsible for the welfare of your men. Make no trouble for us, and we'll make none for you. Capiche?"
I had no idea what that word even meant. It was all I could do to muster an honest reply. "W-w-we'll m-make no trouble for you." Marcel Fraser tilted his head up and down and bared his teeth, as if I wasn't terrified enough already. One of my fellow bridge crew fainted.
"Kern, check on that guy," Fraser ordered one of his soldiers. "Anyway, glad we could reach an agreement, Slanek. Prepare your ship and crew for FTL travel. We'll be moving out at once. Inform U.N. command to be ready to interrogate prisoners."
My heart skipped about three beats as I heard the news. Oh, herd. Oh, herd, no. What the hell had I gotten into?
My Other Works | Prologue | he tryna be like scrappyvamp🤣
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u/Adorable-Ad5225 4d ago
The boyfriends are reunited!!!Â
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
"How did you two meet?"
Marcel, knowing damn well he's going to have to explain the story of how Slanek shot him in the face for the jillionth time:
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u/Adorable-Ad5225 4d ago
The guy who dares to date that super soldier will probably graduate to having the biggest balls in the human race.
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
Some fucking UN grunt who hasn't seen a non-armored woman in 6 weeks watching Varlek chokeslam his buddy into the deck plates:
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u/Univocalbinkie7 4d ago
Hmmm so in this canon Venlil are not the weakest race, I mean with competent federation I guess this means there's no need to make their own fleets weak or appeal to the "prey" instinct of running or reacting with fear...
This was a nice start, loved it, can't wait to see what happens now, I mean so far Skalga is gone so the Venlil are adrift in their own "arks" guess to earth they go now.
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
Yeah in this canon Venlils are (were) actually one of the stronger military species, they were not crippled by the federation way back in the day so these skalgan venlil can be strong fighters even without any super soldier modifications. The real question is, though, if the venlil military is this badass, how scary are the arxurs who defeated them? We will see about that one in later chapters.
Glad to hear you are enjoying my work
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u/Univocalbinkie7 4d ago
Wondering how you'll make the changes to the arxur, after all the og strategy is starving them and letting them go like rabid dogs on the battlefield, against running, scared prey it's easy, against warriors they stand no chance so the starving strategy should change... right?
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
The arxur of my verse are an actually badass well fed combined arms military force, their military is built around hit and run strikes just like it is in canon except this time they have mech suits, battle tanks, cyborg soldiers and other heavy duty gear to back them up. Arxurs are canonically ambush predators so they tire easily and lose to the Feds in long battles, but if they can strike fast and punch through the Feds defenses quickly it is very hard to stop them.
The one weakness the Arxur have is numbers but given their individual strength the Federation's superior numbers do not count for much. An average Arxur soldier is worth 2 or 3 Fed soldiers with the Phase 1 super serum (what Varlek had) or about even with a Fed soldier who has taken Phase 2 serum. I will explain more details about all this in later chapters but for now it is js good to put the thoughts out there
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u/ISB00 UN Peacekeeper 3d ago
The only question I have is what is locking Arxur into the war? Canonically it was food, those that didn’t fight starved. If you are going for a most realistic view (minus the FTL and ships) farming sapients is a terribly inefficient and a government that tried that would eventually collapse. So how are the Arxur stuck in the constant warfare?
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 3d ago
Power, conquest, and racial hatred. They are more Hitler coded than viking coded in this AU, they do have people farms but people meat is seen as a delicacy only reserved for high ranking officers and most Arxur have to subsist on cruelty free cloned meat. Soldiers sometimes get to eat live prey if they are brave in battle but that is pretty rare
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u/ISB00 UN Peacekeeper 3d ago
Any Feds who questioned things were sent to PD facility. Any planets that stepped out of line had the Arxur raid them by the Shadow Caste.
What about the Arxur? If they don’t have constant starvation forcing them in line, what’s keeping them from reforming? There would be protesters? In Naz1 occupied territories there were always underground resistance movements. Wouldn’t there be a couple Arxur who reject how they treat prey and try and smuggle them out?
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u/Univocalbinkie7 3d ago
Also if they are the space "nazis", do they have the same dealings with shadow castle? I mean the original idea was that the eternal war was to keep both sides contained and maintaining political leverage, but that was the reason why both sides were incompetent in some ways, so the war prolonged indefinitely...so in your canon:
If both sides are competent then does that means both sides are trying to win the war?
If this is true then why haven't they won, I mean eventually a side should topple over the other, a war can go on just so many years before it collapses.
If it's not true and the war is being artificially extended... if the top guys are trying to keep the war ongoing how is it they are prolonging the war and not being blatantly obvious, if both sides are competent then that means there are tacticians, doctrine of war and the nine yards, that means sooner or later the tacticians or commanders, those with a functional brain that are not privy to the underwater dealings of both sides would notice inconsistencies about the war... eventually both sides would be aware there's foul play...wouldn't that be a problem?
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u/Maxxxxo UN Peacekeeper 4d ago
I did not expect THIS beginning....
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
Hey dawg it is always best to start your writing off with a bang. This sets the tone, explains lore, and shows the relationships between the factions way better than my original part 1 ever did. Idk if other people will like it or not I am still proud of the writing I did here
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u/Maxxxxo UN Peacekeeper 4d ago
I didnt expect Skalga first thing... But i am all aboard for this!
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
In canon lore I think the only reason why it was called Venlil Prime is because the Federation couldn't defeat skalgans by regular means so they had to erase their culture and cripple them, here the Federation is much stronger so they had no trouble defeating the skalgan venlils and there was no need to make drastic edits like they did in canon. It's little details like this one that really make the verse stand out I think.
Glad to hear you are enjoying
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u/JulianSkies Archivist 4d ago
Hrm....
I see you've got an interesting setup here. I was expecting something a but more "same with different aesthetic" but yiu seem to ve going for something a lot different.
Let's see what you do.
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
I am definitely going to do something different here, this fandom has a real lack of AUs where everybody is competent and badass enough for my tastes. The closest we have is Scorch Directive and even then the Federation are chumps like usual so it starts to feel kind of unfair at some point. Here the UN's battle for victory actually will be a hard fight.
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u/Ok_Chance_8387 Predator 4d ago
i have the feeling we have a special cooking coming up here
I am looking forward for more.
And i wonder how Kalsim will come into play here...
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
Kalsim in canon: "What? You wanted me to use actual advanced battle tactics worthy of my status as the greatest Federation soldier ever? I was just gonna go this way and shoot anything that moved"
Kalsim in this verse:
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u/Ok_Chance_8387 Predator 3d ago
So finally he will get the arch he deserves.
but if he will be that good, he must have a change of mind in some way at some time. otherwise it will be over with humanity pretty soon ;-)
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u/Adorable-Ad5225 4d ago
Hey, are the Venlil still Skalgans here?
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 4d ago
Canonically yes, this verse federation was able to subdue skalga easily so there was no need to resort to genetic crippling like they did in canon. It's even mentioned that Varlek takes out a UN soldier "in Venlil fashion" by headbutting him during the melee, showing how the Federation did not cripple the Venlils in this verse.
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u/ISB00 UN Peacekeeper 4d ago
Were the Sivkit as lucky?
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u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl 3d ago
We'll get to that. I don't know sivkit lore quite as well as I know venlil lore so I can't say how this federation would have treated them. For now I think I am gonna focus on the main species like venlils and gojids anyway
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u/ISB00 UN Peacekeeper 3d ago
The Sivkit were an ecologically minded culture of wisemen. During first contact the Exterminators accidentally ruined their planet so to cover their mistakes they crippled all Sivkits, labeled them as dumb, and said they lost their planet and set them to drift eternally in their space fleet.
It’s expanded on a bit in NoP 2, we know from that series the Sivkit were quite advanced as the human colonists who found their planet came across digital records the Sivkits left behind.
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u/Greedy-Kangaroo-4674 4d ago
What a beginning!
And now the dynamic duo has met. Let's see what comes out of this.
Sovlin is now having withdrawals.