There was a legend... Many people tell it. The legend of the Vault. My father would always go on about the Vault; even with his dying breath. Advanced alien technology. Infinite wealth. Fame. Power. Women. So you can understand why some little kiddos who hear the stories grow up to become Vault hunters. Well, I have a story you may not believe. But I tell you it is true. The legend of the Vault is real! And it is here, on Pandora.
—Marcus Kincaid
It's cute that y'all think you're the heroes of this little adventure, but... you're not. Welcome to Pandora, kiddos!
—Handsome Jack
All around the Stactus plant the stalker chased the bandit, the stalker thought t'was all in fun, POP! goes the bandit.
—Tiny Tina
Cloud says they are trying to save the planet. Honestly, I don't think it can be done. For even if they stop every reactor on the planet, it's only going to postpone the inevitable. Even if they stop Sephiroth, everything will perish. But, Nanaki. I've been thinking lately. I've been thinking if there was anything WE could do, as a part of the planet, something to help a planet already in misery... No matter what happens, isn't it important to try? Am I just wishing against fate?
—Bugenhagen
That's right. I'll let you hear my new appointment speech. ...My old man tried to control the world with money. It seems to have been working. The population thought that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay. If a terrorist attacks, the Shinra army will help you. It looks perfect on the outside. But, I do things differently. I'll control the world with fear. It takes too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There's no reason to waste money on them.
—Rufus Shinra
...My sadness? What do I have to be sad about? I am the chosen one. I have been chosen to be the leader of this Planet. I have orders to take this planet back from you stupid people for the Cetra. What am I supposed to be sad about?
—Sephiroth
Aerith: It's still not right. A wig! That's what you need!
Owner: Umm, I thought you might, so I talked to my friend about getting one. You know the gym? You'll find a lot of people there like you. Go and talk to them.
Cloud: ...'like you'? Aerith, what did you tell him?
This uses a similar premise to my Borderlands and ASoIAF/Game of Thrones crossover idea. The war to topple Handsome Jack from his rule of Pandora is ongoing and the Vault Hunters, both old and new, are getting desperate. Hyperion troops led by Wilhelm, mostly loaders and engineers handed crappy guns and sent out to fight, have been attacking and massacring towns that defy Handsome Jack's rule. They need anti-personnel and anti-aircraft guns and area shielding for defending Sanctuary and other rebel cities. Instead their navigation craps out on them and the Vault Hunters find themselves in atmo over the wrong damn planet. Though this isn't a crash landing like the one that happened or could of happened in the North of Westeros.
Instead the Vault Hunters, plus Tina, Claptrap and Moxxi, have Scooter slow their rental spacecraft down as they spy an all too familiar sight for them, one guy, a tall dark-haired, athletically built and boyishly handsome one to be precise, fighting off a whole Goddamn army, with a sharpened metal surfboard on a stick of all things. All to protect what must be his friend, a shorter blond-haired young man with the same general build, who seems to be fading in and out of consciousness.
"So", Lilith says, turning to her fellow Vault Hunters, current and former, "wanna go help the poor dumb crazy kid with the ridiculous 'sword'? Just saying, he and his friend could use our help."
"Yeah Lil", Roland replied, "let's help those guys out. Looks like they might even need some help taking down corporate bastards on this world too. Kinda like us."
So the ten Vault Hunters, past and present, spring into action. First, Gaige activates her new ECHOcast recording drone with custom ear piece for hands free narration, at the same time Salvador leaps to the ground, with a Hyperion pistol in his right hand and a Malawan goddamn rocket launcher digistructing in the left, bellowing, "It's time for compensating!" Then the truly badass madness began. Mordecai and Zer0 are clinging to the team's vessel, using it as a mobile sniper's perch, with Mordecai yelling, "Give 'em hell Blood!", and unleashing his alien bird-thing on screaming Shinra troops.
Lilith and Maya, respectively, are Phasewalking and Phaselocking though Shinra troops too stupid or stubborn to surrender or just drop their guns and run away screaming. That's when the two Sirens aren't just shooting at them with their SMGs, because no matter how much of a badass you are with swords, knives, magic or crazy cosmic powers, you still need guns to be a Vault Hunter. Roland and Axton have their turrets set up facing away from each other to form a protective kinetic barrier for two young men, later revealed to be Zack Fair, age 23 and Cloud Strife, age 21. Roland pauses from firing just long enough to hand Zack two shields, one for the ex-SOLDIER and one for his incapacitated friend.
Meanwhile, Krieg is tearing through Shinra soldiers with his buzz-axe like a tornado through a trailer park, Brick is bowling them over them over like a Mack truck over fine china, while occasionally firing his shotgun and Gaige's robot buddy Deathtrap is even worse. The Mechromancer's creation slaughters many Shinra troops that day and leaves the survivors traumatized for life. As for Gaige herself, she wildly fired off her Vladoff shock assault rifle in her foes' general direction, and though she misses many of them, little old Gaige gets them on the ricochet. Not only that, but Gaige programmed her ECHO drones to remotely hack into the nearby TV stations and broadcast her new ECHOcast on every channel, just because she could.
So we have Vault Hunters on Gaia, the world of Final Fantasy VII. Now, since New-Us aren't canon just assume that the Vault Hunters got as far as they did through sheer badassery, not respawning. So, a whole lot of people on Gaia are going to be in for one hell of a big surprise when they learn that they're only part of a much larger universe than they could have ever imagined. Also yes, in time Handsome Jack will learn about this world and might even make his presence known. So how should the major players on this world, AVALANCHE, Shinra, Hojo and Sephiroth react, and how do you think they actually would react?
Now going into this crossover I have a few parameters and conceits I'd like to share with everyone.
-Yes, Marcus will be sending Ammo Dump Ect. and Guns vending machines for them.
-Since New-U stations aren't canon I'm assuming that the Vault Hunters fought, survived and killed every thing they did on their own merits. They're honestly that badass.
-This is before killing Wilhelm, installing the power core and being forced to fly Sanctuary away from Hyperion forces and of course before Nisha's, Angel's and, certainly, Roland's, canon deaths.
-Don't count out Athena and Janey Springs getting involved. Actually, consider it inevitable, they WILL get involved and come to Gaia.
-Same for Torgue, he'll jump into the fray too.
-Handsome Jack will troll everyone else. Crimson Raider, AVALANCHE, Shinra, it doesn't matter to Jack. I wouldn't put it past him to try to send an ECHO device to Sephiroth of all people just harass him and take the piss out of him.
-For the purposes of this crossover anyone of cetra decent is by definition a cetra. Hojo was/is talking out of his ass on the topic.
-Some cetra managed to escape, or at least help their children escape Gaia to avoid Jenova's corrupting power. As a result there are cetra all over the galaxy, it's just that they're an endangered sub-species on their homeworld of Gaia. Aerith's not alone as a cetra any more.
-I've decided on six prominent Borderlands characters, three male and three female, that are definitely cetra. The three male cetra are Mister Torgue High-Five Flexington, Mordecai the Hunter and Krieg the Psycho. The female cetra will be Tiny Tina, Athena the Gladiator and Nisha the Lawbringer. Yes people, Handsome Jack's homicidal, bloodthirsty, puppy killing girlfriend is going to be a cetra in this crossover. Genetics/ancestry do not determine morality.
-Due to the intervention of the Vault Hunters, Zack Fair lives and his pal Cloud Strife won't suffer a complete mental breakdown and following fugue state like he did in canon.
I haven't put a whole lot of thought into how some of the cetra would have evacuated their children, but it would have been unguided, so to speak. Sort of like Superman's birth parents sending from Krypton to Earth, but without any coordinates or predetermined destination in mind. Out of sheer desperation these cetra cast their beloved children, their very future, to the cosmic wind in hopes of a better world, or worlds, for them.
Those cetra children who reached hospitable worlds, and families and communities willing to take them in, themselves had children who went on to have children of their own, and so on and so forth. In some cases these cetra refuges became the origin of their adoptive world's inherent sorcerers and mages. On other worlds they largely blended into the preexisting homo magi communities. Either way, the descendants of these fugitive cetra can be counted among many of the greater shamans, mediums, psychics, spiritualists, spirit healers, beast empaths and necroscopes of their worlds. That's not including their capacity for more general sorcery.
Yes, I know that's not quite FFVII canon, but the way I figure it, expanding on canon is alright so long as you don't contradict explicit setting lore, within reasonable bounds and with some explanation, especially for a fanfic.
—Marcus Kincaid
It's cute that y'all think you're the heroes of this little adventure, but... you're not. Welcome to Pandora, kiddos!
—Handsome Jack
All around the Stactus plant the stalker chased the bandit, the stalker thought t'was all in fun, POP! goes the bandit.
—Tiny Tina
Cloud says they are trying to save the planet. Honestly, I don't think it can be done. For even if they stop every reactor on the planet, it's only going to postpone the inevitable. Even if they stop Sephiroth, everything will perish. But, Nanaki. I've been thinking lately. I've been thinking if there was anything WE could do, as a part of the planet, something to help a planet already in misery... No matter what happens, isn't it important to try? Am I just wishing against fate?
—Bugenhagen
That's right. I'll let you hear my new appointment speech. ...My old man tried to control the world with money. It seems to have been working. The population thought that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay. If a terrorist attacks, the Shinra army will help you. It looks perfect on the outside. But, I do things differently. I'll control the world with fear. It takes too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There's no reason to waste money on them.
—Rufus Shinra
...My sadness? What do I have to be sad about? I am the chosen one. I have been chosen to be the leader of this Planet. I have orders to take this planet back from you stupid people for the Cetra. What am I supposed to be sad about?
—Sephiroth
Aerith: It's still not right. A wig! That's what you need!
Owner: Umm, I thought you might, so I talked to my friend about getting one. You know the gym? You'll find a lot of people there like you. Go and talk to them.
Cloud: ...'like you'? Aerith, what did you tell him?
This uses a similar premise to my Borderlands and ASoIAF/Game of Thrones crossover idea. The war to topple Handsome Jack from his rule of Pandora is ongoing and the Vault Hunters, both old and new, are getting desperate. Hyperion troops led by Wilhelm, mostly loaders and engineers handed crappy guns and sent out to fight, have been attacking and massacring towns that defy Handsome Jack's rule. They need anti-personnel and anti-aircraft guns and area shielding for defending Sanctuary and other rebel cities. Instead their navigation craps out on them and the Vault Hunters find themselves in atmo over the wrong damn planet. Though this isn't a crash landing like the one that happened or could of happened in the North of Westeros.
Instead the Vault Hunters, plus Tina, Claptrap and Moxxi, have Scooter slow their rental spacecraft down as they spy an all too familiar sight for them, one guy, a tall dark-haired, athletically built and boyishly handsome one to be precise, fighting off a whole Goddamn army, with a sharpened metal surfboard on a stick of all things. All to protect what must be his friend, a shorter blond-haired young man with the same general build, who seems to be fading in and out of consciousness.
"So", Lilith says, turning to her fellow Vault Hunters, current and former, "wanna go help the poor dumb crazy kid with the ridiculous 'sword'? Just saying, he and his friend could use our help."
"Yeah Lil", Roland replied, "let's help those guys out. Looks like they might even need some help taking down corporate bastards on this world too. Kinda like us."
So the ten Vault Hunters, past and present, spring into action. First, Gaige activates her new ECHOcast recording drone with custom ear piece for hands free narration, at the same time Salvador leaps to the ground, with a Hyperion pistol in his right hand and a Malawan goddamn rocket launcher digistructing in the left, bellowing, "It's time for compensating!" Then the truly badass madness began. Mordecai and Zer0 are clinging to the team's vessel, using it as a mobile sniper's perch, with Mordecai yelling, "Give 'em hell Blood!", and unleashing his alien bird-thing on screaming Shinra troops.
Lilith and Maya, respectively, are Phasewalking and Phaselocking though Shinra troops too stupid or stubborn to surrender or just drop their guns and run away screaming. That's when the two Sirens aren't just shooting at them with their SMGs, because no matter how much of a badass you are with swords, knives, magic or crazy cosmic powers, you still need guns to be a Vault Hunter. Roland and Axton have their turrets set up facing away from each other to form a protective kinetic barrier for two young men, later revealed to be Zack Fair, age 23 and Cloud Strife, age 21. Roland pauses from firing just long enough to hand Zack two shields, one for the ex-SOLDIER and one for his incapacitated friend.
Meanwhile, Krieg is tearing through Shinra soldiers with his buzz-axe like a tornado through a trailer park, Brick is bowling them over them over like a Mack truck over fine china, while occasionally firing his shotgun and Gaige's robot buddy Deathtrap is even worse. The Mechromancer's creation slaughters many Shinra troops that day and leaves the survivors traumatized for life. As for Gaige herself, she wildly fired off her Vladoff shock assault rifle in her foes' general direction, and though she misses many of them, little old Gaige gets them on the ricochet. Not only that, but Gaige programmed her ECHO drones to remotely hack into the nearby TV stations and broadcast her new ECHOcast on every channel, just because she could.
So we have Vault Hunters on Gaia, the world of Final Fantasy VII. Now, since New-Us aren't canon just assume that the Vault Hunters got as far as they did through sheer badassery, not respawning. So, a whole lot of people on Gaia are going to be in for one hell of a big surprise when they learn that they're only part of a much larger universe than they could have ever imagined. Also yes, in time Handsome Jack will learn about this world and might even make his presence known. So how should the major players on this world, AVALANCHE, Shinra, Hojo and Sephiroth react, and how do you think they actually would react?
Now going into this crossover I have a few parameters and conceits I'd like to share with everyone.
-Yes, Marcus will be sending Ammo Dump Ect. and Guns vending machines for them.
-Since New-U stations aren't canon I'm assuming that the Vault Hunters fought, survived and killed every thing they did on their own merits. They're honestly that badass.
-This is before killing Wilhelm, installing the power core and being forced to fly Sanctuary away from Hyperion forces and of course before Nisha's, Angel's and, certainly, Roland's, canon deaths.
-Don't count out Athena and Janey Springs getting involved. Actually, consider it inevitable, they WILL get involved and come to Gaia.
-Same for Torgue, he'll jump into the fray too.
-Handsome Jack will troll everyone else. Crimson Raider, AVALANCHE, Shinra, it doesn't matter to Jack. I wouldn't put it past him to try to send an ECHO device to Sephiroth of all people just harass him and take the piss out of him.
-For the purposes of this crossover anyone of cetra decent is by definition a cetra. Hojo was/is talking out of his ass on the topic.
-Some cetra managed to escape, or at least help their children escape Gaia to avoid Jenova's corrupting power. As a result there are cetra all over the galaxy, it's just that they're an endangered sub-species on their homeworld of Gaia. Aerith's not alone as a cetra any more.
-I've decided on six prominent Borderlands characters, three male and three female, that are definitely cetra. The three male cetra are Mister Torgue High-Five Flexington, Mordecai the Hunter and Krieg the Psycho. The female cetra will be Tiny Tina, Athena the Gladiator and Nisha the Lawbringer. Yes people, Handsome Jack's homicidal, bloodthirsty, puppy killing girlfriend is going to be a cetra in this crossover. Genetics/ancestry do not determine morality.
-Due to the intervention of the Vault Hunters, Zack Fair lives and his pal Cloud Strife won't suffer a complete mental breakdown and following fugue state like he did in canon.
I haven't put a whole lot of thought into how some of the cetra would have evacuated their children, but it would have been unguided, so to speak. Sort of like Superman's birth parents sending from Krypton to Earth, but without any coordinates or predetermined destination in mind. Out of sheer desperation these cetra cast their beloved children, their very future, to the cosmic wind in hopes of a better world, or worlds, for them.
Those cetra children who reached hospitable worlds, and families and communities willing to take them in, themselves had children who went on to have children of their own, and so on and so forth. In some cases these cetra refuges became the origin of their adoptive world's inherent sorcerers and mages. On other worlds they largely blended into the preexisting homo magi communities. Either way, the descendants of these fugitive cetra can be counted among many of the greater shamans, mediums, psychics, spiritualists, spirit healers, beast empaths and necroscopes of their worlds. That's not including their capacity for more general sorcery.
Yes, I know that's not quite FFVII canon, but the way I figure it, expanding on canon is alright so long as you don't contradict explicit setting lore, within reasonable bounds and with some explanation, especially for a fanfic.
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