Marque and Reprisal
is a Robotech fanfic, written in first-person, about a young lady who joins the crew of a privateering ship hunting the Invid. But her first deployment goes wrong..
Marque and Reprisal provides examples of:
- After the End: Earth after the Invid invasion, with the Invid operating blockades and killing those who try to cross it.
- The Alliance:
- The Coalition in the Serengeti, trying to stop the Purifier's campaign of conquest and ethnic cleansing.
- The Sentinels Alliance mentioned by Gabe.
- The Anti-Invid Alliance, an alliance of resistance groups coordinated by the E.V.E..
- Alliterative Name:
- Gabriel Gashtar
- Alazar Aboudi
- Ancient Egypt: Egypt in this setting isd implied to have revived at least some of the institutions of ancient Egypt.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: %he Purifiers. Their flag even has a red background.
- Animal Stampede: a stampede of elephants is used to scatter the Purifier militia and allow refugees to escape across a mountain pass.
- Anti-Hero: Laureline. She suffocates captured Purifer militiamen to death, just like how she suffocated her baby brother to death. She, however, does not target civilians, or even local police in Purifier territory.
- Back for the Dead: Hermes was a minor character (a friend of the protagonist) in Dire Straits. He is killed by the Invid trying to sail Gabe and company from Egypt to Greece.
- Big Bad: The Invid Regent. According to canon, he is secretly in a Big Bad Duumvirate with General T.R. Edwards at the time the privateer crashed landed.
- Book Ends: With Scoop. Scoop showed the first battle of the first Robotech War; here we see the last battle of the last Robotech war.
- Broken Pedestal: Vincent d'Honaire, who was committing war crimes against the Karen.
- The Cavalry: The Invid, during the rescue of the SDF-3, led by Itzak.
- Composite Character: Egypt, in this setting, combines the traditions of ancient, medieval, and 19th century Egypt.
- Cool Bike: The veritech Cyclone motorcycles, which transforms into power armor.
- Defeat as Backstory: the privateer's first deployment did not end well. Neither did Gabe's first air combat mission.
- Not to mention the Invid Invasion itself.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Purifiers are on an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Serengeti region of Africa.
- Doomed Hometown:
- Laureline's hometown was destroyed by the Purifiers shortly after the end of the Second Robotech War.
- Itzak's hometown was destroyed by the Purifiers soon after the privateer meets him and his father.
- Even Evil Has Standards: the Purifiers. Both men and women are enrolled in its militia, and they practice religious toleration, as a Christian church and an Islamic mosque are located just blocks from each other in a lakeside town in Purifier territory. The Founding Father is even married to a a purple-skinned Zentraedi woman
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: Both the privateer and Gabe experience this, with the crew of the Golden Eagle and Titan Squadron, respectively.
- Foil: Itzak to Annie. While looking to be the same age, Itzak is much more reserved and quiet than Annie. But then, considering his father was just killed by the Purifiers...
- Fossil Revival: The Genesis Pit in Africa, where the Invid resurrwected dinosuars. Unlike the Pit Scott Bernard and company encountered in South America, the one in Africa is not destroyed.
- Half-Human Hybrid:
- Laureline, as she stated her mother was from the stars.
- Gabe's father was one of the original Zentraedi defectors.
- Happily Adopted:
- Itzak Mlama, who was adopted by Ebrahim after the latter found him in a village burnt down due to ethnic warfare. it ends when the Purifiers attack their home.
- Averted with the Founding Father of the Purifiers. Like Itzak, he was found after his family was slaughtered in ethnic cleansing during the Global Civil War. However, the family that adopted him subjected him to horrific abuse. His ethnic cleansing campaign forty to fifty years later was as much revenge against those who shared the blood of his adoptive family as it was to obtain more Lebensbraum for his followers.
- Interspecies Romance:
- The Founding Father of the Purifiers is married to a purple-skinned Zentraedi woman.
- Les Collaborateurs: Several examples.
- The Purifiers, who grow and harvest the Invid Flower of Life in exchange for protoculture, which they use for electrical generation and to power their robotechnology.
- Egypt, which also has a similar arrangement, if a bit less genocidal.
- The Man Behind the Man: one of the Robotech Masters was revealed to have been behind T.R. Edwards and the Invid Regent, as well as the Disciples of Zor and the Haydonite Supreme Commander Krok.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Vincent d'Honaire is killed by Gabe in a dogfight duel, in order to rescue the captive Karen.
- Mythology Gag: The Macbeth (a super submersible fortress used by the Anti-Invid alliance) is a reference to one of the proposed names for the ship in Super Dimension Fortress Macross. To elaborate, the ship was originally going to be called Megaroad. But one of the producers was a fan of the Shakespeare play Macbeth, and wanted to name the ship Macbeth. Macross was a compromise, as its kanji was similar to Macbeth. Presumably, the in-universe explanation for Macbeth would have been that the ship was named after a war hero.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Or Nice Job Fixing It, Villain, depending on one's point-of-view. A tribe engaged in ethnic cleansing in the Serengeti region of Africa during the Global Civil War. A child of the enemy ethnic group survived a massacre and was adopted by a family- who proceeded to abuse him horrifically for over a decade solely because he was of the "wrong" ethnic descent. Four decades later, the child, now a grown man who is a Space Marine colonel, comes back, organizes a militia, and begins an ethnic cleansing campaign against those who shared the blood of his abusive family. And he succeeds, with the remnants of his adoptive family's ethnic group fleeing the Serengeti.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: via a dream, it is revealed that the Robotech Masters had killed the Invid Regent and Regess when they ordered the Zentraedi to attack Optera. The deceased Regent's successor would start a war against the Masters, leading to the conquest of Tirol just twenty years before the events of the story.
- No Name Given::
- The privateer, so far.
- The specific ethnic groups at war in the Serengeti are unidentified.
- Original Character: Tthe main cast are all original characters.
- Posthumous Character: Lynn Kyle, who was a friend of the privateer's family.
- Rank Up:
- Gabe gets a battlefield promotion to second lieutenant. He is later promoted to first lieutenant posthumously.
- Nova Satori had been promoted to colonel during the time since the Invid Invasion.
- Bowie Grant had reached the rank of sergeant when he was discharged from the Army.
- Rick Hunter is promoted to Supreme Commander of the United Earth Forces
- Recurring Boss: One of the Invid, Solzie, seems to remember fighting the privateer before, and recognizes her.
- Red Shirt Army: the 21st Mars Division, including Gabe's Titan Squadron, who get wiped out trying to liberate Earth.
- The Reveal: Itzak was an Invid in human form all along.
- Space Marine: Gabe is one, as well as his old mentor from the U.N. Aerospace Academy, Vincent d'Honaire, is one as well, and actually inspired Gabe to join.
- Shown Their Work:
- The 1907 Hague Conventions really do require neutral countries to intern belligerent troops that trespass into their territories in order to maintain neutrality.
- Transforming Mecha: the Cyclone and Garland motorcycles, and the Alpha fighter that was flown and crashed by Gabe. The Beta fighter also qualifies.
- The Unfought: The Invid Regent who was killed in battle far from Earth.
- You Are in Command Now: Israeli Defense Force Lieutenant Judith Sharavi, the senior ranking survivioor of an Invid attack on an Israeli base.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Israeli Defense Force Lieutenant Judith Sharavi. She was introduced in Chapter 24, and killed in an Invid attack in Chapter 25.
- Wham Episode:
- The Purifiers seizing the Serengeti. All Gabe and company could do is help the remnants of the Coalition flee across the mountains towards Nairobi.
- The murder of Lieutenant Colonel Eli Wheatley, by his own second in command, Major Barnes, who wanted to surrender to the Invid Regency after eleven years of fighting. While Laureline kills Barnes, the rest of Wheatley's crew decides to give up. the only upside is that Gabe gets a Combat Medic to join the party.
- Gabe and company set sail for Greece from Egypt. However, an Invid attack cripples the ship and the ship runs aground in Israel.
- Via a spore-induced dream, the privateer witness the destruction of the original Invid homeworld by the Children of the Shadow.
- the privateer being critically wounded during a dogfight with the Invid en route from Vietnam to Japan.
- Via another dream, the privateer witnesses the coronation of the Invid Regent, in the aftermath of the defoliation of Optera. And she was reliving the memories of the Regess.
- Gabe is killed defending the Robotech Research Center from an Invid attack.
- at least for those not too familiar witgh the canon material, the Invid have the ability to appear as humans.
- Your Head A-Splode: Gabe, during a battle with the Invid.
The privateer witnesses this.
