The Outposts Defenders series is an online roleplay on the Minecraft Forums about a team of soldiers sent by the US Army in the future to battle threats to the good old US of A.The first game, titled Defending the Outposts, was created by member BioShock_Rules on January 17, 2013, and based off of TT2000's Fortress Defenders. It involved saving a woman from terrorists, catching terrorists, and shooting bad guys. The second game, titled Outpost Defenders 2: Numbers and created January 1, 2014 by the same author, was a bit different. It involved catching the terrorists after they escaped from prison, and of course, shooting more bad guys. Outpost Defenders III: Digital Warfare was released on November 17th, 2014 and is about shooting rogue Minecraft creatures and other video game enemies.
You can find Defending the Outposts here
, Outpost Defenders 2 here, or Outpost Defenders III: Digital Warfare here.
On May 2016, Outpost Defenders III ended prematurely due to Bioshock_Rulez losing motivation to update the game, citing the game becoming too easy as the reason for discontinuing it.
The series will eventually receive a "reboot" of sorts in the form of Outpost Defenders: Retribution in January 2018. Retribution takes place a year after the events of Digital Warfare (with its villains having been dealt with offscreen), and pits the titular Badass Crew against a more powerful foe than the Cordis Die. Retribution eventually moved to Space Battles Forums following the news that Minecraft Forums will be archived and rendered read-only note .
A sequel to the "reboot", titled Outpost Defenders: The Temporal War is started on Space Battles on June 2022.
The Outpost Defenders series contains examples of:
the original trilogy
- Badass Crew: Most of the players, if not all.
- Bag of Spilling: Every new game, everyone's items are deleted, the shop is emptied, all non-Pokémon allies are removed, and all money disappears. As of III, not even player stats are immune to this.
- Big Bad: Clark, the leader of Cordis Die.
- Damsel in Distress: Jennifer is captured by Cordis Die.
- Death from Above: The Lightning Strike item isn't an actual lightning strike, it's three missiles that you can drop on enemies.
- Disc-One Nuke: The first game had the XOS-2 which tripled the health of the player using it, and the Lightning Strike mentioned above.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first game of the series has many oddities compared to later installments.
- The fact that it is called Defending the Outpost while all subsequent installments are called Outpost Defenders.
- All of the silliness in the first game came from what the players did. While in all subsequent games, the NPCs and even the environments themselves contributes just as much silliness as the players.
- There was no worldbuilding whatsoever. The plot basically amounted to "Here's a terrorist organization, now go stop it". Later games would attempt to establish the setting and give all the NPCs as well as Clark and Mercer distinguishable personalities.
- Framing Device: It turns out the whole of Outpost Defenders 2 was a really, really long speech about how the Defenders beat Cordis Die.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight against the Enderdragon in the third game.
- Idiot Ball: There's actually an item named Idiot Ball that allows you to make enemies stupid.
- Kill It with Fire: The Dragon Tank lets you blast bad guys with a flamethrower that does good damage.
- Kill Sat: One of these obliterates any player away for too long.
- Mind-Control Music: The Numbers broadcast, sort of. Whether or not it's actual music can't really be said for sure.
- Mook: Armies of them.
- Elite Mook: The new "elite" enemy level, with much better stats than the normal ones.
- Mook Maker: The Mook Maker enemy category, named - what else? - Mook Maker.
- Mook Medic: Medics.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Juggernauts.
- More Popular Spin Off: Originally started by Bioshock_Rulez on the Minecraft Forums as a tribute to Fortress Defenders 2note . Defending the Outpost eventually received more players and posts in it than Fortress Defenders 2 despite the former starting nearly half a year later than the former.
- Reality Warper: This trope is used to Handwave how all of the players can do literally anything up to outright ignoring the laws of physics when fighting terrorists.
- Running Gag: There are many Running Gags throughout the series, including Shadow Lurkers crashing into TT2000 when he summons them, Lisharon's delicious tea, and of course, nobody expecting the Spanish Inquisition.
- Shout-Out: There are many, many shout outs to lots of things, especially to This Very Wiki.
- The Dragon: Mercer.
- The Dreaded: The infamous deadly-but-dapper Lisharon. Unfortunately gone - for now...
- The Power of the Sun: In the first game, the Replica Solar Arc.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Outpost Defenders do everything except defending outposts.
- The Stinger: Numbers has one where a new villainous organization plots to bring video game enemies to life, setting in motion the events of ''Digital Warfare".
- 20 Minutes into the Future
- Unstoppable Rage: The rage system, which provides a significant damage boost for a few turns when maxed out.
- You Nuke 'Em: There was a nuke that could be purchased and used in the third game.
Retribution
- Adaptation Name Change: Not really an adaptation, but some of the returning players don't use the same username in Space Battles as the ones the had from the Minecraft Forums. For example, Bioshock_Rulez became Exoskeletal65, Stickcrafter became Lt Colonel Summers (yes, that one), etc.
- And Some Other Stuff: Parodied. Lt Colonel Summers spike a vat of acid (that Goldhero conjured) with "Special Sauce" to make it even more volatile than it already is.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Retribution adds Pure elemental attacks that completely ignores both elemental affinities and armors. However, the Pure Nail is currently the only weapon that is capable of inflicting Pure elemental damage.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Mercenaries. They are expensive to hire and don't last very long against the hard-hitting Talons forces. This may be why nobody has hired any new mercenaries for a very long time.
- Badass Crew: The players' group, the titular Outpost Defenders, returns to action after two real life years of inactivity.
- The Bad Guys Win: The Talons successfully detonates their nukes in act 1, killing millions of civilians.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The Brooks siblings.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In-Universe, anything caused by the "What" modifier.
- Contrived Coincidence: The Talons show up at the same resort that the Outpost Defenders go to in "R&R". Thankfully, they are also just here to enjoy themselves, and agree to settle things in a friendly manner.
- Cliffhanger: Just as the Outpost Defenders are about to apprehend Edward Brooks, Aleris and her Timekeeper forces shows up to challenge the Defenders...
- Disappointed by the Motive: BaconBuster express sheer disbelief at the fact that the Brooks siblings founded the Talons over their winery getting snubbed and going bankrupt].
- Disc-One Nuke: No longer apply to the Lightning Strike, which was this in the original trilogy, but here was made so useless by the enemies being so much tougher and coming in bigger numbers that it was used exactly once in this game, and was never used again.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The reason behind the the Brooks siblings' founding of the Talons and starting their campaign of terror? the winery that they started years ago got snubbed and went bankrupt.
- Flat "What": The "What" modifier invokes this trope in its name in regards to the crazy things it causes to the world.
- Genre-Busting: Retribution manages to be Darker and Edgier and Denser and Wackier at the same time.
- Interface Screw: Unlike other enemies, Stalkers start each wave that they appear in by hiding themselves among the HUD, forcing the players to actually look for them.
- The Wraith uses a similar tactic in his boss fight.
- Item Crafting: A new gameplay mechanic that allows players to craft special weapons, armors and trinkets that boosts their stats and/or give then special passive abilities.
- Knight of Cerebus: The Talons are so much more powerful than the Cordis Die. They managed to score more KOs against the Outpost Defenders in one mission than the Cordis Die have ever scored across two whole games, manages to KO all players which resulted in the series' first ever Game Over, and at one point the Outpost Defenders were unable to stop them from detonating a nuke in a city.
- Large Ham: BaconBuster appears to have consumed tons of pork in the interim between Digital Warfare and Retribution. This is best demonstrated in how he pummels the target dummy in the Combat Simulator minigame in the mission "R&R".
- Mirror Match: Mimics copies the stats, skillsets, equipment, and even the Limit Break of a random player. Depending on the stats of the copied player, a Mimic can be either a cakewalk or a Boss in Mook Clothing.
- A more standard Mirror Match occurs after the minigames between the Outpost Defenders and Talons, where the Talons send out a squad made entirely of Mimics to brawl the Defenders.
- The Multiverse: Turns out Outpost Defenders and Legends of Aekran are part of a multiverse, alongside the now-defunct Rise of the Coalition, a similar game as OD also managed by Bioshock_Rulez/Exoskeletal89.
- Shout-Out: Like the original trilogy, Retribution is chock full of these. One example includes Lt Colonel Summers spiking a vat of acid with "Special Sauce".
- Tank Goodness
- The Dragon Tank makes a triumphant return.
- Inverted by the Talons' Battle Tanks, which are tougher and hits harder than any friendly tanks the Outpost Defenders could possibly encounter. They are tough enough to qualify as Demonic Spiders.
- Tempting Fate: Subverted. The mission "R&R" whose description is "Outpost Defenders take a vacation at a resort" looked like it's going to be this trope. But nope. While the Defenders do encounter the Talons at said resort, the Talon mooks there were also just there for a vacation, and both sides agree to settle their scores with a series of friendly minigames.
- Vacation Episode: "R&R" is just the Outpost Defenders and the Talons playing friendly minigames against each other in a resort.
- Victory by Endurance: This basically summarizes the Survival minigame in the mission "R&R".
- Villains Out Shopping: The Talons shows up at the same resort as the Outpost Defenders in "R&R"... just to enjoy themselves. It really is just a coincidence.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The Pokemons that the Outpost Defenders had in Numbers and Digital Warfare were completely absent from ''Retribution, and there is currently no indication as to what happened to them. The Pokemons at least made a return near the end of the game.
- Zerg Rush: Doesn't happen within the main game, but Lt Colonel Summers does utilize this when playing against a Talon mook in the Tabletop Strategy minigame in "R&R".
The Temporal War
- Always a Bigger Fish: The Outpost Defenders were literal seconds away from apprehending the previous game's Big Bad when Aleris Kolmna, the Big Bad of this game, suddenly shows up and attacks the Defenders.
- Bag of Spilling: Despite taking place immediately after Retributions, all of the Outpost Defenders lost their entire inventory. This time, even the friendly NPCs have disappeared and the shop went offline. Though the shop going offline is at least justified in that The Benefactor had hacked into it in the interim between Retributions and The Temporal War.
- Big Bad, High Magistrate Aleris Kolmna, leader of the Timekeepers.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Aleris in the prologue is clearly impossible to beat, given that she has 25000 HP when all the players have only 50 and are at level one. In fact, the entirety of the prologue is spent surviving her attacks until evac arrives.
- Immediate Sequel: The Temporal War starts just a few seconds after the ending of Retributions.
- The Multiverse: In addition to the one established in Retribution, Tatsuki Yuusho came from a separate universe that seems to be part of a multiverse centered around Fantasy Blitzkrieg. Incidentally, as Lt Colonel Summers is confirmed to be the same person who wrote the original Fantasy Blitzkrieg trilogy, with even Summers' character being suggested to be a variant of his Author Avatar from that series (with the exact same name no less), this means that the Outpost Defenders universe and by extension the multiverse centered around it is indirectly added to the multiverse that Fantasy Blitzkrieg is a part of.
- Off with His Head!: Winkins' favorite way to take down his enemies. He's even called a "headhunter" in his title.
- Outside-Context Problem: The Timekeepers, unlike the Cordis Die and Talons which are very mundane if technologically advanced terrorist organizations, are an ancient secret order that possesses actual control over time and space. If anything, Aleris, who leads them, seems to be specifically targeting the Outpost Defenders.
- Serial Escalation: The first game's villain is just a generic Western Terrorist with advanced technologies. Numbers has the same villain utilize a Mind Control frequency in a bid to Take Over the World. Digital Warfare has a new villain who bought video game enemies and villains into reality For the Evulz. Retribution has a bigger terrorist organization that is so powerful it borders on being an N.G.O. Superpower Organization with Unlimited Funding. And now, The Temporal War has the heroes go up against an ancient cult that possesses legit ''power over time and space.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Edward Brooks, the Big Bad of Retributions, managed to get away by stealing the Outpost Defenders' boat while they're occupied with the Timekeepers.
