What if the Gempire was played straight without worrying about being family-unfriendly?
Invasion of the Gempire is an ongoing Massively Multiplayer Crossover roleplay based on the premise of the Gempire from the Steven Universe franchise invading Earth in circa 2040 and actually living up to their reputation. Opposing them are the Initiative, a motley crew of superhumans from all over the world - and beyond - and traitor gems who are desperately trying to push back the invaders and stop them from draining the life force of the planet and leaving barren wasteland in their wake.
The story is divided into three arcs (though this may be subject to change), each one centred around a particular Diamond (or two) and front of the conflict in which the end goal is to defeat the invasion and reverse the damage done, though that's not necessarily the end of the struggles...
Tropes include:
- Alien Geometries: The Director's office tends to do this to areas nearby, as if its exits and entrances randomly subvert and rearrange which doors connect to where. He describes it as space going 'squiffy'.
- Alternate Universe: The entire roleplay is built around the idea that the Diamond Authority won't fold in on itself after their deluded genocidal god-empress has an existential crisis courtesy of a small child in sandals, and poses a genuine and terrifying threat to all life on Earth.
- The Big Board: The War Room in the prologue has one of these in the middle, showing the progress of the invasion so far. Ebott has a glowing one of these as well serving the exact same purpose.
- Gaia's Lament: As is in SU canon, the Gempire expands by draining the life energy of planets in order to propagate and artificially procreate, leaving behind hollow shells of planets completely incapable of supporting life.
- Godwin's Law: The very first lines out of the American representative's mouth are describing the landing in Tunguska as the biggest threat since Nazi Germany. Given what the invaders are like, he's more right than he knows.
- Jumped at the Call: John Egbert not only eagerly answered the call to action, but stuck on even after Director Asriel discovered he's only thirteen and was suitably disturbed - to his chagrin.
- In a way, Asriel himself, given how quick we was to propose forming the Initiative in the first place.
- Large and in Charge: On the players' side, Director Asriel, clocking in at ten feet tall. On the Gempire's, the Diamonds. Even Pink is nearly twice as tall as Asriel, and White can reach hundreds of feet in height.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: The leader of Ebottonia is an alternate Asriel
Dreemurr who was rescued from his canon death by a convoluted series of events which have yet to take place in this timeline. - Planet Looters: Again, the Gempire, natch.
- Scary Dogmatic Aliens: You'd think they were more akin to a dictatorship than a theocracy, but the sheer reverence the Authority demands for the Diamonds pushes their culture alarmingly close to that of the Imperium of Man.
- Shocking Defeat Legacy: The United States did not take losing tens of thousands of soldiers to a gas attack when trying to invade Ebottonia well.
- Tank Goodness:
- Ebott has five different 'Dreadnoughts' in service, each far larger than a normal MBT (think a P.1000 Ratte but only slightly smaller) with their own function in their war machine:
- The original EDS Dreadnought, the primary transport of the Director and specialising in personnel carrying and testing advanced technology that could be useful when applied to the other vehicles.
- The EDS Bombard, a self-propelled artillery piece with an enormous 1000mm main gun that takes up most of the vehicle.
- The EDS Banshee, a Drednought that foregoes more conventional guns in favour of short-range sonic weaponry.
- The EDS Hailstorm, a dedicated anti-air platform that exchanges transport capability for several flak batteries on its roof.
- The EDS Inferno, a flamethrower tank that uses Chlorine Trifluoride to incinerate anything and everything.
- There are of course the human tanks in circulation, such as the Russian T14 Armata, Challenger II and M1A1 Abrams, among others.
- Ebott has five different 'Dreadnoughts' in service, each far larger than a normal MBT (think a P.1000 Ratte but only slightly smaller) with their own function in their war machine:
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Homeworld, capital of the Gempire, and literally broken into pieces as is in canon.
- Weird Historical War: Two, in fact. World War II saw intervention on both sides from the gems; Homeworld supporting the Axis and the Crystal Gems throwing in with the Allies. Played with in that this was extremely minor and Homeworld realised the Tripartite Pact was run by incompetents and lunatics, prompting them to withdraw mere hours after Operation Barbarossa began. The Crystal Gems thus did very little in the conflict and fell out of the memory of Allied high command. The Bronze Age Collapse meanwhile was brought about by a mass migratory conquest originating in the Carpathian Basin that swept south throughout the then civilised world. Similar invasions were coordinated against India and China but none were nearly as successful, and even with initial momentum once humans widely adopted iron weapons it was all over. The next three thousand years saw monsterkind dwindle to effective extinction, Ebottonia only surviving by cutting all ties with the larger empire and faking a war with the local first nations to raise the Barrier.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Asriel has this reaction to hearing one of the recruited superhumans is called Nanook not as a nickname given by the scientists who revived him, but his real birth name given by his biological parents. It actually temporarily snaps him out of his hurry to get back to Ebott and begin operations.
- You All Meet in an Inn: The roleplay proper begins with Director Asriel circling the world and picking up the various player characters in a circumnavigation of the globe, however some players have chosen characters that are willing to and capable of travelling to Ebott by themselves.
