Original NOPverse Notes

Hello! Since the AU was quite enjoyed, I thought about releasing some chapters from original NOP, which never saw the light of day and was very different! The first iteration of NOP was more of a traditional HFY story, before I decided no—I wanted there to be despair, humans to be underdogs, and a gritty yet over-the-top tone that even threw shade at a few of the detrimental tropes that I realized had been done to death.

So with that said, I was going to drop at least part of my favorite deleted arc from Fever Dream NOP tomorrow! I thought about editing it to be modern canon compliant, such as edited out names and putting in correct lore stuff, but then decided it would be more fun to see how it was and what changed. Let me know if you disagree, but that was my thinking. So without further ado:

The Plot: The Venlil successfully hid humanity after first contact. Tarva even visited Earth (I still have those chapters too if you guys enjoy this), and we learned ahead of time that the Federation had planned a first strike against us. The year is 2137, almost a full 12 months post-first contact.

Humans step in to liberate an Arxur farm world, hiding their true identity from the Federation much like the “Gaians” in canon. The prey species are more actively combative here, and are fighting to try to take back the cattle. The unexpected allies to turn the tide draw a lot of attention…

A few details that have changed:

Zarn was a name I recycled from a very nice POV character of a Federation infantryman rather than a sadist doctor; same for Rumi if we release up to that part. Both were Takkan soldiers, and of course, Rumi was later a Gojid.

Takkans were weird triceratops-like creatures in their original design.

The Takkan homeworld was uncreatively called Takka because frankly I was just putting stuff down, in modern canon it’s Marna.

Arxur blood was green rather than red.

Not all species had music. This is a minor point but I’m sure it’ll irritate some folks lol, so I want to point out that is not canon now.

Other notes:

A few lines and phrases may be familiar. I did keep some things that I really liked/were well-put, and that influenced a lot of later ideas, but I don’t think I can be too chastised for copying myself 🤣

Original NOP chapters were short by modern standards, but I’ve decided not to combine them for cadence and flow.