A story by Blackhole1
. The Artifact has fired and the Queen of Blades has been defeated. The war, however, is far from over. A 'Novelization' of Heart of the Swarm. Completed, and with a sequel.
Actually written before Heart of the Swarm was released, and can be considered a Alternate Universe fic.
Found here.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: Since she's Spared by the Adaptation, we get more details on why Lassara was on Kaldir in the first place. She was Reassigned to Antarctica by a Protoss leader for suggesting that the Khalai (protoss civilians) have more say in the Hierarchy, which was mostly military-dominated at that point.
- Ambiguously Evil: It's kinda hard to tell where Valerian stands at the beginning of the fic. Later, it's revealed that he was a Well-Intentioned Extremist and pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: A rather well done example. The zerg think that by assimilating species into the swarm they make them a favor, and don't understand why terrans consider infestation a Fate Worse than Death if it's going to make them better (at least in their eyes).
- Cardboard Prison: Justified; Kerrigan couldn't free herself (she was in stasis), and the Dominion underestimated the Zerg's ability to find her due to the psionic dampeners on her and said stasis.
- Cassandra Truth: Kerrigan is constantly trying to tell everyone that the Queen of Blades "died" on Char when the Xel'Naga artifact fired. (In this universe, the Queen of Blades was a split personality created by the Overmind, with the original Kerrigan as her "prisoner" and locked inside her own mind.) Since the Queen of Blades said more or less the same thing during the Brood War, everyone is convinced it's just another trick.
- Completed Fic
- Cuteness Proximity: Amazingly, a Protoss/Zerg hybrid ravager of all being managed to do this to Raynor and his unit, by virtue of being pretty much a baby and acting as such.
- The Dragon: In a non-evil example, Nova seems to become this for Valerian as the story progresses.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Larry the Hunter Killer, and later Stanley the Protoss/Zerg hybrid. Justified in that both of them were named by Terrans.
- Fully-Embraced Fiend: Tiberias Cain the Infested Terran, who despite retaining his sentience, he actually likes being a zerg better and a has nothing but contempt for humanity.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Stanley the hybrid baby sacrifices its life to save Raynor and his men in Dead Man's Port.
- Humanity Is Superior: Strangely enough, the Dark Voice of all people seems to have this mindset. Despite lacking the protoss Psychic Powers and higher tech or the Zerg's hyper evolutionary metabolism, he considers them to be the superior species since they make it up by lacking the Protoss' Creative Sterility and the Zerg's Hive Mind, and thinks that, if it wasn't for their constant infighting, they would be ruling the sector with the Protoss and Zerg as second fiddle.
- Knight Templar: General Jack Morrigan, who in Raynor's own words, makes a Protoss Judicator look open minded in comparison.
- Living Ship: The Leviathans, as in canon, and later on, the behemoth.
- Morality Pet: Raynor is this to Kerrigan. While she does have a sense of morality otherwise, it is noted that she would likely go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge if he died... (which, ironically, we saw in canon.)
- Nova seems to be this as well to a lesser extent, since the blonde ghost reminds Kerrigan of how she used to be before being infested.
- Not Worth Killing: Kerrigan decides this about Mengsk when they finally meet at the end of the story.
- Original Character: Tiberias Cain, an infested terran who helped free Kerrigan, General Morrigan, and in later chapters, Lilith.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Almost nobody believes that Kerrigan is genuinely trying to atone for what she did as the Queen of Blades except for Raynor, and later, Lassara and Zeratul..
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: A entity working for Amon gives a downright nasty one to Zeratul in chapter 70 about how he failed the Protoss by refusing to become their leader, and that there is nobody left capable of stopping them.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Lassara, her science team, and General Warfield were all killed in canon by Kerrigan. Here, she's more merciful and they get out alive. Also, she lets Mengsk live at the very end, deciding killing him in revenge wouldn't be worth it, instead handing him over to the Valerian/Raider alliance to be arrested and later tried.
- Villain Has a Point: Well, Anti-Villain, actually, but when Valerian told the Raiders than their actions were hurting humanity as a whole in the long run and that they had no idea what to do once they dethroned Mengsk, they had to admit he was right.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: After Kerrigan hears that all of Valerian's apparent evil acts early on were for the sake of forcing his father to abdicate and appoint him Emperor (and thus, remove him from power peacefully as opposed to the Raiders), she calls him "tragically naive".
