Fanfic / Hunted Tribes

In another universe, Colonial Lieutenant Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson would have discovered an uninhabited planet that the remnants of humanity would have settled on. In this universe, however, the planet has been colonised by Clan Wolverine. Relations are rough and hesitant, but there must be cooperation, for the Cylons are still out there, the Inner Sphere is pesky, and the Clan invasion awaits.

Hunted Tribes is a Battlestar Galactica (2003)/BattleTech crossover written by Hotpoint, who also authors XSGCOM. It offers his usual blend of action, drama and humour.

See also side-/future-story But somehow a most melancholy, where an expedition finds a damaged warship. The problem? It's a Caspar drone craft, and both sides of the expedition have reasons to be distrustful of it...

This fanfic contains examples of the following:

• Aliens Speaking English: How convenient that there was a Greek-speaker on the spacecraft intercepting Racetrack's Raptor. On the other hand, the need for interpretation and translation efforts between Caprican/Greek and English is a running effort, and it is shown that people who do speak both languages are highly valued and in short supply.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Adama discusses with Roslin how the Wolverines are genetically engineered to be superior to baseline humanity, he concludes by mentioning that they are on average taller.
• Artificial Gravity: The Colonials have it, the Wolverines don't, and it's the purported reason for why Kearny-Fuchida drives cannot jump into gravity wells the way Colonial Jumpdrive can. Specifically, because a Colonial Jumpdrive has to compensate for gravitational fields, there's tech built in that allows it to neutralize gravity's influence, meaning that it can neutralize all sorts of gravity- even that of a planet.
• Artistic License – Biology: Hera is said to have type O blood, which is apparently totally unknown among Colonial humans. O type blood is a recessive trait, meaning that Karl would have had to be at least a carrier of the allele which statistically speaking would require that previous Colonials possessed that type. In addition the canon explanation for the cancer-curing properties of her blood was a combination of human and Cylon red blood cell surface proteins, type O is characterized by an absence of such proteins.
• Ascended Extra: In-Universe for the Colonials, the goddess Circe is this. Before the tribes came to the planet, Circe was a minor goddess- respected, but not one of the main Olympian Pantheon with lots of worshipers. In this universe, she's now the patron goddess of New Circe and receives regular offerings and prayers. She's cited as proof that "Even if the Thirteenth have abandoned the Gods, the Gods have not abandoned the Thirteenth," since even they named the planet after a goddess.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Starbuck points out that while, yes, Colonial machine guns mounted on their Vipers are pretty much useless against the armor the Wolverines use, the glass canopies that said fighters use are not nearly as tough, and the same goes for the engines. This on top of Raiders and Vipers being much faster and more maneuverable, as well as having better KEW tech than the Wolverines, mean that it's quite possible to get shot down and killed, so, as Starbuck says, don't get arrogant. In fact, exploiting this weakness is exactly how the Cylons manage one of the two kills they do get in their first encounter with Wolverine fighters.
• Badass Boast: "I bit off a man's ear once, you know." Spoken by Cally as she's being teased by her friends.
• Clark Kenting: Gina, the Number 6 Cylon who blew up the Cloud Nine in canon, reveals that she's been doing this when she asks the Wolverines for asylum.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: "Where the frak have you been and why the frak couldn't you have gotten here before I nearly ruptured myself manhandling a new FTL drive into that wreck over there?"
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Adama speculates that out that fear of this was why the Cylons used the "Infiltration computer virus" tactic instead of all out war. He points out that a single forty-year-old Battlestar (which was nearly totally decomissioned) was able to fight off modern Basestars on an even footing, and that mark two Vipers (practically antiques) were capable of wiping out whole squadrons of Raiders. He then goes on to say that fleets of the more modern Mercury class Battlestars, loaded up with the latest model mark seven Vipers, would have done unholy amounts of damage to modern Cylon fleets.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Cally Henderson marries Geoffrey Cale. Geoffrey's CO reckons it sounds like a pornstar name, but it's worked around simply by Cally using her full first name, Calandra, instead.
• Energy Weapon: The Colonials are initially surprised by the Wolverines having weaponised lasers, but eventually get around to installing energy weapons on Vipers and the Battlestars. Colonial kinetics are better than Wolverine ones though.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Averted. As a result of breeding with Scandanavian descendents and breeding super-soldiers upwards of two meters in height, those in the Fleet (like Starbuck) who are tall, blonde, and athletic aren't in high demand. Cally, who is petite, short, and brown-haired, on the other hand, is the first to get asked out by a Wolverine. Starbuck even moans that out of all the places in the galaxy they could get rescued by, "They had to find the one planet where Blondes don't have more fun."
• Fix Fic: A number of things the writer didn't like about the show's canon namely:
  • The End.
  • A explanation to both why the cylons spines glow and how the final five came to be that makes more sense than the show's.
• Fragile Speedster: Compared to Inner Sphere and Clan technology, warships and fighters from the Cylons or Colonies are this. They can't take the sheer firepower that Terran-derrived tech is capable of dishing out, but superior jump drives, maneuverability, and superior kinetic weapons mean that it's not as one-sided as one might imagine.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: A source of friction between the Colonials and the Wolverines is that the Wolverines are very willing to tamper with their own DNA in order to make themselves better, while religious factions in the Colonies see that as tampering in their gods' domain. Admittedly, not helped by the fact that said religious factions have been chased around for a year or two by genetically enhanced cyborgs who wiped out most of their civilization, but still.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Some Terran phrases get adapted into Colonial-appropriate forms. For example, "viper-Ha'la'tha" is used in place of "fighter mafia".
  • One epigraph for a chapter notes that phrases such as "Seyla" and "Frak" are making their way into the parlance of both languages.
• I Should Write a Book About This: Racetrack makes a quip about Wolverine history that makes it sound strangely like the RTF's and then says it should be made into a show.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Roslin tries to pull this card regarding Cylon POWs. The Wolverines respond that they managed to survive a conflict against a brutal, genocidal foe, after which they fled in a rag-tag fleet of starships, hunted for years by their enemies, trying desperately not to be found until they reached New Circe- AKA pretty much the story of the Colonials, minus the robot uprising, and for far longer- and they didn't violate their principles while doing so. They go on to say that Roslin's excuse might fly with others, but given their history, it won't fly with the Wolverines.
• Jack of All Trades: The view of the Wolverines about Colonial and Cylon ships- both good and bad. They claim that the Colonials had a philosophy of battle that emphasized this with their Battlestars, where they were both Battleship and Aircraft Carrier, and thus wasn't as good at either job. They do note that Battlestars are at least capable of doing both jobs well, just not good as purpose-built warships or carriers. They have the other opinion about the Cylons- that they have Carriers/Missile Platforms with mass fighter attacks, but are terrible at both.
• Just Following Orders: The Wolverines savagely disagree with the Pegasus crew's attempts to pull this, claiming that anyone who gave the sort of orders Cain did should have been put up against a wall and shot by their own soldiers before doing the things they did.
• Lighter and Softer: Well when compared to the show anyway, but the bar is set pretty low...
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The Oracle of Circe, once the drugs kick in, gives a vision to Julia and Kacey regarding Kacey's fate in the original timeline. Battletech is normally a pretty hard Sci-Fi series, so ordinarily this sort of thing could be discounted, but the accuracy with which the Oracle predicts this is startling. It could be attributed to the drugs, but even Julia admits that she didn't tell the Oracle her name. It is mentioned that skeptics do say that the Oracles only take the drugs to get high, though.
• Mighty Glacier: Wolverine fighters can't maneuver nearly as well as Vipers or Raiders, but they can take a lot of fire and their counterattack rips Raiders apart like tissue paper.
• Mythology Gag: Zarek says early on that people would have wanted to settle down even if there had only been an empty planet.
  • Lee goes through a fat stage.
  • Kasey (the little girl Starbuck was told was her daughter) was not separated from her mother, but when she was given a blessing, the priestess' blessing directly references the events of canon New Caprica.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: The crew of the Pegasus after Cain's actions. On a more humorous note, Lance the Cat for Romo Lampkin, who has become his unofficial mascot against his wishes (he doesn't even like the cat).
• One-Hit Polykill: Wolverine PPCs and Lasers can punch through several Raiders in a row. The autocannons frequently kill entire Raider squadrons in one burst using cluster rounds.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: After the ineffective battle between the Cylon Fleet and the SLDF fleet, Caprica Six, who had been assured by a One (Cavil) that "The Thirteenth has no FTL drives," tracks down the Cavil and breaks his nose. Knowing that there had been so many losses in that battle that it took three weeks for her to finally get resurrected, the Cylon fleets in full retreat to protect their assets from a feared counter-attack, and that the SLDF proved very conclusively that they did have FTL technology, the One admits that he probably deserved it.
• Schizo Tech: The Wolverines consider the discrepancy in Colonial capabilities bizarre. The Colonials return the favour, albeit not to the same extent (specifically, they have hyper-advanced weapons technology such as lasers, mecha, and particle beams, but horribly inferior FTL drives, no artificial gravity, and their kinetic weapons stink in comparison to colonial counterparts).
• Shout-Out:
  • Thorpe is told not to quote George Orwell.
  • Nike chooses an anthropomorphic interface that wears a Psy-Corp uniform.
    • Nike also makes a reference to the "Kzinti lesson" as she's teaching it to the Cylons.
  • The Epigraph of chapter 14 is a blatant shout-out to the live-action Iron Man film.
  • The Epigraph of chapter 19 starts out as a nearly word-for-word repeat of the original Battlestar Galactica opening.
• Shown Their Work: As with most of his stories, Hotpoint has author's notes after every chapter explaining exactly where in the original works every character, plot-twist and gadget in the chapter was pulled from and how the new ideas make sense in context.
• Take That!: The epigraph of chapter 19 starts by giving the opening narration of Battlestar Galactica ("Life in here began out there"), sounding stirring and noble... and then said that this was not the place for it, and if you believe that you should be attending "Colonial Theology" or "Ramblings from the Lunatic Fringe 101."
• Underestimating Badassery: The Cylons about the Wolverines a few times. The Colonials too at first.
• Values Dissonance: In-universe between Colonials and Wolverines. One standout example is Lee making a crack about a carpenter getting executed by nailing to a block of wood. Dude, Not Funny! ensued.
  • The Wolverines claim that the Colonials have an unsettling tendency to discard their laws and principles when the going gets rough. The Colonials fire back that at least they don't have "Trial by combat" as a legitimate way of settling their problems.
• Weak, but Skilled: Compared to Inner Sphere and Clan tech, Colonial and Cylon ships come up short in terms of armor and firepower... but their fighters are much faster, their kinetic weapons are better, have superior FTL maneuverability, speed, and accuracy, and are used to thinking outside the box in order to defeat their foes.

The following tropes are exclusive to melancholy:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The reason for the distrust of Nike - Colonials see her as an overgrown Toaster, Wolverine ancestors had to fight through her kind to get to Terra in the Amaris Coup. Averted for Nike herself- she's loyal to the idea of the Star League, and sees the Wolverines as one of the only groups who still tries to uphold their values.
• Aliens Speaking English: One of the big problems the Cylons encounter is that once they do recover some Inner Sphere technology, they can't read any of the computer systems or even books since they're not in Colonial Greek, but in English... which they can't read. Then they find Vietnamese writing, and they realize exactly how hard this is going to be.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Thanks to Nike, the Cylons get a taste of getting beat at EW and don't like it one bit. They are forced to de-network their systems to fight back and are starting to build a proper Battlestar to fight her rather than relying on the thin-hulled carriers that Basestars are.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Nike and Gibson's plan for his Trial of Grievance failed to take into account how he was supposed to brake safely.
  • Due to not really understanding how human psychology or relations work, Nike accidentally turns Doral into a nightmarish rapist and serial killer when she unlocks his blocked memories.
• The Dreaded: Nike quickly becomes this due to her ECW capabilities for the Cylons. She also counts as this for the Colonials and the Wolverines, as she's an incredibly powerful Artificially Intelligent Warship.
• Lightning Bruiser: Nike, after being repaired. Battleship-grade weapons and the best EW suite in the galaxy for offense. Battleship-grade armor and absurd system redundancies for defense. Far better speed and maneuvering than any other capital ship in existence. All of this is on a destroyer hull.
• Loyal Phlebotinum: Nike, despite all fears to the contrary.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Cavil wants the new anti-Nike ship to "Fire so many missiles that I can walk over them to get to the other ship."
• Mind Rape: According to Nike, A.I.s experience getting hacked as one of these.
• Mythology Gag: One again suggests lobotomizing the Raiders, although for a different reason this time.
  • One of the SLDF jokingly suggests that if the Colonials were to name the new life-supporting planet they found, it would be named "New Caprica."
  • The Cylons find that yes, they can get sick... although thankfully this one can't follow them through resurrection.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nike accidentally makes Doral into a monster, who kills both the Cavil Cylons New Circe had in custody, and attempts to rape the Three in custody.
  • Thanks in part to the defeats suffered at the hands of the SLDF/Colonial alliance and the attacks of Nike, the Cylons are actually starting to learn how to make proper warships and think tactically.
  • Played with. One of the marines finds Doral raping Three... so the marine does the only sensible thing he can think of. Unfortunately, while well-intentioned, this means that the Cylons now know where New Circe is.
• Ramming Always Works: Played with. A Heavy Raider piloted by an Eight slams into the side of Nike... but though this damages Nike, it doesn't put her out of commission. Interestingly, what's worse for Nike is not the impact, but rather that the Eight survived the crash. When she dies, she resurrects and gives the exact position of Nike to the Cylons.
• Shout-Out:
  • The very title is from Moby-Dick.
  • When Nike mentions that her creators at least knew AI literature, she mentions Niven (author of the Known Space series) and Laumer (creator of the Bolo series).
  • She calls the Weaponized Exhaust trope "Kzinti Lesson," after the Niven story "The Warriors" where the Kzin were taught it firsthand.
• Weaponized Exhaust: Nike kills a Base Star by flying at it, flipping over, and turning her drives to full overthrust. The Base Star gets literally cut in half by the drive plume.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Adama chews Nike out for almost getting Gibson killed with the wild maneuver they planned.

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