Earth — Fiks Travel Route
is an Alice, Girl from the Future Continuation Fic written in Russian by Мирилас. It initially follows the events of the canon but, unlike the latter, shows Alice developing a close friendship with the Three Captains – and, eventually, something more than that with the third captain.
It has two sequels – The Episodes of Life and The Unbreakable Thread.
Tropes featured in the fanfic:
- Accidental Marriage: Downplayed. Norn and Alice want to get married, but they are planning to wait until she is eighteen, and Alice wishes for a romantic wedding with a Fairytale Wedding Dress and everything. Instead, their psychoempathic union happens due to mortal danger, while they are fighting Rat on the Third Planet.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Like in The Mystery of the Third Planet, Rat is always the mastermind and the Torture Technician of the two pirates. In The Voyage of Alice, both these traits, as part of Early-Installment Weirdness, belonged to Jolly U.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- In the series, the pirates eventually go through a Heinousness Retcon, and several later books, especially The War with Lilliputians, feature them in an affectionate Friendly Enemy dynamic with Alice. Here, they start as vicious and ruthless and remain this way; Jolly U decides to become a Retired Monster by the end, but out of fear rather than due to any changes in his morals.
- In the books, Rat's sadistic tendencies are only brought up once in a Black Comedy throwaway line about him collecting torture techniques; otherwise, even in their worst phases, the pirates torture prisoners only for information and never out of sheer spite. Here, Rat is extremely sadistic and plans to torture Alice just to get his revenge on her.
- And the Adventure Continues: The fic ends with newly married Alice and Norn leaving for a grand intergalactic expedition.
- Ascended Extra: In the books, the Three Captains are at best briefly mentioned after The Voyage of Alice. Here, they are the main characters along with Alice.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Defied. Humans and Fiksians aren't genetically compatible, and it's explicitly stated that artificial hybridization of sapient species is forbidden in the galaxy. Alice and Norn will only be able to have children via insemination from another donor or adoption. However, things get a bit changed in the sequel.
- Honorary Uncle: Alice makes friends very quickly. A week after meeting the First and Second Captains, she's already calling them Uncle Seva and Uncle Kim.
- Interspecies Romance: Alice, a human from Earth, eventually falls in love with and marries Norn, a Fiksian native with six arms and three legs and extremely high empathy abilities.
- Jailbait Wait: Norn firmly tells Alice to wait with the romance until she turns eighteen. Due to certain unforeseen circumstances, they end up married almost a year earlier.
- Mistaken for Romance: When Kira finds Alice weeping after Kim's wedding, she at first thinks that she is in love with Kim. Alice turns out to have had a Love Epiphany about another of the captains.
- Named by the Adaptation:
- The Third Captain's name is never mentioned in the books (and he is Adapted Out entirely in the animated film). Here, he is called Norn Iils.
- The Second Captain likewise lacks a name in the books, and the film only calls him Kim without elaborating whether it's the first or last name or nickname. Here, he is named Kim Janson.
- One True Love: Due to their unique psyche, the Fiksians only get married when a psychoempathic union occurs, meaning that they quite literally can't marry anyone except a true soulmate.
- Patchwork Fic: The fic is mainly based on the books but borrows the names Buran and Kim for the First (here, it's his last name) and Second Captains from The Mystery of the Third Planet.
- Technicolor Eyes: Norn's eyes are purple.
Tropes featured in the first sequel, The Episodes of Life:
- Cool Old Lady: Svetlana, the First Captain's mother, is a charismatic and regal-looking woman who is still a great ballet dancer at the age of seventy.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Unlike in the first fanfic, it's played straight. In the neighboring galaxy, the hybridization technologies are much more advanced, allowing Norn and Alice to have children of their own. Their son Kir is human-looking but has the Fiksian purple eyes and sense of psychoempathy, and their daughter Tetta has the Fiksian looks, save for human blonde hair, and is comfortable with the Earth's gravity.
- Like Parent, Like Child: Marina, the Second Captain's daughter, is just as adventurous as her father and dreams of spaceflight.
Tropes featured in the second sequel, The Unbreakable Thread:
- Always Chaotic Evil: Purposefully subverted with the natives of Krokrys. Pashka and Alice meet a good-hearted Krokrys boy they nickname Fedya, and Alice muses that every sapient species has good and bad people born to it.
- Clones Are People, Too: First, Second and Third, created as the Captains' clones, end up getting names and identities of their own and start to live a normal life.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Jolly U, who escaped punishment in the first fanfic, is finally shot by Kim here.
- Practically Different Generations: Since the Captains immediately accept First, Second and Third as their sisters, it leads to this trope, since the girls are barely older (or, in First's case, younger) than their children.
- Unexpected Kindness: Having never encountered human kindness or basic decency at all (except from her two friends and fellow prisoners), Second is astonished when Kim refuses to shoot Jolly U when the latter is holding her, a complete stranger to Kim, as a Human Shield.
