"Are those... APES?!"
Astronauts Alan Virdon and Pete Burke wanted to pave the way for mankind’s trek to the stars. Instead, they crash on a strange planet where apes are the masters, and humans are slaves... or even less. Their only hope is to find a civilisation on this pre-industrial world that is sophisticated enough to give them the means to send a signal for help back home - and to escape their hunters long enough to be found by ANSA.
Planet of the Apes: Hunted is a Planet Of The Apes fanfic series by Athaia. It can be found on Archive of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/series/848370
Planet Of The Apes: Hunted contains examples of:
- Action Survivor: The astronauts.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Galen. While he's friendly with and supportive of the astronauts in the show, in this series he's aloof and a bit wary of them, and even treats them like servants after Virdon's obsession with finding a way home claimed the life of Zana's baby and almost Zana's life, too.
- Break the Haughty: After the events of "The Child," Galen (understandably) blames Virdon for Zana's near-death and the loss of her and Galen's baby. He assumes leadership of the group, mostly discounting the humans' opinions in an implicit belief in the greater wisdom of simians. He falls hard in "The Cage," when his carelessness results in Virdon being used as a breeding animal and Burke being captured by a manfighting ring, and feels appropriately ashamed.
- Canon Foreigner: Many as the series progresses, but the most prominent one is Zana, one of the four protagonists.
- Darker and Grittier: Compared to the source material. A good day for our heroes involves the humans being treated as slaves and the apes ill or injured. A bad day involves unbearable abuse and trauma.
- Deadpan Snarker: Burke.
- Descent into Addiction: Averted - although Galen starts getting an appreciation for cider, and turns to it more often to calm his nerves after losing his child and almost losing his mate in The Child, he realizes the danger in time, and doesn't become an alcoholic.
- The Determinator: Virdon will dig through any abandoned human city in his search for technology to get him home, even if it endangers Zana's life and that of her baby.
- Fantastic Racism: As in the films, many of the apes hate humans.
- Not only do the apes look down on humans, racism also runs rampant among the apes themselves: Chimpanzees and Gorillas see Orangutans as devious powermongers, Orangutans and Gorillas despise Chimpanzees as thugs and brute enforcers (despite the fact that many Chimps are lawyers, scientists, and doctors), and both Orangutans and Chimpanzees view Gorillas as dumb peasants who are even incapable of representing themselves in council, or getting higher education.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: In The Interrogation, Urko justifies his genocidal ambitions against humans with the pack of wild humans who killed his family when he was a child. Burke points out that he's had a shitty childhood, too, but still doesn't go around torturing people.
- I Call It "Vera": Burke's gun that he stole from an ape guard he killed in The Surgeon is called "Betsy."
- Averted with his knife. Although he clearly loves it and mourns for it when Urko takes it as a prize until Burke wins it back in The Child, it never gets a name.
- Lady of Adventure: Zana.
- The Leader: Virdon. At least until Galen takes over after The Child.
- The Lancer: Burke
- Master of Disguise: After a bit of a rough start in Escape from Central City, Galen embraces this talent and routinely changes his identity when needed. He even fooled Urko once while they were in the same room.
- Minored in Ass-Kicking: Galen. He only fought in The Child and drew a weapon in The Cage, otherwise he prefers to send Burke to "take care of it." But when he fights, he's deadly.
- Motherly Scientist: Zana.
- Noble Male, Roguish Male: Virdon and Burke, respectively.
- The Heart: Zana.
- Reunion Vow: Prior to jumping through a wormhole, Virdon makes a promise to his son that if anything should happen during their mission, he'll find a way home, no matter what.
- Time Travel: Virdon and Burke crashland a thousand years in the future.
- What the Romans Have Done for Us: Once exposed to the brutality and risk of life outside Central City, Zana realizes that, as awful as Urko and his police are, they do protect the citizens from robbers and bandit gangs, and even protect the humans from such things as "manfighting."
