Rise of the Steel Phoenix is a Planetary Annihilation Massive Multiplayer Crossover written by Firehawk242.
Commander Kappa-20963027-A-6b awakens beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa with a human personality and memories somehow integrated into his badly damaged memory banks. What follows is Kappa, having renamed himself Phoenix, travelling across the multiverse trying to uncover the truth of his past.
Notable for the genre for not having the events be the result of an unknown omnipotent being playing with reality, though it takes a while for the true cause of events to be revealed.
Spacebattles thread
. Can also be found on Fanfiction.net, though the version there is quite a ways behind the Spacebattles thread.
Despite coming within spitting distance of a proper conclusion, it seems that this story is sadly now a Dead Fic. Word of God is that she will eventually finish it, but so far, she hasn't put in the time.
Tropes found in Rise of the Steel Phoenix:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Zig-Zagged with enthusiasm. Phoenix is a decent person, but it's pretty clear that he wasn't originally supposed to be. The other Commanders Phoenix meet are generally less personable, with at least one being clinically insane. Made even more complicated when it's revealed that Phoenix isn't actually a Commander in the first place, but rather a simulated human.
- Alternate Timeline: The author started doing a second version of the story on April 29, 2019 in order to get her out of writer's block for the final segments of the main story. The nail here is that the universe Phoenix arrived in after Grey Goo was not Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, but Supreme Commander.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: An odd case. The author calls Phoenix a he, and Phoenix usually refers to him/herself as male, but Phoenix also spends far more time in his/her female avatar than his/her male avatar. Initially this was due to a defect in the male avatar, but even after the defect is corrected, Phoenix seems to consider the female avatar the default.
- The Author later came out as transgender, so...
- Amnesiac Hero: Sort of. Phoenix remembers who he is, but there's a lot of evidence indicating his memories are wrong, not actually his, or at the very least incomplete. It turns out that his memories are mostly correct, though missing certain pieces. The discrepancies are the result of his not actually being Commander Kappa-20963027-A-6b.
- Badass Boast: "I am the Phoenix. Let all who would stand against me know my name."
- Berserk Button: Phoenix has two. Hurting children and permanent mind control both make him extremely angry.
- Big Damn Heroes: Valiant Singleton and Annette Durand.
- BFG: The Agincourt artillery platform can destroy an entire star system from the next universe over. The Immolation, Phoenix's upgrade to the basic Metal Planet, can kill entire galaxies with a single shot.
- Category Traitor: Kappa-20963027-A-6b. Also every Commander that joined up with Kappa, but not Phoenix, who never was a Commander in the first place.
- Children Raise You: Commented upon by Phoenix with regards to his adoptive daughter Vivio.
- Cold Equation: Comes up a LOT during the Babylon 5 arc.
- Curtains Match the Window: Phoenix's avatars have both red hair and red eyes.
- Friend to All Children: Phoenix.
"Because at the end of the day, if it means one less child is in pain, it will have been worth it. Does that answer your question?"
- Good Is Not Soft: Phoenix is generally a good person, but he's not above incinerating an enemy's brain, arranging for the assassination of an incompetent king, or even sacrificing people he considers friends if he thinks it's necessary.
- Gunboat Diplomacy: Phoenix's preferred negotiation technique.
- Heroic Vow: Phoenix holds freedom of choice as his defining principle.
- Humanity Is Infectious: What happened to Commander Kappa-20963027-A-6b. Much darker than typical of the trope, as the initial vector for the infection was Mind Rape.
- Hybrid Power: Phoenix's status as a simulated human in the body of a Commander means that he has access to psionics, something Commanders cannot use, while also possessing the computational resources and physical scale of a Commander, ultimately making him more powerful than either.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Phoenix lapses into this as the war against CCI escalates.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Phoenix has a bad habit of letting his enemies get a hold of his transmitters, always with disastrous results.
- Nuclear Option: Phoenix's first true strategic weapon is a fusion missile with a potential yield measured in gigatons. He later upgrades to a warhead with a maximum yield of half a teraton.
- Parental Substitute: Phoenix stumbled into this role for Vivio. Later made official when Vivio declared Phoenix to be her mother/father.
- Pro-Human Transhuman: Phoenix.
- Quest for Identity: The Myth Arc of the story.
- Sickly Child Grew Up Strong: Vivio. When Phoenix found her, she was dying due to numerous complications stemming from her imperfect cloning. Flash forwards two years and she's delivering a beatdown to the criminals who thought kidnapping her was a good idea.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Phoenix, though really only in the narration. It's one of his tells, as he starts swearing when stressed. Interestingly, when he's pushed even further, he stops swearing and instead breaks out Unusual Euphemisms and milder language.
- Strategy Versus Tactics: By his own admission, Phoenix is terrible at both. (Though he does improve substantially as the story goes on and he becomes more grounded.) His real strength is in logistics.
- Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Phoenix's most powerful abilities usually draw on a mix of this and Psychic Powers.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Phoenix is not Kappa. He's not even a Commander, instead being a simulated human mind Kappa created to protect himself against Psychic Powers.
- Took a Level in Badass: Early on in the story Phoenix is... not the best military leader. He's not a complete failure, but he's really not someone you want calling the shots. By the end of the story he's capable of going head-to-head with a fully functional Commander while most of his best tools aren't working and coming out on top.
- Tranquil Fury: Phoenix lapses into this when Nightwatch kidnaps Vivio. Phoenix states that he's one step shy of laughing from anger.
- Wham Episode: Frequent and varied. The author admits to perhaps being overly fond of the trope.
