Fanfic / Terra Incognita

Terra Incognita is an Undertale fanfic written by TimeCloneMike, the prequel to Ebott's Wake. It is the second (chronologically first) entry in the We're Not Weird, We're Eccentric series.

With the Barrier destroyed and monsters free from a multi-millenium prison, a new challenge rears its head: ensuring that this new freedom is a peaceful one. First Contact is, inevitably, a bit awkward, but it helps that Ebott's Wake was a pretty bizarre place before monsters showed up.

You can read it here on Archive of Our Own.

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Terra Incognita provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Past: Set in late fall 2014, written over the course of late 2017 and 2018.
• 30 Minutes, or It's Free!: Hal makes this promise (about pizza) when the Overt Operatives call to ask for a tow.
• Aerith and Bob: As with Ebott's Wake, most of the existing cast from the game falls into the "Aerith" category, but many bit-part monsters have relatively normal human names, like Ted.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Many monsters have last names along these lines. No points for guessing what type of monster Daniel Specter is.
• Anxiety Dreams: Frisk was only beginning to overcome these at the end of Ebott's Wake, there's no reason for them to be any better now. If anything, they're worse here, because Toriel hasn't even realized they're having them.
• Are We Getting This?:
  • "You got it?" from a reporter about to talk about some of the more negative reactions to monsters showing up.
  • Later, "Ian, tell me you got that" from the same reporter after Hal zooms past on a rocket-powered bike.
• Breather Episode: Terra Incognita doesn't feature as much action, tension, or (for the reader) earthshaking developments as Ebott's Wake or Legacy of the Magi. It's also much shorter—only 35 chapters and less than 130,000 words, in contrast to the other two each cracking 100 chapters and 350,000 words.
• Buffy Speak: Frisk is very tired the evening after breaking the barrier.
  Frisk: It's late and I'm tired and its[sic] hard to brain good.
• Call-Back: Plenty.
  • Frisk calls their friends into the hotel with "Bring it in, Guys!"—the title of the song that plays during the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue section of the game's credits. This is also the title of Chapter 30.
  • When they wake up the first day, Frisk checks to make sure the Last Dreams are still in their pockets. They're resolved to Save Asriel "with what little power they had left," echoing the narration from Asriel's boss fight.
  • Undyne is shown carrying the dancing mushroom from Temmie Village in a pot.
  • When Undyne takes her shirt off after a long day, Quentin hastily redirects his vision.
    Undyne: ...why are you twisted around like that?
    Forsythe: Oh, I'm. Uh. Looking at this lamp over here.
    Sans: i can see why, it's really cool.
• Call-Forward: Plenty more.
  • When discussing Halloween and human knowledge of SOULs, Alphys offers to write up a summary of what monsters know about SOULs to share with humans. Frisk says it can't hurt, but as we know from Ebott's Wake, it actually did elicit a lot of negative reactions.
  • Somebody named Thomas (presumably O'Dell) is late to the D&D session.
• Creepy Child: Frisk Downplays this, but it's there. They (usually) don't do anything overtly creepy, it's just that they're so competent in so many areas of adult life at the age of eight.
  Officer Steve: Frisk, don't take this the wrong way[,] but listening to an eight year old[sic] child talk about market psychology and political economy is rustling the heck out of my jimmies right now.
  • At the beginning of the story, Sans notices that Frisk has a weird amount of control over the crowd of humans. It'd make the hair on the back of his neck stand up, if he had any.
  • At one point, Frisk talks to Officer Steve alone and gives him a short speech about how dedicated they are to the monsters. Unlike normally, here Frisk's demeanor does creep Steve out. When he gets into his cruiser immediately afterward, his hands are shaking too much to start the engine.
  • "Jack Brown" is put on high alert the first time he sees Toriel and Undyne, but when he looks Frisk in the eye, he's actively afraid.
• Cutting the Knot: Having the Kingdom of Monsters exist as its own nation comes with a multitude of headaches—starting with getting the U.S. government to recognize them in the first place and then multiplying from there. The solution? Dissolve the Kingdom before it becomes an issue!
• Deal with the Devil: Chara tries to summon the Demon and give it the Last Dreams in exchange for it bringing Asriel back. It doesn't seem to work… at least, not within the scope of Terra Incognita.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Frisk has a number of dreams where Asriel has come back, one of which is literally a scene of Ebott's Wake. The dialogue is exactly the same, though the narration is different because Frisk is noticing different things.
• Dull Surprise: The initial reaction of many of the people meeting monsters for the first time (and realizing that they aren't costumes or hoaxes) is some variation of this.
• Foreign Language Title: The title is in Latin, meaning something along the lines of "unknown land."
• First Contact: The narration literally uses the phrase multiple times. A rare example without a real overarching conflict, and an even rarer example where the other species doesn't come from space.
  Snippet of TV Dialogue: -an event unprecedented in human history, contact with another intelligent race beyond our own. Even more startling, they did not come from the stars, from another world under another sun, but they were right here all this time, trapped in the earth beneath our feet.
• Flashback:
  • There's one to Frisk's second time encountering Sans in the Judgment Hall.
  • Frisk also dreams about their last conversation with Asriel.
• Improbable Age: Frisk is eight in this story and successfully helps monsterkind navigate every issue relating to integration with humanity.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Said word-for-word by Officer Steve the first night the monsters showed up.
• Insult to Rocks: When Walter Metzinger is interviewed by Dwayne Riley, he mentions the latter's newsletter, which can drift into conspiracy theory territory at times.
  Mr. Metzinger: Stocks and Commodities and Bonds and Treasury Bills and how it all fits together. Also plenty of commentary on the sources of economic ills. Some of them even sound plausible. The rest of them sound like they came from Forsythe, only that would be a slur on the man.
• Irony: Dwayne Riley is distressed to note that the government is acting quickly on the subject of monsters, while the internet was moving slowly. (He's probably reassured later when the federal government practically refuses to touch the subject of monsters with a ten-foot pole.)
• Kid Hero: As in both the original game and Ebott's Wake, Frisk is the main character, with accomplishments that would be impressive coming from somebody four times their age.
• Last-Second Word Swap: When Van Garrett is giving his opinion on monsters as a counterpoint to all the humans protesting their presence.
  Van Garrett: I'm looking forward to working with them in the future[,] and I think all those people need to calm the- they need to calm down.
• Metaphorgotten:
  • When Frisk is suggesting combining magic cooking with how humans cook spaghetti:
    Frisk: …we could meet in the middle with something that combines elements of both techniques. Sort of like a bridge.
    Sans: a bridge made of limp noodles.
    Frisk: Yeah, haven't you seen a suspension bridge? Cables hanging down?
    Sans: aha, i getcha now.
  • When Gary Welkin is describing a drunk driving accident:
    Gary: Remember, drinking and driving are like oil and water[:] they do not mix[,] and trying to combine them is an extremely dangerous exercise in futility!
• No Antagonist: There are a few humans who provide momentary obstacles, and there's setup for Dwayne Riley being an antagonist in Ebott's Wake, but there's no real "villain" to the story. It comes naturally with the prequel's stronger emphasis on Slice of Life, and it fits with its Breather Episode qualities.
• Noodle Incident: Sans knows that a Gild weighs sixteen grams because of… something involving rubber bands.
• Not So Stoic: More like not so fearless, but the one time Frisk shows fear in public is when Papyrus suggests that he show off his spaghetti-cooking, uh, skills to the humans. Officer Steve finds it reassuring to know that Frisk is capable of feeling and showing fear, given how stoic they are normally.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Dwayne Riley doesn't quite reach "villain" level yet, but he's getting there, and he definitely doesn't like monsters… yet he votes for monster citizenship, because that way there'll be restrictions on their ability to manipulate the market.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Inverted; the government of Ebott's Wake works far, far faster on the subject of monster integration than Officer Steve has ever seen it before.
• Overt Operative: A pair of government agents show up to spy on Ebott's Wake. Most people in town see through their cover instantly, but they aren't bothered by it that much—it doesn't surprise anyone that the government would want to send people to see the whole "monsters from the underground" thing for themselves.
• Posthumous Character: The deaths of the six humans that preceded Frisk are the subject of a major subplot of the story.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • One from Frisk's internal monologue during a Flashback:
    Always too late to stop it. Always the weight of everything on... I'm so fucking sick of this.
  • Mr. Metzinger's memo to somebody who wants to build a casino in Ebott's Wake:
    Mr. Abernathy, in regards to your previous requests for consideration of the permit of a casino to be built within the Ebott's Wake Township, I will refer you once again to the results of the public vote in August, which was 83% against. The people have spoken. In regards to your commentary about your employers potentially donating considerable sums of money to my next opponent, I will not be seeking re-election after the end of my term in office and never intended to do so in the first place. As a result, you are cordially invited to go fuck yourself. Best regards, Walter Metzinger.
• Prequel: To Ebott's Wake. It leans much more heavily on the Slice of Life aspect of the story than its predecessor, with less of an overarching plot and entirely lacking its sporadic action moments.
• Serious Business: The Lost Eagle County False Mustache Enthusiast Society has a big scandal, termed "Folliclegate" by some, when it turns out that the Society's chairman has a real mustache.
• Shout-Out: Plenty, just as with its predecessor.
  • Officer Steve class figuring out whether the monsters were responsible for the six children's deaths "the sixty four thousand dollar[sic] and ninety nine cent[sic] question."
  • Chapter 23 is titled "Hail To The King, Baby."
  • A news snippet describes Ebott's Wake's Halloween-now-with-real-monsters as a "literal Monster Mash."
  • KEBT FM plays caller-suggested songs, with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Don't Stop Believing" being name-dropped at separate points.
  • After Pyromero melts the asbestos in Hotland:
    Officer Steve: Our work here is done, Go Planet, The Power Is Yours, let's get back to the surface before my hair catches fire.
  • An unnamed character describes Frisk's friends as "like a Dungeons & Dragons adventuring party where the Game Master just gives no fucks." This is at the start of a session of some fantasy tabletop RPG, which may itself be D&D.
  • After clearing up Brett Brinkman's confusion about a note, Gary says, "Well now you know! And knowing is half the battle!"
  • Brett Brinkman describes perception of a man named Vernon Forsythe as shifting "from corrupt politician seeking to crush all dissent to something of a vigilante folk hero operating outside the law, not unlike The Green Hornet or The Count of Monte Cristo."
  • For Halloween, Mary dresses up as Indiana Jones and Douglas as Han Solo. An unnamed child goes as Iron Man.
  • Chapter 5 is titled "First Thing We Do, Let's Hire All The Lawyers."
  • Frisk says that mattresses have gotten more complicated as time goes on, citing How It's Made.
  • The budding AML is unsure why Frisk is working with the monsters. One of them suggests Turkish Delight.
  • Two unnamed characters are discussing the possibility of monsters eating humans:
    A: Well if they eat babies, how did they survive for this long without humans? That big goat lady said they were underground for a really long time. If she's telling the truth[,] then they would have starved to death.
    B: …oh. Right. It's like that Asari thing in Mass Effect.
    A: Well, in reverse, but yeah.
  • In the aforementioned RPG session, the lighting is bad due to a burned-out fixture. One character describes it as "Mazes and Monsters ideals of mood lighting."
  • An announcer on KEBT FM mentions the Ebott's wake chapter of Shakespeare in the Park performing Much Ado About Nothing.
  • During the Shop Class meeting, Hal launches into the "mawwiage" speech from The Princess Bride.
  • While watching a video of an Overt Operative trying trying and failing to kick his way into an All Fine Labs shed, Officer Steve is reminded of old silent films, like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.
  • Frisk is quite excited to find that Papyrus likes Transformers.
• Slice of Life: Played with. On the one hand, it's a very low-key story without real overarching conflicts. On the other hand, it's a story about first contact. There is nothing ordinary or day-to-day about it for anybody.
• Spell My Name with a "The": When Frisk compiles a list of issues related to monster integration, they have trouble deciding what last name to use. "Ta" and "Dre" are struck out, and they go with "Frisk the Ambassador."
• Social Services Does Not Exist: Averted; Child Protective Services are mentioned multiple times and shown checking up on Frisk in response to a number of concerned phone calls. It's explicitly stated that the agency is overworked and understaffed after having all of the children of the Sages suddenly placed in their care.
• Stepford Smiler: Another aspect of Frisk that had barely improved over the course of Ebbot's Wake and sure wasn't going to be any better here in the past.
• Time-Travel Tense Trouble: When Sans seems to send a scan of a newspaper clipping to potential alternate-timeline Sanses:
  And then it was done. Or had been done. Or would have already been done. Or something.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: This is the reaction of a Child Protective Services agent hearing about a girl named "Fortitude."