A Play-by-Post Game on TV Tropes created by JR Pictures about Humongous Mechas vs Alien Eldritch Abominations.
About 20 years ago, Eldritchian monsters from a far off unknown planet began attacking Earth. In response the U.N. set up a worldwide organization called S.E.R.V.E. to fight these creatures, funding a lot of money to develop Humongous Mechas more powerful and strong to face them.
Now these mechs come in many shapes, sizes and modes to be used in fighting these creatures. And several pilots have been chosen to pilot them as part of the new Delta Squad in the futuristic Echo City, which is covered in a dome to prevent any monster from getting in or out. While all humans in the city go underground during every monster attack, protected by the reinforced ground above them. It is now 2027 in Echo City, surrounded in a dome built in 2020 and the attacks are becoming rampant. It is up to the Delta Squad to save the city and uncover the truth.
This Delta Squad is made up of Dan Sully and Summer Turing, Emil Du Bourg, Faith Reproba Long, Loke Kinipela, George Gdolkin, Jack Krueger and Walter Kovacs, Magnus V. O'Malley, Harvey Jackson, Celeste D. Caballero, Katherina Yakovlev, Xavier and Yvonne La Rue, Johnathan Cabot, Natalya Vasilyeva and Avdotya Azarov
Due to a lack of activity and issues behind the scenes, the RP is now permanently closed.
Tropes applying to The Humongous Mecha RP:
- Aborted Arc: Quite a few, most of them related to the "disappearance" of the players writing the characters involved in them.
- At some point, it looked like Faith and Alphonse would develop some form of Odd Friendship, but it was left unconcluded after Alphonse's writer left the game.
- Hiroko's training to become the Falken's pilot (and the research meant to be performed on her) also was left hanging.
- Action Girls: Faith, Summer, Celeste, Loke and Katherina.
- Anatomy Arsenal: Among the mecha weapons:
- All There in the Manual: Most of the Eldritchian Names are only found in the discussions.
- Ancient Conspiracy: Just why are the aliens attacking Earth and what is SERVE's master plan?
- Attack Its Weak Point: Hook, the Eldritchian which Loke slayed during her first sortie, had an angler-fish-like “lure” which Kekoa Mano destroyed in order to bring it down.
- Bash Brothers: Gdolkin and Krueger. Their skills and their mechs' weapons and strengths complement each other, making them an extremely effective combat duo.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Or "The Slender Man was (or is?) a real entity, most probably of Eldritchian origin".
- BFG: Another regular mech weapon.
- BFS: Another regular mech weapon. Dan's Mexa-One has a shock sword with pixelated art covering it and Summer's Nexus-One has a Fire Sword.
- Big Damn Heroes: George pulls one of these moments, using a high-powered energy gun, to prevent Celeste and Emil from getting mauled by Eins Trinity.
- Blood from the Mouth: It happened to George, Dan and Celeste during their fight against the Trinity; with Celeste having it worse than the others because of her weaker than average body.
- Breather Episode: Celeste's (Half) Day Off. See Out-of-Genre Experience below.
- Cast from Hit Points:
- The reason why a mech's Ultimate Mode would kill its pilot, because it sucks away a pilot's life force in order to fully power itself into the mode.
- It is also an optional function of Falchion mech, that allows it to drain energy from its pilot to gain an energy boost, Hiroko lost half her lifespan first 'piloting' it because of it.
- Captured Super-Entity: At the very end of the fight against the Trinity, Eric and Fuji managed to capture Drei, while Howard secured the corpse of Eins.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Creator JR Pictures often comments that RP was supposed to be less messed up then the Players made it.
- Character Tic: Everyone in the Long family likes to crack their necks from time to time, specially during moments of stress.
- Cooldown Hug:
- Emil delivers one to Hans, in order to calm him when he was at the edge of a mental-breakdown.
- Horribly subverted when Celeste tried to give Leo a hug when she saw him crying. She even got injured after that due to Leo's violent reaction.
- Cryptic Background Reference: They pop-up from time to time. Kkutwar is a big fan of them, and they usually foreshadow important events and/or characters.
- David Versus Goliath: Bastion-Sigma vs. Zwei Trinity, with the later being a towering behemoth in this situation. Unlike most of the cases of this trope, the Bastion-Sigma was actually trashed, along with its pilot, during their encounter. And then they stood up once again, in order to finish the job before collapsing due to the damage both suffered.
- Darkness Equals Death: The first phase of the fight against the Trinity, involved Eins covering the entirety of Echo-City with a thick black nananites' cloud of which rendered nigh-useless most of the mechs' visualization and tracking devices.
- Dramatic Irony: Dan and Summer claim they are nothing like Psychic Reaper when (during the Mind Rape) it tells them they are half-Eldritchian. Yet they are in fact half-eldritchian/half-human and have psychic powers.
- Dude, Not Funny!: In-universe case. Dan and Summer laughing at Emil punching Faith during her abrupt mental-breakdown was unnecessarily cruel. Emil, Samson and Gerald didn't hesitated to chastise them due to their unappropriated reaction. (with Gerald going one step further and out-right punching Summer in the face)
- Dysfunction Junction: Nearly the whole squad has some sort of issue or problem they have to deal with.
- Earth Is a Battlefield: Par for the course, with at least half-a-dozen Eldritchian's attacks occurring all around the world every single day.
- Eldritch Abomination: The main aliens and the monsters they send to attack Earth. They've even been nicknamed (in and out of universe) as Eldritchians.
- Fun with Acronyms:
- S.E.V.E.R (Seeking Eternal Valkyries Enjoying Renounce). The name of the council of SERVE's leaders.
- GeneSys stands for for Geo-Experimental Nourishment Enhancement Systems, a name which roughly describes their original purpose... Before they started focusing on creating weapons to fight the Eldritchians.
- Genre-Busting: Can be described as a mix of Action / Sci-Fi / Humongous Mecha / Cosmic Horror / Psychological Horror and Drama.
- Government Agency of Fiction
- Half-Human Hybrid: SERVE's dubious experiments have involved this. And Dan and Summer are prime examples thanks to their parents' actions. Also, the existence of half-human half-Eldritchian hybrids (also know as Fae) has been confirmed.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Psychic Reaper tried to break Emil by prying into his guilt by creating an apparition of his dead Captain, but instead; it merely gave the Pilot closure and the willpower to fight the Alien's psychic powers. Same with Hans at it allowed him to find out about Gustav.
- Hot-Blooded: Quite a few pilots, just check the Character Page for more information.
- Of the "lost" pilots, we have Bethany, who was a seriously twisted case of this trope.
- Identical Stranger: During their trip to Bio-Lab Beta, Dan and Summer met a girl, named Fuji, who had an uncanny physical similitude with Faith.
Also, there's another girl named Flora who looks like a younger Faith, with red-streaks in her hair. Most probably, those were just two really strange coincidences. - If We Get Through This…: During her stay at Echo-City main-base medical ward, Celeste revealed to Dan that if she manages to survive the war, but it comes to a point where she won't be able to pilot any more, she'll spend the rest of her life taking care of the children who lost their parents to the Eldritchian catastrophe.
- Incompatible Orientation: Anyone trying to win Celeste's romantic affection is gonna be in for a big (and heartbreaking) surprise. For far, the list of those interested in her includes: Jack and Loke.
- Interface Screw: In-universe case. See Darkness Equals Death.
- Interservice Rivalry:
- There's some really bad blood going on between SERVE and GeneSys, stemmed in great part due to their drastically different approaches when it comes to dealing with the Eldritchian. The former wants to study them in order to use their powers to help mankind, the later wants to destroy them completely in order to prevent mankind's extinction.
- Also, there's a lot of tension between SERVE's different branches and members.
- Love at First Sight:
- Vaughn immediately fell for Katherina since the first time he saw her in person.
-
Word of God confirms that Loke was charmed by Celeste after their first encounter.
- Love Triangle: There's one in the making between Vaughn, Katherina and Emil.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Yet another mecha weapon.
- Made of Iron: Most of the Marine Corps' operatives, including George and Jack, can survive injuries that would be fatal or game-breaking for other pilots, and they recover way faster than any of them. As seen during the fight against the Trinity, where both of them stood up and continued fighting even after receiving some substantial injuries.
- Mildly Military: SERVE is a direct creation of the UN and they send out multiple planes, tanks and mechs for battle. Justified in that they were created sorely to tackle the Eldritchian threat head on.
- Modesty Bedsheet: Celeste used one during her stay at SERVE's medical ward, in order to allow jack to patch the wounds that Leo inflicted on her during her ill-fated attempt to give him a hug. Later on, it lead to rather embarrassing situation involving Dan and a ridiculously muscular male nurse. (who wears sunglasses and a blond pompadour!)
- Monstrosity Equals Weakness: Generation-3 Fae appear to be more bestial in behavior and mentality. It's not sure if their powers are inferior to the more humanoid iterations created after them, but they have been deemed nigh worthless by creators, mostly due to being too "unwieldy".
- Motion-Capture Mecha: Dan and Summer's mechs: The Mexa-One and Nexus-One.
- Mutants: Terrestrial animal life-forms which enter in direct contact with Eldritchian's tissue are bound to be transformed in extremely unpredictable ways, while also turning feral in the process. The protist and plant kingdoms, and some simpler organism like the insects and vermin, are immune to these mutations; because, if they weren't, life on Earth would have been completely assimilated in just a couple of months.
- Naïve Newcomer: Dan and Summer at first, but they catch on easily.
- Noodle Incident:
- Someone died after eating "Lethal Monday Burritos". Both Nolan and Gerald are a bit freaked out by it.
- In another instance, Emil and Leo tried to spend some leisure time at Echo-City, but somehow it ended up turning into a really big mess, involving copious amounts of booze and at least one European taxicab driver.
- Not What It Looks Like: Dan and Celeste were caught in a situation like this during her stay at the medical ward. Turns out that a bare-chested girl giving a hug to socially-awkward teenager while they're both sitting on a bed, can be easily misinterpreted, who would have thought?
- The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The heads of SERVE have this feel.
- Triple Shifter: SERVE guards. They seem to stay awake/at-work for quite some time before sleep is allowed.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. So far, the story features two characters named Samson: Samson Long and Samson Cresting.
- Opposite-Sex Clone: During Delta Squad's fight against the Psychic Reaper it created a pair of "puppets" who looked like a female Dan and a male Summer while it was in the real Dan and Summer's heads.
- Screw Yourself: This lead to a series on incredibly unconformable scenes were they started to get a little too intimate with the duo... Even talking about wanting to bear their children.
*yikes!*
- Screw Yourself: This lead to a series on incredibly unconformable scenes were they started to get a little too intimate with the duo... Even talking about wanting to bear their children.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: The Celeste's (Half) Day Off
mini-chapter stands in utter contrast against the main plot's style by virtue of being a Slice of Life short story. - Put on a Bus: Several pilots and team members such as Akio and Hiroko disappeared off the RP after their players left.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite his more dubious personality, Nolan's actions tend to be well intended.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni:
- Gdolkin (Blue) and Krueger (Red). However, the twist about them is that their mechas' role are reversed; Gdolkin's mech, the Ferrus Manus, it's a close-range mech, (Red) while Krueger's Bjorn, the Fell-Handed, is a gun-slinger mecha. (Blue)
- Hans (Red) and Emil (Blue) also have this kind of dynamic, (after forming their Odd Friendship) with Hans over-flowing with (dangerously) unbounded emotions, and Emil being the most level-headed and prudent pilot in the whole Delta squad.
- Retirony: Discussed by Celeste, who says that if something terrible happened to her in the next mission after revealing her plans for the future, that would mean “that the universe has an extremely cruel sense of humor ”.
- Running Gag: It seems that Gerald has an uncanny (and somewhat alarming) tendency of getting punched or kicked by the Delta Squad pilots. So far, the list includes Hans and Katherina.
- Sacrificial Lion: During the fight against the Trinity, the Delta Team suffered its first major casualty: Hans Liddmin, thanks to a combined attack between Eins and Zwei.
- Sarcasm Failure: Hans's reactions to Gainax making their lives into an Anime.
- Shoot the Dog: A minor, but still significant case. Emil didn't enjoy punching Faith during her breakdown, but he had to do it to prevent her from seriously hurting Summer.
- Shout-Out: Overdosed with them! There are so many, that's just easier to create a whole page for all of them.
- Slasher Smile: Emil pulled a terrifying one when he decided to kill Eins Trinity after it murdered Hans in cold blood.
- Sneeze Cut: Both Melissa and Samson react to people talking about them with this.
- State Sec: SERVE.
- Super Mode: The mechas' Ultimate Mode. It's dangerous to use and can kill its pilots because of how much power it uses.
- Super Robot Genre: The robots are huge and have a whole variety of weapons.
- Time Skip:
- The opening skips a week after the death of Dan and Summer's parents to their funeral and will reading.
- Yet another week is skipped after the incident in the training room with Hiroko and the Wild Falken, Hans attacking Gerald and Summer's fight with Faith.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Loke and Celeste, respectively. The former is athletic, brash and loud, while the later is delicate, timid, and demure. They also seem on their way to becoming great friends.
- United Nations Is a Superpower: The UN were responsible for SERVE's formation and as such hold a lot of power over it and its various branches.
- The War Room: Where SERVE's leaders commonly hold meetings.
- Wave-Motion Gun: Dan has one in his mech and it is one of the many mech weapons.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Gerald and Faith call out Dan and Summer for killing the just born child of Psychic Reaper, the eldritchian that invaded and attacked the SERVE base mind raping most of the squad. Subverted in that Dan and Summer both thought the baby eldritch was the monster doing the work and as such they were right. The unborn fetus that just got born was the Psychic Reaper and they knew this because of their latent psychic powers.
- Almost everyone in SERVE also calls out Faith for standing by and doing nothing while the Psychic Reaper mind raped her teammates. Faith immaturely reasons that she did nothing because the monster was favoring the rest of the team and she decided to watch how they fight. She notes that even when it did try to mind-rape her, her life was so unconventional that it couldn't dig up anything effective. No one was swayed by her explanation regardless.
- Who Would Want to Watch Us?: Jokingly asked by Summer, after Nolan confirmed that SERVE's PR director was working with Studio Gainax to make an anime based on the Delta Squad's experiences.
