History VisualNovel / Adastra2018

* DisabledLoveInterest: Cassius is this to Alexios.

''Adastra'' is a 2018 UsefulNotes/RenPy SciFi SpaceOpera {{UsefulNotes/Furry|Fandom}} VisualNovel made by the collaborative indie group [[https://itch.io/profile/echoproject Echo Project]], who are also responsible for the PsychologicalHorror visual novel ''VisualNovel/{{Echo}}'' and its standalone prequel ''VisualNovel/TheSmokeRoom'' and sequel ''VisualNovel/{{Arches}}'' as well as ''VisualNovel/GloryHounds''.

* BlackSheep: Neferu and Cassius are this to their respective families- Neferu for [[NoodleIncident reasons currently unknown]] and Cassius for his disability.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Out of all three royal siblings, Virginia is the one most likely to be considered non-violent and civil. However, she also ends up being the one most open to the idea [[spoiler:of executing Alexios as punishment for his prior destructive acts of sabotage, even suggesting [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident his death be made to look accidental]] during the ride to the university. Given the Omorfans actions indirectly resulted in the near deaths of both her brothers, as well as put her in a scenario that nearly had her forcibly married to Cato, it's easy to see why Virginia feels Alex doesn't deserves mercy]].

* AerithAndBob: You have names like Amicus, Cassius, Virginia, Neferu... and then there's Marco.
* AlasPoorVillain: More along the lines of "Alas, Poor Jerkass" in regards to [[spoiler: Cassius]]. While the wolf was constantly hostile to Marco and Amicus early on in the story, it's still horrifying and saddening when [[spoiler: he ends up getting poisoned by Cato. The fact that he was going to give up his lifelong desire of being Adastra's Emperor (despite knowing how humiliating it would be for his reputation to abdicate in such a short amount of time) in order to help his siblings and Marco oust Cato while also putting his brother in charge as originally planned for the planets sake probably gave way to some sympathy points. Later on, Cassius is revealed to have survived the murder attempt (making the trope mostly averted) though it still doesn't make what was almost his death scene any less painful to read]].

** There are several sequences where Marco has dreams and hallucinations. [[spoiler: Two of those sequences (after he catches avia pox and falls into a coma-like state and after he gets his throat slit wide open and loses consciousness), can be considered an example of a DyingDream, though he manages to luckily avert it in both cases]].

* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: [[spoiler: After Cato is killed in the arena duel and the Com declares Amicus as both the victor of the fight and the new Emperor of Adastra, the wolven populace has this reaction (as cheers of celebration are loud enough to be heard from Adastra City).]]

* BeardOfEvil: [[spoiler: Cato has a small grey beard and is the main antagonist of the story]].
* BeastMan: The aliens of Adastra and other planets resemble Earth animals like wolves, jackals, and cats. Tigers are also mentioned, but none appear anytime during the plot,[[spoiler:unless you get the Meera ending through some dialogue choices]].

** For Amicus, if anyone says or tries to do anything that's even remotely threatening toward Marco, you can guarantee it'll get them facing the wolfs full-blown wrath, as he truly does care for his human's well-being. Even referring to Marco in a dehumanizing way (such as "slave", "pet" and "it") when Amicus is in the room is enough to completely get on the wolven royal's bad side.

* BigEater: Amicus turns out to be one. [[spoiler: During the flight back to Earth near the end of the story, Marco mildly lampshades this trope upon seeing his wolf quickly eat half a bag of candy (along with him noting how little food Amicus had on the ship when he first took Marco to his world, implying Amicus devoured most of the supplies on the way to Earth), with Amicus' reply about his eating habits basically confirming it]].

* BorrowingFromTheSisterSeries: ''Adastra'' borrowed some of its worldbuilding horror elements from ''VisualNovel/{{Echo}}'', [[MechanicalAbomination The Other]] being extremely similar to the "Echo Entity" (which in turn likely derives from ''VisualNovel/BlackGate'' 's [[SatanicArchetype The Eternal]]; ''Echo'' did begin as a supplementary for ''Blackgate'' before the team split up altogether). Inversely, ''VisualNovel/TheSmokeRoom'' burrowed ''Adastra'' 's fanservice and "horniness" (to quote the devs) wheres ''Echo'' ultimately chose a (mostly, [[FanDisservice never titilating]]) non-pornographic style.
* BullyingADragon: Not long after the third trial, [[spoiler: Neferu taunts Cato by revealing that he knows about his involvement in staging the event, followed by some more smug quips as part of a plan to get the tyrant into saying something incriminating. Cato (who's hatred towards the Khemians has been made clear by this point) responds by slamming the jackal into a wall and kicks him so hard in the groin that he vomits]].

* CainAndAbel: Cassius is the Cain to Amicus' Abel, as the former is determined to become the next leader of the planet and doesn't hold back when it comes to trying to undermine and discredit his brother. [[spoiler: It should be noted that the bad blood between the brothers does settle down after Amicus becomes Adastra's Emperor, with Cassius taking on another government role he finds more suitable]].

* CrapsaccharineWorld: As mentioned under SceneryPorn, the world of Adastra looks breathtakingly beautiful, but there is also plenty of government corruption (such as poorer cities not getting any critical aid while the richer areas are pampered with more resources), lots of homophobia, sexism and FantasticRacism going around and riots that break out in several areas (with mention that one city had one [[spoiler: even before the real conflict within the palace kicks off)]], just to name a few issues. [[spoiler: There's some hints in the story's tone that the royal family might find a way to fix these problems in the long run after Amicus becomes Emperor]].

* DarkestHour: Marco ends up in more danger than ever following the events of [[spoiler: the staged third trial. Basically, his status as part of an uncontacted species is revealed (which nearly gets him executed by Cato, as unauthorized first contact with any species not part of the Galaxias is a crime worthy of a death sentence for everyone directly involved), Cassius ends up getting crowned Emperor thanks to the staged fight, Amicus is thrown into the dungeons following him losing a fight to save his human and tense exchanges leave Marco partially at odds with Virginia (with his friendship to Alex also crumbling soon afterwards)]].
** Amicus ends up experiencing an even darker hour later on in the story after [[spoiler: he witnesses Marco actually die in his arms following his life-or-death duel with Cato. Not wanting to accept this, Amicus takes his humans body to the Archive device to contact the Parents in a desperate attempt to revive him, with no guarantee that he'll return with his lover alive again...]]

* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler: Moments before he dies, Cato makes it clear that he doesn't let his hatred for the Khemians settle down even a bit, as his last words are [[NeverMyFault him angrily blaming Neferu for causing all his problems]]]].

* DistinguishingMark: The royal siblings (Amicus, Cassius and Virginia) all have a mark atop their foreheads that looks like a down arrow.
** [[spoiler: The stylized down arrow mark shows up in many other areas as well. The gold collar Alexios wears has a down arrow printed on it, as does the belt Bjarni the bear diplomat wears in ''Interea''. On the Khemia soundtrack, the clothing Neferu is wearing has a cluster of down arrows and a promo pic for the sequel VN has a female Khemian (most likely being one of Neferus sisters) with a golden down arrow painted on her forehead. Finally, if the player makes certain decisions and gets the "Meera" vision on Marcos last night on Adastra, anyone can see the Hindo (tiger) has a similar down arrow mark atop her own forehead]].

** Marco ends up getting insulted and teased by Cassius and [[spoiler: later more subtly by Alexios]] over the fact that he's a human. [[spoiler: Cato later tries to get him killed upon learning that he's from an uncontacted species without a second thought]].
** Later on in the story, Marco [[spoiler: ends up getting tasked by the Parents to bring his fellow humans into the Galaxias. He reflects that the Adastrans will probably react negatively to his kind in the long run; being despised a similar way to the Khemians]].
** As the story progresses [[spoiler: Cato also makes it more and more obvious that he has nothing but pure hatred for the Khemians, and later tries to publicly execute Neferu on false regicide charges in hopes of shattering a possible alliance between the wolves and jackals while also going to war with them again]].
** The [[spoiler: Omorfans (cats)]] obviously have a less than positive relationship with the Adastrans, given the fact that they sent [[spoiler: Alexios]] to their planet so he could spy on them while also subtly sabotaging their government. With the exception of his [[spoiler: lover Cassius, Alexios]] clearly shares this viewpoint as he basically tells Marco [[IDidWhatIHadToDo he did what he had to do]] while the human reflects the consequences of the aforementioned actions (which actually contributed in starting deadly, full scale riots).

** [[spoiler: Later in the story, Cassius claims that Alexios has an excuse in regards as to why he carried out destructive espionage. He explains to Marco that the Omorfan government basically used Alexios as their own stylus and a means to an end for their agendas to hinder Adastra from making a comeback to the Galaxias, with Alex being lead astray by them into thinking he was doing things for the greater good (as his underestimation of Cato's cruelty highlighted this). However, Marco counters this by pointing out (both personally to himself and out loud to Cassius) [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse that Alexios nonetheless had a choice, and he chose to accept his saboteur assignment and do all he could to bring harm to the wolven populace]]]].

* GeneralRipper: If any trope were to be used to describe [[spoiler:Cato]], this would be the most accurate one. [[spoiler: Already having committed acts of brutality as a General in the past (primarily his attack on a Khemian/wolverine settlement with incendiary weapons that killed all but two of the inhabitants, as well as personally contributing to a lot of death in the following Khemian-Adastran War) his main plan in the story is to take full power of Adastra by any means necessary to start another war with the jackals, which he hoped would begin with the public execution of their royal ambassador Neferu. As [[StupidEvil mentioned below]], the new war would have inevitably brought ruin to all of Adastra and its people, as Khemia is one of the Galaxias' strongest sibling species that nearly defeated them in the last battle, though from his words and actions it seemed Cato couldn't have cared any less about the consequences as long as he got to carry out more needless bloodshed.]]

** [[spoiler:PlayedForDrama with Drusus (a wolf) and Meera (a tiger) who are famously known as the legendary tale of how Adastra was created where they fell in love and their love was forbidden by their people.]]

* {{Irony}}: [[spoiler: In an attempt to destroy Adastra and Khemias potentially forming alliance, Cato tries to publicly execute Neferu in the Palaces arena, only for him to be the one who winds up dead after Marco and Amicus show up at the last moment and defeat him in a fight to the death.]]

* ManipulativeBastard: If you only read his earliest scenes in the story, you'd be surprised to discover later on that [[spoiler: Alexios (who gives Marco, and by extent the audience, the first impression that he's a loyal friend that can be trusted) is actually a spy with hidden agendas in regards to ruining Adastra, with him using Marco behind the scenes at specific points to try and achieve his goals.]]
** [[spoiler: Near the climax of Amicus and Cato's life-or-death duel in the arena, Marco also pieces together that Cato was trying to manipulate the trials to favor Cassius while pretending to give Amicus a fair shot at winning the Emperorship, before Cassius' failure to win the second trial made him interfere with everything more directly]].

** "Alexios" is Greek for defender/helper and seeing how he is kind and helpful to the heroes really fits him well. [[spoiler: The kind and helpful part is mostly undermined later on when Neferu and Marco discover that Alexios was really a spy sent by his planet to cause trouble from within the Adastran government, making him give the duo a very haughty reply when called out on his actions. And while he does help overthrow Cato later on, Alexios still remains distant towards everyone, with Cassius being the sole exception.]]

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: A villainous example. On the day [[spoiler: Cassius plans to abdicate the Adastran throne (as part of the heroes plan to stop the BigBad from using him for his agendas while also freeing Amicus from the dungeons)]], everyone in the room gets on edge when they notice that [[spoiler: Cato, who was very hostile and distant towards everyone since the third trial, is in a [[SmugSnake "happy" mood]], with Virginia noting it's odd that he would summon everyone together for breakfast as he'd never done this for a long time. It turns out everyone had a good reason to worry, as Cato discovered the secret plan to oust him from his position from Alexios. Cassius ends up getting poisoned before he can renounce his leadership and everyone else in the palace ([[BackstabBackfire including Alexios]]) find themselves at the mercy of the tyrants wrath soon after]].

** [[spoiler: Once his true saboteur intentions are revealed, Alexios ends up turning into one as well, with the character sprite of him smiling basically disappearing from the story.]]

* RedHerring: [[spoiler:Cassius is set up as this, and possibly even Virginia]]. At first, the narrative makes it look [[spoiler: like Cassius will be the main villain of the story (due to his constant JerkAss behavior, his desire to do anything to be made Emperor and the fact that he threatens to have Marco executed once he becomes Adastra's leader at one point). However, it later turns out that Cassius is more "all bark, no bite" and Cato ends up taking the role of the main antagonist (with his brutal actions scaring even Cassius)]]. [[spoiler:Alexios, meanwhile, is also a villainous element, with his being TheStarscream to Cato]].

* UngratefulBastard: Even though Marco [[spoiler:helped make a plea deal to keep him from facing severe punishment for sabotaging Adastra's government, Alexios still tries to steal Amicus' ship with a drunk Cassius on the night before Marco was due to leave for his eight year mission (which the cat fully knew about)]].

** [[spoiler: Before the start of the story, Cato ended up getting severely injured during the Khemian War (losing part of his skull, an eye and his entire vision), which prompted Amicus' father, who was the Emperor and the wolfs closest friend, to get aid from the Parents to heal his injuries, which helped Cato miraculously survive. This helpful act ultimately meant nothing to Cato however, as he still ended up sabotaging the Emperors ship and killed him, all so that he himself could become acting Emperor and work on his goal to start another war with Khemia from a higher level of power.]]
* TheUnmasquedWorld: Not shown during the main story, but it's heavily implied [[spoiler: that by the time Marco finishes his mission on Earth, everyone on the planet will know about Adastra, Khemia and the Galaxias as a whole. On the night he returns to his planet, Marco can possibly be informed that the Parents have already made some form of contact with it, meaning that the trope has already started to play out]].
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: After winning the second trial, Amicus tells the player that all they have to do is win the third trial, and then Marco can be returned to Earth. Of course, [[spoiler: Cato sabotages Amicus and stages the trial]]. Later, when Neferu, Marco, and Virginia collect incriminating evidence about the [[spoiler: staged trial]] and [[spoiler: Cato's murder of the previous emperor]], they plan to blackmail Cassius into abdicating the throne. [[spoiler: Cato then poisons Cassius and assumes the emperorship before that could happen]].

** Marco questions how Alex could have feelings for someone like [[JerkAss Cass.]]
** [[spoiler: On his last day on Adastra, Marco flips the question by asking Cassius why he still wants to be with Alexios, given that his actions over the past year caused harm to everyone around him and that the duo being together keeps Alexios in a position where he can potentially do even more harm.]]

* WomenAreWiser: Compared to her brothers (who do have their own strengths but also behave like [[ManChild manchildren]] at various points), Virginia is the most mature member of the royal family, as she's fully responsible with any task she's given and is the least likely to display any form of immaturity or incompetence. [[spoiler: Granted, she was molded into behaving like this during her youth through many etiquette lessons (much to her chagrin), though she does also admit that it helps her get by in a world where women's rights are years behind Earths]].

* YouNoTakeCandle: Poor Marco has to pretend to be a dumb ape for much of the first half of the novel, with varying degrees of success. [[OhCrap It's when the facade comes off that the story takes a much darker tone]], no thanks to [[spoiler:Alexios]].

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Out of all three royal siblings, Virginia is the one most likely to be considered non-violent and civil. However, she also ends up being the one most open to the idea [[spoiler: of executing Alexios as punishment for his prior destructive acts of sabotage, even suggesting [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident his death be made to look accidental]] during the ride to the university. Given the Omorfans actions indirectly resulted in the near deaths of both her brothers, as well as put her in a scenario that nearly had her forcibly married to Cato, it's easy to see why Virginia feels Alex doesn't deserves mercy]].

* DysfunctionalFamily: Amicus is a carefree, BrilliantButLazy candidate for emperor who'd rather have fun. Cassius is TheStoic who takes the race for Emperorship far more seriously than his brother [[spoiler:(though with underhanded means)]]. Virginia is the DefrostingIceQueen who means business and has to keep her brothers in line somehow. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Yeah, there are problems in this family.]]

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** When Marco first meets Amicus, he ends up getting freaked out by the sight of a giant alien wolf that somehow speaks English in front of him. And his first reaction is to promptly kick him in the chest to get him away.
** Likewise, Cassius also has a major freak out when he first sees Marco unexpectedly, as he'd never seen a human in his life up to that point and naturally assumed he could be dangerous. The reason why Virginia and Neferu reacted calmer to their first encounter with Marco is because they heard about him in advance before seeing him, giving them time to prepare for the surprise of seeing a new species.
** One of the risks to a human being on a planet full of sentient aliens is that they're vulnerable of catching viruses and diseases that their bodies are not used to. [[spoiler: At one point, Marco ends up catching something called avia pox, and while the average Adastran can easily deal with any symptoms, the human ends up suffering more severely (ranging from having violent hallucinations to slipping into a near coma-like state) as his body has no idea how to fight off the alien illness]].
** After Marco [[spoiler:is brought back to his Italian apartment room on Earth after spending about a year on Adastra, he notes that all his stuff is gone (presumably taken during a police investigation) and that his mysterious disappearance probably got a lot of media coverage akin to other strange disappearances in the area]].

** BilingualBonus: The Latin for 'tail' is ''penis'' - and the verb 'to raise' is ''erigere'', the past tense 'erectus', ''raised'' - so when the Lingua (''tongue'') translates Adastran Latin literally, when Marco hears ''tail-raiser'', the Wolves are saying ''penis-erector.''

* UnusualEuphemism: ''Tail-Raiser'' for homosexual wolves in Adastra, and the cruder [[spoiler:cock-licker]].

The story follows your player character, a university student from Earth who was studying abroad in Rome. One night, as he goes to bed, he suddenly finds himself face to face with [[spoiler:[[BeastMan an alien wolf man]]]] who is implanting a [[{{Nanomachines}} mysterious device]] [[EyeScream on his eye]] to facilitate communication. Enter Amicus, prince of Adastra. As part of a plot to ascend the throne and gain favor with the royal family, as well as to defeat his challenger, Cassius (who is his brother), he requires a pet... and you're going to be said pet. Soon, things go hilariously wrong as Amicus suddenly realizes [[OhCrap you're not as dumb as his planet's archives made you out to be]]. Here comes the crux of the problem: Amicus has initiated FirstContact, which is expressly forbidden by his planet under penalty of death. His solution? Why, kidnap you and convince you to be his pet, of course! Space adventures, romance, and political hijinks ensue.

This project began in 2018 and was completed in 2020. A sequel titled ''Khemia''[[note]]named after the planet that Neferu and the Khemians reside in, which will be the setting for the story[[/note]] is currently in progress... sort of. ''Khemia'' is currently on hiatus due to a myriad of issues plaguing the project, such as writer's block and the [[ToughActToFollow pressure of following up a wildly successful novel with another one]]. However, these problems have seemingly been solved, and the novel is set to continune in 2023. The latest versions and updates can be found on the Echo Project's [[https://www.patreon.com/EchoGame Patreon page]] and [[https://echoproject.itch.io/adastra itch.io page]]. [[https://twitter.com/echothevn?lang=en The main Twitter page]] contains information and updates on all their current projects.

** An unseen event but the news that [[spoiler:Marco unintentionally spread ''avia pox'' throughout Earth, essentially starting a pandemic.]]
* NotAfraidToDie: During a personal conversation with Scipio in the palace gardens, Neferu mentions that when he was [[spoiler:about to be executed by Cato in ''Adastra'' he had this reaction to his approaching demise, bringing up that he was even willing to die and at peace. However, after he witnessed Marco get his throat slit and saw the life within him come to an end]], Neferu basically states [[AvertedTrope his view on the topic changed]], as he for the first time feared dying.
* OnceDoneNeverForgotten: According to Scipio, the footage of Neferu getting his balls kicked in by Cato is still well remembered three years after it happened (and also the thing the jackal himself is mostly remembered for).
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Discussed and deconstructed in-universe amid a talk Scipio has with Neferu [[spoiler:the day after they were almost murdered in their hotel room, which brought back some bad memories for the former. The wolf mentions all the horror he experienced three years ago at his university when the riots had broken out, and that his thoughts of said trauma being easily handled like “a glitch that can be easily patched” not playing out made him look bad. Neferu empathizes by pointing out his own trauma from that same time period, which was seeing his friend Marco die brutally, and that he dislikes Adastran society for expecting everyone to handle their inner turmoil's alone, finding this form of dealing with ones old pains frustrating. This leads to a heartwarming moment where Neferu sincerely offers to help Scipio handle his trauma, which the wolf ultimately accepts]].
* TragicKeepsake: Possible example, despite three years having passed since Amicus ascended to the Adastran throne, the chambers reserved for the use of the Emperor have remained untouched, since Neferu last used them in the events of the first novel. Whether or not this is because Amicus refuses to leave the bedroom where he & his human spent so much time for sentimental reasons or the monument of an all too painful reminder featured within the Emperor's bedroom, a vacant bed set aside for his pet, is unclear.

The story follows your player character, a university student from Earth who was studying abroad in Rome, as he is (unintentionally) kidnapped by Amicus, the prince of a galactic wolf empire from the eponymous planet. Amicus finds himself in a power struggle where although he is next in line for the throne, he is challenged by his brother Cassius for the throne. Amicus believes bringing a human from Earth will impress his people and improve his reputation to give him an edge over his brother but things soon go wrong, ''very horribly and hilariously wrong.'' Space adventures, romance, and political hijinks ensue.

The project was completed in 2020 with a sequel titled ''Khemia''[[note]]named after the planet that Neferu and the Khemians reside in which will be the setting for the story[[/note]]. ''Khemia'' is currently on hiatus due to a myriad of issues plaguing the project, such as writer's block and the [[ToughActToFollow pressure of following up a wildly successful novel with another one]]. The latest versions and updates can be found on the Echo Project's [[https://www.patreon.com/EchoGame Patreon page]] and [[https://echoproject.itch.io/adastra itch.io page]]. [[https://twitter.com/echothevn?lang=en The main Twitter page]] contains information and updates on all their current projects.

'''This visual novel contains graphic content, sex, and violence. As such, all external links on this page are to be considered NSFW unless stated otherwise.'''

* BorrowingFromTheSisterSeries: ''Adrasta'' borrowed some of its worldbuilding horror elements from ''VisualNovel/{{Echo}}'', [[MechanicalAbomination The Other]] being extremely similar to the "Echo Entity" (which in turn likely derives from ''VisualNovel/BlackGate'' 's [[SatanicArchetype The Eternal]]; ''Echo'' did begin as a supplementary for ''Blackgate'' before the team split up altogether). Inversely, ''VisualNovel/TheSmokeRoom'' burrowed ''Adastra'' 's fanservice and "horniness" (to quote the devs) wheres ''Echo'' ultimately chose a (mostly, [[FanDisservice never titilating]]) non-pornographic style.

* RedHerring: At first, the narrative makes it look [[spoiler: like Cassius will be the main villain of the story (due to his constant JerkAss behavior, his desire to do anything to be made Emperor and the fact that he threatens to have Marco executed once he becomes Adastra's leader at one point). However, it later turns out that Cassius is more "all bark, no bite" and Cato ends up taking the role of the main antagonist (with his brutal actions scaring even Cassius)]].

* IdiotBall: Marco keeps blabbing about things to people he has no business telling them to! This bites him hard when [[spoiler:Cassius is poisoned, the pin is blamed on him and Cato takes the throne by force]].