A Stitch In Time is a BattleTech fanfic written by drakensis in 2011 for Nanowrimo. The story is based on a Roleplay game in the Battletech universe where the rulers of the major Periphery realms were killed off in a wave of assassinations, leading to a number of distant relatives taking their thrones. The story begins ten years when suddenly the Inner Sphere of Christmas 3031 is suddenly replaced by that of 2576, with the newly formed Star League preparing to conquer their contemporary periphery neighbours.
You can find it on fanfiction.net here
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Fanfic/Along Came A Spider provides examples of the next tropes:
- Ace Pilot: Magestrix Savitri Centrella and Callum Avellar are both ace aerospace fighter pilots.
- Altar Diplomacy: Technically why Savitri Centrella controls Andurien, the domain of House Humphreys: she married the last Duchess' heir. her daughter, the titular duchess, may even be her husband's child.
- Balcony Speech: How the Periphery leaders announce their joint front against the Star League
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: House Davion, House Liao, House Steiner...
- Capital Offensive: Three times. New Samarkand, Canopus IV and Terra.
- Decadent Court: The Rim Worlds even before Charlotte Grimm began politicking.
- Divide and Conquer: a major strategy by both the Star League and the Periphery Powers.
- Expy: quite a number of thinly disguised characters and ships from other settings.
- Battlestars Atlantia and Galactica aren't even thinly disguised.
- God-Emperor: In the Marian Hegemony, Marcus O'Reilly is apparently believed by some to be a demi-god of their pan-pagan theology, a son of the All-Pater (a pastiche of Zeus, Odin and similar deities). His own feelings on this aren't touched upon.
- Humongous Mecha: Battlemechs, although they're somewhat overshadowed by the warships.
- Insistent Terminology: Admiral Global, from Filtvet, cannot for the life of him properly name the Canopian fleet. Admiral Carrington corrects him every time, to no effect.
- Lensman Arms Race: essentially why the Periphery Powers have substantial navies. Savitri Centrella didn't trust Jack Calderon so every time he started building larger warships she'd also increase her own warship fleet. Their neighbours were wary of one or the other of them so they started building warships.
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Magnificent Bastard: Savitri Centrella isn't just going to defeat the Star League, she's going to set them up to finance the Periphery war effort. - Modest Royalty: Jack Calderon hosts a conference of the Periphery leaders in his D&D game room, ordering pizza to feed them.
- Music for Courage: the assembled leaders of the Periphery decide that to reply to the Pollux Proclamation with an adaptation of Alice Cooper's Freedom.
- Must Make Amends: Ian Calderon's final, personal surrender to the Periphery's armed forces.
- Orbital Bombardment: Used tactically against the SLDF. The prologue makes clear that this was used against Sian, capital of the Capellan Confederation to the point it's not clear if anyone is still alive out of a population of almost five billion - something most of the Periphery leaders are not keen to repeat.
- Spice of Life: Prolong, a medicine treatment that slows the aging process considerably. Only the Canopians can so far deliver it and they charge whatever the market can bear, making them by far the wealthiest of the Periphery Powers.
- Rebellious Princess: Savitri Centrella's backstory, although she was apparently far enough down the succession that no one particularly objected when she ran off to the Outworlds to become a fighter pilot.
- Rousing Speech: "We shall not bow to the tyranny of Terra. We shall not grovel to the past when we may freely choose the future. We shall never rest until the boots that they would place upon our necks have been jammed down their throats. To this we pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour."
- Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: Averted. The biggest challenge faced by both sides of the war is the immense scale they're fighting across. In fact, due to the timejump both of them have to adjust their charts because stellar drift has actually moved the stars from where they expect them to be.
- Space Fighter: important for every Space Navy.
- Space Navy: Unlike the canonical 31st century, the periphery states all have powerful navies as a result of a naval arms race starting in 3020.
- Space Pirates: Three of the periphery states got their starts as pirate nests. Tortuga and the Marians are trying to move past it. Oberon... not so much.
- Spy Ship: The tramp freighter Poison Ivy.
- Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: Several, particularly the SLDF's naval arm, the Taurian fleet and the Canopian Navy Royal.
- The Battlestar: Quite literally in the Marian fleet, but most of the other navies have at least a few fighters on their battleships.
- The Dreaded Dreadnought: the Farragut-class, currently the Terran Hegemony and therefore the Star League's largest and most powerful warships - quite a big deal since essentially every warship in Battletech is derived from their dreadnoughts. Unfortunately for the Star League, the Canopians have built four Farragut-class ships.
- The War of Earthly Aggression: In the case of the Periphery, for the second time. And they know that last time they lost.
- Time Travel: Of the Trapped in the Past variety - although technically it's the Inner Sphere that has been transported forward in time.
- Transforming Mecha: The Marine Land-Air 'Mechs used to attack Unity City.
- Unexpected Successor: Pretty much the entire leadership of the Periphery Powers.
- Universally Beloved Leader: Most of the Periphery leaders are very popular with their people, in one case to the point of near-worship.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The Star League Council is increasingly factionalised as the war goes worse and worse for them. The Periphery leaders don't always get along, but despite determined diplomacy to split them up, they stick together.
