Fanfic / Setanta

Doing the right things for the wrong reasons.

Setanta by Ritic is a fanfic for the Web Serial Novel Worm. Taking place twenty years after Gold Morning, it follows Jordan, a young mercenary who, along with his sister, delivers fuel to the Sons of Bitch. When the fuel runs out, though, Jordan enlists his Tinker brother to help keep the fuel lines going and earn enough money to get the questions that he wants answered. That decision will have long-reaching consequences not only for him, but for the world as a whole.

Setanta differs from a lot of other fics in that it's a slow burn, focusing heavily on the psychology of the characters, the effects that Gold Morning had on society as a whole, and what it means to live in a post-apocalyptic world that is rebuilding itself. It follows up on many smaller themes of Worm while still building a story of its own. It frequently feels less like a post-apocalyptic work and more like a western, following many tropes of each.

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Warning: Full story provides spoilers for Worm.

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This series provides examples of:

• Adults Are Useless: Played with. It's strongly implied that the adults are busy handling larger issues while younger people get involved with the messes first hand. Partially justified given that many, many people are suffering from PTSD from Gold Morning.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Given the usual tendencies of the Worm fandom, an OC-centric fanfic is often a turnoff, especially one taking place twenty years into the future.
• Alternate Universe: This follows Worm's example of having many alternate universes, which plays a role in the story. The ability to travel between them at will is an important one, giving characters a huge advantage in many ways, so long as the Tinker tech continues to work right. When it doesn't, things get messy.
• Ambiguous Innocence: Jordan in a nutshell. He's absolutely brutal in a fight, willing to use underhanded tactics, and capable of analyzing people's motivations and histories on the fly when he wants to. However, he's generally friendly, naive, and a bundle of smiles.
• Armor Is Useless: Defied. Jordan's armor and the upgrades that Riley gave him save his life constantly.
• Badass Army: The Dragon's Teeth. Though they've grown beyond being an army, becoming almost a mercenary nation in their own right, they're still identified by their troopers in power armor and retain many trappings of a military.
  • Later, we also get the Relentless Legion.
• Badass Normal: Untriggered don't have the ability to sit and wait for parahumans to show up and save them from the many threats out there. It says something when a teacher carries a gun and uses it by reflex. This is overshadowed by Jordan, who takes this to another level.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: At one point, Jordan gets empowered by everybody that Valkyrie can spare. And as it turns out, he's been seeking out people to empower him since long before the story started. By the end, he's empowered enough to be more powerful than Valkyrie. This is not a good thing for him.
• Berserk Button: It's a minor plot point that Jordan has them, and if you value your life, don't press them. Anyone who so much as threatens anyone or anything that he cares about will find themselves in a world of pain if they're lucky. Even comparing him to Jack Slash is playing with fire.
• Bodyguard Babes: Nexus surprisingly makes use of this in a fairly realistic manner. The woman that most people assume is his secretary is his primary bodyguard, while the man that people assume is the bodyguard is his secretary.
• Body Horror: Some parts are difficult to read. Word of God is that he toned down a lot of it because it didn't match the rest of the story, but what is there can be very unsettling.
• Boring, but Practical: Jordan acknowledges how using flashy combat maneuvers can be handy to psyche out your opponent, but he prefers to use more practical techniques to put people down.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Jordan is a huge proponent of this, pointing out that having the right combat skills to back up the advantages that your powers give you can only make you stronger.
• Break the Cutie: The entire story is one long breaking down of Jordan. While the beginning seems slow, it only works to highlight how broken he becomes later in the story.
• The Bus Came Back: Characters who appear early on come back in various ways.
• Butt-Monkey: One of the mercenaries in the St. Louis journey seems to exist only to be put in a world of pain. However, by the end of the story people look to him for guidance and seem to take his advice to heart.
• Chekhov's Gun: All over the place. Often, certain plot points will be brought back up a few chapters before they become important again.
  • A literal case in the pistol that Jordan buys in St. Louis. Preferring revolvers for their reliability, he only buys this one because he knows that he'll probably need it, and only after an extremely thorough examination. Unfortunately, he didn't check the ammunition as closely.
• Clark Kenting: After St. Louis and Agamemnon, Jordan's image was in every newspaper that could print one. How does Jordan get around it? By growing a beard and shaving his head. Combined with letting others do the talking for him it's surprisingly effective most of the time, but it doesn't always work.
• Combat Pragmatist: Jordan doesn't want to kill anyone for practical reasons, but he also believes that there's no such thing as a fair fight. He has no reservation against breaking limbs and maiming people as an opening attack. Fights where he doesn't make use of a Groin Attack are more rare than the ones where he does. Whenever possible, he stacks the deck in his favor.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Played with by a minor reoccurring character. He duplicates himself whenever he is damaged, but once he reaches a certain threshold, the duplicates can't support themselves and begin to dissolve. Each duplicate is only as strong as the original, who appears pretty baseline.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: Jordan isn't afraid to present himself like this, and his reputation only enhances it. By convincing opponents that they've only made him more dangerous, they begin to make mistakes that he can capitalize on.
• Crapsack World: It somehow manages to one-up Worm in many ways.
  • There is no central government, and it's mentioned several times that there are multiple United States of America vying for legitimacy. Without a unifying government, most communities are on their own.
  • Likewise, because there's no central government, the Wardens and the Dragon's Teeth are little more than mercenaries for most communities. They have to engage in complex contracts, offering services in exchange for supplies.
    • However, the Dragon's Teeth have put this to good use in some areas, such as in India where they are almost the defacto government.
  • Wildlings are a wide variety of creatures that terrorize almost every single Earth, randomly attacking communities. Because of this, many communities are almost forts in their own right, and Jordan mentions that pre-Gold Morning buildings freak him out a little bit because there's so many windows.
  • One of the best places of learning is an orphanage. Communities will band together in order to save up to send a child there to learn to be a doctor who can work with primitive medications and tools. That's not the worst part: This was by design, because it was the only way to keep the necessary resources coming in to fund a place with thousands of orphans. Most of these kids know that when they become a teen, they're too old for adoption, so they tend to adopt their own siblings in order to receive the love and affection that they need.
  • The rules for triggering are mutating, and nobody is sure what's going on. Broken triggers are frustratingly common, and can lead to bystanders having effects on them that don't show for years. Even worse, some people gain powers that can actively hurt them if they aren't careful.
  • Just securing clean drinking water can be a problem for some communities. Because people weren't always properly prepared or educated before heading out to other worlds, sometimes just getting proper nutrients can be a problem, even when they have the necessary foods to solve those issues right in front of them.
  • A character mentions that she was raised by a cult, and nobody even blinks over it. Cults are apparently common enough that people just nod in sympathy when someone escapes from one.
  • For all the good that the Dragon's Teeth are doing, they're hamstrung by their reliance on parahumans. Even worse, due to their baseline only policy in contrast to the Wardens parahumans only policy, just accepting the aid of one can put a community in a slowly mounting conflict.
  • PTSD is common enough that people are afraid to touch each other unless they're close.
  • Some countries combat broken triggers by being extremely inclusive and friendly. Ironically, this can alienate introverts or people with depression, helping to lead them to trigger.
  • There is a divide between teens and adults. In many places, at the age of 16 they're expected to take on all the duties and responsibilities of adults, all while adults still look down on them as children.
  • Twain is the best line of defense against the St. Louis wildling issue, and produces a great deal of technology that the world needs. However, corruption is so commonplace that it's considered normal to bribe anyone for anything, leading to huge internal turmoil. Fights are so common that it's become traditional for the arguing parties to fork out money to someone who disarms a situation in order to encourage more people to do it. The leadership knows it's only a matter of time before the revolution comes, and that might completely destroy Twain.
• Create Your Own Villain: When the Wardens break protocol and have his sister's squad try and capture him, it drives Jordan to join the criminals who come to his aid. However, that's exactly what Valkyrie and the Wardens wanted.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Jordan has focused the efforts of his entire life on being a hero, strong in mind and body. He's an expert fighter, has technical skills, is well-learned, and can barely write or deal with social situations. Where he's lacking in ability or knowledge frequently takes people by surprise. Also, because he hasn't practiced many of the things he's learned, there are instances where he's completely incapable of applying them.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: A lot of paras are overly reliant on their powers. Meanwhile Jordan is extremely flexible and versitile in his tactics. Combined with his quick analysis of how powers work and how to combat them, it makes him quickly smash many of his opponents.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Invoked, thanks to Chris' unique production Tinker power. The things that he creates are stable in that their behavior can be easily predicted. The cloth that he produces has various fantastic properties, but can be worked by anyone. He's held back more by his loyalty to his family and community, as well as the high price of the components and materials needed to make his tech, than by the ability to mass produce or market it.
  • Also invoked by Twain, which has an entire department devoted to making Tinker tech more stable. It's implied that the communication arrays that they produce used to be small enough to be carried by an individual instead of needing to be installed somewhere.
• Eye Scream: After being compared to Jack Slash, Jordan enters a brief red rage that he quickly pulls himself out of. When he regains awareness of what he's doing, he has someone pinned underneath him and is pressing on the man's eyes as he screams at the guy. Even recognizing what's happening and that it's wrong, it still takes some effort to pull back. This is a surprisingly chilling moment for the reader, as it comes out of nowhere.
• Forbidden Zone: St. Louis Bet is a major breeding ground for Wildlings. Even Dragon won't send one of her heavily-armed craft in there, knowing that it won't last long enough to do any good. This makes Jordan and Sarah's trip in there a suicide mission.
• Foreshadowing: Too much to count. The most innocent lines can foreshadow huge revelations throughout the story, and things that happen in the first two chapters can foreshadow events and revelations throughout the entire story.
• Good Is Not Soft: Jordan is about as heroic as they come, but he's fond of starting a fight with a Groin Attack or other underhanded move, and will quickly break limbs if there's a danger of innocents getting in the crossfire.
• Groin Attack: Men, women, it doesn't matter. Jordan will go for the groin whenever possible for practical reasons. Even if they're a Brute who won't be affected, instinct says that they'll try and protect it to some extent. Knowing how effective it is, Jordan naturally makes sure that his armor comes equipped with a cup.
• Hero of Another Story: Many, many of the characters that Jordan runs into could easily support a story of their own. We get glimpses into their lives, but Jordan rarely injects himself into people's lives longer than necessary.
• Heroic Second Wind: Jordan may be on the verge of defeat until something reminds him that he's fighting for someone else. There's a good reason for this.
• Hollywood Autism: Defied. Quincy is shown to have a healthy healthy marriage with two spouses and children, and is able to thrive in his profession, though with some difficulty. It's a surprisingly fair and balanced depiction of it.
• Hyper-Awareness: After a certain point in the story, it becomes evident that Jordan is always on edge, analyzing a situation even if he doesn't consciously recognize it.
  • This is even worse for poor David, as it's heavily implied that this is his normal mode of thought. It isn't pleasant for him in the slightest.
• Insistent Terminology: Jordan is very specific about his language. They aren't broken triggers, they're heavy triggers. She isn't Bonesaw, she's Riley. Any ground-based internal combustion vehicle is a car. Any community is a city, no matter how small. Some of this is because he's sensitive to others, and some of it is simply the world that he grew up in not giving him good context for old-world words. For others, like him always using Defiant and Dragon instead of the other way around, reflect back to his individual mindset.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Justified in a very strange case. Jordan had his own brain altered in order to do this to himself. It's very heavily implied that he's constantly doing it, heavily editing things even as he experiences them. When this process breaks, it isn't pretty.
• Madness Mantra / Survival Mantra: One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.
• Meaningful Background Event: Too many to list. The amount of little things that turn out to be important is impossible to track.
• Mutants: Though Case 53s aren't being made anymore, there's still plenty out there. Heavy triggers or the effects of powers can produce them, but there's even one group that willingly is turning themselves into them. Predictably, they refer to themselves as the New 53s.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: This happens a lot, partially because Jordan tends to focus on the threats in front of him and trusts others to handle themselves. And then there's incidents such as the first Fyrtorn fight.
• One-Steve Limit: Defied, on purpose. There are characters who share names, but thankfully they almost never meet.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The aforementioned Eye Scream moment is the first sign that Jordan is starting to crack. Unlike the reader, his companions don't know him well enough to be worried.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Sergei doesn't even attempt to justify the terrible things that he does. It doesn't change the fact that he's amiable and friendly, going out of his way to help people when he's off the clock. In the epilogue chapters, it's revealed that he's perfectly happy to take his entire cell down as a resignation letter.
• Reality Ensues: The Series. This takes a hard look at the apocalypse, psychology, the effect of having a society focused on superpowers, the dangers of having a high reputation, obsession, economics, logistics, and so much more.
• Required Secondary Powers: A plot point is that, thanks to heavy triggers, people sometimes don't have these. Sarah is one example.
• Shout-Out: All over the place, but they're usually hard to find. Everything from band characters to French literature can be inserted in, but it's usually done extremely subtly. Supposedly, each chapter contains two pop culture references. Good luck finding even one most of the time.
• The Sleepless: Despite having his dream mother, Jordan would give anything for this. It would mean more time for training.
• Training from Hell: Early on in the story, it's repeatedly reinforced just how far Jordan takes his training. When people try and emulate his training methods, he's very quick to point out how dangerous it is and offer up safer methods. Most people trust that he knows his limits, but there are plenty of people who are willing to point out the fact that he takes it too far, at one point in his history even giving himself rhabdomyolysis. There is the impression that Jordan would be fine training for sixteen hours a day if his body could support it. If he has nothing else to do and can't train his body, he'll gladly train his mind.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted. They're in high demand, though, and there aren't enough qualified people to fill the role anymore. At one point, Jordan even sees one. After the therapist's death, the John tries to get him to see another. It's heavily implied that Jordan never did and lied about it.
• Unreliable Narrator: And how! It can take a long time to realize it, but Jordan views the world through a very specific filter. Not everything can be taken for granted, and there is quite a bit that needs to be read carefully to understand what's actually going on. Word of God says that even the epilogue is full of falsehoods created by this.
  • This also extends to the interlude chapters. Everyone sees the world their own way, and nobody actually tells the reader the clear truth.
• Wicked Cultured: John is somewhere between this and Wicked Pretentious. He devours classic literature and uses the names of antagonists from those books as aliases, and even thinks in Purple Prose. However, he's from a lower class than he wants people to believe and it shows just as frequently as not.