And you killed off Corolla.

Now, both Sergio and Nikki aren't in the PPC anymore by then, but I guess they would discover what happened anyway (If Sues didn't attack where they are, that is) but ooh, boy. They're gonna to be pissed off.

The fact is...

SPOILERS

Sergio is a Stu who more or less reformed on his own... and suffered the loss of several friends already. Suffering some more at the hands of Sues, especially after he retired... it's snapping time, especially if the Sues somehow manage to get Nikki too.

And if he snaps, it will be something along the lines to wear a black cloak, a Crysis-verse nanosuit and a Just Cause-verse grappling hook, dual wield a lightsaber and a Patriot from Metal Gear-verse, and allow a Sueness relapse... in order to fight the Sues with their very own methods. 'Cause by then he would be enough insane to make such a thing work.

"If only a Sue is strong enough to kill another Sue... Then I will become one to kill them all."

, so I just wanted to say that this was great.

Oh, you thought we wouldn't find out, didn't you? You thought your secret plagiarism was safe? But no! We see all! Behold!

Time Compression

Yes, you, Phobos, have been filthily plagiarising from the writing genius known as 'Patron PPC Demi-Goddess', one of the most famous writers of FanficLand! The ideas are all there for everyone to see: a character in the future of the PPC, HQ wrecked, the Sues taking over, someone being sent back in time... oh yes, your secret is will and truly out.

hS

(Yes, I'm joking. ;) It's an entry to the Badfic Game from back in 2006, I don't really think you've plagiarised it. Although if the, uh, 'Sunclover' shows up in your story... ~hS)

I thoroughly enjoyed that. All these future timelines at the moment are so fun!

I think most of the best points have already been mentioned, but I think it is very interesting to see the PPC actually lose - it shows they are just as vulnerable as any other character (and hence are not 'Sues). I also find it interesting about the 'Sues being able to forcibly convert non-'Sues - always a nasty tactic. I am thoroughly looking forward to part 2.

One little thing - Eagrus' full name is Eagrus Khan, so this Eagrus Kahn must be mini-Agent...

This was good. Really, really good. You set the tone very well - things just feel desperate, very nearly hopeless, in a realistic and not-overdone way. Even if the POV characters aren't quite at the end of their ropes, knowing how far down this is from the PPC 'present' sets the reader in a very dark place. It's hard to fully express - the imagery and thought of HQ being so utterly destroyed, unsafe on a permanent level/timeframe is very, very unsettling. Somehow this managed to be more deeply devastating than Emergencies, or even the Crashing Down stories (though it might be that I haven't read those in too long). It's like having a dream of your childhood home (or some comparable safe space) eating you alive, or something. Especially the thing where - I don't quite know if this was intentional, though I assume it was - the hallways aren't the whimsical "don't think about your destination" sort of way they usually are. It's... bleak. And it does that job very, very well.

Less bleakly, I look forward to a continuation! If you're doing one? Which I assume you are. Hope you are, anyway.

I'd also managed to completely forget that you were using Jof here, but I'm glad he worked with the story, and thank you for the use and characterization and such.

Super exciting! I love seeing a super dark and deadly What-If; I especially love seeing one that can be prevented. This will give Oopart some serious work to do back in the present timeline. (Back in the present? What?)

The thing that really makes the Department of Resistance feel unified and cohesive is the huge amount of cameos you threw in. It really makes this story feel like a (possible future) culmination of the last few years' worth of PPC writing.

Also, I need to take a moment to be disproportionately egotistical. When I saw Doc's name in the list of dead, I was like, "Yeah, he would get pwned pretty hard." Then, when you mentioned the Sueified characters, I felt like Vania would wind up in that group, and figured that would be the end of my cameos. AND THEN I got to the Council at the end and was like HOLY CRAP one of my dudes IS LIKE MAJOR and then I spent about two hours trying to imagine how Vania wound up there.

. . . Uh, so yeah. Thank you for that! It really made my day. I think I'd like to explore what happened to my agents in this timeline eventually, once you have your main parts finalized. Lots to do in the present in the mean-time, though.

I especially liked the building up of the setting. That's some masterfully paced dread-stuffs there. I certainly wouldn't want to be caught there, and the fact that there's a sense of ever-present danger helped a lot. Yeah, masterfully done dread-stuffs is always awesome.

I also like Oopard as a character: he's wracked by guilt, he's in a life of danger, and he's being selected for a mission that he doesn't really know even the half of. His lot is kind of sorry, and I do hope he succeeds in his mission since he seems like a nice enough guy. I'd especially love to see his reaction to meeting agents he knows from the future well before he ever met them, but... y'know.

Sorry, I'm probably not saying anything particularly helpful about this writing, but I loved it! So... Yeah. It was great.

(P.S. I'd be kind of interested to know how Eusabius got that scar, IMO.)

I've read this several times now, and I think it's brilliant.

It was very interesting to read about a situation where the Sues actually won. The occupation of HQ would be a major triumph for them, even if they couldn't achieve total victory. I thought you did a very good job of protraying just what it would be like for the agents living through the occupation, there were a load of nice little touches like the food getting even worse, as well as the dangers that they faced - particularly that one section of the Lists.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Oopart gets up to next (and of course, hoping to find out if the Potted Fern Official ever finds true love - although that does seem somewhat unlikely now...)

Alas, poor Amy. I knew her well.

(Oh yeah, and thanks for making Skeet such a badass - that was cool)

The future sure ain't what it used to be.

You are much better at writing a defeat/resistance scenario than I've ever been (which is why I've tried to avoid it in my own Histories on either side). You manage to evoke both fear and determination in Oopart's movements in the first part, and then follow it up with an extremely realistic (if I can use the term) portrayal of how the Department of Resistance might work. Jof's contribution is ingenious, and I was genuinely moved by the Tomb and the Lists.

I noticed a whole heap of both explicit references ('Why we sing it we don't know/We can't make the words rhyme properly!') and what appear to be 'inspired by' sections. Two in particular caught my eye. First, Oopart's reading of the List was similar to Vimes' Disorganiser in Jingo, with its final list of 'death of [Name]... death of [Name]'. Actually I think you missed a trick here - the impact of that list would have been greater if you put Lux's name right at the end, as a sort of climax (if you'll pardon the pun). I think if it ran as it does, but ended with 'Zim. Otik Horak. Luxury.', it would drive home the emotional point (that no-one is safe just by being a long-term character) even better. (I'm not sure this actually was an 'inspired by', but it evokes the same feel)

The other reference I picked up on particularly was the Hippie Sequoia's sacrifice/defence. Okay, he quotes Gandalf, but that's not what I mean. I'm thinking of the actions of Jedi Master Ood Bnar during the fall of Ossus, in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. He, too, turns himself into a rooted tree with the knowledge that it will kill him, in order to save something of greater value to him than his life.

And... well, if you are referencing/inspired by that, it might be a good idea to note something of the sort in your disclaimer. We recently read the account of the Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle, and not noting that she'd taken whole heaps of quotes from other sources was one of the catalysts for that. Kaitlyn says that she had a whole file of Cassie Claire quotes saved - with no knowledge at the time that most of them weren't hers.

You're no Cassie Claire (thank the stars!), and the Sequoia's scene is very powerful in its own right, even without knowing the (possible) inspiration. But if you've done a similar thing in other places, it would be nice to know about it.

Okay, enough twitchy!hS. I liked 'Don't like, don't eat'! I also thought you did very well with the attack, but also with the little things: lines like 'She was not one of the lucky ones.' are very powerful, because you're evoking the common idea that 'The ones who died were the lucky ones' without actually saying it - because it doesn't need saying, because your audience already knows that.

And that ending... very well-paced, very suitably disastrous. Like I said - I'm impressed! And the little details (such as the perpetual watermill) keep on coming, even when the plot speeds up. So all in all - well done, and I can't wait to see the next part.

hS

(PS: Once The Trousers of Time, Triple Prime and Catastrophe Theory have more written about them, I think we definitely need a non-canonical collision of all the different time-travellers and their associates... ~hS)