Nova Refuge

Nova Refuge is a science fiction universe created by Justin R. "Saber-Scorpion" Stebbins and his brother and sister. Although clearly intended to be a series, as of July 2020 only one book, entitled Warrior Born: The Legend of Saber-Scorpion, Book 1 was ever published, in 2008. A second book, to be called Saber's Edge, was supposedly to be published in 2018 but never appeared.

Nova Refuge follows the story of the survivors of a supernova which destroyed the Earth. The surviving humans found a new galaxy which they named Nova Refuge. There they found a new planet live on, which they named Terra Nova, Latin for "New Earth". The humans quickly split up into a few factions, and proceeded to wage war.

There existed at one time a website supporting the series, an archive of which can be read here. There is also an official wiki for the series, but there's been little activity there since about 2016.


 * Ace Custom - Lucas Mars' personal walker, Manegarm.
 * Author Avatar: Two of the main characters are the signature characters of Justin and Ryan Stebbins. Their sister also has a signature character in the story. Considering how they are all very high up in their respective organizations hierarchy, they occasionally come close to entering Canon Sue territory, but it never quite goes there.
 * BFG - The Manegarm's railgun
 * The Chessmaster: Lucas Mars and Roscoe O'Donnel
 * Clone Degeneration - Grimm's first attempts to clone himself resulted in a variation of this.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: The main human factions all have primary and secondary colors that are as follows:
 * Xarkon: Red and Black
 * Victory: Blue and White
 * Grimm's Army: Green and Black
 * Zygbar: Orange and Brown
 * Yavakaro: Purple and White
 * Creepy Child - The young Enomeg draftees, according to Lucas Mars.
 * Cold Sniper: Lisa Sharp and some of the Enomegs
 * Culture Clash
 * Dark Action Girl - Lisa Sharp and, to a lesser degree, Shadow-Cat and Silent-Cobra
 * Fantastic Racism - The humans utterly despise the Slashrim (lizard aliens), who are enslaved by the Mahloks (fire aliens), who despise humans as an inferior species. They all enslave and torture each other constantly.
 * The Dragon: Lucas Mars to the Emperor. Mars also has his own dragon in the aptly-named Dark Dragon of the Enomegs.
 * Dragon with an Agenda: Lucas Mars is technically this to the Emperor
 * Even Evil Has Standards: The Xarkon empire, which Word of God has specifically said "does NOT make a living out of killing people's families for no reason".
 * Built With Lego - Well, it started out as a bunch of games the Stebbins children played with their LEGO.
 * Eyepatch of Power - Eric Grimm (And all but one of his clones, incidentally)
 * Fat Bastard: Roscoe O'Donnel
 * Good Colors, Evil Colors - Xarkon's national colors are black and red. Victory's are blue and white. Guess which one's the evil empire?
 * Good Is Not Nice: Victory and Yavakaro are sometimes guilty of morally questionable/ambiguous things
 * Gray and Gray Morality: Embraced in the series. The author has gone on record as saying that no single faction in the series (except maybe the Sarran and the Mahlok) are wholly good or evil. The "Evil" factions like Xarkon have scruples and good people working for them, and by the same token Victory and Yavakaro sometimes do morally questionable things to win.
 * Humongous Mecha
 * Impaled with Extreme Prejudice
 * Katanas Are Just Better - Blade-Mantis
 * Laser Blade - Blazer swords, which are metal blades cloaked in an energy sheath.
 * Our Angels Are Different - The Sarran, a race of telepaths. Who look exactly like angels.
 * Patriotic Fervor - Everybody. Except for Grimm's Mercenaries, maybe.
 * People's Republic of Tyranny - Zygbar
 * Powered Armor: Worn by many different characters, with the Enomegs as the primary examples.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Slashrim and Dragons
 * Scam Religion: Basically how the Mahlok conquered, manipulated, and subjugated the Slashrim
 * Shout-Out: The Enomeg super-soldiers bear many similarities to the SPARTANS from Halo, not the least of which includes being drafted into the program against their will from a young age.
 * Standard Sci-Fi Army
 * Super Soldier - Every single faction. Xarkon has Enomegs, Yavakaro has Hands of the Six, Victory (had) the Immortals, even Zygbar has these guys, although slightly less super.
 * War Is Glorious: Believed by several characters, with Dark Dragon and Lucas Mars as the two primary examples. This almost seems to be the main school of thought among the Xarkon military in fact.