Legion's Quest

Legion's Quest by Edward Anthony "Ed" Becerra is one of the classic Self-Insert Fics of the 1990s and (just barely) early 2000s. Inspired by Darren "Twister" Steffler and his Twisted Path fanfic series, Becerra dispatched his own Author Avatar into the Multiverse, although with a somewhat darker underpinning and execution.

After years of less-than-pleasant medical investigation at the hands of military doctors because of a set of mental and physical problems for which he was the very first patient diagnosed, American veteran Edward Anthony Becerra volunteered for what he hoped would be the last experiment he would have to undergo. Unfortunately the experiment -- an investigation into the possibility of Alternate Universes (in which it was hoped that Becerra's existing schizoid condition would give him an advantage in surviving) -- went catastrophically wrong: Becerra was catapulted into the multiverse and "smeared" across all his counterparts in an infinity of timelines. He retained his individuality, but his very existence became intertwined with all his alternates -- he could draw an infinitesimal amount of strength, endurance and other qualities from each of his infinite counterparts, and any harm he suffered was distributed in equal share to all of them, in quantities so small as to be practically non-existent. The result was a human being who was incredibly strong and Nigh Invulnerable -- who could also draw on the knowledge, skills and powers of any of his alternate selves.

Rescued from the void by his distant ancestor, the Native American god known as Coyote, Becerra renamed himself "Legion" -- "for we are many" -- and began a quest to master the near-infinite power he was capable of wielding before he dared return to his home timeline. Guided somewhat capriciously (first by Coyote and then later by a chaotically magical augmentation to his navigation systems), he travels from world to world in the Calypso, a refitted Klingon battle cruiser with a Burroughs Irrelevancy Drive operated by Minerva, an AI modeled partly on Elvira.

Of course, a newly-born godling is hard to ignore, and Legion quickly gains the attention of other powerful beings -- such as the Q Continuum and the Oans -- who either want to co-opt or destroy him for the threat he potentially poses. Until he gains the skill and strength to face them down and emerge victorious, though, he dares not risk returning to his home timeline; until then, he roams the universes gathering equipment, knowledge and experience he desperately needs to grow in strength. Along the way he makes friends and allies -- but at the same time must deal with both triumphs and tragedies, and face the loneliness that his quest brings with it.

The known installments of Legion's Quest, most of which can still be found on the Web, are:


 * 1) "Intro" (short; not so much a story as a character sketch, and rendered somewhat obsolete by later story developments)
 * 2) Legion's Quest (AKA Legion's Quest 1)
 * 3) Tanks For The Memories (AKA Legion's Quest 2)
 * 4) Just a Dream (no copy apparently survives online; presumably it is a short like its follow-up Just Another Dream below)
 * 5) Tangled Skeins, in which Legion finds himself in the Bubblegum Crisis timeline from the fanfic Twisted Path.  (Also here.)
 * 6) Time and Again (another installment set in the Twisted Path BGC universe.  (Also here.)
 * 7) In Dangerous Ground (yet another installment set in the Twisted Path BGC universe, no longer available on line)
 * 8) Mi Vida Loco, set in a Dirty Pair timeline.
 * 9) "Just Another Dream" (short)

(The intro and first three chapters can also be found in the rec.arts.anime.creative archives mirror at eyrie.org.)

Besides these, Becerra has posted an uncounted number of vignettes and orphaned scenes in numerous fan venues over the years, most of which have been lost or forgotten.

The primary works drawn upon in the surviving material from Legion's Quest include:
 * BattleTech
 * Bubblegum Crisis
 * Dirty Pair
 * Dominion Tank Police
 * Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
 * Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast

Works that are referenced but not directly seen in the extant material include:
 * Alien
 * Babylon 5
 * Marvel Comics
 * Star Trek: The Original Series
 * Vorkosigan Saga

Additionally, Legion's Quest contains metafictional crosslinks to the following works of fanfiction:
 * The Bubblegum Zone
 * Drunkard's Walk
 * Otaku Rising
 * Sailor Moon: American Kitsune
 * Sailor Moon Expanded
 * Twisted Path
 * Undocumented Features (Unofficially. Becerra wrote a segment taking place in the UF-verse without consulting Eyrie Productions, Unlimited, which as a rule declines inter-fanfic crossovers; the segment is officially disavowed by Eyrie and is not considered UF "canon".)

Legion's Quest is also the (accidental) hub of a much larger metafictional continuum mapped out in this image.

In-Universe works (which are not Fictional Documents) that affect the story in some way:
 * Bubblegum Pink: Raging Fires


 * Artificial Intelligence: Minerva, the computer controlling his starship, the Calypso, at least before her physical embodiment in an organic body.
 * Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Legion manages this -- somewhat unexpectedly -- when caught in a fusion reactor breach in TP3.  Coyote helps him descend again, as he's not yet ready for that level of existence.
 * Author Avatar: Legion, for Becerra.


 * Because Destiny Says So: Coyote reveals that "Dr. Smith"'s experiment was not responsible for Legion's origin, it merely facilitated Ed's destiny.
 * Burger Fool: Upon his arrival in the not-officially-UF world, Ed suggests that his only way to make money to pay his medical bills there would be in a 25th-century equivalent of a fast food restaurant.


 * Darker and Edgier: The stories of Legion's Quest tend to be notably darker in tone than most other wide-ranging self-inserts, although not by much, and it did get lighter when it intersected with works like Twisted Path.
 * Dead Fic: While the beginnings of many installments exist, few are complete, and Becerra seems to have given up on completing the story cycle even though as of 2021 he's still active in various fandoms.
 * Deadpan Snarker: The few times we see him, Coyote comes across this way.
 * Does Not Know His Own Strength: Legion initially has problems controlling his strength and judging how much to use.


 * Eagle Land: "Dr. Smith" from Legion's Quest 1 seems to be of the variety of patriot who embodies flavor 2 while wrapping himself in the trappings of flavor 1.
 * Either-Or Title: Legion's Quest 1 demonstrates an unusual variation in that the chapters don't have proper names, just numbers, but do have alternate subtitles.  For example "Chapter 2 (or, Hey, Which Way is Up?!  And Why Am I Upside-down?)".
 * Evil Gloating: Ed calls it "Villain's Rule No. 1" in Legion's Quest 1, and encourages "Dr. Smith" to indulge in an attempt to distract him while trying to escape the experiment he's walked into.
 * Eyes of Gold: Legion's eyes are normally brown, but they turn gold when he accesses extreme levels of power.


 * Freak Lab Accident: Legion unwittingly volunteered to be the subject of a military experiment into the nature of serial time and the possibility of parallel timelines.  There was an accident which destroyed the lab and everything in it -- except for Legion, who was ejected from his home timeline and into another while being "smeared" across every one of his counterparts in an infinity of universes.
 * Functional Magic: A fact of nature in the setting.  Legion is technically able to use magic, by drawing on the experience and knowledge of his alternates who are mages, but Coyote restricted that ability to Ed's alternate personality "Kickaha".
 * Future Me Annoys Me: Legion occasionally finds items in Minerva's archives were locked against his access by his future self, such as everything written by Darren Steffler beyond the third Twisted Path story when he arrives in the TP!BGC-verse.


 * Genre Savvy: Ed even before he becomes Legion.  And after, his power level lets him be Dangerously Genre Savvy when it's needed.


 * Half-Human Hybrid: Legion is apparently a very distant descendant of the trickster god Coyote.  It's not enough to actually make him only half human, but it's enough to qualify him for an ascension to godhood should he meet certain conditions.
 * The Homeward Journey: Played with.  Legion has the ability to return home at any time -- but he doesn't dare do so as long as he still is pursued by the powerful beings who want to kill or collect him, for fear of the subsequent conflict devastating his native Earth.


 * I Am Legion: Averted.  Legion is only one man, with one (more or less) personality.  He takes the name to reference the infinite others who contribute to his personal power, not to suggest that he is them.
 * I Have Many Names: The introduction lists "Red Jack", "Jack O'Shadows", "Boris", "Coyote", "Johnny Zed", "Kickaha", and "Stalnovik" as his aliases; we actually get to see a couple of these (and a few more) in the existing material.
 * Interdimensional Travel Device: The Burroughs Irrelevancy Drive initially installed in the Calypso.  Later, a powerful magic user "modifies" it.


 * Mad Scientist: Legion's descriptions of the pseudonymous doctor behind that final experiment paint him very much as one.
 * Magical Native American: There's an element of this in Legion, who is part Native American and has the personal attention of his distant ancestor, Coyote.
 * Medium Awareness: Legion and Minerva are aware that any universe they visit is likely to be one described in a fictional work with which they are familiar.  (It's a known quirk of the Burroughs Irrelevancy Drive.)  They have on occasion made use of knowledge acquired from a fanfic to get an advantage in such a world just as they exploit their knowledge of the original source works.  Legion has been known to describe visiting such a world as "falling into someone's fanfic".
 * Mega Crossover
 * Multiverse: Legion is traveling from universe to universe with the intent of gaining control over his abilities, and growing in strength and skill until he can defeat a collection of god-level threats who seek to co-opt or kill him because of the potential threat he poses to them.


 * Nice Hat: An expensive Stetson which survived the experiment with him in Legion's Quest 1.
 * Nigh Invulnerability: Any damage Legion would suffer from an attack or accident is instead spread out to and shared by all his counterparts across an infinity of universes, reducing it to basically nothing -- for both him and them.


 * Oh Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us: In Tangled Skeins, Legion provides the Knight Sabers (or, rather, Sylia) with a complete archive of BGC fanfiction (including, unintentionally, Lemons), with... interesting results.
 * Older Than They Look: Due to various factors related to his empowerment and journey between universes, Legion is effectively immortal and unaging.  After his transformation he appeared approximately twenty years old, and except for some premature graying at the temples appears no older than his late 30s after centuries of travel.


 * Pardon My Klingon: Literally.  Legion occasionally swears in tlhIngan Hol.


 * Readings Are Off the Scale: The closest trope to what happens to devices and powers that try to detect anything more about Legion than his height and weight and that he reflects light -- he simply fails to register at all.
 * Recursive Reality: Legion is aware of Transfictionality and that he is as likely as not to end up in a world hosting a setting he knews from fiction -- or fan fiction.


 * Sapient Ship: The Calypso -- or rather its AI controller, Minerva.
 * Self-Insert Fic: Carefully and skillfully walks the complicated line between playing a godlike Self Insert straight, parodying it, and subverting it.
 * Spaceship Girl: Minerva.  Originally she was just a holographic projection of the Calypso's AI, but after an intervention by Twister's far-future "Valanna Ellantora" persona she became a living biological woman while retaining control of the ship.
 * Split Personality: The introduction lists several sub-personalities he possesses due to early traumas, but they rarely if ever see expression in the (known) surviving material.
 * Stable Time Loop: Legion received the Calypso from a future version of himself.
 * Stern Chase: It doesn't really appear "on-screen" in any of the written material, but Legion mentions several times that he is being pursued by a number of god-level or godlike entities -- such as the Q Continuum and the Oans -- who either want to co-opt or destroy him.
 * Super Strength: One of Legion's abilities right from the start, tempered with a bad case of Does Not Know His Own Strength which he had to overcome.


 * That's Gotta Hurt: As the experiment which sends him into the Multiverse starts, Ed thinks, "Bet this is gonna leave a mark in the morning."
 * Trapped in Another World: Unlike most examples of this trope, Legion could return to his home timeline at any time but won't -- initially because he was afraid of his lack of control and what it might do to his home, but later to keep from leading a horde of god-level threats and Eldritch Abominations pursuing him there.  He instead travels from timeline to timeline, trying to grow strong enough to fight them off before he can even consider returning home.  (However, this is not always consistently the case through the stories; in later installments particularly he describes himself as "lost", and the staff embedded by Valanna in the deck of the ship's bridge is intended to guide him to where he needs to be.)
 * Trickster Mentor: Coyote, by definition, is a Trickster who is mentoring Legion.  His advice and guidance, while not always immediately useful, are still valuable and helpful.
 * Trophy Room: Subverted.  Legion keeps a trophy room, true, but as he tells the first visitors to ever see it, it's a gallery of his failures and mistakes.


 * Unusual Euphemism: "Jesus X. Bushmaster!"


 * Void Between the Worlds: Where Legion finds himself flung into as a result of the experiment that transforms him in the first story.


 * Wetware CPU: Minerva in later stories.
 * Who Wants to Live Forever?: Legion's not exactly happy about being immortal, but it's better than the alternative.
 * Won't Work On Me: According to Coyote, Legion is completely immune to magic and "all things".  (Which no doubt is responsible for his effective invisibility to all manner of non-visual sensors.)
 * Write What You Know: Legion's Quest exists, at least in part, to be self-prescribed therapy for Becerra's own personal issues -- something he has not hesitated to admit.
 * Write Who You Know: In addition to Elvira, Minerva is based on someone with whom Becerra had a romantic relationship, who passed away in the early 2000s.


 * Yiddish as a Second Language: When Coyote explains what has happened to him, Ed's first response is "Oy! Oy vay iz mir!"  And it's not the only time.