Arenas

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"As long as man has been, and before man, there has been other species in space, struggling to overrule the other. One race, however, is not interested in it's power to rule, but instead it's lust to see who is deserving, or rather to spectate the elite veteran species in the games of the gladiators. The testing grounds are known as the Arenas."
"Every gladiator is a force captured to kill. All you must ask yourself, which one are you?"
Opening text of some episodes.

Arenas is a video Fanfic series based on the Idverse, especially in Quake III Arena, created by Tritin Multimedia, and directed by Joe Goss, in 2008. It follows the story of Doom, the character, although not in his classic Space Marine suit, as he's selected by the Vadrigar and taken to the Quake tournament.

The characters appearing in this series are Doom, Ranger, Grunt, Mynx, Sarge, Visor, Gorre and Xaero.

The episodes can be watched here.

There are currently plans for a second season.

Tropes used in Arenas include:
  • Action Girl: Mynx.
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • The introduction of both Ranger and Grunt, in "Warriors of Slipgate". There's no Doom in here.
    • Also, the story of Sarge. In "Last Stand", Doom and Visor are talking about him in the resting area, while Sarge's regenerating. Cue flashback scenes about Sarge and Visor's previous fights in the Human-Strogg war.
  • Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Ranger gives his teleporting amulet to Doom in "The Amulet", so he can use teleportation. He explains that it's done from the same technology the Vadrigar used for their teleporters.
  • An Axe to Grind: Ranger pulls out his axe in order to defeat Grunt in both parts of "Warriors of Slipgate".
  • Ascended Extra: Pretty much the entirety of the cast, which in the source, were just selectable characters for the player.
  • Ascended Fanfic:
    • The mods Defrag and Clan Arena have their own episodes in both "DeFrag" and "The Amulet".
    • The third-party map Wicked gets two episodes in the limelight in both "Scrimmage" and "The Amulet".
  • A-Team Firing: Doom wastes a lot of ammunition. Few shots actually hit the opponent. Case in point: "Doom's Deathmatch Birth", his first frag against Visor.
  • Big Bad: The Vadrigar, the Final Boss from the PlayStation 2 version of Q3A.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Sarge appears to save Doom in "Worthy".
    • In "REBELLION!", Doom uses Ranger's rune to go to the operations area of the Vadrigar. Then, he summons each one of the warriors. When they can't defeat the Vadrigar, Doom goes again to said room and summons Gorre, who takes care of the Vadrigar. Cue the Sequel Hook.
  • Chainsaw Good: Doom uses one in "Chosen By The Vadrigar". And, of course, there's the Gauntlet.
  • Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Visor as both him and as Gorre, justified as he's a Strogg.
  • Death Is Not Permanent
  • Demonic Possession: In "Chosen By The Vadrigar", after Doom's rescue, he gets to hear the plans of his superiors, his eyes turns red and he rebels. It seems like something possessed him. Which thing? We don't know.
  • The Faceless: Visor as both him and as Gorre.
  • Flipping the Bird: From Doom to his superior in "Chosen By The Vadrigar".
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Doom, frequently.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: Visor eats the dust off-screen after being defeated by Xaero. He's later turned into Gorre.
  • Gun Fu
  • Lights Off, Somebody Dies: In the beginning of "Chosen By The Vadrigar", Doom is watching a movie, then the lights goes off and many of his companions bite the dust.
  • Mythology Gag: Considering the Idverse as a whole, there're plenty of these:
    • Some shots can be teleported and the jumppads can send the projectiles up, as a nod to Quake IV's multiplayer, which allows this.
    • The final part of Sarge's flashback in "Last Stand" is a throwback to the intro cutscene of Quake III Arena, where Sarge is decimating thousands of monsters with his chaingun.
    • The aftermath of the match between Doom and Xaero in "REBELLION!" it's a throwback to the ending of the same game.
    • The amulet Ranger gives to Doom in "The Amulet" has the shape of the Quake logo.
    • At one point in "Chosen by the Vadrigar", Doom accesses a computer screen to see how many things came through the teleporter. Upon viewing the data for Phobos, the map screen that appears between levels in episode 1 of Doom shows up on the screen.
  • Neck Lift: Xaero in "DeFrag" and Gorre in "Worthy" both of them does this to Doom.
  • Nostalgia Level: "Chosen By The Vadrigar" takes place in a remixed version of the first map of Doom. Fans of the game may recognize many stages, aside of those which came with the game itself:
    • "Doom's Deathmatch Birth" takes place in Temple of Retribution. (q3dm7)
    • "No Backing Down" takes place in Proving Grounds. (q3tourney2)
    • "Warriors of Slipgate" (both parts) takes place in The Longest Yard. (q3dm17)
    • "Scrimmage" takes place in Wicked. (q3jdm8)
    • "REBELLION!" takes place in The Camping Grounds. (q3dm6)
  • Oh Crap: The first Cacodemon in "Chosen by the Vadrigar"'s green eye opens as far as it can upon hearing Doom revving the chainsaw. Hard to think a demon which is basically just a red ball of flesh would be capable of expressing this, but it does.
  • Quad Damage
  • Rocket Jump: As a Quake-inspired Fanfic, this was expected. At least one warrior do this in each episode, outside of "Chosen By The Vadrigar" and "Last Stand", for obvious reasons.
  • Schedule Slip: "REBELLION!" was going to be uploaded in May 1st. 2009. It ended up showing almost two months later.
  • Sequel Hook:

Vadrigar: You may have me pissed now, but our war hasn't even started. You may end me, but they won't kill me.

  • The Smurfette Principle: Mynx is the only woman in the first season.
  • SNK Boss: A rare non-videogame example played in-universe. Xaero can teleport while the other warriors can't, and has even more stamina and strength than any of the other warriors.
  • Take My Hand: In "No Backing Down", before Sarge falls to the pit, Doom takes his hand. By virtue of the Demonic Possession, he later releases his hand, with Sarge falling to the pit.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: Doom, most of the time.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Doom's companions in the pilot episode.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Although the hand-to-hand combat seems out of place in a fanfic based on an old-school First-Person Shooter, there're plenty of moments where the warriors do throws and holds to their opponents.