Dire Straits (fanfic)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Dire Straits is a Robotech fanfic written, in first person point of view, by Michael2, about a soldier serving as a hovertank pilot during the Robotech Masters saga.

Tropes used in Dire Straits (fanfic) include:
  • Ace Pilot: Nina although not ace enough to avoid getting killed.
    • Shelby Porter is this as well.
  • Action Girl: Rebekah Avital and Nina Washington.
  • Alien Invasion
  • Big Brother Mentor: Lupon Kravshera is this to his subordinate officers. Avital is a Big Sister Mentor to the enlistees under Jack's command, and the enlistees of the battalion as a whole after her promotion to master sergeant.
    • Tomas Cabon was this to the enlistees of the battalion until he was killed in combat.
  • Character Development: The protagonist gets this, as his experiences in the war clearly changed him. Those changes were noticeable when he came home to Jamaica for Christmas vacation.
    • Jack Emerson gets this too, as he was simply an officer who was initially Only in It For the Money while wanting to be a rap star, and later developed as a leader, especially after he took command of the battalion when Lupon Kravshera was injured.
  • Colonel Badass: Lupon Kravshera
  • Composite Character: Jack is a composite of Bowie Grant and Dana Sterling, and after some Character Development, Lisa Hayes as well.
    • Kravshera is a composite of his Macross namesake and Henry Gloval.
  • Corrupt Bureaucrats: They looted the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, likely dooming Earth's efforts at recovery and preparation for the Invid invasion.
  • Earth Is a Battlefield
  • Elsewhere Fic
  • Expy: Mike is this to Dana Sterling.
    • Rebekah Avital is this to Lisa Hayes.
  • External Retcon: Jack led the battalion to infiltrate one of the Masters' ships and retrieved samples of the Flower of Life. Later, Kravshera tried to burn down the flowers growing in the SDF-1 ruins.
    • The Corrupt Bureaucrat example above also counts as this.
    • The navy of the United Nations is known as the Ocean Patrol.
    • The protoculture matrix the SDF-3 had in the Shadow Chronicles was the same one featured in this story.
  • Fan Verse: This fic is in the same one as Scoop, Valkyrie Nights, Spreading Their Wings, and Another New World.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Anyone who watched the Robotech Masters saga would know that Kravshera's attempt to burn down the Flower of Life would fail due to Zor Prime crashing a mothership onto the site.
    • Also what would happen to Jack's father.
  • Invisible President: Averted, as the protagonist sees the United Nations Secretary General in news broadcasts.
  • Military Brat: Jack and Nina were these.
  • No Name Given: the protagonist/narrator
    • Also the successors of the Ruling Triumvirate of the Robotech Masters, who are known only by the color of the dresses that they wear.
  • Number Two: Jack, to Kravshera, after his promotion to major.
    • Mike was this to Jack until Jack's promotion.
    • Related to the sub note above, the protagonist is this to Mike after Jack is promoted.
  • Original Character: the fic focuses on original characters, though they meet the canon characters at various points in the story.
  • Only in It For the Money: most of the servicemen in the United Earth Forces fit this trope. This is plainly demonstrated when after their paychecks bounce due to corrupt officials looting the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, most of them desert.
    • Jack was this, initially.
  • Put on a Bus: This happens to Melissa Sharp when she is transferred to Tirol after the protagonist is captured by the Robotech Masters.
    • Mike boards the bus when he deserts after his paycheck bounces.
    • The protagonist himself is put on a bus when he is captured by the Robotech Masters during their attack on Casablanca.
  • Senseless Sacrifice: Supreme Commander Leonard sends a massive attack force against the Robotech Masters, which fails spectacularly. Nina was among those who were killed.
  • Sergeant Rock: Avital
  • Shell-Shock Silence: The scene where the protagonist rescues Kravshera.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: the protagonist becomes this.
    • Lupon's father-in-law is this.
  • Shown Their Work: the descriptions of the geography of the western Mediterranean Sea and Jamaica are accurate, as are the descriptions of Jamaican cuisine.
  • Shout-Out: several to both the canon material as well as the author's other Robotech fanfics.
    • Angus Beckett, a general who appears in this story, was a prominent character in Scoop and Valkyrie Nights.
    • Mike is from a colony on Planet Glorie. Glorie was the name of the planet where Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross took place.
      • In addition, Mike mentions reptile people living on his planet. This is a reference to the planet visited in Another New World.
    • Michael Meyers Enough written
    • One of the main characters, Jack, is the son of General Rolf Emerson. In Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross the son of Emerson's counterpart was Bowie's counterpart.
    • the protagonist/narrator is unnamed, just like the protagonist/narrator in Scoop
    • Lupon Kravshera's surname and physical description is taken from Quamzin Kravshera, an antagonist from Super Dimensional Fortress Macross.
    • Glenn La Belle is the same person who had been born on the SDF-1 in Scoop
      • In the story, he gets married, and happens to share a surname with a certain New Generation character who would have been born around the time of the Robotech Masters saga. Coincidence?
    • After the mission to infiltrate an enemy mothership, the ship U.E.S. Henry J. Gloval picked up the protagonist and some of the other soldiers after they were rescued after they were sucked out into space.
    • Isamu Shirogane was named after two of the pilots in Beast King Golion. He suffers the fate of his last namesake.
    • The Robotech Masters capture Earth residents and use them to pilot bioroids. The same thing happened with the Zor using captured Glorie citizens in their mecha.
  • Space Is Noisy: Averted when the protagonist is sucked out of an enemy mothership he infiltrated after an explosion breached the hull.
    • Justified whenever the protagonist rides in a transport ship, as the rocket engines are noisy, and anything that hits the ship (and does not destroy it) would generate sound within the ship.
  • Spanner in the Works: After the war, the United Nations made a deal with the Robotech Masters, now under new leadership, to rebuild the Earth and prepare for the Invid invasion. But the new U.N. Secretary General and some Corrupt Bureaucrats loot the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, thus depriving the world of the money needed for reconstruction, and providing incentive for many UEF servicemen to desert. Furthermore, the member nation-states fail to send enough delegates to reconvene the General Assembly, further hampering Earth's preparation for the Invid invasion.
  • Tear Jerker: The memorial service for Tomas Cabon.
  • The General's Daughter: Nina, whose father is a general and Chief of Staff of the Air Force, later Acting Supreme Commander after Anatole Leonard is killed. Jack never mentions to the protagonist any problems her father might have had with their relationship. It does not last long due to Nina getting killed in combat.
  • Transforming Mecha
  • The Captain: Jack to his troop, even though the name of his rank is first lieutenant. Then he is promoted to major.
  • You Are in Command Now: This happens to Jack after Kravshera is injured in battle. Kravshera recovers much later.
    • the protagonist takes command of the team after Mike ends up in the infirmary. Mike gets better pretty quickly, so the protagonist does not have command for long.
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