Sailor Moon Expanded

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Sailor Moon Expanded (aka SME) was an impressive Fan Verse project from the 1990s. The writings of twenty authors were combined with the goal of adding new and entertaining characters, stories, and information to the Sailor Moon universe without contradicting established Canon (as defined by the original animated series). In many instances, particularly in the works of Mark Latus, the expanded material is more interesting and concise than the original source. Its stories ranged from before the fall of the Silver Millennium to the Crystal Tokyo era.

It demonstrates a few idiosyncrasies that can be linked to the era it was written in, a few of which resulted in some of the most inspired writing in the series. For instance, while the writers knew the basic outline of the early Sailor V manga (not to be confused with the later Adaptation Expansion, Codename: Sailor V), they had precious few details and created their own villain for Sailor V to have fought -- Calcite, the human-appearing youma leader, who turned out to be not nearly as evil as he appeared, and the leader of the Dark Kingdom Renegades.

There are multiple story arcs in SME. A few of the more prominent:

1. The Dark Kingdom Renegades - Arguably one of the "anchors" of the project, this arc tells the story of four Ambiguously Human youma who avert the Exclusively Evil trope for their people, how they escape the destruction of the Dark Kingdom at the end of season one of Sailor Moon, and their adventures afterward. Among its major works is Thy Kingdom Come, in which the Renegades find a parallel Earth where their counterparts were just a bit more pragmatic and bit more ruthless, and ended up ruling over humanity as a result.
   1. Bogosity - A less-serious subseries spawned out from the discovery of interdimensional travel, in which the Renegades visit the timelines of various other anime.
2. An American Wizard in Queen Beryl's Court: Two years before the start of the anime, an overconfident young wizard tries to break the seals that bind and stopper the Earth's magic supply, and ends up instead catapulted into the Dark Kingdom.
3. Magnesite - The adventures of a former youma general with a coincidental resemblance to Humphrey Bogart, who tries to live the life of a hardboiled Film Noir private investigator in the utopian Crystal Tokyo era, where people generally don't have a need for P.I.s, hardboiled or not.
4. Trenchcoat Mask - The adventures of Robert Davis, English teacher and reincarnation of Captain Ferrite of the Silver Millennium.
5. The Dark War - A new "season" with new enemies for the Senshi to face.
6. Tales of the Senshi/Tales of the Young Senshi - Short stories focusing on the various members of the Senshi and their successors.
7. Tales of Crystal Tokyo - A collection of stand-alone stories by several of the authors about life in the far-flung era of Crystal Tokyo
8. The Wind Walker Chronicles - In which a time traveler finds himself stranded in the Golden Millennium and handed power he has no clue how to use.

This list covers maybe half the stories in the project.

There is, of course, some overlap between these series. In particular, the Dark Kingdom Renegades are prominent personages, especially in the Crystal Tokyo era, and are inevitably visible even in series where they may not play a major part.

The Sailor Moon Expanded project is sadly long dead. Amazingly, a copy of the home page for the Verse remained alive for nearly twenty years after the last update to any of its stories, but it finally vanished at some point before the start of 2021; fortunately a Wayback Machine archive of the site can be found here. Its fanfic section is organized by author (listed in a narrow column along the left edge of the page) and is hard to navigate. There is also an artwork gallery supporting the stories.

An archive of SME stories can also be found on eyrie.org if you'd rather not navigate idiosyncratic Web 1.0 site design, but may not include everything.

Tropes used in Sailor Moon Expanded include:

• Alien Blood: Youma bleed turquoise.
• Alien Lunch: In the Crystal Tokyo era, humanoid youma Titanite (aka "Sailor Polaris") runs a restaurant that specializes in the cuisine of the Dark Kingdom. (Which is based around various alien fungi and arthropods, very heavily spiced.) While originally intended as a "home cooking" place for the few other survivors of the Dark Kingdom, it unexpectedly becomes popular with humans, mainly because of the bragging rights earned from eating food even Klingons might hesitate to consume.
• Alternate Universe: The Dark Kingdom Renegades discover how to travel to various parallel worlds, including a Mirror Universe and the world of the original Bubblegum Crisis.
  • SME is itself an alternate universe to the original Sailor Moon anime, despite its goal to provide stories that were "out of sight of the camera"; this was because, knowing nothing of the plot details of Codename: Sailor V, an original villain was created for Sailor V to fight in England instead of Danburite... and who turned out to be far less of a villain than he appeared.
• Ambiguously Human: "Humanic" (human mimic) youma, who externally appear completely human. They are an incredibly tiny minority among the typically monstrous and demonic youma. And, it is strongly implied later in the stories, usually the illegitimate or disavowed offspring of one of Beryl's generals.
• Anti-Villain: Margrave.
  • Calcite, during his days opposing Sailor V in England.
• Badass Longcoat: Trenchcoat Mask.
• Battle Couple: Calcite and Sailor Venus in the Crystal Tokyo era, depending on what phase of their cyclic relationship they're in (they periodically break up and get back together over the centuries).
• Break the Cutie: Reluctantly done to the Mirror Universe version of Titanite by the other Renegades because she was too young to understand the need to keep up the Masquerade they needed to maintain just to survive. To save themselves they broke the mind of an innocent, loving girl and turned her into a Complete Monster.
• Cat Girl: Margrave, a morally ambiguous felinoid youma who managed to survive the fall of the Dark Kingdom.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: In the Crystal Tokyo era, the undeniable power of the True Senshi engenders a degree of belief in sailor-suited supergirls that actually boosts the power of the Lesser Senshi -- any super-powered girl who puts on a Sailor Fuku and calls herself "Sailor something".
• Coat, Hat, Mask: Trenchcoat Mask.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: The 'verse has two examples of this trope:
  • Magnesite, a general from the Dark Kingdom created in the setting, becomes so enamored of Humphrey Bogart movies (due to his coincidental resemblance to the actor) that when he is imprisoned he keeps reviewing them in his mind to avoid death by boredom. The result several hundred years later is a person who uncontrollably acts like Bogey, spending his (unlife) trying to bring private detective work and noir to sparkling-white Crystal Tokyo. His trenchcoat is his trademark, something all the Senshi know.
  • Ferrite is a cursed human from the Silver Millennium who keeps being reincarnated throughout history until he finally meets up with the Sailors in the 20th century. His former Guardian powers change into a trenchcoat with infinite pockets, the ability to throw yellow roses from the trenchcoat similar to Tuxedo Mask, and he uses an ancient blunderbuss that can kill with one shot. Ferrite's alter ego calls himself Trenchcoat Mask in the modern day.
• Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: In the Crystal Tokyo era, some of the Lesser Senshi serve corporations.
• Curb Stomp Battle: From the incomplete side story Zeon Genesis Bogosity, Titanite/Sailor Polaris smashing Matariel, the ninth Angel with a giant Hyperspace Mallet. For Bonus Points, she does it while Teleport Spamming to keep it from targeting her, while chanting:

"Brightness beyond dawn, Turquoise beyond blood that flows, Servant of the Eternal City, In Serenity's name, I pledge myself to the light. All the evil that threatens earth will be punished By the power of the Senshi. MALLET SLAVE!

One hit, and it's flattened.

• Dark Fic: While overall the project is intended to match the generally light-hearted tone of the Sailor Moon anime, some installments, such as Thy Kingdom Come do venture into dark fic territory.
• Dead Fic: The project as a whole, which petered out circa 2002 with no real proper conclusion.
  • Some individual stories within the project were also never finished, such as Zeon Genesis Bogosity, which only exists in a partially-written form with fragmentary notes outlining the majority of its plot.
• Defector From Decadence: The Dark Kingdom Renegades.
• Dimensional Traveler: The Dark Kingdom Renegades and various hangers-on, starting with the events of Thy Kingdom Come. Eventually various members begin popping around the multiverse in a mixture of exploration and tourism
• Exclusively Evil: Subverted. The youma of the Dark Kingdom initially appeared this way, but as stories were written it became clear that there were clear gradations of "evilness" among them, from Complete Monsters to some whose "evil" was more an Informed Attribute than anything else. And then there were the "sports" like the Dark Kingdom Renegades, who were born with a more human sense of morality.
• Expanded Universe: A rare fan-driven and fan-written example.
• Fan Verse: One of the very first and a prime example.
• Fan Girl: Titanite is a serious anime and Sailor Senshi fan girl. To the point that she made herself a senshi uniform, called herself "Sailor Polaris", and used mallet-based attacks.
• Fisher Kingdom: When the Dark Kingdom Renegades begin exploring other universes, they discover that there is an "adaptation effect" which forces extraplanar visitors to take on the characteristics of an existing native of that universe, usually one who is already similar to the visitor in some way.
• For Want of a Nail: The differences between the Dark Kingdom Renegades and their counterparts from the parallel Earth found in Thy Kingdom Come were were initially very small -- a little more pragmatism, a little bit more ruthless -- but they led to Calcite absorbing the power of Metallia, Titanite becoming a vicious, spoiled little Evil Overlord, and the Renegades ruling over both Earth and the Dark Kingdom.
• Genre Savvy: In Zeon Genesis Bogosity, during their first meeting Titanite points out to Misato Katsuragi how much like a giant robot anime the Neon Genesis Evangelion world is:

Ti spread her hands disarmingly. "Come on, you have to admit this is classic stuff. You've got giant robots fighting evil alien invaders. All it needs to complete the setup is for the robots to be operated by plucky kids and built by the mad scientist father or uncle of one of them. Or he's got a cute daughter and all the pilots have a crush on her." Misato blinked again and hesitantly muttered, "Uhm ... that's also classified."

She also immediately susses out that the Angels are clearly after something in Tokyo-3. Although she immediately seems to dismiss it, she later investigates "the thing in the basement".

• Half-Identical Twins: Calcite and Titanite, despite Titanite apparently being five or more years Calcite's junior. It was revealed late in the Dark Kingdom Renegades series that the two were born twins, but their youma mother put the infant Titanite into Suspended Animation until Calcite was old enough to look after her himself.
• Hammerspace: Called "pocketspace" in-universe.
• Hyperspace Mallet: Humanoid youma anime fan Titanite figures out how to use her psychoplasm powers to create and dismiss mallets as needed.
• I Come in Peace: When Misato Katsuragi refuses to believe Titanite has come from a universe full of Magical Girls, Titanite nods and says,

"In that case I'm an emissary from the planet Sailor which orbits the star you call Polaris. Greetings earthling, I come in peace."

• Legacy Hero: In Zeon Genesis Bogosity, set during the Crystal Tokyo era, Titanite offhandedly mentions that it's become a tradition for an Extraordinarily Empowered Girl of any stripe to put on a Sailor Fuku, call herself "Sailor something" and use her abilities for the public good.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: It's eventually revealed that Calcite and Titanite's father is Nephrite.^{[please verify]} It's not too traumatic, because by that point he's long dead.
• Magitek: Called both "magsci" and "technomagic" in-universe.
• Mega Crossover: SME is part of a much larger continuum of stories laid out in this image.
  • Justified (well, as justified as such a thing can be in the fanfic industry): a method of trans-dimensional travel allows characters from the Sailor Moon universe to travel to other dimensions on the conceit that every anime and manga ever produced has its own separate universe. The various Dark Kingdom Renegades seemed to run into this quite often in their early years on Earth, having traveled to the worlds for Bubblegum Crisis and Ranma ½ just for starters, and later to Urotsukidouji (aka Legend of the Overfiend), where Titanite encountered said Overfiend. With her disguise device set to her Sailor uniform... and broken. Thankfully, the author managed to avoid following the obvious to its conclusion in a manner most awesome. And in an unfinished story, Titanite finds herself in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and unfamiliar with the series, tries to understand it in terms of the classic Humongous Mecha shows she's seen in the past.
  • To make things doubly interesting, the laws of these various dimensions seem to apply themselves to trans-dimensional visitors over time. Thus, in the Ranmaverse, Calcite takes on the mannerisms of a wizened martial arts master, and felinoid Margrave becomes even more catgirlish than usual. The Renegades use this to their advantage; as long as they remain in the Sailor Moon universe and work on behalf of the forces of good, they are nigh indestructible.
• Meta Fic: SME has a series of stories which deal with the everyday lives of the various characters. They operate with the conceit that all of the characters, original and fan created, are actors on a vast movie set, with the various authors as the directors. This would lead to a number of instances where segments of "actual" stories would be transcribed, only to veer off-track when a completely unrelated character wanders "on screen" with some actor-related grievance.
  • Of particular hilariousness was an instance where the author of a long-running-but-never-quite-finished story was kidnapped by his own characters and locked in a room with a supply of MREs, a chemical toilet, and a computer, there to remain until he finally finished the story. Though he was prematurely released by the impact of an asteroid soundstage belonging to a newly arriving author, the story was eventually completed.
• Mirror Universe: One of the first universes the Dark Kingdom Renegades discover when they first begin exploring parallel worlds is one where their counterparts led the Dark Kingdom to victory over the Earth. Subverted in that most of their counterparts aren't "evil reflections" -- they were simply a little more pragmatic and a little more desperate to save themselves, and thus were willing to take slightly more extreme measures than the DKR had felt comfortable taking in their universe. The only one of their counterparts who was actually evil was their Titanite -- and that was because she had been too young to maintain the Masquerade that kept them alive, and the others had been reluctantly forced to break her mind and turn her evil for real.
• Multiverse: SME‍'‍s Earth is just one timeline in a vast number of parallel worlds, most if not all of which are mutually fictional.
• Next Gen Fic: "The Young Senshi", successors to the canon Senshi who get their own story collection.
• Post-Industrial Stasis: In the Crystal Tokyo era, there is a general perception that technological development essentially stagnated after the period known as "The Great Darkness". This is in fact a misconception, but it has slowed considerably, and in some cases magic or technomagic provides easier solutions to specific problems that do not provide additional payoffs the way scientific solutions often do.
• Private Eye Monologue: Magnesite lives to embody this trope. While a mid-ranking baron in the Dark Kingdom, he had his agents bring him earth video equipment so that he could watch old videos of Humphrey Bogart, to whom he bears a remarkable resemblance. He was eventually trapped in a crystal prison by the Sailor Senshi and his former subordinate Calcite, and the only way for him to pass the time for the next 800 years was to replay every Bogart movie he's ever seen. Line by line, scene by scene, from memory. After he is released and placed on parole by Neo-Queen Serenity, he seeks employment in his idol's footsteps as a seedy detective. Unfortunately, Crystal Tokyo is a utopia, which clashes with his desired dingy atmosphere. In addition, because of his prolonged confinement and means of passing the time, he constantly thinks to himself in terms of the Private Eye Monologue. Sometimes, though, in accordance with the Rule of Funny, he will accidentally monologue out loud; usually when the "dizzy dame with legs that could wrap around my waist with room to spare" standing in front of him is a Senshi looking for a reason to inflict harm.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: The Mirror Universe versions of the Dark Kingdom Renegades.
• Teleport Spam: As an adult Titanite can easily make use of this tactic when needed.