It is done.
For those of you have been waiting, thank you for your patience. I've worked through writer's block, the ups and downs of life and other such things and I'm happy to say I have completed Dragonoid. As you can see I've decided to start from the top, rather than just uploading the new chapters. This is because I've made some changes and updates to the old chapters, and also I feel that enough time has passed that even I need to remind myself of what exactly has been written before.
I'm sorry to everyone who has been waiting since 2010 for me to get off my butt and finish this fic. I would like to thank KaoruSailorZ over on tvtropes, who recommended Dragonoid for How to Train Your Dragon's fanfic recommendations page. It is the only recommendation I've ever received for my fanfics, and as such gave me the boost i needed to get Dragonoid done (I refused to let it be one of those fics on those pages that would be forever unfinished!).
New chapters should be released every Friday, barring unforeseen circumstances. I decided to upload this on Sunday, November 19th because...well...just look at the publishing date :). I'll also be putting Dragonoid translations at the bottom of chapters (except for this one), as well as any relevant Author's Notes I might think are owrth writing or just background stuff you might find interesting.
So, readers old and new, I hope you enjoy!
SECTION 00
PROLOGUE
:::STAND BY:::
/UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS CONFIRMED\
\HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?/
/REQUEST FRIEND OR FOE IDENTITY CODE.
:::PLEASE WAIT:::
/TIME ELAPSED\
/CODE HAS NOT BEEN SENT\
\HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?/
/ALERT DOME CONTROL: CONDITION GREEN
/DIRECT ALERT: STOIC
/RUN SURVEILLANCE MODULE
:::PLEASE WAIT:::
/ALERT SENT TO DOME CONTROL\
/DIRECT ALERT SENT TO CALL SIGN STOIC\
\SURVEILLANCE MODULE RUNNING/
\HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?/
/LOCK ONTO FORWARD UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT, 3 MIN.
/START UP TRANSLATION MATRIX
/CONFIRM FRIEND OR FOE
:::PLEASE WAIT:::
/FORWARD UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT LOCKED\
/THREE MINUTE BURST BEGUN\
\TRANSLATION MATRIX RUNNING/
\HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?/
/DISPLAY AUDIO TRANSCRIPT
:::PLEASE WAIT:::
/DISPLAYING\
\AUDIO ENGAGED/
"Copaani gar chaab, Evaar Ruusaan?"
(Are you scared, Youth Ruusaan?)
"Nayc, Alor. Ni ramikadyc o'r te Ca'furor potestas."
(No, Superior. I'm confident in the Night Fury's ability.)
"Ni vaabir naas jare'la meyg. Ni jare'la meh gar chaab, Ruusaan."
(I didn't ask that. I asked if you were scared Ruusaan.)
"Ah. Ni…Ee'kah Alor."
(Ah. I…a little Superior.)
"Jate. Ni Mo'les gar or'dinii meh gar nu'draar. Aht ar chaab la aht kar'taylir gar copaani oyacyir."
(Good. I'd consider you a fool if you weren't. To be scared is to know you are alive.)
"Elek Alor."
(Yes Superior.)
"Aht te kyrbej diende, Evaar Ruusaan."
(To the battlefield then, Youth Ruusaan.)
"Aht te kyrbej, Alor."
(To the battlefield, Superior.)
/ALERT\
/DRAGONOID LANGUAGE VERIFIED\
/UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS CLASSIFIED: FOE\
\LOCK ON BURST TERMINATED/
\HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO PROCEED?/
/ALERT MILITARY POLICE HEADQUARTERS
/ALERT DOME CONTROL: CONDITION RED
/ALERTS SENT\
\STAND BY FOR FURTHER ORDERS/
It's been three hundred years, but everyone knows of the day the Dragonoids came. The tales of how they descended from space on that fateful day have been passed from one generation to the next. So many were their numbers that they blotted out the sun over America's capital. We called them the Dragonoids because of the flying mecha they used that day; their silhouettes reminding many of the European dragons of legends. While they cast this fearsome shadow, the Dragonoids broadcast a message from their ship in space: a broken message comprised of a dozen English radio transmissions that had been on Earth's airwaves over a hundred years before. It had been a message of peace, so the President had said. And for fifty years, there was peace. Though they communicated only with America, the Dragonoids did not attack humanity. And while the other nations of the world felt it was unfair that only the United States would deal with Earth's visitors, there was no real conflict beyond the arguments of politicians.
For fifty years they stayed with us. They stayed in orbit in their massive spacecraft. They never asked anything of us, aside from the request that they could stay in orbit, and humanity never asked anything of them. It was a general assumption that our hospitality would be rewarded someday. Fifty years after they arrived, in a way it was.
No one really knows what happened that day. Most believe it was a breakdown of communications between America and the Dragonoids. Some believe the Dragonoids were just taking their time, allowing humanity to get used to their presence.
Whatever happened though, all that are left know that the Dragonoid's starship descended from the heavens that day, and on its landing, Washington DC was crushed from existence. The years that followed was one of chaos. Within three months the United States had gone silent. By the end of the year, so had the rest of the Americas. The Dragonoids swarmed across the Earth, each nation falling one after the another. Some tried to fight back, some tried to surrender, but in the end, they all fell silent.
Two hundred and fifty years have passed since that day. There are no nations now, only pockets of humanity dotting the globe. Some are hidden. They try to keep us off the radar as possible, eyes nervously watching the skies for any signs of those fearsome silhouettes.
Then there's those that don't hide. Those that stand up and try to rebuild no matter how many times the Dragonoids try and beat us down.
Places like my home.
We simply call it The Dome. A massive construction of reinforced flexi-steel encapsulating a hundred and fifteen square kilometres of English countryside. Its construction was a gruelling thirty-year project, a series of fitful rushes and punishing setbacks as the Dragonoids attacked our island again and again. Only the MAF-219 Viking Assault Frames of The Dome's Military Police kept them at bay long enough to for the project to be completed. It is the dream of many to become pilots of these seventeen-metre tall walking weapon platforms. It was because of them that two million souls live in relative safety within the Dome's artificial haven.
Two million people, and about a third of those are refugees, mostly from the outlying European nations. That alone should tell you how far humanity's fallen. But we have survived, that's the important thing. Where billions of others have died, we've held strong. We don't know why the Dragonoids attack. We don't even know why they don't swarm us like they used too. All we know is that they keep trying to wipe us out.
And for that…shooting down Dragonoids is everything around here.
Author's Notes: The Dragonoid language is Mando'a, the language of the Mandalorians from Star Wars as first created by Karen Traviss. It's a fairly butchered use, though. The dictionary only has just over 1200 words in it, so I often found myself making substitutes for words that didn't exist (The Dragonoid language isn't Mando'a, it's just using Mando'a as a base). I started with using Latin (which is how we end up with Ca'Furor), but towards the end, I either started taking similar meaning words and editing them for purpose, or I just made up new words altogether. If I'd started Dragonoid around now, I probably would have made up a new language altogether, maybe even use it as a base for the new language I ended up developing for one of my original novels.