Wiki source for Tropes


Show raw source

====Sic Semper in [[http://http://tvtropes.org/| TVTropes]]====

>>Sorry, this page is no longer editable by fans -- too many spambots.>>

Sic Semper is an RPG campaign pretending to be a low-budget science fiction TV series. It premiered in fall 2009 and ran for five seasons of nine episodes each.

++It's about four people from year 2009 stuck in a prison colony called Coventry++ ... {{tvt name="LyingCreator" text="no."}}

++It's about escaping a multidimensional prison colony++ ... {{tvt name="ReTool" text="not that either."}}

It's about a larger than usual {{tvt name="RagtagBunchOfMisfits"}} from {{tvt name="AlternateHistory" text="alternate Universes"}}, trying to find their way home while ++fighting++ working for a powerful interdimensional corporation which ++has++ used to keep them imprisoned them for reasons of its own.

At the end of Season 5, the producers decided not to renew the series for a sixth season, citing falling ratings and wanting to end on a high note. The last season wrapped most things up in a satisfying manner, yet left the door open for a possible continuation in some form at some time.



-----

This series provides examples of

- {{tvt name="ActionGirl"}}: Jumapii. Although she was more of an Action Woman at 45. After her death, Hilde seems to be taking her place as the resident female badass.
- {{tvt name="ActionSurvivor"}}: Most main characters until Season 3, when the main cast is joined by Giovanni, a {{tvt name="WickedCultured"}} {{tvt name="Assassin"}}, and Mily, a near-{{tvt name="CrazyPrepared"}} {{tvt name="DisasterScavengers" text="Disaster Scavenger"}}.
- {{tvt name="ActualPacifist"}}: Ayela. She has gone as far as threaten Gao Chun with a gun, but it's uncertain if she'd ever have fired. Although her {{tvt name="CharacterDevelopment"}} seems to be causing her to shed some of her principles.
- {{tvt name="Anyone Can Die"}}: For a series that started out with very little violence, the body count sure has gone up since the end of Season 1. Now that they're even killing off main characters, who knows where it will end?
- {{tvt name="BatmanGambit"}}: Akiko's plan to return home.
- {{tvt name="BlackDudeDiesFirst"}}: Whenever there's a battle, this trope seems to work. Jacques Artha in [[SicSemper009| episode 9]], Myo Obadele in [[SicSemper016| episode 16]], Matthau Bankole in [[SicSemper023| episode 23]]. Of course there are a lot of black people in the series but still. Interestingly, Leonid has been responsible for all these deaths (ordering the attack on Jacques Artha, sending Myo Obadele to his death, and leading the group where Matthau Bankole was shot).
- As a way of balancing the scales, in [[SicSemper027| episode 27]] a lot of really white dudes were killed first.
- {{tvt name="BloodierAndGorier"}}: Since getting out of Coventry, things have been getting more and more violent.
- {{tvt name="CampGay"}}: Walter Huggel, whiny hairdresser
- {{tvt name="Chessmaster"}}: Everything that happens, happens because Mizida has planned it to happen. Except maybe {{color text="not managing to be on the first conveyor off Coventry" c="white"}}, and seeing how season 3 is turning out so far, maybe even that.
- As of Season 5, Akiko.
- {{tvt name="CompleteMonster"}}: Tukulti-Ninib is implied to have been this.
- {{tvt name="DidNotDoTheResearch"}}: Happens occasionally. Do not watch this for advice on how to survive a shipwreck or make bombs.
- {{tvt name="DisasterScavengers"}}: Schatzgräbers make their living in the ruined cities of Europe. Their timeline is not a happy place.
- {{tvt name="DisproportionateRetribution"}}: Discover something Infinity would like to keep secret, no matter how minor? You get sterilization, a memory wipe and a ticket to a primitive tropical village for the rest of your life!
- {{tvt name="Dystopia"}}: [[WeltVaterland| Welt Vaterland (Reich-5)]], naturally. (It might be a {{tvt name="CrapsaccharineWorld"}} if the swastikas weren't a bit of a giveaway.)
- {{tvt name="EternalEnglish"}}: The characters have way too few difficulties with languages. Most of the time people several hundred years from each other speaking roughly the same language can understand each other well enough. Handwaved with the "Coventry pidgin" that everyone in the village will learn sooner or later.
- {{tvt name="FantasticRacism"}}: It is claimed that Homeliners see people from other timelines as inferior beings.
- {{tvt name="FailureIsTheOnlyOption"}}: Even though some Coventryans have actually found their way home in seasons 4 and 5, you can bet that none of the main characters are going to be so lucky. ({{tvt name="OrIsIt" text="Or can you?"}})
- {{tvt name="FishOutOfTemporalWater" text="A School Of Fish Out Of Temporal Waters"}}: Pretty much the whole point.
- {{tvt name="Flashback"}}: Common in Season 1, not so common any more.
- {{tvt name="GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel"}}: Finally invoked at the end of Season 3, and got more exploration in Season 4.
- {{tvt name="HeelFaceTurn"}}: Played with. Did Irina Mialewski just side with the Coventryans? Or did Darya, Hilde and Julien defect to the side of their former enemy? How about Gombei and Akiko?
- {{tvt name="HideYourChildren"}}: Coventry had no children at all, since the people in it had been sterilized. Starting from season 3, we have seen some children.
- {{tvt name="HistoricalDomainCharacter"}}: Including, for instance, Genghis Khan, {{color text="who is promptly dispatched with a drone strike" c="white"}}. Maybe he should have called himself {{tvt name="HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct" text="Hitler"}}.
- {{tvt name="TheHorde"}}: Mongols, who else?
- {{tvt name="IJustShotMarvinInTheFace"}}: Pat O'Shea does not understand gun safety.
- {{tvt name="Infodump"}}: The characters finding out stuff about Infinity tends to result in one of these.
- {{tvt name="LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters"}}: You will need a scorecard to keep all the characters straight. (Fortunately, [[Evakuoidut| there is one]].)
- {{tvt name="MechanicalMonster"}}: Tigris Mk II tiger-robot, complete with minigun and six legs.
- {{tvt name="MegaCorp"}}: Infinity Unlimited, apparently.
- {{tvt name="TheMultiverse"}}: All the parallel realities. So far we've only seen a few, but several dozen have been mentioned. These are all Alternate Histories, some more so than others.
- {{tvt name="NationalStereotypes"}}: Some averted, some subverted, many played very straight. Especially the Persians.
- {{tvt name="OffscreenMomentOfAwesome"}}: The assault on Piao Qi in [[SicSemper035| episode 35]].
- {{tvt name="PenalColony"}}: Coventry, the original settlement.
- {{tvt name="ReluctantRuler"}}: Julien and possibly Ayela too.
- {{tvt name="Retirony"}}: What do you expect to happen after the characters spend five minutes reminiscing about things they miss back home?
- {{tvt name="ReTool"}}: Every season so far has been completely different from the previous one. This is an intentional attempt by the producer to keep the series from getting stuck in a rut. {{tvt name="StatusQuoIsGod" text="Status Quo is definitely not god here."}}
- {{tvt name="ReasonableAuthorityFigure"}}: Tadena Aguina listens to Coventryans' complaints and actually manages to get Infinity to start negotiating with them instead of treating them like dangerous subhuman criminals.
- {{tvt name="SomedayThisWillComeInHandy"}}: Carefully examining the time machine way back in [[SicSemper001| "Echo Surveillance"]] is what makes it possible for Darya to operate one in [[SicSemper015| "Trust"]], nearly two seasons later.
- {{tvt name="StockholmSyndrome"}}: It turns out that {{color text="Mialewski and her guard / interrogator Akiko became lovers." c="white"}}
- {{tvt name="TakeAThirdOption"}}: Ayela does not accept that killing or imprisoning Mialewski are the only ways of dealing with her. Unfortunately, it doesn't work quite as smoothly as planned.
- {{tvt name="ThoseWackyNazis"}}: Dietlinde Janz and the rest of Rabedivision. Also including {{tvt name="StupidJetpackHitler"}}.
- {{tvt name="ViewersAreGeniuses"}}: Some of the episodes are so densely written it's as if they're only meant to be understandable for the authors themselves
- {{tvt name="WhamEpisode"}}: [[SicSemper023| Episode 23]]. They killed {{color text="Leonid!" c="white"}} The bastards!
- Also, [[SicSemper041| Episode 41]], with {{color text="Akiko's scheme being revealed." c="white"}}
- {{tvt name="WouldntHitAGirl"}}: Even Giovanni, an immoral assassin who likes torture, has some standards.
- {{tvt name="WrenchWench"}}: Clavia
- {{tvt name="XanatosSpeedChess"}}: Leonid was a master of this.
- {{tvt name="YellowPeril"}}: Gao Chun, an inscrutable criminal mastermind / rebel leader
- {{tvt name="YoungFutureFamousPeople"}}: Turns out Emanuel is at least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_von_der_Pahlen| semi-famous]]. As a twist on this, Darya is this to Homeliners, though not to the viewers.

----
CategoryMeta
Valid XHTML :: Valid CSS: :: Powered by WikkaWiki