Sic Semper in TVTropes
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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 ... no.
It's about escaping a multidimensional prison colony ... not that either.
It's about a larger than usual Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits from 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
- Action Girl: 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.
- Action Survivor: Most main characters until Season 3, when the main cast is joined by Giovanni, a Wicked Cultured Assassin, and Mily, a near-Crazy Prepared Disaster Scavenger.
- Actual Pacifist: 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 Character Development seems to be causing her to shed some of her principles.
- 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?
- Batman Gambit: Akiko's plan to return home.
- Black Dude Dies First: Whenever there's a battle, this trope seems to work. Jacques Artha in episode 9, Myo Obadele in episode 16, Matthau Bankole in 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 episode 27 a lot of really white dudes were killed first.
- Bloodier And Gorier: Since getting out of Coventry, things have been getting more and more violent.
- Camp Gay: Walter Huggel, whiny hairdresser
- Chessmaster: Everything that happens, happens because Mizida has planned it to happen. Except maybe not managing to be on the first conveyor off Coventry, and seeing how season 3 is turning out so far, maybe even that.
- As of Season 5, Akiko.
- Complete Monster: Tukulti-Ninib is implied to have been this.
- Did Not Do The Research: Happens occasionally. Do not watch this for advice on how to survive a shipwreck or make bombs.
- Disaster Scavengers: Schatzgräbers make their living in the ruined cities of Europe. Their timeline is not a happy place.
- Disproportionate Retribution: 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!
- Dystopia: Welt Vaterland (Reich-5), naturally. (It might be a Crapsaccharine World if the swastikas weren't a bit of a giveaway.)
- Eternal English: 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.
- Fantastic Racism: It is claimed that Homeliners see people from other timelines as inferior beings.
- Failure Is The Only Option: 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. (Or can you?)
- A School Of Fish Out Of Temporal Waters: Pretty much the whole point.
- Flashback: Common in Season 1, not so common any more.
- Godwins Law Of Time Travel: Finally invoked at the end of Season 3, and got more exploration in Season 4.
- Heel Face Turn: 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?
- Hide Your Children: Coventry had no children at all, since the people in it had been sterilized. Starting from season 3, we have seen some children.
- Historical Domain Character: Including, for instance, Genghis Khan, who is promptly dispatched with a drone strike. Maybe he should have called himself Hitler.
- The Horde: Mongols, who else?
- I Just Shot Marvin In The Face: Pat O'Shea does not understand gun safety.
- Infodump: The characters finding out stuff about Infinity tends to result in one of these.
- Loads And Loads Of Characters: You will need a scorecard to keep all the characters straight. (Fortunately, there is one.)
- Mechanical Monster: Tigris Mk II tiger-robot, complete with minigun and six legs.
- Mega Corp: Infinity Unlimited, apparently.
- The Multiverse: 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.
- National Stereotypes: Some averted, some subverted, many played very straight. Especially the Persians.
- Offscreen Moment Of Awesome: The assault on Piao Qi in episode 35.
- Penal Colony: Coventry, the original settlement.
- Reluctant Ruler: Julien and possibly Ayela too.
- Retirony: What do you expect to happen after the characters spend five minutes reminiscing about things they miss back home?
- Re Tool: 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. Status Quo is definitely not god here.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: 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.
- Someday This Will Come In Handy: Carefully examining the time machine way back in "Echo Surveillance" is what makes it possible for Darya to operate one in "Trust", nearly two seasons later.
- Stockholm Syndrome: It turns out that Mialewski and her guard / interrogator Akiko became lovers.
- Take A Third Option: 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.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Dietlinde Janz and the rest of Rabedivision. Also including Stupid Jetpack Hitler.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: Some of the episodes are so densely written it's as if they're only meant to be understandable for the authors themselves
- Wham Episode: Episode 23. They killed Leonid! The bastards!
- Also, Episode 41, with Akiko's scheme being revealed.
- Wouldnt Hit A Girl: Even Giovanni, an immoral assassin who likes torture, has some standards.
- Wrench Wench: Clavia
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Leonid was a master of this.
- Yellow Peril: Gao Chun, an inscrutable criminal mastermind / rebel leader
- Young Future Famous People: Turns out Emanuel is at least semi-famous. As a twist on this, Darya is this to Homeliners, though not to the viewers.
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