This is pretty much crackfic -- started as a serious consideration of how the characters could have met before the war, and then something strange happened and it turned into something that couldn't decide if it wanted to be a "modern day take on mythic and fantasy themes" or a "screwball 1940s comedy" so it tried to be both.
That's why even though everthing in it FITS with the Shatterdome Heldensagen, it is posted as a separate story because of its length, because most of it takes place completely outside the film timeline, and because it can be seen as AU to the SDHS headcanon as well, with the addition of a romance element -- even though just like SDHS, you can read that element as being as much present, or as little, as you choose. (That is to say, it can be read as entirely chaste and non-physical if you prefer, although I think I've hacked the chain-of-command problem...)
The massive difference between this and the novelization (or 'deuterocanonical' materials) is that I've moved the Hansens' home to Brisbane, because it is simply beyond any suspension of disbelieve that Sydney could have been demolished as thoroughly as San Francisco was in the film, and exist in the state we see it in onscreen, a dozen years later -- but I've ranted about this on tumblr plenty! It's also significantly closer to the Breach than Sydney and would make a more likely earlier target, too.
To any Brisbane residents who may be reading this, rest assured it's no dislike of your hometown that inspired me to reroute a sea monster over your way. In fact, after doing all the research for this story, I'd quite like to move there myself -- after all, no place is really safe from interdimensional death machines, as we all know!
Another big difference is the timeline -- but since none of the extra-film timelines work together or make sense, I've just been making my own up as I go along. Some of this actually does fit with dates that are out there, but that's mostly by accident. (Will try to post a "Heldensagen Timeline To Date" soon. )
Main thing to be aware of is that I have Stacker (and therefore Herc) several years older to be at least remotely credible as a major player in world politics, with a shadow career to match, and thus around 27-28 in 2004 (which would still put him younger than Wellington, the youngest Field Marshal who wasn't a prince playing dress-up, when the War begins but WTH, we're getting into epic and mythopoeic territory here.)
Same with the characters' backstory -- everything here is pure headcanon, except for the existence of Luna & Tamsin (also Luna/Tamsin, but since fandom came up with that VERY early on I don't know who to credit.) All headcanon here is free for the borrowing, just like the rest of HS.
There are so many stories, fandoms, and mythologies referenced in this tale that to list ALL of them in the tags or this header would be confusing -- also very spoilery! -- so they will go at the end once i finish collecting them all, in case you want to check if you spotted them.
Finally, thanks to my wonderful beta reader Wings for taking on this monstrosity of 'the fic that got away' (then again, isn't that all of them, really?) All mistakes and failures of everything are mine. (Queen's English spellings, however, are NOT an error. I'm not 100 per on it, but try to keep them consistent with the narrative POV in the stories WHICH IS HELL WHEN IT SWITCHES A LOT so this time I sort of lucked out, if you can call anything about "accidentally wrote a 70k quasi-historical fanfic" lucking out.)
