Swarm Ascendant

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Sylvi has it pretty good, but then the Xenos that used to be someone else's problem suddenly becomes hers, too.Now she's a Valkyrie, and the world expects her to fight them with nothing but a super powerful AI voice in her head and a seemingly endless bag of tricks.Okay, well, when you put it like that it does seem kind of reasonable...

[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

A Stray Cat Strut Fanfiction- This story is set in the world created by RavensDagger, and is not canon. I am of course doing what I can to make it consistent, but errors may slip in.

I am trying my best to make this understandable without knowing the original, but I still encourage you to read it.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2024
Author: randomancer

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.6/ 5.0
Followers: 633
Views: 127,075

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(7)

HikinBearRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
A new SCS Fan Fiction where the Main Character is NOT a stand-up Bad-ass fighter. Instead the Main Character is an average blue collar worker in a hydroponics farm who is attacked by Antithesis. The MC, Sylvi, is a non-confrontational woman who doesn’t like firearms, knifes, or any kind of melee fighting. But she does believe in the Vanguards, who are called Valkyrie in the new Denmark/Sweden, and wants to step up and do her part. So she instead chooses to fight from the rear using tiny drones.
This is a nice departure from the normal SCS universe. The setting is in what used to be Denmark and Sweden whereas most of the SCS Fan Fictions focus on North America. The choice of Valkyrie instead of Samurai is also a nice touch and is true to the local.
The Style is first person, with a slow growth weak to strong.
The Story stays true to the SCS Universe. We have Protector A.I.s who are embedded in the brains of the chosen Vanguards/Valkyries and dispense advice (usually snarky) and technology that is ‘Sufficiently Advanced’ (ie: like Magic). The MC has to fight and win against alien plants known as Antithesis. The pacing is good, the action is good, and the character development is excellent.
Grammar is very good.
The Characters are well drawn. The MC struggles with events that pushes her out of her depth, but she has determination and grit enough to find ways to step up that work for her. The side characters are a mix. The parents, especially the Mother, add a good dynamic with a not-ideal home life better left behind. Her new Valkyrie friends are great for growth.
Overall, this is turning out to be an excellent addition to the growing SCS Universe. Recommended.
BroMandoFettRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Seeing another part of the SCS world from another country/culture is very cool.
Sylvi is fresh, new and still competent enough to adapt to the new life of being a Vanguard.
I love the take of a more back line support and recon fighting style that she seems to be developing. I'm excited to see what sort of tech tree she goes down with her swarm.
Good writing style, grammar, solid characters and interactions!
Arne005Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Binge reading to catch up. It is well written, with a believable realistic cast of characters
and the 'slice o'life' parts are enjoyable. A good extension for 'Stray Cat Strut' . The fight scenes are
well done, and the main character and her evollution ('growing up') equally well described
PinggerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Really liking the Protagonist and their intended way to fight.
Not sure whether I like the Military for now. Can swing either way. The content that we have for now regarding the military is nice.
Only thing I am absolutely not looking forward to: Mother Daughter Relationship.
And apparently I need to write a review that is at least 50 words long. I'm not a writer, so I'm currently trying to write something cohesive to reach those 50 words.
wasdishRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Grammar and style are flawless.
The primary issue is a lack of a clear theme, all of the problems stem from this. Without a theme to center conflict around, you end up with a story that doesn't have enough going on to be engaging.
It has some of the capitalist dystopia themes baked into the setting inherited from SCS, but its primary setting seems to be something of a communist utopia without any problems. Its interesting to see a different society. But at this point its so shallow that it is simple background lore rather than a part of the story.
There is some surface level conflict in fighting the antithesis, but it feels like there is no real threat to it. It feels like the fights are a day job, not a fight for survival. There is some danger, but the situation never feels desperate. This could be greatly improved by the addition of some time pressure, or other objectives to ratchet up the tension. Without complications there isn't really anything that can go wrong, so there isn't the worry that something will go wrong.
The characters are bland and shallow. They all get along and I don't know enough about any of them to get invested. I need to know the motivations, goals, fears, and flaws of the characters to get invested in them, and I still don't even have this information for the MC. It looks like there is some foreshadowing for a conflict with the MC's mother, but so far I know more about the MCs daily meals than her mom, so who knows.
Right now this story is a slice of life with some action centered around the MCs numbers going up. It has some ideas it could run with: the politics/society of Scania, or focusing on the Antithesis. But right it doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast.
CroddwynRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
This is an atypical SCS spinoff. Sylvi has a much weaker personality than other Samurai/Valkyrie. She is insecure and second-guesses her decisions constantly. Worse, she takes on loads of unearned guilt when "failures" happen; like when she gets to a shelter that has been compromised and all the inhabitants are dead. She carries that guilt like a badge even after learning the shelter had been compromised before they ever got to that battlefield.
That said, she does grow over the course of the story, culminating with finally standing up to her manipulative mother. The aftermath was a little Saturday morning special with Val voicing moral platitudes to pound the lesson home. But at least we do get to see that growth and see Sylvi setup for her HEA.
I'm honestly not sure how to explain the biggest SCS variation, though. Randomancer has taken the background anti-capitalist basis for SCS and turned in an outright paen to the glories of communism. Scania (the country built from the destroyed Sweden and Denmark) is a worker's paradise, at least as far as we ever see. This is made explicit in chapter 28 where we learn that communism made building a megacity easy compared to the hash corpos make of it. Sylvi is the child of a party apparatchik so she has all the upper class trappings of comfort you'd expect from that background. I did wonder if we'd eventually get more nuance with, say, a grittier underbelly mirroring the megacities we have already come to know in SCS and most follow-ons. But that never manifest. So you know. Yay communism? I guess?
Anyway, this isn't up to the best of the SCS spinoffs, but I did pursue it to the end and I don't regret it. It's a solid three stars as a Samurai lite fic with weaker action and a more meandering story than you get in some of the tighter examples.
JoplingRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
I liked the story well enough, and unlike many other stories the author didn't stretch the plot out beyond what they were wanting to write. Tip of the hat to you!
That said, it's a fun look into another side of Stray Cat Strut, in particular the Scandinavian point of view. Yes, Scandinavian, since Norway, Denmark and Sweden (I think all three countries, plus maybe Finland? But probably not.) united and built a shared stronghold to withstand the antithesis under the protection of a communist dystopia communal state. But given that the story is told from the perspective inside this society, and a teenager at that, it's not surprising that there's not much spotlight shone on that aspect, which only gets highlighted in the quotes and snippets leading into each chapter.
Now if only the author actually marked it as complete...