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  This fanfic is over one year in the making, although only in a vague sense. It was begun in August of 2001 and worked on hardily for several months, but then production ceased due to reasons I cannot specifically recall. The project was resumed in September 2002 and was written against the clock, attempting to make a September 31th deadline that it, obviously, did not meet.

  Set back by the continuation of production on my web comic, Startrail (http://www.lunaseer.com), this fanfic was worked on in the late evenings of weekends and in the 45 minutes between my morning alarm and departure for school during the week days. In other words, progress became slow. However, after Startrail's update for October was completed, I was able to pursue the fanfiction project with renewed vigor. And this time, battling a severe case of writer's block in several areas, the missing pieces were filled in and it was done.

  If nothing else, this fanfic is a testament to dedication. I will not argue its literary worth, because for all that I am aware it may have none. Much of its material is contrary to canon and near-canon (ie "The Trial") and goes against much established fanon as well. I can only say that this follows my style of fanfiction writing. I like to think, quite vexingly to many of my peers, that canon is only a suggestion and isn't meant to be followed if you can think of something better.

  That is, better to you. It must never be forgotten what exists in your mind's eye of a subject and what is actually canon truth. Never discount canon, but utilize whatever fanon you wish.

The Inaccurate Fanfiction Contract

Presented here for your convenience is the recently drafted IFC, in full form.

"The term 'fanfiction' now being too all-encompassing to designate inherent canological inconsistency, it is necessary that some other means of highlighting this aspect of fan writing to quell objections by readers and copyright-holders alike. Therefore, this contract was drafted. It is by no means legal, but it is not illegal, and it is the constitutional right of its designer to utilize any freedom not specifically prohibited. (It is. Look it up.)

"The premise of this unofficial contract is simple. It is to establish an understanding among writer, reader and copyright-holder regarding the contents of a fanfiction work in question.

"It is understood by the writer that his or her writing contradicts canon. It is the writer's duty to declare this preceding the literary work so that it may not be ill-perceived. Writers may do this by quoting, in whole or in part, this contract, or by appropriately referencing it via a functional URL.

"It is understood by the reader that the writer's contents are intentionally contrary to canon, and that the writer asks that these contradictions not skew the reader's view of the fanfiction work's literary merit.

"It is understood by the copyright-holders that the writer has deliberately written a work that contradicts canon by means of artistic license. The writer has written his or her fanfiction work because of personal beliefs or preference. The copyright-holder acknowledges that this is a fan work with no intentions to denounce or slander any canon material, but to express his or her view of a subject.

"In summary, the writer acknowledges that what he or she has written contradicts canon and has established this clearly for reader to understand, and asks reader and copyright-holder both to forgive these trespasses. It is established by all parties that the writer is writing an uncanon work out of appreciation for his or her subject and does not wish to offend reader or copyright-holder by presenting contradictory content.

"This contract becomes null and void if the writer 1) fails to acknowledge deliberately uncanon content written on artistic license, 2) fails to recognize the canon material as official, 3) fails to give valid reason for uncanon content even as far as claiming artistic license and/or 4) persists in encouraging the reader to accept the writer's view above the canon.

"In layman's terms, the IFC has the writer ask any and all readers to allow them to write and display uncanon material, provided the writer and readers understand the content is uncanon and do not attempt to claim it as canon.

"Because this contract is not a legal document, it does not prevent copyright-holders from suing fanfiction writers for unapproved use of the former party's characters.

It does, however, request that copyright-holders do not resort to legal action and instead understand that the writer is writing his or her story out of heartfelt appreciation for the canon work concerned and makes no attempts to claim the content of their fanfiction as canon."

Aspects of the Story

Height

I recall reading on Nickelodeon's Zim supersite that only Irkens over three feet in height were permitted to the Great Assigning. And if I remember right, Zim (who probably would have been slightly less than three feet by that information) was a little less than half the Tallest's height. So we can estimate the Tallest at about six and a half feet tall. If their necks weren't so far forward they'd be an awful lot taller.

(Update: apparently Steve Ressel has said officially that the Tallest are 6'5", so I didn't make that bad of a guess, did I?)

Most Irkens in this story are nurses and advisors. Advisors come to about waist height of a Tallest, so about three and a quarter feet. Nurses are shorter than advisors but taller than low-level soldiers, so I've placed them at just slightly over three feet.

These differences in height may seem very insignificant to humans, but to a race where height is status, a millimeter could have everlasting impact.

Red and Purple are written to be only a few centimeters apart for most of their childhood. You'd scarcely notice a difference in height unless they were closely examined. Yet for Gori, Dirn and the others, those few centimeters meant everything.

Irken Birth

Something not quite clarified in the fanfic but nevertheless very important is the extent to which Irkens are genetically engineered. In this fanfic genetic manipulation had progressed to the point that Irkens could be engineered with any genetic traits, provided those genetic traits were within the capacity of the Irken gene code. Once born, Irkens still undergo other adjustments. Invaders (which I suppose could be called a special class of military rank) have special optical implants, for example.

As for Tallests, realistically there should be a limit to how tall an heir to the throne can be made. The fact that this limit has yet to be reached causes some speculation. Possibly Tallests in the past that weren't very keen on giving up their title to an heir would order one shorter than themselves, but be removed from office by some means anyway.

Irken Anatomy

"Parent Teacher Night" showed us that Irkens (at least of military class) are born without what could be classified as sexual organs. I believe these were genetically removed after the nurseries were well in place on Irk. This coincides with my peer Apricot's view, although I make no exceptions for Tallests as she does. (Well, sorry, but if I did then the outfits I'd designed wouldn't work. ^_~)

Although canon evidence seems to be against it, I still like to believe the Tallests' designs in "The Nightmare Begins" are official, and that their outfits (and specifically their waists) in "Germs" onward has some special explanation. I'm aware that I am most likely wrong. But like was mentioned before, there is the contract.

Titles

Perhaps the most deliberately un-canon point of my illustration of Irken society are the nursery names. This is taken from K.A. Applegate's Animorphs series, where the parasitic Yeerks included the name of their spawning pool as part of their name. This is obviously not part of the show, because no Irken has ever identified theirself by including an "of <anything>" after their name.

Curling Antennae

This is really the only actual reference to Apricot the Gerbil's fanfiction. In "Power's Price", Purple complains over what the public will think of a male Tallest with purple eyes and curling antennae.

The show gives no indication that Purple's antennae curl even slightly. Not that I've seen, anyway.

The Love Issue

Hooboy. Here we go.

I call upon the fanfiction contract once again.

That said, I do ship Red/Purple. I shouldn't have to justify myself and offer explanations to anyone as to why. This fanfic shouldn't be much justification anyway. Yes, I can't even agree with my own fanfic about the nature of Red and Purple's relationship. This here is just a story. I could go write another one that completely contradicted it and not bat an eye.

I don't believe that the Irken race is one that has much room for unnecessary emotions. They're militant and uber-patriotic and some of them are very loud and ranty. This is not a soft and kind and gentle race.

Red and Purple, in this story, had an upbringing that allowed them some of those otherwise shunned emotions. But in this story they rejected most of them. If they do allow themselves to really love, they'd never allow it for very long. And if they didn't stamp it out, who's to say they'd ever know how to properly express it? Love's an emotion no Irken has had to deal with for a very long time.

But there does seem to be compassion there, and a lot of unspoken agreement. This could be put down as having grown up together. Even if you totally despise the other person, you end up understanding them quite deeply. But also remember that in this story, the Tallest are technically brothers. Twins.

Only technically, though.

Annotations

"'Oh, quasars, look at you two!'"

I'm really certain I heard this as a generic semi-swear word somewhere, but I can't place where for the life of me. Anyway, this and "nova" are pretty cheap, spacey sounding psuedo cuss words. That's all there is to it.

You'll notice that at some point in the story I start using other swear words, although I'm sure everyone sees I kept far away from "fuck".

"'Sorun and Teir... What's so hard about Sorun and Teir?' he complained."

As explained by Sut later on in the story, I was going for names that sounded "princely." To my knowledge, neither of the names given are human names (although it wouldn't matter if they were, since some Irkens do seem to have human names), and neither are taken directly from some other works.

So for the record, no, Sorun in no way comes from Saruman or Sauron. It does, actually, derive itself from Soron, the name of an old English teacher's son.

As for Teir, it's the classic authorial means of name selection. Take an established word and switch the letters around. In this case, I had "tier" and switched the vowels around. Cheap or what?

"'Fascinating,' Dirn breathed, blinking her light purple eyes at the display. 'An entire being summed up in computer code...'"

I've said it before and I'll say it again. My knowledge of genetics is basic at best, and was even more limited at the time of writing this section. Unfortunately, I'm still too uncertain of my information to go back and change anything, so I hope that the entire scene is vague enough to please people.

"...About three years until he'll be ready for birthing. Twelve years until fully matured..."

Even with the assistance of "The Trial" (which, even after reading, I did not choose to incorporate much of in this story) I didn't have a good idea about Irken life spans. No one does except the Zim crew, I think. The numbers presented here are random.

"Four fingers to two. Why did they make them with two fingers? What could be the point?"

Another inaccuracy. Normal Irkens have three fingers. At the time this was written I didn't realize this, and the entire thing had worked its way so much into symbolism then that it refused to be changed.

"The aide to subject A was about to remark that you couldn't get much worse than a name sounding like the leftovers of burned wood without starting on mammalian organs..."

This is actually a major error on my part, because for Sut to be pronounced how it's suggested here falls into Japanese vowel pronunciation, which doesn't correspond with the name pronunciations for any of the other characters.

Also, the mammalian organs reference is to Invader Spleen, who is made mention of in "The Nightmare Begins".

"Teir found Sorun in the library. Sorun was always in the library when something happened."

While this story was in development it was remarked upon often how Red and Purple's personalities as children in this fanfic seemed reversed. If you ask me, this isn't the case. Looking at the series we see that Red is calmer, better spoken and even more polite than Purple, who is impulsive, rude and very vicious. Notice that this does not make any statements about Purple's intelligence (if you ask me he just had a weird sense of sarcasm in "Abducted"), only their personalities. In the story, despite his brasher nature, Purple is still more intellectually apt than Red is.

Both Tallest are very intelligent in my story, but they hone and express that intelligence in different ways.

"The Irkens are not a race accustomed to touch..."

One of the most widely-held views in the Zim fan community. I don't know where it got its start or why I feel compelled to follow it, but it makes sense.

On a side note, though, Red did not make contact with Purple's face in "The Nightmare Begins". When I was making my music video, "Moon Baby", I had to go over those episodes three or four times each. No contact! Now leave it alone!

"'I can hardly read this,' said Teir, to no one specifically. 'It's vernacular...'"

At first I thought I'd just pulled this part out of the air, until I thought about it. If you consider it, Irken writings do appear in both English and Irken in the series. So would that make English text the vernacular I speak of here? Actually, no. Considering how frequently seen the Irken language is, I think that must be the common text, and the English is the script that Red and Purple grew up with.

This is probably a huge inconsistency and I'm sure it's a very unnecessary one. It was mostly an attempt to distance Red and Purple from common Irken people. More than the whole freakish height and unusual upbringing, etc. etc...

"'Good goddess,' he murmured."

This isn't as "ha, I'm trying to be different" as much as it seems. Irkens have been described as an insectoid race, and they do more or less fit such a description. If you think about it, a lot of communal insect races are matriarchal. So it's only natural, I should think, that the Irkens would worship a female deity.

But as the fanfic states, they're entirely past that religion nonsense, so don't raise a stink about it.

"'Teir of Grashu-Miyak'"

Probably the only deliberate "The Trial" reference I make here. Miyuki was a Tallest before Red and Purple.

(Apparently Miyuki is the name of a storyboarder for the series, too. How sweet that they should name a character after her...)

"'Welcome to the imperial palace, my lords. Your trip from Kend was enjoyable, I trust?'"

I once was good friends with some people in Kent in the UK.

"'Do you ever encounter problems with any of your school work?' The boy smiled weakly. 'Not really, sir. Usually if one of us doesn't remember something, the other one does.'"

My idea for Irken education goes like so: everything that an Irken comes to know is fed to them in information tracks as a growing fetus, and once out of the tanks and into whatever manner of school they are assigned to their teachers, rather than actually educate them, are helping them remember the infofeed data.

"There was a pause."

I feel almost evil writing this scene so vague, but I think it works out the best for all concerned this way. This allows the reader to perceive the scene however they want.

Do I know what went on? Yes and no.

"'Wait, wait. What battlecruiser?' Purple demanded. 'The... The Silverbolt, my Tallest,' said Zim nervously."

As so often happens with writers everywhere, I was sitting in my chair staring at the text trying to think up a name out of the blue. The first thing that happened to come to me was Scott McNeil (a voice actor that I've had the pleasure of being around for two Ani-Magic conventions so far) and I thought of one of the characters that he voices. I thought of Silverbolt, from Beast Wars, who is, as Scott describes, "as dumb as a sack of hammers." Words like that stick in the memory.

"Let the desert swallow him, then."

It might seem too vague to count, but seeing as Terry Pratchett was a major influence for the latter half of this fanfic, this should be included.

Jingo (which is one of my favorite of his Discworld series; heck, all the Vimes books are) includes a part near the end, a fragment of a conversation between Ahmed and Vimes: "The desert will swallow me." "What if they come after you?" "The desert will swallow them, too." "Without chewing?" "You better believe it."

First, my utmost thanks to the one and only Apricot the Gerbil, my peer, whose Tallest fanfics first started me on the track to writing this fanfic, who bugged me into continuing it, and finally, by quitting Zim fanfiction, hurled me into a do-or-die determination to finish this story once and for all.

Thanks also to Bitstream, who beta read this fanfic.

I would be a sorry excuse for a fanfiction writer if I did not give proper thanks to the people who gave me the material to draw inspiration from in the first place. Therefore, I give thanks to Jhonen Vasquez, who probably hates my guts, but I hope that he doesn't.

I also thank all of the Invader Zim storyboarders and animators for being the true initiators of my Zim obsession. If not for the amazing visuals of this show, I would never have become captivated to sit down and really learn about it. (Everyone who worked on "Attack of the Saucer Morons": I love you guys!)

Thanks to Delphine Kiminsu for perverting me into a shameful yaoi-obsessed fangirl. She helped make this fic possible.

Finally, thanks to everyone who's read this far! You guys rule!

For More Information...

Email questions or comments to catilina3@aol.com.

Visit Startrail at http://www.lunaseer.com.

Visit my home site, http://www.karose.com, for stories, art and journal. Also present are the completed works of Apricot the Gerbil!

Download my Invader Zim music video, "Moon Baby", on Kazaa.
 

Catch ya on the flipside!
~K.A.