Emergence

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Fanfiction
Title: Emergence
Author(s): Jilly James
Date(s): November 2013 – March 2015
Length: 210k words
Genre: AU, Romance, Fantasy, Crossover, A/B/O dynamics
Fandom: NCIS, The Sentinel, Stargate SG-1, others
External Links: Emergence at jillyjames.com

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Emergence is a crossover slash novel by Jilly James. It is a fantasy AU that focuses on NCIS's Tony DiNozzo and the Tony/Gibbs pairing, and also prominently features The Sentinel (Jim/Blair) and Stargate SG-1 (Jack/Daniel). It also crosses over to a lesser extent with Criminal Minds (Hotch/Reid/Rossi), The Magnificent Seven ATF AU (Chris/Vin, Buck/Ezra, Josiah/OMC), and CSI: Miami.

The story was started for Naked NaNo 2013 on RoughTrade. It was later posted in installments as a rough draft on Jilly's website, then taken down and revised in February to March 2015.[1] The final chapters were posted in March 2015. It was posted to Archive of Our Own in March 2015 and overtook "Destination" as the most-kudosed NCIS story on the archive by the end of the year. It was removed from AO3 with Jilly's other works in 2017.

A sequel series was planned, with the first part posted in February 2016: Episode 0: The Alpha of Atlantis.

Works Inspired by Emergence

Reviews

A very long and involved story at 215k, with a lot of thought put into the worldbuilding and characterizations.

Tony lives in a world where a small part of the population are dragons, separated into Alphas, Betas and the very elusive and closely kept secret Omegas. Gibbs is an Alpha, number two in the country, actually, and Alpha Prime of the East Coast. So he has dragon duties, but also works at NCIS, but only works with a human team (to cut on conflict). When Tony suddenly and inexplicably begins emerging, not just as a dragon (which the DNA tests he'd had over the years said wouldn't happen as he didn't have a lick of dragon DNA) but as an omega, his life is immediately turned upside. Like, IMMEDIATELY: he's quarantined and protected and all the Alphas are called to a gathering so he can choose a mate. (You may think this is the plot of the story, but nah, that happens fairly quickly and then MORE PLOT HAPPENS.)

Tony is pretty immediately hooked up with Blair and Spencer, both mated omegas, to help him through this difficult time. They come with their mates (Jim for Blair and Spencer gets two, Rossi and Hotch). It turns out that kidnapping unmated omegas is a thing, since they can be used to force Alpha dragons to do unspeakable things, so Tony is actively in danger pretty much every minute, which chafes the hell out of him, since he's a fully trained federal agent.

He mates with Gibbs, of course. And of course it's dramatic and breaks all the molds, and Tony's pretty hilarious, really. But then he keeps on breaking molds, doing things no dragon has ever been able to do. He has weird dreams and discovers that Omegas are actually Wyverns, and Alphas and Betas are Drakes. He dreams about other things, too, like a captive omega back in England that they need to rescue.

Meanwhile, he and Blair meet Jack and Daniel, and it turns out Daniel, Blair and Tony make up a Wyvern Triad (it'll all make sense), each with their own specialities. Tony's is Guardian, and he can sense other wyverns, help them emerge, and also uses his powers to protect and help the dragon race to thrive. Gibbs is right there along for the ride, and his famous "gut" turns out to be a kind of psychic intuition also used in guardianship. Blair, of course, is the Shaman and Daniel is Keeper of the Gate (lol).

Author put tremendous effort into her worldbuilding, and it's all nuanced and detailed, but doesn't interfere too much with the story itself and the arcs of the characters as they get to know themselves and each other and discover and use their new gifts. It's a good story, and it wouldn't surprise me if it took off and became a fandom base tale, like sentinel au's or a/b/o au's.

The dynamics of the dragons are a very similar parallel to sentinel/guide (author writes TONS of sentinel/guide stories, so it's clearly her go-to.) where each enhances and anchors the gift of the other. The sexual pairings are a little more a/b/o (without 'heats') in that Alphas are dominant and wyverns are submissive... although they make it clear that those roles don't carry over into other parts of their lives, except insofar as Alphas are protectors.

Author draws characters from a lot of different shows like Magnificent 7 ATF, CSI Miami, Criminal Minds... but except for referencing pictures so I had a visual, I didn't need to know anything about those shows or characters. A sequel was mentioned, but that was nearly 4 years ago, so might not happen. It's okay, story feels fully complete.

– MojoFlower at AO3, 20 January 2019 [2]

I really thought I would be giving this M/M fusion of Sentinel-&-Guide abilities and A/B/Ω dynamics, mapped onto dragon shape-shifters, 4 stars, but the ending... isn't. Well, one decision is carried out, but it doesn't yet solve the major problem they've been warned is coming (from Stargate canon). It's somewhat anticlimactic to have so many chapters and little payoff.

I therefore rounded it down to three, despite its having many interesting, original, vivid ideas and exciting, plotty, and/or touching personal developments for the large cast of appealing characters, all well-known to me except for a handful of fine secondary OCs.

Tony's is the most-central PoV, but there are scenes from a number of others, especially in a couple "interlude" sections, which each pan from one person/pair to another to another to another at a given point between events.

All the voices were well done, with softening moments of humor and the ordinary requirements of living. Although some of Gibbs's reactions might be seen as OoC, I can believe he would value this chance enough to drop some of his rigidity.

I do like the way canon was greatly retained while still adapting or emphasizing certain elements (besides all the slashy relationships). Oh, btw, this is not for fans of Ziva, though her appearances are few; canon provides plenty of grounds for "bashing".

Re. the romantic/sexual relationships, I tend to be wary of A/B/O 'verses, because I prefer more equality than having one partner cast as "submissive", but Tony himself has and expresses his own worries on that issue, and it was handled fairly well, with caring respect and no dub-con.

Oh, on a minor note, I saw among the comments (on Chapters 21-24) that the author had responded to another reader who shared my confusion re. how the all-male Alpha Drake/Omega Wyvern genetic heritage had not been lost within a single generation by saying cryptically that biological genetics are irrelevant, and it would be fully explained in a later story. That sounds pretty hand-wavey —tbh, I didn't quite "get" it all — but I'll allow the suspension of disbelief. There are also a fair percentage of females among the Beta Drakes, so they presumably do contribute to the repeatedly mentioned long-standing dragon lineages.

A final note to credit that the proofreading is pretty good. Nothing major sticks in my mind, though there were minor blips here and there — reasonable for this length.

Since the AO3 link given with the [Goodreads] book data is no longer valid, here's where you can find it now (as of 3/2021):
• Direct link to the beginning of this fic
or
• visit the series' main page, with links for the chapters of this fic, a couple other works (though it's set up ready for [many] more, not yet written), casting photos, guide to acronyms used, etc. (The slightly-spoiler-y table of the characters listing their dragon attributes and mates is unfortunately poorly formatted, at least in my Kindle's Silk browser.)

– Diane at Goodreads, 24 March 2021 [3]

References

  1. ^ Jilly James, Emergence offline on 2/16, posted 11 February 2015. Archived by the Wayback Machine 20 February 2015.
  2. ^ Bookmarks - Emergence by Jilly James at Archive of Our Own. Bookmarked by MojoFlower 20 January 2019.
  3. ^ Diane's Reviews > Emergence at Goodreads, posted 24 March 2021.
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