Guide to the SGINA-verse
Author's note 2017: I'm leaving this here but all future works will link to the AO3 version because I've split it into chapters.
Version 3: 20 July 2014 (Therewith Instantly)
Internal Chronology
Each novel/novella in the SGINA-verse focuses on a different sentinel-guide pair and can be read independently and in any order. Because they are all AU, you don't even have to be familiar with any of the fandoms (though it helps, of course).
January 2004 Paths Unconformable 1: Therewith Instantly (Supernatural, Sam/Gabriel). Sam meets Gabriel when a bomb is found at DFW airport. Posted July 2014. NB Chapter 4 is under revision (which is why it isn't up at AO3 yet).
January 2004 (PU ficlet) Hunt. Gabe searches for Sam (takes place during chapter 4 of Therewith Instantly). Posted July 2014.
May/June 2010 (PU ficlet) What Will Be, Is (Sam/Gabe). A prologue to PU2. Status: complete. Posted May 2014.
June 2010 Paths Unconformable 2: Swifter Than Reason (Supernatural, Dean/Cas). Dean has been captured by Croatoan forces. Cas and Anna are part of the rescue team. Posted December 2017.
September 2010 Pineapples Are Not The Only Fruit (Hawaii 5-0, Steve/Danny). Steve is an unbonded military sentinel who meets Danny, a widowed guide, in Hawaii. Status: complete. Posted April 2014.
Essential Background Information-Sentinels
What follows is a rough guide to the SGINA-verse-it will be expanded with relevant information as other stories are added. Also, I reserve the right to change the timeline as it suits future stories.
1. A sentinel is a person whose senses are distinctly more acute than average, and also more controllable. They have excellent distance vision but can also focus down to the microscopic level; they can hear at very low levels and also above and below the usual human range; they can smell and taste very small concentrations of substances; and they can feel minute irregularities in a smooth surface, faint infra-red traces and even ionising radiation. They are vulnerable to spikes (sudden intense sensory input causing pain) and zones (a trance state induced by too much concentration on a faint stimulus). With training, they can tune their senses up or down to suit the environment. Control is enhanced by the presence of a guide. Spirit animals may provide assistance when human senses are insufficient. [This much is canon, the rest is SGINA-verse only.]
2. Blair Sandburg and Jim Ellison met in the last decade of the 19th century. Sandburg published a monograph titled "A Modern Sentinel" in 1902 that complemented Burton's earlier work and brought attention to the existence of sentinels in Europe and the Americas. Further research on sentinels resulted in the establishment of the Sentinel and Guide Institute of North America (SGINA) in 1923, the Guild of Sentinels and Guides in the UK in 1925, and Institut Chasovykh (InChas) in the USSR in 1926. Identification and training was sporadic and haphazard at first, with little government support.
3. During the Second World War, the military on both sides used sentinels for reconnaissance and espionage. They also developed quick sight and hearing tests to screen military personnel for sentinel traits; these tests were later adapted for use in high schools. Sentinel and guide classes (and, in some locations, dedicated schools) were gradually introduced throughout the US and Canada.
4. The utility of same-sex sentinel and guide teams during and after the war led to formal decriminalisation of homosexuality in Europe and Canada in the 1950s and acceptance of homosexuals in the military. The USA lagged behind in this respect but in 1972 eventually declared that homosexuality was no longer a bar to service in the armed forces and could not be used to evade the draft. Subsequently it was decriminalised in all states. After that, GLBT rights advanced steadily (partly influenced by SGINA and equivalents), resulting in the establishment of same-sex marriage in most western countries from the mid-1980s onwards (1992 Canada, 1996-2003 in the US).
5. Sentinels in western countries are usually employed in the military, law enforcement, and health sectors, and while there is considerable pressure to embrace public service, it is not a legal requirement. Public opinion is generally positive, though there are pockets of paranoia here and there. Sentinels in the Eastern Bloc are used to monitor suspected dissidents, and are feared and despised. Although the formal term in Russian is chasovoy (sentry), they are colloquially known by the term razvedchik (which can mean scout but equally can mean spy or secret service agent).
6. There is a biochemical component to the bond. Separation, especially in the early stages of bonding, can cause physical discomfort (bond stress). The range of symptoms varies from person to person, but headaches, nausea, myalgia and fatigue are all fairly common. Bond shock, a more severe syndrome, may occur either from bereavement or from prolonged separation, especially if the bond is new. SGINA and its equivalents have staff who can help sentinels and guides to overcome these symptoms and return to a more-or-less normal life.
Essential Background Information-World History
1. In this universe, the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 was actually enforced, so the US went metric on 01 July 1977. Consequently all measures used in these stories are Système Internationale.
2. During the 1970s a high level of terrorist action, a severe oil crisis and the development of in-vitro fertilisation and surrogacy led to the introduction of various laws limiting travel, assembly and reproduction in the USA (and, to a lesser extent, in the UK & Europe). Specialist counter-terrorist units were set up in many countries, including England's CI5 in 1976. After various inter-agency turf wars, the FBI, ATF, DEA and US Marshals were amalgamated in 1982, becoming the Federal Law Enforcement Agency or FLEA (amusing as the acronym might be, it was considered to be better than the alternatives FALE, FBLE or OFLE).
3. Mikhail Gorbachev died suddenly in 1984 (presumably assassinated by Chernenko). Consequently there was no Perestroika or Glasnost in the late 1980s, and the USSR and the Eastern Bloc remained in existence until late 2011, although there was increasing independence of satellite states through the 1980s and 90s. Constituent republics of the USSR began formal secession in 2005, a move which was resisted by the central Soviet regime, leading to local conflicts over much of Eastern Europe. The USA provided military assistance to some of these countries, ushering in a new era of proxy wars.
4. "Croatoa" obviously isn't a real country, but for the sake of this series Croatoa is deemed to be that portion of Russia between the Black and Caspian seas, south of the Don and Volga rivers and north of Georgia.
Version 3: 20 July 2014 (Therewith Instantly)
Internal Chronology
Each novel/novella in the SGINA-verse focuses on a different sentinel-guide pair and can be read independently and in any order. Because they are all AU, you don't even have to be familiar with any of the fandoms (though it helps, of course).
January 2004 Paths Unconformable 1: Therewith Instantly (Supernatural, Sam/Gabriel). Sam meets Gabriel when a bomb is found at DFW airport. Posted July 2014. NB Chapter 4 is under revision (which is why it isn't up at AO3 yet).
January 2004 (PU ficlet) Hunt. Gabe searches for Sam (takes place during chapter 4 of Therewith Instantly). Posted July 2014.
May/June 2010 (PU ficlet) What Will Be, Is (Sam/Gabe). A prologue to PU2. Status: complete. Posted May 2014.
June 2010 Paths Unconformable 2: Swifter Than Reason (Supernatural, Dean/Cas). Dean has been captured by Croatoan forces. Cas and Anna are part of the rescue team. Posted December 2017.
September 2010 Pineapples Are Not The Only Fruit (Hawaii 5-0, Steve/Danny). Steve is an unbonded military sentinel who meets Danny, a widowed guide, in Hawaii. Status: complete. Posted April 2014.
Essential Background Information-Sentinels
What follows is a rough guide to the SGINA-verse-it will be expanded with relevant information as other stories are added. Also, I reserve the right to change the timeline as it suits future stories.
1. A sentinel is a person whose senses are distinctly more acute than average, and also more controllable. They have excellent distance vision but can also focus down to the microscopic level; they can hear at very low levels and also above and below the usual human range; they can smell and taste very small concentrations of substances; and they can feel minute irregularities in a smooth surface, faint infra-red traces and even ionising radiation. They are vulnerable to spikes (sudden intense sensory input causing pain) and zones (a trance state induced by too much concentration on a faint stimulus). With training, they can tune their senses up or down to suit the environment. Control is enhanced by the presence of a guide. Spirit animals may provide assistance when human senses are insufficient. [This much is canon, the rest is SGINA-verse only.]
2. Blair Sandburg and Jim Ellison met in the last decade of the 19th century. Sandburg published a monograph titled "A Modern Sentinel" in 1902 that complemented Burton's earlier work and brought attention to the existence of sentinels in Europe and the Americas. Further research on sentinels resulted in the establishment of the Sentinel and Guide Institute of North America (SGINA) in 1923, the Guild of Sentinels and Guides in the UK in 1925, and Institut Chasovykh (InChas) in the USSR in 1926. Identification and training was sporadic and haphazard at first, with little government support.
3. During the Second World War, the military on both sides used sentinels for reconnaissance and espionage. They also developed quick sight and hearing tests to screen military personnel for sentinel traits; these tests were later adapted for use in high schools. Sentinel and guide classes (and, in some locations, dedicated schools) were gradually introduced throughout the US and Canada.
4. The utility of same-sex sentinel and guide teams during and after the war led to formal decriminalisation of homosexuality in Europe and Canada in the 1950s and acceptance of homosexuals in the military. The USA lagged behind in this respect but in 1972 eventually declared that homosexuality was no longer a bar to service in the armed forces and could not be used to evade the draft. Subsequently it was decriminalised in all states. After that, GLBT rights advanced steadily (partly influenced by SGINA and equivalents), resulting in the establishment of same-sex marriage in most western countries from the mid-1980s onwards (1992 Canada, 1996-2003 in the US).
5. Sentinels in western countries are usually employed in the military, law enforcement, and health sectors, and while there is considerable pressure to embrace public service, it is not a legal requirement. Public opinion is generally positive, though there are pockets of paranoia here and there. Sentinels in the Eastern Bloc are used to monitor suspected dissidents, and are feared and despised. Although the formal term in Russian is chasovoy (sentry), they are colloquially known by the term razvedchik (which can mean scout but equally can mean spy or secret service agent).
6. There is a biochemical component to the bond. Separation, especially in the early stages of bonding, can cause physical discomfort (bond stress). The range of symptoms varies from person to person, but headaches, nausea, myalgia and fatigue are all fairly common. Bond shock, a more severe syndrome, may occur either from bereavement or from prolonged separation, especially if the bond is new. SGINA and its equivalents have staff who can help sentinels and guides to overcome these symptoms and return to a more-or-less normal life.
Essential Background Information-World History
1. In this universe, the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 was actually enforced, so the US went metric on 01 July 1977. Consequently all measures used in these stories are Système Internationale.
2. During the 1970s a high level of terrorist action, a severe oil crisis and the development of in-vitro fertilisation and surrogacy led to the introduction of various laws limiting travel, assembly and reproduction in the USA (and, to a lesser extent, in the UK & Europe). Specialist counter-terrorist units were set up in many countries, including England's CI5 in 1976. After various inter-agency turf wars, the FBI, ATF, DEA and US Marshals were amalgamated in 1982, becoming the Federal Law Enforcement Agency or FLEA (amusing as the acronym might be, it was considered to be better than the alternatives FALE, FBLE or OFLE).
3. Mikhail Gorbachev died suddenly in 1984 (presumably assassinated by Chernenko). Consequently there was no Perestroika or Glasnost in the late 1980s, and the USSR and the Eastern Bloc remained in existence until late 2011, although there was increasing independence of satellite states through the 1980s and 90s. Constituent republics of the USSR began formal secession in 2005, a move which was resisted by the central Soviet regime, leading to local conflicts over much of Eastern Europe. The USA provided military assistance to some of these countries, ushering in a new era of proxy wars.
4. "Croatoa" obviously isn't a real country, but for the sake of this series Croatoa is deemed to be that portion of Russia between the Black and Caspian seas, south of the Don and Volga rivers and north of Georgia.