Author responses to reviews of the first chapter of Immortality in the Verse posted on either this site, Harry Potter FanFic Archive or Archive of Our Own.

Jhotenko (Chapter 1):

Promising start. I like how even as Harry keeps busy, you get a sense of hopelessness from him. Immortality is a frightening burden, and his fear of connecting with others shows this.

I hope you eventually let Harry comes to terms with what he has become. Regardless I'm eager to see the progression into the world of Firefly.

Keep up the good work, and I look forward to your next chapter.

Jhotenko (Chapter 2):

This chapter feels like a massive info-dump instead of a story. Perhaps break it up a bit by showing glimpses of what the magic world is doing? This would also have the benefit of stretching the chapter out a bit more.

Regardless, you've bridged the gap between now and Earth's exodus nicely. I look forward to your take on Harry Potter in Joss Whedon's masterpiece.

Author Response:

Thank you for the feedback Jhotenko, it is true that the chapter was an info-dump as such I didn't make it too long. This was needed to fill in the gaps of Chapter 1. The next chapter will detail the magical world's activity since Harry's exile. You stated in your review that you looked forward for Harry's involvement in the Firefly "Verse", unfortunately this probably won't happen until Chapter 4. (SPOILER) Harry and Wash are friends before Wash pilot's Serenity.

Skendo:

Ooh ooh :) A new HP x Firefly that's actually written well! I'm hoping you'll continue it all the way to the end! So many decent HP x Firefly fics have been abandoned and it kills me :"(

Author Response:

Skendo, thank you for your review. I agree that there are too few Harry Potter and Firefly crossover fanfictions. I have read some good ones in the past, but I don't think there are any currently being written besides mine. I hope this would spark other people's interest to also write their own. The story "Browncoat, Green Eyes" By Nonjon and "Stepping Into the Sky" By Raul Fictitious are okay. "Space Wizard" By Jrf Steel is good, but isn't very lengthy. "Alone in the Verse" By M0untainC1mber also had promise but was abandoned.

Thank you for the support, BillieJean.

Emperor Of Pandemonium:

Pretty good. Few things that need fixing:

1. Harry only spent two years as an auror here did he? From 26 to 28? Maybe he joined earlier but the way the story is told, it comes across that way.

2. The grammar in places is worded wrong and makes it hard to understand what you mean to say on the first read.

3. Also the idea that Harry wouldn't notice something like every city being polluted and the world being slowly uninhabitable for 2 decades is a bit much.

Author Response:

Thank you for writing a comprehensive review. It made me go back to my source document and correct some mistakes.

I didn't plot out an in-depth timeline for this story, more of a vague story outline. But the story states that the Ministry was disbanded soon after the war and the United Kingdom Magical Government has formed in its wake. The United Kingdom Magical Government quickly sought out fighters and intelligent young people to staff the new government, including Harry and his friends. So let's say that Harry was nineteen when he was recruited and seeing that he left at twenty-eight that would mean he spent nine years with the Aurors, and sometime during his tenure as an Auror he became Head Auror.

I went back and fixed some spelling mistakes and filled in some words I had missed out while writing, it is just something that happens with me. I write the story and somehow I managed to skip over random words. I hope that the story was readable anyway, because even after two proof reads those mistakes still made it through.

That will be addressed in the next chapter.

Chapter 2

By 2030 everyone knew that the Earth was polluted. Recycling and using solar energy is what most people did as their part to save the world. People understood the impending threat of global warming, but ultimately disregarded it because they believed it wouldn't be a problem for hundreds of years, after they would be gone, it would be someone else's problem. They were wrong.

By 2030 scientists discovered that the Earth could no longer sustain its population and its natural resources were heavily depleted because of the booming population. This knowledge was not released to the public. Instead the situation was openly discussed behind closed doors in secret United Nation sessions. For the first time ever almost every nation put aside their differences to create a solution that would enable mankind's survival after the demise of Earth. In early talks the effort was broken into two main parts, survival on Earth and survival outside of Earth. The Commonwealth and Russia were tasked with investigating the possibility of survival on Earth through the creation of bunkers and sanctuaries, these yielded no useful results. North America and the Chinese Republic were tasked with investigating the possibility of survival outside of Earth. While almost every nation was secretly conducting research on how to save the human race, publically they pumped out new measures to battle climate change and the rise in pollution and occasionally held the odd "World Aid" benefit. The public was oblivious to the real threat that they were facing.

By 2036 the research conducted by the North Americans and the Chinese Republic finally yielded results. They had discovered a form of mass environmental manipulation called terraforming that would enable them to rewrite the natural processes of a planet or moon and replace it with a process similar to that of Earth. This would enable humans to breath oxygen, reproduce, plant crops and raise animals in the same conditions as Earth. This coupled with the knowledge that several planets and moons existed in multiple star clusters that could support the terraforming process, which had been discovered a decade previous, started the secret global support into space exploration and mass terraformation research.

By 2038 without the public's knowledge every nation pledged their support to the space research conducted by North America and the Chinese Republic, this led to the two parties becoming the wealthiest and most powerful because all the other nations were depending on them. To mask the global space research that was being conducted, every single nation banded together to create a story which the public would believe before the real reasons and plans behind the research leaked and mass panic ensued. The United Nations purposefully leaked rumours of tension between North American and the Chinese Republic, a staged period of alliance brokering then occurred. To the public it would seem that India, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South America and Belgium had allied themselves with North America as the Allied Forces. Concurrently, Japan, Germany, Russia, Italy, Greece, Brazil, Indonesia, Spain, Turkey and South Korea had seemingly allied themselves with the Chinese Republic as the National's Parliament. All other nations were systematically allied with either the Allied Forces or the National's Parliament randomly as it didn't matter in the large scheme of things. Now that the public believed that almost every nation had allied themselves, the Allied Forces and the National's Parliament publicly staged a United Nations conference which resulted in both parties shaking hands and creating a worldwide peace treaty. Despite the nations already being allied behind closed doors, now the public also believed it. This was needed because beforehand the public would have never believed that worldwide peace had occurred overnight without speculation of a looming worldwide threat. Now the public which was so relieved not to have been facing World War III would not bat an eye when "The Alliance", a title which the public used to refer to the new global peace cooperation, agreed to combine their resources to further worldwide education, health and animal preservation. While space exploration and research were publically part of their agenda, they purposefully avoided bringing overt attention to it. This effectively made the public aware of the space efforts so there wouldn't be worldwide speculation of scandal if it leaked, while also making sure that the public didn't look too closely at it which was easy because everyone would be talking about the health and education initiatives and not the real priority.

Test efforts in terraforming several resource lacking planets and moons close to Earth were successful, and feasible space exploration vehicles had been developed although they couldn't reach sustainable speeds needed to evacuate the entirety of the human race and the acceptable portions of Earth's animals to the star clusters were they would terraform the planets and moons, before the food and water would run out on the journey leading to mass starvation and death. The Alliance came to the realisation that they could not evacuate the entire population and feed them on the journey, and even then the journey would take close to 125 years. The Alliance needed a population drop of 40% and more supplies of food and water to make sure the evacuation was successful. The Alliance enacted martial law. Nobody could protest that food and medicine rations were not enough or that they were being torturously overworked because all nation agreed on everything, it was globally induced poverty.

By 2074 the Earth's population had dropped to roughly one billion and the consumption of any non-officially rations food was punishable by death. The Alliance was preserving the majority of Earth's meats, vegetables and fruits, while giving the general population small portions of substances that consisted of the essential nutrients needed to keep a person alive. The construction of spaceships, referred to as arks, was now a constant practice. The arks could carry six thousand people, twelve thousand head of livestock, and vast quantities of preserved produce as well as soil and seed samples. One hundred and fifty-thousand arks had been constructed with more to be completed. The public now knew of Earth's dangerously unsustainable state and of the plan to evacuate Earth, with the Alliance in total control they no longer felt they needed to hide it from the public and now they forcefully co-opted the population to farm produce and mine resources around the clock.

By 2078 the Earth's atmosphere around population hubs had become extremely polluted, while breathable it would effectively shorten a person's lifespan by half in breathed in excess. The Alliance no longer supplied clean sources of oxygen to the farmers and resource miners, but gathered them in countryside camps were the air was less polluted but still harmful. The campers were forced to farm and mine at faster paces in exchange for their countryside board. The Alliance had completed the necessary preparations for the evacuation, which was now known as the "Exodus", and eagerly awaited their estimated departure date of 2097, in the meantime they ordered the construction of as many arks as could be completed before the date and asked for them to be stocked with whatever the Earth had left to give them.

In 2080 Harry Potter returned. The Master of Death was back.