the sven AU, in a nutshell
au-fixed-universe of what should have happened in 3x04, tbh, insp by this art by @teaitis
Zarkon turns on Alfor before Voltron is little more than holographic blueprints; the king locks them away in the cryopod with his daughter and most trusted advisor, before he seals them away too
Altea falls as its king does
10,997 years later, an earthquake on Arus shakes the castleship to its core, and two Alteans come stumbling out
with limited resources, and Haggar’s magical tracking, they are quickly found—and with no Voltron to fight off the invaders, they are just as quickly captured
Coran is sent to the work camps; Allura becomes the Champion in the Arena and eventually leads a ship-wide revolt during the three years she is there, taking control from the guards, and amassing a small army in the freed prisoners, the majority of whom swear fealty to her
With her freedom and allies in hand, Allura seeks out the Olkari, and the construction of Voltron begins; she develops her magic, discovered in the prison ring, and word of her spreads through the galaxy—and reaches the idea of a young man named Sven, born in a spaceship hurtling through space when some more captured humans (filed under ‘missing’ on earth, a planet he’s only heard stories of) a lead general in the current failing rebellion
“She may not even exist,” one of his cadets whisper. He goes to seek her out anyway. If Allura of Altea is real, then she needs his help as much as he needs hers.
So he presents himself, and his rebellion, to Allura as an ally, and she warily accepts—he looks too much and too different like an Altean and it makes her stomach twist in a funny way, a distraction she does not need on top of everything else (including looking for any sign of Coran in prisoner records)
Construction of Voltron is at its third, failing stage, as the Olkari simply don’t have the right tools to do it. Sven earns her respect when he has one of his engineers, a surprisingly young Olkari that had been separated from her family that goes by Pidge, take a look at it, and hypothesize (correctly) about the missing element
When Voltron is finally able to move towards completion, Allura is crowned Queen, with her right hand man, renamed Shiro—an Altean variant of a much longer name, that meant brave lion, something he liked much better than the cluttered syllables of the name the midwives on the ship had given him, after his mother and father’s demise—by her side