Beloved Sci-Fi Series Is Getting a Fifth Entry That Completely Rewrites the Original

Harry Potter put novels and book reading back in the mainstream entertainment ring in the 2000s; by the 2010s, genre book series were a booming business with a direct pipeline to Hollywood. Young adult novels were the biggest cash cow, and no expense was spared on tapping talent that already had built-in cult followings and making big-budget adaptations of their sagas (The Hunger Games, Twilight). Dozens of YA authors were soon getting deals for big franchise films or TV shows, and one of the most famous ones to emerge from the pack was The Divergent Series.

Now, after three novels, a story collection, and one short story “epilogue,” Divergent is going to continue, 15 years later, with a sixth book set for release in October. However, there’s a twist: Divergent series creator Veronica Roth will embrace the current pop-culture obsession with multiverse theory by making her next novel, The Sixth Faction, an alternate-universe retelling of the original Divergent novel.

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What Is Divergent: The Sixth Faction About?

The Divergent series is set in a dystopian future, where the social order is divided into five different factions, based on a person’s personality and skills when they reach the age of 16. Beatrice “Tris” Prior is a girl who finds herself in the dreaded gray space of being “divergent,” meaning she possesses the qualities of multiple factions, never really fitting into any one of them. The “factionless” fall to the bottom rungs of society, so Tris is instructed by her administrator not to reveal her true status. Instead, Tris jumps from the group of selfless givers (Abnegation) to the brave daredevil protectors (Dauntless). The trilogy of novels then focuses on Tris’ journey to keep her secret, while discovering that one faction (the intellectuals of “Erudite”) has plans to control society and dispose of those who don’t fit the mold. Tris and her allies ultimately form a rebellion and have to face multiple different groups and organizations to create a society that doesn’t discriminate based on gene purity.

The twist in the third book, Allegiant, is that Tris dies while trying to repel a poison gas attack from the main antagonist, David, head of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, which created the faction system as an experiment. It is Tobias “Four” Eaton who finishes the fight and lives to see the day that society is changed. The movies never reached that ending: The film version of Allegiant only covered half the novel; a fourth film, Ascendant, was set for production, then got re-imagined as a TV series, and ultimately canceled.

The Sixth Faction will retell the story of Divergent with a big change: Beatrice won’t be choosing Dauntless as her faction. Whatever faction this alt-universe version of Tris chooses, the implication is that it will radically alter her path through the story and where it ends up.

It’s been noted that a lot of 2010s YA authors have already tried to revisit their original works: Twilight’s Stephanie Meyer rewrote the original novel from the perspective of the vampire protagonist Edward, rather than series lead, Bella; Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins has been writing prequel novels that get immediately adapted into new films (with one due out later this year). However, Roth is doing something truly novel (pun!) with a variant universe story. While we wait to see how it plays out, we do have to wonder: the alt-universe of The Sixth Faction ever collide with the original Divergent universe?

Divergent: The Sixth Faction will hit bookshelves in October. Discuss with us on the ComicBook Forum!