Lacuna



"This story is less a love note to TV Tropes and more a proposal of marriage."

- Word of God

Lacuna is science fiction story series Twenty Minutes in The Future by David Adams, with the first being "Demons of the Void". The plot of the first novel centres around aliens coming and blowing up three cities on Earth, so Humans build three starships to go out into space with the aims of finding out why and preventing it from happening again. Primarily told through the eyes of Captain Melissa Liao and her ship, the TFR Beijing. A 4/4.5 on Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness.

Author is a troper and the work contains many shout-outs to TV Tropes and assorted tropes by name.


 * Ace Pilot: Alex "Jazz" Aharoni, at least in his own mind.
 * Aliens Are Bastards:
 * Aliens Speaking English: Averted. The Toralii have their own dialects and while they can understand English, they are physically incapable of speaking it (and vice versa). Significant time in "Demons of the Void" is spent.
 * Aliens Steal Cable: Some Toralii know English already.
 * The Alliance: The Toralii have one. They're pricks.
 * All Nations Are Superpowers: Toyed with. The main demographics of the crew are Chinese (justified), Iran (possibly) and Australia (huh). The United States is barely mentioned, except they couldn't join the Task Force because of some significant economic trouble.
 * Always on Duty: Much like in Star Trek, the cool stuff only happens when Liao's on duty.
 * Apocalypse How: Type 0 for Sydney, Beijing and Tehran..
 * Artificial Gravity: Modified gravity generators serve as engines, artificial gravity and.
 * Asteroid Thicket: Averted. Summer complains that hiding in an asteroid belt is pointless because of how empty it is.
 * The Battlestar: The TFR Beijing.
 * Boarding Party:.
 * Bond One-Liner: Summer Rowe, a civilian, wants a handgun like the rest of the crew so if the opportunity comes she can deliver an XKCD inspired Bond One-Liner.
 * The Bridge: Most of the action takes place in Operations, which is in the heavily armoured centre of the ship.
 * Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: Saara talks about distinctly Earthly things, such as tomatoes, in her own language and can't physically speak English. It's unclear if she's using her own words or trying her best to pronounce it in English.
 * Can't Argue With Aliens: The Toralii Alliance don't seem to be fond of doing much but pontificating about their upcoming victories before opening fire. It's implied that only the moderates in the alliance keep them from simply exterminating species they encounter.
 * Catfolk:.
 * Casual Interstellar Travel: Played straight.
 * Cool Starship: The TFR Beijing.
 * Deflector Shields: The three Pillars of the Earth, such as the TFR Beijing can charge their hull to strengthen it, but this is far from invulnerability and the larger Toralii ships can easily.
 * Earth That Used to Be Better: Occasionally this, occasionally Crapsack World.
 * The End of the World as We Know It: The attacks on Earth united  the population against the alien threat.
 * Energy Weapon: Averted for the Humans. Weapons are either nukes or railgun slugs. The Toralii have generic energy weapons designed to heat up their targets.
 * Thrown Out the Airlock: People  wonder why Liao doesn't do this to  . More humourously, Alex and Summer shag in a (temporarily) pressured missile launch tube, leading to Cheung to speculate that if anything went wrong they'd be vented to space and nobody would ever know. Liao is not amused.
 * Explosions in Space: Averted. Most explosions seem to be the ship simply breaking up.
 * Exposed Extraterrestrials: Averted.
 * Faster-Than-Light Travel:.
 * Fetish Fuel Future: Summer and Alex seem to enjoy sex in strange locations, such as missile tubes and fully stocked armouries.
 * First Contact:.
 * Flawed Prototype: The TFR Sydney is constantly plagued by mechanical malfunctions and stays out of the action for most of the first book.
 * Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: The ‘’TFR Beijing‘’ (and the other two ships) are equipped with railguns that run the whole length of the ship.
 * Going Critical: The TFR Beijing's reactors if they can't radiate away their heat efficiently.
 * Grey Goo: Summer finds some strange goo.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:.
 * Humanity Is Superior:.
 * Humans Are White: Averted. There's only one token white character and one character who may be white; the rest of the crew is overwhelmingly Chinese or Iranian, and James is black.
 * Immune to Bullets: Regular bullets have significant difficulty piercing the Toralii armoured space-suits, except for the visor or joints. Un-armoured Toralii die like Humans.
 * Inertial Dampening: The Human ships use a modified version of their Reactionless Drives to create artificial gravity and some limited inertial dampening.
 * In Space Everyone Can See Your Face: The Toralii space suits obscure the face unless the visor is raised..
 * In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: The Toralii believe this about Humans (and, indeed, every species they encounter)..
 * Ironic Name: Varsian the Immortal..
 * ISO Standard Human Spaceship: Averted for the Human ships. Played straight with the Toralii.
 * It Only Works Thrice: The Humans suspect this about the Toralii Wave Motion Gun. Possibly justified.
 * Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: The railguns are almost as powerful as the nukes and certainly effective over longer ranges (against stationary targets their range is essentially unlimited).
 * Last Stand:.
 * Let's Mock the Monsters:.
 * Loads and Loads of Races:  implies this about the universe.
 * Machine Monotone: The Toralii can't physically speak the English language so at first they use an automated translator that sounds like this.
 * Made of Phlebotinum: The complex, extremely strong hull material nicknamed indestructium.
 * Mad Scientist Laboratory: The research facility Liao and James visit is basically this meets a college dorm.
 * Matriarchy: Most senior positions on the Beijing are held by women (Captain, Chief Engineer, Chief of Marines, ).
 * Middle-Eastern Coalition: Iran, given its real-world level of technological development, is possibly one of these.
 * Military Science Fiction: The book is this. The crew, where applicable, have People's Army ranks.
 * Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness: Word of God says he was aiming for 4/4.5.
 * The Mothership:
 * Negative Space Wedgie:.
 * No Sex Allowed: Liao and 's relationship is strongly implied to be against regulations.
 * "No Warping" Zone: Anywhere with strong gravity fields (such as inside a solar system). Very specific points, Lagrange points, allow the use of the jump drive in-system.
 * Nuke'Em: Humanity's response to the Toralii.
 * One World Order: The Toralii had this.
 * Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Almost all of the characters are agnostics or outright atheists, especially James.
 * Powered Armor: The Toralii marines have armoured boarding suits that make them very hard to kill..
 * Proud Warrior Race: The Toralii have shades of this, especially the Toralii Alliance.
 * Ramming Always Works: James invokes this trope by name when discussing his actions in the war games..
 * Ray Gun: Summer invokes this trope by name when.
 * Reactionless Drive: The main ship is powered by this when not using its jump drive to move around between Lagrange points. It's even explicitly referred to as a Reactionless Drive.
 * Reality Warping Is Not a Toy:.
 * Red Alert: Called 'General Quarters'.
 * Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Most Toralii.
 * Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Averted. Summer Rowe makes a point of writing "Not To Scale" on a map of the map of the solar system to try and show how vast it is, and to go anywhere without using the jump drive takes a really really long time.
 * Screw You, Toralii!: The Toralii instruct Humanity not to build jump drive. Humanity builds jump drive.
 * Secret Government Warehouse: Where the jump drive was developed..
 * Shout-Out: So many.
 * XKCD: Twice... even once as a major plot point.
 * The A-Team:
 * Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, many many tropes by name... and TV Tropes itself.
 * Something Only They Would Say: When.
 * Space Base: The Toralii have one..
 * Space Battle: Several times.
 * Space Elves: The Toralii have shades of this.
 * Space Fighter:
 * Space Friction: Averted. The ship, once ballistic, continues on its way unless stopped.
 * Space Is Cold: Averted. The ships are constantly in danger of overheating and are described as covered in fins to try and radiate as much heat as possible.
 * Space Marine: Regular Chinese marines are present, and it's stated they have extra training and protocols to deal with space combats.
 * Space Mines:.
 * Space X: Summer calls the.
 * Superweapon Surprise:.
 * Token Heroic Orc:
 * Two of Your Earth Minutes: The Toralii give the Humans a certain number of Earth rotations to comply.
 * Unpredictable Results:.
 * Weapon of Mass Destruction: The Toralii have one and use it to destroy Sydney, Tehran and Beijing..
 * We Will Wear Armor in the Future:.
 * The World Is Not Ready:.
 * The World Is Not Ready:.