Empire From the Ashes: Difference between revisions

* [[Absolute Xenophobe]] -: the Achuultani. Full Stop.

* [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot]] -: Dahak is smart and good; he became fully sentient thanks to tens of thousands of years of unsupervised operation. Battle Fleet computers are stupid and good, with obedience to Battle Fleet Central enforced (and sentience blocked) at the hardware level. The second book reveals that {{spoiler|the Achuultani are controlled by an ''evil'' AI that exploited emergency protocols arising from their near-extinction to seize absolute power and sends out the periodic genocidal waves to perpetuate the "crisis". And also that Dahak has advanced enough to disregard his core programming, which ''isn't'' hardwired. He's loyal because he ''chooses'' to be}}.

* [[Ancient Conspiracy]] -: The mutineers have been manipulating human civilization from the beginning, for fun and profit, with agents in all the major governments and militaries. {{spoiler|And the mutineer-mutineers have been waging a secret war against them.}}

* [[Uplifted Animal]] -: The royal hounds, after some genetic tinkering and the addition of military grade cyberware.

* [[We Can Rule Together]] -: At the end of the second book, {{spoiler|Battle Comp, the AI commander of the Achuultani invasion,}} enthusiastically makes this offer to {{spoiler|''Dahak'' after it realizes ''Dahak'' is a fellow AI. ''Dahak'' leads it on for a moment, then hacks Battle Comp's core programming into total shutdown}}.

* [[We Didn't Start the Fuhrer]] -: Hitler turning out to have been one of the mutineers in the first book.

{{quote|''No wonder the bomb plot had failed; a man with full enhancement would hardly even have noticed it. And if anyone had ever shown a maniacal glee in taking others down with them, it had been the Nazi elite.'' }}

* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]] -: The Achuultani, once their backstory is revealed. ''Really''.

* [[You Are in Command Now]] -: Colin gets instantly promoted to ''Dahak's'' captain because, as a descendant of the loyalist crew, he is the most senior loyalist crew member on board. Colin later promotes himself to governor of Earth on the same principles, and unwittingly {{spoiler|crowns himself ''Emperor'' by ordering the implementation of "Case Omega"}} in the second book.

* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]] -: The [[Big Bad]] in the third book does this ''so much'' it's almost a [[Running Gag]] by the end. Sometimes, the "usefulness" was simply setting this situation up for ''other'' minions! {{spoiler|This comes back to bite him in the ass ''big time'', though it takes longer than one might expect.}}