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Humanx Commonwealth: Difference between revisions
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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.HumanxCommonwealth 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.HumanxCommonwealth, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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A timeline of the Commonwealth universe can be found [http://alandeanfoster.com/version2.0/chronomaster.htm here].
{{tropelist}}
* [[Zero Percent Approval Rating]]: The Meliorare Society gets this after their scheme to produce genetic supermen is exposed. ''Everyone'' hates them.
* [[Absolute Xenophobe]]: the Pitar, who seemed friendly enough but turned out to be ''batshit crazy''.
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** The Xunca packed up their entire galaxy-spanning civilization and moved to another dimension, possibly one that they manufactured, in order to escape the Great Evil.
** The Great Evil itself is thought by the Xunca to have come from an alternate universe, and {{spoiler|is eventually banished to another one by their superweapon}}.
* [[Anti
* [[Apocalypse How]]: X-3 if the [[Ultimate Evil|Great Evil]] gets to our galaxy, potentially X-4 if it is allowed to roam unchecked. X-2 in ''The End of the Matter'', with the rogue collapsar sucking up star systems. ''Bloodhype'' merely gives us a Class 5 on any planet the Vom reaches.
* [[Applied Phlebotinum]]: Being a [[Space Opera]] series, it lives on this trope.
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* [[Food Pills]]: Meal concentrates. Most characters express a preference for the real thing, however, or at least use equipment to make the concentrates more meal-like.
* [[Forgot About His Powers]]: The times Flinx remembers to use his [[Superpower Meltdown]] offensively in the later novels seem to be based less on his competence and more on whether [[The Cavalry|someone else is coming to save him]].
* [[Frickin' Laser Beams]]: The trope itself is averted in that lasers are treated fairly realistically, and are only one of a myriad of weapons used in spacial combat.
* [[Gene Hunting]]: Flinx does a ''ton'' of this, starting with ''Orphan Star'' and (mercifully) concluding in ''Patrimony''.
* [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke]]: The Meliorare Society sought to manipulate the genes of unborn children to create supermen. What they got was... ugly, to say the least, leading to them and their victims being outlawed and hunted down. Flinx and {{spoiler|Mahnahmi}} are the only two altered subjects known to have escaped.
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* [[Kick the Dog]]: Too many villainous moments to list (Conda Challis, anyone?), but Flinx gets his own [[Designated Hero]] moment in ''Reunion'' when he uses his projective empathy to infiltrate the Terran Shell.
* [[Knight Templar]]: The Church agents from the Moral Operations branch who pursue Flinx and the Meliorares in ''For Love of Mother-Not'' wish to see the Meliorares destroyed and all their experimental subjects put down or "made normal", regardless of the cost in lives and/or the desires of said subjects.
* [[Laser
* [[Last of His Kind]]: Peot, the Tar-Aiym Guardian. At one point it is suggested that Abalamahalamatandra is the last Hur'rikku, but this theory is quelled. He is the last ''something'', though, even if it's just a [[Living MacGuffin]].
* [[Lensman Arms Race]]: Happened between the Tar-Aiym and Hur'rikku in the [[Backstory]], to the point where the two races destroyed not only each other but wiped out all higher life forms from a large chunk of the galaxy. The efforts of the Xunca to counter the [[Ultimate Evil|Great Evil]] fall into this category as well, when you consider that the grand finale in ''Flinx Transcendent'' involves {{spoiler|using the equivalent of ''several million galaxies''' worth of energy to rip a hole between universes to remove the [[Ultimate Evil|Great Evil]] from existence}}.
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* [[Mind Control]]: The AAnn scheme to implant [[Driven to Suicide|suicidal]] thought plays into the Janus Jewels mined from Ulru-Ujurr in ''Orphan Star''.
* [[Mind Rape]]: Both Flinx and {{spoiler|Mahnahmi}} can use their projective empathy/telepathy offensively, and do, even to the point of killing people (by accident in Flinx's case). Also one of the powers of the Vom in ''Bloodhype''.
* [[Murder, Inc.]]: The Quarm are a feared guild of assassins whose creed, apart from ruthless efficiency, is that they never fail to kill a target. Flinx and his allies may be the sole claimants to have successfully defeated them.
* [[Mysterious Parent]]: Flinx's search for his genetic mother and father doesn't turn out ''quite'' the way he expected.
* [[Negative Space Wedgie]]: The Vom. The [[Ultimate Evil|Great Evil]] probably counts as well.
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* [[Saintly Church]]: The United Church is portrayed as well-meaning and idealistic, almost saccharinely so. On the other hand, its operatives are well trained, and can go around [[Church Militant|very well-armed]], when called for.
* [[Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]: The one glaring example here is the scale of the interstellar merchant trade. There would have to be literally millions of ships running nonstop routes between every star system to deliver even a fraction of the goods required to sustain an economy the size of the Commonwealth's. On the other hand, ''The Tar-Aiym Krang'' does contain a passage explaining how difficult it is to patrol interstellar space; if you don't travel within sensor range of a monitored system, you can go anywhere you want.
* [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]]: A rare example of the protagonist using this trope; after ''Orphan Star'', Flinx is so rich (the Ujurrians rigged his account with [[Arbitrarily Large Bank Account|effectively infinite wealth]]) that he can buy his way out of many situations. Of course, in later novels he's wanted by nearly every Commonwealth authority, so the value of his "inheritance" is a bit dubious.
** Blatantly invoked by Jack-Jax Coerlis, the {{spoiler|first}} villain of ''Mid-Flinx'', {{spoiler|1=at least until the ''real'' threat (the AAnn) show up}}.
* [[Sealed Good in A Can]]: Peot, the Tar-Aiym Guardian, in ''Bloodhype''.
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* [[Single Biome Planet]]: There are both aversions and straight uses of this, depending largely on how much time the story spends on a given world. Terra, Hivehom, and Moth get the most love; but then you have examples like Midworld and Longtunnel...
* [[Slipping a Mickey]]: Happens to Flinx in ''Orphan Star'', courtesy of an unscrupulous thranx hired by Conda Challis.
* [[So What Do We Do Now?]]: {{spoiler|Flinx's last line in ''Flinx Transcendent'' -- "I'm bored."}}
* [[Space Fighter]]: The Commonwealth has stingships, two-person attack ships each carrying a single SCCAM missile.
* [[Space Is an Ocean]]: Most particularly in that the method of [[Faster Than Light Travel|FTL]] used allows interplanetary travel measured in days or weeks. "KK drive" starships therefore cruise the void much like sailing vessels, complete with merchant traders and trading companies run by wealthy magnates.
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* [[Viewers Are Geniuses]]: The climactic chapters of ''Flinx Transcendent'' read like an exercise in applied string theory. Where did the Xunca go again? How exactly does the [[Lost Superweapon]] work? Better hope you're up on your applied math or have a scientist friend handy.
* [[Wave Motion Gun]]: The Krang is one of these - it uses an entire planet as its power source and generates miniature black holes. Okay, let's just apply this trope to ''every single thing'' created by the Tar-Aiym, Hur'rikku, and Xunca.
* [[Well
* [[What Is Evil?]]: The Vom has this attitude. Peot and Flinx' answer: "You are. Now die."
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: The Commonwealth puts Flinx on their wanted list in response to his actions in ''Reunion'', which include using projective empathy to manipulate his way into the Terran Shell and then triggering a trap that nearly levels the entire complex. Also, Flinx gets rather thoroughly chewed out by Tru and Bran in ''Flinx Transcendent'', after revealing that he spent the last four novels [[Contemplate Our Navels|navel gazing]] rather than searching for the Tar-Aiym superweapon.
* [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]]: A fairly brief one at the end of ''Flinx Transcendent''.
* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]: {{spoiler|Mahnahmi. Oh, how we weep for thee. Now ''stop trying to kill Flinx while he's saving the universe already''!}}
* [[The Worf Barrage]]: Despite being over a hundred times more powerful than the original Krang, {{spoiler|the one and only time the Tar-Aiym weapons platform is fired is in the last novel and it proves completely ineffective against the [[Ultimate Evil|Great Evil]]}}.
* [[The Worf Effect]]: Pip suffers from this increasingly as the series goes on. Justified in the sense that anyone seriously threatening Flinx does their homework to learn how to neutralize her, but it still feels a bit cheap. On the other hand, by the end of the series, he doesn't need her protection nearly as much.
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