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{{tropenamer}}
* [[Lensman Arms Race]] - both [[Trope Maker]] and [[Trope Namer]].▼
{{tropelist}}
* [[Action Girl]] - Clarissa Kinnison is surprisingly badass, given the time period.
** Especially later on, Clarissa is quite badass for ''most'' time periods.
** Her daughters, two sets of twins aged eighteen and nineteen, aren't far behind her and later on they turn it [[Up to Eleven]] - possibly twelve.
* [[A God Am I]] -
* [[Alien Lunch]]: The planet Trenco, where anything has to be willing to eat anything in order to survive, and usually does - to the point where a creature will take pains to finish its lunch even while being lunched upon.
* [[Alliterative Name]] - Conway Costigan, Kimball Kinnison
** Oh, it doesn't stop ''there'': Christopher "Kit" Kinnison, Kathryn "Kat" Kinnison, Camilla "Cam" Kinnison, Karen "Kay" Kinnison, Constance "Con" Kinnison...
* [[Alien Non-Interference Clause]]: The Arisians and Eddorians do not engage in direct conflict with each other or with the lesser races, and instead work through cutouts and manipulation. This is because the Arisians are strong enough to keep the Eddorians more or less bottled up, but not strong enough to kill the Eddorians' elite
* [[Exclusively Evil]] - Nearly all of Boskone is so evil that virtually no prisoners are ever taken. On ''both'' sides of the war. Several entire Boskonian planets (all of them effectively planet-sized fortresses) are destroyed with no survivors over the course of the series.▼
** On at least one occasion, Kinnison notes that the previous life on that planet had been exterminated to make way for the base; this is hinted at as being standard Boskonian technique.▼
▲* [[Alien Non-Interference Clause]]: The Arisians and Eddorians do not engage in direct conflict with each other or with the lesser races, and instead work through cutouts and manipulation. This is because the Arisians are strong enough to keep the Eddorians more or less bottled up, but not strong enough to kill the Eddorians' elite councilmembers, and too much Arisian meddling with Civilization will hinder the development of the lesser races.
* [[Amulet of Concentrated Awesome]] - Played straight by having the Lensmen's lenses amplify their [[Psychic Powers]]. {{spoiler|For the Second-Stage Lensmen they turned out just to be [[Magic Feather|magic feathers]], as Second-Stage Lensmen are advanced enough to use mind powers on their own.}}
** The Lens amplifies psi power in humans, it does other things for other species (some of whom are already naturally powerful psionically).
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* [[An Axe to Grind]] - the Valerian [[Recycled in Space|space]] axe. The universe's personal battle armour (and its associated energy shield) deflects most hand-held projectile and energy weapons, and the Valerians are fast enough, thanks to {{spoiler|their origin on a high-grav world}}, to close the distance before the few exceptions can do much good.
* [[Animal Eye Spy]] - Kinnison does this mostly, using everything from dogs to worms to infiltrate enemy bases or perform critical tasks. Nadreck takes a hint later.
* [[Animated Adaptation]]: Obscure anime adaptation, ''[[Lensman: Galactic Patrol]]''.
* [[Applied Phlebotinum]] - Ultrawaves, good for everything from [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|FTL]] [[Subspace Ansible|communication]] to [[X-Ray Vision]]!
* [[Author Avatar]] - In ''Triplanetary'', Roderick Kinnison is reading a ''Lensman''-like sci-fi story when the news about Pearl Harbour comes on the radio. He comes out of retirement, taking a job in a munitions factory where his training in organic chemistry makes him a useful asset. E.E. "Doc" Smith, SF author, had a [[PHD]] in organic chemistry (although specifically related to foodstuffs rather than explosives). Would be a [[Canon Sue]], except that Kinnison is ultimately defeated: ( {{spoiler|shells and mines loaded at the factory are going off prematurely, killing good men; Kinnison walks away from the job rather than accept orders to violate quality control and safety standards - orders which could be implied as being issued under Eddorian influence}}).
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* [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy]]: Several tyrants throughout Earth history, including Nero, [[Genghis Khan]], and [[Adolf Hitler]], were actually guises used by Gharlane of Eddore. Also, an in-universe example with the scientist Bergenholm. In the second book, he comes up with the breakthrough to make the Inertialess Drive safe and efficient. Later, they find out that {{spoiler|he was an Arisian}}.
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: Lensmen were referred to as "sublimated boy scouts" by one character, but Klono help you if they catch you engaging in piracy. Not to mention that they use planets as strategic weapons.
* [[BFG]]: The Standish, the equivalent of a machine gun, and it replacement, the semi-portable.
* [[The Big Board]] - [[Trope Maker]], to the extent that the US Navy borrowed the idea.
* [[Bizarre Alien Biology]] - the Palainians' metabolism has to extend into the fourth dimension in order to function in their native environment (Pluto is as far inside Earth's solar system as they feel comfortable living), and there are other races that take this to even greater extremes.
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* [[Boarding Party]] - many, many times. Justified in that the villains are space pirates by nature, and interested in loot as much as interruption of trade.
* [[Brother-Sister Incest]] - Never happens in the books themselves, but the five Kinnison kids are the new ultimate beings – a race seperate from the rest of humanity and the founding population of a new species of [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]]. One brother, four sisters, do the math. Vaguely foreshadowed (as strongly as the era would allow, anyway) in the last book.
**
{{quote|''...each of the Kinnison girls knew it would be a physical and psychological impossibility for her to become even mildly interested in a man not at least her father's equal. They each had dreamed of a man who would be her own equal, physically and mentally, but it had not yet occurred to any of them that one such man already existed.''}}
* [[Call to Adventure]]
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** The Kalonians got the job initially because the only function of their women is the production of men. The Lyranians, on the other hand, are a Matriarchal society to the same degree. Give them a few years and a little bit of help... {{spoiler|Helen of Lyrane and Clarissa Kinnison put a firm stop to that.}}
* [[Eternal Prohibition]]: All illegal drugs are still illegal in the far future, [[Status Quo Is God|as they should be]]; indeed, much of the Galactic Patrol's work is replicating a galactic DEA ([[Judge, Jury, and Executioner|with Judge Dredd's plenipotentiary powers]]). Drug pushing seems to be regarded as the most serious of crimes; the punishment is either death or [[Brainwashing for the Greater Good|corrective psychological therapy]].
** The Patrol focuses
*** The Patrol does still arrest bentlam-peddlers and bentlam is still illegal to possess; the bentlam that Kinnison uses as a prop during one of his undercover investigations is obtained from already-confiscated stocks of bentlam in the evidence room. However,
** Considering that the Arisians' goal is to develop an incorruptible force of Lensmen with the natural "powers of mind" {{spoiler|to use as a weapon against the Eddorians}}, Civilization would logically take a dim view of corrupting mind-altering drugs.
* [[Everybody Smokes]]: [[Double Standard|Even the women]]. Tobacco is never once maligned in the series. Fine brand cigarettes are imported to Tellus all the way from Alsakan, all the way across the galaxy.
* [[Evil Only Has to Win Once]]: Inverted. The Arisians point out to Helmuth that there is absolutely no way to defeat them, and that if humanity proves incapable of using the Lens to defeat Boskone, then they'll just let him conquer and corrupt this iteration of Civilization while they wait for another one.
* [[Evolutionary Levels]] - Lensmen are graded on stages from First to Third; only specially bred individuals get past First-Stage Lensman.
▲* [[Exclusively Evil]] - Nearly all of Boskone is so evil that virtually no prisoners are ever taken. On ''both'' sides of the war. Several entire Boskonian planets (all of them effectively planet-sized fortresses) are destroyed with no survivors over the course of the series.
▲** On at least one occasion, Kinnison notes that the previous life on that planet had been exterminated to make way for the base; this is hinted at as being standard Boskonian technique.
* [[Explosive Overclocking]]: Primary beams.
* [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]] - the "inertialess drive" and later, [[Our Wormholes Are Different|Hyperspatial tubes]].
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* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: After the trio has been captured by Gray Roger, Clio has the following conversation with her guide:
{{quote|"But I wouldn't want to keep on living!" Clio declared, with a flash of spirit. "And I can always die, you know."
"You will find that you cannot die," the passionless creature returned monotonously. "If you do not yield, you will long and pray for death, but you will not die unless Rodger wills it. I was like you once. I also struggled, and I became what I am now - whatever it is."
** Later Conway remarks that the woman "isn't alive - she's full of the prettiest machinery and communicators that you ever saw!" Which leads to a ''major'' [[Fridge Horror]] moment when one stops to wonder just how many other of Roger's robots started out as human.
*** That's the original version of ''Triplanetary'', before it was rewritten for the ''Lensman'' series. In the revised version, it's never implied the woman was anything but a robot.
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** Kinnison (a combat officer) plays the role himself to a degree, on Velantia, but even here it's justified because the technical breakdown of the captured Boskonian battleship has already been performed by experts and the Velantian engineers are mostly duplicating from blueprints. When it comes to tapping the enemy's communications, however, he has to wait until his Chief Communications Officer arrives. Later in the series, he has technical experts to do the work for him.
* [[Gender-Restricted Ability]] - Smith's stories had only one woman who was deemed worthy of the Lens. ''First Lensman'' had the Arisians [[Hand Wave]] it by explaining that the Lenses were intrinsically "masculine". Some of the authorized sequels just threw other Lenswomen in anyway. And a canon Lenswoman ''did'' eventually appear, throwing the original claim somewhat into question, but that's Arisians for you... they [[From a Certain Point of View|say whatever]] [[Batman Gambit|elicits the desired reactions]].
** The Arisians told the first crew of Lensmen Candidates that there would be, eventually, just one human woman Lensman, which was Clarrissa. Her daughters
* [[Gladiator Revolt]] - In ''Triplanetary'', a small group tries to overthrown Emperor Nero (who is really {{spoiler|Gharlane of Eddore}}.)
* [[Goggles Do Something Unusual]] - The ultra-wave "spy ray"
* [[Great Offscreen War]]: The Jovian Wars. There were at least four of them, they they resulted in the Triplanetary League forming from Venus, Tellus, and Mars.
* [[Green Lantern Ring]] - the Lens.
* [[Guilt-Free Extermination War]]: Depending on the book. In ''First Lensman'', this is averted, but in chronologically later books, as the Boskonian war heats up, it becomes an axiom of battle that no quarter is ever asked or offered by either side, and belonging to Boskone is grounds for death without trial. Relaxed after
* [[Heavyworlder]] - The Valerians, who were originally human colonists, evolving into a [[Human Subspecies]] because of it.
* [[Hero of Another Story]] - See the entry for Nadreck the Palainian under [[Magnificent Bastard]].
* [[Heroes Want Redheads]] - Kim and Clarissa.
** The
* [[Human Aliens]] - Kinnison not only manages to pass as a native on Thrale (a planet Civilization's run of humanity could not ''possibly'' have colonized – [[Transplanted Humans|knowingly, anyway]]), but even manages to impersonate one of Boskone's officers there.
** He ''did'' telepathically absorb practically all of the memories and skills of the Thralian officer he was replacing, and {{spoiler|unknowingly had the Arisians filling in the blanks where he couldn't.}} His Lens also enables him to tell when someone is suspicious and blank their suspicions accordingly.
** Also, in the ''Lensman'' universe, convergent evolution is a scientific fact: all the separate branches of humanity are virtually identical, even if they arose in entirely different galaxies. This is attributed to all non-Eddorian life in the known universe sharing an ultimate ancestor (the Arisians), meaning that species differentiation would be produced only by evolving in different environments.
*** This is brought up by characters in the series, where they will mention how close to baseline Tellurians a particular alien is, often saying something like "Tellurian to within ten decimal places." However, it is unclear as to whether the decimal places part is meant to represent an actual mathematical formula, or is simply tongue-in-cheek.
* [[Humanity Is Superior]] - guess who runs Civilization? There were four species the Arisians selectively bred and eugenically improved for millions of years. The four races were the humans, the Velantians, the Rigellians and the Palainians. Humanity was considered the most desirable candidate of the four races because each of the others, despite being [[Puny Earthlings|superior to humanity]] in many qualities, had a [[Planet of Hats|significant flaw]]: the Palainians were intrinsically cowardly and very bad at multitasking, the Rigellians too
* [[I Have You Now, My Pretty]] - Gray Roger, like any good [[Space Pirate]], tries to force himself on [[The Hero]]'s [[Love Interest]].
** Subverted in that Roger {{spoiler|is actually an asexual alien who reproduces by binary fission and is mainly just trying to figure out what this "sex" thing is and why other races think it's such a big deal anyway.}} When he says he wants to use her for experiments pertaining to sex, what he means and what she
*** Earlier Roger mentions that he enjoys the "society of young and beautiful women," [[Fridge Horror|implying that Clio isn't the first]].
* [[Inertial Dampening]] - The Bergenholm inertialess drive, which was the [[Trope Maker|origin of the trope]].
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* [[Jack of All Stats]] - Of the five Children of the Lens, Christopher. More generally, humans compared to other races of the Galaxy.
* [[Judge, Jury, and Executioner]]: The Lensmen generally don't bother with trials or due process.
▲* [[Lensman Arms Race]] - [[Trope Maker]] and [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Loyal Phlebotinum]] - The Lenses, which kill anyone other than their owners who tries to wield them.
* [[Mad Mathematician]]
* [[The Man Behind the Man]] - the Arisians, the Eddorians (and the Ploorans, and so on down the Boskone hierarchy), Prime Minister Fossten.
* [[Mecha-Mooks]] - Grey Roger's minions in ''Triplanetary''. Played with in that the escaping heroes unhesitatingly gun down both robots and humans on sight without a moral quiver (they are enemy troops after all).
* [[Mental Fusion]]
* [[Mind Rape]]: Used heavily by the villains. Also [[What the Hell, Hero?|occasionally by the heroes]]. Particularly [[Magnificent Bastard|Nadreck of Palain]], although his entire race's moral philosophy differs radically from that of humans.
* [[Minovsky Physics]] - Ultra-waves, ether,
* [[Never Found the Body]] - The nature of high-energy space warfare means you usually don't have a body to find, which Grey Roger uses – ''twice'' – to his benefit.
* [[Nice to the Waiter]] - Even when he's infiltrating the bad guys' organization to work his way up the hierarchy, Virgil Samms refuses to take credit for work those under him did.
* [[No Conservation of Energy]]: Averted [[Shown Their Work|hard]]; whether it's ray guns ''[[Disintegrator Ray|actually]]'' [[Family-Unfriendly Death|vaporizing people]] or [[Deflector Shields]] reradiating energy to their surroundings and setting them on fire, Smith is one rare sci-fi author who understands that not only does energy have to be generated, it also has to ''go somewhere''.
** Metal objects don't simply disappear - they glow, melt, and even evaporate if the beam is powerful enough.
** In the climactic battle of the last book, anti-matter projectiles are used, and Smith very explicitly states that when an electron and positron collide, they annihilate, giving to two photons of *very* hard radiation. The really ''big'' antimaterial projectiles can fill volumes with
* [[Nuclear Option]]: More like [[Casual Nuclear War]], for lack of a better term. Several variants of atomic weapons are used: ''Super-atomic bombs'' which convert their entire rest-mass into energy, and ''duodecaplylatomate'' (or "duodec," for short), somewhat less energetic but apparently in wider use (perhaps cheaper?). And of course, the famous ''negabombs'', [[Science Marches On|"antimatter"]] projectiles that come in every size [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|up to planetary mass]]. All are used increasingly liberally as the war escalates; expect no trace of any [[Nuclear Weapons Taboo]].
** Other passages
* [[Old School Dogfighting]]: Averted - the closest thing they have would be speedsters, used for scouting and transportation.
* [[Omniscient Morality License]] - The Arisians like to jerk the lesser races' chains a lot, but it's for their own good.
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* [[Outside Context Villain]]: The Nevians in ''Triplanetary'' - when they first show up wreck both the patrol and the pirate fleets. Once the ''Boise'' gets the proper upgrades, however...
* [[Pardon My Klingon]] - The Lenses assign random words to alien concepts with no direct human equivalent, and all the lenses use the same word afterwards.
* [[Powered Armor]]: According to many, the [[Ur Example]], certainly a very early one (decades before [[Starship Troopers (novel)|''Starship Troopers'']]). Includes [[Deflector Shields|protective force-fields]], [[Inertial Dampening|inertial dampening tech]], [[Jet Pack|rocket thrusters]], a generous [[Frickin' Laser Beams|heat ray]], and [[Really Heavy Armor|the multi-kilohorsepower engines required to move it around]].
* [[Power of Love]]: This is what enables Clarissa to {{spoiler|find and bring back Kinnison after he went through the [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|Hell Hole]] and was trapped in a far off dimension that not even Mentor and the children could find.}} The chapter's even ''called'' "The Power of Love".
** Given the early publication date, would that make this the [[Trope Namer]]?
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* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] - Worsel, to avenge the millennia his people suffered at the hands of the Overlords of Delgon (not to mention his own suffering), vows to obliterate the entire species from the universe. Pretty much does. Considers the fact that he has to torture some of them for information to be a bonus.
** This is a species that {{spoiler|tortures its victims slowly to death in order to enjoy their agonies and then consume their life-force as they die. Little wonder that the Velantians' allies saw fit to help them destroy it.}}
* [[Sarcastic Confession]] - There is a brief sequence in "Children of the Lens" where Kinnison is undercover as a drug runner. During the course of some business
{{Quote|'''Harkleroy''': Thionite - two kilograms! Where and how did you ''get'' it?
'''Kinnison (aka "Bradlow Thyron")''': I asked the Lensman on Trenco to make it for me, special, and he did.}}
* [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens]] - Boskone is [[The Empire]] pitted against the democratic and free [[The Alliance|Civilization]]. Consider the stories were written in the run-up to, and during, WWII and I think you can see who they stand for.
** It's probably not coincidence that the title of the Eddorian leader is also one of the titles of the German Kaiser ("All-Highest").
** Also Cf. Helmuth von Moltke, German commander at the start of
* [[Schematized Prop]] - any and all weapons, but particularly the DeLameter blaster. Almost all spaceships.
* [[Science Marches On]]:
** Spaceships developed on slide rule, with fantastic beam weapons that use vacuum tubes! Given that every spaceship which flew in Smith's lifetime (d.1965) probably was drafted on slide rule, he wasn't doing too badly.
*** The ''[[GURPS]]'' RPG supplement [[Justifying Edit|threw in the explanation]] that the Arisians deliberately [[Fake Difficulty|prevented anyone]] in Civilization from inventing the transistor or modern computing theory, because the entire point of the Arisian breeding program was to improve the powers of the mind. Allowing the existence of surrogate minds (i.e., computers) would have interfered with that development, by removing most of the need for heightened intellectual capacity beyond the current human average. Some canonical support for this theory exists – when the Arisian breeding program finally reached its end (i.e., when the Children of the Lens were finally born), Civilization ''did'' immediately start to develop advanced computing technology, as seen in both ''Children of the Lens'' and ''Masters of the Vortex''.
** Well before that, they already had [[Mecha-Mooks]] to crew at least some of their war fleets, and robots (albeit more primitive ones) were around before humanity had expanded beyond the solar system. Lensman information technology is ... [[Schizo-Tech|weird]] by modern standards.
** The early version of the Nebular Hypothesis that dominated the books' ideas of stellar and planetary formation, and the pre-DNA eugenics and [[Evolutionary Levels]] concepts used in the Lensman breeding programs.
** The inertialess drive was theoretically possible when the books were written, but advancements in relativity and quantum mechanics have both made hash of it.
** Negamatter. It's essentially antimatter, but as originally imagined by Paul Dirac in the 1930s. As such, it has negative mass and some other weird properties most scientists today don't believe it should have.
** Lundmark's Nebula is a dwarf galaxy, nowhere near the size of the Milky Way. Current astronomical thinking (as [https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170519.html reported by NASA's ''Astronomy Picture of the Day'' website]) is that it never interacted with any other galaxy in the Local Group.
** The Nevians in ''Triplanetary'' came to the Solar System because they were looking for iron, a massive power source. Not only is iron now known to be the least energy-intensive element (in that energy has to be added to it in order for it to undergo fission or fusion), but (according to [http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aa992e a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal in December 2017]), the Solar system actually has ''less'' iron than average.
* [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]: Averted; Smith appears very much aware that he's portraying a galaxy-wide civilization. Here's the Gray Lensman on leading the assault on a major Boskonian stronghold:
{{quote|'''Kinnison:''' "With around a million fleets to handle we can't spend much time on any one."}}
** The starships of the Galactic Patrol use total conversion of matter to energy for their engines. At first, the power was conducted in meters-thick, liquid-helium-cooled silver busbars, because nothing less could handle it. It's specifically noted that to utilize their extreme power sources [[Beyond the Impossible|to their fullest]], they needed to go a step further than that and discover [[Unobtainium|room-temperature superconductors]].
* [[Screw the Rules, I Have a Nuke]]: In ''First Lensman'', Roderick Kinnison suggests that the Galactic Patrol simply conquer North America by right of the bigger fleet. First Lensman Samms convinces him to cool his jets and challenge the Morgan political machine through free and fair elections instead, because Virgil Samms believes in the rule of law and seizing power by force would undermine the legitimacy of the Galactic Patrol. (Instead, the Lensmen rewrite the rules so that they are ''legally'' above the law.)
* [[Show, Don't Tell]]: Averted. Smith's character descriptions tend to be "This is what you should think about this character."
* [[Shown Their Work]]: For such a dated series, Lensman can be surprisingly hard science-fiction at times.
** [[2-D Space]]: Averted hard. Englobement is a standard tactic, as is the Cone of Battle.
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