The Apocalypse Troll: Difference between revisions

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* [[Action Girlfriend]]

* [[Ace Pilot]]: As of the beginning of the book, Ludmilla has thirty-four fighter kills and squadrons under her command have destroyed thirteen capital ships, including a dreadnaught which she was the [[Sole Survivor]] of the battle to destroy it. She kills at least one Troll Fighter after scrambling (maybe a second one, but the narrative doesn't confirm that her missile hit). Following that the Troll commander notes that, in the three week long running battle during which her fighter is the only remaining human craft because she hasn't had to sleep, she has killed another ten fighters from his squadron. She's an ace nine times over even before she takes out two more Trolls on atmospheric approach to Earth {{spoiler|and the Troll commander only shoots her down because she was willing to die in order to nuke the Kanga ship carrying a bioweapon that would have made the entire human race extinct}}.

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: She has ''three'' advanced degrees.

* [[Eternal English]]: Slightly subverted - some bits from 400 years in the future require explanation, such as dropping the first syllable of "mister" and just saying "Ster".

* [[Mayfly-December Romance]]: Ludmilla (who is effectively immortal via [[Healing Factor]], though she can be killed) falls in love with a normal man.

** For [[Retired Badass|certain values of "normal"]]...

** Likewise, if you haven't guessed that {{spoiler|the [[Badass Normal]] love interest turns out to be [[Million-to-One Chance|the 1 to 5%]] by the end of the book}}, [[Genre Blind|you need to read this wiki more]].

* [[Take Me to Your Leader]]: The second sentence she says to Dick (after "Hello, yourself") after waking up. It's an [[Invoked Trope]] because she's from the future, literally fell from space, has an interest in "historical" entertainment, and (as she explains when Dick calls bullshit on her using this line) has a low brow sense of humor.

* [[Absolute Xenophobe]]: the Kangas. The Trolls, judging by the sample of one we have, go past this and into [[Omnicidal Maniac]] territory.

** The Trolls are portrayed in the book as especially hating Ludmilla and her kind.

* [[The Dragon]]: Blake Taggart.

* [[Dying Moment of Awesome]]: Captain Onslow ordering Ludmilla to pursue the fleeing Kangas with all of her surviving fighters instead of returning to protect the [[The Battlestar|Defender]] because he's already given orders to [[Ramming Always Works|ram the Troll dreadnaught]]. He nicely caps it off with the words "[[See You in Hell]], Col-" as the flagships collide in a titanic explosion.

* [[Mysterious Antarctica]]: where the Troll first lands on Earth.

* [[Omnicidal Maniac]]: The Trolls would gladly kill their alien masters if they could, but the Kangas made very sure they can't. So they'll settle for killing everything else.

* [[See You in Hell]]: literally Captain Onslow's last words, spoken to Ludmilla as the ''Defender'' [[Ramming Always Works|rams the Troll dreadnaught]]. Both ships are completely annihilated in a huge nuclear fireball.

* [[Sole Survivor]]: Ludmilla and the Troll are the only survivors of a pair of [[Standard Sci-Fi Fleet]] battle groups that spent about a month (subjective time, at least, considering that they spent most of that time traveling at relativistic speeds) wiping each other out both before and after they [[Time Travel|went so fast they went back in time]]. {{spoiler|The Troll is unaware that Ludmilla survived for most of the book, however, because he thought he had killed her when he destroyed her fighter over the Atlantic. He only learns of her survival when she activates her blaster during the climactic final battle, an instant before she blows him to hell.}}

* [[Standard Sci-Fi Fleet]]: The general organization of both the Terran Navy and the Kangas. The shorthanded human battle group is led by the ''[[The Battlestar|Defender]]'', which ends up facing off against a Kanga carrier and dreadnaught, after both sides' cruisers and destroyers were destroyed before the big ships managed to [[Time Travel|defy Einstein]].

* [[Temporal Paradox]]: After some early discussion, the question is tabled in favor of more practical matters. The upshot is that it doesn't really matter; even if Ludmilla's home timeline is safe, she and her comrades would fight just as hard to save ''another'' Earth from what the Kangas and their cyborg slaves would do to it.

** {{spoiler|The Troll thinks he killed Ludmilla ("[[The Symbiote|the cralkhi")]] from the point that he blasts her fighter to pieces in low orbit. A major element of the story from that point is that her existence must remain a secret because the only weapon on the planet that can reliably destroy the Troll can only be fired by Ludmilla, because it's hardwired to her DNA. They could still use strategic-grade nukes (there's actually an F-18 Hornet overhead on standby during the climax, being flown by an extremely freaked-out pilot who has not been informed as to why he might be ordered to destroy half of Virginia at any given moment), but if she is actually able to pull the trigger there's a much better chance of not killing a few million innocent bystanders.}}

 

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[[Category:Science Fiction Literature]]