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{{quote|''"Life is short. Then you die. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order"''|'''Solomon Short''', ''"A Matter for Men"''}}
 
''The War Against the Chtorr'' is an incomplete sci-fi series by David Gerrold about an invasion of Earth by an [[Horde of Alien Locusts|entire alien ecosystem]], set [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]]. Just about everyone in [[The Government]] has become an [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]], save the odd [[Magnificent Bastard]]. The rest of the world has forced the United States to accept [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard|crippling economic treaties]] to keep it from engaging in the odd [[Government Conspiracy]]. Then [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]] begins. First a series of [[Alien Invasion|alien]] plagues [[Depopulation Bomb|wipes out most of humanity]], and then aliens (much) bigger than microbes begin popping up. The invaders consist mainly of giant worms, insects, plants and other, ''extremely'' [[High Octane Nightmare Fuel|unpleasant stuff]]. They eat everything, resulting in massive environmental damage, but they ''really'' like to [[To Serve Man|eat people]]. Then [[It Got Worse|it gets worse]].
 
So far there are four books out; the fifth has been [[Vaporware|coming out real soon since 1994]]; there are supposed to be seven altogether.
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* [[Eat the Dog]]: Captured worms like them for treats.
* [[Embarrassing First Name]]: Theodore Andrew Nathaniel Jackson grew up in a nudist camp.
* [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]]. Implicit. If the war is won, it won't be in the lifetime of any of the characters. Best case scenario? If [[Utopia|everybody got a clue all at once]] ''during the first book'', the Chtorr would be beaten in fifty years. "Every day that passes without a program of unified resistance to the Chtorran invasion pushes the window of possible victory two weeks farther away." Worst case scenario? "We could all be dead in ten."
* [[Epigraph]]. Ranging from newspaper articles and quotes by Solomon Short (a newspaper columnist) in the first two books, limericks in the third book, and long quotes from ''[[Encyclopedia Exposita|The Red Book]]'' in the fourth.
* [[Eternal Prohibition]]. Averted in that drugs can be obtained legally.
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* [[Feathered Fiend]]: [[Man-Eating Plant|Shambler trees]] are host to an entire ecology of carnivorous tenants that swarm in their thousands when they sense the vibrations of nearby prey.
* [[Flechette Storm]]: The AM-280 rifle with [[Laser Sight]], which only the user can see because the [[Goggles Do Something Unusual]].
* [[Freeze Ray]]: There's a gun that shoots [[Kill It Withwith Ice|liquid nitrogen]].
* [[Future Food Is Artificial]]: As there are so few people who actually grow food for a living, real food is a luxury. One form of currency is actually backed by chocolate (!) since [[Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap]].
* [[Genius Loci]]: The Chtorran cities, possibly the entire invading ecology.
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* [[Government Agency of Fiction]]: The Uncle Ira Group AKA United Intelligence. Given that the United States is treated like post-WW1 Germany, the mere fact that it has an intelligence agency is top secret. Likewise with the Special Forces Warrant Agency, a black ops unit whose use of weapons such as napalm is illegal. The Teamwork Army (an unemployment program) actually serves as a [[Kansas City Shuffle|cover for training potential soldiers in this ostensibly demilitarized country]].
* [[Government Conspiracy]]: Every move by the United States government to fight the Chtorrans is viewed by the rest of the world as an attempt to reassert American supremacy. Ironically these suspicions would be all-too-accurate under different circumstances. The best example would be {{spoiler|that ''every single freaking computer chip'' the US has built since their [[Pride Before a Fall|deposition as a global superpower]] is in fact a [[Trojan Horse]]; each one has a [[Tracking Device]] and a [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]] - they know where ''all the weapons on earth'' are, and can ''destroy them at any time''.}} As one character put it: "There's enough history between us to fuel a major war, and if it weren't for the convenient intervention of the worms, that's probably what we'd be doing right now."
** Okay, the Uncle Ira conspiracy must be stated in full to be believed. It begins when a {{spoiler|periodic [[Gulf War]] escalates into a reverse [[Cuban Missile Crisis]]. The Third World then gets its act together for five seconds and demands that the US stand down or get [[Nuke'Em|nuked]]. [[Our Presidents Are Different|The President]] at the time submits rather than start [[World War Three]], and the US is forced to disband its military and make multibillion-dollar reparations. This is when the conspiracy is hatched; pretend to obey, and in ways that benefit the US secretly. Instead of sending money, they send food and machines, forcing US industries to be redesigned to meet those demands. The US suffers a short depression, but loads of super-technology is developed in the process, causing an economic boom despite the treaties, and making the world even more dependent on US technology (complete with the aforementioned [[Trojan Horse]] chips). Space technology is developed, to supply the Third World with energy from solar-power satellites - requiring US expertise to maintain, and enabling them to develop space; thanks to a lunar colony, they have [[Colony Drop|mass drivers]]. And half a million teachers are sent into the Third World to bring them up to speed; and teach them American values.}} As WATC predates ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'' by more than a decade, the [[Xanatos Gambit]] should technically be called the Uncle Ira Gambit; "What if we only ''pretended'' to lose?"
* [[The Great Politics Mess-Up]]: Narrowly averted. (Early printings of the books contained references to the Soviet Union still existing in the future. Later ones, not so much.)
* [[Gunship Rescue]]: At one stage McCarthy decides to drive into a Chtorran-infested zone [[Death Seeker|until something eats him]], only to have Lizard turn up in a [[Death From Above|massively-armed jetcopter]] and blow up the road in front of his vehicle.
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* [[It Got Worse]]: "It Got Worse" could be the basic summary for the plot of every novel so far.
* [[Jerkass]]: McCarthy according to everyone he meets. IRL, most asocial geeks [[Misaimed Fandom|really like him]], however. Also his friend Ted, and Randy Dannenfelser, aide-de-[[Camp Gay|camp]] to General Wainright.
** Though some would judge McCarthy a [[Jerk Withwith a Heart of Gold]]. As abrasive as he is to others, he is incredibly self-destructive because he hates seeing ''anyone'' get hurt. Then again, he also {{spoiler|executes a renegade who is pregnant with his child because she fed his adoptive children to worms}}. (McCarthy is a complicated man.)
** Justified in that after the initial plagues and population crash, everyone on Earth has a screw or two loose and may exhibit ... unpredictable behaviour. See above re: [[Dysfunction Junction]].
* [[Karmic Death]]: The first novel begins with a newspaper article on how a sheriff had fired two volunteers searching for a missing girl, because they [[Arbitrary Skepticism|claimed to have seen 'Chtorrans']]. The novel ends with an article stating the same sheriff had gone missing during the evacuation of her town due to the Chtorran threat.
* [[Killer Rabbit]]: Bunnydogs and meeps.
** Technically everything. No matter how harmless, or relatively harmless, it looks, it can probably kill you. Early in the first book, [[Jerkass|one]] [[Red Shirt|of]] [[Mook|the soldiers]] gets his finger bitten off by a Chtorran millipede. Losing the finger didn't kill him, it was the multiple infections caused by the alien microorganisms that were transferred by the bite that did. Cotton Candy plants look like [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]]. It's not until they go through a massive "bloom" and throw clouds of pink, sticky filamentous goo all over everything that the problems start: massive destruction of neighboring ecosystems, gooping up machinery (rain just makes it stickier), oh and incidentally causing humans who inhale the dust clouds to cough their lungs out in bloody chunks.
* [[Killer Robot]]. Four-meter high robot spiders ([[AI Is a Crapshoot|not always reliable]]). Replaced by AI-controlled cyber-beasts in the fourth book.
* [[Kill It Withwith Fire]]: Flamethrowers are the only reliable way of stopping a charging worm, as their alien physiology makes them [[Immune to Bullets]]. The protagonist has also used [[Kill It Withwith Ice|cold-gas]] weapons when necessary, but doesn't prefer them.
* [[Kraken and Leviathan]]: The Enterprise fish, which dwarfs aircraft carriers.
* [[Les Collaborateurs]]: 'Renegades' worship and help the Chtorran invaders. Their numbers increase as the infestation grows in strength -- it's not known whether this is the result of an unknown form of [[Brainwashed|brainwashing]] or simply a [[Vichy Earth|psychological/practical response]] to the [[Hopeless War|overwhelming]] [[Alien Invasion]].
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* [[Yanks With Tanks]]: Subverted in that the United States was made to decommission much of its military after losing a war in Pakistan. Ironically this now makes the USA the most powerful nation on Earth, as its armed forces were not mobilized to deal with the plagues and so survived mostly intact.
* [[Zeerust]]: Averted mainly because the author shows not only technological changes but social changes as well. There is a noticable emphasis on internet/cyber-related technology in "A Season for Slaughter" (1993), but as similar devices were used in previous books it doesn't seem unusual.
* [[Zeppelins Fromfrom Another World]]: Blimps are used for military and rescue operations, but nothing beats the ''[[Cool Airship|Hieronymus Bosch]]'', a giant luxury airship converted for the scientific expedition in "A Season for Slaughter".
 
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