History Fanfic / AColdCalculus

* DoorStopper: The part of the story lining up with the R1 phase is fifty chapters and roughly half a million words, and the R2 phase is likely to be about the same. Euphie's coronation isn't until 800,000 words in, and the story isn't over yet.

NeedsMoreLove.

The [[ForWantOfANail "Nail"]] of this story is that both Nunnally and Lelouch's mother die in the "terrorist attack". Prompting Lelouch to despair and kill himself much to Euphemia's dismay after earlier asking her sister to keep him safe. This prompts her to change her outlook and direction in life.

* UnexpectedCharacter: Many of the real life characters in the E.U are this: usually limited to just Rommel the E.U in Cold Calculus has a lot of other real life generals from this time period, and most of them of lesser renown than the Desert Fox.
** More importantly though, Chapter 39 has an appearance by [[spoiler:Zero]].

* AscendedExtra: Naomi Inoue was a bit character mostly remembered for being voiced by KikukoInoue and dying at the end of Season 1. Here, she's the most prominent member of the resistance group after Kallen. [[spoiler:She still dies towards the end of the R1 phase, however.]]

* KnowWhenToFoldThem: The Carolina Guard realizes that continued resistance after the arrival of [[spoiler:8th Fleet]] will just increase the body count while delaying the inevitable, and surrenders. This gets them a better deal when Empress Euphie decides what to do with the rebellious Provincial Guards.

* RedemptionQuest: The surviving members of the rebellious Provincial Guards are forcibly folded into the Imperial Army and sent to the front. The Virginians do so as a Penal Legion, but the Carolinians are promised that if they serve without further incident the record will state that they are honorably discharged veterans at the end of the war.

* CorruptPolitician: Graft and corruption is a major part of the Britannian system. Euphie started her career as an auditor who rather firmly dealt with the more outrageous examples.

* FictionalDocument: Every chapter begins with an excerpt from one of three in-universe books, ''Towards a New Dawn: The Rise of Euphemia I'' (About Euphie's rise to power), ''Of Blood and Iron: The Reign of Euphemia I'' (About things Euphie did after taking the throne) and ''In Blackest Night: The Great War'' (About non-Euphie related things that occur during the world war that breaks out in the R2 phase). Some of them are innocuous details that nonetheless help with the world building, such as Britannian succession procedures and Euphie's favoring of a Japanese artist. A few others are outright spoilers, such as [[spoiler:Euphie's patronage of Nina leading to the development of nuclear weapons.]]

* NamesTheSame: The Damocles in the fic is different from [[NuclearOption the show's Damocles]]. [[spoiler:Compare a flying fleet to a giant, slowly hovering nuclear launch platform.]]

** The Avalon. A flying ship is always cool, but the Float system's mobility advantages are offset by the thin armor, limited carriage capacity, exposed bridge and ludicrous maintenance costs. As such, it's the only ship of its kind.

* {{Realpolitik}}

* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: Following the Britannian loyalists' victory in the Battle of Pendragon, [[spoiler:the '''entire''' Imperial family sans Euphie suddenly drops dead as though someone used a DeathNote on them. And "entire" means '''everybody''' with a blood tie to the Imperial line, no matter how distant, resulting in people spontaneously dropping dead because one of their ancestors was the unacknowledged illegitimate child of the younger sibling of an Emperor who died centuries ago, or something equally remote.]]

* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: Following the Britannian loyalists' victory in the Battle of Pendragon, [[spoiler:the '''entire''' Imperial family sans Euphie suddenly drops dead as though someone used a DeathNote on them.]]

* DoorStopper: The part of the story lining up with the R1 phase is fifty chapters and roughly half a million words, and the R2 phase is likely to be about the same.

* IHaveYourWife: The Geass Directorate and the Ordo Hereticus kidnap family members of Euphie's allies to use against her, but they're rescued before any significant moves can be done.
* IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight: Kallen invokes this in her final duel with [[spoiler:Suzaku]], not because she believes she can break him out of his Geassed state, but because she hopes that inducing a conflict between his true nature and the actions he is being compelled to take will distract him and provide her with an opening.

* OneSteveLimit: So far there has been only one case of characters sharing a first name, and since the two Lauras have never once been on the same continent, much less the same scene, telling them apart isn't hard.

* RetCon: [[spoiler:Suzaku]]'s role in the story originally had him die tragically as a result of [[spoiler:Lelouch]]'s manipulations. Then the author decided to rewrite his death scene so that he could be revived and used as an agent of the Directorate.

* UnexpectedSuccessor: A terrorist group in the Britannian Homeland is being backed by a noble who technically isn't in the line of succession, but is highly ranked enough and closely related enough that if the Emperor and all his children were to die suddenly, he'd have a solid chance of becoming the next Emperor.

** Another aversion: The Knights of the Round do not have their unique Knightmare Frames, owing to how resource-inefficient and nonsensical it would be to make one-off machines, are given variations of the Lancelot frame.

** Britannian nurses are utterly unflappable in this fic. One even stares down Jeremiah and Monica Kruczewski, while recognizing that she had no authority to call them out.

* RedHerring: The Avalon. [[spoiler:All of [[AwesomeButImpractical the flaws that kept it from being a practical war asset]] were deliberately oversold so that Project Damocles can get a head start on a flying fleet well before everyone else.]]

* SuperweaponSurprise: [[spoiler:Damocles, also known as the Britannian 8th Fleet, which is comprised entirely of ships with Float Systems. This causes great shifts in known war doctrines as, even up to the war's end, there are no countermeasures adequate enough to counter this. And they already have another one nearing completion.]]

* NamesTheSame: The Damocles in the fic is established by the author to be different from [[NuclearOption the show's Damocles]]. The exact nature of the former is currently unknown.