History Literature / Aeon14

* NotSoDifferent: [[EnforcedTrope A stated intent]] of "Know Thy Enemy" was to portray the AST Space Force personnel as not terribly different from the ISF, just [[PunchClockVillain professionals doing a job]].

However, Tanis quickly learns that not all is as it should be aboard ''Intrepid''. Somebody powerful, perhaps several somebodies, doesn't want her millions of crew and passengers to leave Sol, and they're hiring crews of mercenaries to ensure that doesn't happen. Together with her {{AI}} symbiote Angela, AcePilot Joseph Evans, SpacePolice officer Jessica, and LovableRogue Trist, can Tanis defeat the attackers and get the ship safely out of the system?

* AntiNepotism: After their daughters Cary and Saanvi steal a ship to "get in on the fun" of the Battle of New Canaan in ''Orion Rising'' [[spoiler:and are both nearly killed {{ramming|AlwaysWorks}} an enemy carrier]], Tanis and Joe Richards (respectively the then-governor, and the Commandant of the Intrepid Space Force Academy) promise to put the two of them through the wringer as cadets. In ''The Scipio Alliance'' Cary spends a couple pages complaining to their friend Jill and {{AI}} half-sister Faleena about the treatment.

* DangerInTheGalacticCore: The villains of the series, ascended {{AI}}s from the [[RobotWar Sentience Wars]] early in the setting's history, are revealed to have taken refuge in the galactic core... in the form of pure information residing within the Sagittarius A* black hole at its center. One character, [[spoiler:Sera's mother]], once sought them out [[spoiler:and had her mind ripped from her body and turned into Airtha, one of the ''Orion War'' series' major villains]].

* TalkingToThemself: Much hilarity comes from the good-natured mental bickering between Tanis (and later Sera) and the {{AI}} Angela (and Helen).

** ''Intrepid'' combines 9th millennium gravitic technology with its own, and creates stasis shields, which can allow SpaceFighters to stand up to gravitically shielded dreadnoughts for a time. Stasis shields render the ship nearly invulnerable to incoming fire until their power runs out: in ''Attack on Thebes'', the ''I2'' shrugs off the combined firepower of an entire Nietzschean fleet of over twenty thousand ships.

* DeliberatelyPainfulClothing: A wounded Sera dons one of Rebeca's skinsuits, but it was designed to kill whoever is not the owner, leading to Sera getting tortured nearly to death by it as it tightened itself around her and subjected her to the agonizing pain of it trying to eat her skin from beneath her neck. Helen saved her by reprogramming the suit to bond with her instead, leading to it bonding to what was left of her skin and eventually, with the help of nanobots programmed by Bob, the polymer of the suit became her new morphable artificial skin.

* DeliberatelyPainfulClothing: A wounded Sera dons one of Rebbeca's skinsuits, but it was desinged to kill whoever is not the owner, leading to Sera getting tortured nearly to death by it as it tightened itself around her and subjected her to the agonizing pain of it trying to eat her skin from beneath her neck. Helen saved her by reprogramming the suit to bond with her instead, leading to it bonding to what was left of her skin and eventually, with the help of nanobots programmed by Bob, the polymer of the suit became her new morphable artificial skin.

** {{Inverted}} in ''The Last Bastion of Star City''. Jessica and her AI Iris both birth and raise several AI children inside a LotusEaterMachine that lets all the kids grow to maturity in only two meatspace ''days''.

* {{Determinator}}: Most of the characters in the ''Literature/Aeon14'' shared universe. Notably Tanis [[spoiler: and her [[LastStand Desperate Last Stand]] on Pyra. The Marines with her, her pilot, and finally ISF Marine Commandant General Brandt give their lives to save Tanis, expounding large numbers of tropes such as [[ThisCannotBe It Can't End Like This]] and [[YouShallNotPass Give Me the Grenades]], followed by [[IShallReturn We'll Come Back]]. Finally Tanis is brought to bay, out of allies, out of ammo, out of nanites, out of formation material, out of power, and her armor is failing. [[TheCavalryArrivesLate The Cavalry is too late]]. [[MergerOfSouls Tanis merges with her AI Angela]], [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascends to a higher plane]], gathers all the matter around her, and [[DeathOrGloryAttack expels it against her enemies]] in a [[PlasmaCannon plasma bolt]] which rivals the sun and is visible from orbit. Then, and only then, her rescue assured, does she pass out.]]

** ''Starfire:'' The eponymous weapon, "starfire," is a neutronium slug accelerated to relativistic speeds, and fired through a warp gate. Tangel uses it to destroy a moon and end a battle with one shot.

* AcePilot: Joe Evans, Tanis' LoveInterest. A memorable scene in ''Outsystem'' has a merc attack against ''Intrepid'' get foiled by his fancy flying of a cargo shuttle, which included them getting boarded. Then there's a jolt, the mercs are thrown off, and Tanis and the SpaceMarines fill them with holes.

* PosthumanNudism: Due to a mishap involving a booby-trapped bodysuit in ''Destiny Lost,'' Sera ends up with a full-body artificial skin, which is morphable. She normally has it set to give her BarbieDollAnatomy below the neck, letting her skip wearing clothes, but in later books of the Orion War series [[spoiler: her clone "sisters" Fina and Serafina]] take to pranking her by messing with the settings, causing her to occasionally reacquire external genitalia in public.

* DeliberatelyPainfulClothing: A wounded Sera dons one of Rebbeca's skinsuits, but it was desinged to kill whoever is not the owner, leading to Sera getting tortured nearly to death by it as it tightened itself around her and subjected her to the agonizing pain of it trying to eat her skin from beneath her neck. Jason Andrews saved her by reprogramming the suit to bond with her instead, leading to it bonding to what was left of her skin and eventually, with the help of nanobots, the polymer of the suit become her new morphable artificial skin.

* Prohumantranshuman: The ''Literature/Aeon14'' shared universe abounds with pro-human transhumans. Indeed, the average person in 9th millennium advanced societies such as the FGT, The Transcend, and New Canaan could be considered transhuman given the ubiquity of biological mods, cyberization, and integrated nanotech. Particularly applies to ascended AI's and humans, such as Bob, Tangel, and the Bastions of Star City, who ally themselves with the corporeal humans and Sentient AI's.

* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Sera's morphable artificial skin enables her to change her flesh into a variety of colors from black to light pink.

* DraconicHumanoid: During Sera's costume from Danny makes her closely resemble a [[DragonsAreDemonic demonic one]] when she gains red scales over most of her body, draconic fangs in place of her canines, two thick curled horns sprouting from her forehead, hooved feet, wings, and a tail.

* DraconicHumanoid: During Sera's a body makeover from Danny, she more closely resembles a [[DragonsAreDemonic demonic one]] when she gains red scales over most of her body, draconic fangs in place of her canines, two thick curled horns sprouting from her forehead, hooved feet, wings, and a tail.

* EveryoneIsBi[=/=]FreeLoveFuture: Many characters prefer partners of one sex or the other, but bisexuality and pansexuality are common and considered unremarkable, and open and group relationships are also relatively common. This includes viewpoint characters Jessica Keller and Sera Tomlinson in the main series, and Kylie Rhoads in ''Perilous Alliance'' (divorced from a male spouse and currently in a relationship with a lesbian woman [[spoiler:[[LoveCannotOvercome at least at first]]]]). And of course, [[ExtremeOmnisexual Cheeky, who will screw anyone and anything, in any combination, at any time]]. Even in the main monogamous, heterosexual pairing of Tanis and Joe, Joe at one point mentions that he'd be okay having a threesome with Cheeky if Tanis agreed (in context, partly meant to reassure her of his faithfulness during their frequent job-induced separations).

* BarbieDollAnatomy: After Sera gains a morphable polymer skin, she ceases to wear clothes in favor of making use of her newly gained flesh to conceal her bits.

* DeliberatelyPainfulClothing: A wounded Sera dons one of Rebbeca's skinsuits, but it was desinged to kill whoever is not the owner, leading to Sera getting tortured nearly to death by it as it tightened itself around her and subjected to the agonizing pain of it trying to eat her skin from beneath her neck. Jason Andrews saved her by reprogramming the suit to bond with her instead, leading to it bonding to what was left of her skin and eventually the polymer of the suit become her new morphable skin.