History Literature / AllTomorrows

* HeavyWorlder:
** The Lopsiders were an... [[BodyHorror unusual]] take on this trope, having been adapted for high gravity by being made flat and flounder-like, crawling along on paddle-like limbs and with their sensory organs crowded on one side of their face.
** On the other end of the scale, the Striders were genetically modified by the Qu for life on a moon with one-fifth Earth gravity, being given grotesquely elongated limbs and necks, becoming giraffe-like browsers of their world's skyscraper-high trees.

The Book can be read online [[http://www.sivatherium.narod.ru/library/Ramjet/01_en.htm here.]] the author's deviantart is [[http://nemo-ramjet.deviantart.com/ here.]]

* ScaryDogmaticAliens: The Qu.

* StarfishAliens: The Modular Men are walking colonies of smaller organisms, all of which carry out a specific task.
** The Amphicephali are snakes with [[AHeadatEachEnd heads on both ends]]. They don't get in arguments though, because it's the smaller body inside the gullet that does the talking. Bonus Points for actually being an Alien.

* TranshumanAliens: Most of the races in the Book are humanity's descendants.
** See HumanSubspecies above.
* WhatMeasureIsAHumanoid?: Several of the Gravital fall in love with their subjects (the ones they engineered to be [[BestialityIsDepraved sentient]].) [[InspirationalMartyr It doesn't end well.]]
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman?: Averted: the Mechanical Gravital, the brutal Killer Folk, the godlike Asteromorphs, all were human, and all were important.

** The Colonials and Parasites definitely count. See BodyHorror below.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Humans find a derived earth dinosaur on an alien world, which was their first clue to the existence of alien lie.

* HeavyWorlder: The Lopsiders were an... [[BodyHorror unusual]] take on this trope, having been adapted for high gravity by being made flat and flounder-like, crawling along on paddle-like limbs and with their sensory organs crowded on one side of their face.

* HumanPet: Some humans were changed by the Qu into a slow breeding, mindless ape called Hedons, and given a paradise world to live in.
** The Temptors were used as decoration by the Qu.
** The Saurosapients use the brain-dead descendants of local humans for food and labour purposes.
** The Subjects of the Gravital were modified into many different forms for their civilization. Like [[MadArtist works of Art]], backup dancers, and [[HumanSacrifice Blood Sacrifices]].

* BenevolentPrecursors: The Asteromorphs repopulated the galaxy after the war by the machines with the Machine's [[HumanPet Subjects]] and nurtured them so none of them would go insane like the Gravital. [[GoodIsNotNice Didn't mean they wouldn't stoop to genocide, though.]]
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Qu believed that they should remake the universe as they saw fit. Humanity was just a particularly resistant part of that universe.
** The Gravital wiped out all but two of the post-Qu humans because they believed that they were humanity's only true heir to the universe.

* AbusivePrecursors: The Qu transformed humans into beasts, and then left the galaxy.
* AGodAmI: The Asteromorphs left the Terrestrials to guide the post-war humans to a better future. Some of them preferred to treated as Gods instead. The book even says that it was easier that way.
* AlienInvasion: The war with the Qu.

* BalefulPolymorph: As punishment for terraforming different planets and killing off the native life, the Qu decide to modify humans into various animal-like creatures.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Humans find a derived earth dinosaur on an alien world.

* HopelessWar: Humanity never stood a chance against the Qu.
** The Gravital's war on the rest of the Post-Qu humans was so efficient it took only ten thousand years.

** There are only four truly extraterrestrial intelligent lifeforms in the book. The [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Qu]], the [[StarfishAliens Amphicephali]], the [[HumanitysWake Author]] and [[UnknownCharacter whatever brought that dinosaur to that planet.]]
** And possibly whatever invaded the bugfacer homeworld.
* LizardFolk: The Saurosapients.

* OldShame: InUniverse example. After the War with the Asteromorphs, the Machine race completely accepted their role as the despised lower class. [[BlackAndGreyMorality They were that bad.]]
* OrganicTechnology: The Tool Breeders were an aquatic race that had to breed their technology as they couldn't smelt metal or build complex tools.

* {{Panspermia}}: Aversion: All intelligent life in outer space came from earth. The variety of intelligent life in the galaxy all originated on earth, having been twisted into new creatures by the Qu.
* {{Precursors}}: The Post-Qu humans gradually piece together their origins from the ruins left behind by their human ancestors.

* SlaveRace: All of the humans that the Qu transform.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman?: Averted, the Mechanical Gravital, the brutal Killer Folk, the godlike Asteromorphs, all were human, and all were important.
* WingedHumanoid: Several of the post-Qu humans are re-engineered into flying forms. One group, the Flyers, manages to redevelop sapience and keep their wings, thanks to an efficient circulatory system. Other groups aren't so lucky- the Hand Flappers eventually return to the ground, but their useless atrophied wings mean they can never re-develop tools or a civilization.
* UncannyValley: To say its prevalent in the various depictions of the human descendants is an understatement.
* {{Utopia}}: The Summer of Mankind was a culture which got pretty close.
** The Modular Men all lived in perfect contentment with their roles in life. This was mainly because they weren't able to do anything else.

** BenevolentPrecursors: The Asteromorphs repopulated the galaxy after the war by the machines with the Machine's [[HumanPet Subjects]] and nurtured them so none of them would go insane like the Gravital. [[GoodIsNotNice Didn't mean they wouldn't stoop to genocide, though.]]

* BalefulPolymorph[=/=]KarmicTransformation: As punishment for terraforming different planets and killing off the native life, the Qu decide to modify humans into various animal-like creatures.
* BeePeople: The Temptors are a race of giant, immobile females who command hordes of small, obedient males
* BeliefMakesYouStupid: Some of the Terrestrials stunted the growth of the Newborn races to be treated as Gods.

-->--'''The Author''': [[HumansAreSpecial Mankind]], the very species which I've been chronicling from its terrestrial infancy to its domination of the galaxies, [[HumanitysWake is extinct]]. All of the beings which you saw on the preceding pages; from the [[PitifulWorms lowly Worm]] to the [[HumansAreWarriors wind-riding Sail People]], from the [[HumansAreInsane megalomaniac Gravital]] to the [[HumanityIsAdvanced ultimate Galactic citizens]], lie a billion years dead. We are only beginning to piece the story together. What you read was our best approximation of the truth. Why did they disappear? Perhaps it was a [[{{TheWartoEndAllWars}} final, unimaginable war of annihilation, one that transcended the very meaning of conflict]]. Perhaps it was a gradual break-up of the united galaxies, and [[OutWithAWhimper every race facing their private end slowly afterwards]]. Or perhaps, the wildest theories suggest, it was a [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence mass migration to another plane of existence]]. A journey into somewhere, sometime, something else. But the bottom line is; we honestly don't know.

->''Love Today, and seize All Tomorrows!''

* OldShame: After the War with the Asteromorphs, the Machine race completely accepted their role as the despised lower class. [[BlackAndGreyMorality They were that bad.]]

-->--'''The Author''': [[HumansAreSpecial Mankind]], the very species which I've been chronicling from its terrestrial infancy to its domination of the galaxies, [[HumanitysWake is extinct]]. All of the beings which you saw on the preceding pages; from the [[PitifulWorms lowly Worm]] to the [[HumansAreWarriors wind-riding Sail People]], from the [[HumansAreInsane megalomaniac Gravital]] to the [[HumanityIsAdvanced ultimate Galactic citizens]], lie a billion years dead. We are only beginning to piece the story together. What you read was our best approximation of the truth. Why did they disappear? Perhaps it was a [[{{Gotterdammerung}} final, unimaginable war of annihilation, one that transcended the very meaning of conflict]]. Perhaps it was a gradual break-up of the united galaxies, and [[OutWithAWhimper every race facing their private end slowly afterwards]]. Or perhaps, the wildest theories suggest, it was a [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence mass migration to another plane of existence]]. A journey into somewhere, sometime, something else. But the bottom line is; we honestly don't know.

* AGodAmI : The Asteromorphs left the Terrestrials to guide the post-war humans to a better future. Some of them preferred to treated as Gods instead. The book even says that it was easier that way.

* BeePeople: The Temptors are a race of giant, immobile females who command hordes of small, obedient males.

** The Qu used genetically modified creatures in their civilization. Indeed, some of them used to be human.

* {{Panspermia}}: Aversion: All intelligent life in outer space came from earth. The variety of intelligent life in the galaxy all came from earth, having been twisted into new creatures by the Qu.

* TranshumanAliens: Most of the races in the Book are humanity's descendents.

** The Amphicephali are snakes with [[AHeadatEachEnd heads on both ends]]. They don't get in arguments though, because it's the smaller body inside the gullet that does the talking. Bonus Points for actually being an Alien.

* Utopia: The Summer of Mankind was a culture which got pretty close.

* LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair:

-->--'''The Narrator'''

** The Gravital wiped out all but two of the post-qu humans because they believed that they were humanities only true heir to the universe.

* LizardFolk: The Saurosapients.

* Panspermia: Aversion: All life in outer space came from earth. The variety of intelligent life in the galaxy all came from earth, having been twisted into new creatures by the Qu.

** The Modular Men all lived in perfect contentment with their roles in life. This was manly because they weren't able to do anything else.

----

* WhatMeasureIsANon-Human?: Averted, the Mechanical Gravital, the brutal Killer Folk, the godlike Asteromorphs, all were human, and all were important.

** The humans on one planet were divided into two categories. One was lobotomized genetically, but left essentially human. The other was turned into [[http://www.sivatherium.narod.ru/library/Ramjet/pics/23.jpg parasites designed to torment their relatives for forty millions years]].

* StarfishAliens: The Modular Men are

* WingedHumanoid: Several of the post-Qu humans are re-engineered into flying forms. One group, the Flyers, manages to redevelop sapience and keep their wings, thanks to an efficient circulatory system. Other groups aren't so lucky- the Hand Flappers eventually return to the ground, but their useless atrophied wings mean they can never re-develop tools or a civilization
----

** The Gravital are an odd example. Despite being entirely mechanical, they used the modified Bug-facers as pets, livestock and [[http://www.sivatherium.narod.ru/library/Ramjet/pics/45.jpg transport]]

->'''Narrator''': Ultimately, however, what happened to Humanity does not matter. Like every other story, it was a temporary one; indeed long but ultimately ephemeral. It did not have a coherent ending, but then again it did not need to. The tale of Humanity was never its ultimate domination of a thousand galaxies, or its mysterious exit into the unknown. The essence of being human was none of that. Instead, it lay in the radio conversations of the still-human Machines, in the daily lives of the bizarrely twisted Bug Facers, in the endless love-songs of the carefree Hedonists, the rebellious demonstrations of the first true Martians, and in a way, the very life you lead at the moment.

** The humans on one planet were divided into two categories. One was lobotomized genetically, but left essentially human. The other was turned into [[CruelAndUnusualPunishment parasites designed to torment their relatives for forty millions years]].

** The Gravital saw themselves as the only true heirs to humanity, and so wiped out most of the descendants from other planets. They kept alive the Bugfacers, but used them as toys for their own amusement.

* LizardFolk: The Saurosapiens.

* TheHedonist: The Hedonists are pampered, genetically engineered humans who were kept as pets by the Qu. Their sapient descendants, the Satyriacs, are just as decadent, and apparently spend most of their time attending festivals and concerts.