History Literature / AllTomorrows

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Averted for most of the story. The aversion is most apparent with the Bone Crushers, monstrous-looking posthumans, which the author points out that despite looking inhuman and horrifying, it might as well be your own grandchild and the last hope for humanity. The closest we get to this trope being played straight are with the Killer Folk, who were described as a warlike race in their hunter-gatherer era; the Sail People, for the same reasons as the Killer Folk; and the Gravitals, whom believed were the only worthy inheritors of the Star People and wiped out the Second Human Empire. But in all these cases, the aforementioned posthumans had families and loved ones.

* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: The Gravital were once organic, although they became more and more detached only after integrating their bodies into cyborg interfaces.

* JustForFun/AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit: The first galatic empire was a borderline type II civilization, possibly even type II itself: They had a mass arsenal of weapons capable of blowing up stars and had started colonizing the entire galaxy. The Qu, meanwhile, had almost a billion of years of experience, and with a few thousands of years they easily crushed humanity even with above weapons, putting them into Solid Type III, with the text mentioning that they were capable of "traveling from one spiral arm to another", with their civilization possibly spanning multiple galaxies.

* PosthumanNudism: Overlapping with ExposedExtraterrestrials, most of the TranshumanAliens don't wear clothes, except the Killer Folk (who are shown wearing hats, and thus have become a literal SpeciesOfHats in fanon) and the Bug Facers.

* NotSoDifferent: The Machine people, themselves products of Qu modification and extermination long ago, eventually saw themselves as the one true heir of the human race, exterminating almost all other post-human species they encountered and moulding the rest by genetic modification just as the Qu did to them millions of years ago.

* DistantFinale: The story is told a billion years after the fact, where [[spoiler: humanity is long extinct and the Narrator is trying to piece their history together from surviving records.]]

* CastFromLifespan: A more realistic version of this trope: the Pterosapiens get to enjoy the benefits of flight ''and'' intelligence, but the stress of having to power their flight muscles and big brains means that every Pterosapien dies of heart failure before they turn twenty-three.

** The mantelopes were unique in being left their sapience, but were modified to be essentially human ungulates with no grasping limbs. This left them entirely unable to manipulate their environment and their sapience largely useless. Natural selection eventually caused them to regress to animosity -- there was no use in growing large brains if they couldn't do anything with them -- which the book treats as being largely a merciful end to their sorry lot.

* ParasitesAreEvil: Invoked but ultimately averted. The Qu transformed many humans into species of parasites designed to torment the other post-humans that inhabited their world. While most of these died out when the Qu left, some parasites formed a much more symbiotic relationship with their hosts. Ultimately, while the hosts are basically transformed into MeatPuppets, this is the result of natural selection due to the symbiotes serving most of the essential roles and not the result of any malicious interventiono. The symbiote civilization also becomes a member of the Second Galactic Empire.

* GroinAttack: There's mention of one post-human species engineered by the Qu to become a parasite that infects the ''wombs'' of its host. [[TakeOurWorldForIt It's thankfully never shown nor elaborated on,]] and died out due to infection sterilizing its hosts.

''All Tomorrows: A Billion Year Chronicle of the Myriad Species and Varying Fortunes of Man'' is a 2006 science-fiction book by [[Creator/CMkosemen C. M. Kosemen]] (a.k.a. Nemo Ramjet), with a heavy focus on [[SpeculativeBiology speculative evolution]]. The story begins in the near future, as burgeoning population pressures force humanity to terraform and colonize Mars. After a brief but violent civil war between the two planets, the genetically engineered survivors begin a new wave of colonization, spreading across the galaxy. Everything is looking up for the human race... until the colonies encounter the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Qu]], technologically advanced aliens on a religious mission to remake the universe. Although humans fight valiantly, the Qu easily overpowered humanity; as punishment, these aliens decide to genetically modify the survivors, turning most of them into mindless, animalistic creatures before departing.

** The Gravitals saw themselves as the true heirs of humanity. As such, they didn't see their cousins in the other HumanSubspecies as equals. The author goes out of his way to humanize the Gravitals, noting that this wasn't out of hatred or malice, they just didn't see their cousins as peers or as worth keeping around. So, they waged a genocidal war to cull the leftovers of a past age. The only ones who were spared from this genocidal war were the Bug Facers, who were kept for experimentation and modification on far greater levels than even the Qu did to humanity; and the Asteromorphs, who could exist alongside the Gravitals peacefully, if uncomfortably, since they were spacebound and the only species the Gravitals would have to consider as peers.

* AbsoluteXenophobe: The Gravitals saw themselves as the true heirs of humanity, and as such, they believed they were entitled to wipe out every HumanSubspecies out there. The only ones who were spared from this genocidal war were the Bug Facers, who were kept for experimentation and modification on far greater levels than even The Qu did to humanity. The Bug Facers themselves also count, since they refused to make contact with any other species in the galaxy until the Gravitals attacked them.

** Lastly, the post-war empire of the Asteromorphs were a Solid Type III, probably even Borderline Type IV, with the narration mentioning how their civilization and union with Amphicephali spanned multiple galaxies, were able to defeat The Qu, negated the problems related to interestellar space travel through the use of wormholes and made their entire species immortal through the use of rejuvenating tech. [[spoiler: If the " mass migration to another plane of existence" that the author suggests is true, the empire also underwent a process where they AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence, with their final place in the scale left unknown.]]

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

** The Modular People are walking colonies of smaller organisms, all of which carry out a specific task.

* TimeAbyss: The story itself is a short history of humanity, from space to fall, and back again, and back again, and the lengthy golden age up to humanity's quiet exit from the galactic stage. It covers nearly 560 million years, and is written as a record that was recorded at least a billion years in the future.