History Literature / AxiomsEnd

** [[spoiler: Ampersand himself takes this UpToEleven. He broke containment from the Transient prison he was being held in, then traveled through deep space to rescue Ceffo...only to find him dead before he arrived.]]

* AngstWhatAngst: In-universe. Cora wonders why Ampersand doesn't seem more upset about [[spoiler: autopsying Cefo, a Fremda who dies by suicide at the beginning of the book, since they were friends.]] She eventually figures out that Ampersand ''is'' quite upset but [[spoiler: doesn't consider what he was autopsying to really be Cefo.]]

* DyingClue: Prior to his suicide, Cefo draws a blue planet and a red planet (referred to as Erythra), who the main characters puzzle over for most of the book until it's revealed that it's actually a hint at the [[spoiler:Superorganism's destructive capabilities; the blue and red planets are a sketch of the planet colonized by the transients before and after the Superorganism sterilized them.]]

* HumansAdvanceSwiftly: Ampersand explicitly states that humanity is advancing much more rapidly than his own ancestors did. [[spoiler: And that is yet another reason for the Pequot Superorganism to consider them a threat.]]

* PosthumousCharacter: The plot gets rolling when the fremda called Ceffo called for help. Cora doesn't arrive until a few days after Ceffo has died.

* RelationshipReveal: Ampersand is revealed to be symphyles (essentially an amygdaline counterpart to mates) with [[spoiler: Cefo, who died prior to the novel's events, and Obelus, who is TheHeavy of the story]].

* JerkassHasAPoint: Nils Ortega is an selfish egotist who abandons his family and causes global chaos in order to raise his public profile. He also happens to be completely right about just about everything he says.

** Despite his heavy bearing on the plot, [[spoiler:Nils]] never actually interacts with Cora in the novel and he never appears in person. People only talk about him.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: A major theme of the novel. Ampersand warns the secretary of defense that communication between two intelligent species is dangerous because any two species will have fundamentally different values and those differences will inevitably cause conflict. As Cora grows closer to Ampersand, she finds this out first hand. [[spoiler:Ampersand sees no issue with lying to Cora if he believes it to be in his interest or in hers, has no regrets over damaging the brains of humans through experimentation, and has little respect for human life in general. The rest of his species, those not in the "Fremda Group", are even more alien in this regard, as they have little issue with committing genocide in the name of self-preservation.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: Set in 2007 but released in 2020.

%% ** Per usual, [[spoiler: Ampersand]] gets it much worse, but hides it until the end of the novel.

* PetTheDog: Nils is actually fairly laidback and friendly in an email sent to Kaveh Mazandarani, [[spoiler:one of his leak sources]], which is in stark contrast to the grand declarations he makes in his public blog posts. Whether or not he's just emotionally manipulating him to keep him useful is up in the air, [[spoiler:not helped by the fact that the email is also a huge KickTheDog moment towards his family, who he reveals he care little about]].

%% * DespairEventHorizon:
%% ** Cora struggles not to fall into several of these over the course of the novel.

* DespairEventHorizon: Cora struggles not to fall into several of these over the course of the novel. Per usual, [[spoiler: Ampersand]] gets it much worse, but hides it until the end of the novel.

** Ampersand and all his symphiles are described using male pronouns. That said, there's no indication that Amygdalines have genders.

* MadeOfIron: Cora is disemboweled by Obelus and loses a lot of blood; this following having her arm torn open in a multi-vehicle crash the day before. Despite this, she maintains consciousness through the climax.

* OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank: Obelus badly wounds Cora before she, Ampersand, the [[spoiler: the Genome]] can escape in one of the autonomous plates. When the plate opens, all three occupants have been effectively painted red. Despite this, Cora remains conscious and aware.

* ActionSurvivor: Cora finds herself struggling for food, water, and clothing for most of the month or so the novel takes place over, let alone higher needs. That said, she always does what needs to be done to get alive, even if by the thinnest margin.

-->''"Everyone, this is Cora, my niece. She's had a... rough morning." She gestured to her ex-coworkers in turn. "Cora, these are some of my former coworkers: [[WebVideo/HBomberguy Harris]], [[WebVideo/{{Shaun}} Shaun]], [[WebVideo/ContraPoints Natalie]], Stevie, [[Webvideo/FoldingIdeas Dan-O]], David, [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaN8DZdc8EHo5y1LsQWMiig Joel]], [[WebVideo/SarahZ Sarah]], Maria, and [[Film/{{Searching}} Dr. Sev]]."''

** [[spoiler:There's a very good chance the Superorganism, the homeworld of the Pequod, will stage an invasion of and sterilize the Earth within the next century]].

** [[spoiler: The Fremda Group has still not left Earth, and it is not clear if and when they will, or what they will after they've gone.]]

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Secretary of Defense [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates Robert Gates]], whom Bush named as Rumsfeld's successor, appears for a chapter, but is not directly named until a later epistolary segment concerning "[[InSeriesNickname ET-Gate]]."

* AlternateHistory: Cora's 2007 goes quite a bit differently from the real one--after the two meteor strikes, her father releases a slew of classified documents and files, including, crucially, [[spoiler: a recording that proves George W. Bush lied under oath about his knowledge of the aliens. In the face of the outcry, Bush resigns and Cheney becomes president.]]

Cora Sabino is an ordinary college dropout with an ordinary anxiety about her future prospects. Except her DisappearedDad is a whistleblower about a supposed coverup by the U.S. government about proof of alien life. Not that she cares. It's all an excuse to draw attention to himself as far as she and her family are concerned. Until an asteroid strikes down near Los Angeles in the exact same spot that an earlier asteroid which caused the conspiracy to begin with. Thrown into a shadowy world of dangerous secrets and cautious mistrust Cora must now re-evaluate her preconceptions about what is the truth and what is a lie.