History Literature / AxiomsEnd

* 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 UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush lied under oath about his knowledge of the aliens. In the face of the outcry, Bush resigns and UsefulNotes/DickCheney becomes president.]]

* DownerEnding: Truth of the Divine ends of a very dour note. [[spoiler: Kaveh is killed, and is seen as an evil Muslim / alien sympathizer by most of the country for no specific reason. Grief-stricken Nikola starts taking intelligence-suppressing drugs again and goes from TranquilFury to homicidal rage to being left comatose after a [[GoodThingYouCanHeal somewhat]] unsuccessful murder-suicide. Niles paints Cora as a crazy alien collaborator and an accomplice in the deaths of several CIA agents, and is promised a hero's welcome in the US for his efforts. [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Third Option]] succeeds in getting aliens declared second-class people, and is poised to win US presidency. Obelus is returned to Superorganism, as a prisoner, and will certainly tell all it knows about Earth. Regardless, Superorganism knows what's happening on Earth in real-time, and is expected to attack Earth in about 5 years. The plan to preserve some of the human DNA is likely abandoned due to un-availability of its two founders. And while Cora seems to have gotten some of her will to live back, faced with all this loss and human cruelty, she takes up Ampersand on his offer to devise a way to get them both off Earth to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere live out their days on a habitable planet somewhere.]]]]

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding]]: For Truth of the Divine. Oh boy. [[spoiler: Kaveh is killed, and is seen as an evil muslim / alien sympathizer by most of the country for no specific reason. Grief-stricken Nikola starts taking intelligence-suppressing drugs again and goes from TranquilFury to homicidal rage to being left comatose after a [[GoodThingYouCanHeal somewhat]] unsuccessful murder-suicide. Niles paints Cora as a crazy alien collaborator and an accomplice in the deaths of several CIA agents, and is promised a hero's welcome in the US for his efforts. [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Third Option]] succeeds in getting aliens declared second-class people, and is poised to win US presidency. Obelus is returned to Superorganism, as a prisoner, and will certainly tell all it knows about Earth. Regardless, Superorganism knows what's happening on Earth in real-time, and is expected to attack Earth in about 5 years. The plan to preserve some of the human DNA is likely abandoned due to un-availability of its two founders. And while Cora seems to have gotten some of her will to live back, faced with all this loss and human cruelty, she takes up Ampersand on his offer to devise a way to get them both off Earth to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere live out their days on a habitable planet somewhere.]]]]

** [[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 Ĉefo...only to find him dead before he arrived.]]

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding]]: For Truth of the Divine. Oh boy. [[spoiler: Kaveh is killed, and is seen as an evil muslim / alien sympathizer by most of the country for no specific reason. Grief-stricken Nikola starts taking intelligence-suppressing drugs again and goes from TranquilFury to homicidal rage to being left comatose after a [[GoodThingYouCanHeal somewhat]] unsuccessful murder-suicide. Niles paints Cora as a crazy alien collaborator and an accomplice in the deaths of several CIA agents, and is promised a hero's welcome in the US for his efforts. [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Third Option]] succeeds in getting aliens declared second-class people, and is poised to win US presidency. Obelus is returned to Superorganism, as a prisoner, and will certainly tell all it knows about Earth. Regardless, Superorganism knows what's happening on Earth in real-time, and is expected to attack Earth in about 5 years. The plan to preserve some of the human DNA is likely abandoned due to in-availability of its two founders. And while Cora seems to have gotten some of her will to live back, faced with all this loss and human cruelty, she takes up Ampersand on his offer to devise a way to get them both off Earth to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere live out their days on a habitable planet somewhere.]]]]

* DarthVaderClone: [[spoiler:Obelus is a hulking villain who serves as TheHeavy of the story, is related to one of the main protagonists, has telekinetic powers, and is a former member of the group that he is attempting to exterminate]].

--->''"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]]."''

** And since [[CreatorBreakdown Lindsay Ellis has sworn off any public project for the foreseeable future]], this might be how the entire series ends.

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding]]: For Truth of the Divine. Oh boy. [[spoiler: Kaveh is killed, and is seen as an evil muslim / alien sympathizer by most of the country for no specific reason. Grief-stricken Nikola starts taking intelligence-suppressing drugs again and goes from TranquilFury to homicidal rage to being left comatose after a [[GoodThingYouCanHeal somewhat]] unsuccessful murder-suicide. Niles paints Cora as a crazy alien collaborator and an accomplice in the deaths of several CIA agents, and is promised a hero's welcome in the US for his efforts. [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Third Option]] succeeds in getting aliens declared second-class people, and is poised to win US presidency. Obelus is returned to Superorganism, as a prisoner, and will certainly tell all it knows about Earth. Regardless, Superorganism knows what's happening on Earth in real-time, and is expected to attach Earth in about 5 years. The plan to preserve some of the human DNA is likely abandoned due to in-availability of its two founders. And while Cora seems to have gotten some of her will to live back, faced with all this loss and human cruelty, she takes up Ampersand on his offer to devise a way to get them both off Earth to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere live out their days on a habitable planet somewhere.]]]]

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding: For Truth of the Divine. Oh boy. Kaveh is killed, and is seen as an evil muslim / alien sympathizer by most of the country for no specific reason. Grief-stricken Nikola starts taking intelligence-suppressing drugs again and goes from TranquilFury to homicidal rage to being left comatose after a somewhat unsuccessful murder-suicide. Niles paints Cora as a crazy alien collaborator and an accomplice in the deaths of several CIA agents, and is promised a hero's welcome in the US for his efforts. [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Third Option]] succeeds in getting aliens declared second-class people, and is poised to win US presidency. Obelus is returned to Superorganism, as a prisoner, and will certainly tell all it knows about Earth. Regardless, Superorganism knows what's happening on Earth in real-time, and is expected to attach Earth in about 5 years. The plan to preserve some of the human DNA is likely abandoned due to in-availability of its two founders. And while Cora seems to have gotten some of her will to live back, faced with all this loss and human cruelty, she takes up Ampersand on his offer to devise a way to get them both off Earth to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere live out their days on a habitable planet somewhere.]]]]

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Alien Ampersand speaks perfect English, as does Obelus, because they've cracked an algorithm that lets them learn all Earth languages perfectly--or rather, they ''know'' Earth languages; the way Pequod vocalize is totally incompatible with human speech, so Ampersand uses a high-tech text-to-voice gadget. This only makes communication a ''little'' bit easier. The Fremda, who don't have the algorithm, don't know any English, not that most of them are interested in learning it anyway.
* AlienAbduction: The Pequod managed to interact with humans (and learn the language) by abducting them before returning to Earth centuries later. [[spoiler:All abductees were euthanized by the aliens]].
* AncientAstronauts: The reason why the Pequod can understand human speech: [[spoiler:they arrived in medieval Europe shortly after the Black Death and abducted several humans in order to understand their speech]].

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

* StarfishAliens: The Pequod look like dragon-mantis-velociraptor hybrids (sort of), with skin textured like canvas, and they speak either through the vents in the sides of their neck, through a sort of telepathy, or through the incredibly intimate High Language. They're also all cyborgs.

Book One in ''The Noumena Series''. Two sequels are planned; the first, ''Truth of the Divine'', is set for release on October 12th, 2021.

* AbsentAliens: Discussed in regards to the "Great Filter" -- a hypothetical barrier that prevents intelligent life from colonizing the galaxy. According to Ampersand, life is common in the universe, but intelligent life is ''very'' rare. All three spacefaring races, including his own, are descended from the same ancestral species, and [[spoiler:the Superorganism propagandizes that they are the only intelligent life there is. Ampersand believes that they'll sterilize Earth rather than let humanity expose this axiom as false.]]

* ActionSurvivor

** The Superorganism inflicted a ApocalypseHow/Class6 on a transient planet in the not-too-distant past, destroying all life on the planet (including microbes) as well as the atmosphere and oceans. [[spoiler:Ampersand believes they will do the same to Earth once they find out that HumansAdvanceSwiftly, both to curb a potential threat and to preserve their narrative that amigdalines and their sister species are the only sapient species in the galaxy.]]

* DarthVaderClone: [[spoiler:Obelus is a hulking villain who serves as TheHeavy of the story, is related to one of the main protagonists, has dark powers, and is a former member of the group that he is attempting to exterminate]].

* HordeOfAlienLocusts: The transients are a nomadic group that travel to different planets and strip them of their resources, and are even mentioned as having grasshopper-like mouthparts. It's noted that their methods aren't too different from what humanity is doing to the Earth.

* LeftHanging: A number of key plot threads are not resolved by the end of the book, likely being saved for [[SequelHook the sequel.]]

** [[spoiler: Luciana continues to maintain that she had nothing to do with leaking the Fremda Memo to Nils. Cora suspects she is not being completely honest, but the real answer is not revealed.]]

''Axiom's End'' is a science fiction novel by Youtuber and video essayist Creator/LindsayEllis about humanity's FirstContact with extraterrestrial life.

* HordeOfAlienLocusts: The transients are a nomadic group that travel to different planets and strip them of their resources, and are even mentioned as having grasshopper-like mouthparts. It's noted that their methods [[NotSoDifferent aren't too different]] from what humanity is doing to the Earth.

** "Obelus," the antagonistic alien, is named after an historical typography mark that has evolved into the division sign (hinting that [[spoiler:Obelus is actually divided from Ampersand]]), a dagger (an alternative footnote mark when an asterisk has already been used), and a commercial minus sign (which is a rarely used mathematical symbol used to denote a negative remainder of a division). It also has the same root as "obelisk," making it a shout-out to ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''.

* ApocalypseHow: The Superorganism inflicted a ApocalypseHow/Class6 on a transient planet in the not-too-distant past, destroying all life on the planet (including microbes) as well as the atmosphere and oceans. [[spoiler:Ampersand believes they will do the same to Earth once they find out that HumansAdvanceSwiftly, both to curb a potential threat and to preserve their narrative that amigdalines and their sister species are the only sapient species in the galaxy.]]

** This is true of ''all'' alien proper nouns. Ampersand, Obelus, and Pequod are all CIA codewords, while Amigdaline, Fremda, Esperas, and the other aliens' names were all names given them by ROSA employees. The aliens use them as a functional SureWhyNot translation of proper nouns that have no native human vocabulary.

* AbsentAliens: According to Ampersand, life is common in the universe, but intelligent life is ''very'' rare. All three spacefaring races, including his own, are descended from the same ancestral species, and [[spoiler:the Superorganism propagandizes that they are the only intelligent life there is. Ampersand believes that they'll sterilize Earth rather than let humanity expose this axiom as false.]]

Book One in ''The Noumena Series''. Two sequels are planned; the first, ''Truth of the Divine'', is set for release in 2021.

* ExactWords: Ampersand promises the [=CIA=] that the Superorganism will never invade or communicate with Earth. [[spoiler:He doesn't say anything about [[ApocalypseHow/Class6 sterilization]].]]

* TheHeavy: Obelus, the amygdaline "Similar" sent to hunt down the Fremda Group, is the primary villain whose actions drive the plot, though he is merely a servant of [[GreaterScopeVillain the Autocrat]].

** This contrast reveals another ability of the mechanical components: the ability to live on a planet whose atmospheric nitrogen would kill an unmodified Amigdaline.

Book One in ''The Noumena Series''.

* HigherTechSpecies: The technology of the amygdalines is light-years ahead of Earth's. A single individual is capable of telekinesis, telepathy between members of their species, minor shapeshifting, invisibility, teleportation, and can reduce human structures (and humans themselves) to ash in an instant. As a species, they are capable of building a DysonSphere and exterminating life across an entire planet. Notably, even though they have crossed the galaxy to reach Earth, no mention of spaceships is ever made, implying that they may not need them.