History Literature / Exordia

* NoBiochemicalBarriers: Ssrin is capable of eating Earth food because she's equipped with a "scout stomach" that very slowly simmers it into molecules she's capable of metabolizing. Likewise, she fine-tuned her various venoms (her fangs are cybernetically enhanced) to make sure they would work on humans before coming to Earth, because what would be the point if they didn't?

* GreaterScopeVillain: As bad as Iruvage is, he's working for a mysterious "sponsor" who wants Blackbird in order to [[spoiler: destroy the Cultratic Brand and reprogram the universe to make khai dominance a law of physics and the Exordia suzerain over all life and death -- at least, that's what Iruvage believes.]]

* SssssnakeTalk: The Khai wouldn't be proper SnakePeople if they didn't talk like snakes, but since Ssrin and Iruvage both use TranslatorMicrobes to communicate it only really shows through in their names and their non-verbal noises. [[spoiler:On the other hand, Iruvage begins physically puppeting Clayton through his communicator implant, speaking through someone else's vocal cords instead of a translator, Clayton's mouth starts elongating his S'es.]]

** The first act of the book ends with Ssrin severing her friendship with Anna with an act of shooting the dog (sparing Anna from having to do it herself). Their relationship is very fraught from that point on, [[spoiler:but ultimately (mostly) mended in the end. After all, serendure can't be broken.]]

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: The Exordia ship in orbit above Earth is single-handedly capable of erasing all human civilization and potentially all life on Earth completely, and the majority of the book is spent trying to activate a weapon capable of stopping it from doing that. [[spoiler: They fail, and the Exordia do destroy human civilization on a global scale, but the people of Tawakul, it is noted, thanks to their remoteness from any major population centers, fared much better than most and will likely be able to survive, just as they always have.]]

** Seven. There are seven passions, seven afterlives, [[spoiler:limbs that branch seven times on the Blackbird neuroscythe, and ultimately seven human characters who survive at the end of the book.]]

* IHaveNoSon: Anna's mother Khaje disowned her for after witnessing her (seven years old) execute the rest of her family on behalf of the man with the red beret to save the rest of Tawakul. Khaje promised herself she would kill Anna if they ever met again; by the time they do, things have gotten complicated, and Khaje ultimately comes to terms with her daughter.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Discussed. The projected death toll if the Exordia begins nuking human population centers is in the hundreds of millions. but the one most horrified to hear it is Li Aixue the mathematician. Clayton, as usual, focuses pragmatically on the bigger picture, which is that even if hundreds of millions die, that still leaves billions of humans alive to save.

** [[spoiler:Later subverted when Davoud tries the same tactic against the ''Axiorrhage''. It turns a real Exordia warship with a competent captain is more than ready for this sort of trick, and the only reason Blackbird isn't destroyed is because the attempt was actually a BatmanGambit by Ssrin to get Blackbird to copy the ''Axiorrhage'''s wrongspace drive and warp away at the last microsecond.]]

MechanicalInsects: Khai hives are tiny multipurpose AttackDrones in the shape of insects. Controlled by ElectronicTelepathy, they're sturdy enough and fast enough to deflect bullets, and are capable of injecting bombs into people through their stingers.

HumanityEnsues: [[spoiler:Iruvage's machinations allow Blackbird to replicate a human soul, giving it cognition capable of actually understanding the universe around it. The human soul it replicates is Rosamaria, the shape of her extrapolated from the gaps in both Clayton and Erik's souls. This means Blackbird now has a mind sympathetic to humanity and capable of acting on their behalf... which is a problem, because the next step in Iruvage's plan is to bypass all this by eating Blackbird's soul with his atmanach.]]

* SinisterSnakes: The khai are snake-like aliens who bear the Cultratic Brand, a metaphysical designator of pure evil. They're organized into a brutal empire, the Exordia, that dominates the galaxy and enslaves countless species.

* BigDumbObject: The Blackbird object, a huge (larger than a US Navy destroyer) ''thing'' that materialized in the Qandil mountains one day, emitting a signal that blew out radios all the way to Turkey in the process. A crescent with a tail (embedded partially in the mountain) and bizarre spiky AbsurdlySharpBlades all along its inner face. Attempting to study it infects you with a MindVirus that also causes BodyHorror, except when it doesn't. Figuring out what it is takes up most of the book, let alone what it's doing.

-> "What would you think if I said that, by cosmic coincidence, your species is destined to liberate the galaxy?"
-> "I would call total bullshit. The inbred porn apes? No way, we can't even save ourselves."
-> "Good. You're learning."

Exordia is a science fiction novel by Seth Dickinson, previously known for Literature/TheTraitorBaruCormorant and it's sequels, released January 23, 2024.

* Humans are special: Lampooned by Ssrin. Human fiction is filled with stories of humans triumphing against all odds, but in the grand scheme of things, humans don't even rate as average. According to her, humanity's most notable feature is being good at running. Its second most notable feature is being extremely inbred. The story of man is a story of mediocrity... but so are most stories.

* Our souls are different: The soul is the record of every choice a person has ever made and why, or at least a lossy compression of it. It interfaces with the nervous system to provide people with true free will in an otherwise deterministic universe.

* ArcNumber: Seven. There are seven passions, seven afterlives, [[spoiler:limbs that branch seven times on the Blackbird neuroscythe, and ultimately seven human characters who survive at the end of the book.]]

* Sinister Snakes: The khai are snake-like aliens who bear the Cultratic Brand, a metaphysical designator of pure evil. They're organized into a brutal empire, the Exordia, that dominates the galaxy and enslaves countless species.

** Ssrin is the first khai to successfully rebel against the Exordia in galactic history. [[spoiler: [[GoodIsNotNice This does not mean that she will fight to save humanity]]: she's here to save the galaxy, and securing the weapon that will allow her to do that takes priority over any number of human lives.]] [[spoiler:Notably, as afraid as she is of how the Cultratic Brand damns her to hell, she's notably just terrified of having the Cultratic Brand ''removed'' from her, making it possible for her good deeds to be judged accurately by the universe.]]

* Flanderization: In universe. [[spoiler:Blackbird isolates a thing's central essence, the bit of it most responsible for the whole thing, and repeats that bit over and over again, overwriting the nonessential bits. This includes personalities. Everyone in contact with Blackbird is slowly stripped down into a caricature of themselves: Li Aixue the mathematician starts losing the ability to think of anything other than math, Davoud the pilot has his love of planes take over the rest of his personality, Erik the KnightTemplar grows increasingly obsessed with justice, and so on. This effect ''mostly'' stops when Blackbird becomes Rosamaria. ]]