History Literature / StarCarrier

* TheLostLenore: In ''Earth Strike'', Admiral Alexander Koenig's lover Admiral Karyn Mendelsson gets all of two scenes before being killed offscreen when the Turusch launch an extreme-range kinetic attack on several objects in the Sol System. For the next two books Koenig misses her so much that he keeps her image and personality as the avatar for his personal AI.

* ISurrenderSuckers: Zigzagged in ''Stargods''. [[spoiler:When a Nungiirtok fleet arrives to Sol to punish humans for capturing 25 of their soldiers on Osiris, the combined ships in the system are barely able to make a dent in their {{Planet Spaceship}}s while losing lots of ships and fighters in the process. When the Nungis start lobbing kinetic shells at Earth, USNA President Walker convinces the leaders of 38 countries, especially Russia and China, to back his plea for an unconditional surrender. While Russia and China do agree, they privately hope to regroup and deal a surprise blow to the invaders. Some elements of the USNA SpaceNavy likewise plan to attack. And when the ''America'' battle group returns from its mission and learns what happened, they have no intention of surrendering either. On the other hand, the Nungiirtok themselves plan to wipe out the troublesome humans anyway, the surrender just makes it easier, so it's difficult to fault those who plan to fight. Luckily, Admiral Gray manages to cripple most of the enemy ships heading in his direction, while Konstantin and Koenig's uploaded mind lead a digital strike against the Nungi ships remaining in Earth's orbit, crippling their systems from within]].

* MakeTheBearAngryAgain: While the Russians are either not mentioned or are allies to the USNA for much of the series, in ''Stargods'', the newest Russian star carrier CIS CV ''Moskva'' (comparable to the ''America'' in power and half again as large) is given the order to hunt down and destroy the ''America'' and her escorts (2 destroyers, a cruiser, and a supply ship). The ''Moskva'' battle group includes 7 destroyers, so the Russians outnumber and outgun their counterparts. No one on the ''America'' understands why the Russians would be hunting them, since there were no tensions between the USNA and the Russian Federation when they were leaving Earth. Gray suspects political motives. Gray manages to ambush and defeat the Russians by sending in SpaceMarines to assault the Russian carrier and upload Konstantin Jr. into his (yes, Russian ships are masculine) systems. The AI then threatens the ship's captain into surrendering.

** In ''Stargods'', the new USNA president is adamant that the people stop expecting a singularity to arrive any day now. He claims that it has already happened 300 years ago, when the Internet was created. Most people think he's an idiot, although he does have a point in that many of those expecting the singularity have ceased to work or do anything, figuring that none of this matters. He also compared this expectation with the belief of some Christian denominations in the Rapture. [[spoiler:When the ''America'' manages to locate one of the Sh'daar habitation cylinders traveling at sublight from their own dwarf galaxy to the Milky Way hundreds of millions of years in the past, they learn that things were worse during their singularity than they originally let on. Instead of "winking out", those of their number who ascended collapsed on the spot, dead. Vehicles were falling out of the sky, cities were burning, infrastructure was collapsing, as [=AIs=] were also ascending. It took the "Refusers" a thousand years to recover. When they learn that humanity is nearing its own singularity, they state their sorrow at the coming devastation. There's some indication, in fact, that it's already beginning, as large groups of people are starting to drop dead on Earth without an explanation. Konstantin thinks they're being uploaded to the Godstream, an all-encompassing AI network that evolved from the Internet.]]

* OrbitalBombardment: Frequent tactic of Sh'daar-aligned races, though the ranges vary considerably, ranging from continuous orbit-to-surface fire to kinetic strikes from several AU away. Human theatre shields are basically impenetrable to the actual bombardment, so during pitched battles the tactic relies mainly on seismic effects.

* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler:Koenig is killed in ''Stargods'' when the Quito SpaceElevator is sabotaged while he's riding up it. His capsule is thrown clear of the stalk. Konstantin dispatches SAR tugs to try to catch the falling capsule, but the stress ends up breaking it into pieces.]]

* AlienGenderConfusion: Deep Space has a variant where a Slan, analyzing a captured human naval aviator [[BizarreAlienSenses with his echolocation]], mistakes her breasts for echolocation organs.

* MakeTheBearAngryAgain: While the Russians are either not mentioned or are allies to the USNA for much of the series, in ''Stargods'', the newest Russian star carrier CIS CV ''Moskva'' (comparable to the ''America'' in power and half again as large) is given the order to hunt down and destroy the ''America'' and her escorts (3 destroyers and a supply ship). The ''Moskva'' battle group includes 7 destroyers, so the Russians outnumber and outgun their counterparts. No one on the ''America'' understands why the Russians would be hunting them, since there were no tensions between the USNA and the Russian Federation when they were leaving Earth. Gray suspects political motives.

** The Nungiirtok largely utilize converted planetoids as their capital ships (the largest shown is comparable in size to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Juno Juno]]). After unloading dozens of Boomblangs and Kraits on them, it becomes clear that the rock is simply too think to seriously damage anything critical with the nukes.

* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: [[spoiler:''Earth Strike's'' title is justified: two-thirds of the way through the book, the Turusch launch an attack on Sol. Thanks to Koenig spotting their diversion and managing to intercept the main force, coupled with an absolutely insane offensive use of anti-missile countermeasures by Trevor Gray, the attack does much less damage than it rightfully should have, but that's a relative statement: millions are killed by long-range kinetic strikes to Earth, Mars, and several space stations, including much of the Confederation military brass.]]

* HumanoidAliens: The Nungiirtok are at least human-shaped, but they're much bigger than humans. The Sh'daar use them in ground combat primarily.

** In ''Stargods'', it's stated that the ''America'' and her sister ships are no longer the largest ships in the USNA fleet. In fact, the newest Russian carrier ''Moskva'' is half again as long as the ''America''.

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Super [=AIs=] tend to be named after historical scientists and scholars. For example, Konstantin is named after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the "Father of Rocketry", and tries to fit the visual theme of his prototype by using the image of an elderly Russian schoolteacher. Nikolai is named after Nicolaus Copernicus, and Charles is named after UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin.

** In ''Stargods'', the new USNA president is adamant that the people stop expecting a singularity to arrive any day now. He claims that it has already happened 300 years ago, when the Internet was created. Most people think he's an idiot, although he does have a point in that many of those expecting the singularity have ceased to work or do anything, figuring that none of this matters. He also compared this expectation with the belief of some Christian denominations in the Rapture.

** In ''Stargods'', it's stated that the ''America'' and her sister ships are no longer the largest ships in the USNA fleet. In fact, the newscast Russian carrier ''Moskva'' is half again as long as the ''America''.

* MakeTheBearAngryAgain: While the Russians are either not mentioned or are allies to the USNA for much of the series, in ''Stargods'', the newest Russian star carrier CIS CV ''Moskva'' (comparable to the ''America'' in size and power) is given the order to hunt down and destroy the ''America'' and her escorts (3 destroyers and a supply ship). The ''Moskva'' battle group includes 7 destroyers, so the Russians outnumber and outgun their counterparts. No one on the ''America'' understands why the Russians would be hunting them, since there were no tensions between the USNA and the Russian Federation when they were leaving Earth. Gray suspects political motives.

* StrawmanPolitical: Especially in the second trilogy the series runs into what Website/StarDestroyerDotNet has called the "AMERICA FUCK YEAH!" problem: Only the Americans get to save the day, and if you're not with the Americans you're either a coward or a bad guy. Oh, and acquiescing to the Sh'daar Masters' demands as the Conciliationists running the Confederation by ''Deep Space'' want is BAD BAD BAD, and to prove it the Conciliationists are willing to use nanite and antimatter weapons to get the heroic Americans to fall in line (then blame the attacks on the American government when they're caught at it on video). Much like the Jedi Order schism over the use of leftover Imperial superweapons in the ''Literature/NewJediOrder'' series, nobody on the anti-Conciliationist side seems to be able to come up with a rational reason for why agreeing would be so bad (especially since the Confederation only refused in the first place because some {{Mega Corp}}s didn't want to give up their lucrative trade deals with the Agletsch).

* TheSingularity: The Sh'daar Masters are reportedly attempting to prevent humanity from reaching it. One theory floated in ''Center of Gravity'' is that the Sh'daar are actually Luddites (relatively speaking) left over from a race that ''did'' achieve the Singularity and vanished. [[spoiler:The Sh'daar confirm this in the third book, calling themselves "Refusers". Their civilizations, plural, completely collapsed when everyone else hit the Singularity and changed beyond all recognition.]]

* FrickinLaserBeams:
** Turusch and human ships have particle beam emitters that accelerate charged particles drawn from the zero point field to near ''c''. They vary in effectiveness but are generally not as powerful as their kinetic guns and missiles.
** The Soru ships introduced in ''Center of Gravity'' are armed with gamma ray lasers that are terrifyingly efficient against fighters.
** [[spoiler:Sh'daar]] fighters fire meson beams that, effectively, collapse any matter into microsingularities on contact, causing fighters to disappear when hit without even a flash.
** Slan ships introduced in ''Deep Space'' fire fusion and [[AntiMatter positron]] beams.
** The Grdoch, introduced in ''Dark Matter'', use x-ray lasers as their primary weapons.

The series focuses on the efforts of Admiral Alexander Koenig, commanding officer of a Confederation Navy battle group led by the [[MileLongShip kilometer-long]] star carrier ''America'', to turn back the Sh'daar and save humanity. It currently consists of:

Not to be confused with VideoGame/StarCitizen.

The ''Star Carrier'' series is a series of MilitaryScienceFiction novels by Creator/IanDouglas, who also wrote the nine books of the ''Literature/GalacticMarines'' series (as well as a variety of ExpandedUniverse titles under his own name of Creator/WilliamHKeithJr).

* Named After Somebody Famous: Super [=AIs=] tend to be named after historical scientists and scholars. For example, Konstantin is named after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the "Father of Rocketry", and tries to fit the visual theme of his prototype by using the image of an elderly Russian schoolteacher. Nikolai is named after Nicolaus Copernicus, and Charles is named after UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin.