History Literature / TechnicHistory

* WholePlotReference: ''The Game of Empire'' is, as aknowledged in the Author's Note, a {{Gender Flip}}ped, [[RecycledInSpace space opera version]] of ''{{Kim}}''.

** The Polesotechnic League is similar to the HanseaticLeague in some ways. It is also compared to Elizabethan seafarers in-verse.

* DidNotGetTheGirl: "The Star Plunderer" features the founding of the empire -- told by the narrator whose girlfriend left him to become empress. In "The Rebel Worlds" Dominic Flandry falls very deeply in love with Kathryn MacCormac, the wife of the rebel Admiral Hugh MacCormac, and for once in his relations with women does not want a passing affair but a lifetime together - but though far from indifferent to Flandry's charms, she remains loyal to her husband and finally goes off to share the failed rebel's exile far outside the Empire, leaving Flandry heartbroken. Accidentally or not, in both of these Anderson works the name of the forever lost girl is Kathryn.

* ShoutOut: A Terran bureaucrat quotes the "old Terran saying"(from StarshipTroopers of course) about two smart tough races(meaning Humans and Ythrians) wanting the same real estate.

** In ''Day of their Return'' a visiting Meresian emisary observes this to the Imperial representative. When he responds,"I am not a man of war", the Meresian says that that only means he is not fond of ''physical'' violence, but that his [[DoYouWantToHaggle tough negotiations]] prove that he has quite [[WorthyOpponent laudable competitive instincts.]] He then [[KlingonsLoveShakespeare goes into]] a discourse on warlike passages from HinduMythology.

** In a diplomatic visit, a Meresian tells a Terran how much he loves HinduMythology. Especially the [[ProudWarriorRace bloodier parts]], naturally.

* EvenMooksHaveLovedOnes: One of the Dominic Flandry stories ended with Flandry successfully killing a Merseian agent - a giant aquatic minster able to smash a human with one blow, who was also a very intelligent and capable schemer - who'd been stirring up rebellion on a Terran world. Then Flandry wondered if the agent had some children who couldn't understand why their father hadn't come home.

* BirdPeople: Ythrians, which are a carniverous eaglelike race. The author considered them a puzzle in how to make a winged creature capable of carrying a sentient brain and came of with the solution of an organ which pumps oxygen into their wings. Ythrians are often [[WarriorPoet Warrior Poets]] who talk much of HonorBeforeReason(deathpride in their tongue). They live in a tribal society which governs it's affairs with a loose judicial system similar to Medieval Iceland, and they are obsessed with territory because of the needs of hunting. They divide up the planet Avalon with the human colonists; the Ythrians usually getting the heights and the humans the valleys.

* SpiritualAntithesis: ''Day of their Return'' is in some ways an antithesis of {{Dune}}. The hero lives on a provincial semi-arid planet, flees from political troubles and spends time among a series of people. He is told he is chosen to lead a holy war. But instead he discovers this to be a fraud because the the Meresians had hoped to [[ManipulativeBastard exploit]] his world's spiritual enthusiasm. In revulsion he [[KnowWhenToFoldEm surrenders to the Empire]]. And becomes a peacemaker.

** Avalon. Avalon is like Medieval Iceland, being founded by human dissidents who wanted to get away from government and Ythrians who always had a low government level anyway. Ythrian laws are rather like Iceland; Humans have a more conventional [[TheRepublic Republic]]. Also Avalonians have a poetic culture though it has a different flavor then that of the saga writers.

** Downplayed in Avalon. Avalon is like Medieval Iceland, being founded by human dissidents who wanted to get away from government and Ythrians who always had a low government level anyway. Ythrian laws are rather like Iceland; Humans have a more conventional [[TheRepublic Republic]]. Also Avalonians have a poetic culture though it has a different flavor then that of the saga writers.

* GrayVersusGrayMorality: While most sympathy is on the Ythrians in the Terran-Ythrian war, the Ythrians and Terrans had engaged in violent territorial clashes before the war, some of which was the Ythrians fault. Mostly light grey versus light grey as both the Terrans and the Ythrians are presented as civilized and reasonably decent polities.

* GreyVersusGreyMorality: While most sympathy is on the Ythrians in the Terran-Ythrian war, the Ythrians and Terrans had engaged in violent territorial clashes before the war, some of which was the Ythrians fault. Mostly light grey versus light grey as both the Terrans and the Ythrians are presented as civilized and reasonably decent polities.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: In ''People of the Wind'' the Terrans are willing to commit an unprovoked war of aggression but not to engage in genocide.

-->''This is the tale as told, not by Rennhl and those on whom she drew for the 'Sky Book', but by Terrans who walk the earth. Hloch will [[HumansThroughAlienEyes seek to explain what is alien]]; though only by swinging your mind into that same alienness may you hope to seize the knowledge behind.

* SpaceBattle: Several

* OurElvesAreBetter: Averted. Ythrians are a vague analogue to SpaceElves in some ways, but are not particularly better then humans. They are more honorable on the whole then humans(it is specifically said by an official of the Terran Empire that their intelligence could not get a Ythrian mole), and cannot understand random crime and hence the need for government beyond a judicial council. However they are also often more cruel; for instance they are likely to routinely attack trespassers, they become irrational and often violent during mating season, and the more old fashioned still maintain slavery and sophant sacrifice(both going out of style for Ythrians).

-->Then read-Hloch of the [[TheClan Stormgate Choth]] [[EncyclopediaExposita The Earth Book of Stormgate]]
-->From ''The Van Rjn Method''