History Literature / TimeToOrbitUnknown

* AbnormalAllergy: In real life, perhaps a few per thousand people are allergic to citrus fruits. But in this story, a large fraction of the ''Courageous'' crew including Aspen and almost everyone in their home country of Arborea have that allergy. This is supposedly a side effect of the DIVR geneset which nearly all Arboreans were engineered to have.

* AbnormalAllergy: In real life, perhaps a few per thousand people are allergic to citrus fruits. But in this story, a large fraction of the ''Courageous'' crew including Aspen and almost everyone in their home country of Arborea have that allergy. This is supposedly a side effect of genetic engineering.

* ExplosiveLeash: [[spoiler: The convict colonists have all had kill switches implanted so that they can be instantly killed if they resist orders from the civilian population.]]

* TimeSkip: Two major ones so far; from a few months after Aspen's arrival until about a year afterwards and from some months after that to when the ''Courageous'' finally reaches Hylara not quite four more years later.

* UterineReplicator: The Javelins appear to carry something like these, to enable them to grow livestock from frozen embyros. They even work on chickens, [[FridgeLogic despite their not being mammals]]. Later, we learn that [[spoiler: the entire population of Hylara was grown in these and that their genetic engineering makes pregnancy impossible]].

** Late in the story; we encounter Earl, one of the astronauts from the first-shift crew of the ''Courageous'', who just happens to refer to himself in the third person.

* LightspeedLeapfrog: [[spoiler: There is already a group of people at Hylara when the ''Courageous'' gets there, who launched later and arrived first]].

* JailBake: [[spoiler: When some of the Hylarans are holding Aspen hostage, Tal tries to break them out by smuggling in an electronic key hidden in a bar of soap]].

* AxCrazy: Captain Reimann, two captains previous to Aspen, was removed from command and eventually killed by the ''Courageous'' AI when he used an axe to cut a bunch of connections; cut off one of his own arms with it when it got impaled inside an access panel; and then started to go through one of the cryostasis rings methodically opening caskets and cutting the heads off of colonists in suspended animation. [[spoiler: He did it because he figured out that those colonists' brains had been taken over by the AI and he wanted to end that by MercyKill]].

* SpeculativeFictionLGBT: Most of the future runs on a gender ternary of male, female, and "brennan", a gender that goes by ke/kem pronouns. Non-ternary genders are acknowledged to exist but tend to get lumped together into an "other" category.

* PrisonersWork: A lot of prisons, particularly in the Republic of Texas or Luna, make extensive use of convict labor. [[spoiler: And a high proportion of the colonists are convicts, intended as a disposable labor force.]]

* UpliftedAnimal: Referenced, although not present in the series: apparently Arborea has genetically engineered more-intelligent dolphins. Apparently, they are pink.

* FantasticRadiationShielding: The Javelins have electromagnetic radiation shielding generated by a framework of outriggers a few meters from the hull. At the beginning of the story; Aspen uses the framework to bypass blocked internal airlocks and get to one end of the ''Courageous'' to activate the engines so that it can be stopped at Hylara. This is very uncomfortable for them because of the [[{{EMP}} electromagnetic interference with their spacesuit and nerves]]; an effect that is later exploited to [[spoiler: disable the convict colonists' kill switches]].

* FantasticRadiationShielding: The Javelins have electromagnetic radiation shielding generated by a framework of outriggers a few meters from the hull. At the beginning of the story; Aspen uses the framework to bypass blocked internal airlocks and get to one end of the ''Courageous'' to activate the engines so that it can be stopped at Hylara. This is very uncomfortable for them because of the [[EMP electromagnetic interference with their spacesuit and nerves]]; an effect that is later exploited to [[spoiler: disable the convict colonists' kill switches]].

* ExplosiveLeash: [[spoiler: The convict colonists have all had killswitches implanted so that they can be instantly killed if they resist orders from the civilian population.]]

* AIIsACrapshoot: A very complicated situation! The ship's AI isn't exactly evil, but it is often ''unhelpful''. Its function is somewhat based on 2022-era large language models, and getting information out of it can vary based on exactly how you asked the question and what context you forced it to consider. The AI has also been convinced by previous users to hide certain information, ''and'' occasionally takes action on its own to fulfil what it sees as its primary goals. [[spoiler: Those goals do include trying to keep as many colonists alive as possible, so it's not ''too'' murderous, but it will make sacrifices if it thinks they're necessary to protect others. And then there's the issues of the colonists' brains...]]]

* AIIsACrapshoot: A very complicated situation! The ship's AI isn't exactly evil, but it is often ''unhelpful''. Its function is somewhat based on 2022-era large language models, and getting information out of it can vary based on exactly how you asked the question and what context you forced it to consider. The AI has also been convinced by previous users to hide certain information, ''and'' occasionally takes action on its own to fulfil what it sees as its primary goals. [[spoiler: Those goals do include trying to keep as many colonists alive as possible, so it's not ''too'' murderous, but it will make sacrifices if it thinks they're necessary to protect others. And then there's the issues of the colonists' brains...]]

* YouAreNumberSix: The Public Universal Friends do not have names, they will agree to numbers for record keeping. The ''Courageous'' had six Friends on board at launch; of whom we meet Friend 2 and Friend 6 ([[spoiler: Friend 6 dies during the voyage as part of a murder-suicide, while some of the other Friends were in ejected Chronostatis rings]]). If and when Friends are renumbered is unclear.

* UnnecessarilyLargeVessel: The Courageous is very, very large for its intended 21-person crew, for redundancy; to avoid the crew feeling crowded during the decades of the voyager; and because it's intended to double as a colony base once it actually ''gets'' to Hylara.

* LightspeedLeapfrog: [[spoiler: There is already a group of people at Hylara when the Courageous gets there, who launched later and arrived first]].