History Literature / TowerAndTheHive

* AsYouKnow: The final novel in the ''Tower and the Hive'' series opens with a scene in which not only do the characters recap the previous novels to each other, but in order to make it clear to the reader who he's talking about, Thian Raven-Lyon refers to his grandparents as "Jeff Raven and Angharad Gwyn, a.k.a. the Rowan".

* LateArrivalSpoiler: The Rowan's real name is known by everyone who cared to know it by the end of the first book (and was explicitly entered as her legal name on her marriage license). Her kids all have hyphenated last names.

* SacrificialLion: In ''Damia'', Larak Raven (younger brother and closest relative of the title character) dies when he absorbs the brunt of a psychic attack meant for another. A good amount of the book is spent establishing that Larak his coming into his own as an adult, contrasting the conflicted, unsatisfied life of his sister.

* SuperpowerfulGenetics: As Talents began producing offspring together, more and more-powerful Talents came forth.
** This becomes a case of controversy in the final books, as it's pointed out that this means the Raven-Lyon clan essentially owns the FT&T organization because 90% of all Prime Talents are related to that family. It's treated as a big deal that one of the neophyte Primes from ''The Tower And The Hive'' ''isn't'' part of that family (She's David of Betelgeuse's granddaughter). However, it's also evident that, prior to Jeff Raven's and the Rowan's rise to prominence, many Prime talents, such as Siglen and Capella, deliberately isolated themselves from social interaction to a great degree, and the comparative lack of Prime-level talent at the beginning of ''The Rowan'' was due to the fact that high-level talents simply weren't having children (with the Reidenger family as the notable exception). It should also be pointed out that while it's controversial, the lack of Primes means that it's not like the Raven-Lyon clan beat out the competition- there just ''isn't'' any, and the need for Primes far outstrips the numbers.

* ManOfSteelWomanOfKleenex: In ''Damia'', the powerfully-telepathic Damia accidentally destroys the mind of her first sexual partner through PowerIncontinence while having sex with him. Her father-figure had tried to warn her of the dangers of sex with less powerful telepaths, but due to his embarrassment at dealing with the subject she thought he was talking about normal contraception.

* MyGreatestFailure: For Damia it was [[spoiler:accidentally burning out the mind of her first lover,]] partially from inexperience, and partially because she ignored Afra's advice to "be careful" out of spite (she assumed he meant [[spoiler:"birth control"]]; he meant [[spoiler:"keep your mental shields up or you'll fry the boy."]])

* KissingCousins: Rojer and his second cousin, Asia Eagles.

* LateArrivalSpoiler: The Rowan's real name is known by everyone who cares to know it by the end of the first book. Her kids all have hyphenated last names.

The series is set against a backdrop of a technologically advanced future society in which [[PsychicPowers telepathy, telekinesis and other psychic abilities]] have become scientifically accepted and researched. Telekinetic and telepathic powers are used to communicate and teleport spaceships through space, thus avoiding the light barrier and allowing for the colonization of other solar systems. Books in the series include

* ''To Ride Pegasus'': The first novel in the series (it reprinted several earlier short stories) was the 1973 ''Pegasus'', in which the existence of psychic powers were scientifically proven and psychics began organizing to both take care of their own and carve out a place for themselves in society.
* ''Pegasus In Flight'' and ''Pegasus In Space'': Direct sequels to ''To Ride Pegasus'' meant to officially [[CanonWelding merge]] the Pegasus storyline with that of the Talents.
* ''The Rowan'': The series as most know it started here, with the story of The Rowan, an orphaned Prime Talent, as she deals with life, loneliness and a possible alien invasion.

* ''The Tower and The Hive'': The wrap-up to the threat of the Hivers (and probably the series itself after [=McCaffrey's=] death)

!!The ''Talents Series'' contains examples of the following tropes:

* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: Sascha and Boris Roznine.

* BrokenPedestal: A minor example, but still depressing: while they're searching for Tirla, Carmen starts to build up an idea of her as a strong, smart and talented runaway, but who is also an innocent who needs their help. When they meet, Tirla's callousness about the horrible situation the kids she rescued are in makes Carmen quite dismayed.

* CanonWelding: ''Pegasus In Flight'' and ''Pegasus In Space'' were written to officially merge the older ''To Ride Pegasus'' to ''The Rowan'' and its sequels.
* CassandraDidIt: A major problem for precognizants in the early years. When something goes wrong and there's nobody else to sue, the litigious go for precogs on the theory that they could have got the warning out sooner. Eventually, it becomes a big enough problem that they have to go to the legislature for shield laws.
* CleaningUpRomanticLooseEnds: Every important character must be attached by the end of ''The Tower And The Hive'', even if the Mrdini have to [[AliensMadeThemDoIt rewrite]] [[IfItsYouItsOkay someone's]] [[SuddenlySexuality sexuality]] to make it happen. No exceptions.
** The ''Pegasus'' trilogy has one major aversion; Amariyah Bantam isn't shown hooking up with anyone.

* DiplomaticImpunity: Invoked by the BigBad of ''Pegasus In Flight''. Unfortunately for him, his boss got the whole story and pulled the rug out from under him.
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Stock in trade for precognitive Talents. This can be interesting because while they actually see the event, they see no more than a person standing there would; they must work back to identifying locations, people, times, etc. Henry Darrow is the exception; he focuses his predictions through astrology rather than psychic dreams.

* ExactWords: Through the entire Padrugoi Space Station construction arc, [[BadBoss Ludmilla Barchenka]] had been harassing the Talents to get the station completed [[IronicEcho on time]], though there are implications that bonuses for early completion were involved but concealed by Barchenka. Her efforts to complete the station are outright to the effect of WeHaveReserves, with evidence that grunts had been left to die in space without bothering to send rescues for them. The epilogue of ''Pegasus In Flight'' has her HoistByHerOwnPetard when they delay shipping the last batch of parts to the station until the estimated installation time would be [[BotheringByTheBook precisely to the completion deadline, no earlier, no later.]]

* FixupNovel: Three of the four sections of ''To Ride Pegasus'' are previously published short stories.
* GenerationalSaga: Sort of. ''Pegasus In Flight'' takes place about eighty years after ''To Ride Pegasus'', with ''Pegasus In Space'' taking place maybe a few months afterwards. ''The Rowan'', however, takes place three hundred years later, with the sequel novels to that centering around Rowan's children and grandchildren.

* HandicappedBadass: Peter Reidinger I, who overcomes spinal damage and moves around by TK. [[spoiler: Later repaired by Amariyah.]]
* HealingHands: Amariyah Bantam, though she doesn't know it.
* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Tirla is a very restricted telepath… who also happens to have a Talent that makes her fluent in every language in existence, and she can translate them effortlessly. Given that she lives in a giant community full of people who speak different languages, it's basically her full-time job.

* TheJailBaitWait:
** Sasha (who is in his thirties) is patiently waiting for Tirla (who is approximately 12) to grow up. It's definitely mutual. They marry on her sixteenth birthday (the minimum legal age to do so in their society), and it's implied that it was Tirla who was pushing to get married so quickly.
** Afra and Damia. Afra was waiting not for Damia's legal status, but for her to see him as something more than "Good ol' Afra; Mom's best friend."

* TheMaidenNameDebate: Possibly implied with Dorotea Horvath; both she and her grandson use her maiden name.

* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: This is one of the reasons that the Registered Talents tend to move into the large isolated and insulated estate established for them. Living in one of the crowded, high-rise residence blocks drives them to distraction.
* MindOverManners: An essential part of the Talents' culture, though in ''To Ride Pegasus'', the rules haven't been fully worked out yet and the protagonists sometimes play fast and loose with "suggestions." The Mrdini aren't as careful about it.
* MindOverMatter: Telekinetic abilities are key to the series, especially after the technique of drawing on outside energy sources to move greater masses greater distances is discovered.
* MundaneUtility: Peter Reidinger discovers he has powers after becoming a quadriplegic at age thirteen; as a result he uses his "Talent" for ''everything'', including hiding the fact that he's doing it by puppeting his own inert body, which leads to some UncannyValley moments (as well as him ''literally'' levitating with enthusiasm early on when he forgets where his feet are in relation to the ground...)
* MutantDraftBoard: The Center and FT&T don't generally ''force'' anyone to join them, but they do apply a significant amount of pressure, bribery, and in rare cases coercion to attract and keep Talents, and both have legal jurisdiction over ''all'' Talented individuals. The first time a law requiring Talents to register with a Center was suggested, the Center actually said it was a stupid idea: The Center barely had the resources to process the people who came to be tested voluntarily, they'd never be able to handle mandatory testing of entire cities in a reasonable amount of time, and without that they'd never be able to enforce a Talent Registration Act (This takes place in the first book, when they only have one small Center. In the later books, there are more and far better funded Centers, with considerably more influence).

* NeverSayDie: [[spoiler: Dorotea is suspiciously absent for the epilogue of ''Pegasus In Space'', and while there's no confirmation, the wording and Peter sadly remembering her congratulating him once strongly implies that she died of old age.]]

* {{Omniglot}}: Tirla's psychic powers make her this.
* OneWorldOrder: Develops through a layer of international institutions during the ''Pegasus'' trilogy. Individual nations still exist, and the United World functions as a [[TheFederation federal government]].

* PopulationControl: Used in ''Pegasus in Flight'', and it's an issue since Tirla was illegally born.

* ProphecyTwist: In ''Pegasus in Space'', there's a twist involving a ''lack'' of a prophecy. There's no precog of anything going wrong at the inauguration of the Padrugoi Space Station, but this doesn't reassure Johnny Greene, who takes some precautions anyway. [[spoiler: Manager Ludmilla Barchenka does try to take over the Station, but is foiled by Greene and Reidinger. When quizzed about her failure to pick anything up, the duty precog pointed out that because Greene prevented it by taking initiative, the takeover didn't happen, and so there was nothing ''to'' pick up.]]

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers: In the early days the psychics form a group with a code of behavior in order to try to avert this trope. When a girl more powerful than any other psychic in the world learns how to use her powers (ironically because she saw a public service announcement by the group) she goes on a crime spree which eventually results in murder and her own death. In later books, every Talent of significant strength is brought into the fold early and taught to use their powers responsibly.
* SelfDefeatingProphecy: This is usually how precognition works; precogs have visions of disasters, report them to the appropriate people, and frequently manage to avert them. In one incident, it was explained that the reason that the precogs didn't predict a barely averted crisis was because people guessed it might happen and took countermeasures to avert it without the need for precog.

* SquishyWizard: Peter Reidinger is the world's most powerful psychic Talent, with a totally paralyzed body. It's only because he is paralyzed, in fact, that he was able to discover his powers by telepathically calling for aid.

* SuperRegistrationAct: In the Pegasus series, one of the first things the Psychics did was draft their own version, to preempt a more hostile version.

* {{Teleportation}}: One of the psychic abilities featured in the series. The basis of the humans' interstellar civilization in the later books is high-powered psychics teleporting objects, included spacecraft, across immense distances.
* TimeSkip: Between ''To Ride Pegasus'' and ''Pegasus In Flight''. Dorotea Horvath, who was about five years old at the end of the former, is now at least eighty years old and a grandmother, and we also meet the children of other characters, like Daffyd's granddaughter Rhyssa, Bruce and Amalda's (probably) grand-daughter, who's named after her grand-mother, and Boris and Sascha Roznine, who are the (probably) grandsons of Vsevolod Roznine (the book never says exactly what the twins' relationship to Vsevolod is, nor Amalda junior's relationship to Bruce and Amalda senior). Also, there's a generational time skip between ''Damia'' and ''Damia's Children'': Damia just finds out she's pregnant at the end of the former, the latter starts with that child about to take a posting as a Tower Prime.

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The setting of ''To Ride Pegasus.''
* UngratefulBastard: Early on the Talents provide a warning that saves the life of, among others, a Senator who's arguing vehemently to deny them legal protection--even though it also risks the life of their strongest defender. Undaunted, the Senator not only accuses them of perpetrating a hoax but also insists that real psychics would have known better.

* WifeHusbandry:
** Tirla marries Sascha (thirty-something) on her sixteenth birthday, or pretty much the instant she was legally allowed to. Although he hadn't raised her since birth, he had taken on a protective, father-figure role in her life since she was about age twelve.
** Damia falls in love with Afra, her mother's best friend and advisor, who is twenty four years older than she is and literally helped raise her from the day she was born.
* YouCantFightFate: The first ''Pegasus'' story has coincidence and destiny completely override Henry Darrow's brain when he tries to avoid his fated car crash, [[BecauseDestinySaysSo because everything rides on him being critically injured, sent to the one hospital in the area with an EEG sensitive enough to detect psychic powers, meeting Molly, and finding scientific proof of the existence of Talent]]. Afterwards, however, this is averted; having knowledge of a precog allows you to change the event. DoubleSubverted by Henry's later heart attack; [[spoiler: he could have chosen to have a heart transplant before his expiration date, but he figured that by that time, he'd have lived a full life and be glad to pass his legacy on to the next generation.]]

* MayDecemberRomance: Damia and Afra. Afra is literally old enough to be Damia's father, and quite possibly would have been if Jeff Raven hadn't entered the picture. He ''was'' best man at her parent's wedding.
** Sascha and Tirla in ''Pegasus in Space''. Peter/Amariyah is also [[ShipTease teased]], but Peter eventually picks someone closer to his own age.

* TheAce: Jeff Raven.

* JailBaitWait: Sascha and Tirla

* HumansArePsychicInTheFuture: Not all, not even most, but a significant percentage.

* HeroicAlbino: The Rowan, though she's more very pale than a true albino.

* LateArrivalSpoiler: The Rowans's real name is known by everyone who cares to know it by the end of the first book. Her kids all have hyphenated last names.

* Main/TheNoseKnows: In the final book, Pierre Laney uses his unique Talent to identify individual Hiver queens. As a sideline, he also creates new perfumes and colognes for the crew of the fleet from alien plants.

* TelepathicSpacemen: The ''Rowan'' series has psychics as not only the means of communication between colonized star systems, but also the means of transportation (via psychokinetic [[TeleportersAndTransporters teleport]]) that makes such colonies possible to begin with. From the point of view of the Mrdini, who have no psychics of their own, ''humans'' are the telepathic spacemen.

* WifeHusbandry: Afra and Damia.

* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Stock in trade for precognitive Talents. Henry Darrow is the exception; he focuses his predictions through astrology rather than psychic dreams.
* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion: Once the Talents figure out where the engine cores of Hiver ships were and develop the strategy of teleporting live warheads directly into them, the conflict becomes mostly about finding ways to stop the Hivers without [[GenocideDilemma committing genocide.]]

* KnownOnlyByTheirNickname: Even after she regains her memories and remembers her real name[[note]]Angharad Gwyn[[/note]], most people refer to the Rowan as "The Rowan". Reidinger, however, made a point of calling her by her birth name, once he knew it.

* ''Damia'': ''The Rowan'''s sequel is part straight sequel, part-POVSequel and part backstory for Afra Lyon, a secondary character from the previous book. The book is mostly about the relationship between Afra and the most important women in his life (his beloved older sister, The Rowan and The Rowan's middle child, Damia. And another alien invasion.

* YourMindMakesItReal: The Primes' travel sickness was actually Siglen mentally imprinting her own condition (an inner-ear condition that gave her vertigo on long teleports) on every other Prime of the time[[note]]Peter Reidinger, David of Betelgeuse, Capella and The Rowan[[/note]]. It didn't occur to them that that wasn't "just the way things were" until Jeff Raven showed up - a completely untrained Prime-level Talent who could teleport at will with no ill effects. Subsequent books showed The Rowan as able to teleport long distances if needed, but preferring not to.

* PowerLevels: The Talents are ranked in power from T12 (just enough power to register) to Prime (T1). To have a T1 designation requires both telepathy and telekinesis with potentially unlimited power; a superpowerful telepath or telekinetic is rated at T2.

* ''The Tower and The Hive'': The wrap-up to the threat of the Hivers (and probably the series itself after McCaffrey's death)

* SuperpowerfulGenetics: As Talents began producing offspring together, more and more powerful Talents came forth.

* GenerationalSaga: Sort of. ''Pegasus In Flight'' takes place about eighty years after ''To Ride Pegasus'', with ''Pegasus In Space'' taking place maybe a few months afterwards. ''The Rowan'', however, takes place three hundred years later.

* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler: Larak.]]

* YourMindMakesItReal: The Primes' travel sickness was actually Siglen mentally imprinting her own condition (an inner-ear condition that gave her vertigo on long teleports) on every other Prime of the time[[note]]Peter Reidinger, David of Betelgeuse, Capella and The Rowan[[/note]]. It didn't occur to them that that wasn't "just the way things were" until Jeff Raven showed up - a wild Prime who could teleport at will with no ill effects. Subsequent books showed The Rowan as able to teleport long distances if needed, but preferring not to.

* YourMindMakesItReal: The Primes' travel sickness was actually Siglen mentally imprinting her own condition (an inner-ear condition that gave her vertigo on long teleports) on every other Prime of the time[[note]]Peter Reidinger, David of Betelguse, Capella and The Rowan[[/note]]. It didn't occur to them that that wasn't "just the way things were" until Jeff Raven showed up - a wild Prime who could teleport at will with no ill effects. Subsequent books showed The Rowan as able to teleport long distances if needed, but preferring not to.

* YourMindMakesItReal: The Primes' travel sickness was actually Siglen mentally imprinting her own condition (an inner-ear condition that gave her vertigo on long teleports) on every other Prime of the time[[note]]Peter Reidinger, David of Betelguse, Capella and The Rowan]]. It didn't occur to them that that wasn't "just the way things were" until Jeff Raven showed up - a wild Prime who could teleport at will with no ill effects. Subsequent books showed The Rowan as able to teleport long distances if needed, but preferring not to.

* YourMindMakesItReal: The Primes' travel sickness was actually Siglen mentally imprinting her own condition on every other Prime of the time (at the time four others). Because it had to be simply "the cost of power" and not something as mundane as an inner-ear condition.

* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion: Once the Talents figure out the strategy of simply teleporting warheads into the engine cores of Hiver ships, the conflict becomes mostly about finding ways to stop the Hivers without [[GenocideDilemma committing genocide.]]

* TimeSkip: Between ''To Ride Pegasus'' and ''Pegasus In Flight''. Dorotea Horvath, who was about five years old at the end of the former, is now at least eighty years old and a grandmother, and we also meet the children of other characters, like Daffyd's granddaughter Rhyssa, Bruce and Amalda's (probably) grand-daughter, who's named after her grand-mother, and Boris and Sascha Roznine, who are the (probably) grandsons of Vsevolod Roznine (the book never says exactly what the twins' relationship to Vsevolod is, nor Amalda junior's relationship to Bruce and Amalda senior). Also, there's a generational time skip between ''Damia'' and ''Damia's Children'' (The first of whom had only just been conceived at the end of ''Damia''), not to mention that between ''The Rowan'' and ''The Tower and the Hive'', Rowan goes from a three year old girl to a woman expecting the birth of her first great-grandchild.

* ''The Tower and The Hive'': The wrap-up to the threat of the Hivers (and probably the series itself after [[AuthorExistenceFailure McCaffrey's death]])

* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler: Larak]]

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The prologue of ''The Rowan'' mentions that Talents helped keep all parties involved in nuclear disarmament honest, making the end of the Cold War possible. This isn't even mentioned, much less covered, in the ''Pegasus'' books.