Literature / Sholan Alliance

Kusac and Carrie, power couple.

Sholan Alliance is a series of science fiction/romance novels written by British-born author Lisanne Norman.

The series begins with humanity having finally colonized a planet around a distant star. However, the colonists soon discover that they are not alone in the universe, with the reptilian Valtegans invading and occupying the colony. That is until the Sholans - a race of intelligent, mostly bipedal felines with advanced technology and Telepathy - show up on a rescue mission. While assisting the Sholans in driving off the Valtegans, a young human telepath named Carrie forms a psychic bond with a Sholan telepath named Kusac, with the pair becoming a mentally-linked (and soon romantically involved) Leska pair. Now tied to one another for life, Carrie is drawn into the Sholan's alien society, aiding Kusac in his people's long-running fight against the Valtegans.

The series consists of nine novels:

• Turning Point (1993)
• Fortune's Wheel (1995)
• Fire Margins (1996)
• Razor's Edge (1997)
• Dark Nadir (1999)
• Stronghold Rising (2000)
• Between Darkness and Light (2003)
• Shades Of Gray (2010)
• Circle's End (2017)

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This series contains examples of:

• Action Mom: Carrie FTW.
• Aerith and Bob: For a pair of aliens, Kusac and Vanna have very Aerith names, while Garras, Kaid, and T'Chebbi are more Bob.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played straight with the Prime AI, Zshadi.
• Aliens Are Bastards: Played straight with the Valtegans and Chemerians.
  • They even torture the main character's twin sister.
  • Averted with most of the other species, though.
• Alien Invasion: Happens about a decade before the opening of the first book, with the Valtegans conquering the human colony Keiss. The Sholan later arrive, driving off the Valtegans and liberating the humans, resulting in a Benevolent Alien Invasion.
• Alien Sky: Shola has two moons. One of them has a very large, recent crater.
• Aliens Speaking English:
  • Justified for some Sholans, as they've been taught English by way of a Telepathic transfer.
  • Played straight with the vast majority of the dialog simply by applying the Translation Convention.
  • Oddly enough, it is mentioned at one point that the main female character is conversing with a fellow human in English after many months of only speaking Sholan.
• Almighty Janitor: K'hedduk starts off as a lowly kitchen steward then murders his way to the Imperial Throne.
• Alternative Calendar: Shola has more 26-hour days in its year that Earth.
• Apocalypse How:
  • The M'Zullians visit a Planetary Class 4 variant on 2 planets before the first book opens. They unleash another near the end of the sixth.
  • Due to an accidental Colony Drop, a Planet-wide overweight Class 1 / underachieving Class 2 version happens to Shola over 1500 years ago. The Sholans call it The Cataclysm. Ancient Valtegan dreadnoughts must have been HUGE to gouge a big enough chunk out of one of Shola's moons to cause the kind of damage attributed to The Cataclysm.
• Arranged Marriage:
  • Kusac hates Rala, who he was sworn to against his will. Carrie gets rid of her. Permanently.
  • Another arranged marriage becomes an important plot point in the fifth book.
• Author Avatar: Carrie basically IS Ms. Norman in her younger days.
• Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain: It's been brought up recently in the fan club discussion that General Kezule is all over this.
• Anyone Can Die: Almost. But several major characters have joined their ancestors.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Vartra was once a mere mortal, as shown during the time travel section of Fire Margins, before undergoing this through his psionic powers. By the time the main story takes place, he is considered a god by the Sholans, albeit far from an all-powerful one.
• Ax-Crazy: The M'Zullians get this way when they sense that they are in the presence of Sholans. They make suicide attacks or even go catatonic when they find a Sholan nearby.
• Bad Ass Long Robe: Mainly Kaid, but can apply to any of the Brothers or Sisters. Especially potent example occurs in Fire Margins when Kaid really gets dangerous by removing the robe to fight Ghezu.
• Berserk Button: Do NOT attempt to harm Carrie. You will NOT survive Kusac's wrath.
• BFS: During Razor's Edge, Carrie and Kusac get a matched pair for their mission to Jalna.
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • Played straight with some of the Valtegans, as they have some strange stuff going on. Especially with the different castes they have been selectively bred into over the millennia. The Always Chaotic Evil M'Zullians and Proud Scholar Race Primes are so diverged that they almost resemble different species, at least in their behavior and culture.
  • The Sholan also have some oddities, especially compared to Humans. Human-Sholan Leska pairs do still manage to have children together, including Carrie and Kusac.
• Break the Cutie: The Valtegans do this to everyone they get anywhere near.
  • Carrie gets this quite a few times for various reasons.
  • Even Vanna gets a little of this, too.
• But I Can't Be Pregnant!: Pretty much every mixed Leska pair and/or gene-altered telepath or Brother/Sister experiences this at least once. Inverted for Mara for... unusual reasons.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp"/Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit":
  • On Keiss, Kusac brings down a long-legged animal that Guynor calls a rhakla. Carrie calls it a deer. As a native of a distant colony planet, it is, aguably, neither.
  • Jeggets also are frequently described as being like ferrets with bushy tails.
• Carnivore Confusion: Sholans are feline omnivores with a preference for meat.
  • Averted with the M'Zullians. they seem to prefer their meat freshly killed.
  • The TeLaxaudin eat insects.
• Casual Interstellar Travel: Lots of trips that cover many light-years in a matter of days or weeks.
• Cat Folk: Sholans, obviously. With a strong racial proclivity towards Psychic Powers.
• Celibate Hero: Kaid repeatedly turns down female advances thanks to a problem with a past bedroom scene gone horribly wrong which he does not want to repeat. He does his best to avoid the woman he loves, even after he's had her once, because he does not want this to happen with her, and because he thinks having a relationship will make him weak.
• Charm Person: This series is loaded with these due to the main characters being mostly strong telepaths.
  • In the second and third books, Ghezu is made of this trope.
  • Later on, so is Derwent.
• The Chessmaster: The Camarilla has, for many centuries, been a manipulative collective version of this, resulting in an Ancient Conspiracy. They had considered adding the Touibans to their assembly at one point.
• Cool Starship:
  • The Khalossa exemplifies this nicely. Ambassadorial suites, stores, lounges. It's all good. The wilderness area buried deep inside this HUGE military ship just makes this ship even more desirable.
  • After a routine overhaul and a few upgrades, the Couana also seems to qualify.
• The Coup: The Prime Valtegan leadership is couped by a faction aligned with their M'Zullian counterparts, leading to the Sholans helping restore the more sympathetic Prime leaders to power.
• Cover Drop: Each and every book's cover is at least based on a scene from that book. Not all are exact, but the scenes they're based on are all easily identifiable.
• Cryonics Failure: Carrie's mother's cryo unit failed during the trip out from Earth. So did about 1/3 of the other colonists' units.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Kaid, full stop.
  • T'Chebbi, Rezac, and Zashou as well, but none to the same extent as Kaid.
• Data Crystal: Sholan computers make extensive use of removable data crystals. When the lead characters are preparing to return from their trip to the past, one of the ancient locals points out the location where they've hidden an important data crystal that is later recovered in the present.
• Deal with the Devil: Only in this series, it's called making a pact with the Liege of Hell.
• Designer Babies: The Valtegans steal samples from our captive heroes and use them to create Human/Sholan hybrid cubs, which they then place in growth tanks to quickly age them to about 10 years old.
• Did They or Didn't They?: Readers have to frequently speculate as to whether or not a couple of characters have had sex or not. The author cleverly keeps mum about it, leaving it up to the readers to decide for themselves. One big example is Kaid and Kusac.
• Doorstopper: The first book came in at under 300 pages. From the second book on, they average over 650 pages.
• Double Entendre: There are some instances of this in the series, although not so many you feel overwhelmed by it.
• Duel to the Death: Sholans still practice this. Barehanded, at that, being 200+ pound felines. Several duels are fought during the series, with most ending in the death of the challenger one way or another.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The heroes in this series go through A LOT. Once in a while the author throws them a bone, only to snatch it away again. In the end, the Valtegan threat is gone and the Camarilla defeated, leaving our heroes free to settle down peacefully.
• Earth That Used to Be Better: Earth is mentioned as suffering from overcrowding and pollution, but it's apparently hanging in there.
• Enemy Civil War: Turns out the Valtegans were really in the middle of one.
• The Empath: Lots of them. The telepaths don't count here.
• The Empire: The above-mentioned Enemy Civil War turns out to be two of four Valtegan home planets. The occupants of the other two are much less warlike.
• The End of the World as We Know It:
  • Some Sholans believe this will happen with the introduction of the Humans to their society, but a much more drastic version of this trope is hovering over the heads of just about everyone while The Chessmasters play their games.
  • It already happened for real to two Sholan colony worlds just before the opening of the first book. It happens again in the sixth book, with all three attacks being courtesy of the Ax-Crazy M'Zullians and their stolen weapon system.
• Express Delivery:
  • Human gestational period of 9 months is overruled by the Sholan gestational period of about 6 months. In addition to this, Kashini is born early due to the effects of her parents experiencing time travel.
  • A couple of babies are born prematurely due to unforeseen and/or natural circumstances.
  • The Human/Sholan hybrids that resulted from stolen DNA are created in test tubes and have their growth accelerated in tanks to approximately 10 years of age in a few weeks time.
• Fantastic Arousal: Kusac finds himself on the wrong end of this while bathing in a hot spring.
• Fantastic Racism: The author gives little page time to this, but...
  • Most Valtegans display this by the trainload.
  • Guynor goes this direction in the first book.
  • Brother Dzaou starts off in this direction within minutes of coming out of cryo during the sixth book.
• Fish out of Water: Carrie undergoes a lot of this in the first couple of books as she becomes immersed in Sholan culture, parts of which vary wildly from human mores.
• Flat Character: With the numerous characters in this series, there are a few who don't get much page time. Character development absolutely requires that lots of page time be devoted to a given character. As such, the above mentioned General Kezule is the polar opposite of flat.
• Frothy Mugs of Water:
  • Thanks to Bizarre Alien Biology the Sholans find coffee affects them like alcohol. The stronger it is, the more drunk it makes them. This leads to a sort of I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin! effect, as you tend to read the word coffee for so long, with so many characters drinking it casually, you almost forget it's alcoholic for them.
  • Chocolate has even more Interesting effects on Sholans. Yet Kusac still offers some to his son at one point in the eighth book.
• God's Hands Are Tied: Played with with Vartra in the seventh book. The Camarilla are mortals, but they still tie Vartra's hands.
• Goo-Goo-Godlike:
  • Kashini is born with her telepathic abilities fully awakened after her mother time travels while pregnant.
  • The Directorate's 8 Human/Sholan hybrids are brought out of growth tanks at approximately the age of 10 with their telepathic abilities fully awake and trained thanks to sleep tape training.
• Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: The Humans living on Keiss don't believe in telepathy, and therefore think Carrie is a freak. This results in people close to her trying to either convince her to act more normal, or act like she can't read minds at all.
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky: While there are SOME details included in the more intimate scenes, the author has kept them somewhat vague, leaving the nitty gritty details up to the imagination of the reader. Enjoy!
• Heel–Face Turn: Kezule, sort of. Nearly the entire fan base still seems to dislike him, although many grudgingly admit he's more of a Noble Demon than a complete meanie. He could also be evolving toward being a Noble Bigot, which is slightly less evil than the Noble Demon in that he is trying to do good (whereas the Noble Demon does good in spite of himself), but he's still a nasty individual.
• Higher-Tech Species: The Sholans and their Alliance partners pull this off perfectly.
• Human Aliens:
  • The Jalnans look almost exactly like Earth-born Humans.
  • Due to her Sholan eyes, Carrie is able to pass herself off as a Solnian, as opposed to being mistaken for another Jalnan.
• Humanlike Hand Anatomy: An interesting variation. The Sholans are a felinoid race with retractable fingers, enabling them to alternately run on all fours or grip things with human-like hands.
• Humans Are Special: Things really start cookin' in the Alliance when the Sholans discover them on Keiss. Watch out, universe! Humans are not merely a Loose Cannon, but an entire Loose Artillery Battalion variable in the Camarilla's schemes and calculations.
• Humans Are Psychic in the Future: Human telepaths weren't recognized until the Terrans met the Sholans, a certain percentage of which have psi abilities.
• Humans Need Aliens: The human colonists on Kiess found themselves under the heel of the overpoweringly aggressive etc etc Valtegans. Without the help of the Sholans, they would have continued to be in that situation even with the arrival of the second wave colony ship, still enroute during the first book.
• Humongous Mecha: In the eighth book, the Sholan military has recently introduced a mecha called the MUTAC. It's a hulking set of multi-ton quadruped-x-biped powered armor, its design based on the feline Sholan. It even appears on the cover of the eighth book.
• I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin! / Alien Catnip: Both strong coffee and, apparently, small amounts of ordinary chocolate will do strange things to Sholans.
• Idiot Ball: Who's idea was it to make torturer priest J'koshuk the interface between the Primes and the crew and passengers of the Rryuk's Profit?
• IKEA Erotica: Averted. The handful of sex scenes in each book (starting with the second one; there were none in the first) are either rather well-written and convey a good impression of the characters' emotions; or the act itself is skipped (the literary version of a Sexy Discretion Shot), focusing instead on the build-up and aftermath.
• Interspecies Romance: Kusac and Carrie Aldatan get this trope rolling. Others eventually follow.
• Intoxication Ensues: Due to a little bit of Bizarre Alien Biology, Sholans get this with too much coffee or chocolate.
• Jedi Mind Trick:
  • Pulled off with style by Carrie and Kusac in Turning Point.
  • Most of the rest of the main characters can pull this off convincingly for the same reason. Most of them are high-level telepaths, after all.
• Jerkass: Several characters come to mind. Some worse than others, some intermittently, some accidentally.
  • Best example: Hkairass. Double points for this Telaxaudin. (See Meaningful Name below)
    • He even goes so far as to try and get the Designated Hero shot.
• Karmic Death: Several of them.
  • Fire Margins gives us:
    • Fyak at the hands of his angry victims. (Nightmare Fuel if you think about it 200+ pound felines.)
    • Ghezu gets his by his own request for personal combat with Kaid. (See Badass Long Robe example above.)
  • Razor's Edge gives us Bradogan getting mowed down by one of his victims. (See Fyak above)
  • Dark Nadir gives us J'Koshuk on the receiving end of an Energy Ball from an Extremely angry Kusac.
  • Shades Of Gray gives us two and almost gives us a third.
• Kick the Dog: The Valtegans do this on page 1 of the first book.
  • Ghezu and Kezule get their moments, too.
• Lady of War: Word of God says that Carrie fits in here.
• La Résistance: The human colonists are trying to get rid of tech-superior and more numerous Alien Invaders. They eventually get the help they need.
  • There's even one on the primitive planet of Jalna. Some local lords trying to improve the fairness of the trade balance.
• Law of Alien Names: Apparently the author simply used a name generating program for the alien names.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Most of our heroes can't be bothered with the trouble of being pregnant and/or raising cubs at the moment, usually due to some professional demands on their time. Thanks to But I Can't Be Pregnant!, this happens at a couple of inopportune times. Conversely, characters who DO want to reproduce together seem to occasionally run into snags such as being from different genetically incompatible species.
• Little Miss Badass: Do not underestimate the women in these books, they have some serious Waif-Fu!
  • Best example: T'Chebbi.
  • Even Carrie gets her moments.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Hooo boy.... Played with and pretty much Zig-Zagged.
  • Inverted with Kaid and Dzaka.
    • Kaid does everything he can to avoid letting Dzaka know that he is Kaid's son. (There's a VERY good reason.)
  • Flipped to a Luke, You Are My Father with Rezac and Kaid.
    • Due to a stasis cube and more than 1500 years worth of time travel issues, Rezac is the 25 year-old father of 50 year-old Kaid. His grandson, Dzaka is 35 or so.
    • Kaid decides that Rezac should be listed as his younger brother.
  • Don't even get me started with Josh and Mara's cub.
• Magic-Powered Pseudoscience: Turns out that Vartra was using his own telepathic / telikinetic abilities (unwittingly) to mutate DNA, which was why only his experiments resulted in more powerful telepaths.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: This is Kezule's original goal after being brought to the future. He is a Magnificent Bastard in trying to get back to his own time to accomplish it.
• Mama Bear: Threaten Carrie's loved ones and this is what you get.
• Mate or Die: Leska pairs literally live and die by this one.
• Meaningful Name: The Telaxaudin, Hkairass. See Jerkass above.
• Mind Link Mates: Carrie and Kusac, Leska pairs in general.
• Mind over Manners: While Sholan telepaths have a strict code of ethics they follow when using their Talent, the Humans they hook up with tend to be a bad influence, often breaking the rules and eventually influencing their Leskas to do the same.
• Misfit Mobilization Moment: We almost get one in the first book. But we DEFINITELY get one in the fifth book.
• Mistaken for Pregnant: In the early days, Sholans unfamiliar with Human female anatomy would mistake them for pregnant due to the fact that Human women have breasts all the time, whereas Sholan females only have them when pregnant or breastfeeding.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Who appointed Chy'qui to be the head of medical research anyway?
• Mutant Draft Board:
  • The Telepath Guild is a mild, friendly version of this.
  • Seems to be getting played straight on Earth eventually, with telepaths being forcibly conscripted.
• Mutilation Interrogation: By way of Fingore in Fire Margins.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Hkairass, Kezule, J'koshuk, K'hedduk, M'ezozakk, and more. The Valtegans must really love their 'K' names.
• Natural Weapon:
  • Sholans are all about this. Claws, teeth, powerful muscles and real speed.
  • With their heavier gravity background, the Valtegans get some of this.
  • The Sumaan get theirs too. Especially gangly, clumsy young Ashay.
• No Periods, Period: Most Sholan females are able to voluntarily control their fertility. Plus or minus male 'Persuasion'.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Played straight with this series.
  • It is eventually revealed that a group of telepaths have pulled this off against an entire empire over 1500 years ago.
  • In the seventh book we have K'hedduk becoming emperor after playing the part of a kitchen steward.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Carrie is a pro at this as shown in Turning Point, when she avoids Valtegan scrutiny in a bar raid with the trope.
  • In the same book, Kusac pretends to be a non-sentient feline in order to hide among Keiss' human colonists.
• Oh, My Gods!:
  • Shola has an extensive pantheon. Different versions can be found throughout the series.
  • Due to Vartra being directly linked to the Telepaths, 'Vartra's Bones!' is said frequently.
• Old Master: Noni is definitely the Old Master of this series, but it looks like she may have some competition for that title in Conner.
• One-Hit Kill: Kusac does this in Dark Nadir, cooking someone from the inside out ... with his mind.
• Only One Name: Lots of one-name characters, most notably the Valtegans and Primes, the Telaxaudin, and the Cabbarans. Some Sholans get this as well, though some Sholans start out with one name and acquire a second name in later chapters/books.
• Papa Wolf: Threaten Kusac or Kaid's loved ones, and this is what you get.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Kusac has the potential for this if three things come together and add up:
  • 1; He realizes the full extent of his abilities,
  • 2; He gets angry about how the Camarilla has been manipulating him. By the end of Shades of Gray, 1 and 2 have pretty much fallen into place.
  • 3; He finds out where they are located. He does in the final book, and leads the victorious assault against them.
• Planet Looters: After applying their Ultimate Weapon to J'kirtik, The M'Zullians proceed to loot their long-time rivals' planet for any remaining goodies.
• Power Levels: In the second book, Kusac claims to be a grade 5. He is later forced to admit to being a much more powerful grade 1.
  • With his "repairs", Kusac is still a grade 1, but the existing scale may need to be adjusted or revised in order to accommodate his abilities vs those of everybody else.

• The Power of Blood: It seems like a lot of important Sholan rituals are sealed in blood via small cuts on the hand. Some examples include ...
  • Bonding Contracts.
  • Sword-Brother Oaths.
• Power Trio: Carrie, Kusac and Kaid.
• Pregnant Badass: Carrie, full stop. She goes off on various missions, time travel adventures and escapes from captivity while pregnant. Horribly subverted by her Duel to the Death in the second book, though. She wins, but loses the baby due to injuries sustained in the fight.
• Prehensile Tail: Sholans get a weak version. They can wrap it around a leg or wrist, but not do anything truly useful with it.
• Psychic Powers: Telepaths make up most of the major cast.
  • Kusac develops more than merely telepathic abilities after his repairs.
• Psychic Radar: Several different characters have used this for scouting purposes.
• Punctuation Shaker: Several different characters get saddled with ' names. For example, T'chebbi.
• Rape as Drama: M'Zullian Valtegans will sexually assault women of any species, with the threat of this happening arising on several occasions.
• The Reveal: The enigmatic Primes turn out to be Valtegans, who are actually split up into several subspecies based on ancient castes. The Valtegans faced up until then are members of the warrior caste from M'Zull, who the intellectual Primes are more than willing to work with other species against.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Jeggets. Carrie describes them as looking like a cross between a squirrel and a ferret. They can be troublesome. Mostly because they are telepathic and can sense approaching threats.
• Running on All Fours: All Sholans will do this when they need to cover a lot of ground in a hurry while they are on foot.
• Rip Van Winkle / Cold Sleep, Cold Future: Rezac and Zashou get over 1500 years of this thanks to a strange sort of stasis box.
• Science Fantasy: Aside from the obvious Space Opera elements of Carrie integrating into Sholan society and joining their fight against the Valtegans, the psychic powers of the setting quickly become magic in all but name.
• Sequel Hook:
  • The first book ended fairly neatly. All subsequent books have arrived with Cliffhanger endings.
  • The eighth book, Shades of Gray, does end fairly neatly. But there is still some hook.
  • The final book ends pretty conclusively, however.
• Sex Slave: The M'Zullians Valtegans are known to keep these, including both their own women and women from other species they have enslaved.
• Space Station: There's a major station orbiting above Shola that plays a minor part in the series. There are also hollowed out asteroids orbiting distant stars that play vital plot roles in the later books.
• Spare a Messenger: The commander of the Khalossa tells his crew to allow one enemy ship to leave the Kiess system to inform their home world that this colony world is now under new management.
• Spider-Sense: Some members of the Brotherhood of Vartra have this ability. Sister T'Chebbi is a good example.
• Stay with the Aliens: Carrie starts to do this in the first book but finishes by flying off to Shola in the second book. More characters join the Sholans later.
• Subspace Ansible: The Sholan Alliance has found one and put it to very good use. Interstellar conversations happen on a number of occasions.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: The Cabbarans and the Telaxaudin seem to pull this off. And they are trouble anywhere they are seen due to being Chessmasters.
• Survival Mantra: The Brotherhood of Vartra's Litanies, which are designed to help one overcome various mental/emotional hurdles. In no particular order, they are the Litanies for Pain, Relaxation, Fear (inspired by the one from Dune), Clear Thought, and Preparation. They're never actually spelled out within the narrative, and in fact weren't more than named/mentioned until the seventh book in the series, where they were included on otherwise blank pages between chapters, spaced throughout the book. Side-note: they were actually written by members of the books' fan club.
• Technopath: Thanks to having been Touched by Vorlons, Kusac develops a little bit of this.
• Time and Relative Dimensions in Space: Three different types.
  • In Fire Margins, when Carrie, Kusac and Kaid do their time travel thing, their destination winds up being a temple, many miles from where they started for a type 3.
  • Much later, Vartra drags Kaid into the past and returns him to his bedroom in the present for a type 1.
  • The Camarilla can apparently pull off a type 4, though the energy expenditure and other issues make this troublesome.
• Time Travel: To an almost ludicrously headache-inducing level. Luckily, it's all a Stable Time Loop over 1500 years across, and not a Timey-Wimey Ball... At first.
• Time-Travel Tense Trouble: "I have a daughter alive in the past!" Unfortunately, someone rather brutally points out that, since she's in the very distant past, she's also been dead for millennia, and there's nothing he can do.
• Title Drop: Usually word-for-word, but occasionally merely almost exact. Some even Title Drop the titles of other books in the series, usually that of the following book...which probably counts as some degree of Foreshadowing.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Valtegan Empire (In Name Only) suffers from a coup; the new leader wishes to return his species to power and subjugate all the other "slave races". Unfortunately, those same slave races had just signed treaties with his predecessor (whose legitimate heir is off-world), and they're not happy.
• Took a Level in Badass: Telepaths can't fight. So why, during the First book, does Kusac challenge someone? Apparently, his Link with Carrie gave him a boost and some incentive.
• Touched by Vorlons:
  • Kusac gets some of this in Stronghold Rising and it finally surfaces in Between Darkness and Light.
  • Vartra himself seems to have gotten a little of this. Or maybe it's because he IS a God.
• Touch Telepathy: Sholans have a strict "No Contact" policy in place to protect their Telepaths. This is because physical contact creates an unblockable link between the telepath and anybody touching them.
• Training from Hell: Kaid is an expert at this, and applies it to friends (Kusac) and enemies (under duress) quite expertly.
• Transformation Sequence: Happens to Kusac more than once in Shades of Gray.
• Twin Telepathy: Carrie and her twin Elise are twins linked to the point of Synchronization, with Carrie experiencing all pain and illness of either of them. It is theorized that Elise's death caused Carrie and Kusac to become Leska Linked to begin with.
• Tyke-Bomb:
  • Shaidan has the potential for this as he is close to his father's psi talent power level.
  • Due to being born with her psi talents fully active, Kashini might count as this as well.
• Uncoffee: C'shar. Carrie compares it to tea in the first book. It doesn't seem to measure up.
• Unstoppable Rage: Happens to a number of characters throughout the series. The Sholans call this state Kzu-Shu, the red mist.
• Victorious Childhood Friend: T'Chebbi held a flame for Kaid after he saved her from the Packs, but never felt comfortable staking any claim on him until much later. He was not opposed to her advances and they are a legitimate item, even though he is part of a Triad.
• Visionary Villain: To varying degrees.
  • Kezule seeks to rebuild the fractured Valtegan Empire, albeit in a less tyrannical form (especially when it comes to foreign policy) and without the old biological caste system.
  • Khedduk coups the Prime Valtegan leadership with the intention of aligning the Primes with the M'Zullians.
  • The Camarilla also have their own shadowy plans.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Kusac plays the part of an ordinary forest feline in order to get medical attention for his crash-related injury. His cover holds up surprisingly well, thanks to his Obfuscating Stupidity.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Although all our main characters, especially Kaid, try to at some point or another.
• Zig-Zagging Trope: Related to Luke, I Am Your Father above with Josh and Mara's cub. She's pregnant but won't reveal the father's identity.

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