Vance Turbo, Hero of SPAAACE
Space Academy Dropouts is a Affectionate Parody Space Opera by C.T. Phipps and Michael Suttkus. It is the third book in the Space Academy series.
Vance Turbo's career has taken a nose dive since he made the morally correct but politically unpopular decision to champion peace with the Notha Empire, following the death of the Notha Emperor (at his hands). Now Reassigned to Antarctica, he gains a chance to redeem himself by becoming involved in another peace treaty. Unfortunately, the only person who wants the peace treaty to succeed is, well, Vance.
Far greater threats exist than to Vance's career, though. The mysterious Dark Matter organization wants to not only sabotage the peace conference but take out Vance Turbo specifically. There's also the looming threat of the Primordials, eldritch artificial intelligences that consider all biological organisms to be a disease.
Man, some people just can't catch a break.
Space Academy Washouts contains:
- Ascended Extra: Captain Laghari goes from being a background character that hates Vance Turbo for his rabid advancement to being a Grand Admiral of a mercenary navy. He's still a Big Bad Wannabe, though.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Trish suffers "Fragmentation" that makes her into multiple AI due to her efforts sabotaging the Primordial wormhole.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Vance is subjected to this by Alexandra Ares when he's inside her AI simulation. It notably leaves Vance traumatized and mentally compromised for the rest of the book.
- Comically Missing the Point: Vance focuses a great deal of effort on making sure the Deathworld conference succeeds when literally everyone, including the people who assigned to him, makes it clear that it's just a smokescreen for rooting out Dark Matter.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: Cthulhu manages to be taken down by the massive number of warships present at Deathworld gradually widdling away its barriers and cherry tapping its surface. Even then, it's only because it's already heavily damaged by the wormhole collapsing on it.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Vance not only collapses the wormhole connecting the Primordial's galaxy to the Milky Way, destroying most of their bodies, but the fleet also manages to destroy Cthulhu himself.
- Easily Forgiven: Vance only demotes Julius Something and keeps him on staff despite his betrayal. Many in Vance's own inner circle think this was a mistake.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Primordials are billion-year-old AI that inhabit nearly indestructible starship bodies. Their leader is nicknamed Cthulhu by Vance as a result just to make the implications clear.
- The End of the World as We Know It: If the Primordials enter into the Milky Way Galaxy, they plan to exterminate every sentient race in the galaxy but their fellow Elder Races.
- Expy: The Primordials are for Mass Effect's Reapers as well as Lovecraft's Great Old Ones.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: Vance and company save all sentient life in the galaxy from the Primordials. No one realizes it except for Director G and a handful of others. A Downplayed Trope example as he's still galactically famous for his efforts preventing a Civil War with the Notha.
- Hate Sink: "Grand Admiral" Laghari is shown to be an utterly despicable officer who happily joined a Private Military Contractor group out of protest to Vance's peace-loving ways (that turns out to have been just jealousy at his favored status by the Admiralty). He even attempts to kill the entirety of the Ares crew when Vance pulls rank as an actual Community officer.
- Heel Realization: Vance gets one when Trish points out he's missed Hannah's Love Confession.Trish: "You mean aside from her confessing her love for you, you almost getting killed, spending three days in a coma, waking up, and immediately focusing on confronting a traitorous crew member instead of talking with her?”Vance: “No, that can’t be right. That would make me the jerk.”
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Vance Turbo's status as an All-Loving Hero backfires on him due to the fact that the Earth government relies on Humans Are Warriors to increase their influence across the Community.
- Humans Are Warriors: Dark Matter is revealed to be The Conspiracy that relies on forwarding this to the galaxy. It has attempted to uplift Earth's technology levels and aid from other species by constantly creating strife and have humans be on the frontlines to fight it.
- Killed Off for Real: has Julius Something and the Tool die to help stop Cthulhu and the Primordials.
- The Mole: Julius Something is revealed to have been spying on Vance for the Admiralty Board. Julius discovers that they are totally uncaring about his fate, however, once Vance catches him.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: The President and High Priestess are both reasonably pro-human (or at least Pro-Vance Turbo) Notha despite the majority of their race being fascist xenophobes.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: Dark Matter is compared to Cobra and SPECTRE. It is involved in virtually every war humanity has fought in since its arrival in space. Taking it down has been the goal of Director G for decades. It has access to its own private space navy, megacorporation holdings, as well as Elder Race technology.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Vance, despite being a By-the-Book Cop and Technical Pacifist, straight up executes Big Bobo. This is commented on the fact that the latter is a arms dealer and slaver who has escaped justice for many years.
- Oddly Small Organization: Justified in with Dark Matter that actually just consists of Alexandra Ares as well as her immediate subordinates. This is because she's an AI and the manipulation of everything from the stock market to politics can be done instantaneously.
- Peace Conference: The premise is that one of these is being held between Ares Electronics and Deathworld. It is actually a cover for an investigation of Dark Matter and only Vance is taking the negotiations seriously.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Vance Turbo and the Ares crew are assigned to do boring backwater jobs only interrupted by whatever spywork that Director G can float their way as a punishment for Vance's public political stances.
- Redemption Equals Death: Julius Something ends up dying to help stop the Primordial invasion despite his earlier actions.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A military officer making a lot of controversial political stances (like making peace with longtime enemies) is going to get into trouble.
- War for Fun and Profit: Dark Matter is a criminal organization that makes its fortune in arms trafficking and creating conflicts for the Community. This is so it can make more money in arms trafficking but also uplift humanity.
