Legacy of a Thousand Suns is a Web Game created by Fifth Planet Games hosted by Facebook (also available on Kongregate). It has lots of Shout-Outs to Science Fiction and Star Wars in particular.
Unfortunately, the game shut down by the 29th of February 2016. Peace.
This game provides examples of:
- Ace Pilot: Talia, the player character, and Captain 'Ace' Flashheart.
- Alt Itis: Thoroughly discouraged, as it takes the fun out of the game. Devs and players will point out possible cases of alt accounts on the forums.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Commander Rautha assists you in attacking the Collective because, despite sticking his disembodied head in a jar, the princess treated him far better than his superiors-and even his own wife-ever did.
- Happens in the first part of Tales of the Void, where Salim recounts a robbery turned kidnapping that went bad. When one of the more unruly members of the squad decides to rape the young hostage, Salim stands up for her. The payoff is Salim is the only one not slaughtered by Noir when he comes to save her due to her lying to Noir even though Noir probably knew he was there.
- Black Comedy: First, choose a random item in the game. Then, scroll over it. Now, read the flavour text. There's a one in ten chance it won't be a case of this.
- Blood Knight: Holy crap, Ragnar'. It's one of the reasons why he joins up.
- Boss Battle: At the end of each stage. Also, raids, which are boss battles involving multiple players and a time limit.
- Brain in a Jar:
- A crafting ingredient.
- One raid boss is a weaponized brain in a jar; a massive jarred brain piloting a starship.
- The final fate of Commander Rautha, although it's still wearing the rest of his head.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Par for the course, but downplayed, you accumulate Golden Suns, the game's premium content currency over the course of gameplay, rather than just by shelling out real money (way more slowly than Credits, of course), and if the Random Number Generator is favourable, you can get certain outfits by hammering away at certain high-level raids and hope they drop a Facility plan and some really good items as part of the Gift-per-Day.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: One party member is an expert markswoman, who calls herself "Vulpina," who insists on wearing a cat costume. Her flavour text:"When someone wearing a furry costume asked to join your ranks, your first impulse was to give her a good hard slap and send her on her way. Then she pulled out her laser pistol and shot the wings off a nearby fly. So you allowed her to join, on the condition she remove the mask portion of her costume. You refuse to hold a conversation with the face of a cartoonish feline."
- Combat Medic: Many of your crew and officers are this, including the Crimson Medics, Cyborg Medics, Battlefield Surgeon, Sian Doves, and Arcade Medic Bots.
- Contagious A.I.: One of your officers, Sabotage Is an A.I designed to spread like a computer virus and commandeer enemy robotic systems.
- Cool Ship: You can buy and obtain some and man them with your officers and crew.
- Darker and Edgier: Starts with Illaria's death and gets worse from there. Your character is psychologically damaged and attempts to commit suicide. Eventually, you become a burning engine of vengeance, to the point where you don't think twice about committing planetary genocide.
- And then your main character leaves the party.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying doesn't really affect gameplay. All you need to do is spend some credits on health, and you'll be able to participate in PVP fights and boss battles again.
- Doom Troops: The Terminator armour set lets you play as one, and the Incendiary Trooper, Immolator Trooper, and Apocalypse Trooper crewmen.
- Dug Too Deep: The source for Infestation raids. Mining teams dig up alien biomass that more or less turns anything it touches into Necromorph Expies. However, specially treated material is resistant to it, basically allowing the suit to become infested while leaving its wearer un-Body Horror-ified.
- Evil Plan: Councillor Dule of the Centurian Collective. He gets the crew to attempt a rescue attempt on the held-captive Sian Emperor deep in enemy-occupied territory. He allows the player to succeed in this rescue mission, providing sufficient resistance to avoid suspicion. Once the Sian Emperor has been rescued, his body, under the control of The Collective, kills Illaria.
- Tragically, it fails to be a Xanatos Gambit by a crucial issue. He assumed this would weaken the heroes. Instead, it drives the Main Character to destroy The Collective and personally kill Dule.
- Experience Points: Obtained by doing missions, participating in raids, and fighting other players.
- Exploding Barrels: Lampshaded during Zone 6, when you take advantage of red barrels. Princess Illaria even questions why anyone would leave such a dangerous object out in the open.
- Expy: Princess Illaria is basically Princess Leia with a new hairstyle.
- Xeno-Infestation raids are equal parts Necromorphs and Zerg
- Gone Horribly Right: The flavour text for the Lesser Unbreakable Injection item. a schoolyard bully forced his victim to take one so he wouldn't bruise and got his ass handed to him because his punches couldn't hurt the other kid.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: The collections, for starters. To be able to obtain components for rarer items, and to complete Zone 9 items, you'll need a variety of different items. Time to start collecting!
- Heel–Face Turn: Rautha. After you fight him numerous times, including once when he comes at you nothing more than a head in a jar attached to a robotic body, you take his head with you to prevent further encounters with him. His allies couldn't care less, much to Rautha's upset. Over the next little while, Illaria has been kind to him despite all of his previous attempts to kill her and the rest of your crew. Then, when Illaria is killed by the Centurian Collective's plan, Rautha swears revenge on The Collective and joins your crew as an Officer.
- Here There Were Dragons: The humans come from Tor'gyll, a place where magic very much exists, and the player character is descended from the great Dragon rider of West Kruna, yes, he rode a dragon, and it talked and it spoke to the first emperor of The Sian Empire. However, for unexplained reasons the magic has since disappeared. It is implied the Psychics are the only practitioners of magic left.
- Horny Vikings: The Niflungs are essentially this in space. No horned helmets, but they do have space chain mail.
- Humongous Mecha: The Terminus Juggernaut, the Crush Colossa, and a few others.
- Impossible Thief: Lupin. He once stole a necklace Illaria was wearing and replaced it with a fake without her noticing.
- The Juggernaut: Noir. One-Hit Kill attack? Blocked. Trapped in a room filled with lasers? Clothing Damage, but that's about it. Nuke 'em? Nope. Anti-nuclear containment shield? Punched down. Aircraft? He'll jump on them and punch them to death.
- Kaiju: King Krandar and Sultan Shrakzan.
- Luck-Based Mission: The raids. When a raid boss is defeated, you can usually obtain up to 9 random items. Some of these items are required for obtaining components for rarer items and completing Zone 9 missions.
- The Mafia: The Contella Consortium is essentially this... IN SPACE!
- Money for Nothing: There are only three ways to spend credits after recent patches made Facilities free - to restore health, to use in the shop (probably for raid summoners), and as payment if you lose in PvP. That said, the money you use in the latter two is so small as to be insignificant, and certain powerleveling builds can allow a player to level up (with free refills) without needing to spend any credits.
- Mooks: Most notably, the Centurian Collective soldiers. Several Contella Enforcers have been referred to as mooks as well.
- Named After Someone Famous: the pleasure world Cytheria is named after an adult film star.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: The story makes a point of mentioning Fabricatrix Vespasia's uniform having a plunging neckline.
- Not Me This Time: In one mission, a psychic is paralyzed into hysterics. Ragnar wonders Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?. Turns out, the psychic just detected someone who wants to eat her brains.
- Oh, Crap!: The flavor text for the tactic 'Killing Field' reads "The best part is the look on their faces when they realize they're doomed..."
- Vince Vortex, right before he gets killed through his own Exact Words.
- The Captain has one when Noir blocks the chi infused punch.
- Only Smart People May Pass: The riddles for the special items (like the aforementioned Dragon Cycle). Originally simple logic word puzzles, they've since evolved into long hunts requiring multiple cryptography cracks, knowledge of things anywhere from, say, World War II or Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and interesting leaps of logic that can take weeks for a dedicated team to solve.
- Planet of Hats: Occulus, Drekchester, and Cytheria, to name a few.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: The player character. Small differences between males and females include how armor appears while equipped and how characters are referred to or addressed during the story.
- Ramming Always Works: Given this is a game set in space with multiple types of spaceships this trope shows up from time to time in the story.
- Justified with the early game Assault Ship, which has a specialised hull and prow to break through an enemy's ship and allow its troop to board it.
- Killer Robot Brutus's ship The Brutality also seems to favour this technique, given he and his crew are robots, it's less risky for them.
- The flavor text for the tactic "Collision Course" reads "The collision course is a bold strategy for those with little left to lose and few options".
- Randomly Drops: Items from missions, boss battles, and raids.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: One of the premium Officers, Mai Ya-Kadri was given the position of Sian consul on the Canadian owned planet of Lacombe because she hates the cold and somehow pissed off Jenny from HR.
- Retcon: Lampshaded in the background story for the Professor Squid raid boss. In short, she gets retconned back to life.
- Retired Monster: YOU! The Captain becomes this after mass-murdering two planets and leaving the party. Essentially s/he just wants to be left alone, having nothing left.
- Revenge: The player character, after Illaria dies. If you showed no mercy to The Centurians before, now, it's even worse. At one point, you destroy two planets that produce resources for your enemy.
- And their mentor says that he stood by and let them do all this because if he was 20 years younger and had his chance for revenge, he would have done worse.
- Sand Worm: One alliance raid will have you fight one called Wahsh Al-Sahraa to rescue a stranded chef and her expedition.
- Shout-Out: Many. There's a thread devoted just to players listing all of them on the official forums.
- Sociopathic Hero: Ragnar, the player... the game in general seems to have a wanton disregard for human life.
- Really, most of the player character's party causes so much damage and carnage
that any sane being begins to wonder if the heroes are any better than the Centurian Collective that they're trying to defeat. Ay caramba!
- Really, most of the player character's party causes so much damage and carnage
- Stripperiffic: The Zone 6 bosses' choice of, uh, clothing. Or lack thereof. Given the context, though, this doesn't come as a surprise...
- Talia takes it literally in one mission. To recruit Lupin, Illaria and the crew attended a ball with the princess wearing an antique necklace. Talia attended wearing a sexy black gown. When they realise that the necklace has been swiped (see Impossible Thief), Talia and the player character quickly chase after Lupin, which includes a chase on the rooftop and Talia ripping her dress for mobility. Noticing the ease with which Talia ripped her dress, the player character realised that she IS wearing a gown designed for striptease. Talia commented coyly in the middle of the run that the player should have expected nothing less from her.
- Temporary Online Content: Many limited-time items can only be purchased in a small timeframe, although some do reappear after a while (but not all of them).
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: "Rautha's back, bitches!"
- Turns Red: All raid bosses start out with their default artwork. Once they take enough damage, the artwork changes, depicting the battle as it rages on. Starting from Zone 7, this also applies to mission bosses.
- Why Won't You Die?: Rautha's been blown up by a grenade and impaled on a spike and still comes back for more.
- Worthy Opponent: Storm Commander Veck challenges you to an honourable one-on-one duel since he sees you like this. This is odd since The Centurians aren't supposed to have concepts like honourable combat.
- Nemo takes you killing him and jacking his ship pretty well too. His only request is you leave his helmet on.
