History Comicbook / XWingSeries

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Wraith Squadron is originally composed of pilots on their LastSecondChance who'd screwed up with one thing or another, like cowardice under fire, fighting with superior officers, or being the victims of corrupt training master schemes. It's deconstructed at times when it's shown exactly what kind of people you get with this kind of recruiting policy. Props go to the pilot accused of stealing, who is sure things will turn out okay. As the guy leaves, Wedge notices the family portrait he keeps on his desk is missing ...

** Donos starts ''Wraith Squadron'' with his sanity hanging by a thread, loses it twice during his time with his new squadron (slipping into an AngstComa in one case), and comes perilously close at least one other time. Near the end of ''Solo Command'', he thinks he's about to lose it again ... [[spoiler: but realizes the truth in time to save most of his fellow pilots from a dangerous trap]].

* HeroicSacrifice: [[BadassBystander an unnamed Gamorrean]], who, when realizing he had been infected with Krytos, sealed himself inside his home and died alone and in agony to help prevent the plague spreading.

* InsaneTrollLogic: Before Tycho's trial, one person suggests that the reason they are finding so much evisence against him is that Isard wanted him to face justice if he were ever caught spying for her. [[spoiler: Justified in this case, as the prosecuting team knew that Tycho was innocent and were using thr trial to draw out the real traitor.]]

** Finally averted in ''Isard's Revenge'' and ''Starfighters of Adumar'' when they face enormous odds (six-to-one in the former case)...and lose. In the first case, several Rogues are killed and the rest only survive due to being rescued by Imperials, while in the second Wedge's flight is forced down to the ground, although they do ''really'' well against the Adumari -- four against thirty, and they kill the thirty -- before the odds finally get them.

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Some pilots in Rogue and Wraith squadron can't return to their home planets due to various reasons. Wedge's home station was blown up and Corellia is aligned with the Empire, Tycho's from Alderaan, and Corran is (falsely) accused of murder in Corellia. A particularly poignant example would be Tyria's home planet. Her people helped pass along the Death Star plans to the Alliance, and as punishment, the Empire bombed their planet to the Stone Age and enslaved the survivors.

** Elassar Targon's name references two ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' characters ... Elessar is, of course, Aragorn's elven name (Elassar is the Wraiths' new medic, Aragorn is a ranger and king with healing skills and powers), and Targon is the [[GeniusBonus blink-and-you'll-miss-him armorer]] in ''The Return of the King''.

** [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Krennel Krennel]] literally has an obvious prosthetic right hand which glows red. An old nemesis of Corran's is half-human and has HellishPupils.

* ProudMerchantRace: The Twi'leks are generally perceived like this, but they have an increasingly vocal minority who resent the stereotype as they would rather be a ProudWarriorRace. This first shows up in "The Krytos Trap" and is later exploited by Zsinj in "Solo Command" (see below).

** Adumar appears to be the planet of blood sport, pilot-worship, and melodrama, but as it turns out only one country is that obsessed (but it's the major superpower and is falsely presented for most of the book as being the ''world'' government, so it takes a while for this to be revealed to both the main characters and the reader), and its people can be coaxed into seeing the problems with how they're thinking. The other nations ''do'' care about [[ProudWarriorRace honor in combat]], they just don't obsessively devote all aspects of their lives to it and aren't LawfulStupid about it. Alderaan was always labeled as the planet of pacifists, and in the comics Tycho liked to respond to hearing that by [[BerserkButton swinging a punch]] at whoever had spoken. Worth noting is that the mentioned planets are human-populated, so it's less a species thing and more of a culture or perceived culture thing.

** Face has one in ''Solo Command'' when he prepares to confront Lara with what he has discovered about her over a secure channel, is interrupted when he has to help save another pilot from an enemy attack, then returns to his conversation with Lara ... and then realises he ''forgot to go back to the secure channel'' and it all went out to everyone.

* MildlyMilitary: Both Rogue and Wraith squadrons are noted to be far less rulebound than most squadrons, though the Rogues at least follow military discipline in-cockpit and during formal brief/debrief sessions. The Wraiths... [[RagTagBunchOfMisfits Not so much]].

*** Unlike most examples ... he's still made pretty awesome. He's just not awesome at his niche.

* GambitPileup: The Rogues' mission to Alderaan in ''The Krytos Trap'' had at least four plans going on at the same time, including ones by [[TheStarscream Kirtan Loor]] and Zsinj. The winners of that mess: [[spoiler:Isard mostly, though New Republic Intelligence and Mirax got a minor side benefit. As for who ''lost''...the New Republic as a whole lost a great deal because of the bacta destroyed, Zsinj gained an untrustworthy reputation and vaulted ahead of Isard as the New Republic's primary target for elimination, and Loor was outed as a traitor to Isard]].

** The Allston books to ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia'' (see HistoricalVillainUpgrade below.)

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: a couple examples among the Imperials.

** During [[spoiler:their brief alliance in Isard's Revenge]], Ysanne Isard cannot understand why Corran keeps trying to get a message out to his wife reassuring her that he's alive and well, since he'll be able to do it as soon as the operation's over. That Corran might want to spare a month's worth of pain and heartbreak to someone he loves simply never occurred to her.

* EarlyBirdCameo: These are particularly common in "Rogue Squadron", which includes both [[CallForward Call Forwards]] to events from books written earlier but set chronologically later (Thrawn, Zsinj, the Hapans) as well as featuring things that will come up in later X-wing books such as the planet Toprawa.

** In Rogue Squadron, while the new group is sharing personal history, it comes out that Corran has a death sentence against him for the murder and vivisection of six smugglers. When Corran busts out laughing at this, it freaks everyone out. Realizing how bad it looks, Corran quickly provides the mathematical key which lets their droid verify the true story: the smugglers never existed, and their "murders" were part of the cover story that let him escape Corellia.
** Wraith Squadron has Grinder's joking offer that he could slice into Tyria's records and improve her piloting scores in exchange for a favor. Unfortunately, he [[BerserkButton hit a nerve with that suggestion]]--he couldn't have known, but someone had ''done exactly that'' in Tyria's past (and she felt extremely guilty about it).

** There's a rather adorable one ''to'' this series in a much later book. Myn Donos and Gara/Lara/Kirney Slane have a complicated and eventually abortive love affair, but it's implied that there's some hope at the very end of the series. Much later, in ''[[Literature/LegacyOfTheForce Betrayal]]'', there's a company mentioned called [[PortmanteauCoupleName Donoslane]] Excursions. [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments D'awww...]].

** And there's the hold-out blaster [[BookSafe found in the datacard file]] for Corvis Minor (Which gets only briefly mentioned when the Rogues -- including Corran -- later go on a mission ''to'' Corvis Minor), which also started as a Zahn thing. The two authors have collaborated together and don't come to blows in person, so perhaps it's not surprising. Some fans like it, some find these Zahn nods to be unnecessary or contradictory (for example, Winter was supposed to use the Targeter codename only while with one cell on a single planet, and it wasn't for the taking of Coruscant).

** On the other hand, this trope is zigzagged with Zsinj, who is sometimes prone to YouHaveFailedMe, but other times displays a Thrawn-like pragmatism. It's implied in Zsinj's case that his ruthlessness may be part of his ObfuscatingStupidity: execute the ''real'' failures to get a reputation, but competent people who make mistakes get promoted/rewarded, ''very'' similar to Thrawn's treatment of ''his'' subordinates.) [[spoiler:One example of the latter: he gave a commission to a former enemy stormtrooper who tried to help Zsinj at the last minute -- that attempt failed, but through no fault of said stormtrooper, and he kept the promotion]].

** Face. It helps that he's a former child actor ... and a member of a people whose [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is communication and identification of body language.

-->'''Wedge:''' They're just ... different. Hand them an ordinary set of instructions and they'll carry them out in an ordinary fashion. Hand them an objective without instructions and they accomplish it some strange way. Like [[FalseFlagOperation that whole fake]] ''[[FalseFlagOperation Millennium Falcon]]'' [[FalseFlagOperation ploy]], and what [[TheSpock Piggy]] was doing, and the [[MagicalComputer data they got off Commenor's planetary computer net]]. I'm having a hard time anticipating them.

* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Both Twi'leks and Bothans are annoyed that they get stereotyped as merchants and spies respectively, and pilots or other warriors from those races often feel they have to prove themselves. Wedge actually lampshades this in a negative fashion in ''Rogue Squadron''. The assault on Borealis is being commanded by a Bothan general who's very confident in his intelligence, but Wedge brings up that the Bothans are also proud of their sacrifices in getting information on the second Death Star...which turned out to be a trap. It should be a humiliating mistake, but the Bothans wear it like a badge of honor.

* ObfuscatingDisability: At one point, Wedge Antilles disguises himself as Colonel Roat, an Imperial pilot who was badly wounded and given clumsy, poorly-functioning temporary prosthetics, on his way to Coruscant to get them replaced with sleeker models. Imperials at once look down on obvious cyborgs, generally thinking that only someone very clumsy or unlucky can be injured so badly as to need cybernetics, and at the same time respect the character played as a survivor and a war hero, and so feel guilt and shame if they get caught staring...so no one managed to connect him to the second most famous Rebel pilot. He played the character a second time, and while he had similar prosthetics to wear, they were not "dialed down" and he was able to act and fly more or less normally; the Imperials he met weren't rude enough to react visibly.

''[GilliganCut to narration]'' It was a Super Star Destroyer, by name ''Iron Fist'' ...

--->'''Phanan:''' I ... don't know, sir.\\

** Agamar is seen as the planet of stupid hicks, though that's really just a stereotype (although it is a [[SingleBiomePlanet mostly agricultural world]]). At one point, three Wraiths plan to go undercover as Agamarians and ask the captain of their ship, who actually ''is'' from Agamar, to help them flesh out the stereotypes. [[spoiler: Said Captain is a MauveShirt...he doesn't make it.]]

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Inyri and Lujayne Forge, respectively. The latter became a Rogue Squadron pilot, brave and intelligent, a good friend to Corran Horn who provides him with the wake-up call he needed to know he was too distant and isolated from the other pilots...and then dies senselessly during a stormtrooper infiltration on Talasea. Inyri, now suddenly put under the pressure to step into her sister's footprints and make a good name for the family, but always living in Lujayne's martyred shadow and blaming the Rogues (and by extension the New Republic) for her death, rebels by abandoning her family and joining Zekka Thyne as his girlfriend and co-conspirator.

** Lara, stuck on Zsinj's flagship ''Iron Fist'', sees an MSE-6 mouse droid and pictures herself as being as small and beneath-notice as the droid...[[spoiler:and then realises she can use them to destroy the ship]].

** Said disguise is a CMOF...he sticks a tube in his ear, and his nose, and puts on goggles, spray-painting them opaque. Said spraypaint, which got on his face, only comes off with a special solvent. That was used fixing the goggles.

-->'''Face:''' Zsinj can investigate all he wants ... because he won't be investigating ''us''.

* DowntimeDowngrade: ''Adumar'''s first scene consists of Qwi Xux breaking up with Wedge, freeing him up to [[spoiler:finally have a RelationshipUpgrade with Corran's former partner Iella Wessiri about two-thirds of the way into the book]]. This seems pretty much entirely a TakeThat from ''X-Wing'' to the ... ''[[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement controversial]]'' ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy''.

* YouWouldntShootMe: When Iella Wessiri is holding Fliry Vorru at gunpoint after thwarting his escape attempt from Thyferra, he confidently states that he's familiarized himself with all of Wedge's group and knows she wouldnt kill an unarmed man who's already surrendered. Iella agrees that she wouldn't. [[SubvertedTrope But points out that her companion has no such compunctions, and hands the blaster to Elscol Loro.]] [[spoiler:[[ZigZaggedTrope Iella had in fact switched the blaster to "stun" before doing so, to guarantee that Vorru would in fact be captured alive.]]]]

* AlwaysSecondBest: Falynn Sandskimmer from ''Wraith Squadron'' insecurely feels that she's never more than the second best at anything. At the end of the book, she finally feels vindicated when she becomes [[spoiler: the first pilot ever to fly INSIDE a Star Destroyer and shoot it up from the inside, but dies in the process]]. This is very much a case of GrassIsGreener, because one of the pilots Falynn feels inferior to (Tyria, as regards her tracking skills) is even more insecure and feels she's the worst pilot full stop. Worse for Falynn, she never even considers [[JackOfAllTrades her versatility]] as a quality (yes, she was "always second best", but to ''different people'').

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: The first four books are relatively straight military SF in Stackpole's BeigeProse, which revolves pretty resolutely around Corran Horn; all other characters are secondary. The next three are along those lines, but Corran is absent and a good deal of humour and personal issues creep in. The eighth is another Corran book, but the ninth is almost entirely Wedge's personal story about duty versus doing the right thing, as well as having more jokes than any other book in the EU. The tenth is back to the same style and unit as five, six and seven, but decades later and an almost-entirely new cast (made up mostly by the kids of the previous protagonists, a fact lampshaded multiple times).
* AnyoneCanDie: Except for Wedge. Or anyone else who made appearances in earlier books set chronologically later.

** ''Isard''. When one of her ship captain minions [[HeelFaceTurn betrays her]], her response is to order not just his death, but the death of his girlfriend's ''entire family''; a calmly delivered, easily missable line reveals that she started killing the families of all the ship's crew hours ago. Her management style was mocked in one of the later Wraith Squadron books by a more AffablyEvil villain, who noted that anyone who worked for a capricious psycho like Isard only had one of two things to look forward to: YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness, or YouHaveFailedMe.[[note]]Of course, Admiral Trigit, the Imp in question, is not much better. He's a BenevolentBoss as long as things are running smoothly, but when the chips are down, he's perfectly willing to sacrifice his Star Destroyer and everyone aboard to [[ItsAllAboutMe save his own sorry ass]].[[/note]]

** Even Isard's co-conspirators hold her in such contempt for her excesses that one of them (who's the POV character for the scene above, and has pretty well [[TheStarscream already decided to betray her]]) decides that he'll make sure the people in question remain safe despite not giving a damn whether they live or die, [[ForTheLulz just because it'll annoy her]].

** On the other hand, this trope is zigzagged with Zsinj, who is sometimes prone to YouHaveFailedMe, but other times displays a Thrawn-like pragmatism. It's implied in Zsinj's case that his ruthlessness may be part of his ObfuscatingStupidity: execute the ''real'' failures to get a reputation, but competent people get promoted/rewarded. (Which actually is ''very'' similar to Thrawn's treatment of ''his'' subordinates.) [[spoiler:One example of the latter: he gave a commission to a former enemy stormtrooper who tried to help Zsinj at the last minute -- that attempt failed, but through no fault of said stormtrooper]].

* BadassNormal: Other EU focuses on Jedi, or Han Solo, or clone commandos trained from birth by [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy elite Mandalorian mercenaries]]. This series? ''Pilots''.

* BrickJoke: The series in general is fond of them. Some even span entirely separate series. For example, in ''Wraith Squadron'' Kell tells off Grinder for calling him "Demolition Boy" ("That's 'Demolition Boy Sir'") while by the time of the New Jedi Order books the Wraiths are using nicknames of this type as standard code names (Face is "Poster Boy", Kell is "Explosions Boy", Bhindi is "Circuitry Girl").
* CallARabbitASmeerp: As the books deal with everyday life more than most EU books, we get a lot of StarWars terms for items. For example, refrigerators are 'conservators' and bathrooms are 'refreshers'.
** Allston pulls off a brilliant 'bilingual' pun with the latter one in ''Starfighters of Adumar'' when Tomer Darpen mentions the local ablution facilities are a bit more primitive than what they're used to and they may need teaching how to use them. Hobbie immediately quips "A refresher course." Janson is SO angry he couldn't make that joke.
* CaptainCrash: Hobbie and his much joked about tendency to spend long periods of time in bacta tanks after spectacular crashes. Which among other things, results in jokes that he should be getting endorsement deals from the bacta cartel. Despite this, he's unquestionably an AcePilot.

*** [[spoiler:Gara/Lara/Kirney]] shows up in ''Mercy Kill''. [[spoiler:She and Myn are married and have a family, and she made Voort repeat himself, four times, that he [[MamaBear would not recruit her children]] like Face had recruited Wedge and Kell's (And Shalla's nephew)]].

*** Kell and Tyria's daughter is named Jesmin.

*** Runt is still describing things in terms of [[SplitPersonality split]] [[PlanetOfHats personalities]].

** Wraith Squadron has Grinder's joking offer that he could slice into Tyria's records and improve her piloting scores in exchange for a favor. Unfortunately, he [[BerserkButton hit a nerve with that suggestion]]--he couldn't have known, but someone had ''done exactly that'' in Tyria's past.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Happens a lot, particularly to Isard. Uwlla Iillor, captain of the Interdictor Cruiser ''Black Asp'' decides she's though putting up with Isard's BadBoss tendencies [[spoiler:and defects with her ship]]. Kirtan Loor decides [[WouldntHurtAChild bombing a school]] is beneath him. Gara Petothel dislikes [[SenselessWasteOfHumanLife senseless sacrifices]]. Fliry Vorru is more [[PragmaticVillainy practical]] -- he hates having to pander to Isard's RevengeBeforeReason.

** Hohass "Runt" Ekwesh, is over two meters tall, but is considered very short for his species, hence the nickname. It works to his advantage, however, since it means he can actually fit into a cockpit.

** In ''Wraith Squadron'' Wedge makes a plea against this trope, arguing that a squadron assembled for pragmatic purposes is more effective than a squadron meant to appear good to the public. He even compares the use of this trope, specifically picking hologenic pilots that appeal to an arbitrary standard of beauty, to the Empire's xenophobic habits. True, a ''few'' of the pilots selected happen to fall into the "looks good" category (especially [[FormerChildStar Face]] and [[GoodLookingPrivates Kell]]), but many don't--and they all get the nod for their skills, not their looks.

* HeelFaceTurn: Several Imperials end up defecting to the New Republic over the course of the books. Most of them aren't really Heels to begin with, but [[AntiVillain honorable people who happened to be working for the Imperials]].

** Rogue Squadron is made up of some of the best pilots in the galaxy including several Force Users. The Wraiths are merely pretty good, but they make up for it in other ways, most importantly their CrazyAwesome improvised tactics. This skill is {{Lampshaded}} by one of their superiors.

** Taken {{Up To Eleven}} with the second generation Wraiths who include Turman the shapeshifting Clawdite, a species that can mimic most humanoid species, and Scut, a [[spoiler: Yuuzhan Vong]].

-->No [[DeflectorShields shields]]. No {{ejection seat}}. TIE Fighters were disposable attack vehicles for [[RedShirt disposable pilots]], and Wedge never cared to feel disposable.

** Wedge also does it in ''Rogue Squadron'' when an Imperial ''Lancer''-class frigate, [[TheDreaded a ship specifically designed to take on starfighters and with a fearful reputation]], appears.

** The first part of one of Zsinj's plans hinges largely on Gotals and Twi'leks being viewed like this, so when brainwashed agents begin to act on his schemes, the overall plan is to foment distrust of these two races precisely because of their Proud Warrior [[BuffySpeak Raceishness]]. And because he's just proven that they can be converted very quickly into {{Manchurian Agent}}s.

** In the Rogue books: [[spoiler:Peshk gets no lines outside his cockpit. Andoorni says "Inspiring, Horn" (plus a few other lines in-cockpit) and actually survives their first real perilous situation, then dies with Peshk at Borleias]]. In ''The Bacta War'' [[spoiler:Shiel bites the bullet]] after literally getting one line in the second book of the series and one more line after that (in book four). ''Isard's Revenge'' continues the trend, with [[spoiler:both all of the never-before seen additions to the squadron dying: Lyr and Khe]].
** Aaron Allston's books tend to avoid this trope, and for that matter it's generally averted in the comics, too. Well, mostly. There were two pilots who signed on at the start of the arc and died one after the other by the end, whose only characterization was that they participated in a BarBrawl with Plourr. There's also [[spoiler: Standro Jcir]]; he doesn't do or say very much between the time he's introduced and the time he gets blown up. Rodians appearing in any EU story from the '90s are likely to get the red-shirt treatment, with the ironic exception of Koobis Nu in ''Solo Command'', who has the rather undesirable nickname "Target".

** Elassar Targon's name references two ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' characters ... Elessar is, of course, Aragorn's other name (Elessar being the Wraiths' new medic, Aragorn being a ranger and king with healing skills and powers), and Targon is the [[GeniusBonus blink-and-you'll-miss-him armorer]] in ''The Return of the King''.

** Emtrey has "Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!" activate some ultimately-benign hidden programming, while telling him to 'scrounge something' causes him to [[SplitPersonality flip]] from fussy beauraucrat to [[TheScrounger expert barterer]]. The former gets fixed later due to understandable security concerns, and even the "scrounger" personality is implied to be throttled back because he started buying and selling based on ''what he expects the Rogues to capture in their next mission''.

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Some pilots in Rogue and Wraith squadron can't return to their home planets due to various reasons. Wedge and Tycho's homes were blown up, and Corran is (falsely) accused of murder in Corellia. The most tragic example, however, would be Tyria's home planet. Her people helped pass along the Death Star plans to the Alliance, and as punishment, the Empire bombed their planet to the Stone Age and enslaved the survivors.

** That's a common ''Star Wars'' trope, as TIE Fighters are [[ZergRush cheap-but-fragile craft]] in comparison to the Rebels' more durable, but hard-to-obtain, fighters. Which is why the ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'' video game was such a change - as an Imperial pilot, your character was ''drastically'' outgunned (on an individual basis) most of the time, but had a lot of friends.
** Finally averted in ''Isard's Revenge'' and ''Starfighters of Adumar'' when they face enormous odds (six-to-one in the former case) and lose. In the first case, several Rogues are killed and the rest only survive due to being rescued by Imperials, while in the second Wedge's flight is forced down to the ground, although they do ''really'' well against the Adumari -- four against thirty, and they kill the thirty -- before the odds finally get them.

* FunPersonified: Wes Janson. Making it all the more dissonant in ''Wraith Squadron'' that Kell (because of being misinformed of the manner of his father's death) is terrified of him, believing him to be a GeneralRipper prone to YouHaveFailedMe.

* TheGlovesComeOff: Wraith Squadron does this in ''Solo Command'' after they unwittingly walk into a DeathTrap at the Saffalore biomedical complex. After just barely escaping being dropped into [[MurderByCremation a medical waste incinerator]] (leaving almost all of them wounded, some seriously), all bets are off, with the whole team united in wanting to a) escape and b) [[ShootEverythingThatMoves destroy anyone or anything who tries to stop them]]. Even the normally [[BewareTheNiceOnes mild-mannered Runt]] casually [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beats the enemy captain to death bare-handed]] and the usually [[BewareTheSillyOnes happy-go-lucky Janson]] briefly becomes an [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness utterly silent, coldly ruthless killing machine]]. Face gives the order to act this way in no small part because he knows his team is, despite appearances, [[TranquilFury so incredibly furious]] that they ''wouldn't accept'' any other orders at that point.

* GoodWithNumbers: Voort "Piggy" saBinring's engineered intelligence makes him a mathematical genius who can do hyperspace calculations in his head, making the "navigator" portion of the astromech droid's role redundant. Basically, any R2 unit assigned to Piggy's X-wing is just along for the ride unless in-flight repairs become necessary. He later on manages to also act as a kind of tactical computer.

** And Baron Fel.
* WouldntHitAGirl: Skated around -- most of the characters wouldn't care if the enemy was female, but this trope still comes up when lesser villain Atton Repness hits Lara. It's a [[KickTheDog rather shocking moment]].

* YourMoneyIsNoGoodHere: Edda Gast learned this the hard way. When (grudgingly) offered her reward money in Republic credits, she instead insisted on being paid in Imperial credits. [[spoiler:Hilariously, she was then arrested on the first planet she set foot on, as carrying such a large amount of Imperial credits was not just considered smuggling, but smuggling for purposes of sedition, which carried a life sentence]]. She was not amused. The fans were.
* ZanyScheme: The Wraiths are a unit designed for the purpose of creating and implementing them GoneHorriblyRight.

* ActuallyFourMooks: In ''Starfighters of Adumar'' the antiquated "light-bounce" system used as sensors on Adumari aircraft reads objects in tight formation as single objects until they get get closer. This is {{exploited}} by the heroes later: they reprogram the IFF transponders on some of their heavy aircraft, including bombers and gunships, to read as fighters. The GloryHound Cartannese pilots come in thinking they're up against other Blades only to be faced with a single GiantMook. At the same time, they have Blades group together and put out a single bomber's IFF signal, so that from beyond visible range they'll register as a bomber.
* AllNationsAreSuperpowers: Averted. The top power on Adumar is Cartann, which controls over half the planet. It's mentioned, however, that Cartann's power is partly because it controls several other smaller countries as puppet states. The opposition consists of a coalition of smaller states, led by the Yedagon Confederacy and Halbegardia -- and it's mentioned that the coalition's military power is ''still'' dwarfed by Cartann.
* AscendedFanon: An InUniverse version of this is used in ''Starfighters of Adumar''.

* AssInAmbassador: When Wedge is sent to try and convince the Adumari to join the New Republic, he doesn't follow the Adumari's strongest traditions. In fact, he barely makes secret his revulsion towards them. Of course, this is because these traditions are all about [[ProudWarriorRace killing opponents for honor]], and [[TheHero Wedge does not kill for honor]]. [[spoiler:The diplomatic liaison in the same book is worse, as when Wedge finally says that he refuses to work to bring the planet into the Republic any longer, the guy ''tries to have them killed'' by saying that Wedge and the other Rogues want to die. Thankfully he's found out and arrested, and the court defense that he's undoubtedly plotting oh-so-carefully is already shot full of holes by an audio/holo recording that Iella had gotten hold of.]]

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Hallis Saper mentions that the reason she uses a modified protocol droid head mounted on her shoulder to record footage instead of an actual camera is because she read a study that people generally found protocol droids to be nonthreatening. Wedge is tempted to point out the potential of a two headed woman walking around. One who also wears opaque black goggles (which are connected to the droid head camera and make it look where she looks).[[note]]It's eventually revealed that the ''real'' reason for that rather ridiculous setup is that everyone looks at and remembers the droid, not ''her'' face.[[/note]]
* CommonTongue: Subverted. Adumar is said to have been colonized by people from the mainstream galactic society, and so started out with the same language--but then the planet has been relatively isolated for sufficiently long that it has diverged, to the point that the dialect they speak is almost unintelligible to the Rogues. However, educated Adumarians are fluent in the standard galactic language as well.

** Also serves as a no holds barred {{Deconstruction}} of the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race]] trope, by showing in detail just what a horrific military force an army with those values would be. The endless dueling leads to a high attrition rate among Adumari pilots, which means few of them live long enough to become proficient. Etiquette prevents the Adumaris from being as effective as people who fight without rules. Shunning teamwork in favor of personal glory makes them undisciplined and uncoordinated, and ignoring battle objectives in favor of personal glory makes them inefficient as a military force, all of which leave them vulnerable to more professional armies like the Republic and the Imperials. Earlier X-wing books had already touched on this: cocky aces Corran Horn and Kell Tainer were both introduced to Wedge's unit with grueling and deeply unfair training sessions, designed to hammer home the notion that it's not their personal achievements, but the squadron's (or army's) as a whole that matters in this job.

* InventedLinguisticDistinction: Adumari speak a dialect of Galactic Basic with slightly different pronunciation: "Rad Flat" is heard in an early scene, referring to Wedge Antilles's Red Flight. Later, he greets another officer, who responds with an accent described in Wedge's InternalMonologue as "clipped, precise, ''Imperial''", and Wedge recognizes him as being from the Imperial Remnant (referencing [[EvilBrit the films' use of British actors to play Imperials). Also, all named Adumari use a FantasticNamingConvention that interposes the syllable "ke" between their given name and surname (probably meaning something akin to "of the family ''x''" by implication).

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: An odd example, in that it's specifically ''pilots'' who are the Proud Warrior Race Guys. Red Flight's local guide Cheriss ke Hanadi instead has the title "Ground Champion", meaning she's a skilled duelist but not a pilot (which makes her a major target for duels, since the pilots view her status essentially as an insult to them collectively). {{Deconstructed}} in that the emphasis on lethal duels in the air and on the ground (plus assorted HonorBeforeReason cultural mores) means Adumari pilots usually don't live long enough to become very skilled.

* BloodBrothers: In ''Mercy Kill'', Voort speaks of [[spoiler:the late Runt]] as this, despite the fact that they barely interacted with each other in the first three books. This possibly stemmed from the two of them and Face being the last of the original Wraiths (as all the others eventually all died or left to pursue other interests).

* FanDisservice: Half-naked dancing Gammorreans. Though Piggy, at least, was good at it.

* ProveIAmNotBluffing: General Thaal does this to a Duros forger in ''Mercy Kill'' by killing his former mistress in front of him. Thaal's mistress, not the Duros'.

--> '''Donos:''' ''Iron First'', sir. The original one. Zsinj's first command.

** In ''Rogue Squadron'' Corran bitterly reflects that the old Corellian Security Force of his youth has been turned into the SecretPolice organisation called the Public Security Service, which will appear in Literature/TheCorellianTrilogy.

** Warlord Zsinj is a background villain in the first four books, and Leia's mission to the Hapans is mentioned (''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia'').
** Isard mentions Thrawn is still out in the Unknown Regions (Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy).

* BlackShirt: The AEA on Mrlsst, a neo-Imperial student group who have built up a CultOfPersonality around the Emperor.