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* Bada:ssBoast: Terry, when trying to persuade Publius Marcus Gaius to learn from him:
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* Bada:ssBoast: BadassBoast: Terry, when trying to persuade Publius Marcus Gaius to learn from him:
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* TheWoobie: Lenny, after we learn that [[spoiler:his father Leo died when he was young, despite which he tells Sophia to call him Leo so they at least 'have a letter in common.']]
to:
* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Sophia, who nicely compliments...
* TheWoobie: Lenny, after we learn that[[spoiler:his his father Leo died when he was young, despite ''despite which he tells Sophia to call him Leo Leo'' so they at least 'have a letter in common.']]'
* TheWoobie: Lenny, after we learn that
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* ShoutOut:
-> '''Aozea''': "Wait, who's in Rudna Glava again?"
-> '''Lenny''': "[[Creator/AlanRickman Al and Ric, man!]]"
-> '''Aozea''': "Wait, who's in Rudna Glava again?"
-> '''Lenny''': "[[Creator/AlanRickman Al and Ric, man!]]"
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* AdorablyPrecociousChild: Lenny is this, albeit less so later in the book as he ages.
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* ChildProdigy: By construction, anyone on the team of eight is either this or a TeenGenius, depending on their age.
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* ShoutOutThemeNaming: The subject-matter specialists are named after real-world giants in their fields -- typically ones who had a major impact and/or showed precocious tendencies at a young age.
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* SequelHook:
-> [[spoiler:'''Chancellor Myra of the Three Worlds''']]: [[spoiler:"The possibilities are virtually endless -- stellar engines, colonizing the galaxy, wormhole networks, and so much more."]]
-> [[spoiler:'''Chancellor Myra of the Three Worlds''']]: [[spoiler:"The possibilities are virtually endless -- stellar engines, colonizing the galaxy, wormhole networks, and so much more."]]
to:
* SequelHook:
->SequelHook: [[spoiler:'''Chancellor Myra of the Three Worlds''']]: [[spoiler:"The possibilities are virtually endless -- stellar engines, colonizing Worlds''']] has one in the galaxy, wormhole networks, and so much more."]]final chapter.
->
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* SequelHook:
-> [[spoiler:'''Chancellor Myra of the Three Worlds''']]: [[spoiler:"The possibilities are virtually endless -- stellar engines, colonizing the galaxy, wormhole networks, and so much more."]]
-> [[spoiler:'''Chancellor Myra of the Three Worlds''']]: [[spoiler:"The possibilities are virtually endless -- stellar engines, colonizing the galaxy, wormhole networks, and so much more."]]
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* BadassBoast: Terry, when trying to persuade Publius Marcus Gaius to learn from him:
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* BadassBoast: Bada:ssBoast: Terry, when trying to persuade Publius Marcus Gaius to learn from him:
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-> '''Aozea''': "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster...''[[Badass and I stared back]].''"
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-> '''Aozea''': "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster...''[[Badass ''[[BadassBoast and I stared back]].''"
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* [[Main/Badass Badass]]: In applying for the program, Aozea had to complete a story beginning "There was a monster in a cage. The agents had captured it to study it":
-> '''Aozea''': "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster...''[[PerspectiveFlip and I stared back]].''"
-> '''Aozea''': "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster...''[[PerspectiveFlip and I stared back]].''"
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* PerspectiveFlip: Aozea recounts a story she completed for her application: "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster... ''and I stared back.''"
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* PerspectiveFlip: In applying for the program, Aozea recounts had to complete a story she completed for her application: beginning "There was a monster in a cage. The agents had captured it to study it":
-> '''Aozea''': "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at themonster... ''and monster...''[[Badass and I stared back.back]].''"
-> '''Aozea''': "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the
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* Main/Badass: In applying for the program, Aozea had to complete a story beginning "There was a monster in a cage. The agents had captured it to study it":
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* Main/Badass: [[Main/Badass Badass]]: In applying for the program, Aozea had to complete a story beginning "There was a monster in a cage. The agents had captured it to study it":
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* Badass: In applying for the program, Aozea had to complete a story beginning "There was a monster in a cage. The agents had captured it to study it":
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* Badass: Main/Badass: In applying for the program, Aozea had to complete a story beginning "There was a monster in a cage. The agents had captured it to study it":
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* BreakTheMotivationalSpeaker: At a conference, Bertini promises to persuade an audience to save the world, but leads with "I am a time traveler,"
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* BreakTheMotivationalSpeaker: At a conference, Bertini promises to persuade an audience to save the world, but leads with "I am a time traveler," causing him to get booed off the stage and subsequently become despondent.
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* BlandNameProduct: GitHub repositories, meet ''PratPlace repositories.''
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* BlandNameProduct: GitHub gitHub repositories, meet ''PratPlace ''pratPlace repositories.''
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* AbhorrentAdmirer: Bill kisses Aozea's hand upon greeting her for the first time, with clear subtext.
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* AbhorrentAdmirer: Bill kisses Aozea's hand Aozea recoils when, upon greeting meeting her for the first time, Bill kisses her hand with clear subtext.
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-> ''"I know that on 1 December 2074 the Earth will be hit by a gamma-ray burst from a nearby star[...] if we pack about 5,000 years' worth of science and technology into half as much time, then by 2074 we should be able to mitigate the GRB and save the planet."''
-->--'''Stan Lee Bertini'''
''Accelerate'' (full title ''Accelerate: How to Save the World with Science'') is the debut [[TimeTravel Time Travel]]/[[AlternateHistory Alternate History]] science fiction novel by [[https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-William-Spencer-PhD/author/B0CDKXVBZ6 Dr. John Spencer]]. A [[CivilizationDestroyer gamma-ray burst]] from a star hits the Earth on 1 December 2074; [[TheProtagonist Dr. Stan Lee Bertini]] learns of the devastating consequences for all life on Earth, but there is a glimmer of hope: [[ContrivedCoincidence He has just invented]] [[TimeMachine the time machine]]--er, [[InsistentTerminology temporal device]]--which allows him to [[TemporalMutability change the past]]. He realizes that, by introducing ideas as early as possible, he can [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin accelerate]] the pace of scientific and technological development so that by 2074 humanity is ready to prevent the disaster.
To this end, Doc recruits [[DreamTeam a team of experts]]. Some of them (Math, Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, and Technology Specialists) will find a way to introduce concepts in the timeline pertinent to their areas of expertise; others (History, Society, and Language Specialists) make the interventions of the first group possible in a pragmatic sense. By [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong eliminating mistakes]] and [[TechnologyMarchesOn optimising the technological path humanity takes]], they hope to be able to [[SavingTheWorld save the world]]. But [[ForWantOfANail just going back in time can have serious ramifications]], which can [[SpannerInTheWorks complicate things slightly]]. Or [[OhCrap significantly]].
The main characters are Dr. Stan Lee Bertini (the mission architect) and the eight specialists: Terry (mathematics), Ric (physics), Dmitri (chemistry), Lenny (engineering), Al (technology), Aozea (history), Sophia (society), and Bill (language).
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:A-E]]
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Bill kisses Aozea's hand upon greeting her for the first time, with clear subtext.
* ActingYourIntellectualAge: Despite being children aged 11 to 15, the crew of eight is remarkably mature owing to the criteria by which they were selected.
* AloofDarkHairedGirl: Subverted; Aozea is aloof, but because of her thyroid condition has ''white hair.'' This ends up being useful later when she has to [[spoiler:run for public office, and her condition masks the fact she is only a teenager]].
* AmbiguousGender: Great care is taken to keep the audience from learning Dmitri's gender, from Sophia protesting the pseudonym Chymes, to other pseudonyms with unisex names. And then there's this:
-> '''Dmitri''': "I took the pseudonym Jan Czochralski."
-> '''Sophia''': "I still think it's pronounced ''Jan,'' Dmitri."
-> '''Dmitri''': "No, I'm sticking with Jan."[[note]]Jan being ambiguously the European male name ''Jan'' (pronounced ''Yahn'') or the nickname for the female name Janet.[[/note]]
* AmusingInjuries: Roy sticks out his tongue at Aozea, who ''bumps his chin'' causing him to bite his tongue.
* AntiquatedLinguistics:
**All the ancient Greeks and Vladimir Nadoveza speak like this, and apart from Lenny the team members who talk to them shift into similarly archaic language. Justified in that they're usually speaking an ancient language to begin with.
**To a lesser extent, Bill's originating from 1909 does occasionally cause him to use now-infrequent expressions like "what the blazes," "hell's bells," and "land sakes alive."
* Badass: In applying for the program, Aozea had to complete a story beginning "There was a monster in a cage. The agents had captured it to study it":
-> '''Aozea''': "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster...''[[PerspectiveFlip and I stared back]].''"
* BadassBoast: Terry, when trying to persuade Publius Marcus Gaius to learn from him:
-> ''"My dear Gaius, I have mastered the fluxions of Anaximedes, the perturbation theory of Urbain Le Verrier, and the group theory of Sophus Lie. I may be the single greatest mathematician you will ever meet."''
* [[Main/BigDisasterPlot Big Disaster Plot]]: A beam of pure energy is coming for the Earth. It can't be stopped, but maybe it can be mitigated before it reaches us?
* BlandNameProduct: GitHub repositories, meet ''PratPlace repositories.''
* BreakTheMotivationalSpeaker: At a conference, Bertini promises to persuade an audience to save the world, but leads with "I am a time traveler,"
* BuffySpeak: Lenny. Moreso before going to the Institute for Advanced Study, but still.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: Justified in that every time the team goes back in time, the languages of the world change. "Cameras" become "moment capturers," and so forth.
* [[ChekhovsArmory Chekhov's Armory]]/[[ChekhovsSkill Chekhov's Skill]]: In Chapter 4, we get introduced to a [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Chekhov's Skill Armoury]] where each of the eight experts describes trivia about themselves:
** Terry likes to sail. [[spoiler: Cut to the team needing to sail from Greece to Yugoslavia, and Terry leading the voyage.]]
** Ric is an outdoorsman. [[spoiler: So when the team needs to start a fire with two sticks, he's up for the job.]]
** Dmitri is good at gardening, and early in the mission helps the team grow coffee in Egypt.
** Lenny was in a marching band, which he uses to pace out distances so the team can land in exactly the right spot using the temporal device.
** Al has a penchant for geology. [[spoiler: As Dmitri begins to need to isolate more elements, like aluminium and titanium, his map of where minerals naturally occur becomes increasingly helpful.]]
** Aozea has a condition which turns her hair white. [[spoiler: Enter the team trying unsuccessfully to persuade global parliament to pass a law, leading to her ''running'' for office (and getting elected) because everyone thought she was older than she was.]]
** Sophia was the leader of debate club at school. [[spoiler: And when [[TheProtagonist Dr. Bertini]] gets [[WhamEpisode left behind because of a small but critical oversight]], she becomes the leader of the team.]]
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: A gamma-ray burst reaches the Earth on 1 December 2074, depleting the ozone layer, causing acid rain, and threatening all life on the planet. The GRB candidate was hidden behind a black hole, so we couldn't tell it was pointed at us until it was too late.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: During and after the specialist selection tests, the finalists have a discussion. It's clear that every soon-to-be specialist is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition despite most of them being clueless about how well they did.
* TheEveryman:
** Sophia, whose skills lie not so much in a specific area as in getting society to adopt whatever the subject-matter specialists infuse.
** To a lesser extent, Dr. Bertini, who always seems to delegate to his team of specialists.
* Main/ExpendableAlternateUniverse: [[Main/LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Sophia:
-> '''Sophia:''' "Question... Every time we go back, we branch off from the universe... and aren't all the humans in that universe going to die?"
-> '''Aozea:''' "Your question is, 'are we murdering billions of people every time we go back in time?'"
* Main/ExpendableClone: At one point, the team has to aim for a Moon base from the Earth. They calculate the coordinates, then send their past selves there... never to return. Turns out, Terry entered the coordinates incorrectly, so their past selves [[ThrownOutTheAirlock arrived in the vacuum of space]] and [[ExplosiveDecompression died]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:F-J]]
* GentlemanSnarker: [[TheProfessor Stephen Hawking]] gets one in Chapter 2:
-> '''Hawking''': ''"[...]I will not have sent out the invitations until tomorrow. At this point I can conclude one thing about you - that you are a time traveler."''
-> '''Bertini''': "Your logic is impeccable, sir."
-> '''Hawking''': ''"Well there was also the minor clue of a giant machine suddenly appearing in this room."''
* InsistentTerminology: The time machine is ''always'' referred to as a ''temporal device.''
[[/folder]]
[[folder:K-O]]
* LastMinuteHookup: [[spoiler:Al and Dmitri]], who had spent one infusion together and "bonded" well, go on a date at the end of the last chapter.
* MeaningfulName: Oh, where to begin? Every subject-matter specialist has one:
** Terry: [[spoiler:Terence Tao, mathematician]]
** Ric: [[spoiler:Enrico Fermi, nuclear physicist]][[note]]At one point, Ric takes the pseudonym of Richard Feynman, leading Aozea to ask if that was the meaning of his name.[[/note]]
** Dmitri: [[spoiler:Dmitri Mendeleyev, the father of chemistry.]] Bonus points as [[spoiler:Dmitri [[GenderFlip is actually]] [[SamusIsAGirl a girl]].]]
** Lenny: [[spoiler:Leonardo da Vinci, inventor and engineer]]
** Al: [[spoiler:Alan Turing, father of computer science]]
** Stan Lee Bertini is an anagram of [[spoiler:Albert Einstein]].
* [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness]]: Somewhere between 4 and 5, depending on if time travel to the past is ever discovered to be real. Apart from that, and the disaster, everything is realistic.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:P-T]]
* PerspectiveFlip: Aozea recounts a story she completed for her application: "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster... ''and I stared back.''"
* PrinceCharmingWannabe: Upon first meeting her, Bill ''kisses Aozea's hand.'' Justified in that he's literally from 1909, and [[AnachronismStew hand-kissing was a thing back then]].
* PuppyLove: Lenny and Sophia. It's heavily implied Lenny makes an advance that Sophia rejects, but later the two of them are alone and clear the air. Subsequently the two of them are portrayed as growing close, holding hands and later kissing each other on the cheek.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The whole point of the story is to do this for all the "missed opportunities" in science and technology.
** Along the way, Terry fixes a linguistic mistake so that the ''sine function'' (which actually means cave in Latin) becomes the ''chord function'' (referring to the chord of a circle).
** Ric fixes the sign convention of electric charge so electrons are positively charged and the direction of electric currents makes sense.
* ShipTease: During the voyage from Greece to Yugoslavia, Ric and Aozea share a moment alone, and he tries unsuccessfully to get her to open up.
* SignificantAnagram:
** Stan Lee Bertini is an anagram of [[spoiler:Albert Einstein]].
** In one of the alternate histories the team creates, John Proebt Premiere invents the atomic bomb. John Proebt Premiere anagrams to J. Robert Oppenheimer.[[note]]Bonus points for Dmitri quoting him moments later: ''"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."''[[/note]]
* SignificantNameShift: During their furtive one-on-one, Sophia offhandedly remarks to Lenny that even their names have no letters in common. Lenny promptly asks her to call him "Leo" instead, which happens to be the name of his deceased father.
->''"Then we have an 'o' in common, at least."''
* SweetOnPollyOliver: Al and [[spoiler:Dmitri]].[[note]]Add to that the fact that the real life Alan Turing was openly homosexual, just to make things more confusing.[[/note]]
* [[TruthInTelevision Truth in Literature]]:
** Stephen Hawking really did hold [[https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/06/28/culture-re-view-the-day-stephen-hawking-threw-a-time-traveller-party a time travel party on 28 June 2009]], and sent out the invitations the next day. Unfortunately, nobody attended.
** The abundances of minerals in various places around the world is accurate.
** NASA confirms there was a solar eclipse on 14 March 189 BC, with the region of totality passing over Ionia.
** You can check [[https://www.theplanetstoday.com/ the locations of the planets]] at the significant dates stated in the book, and confirm the planets really are where they're supposed to be.
** All of the math, physics, and chemistry mentioned in the book is genuine - apart from the temporal device there is no AppliedPhlebotinum.
* [[Main/TuringTest Turing Test]]: When Terry begins to muse about computers being able to do anything given two thousand years to develop, who better to tell him about the halting problem than... Al?
[[/folder]]
[[folder:U-Z]]
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: The team comes up with a plan to steal a piece of equipment needed to progress with advancing the timeline. All safeguards are in place, but they don't count on being spotted and [[spoiler:losing Dr. Bertini in the process]].
* WeOnlyHaveOneChance: Subverted. The team can go back and forward in time as many times as they like.
* WhamEpisode: In Chapter 21, the team is caught while retrieving the Skyhook from a secure research facility. In the mad dash back to the temporal device, [[spoiler:Dr. Bertini gets caught, and the team have to escape without him.]] To rub salt in the wounds, [[spoiler:when the team goes back in time to recruit a past version of him, he refuses because of their carelessness (and because his own team needs him).]]
* WillTheyOrWontThey:
** They will: [[spoiler: Lenny and Sophia.]]
** They won't: [[spoiler: Ric and Aozea.]]
* TheWoobie: Lenny, after we learn that [[spoiler:his father Leo died when he was young, despite which he tells Sophia to call him Leo so they at least 'have a letter in common.']]
[[/folder]]
-->--'''Stan Lee Bertini'''
''Accelerate'' (full title ''Accelerate: How to Save the World with Science'') is the debut [[TimeTravel Time Travel]]/[[AlternateHistory Alternate History]] science fiction novel by [[https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-William-Spencer-PhD/author/B0CDKXVBZ6 Dr. John Spencer]]. A [[CivilizationDestroyer gamma-ray burst]] from a star hits the Earth on 1 December 2074; [[TheProtagonist Dr. Stan Lee Bertini]] learns of the devastating consequences for all life on Earth, but there is a glimmer of hope: [[ContrivedCoincidence He has just invented]] [[TimeMachine the time machine]]--er, [[InsistentTerminology temporal device]]--which allows him to [[TemporalMutability change the past]]. He realizes that, by introducing ideas as early as possible, he can [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin accelerate]] the pace of scientific and technological development so that by 2074 humanity is ready to prevent the disaster.
To this end, Doc recruits [[DreamTeam a team of experts]]. Some of them (Math, Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, and Technology Specialists) will find a way to introduce concepts in the timeline pertinent to their areas of expertise; others (History, Society, and Language Specialists) make the interventions of the first group possible in a pragmatic sense. By [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong eliminating mistakes]] and [[TechnologyMarchesOn optimising the technological path humanity takes]], they hope to be able to [[SavingTheWorld save the world]]. But [[ForWantOfANail just going back in time can have serious ramifications]], which can [[SpannerInTheWorks complicate things slightly]]. Or [[OhCrap significantly]].
The main characters are Dr. Stan Lee Bertini (the mission architect) and the eight specialists: Terry (mathematics), Ric (physics), Dmitri (chemistry), Lenny (engineering), Al (technology), Aozea (history), Sophia (society), and Bill (language).
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:A-E]]
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Bill kisses Aozea's hand upon greeting her for the first time, with clear subtext.
* ActingYourIntellectualAge: Despite being children aged 11 to 15, the crew of eight is remarkably mature owing to the criteria by which they were selected.
* AloofDarkHairedGirl: Subverted; Aozea is aloof, but because of her thyroid condition has ''white hair.'' This ends up being useful later when she has to [[spoiler:run for public office, and her condition masks the fact she is only a teenager]].
* AmbiguousGender: Great care is taken to keep the audience from learning Dmitri's gender, from Sophia protesting the pseudonym Chymes, to other pseudonyms with unisex names. And then there's this:
-> '''Dmitri''': "I took the pseudonym Jan Czochralski."
-> '''Sophia''': "I still think it's pronounced ''Jan,'' Dmitri."
-> '''Dmitri''': "No, I'm sticking with Jan."[[note]]Jan being ambiguously the European male name ''Jan'' (pronounced ''Yahn'') or the nickname for the female name Janet.[[/note]]
* AmusingInjuries: Roy sticks out his tongue at Aozea, who ''bumps his chin'' causing him to bite his tongue.
* AntiquatedLinguistics:
**All the ancient Greeks and Vladimir Nadoveza speak like this, and apart from Lenny the team members who talk to them shift into similarly archaic language. Justified in that they're usually speaking an ancient language to begin with.
**To a lesser extent, Bill's originating from 1909 does occasionally cause him to use now-infrequent expressions like "what the blazes," "hell's bells," and "land sakes alive."
* Badass: In applying for the program, Aozea had to complete a story beginning "There was a monster in a cage. The agents had captured it to study it":
-> '''Aozea''': "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster...''[[PerspectiveFlip and I stared back]].''"
* BadassBoast: Terry, when trying to persuade Publius Marcus Gaius to learn from him:
-> ''"My dear Gaius, I have mastered the fluxions of Anaximedes, the perturbation theory of Urbain Le Verrier, and the group theory of Sophus Lie. I may be the single greatest mathematician you will ever meet."''
* [[Main/BigDisasterPlot Big Disaster Plot]]: A beam of pure energy is coming for the Earth. It can't be stopped, but maybe it can be mitigated before it reaches us?
* BlandNameProduct: GitHub repositories, meet ''PratPlace repositories.''
* BreakTheMotivationalSpeaker: At a conference, Bertini promises to persuade an audience to save the world, but leads with "I am a time traveler,"
* BuffySpeak: Lenny. Moreso before going to the Institute for Advanced Study, but still.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: Justified in that every time the team goes back in time, the languages of the world change. "Cameras" become "moment capturers," and so forth.
* [[ChekhovsArmory Chekhov's Armory]]/[[ChekhovsSkill Chekhov's Skill]]: In Chapter 4, we get introduced to a [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Chekhov's Skill Armoury]] where each of the eight experts describes trivia about themselves:
** Terry likes to sail. [[spoiler: Cut to the team needing to sail from Greece to Yugoslavia, and Terry leading the voyage.]]
** Ric is an outdoorsman. [[spoiler: So when the team needs to start a fire with two sticks, he's up for the job.]]
** Dmitri is good at gardening, and early in the mission helps the team grow coffee in Egypt.
** Lenny was in a marching band, which he uses to pace out distances so the team can land in exactly the right spot using the temporal device.
** Al has a penchant for geology. [[spoiler: As Dmitri begins to need to isolate more elements, like aluminium and titanium, his map of where minerals naturally occur becomes increasingly helpful.]]
** Aozea has a condition which turns her hair white. [[spoiler: Enter the team trying unsuccessfully to persuade global parliament to pass a law, leading to her ''running'' for office (and getting elected) because everyone thought she was older than she was.]]
** Sophia was the leader of debate club at school. [[spoiler: And when [[TheProtagonist Dr. Bertini]] gets [[WhamEpisode left behind because of a small but critical oversight]], she becomes the leader of the team.]]
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: A gamma-ray burst reaches the Earth on 1 December 2074, depleting the ozone layer, causing acid rain, and threatening all life on the planet. The GRB candidate was hidden behind a black hole, so we couldn't tell it was pointed at us until it was too late.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: During and after the specialist selection tests, the finalists have a discussion. It's clear that every soon-to-be specialist is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition despite most of them being clueless about how well they did.
* TheEveryman:
** Sophia, whose skills lie not so much in a specific area as in getting society to adopt whatever the subject-matter specialists infuse.
** To a lesser extent, Dr. Bertini, who always seems to delegate to his team of specialists.
* Main/ExpendableAlternateUniverse: [[Main/LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Sophia:
-> '''Sophia:''' "Question... Every time we go back, we branch off from the universe... and aren't all the humans in that universe going to die?"
-> '''Aozea:''' "Your question is, 'are we murdering billions of people every time we go back in time?'"
* Main/ExpendableClone: At one point, the team has to aim for a Moon base from the Earth. They calculate the coordinates, then send their past selves there... never to return. Turns out, Terry entered the coordinates incorrectly, so their past selves [[ThrownOutTheAirlock arrived in the vacuum of space]] and [[ExplosiveDecompression died]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:F-J]]
* GentlemanSnarker: [[TheProfessor Stephen Hawking]] gets one in Chapter 2:
-> '''Hawking''': ''"[...]I will not have sent out the invitations until tomorrow. At this point I can conclude one thing about you - that you are a time traveler."''
-> '''Bertini''': "Your logic is impeccable, sir."
-> '''Hawking''': ''"Well there was also the minor clue of a giant machine suddenly appearing in this room."''
* InsistentTerminology: The time machine is ''always'' referred to as a ''temporal device.''
[[/folder]]
[[folder:K-O]]
* LastMinuteHookup: [[spoiler:Al and Dmitri]], who had spent one infusion together and "bonded" well, go on a date at the end of the last chapter.
* MeaningfulName: Oh, where to begin? Every subject-matter specialist has one:
** Terry: [[spoiler:Terence Tao, mathematician]]
** Ric: [[spoiler:Enrico Fermi, nuclear physicist]][[note]]At one point, Ric takes the pseudonym of Richard Feynman, leading Aozea to ask if that was the meaning of his name.[[/note]]
** Dmitri: [[spoiler:Dmitri Mendeleyev, the father of chemistry.]] Bonus points as [[spoiler:Dmitri [[GenderFlip is actually]] [[SamusIsAGirl a girl]].]]
** Lenny: [[spoiler:Leonardo da Vinci, inventor and engineer]]
** Al: [[spoiler:Alan Turing, father of computer science]]
** Stan Lee Bertini is an anagram of [[spoiler:Albert Einstein]].
* [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness]]: Somewhere between 4 and 5, depending on if time travel to the past is ever discovered to be real. Apart from that, and the disaster, everything is realistic.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:P-T]]
* PerspectiveFlip: Aozea recounts a story she completed for her application: "Agents, scientists, and politicians alike stared at the monster... ''and I stared back.''"
* PrinceCharmingWannabe: Upon first meeting her, Bill ''kisses Aozea's hand.'' Justified in that he's literally from 1909, and [[AnachronismStew hand-kissing was a thing back then]].
* PuppyLove: Lenny and Sophia. It's heavily implied Lenny makes an advance that Sophia rejects, but later the two of them are alone and clear the air. Subsequently the two of them are portrayed as growing close, holding hands and later kissing each other on the cheek.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The whole point of the story is to do this for all the "missed opportunities" in science and technology.
** Along the way, Terry fixes a linguistic mistake so that the ''sine function'' (which actually means cave in Latin) becomes the ''chord function'' (referring to the chord of a circle).
** Ric fixes the sign convention of electric charge so electrons are positively charged and the direction of electric currents makes sense.
* ShipTease: During the voyage from Greece to Yugoslavia, Ric and Aozea share a moment alone, and he tries unsuccessfully to get her to open up.
* SignificantAnagram:
** Stan Lee Bertini is an anagram of [[spoiler:Albert Einstein]].
** In one of the alternate histories the team creates, John Proebt Premiere invents the atomic bomb. John Proebt Premiere anagrams to J. Robert Oppenheimer.[[note]]Bonus points for Dmitri quoting him moments later: ''"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."''[[/note]]
* SignificantNameShift: During their furtive one-on-one, Sophia offhandedly remarks to Lenny that even their names have no letters in common. Lenny promptly asks her to call him "Leo" instead, which happens to be the name of his deceased father.
->''"Then we have an 'o' in common, at least."''
* SweetOnPollyOliver: Al and [[spoiler:Dmitri]].[[note]]Add to that the fact that the real life Alan Turing was openly homosexual, just to make things more confusing.[[/note]]
* [[TruthInTelevision Truth in Literature]]:
** Stephen Hawking really did hold [[https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/06/28/culture-re-view-the-day-stephen-hawking-threw-a-time-traveller-party a time travel party on 28 June 2009]], and sent out the invitations the next day. Unfortunately, nobody attended.
** The abundances of minerals in various places around the world is accurate.
** NASA confirms there was a solar eclipse on 14 March 189 BC, with the region of totality passing over Ionia.
** You can check [[https://www.theplanetstoday.com/ the locations of the planets]] at the significant dates stated in the book, and confirm the planets really are where they're supposed to be.
** All of the math, physics, and chemistry mentioned in the book is genuine - apart from the temporal device there is no AppliedPhlebotinum.
* [[Main/TuringTest Turing Test]]: When Terry begins to muse about computers being able to do anything given two thousand years to develop, who better to tell him about the halting problem than... Al?
[[/folder]]
[[folder:U-Z]]
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: The team comes up with a plan to steal a piece of equipment needed to progress with advancing the timeline. All safeguards are in place, but they don't count on being spotted and [[spoiler:losing Dr. Bertini in the process]].
* WeOnlyHaveOneChance: Subverted. The team can go back and forward in time as many times as they like.
* WhamEpisode: In Chapter 21, the team is caught while retrieving the Skyhook from a secure research facility. In the mad dash back to the temporal device, [[spoiler:Dr. Bertini gets caught, and the team have to escape without him.]] To rub salt in the wounds, [[spoiler:when the team goes back in time to recruit a past version of him, he refuses because of their carelessness (and because his own team needs him).]]
* WillTheyOrWontThey:
** They will: [[spoiler: Lenny and Sophia.]]
** They won't: [[spoiler: Ric and Aozea.]]
* TheWoobie: Lenny, after we learn that [[spoiler:his father Leo died when he was young, despite which he tells Sophia to call him Leo so they at least 'have a letter in common.']]
[[/folder]]
