History Literature / AlienChronicles

A series of Sci-Fi books by Deborah Chester, published by [=LucasFilm=], that tells the tale of how a single slave, Ampris, leads an uprising against the reptilian Viis, whose cruel empire is undergoing a Gotterdammerung, and becomes a legend. It read largely like a cross between the Book of Exodus and the story of Sparticus, the slave-gladiator who attempted to bring down the Roman Empire. [[RecycledInSpace In Space!]]

The [[http://www.lucasaliens.com website]] (which is still up as of March 2014!) suggests that [=LucasArts=] was looking for successor to ''Franchise/StarWars'' and used this series as a proof of concept. It sold poorly, however, and Lucas instead went on to make the ''Star Wars'' prequel trilogy. Try to imagine WhatMightHaveBeen if our first fully computer-animated live-action characters were Ampris and Elrabin instead of Jar-Jar Binks...

* BewareTheNiceOnes: When Ampris gets dangerous, watch out.

* BreakTheCutie: This maybe counts for Ampris?

* InterspeciesRomance: [[spoiler: Horribly subverted when Ampris is experimented upon by a Viis MadScientist who impregnates her with half-breed babies.]] Elrabin and Ampris count more as HeterosexualLifePartners.

* WeAreStrugglingTogether: For heaven's sake, can the abiru please get along for three minutes? It may be understandable that they distrust each other, but even when solidarity is all but forced on them by [[spoiler:Viis massacres,]] they STILL want to fight each other more then fight the Viis.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Ampris and Elrabin are on the opposite sides of this; Ampris being an almost too-good-to-be-true idealist, Elrabin being a hard-core pessimist and cynic. Leads to VirtriolicBestBuds during their time with the Blues.

** Also in the third book, [[spoiler:Ampris captures Israi in the Palace Archives during an incognito database search. She tries to convince Israi to free the slaves but fails, and cannot ransom her back because that would only cause a palace coup. Knowing that retaliation with extreme prejudice is imminent, Ampris '''''lets Israi go''''' ''then'' prepares the Myal archivists to abandon ship. She could have easily kept Israi locked up incognito long enough for an orderly evacuation but did not. It's a moment of supreme stupidity from an otherwise very smart character, just so the author could ShootTheShaggyDog yet again.]]

The [[http://www.lucasaliens.com website]] (which is still up as of March 2014!) suggests that [=LucasArts=] was looking for successor to ''Franchise/StarWars'' and used this series as a proof of concept. It sold poorly, however, and Lucas instead went on to make the ''Star Wars'' prequel trilogy. Try to imagine WhatMightHaveBeen if our first fully computer-animated live-action characters were Ampris and Elrabin instead of [[AlienScrappy Jar-Jar Binks]]...

* GladiatorGames

* [[WorldsMostBeautifulWoman Galaxy's Most Beautiful Viis]]: Israi, and that's the primary reason why she's the sri-Kaa. The Viis empire has some... issues.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Lots of it in Book 2. [[spoiler:Ampris thinks early on about crippling a rival by severing her heel tendon - no points for guessing how Ampris' gladator career ends. More foreshadowing of that end, in the form of a helpless, barely-armed Gorlican nearly running her through in a blind rush, happens during her last games.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Lots of it in Book 2. [[Ampris thinks early on about crippling a rival by severing her heel tendon - no points for guessing how Ampris' gladator career ends. More foreshadowing of that end, in the form of a helpless, barely-armed Gorlican nearly running her through in a blind rush, happens during her last games.]]

* [[PetTheDog Pet The Aaroun]]: The Kaa's most sympathetic moments involve small kindnesses to Ampris when she was a cub. [[spoiler: Sadly, when she starts imbibing forbidden knowledge and asking too-probing questions, he still ruins her life without a second thought, indirectly inflicting the deathblow to his own empire.]]

* TooDumbToLive: Really, the way the abiru behave towards concepts like 'cooperate to survive' or 'maybe slavery sucks' is this. This is also sadly reflective of how citizen psychology is twisted in totalitarian governments in the Real World; Stockholm Syndrome abounds, the underground are extremely paranoid and betray each other all the time, etc. Solidarity comes very, very slowly, and when it starts to rear its head it is ruthlessly crushed, often by massacre, by the Viis. [[spoiler:As they do to the Freedom Fighters in Book 3]].

* WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture: {{Lampshaded}} The Kaa has robots that can do everything the slaves do, but they don't work very well, and he, and presumably the rest of the Viis, prefer the "human" touch. It's revealed in the 3rd book that the Kaa used so much manual labor to disguise how their technological infrastructure was crumbling.
* WeAreStrugglingTogether: For heaven's sake, can the abiru please get along for three minutes?

** Also in the third book, [[spoiler:Ampris captures Israi in the Palace Archives during an incognito database search. She tries to convince Israi to free the slaves but fails, and cannot ransom her back because that would only cause a palace coup. Knowing that retaliation with extreme prejudice is imminent, Ampris '''lets Israi go''' ''then'' prepares the Myal archivists to abandon ship. She could have easily kept Israi locked up incognito long enough for an orderly evacuation but did not. It's a moment of supreme stupidity from an otherwise very smart character, just so the author could ShootTheShaggyDog yet again.]]

** In the third book, [[spoiler:Ampris captures Israi in the Palace Archives during an incognito database search. She tries to convince Israi to free the slaves but fails, and cannot ransom her back because that would only cause a palace coup. Knowing that retaliation with extreme prejudice is imminent, Ampris '''lets Israi go''' ''then'' prepares the Myal archivists to abandon ship. She could have easily kept Israi locked up incognito long enough for an orderly evacuation but did not. It's a moment of supreme stupidity from an otherwise very smart character, just so the author could ShootTheShaggyDog yet again.]]

* InformedAbility: Ampris is supposed to be a champion gladiator. It doesn't stop [[spoiler: her from being crippled by a completely inexperienced slave alien-bird lunging for one last shot at a kill.]]
** Considering the countless fights before that one in which Ampris' skills are repeatedly shown, it's not so much an InformedAbility as a case of a BadAss having a foul stroke of luck.

The first book ''The Golden One'' tells of Ampris's birth and "adoption" by the future Empress of the Viis, Israi. Ampris enjoys a priviliged life, sort of, but it comes to an end all too soon [[spoiler:once she starts reading forbidden records.]]

The first book ''The Golden One'' tells of Ampris's birth and "adoption" by the future Empress of the Viis, Israi. Ampris enjoys a priviliged life, sort of.

Oh, and did we mention that no humans exist anywhere in the series? That's right: Only aliens. Aliens who didn't make the cut for Star Wars. Several interviews from when the series debuted claim that the books were INSPIRED by a book of unused Star Wars aliens released a few years earlier. Apparently, all-new races ended up being developed and none of the cast-offs made the cut.

The [[http://www.lucasaliens.com website]] (which is still up as of March 2014!) suggests that [=LucasArts=] was looking for successor to StarWars and used this series as a proof of concept. It sold poorly, however, and Lucas instead went on to make the StarWars prequel trilogy. Try to imagine WhatMightHaveBeen if our first fully computer-animated live-action characters were Ampris and Elrabin instead of [[AlienScrappy Jar-Jar Binks]]...

* CondemnedContestant: At the low point in her gladiatorial career, Ampris finds herself being forced to kill political prisoners and unarmed convicts. She doesn't take it too well.

* InformedAttractiveness: The Viis are supposedly gorgeous, but the pictures of them on the official website are... not so much.
* InterspeciesRomance: [[spoiler: subverted when Ampris is experimented upon by a Viis MadScientist who impregnates her with half-breed babies.]] Elrabin and Ampris count more as HeterosexualLifePartners.
* IntelligentGerbil: everyone.
* JadeColoredGlasses: Most of the abiru, and Ampris spends a lot of time trying to rip these off.

* KnightInSourArmor: Elrabin
* LadyOfWar: Ampris, who is probably the most educated and sophisticated Aaroun in the galaxy, ends up being trained as a gladiator. And she's amazing at it.

* [[PetTheDog Pet The Aaroun]]: The Kaa's most sympathetic moments involve small kindnesses to Ampris when she was a cub. [[spoiler: Sadly, he still ruins her life on an angry whim without a second thought, dooming his empire indirectly in the process.]]
* PlatonicLifePartners: Ampris and Elrabin
* PleasurePlanet: Mynchepop
* ThePromisedLand: Rus-113

* TheResistance

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:Seriously, Ampris gets repeatedly kicked from day one : stolen from her mother, raised by the unfeeling Viis, betrayed by her best friend, enslaved as a gladiator, maimed and discarded, experimented upon and artificially impregnated, gives birth to two ungrateful jerk-brat halfbreeds, and when all is said and done, dies right after she arrives at the planet she brought all the races to in order to liberate them all.]]

* TooDumbToLive: Really, the way the abiru behave towards concepts like 'cooperate to survive' or 'maybe slavery sucks' is this. This is also sadly reflective of how citizen psychology is twisted in totalitarian governments in the Real World; Stockholm Syndrome abounds, the underground are extremely paranoid and betray each other all the time, etc. Solidarity comes very, very slowly, and when it starts to rear its head it is ruthlessly crushed, often by massacre, by the powers-that-be. [[spoiler:As the Viis do to the Freedom Fighters in Book 3]].

* TypeCasting: With the different species. Aaroun (catlike, heavy boned and muscled, temperamental), Kelth (foxlike, nervous and sly), Myal (monkeylike, highly intelligent scholar class), Toth (bovine, DumbMuscle), etc. Averted on occasion with examples such as Barthul the Myal drug lord and Scar, his EliteMook Kelth.

The [[http://www.lucasaliens.com website]] (which is still up as of March 2014!) suggests that [=LucasArts=] was looking for successor to StarWars and used this series as a proof of concept. It sold poorly, however, and Lucas instead went on to make the StarWars prequel trilogy. Try to imagine WhatMightHaveBeen if our first fully computer-animated characters were Ampris and Elrabin instead of [[AlienScrappy Jar-Jar Binks]]...

The [[http://www.lucasaliens.com website]] (which is still up as of March 2014!) suggests that [=LucasArts=] was looking for successor to StarWars and used this series as a proof of concept. It sold poorly, however, and Lucas instead went on to make the StarWars prequel trilogy.

The [[www.lucasaliens.com website]] (which is still up as of March 2014!) suggests that [=LucasArts=] was looking for successor to StarWars and used this series as a proof of concept. It sold poorly, however, and Lucas instead went on to make the StarWars prequel trilogy.

A series of Sci-Fi books by Deborah Chester, published by [=LucasFilm=], that tells the tale of how a single slave, Ampris, leads an uprising against the reptilian Viis, whose cruel empire is undergoing a Gotterdammerung, and becomes a legend. It read largely like a cross between Moses' Exodus and the story of Sparticus, the slave-gladiator who attempted to bring down the Roman Empire. [[RecycledInSpace In Space!]]

A series of Sci-Fi books by Deborah Chester, published by LucasFilm, that tells the tale of how a single slave, Ampris, leads an uprising against the reptilian Viis, whose cruel empire is undergoing a Gotterdammerung, and becomes a legend.

The second book ''The Crimson Claw'' chronicles Ampris's fight for survival in gladiator rings.

The third book ''The Crystal Eye'' shows us how Ampris becomes a legend and confronts her old friend Israi for the last time.

** Heavily averted with the denizens of the palace itself, however, [[spoiler:especially Bish and the archivists -- though Bish does not live to see Ampris' return to the palace.]]

A series of Sci-Fi books published by LucasFilm, that tells the tale of how a single slave, Ampris, leads an uprising against the reptilian Viis, whose cruel empire is undergoing a Gotterdammerung, and becomes a legend.