History Literature / CitizenOfTheGalaxy

However, she is able to provide him with valuable insight and support as he assimilates into a culture that is foreign to him.

* InsaneTrollLogic: The Free Traders refer to themselves as "people" and everyone else as "fraki". When Thorby, a fraki, is adopted and assimilates well, the captain's wife decides that the only way that could be possible is if Thorby was born "people" and then kidnapped and sold into slavery, rather than accept that a fraki might be a person as well.

* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Decibel, the corporal Thorby serves under when he first joins the Hegemony military. He claims that Free Traders are cowards who run from raiders. When Thorby corrects him, and states that he himself blew up a raider when he was a Free Trader, Decibel takes him down to one of the ship's gunners to put him in his place. He is shocked when the man not only confirms Thorby's story, but thanks Decibel for making him aware of such a valuable asset as Thorby's gunnery experience.

* ProtocolPeril: Averted by ''Sisu'' during trade, asthey pride themselves on never having trouble with fraki. Captain Krausa is well versed in the customs of the various planets they visit to trade; when accompanied by Thorby, Krausa take the time to brief him on local customs as well so he can avoid any negative incidents.

* FantasticRacism: Like any clannish society, the Free Traders (or the People, as they call themselves) consider everyone else beneath them. Interestingly, they don't differentiate between humans and aliens: [[OfThePeople if you're not People, you're nobody]]. Captain Krausa of ''Sisu'' (and possibly other ship captains) is a bit looser about this, probably because he is often in direct contact with outsiders.

* SpaceCossacks: The play Aunt Athena wrote for the Free Traders' Gathering, [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory based on]] the origin of the ''Sisu'' itself, portrayed its first captain as a "saint with a heart of steel" who went into space because of his disgust with the "evil ways of fraki". Since the play was portrayed in-universe as [[StylisticSuck a poorly-written]] crowd-pleaser, it's safe to say this trope is how the People think of themselves.

** MarsNeedsWomen: The raid happens while ''Sisu'' is on the planet of StarfishAliens where they have to trade by silent auction because of no common language. The ship's supercargo decides to put the confiscated smut (and several comic books seized from the nursery) out with the rest of their trade goods instead of having it incinerated. The response is immediate, and the aliens eventually work out an exchange rate of one carved jewel per individual page. The bachelors of the ''Sisu'' swiftly offer their remaining {{Porn Stash}}es for the common good.
*** The book implies that the pictures are valued by the aliens because they are "brightly colored pieces of paper," rather than any squicky interest in human women.

However, she is able to provide him with valuable insight and support as he is assimilated into a culture that is foreign to him.

** FateWorseThanDeath: On a related note, part of the standard combat readiness drill among the Free Traders is for the Chief Engineer to arm the [[SelfDestructMechanism "suicide switch"]] on the ship's power plant, allowing it to be detonated like a hydrogen bomb to "deliver his people into the shelter of death" if all else fails.

* RagsToRiches: Thorby goes back and forth, but goes from being a penniless beggar to a member of the well-off Free Trader ship ''Sisu'', and finally becomes [[spoiler:heir to one of the largest {{MegaCorp}}s in human space]].
* RagsToRoyalty: See above.

* RidiculousFutureInflation: Thorby at one point is given a "megabuck", which is a combination of this and WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture. The main Terran denomination is the credit (one credit will buy about five loaves of bread, according to Thorby); 100 dollars is 1 credit, 1,000 credits is 1 supercredit, and 1,000 supercredits is 1 megabuck. In other words, a megabuck is a million credits, or 100 million dollars -- which is still considered a lot of money, but not nearly as much as 100 million would be today.
** And that 'megabuck' is considered to be an amount of money that Thorby, Leda, and several other young rich scions could all blow through in several weeks of holiday amongst the resorts and sports for the superrich... in other words, about a million dollars.

* StunGuns: One of the key weapons that SpacePirates depend on in this book is a starship-mounted paralysis ray that can freeze the crew of a target ship, leaving them vulnerable to capture and enslavement. The only way to prevent this is to destroy the pirate ship before it can fire -- or at least launch a missile that hits after the crew is paralyzed, like Thorby manages near the planet Finster.

* ChasteHero: As usual for a Heinlein juvenile-novel hero, Thorby has a gift for [[ObliviousToLove missing other characters' romantic overtures]], even after still other characters try to explain it to him. He's still not above feeling pleasantly embarrassed by some engineered romantic moments (like the "Spirit of ''Sisu''" play that Grandmother Krausa tries to use to [[TheMatchmaker pair him with]] Loreen), and does show symptoms of TheDulcineaEffect when the situation seems to warrant it (Margaret has to pre-emptively discourage [[ThePlan the cunning plan]] Thorby was starting to form after learning that she would be leaving the ''Sisu'' alongside Mata).

** MarsNeedsWomen: The raid happens while ''Sisu'' is on the planet of StarfishAliens where they have to trade by silent auction because of no common language. The ship's supercargo decides to put the confiscated smut (and several comic books seized from the nursery) out with the rest of their trade goods instead of having it incinerated. The response is immediate, and the aliens eventually work out an exchange rate of one carved jewel per individual page. The bachelors of the ''Sisu'' swiftly offer their remaining {{Porn Stash}}es for the common good. (The book implies that the pictures are valued by the aliens because they are "brightly colored pieces of paper," rather than any squicky interest in human women.)

* NuclearOption: Free Trader ships routinely use missiles armed with 20 megaton nuclear warheads against SpacePirate ships. It's presented as a legitimate option as a successful boarding would mean the enslavement of the entire crew and there's no other defense available. [[spoiler:Thorby at the end starts the development of what is implied to be DeflectorShields as an alternative to the nukes, but it's unknown how much it will take or if it will be successful at all]].

''Citizen of the Galaxy'' is a science fiction novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein first published as a serial in 1957.