History Literature / Existence

* AndIMustScream: Fortunately averted for Tor. She is in horrific accident, completely depriving her of ''all'' external sensation. Without the amplified tech available in the book, her life would have been a short hell at best, or a long one at worst.

* UterineReplicator: [[spoiler:Tor and Gavin discovered an ancient alien colonization ship that uses this technology to grow and modify colonists to better fit the environment they're going to colonize. This later became the cornerstone of The Cure when humans start utilizing this technology to revive fomite aliens that are willing to cooperate.]]

* UpliftedAnimal: Uplift of dolphins was started, then abandoned when lawsuits from environmentalist groups ate up their funds. But then the uplifts rescue Hacker and he decides to revive the project. [[spoiler: They become a recognized form of human later.]]

* BrainComputerInterface: Tor receives one when she is crippled by the airship bombing, the story describes the difficulty in setting it up.

* PeopleJars: Tor's life support system is essentially a metal tank enclosing her entire crippled body, later it gets wheels and robotic arms.

* FossilRevival: Neanderthals, [[spoiler: later salvaged technology from the Belt probes allows some of the Emissaries' species to be reconstructed from mere data. The prospect of seeing their extinct races revived with is enough to convince some of the Emissaries to cooperate with the Earthlings.]]

* FossilRevival: Neanderthals, [[spoiler: later salvaged technology from the Belt probes allows some of the Emissaries' species to be reconstructed from mere data]]

* CyberPunk / PostCyberPunk: On the borderline, the class divide is steeper than the present day but the novel as a whole is stauchly enlightened.

* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: [[spoiler:It turns out that the alien personalities in the Artifact are all from extinct species, and they want humans to join them before we become extinct. While the other Artifact that is calling them "liars" is from one species that decided the expense of building and launching millions of Artifacts is what killed off all the others, and they're trying to convince the few extant species not to do it.]]

* InvisibleAliens is addressed: [[spoiler: They all die out as they waste resources making and launching billions of Artifacts]]

* PlotDevice: The Artifacts

* TimeSkip: Twice, it starts in 2050, then skips to 2075, then to at least 2110.

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture

* AncientAstronauts: It is believed that earlier Artifacts inspired legends or demons and guardian spirits, however most of them were carved into jewelry by ignorant villagers. [[spoiler: Later a bunch of dormant Von neumann probes dating back millions of years are discovered in the asteroid belt.]]

It is the year 2050, while clearing out trash in orbit astronaut Gerald Livingstone discovers a strange crystal that displays images of bizarre beings when touched, they have a single message, JOIN US. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, a Chinese "shoresteader" discovers a second Artifact in the ruins of a mansion destroyed by global warming, this one declaring the first Artifact to be LIARS. As the world's leaders debate what to do about these emissaries from the stars neo-aristocrats plot with luddites to bring an end to the Enlightenment experiment, a playboy Rocketeer is stranded in the middle of the ocean and rescued by oddly intelligent dolphins, an IntrepidReporter becomes involved in a terrorist attack on an airship, and autistic hackers search for a cloned neanderthal child. Chapters are followed by excerpts of in-universe essays and interviews on the UsefulNotes/FermiParadox and recent events.

* AncientAstronauts: It is believed that earlier Atrifacts inspired legends or demons and guardian spirits, however most of them were carved into jewelry by ignorant villagers. [[spoiler: Later a bunch of dormant Von neumann probes dating back millions of years are discovered in the asteroid belt.]]

* ScienceMarchesOn: Yeah, the notion that people with autistic spectrum disorders are [[NotEvenHuman a separate species]] was already very [[BuffySpeak fringey]] at the time the book was released, but by now we can [[DiscreditedTrope file that under N as in nonsense.]] The taxonomical status of neanderthals is contested as a result of the discovery of what appears to be hints of interbreeding.

''Existence'' is Creator/DavidBrin's response to the trend in sci-fi away from SpaceOpera in favor of [[CyberPunk more earth-based works]].

DavidBrin's response to the trend in sci-fi away from SpaceOpera in favor of [[CyberPunk more earth-based works]]. It is the year 2050, while clearing out trash in orbit astronaut Gerald Livingstone discovers a strange crystal that displays images of bizarre beings when touched, they have a single message, JOIN US. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, a Chinese "shoresteader" discovers a second Artifact in the ruins of a mansion destroyed by global warming, this one declaring the first Artifact to be LIARS. As the world's leaders debate what to do about these emissaries from the stars neo-aristocrats plot with luddites to bring an end to the Enlightenment experiment, a playboy Rocketeer is stranded in the middle of the ocean and rescued by oddly intelligent dolphins, an IntrepidReporter becomes involved in a terrorist attack on an airship, and autistic hackers search for a cloned neanderthal child. Chapters are followed by excerpts of in-universe essays and interviews on the UsefulNotes/FermiParadox and recent events.

* HumanSubspecies: By the end of the book five forms of human are recognized, though the only ones that are biologically related to modern humans are the original genome, autistics, and revived neanderthals.

DavidBrin's response to the trend in sci-fi away from SpaceOpera in favor of [[CyberPunk more earth-based works]]. It is the year 2050, while clearing out trash in orbit astronaut Gerald Livingstone discovers a strange crystal that displays images of bizarre beings when touched, they have a single message, JOIN US. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, a Chinese "shoresteader" discovers a second Artifact in the ruins of a mansion destroyed by global warming, this one declaring the first Artifact to be LIARS. As the world's leaders debate what to do about these emissaries from the stars neo-aristocrats plot with luddites to bring an end to the Enlightenment experiment, a playboy Rocketeer is stranded in the middle of the ocean and rescued by oddly intelligent dolphins, an IntrepidReporter becomes involved in a terrorist attack on an airship, and autistic hackers search for a cloned neanderthal child. Chapters are followed by excerpts of in-universe essays and interviews on the Fermi Paradox and recent events.

DavidBrin's response to the trend in sci-fi away from SpaceOpera in favor of [[CyberPunk more earth-based works]].
It is the year 2050, while clearing out trash in orbit astronaut Gerald Livingstone discovers a strange crystal that displays images of bizarre beings when touched, they have a single message, JOIN US. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, a Chinese "shoresteader" discovers a second Artifact in the ruins of a mansion destroyed by global warming, this one declaring the first Artifact to be LIARS. As the world's leaders debate what to do about these emissaries from the stars neo-aristocrats plot with luddites to bring an end to the Enlightenment experiment, a playboy Rocketeer is stranded in the middle of the ocean and rescued by oddly intelligent dolphins, an IntrepidReporter becomes involved in a terrorist attack on an airship, and autistic hackers search for a cloned neanderthal child. Chapters are followed by excerpts of in-universe essays and interviews on the Fermi Paradox and recent events.

DavidBrin's response to the trend in sci-fi away from SpaceOpera in favor of [[CyberPunk more earth-based works]]

* TwentyMintuesIntoTheFuture

* CyberPunk/PostCyberPunk: On the borderline, the class divide is steeper than the present day but the novel as a whole is stauchly enlightened.