History Literature / FallenDragon

* [[spoiler: StableTimeLoop: "Vinnie" is actually future!Lawrence, who travelled back in time through the Mordiff terminus to reunite himself with Roselyn. "Vinnie" gives past!Lawrence a copy of Prime, which he uses to get off-world to join Z-B in pursuit of his starship-flying dreams, before morphing back into a teenage Lawrence.]]

* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler: Both the SK2 Roderick and Denise [[NotSoDifferent come across as this.]] Both are essentially willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their objectives.]]

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Most human colonies seem to slowly becoming bland copies of Earth. Life is pleasant, but corporate uniculture pervades nearly everything.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Simon Roderick looks to be one of these. [[spoiler: Subverted when Z-B's true ideals are revealed. Turns out, the Rodericks wanted the same thing Lawrence did all along...]]

* MegaCorp: Earth is run by these, and they have far more power than national governments. Zantiu-Braun is the largest, with one character commenting off-hand that Z-B own "half the bloody planet these days". Z-B is also the only corporation large enough - and willing enough - to still be able to fund exploratory missions, although new colonies are now founded through one-shot wormholes and left to fend for themselves rather than via starship. [[spoiler: Z-B's ultimate motive is to elevate the human race via corporate stakeholding, which essentially means corporate socialism, in order for humanity to truly reach for the stars. The Board - which consists entirely of different batches of the Roderick clones - is divided on the best approach to do this.]]

* TheWarOfEarthlyAggression: ...sort of. Earth itself isn't waging war on human colonies, but the various megacorporations buy out struggling debt-laden founding companies in order to provide some kind of legal basis for their asset realisation missions. In practice, it's simple piracy as invasion fleets subjugate and pillage the colony planets for valuable industrial assets to sell at a profit thanks to the production costs being cut out.

* [[spoiler: StableTimeLoop]]

* DeathWorld: Santa Chico. The air is 30% oxygen, having the dual effect of being poisonous to non-modified humans and acting as a nuclear reactor for the planet's life-forms (not to mention how dangerous fire becomes in such an environment). Its fauna is incredibly deadly, including pterodactyl-sized windshrikes that can tear through helicopters, armoured, tyrannosaur-sized macrorexes that are often found in ''packs'' and tiny birds that fire toxin-coated darts that penetrate and infect Skin suits.

* CasualInterstellarTravel: Heavily averted. Starflight is dying out as it's simply too expensive to justify. The remaining starships are used by the corporations only to keep in contact with existing colonies and to participate in asset realisation missions, the one thing that can balance the costs. The sole exception to this is Zantiu-Braun, who continue to found colonies through one-shot interstellar portals. Interstellar trade is non-existent, as Earth could easily reverse-engineer anything invented elsewhere.

* AllPlanetsAreEarthlike: Averted. Non-compatible biospheres mean that in most cases humans have to kill off native life with radiation before re-seeding it with terrestrial organisms. Whilst this is the most common way to settle a planet, two exceptions are prominently featured: Amethi, which was a dead planet locked into a permanent ice-age before humanity arrived, and Santa Chico, where the human colonists modified themselves to live in harmony with the native biosphere. [[spoiler: In Arnoon Province, the discovery of alien technology allows the people there to do the same thing, although their modifications are far more subtle than the Chicans.]]

* AllPlanetsAreEarthlike: Averted. Non-compatible biospheres mean that in most cases humans have to kill off native life with radiation before re-seeding it with terrestrial organisms. Whilst this is the most common way to settle a planet, two exceptions are prominently featured: Amethi, which was a dead planet locked into a permanent ice-age before humanity arrived, and Santa Chico, where the human colonists modified themselves to live in harmony with the native biosphere. [[spoiler: In Arnoon Province, the discovery of alien technology allows the people there to do the same thing, although their modifications are far more subtle than the Chicans.]]

* DeathWorld: Santa Chico. The air is 30% oxygen, having the dual effect of being poisonous to non-modified humans and acting as a nuclear reactor for the planet's life-forms. Its fauna is incredibly deadly, including pterodactyl-sized windshrikes that can tear through helicopters, armoured, tyrannosaur-sized macrorexes that are often found in ''packs'' and tiny birds that fire toxin-coated darts that penetrate and infect Skin suits.

* BizarreHumanBiology: The SantaChicans, who went a bit crazy in modifying their physiology.