History Literature / Footfall

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Bob Anson, the thinly-disguised avatar of Robert Heinlein, is a member of the team of SF authors engaged by the White House to speculate on the threat of the aliens, but vanishes without explanation halfway through the novel.

* ShootTheDog: [[spoiler:Bellingham, in order to disguise the ''Michael's'' construction and launch. In order to build the OrionDrive craft in secret, they disguise it as a giant greenhouse painted with a surrender symbol, then suspend habeas corpus and secretly turn the town into a prison, with no one permitted to enter or leave. CB radios are confiscated and used to broadcast false communications. They can't even spread warnings of the Fithp's intention to repeat the ColonyDrop, because that would make people evacuate coastal communities, and they couldn't draw attention to the one town that would keep functioning. And when the time comes to launch, they can only evacuate those who can be trusted to keep their mouth shut - military personnel and their families. Everyone else in town is only warned ''half an hour'' prior to launch. And because the sheriff shoots his mouth off, they have to slice twenty-five minutes off of that. All in all, the entire town is sacrificed save less than three hundred people who can fit in a fallout shelter, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder.]]

Written by Creator/LarryNiven and Creator/JerryPournelle, ''Footfall'' is an AlienInvasion novel [[ShownTheirWork with much more accurate science than usual]]. Set in a very [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness hard]] universe, it almost serves as a {{Deconstruction}} and {{Reconstruction}} of the genre.

* ExcessiveSteamSyndrome: The spaceship [[spoiler: with an [[OrionDrive Orion-class nuclear engine]]]] that is indeed cooled by and powered by steam, also using jets of steam for attitude control. At one point one of the characters has to work to repair battle damage in an area made uncomfortably hot by a burst steam line.
* FrickinLaserBeams:

* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: The primary weapons of the fithp are described as "crowbars dropped from orbit". For that matter, the personal weapons used by them are just scaled up versions of ordinary machine guns. However, they still use powerful [[FrickinLaserBeams lasers]] in their most logical application, as anti-missile and anti-aircraft weapons

Written by Creator/LarryNiven and Creator/JerryPournelle, ''Footfall'' is an AlienInvasion novel ''[[ShownTheirWork done right]]''. Set in a ''very'' [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness hard]] universe, it almost serves as a {{Deconstruction}} and {{Reconstruction}} of the genre.

* StockStarSystems: Lampshaded during the discussion of where the aliens came from. At first "Bob" didn't like the theory that the aliens were coming from Alpha Centauri, but then "It's trite. But, you know, it's trite because it got used so much and it got used so much because it's the best choice."

Their rather [[HowToInvadeAnAlienPlanet flawed plan]] is thoroughly [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructed]] at various points throughout the novel, both by humans and by dissident fithp.

* BadAss:
** The Russians Cosmonauts, especially Nikolai, who manages to be the most adept at Zero-G movement despite ''lacking both legs''.
** Congressman ([[spoiler: and later Herdmaster]]) Wes Dawson, as well, gets this nomination for [[spoiler: single-handedly [[NotQuiteDead almost-killing]] a high-ranking fi' in complete secrecy]].

* HumanityIsSuperior: It comes as quite a shock when they realize that humans, with fingers more dextrous that fithp digits, lower body mass, food, air consumption and technology they actually ''understand'', are a threat to the aliens if left unchecked. [[spoiler: It's how the fithp dissidents lose their argument against the war on Earth]].

** The fithp {{Space Plane}}s, the digit-ships, are lightcraft, meaning that they run on a pulsed fusion torch ignited by a powerful ground laser beam.

* GodzillaThreshold: ''Thrice''. The aliens first land in Kansas (assuming that the US wouldn't attack their own breadbasket), and fortify their foothold so well that the US ''asks'' the Soviets to atomize it for them in a concerted attack. This forces the fithp to [[spoiler: perform Footfall, dramatically messing up the planet with a Dinosaur Killer, before landing in force in Southern Africa]]. In the end, [[spoiler: the US puts the OrionDrive ship ''Michael'' in orbit, nuking the coastal town of Bellingham a hundred times over during launch]].

* GodzillaThreshold: ''Thrice''. The aliens first land in Kansas (assuming that the US wouldn't attack their own breadbasket), and fortify their foothold so well that the US ''asks'' the Soviets to atomize it for them in a concerted attack. This forces the fithp to [[spoiler: perform Footfall, dramatically messing up the planet with a Dinosaur Killer, before landing in force in Southern Africa]]. In the end, [[spoiler: the US puts the OrionDrive ship ''Michael'' in orbit, nuking the coastal town of Bellingham a hundred times over during launch]]. Luckily, most of the population is evacuated at the last minute.

* PunchClockVillain: The fithp are {{Designated Villain}}s here, having come from across the stars to conquer Earth, but to their defense they're bound by mentality, circumstance and sheer herd inertia. The Traveller Fithp don't really have the option of returning home,[[spoiler: since they left it after losing a wager against an enemy herd that they were locked in a UsefulNotes/ColdWar with, leaving their enemies to rule the planet]]. There is a dissident faction among them that sees the War for Winterhome (Earth) as unnecessary, since they could just as well colonize the Solar System ahead of the humans, but even they realize that they need human help to do it in the end.

Their rather [[HowToInvadeAnAlienPlanet flawed plan]] is thoroughly [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructed]] at various points throughout the novel, both by humans and by GenreSavvy dissident fithp.

* AlternateHistory / TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: The novel was written in 1985, when the Cold War between the USA and USSR was still very real. It extrapolates that, in about 10 years, both power blocs will still be largely intact, and that a renewed interest in space exploration will have resulted in a network of laser sats orbiting the Earth, two Moon Bases (one Soviet, one American), and a large, ISS-like Soviet successor to ''Mir'' called the ''Kosmograd''.

* LanguageEqualsThought: The fithp language makes extensive use of inherent plurals, for example fithp (which means tribe or group or herd) and fi' (which means a person). This fact reflects a lot about basic fithp psychology - i.e., the individual is incomplete without the group.)

* LanguageEqualsThought: The fithp language makes extensive use of inherent plurals, for example fithp (which means tribe or group or herd) and fi' (which means a person). This fact reflects a lot about basic fithp psychology.