History Literature / HeavensRiver

* CloningBlues: Bridget refuses to copy herself, partly for religious reasons, and partly because she doesn't want to become the "default girlfriend" for all the Bobs out there thanks to her marriage to Howard. She briefly contemplates creating a copy to send with Bob to the topopolis, so that she wouldn't have to abandon her family, but then realizes that it would mean that her copy would have to abandon the family she would think of as her own and changes her mind.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Bender is recovered from Heaven's River, and Anek-23, a true AI, becomes an ally to the Bobiverse. However, the Bobiverse is rapidly fracturing in the wake of the civil war, human society is drifting back towards an anti-replicant stance and has cut most ties with the Bobiverse, the Pav are still aggressive towards humanity, the Quinlans, a rather belligerent species, have received a tech boost on par with the other existing species and are preparing to expand out, and Starfleet, as well as their mysterious leader that engineered the civil war, is still out there, unaccounted for.]]

** The Administrator. [[spoiler:Also known as ANEK-23, the control AI of the Quinlan topopolis Heaven's River. Its need to secure Bender's matrix from both Bob and the Resistance leads it to actively oppose Bob's rescue mission. Furthermore while its overall goal is to ensure the survival of the Quinlan race and [[BenevolentAI it genuinely wants to do so]] its methods involve severely limiting Quinlan technological level to Medieval Earth, punishing any unauthorized technological progress and large-scale conflict with [[YouCantGoHomeAgain "scattering"]] and would've resorted to allowing the devolution of the Quinlans to a pre-sapient race within a few generations to happen if it means the species as a whole continued to exist in some shape or form. The last of which gets Bob to contemplate an intervention similar to how he saved the Deltans from extinction. Once Hugh trades Subspace tech in exchange for AI technology it becomes an ally to the Bobs as it can now bring the Quinlans to other worlds, thus ensuring their survival]].

* ImpoverishedPatrician: At one point, Bob hires onto a boat as a deckhand and gives his name as Enoki Fungi. This causes a reaction, since he has forgotten that commoners don't have last names in this culture. So he has to pretend to be this trope.

* InsufficientlyAdvancedAlien: When scanning the inside of the topopolis, the Bobs are surprised to learn that the population of the structure seems to live a relatively primitive life, with no advanced technology in sight. They suspect that there must be more advanced "overseers" who maintain the structure and the environment, as well as control the patrolling spacecraft, who also likely deliberately maintain a low level of technology to prevent large-scale conflicts. Even having metal swords is a rarity, and metal disks are used as a standardized form of currency. [[spoiler:Turns out that the speculation was correct, as Anek-23 saved the populace of Quin from their final war, only for the refugees to start fighting all over again, so he enacted measures to stop them from being able to wage war at all.]]

* TheBadGuysWin: [[spoiler:In a manner of speaking. The Starfleet faction of the Bobiverse managed to accomplish what they set out to do in the civil war, by engendering mistrust between not only the humans and the Bobs, but even various Bob factions against one another. Even though what used to be Bobnet is now clean of their presence, various groups within Bobnet have now formed their own encrypted sub-networks within the main network.]]

* Hypocrite: Starfleet[[spoiler:, who execute a cyber attack on Bobnet in order to try and get themselves taken seriously]]. They want to get the Bobiverse to stop interfering with "ephemerals" and develop a [[AlienNonInterferenceClause modified version of the Prime Directive]] to include all sentient species in known space, including humans. They even point out that the Pav are only hostile to humans due to being forcibly removed from their homeworld, but consider any argument involving the Others to be a low blow.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: [[spoiler: Since Bender has been stuck on the topopolis for about a century, he has no idea that SubspaceAnsible is now a reality.]]

''Heaven's River'' by Dennis E. Taylor, published in 2010, is the fourth book in the Literature/{{Bobiverse}} series (preceded by ''Literature/WeAreLegionWeAreBob'', ''Literature/ForWeAreMany'', and ''Literature/AllTheseWorlds'').

** [[spoiler:Similarly, Bill and Garfield deduce that Starfleet's actions and general disposition don't line up with the sophistication of the cyber attack that breaks Bobnet and starts the civil war, as they are utilizing brute force tactics with the platforms they have hijacked, and don't seem to have much in terms of coding skills. Only when they discover that the backdoors used for the cyber attacks existed BEFORE Starfleet do they realize they have a MUCH different problem on their hands.]]

* FrickinLaserBeams: The "Boojums" are armed with powerful lasers, which is justified given that they don't have subspace technology to allow for fast projectiles like shipbusters. On the other hand, it means they can attack and destroy their target before the target knows what hit them.

* DividedWeFall: [[spoiler:Bill and Garfield figure out that one of the Bobs, through replicative drift, has developed sociopathic and megalomaniacal tendencies, planned the cyber attack to fracture Bobnet, and is using Starfleet as a proxy for currently unknown goals. When word of this gets out, it destroys trust not only between Bob groups, but also between Bobs and humans.]]

* InsufficientlyAdvancedAlien: When scanning the inside of the topopolis, the Bobs are surprised to learn that the population of the structure seems to live a relatively primitive life, with no advanced technology in sight. They suspect that there must be more advanced "overseers" who maintain the structure and the environment, as well as control the patrolling spacecraft. The "overseers" also likely deliberately maintain a low level of technology to prevent large-scale conflicts. Even having metal swords is a rarity.

* TheBadGuysWin: [[spoiler:In a manner of speaking. The Starfleet faction of the Bobiverse managed to accomplish what they set out to do in the civil war, by engendering mistrust between not only the humans and the Bobs, but even various Bob factions against one another. Even though what used to be Bobnet is now clean of their presence, that network is in pieces, broken apart to be reformed into smaller networks.]]

* BeastMan: [[spoiler:The Quinlans, the inhabitants of the topopolis, are a strange mix of otter and beaver, with some platypus thrown in. They can move on either two or four legs, but generally prefer to swim. They can breathe both underwater and on the surface equally well, although they are more at home in the water.]]

* AlternateTechline: The people of the topopolis advanced in some areas far beyond humanity but either didn't discover or did not get far in some other areas. For example, they have no subspace tech but, as a result, have considerably improved their fusion reactors and engines. For example, their fusion torches have a much higher acceleration than SURGE drives but can't sustain it indefinitely. They have also [[spoiler:figured out how to build [=AIs=], whereas humans could only build either [=AMIs=] or replicants]]. Zigzagged with the topopolis itself. As indicated by several people, the tech itself isn't terribly complicated. It is possible to build one by humans or Bobs, it just requires lots of resources and the determination to see it through.

* BeastMan: [[spoiler:The inhabitants of the topopolis are a strange mix of otter and beaver, with some platypus thrown in. They can move on either two or four legs, but generally prefer to swim. They can breathe both underwater and on the surface equally well, although they are more at home in the water.]]

** [[spoiler:Similarly, Bill and Garfield realize that Starfleet's actions and general disposition don't line up with the sophistication of the cyber attack that breaks Bobnet and starts the civil war, as they are utilizing brute force tactics with the platforms they have hijacked, and don't seem to have much in terms of coding skills. Only when they discover that the backdoors used for the cyber attacks existed BEFORE Starfleet do they realize they have a MUCH different problem on their hands.]]