History Literature / Seveneves

** Space exploration company Arjuna Expeditions is SpaceX, though a Falcon Heavy is referred too

* RedOniBlueOni: militant and fierce Tekla to calm and contemplative Moira.

* EndIsNighEnding: {{Inverted|Trope}}. The disaster happens near the beginning of the book, when the moon is shattered into pieces which rain onto Earth, causing natural disasters. A technological effort to preserve humanity in a genetic ark works, for awhile,]] but it is also nearly ended by disasters. Ultimately, this trope is subverted, with a semi-happy ending for humanity.

** The byproduct of using Thor is a huge space rock that will be dropped somewhere on the surface.

** [[SmartGuy Ivyns]] are green

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: A very solid 5. Everything that happens after the first sentence, i.e., everything except possibly the initial splitting of the moon into 7 pieces, is grounded in real physics.

* WrongGenreSavvy: In the final part of the book, the characters soon realize that they're dealing with a [[spoiler: First Contact]] story. However, the Spacers believe it be a benign one, while [[spoiler: The Diggers think it's more of a We Come In Peace Shoot To Kill.]]

* BiTheWay: Tekla and Moira.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Humanity is in the process of repopulating the Earth, but it is divided against itself into two warring alliances: The Blue nation and the Pingers against the Red nation and the Diggers]].
** Kath tries to persuade [[spoiler:the Diggers]] to TakeAThirdOption, so there's still hope for the future (or at least, a sequel).

** For face to face communication, most people in the Cloud Arc have to make due with Skape [[note]] Skype [[/note]] calls.
** The social media app everyone uses to stay in touch is Spacebook [[note]] Facebook [[/note]].

* EternalEnglish: The descendants 5000 years in the future in the DistantFinale speak "Angliski," a pidgin of English mixed with Russian, but which is still mutually intelligible with that of the present day [[spoiler:and with those of the descendants of the other isolated surviving communities]]. Justified in that the Epic is almost entirely in English, is extremely well documented, and is central to Spacer culture. It is highly likely that English would become the lingua franca as there is no other language spoken by more than one of [[spoiler: the final eight survivors]], apart from possibly Russian which is Tekla's native language and which Ivy and Dinah would have had to learn as astronauts. [[ZigZaggedTrope But then]] subverted: in the reveal Doc makes, he notes the Seven are expecting Cyrillic characters mixed with Roman ones, and later on the [[spoiler:Red diplomatic envoy to the Diggers]] is specified as speaking "Pre-Zero English," so what we're really dealing with is a TranslationConvention.
** Justified for the Diggers since their primary source of recorded information is a complete copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica, in English.

** Neoanders have a similar arcane body of knowledge that involves super sonic whips made from battle bots.

* ImprobableWeaponUser: Exactly one firearm survived the Hard Rain, allowing Spacers to make a fresh start weapons-wise. Instead of bullets their equivalent of fire arms shoot little robots that do various things to inconvenience the people they're fired at. The Neoanders in particular take this to its logical conclusion and specialize in using whips ''made'' from the little robots.

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Invoked in-Universe: since only the female members of the Ark are essential to propagating the human race, males tend to be the ones going off on suicide missions and spending a lot of time exposed to radiation. [[spoiler: Ironically, the last male gives his life for the remaining women, putting them into a difficult situation where they are forced to use alternative means of reproduction.]]
** [[spoiler: Fortunately, five thousand years later populations have rebounded to the point where this trope is a thing of the past. Among the Spacers of both the Red and Blue factions, women in combat is not something to blink twice at, no particular difference is made over gender when protecting non-combatants in survival situations, and even the patriarchal Diggers with their population explosion do not seem to consider their women vulnerable enough to bother to hide them away when making accidental first contact with the Spacers on their way to meet up with the Pingers. Pingers who, incidently, bring a woman along on a potentially very dangerous first contact meeting as well, making it likely that their society also subverts this trope.]]

** Space exploration company Arjuna Expeditions is SpaceX, though a Falcon Heavy is referred to

** Ex-President of the USA Julia Bliss Flaherty has striking similarities with Hillary Clinton (wife of an ex-President that, in that world at least, herself became President) and Sarah Palin (child with Down Syndrome, young Vice President to older Candidate).

* TheUnreveal: The reason for the moon blowing up is never explained.

* InfoDump: All over the place, dumping info on the reader is a trademark of Stephenson. Early in the book short breaks are done to explain things, and [[TropesAreNotBad are done well]]. After the TimeSkip. however, a half page of dialogue can be sometimes followed by ten pages of Info Dump, totally derailing the flow of the characters and story.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: We never ''really'' find out what happened to the Mars colonists. I could be implied that the mission was a failure due to solar flares, or NoOneCouldSurviveThat, etc - but we're still never told outright, and 5000 years living in space habitats without having to worry about getting out of Earth's Gravity well would have been plenty of time to send someone to go look. I was probably just a SequelHook that was never followed.

* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: The purpose of the Cloud Ark and the Human Genetic Archive. Knowing that only a minuscule fraction of the human race can survive the Hard Rain, people collect priceless artifacts, embryos and digitized genetic code to help ensure a future for humanity.

** Ex-presisent of the USA Julia Bliss Flaherty has striking similarities with Hillary Clinton (wife of an ex-President that, in that world at least, herself became president) and Sarah Palin (child with Down Syndrome, young Vice President to older Candidate).

* OutsideContextProblem: The Moon blows up.

* HisNameActuallyIsBarkeep: "Cycs" are called after the part of the encyclopedia they've studied most rigorously.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Two factions, one of which is denoted as "The Red" are locked in a [[SpaceColdWar cold]] conflict, using propaganda, proxy warfare and constantly trying to provoke each-other.

* FunWithAcronyms: Orbital Neo-Agricultural Nacelles.

** Popular African-American celebrity scientist Doc Dubois is NeilDeGrasseTyson

* FutureImperfect: Averted at least to a degree. Part of the plan to ensure humanity's survival involves preserving as much of its knowledge and heritage as possible. [[spoiler:Not only does this succeed for the most part 5000 years later, but the Epic that forms part of said archives has since become a nigh-sacred aspect of Spacer society.]]

* EternalEnglish: Despite Stephenson's obvious care to get the physics and astronomy right, he takes ArtisticLicense with the linguistics in having the descendants 5000 years in the future in the DistantFinale speak an English that is mutually intelligible with that of the present day [[spoiler:and with those of the descendants of the other isolated surviving communities]]. For comparison, 5000 years is approximately the time depth separating English and Urdu.
** Potentially justified in that the Epic is almost entirely in English, is extremely well documented, and is central to Spacer culture. It is highly likely that English would become the lingua franca as there is no other language spoken by more than one of [[spoiler: the final eight survivors]], apart from possibly Russian which is Tekla's native language and which Ivy and Dinah would have had to learn as astronauts.
*** And Russian does filter down through the ages, and the spacers end up speaking a pidgin called Angliski. Indeed, the reveal Doc makes is necessary because the Seven are expecting Cyrillic characters mixed with Roman ones.
*** Even Ivy's Chinese is filtered down somewhat: [[spoiler:Ivyns use Eastern name order and have Chinese surnames.]]
** Also justified for the Diggers since their primary source of recorded information is a complete copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica, in English.

* EvilAllAlong: [[spoiler: Unsurprisingly, Ariane.]]

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