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** One of the strippers at the Penis Parade had the stage name the Author Steve Rowland. [[https://slrowland.com/2023/06/are-you-searching-for-author-steve-rowland/ He's a friend of the Author Matt Dinniman]], and if you've found his web page, he's happy for the boost.
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* ShoutOut:
** Donut is upset that ''Series/TheATeam'' lied to her about communist Cuba, because it's a lot nicer than she thought it would be and doesn't have any tanks or military assholes smoking cigars and forcing orphans to line up for bread ''anywhere''.
** The first mob Carl and Donut find is a dog with a human head, which Donut likens to [[Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers1978 that dog thing from that movie with President Snow!]]
** Donut is upset that ''Series/TheATeam'' lied to her about communist Cuba, because it's a lot nicer than she thought it would be and doesn't have any tanks or military assholes smoking cigars and forcing orphans to line up for bread ''anywhere''.
** The first mob Carl and Donut find is a dog with a human head, which Donut likens to [[Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers1978 that dog thing from that movie with President Snow!]]
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* ShownTheirWork: Cuba is a sub-tropical island and quite warm even in December. It's also a tourist destination, despite the US embargo.
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* InnocentBigot: Donut is surprised that Havana smells nice; she expected it to smell like cigars.
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* EvilIsPetty: Despite already being richer than Croesus, Huanxin demands a bigger bribe from Odette. It would barely be a blip to her personal wealth; she's just being a dick.
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* SinisterMinister: It doesn't take too long before Sister Ines shows her true colors as a psycho who wasn't ministering to prisoners, but a prisoner herself for having murdered her entire convent.
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* ChristmasEpisode: The eighth floor is a recreation of Earth in the weeks before the collapse, so the gang take a moment to celebrate Christmas. Even though it's March.
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* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In order to be free and whole, Odette needed Mordecai to get to the next floor. Specifically Mordecai, because she was his manager, and not the others. Therefore, [[spoiler:she trashed his HeroicSacrifice and got Chaco to kill Mordecai's brother in such a way that Mordecai and Chaco would make it to the next floor]]. Her plan succeeded, but she felt so guilty she turned herself in to the Syndicate courts for the behind-the-scenes deals she made before all of that went down.
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* BlatantLies: Donut's opening recap insists, regarding their encounter with Bea on Odette's program, that "I haven’t thought about it once since it happened and there’s nothing more to discuss".
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* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Donut's opening recap has a throwaway line about "that weird ring Carl got that I think is giving him headaches", because she doesn't understand that the stress of the crawl is giving Carl PTSD.
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* {{Misblamed}}: Donut's opening recap includes a bit where she's convinced that Ren somehow rigged the pet competition in order for her Tummy Acher to win instead of Mongo.
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* ProperlyParanoid: The book Carl bought during the Butcher's Masquerade was a monster guide for the Bahamas and he wanted Donut to pick that. Instead she chose Cuba, suspecting that the dungeon was setting them up for a very unpleasant encounter surrounding Beatrice's and Brad's infidelity just to fuck with Carl.
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to:
[[caption-width-right:937:"The moral of the story is: I chose a half-measure when I should have gone all the way. I'll never make that mistake again.” - Mike Ehrmantraut, ''Series/BreakingBad'']]
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* HeroicSacrifice: Ren believes that Carl is TheMessianicArchetype, that he and Donut are the only ones who can save them, the ones who will hold all the crawlers together. On a more practical level, she knows that they're the ones who ''have'' to survive to the ninth floor, because they own the slot in the Faction Wars. Therefore, she willingly hands over all her gear to Carl and sacrifices herself so they can make it to the next floor.
to:
* HeroicSacrifice: Ren believes that Carl is TheMessianicArchetype, the MessianicArchetype, that he and Donut are the only ones who can save them, the ones who will hold all the crawlers together. On a more practical level, she knows that they're the ones who ''have'' to survive to the ninth floor, because they own the slot in the Faction Wars. Therefore, she willingly hands over all her gear to Carl and sacrifices herself so they can make it to the next floor.
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[[quoteright:937:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dccbedlambride.jpg]]
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They’re dead.\\
to:
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* TheReveal: The AI that's been going dangerously off the rails since pretty much minute one? [[spoiler:It was reverse engineered from Primal tech by the Mantids, and they tried to put controls on it because they didn't like the way the ancient tech worked. On top of that, it's used tech from an amusement park.]]
to:
* TheReveal: TheReveal:
** The AI that's been going dangerously off the rails since pretty much minute one? [[spoiler:It was reverse engineered from Primal tech by the Mantids, and they tried to put controls on it because they didn't like the way the ancient tech worked. On top of that, it's used tech from an amusement park.]]
** The AI that's been going dangerously off the rails since pretty much minute one? [[spoiler:It was reverse engineered from Primal tech by the Mantids, and they tried to put controls on it because they didn't like the way the ancient tech worked. On top of that, it's used tech from an amusement park.]]
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** In the epilogue, we learn that [[spoiler:AI aren't AI. They're infant ''primals''. Agatha is a renegade part of a faction that opposes the faction that tried to give Carl information about the center of the galaxy. That faction is run by the Apothecary, a Primal traitor.]]
to:
** In the epilogue, we learn that [[spoiler:AI aren't AI. They're infant ''primals''. Agatha is a renegade part of a faction that opposes the faction that tried to give Carl information about the center of the galaxy. That faction is run by the Apothecary, a Primal traitor. Agatha's purpose is to destroy all life in the universe.]]
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** In the epilogue, we learn that [[spoiler:AI aren't AI. They're infant ''primals''. Agatha is a renegade part of a faction that opposes the faction that tried to give Carl information about the center of the galaxy. That faction is run by the Apothecary, a Primal traitor.]]
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* HeroicSacrifice: Ren believes that Carl is TheMessianicArchetype, that he and Donut are the only ones who can save them, the ones who will hold all the crawlers together. On a more practical level, she knows that they're the ones who ''have'' to survive to the ninth floor, because they own the slot in the Faction Wars. Therefore, she willingly hands over all her gear to Carl and sacrifices herself so they can make it to the next floor.
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* TragicKeepsake: In addition to the ring Carl took on the fifth floor, Quan also had a tattoo of his daughter on the arm Carl ripped off, meaning he now has half a tattoo on the stump.
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* MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours: Near the end of the eighth floor, Quan Ch shows up and screws everyone over thanks to his knowledge of collectible card games (presumably from the daughter who gave him the ring Carl recovered on the fifth floor). However, Carl turns it around on him by preventing a card battle, getting Donut to get into a low-stakes, drawn out card fight with a Duende so Carl can just pummel Quan.
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* TheReveal: The AI that's been going dangerously off the rails since pretty much minute one? [[spoiler:It was reverse engineered from Primal tech by the Mantids, and they tried to put controls on it because they didn't like the way the ancient tech worked. On top of that, it's used tech from an amusement park.]]
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* TheAtoner: We finally learn the backstory behind Mordecai, Odette, and Chaco. [[spoiler:Odette was so obsessed with freedom she betrayed her friends, just as she'd pushed her family too far in her own crawl. She regretted it so much she admitted her crimes to the government and never repaired her body as a sign of penance.]]
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* FantasticRacism: Donut immediately considers the concept of a CatGirl an abomination, but is even more upset to learn that she's a Havana Brown.
-->'''Donut:''' There’s no getting along with Havana browns, Carl.
-->'''Donut:''' There’s no getting along with Havana browns, Carl.
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* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Carl gets an achievement, and a '''''celestial''' predator box'' for killing all the Hunters on the 6th floor.
-->'''AI: Holy shit.\\
They’re dead.\\
All of them.\\
Every. Last. One.'''
-->'''AI: Holy shit.\\
They’re dead.\\
All of them.\\
Every. Last. One.'''
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* SoreLoser: The announcer starts the book really pissed off that Pony used the tools from the Benefactor Boxes to break the seventh floor and skip straight to the eighth. She worked ''really'' hard on that one!
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* NotMeThisTime: Everyone assumes, not unjustly, that Carl's responsible for the destruction of the seventh floor.
-->'''Carl:''' I love how you guys just assume I had something to do with it. That was 100% Pony. I had no idea that was going to happen.
-->'''Carl:''' I love how you guys just assume I had something to do with it. That was 100% Pony. I had no idea that was going to happen.
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* WeUsedToBeFriends: After Donut's recap opening, we get a flashback to Odette's last crawl and Mordecai's first. They're stuck at the end of the tenth floor. Odette is desperate because with the bounty from her crawlers getting to the eleventh floor, she'll finally have enough money to buy citizenship, guaranteed food and air, and the possibility of regrowing her legs. To do that, she called on the help of her best friend, a crawler who also survived their dungeon. It's cheating, but it'll work. She cuts her friend in for 10%, the friend sponsors a god, Odette is free, Mordecai, Hold Steady, Uzzu, and Chaco can cut good deals... Then her friend, Huanxin Jinx demands 33%. Odette tells her no dice, 10 or nothing. Huanxin ups it to 50% and starts advancing on the crawlers. That's the ''first'' [=WUtBF=] here. The second problem is that Mordecai prepares a heroic sacrifice to get the other three to the eleventh floor, but Odette needs ''him'' to get to the eleventh or she's screwed, so she comes up with a desperate plan. Hold Steady has the puzzle piece that will get them to the next level, Chaco has the magic dart that will resummon the god Huanxin is piloting and solve the puzzle... and Mordecai's brother, Uzzu, is the sacrifice that the magic dart needs. She coerces Chaco into killing Uzzu with the lie that he won't get to the Guild Hall on the eleventh floor without him. Mordecai swears vengeance on them both.
to:
* WeUsedToBeFriends: After Donut's recap opening, we get a flashback to Odette's last crawl and Mordecai's first. They're stuck at the end of the tenth floor. Odette is desperate because with the bounty from her crawlers getting to the eleventh floor, she'll finally have enough money to buy citizenship, guaranteed food and air, and the possibility of regrowing her legs. To do that, she called on the help of her best friend, a crawler who also survived their dungeon. It's cheating, but it'll work. Her friend, Armita, talks to a sponsor on the outside. She cuts her friend the sponsor in for 10%, 10% of her exit earnings, the friend sponsors sponsor buys a god, Odette is free, Mordecai, Hold Steady, Uzzu, Uzzi, and Chaco can cut good deals... Then her friend, the sponsor, Huanxin Jinx demands 33%. Odette tells her no dice, 10 or nothing. Huanxin ups it to 50% and starts advancing on the crawlers. That's the ''first'' [=WUtBF=] here.crawlers, threatening a TPK. The second problem is that Mordecai prepares a heroic sacrifice to get the other three to the eleventh floor, but Odette needs ''him'' to get to the eleventh or she's screwed, so she comes up with a desperate plan. Hold Steady has the puzzle piece that will get them to the next level, Chaco has the magic dart that will resummon the god Huanxin is piloting and solve the puzzle... and Mordecai's brother, Uzzu, Uzzi, is the sacrifice that the magic dart needs. She coerces Chaco into killing Uzzu with the lie that he won't get to the Guild Hall on the eleventh floor without him. Mordecai swears vengeance on them both. Odette is free, but Armita has three seasons to go, with Huanxin sponsoring every last one.
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* DoomedByCanon: One of the things Odette wished for in the flashback was the ability to regrow her legs. As we know, that never happened.
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'''Carl:''' It's what they do.
to:
'''Carl:''' It's what they do.do.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: After Donut's recap opening, we get a flashback to Odette's last crawl and Mordecai's first. They're stuck at the end of the tenth floor. Odette is desperate because with the bounty from her crawlers getting to the eleventh floor, she'll finally have enough money to buy citizenship, guaranteed food and air, and the possibility of regrowing her legs. To do that, she called on the help of her best friend, a crawler who also survived their dungeon. It's cheating, but it'll work. She cuts her friend in for 10%, the friend sponsors a god, Odette is free, Mordecai, Hold Steady, Uzzu, and Chaco can cut good deals... Then her friend, Huanxin Jinx demands 33%. Odette tells her no dice, 10 or nothing. Huanxin ups it to 50% and starts advancing on the crawlers. That's the ''first'' [=WUtBF=] here. The second problem is that Mordecai prepares a heroic sacrifice to get the other three to the eleventh floor, but Odette needs ''him'' to get to the eleventh or she's screwed, so she comes up with a desperate plan. Hold Steady has the puzzle piece that will get them to the next level, Chaco has the magic dart that will resummon the god Huanxin is piloting and solve the puzzle... and Mordecai's brother, Uzzu, is the sacrifice that the magic dart needs. She coerces Chaco into killing Uzzu with the lie that he won't get to the Guild Hall on the eleventh floor without him. Mordecai swears vengeance on them both.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: After Donut's recap opening, we get a flashback to Odette's last crawl and Mordecai's first. They're stuck at the end of the tenth floor. Odette is desperate because with the bounty from her crawlers getting to the eleventh floor, she'll finally have enough money to buy citizenship, guaranteed food and air, and the possibility of regrowing her legs. To do that, she called on the help of her best friend, a crawler who also survived their dungeon. It's cheating, but it'll work. She cuts her friend in for 10%, the friend sponsors a god, Odette is free, Mordecai, Hold Steady, Uzzu, and Chaco can cut good deals... Then her friend, Huanxin Jinx demands 33%. Odette tells her no dice, 10 or nothing. Huanxin ups it to 50% and starts advancing on the crawlers. That's the ''first'' [=WUtBF=] here. The second problem is that Mordecai prepares a heroic sacrifice to get the other three to the eleventh floor, but Odette needs ''him'' to get to the eleventh or she's screwed, so she comes up with a desperate plan. Hold Steady has the puzzle piece that will get them to the next level, Chaco has the magic dart that will resummon the god Huanxin is piloting and solve the puzzle... and Mordecai's brother, Uzzu, is the sacrifice that the magic dart needs. She coerces Chaco into killing Uzzu with the lie that he won't get to the Guild Hall on the eleventh floor without him. Mordecai swears vengeance on them both.
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-->-- '''The System AI'''
to:
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->'''What you do next will change ''everything''.'''\\
'''The choice you make will reverberate not just through your own lives. Or this floor. It has the potential to change the very nature of the dungeon.'''\\
'''Kinda funny how these moments pop up out of nowhere, isn’t it? And you thought this eighth floor was just going to be filler until we go down to the ninth?'''\\
'''We don't do that here.'''
-->-- '''The System AI'''
After Prepotente broke the seventh floor, everyone found themselves on the eighth floor early. Donut and Carl, separated from their friends, are forced to choose a location on a globe of the Earth. Donut, despite Carl's protests, chooses Cuba when she meant to choose the Bahamas.
This floor is what is called a memory simulation: A perfect representation of the planet Earth a few weeks before the collapse, with intangible memory ghosts of the people wandering around, going about their ordinary lives. The simulation is disrupted by both the crawlers and the mobs, legendary creatures based on the local region.
Carl and Donut must also prepare for their place in faction wars next floor. But none of the other sponsors are interested in talking with them, and the System AI is growing more and more unstable. It is becoming increasingly unclear if they will even ''make'' it to the next floor, if the System AI will kill them all or the Syndicate will pull the mysterious "Failsafe."
Furthermore, this floor has a new gameplay element: Trading card battles. Donut is named the deck master, and the squad must capture monsters to turn them into "totems" that fight for them. Samantha finds a monster that she insists will be absolutely perfect for the team. She's strong, intelligent, has a host of powerful abilities, and is even volunteering for the job. Her name is Shi Maria.
Also known as the Bedlam Bride.
''Dungeon Crawler Carl: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride'' is the sixth book in the ''Dungeon Crawler Carl'' series by Matt Dinniman. It covers the eighth floor of the Dungeon.
----
!!This novel provides examples of:
* BotheringByTheBook: After the System AI takes full control of the crawl, Orren negotiates with it and convinces it to follow the rules as outlined. The AI agrees. And then ''immediately'' starts shutting down all attempts by the showrunners to cheat. Apparently everyone forgot how much they were breaking their own rules behind the scenes. [[spoiler:In particular, the final sequence of the floor was supposed to kill two-thirds of the crawlers ''at least''. Instead, the AI gave them a way out using a world quest (while also making sure it would be both difficult and dramatic), because it cares far more about putting on a good show then just killing everyone off]].
* DidntThinkThisThrough: The Valtay negotiate with the AI to allow for thousands of new mercenaries to be hired for Faction Wars, who will slaughter the crawlers as fast as possible to bring everything back on track. Princess Formidable points out that clearly an AI that is interested in fairness and a good show isn't going to let a hundred and fifty thousand mercenaries slaughter thirty thousand crawlers; there has to be some trick to it. Everyone else ignores her. It turns out that [[spoiler:the AI also allowed fifty thousand former crawlers to hire themselves as mercenaries of the Princess Posse, the crawler faction. They're coming onboard, and they are more than happy to finally get real revenge on the people who killed their friends so long ago]].
* GodzillaThreshold: The Syndicate has a failsafe that will "in effect" kill the local star, and everyone currently trapped in the solar system. Several people point out that they ''really'' should have pulled it already, but they're refusing.
-->'''Carl: Zev. What's the failsafe? Cascadia mentioned it once, and someone else just mentioned it.'''\\
'''Zev: I don't actually know what it does. Pray we don’t find out. They won't use it. Not with so many people trapped in the solar system. We're all under temporary quarantine, and the richest and most powerful people in the galaxy are either on planet or in orbit.'''\\
''You probably shouldn't have told me that, Zev.'' I didn't dare say that out loud.
* HeadInTheSandManagement: The Syndicate Council ignores all evidence of the danger posed by the System AI to, basically, just continue doing what they're doing. Princess Formidable points out that the Failsafe was designed for this ''exact'' circumstance.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Princess Formidable hates her family for what they've done to their people, admires the humans fighting both in the dungeon and on the surface, rails against the absurd wealth disparity in the universe, and repeatedly fights back against the Syndicate Council for refusing to see the danger. Yes, her solution would kill everyone in the system, but since that includes her, she clearly believes what she's saying. While the crawlers likely won't appreciate her, the rest of the universe likely would.
* SeriousBusiness: Carl has been largely ignoring his divine quests, because in-universe storylines just aren't important compared to Faction Wars and everything else. The AI actually takes direct control of an NPC to tell him ''no'', this is ''important''. Unfortunately, it can't give him any real detail outside the quest framework.
* UnfortunateImplications: InUniverse. The legendary monsters are wrong in basically every way, mixed together with stories and shows, and then made more violent to boot. Everyone complains that they're super offensive, while Sister Ines is spitting mad.
-->'''Sister Ines:''' It is all a mockery of our faiths and legends. They ignore the meanings behind the myths and stories, and they just see the surface, steal it, and use it to make something shiny and pretty and completely devoid of its meaning. And they mix these beloved traditions with modern fictions, things nobody ever believed to be real. It muddies the water of our stories, our histories. They don't care. These cultures and creatures are holy to people, and they are making jokes of it all.\\
'''Carl:''' It's what they do.
'''The choice you make will reverberate not just through your own lives. Or this floor. It has the potential to change the very nature of the dungeon.'''\\
'''Kinda funny how these moments pop up out of nowhere, isn’t it? And you thought this eighth floor was just going to be filler until we go down to the ninth?'''\\
'''We don't do that here.'''
-->-- '''The System AI'''
After Prepotente broke the seventh floor, everyone found themselves on the eighth floor early. Donut and Carl, separated from their friends, are forced to choose a location on a globe of the Earth. Donut, despite Carl's protests, chooses Cuba when she meant to choose the Bahamas.
This floor is what is called a memory simulation: A perfect representation of the planet Earth a few weeks before the collapse, with intangible memory ghosts of the people wandering around, going about their ordinary lives. The simulation is disrupted by both the crawlers and the mobs, legendary creatures based on the local region.
Carl and Donut must also prepare for their place in faction wars next floor. But none of the other sponsors are interested in talking with them, and the System AI is growing more and more unstable. It is becoming increasingly unclear if they will even ''make'' it to the next floor, if the System AI will kill them all or the Syndicate will pull the mysterious "Failsafe."
Furthermore, this floor has a new gameplay element: Trading card battles. Donut is named the deck master, and the squad must capture monsters to turn them into "totems" that fight for them. Samantha finds a monster that she insists will be absolutely perfect for the team. She's strong, intelligent, has a host of powerful abilities, and is even volunteering for the job. Her name is Shi Maria.
Also known as the Bedlam Bride.
''Dungeon Crawler Carl: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride'' is the sixth book in the ''Dungeon Crawler Carl'' series by Matt Dinniman. It covers the eighth floor of the Dungeon.
----
!!This novel provides examples of:
* BotheringByTheBook: After the System AI takes full control of the crawl, Orren negotiates with it and convinces it to follow the rules as outlined. The AI agrees. And then ''immediately'' starts shutting down all attempts by the showrunners to cheat. Apparently everyone forgot how much they were breaking their own rules behind the scenes. [[spoiler:In particular, the final sequence of the floor was supposed to kill two-thirds of the crawlers ''at least''. Instead, the AI gave them a way out using a world quest (while also making sure it would be both difficult and dramatic), because it cares far more about putting on a good show then just killing everyone off]].
* DidntThinkThisThrough: The Valtay negotiate with the AI to allow for thousands of new mercenaries to be hired for Faction Wars, who will slaughter the crawlers as fast as possible to bring everything back on track. Princess Formidable points out that clearly an AI that is interested in fairness and a good show isn't going to let a hundred and fifty thousand mercenaries slaughter thirty thousand crawlers; there has to be some trick to it. Everyone else ignores her. It turns out that [[spoiler:the AI also allowed fifty thousand former crawlers to hire themselves as mercenaries of the Princess Posse, the crawler faction. They're coming onboard, and they are more than happy to finally get real revenge on the people who killed their friends so long ago]].
* GodzillaThreshold: The Syndicate has a failsafe that will "in effect" kill the local star, and everyone currently trapped in the solar system. Several people point out that they ''really'' should have pulled it already, but they're refusing.
-->'''Carl: Zev. What's the failsafe? Cascadia mentioned it once, and someone else just mentioned it.'''\\
'''Zev: I don't actually know what it does. Pray we don’t find out. They won't use it. Not with so many people trapped in the solar system. We're all under temporary quarantine, and the richest and most powerful people in the galaxy are either on planet or in orbit.'''\\
''You probably shouldn't have told me that, Zev.'' I didn't dare say that out loud.
* HeadInTheSandManagement: The Syndicate Council ignores all evidence of the danger posed by the System AI to, basically, just continue doing what they're doing. Princess Formidable points out that the Failsafe was designed for this ''exact'' circumstance.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Princess Formidable hates her family for what they've done to their people, admires the humans fighting both in the dungeon and on the surface, rails against the absurd wealth disparity in the universe, and repeatedly fights back against the Syndicate Council for refusing to see the danger. Yes, her solution would kill everyone in the system, but since that includes her, she clearly believes what she's saying. While the crawlers likely won't appreciate her, the rest of the universe likely would.
* SeriousBusiness: Carl has been largely ignoring his divine quests, because in-universe storylines just aren't important compared to Faction Wars and everything else. The AI actually takes direct control of an NPC to tell him ''no'', this is ''important''. Unfortunately, it can't give him any real detail outside the quest framework.
* UnfortunateImplications: InUniverse. The legendary monsters are wrong in basically every way, mixed together with stories and shows, and then made more violent to boot. Everyone complains that they're super offensive, while Sister Ines is spitting mad.
-->'''Sister Ines:''' It is all a mockery of our faiths and legends. They ignore the meanings behind the myths and stories, and they just see the surface, steal it, and use it to make something shiny and pretty and completely devoid of its meaning. And they mix these beloved traditions with modern fictions, things nobody ever believed to be real. It muddies the water of our stories, our histories. They don't care. These cultures and creatures are holy to people, and they are making jokes of it all.\\
'''Carl:''' It's what they do.
