History Literature / TheForeverWar

* ATragedyOfImpulsiveness: [[spoiler:The whole war. When some ships are lost due to accidents, the old-guard military leaders assume there must be an enemy out the destroying them. They arm the new ships and attack the Taurans at first sight. The Taurans hadn't done anything, having abolished war millennia ago, so every death in the story was completely useless.]]

* ForeverWar: Not the TropeNamer, but a shining example.

* TriggerPhrase: The poem ''Scots Wha Hae'' by Robert Burns, seemingly the words of Robert the Bruce to his troops before the battle that would win Scotland's independence. [[spoiler: It's also the trigger for a hypnotic suggestion showing "Taurans" killing men and raping women to get the soldiers ready for combat.]]

* Slow Laser: In part I/chapter 7, Mandella only sees dots from the recruits fire on a bunker (indicating no visible beams), but is able to identify a random pattern in the return fire while hiding behind a rock (indicating the opposite). In part II/chapter 6, there seem to be visible beams when he sees an enemy laser rake across the base.

* UnrealisticBlackHole: Collapsars used for FTL travel. The book was first published in 1974, so it may actually 'predate' the astronomical use of the word

* FreeLoveFuture: By law no-one can be conscripted into the military unless they are already promiscuous, and in basic training all recruits have a 'sleeping roster' where they're assigned a different partner every night (which leads to grumbling that you always get the dead-tired ones when you're horny, and vice versa). By the end of their first tour everyone has settled into a regular (though still not strictly monogamous) relationship with someone, so they don't like it when a rumor spreads that the roster will be resumed.

* LastStand: 126 Humans against 600 Taurans backed up by a cruiser. Then the cruiser got whacked by a rogue missile. After the final melee, it's closer to 28 Humans against 300 Taurans. To prevent another melee and eventual Tauran success they pull out the last nukes (not actual nukes, but they have a similar effect) and detonate them just outside the stasis field.

* MilitaryMoonshiner: Forms the basis of an entire underground economy on board Mandella's ship.

* RecruitersAlwaysLie: When Mandella and Marygay leave the military, they're told that they can return as instructors at their choice of location. They return and are assigned as instructors on the moon -- for about an hour, when they receive a ''re''assignment to combat duty.

* HopelessWar: The war's revealed to be this [[spoiler:for the Taurans]].%%How?

%%* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: At least in the beginning...

* CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit: In force but ultimatedly subverted. The soldiers get quadruple pay for being away in a combat zone for the equivalent of twenty years. At the end of their first tour Mandella and Potter are quite well off, and go on a spending binge. When they recuperate from lost limbs on Heaven several objective centuries later they live the high life (along with everyone else on Heaven, with over-inflated prices). [[spoiler: At the end of the novel, most other humans are clones in a group consciousness who do not use money, so all of their combat pay becomes worthless - but Marygay came back early enough to use hers and the pay of a few buddies to buy a ship.]]

* GayBestFriend: Charlie Moss, Mandella's executive officer.
** In a weird way, this is an inversion of the trope. By that point in human history, pretty much all humans are homosexual. So it's more the case that Mandella is Charlie's Straight Best Friend.

* TheSpartanWay: three recruits die in training on Earth. The survivors are sent to continue their training on a DeathWorld, Charon (not Pluto's moon, which had not been discovered when the novel was written, but a Pluto sized body orbiting half again as far from the Sun as Pluto), where the slightest mistake (or just bad luck) can be (and is) lethal, and any disobedience or insubordination is punishable with summary execution. The final test involves surviving a surprise attack with live missiles. [[spoiler: Not everyone passes.]]

* GenderNeutralWriting: When Mandella rejoins civilian life (the first time), he discovers people are now saying "tha" for he/she, "thim" for him/her, and "ther" for his/hers.

%%* TimeDilation

* BadassArmy: The soldiers all have an IQ of 150 or over, and physical fitness to match. They have survived (well, some of them have) a [[TheSpartanWay grueling]] training regimen on a DeathWorld, and are equipped with PoweredArmour and armed with high-powered lasers and tachyon grenades. Later recruits are genetically modified {{Super Soldier}}s with enhanced reflexes and intellect. Unfortunately, despite all this, they still have a casualty rate more in line with a RedShirtArmy.

* SchizoTech: No energy weapons can work inside the status fields so swords, quarterstaffs, arrows and throwing darts are used. Also happens due to TimeDilation when you might find yourself fighting alien technology from decades in your future, or vice versa.

* MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness: Varying. The mechanics of slower-than-light space-travel and space combats is diamond-hard. There's FasterThanLightTravel, but there are also a lot of conditions on it, and TimeDilation is a bitch. The work is also is very realistic about the Pluto-orbit-range planetoids much of the action takes place on, and the weakness in the super-powerful powered armor implied below is because the suits have radiators on their backs -- the effect of even a body-temperature radiator landing on a chunk of frozen gas is "like a hand grenade going off between your shoulders". They've also got "tachyon bombs" and a "tachyon drive" on their space ships that never seems to run out of fuel. In 1997. And then there's ESP, of course.

* WarIsHell: We're fighting them because they are fighting us because we are fighting them because... (not to mention the 50% plus death rate per mission)