History Literature / VattasWar

** One particularly JerkAss mole gets himself the death penalty by [[DisproportionateRetribution being rude]] towards Ky in a Cascadian court, [[WhatAnIdiot despite being familiar with the local laws]] [[TooDumbToLive and being warned repeatedly]].

* PoisonousFriend: [[spoiler:Lew Parmina]], who, under the guise of Garston Durbanger's best friend essentially gutted the man's company and left their home system wide open for the pirates. To his credit he seems [[PetTheDog genuinely kind and helpful]] to Ky's father during his first appearance in book one. This hurts Ky latter as it put her family in general, and her specifically, under suspicion.

* ProdigalHero: Rafe, who, due to having [[spoiler:murdered a man as a child]], and then negative influences of an awful therapist and a PoisonousFriend, ends up being branded the family BlackSheep and sent away, with remittance to keep him out of his home. He ends up returning and then saving his now grateful folks when they're [[spoiler:kidnapped]], then basically saving his home world from destruction.

* PlanetOfHats: Mostly averted. The two biggest examples are Cascadia, whose people are extremely courteous and way into [[NatureLover trees]], and Gretna, whose people are [[NoTranshumanismAllowed against modification]] and behave like [[SpaceJews White supremacists]] to all who don't look like themselves. Otherwise most planets are either Pro or Anti {{Transhuman}}.

* DitchingTheBodyguard: Rafe does this more than once after he takes the mantle of ISC, indicative both of his chafing at the position and of his skill at sneaking that guards would inhibit.

* PoisonousFriend: [[spoiler:Lew Parmina]], who, under the guise of Garston Durbanger's best friend essentially gutted the man's company and left their home system wide open for the pirates.

* ProdigalHero: Rafe, who, due to having [[spoiler:murdered a man as a child]], and then negative influences of an awful therapist and a PoisonousFriend, ends up being branded the family BlackSheep and sent away, with remittance to keep him out of his home. He ends up returning and then saving his ungrateful folks when they're [[spoiler:kidnapped]], then basically saving his home world from destruction.

* WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture: While some robots seem to exist, most general labor is done by humans. The people of Gretna Station use a [[TheCon scam]] of charging high rates for use of their station's air and docking charges while TheMark is resupplying, then attack them on their way out. The end result is they get back what you bought, your ship gets turned over to SpacePirates and they sell you as [[MadeASlave indentured labor]] on trumped up charges while keeping your money.

** Ransome's Rangers play this ''very'' straight at first, weirding out the rest of the characters. [[PlanetOfHats Their homeworld's hat]] is sudden and abrupt CharacterDevelopment; they cycle between various personality extreme, staing in one for a few months before the switch. Ransome and his friends are currently Romantics, while his parents are Irrationalists, which explains their behavious and ridiculous spending habits.

NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Rafe's cranial ansible ''was'' a prototype, but the scientists who made it were told it was a failure. This is due to ISC wanting to avoid anything that could ruin their monopoly.

* CategoryTraitor: Gretnans consider Lee - the only white member of ''Vanguard'''s crew - to be this, as he willingly associates with "Muddles" (AKA, the dark-skinned people).

* FantasticSlurs: The future equivalent of white supremacists are called Fishbellies by other people, while they themselves call dark-skinned people Muddles or mongrels.