History Literature / XeeleeSequence

In the far future, mankind expands out into a hostile universe, filled with intelligent species as [[StarfishAliens weirdly varied]] as they are [[AliensAreBastards ruthless]]. Above them all, however, are the top dogs of the universe: the Xeelee, the god-like de-facto rulers of the universe. The novels of the "sequence" follow various threads, such as Earth being invaded and occupied by bizarre aliens, or a hopeless war between mankind and the Xeelee, along with various other stories concerning humanity's place in a relatively bleak universe.

[[caption-width-right:349:The Yin to Doctor Who's Yang.]]

* FascistButInefficient: It is shown time and time again that the harsh conditions of the Coalition do not equal a well-run state. It is little more than the ghost of Hama Druz, a shell waiting to collapse, needs endless militarism and expands resources to keep its own control functioning. For related reasons, [[spoiler:the Coalition collapses almost immediately after the Xeelee withdrew from the galaxy]].

** On the flipside, the Sequence also heavily deconstruct the HumanAreWarriors trope. The [=ICoG=] and the Transcendence, two of the most well known and successful human polities, are treated as utterly unhinged, self-destructive and tyrannical. The Sequence is what happens when one use that trope and drive it to its own logical conclusion. Children are expanded as disposable flesh to the meat grinder. Girls from Mars are turned into [[Main/BreedingSlave Breeding Slaves]]. Any and all forms of resources and ingenuity are wasted on war, causing societal stagnation. All aspects of human joy and happiness are erased including the concept of family. ''Entire human sub-species are bred to commit mass suicide''. The Sequence shows that such a trope is nihilistic in its inherent self-destructive nature that should never, ''ever'' be praised.

* DestroyerDeity: spoiler:The ancestors of the Silver Ghosts venerated the pulsar that was destroying their sun, made it a god and called it 'Destroyer'.

** The term "photino bird" is one, as these creatures are obviously not birds, or even matter, at all.
** To the tiny Starfolk that inhabit the neutron star in which ''Flux'' takes place: "Air" is the neutron superfluid in which they live; "plants" and "animals" are, respectively, the sessile and mobile indigenous lifeforms of the star (the "plants" are in turn divided into "trees" and "grasses"); "wood" is the building material made from the "trees"; "leaves" are the edible appendages of the "trees"; "wheat" is the "grass" cultivated for food ("bread"); "air-pigs" are the main "animals" used as livestock; "air-boars" are the wild cousins of the air-pigs; and there are also "animals" called "spin-spiders" and "rays".
** The Squeem, the Titan fauna and the lifeforms of Beta are sometimes described as "fish", "spiders", "birds", "whales", "trees" or "lilies", despite being aliens that only physically resemble these animals and plants.
** ''Exultant'' uses terms as "plant", "animal", "fish", "bird", "insect" or "flower" to refer to the various types of lifeforms that inhabited the primordial universe, where atoms didn't even exist yet.

** Near the end of ''Ring'', Louise and Spinner visit the same neutron star as the setting of ''Flux'', and later, before [[spoiler:the ''Great Northern'' passes through Bolder's Ring, its crew has a brief glimpse at the alternate universe depicted in ''Raft'']].

* CreepyGood: [[spoiler:The human hive of Coalescents is basically a group of Roman Christians who unconsciously adopt eusocial reproduction patterns because of the hardships during the end of the Western empire, eventually evolving away from standard ''Homo sapiens''. They grew wealthy during centuries, and use most of that wealth for charity and educating those who would otherwise not recieve any education. Basically, they are really alien and creepy, but benevolent in their conscious goal (the unconscious one is, of course, preserving the hive).]]

** The planets located near the centre of the galaxy (like Base 478 in ''Between Worlds''), where, despite the absence of a sun, never knows night due to the heavy star density near the galactic core.

* GodIsEvil: [[spoiler:The ancestors of the Silver Ghosts venerated the pulsar that was destroying their sun, made it a god and called it 'Destroyer']].

* LongLived: No pharaoh is truly immortal; it's just that they couldn't foresee a time when they would die, and count their lives in tens of millennia or more. The most enduring of them, Luru Parz, lives for nearly 1 million year.

* TheNightThatNeverEnds: The end of ''Vengeance'': [[spoiler:Earth is moved into a new orbit in the Oort Cloud, where the sunlight is a million times as dim. Harry Poole even uses this exact phrase when describing the situation]].

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The bloodsuckers, who are out-of-control Martian Virtuals that learned to steal something far more precious to any Virtual than blood: processor time. There are rules that unnecessary programmes are eventually shut down, but the bloodsuckers can integrate other Virtuals into their own programming and steal their ration of processor capacity.

* SuperBreedingProgram: Garry Uvarov's eugenic program, which aims to improve the human stock by getting rid of late acting lethal genes, which normally could never be selected out of the gene pool because they only kill old bodies after they have reproduced. Uvarov orders his followers to live as hunter-gatherers in the sealed off forest, abandons Anti-Senescence treatments and bans reproduction before the age of 40, with this limit being steadily raised over the years. After eight centuries, the jungle folk's average lifespan goes up from 100 to 250, with the 80-year-old Arrow Maker being in the prime of life.

%%* ThatsNoMoon: Encountered by the humans during their mission to assassinate the Black Ghost:%%Quotes aren't context.
%%-->''The wall behind Hex's back suddenly gave way, and she was tipped onto the cold ground. When she looked up she saw that the "sandbags" were suspended in the thin air, heavy, rippling sacks swarming over her head. There must have been fifty of them, more. This "wall" had a been a reef of [[spoiler:ur-Ghosts]], huddled together.''

* [[{{TimeTravel}} Time Travel]]: The Sequence is ''THE'' quintessential hard sci-fi time travel epic with FTL-time machines and weaponised tactical and strategic foreknowledge. With 12 main books and 3 novel collections, the majority of which has time travel as its central theme, is anyone surprise?

** The Transcdence is no better, as they pretty much continued the Coalition's xenocidal campaigns on a much larger scale and have become so transhuman, that they no longer think in the same plane of human consiousness or morality; becoming just as alien as the aliens themselves.

* CosmicHorrorStory: Basically a Hard Sci-Fi take on the genre. See directly below for why.

* RetCon: In ''The Xeelee Flower'' (the very first story written in the series), the Xeelee seem like an advanced species somewhat similar to humans, having buildings, doors, rooms, handguns, and nightfighters have tiny hand-operated control panels. Later books (from ''Exultant'' onward) depict them as eldritch beings totally bound up with their technology (part spacetime defect symbiotes) such that one can't really distinguish between themselves and their technology.

* [[BabyFactory Baby Factory]]/[[BreedingSlave Breeding Slave]]: Possibly one of the most disturbing examples ever written into fiction. The Sequence is what happens when you objectify women down to its most logical conclusion. From the Coalescent human hives to the [[spoiler: deformed women-turned-vending-machines in the Mayflower II.]] It is going to suck being female in this hellscape.

* UncannyValley: In-universe. Rusel finds the [[spoiler:inbred, savage descendants of the [[WasOnceAMan Autarchs]]]], with their blank eyes and wizened-faced children, peculiarly disturbing.

* NauseaFuel: Just....anything that has to do with pregnancy and woman in these apocalyptic futures is enough to enter BrainBleach territory.

* {{Squick}}: Too many to count. But the most notorious examples include what happened in the Mayflower II [[spoiler: (turning women into biological vending machines and infants into meat rations)]] and posthumans living in what's left of the conurbations (breathing and swimming in literal oceans of shit).

* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: Thank you so much for discharging the star-disrupting gun right next to your own sun, [[spoiler: [[WhatAnIdiot Qax]]]]!

*** ''Guild of Engineers'': A guild whose primary purpose is to act as the manufacturing arm of the Coalition. Somewhat similar to the Ministry of Production, except that they most likely work under their rule. It is their job to ensure the production of weapons and the construction of projects to aid the Coalition in its war effort. It was formed during the early years of the Assimilation.

* EvilIsBigger: The Interim Coalition of Governance was the most dominant faction of the Milky Way Galaxy for 20,000 years, and these guys were downright monstrous. The Transcendence were even ''bigger'' and more ''powerful'', occupying an entire galactiv supercluster and was just as unhinged and deranged as the Coalition.

* {{TimeTravel}}: The Sequence is ''THE'' quintessential hard sci-fi time travel epic with FTL-time machines and weaponised tactical and strategic foreknowledge. With 12 main books and 3 novel collections, the majority of which has time travel as its central theme, is anyone surprise?

* {{BFG}}: An absurd example. But one of the standard issue weapons given to Green Army child soldiers of the Coalition are assault rifles that fires pellets that contain the raw mass-energy density of the ''Big Bang''. Ergo, one of the most common weapons in the Coalition are ''[[JustForFun/HolyShitQuotient Big Bang Rifles]]''. The reason why the whole universe ain't exploding ''with'' the force of the Big Bang is because all of that energy is condensed into shaped charge, so the resulting kinetic energy is focused into a point. And the crazy thing is? it is still as [[Main/NoSell useless as a stapler against Xeelee Construction Material.]] If ''that'' is not a statement on how overpowered the Sequence is, I don't know what is.

** Pirius and Commissary Nilis from Exultant may look like level-headed individuals. But that's only in comparison to the walking insane asylum that is the Coalition. Always remember that they are still part of a regime so absolutely evil and morally reprehensive that it will give the Daleks some pause for thought. They are still very much strong believers of Hama Druz and the Coalition's practices and are either directly or indirectly responsibly for an innumerable amount of war crimes. They may be portrayed as ALighterShadeOfBlack but they would still be considered as absolute racist, xenocidal, sadistic monsters by our standards.

** Pirius and Commissary Nilis from Exultant may look like level-headed individuals. But that's only in comparison the walking insane asylum that is the Coalition. Always remember that they are still part of a regime so absolutely evil and morally reprehensive that it will give the Daleks some pause for thought. They are still very much strong believers of Hama Druz and the Coalition's practices and are either directly or indirectly responsibly for an innumerable amount of war crimes. They may be portrayed as ALighterShadeOfBlack but they would still be considered as absolute racist, xenocidal, sadistic monsters by our standards.