History Series / AscensionMiniseries

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Weirdly averted. Especially strange as it's continuously noted how the people in Acension are stuck in a time without the effects of the Summer of Love or the Civil Rights Movement, and yet the society on Ascention is far more equal than it should be with that lack of social upheaval. Both black and female characters are shown as fairly sexually liberated and able to hold positions of power. While they are not as equal as their white male collegues, they are no where near as oppressed as they should be for a bunch of people whose values are still from the early 60s.

* HeKnowsTooMuch: Given the highly secretive nature of ''Ascension'', employees are "retired" via bullet to the head, and anyone who finds out that shouldn't is promptly killed.

* ValuesDissonance: Weirdly averted. Especially strange as it's continuously noted how the people in Acension are stuck in a time without the effects of the Summer of Love or the Civil Rights Movement, and yet the society on Ascention is far more equal than it should be with that lack of social upheaval. Both black and female characters are shown as fairly sexually liberated and able to hold positions of power. While they are not as equal as their white male collegues, they are no where near as oppressed as they should be for a bunch of people whose values are still from the early 60s.

* ValuesDissonace: Weirdly averted. Especially strange as the outsiders continously note how the people in Acension are stuck in a time without the effects of the Summer of Love or the Civil Rights Movement, and yet the society on Ascention is far more equal than it should be with that lack of social upheaval. Black characters are seen in positions of power, and women are fairly sexually liberated. While they are not as equal as their white male collegues, they are no where near as oppressed as they should be for a bunch of people whose values are still from the early 60s.

* TakeThat: The idea that ''Ascension'' could actually exist is mocked as ridiculous, on the grounds that the American government is far too incompetent to have successfully commissioned and hid such a project.

* SmugSnake: It's hard not to see Councilman Rose as anything but given his political acumen is almost nonexistent and amounts to repeating (mostly true) rumors.

* ReplacementGoldfish: Director Harris is in love with the ship's doctor despite the fact he's never met her. His obsession is deep enough he married a woman who physically resembles her and bestows upon her a locket stolen from her so he can pretend she's Doctor Bryce.

* FauxActionGirl: For someone supposedly ex-military, Samantha has a bad habit of getting her ass kicked.

* LingerieScene: In the very first scene of the first episode, we see Lorelei slip out of her dress and go for a swim in her lacy underwear. There is then a cut to her [[spoiler: lying dead on the beach]].

''Ascension'' is a [[SciFiChannel SyFy]] miniseries about an OrionDrive-powered ColonyShip secretly built by the United States at the height of [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar the Cold War]] to establish a settlement at [[UsefulNotes/LocalStars Proxima Centauri]]. The population is generally divided into two classes, the one living at the top of the ship in relative comfort, and the rest who are the ones who make the ship actually function. After 50 years without incident, one of the colonists is found murdered, and tensions begin to rise among the colonists.

* ArtificialGravity: Somehow, on a ship built using '60s technology, and with no visible handwaves such as centrifuges, a Earth-normal gravity environment exists. [[spoiler: The twist at the end of the first episode presents an obvious solution, but you would think that the ship's inhabitants might question this inconsistency... though given that there appears to be various super-tech aboard the ship, it's possible they ''think'' some other machine is producing the gravity. Or it could be that they believe they are under constant 1G acceleration along a vertical axis, even though Orion ships don't actually work that way and 1G acceleration would get the ship to Proxima in less than four years (ship time).]]

* XMeetsY: repeatedly described as "''MadMen'' [[InSpace IN SPACE!]]" in news articles.

* AmbiguouslyBi: Viondra has a threesome with Rose and Jackie but that could just be her playing politics. On the other hand in the scene where she tells Jackie she's fired for sexing her husband she then tells her to finish the massage and later Jackie still has her job. But since she suspects Jackie of being TheMole that could be just another gambit.

''Ascension'' was originally broadcast as three consecutive double-episodes, December 15-17, 2014, on Syfy. Canada's CBC played the series as six episodes, airing once weekly; and online streaming services display the series in the six episode format, each named after parts one and two of three distinct "chapters" in the show.

* AGodAmI: Harris has a serious case of this by Episode 2's end.

* TheReveal: A theme of the series, with each episode so far ending in one.
** First Episode: ''Ascension'' is actually [[spoiler:on Earth, its true purpose being an elaborate experiment designed to test how those within react to the idea of traveling to another world]].
** Second Episode: ''Ascension'' is actually [[spoiler: a SuperBreedingProgram designed to create PsychicPowers, which it has successfully done so at least once in 1983, and again with Christa in the modern day. That's why the computer chooses who to marry. The entire elaborate experiment was a cover story sold to make the government fund the program, meaning that there are two layers of lies above the truth: the lie to the inhabitants that they are in space, the lie to the government that the program will study the effects of a generation ship, and the truth that the entire program is simply a way to create controlled conditions for selecting markers to create PsychicChildren.]]
** Third Episode: Christa [[spoiler: can teleport people away -- possibly even across light-years of space to other planets (much to Gault's surprise). Harris implies this was the true aim of the project, and now they really can send people to other worlds.]]

* ArtificialGravity: Somehow, on a ship built using 60's technology, and with no visible handwaves such as centrifuges, a Earth-normal gravity environment exists. [[spoiler: The twist at the end of the first episode presents an obvious solution, but you would think that the ship's inhabitants might question this inconsistency... though given that there appears to be various super-tech aboard the ship, it's possible they ''think'' some other machine is producing the gravity. Or it could be that they believe they are under constant 1G acceleration along a vertical axis, even though Orion ships don't actually work that way and 1G acceleration would theoretically reach 99% of the speed of light within just a year or two.]]

* CabinFever: An actual medical condition all of the ''U.S.S Ascension'''s children suffer from. Called "The Crisis" it afflicts teenagers when they realize they have literally no hope of doing anything other than what's planned for them or ever visiting any place other than the one they grew up on.

* ColonyShip: The USS ''Ascension'', apparently of the GenerationShip flavor. [[spoiler: Though it's really more accurate to think of it as a time capsule, only containing people meant to perform a SuperBreedingProgram without their knowledge, apparently geared towards the production of PsychicPowers, with a practical side-effect of sticking geniuses in a tin-can and letting them invent without harassment and producing useful technology. Quite an efficient, if horrifying, project.]]

* {{Fanservice}}: The Stewardesses, especially Jackie and Viondra (who displays her bare behind in all three instalments[[note]]or three of the six instalments, if you're watching it that way[[/note]]).

* GeniusBreedingAct: The initial selection consisted of a large number of scientists, evidently to encourage this trope. [[spoiler: Numerous children were also abducted to help with a more unethical program--the creation of PsychicPowers.]]

* GraffitiOfTheResistance: "NO FUTURE". Used by the lower decks almost exclusively, it's not really just a resistance symbol; according to a lower deck character, it's also yelled whenever someone is asked why they did something wrong. The lower decks have a much less heroic view of what the Ascension is doing than their upper-deck counterparts, brought on by slugging through slime and mud to keep the machine working rather than sitting about politicking and pondering how great their sacrifice is. The same character even openly opines that the journey won't go anywhere, and that Ascension was just a way for corporations on earth to get paid off fifty years ago. [[spoiler: Given that ''Ascension'' never left and the corporation behind it all is indeed making money off the inventions made onboard, he's closer to right than he thinks.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: Captain Derringer is sleeping with multiple much-younger women. He resents the fact his wife is a madame, however, even if she's using her position for his benefit. It is implied it's only the possibility of ''her'' having sex with other men which bothers him. {{Justified}} as this is the Space Sixties.

* JerkassHasAPoint: The No Future group indicates they should all return to Earth before they cross a point they won't be able to do so. Given their knowledge of Proxima is incredibly limited, it seems quite likely they may be colonizing a world with none of the resources needed to sustain life indefinitely. [[spoiler: Not that they have ever ''left'' Earth.]]
* KickTheDog: Berringer obstructs the investigation of Lorelei's murder [[spoiler: because he was the one she had sex with the night she died.]]

* LipstickLesbian: Samantha Kreuger is one of the "chapstick" variety, to the degree that she even vaguely resembles a younger Ellen Degeneres.

* NeverTrustATrailer: [=SyFy=]'s trailers depict ''Ascension'' as a hard-SF generation-ship epic in the vein of Heinlein's ''Literature/OrphansOfTheSky''. [[spoiler:They contain no hint that the entire Ascension project is a sham, and it's really a science-fantasy about a government conspiracy to create a preteen girl with ESP.]] Many viewers complained of feeling bait-and-switched after the first double-episode.

** Third Episode: Christa [[spoiler: can teleport people away--possibly even across light-years of space to other planets (much to Gault's surprise). Harris implies this was the true aim of the project, and now they really can send people to other worlds.]]

* SecretKeeper: Harris Enzmann, one of the few on Earth who even know about the ''Ascension's'' existence.

* StalkerWithACrush: [[spoiler:Harris]] has long harbored a crush on ''Ascension's'' medical director, [[spoiler:going so far as to marry someone who looks similar and even have her necklace stolen so he can pretend his wife is her]]. He watches her constantly, and is implied to have done so since he and she were both children; it's one of many things that make him so incredibly creepy.

* That's because Christa [[spoiler: kills him with her powers. Watch at the point where both men vanish. You'll see the operative dissolve into a scatter of particles as Gault vanishes.]]

* UnitedSpaceOfAmerica: Not surprising, since the US built ''Ascension''. They recite an anthem adapted from the pledge of allegiance and use a modified US flag featuring a ring-like formation of stars.

* EternalSexualFreedom: Played with as the environment in the ship is stuck in the 1960s. However, due to the nature of the implants, women have near-perfect reproductive protection and causal sex has become more common. Some comments indicate promiscuity is still looked down upon, though.

** Another is in the people who planned the mission who thought to include a swimming pool shaped like a beach and a host of movies as well as books but forgot to include a police force or books on investigation.