History TabletopGame / TechInfantry

* AppliedPhlebotinum: Applied quite generously in the case of EarthFleet and the Tech Infantry itself.

* BadassArmy: The Tech Infantry would be if they weren't so incompentently led. Oh, they have the skills, vampires, werewolves, reality-warping mages, all in PoweredArmor, no less. But they have worthless leaders so they end up fighting each other half the time and the aliens the other. Which is a shame since each member carries enough heavy weapons to level an entire city.

* ThemeNaming: Many of the ships in EarthFleet are named by class according to certain themes: Cities, famous warships of the wet-navy past, war gods, battles, great military leaders, and so forth. The various Jurvain planets are named [[BilingualBonus in Korean]]. The planets of the Kingdom of Enoch are mostly named after very early characters in [[Literature/TheBible the Old Testament]].

* WeUsedToBeFriends: Arthur Clarke and Lwan Eddington were once squadmates and the best of friends. Then they were sent to rescue some civilian scientists from an AsteroidBase. When it came time to escape, they only had enough room in the surviving shuttles for the soldiers or the scientists, but not both. Lwan ordered the scientists executed so his soldiers could be saved instead. Clarke saw this (with good reason) as a MoralEventHorizon for Lwan, and never forgave him. Their feud would lead to the Second and Third Civil Wars, and ultimately to the destruction of the Earth Federation they both loved. In an Alternate Timeline, it even spoiled their best chance to restore the Federation, when a scientist with the plans for a new superweapon locked in his head was literally caught in the crossfire between them and killed. Lwan would later repent of his actions and spend the rest of his life WalkingTheEarth trying to find someone worthy to lead the Federation, while Clarke let his anger simmer and drive him to take over the Federation himself and rule it with an iron fist for 20 years.

* CloningBlues: Marko Vitek, and other SuperSoldiers created through Project Vitek.

* GirlInABox: An alliance between the new Internal Security service and the Raptors is sealed with the gift of the previous head of Internal Security's personal secretary, drugged and unconscious in a box.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Herbert Gergenstein, to all outward appearances a [[{{Nerd}} nerdy]] low-power mage and failed Tech Infantry soldier serving out the rest of his term of service in the Fleet, but who in actuality is a very powerful mage and an undercover agent for Internal Security. Later, Lwan Eddington hides as Tiller, a mercenary working for James Welthammer.

* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: Abdul Johnson and Rashid King, although their hairstyle was never established in canon.

* TropeOverdosed: Just look at this list!

* AliensAndMonsters: The Bugs and Hodraida are both.

* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: A bit of backstory borrowed from the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness: the collective beliefs of humankind shape the universe and create the reality we all share. So, when the political situation becomes so broken that everyone comes to believe they live in a CrapsackWorld, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. One character actually figured out a way to ''weaponize'' this fact of life, and use it with MindControl to force everyone to believe that the universe WAS a nice place to live, and thus [[YourMindMakesItReal make it so]], but was [[AuthorExistenceFailure killed]] before [[AbortedArc his plan could be put into action]].

* AntiHero: Erich Von Shrakenberg, William Bishop, and Andrea Treschi, among many others.
* AnyoneCanDie: And how!

* BadGuyBar: The Jade Flower, Emile's Pub, and The Rage.

* BeePeople: The Bugs.

* EvilAlbino: Admiral Voorheis subverts this trope mildly, being a fairly nice gal, despite being a corrupt political-military leader for an oppressive government.

* VillainSue: Andrea Treschi, Vin Dane, and (arguably) Erich Von Shrakenberg.

* KickTheDog: Andrea Treschi betraying the Frontier Worlds Territory and calling in the [=InSec=] battlecruisers to destroy the super-tank testing center from orbit. Some would call this his CrowningMomentOfAwesome.

In the year 2001, a large asteroid crash-landed in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. Out of the hollow asteroid poured an army of insect-like aliens quickly dubbed "The Bugs", killing and devouring everyone in their path. There was only one way to stop them. A mage named Bruce Von Eisenstein traveled to Brazil with a portable satellite uplink, set up the camera, and in front of the camera confronted the Alien Bug Queen...and attacked it openly using obviously supernatural magic. The resulting paradox backlash, as billions of people all over the world saw incontrovertible proof of the existence of aliens and magic, created a sudden surge of magical energy that exploded, killing Von Eisenstein and destroying the entire Bug invasion force, leaving Rio De Janiero as a smoking crater. The invasion was defeated and humanity saved, but the surge of magic also awoke from their slumber the milennia-old progenitors of vampire bloodlines, who rose up to resume their ancient blood feuds and compete for dominance. Millions of [[{{Muggles}} otherwise-unmagical humans]] were suddenly awakened with magical powers as well, and the resulting chaos [[TheUnmasquedWorld threw into the open]] the various ancient secret struggles for control between vampires, mages, werecreatures, and their various factions and sub-factions, all fighting for dominion over humanity. The resulting War of Gehenna lasted for decades, and when it was over, an uneasy peace was struck between the warring factions.

The clear winner, insofar as there was one, was the Technocracy, a group of scientifically-minded Mages who had previously tried to suppress knowledge of magic and thus weaken their magical opponents more than themselves. Technocracy-created starships would be built to spread humanity out among the stars, and track the Bugs back to their point of origin and destroy them. Vampires were exiled from Earth, to form their own Kingdom of Enoch on three worlds out on the rim of explored space. Werecreatures and Mages would be drafted into the Technocracy Infantry (known as Tech Infantry for short), and used to fight the Bugs and any other aliens encountered. The East Asian nations, whose local indigenous vampire clans and werewolf tribes had mostly sat out the War of Gehenna, refused to join the newly-created Earth Federation and submit themselves to Technocracy control, and an uneasy Cold War resulted. Eventually, the Eastern Bloc agreed to cede their territory on Earth to the Earth Federation in exchange for several planets on the opposite rim of explored space from Enoch, and the lengthy process of evacuating the Asian population to the new colony worlds began.

* AmusingAlien: The K'nes are a cross between the [[KnownSpace Kzinti]] and the [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Ferengi]], hypercapitalistic alien cats who are largely comic relief, when they're not being badass predators to remind us that they are not housecats.

* AmusingAlien: The K'nes are a cross between the [[KnownSpace Kzinti]] and the [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Ferengi]], hypercapitalistic alien cats who are largely comic relief, when they're not being BadAss predators to remind us that they are not housecats.

* ShoutOut: Many and varied, from ItsAWonderfulLife to Literature/TheDraka novels of S.M. Stirling.

* AuthorExistenceFailure: More like Author Attention-span failure. A couple of characters were killed off due to their authors dropping out of the project.

* TheFederation: Both played straight and subverted heavily, at various times, by the Earth Federation.

* {{Expy}}: Erich Von Shrakenberg is a male Literature/HonorHarrington crossed with his namesake from Literature/TheDraka works of S.M. Stirling. Maeve Harrington is a darker version of Honor Harrington as well. James Welthammer is basically [[StarWars Han Solo]]. Jason Monk and Andrea Treschi are based on FrederickForsyth and Anne Rice characters, respectively. Izzy D'Argent is a vampire cross between [[Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory Willy Wonka]] and WaltDisney.

* {{Expy}}: Erich Von Shrakenberg is a male Literature/HonorHarrington crossed with his namesake from Literature/TheDraka works of S.M. Stirling. Maeve Harrington is a darker version of Honor Harrington as well. James Welthammer is basically [[StarWars Han Solo]]. Jason Monk and Andrea Treschi are based on FrederickForsyth and Anne Rice characters, respectively. Izzy D'Argent is a vampire cross between WillyWonka and WaltDisney.

* NaughtyTentacles: Horadrim in human form can still further reshape their human form to extrude tentacles for various purposes, from snaking under closed doors and unlock them from the other side, to sexual purposes in one memorable and {{squick}}-inducing shower scene.

* {{Expy}}: Erich Von Shrakenberg is a male Literature/HonorHarrington crossed with his namesake from TheDraka works of S.M. Stirling. Maeve Harrington is a darker version of Honor Harrington as well. James Welthammer is basically [[StarWars Han Solo]]. Jason Monk and Andrea Treschi are based on FrederickForsyth and Anne Rice characters, respectively. Izzy D'Argent is a vampire cross between WillyWonka and WaltDisney.

* ShoutOut: Many and varied, from ItsAWonderfulLife to TheDraka novels of S.M. Stirling.

* DoomsdayDevice: The 3D weapon, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: A Dooms Day Device, a weapon that can cause a sun to go supernova. Used to end the Vin Shriak War in backstory, conveniently offscreen. Weapons capable of destroying a planet are depressingly common, mostly involving Kinetic Interdiction Strikes by starships moving at near light speed or gigantic asteroids plucked out of orbit and dropped on an enemy world.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Herbert Gergenstein, to all outward appearances a [[{{Nerds}} nerdy]] low-power mage and failed Tech Infantry soldier serving out the rest of his term of service in the Fleet, but who in actuality is a very powerful mage and an undercover agent for Internal Security. Later, Lwan Eddington hides as Tiller, a mercenary working for James Welthammer.