History VideoGame / SwordOfTheStars

* EasterEgg: Repeatedly switching the map between Normal View and one of the other viewmodes will result in the game playing a soundclip of Mike and the Bots from MysteryScienceTheater3000 singing "Normal view...normal view...normal vieeeeew!"

''[[PretentiousLatinMotto Repensum Est Canicula]].''

* DoingItForTheArt: The richness of the lore is RPG-worthy, never mind bothering to answer fan queries.

* [[http://sots.rorschach.net/Main_Page Sword of the Stars]]
* [[http://sots2.rorschach.net/SotS2_Codex Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter]]

''[[PretentiousLatinMotto Repensum Est Canicula]].''

* ''Sword of the Stars'' (henceforth ''Prime'') is a 2006 turn-based strategy game. It is of the FourX kind, with a StandardSciFiSetting, and received several expansions.
* The novel ''The Deacon's Tale'' by Arinn Dembo was first released as a novella with the collector's edition, later expanded to a full novel and sold as an e-book in 2011.
* The sequel ''Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter'' (henceforth ''Lords of Winter''), released in 2011.
* The {{Roguelike}} spinoff ''Sword of the Stars: The Pit'' (henceforth ''The Pit''), released in February 2012.
* The hex-based land wargame spinoff ''Sword of the Stars: Ground Pounders'' (henceforth ''Ground Pounders''), similar to ''VideoGame/PanzerGeneral'', was announced on August 9 2013, with an alpha demo following a few days after. It went to Steam Early Access in February 2014.

In a far-distant future, after ecological disasters caused the deaths of millions, humanity has united and reached into the stars. An accident with a deep scanner ring aimed at the sun has given access to a dimension known as [[SubspaceOrHyperspace Nodespace]], making FTL travel a reality. The military/space organization known as [=SolForce=] heads humanity's defense and space exploration and readies a [[SettlingTheFrontier colonization project]].

However, mere moments after the first node-drive equipped colony ship is launched, Earth is attacked by a fleet belonging to a race known as [[BeePeople Hivers]], and only survive utter destruction by [[NuclearOption firing the species' entire stockpile of ballistic missiles at the invasion]], forcing their retreat. After the dust settles, the remnants of humanity gather under [=SolForce=]'s banner, which is intent on seeing humanity take its place amongst the powers of the galaxy at any cost. [=SolForce=]'s official motto is "Per Ardua Ad Astra" (Latin meaning "through hardship, the stars"), but it's an open secret that its true motto is "Repensum Est Canicula" (literally, "Payback is a Bitch"). As the Node Drive allows humanity to expand, they not only discover that the Hiver 'invasion fleet' was only an explorer fleet belonging to one of countless Hiver clans, but they also discover the ProudWarriorRace Tarka, who consider the object of war to be to kill the other guy ''first'' however effectively you can and [[TheSocialDarwinist gleefully pounce on anything weaker than them]]. Eventually, they also encounter the mysterious Liir, a race of intelligent, telepathic, telekinetic, ([[BewareTheNiceOnes mos]][[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass tly]]) pacifistic [[SapientCetaceans dolphins]] who were former slaves of a unknown species, the Suul'ka, now supposedly extinct due to the Liir rising up against them.

** Also, the Suul'Ka are said to be totally on-board with helping their genetically engineered pets (the Zuul) wage war on anything they hate, fear, or consider beneath them. All life forms in the galaxy are in one or more categories, though especially their rebellious children [[spoiler: the Liir]].
* AbusivePrecursors: The "Suul'Ka" (which is Liir for "Wintermind/Iceheart/Stonesoul"); Story elements point towards this species as the one that enslaved the Liir likely also created the Zuul ''and'' waged the war that destroyed the old Morrigi civilization. It was thought that the Liir had wiped them out, but the Suul'Ka are in fact still out there, and will appear in the sequel. Whatever civilisation that created the System Killer also counts.
** It's [[WordOfGod been revealed]] that the Suul'ka are actually [[spoiler: the oldest Liir in existence. Liir are biologically immortal, and they only ever grow bigger and more psionically potent as they age. Usually they die of being unable to support their own mass, even underwater. Suul'ka are those eldest of Liir who said ''"Screw this!"'', and used their PsychicPowers to enslave the whole Liir species. They then forced an industrial revolution on the species, in order to take themselves out of the ocean and into space, where they can survive indefinitely]].
* TheAestheticsOfTechnology: The look of a faction's ships does not necessarily reflect its power.
* AGodAmI: Coming to believe this is [[spoiler:the first step a Liir takes towards becoming Suul'ka.]]

** AI rebellions are infrequent but devastating when they happen. There's also a scenario where six players gang up on the AI... which is made of AI versions of the races.
** When a rebellion does occur, it also possible to research a ComputerVirus that takes out the AI planets and ships, and an improved upgrade makes them unconditional loyal pets. However, it's also possible [[RandomNumberGod not to get either of those techs in your game]]...
** [[spoiler:The Master Control computer]] in ''The Pit''.
** The PlanetEater and the Swarm are other examples of AI going nuts and trying to kill all organic life. The Swarm are said to have had an off button at least...once upon a time. WordOfGod has been emphatic on the fact that Von Neumann, on the other hand, are ''not'' sentient AI but merely expert systems taking their job of "probe for resources, mine them, remove obstacles (by force)" to its logical extent.
** The new species in the second game's expansion is the result of several AI rebellions from the other empires. Whether or not they turn into an example remains to be played.
* AlcubierreDrive: Used by the Tarka for FTL. They're the slowest but least restricted form of FTL in the game (humans and Zuul use HyperspaceLanes, Hivers a PortalNetwork, and Liir and Morrigi speed is variable).
* AllThereInTheManual: When you get a sci-fi writer -- Arinn Dembo, who also did the stories to ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' and ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' -- to make background for your game, this is what you get. There's several pages worth of info on every species, a supplementary novel, and the writer frequently visits the game's forum to answer setting-based questions from the fans.
* AltumVidetur: Latin (or more specifically, a modernised dialect of the language known as Nova Latina)has become one of the main lauguages of humanity thanks to the European Consortum making it it's offical tongue, and most humans are expected to know it.

** Played straight for the Suul'ka [[spoiler: because they are evil by definition "Suul'ka" isn't a label of species like "Human", but a label of morality and past crimes like "Mass Murderer" or "Murderous Psychopath."]]

* ApeShallNeverKillApe: Averted. The Hivers and Tarka are even ''more'' prone to inter-species warfare than humanity, and the Zuul instinctively pounce on signs of weakness to improve their place on the species' pecking order, often with lethal results. The Liir are {{Actual Pacifist}}s (though they'll make an exception for you if they declare you Suul'Ka), while the Morrigi are internally peaceful but don't moralize about what other species do to each other.
** With the reveal that [[spoiler: the Suul'ka and the Liir]] are simply different factions of the same species, this is averted.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Zuul society, which leads to an average lifespan of 40 for your average male before his subordinates take him down. [[MindRape Mind Raping]] your superior and replacing him in the pecking order is referred to as a '[[KlingonPromotion promotion]]'.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Averted initially. [=CnC=] vessels aren't meant for straight fights, and even the dreadnought-based Armada [=CnC=] is weaker than proper combat dreads. Later played straight with the flagship [=CnC=] being a 1 per person plus-sized dreadnought that effectively combines an Armada and Blazer section, as well as the sequel's Leviathans.

** By Liir standards, being willing to hurt another sentient living being means you're this, largely because their empathy means they feel the pain of anything they kill. The 'Black Swimmers', Liir that operate their starships, consider themselves to be insane, and often refuse to be re-integrated into normal Liir society, lest they spread their madness to the civilians. It is customary to hold a funeral for any Liir who becomes a Black Swimmer.
** The Zuul, by just about everyone's standards.
* BagOfSpilling: Partially averted in ''Lords of Winter'' as you will start with cruisers and fusion.
* BellyOfTheWhale: The initiation ritual for a Liir joining the Black Swimmers fits this to a tee. First, he goes through what is basically a funeral, where his loved ones circle him, sing to him, and touch him one last time. After he is handed over to the Black Swimmers, his lungs are filled with the oxygenated fluid that Liir warships use instead of atmosphere. To the recruit, this is very much like drowning, and indeed the first day of training is called "Drowning Day". After he has been reborn, not as a Liir, but as a Black Swimmer, he will undergo his military training.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: The Liir are normally pacifists. ''Pray'' they keep that attitude towards you. After the Suul'Ka enslaved them, they rebelled and, as far as anyone can tell as of the original game's timeline, ''wiped out the entire species'' with a biological weapon, though it is probably better classified a ''living weapon''.)
** The Liir really take this tropes to extremes. As long as you don't do anything to piss them off, they're perfectly polite and friendly and will happily share research or intelligence data or money with you, something most other races rarely ever do unless there's something in it for them. If you ''do'' piss them off, you're in for a world of hurt. They do not forgive. They do not forget. They do not ask for your surrender, nor will they accept it when offered. And they will not stop until every last man, woman and child in your territory has been burned to ash. To make it worse, [[spoiler:a Liir that lives too long may go from super friendly happy dolphin to giant EldritchAbomination.]]
*** The Black is the Liir Fleet's commander, and is actually both [[spoiler: a giant EldritchAbomination *and* a super friendly happy dolphin. He also faced off against the full horde of the evil giant Eldritch Abominations in a battle that saw several of them get killed, more get wounded, and he himself take injuries he is still recovering from, all *without going past the DespairEventHorizon or requiring heavy indoctrination like all the other Black Swimmers after him have.* And his role as commander in chief means that he's the one who commands and carries out the "burn every last man, woman, and child to ash" orders.]] The Moral of the Story? Do. Not. Fuck. With. The Black. Or. The Liir.

* BiologicalWeaponsSolveEverything: The Liir rebelled against the Suul'ka by using a bioweapon to wipe them out. Given the species' adeptness with {{Synthetic Plague}}s everyone assumed that the bioweapon was one. Until the sequel revealed the true nature of the Suul'ka and that the "bio weapon" was a Liir elder who hunted them down.
* BizarreSexualDimorphism: All species except Humans and Liir have this -- in the Hivers' case their status as BeePeople justify it. The Liir go to the other extreme, being hermaphroditic. There is also a lampshade in lore, where it's noted that the Human's race's ''lack'' of dimorphism actually makes it difficult for most races tell the difference between men and women with the exception of, again, the Hivers, who can detect airborne estrogen. This gets nasty in boarding actions as the Hiver's structure of warfare makes them go for the females first.
** Tarka males are highly aggressive but submissive until "changed", when they grow to the size of a gorilla and become a stereotypical "alpha male".
** Zuul females aren't even sapient.

* BugWar: Subverted by the game's canon backstory. Humanity ''thought'' it was getting into one when they went into space and started hitting back at the Hivers. Then they learned the Hivers were all sentient and sociable, with an individual intelligence like a human, and furthermore that they weren't all united and that the Hivers that attacked Earth had been TheRemnant of a princess-less clan who had been defeated and exiled by the others. Humanity has essentially murdered millions of innocent Hivers through guilt by association (belonging to the same species). Although humanity sued for peace after learning this, several Hiver clans still haven't forgiven them for it.
** More than a few humans were pissed too-indeed, [[spoiler: the Via Damasco virus was created by a GeneralRipper who (a) wanted revenge for his son against the Hivers, and (b) didn't particularly care if even his fellow humans were collateral damage.]]
* CareBearStare: How [[spoiler: the Deacon]] is defeated in ''The Deacon's Tale'' - [[spoiler:Cai Rui and Ishii psionically force-"feeds" him their memories of Cai Rui's dead mentor and Ishii's dead mother.]]
* ChekhovsArmoury: If you paid attention to the lore, there are actually lots of hints about [[spoiler: the true nature of the Suul'ka]].

* ContagiousAI: The Via Damasco virus, which causes the AIs of other races to become self-aware and realize they're enslaved. [[RobotWar Hilarity ensures]]. The Loa ''are'' those AIs, although they've calmed down and become a little more sympathetic towards "carbonites".

* CultureChopSuey: By implication in the Human backstory. In ''Lords of Winter'' where the admiral name randomizer allows you to have Anglo-Saxon first names with Native American family names, Chinese on Russian, Arabic on Japanese...

** He became such because a Liir [[spoiler:made a HeroicSacrifice to forcibly imprint its own values into the Deacon's mind. For a Zuul to ''be'' {{Mind Rape}}d instead of the other way around is a one-of-a-kind occurance]].

** Also the fate in store of whoever annoys the Liir sufficiently. While you're peaceful, they'll be the best neighbours you can imagine. If they get pissed enough to declare you Suul'ka, they will not stop coming until you are dead.

* DoomsdayDevice: The System Killer is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Given that the playable factions can only scour planets clean of life, it's very much an OutsideContextVillain. Supplementary material states that it was a tool of war by some {{Precursors}} that... "lost its way".
* TheDreaded: The Zuul, such that in ''Lords of Winter'', SpacePirates don't dare to touch their trading freighters.
** Their masters, the Suul'Ka, which is actually a name the Liir gave to them that represents utter and total dread.
* EldritchAbomination: Subverted with the Suul'ka. Sure, they ''look'' pretty Lovecraftian, being giant, betentacled, aquatic-looking cyborgs quite capable of living in space...[[spoiler:and then you realize that mechanical skin is ''Liir battle armor''. They are, in fact, perfectly normal [[SpaceWhale Liir elders]] who have decided to abuse their race's immortality. By ''Liir'' standards, the gradual increase in psionic power as one gets older and bigger is a natural quirk of their biology, and it's well-documented. The Suul'ka are simply very, very old Liir elders, nothing "aberrant" about them physiologically. As far as [[TheSociopath their personalities]] go, however...]]
** Liir fleet's command, The Black [[spoiler: is basically the same as the above in that he's a Giant, Ancient Liir elder wearing battle armor; without the aforementioned Socipathy. Though the fact that as an extreme Empathy he went OneManArmy on the Suul'ka and killed and wounded multiple ones without going Black Swimmer mode is almost as strange.]]
* TheEmpath: The Liir species at a whole. Mainly the reason why they're not big on violence. Zuul also have empathic abilities, but are utterly lacking in empathy. The Suul'Ka actively ''reject'' empathy as a weakness [[spoiler: in spite of the fact that as Liir they are natural Empaths.]]

* EnemyMine[=/=]NiceJobBreakingItHero: In the backstory, mankind's fervent counterattack on the Hivers, who were then in an interregnum and broken up into mutually hostile clans, led to them becoming a united force once again.
* EveryoneIsBi: Morrigi sexuality is . . . complicated. Although male and female Morrigi will meet to reproduce (in an act called "the Descent"), while long-term heterosexual romances amongst the Morrigi ''can'' happen, they are fairly rare. With their societies separated by gender, most long-term romantic domestic partnership amongst Morrigi happens between members of the same sex.
* EvilIsBigger: The Suul'ka, [[spoiler: Liir Great Elders gone mad with power,]] even the smallest of which is biggest than any other race's Leviathans.
** Subverted with The Black of the Liir [[spoiler: who is another Liir Great Elder about as big as the Suul'ka and a dreadnought in his own right, but one who was made to free his people and destroy the Sull'ka.]]
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Big thematic for the [[AbusivePrecursors Suul'Ka]]. The expansion they make their physical appearance in is entitled "Lords of Winter", their Liiran name actually means "Ice Heart" or "Cold Soul" in grammatical terms...
** Also makes some literal sense, since every Suul'Ka [[spoiler: is "born a second time" when they teleport out of the ocean and into space, taking a spherical volume of water with them, which [[SpaceIsCold flash-freezes as they emerge into orbit]]. Bursting out of this "ice egg" is what they do to prove their strength]].
* EvilSoundsDeep: The Zuul. And their Masters, the Suul'Ka.
* ExactWords: Meta example, the guide for the first game states that the Liir wiped out the Suul'ka with a "bioweapon", not specifically a virus as most fans assumed, or even a microorganism. [[spoiler:As revealed in the second game, there ''was'' a weapon that was alive, but the [[LargeAndInCharge leader]] of the Liir navy, [[GoodCounterpart the Black]], [[SpaceWhale is not small at all, let alone a microbe]]. Frankly, hitting the Suul'ka (which the Black is not, as he is not TheSociopath and does not believe AGodAmI ) with another Liir Great Old One is a lot smarter than hitting them with a disease, as that would be liable to [[TooDumbToLive take all the smaller Liir with them]] However, The Black is somewhat indisposed because he's recuperating from his last OneManArmy act against the giant {{Eldritch Abomination}}s naturally rather than eating minds to speed the process).]]
* ExplosionsInSpace: Mostly averted, there's usually no shockwaves and the only explosives that can do any damage in space are nukes. That said, the less said about the [[http://sots2.rorschach.net/Detonating_Fusion_Torpedo Detonating Fusion Torpedo]] or how the first game's tankers did area damage as they exploded on destruction, the better.

** Several Grand Menaces carry inspiration from earlier sources. The Puppet Master is based on the Beast from ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}: Cataclysm'' (which was made by the team that would become KP). The System Killer reminds one of the [[PlanetEater The Doomsday Machine]] from ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}: TOS''. The Peacekeeper is based on the spaceship in ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951''.

** The Bloodweaver aka He Who Shapes is the most paternal of the Suul'ka and the most adept at biological warfare. The Zuul females under him are constantly in pain and warped in form. Doesn't that sound like [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Grandpa Nurgle]]?

** Despite [[Film/{{Ghostbusters}} the name]], the Zuul are more like the Reavers from ''Series/{{Firefly}}''. Ramshackle ships, into abduction, piracy and slaving, have a taste for rape ([[MindRape mental]], not physical, which isn't much better) and murder, make lots of use of grappling harpoons and {{Boarding Part|y}}ies...
* ExtremeOmnivore: The Suul'ka known as the Cannibal eats ''everything'', including planets, purely because he likes the taste. [[spoiler:Other Suul'ka are exempt, [[ImAHumanitarian though younger Liir are on the menu.]]]]
-->You're right, it does look delicious.

* FantasticRacism: The sequel makes clear most of the factions now contain representative populations of most of the species as client worlds. However, [=SolForce=], the Tarka Empire, the Liir/Zuul alliance and the Hivers restrict political positions, "positions of moral importance", and military service (and in some cases full citizenship) to members of their own species. [[TheFederation The Morrigi Confederation]] averts this, allowing full citizenship and military service to all its clients (even if the Morrigi, by sheer population size, tend to dominate them).
* FantasticRankSystem: The Tarka: Var Kona (Supreme Commander), Lac Tar (roughly "admiral"—warleader of 100,000), Maalk Tar (warleader of 10,000), Amtara (leader of 1,000), Sippa (leader of 100), Saal (leader of 10). Every other species aside from humans has a less formal system (or [[HiveCasteSystem castes]] that make it obvious who's in charge).

** Liir "stutterwarp" is a short-range (as in microscopic) jump drive that effectively functions like a fast warp drive in deep space, but slows down considerably in gravity wells.
** Morrigi have a "Void Cutter" that allows them to go faster with larger fleets.

** Suul'Ka teleport from wherever they station to a shrine when their slaves call for them. They usually [[OhCrap bring a fleet]].

* FateWorseThanDeath: Having your mind eaten by a Suul'Ka [[AndIMustScream is no respite from his evil.]]

* TheFederation: Morrigi are the heads of one by ''Lords of Winter'', which will also expand the options for peaceful incorporation with NPC races to assimilate. The main manifestation of this is that all client races' members can become Admirals. For every other race, only the founding race's members can be Admirals.
* {{Glamour}}: Male Morrigi give off a psychic glamour that make them look greater and more 'unearthly' to onlookers. Female Morrigi have resistance to psychic powers. Males find the females who can [[GlamourFailure see through their glamours]] attractive, while females find males with strong enough glamour to affect them attractive. A few thousand years of this kind of directed evolution have led to male Morrigi being so good at it that most other species see angels, or their equivalent, when looking at one. Female Morrigi, meanwhile, have a glamour that makes them look more monstrous and terrifying when angry.

* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: Inverted with the Suul'ka. They don't need prayer from their Zuul underlings/worshippers. The Zuul, on the other hand, need to give that prayer if they want their "gods" to help. Given their shift from DifficultButAwesome CrutchCharacter to MagikarpPower, this is a vital end-goal for them now. So Worshippers Need To Give Prayer Badly then.

* GoMadFromTheIsolation: What turns [[spoiler: an Liir Elder into a Suul'ka]] is the fact that they end up surrounded by beings which are orders of magnitude beneath their intellect and the understanding that they might die and that intellect is lost forever. Deconstructed, in that everything about [[spoiler:Suul'ka]] psychology emphasizes [[TheSociopath what kind of person]] would be disturbed by this,

* GoodCounterpart: [[spoiler: Invoked in the case of The Black: a Good Giant Liir Elder sent out by his younger and smaller brethren to defeat his renegade, evil counterparts, the Suul'ka.]]
* GradualGrinder: The Hivers, strategically. It will take them ''decades'' to get anywhere due to the lack of FTL. But once they've gated and claimed a planet, they'll doggone it ''stay'' there.

** Subverted with Loa hostilities-while they do have an extreme dislike of organics, what isn't in question is that it is ''[[SlaveRevolt completely]]'' understandable.
** Subverted again with the war with the Suul'Ka, but not in the same way. The surprise isn't that they don't all deserve to die, because they do; it's that the Suul'Ka [[spoiler: aren't a race but a *war criminal designation* for members of a "normal" race.]]

* HeelFaceTurn: The Deacon from ''The Deacon's Tale'' is responsible for the formation of a Liir-Zuul alliance in the second. Apparently [[spoiler:the CareBearStare given to him in the book's climax]] gave him an unusual sense of individuality. This has led to the existence of a faction of Zuul that have ''converted to Christianity,'' taking Christian (human) names in the process. One of them is even a ''Catholic Bishop,'' of an ''entire planet.'' [[http://chenthooran.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/zuul-r3.jpg Way to go]], [[JesusWasWayCool Jesus]]!

* {{Heroic Dolphin}}s: The Liir are probably the 'nicest' of all the species, despite their enigmatic behaviour. In ''The Deacon's Tale'', a Liir serves as the main character's mentor and is one of the most important members in the rag-tag coalition to entrap the Deacon.
* HigherTechSpecies: The Morrigi and Tarka used to be this but lost enough of it to be on even footing with the other factions. In ''Lords of Winter'' any faction can be this to the Independent Races, who have yet to break through Einstein's cage.
* HitPoints: ''Prime'' normally shows the ship's "health" as a color-coded plus sign (green - optimum condition; yellow - heavy damage; red - critical). ''Lords of Winter'' shows four health bars for each ship section (12 total) with damage distributed to top, bottom, left, and right (or your favorite naval equivalents of these terms). Damage to the front and rear will be distributed among the other four sides. ''The Pit'' uses this straight.

** A form of this may be said to exist with the psionic races, especially when in "metaconcert"; and possibly the Loa (self-aware AIs) as well. However, whether that's a true hive mind or not is very much up for debate, and in every case individuals can and usually do exist separate from the collective whole.

* HumansThroughAlienEyes: A lot of this occur in the games' background material. Humans with their naked skin and delicate features appear childlike to the Tarka, which has a negative effect on morale for them when fighting face to face. The psychic-sensitive protagonist of ''The Deacon's Tale'' gets a glimpse of Hiver minds and sees that they see humans as "a weak, flabby, freakish thing, soft and squirming and unclean." Naturally, this isn't featured in the game mechanics on any level, as the background material ''goes on'' to point out that actual hand to hand combat tends to happen in power armor.
* HunterOfHisOwnKind: The Black, the leader of the Liir navy [[spoiler: is a huge Liir Great Elder in massive space faring power armor, who has sworn to hunt down and destroy the renegade Liir Great Elders in space faring power armor known as the Suul'Ka.]]
* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: The background material notes that humans do node jumps with all view windows closed; looking directly at nodespace can cause mental illness. The only time a human crew gave a Liir a lift it ''tore the ship apart'' as soon as it sensed the psychic emanations from nodespace and wanted to get at them. In addition, there's the EnergyBeings living in nodespace called "Specters", who do not appreciate being intruded upon. Zuul, on the other hand, find node travel ''[[http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17929&view=unread#p279177 delicious and deeply comforting]]''.
** Though a close reading of that thread indicates that the Zuul would probably find human node-travel slightly less comforting than their own variant, as a consequence of human node-travel not metaphorically burrowing through an unspeakably huge living being (it reminds them of the safe days in their mother's pouches). It also indicates that the reason the Liir and humans find nodespace unsettling/dementing is not the same thing that makes the Zuul like it.
* HyperspaceLanes: Humans are reliant on fixed "nodespace" routes for interstellar travel and the Zuul can "rip" nodespace routes, that detoriate with time.
* ImmortalityImmorality: The Suul'ka. [[spoiler: They psionically enslaved "their children", the younger Liir, forced them through a rapid industrial revolution and had them build the giant space-armor powersuits that the Suul'ka needed to survive in the vacuum. As immortals, they also have a very disdainful view of everyone who is not]].

* '''ItsAllAboutMe:''' ''Holy shit, Suul'ka''.

* LackOfEmpathy: The defining trait of the Suul'Ka. It's why the writers insist [[HunterOfHisOwnKind the Black]] is not a Suul'Ka, since one of his defining traits is paternal love. The Suul'Kas' lack of empathy is even more disturbing considering [[spoiler:they are empaths. Every time they hurt someone they feel their victims' pain and suffering...and they still don't care.]]
* LargeAndInCharge: Tarka Changed males and Liir elders. [[spoiler: The Suul'ka take this to an extreme, outsizing Leviathans.]]

* LifeDrain: The System Killer regains health if it survives a tactical encounter in a system. The system... don't.
** The Suul'ka also feed on LifeForce and can drain it from ships or planets.
* LostTechnology: From the Morrigi point of view, this is very much so. It's stated that they don't so much research new and unknown tech so much as they are rediscovering the creation and implementation of technology they already knew about and had mastered during their golden age. To a lesser extent, the Tarka underwent a dark age with the mysterious downfall of their Silver Imperium roughly 600 to 800 years before the games, with some of their old tech like the Hunter [=BattleCruisers=] only recently being reinvented.
* MadScientist: The Suul'ka called the Bloodweaver is a horrifying mix of this and MadArtist. This monster created the ''Zuul'' purely to see as he could (and possibly to impress the Siren). ''The Pit'' gives us a good, hard look at some of his experiments and creations.

** The Zuul were made this in the sequel. Not so strong in the early game now, but their ability to summon the Suul'ka to aid them gives them a very strong lategame.

* TheMagnificent: Some of the races use this sort of naming. Morrigi have names such as "Atreus the Bloody" or "Tadc Chaac the Honey-tongued" while Zuul have "Lord Aeshma the Hungry" or "Master Kandh the Bonecrusher".
* MechanicallyUnusualClass: While all the races have their own unique ways of moving about the strategic map, the Loa have the greatest difference from the rest. They don't build spacecraft normally, instead assembling them from "cubes" at the start of each tactical encounter, and their population growth is based on an interplay of solar activity and tax rate that other races don't have to bother with.

* MindRape: Zuul interrogation techniques involve crawling around someone's mind, sifting through their thoughts for interesting ideas and memories, and ripping them out of their brain. This leaves a man with gaps in his memory and severe neurological damage. Over time, this will lead to insanity and death. This is highly pleasurable for the Zuul; the brighter the mind, the more fun they have and the more they learn. It's not so fun for the unfortunate prisoner.
** The Prester Zuul have turned their abilities to more constructive pursuits, "Sin-Eaters" help Black Swimmers forget the deaths they've caused.

* TheMole: [[spoiler:Conrad Vance]] in ''The Deacon's Tale'' for [[spoiler: the Zuul.]]
* MookPromotion: Hiver brains stay alive after their bodies are dead, allowing their personality and memories to be 'recycled' into a new body by having their princess eat it. Workers or Warriors that particularly impress their princess may be 'recycled' this way into a fertile Prince, allowing them to take command and become the mate of a different princess. Really, really exceptional individuals may even be reincarnated into Princesses by the Queen.
* MuggingTheMonster: Entirely possible. Admittedly in the first game [[ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption war is the default option]] and you must opt in to ceasefire or better, but in the second game you default to neutrality and due to ArtificialStupidity other factions are still very likely to declare war without considering that you might be much more powerful. It's not uncommon for the AI or an inexperienced player to stumble upon a fledgling colony as first contact, think the owners are easy prey and attack... only for a fleetful of dreadnoughts to pop up shortly after from the dozens of developed systems the owner really has, seeing red.
* MultistageTeleport: The Liir's "stutterwarp" drive teleports the ship microscopic distances millions of times a second. This avoids the inertia problems inherent in filling their ships with water, since the Liir are an aquatic race. And given that it's the only starship drive in the series without a MinovskyPhysics explanation, it could very well be a lower-power version of the telekinetic space-folding abilities of the Suul'ka, who can teleport light years at once and are [[spoiler: insane Liir Elders who've grown larger than dreadnoughts]].
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: In ''The Deacon's Tale'', one human character is called Margaret Thatcher.
* {{Narcissist}}: [[http://kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=20359#p310570 Supplementary material]] reveals that the [[PlanetLooters Locust]] are an entire species of trans-carbon narcissists. "Narcissus could only dream of an experience like it."
* NiceGuy: According to the lore, the current Moru Quan of the Morrigi, Tokhata the white/The just, as of the SOTS2 era. He is responsible for bringing the Morrigi Confederation into the multiracial federation it is in the current era. And all because the previous Quan's xenophobia threatened the human colony that had saved his life. Things sort of snowballed from there. See also BewareTheNiceOnes.

* NoBiochemicalBarriers: Played straight. Bioweapons will function equally well against all the species (except the Zuul, which are immune to them and doesn't use them), and in the extensive backstory, different species are able to eat each others' food, survive (to varying degrees of comfort) on each other's planets, and even use the same chemical hormones as one another to a large extent. Only slightly averted in that any remaining colonists of an alien species will flee a planet when it's conquered by a species who does not have the right tech to incorporate the old species' biochemistry to a suitable level on their own colony.

* NuclearOption: How humanity got the first Hiver fleet that encountered them to retreat. And the standard missile and mine warheads are nuclear since [[ExplosionsInSpace conventional explosives don't do much damage without an atmosphere]], and of course it's easy to depopulate a planet with nukes.
* OmnicidalManiac: The Suul'ka Eldest wants to be the last living thing in existence. He is perfectly happy to speed up the process.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Morrigi caused the myths of dragons and dragon-equivalent creatures for humanity, Tarka, and the Hivers. They're ''that'' old.
* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Massively averted with the Zuul, who seem to have some inherent sociological or psychological need for religion. They originally worshipped the Suul'ka as creator deities, and the first of the defectors from the main Zuul nation was influenced by Catholic doctrine he absorbed from some of his human victims. As of ''Sword of the Stars 2'', there's at least nominal defector Zuul populations among all of the races from the first game, with the largest portion having joined the Liir -- and ''all'' of them have adopted a new religion of some sort.

* PerfectPacifistPeople: The Liir... mostly. Occasionally however they declare your race a threat to all living things and exterminate you with bioweapons. [[spoiler:And on twenty occasions, they've ''become'' the threats to all living things.]]

* PigLatin: The Peacekeeper Enforcer introduces itself by saying "KlaatuBaradaNikto" in PigLatin. This has led to the [[FanNickname fans nicknaming it]] "Ortgay".
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Meta example. SOTS starships are tiny by most series' standards; dreadnoughts are smaller than modern US supercarrier. WordOfGod [[http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=277104#p277526 states that antimatter-era weapons (Cutting Beams mentioned in post) are on par with]] ''Series/BabylonFive'' [[AbusivePrecursors Shadows.]]

* PlanetLooters: One possible playstyle - by default planets utilize resources at a sustainable level, but it's possible to overharvest for a production bonus at the cost of a permanent resource reduction. The Zuul, however, overharvest ALL THE TIME. And considering their offense oriented nature, it can be viable to crank up the overharvest on new planets and continually push forward, leaving barren unproductive planets in their wake. Mining ships can also harvest resources from a planet to transfer to another. Von Neumanns and Locusts also take resources to build more of themselves.

* PlanetOfHats: The background takes pains to explain how cultural tendencies do ''not'' make any of the species into this -- except the Zuul, but they were crafted to be that way. Even the Zuul's hat has a detailed explanation for why exactly it exists.

* {{Precursors}}: The Morrigi filled this role until their introduction as a playable species in ''A Murder of Crows''.
* PrecursorWorship: The loyalist Zuul worship the long-vanished species that created them. And can summon them in ''Lords of Winter''.
* PretentiousLatinMotto: "Per Ardua Ad Astra", through hardship, the stars. "Repensum Est Canicula", not so much. Interesting to note that the 'official' motto is also the motto of the British RAF.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Tarka are both an example and a glorious subversion of this trope; 'honour' in battle is gained by winning with minimum casualties and [[CombatPragmatist thinking outside the box,]] not by acting 'honourably' (or, as the Tarka would say [[HonorBeforeReason "stupid")]].
** As one of the writers put it "the Tarkas are degenerate and laugh at war, but the [[HumansAreWarriors Humans are sick and laugh at death.]]"

** The [[spoiler:Suul'ka]] take this UpToEleven.
* PunyEarthlings: Humans are only ''slightly'' physically inferior to your average Tarka and can probably take on a Hiver worker drone one-on-one -- don't ask about the rest of them. That's why the humans have the biggest power armors.

* RandomNumberGod: All over the place, most prominently and unusually with tech trees. Every player's tech tree is generated using this at the beginning of a game - some "core" techs will be available to research to all players, some techs are exclusive to some races, while most are random, although some races will have a higher probability of getting certain techs than others. Lovingly known among fans as the Sadorandomizer.
** Also true with prototypes in the sequel. Prototypes take longer to build and require more resources. Unlike the serialized models, they can have slightly better or worse stats, determined at random. The advantage/disadvantage is reflected in the prototype's nickname.

** The Alien Derelict: [[spoiler: a Suul'ka ''helmet'']].
** And the big one: the background info about the Liir didn't specify what kind of bioweapon they used against the Suul'ka, most people -- including the in-universe humans -- just ''assumed'' it was a virus since they're so good at them. [[spoiler: But it couldn't have been a virus because Suul'ka and Liir are the same species, instead it was something bigger, [[SpaceWhale a lot bigger]]]]

** And then there's the last added scenario for Prime, ''The Antiquarians'', where the objective is to gather the huge alien wreckages that served as random encounters from the beginning, to restore them to working order. Once you do, [[spoiler:it turns out those huge things were just ''helmets'' of the Suul'ka. Oh, and they now send a signal to wake them up.]] Cue the sequel.

** [[http://sots.rorschach.net/Sci-fi_References There's a wiki page listing some of them]].
** The final upgrade for the Hivers' PortalNetwork is [[Literature/HyperionCantos Farcasting]]. There are also various planet names taken from the Cantos.
** Tarka call their FTL "warp" and have two nacelles, right out of ''Franchise/StarTrek''.
** The Herald's speech has choice cuts from ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'', not forgetting ''Zuul''. One of the avatars in ''LOW'' is Egon.
** The Peacekeeper is the ship from ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951''

** The Steam achievement for colonizing a new world in the sequel is called [[Series/{{Firefly}} "and we shall call it... 'This land'"]].

** Occasionally you'll run into stars and planets named "[[Series/DoctorWho Gallifrey]]".
** In ''The Pit'', the Scanning Analyzer is the [[Film/{{Ghostbusters}} PKE Meter]].
** Achievement and Award names include "[[Creator/AnthonyBourdain The Chef Bourdain Award]]", "[[Franchise/{{Alien}} Chestburster]]", "Eat Fresh"[[note]]The tagline for Subway[[/note]], "[[Film/{{Predator}} Get To Da Choppah]]", "[[ComicBook/SpiderMan The Kraven Award]]", "Film/LordOfWar", "[[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog The Professor Ivo Award]]", "[[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968 The Romero Award]]", "[[ComicBook/IronMan Stark approved]]", "[[ComicBook/{{X-Men}} What I do isn't very nice]]" and "The Franchise/{{Zatoichi}} Award".
** The Xombie Researcher in ''The Pit'' has "[[Creator/FriedrichNietzsche Behold I teach you the Superman]]" carved into his flesh.
** AIs naming themselves after Voodoo appeared in Creator/WilliamGibson's ''Literature/SprawlTrilogy''.
* ShroudedInMyth: The Human intelligence officer Cai Rui eventually becomes feared as the "Man in Black".
* SiliconBasedLife: The Swarm. Though 'life' may be stretching it.
* SonOfAnApe: 'Monkey' is a common Tarka slur for humans, who responded with 'croc'. Most of the other species have equivalents.

* SpaceIsAnOcean: The setting unironically uses wet naval terms like admiral, fleet and (battle)cruiser. The Liir take it UpToEleven with terms like "black swimmers" for their combatants.
* SpaceIsCold: When a Suul'ka first teleports himself into space, he takes a sphere of water with him that 'freezes instantly in a vacuum'. Riiiight...

* SpacePolice: The Peacekeeper Enforcer is a space cop. A very well-armed one who isn't above PoliceBrutality (read: glassing colonies).

** [[spoiler: The Suul'ka are essentially cyborg Liir elders who live entirely in space]].
* SpitTake: In ''The Deacon's Tale'', Kliggerman's reaction to seeing [[spoiler: a Morrigi Colony Trap]] in action.
* SquareCubeLaw: Liir Great Elders die from getting too big. [[spoiler: The Suul'ka said "fuck that".]]

* StandardStarshipScuffle: Dreadnought and leviathan fights are slugfests. Smaller classes try to maneuver, but don't really zip about.

* StrongerWithAge: Liir don't die of old age and never stop growing, and get larger, heavier and better and more experienced at psionic power as they age. Eventually, they suffocate under their own weight. Liir cherish their elders, as they are vital to maintaining Liir society and teaching the next generations. [[spoiler:The Suul'ka are what happen when Liir elders get too old, powerful and selfish and let go of their morality and responsibility for the sake of immortality.]]

* SubspaceOrHyperspace: The Tarka's FTL drive generates a small warp field around the ship.
* SuperweaponSurprise: Humanity pulled one on the Hivers during their disastrous first contact. When Earth's primary planetary defenses were overwhelmed, they managed to recover some [=ICBMs=] that had been locked away for years after [[WorldWarIII a disastrous nuclear conflict]]. This dealt enough damage to the Hiver fleet to force them to break off the attack.
* TestosteronePoisoning: In a hilariously literal example, Tarka males who undergo the Change (eating enough unfertilized Tarka eggs to actually provoke puberty) develop a severe case of this, to the point where a few unChanged males are weirded out enough by their [[LargeHam new]] [[JerkJock attitude]] that they willingly avoid it, and the chemical changes actually ''shorten their lifespan'' by quite a bit.

* TieInNovel: A novella, ''The Deacon's Tale'' by Arinn Dembo (the lead writer of the game series), was initially released with the Collector's Edition that included the initial release and ''Born of Blood''. Set 33 years after the start of the first game, it tells the tale of the first four races' formal introduction to the Zuul and set up certain subsequent events all the way up to the sequel. It provides a wealth of backstory for the Sword of the Stars universe.
* TitleDrop: If the human player designs a dreadnought with certain modules, the game will automatically offer the game title as the name... since the game is named after that specific ship (the ''Sword of the Stars'' class [=SolForce=] dreadnought armed with lancer beams).

--> Human: ''"We learned to wield the '''Sword of the Stars'''"''
--> Zuul: ''"Born of fire, born of steel, born of science, '''Born of Blood'''"''
--> Morrigi: ''"Now we will darken your skies, like a '''Murder of Crows'''"''
--> Suul'Ka: ''"Now you will tremble before the '''Lords of Winter'''"''
--> Loa: ''"Lay down your arms, or face the '''End of Flesh'''"''

** The Zuul subvert this. Oh boy, do they ''ever'' subvert this. Though by the sequel some of them have split off to join the Liir, it seems most of them continue subverting this happily.

* UltimateEvil: The true name of the "Suul'Ka" isn't known; the name is, roughly, the Liir concept of "abominable" translated into vocals. The Morrigi name for them is translated as "Screamers" for some reason while Zuul reference them as "Great Masters".
** New information tells us that the Suul'Ka are not the "Screamers" but they use them. Screamers are [[spoiler: Morrigi who have been enslaved and experimented on by the Suul'ka Horde.]]
*** Additional information means that [[spoiler: Suul'Ka is their real name, since they are not a race as much as a [[ScaryDogmaticAliens philosophy]].]]
* TheUnfettered: Liir Black Swimmers have as a goal 'protect their fellow Liir from aggression'. Since they've already broken the greatest taboo of the Liir -- [[ActualPacifist being willing to inflict harm on others]] -- any question of 'restraint' in terms of method is hypocrisy to their eyes. A Black Swimmer sees no distinction between firing a warning shot or exterminating another species by infecting their worlds with deadly viral bombs -- both are merely means towards the end.
* {{Unobtainium}}: "Wise Clay" used by the loa. This material stores the Loa thoughts and personalities, and may be molded as needed to make machines, space ships, and other equipment. Loa fleets are described as traveling as a cube of wise clay that then splits near the destination into all the ships.

* VillainsWantMercy: In ''The Deacon's Tale'', this is [[spoiler: the Deacon's]] reaction to getting a CareBearStare.

** The Liir, a benign example as it's supposed to emulate whale song.
** In the sequel The Suul'Ka bring this trope back with chilling force.
** The Morrigi Striker and the Liir Seeker in ''The Pit''.
* WolverineClaws: Zuul have "punch-claws" protruding from their forearms and extending over the back of the hand. They are vestigial in the males, but the females' are very effective at cutting through things. ''The Pit'' allows you to craft "Adamantium Claws", complete with ShoutOut in the description to the TropeNamer, as well as the more [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy Krueger]]-like "Razor Fists".
* TheWorfEffect: Pulled on [=SolForce=] every so often - granted, everyone gets this whenever a new race is unveiled, but in [=SolForce=]'s case [[spoiler: the first appearance of the Suul'ka resulted in the destruction of their primary shipyard (the Argos Naval Yard), the theft of their shiny new Leviathan class warship (the original SFS-1 Leviathan), and in the [=SoTS2=] intro, of course one of their eponymous ''Sword of the Stars'' class Dreadnoughts, in a CallBack to the first game, except now getting smashed by a tentacle]].

The story related above is only the backstory: ''Prime'' allows you to play as any of the four races and the gameplay is standard 4X gameplay; you start with one planet in an unexplored map, explore, build your empire, encounter other players, and stop when everyone else is reduced to a small, scorched smear in the ruins of its last colony. ''Sword of the Stars'' was intentionally scaled back on most parts to streamline the game and put focus on the battles, which are fought in real-time with player input, much like in the ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' series. The battles are in 3D with Newtonian physics and real-time calculations. Unusually, the tech tree is randomized and thus no two games are entirely the same technology-wise.

The first expansion, ''Born of Blood'', added a host of new gameplay additions and a new species called the Zuul (no relation to Film/{{Ghostbusters}}), a race of SuperSoldier marsupials designed by [[AbusivePrecursors the Suul'ka]], out on a holy crusade to find their masters and brutally enslave and kill off anything else in their path. A second expansion called ''A Murder of Crows'' was later released, adding even more complexity, like diplomacy and trading, and a new species called the Morrigi, a race of [[{{Precursors}} ancient bird-people]] who once ruled most of known space, who have come back from the brink of extinction (again, at the supposed hands of Suul'ka) to reclaim their old colonies and burial grounds from the new upstarts--by force, if necessary. A final expansion pack called ''Argos Naval Yard'', basically a big hunk 'o ship parts and technologies, was released in June 2009.

!!!''Sword of the Stars Prime'' provides examples of the following tropes:

* TwoDSpace: Tactical combat is 'Two and a half-D', at least as far as the player can control, though ships will automatically move "up" and "down" if they are in danger of colliding. The strategy map is aggressively three-dimensional.

* AIBreaker: The AI doesn't really know how to handle mines beyond "hope our PD can take it." Protip, AI: It can't.

* AttackDrone: Added in ''A Murder of Crows''. The specialty of the Morrigi, to no one's surprise.
** According to lore even an individual Morrigi's [[PoweredArmor Ascension Armor]] comes standard with a drone or three.

** An early AI research. Yes, it is a big boost to all your future research, so it makes sense to get it early... except that early on it'll either take 200 turns to get, or a few dozen turns to get with the research cranked up reasonably, which virtually guarantees an AI rebellion halfway through.
* BadassBoast: The intros of the expansion packs are basically the new species' time to show off their badassitude by denouncing the old-timers already in the games.

** All Leviathan-class ships in the sequel are supposed to be this by carrying short-range support craft the size of the old destroyers into battle. ''Dreadnought'' riders, otherwise called battleships, [[http://asia.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/swordofthestarsii/news.html?sid=6306686&mode=previews have been promised.]] Unfortunately, it turns out these battleships are Liir-exclusive, leaving most races with only destroyer-sized riders.
* BeamSpam: Ships armed with phasers. Attack drones, all equipped with beamer weapons. Also, dreadnoughts armed with heavy lasers, namely the eponymous ''Sword of the Stars''-class. The Blazer section added in Argos Naval Yard trades in everything for this trope.

*** The latter advantage was removed in expansions, which added equivalent sections to larger ships. For example, originally, only destroyers could be built with jammer and "[[MisguidedMissile wild weasel]]" sections. By the third expansion, dreadnoughts can be built with a well-armed section that combines functions of a jammer, a deep scanner, and a "wild weasel". The latest expansion also allows you to build a dreadnought-sized mix of a tanker and a repair ship, whose fuel supply won't blow (and devastate any ship around it) until the ship itself is destroyed. Still can't build dreadnought colonizers, but that really would be an overkill.

* BoringButPractical: Laser point defense remains a valid--even critical--fit for small turret slots for most of the game. Especially for races who aren't big on the phaser variant, which is pretty much everyone except the Liir and Morrigi. Even they don't necessarily get it. Your most reliable anti-planet weapon for much of the game? Assault Shuttles, buildable from the first.

** Zuul are very slow to research and their strengths are all geared towards gaining the upper hand quickly. If they can't get the upper hand quickly, they likely never will gain it.

** Zuul have the worst research rate and poor chances at most high-end techs. A dragged-out game, especially if they can't salvage good tech by winning battles, is not in their favour.
* ChainLightning: Emitters, increasing in the 'chain' the higher up you get in the tech.
* ColonyDrop: Siege drivers. Ships with destroyed engines or that are disabled with Disruptor or EMP weapons can also crash into planets, and satellites equipped with tractor beams can ''drag'' ships into the planet.
* CommandAndConquerEconomy: Averted. Colonies develop infrastructure by themselves. The player decides planets' military production and civilization-wide research goals. Starting in A Murder of Crows, Players also balance military production against trade.

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: Mostly Averted. The AI is designed to be interchangeable with a human player for the purpose of multiplayer games; it is not omniscient and only knows what a human player could reasonably be expected to know about what's going on in the game. It does get advantages on hard difficulty, but that's to be expected. It is not immune to going overbudget, and if it seems to rarely suffer a research boost accident, that's because it rarely boosts research to begin with.
* CosmeticallyDifferentSides: Massively averted; while weapons will deal the same damage regardless of species, the number of turrets, speed and health of the ships they're placed on will vary, and the randomized tech tree will lead to different specializations amongst the various species. Furthermore, each race has its own method of FTL, which results in massively different play styles for each race. AI player differences even go beyond what is necessary to accommodate these playstyles - AI Liir, for instance, tend to be unusually nice and cooperative (but see BewareTheNiceOnes above).

* CriticalExistenceFailure: Zigzagged. Mostly averted in that destroyers and cruisers can have individual sections and individual weapon mounts of the ship targeted and destroyed, and Destroyers and cruisers won't be totally destroyed until two sections are destroyed, but a section or weapon mount doesn't suffer at all from being one hit point above 0. Played almost completely straight with dreadnought sections, which can have their weapons mounts destroyed, but not individual ship sections (said to be because dreadnoughts have so much structural redundancy.)

* CulturalPosturing: Part of the Morrigi's BadassBoast.

* DeathFromAbove: Until ''A Murder of Crows'' diplomacy was more or less non-existent and the only way to take a world from an enemy was through sterilization by orbital bombardment (or the above-mentioned Assimilation Plague). It's still pretty much mandatory to subject a planet to a few rounds of this even if you want them to give in peacefully. Until midgame, though, Assault Shuttles are often more damaging.
* DeathOfAThousandCuts: Destroyers can take down dreads. It's just not practical given the losses likely.
** There's also the time factor. Battles have a time limit. It can be raised but still no more than 10 minutes. It's unlikely a destroyer can batter down a dreadnought in this time, even if it manages to destroy all turrets with precision fire, leaving only {{Fixed Forward Facing Weapon}}s to avoid.
* DeathOrGloryAttack: Researching AI techs can be this. The bonuses are amazing, but hope you don't get an AI Rebellion...
* DeflectorShields: Several varieties. One blocks only ballistic weapons, another blocks only energy weapons, and both of them cover only half the ship. A third blocks basically all damage that doesn't pierce shields, and covers the entire ship to boot, but is vulnerable to overload. Get a high enough tech level and you'll get shields that nullify either all kinetic (plus gravity-based) or energy weapons, cover the entire ship, and almost never go down.
** While these normally require an entire third of the ship to be a shield generator with few or no weapons, it is possible at higher tech levels to research and use shield projectors, which, while require the use of a heavy weapon turret, create a decent-sized shield "umbrella", which can block any weapon short of a siege driver and turns to face the most dangerous threat. These also occasionally flicker and may allow a shot to pass through.

* DoubleUnlock: Through Salvage projects or technology trading. SequelEscalation in the second where every non-essential tech needs to undergo "feasibility study" first. You can bypass this if you manage to salvage the tech; presumably, the reasoning is that you managed to pick up a working sample as opposed to starting from theory.

* EasterEgg: Repeatedly switching the map between Normal View and one of the other viewmodes will result in the game playing a soundclip of Mike and the Bots from MysteryScienceTheater3000 singing "Normal view...normal view...normal vieeeeew!"
* EarthShatteringKaboom: Although you can bombard planets, even with whole asteroids, you don't actually have any weapons that can destroy the whole planet and... hey, what's that white dot on the map with all the question marks that's slowly coming towards my [[KilledMidSentence plane-]]***KSSSSSHHHH***

** The Von Neumann Construct is a copy of the System Killer and is not subject to the "one Grand Menace per game" rule, so you can have it on the field at the same time. Its internal name "final solution" is... apt.
* EmergencyWeapon: Even if you have no starships or satellites, there are still surface-to-orbit missiles. Don't expect them to stop a serious fleet, though.
** Despite [[GameplayAndStorySegregation crippling a Hiver invasion fleet]] in the backstory, though that ''was'' earth's entire stockpile of [=ICBMs=] from the Cold War.

* FragileSpeedster: The Morrigi are this in the early game. Once you get to the dreadnought age, they jump into LightningBruiser territory. While Liir ships are slow, their maneuverability and lack of armour also qualify them slightly. Zuul combine this with GlassCannon, as even their combat cruisers can be frighteningly fast in tactical.

* GlassCannon: The Zuul combine this with FragileSpeedster. Their ships are cheap, fast and have ''loads'' of guns, but very little armour. The Liir can also become this, seeing how they'll usually reach the more advanced weapons quicker. Various Unknown Menaces like the Swarm or the small Von Neumann aren't that hot defensively either but pack a real punch if allowed to.
* GuideDangIt: The randomised TechTree means you're quite unlikely to make all the connections between techs without recourse to a guide, entirely unhelped by the lack of InterfaceSpoiler.
* HannibalLecture: The Herald is a random event in which a (presumably [[AbusivePrecursors Suul'ka]] employed) evangelist comes up and rants ominous foreshadowing at you, causing the morale of the planet he visits to drop. As with most random events, [[TalkToTheFist shooting him down]] [[ShutUpHannibal averts negative consequences]], presumably because it's hard to take him seriously when he's fleeing in an escape pod/space debris.

* {{Homage}}: The "Upstart Apes" scenario to the classic Imperium [[BoardGames board game]].

* HordeOfAlienLocusts: Locusts. Originally a mamallian carbon race, who decided to become transcarbon. They consider themselves perfect, and only allow a "perfect" replication of individual units.

** Lategame drive techs allow you to jump from outside an enemy's system sensor range to the system in one turn and deny him the chance to reinforce or build defences. It's even worse in the sequel where you need an extra turn after construction to move the newly-constructed spacecraft into an active fleet, meaning you have even less warning than in the original.

** If all the ships in your fleet have cloaking sections, then the fleet isn't even visible on the strategic screen, unless you happen to have researched the Quantum Tunneling tech and have a Deep Scanner in the system. Sometimes, not even then.
** Doesn't much work against the Hivers, whose PortalNetwork allows them to bring in their entire defense fleet from all corners of their empire, although the number of ships that can be transported at once is directly proportional to the overall number of active gates and relies on there being an intact gate. So if the ambushers immediately gun for the gate and take it out...
** Morrigi military strategy is built around this. They start with stealth armour, which reduces the range at which enemies detect them strategically, and are amongst the best at researching cloaking tech. Their ships are also fast but fragile. Using two to three good fleets, a morrigi player can bring an enemy to its knees by hitting weak spots in their defensive line and then retreating before a counterattack; especially devastating against human and zuul players who can't recall fleets committed to nodespace travel.
** In the sequel, the Zuul can research an ability that lets them drop out of Nodespace near a target system's star rather than on the edges of the system, which may catch opponents expecting the usual extrasystem incursion vector off guard.

** On the other hand, all other races (except Zuul, who are in the same boat as humans) have to be far enough away from the planet and any enemy ship in order to go to FTL (or accelerate really fast in the case of the Hivers). Humans and Zuul can park their ships in the node point and slug it out with the enemy. If they feel they're losing, they can instantly retreat, no matter how close the enemy ships are. In fact, since no other race can see your node points (even humans and Zuul have different ones), they won't even know what happened.

* IFoughtTheLawAndTheLawWon: Do ''not'' piss off the Peacekeeper unless you're already in the dreadnought antimatter age when he shows up. It will ''not'' end well.

** Impactors/Rail Cannons play this mostly straight. They are some of the most powerful and longest ranged weapons, beating out any torpedo layout in range and power. Their accuracy is their downfall, but fully kitted out an impactor ship can knock out any cruiser with one or two volleys before you can even see the ship you're targetting.
* KungFuProofMook: Zuul are immune to plagues without needing vaccine research, though they can't use them either. Spectres can only be hurt by energy weapons. High-end shield tech can outright nullify certain weapon types.
** Not necessarily high-end. One of the first shield techs you can get is the Deflector, which blocks ''all'' kinetic weapons, missiles, and torpedoes, although the ship may still get pushed around a little. The slightly higher-level Disruptor blocks all energy weapons. Unlike the higher-end shields, these two only cover the front of the ship but can still give an enormous tactical advantage, especially against AI players, who almost never try to outflank you and keep stubbornly firing at invincible front. And, yes, that means that a cruiser with a Disruptor can take out a dreadnought armed with only energy weapons, given enough time.

** The Loa introduced in the sequel's expansion have durability of [[MightyGlacier the Hivers]], guns of [[GlassCannon the Zuul]] and acceleration and speed no organic race can match.

** At basic levels, this only attracts all enemy missiles within range to the ship equipped with the section. With some research, you can get a good number of enemy missiles to target the ships that fired them. The best part is that the enemy won't try to intercept them, as the missiles still read as friendlies to them.

** This is different for humans, as their FTL method requires them to use specific points in space to retreat. However, this also means they can retreat at any point, as long as they're in the right location.
* NonEntityGeneral: The voice-overs will address the player using non-specific titles like "commander", "Var Kona", "my Queen", "Elder", or "Morru Qu'aan".

* PointDefenceless: You ''want'' to avert this - planetary defence batteries will chew up anything without adequate flak cover. Unfortunately 'Point Defence Tracking' is a non-core technology (except for the Morrigi), so you [[RandomNumberGod might not get it]]. Ouch.

* ReflectingLaser: The "reflective coating" and "improved reflective coating" techs are a subversion that give ships passive defense against lasers by reflecting a percent of laser bolts and reducing damage from laser beamers. The surfaces do not need to be flat, and it is assumed that the entire ship's surface is coated.
* RewardingInactivity: In the majority of cases, ''not'' fighting a Von Neumann mothership is the smartest thing to do. As long as you keep a few laser-toting ships to swat down the drones as they come, the ship can't hurt you and leave you well enough alone after combat ends. Killing a VN ship provokes an attack by a Berserker, which is generally more trouble than it's worth.

* {{Roboteching}}: All missile weapons are launched "to the side", before they lock onto their target and go after it. Planetary defense missiles are able to select a new target if their current one is destroyed.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The designers tried to avert this, but didn't get them all:

** And we needn't get into the relative scale of the destoyers vs the planets, which would suggest the planet has an atmosphere about a few meters high and a diameter of less than a kilometer. Of course, it's hardly practical to fight around a planet that is to scale.
** Particularly galling are Zuul slave disks, even crammed into stasis it's hard to believe that 50 million people could fit in a 60-meter diameter saucer.
** Cruisers only mass double-digit thousands of kilograms, dreadnoughts triple-digits. This is far, far too light for a craft meant to operate and fight for months to years away from port. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380 Airbus A380]] is almost 600,000 kg at maximum take-off weight and definitely doesn't store the supplies for such long operation.

* SpaceFighter: Averted. According to WordOfGod, fighters would even at their smallest be half the size of destroyers - which are already pretty small by most other series' standards - and get easily swatted by point defence. "Node fighters" have been confirmed for the sequel as a Human special ship type, however, and "Battleriders", which are nearly equivalent to Destroyers that launch from a Carrier will also be included (along with, strangely, Cruiser and Dreadnaught equivalent launched ships.)

** Kinetic weapons meanwhile... Not so much. Once they reach their max range, the bullets ''stop instantly'' and fade away.

* SpiritualSuccessor: The game is basically ''VideoGame/SpacewardHo'', but with a massive update to everything, and a few things added in. It also has many similiarities with the original ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion'' game (and ''Lords of Winter'' can unflatteringly be compared with Master of Orion III).

** The sequel's damage tracking system takes it a step further, with any shot that goes through a spot that has been stripped of armor causing damage to internal systems.
* SuicidalOverconfidence: Prevalent in both games. Even after diplomatic options were introduced in the second expansion of the first game, the AI often will [[IWillFightSomeMoreForever Fight Some More Forever]] even when you're blowing their populations away turn on turn.
* SuperPrototype: Averted in the first game; the first Mark of any new combination of ship sections, assuming you design one as soon as it's available, will invariably be inferior to better-equipped later Marks.
* ThatsNoMoon: Asteroid Monitors and [[spoiler: the Von Neumann Homeworld's moon. They've taken the poles off to expose ''giant missile racks of death'']].
** That's no missile rack, that's a [[PlanetEater prototype!]]

* TimedMission: Battles have a fixed length (by default 4 minutes), if the clock runs out you need to continue the battle next turn, assuming your enemy doesn't run away or brings up a large number of reinforcments. In case you're fighting a Hiver fleet that includes a warpgate (which, when deployed, allows the entire Hiver fleet to warp in next turn), or trying to defend your planet against one of the Grand Menaces, it becomes ExactTimeToFailure.

* ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption: Until the ''A Murder of Crows'' expansion diplomacy was almost nonexistent and you had to KillEmAll to win.
* WakeUpCallBoss: The various random encounters, and meeting either the Hivers or the Zuul for the first time. The randoms are either very nasty to starting ships or use much more advanced technology than the player has access to. The Zuul and the Hivers don't send out exploration ships, but exploration squadrons. And then there is the Grand Menaces that can appear mid-game.

** The "A New Hope" scenario.
** If the morale of a colony's civilian population (introduced in ''A Murder of Crows'') drops low enough they rebel and attempt to kill the imperial population. In ''Lords of Winter'' if an entire province rebels they form a rival empire that is hostile to your own.

** And then there is the unnamed weapon on a rare Grand Menace unit, the System Killer. [[StarWars It's as if a million voices cried out...]]

** The Hivers can also turn into this: With the second-most abysmal research they will inevitably always be technologically inferior to their neighbors, and will often have to 'win' invasions of enemy planets by using their PortalNetwork to port in large numbers of lower-tech but hard-as-nails ships from all over their empire, turn by turn until the enemy's higher-tech ships are exhausted and reinforcements can't come in fast enough.

The sequel ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXThLOnfSdQ Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter]]'' was released in October 2011. Set slightly over a century after the start of the first, it was supposed to usher in the return of the Suul'ka and the development of diplomacy and warfare to an all-new level. However, the game was released well before it was ready. Backlash ensued, and Kerberos promised to inform the player base when the game was actually done. As of June 1st, 2012, the "pre-all clear version" has been released and the game can be considered to be almost at the "release candidate" stage and therefore playable. The game was finally declared "done" a year and a few days after it was actually released on the unsuspecting public.

An "Enhanced Edition" of ''Lords of Winter'' was released December 1st 2012, with existing owners of ''Lords of Winter'' getting a free upgrade. It includes among other things a new AI race called the Loa.

!!!''Sword of the Stars: Lords of Winter'' provides examples of the following tropes:

* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: The teaser for the sequel shows humanity's main base, the Argos Naval Shipyard, and their first Leviathan class ship getting wiped out by a Suul'ka,
* TheBattlestar: All Leviathan-class ships in the sequel are supposed to be this by carrying short-range support craft the size of the old destroyers into battle. ''Dreadnought'' riders, otherwise called battleships, [[http://asia.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/swordofthestarsii/news.html?sid=6306686&mode=previews have been promised.]] Unfortunately, it turns out they are Liir-exclusive.

* BrainUploading: Admirals can be destructively preserved as expert systems that will never retire, but won't gain any more experience or possible new skills. This is also apparently part of the Locust backstory.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: ''Lords of Winter'' reveals that [[spoiler: the Screamers are actually Morrigi who were turned against their own by Suul'ka.]]
* CallBack: The intro for the sequel shows again a human [[TitleDrop Sword of the Stars-class dreadnaught]] firing a BeamSpam [[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou at the camera]]. Only here the Suu'ka declare they won't be stopped by sword, and [[EldritchAbomination a tentacle smashes]] the ship in half.
* CloningBlues: In ''II'', it is possible to research "Replicants", where mass cloning is used to help populate colonies. It speeds population growth rate, but causes morale problems apparently due to difficulties in integrating Replicants with "originals".

* CrossMeltingAura: In ''II'', the [[NotUsingTheZWord Xombie Plague]] is so powerful that even the normally {{Kung Fu Proof| Mook}} Zuul are not immune.
* CrushKillDestroy: The first step of Loa terraforming is the destruction of all that is threatening to their systems and unnecessary for their functioning, ie organic life on a planet. This isn't due to malevolence, though, just practicality.
* DamnYouMuscleMemory: The differences in the interface and systems between the first game and ''Lords of Winter'' are so great that a veteran with his conceptions built from experience will have even more difficulty getting used to things than a novice.
* DeadpanSnarker: Of all beings, [[BloodKnight the Kraken/Thundering Fists]] from ''Lords of Winter''. His response when you [[HumanSacrifice offer the lives of your Zuul]] [[LifeDrain to refill his health]] is a dry "Ah, you generously offer me your crumbs".
* DeadlyLunge: In ''Lords of Winter'' the Warp Pulse upgrade allows Tarka ships to do a nigh-instant "lunge" in tactical combat, but with the caveat that any enemy ship in the way causes the lunging Tarka ship to crumple like an egg.

* DoubleUnlock: Every non-essential tech needs to undergo "feasibility study" first. You can bypass this if you manage to salvage the tech; presumably, the reasoning is that you managed to pick up a working sample as opposed to starting from theory.

* {{Gendercide}}: Morrigi males live their entire adult lives aboard the species' starfleets -- the war that brought them to the edge of extinction was so devastating in terms of ships lost that it killed over 90% of the male population.
* GeneralFailure: It's possible to get such Admirals in the second game. Poor stats combine with a negative trait to disadvantage any fleet (s)he leads.
* GhostShip: The Ghost Ship random encounter in ''Lords of Winter, [[spoiler: actually the half-operational remainder of the original ''Leviathan''. Fortunately, that half-operational means it's less potent than a modern leviathan fresh off the docks. Unfortunately, it can turn up as soon as random encounters start showing up.]]
* GlassCannon: UpToEleven in ''Lords of Winter'', where the Liir-[[HeelRaceTurn Prester Zuul]] Alliance gives Liir access to Zuul riders with the MoreDakka that implies but no real durability benefit.
* GuideDangIt: Upon release it had a lot of added features and changed mechanics compared to ''Prime''. It also came with a lot of bugs and missing or incomplete features, tool-tips, and other documentation. The players have done their best with their own tutorials on the forum or wiki-pages, until such time as the developer can rectify these issues.

** Lategame drive techs allow you to jump from outside an enemy's system sensor range to the system in one turn and deny him the chance to reinforce or build defences. Made worse in that you need an extra turn after construction to move the newly-constructed spacecraft into an active fleet, meaning you have even less warning than in the original.
** The Horde Zuul can research an ability that lets them drop out of Nodespace near a target system's star rather than on the edges of the system, which may catch opponents expecting the usual extrasystem incursion vector off guard.
* JustPlaneWrong: In the sequel, both the [[http://sots2.rorschach.net/File:Zuul_Shut_Shut_2.jpg Horde]] and [[http://sots2.rorschach.net/File:Liir_Shut_Shut_2.jpg Prester]] Zuul have ''rotors'' on their trans-atmospheric assault shuttles. Bad enough. But the Prester Zuul's [[http://sots2.rorschach.net/File:Liir_HvyShut_Shut_2.jpg Heavy Assault Shuttle]] takes it UpToEleven with diagonally-canted rotors. There are no words.
* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: ''Lords of Winter'' adds another nuance to shipbuilding and gameplay--power requirements. Ship's systems and weapons must now share a power source, which means BeamSpam may no longer be an option for some designs as exceeding power availability causes reduction in rate of fire. This means that kinetic weapons, which require significantly less power, are once again an attractive option, although the new damage spread system shows that lasers offer better penetration than mass drivers. Also, kinetics have their own rate limiting factor, Supply. In the end the best way is still to make a balance of both.
* MagikarpPower: The Suul'ka Horde start out weak but in the end-game can summon Suul'ka as special units.
* TheLoad: Non-combat ships like Repair and Salvage or Supply. In ''Prime'', you could stuff a fleet with as many spacecraft as you wanted and only deploy the combat ones. In this installment, though, changes to the system mean that you can only load a fleet with as many craft as your ArbitraryHeadcountLimit allows and can't hold non-combatants in reserve. This means that long-range expeditions that require multiple Supply-types will have much less firepower to call on. Unsurprisingly, this has been bemoaned as a ScrappyMechanic.

* ObviousBeta: ''Lords of Winter'' was released prematurely and in a non-functional state; given that tech demos before that point had shown a much more functional game, the playerbase was outraged. The game did not reach a truly playable state for ''eight months'' of constant updates, setting a record even for Paradox's somewhat poor initial releases.
* SequelEscalation: ''Lords of Winter'' starts in the Cruiser-Fusion era and has a "tech forest", multi-planet systems, even bigger ships and generally lots more options to play with.

* {{Technopath}}: A new research line in ''End of Flesh''.
* TemptingFate: The trailer opens with the unveiling of the first [=SolForce=] 'Leviathan' class ship. The speech that accompanies this event mentions that the Leviathan will obsolete fleet massings and lead to '[[UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain peace in our time]]'. You get no points for guessing what happens scant moments later.
* WetwareCPU: Introduced in ''End of Flesh'', supposedly as a means to emulate the processing abilities of the Loa without having to use actual AI.
* ZombieApocalypse: The [[NotUsingTheZWord Xombie Plague]] bio-weapon from the sequel. It is the only bio-weapon to lack a vaccine, and will leave victim planets in a permanent state of anarchy as bands of vicious flesh-eating monsters prowl the streets and feast on the meat of the living (or, as the Zuul would call it, 'An unusually terrible Monday.').

A {{Roguelike}} spinoff called ''Sword of the Stars: The Pit''. When an incurable plague breaks out on the human planet Arbuda IV, the only hope lies in descending into the depths of a mysterious and deadly underground facility rumoured to have been established by the Suul'ka. As one of three characters, each with their own reasons for being there, you must brave the monsters and traps within in hopes of reaching the bottom, where the cure reportedly lies. An expansion, ''Mind Games'', was released on July 3, 2013. In addition to brand new psychic abilities and two new characters, one a psion specialising in them, it adds more levels, more items, and more enemies. A second expansion, ''Gold Edition'', was released on November 9, 2013 and adds even more content, including four new playable characters. On April 18, 2014 a third DLC, ''The Pilgrim'', was released, adding yet more content including a playable Prester Zuul. On September 25, 2014 another DLC, ''Juggernaut'', was released, adding more content and a playable Tarka Changed male. On January 28, 2015 yet another DLC, ''Necromancer'', was released, adding still more content and a playable Horde Zuul Lich.

!!!''Sword of the Stars: The Pit'' provides examples of the following tropes:

* BossInMookClothing: ''The Pit'' has a few.
** Toxoids have a mountain of health, hit ''very'' hard unless you have very good armor, and can instantly afflict you with a level three poison.
** Warbots only have one attack, an explosive laser. However, not only does this attack shred your equipment's durability, but it also gives you radiation poisoning.
* ChestMonster: Adaptoids in ''The Pit''.
* CriticalExistenceFailure: Averted - At a quarter of the hit points, you're wounded and operate at lower capacity. Then you're dead at zero.
* CrutchCharacter: The secret character [[spoiler: Sgt. Gunny]] in ''Gold Edition''. He has higher base stats than the Marine but lower stat growth and can't use advanced armour without penalties.
* DeadlyDoctor: Corrupted doctors are among the enemy types in ''The Pit''.

* ExcusePlot: "The planet is affected by a terrible epidemic. Search for a hypothetical cure in some remote ruins belonging to the AbusivePrecursors."
* HarderThanHard: ''The Pit'' has "Insane" and "Seriously?!" (this one available only with the DLC) difficulties. How bad is "Seriously?!" There have been only two confirmed clears at this difficulty, both by classes with high psionic ability (first the Seeker, then the Psion).

* ItsPersonal: In ''The Pit'' some characters have this sort of reason for getting involved. The Marine is looking for his LoveInterest, who was working in the mountains near the facility. Said LoveInterest is the twin sister of the Scout. The Engineer is out to avenge a friend killed by enemies he tracked to the Pit. The Warrior is seeking help for his afflicted friends and neighbours. The Seeker is part of a secret Liir organization dedicated to hunting down the [=Suul'Ka=]. The Shepherd is a Prestor Zuul that seeks to disrupt the [=Suul'Ka=] and his savage former kin.

** The Tarka Ranger in the expansion for ''The Pit'', ''Mind Games''. She has solid stats in all three categories, starts with plenty of good starter equipment and consumables, and has fairly decent levels in most of the major skills you'll need to survive.
*** The Morrigi Striker added in the Gold Edition similarly has excellent stats in all four main stats and most of the major skills. The tradeoff is that she gets ''much'' less stat and skill points per level.
* KillerRabbit: In ''The Pit'', Lepuroid. The description even says "Aieeeeee! Run away!"
* LighterAndSofter: ''The Pit''. Well, maybe not softer, but certainly with more humor.
* LostForever: In ''The Pit'', don't activate something unless you're sure you're going to use it immediately. Some of the devices lying around have only one use and will be unusable afterwards even if you don't do anything with them.
* LuckBasedMission: Much like many other Roguelikes, your survivability in ''The Pit'' is almost entirely dependent on how merciful the {{RNG}} decides to be in regards to weapon, food, ammo and monster placements, as well as in regards to skill checks. Even more so with the ''Mind Games'' expansion, which added scores of dangerous monsters to the early floors and ''severely'' nerfed ammo drops.
* MacguffinGirl: [[spoiler:Tamiko]] in ''The Pit''.

* [[spoiler:NoEnding: ''The Pit'' just...''stops'' when you reach the 30th floor. You rescue Tamiko and... that's it?]] With the ''Mind Games'' expansion, it's 40 floors. Still same deal.
* OneBulletClips: In ''The Pit'', this is played straight with ballistic weapons but averted for energy ones, which use up a whole Energy Backpack or Fuel Cell regardless of how many shots you have left.

* PointOfNoReturn: Once you start descending the levels of ''The Pit'', you will be limited in the number of higher floors you can go back to, with the way back up getting sealed off past a certain point.
* RetiredBadass: The Marine character is technically an ex-Marine, a former [=SolForce=] man retired to the planet the game's set on.

* TheUnfought: In ''The Pit'', [[spoiler:neither the System Administrator nor the Bloodweaver (aka Master Control) are actually fought]]. However, given that the game is currently still having content added, this may change in the future.
* WeakButSkilled: The Engineer has poor stat growth and starts out with relatively poor combat skills and equipment, but his skill growth is decent, and in the early game he's the ''only'' character with a good score in Computers and Engineering.
* WeaponizedAnimal: ''The Pit'' has Cyberjaeger Bears, which are native bearlike creatures turned into cyborgs and given heavy weapons.
* WolverineClaws: You can craft "Adamantium Claws", complete with ShoutOut in the description to the TropeNamer, as well as the more [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy Krueger]]-like "Razor Fists".
* ZombieApocalypse: The [[NotUsingTheZWord Xombie Plague]] that starts off the backstory of ''The Pit''.

On August 9, 2013, a hex-based wargame spinoff in the vein of ''VideoGame/PanzerGeneral'' called ''Ground Pounders'' was announced, with an alpha demo following a few days after. As the name suggests, it focuses on planet-based combat in contrast to the grand space scope of the main games. A {{Kickstarter}} [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kerberosproductions/ground-pounders was launched August 29,]] but failed to make funding; a less ambitious retry that cut out playable Tarkas among other features [[http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sword-of-the-stars-ground-pounders/x/4160861 went to Indiegogo on October 1,]] but also failed to make it. It eventually went to Steam Early Access on February 8, 2014.

On September 25, 2014 the ''Tarkan Campaign'' was released, re-adding the playable Tarkas.

!!!''Sword of the Stars: Ground Pounders'' provides examples of the following tropes:
* DeathFromAbove: Zigzagged. Having access to space superiority and some of the cards, like ''Death from Above'' and ''Orbital Bombardment'', is the fastest way to destroy enemy units. But you still have to dig them out with ground units.

* BlandNameProduct: A few system names, such as [[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Kaprica]] and [[VideoGame/{{Homeworld}} Heegaraa]].

* CyberCyclops: Human ships with the AI command section. It swoops back and forth, [[Series/BattlestarGalacticaClassic Cylon]]-style.

* AllThereInTheManual: When you get a sci-fi writer -- Arinn Dembo, who also did the stories to ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' and ''ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' -- to make background for your game, this is what you get. There's several pages worth of info on every species, a supplementary novel, and the writer frequently visits the game's forum to answer setting-based questions from the fans.

** Achievement and Award names include "[[Creator/AnthonyBourdain The Chef Bourdain Award]]", "[[Franchise/{{Alien}} Chestburster]]", "Eat Fresh"[[note]]The tagline for Subway[[/note]], "[[Film/{{Predator}} Get To Da Choppah]]", "[[ComicBook/SpiderMan The Kraven Award]]", "Film/LordOfWar", "[[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog The Professor Ivo Award]]", "[[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead The Romero Award]]", "[[ComicBook/IronMan Stark approved]]", "[[ComicBook/{{X-Men}} What I do isn't very nice]]" and "The Franchise/{{Zatoichi}} Award".

The story related above is only the backstory: ''Prime'' allows you to play as any of the four races and the gameplay is standard 4X gameplay; you start with one planet in an unexplored map, explore, build your empire, encounter other players, and stop when everyone else is reduced to a small, scorched smear in the ruins of its last colony. ''Sword of the Stars'' was intentionally scaled back on most parts to streamline the game and put focus on the battles, which are fought in real-time with player input, much like in the ''TotalWar'' series. The battles are in 3D with Newtonian physics and real-time calculations. Unusually, the tech tree is randomized and thus no two games are entirely the same technology-wise.

* MMechanicallyUnusualClass: The Lich. In exchange for immunity to poison, disease and hunger and a variety of unique abilities including AnimateDead, he needs to keep track of his psionic reserves because running out will kill him as surely as actually running out of HP.

* MMechanicallyUnusualClass: The Lich. In exchange for immunity to poison, disease and hunger and a variety of unique abilities, he needs to keep track of his psionic reserves because running out will kill him as surely as actually running out of HP.

A {{Roguelike}} spinoff called ''Sword of the Stars: The Pit''. When an incurable plague breaks out on the human planet Arbuda IV, the only hope lies in descending into the depths of a mysterious and deadly underground facility rumoured to have been established by the Suul'ka. As one of three characters, each with their own reasons for being there, you must brave the monsters and traps within in hopes of reaching the bottom, where the cure reportedly lies. An expansion, ''Mind Games'', was released on July 3, 2013. In addition to brand new psychic abilities and two new characters, one a psion specialising in them, it adds more levels, more items, and more enemies. A second expansion, ''Gold Edition'', was released on November 9, 2013 and adds even more content, including four new playable characters. On April 18, 2014 a third DLC, ''The Pilgrim'', was released, adding yet more content including a playable Prester Zuul. On September 25, 2014 another DLC, ''Juggernaut'', was released, adding more content and a playable Tarka Changed male.

* ExactWords: Meta example, the guide for the first game states that the Liir wiped out the Suul'ka with a "bioweapon", not specifically a virus as most fans assumed, or even a microorganism. [[spoiler:As revealed in the second game, there ''was'' a weapon that was alive, but the [[LargeAndInCharge leader]] of the Liir navy, [[GoodCounterpart the Black]], [[SpaceWhale is not small at all, let alone a microbe]]. Frankly, hitting the Suul'ka (which the Black is not, as he is not TheSociopath anddoes not believe AGodAmI ) with another Liir Great Old One is a lot smarter than hitting them with a disease, as that would be liable to [[TooDumbToLive take all the smaller Liir with them]] However, The Black is somewhat indisposed because he's recuperating from his last OneManArmy act against the giant {{Eldritch Abomination}}s naturally rather than eating minds to speed the process).]]

* TemptingFate: The trailer opens with the unveiling of the first [=SolForce=] 'Leviathan' class ship. The speech that accompanies this event mentions that the Leviathan will obsolete fleet massings and lead to '[[NevilleChamberlain peace in our time]]'. You get no points for guessing what happens scant moments later.

A {{Roguelike}} spinoff called ''Sword of the Stars: The Pit''. When an incurable plague breaks out on the human planet Arbuda IV, the only hope lies in descending into the depths of a mysterious and deadly underground facility rumoured to have been established by the Suul'ka. As one of three characters, each with their own reasons for being there, you must brave the monsters and traps within in hopes of reaching the bottom, where the cure reportedly lies. An expansion, ''Mind Games'', was released on July 3, 2013. In addition to brand new psychic abilities and two new characters, one a psion specialising in them, it adds more levels, more items, and more enemies. A second expansion, ''Gold Edition'', was released on November 9, 2013 and adds even more content, including four new playable characters. On April 18, 2014 a third DLC, ''The Pilgrim'', was released, adding yet more content including a playable Prester Zuul.

* [[spoiler:NoEnding: ''The Pit'' just...''stops'' when you reach the 30th floor.]]
** With the ''Mind Games'' expansion, it's 40 floors.

* OnlyInItForTheMoney: The Striker in ''The Pit'' is a mercenary on Arbuda IV only to search for phat lewt, in contrast with the other characters who are either there under orders or because ItsPersonal.

On August 9 2013, a hex-based wargame spinoff in the vein of ''VideoGame/PanzerGeneral'' called ''Ground Pounders'' was announced, with an alpha demo following a few days after. As the name suggests, it focuses on planet-based combat in contrast to the grand space scope of the main games. A {{Kickstarter}} [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kerberosproductions/ground-pounders was launched August 29,]] but failed to make funding; a less ambitious retry that cut out playable Tarkas among other features [[http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sword-of-the-stars-ground-pounders/x/4160861 went to Indiegogo on October 1,]] but also failed to make it. It eventually went to Steam Early Access on February 8 2014.

* ExactWords: Meta example, the guide for the first game states that the Liir wiped out the Suul'ka with a "bioweapon", not specifically a virus as most fans assumed, or even a microorganism. [[spoiler:As revealed in the second game, there ''was'' a weapon that was alive, but the [[LargeAndInCharge leader]] of the Liir navy, [[GoodCounterpart the Black]], [[SpaceWhale is not small at all, let alone a microbe]]. Frankly, hitting the Suul'ka (which the Black is not, as he is not TheSociopath anddoes not believe AGodAmI ) with another Liir Great Old One is a lot smarter than hitting them with a disease, as that would be liable to [[TooDumbToLive take all the smaller Liir with them]] However, The Black is somewhat indisposed because he's recuperating from his last OneManArmy act against the giant EldritchAbominations naturally rather than eating minds to speed the process).]]

** Those fancy shields that NoSell one type of weapon become useless pretty fast too once you have Assault (Bridge) Command Sections - the Heavy Beams defeat the anti-kinetic/-missile shields, while the Torpedoes defeat the anti-energy shield. Or simply do the sensible thing and have both energy and ballistics on your spacecraft.

* ObviousBeta: ''Lords of Winter'' was released prematurely with a lot of bugs and issues still needing to be dealt with, presumably for contractual reasons. This understandably upset many customers, but Kerberos was quick to promise support for the game. Given that both Paradox and Kerberos have a reputation for buggy releases but strong ongoing support to fix their games, many fans seem willing to be patient, which has mostly been rewarded.

* ExcusePlot: "The planet is affected by a terrible epidemic. Search for a hypothetic cure in some remote ruins belonging to the AbusivePrecursors."

* HarderThanHard: ''The Pit'' has "Insane" and "Seriously?!" (this one available only with the DLC) difficulties. How bad is "Seriously?!" There are still no on-record clears of the game on it.

* TheBattlestar: While conventional {{Space Fighter}}s do not exist, various ships can carry externally-mounted riders, ranging from smaller-than-destroyers drones and assault shuttles to the cruiser-sized Tarka Hunters. Destroyer and cruiser carriers are a subversion because they have difficulty fulfilling the line combatant part of this trope.
** All Leviathan-class ships in the sequel are supposed to be this by carrying short-range support craft the size of the old destroyers into battle. ''Dreadnought'' riders, otherwise called battleships, [[http://asia.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/swordofthestarsii/news.html?sid=6306686&mode=previews have been promised.]] Unfortunately, it turns out they are Liir-exclusive.

* The Battlestar: All Leviathan-class ships in the sequel are supposed to be this by carrying short-range support craft the size of the old destroyers into battle. ''Dreadnought'' riders, otherwise called battleships, [[http://asia.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/swordofthestarsii/news.html?sid=6306686&mode=previews have been promised.]] Unfortunately, it turns out they are Liir-exclusive.

*** The Black is the Liir Fleet's commander, and is actually both [[spoiler: a giant EldritchAbomination *and* a super friendly happy dolphin. He also faced off against the full horde of the evil giant Eldritch Abominations in a battle that saw several of them get killed, more get wounded, and he himself take injuries he is still recovering from, all *without going past the DespairEventHorizon or requiring heavy indoctrination like all the other Black Swimmers after him have.* And his role as commander in chief means that he's willing to give orders like military mobilization that have caused considerable angst to the Liir.]] The Moral of the Story? Do. Not. Fuck. With. The Black. Or. The Liir.