Line #15 Literature/AndroidAtArms


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6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/andre_norton_at_arms.png]]
7	Science-fiction adventure by Creator/AndreNorton. Andas Kastor regains self-awareness on a barren prison planet where he has been incarcerated by unknown entities for unknown reasons. A power failure frees him and several companions. When they compare notes, they discover that they were all involved in critical time-sensitive situations - in different years. They also discover that the prison planet includes highly advanced technology which appears to be for creating [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots android duplicates of beings of various races]], and speculate that they may have been kidnapped in order to be duplicated and replaced.
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9	The ill-assorted comrades find a ship with navigation tapes for various planets, including Andas' home world of Inyanga. After a series of planet-hopping adventures, including some double-crosses and a few losses, Andas and his companions make it, only to find that the current ruler is... Andas Kastor, decades older and with three daughters. And then things really start to get wild....
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12	!!Tropes associated with ''Android at Arms'':
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14	%%* AfterTheEnd: [[spoiler:The Inyanga on the far side of the CoolGate.]]
15	* AmbiguousCloneEnding: The Andas at the end of the novel is definitely the same one we've been following all along, but he's less certain than he used to be that he's the real Andas and the other is the duplicate.
16	* ApparentlyHumanMerfolk: Elys appears to be this, but turns out in the end to be FishPeople [[spoiler:and a double-crossing DecoyDamsel besides]].
17	%%* ArtifactOfDoom
18	%%* AuthorAppeal: Yolyos, a Salariki [[CatFolk cat-alien]].
19	%%* BadassNative: Andas.
20	* BathingBeauty: Elys, but with clothes on, the spoilsport.
21	%%* BecomingTheMask
22	%%* CasualInterstellarTravel
23	* CatFolk: Yolyos comes from a species of feline aliens, the Salariki.
24	%%* CoolGate
25	%%* CoolKey
26	%%* DarkestHour: several in relatively quick succession.
27	%%* DueToTheDead
28	%%* EldritchAbomination: The night crawlers.
29	%%* FatBastard: [[spoiler:Hison Grasty.]]
30	* FeudalFuture: Inyanga, Andas' homeworld, is ruled by a monarchy.
31	* FireForgedFriends: Andas and Yolyos, not even of the same species, become fast friends and finally SwornBrothers as a direct result of their harrowing adventures.
32	%%* IGaveMyWord
33	%%* LostSuperweapon
34	%%* TheMole: [[spoiler:Turpyn.]]
35	%%* NoOneCouldSurviveThat
36	* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: It is given as an ironclad rule of space travel that no-one gets left behind on a strange planet, no matter if he's your worst enemy. This leads to the protagonist and some of his companions searching for an untrustworthy fellow traveller until they find his body.
37	%%* OmnicidalManiac: [[spoiler:Kidaya.]]
38	* LizardFolk: This novel is part of a setting that includes a reptilian race called the Zacathans. No Zacathan characters appear, but when examining the facility in which they had been imprisoned, the protagonists find plans for building a duplicate of an unknown Zacathan.
39	* ThePlague: Subverted. The "epidemic" which led to the planet being quarantined -- and thus cut off from any possibility of further outside interference in an ongoing civil war -- was actually due to one of the rebel leaders' poisoning of the water supply of the main mercenary outpost.
40	* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: The android duplicates are made to be indistinguishable from their originals, even on very close examination.
41	* RipVanWinkle: The protagonist is one of several important political figures who were kidnapped, stored as {{Human Popsicle}}s, and replaced with android duplicates. When a power failure leads to their release from storage, they compare notes to learn that they were all kidnapped in different years, and that several of them have been prisoners for decades.
42	* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Andas returns home to find that years have passed and there have been significant changes.
43	%%* ThievesGuild ([[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]])
44	%%* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Or are they human after all?]]
45	%%* VainSorceress: Kidaya, when [[HiddenVillain she finally shows up]].
46	* VictoryGuidedAmnesia: The protagonist wins the day by calling forth a powerful force that acts through him -- but since he wasn't in control at the time, he can't remember exactly what he did, or how.
47	* WhichMe: The protagonists wake on a strange world and learn that they have been kidnapped and stored as {{Human Popsicle}}s, while being replaced by [[RobotMe android duplicates]]. The question eventually arises, which one is the RobotMe (a {{Ridiculously Human Robot\|s}} by necessity) and which is the original, and how to prove it? When the main character, Andas, confronts a much older version of himself on his homeworld, both are deeply shaken -- each believes he's real, but how could a RobotMe be such a {{Ridiculously Human Robot\|s}} as to do the various things each has done? (The protagonist refers to his older counterpart as "the false Andas"). [[spoiler:Another variation happens later, when he and one of his companions wind up in an AlternateUniverse, and he confronts a dying version of himself.]]
48	%%* AWorldHalfFull: [[spoiler:The Inyanga on the far side of the CoolGate.]]
49	* YouCantGoHomeAgain: [[spoiler:Andas and Yolyos accidentally end up in an AlternateUniverse via a CoolGate that Andas knew of by reputation; they had taken a chance of hiding out in its vicinity to avoid pursuit, since it rarely went into operation, and had bad luck. Andas knows, thanks to his studies with his late father, that nobody taken by the CoolGate has ever returned.]]

Context Literature / AndroidAtArms