Line #96 Literature/CountToTheEschaton


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7	[[quoteright:331:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/counttoatrillion.jpg]]
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9	The ''Count to the Eschaton'' series is a six-volume hard science fiction[=/=]SpaceOpera series by Creator/JohnCWright.
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11	Menelaus Illation "Meany" Montrose, a Texas-born gunslinger, lawyer, mathematician, and astronaut, [[GoneHorriblyRight goes insane after injecting himself with an IQ-increasing]] SuperSerum, and is cryosuspended during the interstellar voyage to the Monument, an alien artifact discovered orbiting antimatter star V886 Centauri which encodes the mathematical and logical formulae required to engineer whole civilizations.
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13	He wakes to a BadFuture. In little more than 8,000 years, the alien beings who set up the Monument as bait to test younger civilizations' starfaring progress will arrive and enslave the Earth's population. Resisted by the remaining members of the crew--particularly his former best friend, Ximen "Blackie" Del Azarchel--Menelaus decides to spend the intervening millennia preparing humankind to resist.
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15	!!!Books in the series:
16	* ''Count to a Trillion''
17	* ''The Hermetic Millennia''
18	* ''The Judge of Ages''
19	* ''The Architect of Aeons''
20	* ''The Vindication of Man''
21	* ''Count to Infinity''
22
23	----
24	!! Tropes featured:
25	* AbdicateTheThrone: A theoretical solution to the Hermeticists' dilemma during the 25th century: [[spoiler:they cannot send their starship back to V886 Centauri for more antimatter without losing control of the planet, but they cannot build another starship without losing their monopoly on the supply and again losing control, and if they wait until the antimatter runs out the World Concord will collapse anyway.]] Peaceful abdication of their rule while Earth still has energy to handle the transition is recommended as the optimum solution, but the Hermeticists reject this to a man. [[spoiler:It turns out that Princess Rania deliberately engineered the dilemma in order to force this outcome, but she neglected to reckon with the Hermeticists' sheer pride and stubbornness.]]
26	%%* AboveGoodAndEvil: We don't have to teach post humans to be good while we make them.
27	%%* AbusivePrecursors: The aliens have yet to show up, but have made their intentions clear.%%And these are?
28	* AIIsACrapshoot: Averted in that, while some of the many, ''many'' A.I.s created throughout the series do go insane or develop hostile motivations, none of them (except the very early ones who are not yet truly self-aware and sapient) do so as a direct result of their nature ''as'' artificial intelligences. [[spoiler:The A.I. created as a copy/echo of Blackie del Azarchel, which Montrose dubs "Exarchel", retains Blackie's malevolence, and the A.I. created from the core of Jupiter goes mad, but the A.I. inhabiting the core of the Moon converts to Catholicism and winds up operating a religious shelter.]]
29	* AncestralWeapon: Some of the Chimera's weapons have to become this, because they have lost the art of changing the bloodlocks on them.
30	* ArcWords: "Count to a trillion" is one, the length of time it will take for [[spoiler:Rania's starship to return to earth]]; as is, possibly, "asymptote.", "Is my time yet come? Is my bride yet here?"
31	* BatmanGambit: The eight thousand years of history between discovering the Monument and the arrival of the Hyades aliens turns out to be an exercise in this. Blackie del Azarchel allows his fellow Hermeticists a thousand years or so each to try building a biological and sociological version of humanity that the Hyades will value enough to enslave instead of exterminating, but each ultimately self-destructs in its own particular way until Menelaus (who, not having Blackie's immortality, has gone into suspended animation to wait for Rania's return) revives himself just long enough in each Age to introduce solutions to the problems, allowing humanity to survive to its next iteration. [[spoiler:It turns out that each of the seven solutions provided by Montrose -- solutions Del Azarchel knew Montrose could not refuse to provide when innocent civilizations were on the line -- is a component to solve the final problem of creating true self-aware planetary-scale AI, and Blackie's real goal to thwart the Hyades is to turn Jupiter's core into a single god-scale intelligence using the solutions he tricked Montrose into providing.]]
32	* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Menelaus watches this trope in action. He doesn't approve.
33	* BigDumbObject: In the final novel ''Count to Infinity'', Menelaus and Rania discover a cosmic superstructure dubbed the ''Eschaton Directional Engine'', built by multiple ancient Galactic Supercluster Intelligences (dubbed ''Seraphim'' in the series). This is Wright's version of the RealLife [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor "Great Attractor"]]. [[spoiler:The purpose of the Eschaton Directional Engine is to determine the fate of the universe, of either Heat Death or Big Rip: when activated, it can bend spacetime either positively, into a sphere that neutralizes entropy throughout the entire universe, or negatively, into a "potato-chip" shape that will save only a tiny fraction of the universe.]]
34	* BlindIdiotTranslation: Just before meeting princess Rania in volume one, Menelaus attends a new year celebration where the attendants shout in Dutch: "De God redt de koningin!" While gramatically correct, this is something a native speaker of Dutch would never say. It's obviously intended to be a translation of "God save the queen", but what it actually means is "The God is rescuing the queen" (As in, God is rescuing the queen ''right now''). Also, "de" is a definite article, which just like in English one would omit when referring to the monotheistic god.
35	* BrainInAJar: Explicitly shows up in ''Architect Of Aeons''. Menelaus is stuck on the sidelines, of a DuelToTheDeath that he set up, where one of the participants is a "whale-sized" {{Transhuman}} (and the other uses Jupiter as a computer's CPU). Due to events, the Transhuman ends up dying in a messy way, while dropping a 'trinket': [[spoiler:Menelaus' ''original brain'' [[WhamLine kept for sentimental reasons]]]].
36	* BroadStrokes: Some cultures' versions of past history are... strange. The Witches, for example, believe that Creator/CSLewis and Creator/ArthurCClarke explored the Louisiana Territory in 1492...
37	* BrotherSisterIncest: In the nymphs' language, the word "brother" also means "homosexual incestous partner".
38	%%* BuxomBeautyStandard: The Nymphs hold to this, and bio-engineer themselves accordingly.
39	* TheCaptain: Princess Rania commands the world's only functioning starship.
40	%%* TheChainsOfCommanding: The princess is deeply involved in her people's welfare.
41	* ChristianityIsCatholic: Justified. Blackie del Azarchel suppressed all religions other than Catholicism because he himself was culturally Catholic, and Menelaus later makes use of the institution because it is TheConstant.
42	%%* ColdSleepColdFuture: It gets colder each time Menelaus wakes up.
43	%%* CliffHanger: The endings of ''Count to a Trillion'' and ''The Hermetic Millennia''
44	%%* CommonalityConnection: Illiance calls on this with Menelaus, as scholars.
45	%%* CorruptChurch: One thing that happened while Menelaus slept.%%Is?
46	* CrapsaccharineWorld: What the utopian Earth of the 25th century, under Rania's and the Hermeticists' World Concord, ultimately turns out to be, despite its luxury, wealth, super-technology and virtually-infinite available energy: [[spoiler:any polity which makes efforts towards political independence or truly free elections is swiftly quashed, and the Concord's need to maintain its monopoly on the antimatter supply enabling their power means they cannot allow the building of any other starship capable of mining antimatter from V886 Centauri ... nor can they send the ''NTL Hermetic'' itself back for more due to needing it to play orbital police platform, which has effectively doomed the Concord to inevitable collapse once the current finite supply of antimatter eventually runs out.]]
47	%%* CryIntoChest: Rania possibly invokes this with Menelaus.%%"Possibly"?
48	* CultureClash: Competing cultures from different eras, all woken at once, result in much of this. Most amusingly done when the relatively-prudish Blue Men interview Oenoe.
49	%%* DayHurtsDarkAdjustedEyes: Coming out of a cryogenic chamber.
50	%%* DefectorFromDecadence: The Nymph Shieldmaidens; Oenoe in particular.
51	%%* DirtyBusiness: Dealing with blighters.
52	* DoctorsOrders: Menelaus can talk casually with the effective ruler of Earth. When he must be examined by a doctor, he finds it much harder to assert himself.
53	%%* DreamingTheTruth: Menelaus. Also Mickey.
54	%%* DrivenToSuicide: Captain Grimaldi. [[spoiler:At least according to Blackie.]]
55	%%* DuelToTheDeath: Menelaus's occupation, as junior member of a law firm.
56	%%* DueToTheDead: Menelaus's only objection to the absence of religion.
57	%%* EasyAmnesia: The Nymphs' Nepenthe.
58	%%* EmpathicWeapon: Some last from the days of the Sylphs, though people don't understand them.
59	* EndlessWinter: In ''Count To A Trillion'', Menelaus's first spring is when he is six. The younger characters regard it as this. The older ones hush them: the Japanese created it deliberately, in order to fight a disease, and if they hadn't, mankind might have gone extinct.
60	* ErmineCapeEffect: The clothes of the Hermeticists use symbolic references to underscore their power.
61	* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Del Azarchel's hatred of Montrose is driven in large part by his inability to understand why Rania loves him, which reflects a general larger failure to understand Rania's hope-based worldview.
62	* EvolutionaryLevels: Used to soothe the conscience, by some characters.
63	* ExtremeOmnisexual: Nymphs, throughout their culture; those who do not like it are given a chance to cryogenic sleep to a more pleasing time to them.
64	* FasterThanLightTravel: Averted, the entire series is structured around the effective impossibility of traveling faster than lightspeed in the physical universe, and the need for any starfaring society to become incredibly long-lived, stable, and rigorously trustworthy in order to maintain interstellar transport logistics.
65	* FictionalFieldOfScience: Cliometry, the art of mathematically engineering the progress of entire cultures and civilizations and predicting the outcome of future sociological events.
66	%%* FirstNameBasis: Menelaus insists on it
67	%%* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Menelaus.
68	%%* ForcedToWatch: For ''really'' illegal stuff.
69	%%* FriendToAllLivingThings: Prince Ranier
70	%%* GenreSavvy: Menelaus has read SF. He notices certain lacks.
71	* GovernmentDrugEnforcement: Nymph culture made heavy use of drugs, widely accepted, but the Nymph Queens enforced it when necessary.
72	%%* GreyGoo: Golden goo, to inaugurate a Golden Age.
73	%%* GreenEyedMonster: Blackie
74	%%* TheGunslinger
75	%%* HonorBeforeReason: There are Nymphs who do not like a life of total, if heavily drugged, hedonism.%%This is unreasonable because...?
76	%%* HowManyFingers: TheMedic tries this.
77	%%* HumanPopsicle: Everyone in the tombs.
78	* HypocriticalHumor: Lady Ivinia talks of her silence, her obedience, and her gentleness while ordering men about in a long speech, commanding them to fight war and win or commit suicide.
79	%%* IGaveMyWord: Why Menelaus survived.
80	* InsaneTrollLogic: Rada Lwa's justification of his attempted murder of Menelaus. [[spoiler: Dropping a satellite on Menelaus was a necessary act because it was the outcome of deorbiting the satellite, which was necessary to stop Menelaus' military control over the world. It was a necessary act, therefore not murder. On the other hand, Menelaus killing De Ulloa was murder because Menelaus actively attempted to cause harm.]]
81	* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Oenoe agreed to something to please her beloved, which is why she is in the Tombs.
82	%%* IWillWaitForYou: Menelaus's motive in the second book.
83	%%* KingInTheMountain: These legends congregate about the Tomb.
84	%%* KnightInShiningArmor: The defenders of the Tombs.
85	%%* LivingLieDetector: Soorm claims to be this.
86	* LongHairIsFeminine: Nymphs wear their hair at least waist long.
87	* LoveAtFirstSight: Nymphs can induce this, biochemically.
88	%%* LovesMyAlterEgo: Rania fell in love with Iron Menelaus.
89	%%* LoveTriangle: Blackie, Rania, and Menelaus.
90	%%* MadScientist: Menelaus tries a very hypothetical experiment out on himself.
91	%%* MagicFromTechnology: The Witches solemnly scorn the mere material husk as not being the essential, let alone the only, part.%%How does this fit the trope?
92	%%* MeaningfulEcho
93	* MenDontCry: Menelaus' mother insists on this when punishing him, during his childhood, for wasting valuable education time on frivolous animated cartoons, [[spoiler: forcing him to delete all his beloved ''Asymptote'' episodes]].
94	%%* TheMentor: Among the Blue Men, a formal relationship.
95	%%* TheMutiny: Occurs when Menelaus does not remember it, but is crucial to the plot.
96	%%* MurderByCremation: [[spoiler: What really happened to Prince Ranier]].
97	%%* NamedWeapons: The Chimarae practice this.
98	%%* NiceToTheWaiter: Larz claims Menelaus is not this.
99	%%* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Menelaus's SuperSerum. He gets called on this by Blackie.
100	%%* NotAGame: Menelaus rebukes himself at one point for forgetting this.
101	* OneHeadTaller: Mentally invoked by Menelaus after Princess Rania's growth spurt: "He hated the fact that the top of her head no longer fit nicely under his chin when they hugged... it seemed obscurely unnatural, as if someone had made a mistake when putting the universe together."
102	* OminousFloatingCastle: In ''The Judge of Ages'', there is the villain's floating tower which is even described as ominous. It may be the largest one in literature, 165,000 miles high, and has more surface area than China.
103	* ParentalIncest: A nymph casually mentions that they expect a man's first sexual partner to have been his mother. The term for "father" also implies a sexual relationship.
104	%%* ParentalSubstitute: Soorm finds one in his story.
105	%%* PeopleOfHairColor: Blondies
106	* PetTheDog: Discussed and subverted. Menelaus at one point concludes that another character can like dogs and ''still'' be all bad.
107	* PoliticallyActivePrincess: Rania is definitely one, though as part of her political and personal style she also presents herself to be as close to the PrincessClassic as possible to maximize her subjects' loyalty.
108	* PrincessClassic: In a lot of ways Rania is also this in reality, especially as the series' single most optimistic and hopeful character.
109	%%* PrivateEyeMonologue: Kine Larz' story.
110	%%* ThePromise: Menelaus makes one very young.
111	%%* ProperlyParanoid: The Tombs' defenses.
112	* ProudWarriorRace: The Chimera. Lampshaded by one of them, who, hearing of the "battle for Antarctica," asks exactly ''who'' was fighting for ''what'' down there.
113	%%* PsychicPowers: At one point, Menelaus reflects on how superhuman intellects get these in stories.
114	%%* RagsToRoyalty: A GenreSavvy character comments on the usage in cheap fiction.
115	%%* RaisedByWolves: Menelaus uses this as an analogy.
116	%%* RequisiteRoyalRegalia
117	%%* RescueRomance: A GenreSavvy character comments on the usage in cheap fiction.
118	* ReversePsychology: One character argues with Menelaus as if he wants him to do the opposite.%%Just sufficent, but expand.
119	%%* RoyalBlood
120	%%* ServantRace: To be genetically engineered.
121	%%* ShoutOut: Too many to list.%%List them.
122	%%* SingleTear: Oenoe's story induces this.
123	%%* SlaveRace: The aliens' plans for us.
124	* SophisticatedAsHell: Menelaus swings between "aw shucks" Texanisms and ultrafluent Lawyerese or AntiquatedLinguistics. An alert reader can detect when Menelaus' mind is fully engaged by a problem, because he forgets to maintain his Texanism affectation.
125	* SpottingTheThread: How Menelaus eventually realizes in ''The Vindication of Man'' that [[spoiler:the Rania who returns to him from M3 is not the genuine article; despite being physically identical and superficially the same personality, she has stopped celebrating Mass and practicing her faith]].
126	%%* SpringIsLate: Years late.
127	* StayInTheKitchen: Lady Ivinia explains that this is her place, not councils of war, so she merely "reminds" the men they have a duty to overcome the foe they face or commit suicide for failure.
128	%%* SuperpoweredEvilSide
129	%%* SuperSerum
130	* SwansASwimming: Rania is repeatedly referred to as a Swan Princess.
131	%%* TapOnTheHead: Takes Menelaus out, old style.
132	* TheyHaveTheScent: The dog things invert it -- by howling with frustration, they show they don't have the scent.
133	* TimeAbyss: To quote the author, the story will be followed to "the year Oh-My-Gosh-That's-A-Lot-Of-Zeroes".
134	* TitleDrop: "Counting to a trillion" is a metaphor in the first two books for something true but outside your ability to handle; also how long it will take Rania to return.
135	%%* TooDumbToFool: Sometimes you're victorious when you can't be smart enough, but can be stupid enough.%%How?
136	* TrilogyCreep: The series was supposed to be four books, but it grew to six. For example ''The Judge of Ages'' continues straight from where ''The Hermetic Millennia'' ended, because at first the two books were supposed to be one but they were split in two because of the size.
137	* TrulySingleParent: The princess has only a father, though he was not the one to make her.
138	* TwoPersonLoveTriangle: Menelaus, [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Iron Menelaus]], and Rania.
139	* UglyHeroGoodLookingVillain: Menelaus' description is distinctly ungainly; Blackie del Azarchel, on the other hand, is a DashingHispanic.
140	%%* UhOhEyes
141	* UnreliableNarrator: In ''The Hermetic Millennia'', large sections are first-person accounts by people who are not to be trusted.
142	** In-universe, [[spoiler:the Monument itself]] turns out to be one.
143	%%* VisualNovel: ''Asymptote'' seems to be this.%%Tropes are not ambiguous. Is it or not?
144	* WakeUpFighting: Menelaus coldsleeps with loaded pistols in his hands for this purpose. [[spoiler:It doesn't help him much in ''Hermetic Millennia'']].
145	* WhamLine: In ''The Architect of Aeons'' (the last chapter), Menelaus ends up viewing the death of a {{Transhuman}} body the size of a whale... then it turns out that [[spoiler:this is '''also''' Menelaus, and out of nostalgia this one ''kept "their" original brain '''in a jar''''' (that happens to fall next to the viewpoint Menelaus, allowing him to realize this]]. And... end of book.
146	%%* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: And, indeed, your own electronic copy.
147	%%* WhiteStallion: Cryogenically frozen for the knights.
148	%%* WithDueRespect: Menelaus to the Chimerae -- he's posing as a subordinate one.
149	%%* AYearAndADay: How long Soorm had to serve to sleep in the Tombs.
150	%%* YouAreNumberSix: Crewman Fifty-one.
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Context Literature / CountToTheEschaton