Line #110 Literature/HyperionCantos


1	[[quoteright:339:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hyperion_tropes_2620.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:339: Anyone want a hug?]]
3	%%
4	The ''Hyperion Cantos'' is a series of four science fiction novels written by Creator/DanSimmons. In order, they are: ''Hyperion'', ''The Fall of Hyperion'', ''Endymion'', and ''The Rise of Endymion''. There is also a short story called "Orphans of the Helix", serving as kind of a DistantFinale.
5
6	Eight hundred years into the future, humanity has fled the Earth's accidental destruction at the hands of an [[FreakLabAccident artificial black hole]] and has established the [=WorldWeb=], a society of many planets connected through the [[PortalNetwork Farcaster network]]. With the help of its allies in the [=TechnoCore=] (a group of AIs), mankind lives in peace...until the mysterious "Ousters", a splinter race of humanity adapted to living in deep space, attack.
7
8	As the war becomes desperate, a group of seven pilgrims are sent to the planet Hyperion, a colony world guarded by the inscrutable killing machine known as the Shrike. They hope their desperate appeal to the Shrike will persuade it to give them some of its alien technology that can save humanity. During the journey, the pilgrims, each of whom [[MysteriousPast has a personal link]] to Hyperion, begin to tell each other their stories, and realize that things are ''much'' more complicated than they thought.
9
10	Overall, the series is inspired by the unfinished epic poem ''Hyperion'' by Creator/JohnKeats. The first book is modeled after ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales'', especially in how each of the pilgrims has an opportunity to tell an individual story.
11
12	----
13	!!This series provides examples Of:
14
15	* AgriWorld: Renaissance Minor is an agricultural world that provides food to the CityPlanet Renaissance Vector.
16	* AIIsACrapshoot: The [=TechnoCore=] is composed of artifical intelligences who seceded from human control several centuries ago and peacefully coexist with humanity. This looks like a subversion until we learn the inner politics of the core, with the [=AIs=] falling into three political factions. Of the three, one wants to continue peaceful coexistence with humanity, one wants to wipe humanity out, and the third wants to keep humanity around--at least until it finishes its goal of creating the Ultimate Intelligence, of which humanity ''could'' be a useful component, and then they can let the Ultimate Intelligence decide what to do with humanity. This stalemate of "spare," "kill," and "don't kill right now," is what leads to the Core's nominally symbiotic relationship with the Hegemony. This trope is played ''much'' straighter in ''The Fall of Hyperion'' and beyond.
17	* AllHailTheGreatGodMickey:
18	** The Templars and the Voice of the Tree appear to worship [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir John Muir]], a major proponent for the preservation of American forests in the early 19th Century. A book by Muir is found among Het Masteen's possessions after [[spoiler:he is apparently killed by the Shrike.]] The Templars' devotion to Muir vaguely resembles that of Literature/BraveNewWorld's adulation of Henry Ford as a god-figure in the future, except done for the sake of hardcore environmentalism instead of worshipping the inventor of the car.
19	** The [=TechnoCore=] AI Ummon describes in the form of {{Koan}} vagueties that the [=TechnoCore=] actually looks at ''IBM'' and other big electronics firms that began mass-producing in bulk as their primitive, distant ancestor. Specifically, the parts ''produced'' were their "ancestors", not the producents themselves. They look at these parts and what Earth used them for much in the same way we might look at a caveman playing with sticks and stones and be perplexed that us humans survived to the modern day.
20	* TheAlternet: The dataspheres and the megasphere are successors to the Internet. One character even comments that "the Internet" was the name of the first crude datasphere on Old Earth.
21	* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Androids like A. Bettik have blue skin.
22	* AnalogyBackfire: In ''The Fall of Hyperion'', the [=TechnoCore=] representative tells Meina Gladstone that people declaring war on the AI would be rather like a person attacking his car due to news of an accident. Meina simply states her grandfather once did shoot a car that didn't start.
23	* AndIMustScream: Features prominently a number of times. Makes sense, since in RealLife Dan Simmons is actually good friends with Creator/HarlanEllison.
24	** The Shrike's victims on the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Tree of Pain]].
25	** Father Duré, who was crucified on a "[[ElectricTorture Tesla Tree]]" but was not able to die due to a parasitic "cruciform" that continually revived him.
26	** Martin Silenus the poet suffers brain damage from [[HumanPopsicle cryosleep]] and is temporarily left unable to talk or use language for a period of time. Though torturous, the experience taught him ''real'' poetry and led him to begin his magnum opus, ''[[TitleDrop The Hyperion Cantos]]''.
27	* AnArmAndALeg: A. Bettik loses his left hand to some RazorFloss near the end of ''Endymion''. He has learned to compensate for the missing hand by the next book.
28	* ArtificialHuman: Androids in the series are nearly identical to regular humans, and "cybrids" are androids that act as biological terminals for the [=TechnoCore=].
29	* AuthorAppeal: Simmons is a former English teacher, so it amuses him to stuff his genre fiction with as many literary references as he can get away with. The first novel in the series, ''Hyperion'', is a WholePlotReference to Chaucer's ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales''. The works of Creator/JohnKeats also factor heavily into the series.
30	* BackAlleyDoctor: Brawne and Johnny visit one in one of Lusus's seedier Hives.
31	* BackgroundMagicField: The Void Which Binds is a transcendent medium made of the love and empathy of all sentient beings throughout time and space. Tapping into the Void Which Binds allows you to experience the memories of the living and the dead as if they were your own, and lets you teleport yourself across interstellar distances.
32	* BaitAndSwitch: The BroadStrokes of his motivation are revealed in ''The Fall of Hyperion,'' but the audience never gets to hear [[spoiler: the Templar's]] tale.
33	* BaitAndSwitchCompassion: Lenar Hoyt's first deputy and Councilor Albedo, in order to hide that Hoyt, after dying, is sometimes reborn as Paul Duré, always kill both him and any guards present. During the time shown in the books, the deputy remarks it's a pity... and hurries to explain that the rich cloth with which they covered the body can never be washed clean of the blood.
34	* BeenThereShapedHistory: The Consul has been involved, almost always in a peripheral or behind-the-scenes role, in virtually ever major foreign policy escapade of the Hegemony government for the last hundred years. [[spoiler:He also reveals himself to have been present for and, in the case of Sol Weintraub, the cause of three of the other pilgrims' previous misfortunes.]]
35	* BelieverFakesEvidence: Father Duré gets into trouble for faking the results of an archaeological expedition. He was searching for evidence that another planet once had aliens who practiced something similar to Christianity, but the evidence was inconclusive, and the decline of his religion made him desperate for anything to strengthen it.
36	* BestServedCold: The Ouster operative among the pilgrims has been plotting his revenge on the Hegemony for many decades.
37	* {{BFG}}: The "FORCE:GROUND multipurpose assault rifle", which can split a boulders in a single one shot and on higher power settings carve long holes through mountains. It has a range measured in ''thousands'' of kilometers.
38	* BigBeautifulWoman: Lamia [[HeavyWorlder hails from a higher-gravity planet]] and as a result is described as short, stocky and muscular. This does not stop her from being almost universally considered extremely attractive by other characters.
39	* BlessedWithSuck:
40	** The cruciform in ''Hyperion'' and ''The Fall of Hyperion'' is a cross-shaped parasite that grants its hosts a powerful HealingFactor -- but slowly transforms them, physically and mentally, into neutered caricatures of humanity.
41	** In ''Endymion'' and ''The Rise of Endymion'', the cruciform also makes you dependent on the Pax [[spoiler:and gives your mind over to the Core]]. It also functions as built in shock collar.
42	* BodyHorror:
43	** The cruciforms are embedded in the flesh of their hosts.
44	** The Ousters are seen as barbarians by the Hegemony who altered their body to an inhuman degree so they could live in zero gravity society.
45	* TheButcher: Colonel Kassad. The "backhanded compliment" version, at least to some. The colonel is an adherent of the strict rules of engagement the Hegemony gives but also a BloodKnight who will use ruthless tactics if the enemy breaks the rules first, which leads to innovative and horrifying victories.
46	* CasualTimeTravel: [[spoiler: In the future, it seems to be employed quite literally by the Core and humanity.]]
47	* CessationOfExistence: What happens after death, according to Aenea.
48	* ChameleonCamouflage: Military PowerArmor works this way.
49	* ChekhovsGun: Both played straight and subverted in Endymion, where it is established early on that [[spoiler:resurrection (which normally takes three days) can be rushed to completion in six hours at the risk of some major BodyHorror.]] Separately subverted with a literal "Chekhov's gun" -- huge plasma rifle which the narrator mentions and plays up for quite some time - but never is used for to significant effect.
50	* CheshireCatGrin: Martin Silenus's "demonic" satyr's grin.
51	* AChildShallLeadThem: In ''Rise of Endymion'', the Dalai Lama is an eight-year-old boy.
52	** Then there's Aenea herself, a teenager.
53	* CloningBodyParts: Mentioned as ''possible'' but too expensive for wide use.
54	* CorruptChurch: Very much so in the latter two books with the "Pax", a descendant of the Vatican that controls nearly all of mankind. While individual members (along with the occasional [[spoiler:pope]]) may be good, the church overall acts as one of the main villain organizations in ''Endymion'' and ''Rise of Endymion''.
55	* CurbstompBattle:
56	** Pretty much any time the [=TechnoCore=] is involved. Prominent in the second two books, with "Archangel-class" warships unceremoniously laying waste to almost everything they come up against. [[spoiler:The attack on the Startree is particularly heart-breaking, with millions of Ousters mobilizing to defend what is possibly mankind's greatest achievement in the setting being put to the sword by just a few dozen ships. There is not even a HopeSpot, just endless death and destruction.]]
57	** Pretty much any time the Shrike goes up against an opponent without phase shifting.
58	* ColonelBadass: Kassad. He's called "the Butcher of South Bressia" for a reason.
59	* CoolOldGuy: Oh, boy.
60	** Father Paul Duré is a charismatic old priest who fights to bring back his church from extinction, [[spoiler: Crucifies himself with electric rods for over a decade to eradicate his cruciform, then comes back from the dead to help the pilgrims stand against the Shrike.]]
61	** Sol Weintraub is a quiet, extremely intelligent old professor who would go up against the Shrike and his own God to heal [[PapaWolf his daughter.]]
62	** The Consul is a [[CulturedBadass cultured, suave]] old diplomat who, when not traveling across the known universe in his personal spaceship, shapes history and plots his vengeance against the [[spoiler: Hegemony]]for what they did to come to power.
63	** Martin Silenus is a [[SirSwearsALot foul mouthed,]] wisecracking, [[TheCynic cynical]], and, [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold when it comes down to it, honorable]] old poet who is quite mad, knows this, and doesn't give a single fuck about it.
64	* CoolOldLady: Meina Gladstone is the dignified and [[TheChessmaster powerful]] leader of the Hegemony who doesn't take crap from critics or the Technocore.
65	-->'''Technocore Representative''': ''Declaring war against the core would be like...like a fish declaring war on water. Like a driver attacking his EMV because of disturbing news of an accident elsewhere.''
66	-->'''Gladstone''': ''I once had a grandfather on Patawpha...who put six slugs from a pulse rifle into the family EMV when it did not start one morning. You are dismissed, Councilor.''
67	* CoolStarship: Archangels. Fleet destroying super-battleships with instant-anywhere FTL.
68	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: In ''The Rise of Endymion'', [[spoiler:Aenea is captured by the Pax and tortured by clones of Rhadamanth Nemes. They bite off one of her fingers, pull out all the fingernails on her left hand, and slash her face deeply enough to expose her cheekbones. Then Cardinal Lourdusamy burns her feet and finally sets her on fire, killing her.]]
69	* DeadpanSnarker: Martin Silenus, though Brawne Lamia has her moments as well, usually directed back towards Martin.
70	* DeaderThanDead: The Bikuras are burned to ashes and their camp is bombed with nuclear warhead so the Cruciform can't bring them back.
71	* DeathOfAChild: An entire maternity ward filled with babies gets blown up by Pax troops in The Rise Of Endymion.
72	* DeathRay: The deathwand is a weapon which instantly kills its target when fired. It leaves no wounds and has no effect on plants, animals, or inanimate objects: you just point at a human, pull the trigger, and watch that human drop dead.
73	* DebateAndSwitch: Immortal life at a spiritual cost, or harmony with the universe for a fleeting moment? [[spoiler:Just kidding, immortality means being a slave to the machines. Also, it's damaging to the universe. Also, they constantly need you to die. Also, the life-restoring cruciforms are actually neural parasites. Wait, why is your hand still up?]]
74	* DeusEstMachina: The goal of the Ultimates faction of the [=TechnoCore=] is to create the ultimate intelligence. This is compared many times to the creation of God. Additonally,[[spoiler: Father Dure]] gives a brief monologue about the various Deus and Machinas those in the setting are pursuing midway through ''The Fall of Hyperion''.
75	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Aenea is a messiah, who trains as a architect and [[spoiler:shares her blood and lets herself be killed to liberate mankind.]]
76	* DoingInTheWizard: Zig-zagged. In the first two books the Shrike has an air of mystery heightening its scariness. In the later two book its origins are fully explained and retconned in a way that make it clear that it is ''still'' a bit short of being an outright PhysicalGod. [[WrestlerInAllOfUs It still dropkicked the living shit out of the only thing that could even look at it funny at one point]], so there's still AlwaysABiggerFish.
77	* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent: [[spoiler:The Consul]] is working for the Hegemony, but is also a double agent for the Ousters. The Hegemony knows this, and believe him to also be a triple-agent for them. The Ousters also know ''that'', but are sure he's really a quadruple agent for them. [[spoiler:In reality, he's only in it for bloody revenge, and turns on the Ousters as soon as their hesitancy to launch a galactic war imperils his plan.]]
78	* DramaPreservingHandicap: In the fourth novel when Raul takes on Nemes barehanded it's worth noting that, for the duration of the fight, the PowersThatBe have taken away her ability to move in BulletTime, making it just ''slightly'' more of an "even fight" (she still has bones made of metal, long claws, shark teeth, feels no pain, etc).
79	* DropDeadGorgeous: When Kassad kills a Ouster and strips off the soldier's space suit, he's surprised that the Ouster inside is a naked woman. The narration gives a rather detailed description of the woman's nude corpse as it floats away. This is only one of many examples of the InterplayOfSexAndViolence in Kassad's storyline.
80	* DysonSphere: Well, Dyson ''Tree'': an Ouster structure is composed of millions of trees grown/interwoven together in zero-g around a star.
81	* DyingMomentOfAwesome: Kassad dies defeating the Shrike in hand-to-hand combat.
82	* EarthThatWas: Earth was destroyed by an errant experiment involving micro-black holes. [[spoiler:It gets better: it's revealed that the Lions and Tigers and Bears moved it to the Magellanic Cloud before the [=TechnoCore=] could destroy it. They also give it back.]]
83	* EndOfAnAge: In ''Fall of Hyperion'', [[spoiler:to save humanity from the [=TechnoCore=], Meina Gladstone orders the destruction of the farcaster network. This effectively brings an end to the Hegemony of Man, as the worlds of the Web are now cut off from each other and all interstellar travel is now limited to the Hawking drive, which takes years of real time to get anywhere.]]
84	* EnsembleCast:
85	** The first book features seven main characters, [[spoiler: six]] taking the time to tell their own tale.
86	** The audiobook of ''Hyperion'' is performed as a radio play, with each of the pilgrims having their own voice actor who narrates their tale and reads their dialogue in the framing story. This is, unfortunately, not continued into ''The Fall of Hyperion,'' with the abandonment of the ''Canterbury Tales'' story structure.
87	* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The Consul.
88	* ExtremeLibido: Martin Silenus, at some point in his life, underwent extensive body modifications into a satyr. Changes to his sexual apparatus were included. He stated that he "learned what "priapic" and "satyriasis" really mean" during that time.
89	* EyeScream: In ''Endymion'', Nemes rams a probe through poor Father Glaucus's eye so she can extract information from his brain.
90	* FaceHeelTurn: It's revealed in ''Endymion'' that [[spoiler:Hoyt murders Duré and becomes the Pope. By spreading the cruciform to all of humanity, he enslaves it to the Core.]]
91	* FalloutShelterFail: In the second book, the leader of one religion builds a shelter for himself deep inside a mountain to live in comfort until the end of the world his church expects. He gets a massive Oh, Crap! moment when the end of the world doesn't come...but the collapse of the PortalNetwork does. To explain, the portals were the only way to get in or out of the shelter...or to let air ''in.''
92	* FalseFlagOperation: In Fall of Hyperion, [[spoiler:the [=TechnoCore=] attacks dozens of Web worlds with fake Ouster Swarms in a ploy to convince the Hegemony that the Ousters are genocidal monsters who can't be stopped by conventional means. This fake invasion makes the Hegemony's leaders desperate enough to consider using a hideously destructive superweapon against the real Ousters, which is exactly what the Core wants.]]
93	* FamousFamousFictional: Meina Gladstone is likened to Lincoln, Churchill or "Alvarez-Temp" as a leader, and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler is frequently mentioned in the same breath as "Horace Glennon-Height".
94	* FantasticReligiousWeirdness: A very heavy theme throughout the series. In the first two books, religions have gone through some changes. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, is almost dead, and have made Jesuit philosopher Teilhard de Chardin a saint, integrating his teachings heavily into the Catechism. Judaism, with Israel destroyed, has "lost its significance". And while many communities exist, the whole practice has become [[ReplacementGoldfish like a theme park]], according to Sol at least. A syncretic religion called "Zen Gnosticism", [[BeenThereShapedHistory created in part by Martin Silenus]], has evolved out of what were Christianity and Buddhism, and is apparently the most followed faith in the Hegemony. And Islam has become something called "High Islam".
95	* FateWorseThanDeath:%%Zero-context examples.
96	%%** The condition the Ousters keep their prisoners of war in.
97	** The Tree of Pain is this. The Shrike leaves its victim on trees like its bird counterpart and due to how time works around the Time Tombs they are stuck to suffer through time.
98	%%** The traitors who are "thoroughly interrogated" and "detained" by the Hegemony.
99	** Father Dure regards the fate of those infected by the Cruciform parasite the same way. Being the victim of it at its rawest form he knows how painful and mind numbing the parasite can be to the host.
100	* FaunsAndSatyrs: Martin Silenus undergoes body modifications in order to turn himself into a satyric figure.
101	* FranchiseZombie: An in-universe example in "The Poet's Tale" section of ''Hyperion'': Martin Silenus becomes famous for his "Dying Earth" series but eventually becomes forced to keep writing it just to make a living.
102	* FTLTravelSickness: Traveling with a Hawking Drive causes severe hallucinations among other things, which is why most travel is conducted in cryosleep. The Ousters have modified ships which block the side effects.
103	* FutureBadass: [[spoiler: Rachel becomes Moneta, who is quite capable of taking down Kassad.]]
104	* GambitPileup: Pretty much what caused [[spoiler:the Ouster invasion. The Core provokes Bressia to attack the Ouster Swarm secretly, so the Swarm's massive retaliation looks like unprovoked barbaric aggression to the Hegemony. Said [[DisproportionateRetribution massive retaliation]] is actually not the Ousters, but instead the Core making sure the Web is freaked out about how genocidal and tough the Ousters are. Meanwhile the Core plants more fake Swarms around the Web so they can manufacture an invasion on demand. When Gladstone brings Hyperion into the Web, the real Ousters invade there to keep the Core from taking the Time Tombs. The Core sends their fake invasion against the Web and hands the Hegemony the deathwand bomb, urging them to point it at the real Ousters.]]
105	* GaspOfLife: When Paul Duré writes about the ResurrectiveImmortality of the Bikura, he describes the first breath of a reborn tribe member as "a rasp like water being poured into a leather pouch".
106	* GenreRoulette: Within the FramingDevice of a science-fiction epic, each of the stories is written in a different style and belongs to a completely different genre:
107	** "The Man who Cried God" is written as a diary and is an exploratory mystery in the style of 19th century adventure books, complete with a remote jungle tribe whose exotic customs the protagonist tries to figure out, and a horror twist in the end.
108	** "The War Lovers" is a [[MilitaryScienceFiction military sci-fi story]] reminiscent of ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' and ''Literature/TheForeverWar'', complete with detailed descriptions of brilliant combat tactics, cool futuristic weapon technology and exploding spaceships, told in flashback format in the no-nonsense, dispassionate tone that can be expected from a veteran soldier.
109	** "Hyperion Cantos" is a meta-rich tragicomedy about the pains of a poet struggling to produce meaningful art in a cynical future, written in a humorous, anecdotal, rambling singsong as can be expected from an experienced storyteller. It feels a bit like NewWaveScienceFiction.
110	** "The River Lethe's Taste is Bitter" is a slow-paced, sombre family tragedy about a man's attempt to reconnect with God as he's forced to watch his beloved daughter slowly dying from an incurable illness. The narration focuses more on the emotional resonances and philosophical ramifications of the sci-fi conceit on day-to-day life, [[InTheStyleOf reminiscent of]] Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin.
111	** "The Long Good-Bye" is a [[{{Cyberpunk}} cyberpunk-noir detective story]], down to opening with the detective describing in the first person what a normal day it was as they were sitting in their office drinking whisky when a handsome stranger walked in with an unusual request.
112	** "Remembering Siri" is a love story between a poor kid from the big, wide galaxy and naive noble girl from a beautiful, backwards planet. It's the most narratively complex of the tales, being told in a non-chronological fashion, shifting back and forth between time periods and narrators and ultimately revealing that the teller wasn't even whom the reader assumed they were - [[spoiler: befitting a story told by a triple agent.]]
113	* GenreSavvy: Many of the characters quip various [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] in archetypal situtations (i. e. Father Duré wondering at first if the Bikura [[GodGuise hadn't mistakened him for a deity]], remarking that something like that is worthy of clichéd holonovels).
114	* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Martin's father takes this trope up to eleven.
115	* GodWasMyCopilot: [[spoiler:Bettik is the Observer for the Lions and Tigers and Bears.]]
116	* HeavyWorlder: Brawne Lamia (and all other Lusans, by extension), as well as the ([[HufflepuffHouse not often seen]]) folks from Sol Draconi Septem.
117	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:De Soya, and (most of) the crew of both his ''Archangel'' ships.]]
118	* HeldGaze: One happens between Kassad and [[spoiler:Moneta when they are lying on the forest floor after they have just met.]]
119	* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[spoiler:Rachel]]'s adventures are hinted at in a few tantalizing scenes in the first, second and fourth books.
120	* HijackedByGanon: Did you think ''Endymion'' was just about [[spoiler:a CorruptChurch? Nope, they're just puppets of the [=TechnoCore=].]]
121	* {{Homage}}: The first book is written in the style of ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales'' and the series is inspired by the work of Creator/JohnKeats. In addition, several of the individual tales are homages to other SF works or genres.
122	** "The Priest's Tale" bears a a striking resemblance to Creator/JamesBlish's ''A Case of Conscience''.
123	** "The Detective's Tale" is cyberpunk (complete with a Creator/WilliamGibson NameDrop).
124	** "The Soldier's Tale" uses a lot of elements from Creator/JoeHaldeman's ''Literature/TheForeverWar''.
125	** The ''Consul's Tale'' is a sci-fi ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''.
126	* HonorBeforeReason: How Raul Endymion rolls. Of course it nearly gets him killed.
127	* HollywoodTactics: An intentional example. Hegemony ground wars before the Ouster invasion were fought with organized battles on open fields as it was considered more honorable and less harmful to civilians. While they wise up pretty quickly, their ground forces are initially devastated by the much more competent Ouster troops. It's explained during Kassad's tale that the public opinion of the military was so bad only the word could lead to riots and lynching which lead to those tactics being installed under the new Bushido. Even Kassad taking out a terrorist without any hostages killed or his counter-attack on Bressia are viewed in-universe as controversial solely because of how brutal he was.
128	* HumanoidAbomination: [[MultiArmedAndDangerous Two extra arms aside]], the Shrike has an otherwise vaguely humanish shape, but it is for all intents an EldritchAbomination. It is a creature of horror that communicates only in fear and pain, and seemingly breaks rules of reality at will, being [[NighInvulnerability completely indestructible]], able to [[TeleportSpam disappear from one spot and instantly appear in another at will]], eerily silent, and follows a set of motives that seem [[BlueAndOrangeMorality inscrutable and almost arbitrary from our point of view]].
129	* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: The "Gideon drive" is described as being terrifying to use, possibly killing you in incredibly painful ways.
130	* ImmortalLifeIsCheap: Many immortals in the latter two books are vaporized, devoured, or melted, resulting in "true death". Archangel-class ships are designed with the crew's gruesome and repeated deaths in mind. Considering the excruciating details of the original Archangel's introduction, this doubles as horrific.
131	* ImmortalRuler: By Raul's time, the same man has continuously held the office of Pope for over two hundred and fifty years, with his tenure interrupted only by the occasional death and resurrection.
132	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: The Shrike gets its name from its habit of doing this.
133	* InformedAbility: Rise of Endymion is full of references to the independent nature, critical thinking tendencies and, at one point, a vast mob of "intelligent, questioning, alert" Aenea's followers. Needless to say, they all obey their leader's every word without question, never hesitate, never second-guess and rarely show any personality beyond total obedience. Aenea's paradigm-shifting revelations are more often than not taken at face value.
134	* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: A central theme of Kassad's tale. The Shrike also shows up during two different sex scenes.
135	* InvisibilityFlicker: The Shrike, with its super-speed and time manipulation abilities, can (and sometimes does) kill without ever being seen. However, owing perhaps to sadism, it normally appears in front of its victims in full view for the maximum amount of terror. Being NighInvulnerable means it's not much of a risk.
136	* InstantExpert: Averted. When Kassad commandeers an Ouster transport ship, he's only able to get a vague idea of how to use it after randomly pressing buttons and comparing the cockpit to that of Hegemony ships, and the ship still blows up in reentry. Lampshaded when Kassad notes that characters in fiction somehow always know how to use any vehicle they get into.
137	* {{Jerkass}}: Silenus is definitely seen as one throughout much of the first two books, with some of his fellow pilgrims assaulting and threatening to kill him due to his behavior.
138	* {{Koan}}: Ummon has quite a few of these. Not surprising, given that he's [[MeaningfulName named after the great Chinese Zen master]] Yunmen Wenyan, known in Japanese (and from there English) as Ummon. Some of them may or may not have the IceCreamKoan nature, depending on [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation how firmly you believe]] the AIs are really in control of things.
139	* LackOfEmpathy: ''Rise of Endymion'' states this to be a defining characteristic of the [=TechnoCore=]. Having evolved from parasitic proto-A.I.s that cannibalized one another to survive, modern A.I.s are incapable of viewing other life forms--even fellow A.I.s--as anything but potential hosts, tools to be used and discarded once they are no longer useful, or threats. This predatory mindset and lack of empathy prevents them from properly attuning with the Void Which Binds, forcing them to rely on inefficient technological workarounds that put the very universe at risk out of {{pride}}.
140	* LiterallyShatteredLives: In ''Fall of Hyperion'', [[spoiler:Brawne transmutes the Shrike to glass and pushes it over. It shatters upon hitting the floor.]]
141	* TheManBehindTheMan: [[spoiler:The Core]] in the first two books are behind everything from [[spoiler:the Ouster invasion]] to [[spoiler:the ''motherfucking Shrike!'']]
142	* MadeOfIndestructium: The farcaster portals were built to last. In ''Endymion'' the River Tethys portal on Renaissance Vector is hit with a sustained CPB from one of de Soya's ships. The minute-long blast reduces everything around the portal to slag and steam. The portal itself comes through the blast largely unscathed.
143	* MayDecemberRomance:
144	** Raul and Aenea are a rather extreme example. They first meet when he is twenty-seven and she's twelve. Their ages are drawn closer together by the [[TimeDilation effects of relativistic travel]] before they actually become a couple.
145	** The Consul's grandfather's romance turns into this because she's following TheSlowPath.
146	* MeaningfulName: Creator/DanSimmons is quite fond of literary references
147	** Brawne Lamia (Brawne being the last name of Creator/JohnKeats' RealLife sweetheart, [[spoiler: and Brawne herself falls in love with a retrieved from the past John Keats in the form of a cybrid]]).
148	** Rachel Weintraub. Rachel means "Lamb" and at the midpoint of the ''Fall of Hyperion'' she becomes the SacrificialLamb when Sol, her father, re-enacts the Sacrifice of Abraham.
149	* MeatSackRobot: The Cybrids in this series are human bodies remotely controlled by an AI.
150	* MerlinSickness: The TropeNamer. A "disease" in ''Hyperion'' that Rachel Weintraub contracts after contact with the Time Tombs causes her to age backwards. This includes things like her ''memories and cognitive abilities as well'', so she slowly ages backwards from a woman in her mid-twenties with a promising future and a loving boyfriend devoted to her, to progressively forgetting everything she's learned. By the time of Hyperion, she's been reduced to a month-old baby at most.
151	%%* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily: The Shrike.
152	* MultiArmedAndDangerous: The Shrike has four arms with fingers like knives.
153	* MultipleNarrativeModes: Depends on who is telling their story. For example, Kassad's story is told in third-person, and immediately after that, Silenus' is entirely in first-person.
154	* MysteriousProtector: In the ''Endymion'' books, the Shrike goes out of its way to protect Aenea and Raul for its own inscrutable reasons. Whenever the two of them are faced with a danger that they cannot overcome their own, there is a good chance that the Shrike will appear out of nowhere and rip whatever is threatening them to shreds.
155	* {{Nanomachines}}: A ubiquitous part of the setting.
156	* NayTheist: Sol after his daughter's illness, before he was not much of a believer but after what is for all purpose a curse he started having conversation with God and try to force the choice of Abraham on Him.
157	* NighInvulnerability:
158	** The cruciform allows for regeneration from FromASingleCell, albeit with the consequence of repeated revivals slowly transforming one into a retarded and genderless being.
159	** The Shrike is seemingly indestructible and with its natural TimeTravel abilities, can come back after appearing to be destroyed.
160	** Nemes, when phase shifted, shows invulnerability second only to the Shrike. Even a laser measured in the gigawatts (stated to be the full energy output of a warship at TimTaylorTechnology levels) does little more than seal her in the slag produced by the blast.
161	* NonLinearCharacter: Moneta, a character Kassad meets who seemingly is meeting him backward in time (his first time meeting her is her last time seing him, and vice versa). Later revealed [[spoiler:that she's actually Rachel Weintraub, whose experience in the Time Tombs has enabled her to move backwards and forwards in time, thus allowing her TimeTravelRomance with Kassad. She ends up as one of Aenea's disciples and ultimately saves her younger self when her father tries to sacrifices her to the Shrike.]]
162	* NoNameGiven: The Consul.
163	* OffingTheOffspring: [[spoiler:Sol Weintraub]] attempts to reenact the Sacrifice of Abraham, only with [[spoiler:his time-reversed infant daughter as the sacrifice and the Shrike instead of God. Considering she was only seconds away from non-existence ''anyway'', this might have been the only way to save her.]]
164	* OhCrap: When Kassad is in a simulation of the [[UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar Battle of Agincourt]] he notices that, while he may be trained with virtually every kind of weaponry there is, from futuristic guns to the longbow, he doesn't have ''any'' of those things on hand...and he's just unthinkingly charged alone after a heavily armed knight. His reaction: ''"Ah shit."''
165	* OneManArmy:
166	** The Shrike can, and ''does'', kill thousands of people and destroy dozens of vehicles in less than a picosecond. ''Literally''.
167	** Nemes and her "siblings" are each capable of tearing through an army as well.
168	** Individual Pax Swiss Guard troopers can easily defeat thousands of regular Pax troopers (each of whom carries enough firepower to level mountains).
169	* OrganicTechnology: Fairly common in the universe. The largest example being the Templars "tree ships", which are giant, space-travelling trees protected by [[DeflectorShields force fields]] generated from living things. Many forms of AI are apparently DNA based, whatever that means. [[spoiler: The Core utilizes humans as vast parallel processors, first by using people travelling through farcasters, and then using the cruciforms.]]
170	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler:Kassad's conquest and [[TheSiege defense]] of the Solar System are largely off-camera.]]
171	* OurGodsAreDifferent: They're called "Ultimate Intelligences". At least some are computers, and humans create them, not the other way around.
172	* OutsideContextProblem: Hyperion is a planet isolated from the Webway due to being a considered a backwater planet, so people can't just [[TeleportationWithDrawbacks Farcast]] to it. It has an extremely weak magnetic field, so a lot of standard technology like [[FlyingCar EMV's and magnetic barges]] simply don't work. It also contains a PhysicalGod RoboticPsychopath, an insanely expansive set of ancient tunnels [[RuinsForRuinsSake and the equally enigmatic Time Tombs that are going]] ''[[MerlinSickness backwards in time and taking everything near it with it slowly and steadily]]''. Most of the Hegemony barely knows it by more than name, and yet the actions taken upon it influence the entirety of the human race.
173	* PersonOfMassDestruction: Depending on your definition of "person", the Shrike. It is effectively invulnerable, and with his time manipulation it can kill thousands in less than a second.
174	* PhlebotinumBomb: Toward the end of Fall of Hyperion, the [=TechnoCore=] convinces the Hegemony's leaders that the best way to deal with the Ousters is by unleashing the deathbomb, a weapon which kills all humans within several lightyears but has no effect on the environment or any other form of life.
175	* PhysicalGod: The Shrike can freely manipulate time and space, and is for all intents and purposes invulnerable. Appropriately enough, he has a church devoted to him.
176	* PlanetOfHats: There's the planet of the Jews (which suffers implied genocide), the planet of the Muslims (a backward, desert world [[spoiler:also genocide]]), the planet of the tree-worshipping Asians [[spoiler:which gets nuked]], the planet of the Palestinians (in a permanent state of rebellion; also, the planet in question is UsefulNotes/{{Mars}} -- yes, the one you know), the planet of the slums, the planet of the bureaucrats, the planet of the Catholics and so on. To be fair, some of these are [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as being self-selected. For example Mars as home to the Palestinians is explicitly mentioned as their second stage of refugeedom, while many other planets were expressly established with some religious or ideological agenda e.g. Maui-Covenant (environmentalist Hawaiians playing nice with dolphins), Hebron (a ReplacementGoldfish for Israel, with its capital New Jerusalem standing in the place of the cosmopolitan urban Israel, and the rest of the planet largely taken up by scattered kibbutzim), [=MadredeDios=] (Latin American Catholic pioneers), Asquith (Brits, to the point of keeping UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWindsor on the throne), and Madhya (a Hindu haven).
177	* PoweredArmor:
178	** The combat armor worn by FORCE troops in the first two books. It lets Kassad chop his hand faster than the speed of sound to decapitate an opponent; it also has a ton of specialized defensive capacities (absorbing concussions from explosions as well as bullet/frag impacts, radiating off heat energy from laser beams, etc).
179	** The Swiss Guard's armor in the latter two books. Raul was worried that shooting them would accomplish nothing except to piss them off, which would only make the situation worse for all concerned.
180	** The "skinsuits" Kassad and Moneta utilize, which give wearers incredible strength, speed, and durability, and as a defense against light/laser-based attacks makes the wearer into a ChromeChampion.
181	* PowerIncontinence: Late in ''The Rise of Endymion'', Raul learns that "learning the languages of the dead and the living" means that you experience constant visions of random people's lives and deaths, as if you yourself were living them, with no ability to make them stop. He learns to tune them out, but even so these foreign life experiences are always lurking at the edges of his awareness.
182	* PowerOfLove: [[spoiler: The Void That Binds. Allows for time travel and a form of {{telepathy}}/{{psychometry}} with all living things.]]
183	* PowersThatBe: The [[spoiler:Lions and Tigers and Bears]]. Not to mention the various [[spoiler:Ultimate Intelligences]].
184	* PregnantBadass: [[spoiler:Brawne Lamia]].
185	* ProfaneLastWords: At the end of ''The Fall Of Hyperion'', when the PortalNetwork is destroyed, one rich woman is stuck on a skyscraper a few kilometers high. When she (misunderstanding the instructions of the people attempting to rescue her) turns off the force field windows, she gets blown out. The fall took four minutes, and the rescuers claimed she followed the trope all the way through.
186	* PronouncingMyNameForYou: Raul Endymion. Normally pronounced like the spanish "Raúl" (rhymes with "cool") but early on he specifies that it actually rhymes with "''Paul''".
187	* PsychicGlimpseOfDeath: The climax of ''The Rise of Endymion'' is Aenea broadcasting her torture and death to the whole of humanity (well, except for the tormentors themselves).
188	* RageAgainstTheHeavens: Sol Weintraub gets a few of these moments in the form of mental arguments with God.
189	-->''You use Nazis as your instruments. Madmen. Monsters. You're a goddamn monster yourself.''\
190	''Listen! There will be no more offerings, neither child nor parent. There will be no more sacrifices for anyone but our fellow human. The time of obedience and atonement has passed. That's all! Now either leave us alone or join us as a father, rather than a receiver of sacrifices. You have the choice of Abraham!''
191	* RazorFloss: In ''Endymion'', Nemes lays multiple lengths of monofilament wire across a stretch of the River Tethys as part of a trap for Aenea. When Aenea's party blunders into the trap, the wires slice off A. Bettik's left hand and cut their raft to pieces.
192	* Really700YearsOld: Courtesy of spending over a century as a HumanPopsicle on a slower-than-light ship, time debt from relativistic travel, and liberal application of anti-aging treatments, Martin Silenus is much older than he looks. The physical signs of Pulson treatments make him look around 150, but he was born on a planet that was destroyed 400 years before the start of the series.
193	** His former editor and current fashion maven intentionally goes into cryogenic fugue every so often, and is even older.
194	* RedEyesTakeWarning: The Shrike has red GlowingEyesOfDoom.
195	* ReformedButRejected: No one ever remembers that Kassad resigned his commission and became an anti-war activist - once you earn a nickname like "[[TheButcher The Butcher of South Bressia]]", you're not going to be remembered for anything else.
196	* {{Retcon}}: The second two books revise and reinterpret many of the events of the first two. See DoingInTheWizard above.
197	* RetroRocket: The Consul's starship is designed to look like one. His intent was to make it fit the Platonic ideal of "space ship".
198	* RiverOfInsanity: Father Duré's expedition to the mysterious Bikura tribe on Hyperion, retold by Hoyt in "The Priest's Tale".
199	* RobotReligion: The [=TechnoCore's=] Ultimate Intelligence project is referenced using religious language. The UI is frequently equated with and even referred to as God.
200	* SapientCetaceans: There is mention of intelligent telepathic dolphins. Unfortunately they are noted to have been hunted nearly to extinction two hundred years prior...''because'' they were sentient.
201	* SapientShip: The Consul's "singleship" is piloted by an AI (and lacks obvious manual controls).
202	* SceneryGorn: In the second book the invasion of Hyperion. Also when the [[spoiler:"Ouster" swarms destroy Heaven's Gate and God's Grove.]]
203	* SchizoTech: Hyperion (the planet) has a fair bit of this going on, owing to being a backwater outback world of limited importance. The most glaring example is the barge the pilgrims use to traverse the Hooley River. Originally intended to hover above the ground (and unable to in Hyperion's weak magnetic field), the narration notes that it has burns on the ceiling caused by oil lamps.
204	* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale:
205	** Certain starships are depicted as capable of devastating entire planets and blowing up ''stars''. However, any time actual firepower is described, it is kiloton level beams and megaton-level missiles, delivered in single-digit salvos. You'd have to spend a ''long'' time destroying anything as big as a planet (or a trillion square kilometers of [[spoiler:forcefield-protected tree]]) that way. Could be because all explicitly noted firepower yields were for Ouster and [[spoiler:[=TechnoCore=] masquerading as Ouster]] ships, which are generally inferior to Hegemony/Pax ships and fight using Zerg Rush tactics.
206	** Also, even the best ships seem to have real problems when entering the upper layers of red giants. Red giants are relatively cool and ''really'' low density. You'll be hard pressed to absorb more than a couple megatons per hour inside one.
207	* SeriesContinuityError: [[spoiler:Father Dure's cruciform is removed by the Shrike at the end of the second book after it shows him the Labyrinth filled with corpses, leaving only Lenar Hoyt's. In the third book, both of them still exist, and when one dies the other revives.]]
208	* SevenDirtyWords: Brain damage reduces Martin Silenus' vocabulary to these, for a time.
209	* ShockCollar: The cruciform can wrack its host with excruciating pain on command. Councillor Albedo punishes a few of his uppity pawns this way in the fourth book.
210	* ShoutOut:
211	** Martin Silenus' monster best-seller is called "The Dying Earth", in explicit reference to Jack Vance's ''Literature/DyingEarth''.
212	** The John Keats references are actually discussed [[DiscussedTrope in-universe by the characters themselves]].
213	** There's even a ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' reference near the end of the first book. The Hegemony truly has no culture save for what it remembers from Old Earth.
214	** The opening paragraph is basically a long version of the quintessential line, "[[ItWasADarkAndStormyNight It was a dark and stormy night.]]"
215	** It also has an absolutely hysterical reference to Magazine/{{MAD}} in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it line about 43-Man Squamish.
216	** The [=TechnoCore=] "ambassador" asserts that [[ThreeLawsCompliant "it pains us to harm any human, or allow a human to come to harm."]] (Lying through his artificial teeth.)
217	* SlapSlapKiss: More like attempted murder, brutal rape, begrudging consent. Jarringly, [[spoiler:Moneta]] is never held accountable for this and is an [[KarmaHoudini otherwise sympathetic character]].
218	* SleeperStarship: Used for interstellar travel. Silenus uses this to extend his life, and [[spoiler:the Core does this to billions of humans in the second half of the series to use them as massive parallel processors.]]
219	* TheSlowPath: In the Consul's tale, his grandfather has a romance with a girl he meets between space trips. Each time he returns, she has aged many years, while only a short time has passed for him.
220	* SophisticatedAsHell: Martin Silenus' entire Modus Operandi.
221	* SpaceCossacks: The Ousters are a splinter human race adapted to living in deep space, making do with scarce resources and unconnected to the [[PortalNetwork Farcaster network]]. They attack the also-human Hegemony for apparently no reason.
222	* SpaceIsNoisy: Colonel Fedmahn Kassad spends an extended scene fighting Ousters in the vacuum of a derelict ship using a sonic gun. ([[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer It was his only weapon]], he was in a heavily damaged space suit, and the ship wasn't ''totally'' in vacuum.)
223	* SpaceMarine: The Swiss Guard in the second two books. For bonus points, they are foot soldiers of an evil Catholic empire, fighting alien heresy with PoweredArmor and Latin. Yeah, they're ''[[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 that]]'' kind of Space Marines.
224	%%* SpacePeople: Again, the Ousters.
225	* SpikesOfVillainy: The Shrike is covered head-to-toe in (or maybe is just ''made'' of) vicious looking metallic thorns.
226	* StableTimeLoop:
227	** [[spoiler: The entirety of the plot of the series seems to suggest one.]]
228	** A more benign example is that [[spoiler: Rachel Weintraub]] gives her name to Kassad as "Moneta", as she moves through time backwards (meaning each of them knows the other best when the other has just met them). When he meets her furthest into her past and his future, he calls her "Moneta", and she adopts the name.
229	* StarfishAliens: Several sapient species described in Hyperion are incredibly different. Even the Ousters, who are genetically altered humans, look radically different from normal humans.
230	* SubmersibleSpaceship: The spaceship used by the main characters was designed to be able to survive the heat of a red giant's outer layers. [[JustifiedTrope Therefore]], it's able to stay underwater for a few years without any problem.
231	* SwissArmyGun: The multipurpose FORCE assault rifle. A [[EnergyWeapon laser-shooting]] [[SecondaryFire flechette-grenade-launching]] DisintegratorRay [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot particle cannon]] [[MoreDakka fully-automatic]] [[{{Troperiffic}} sniper rifle]]. It noted that the only thing it was ''not'' designed to do is cook the troops food...but with its energy output set to its lowest setting, it could probably do that too.
232	* TeleportersAndTransporters: "Farcasting" allows for instantaneous travel through two connected points. [[spoiler:At the end of the series, ''anyone'' can teleport anywhere using the [[PowerOfLove "Void That Binds"]].]]
233	* TerminatorTwosome: [[spoiler: The Core sends the Shrike into the past to kill humanity's Ultimate Intelligence, and Moneta/Rachel follows it to help set the plot into motion.]]
234	* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Kassad considers himself the only one who can kill the Shrike. [[spoiler:''The Rise of Endymion'' reveals that he is only one allowed to do so because part of his soul actually ''resides'' in the Shrike, thus he is paradoxically killing himself. That same paradox ensures that by killing the Shrike (and himself) he will live into the future and becomes Moneta's lover and one of the heroes of the ''Hyperion Cantos'' saga.]]
235	* TheyCallMeBarkeep: The Consul is never once referred to by his name, whatever it is.
236	* TimeSkip: ''Rise of Endymion'' begins four years after ''Endymion'' ends.
237	* TimeStandsStill: The Shrike, thanks to its ability to manipulate time.
238	* TimeTravel: Used very frequently throughout the series.
239	%%* TimeTravelRomance: Kassad and Moneta
240	* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Kassad '''is''' the Shrike. Or, more accurately, the Shrike comes from him]].
241	* TorchTheFranchiseAndRun: Done in-universe. The poet Martin Silenus, finally realizing that his profitable ''Dying Earth'' series of books[[note]]Yes, the title is a tribute to Creator/JackVance[[/note]] has become a brain-dead ClicheStorm, decides to just kill the thing off completely and utterly so that he can search for his lost muse and work on ''real'' poetry.
242	* TornApartByTheMob: Meina Gladstone dies this way after giving the order to destroy the interstellar PortalNetwork, and the civilization with it.
243	* TreeVessel: The Ouster "Treeships".
244	* UndergroundCity: The planet Lusus contains several, unflatteringly called "Hives" by the locals.
245	* TheUnfettered: [[spoiler:The Consul]], who has spent literally his entire life doing whatever is required (and sacrificing whatever is necessary) to get into a position to bring down the Hegemony.
246	* UnhandThemVillain: Narrowly averted in ''The Rise of Endymion''. The protagonists go to rescue people from the hanging temple and discover Rhadamanth Nemes dangling the Dalai Lama over a cliff. Aenea commands Nemes to let the boy go. Nemes does just that, but catches him before he can drop to his death.
247	* UniversalDriversLicense: Raul contemplates this in ''Endymion'' as he considers stealing an "ornithopter". He realizes he can't fly one, and [[LampshadeHanging muses that a fictional hero should be able to pilot ''any'' vehicle]].
248	* UnreliableIllustrator: The Shrike is depicted on the covers of all four books, but has only two arms on the covers of the first three. ''The Rise of Endymion'' portrays it with its full set of four arms.
249	* UnreliableNarrator: Raul in ''Endymion'', such as when he claims initially not to know [[spoiler:Aenea's fate]]. He admits it later, and proceeds to dump us (the readers) with [[spoiler:a gruesome torture scene followed by Aenea burning to death]]. Who knows what else he hid from us?
250	* WetwareCPU: The [=TechnCore=] [=AIs=] [[spoiler: use human brains as processors]], courtesy of commlog implants.
251	* WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture: Where to begin? The "[=TechnoCore=]", the "[=WorldWeb=]", and the "[=AllThing=]" are all staples of the series. Some examples are particularly egregious, such as the enigmatic "[=TangleWebs=]" and the somewhat redundant "[=DeathBomb=]" (To be fair, that last was an area-of-effect modification of a single-target weapon, the [[DeathRay deathwand]]). As a rule of thumb, if a device or technology is not named after a person, this is how it's referred to.
252	* TheWhitesOfTheirEyes: Averted and Lampshaded. Spacebattles in the series take places at ranges of millions of kilometers, and it's noted that modern infantry would find the ranges that most fictional starships engage at to be claustrophobic.
253	* WhodunnitToMe: The plot to Brawne Lamia's tale revolves around her trying to find the killer of [[spoiler: A resurrected persona of John Keats]]
254	* WholePlotReference: Most of the first volume, to ''The Canterbury Tales''. [[spoiler:Also the final part of Endymion, to the second Terminator.]]
255	* WhoWantsToLiveForever: The cruciform keeps you from dying no matter how much you might want to - and also keeps you from leaving a small geographic area. In the latter books, the technology has been harnessed to keep humanity virtually immortal but at a hefty spiritual price.
256	* TheWorfEffect: Nemmes actually manages to go something resembling even with [[spoiler:the Shrike, which previously engaged and summarily defeated a combined ground-air-space task force of tens of thousands in ''seconds''.]] [[spoiler:Later, her boss remarks that Nemes cheated. Later encounters have Shrike easily defeating her clone and the other two clones being sacrificed to take it out]].
257	* WouldHurtAChild: Rhadamanth Nemes is perfectly willing to throw the prepubescent Dalai Lama off a cliff if it gets her closer to capturing Aenea.
258	* WretchedHive: These abound, although the most prominent is the one on Lusus.
259	* YouCantFightFate: [[spoiler:Het and Kassad are both destined to die, Rachel is destined to become Moneta, and the Shrike will always be created in the future. However, the existence of alternate futures seems to open the possibility that fate isn't set in stone.]]
260	* ZeroGSpot: Raul and Aenea's weightless consummation of their relationship in the Ouster Startree is described in great...detail.

Context Literature / HyperionCantos