| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lensman.jpg]] |
| 2 | %% |
| 3 | ->''"Holy Klono's tungsten teeth and curving carballoy claws!"'' |
| 4 | |
| 5 | The ''Lensman series'' by Creator/EEDocSmith counts as one the earliest {{Space Opera}}s, and, therefore, the TropeMaker of many of the conventions used by the genre. This makes the series a must-read for anyone interested in the genesis of ScienceFiction. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | The series was assembled from ''Galactic Patrol'', a serial published in ''Astounding Stories'' magazine from 1937 onwards. (Smith rewrote and expanded ''Triplanetary'', serialized in 1934 in ''Amazing Stories'', to serve as a {{prequel}} to the main series.) It describes the epic battle between [[BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil Good and Evil]] as personified by Civilization (and their sponsors, Arisia) and Boskone (and ''their'' sponsors, Eddore), respectively. Each faction is, in fact, the pawn of a different race of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens who each have a [[ScaryDogmaticAliens grand plan]] for the sentient beings of the universe. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | The Kinnison bloodline plays an important role for Civilization, since it was [[GambitRoulette carefully bred over millennia]] by the Arisians to [[EvolutionaryLevels produce a race of super-beings]] that would ultimately [[AGodAmI supplant the Arisians themselves]]. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | The title object, the Lens of Civilization, is an EmpathicWeapon that initially grants its users PsychicPowers which vary in strength and effectiveness from user to user, as well as providing an identification for Law Enforcement that cannot be forged or duplicated and instantly kills anyone attempting impersonation. For certain, [[TheChosenOne special]] individuals, the Lens is largely a MagicFeather. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | The Lensman series consists of: |
| 14 | |
| 15 | * ''Triplanetary'' (serialized 1934, book publication 1948) |
| 16 | * ''First Lensman'' (book publication 1950) |
| 17 | * ''Galactic Patrol'' (serialized 1937-8, book publication 1950) |
| 18 | * ''Gray Lensman'' (serialized 1939-40, book publication 1951) |
| 19 | * ''Second Stage Lensmen'' (serialized 1941-2, book publication 1953) |
| 20 | * ''Children of the Lens'' (serialized 1947-8, book publication 1954) |
| 21 | |
| 22 | The book version converted ''Triplanetary'', an originally unrelated serial, into a {{prequel}} by adding new material to the beginning. The original serialized version of ''Triplanetary'', but not the revised version of the novel, has gone into public domain, meaning that a number of e-bookstores have the old version, sometimes for free. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | ''Masters of the Vortex'' (also known as ''The Vortex Blaster'') appeared as works of short fiction which Smith reconfigured into novel form in 1960. It occurs in the same continuity but here the events of the Boskonian war are peripheral and irrelevant to the plot. Atomic powerplants around the galaxy have for many years been exploding, turning into all-consuming, all-polluting, inexorably-growing fireballs that defy analysis, explanation or control. Neal Cloud, a mathematical prodigy who heads up the scientific efforts to do all three, is inspired to develop a means for their destruction when he loses his family to one and sets out to clear the galaxy of them. Along the way, he has various adventures, foils a criminal mastermind and, with the help of a female cybernetic engineer every bit as brilliant as himself, finds out the stunning truth of exactly what the Vortices are and why. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | The ''Lensman'' series was adapted into a (unlicensed) Japanese Anime movie (''SF New Century Lensman'') and series (''Lensman: Galactic Patrol'') , which took the [[BroadStrokes basic outline]] and the [[InNameOnly names of most of the major characters]] and turned it all into a ''Franchise/StarWars'' ripoff. Doc Smith's estate attempted to sue the anime's creators over the series but the lawsuit was thrown out on a technicality. (The litigants had waited too long before acting and thus failed to protect their copyright.) The movie and a CompilationMovie of part of the series were dubbed in English by Harmony Gold USA. Later, Creator/StreamlinePictures redubbed the movie with the original soundtrack and no cuts for content. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | In 1963 the New England Science Fiction Association named their annual SF convention "Boskone" (a play on "'''Bos'''ton '''Con'''vention") in Smith's honor. The convention newsletter is named "Helmuth", of course.[[note]]Helmuth is an intermediate [[TheDragon Dragon]] who always begins his messages to his underlings by saying "Helmuth, speaking for Boskone!"[[/note]] After a group of fans got [[PersonaNonGrata in trouble with the Boskone organizers]], they started up [[StartMyOwn an alternative (and, eventually, larger) convention]] called "Arisia." |
| 29 | |
| 30 | |
| 31 | '''WARNING: Spoilers may be unmarked.''' |
| 32 | |
| 33 | ---- |
| 34 | !!Tropes used in the ''Lensman'' series include: |
| 35 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[folder:Tropes A - G]] |
| 38 | * TwoDSpace: Averted. Englobement is a standard tactic, as is the Cone of Battle. |
| 39 | * AbsurdlyExclusiveRecruitingStandards: [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] example. Despite the discussion at the beginning of ''Galactic Patrol'' of how stringent the selection and training process is, "ordinary" Lensmen are more TheChosenMany. Gray Lensmen are a straight example, being a highly select group of Lensmen that no one is considered qualified to give orders to - not even other Gray Lensmen. Finally, there are the Second-Stage Lensmen whose numbers can be counted on the fingers of one human hand. |
| 40 | ** To put it in context: Lensman's Exam on Earth takes the top one million 18-year-olds on the planet, and the five-year-long selection process weeds out all but a hundred. Those who progress high enough but don't clear the final hurdle become the enlisted ranks and the non-Lensbearing Officer Corps. |
| 41 | * ActionGirl: Clarissa Kinnison is surprisingly badass for the time period. Later on, Clarissa proves herself badass for ''most'' time periods. |
| 42 | ** Her daughters, two sets of twins aged eighteen and nineteen, aren't far behind, and later on they turn it up to eleven -- possibly twelve. |
| 43 | * AdvanceNoticeCrime: The campaign of terror that destroys the social order on Antigan IV culminates in a declaration that at midnight on a specific day, the president will disappear. Despite the president being in a vault surrounded by unquestionably trustworthy guards at the time, he does indeed disappear (along with the guards); Kinnison guesses afterward that a hyper-spatial tube was used to bypass all the defences. Then a similar campaign and announcement occurred on Radelix...[[spoiler:and it turns out that in both cases, the president was incidental; the whole thing was actually a trap for Kinnison himself, snatching him when he comes to the president's rescue.]] |
| 44 | * AlliterativeName: Conway Costigan, Kimball Kinnison. Joan Janowick (in ''Masters of the Vortex''). And it doesn't stop ''there'': Christopher "Kit" Kinnison, Kathryn "Kat" Kinnison, Camilla "Cam" Kinnison, Karen "Kay" Kinnison, Constance "Con" Kinnison, William "Wild Bill" Williams II... |
| 45 | * AlienNonInterferenceClause: |
| 46 | ** Zig-zagged by the Arisians and Eddorians. While the Arisians do meddle in the development of lower civilizations, they will almost never personally intervene to save an individual's life or even avert a planet-wrecking disaster. All they care about is that what civilization ''does'' survive becomes stronger in the long run. The Eddorians, for their part, similarly loathe revealing themselves personally. But that doesn't stop them from eagerly (and destructively) meddling with lower civilizations all the time, and they are so subtle and advanced that only the Arisians and the Children of the Lens ''ever'' learn more than hints of their full schemes. |
| 47 | ** Averted at the mundane level. Unlike the Federation of ''Star Trek'', the Galactic Patrol has no hesitation in revealing itself openly to non-spacefaring worlds with a full technology transfer. In Virgil Samms' day, Bennett becomes the Navy Yard of the Patrol; in Kim Kinnison's, it's war-wracked Klovia which is assisted to rebuild in exchange for being the Patrol's foothold in the Second Galaxy. The Patrol's enemies, Boskone, are similarly unhesitant... in riddling lower civilizations with massive drug rings or simply conquering them outright. |
| 48 | * AlwaysChaoticEvil: Nearly all of Boskone is so evil that virtually no prisoners are ever taken. On ''both'' sides of the war. Several entire Boskonian homeworlds (all of them effectively planet-sized fortresses) are destroyed with no survivors over the course of the series, and no one in Civilization ever thinks twice about it. |
| 49 | ** On at least one occasion, Kinnison notes that the previous life on that planet--which had included a flourishing civilization--had been exterminated to make way for the base; this is hinted at as being standard Boskonian technique, so there may not actually be all that many innocent victims... |
| 50 | * AmalgamatedIndividual: Kinnison and Worsel create a fictitious Director of Lensmen, Star A Star, as a cover story. Afterwards, various Boskonian leaders attribute various actions of Kinnison, Nadreck and other Lensmen to this Star A Star, and the fiction is only discovered when it's far too late. |
| 51 | * AmuletOfConcentratedAwesome: Played straight by having the Lensmen's lenses amplify their PsychicPowers. [[spoiler: For the Second-Stage Lensmen they turned out just to be [[MagicFeather magic feathers]], as Second-Stage Lensmen are advanced enough to use mind powers on their own.]] |
| 52 | ** The Lens amplifies psi power in humans, it does other things for other species (some of whom are already naturally powerful psionically). |
| 53 | ** Even a Second (and on occasion a Third) Stage Lensman is advised to wear it when a maximum effort is required. Despite having done everything up to that point without it, Kim Kinnison makes sure he puts his on before duelling Thralian Prime Minister Fossten, and [[spoiler:Kim's teenage daughters materialise Lenses for themselves ''out of thin air'' when directing their share of the space combat at the Battle of Arisia.]] |
| 54 | ** Due to being LoyalPhlebotinum, and the nature of mind-to-mind contact, it also functions as an [[MembershipToken impossible-to-counterfeit badge of rank]], and a justification for Lensmen being incorruptible and thus able to operate above the law when necessary. |
| 55 | * AncientConspiracy: The Eddorian master plan to dominate all life in the universe is older than our own solar system... and the Arisian master plan to stop the Eddorians is only slightly younger. |
| 56 | * AncientTradition: The Arisians are committed to guarding every intelligent species' right to determine its own way of life, and are just as old and powerful as even the Eddorians. The only reason they don't destroy the Edddorians during their original incursion into "this" universe is that, to protect themselves from their own malicious underlings, the Eddorian leadership has developed artificial thought screens that can also stop the Arisians. The Children of the Lens are bred specifically to destroy these thought screens. |
| 57 | * AnimalEyeSpy: Kinnison does this mostly, using everything from dogs to worms to infiltrate enemy bases or perform critical tasks. Nadreck takes a hint later. |
| 58 | * AnimatedAdaptation: Obscure (and unlicensed) anime adaptation, ''Lensman Galactic Patrol''. |
| 59 | * AnnoyingPatient: The first time Kinnison ends up in Prime Base's hospital, he's one of these, constantly demanding non-hospital food and to be allowed more physical activity than he's capable of doing. Justified by Kinnison's frustration level -- he knows perfectly well that he was injured because he made a foolish move. When he's injured even more severely in a later novel, but without the "I had the IdiotBall" element, he's more reasonable. |
| 60 | * AppealToForce: In ''First Lensman'', Roderick Kinnison suggests that the Galactic Patrol conquer North America by right of the bigger fleet. First Lensman Samms convinces him to cool his jets and challenge the Morgan political machine through free and fair elections instead, because Virgil Samms believes in the rule of law and seizing power by force would undermine the legitimacy of the Galactic Patrol. (Instead, the Lensmen rewrite the rules so that they are ''legally'' above the law.) |
| 61 | * AppliedPhlebotinum: Ultrawaves, good for everything from [[FasterThanLightTravel FTL]] [[SubspaceAnsible communication]] to XRayVision! |
| 62 | * ArbitrarilyLargeBankAccount: Technically a Gray Lensman doesn't have any money of his own. What he ''does'' have is blanket permission to write out a check for anything he wants, from a pair of stockings to a spaceship worth a hundred-million credits or more. No matter what it is or how much it is, the Patrol will cover the check. |
| 63 | ** At that, very few of these checks are ever cashed by the Patrol - they're even more valuable to collectors. The Red Lensman's first check, in a $1000 frame, became a permanent advertisement for the establishment where she bought her wedding gown. |
| 64 | * ArtisticLicencePhysics: The space-drive and energy system in ''Triplanetary'' that is fuelled by allotropic iron. Even assuming a liquid allotrope of iron existed, i.e. one that was liquid at room temperature as mercury is, iron is at the very top of the nuclear stability curve and cannot yield energy by either fission or fusion; nuclear reactions involving iron consume more energy than they release. However, the plot demanded it and the knowing reader is invited to assume that some other as-yet-undiscovered form of mass-energy conversion process is being utilized. |
| 65 | * AuthorAvatar: In ''Triplanetary'', Ralph Kinnison is reading a ''Lensman''-like sci-fi story when the news about Pearl Harbor comes on the radio. He comes out of retirement, taking a job in a munitions factory where his training in organic chemistry makes him a useful asset. E.E. "Doc" Smith, SF author, had a [=PhD=] in organic chemistry (although specifically related to foodstuffs rather than explosives). ([[spoiler: He ultimately fails. Shells and mines loaded at the factory go off prematurely and kill good men. Kinnison walks away from the job rather than accept orders to violate quality control and safety standards - orders which could be implied as being issued under Eddorian influence. While details are sketchy at this late date, it was well known to fans who knew Smith that the explosives factory section, including the firing, was autobiographical.]] |
| 66 | * AwesomenessByAnalysis: |
| 67 | ** The Arisians' "Visualization of the Cosmic All", which effectively gives them precognition from [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens sufficiently]] analyzing a person or object or fact. |
| 68 | ** Costigan also has a talent for figuring out the details of how to operate, repair, and modify both alien technologies and alien social interactions with a brief observation. |
| 69 | * BadassArmy: The Lensmen may have been SF's first, being equipped with small arms that vaporize a person, personal shields that can survive said small arms, a machine gun equivalent that can boil steel in seconds, 'caterpillars' - giant tanks fitted with starship-grade weaponry... |
| 70 | * BadassFamily: The Kinnisons, of course. At the opening of ''Galactic Patrol'', Kim Kinnison - even as a freshly-minted Lensman - is the penultimate badass of a millennia-long line of badasses. His eventual marriage to Clarissa only brings more badassness into his line, and the two of them are ''nothing'' compared to what their children become. |
| 71 | * BadassUnintentional: Nadreck the Palainian kills three of Boskone's highest-ranking leaders in single combat in an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome. He considers that mission a fiasco because he failed to get them to kill one another instead, and [[BlueAndOrangeMorality his species values self-preservation as much as those strange, warmblooded Tellurians value courage]]. |
| 72 | * BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil: Civilization v. Boskone. That is, initially. Once they [[LetsGetDangerous gear up for total war]], this ceases to apply. |
| 73 | * BastardUnderstudy: Among Boskone (and their controllers, e.g. the Eddorians) it is regarded as quite acceptable, [[ArsonMurderAndAdmiration even praiseworthy]], for [[TheStarscream an underling to scheme]] to [[YouKillItYouBoughtIt supplant their superior]] – the idea being that if they're successful, the superior was no longer fit (e.g. not cunning and ruthless enough) to hold their position anyway. |
| 74 | * BatmanGambit: More than once, the Galactic Patrol (or just Kinnison himself) trick Boskone's forces by exploiting their predictable aggression and evilness. |
| 75 | * BeamSpam: On a regular basis, escalating throughout the series. Fleet confrontations generally rely on weight of numbers, with half a dozen or more ships ganging up on one until they can overload its shields. |
| 76 | * BeardnessProtectionProgram: Kinnison grows a beard to go undercover as Chester Q. Fordyce. |
| 77 | * BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Tyrants throughout Earth history, including Nero, UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan, and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, were guises used by Gharlane of Eddore. Also, an in-universe example with the scientist Bergenholm. In the second book, he comes up with the breakthrough to make the Inertialess Drive safe and efficient. Later, they find out that [[spoiler:he was an Arisian]]. |
| 78 | * BelligerentSexualTension: Kimball Kinnison and Clarissa [=MacDougall's=] first meeting produces some real fireworks, complete with mutual insults and name-calling. Their relationship eventually gets a little less prickly, but Kinnison still finds himself reluctant to admit that he's in love with her because he's done some horrible, horrible things as a Lensman and he's not sure she'd still have him if she knew. Naturally, she does. [[spoiler:It helps that she goes on to become a Lensman herself.]] |
| 79 | * BenevolentConspiracy: |
| 80 | ** The Arisians, although [[GoodIsNotNice they are content to let entire civilizations collapse]] as long as the crucial bloodlines who are being cultivated to Guardianship of Civilization manage to survive. |
| 81 | ** Also, Virgil Samms, the first leader of the Galactic Patrol, essentially heads a smaller one in ''First Lensman'', aimed at exposing and deposing America's corrupt political leaders, who are basically in the pay of Boskonia. |
| 82 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: Lensmen get referred to as "sublimated boy scouts" by one character, but by Klono's amazingly alliterative appendages, don't let them catch you engaging in piracy or dealing drugs. Not to mention that they use planets as strategic weapons. |
| 83 | * {{BFG}}: The Standish, the equivalent of a machine gun, and its replacement, the semi-portable. The former even has an underslung grenade launcher. |
| 84 | * BigBad: Every layer of Boskone has these, up to and including the All-Highest of Eddore itself... but Helmuth, speaker for Boskone, is the most human-like and relatable. |
| 85 | * TheBigBoard: TropeMaker, to the extent that the [[LifeImitatesArt US Navy borrowed the idea]]. |
| 86 | * BizarreAlienBiology: The Palainians' metabolism has to extend into the "fourth dimension" in order to function in their native environment (Pluto is as far inside Earth's solar system as they feel comfortable living), and there are other races that take this to even greater extremes. |
| 87 | * BizarreAlienLocomotion: The Zabriskan fontema, which spends its entire life rolling in a straight line across its flat desert homeworld to collect solar energy because it literally cannot do anything else -- it can't turn, and it can't stop itself from trying to roll forward, no matter what gets put in its path. It becomes a contributor to the Lensman 'verse's FutureSlang by being the proverbial stupidest thing in existence that still counts as an animal. |
| 88 | * BizarreAlienSenses: |
| 89 | ** The Rigellians (and many other races) use a bizarre sense that gives a worldview much like the best solid-modeling programs. They can even see things like the innermost components of shielded power reactors. [[note]]The flip side of this is that they rely ''exclusively'' on that sense and lack both sight and hearing. In consequence, it's sheer torture for other species to spend time in their cities, because their cars have no windows, their buildings have no sources of light and they make no attempt whatsoever to avoid loud noises... a visit to Rigel therefore involves a great deal of sitting around in the dark being startled by loud bangs, screams and howls of various kinds.[[/note]] High-stage Lensmen can also develop this sense. |
| 90 | ** The Cahuitans (''Masters...'') are such high-energy beings that the only relics or evidence of Galactic Civilization they can perceive are the cores of nuclear power plants. Even their thoughts are on such a high bandwidth that communication with ordinary beings is almost impossible. This lets them down badly when they [[spoiler:try to ensure they're doing no harm before turning what they perceive as 'kindling' into incubators for their offspring.]] |
| 91 | * BlackAndWhiteMorality: Yes and no. The Arisians [[DefiedTrope defy]] this on numerous occasions, repeatedly stating that good and evil are ultimately relative, and the Arisians and the races of Civilization recognize that different races will have BlueAndOrangeMorality. However, from the perspective of the races of Civilization, personal liberty is recognized as a pole star to be desired by everyone, the rigid fascism and [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinism]] of Boskone are utterly inimical to this, and the narrator does use "evil" as a shorthand for Boskonian actions. |
| 92 | * BlackAndGrayMorality: A possible alternate interpretation. Civilization is unquestionably good, but equally unquestionably [[GoodIsNotSoft not always nice]]. While they try to avoid unnecessary damage and loss of life when it's reasonably practical, they also are not blind to the logic of [[GoodIsNotDumb military necessity]] -- and if that means blowing up a few planets along the way when saving the Material Cosmic All, well, [[IDidWhatIHadToDo so be it]]. They also employ some [[AntiHero efficient but ruthless]] people in their ranks; for example, [[MagnificentBastard Nadreck of Palain]]. By contrast, while Boskonia realistically enough employs many PunchClockVillains and even [[ObliviouslyEvil deluded idealists]] who are not evil so much as simply [[MyCountryRightOrWrong patriots for their side]], their whole system is a vicious totalitarianism designed and ultimately managed by [[EldritchAbomination ancient alien horrors]] for their own sinister ends, and employs systematic brainwashing, torture, and war crimes as a matter of course with none of Civilization's qualms. |
| 93 | * BlueAndOrangeMorality: Recognized among the races of Civilization, to the extent that different races' Lensmen have entirely different codes of honor and conduct. However, BlackAndWhiteMorality still applies between Civilization and Boskone. Nadreck, the Palainian Second-Stage Lensman, is regarded as every bit as much a hero by his race's standards as Kinnison is by human standards. The Blue and Orange part comes in because Palainians consider cowardice and guile to be ''virtues''. Nadrek is so thoroughly ashamed of "botching" his ''single-handed'' elimination of a major Boskonian base so badly that three (out of, at the very least, hundreds) of the Boskonians failed to kill each other/themselves and thus Nadrek ''personally'' had to eliminate them using (shudder) physical conflict that he records the details of this operation only under strong protest, and immediately places the recording under "Lensman's Seal", which effectively means "Ain't nobody seeing this never." Kinnison's reaction is pretty similar to the reader's: "Took out an entire base all by himself, something nobody else could have done, heroically risked his own life in personal combat to finish up the job, and he's embarrassed because he thinks it wasn't elegant enough. Palainians are weird." |
| 94 | * BoardingParty: Many, many times. Justified in that many of the villains are space pirates by nature, and interested in loot as much as interruption of trade. On the other side of the coin, Kinnison and his allies sometimes need intelligence and/or technology from their enemies, and that often means boarding Boskonian starships instead of blasting them to sightless atoms. |
| 95 | * BrainMonster: In the novel ''Galactic Patrol'', Mentor of Arisia is revealed to Kimball Kinnison to be (barring a few minor bits and appendages) "simply and solely a brain." Then in ''Second Stage Lensmen'' the Boskonian Prime Minister Fossten is revealed to be a nearly identical brain, explained by his being a renegade Arisian. [[spoiler:Except that this was a false appearance in both cases, arranged by Mentor to hide from Kinnison that Fossten was really Gharlane of Eddore.]] |
| 96 | * BreakTheCutie: Herkimer Herkimer III wants Virgilia Samms to tell him the secret of the Lens, and there are no lengths he won't go to in order to make her talk. It ends very badly for him. |
| 97 | * BrotherSisterIncest: Never happens in the books themselves, but the five Kinnison kids are the new ultimate beings – a race separate from the rest of humanity and the founding population of a new species of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens. One brother, four sisters, do the math. Vaguely foreshadowed (as strongly as the era would allow, anyway) in the last book. [[spoiler: There are also hints at one point that Christopher Kinnison might harbor a few unfilial feelings for his mother Clarissa... and maybe it's mutual.]] |
| 98 | * CallToAdventure: Dronvire, the first Rigellian Lensman, especially. He was essentially the only member of his species sufficiently ''motivated'' to take up a Lens. (The Rigellians do have many other virtues by human standards, but are not a very driven species, nearly always taking the path of least resistance.) |
| 99 | * CasualInterstellarTravel: After the Bergenholm drive is created, ships can travel many times the speed of light, and cross the galaxy in a manageable amount of time. |
| 100 | * TheChosenMany: The Lensmen as a whole. In point of fact, according to some sources, the Lensmen inspired another famous Chosen Many, the Green Lantern Corps. (The Corps' creators deny this, although later they made amends by adding [=GLs=] named after elements of ''Lensman''.) |
| 101 | * CigaretteBurns: When a minor bad guy decides to torture information out of Jill Samms, he starts proceedings by putting his cigarette out on the skin just under her armpit. |
| 102 | * CigaretteOfAnxiety: Before the final battle in ''Children of the Lens'', one of the Kinnison girls is trying to chain-smoke, but is so wound up that she only manages one or two puffs before stubbing the cigarette out and lighting a new one. |
| 103 | * ClothesMakeTheSuperman: |
| 104 | ** The [[RecycledInSpace space]] armor in ''Triplanetary'' incorporates forcefields that can resist steel-cutting rays. It only goes up from there. |
| 105 | ** True in a psychological sense as well, at least for Clarissa, who at one point thinks that she's competent enough wearing anything, or nothing at all for that matter, but when she's in her "grays" she can hit "Service Maximum". |
| 106 | * CodeName: |
| 107 | ** "Boskone" originated as the Galactic Patrol's secret codename for operations against the space pirates, unaware that the code name was devised by a Patrol scientist who was [[spoiler:a physical manifestation of Arisian telekinetic power. They deliberately fed the Patrol the right name.]] |
| 108 | ** "Zwilnik" was the Patrol's codename for their operations against a drug smuggling ring at around the same time as Operation Boskone; by Kimball's time, the word "zwilnik" has become standard [[FutureSlang slang]] referring to drug traffickers. This may well be due more to the properties of the Lens, and the way its translation function works, than to anything else. When translating the Boskonians' own word for themselves, it would be "aware" that a suitable new English word had already been invented to translate it, and would therefore use that word in preference to either reproducing the sound of the Boskonian word or making up a new word itself. |
| 109 | * ColdBloodedTorture: Used several times, always by villains. |
| 110 | ** Herkimer tortures Virgilia Samms for whatever information she can give him about the Lens. [[spoiler:He thinks it's working, but actually she's in telepathic contact with several Lensmen, who are already on the way to rescue her and kill him, so they tell her to go ahead and talk; it won't matter in the end.]] |
| 111 | ** The Overlords of Delgon torture their victims to near-death in order to loosen their grip on their own life force -- which the Overlords then consume as a delicacy. They have no biological need for it, they just enjoy it. |
| 112 | ** Kinnison is captured by the Eich, maimed and tortured, with the intent that his broken body will send a message to the Patrol. [[spoiler:But he gets away before their pet Overlord can consume his life force and ruin his mind.]] |
| 113 | * ColonyDrop: One weapon (that eventually becomes standardized for both sides) is the "free planet" - a small, rocky, generally otherwise-useless planetoid given a network of inertialess drives so that it can be dragged off wherever needed, then turned loose to seriously wreck someone's day. Then "weaponized planets" become the norm not so later... |
| 114 | * CombatPragmatist: |
| 115 | ** Costigan. Kinnison also. |
| 116 | ** The standard Galactic Patrol hand-to-hand combat textbook largely follows his advice. The narrative notes that Lensmen "do not fight according to the tenets of the square ring," after Kinnison uses neck chops, thrown chairs, and [[GroinAttack a boot to the groin]] to dispose of several attackers. |
| 117 | * CoolStarship: The ''Boise'', the ''Brittania'' ''[sic]'', and the ''Dauntless'' all come to mind. |
| 118 | ** When one runs the numbers for the starship ''Dauntless'', one learns that its power system can generate six times the solar insolation experienced by Earth. That is, ''Dauntless'' could, using 1/6th of its full power, take the place of the Sun for the planet Earth. |
| 119 | ** The ''Boise'' from ''Triplanetary.'' Humanity's first interstellar space ship, natch. |
| 120 | * TheCorrupter: Everyone involved in the galaxy-wide Boskonian thionite smuggling operation is this to some degree or another, working to subvert Civilization from within. In-universe, the Lensmen seem to regard this as an even more insidious danger than the {{Space Pirate}}s attempting to assault them from without. |
| 121 | * CosmicChessGame: The war between Boskone and Civilization is this, from the point of view of both the Eddorians and the Arisians. Both races are so evenly matched that they could never defeat each other in a straight fight, and both loathe getting personally involved in their plots (albeit for different reasons), so they must resort to manipulating the younger races of the galaxies over the course of eons to achieve dominance. |
| 122 | * DarkIsNotEvil: Initially, the [[StarfishAliens frigid-blooded, poison-breathing]], [[AlienGeometries multidimensional]] [[EldritchAbomination Eich]], briefed in a perpetual aura of [[EvilIsDeathlyCold near-absolute zero cold]], are truly scary monsters and the epitome of evil. But later, the Palainians (a closely related species, about as similar to them as we are to HumanAliens) turn out to be honorable and reliable (if [[BlueAndOrangeMorality weird]]) allies of Civilization. |
| 123 | ** This depends on whether you read the books in order of publication or in-universe chronology. If the latter, humanity meets the Palainians FIRST and has been on live-and-let-live terms with them ever since. |
| 124 | * DeceptivelyHumanRobots: Most of [[spoiler:Gray Roger's crew]] look outwardly identical to people, but given the setting's lack of processing power, they're effectively remote-controlled puppets. |
| 125 | * DeflectorShields: |
| 126 | ** Usually referred to as "ether-walls" or "screens." Unlike their ''Star Trek'' successors, for ships these are almost always multi-layered (two or three layers is typical) and there's a final layer ("wall-shield") that's almost integral with the outer skin of the ship. When the wall-shield fails, that's it. Screens also reradiate the incoming energy as light of frequency dependent on the intensity of the attack — failing screens are described as going through the spectrum to ultraviolet, then — black. |
| 127 | ** Personal shields are also standard protection for Patrolmen. As was later the case in ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'', a shield's repulsive force is proportional to the speed of the impacting object -- or in this case, proportional to the speed of the impacting object to the 5th power -- so ray gun blasts are completely intercepted while an axe swing might just make it through. |
| 128 | * DemocracyIsFlawed: |
| 129 | ** The ''Lensman'' books are ambiguous on the flaws and virtues of democracy, showing a fair amount of both. The Patrol itself is a very powerful executive agency, arguably a sort of heroic StateSec, which also seems to have considerable influence in the civilian federal government, and this is not generally considered problematic by the (mainly military) protagonists. In the prequels, a power struggle between the emergent Patrol and a faction of civilian politicians also shows the latter to be decidedly the bad guys. On the other hand, the books are completely ''un''ambiguous about totalitarianism and dictatorship being ''bad'' things, and the evil politicians are beaten by democratic means, at the ballot box, while ''they themselves'' use all sorts of underhanded and undemocratic methods (including an attempted outright coup) to stay in power. In short, democracy is the preferred form of government for the good guys, but certain aspects that are normally part of modern democracies (civilian control of the military, checks and balances, and the rule of law) are unnecessary if you have the OmniscientMoralityLicense. |
| 130 | ** When Boskonian worlds inhabited by human-like cultures are conquered, the Patrol initially imposes a sort of highly restricted pseudo-democracy loyal to Civilization, vaguely reminiscent of Adenauer's West German government under American supervision after World War II in real life. It is explained that, from Civilization's point of view, they cannot be trusted with full self-government immediately when their previous social systems have been highly fascist and authoritarian: left to themselves, the oppressed proles will only vote their former oppressors right back into office out of inertia. At the same time, it is hoped that with proper care, these states will gradually "grow" into real democracies in a generation or so. |
| 131 | * DestructionEqualsOffSwitch: Two examples. After killing Helmuth, Kinnison blasts a control panel to lower the shield over the central dome of Helmuth's grand base. Later, when acting as the MoleInCharge of the Boskonian grand fleet, Kinnison blasts a control panel to disable the flagship's Bergenholm, thus keeping the flagship out of the upcoming battle. |
| 132 | * DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: Virgil Samms feels like this after establishing [[FirstContact maybe second or third contact]] with the Palainians. Many people who have any dealings at all with the Arisians also end up feeling this way. |
| 133 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Subverted. Mentor of Arisia assists Kimball Kinnison in destroying Prime Minister Fossten (Gharlane of Eddore), then convinces him that Fossten was a renegade Arisian and that Kinnison dispatched him without help. |
| 134 | * DisintegratorRay: Without the later trappings of safety and convenience. The beams used really ''do'' vaporize their targets, with all the attendant thermodynamics, so best wear a shielded suit when firing unless you want your front half to be blackened cajun-style. |
| 135 | ** Kim Kinnison fires his [=DeLameters=] while unarmoured on several occasions, and it's hinted that its ancestor, the Lewiston, can also be fired by an unprotected user. The Semi-portable projectors, on the other hand... |
| 136 | ** The [=DeLameters=] do have [[HoldingBackThePhlebotinum power settings]], also. |
| 137 | * DolledUpInstallment: The "first" novel in the series, ''Triplanetary'', was originally unconnected to the saga, but later rewritten and expanded as a "{{Prequel}}". |
| 138 | * EarthShatteringKaboom: In the third volume the bad guys' main base has a scuttling charge that [[ColonyDrop pulverizes the crust of the planet it's on]]. This being the origin of the LensmanArmsRace, they have to find [[SoLastSeason a way to beat that]]. So starting in the forth book, the superweapons of choice are ''planet-sized antimatter bombs'' and planets travelling in opposite directions and smashing the target between them. Yeah, beat that. (And they do, with colliding planets from [[AnotherDimension another universe]] travelling at fifteen times the speed of light.) |
| 139 | * EldritchAbomination: Not only are the Eddorians already from a [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace horribly different other continuum]], but they have to disguise their appearances or [[PunyEarthlings mere humans]] will [[BrownNote go insane]] upon seeing them. So insane that they don't even scream or flee; they just lie in place, mute, twitching and paralyzed. |
| 140 | * EliteAgentsAboveTheLaw: The Gray Lensmen can go anywhere and do anything they consider necessary for their missions. They also have bottomless expense accounts, paying for anything and everything only with chits that the Patrol will honor. They can't be given orders, only requests and suggestions, as they are officially considered their own best judge of how they can best contribute to the defense of Civilization and the defeat of Boskone. |
| 141 | * EmpathicWeapon: The Lens functions as a psychic enhancer (for humans, at least), and is attuned to its user in such a way that anyone else who tries to use or handle it when it's ''not'' connected to its rightful user is killed instantly. For the latter reason, it vanishes shortly after the owner's death. |
| 142 | * EnigmaticEmpoweringEntity: The Arisians serve this role for much of the plot, bestowing Lenses on those they judge worthy of them. Kinnison realizes later that they're also actively weeding out Boskonian infiltrators who are skilled enough to get through the selection process. |
| 143 | * EqualOpportunityEvil: |
| 144 | ** Boskone dosn't really care what planet its mooks come from, as long as they don't screw up. On the other hand, the Eddorians ''are'' looking for the perfect race to be their front; and because of the very nature of the Eddorians, the more sexless, the better. |
| 145 | ** The Kalonians got the job initially because the only function of their women is the production of men. The Lyranians, on the other hand, are a Matriarchal society to the same degree. Give them a few years and a little bit of help... [[spoiler:Helen of Lyrane and Clarissa Kinnison put a firm stop to that.]] |
| 146 | * EternalProhibition: All illegal drugs are still illegal in the far future, [[StatusQuoIsGod as they should be]]; indeed, much of the Galactic Patrol's work is replicating a galactic DEA ([[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner with Judge Dredd's plenipotentiary powers]]). Drug pushing seems to be regarded as the most serious of crimes; the punishment is either death or [[BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood corrective psychological therapy]]. The Patrol focuses its efforts on thionite, which is really nasty stuff (and more importantly, whose dealers are part of the Boskonian food chain). Bentlam weed, on the other hand, seems to be the equivalent of marijuana -- the Patrol doesn't even bother mentioning it. (Not that using it, even for an undercover job, doesn't make Kinnison feel disgusted...) |
| 147 | * EverybodySmokes: [[DoubleStandard Even the women]]. Tobacco is never once maligned in the series. Fine brand cigarettes are imported to Tellus all the way from Alsakan, all the way across the galaxy. Society marches on... |
| 148 | * EvilCounterpart: |
| 149 | ** Kandron of Onlo is basically this to Nadreck. Considering [[UnscrupulousHero what]] [[LackOfEmpathy Nadreck]] [[ManipulativeBastard is]] [[EldritchAbomination like]], this makes him frightening indeed. |
| 150 | ** To a lesser extent, Helmuth is one to Kinnison. |
| 151 | * EvilOnlyHasToWinOnce: Reversed. The Arisians point out to Helmuth that there is absolutely no way to defeat them, and that if humanity proves incapable of using the Lens to defeat Boskone, then they'll just let him conquer and corrupt this iteration of Civilization while they wait for another one. Indeed, ''Triplanetary'' reveals how the Eddorians have managed to ruin Earth's civilization more than once in the past (including TWO nuclear wars), only for humanity to keep evolving anyway. It is the ''Arisians'' who only have to succeed once in molding a race into a force that can destroy the Eddorians. |
| 152 | * EvolutionaryLevels: Lensmen are graded on stages from First to Third; only specially bred individuals get past First-Stage Lensman at the time of the story. It is hinted at that humanity would evolve as a whole to the point that achieving Second Stage would be common. |
| 153 | * ExactWords: When Mentor tells you that you have ''almost'' caused a disaster, it means the situation is still salvageable. |
| 154 | * ExplosiveOverclocking: Primary beams, which take the mechanism of a regular beam projector and use it as a one-shot cartridge. |
| 155 | * ExtremophileLifeforms: The palainians land on Pluto, but aren't comfortable getting any closer to Sol than that. Their biology extends into the fourth dimension to accommodate this extreme. |
| 156 | * FamousForBeingFirst: Title dropped in ''First Lensman'', where Virgil Samms is the first of the Lensmen and the founder of the Galactic Patrol. Later in the series, Kimball Kinnison becomes the first Second Stage Lensman (being the first to return to Arisia for advanced training), and Clarissa [=MacDougall=] becomes the first female Lensman. |
| 157 | * FantasticFirearms: ''Triplanetary'' includes a pistol that uses compressed air to shoot fast acting poison darts. Later books rely instead on {{Ray Gun}}s, though. |
| 158 | -->''"One touch anywhere on the skin and the guy dies right then. Two seconds max."'' |
| 159 | * FantasticallyChallengingPatient: In "Second Stage Lensmen", an unnamed surgeon at one point complains about the difficulty in stitching up the wounds of the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragon-like]] Worsel the Velantian - the surgeon had to bore holes with [[ThisIsADrill an electric drill]] and use linesmen's pliers. |
| 160 | * FasterThanLightTravel: The "inertialess drive" and later, [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Hyperspatial tubes]]. |
| 161 | * FakeMemories: |
| 162 | ** Supplied by the Boskonians whenever their agents [[spoiler:bite the amnesia pill]] and on one occasion more benignly by Kim Kinnison in order to rehabilitate one of those agents, who had been their puppet [[{{Squick}} since she was fourteen.]] |
| 163 | ** Kinnison once has Worsel give ''him'' false memories in order to sow disinformation among the Eich leadership. |
| 164 | * FateWorseThanDeath: |
| 165 | ** After the trio has been captured by Gray Roger, Clio has the following conversation with her guide: |
| 166 | --->"But I wouldn't want to keep on living!" Clio declared, with a flash of spirit. "And I can always die, you know."\ |
| 167 | "You will find that you cannot die," the passionless creature returned monotonously. "If you do not yield, you will long and pray for death, but you will not die unless Roger wills it. I was like you once. I also struggled, and I became what I am now -- whatever it is." |
| 168 | ** Later Conway remarks that the woman "isn't alive -- she's full of the prettiest machinery and communicators that you ever saw!" Which leads to a ''major'' FridgeHorror moment when one stops to wonder just how many other of Roger's robots started out as human. |
| 169 | ** All this aside, what the Delgonian Overlords do to their victims. Their favorite type of sustenance is the life force of their torture victims (the purpose of the torture being to break them until they are about to die and their life force is easier to extract). |
| 170 | * TheFederation: A multi-species multi-planet civilization is common these days in science fiction, written and visual (see ''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Franchise/StarTrek'', Brin's ''Uplift'' Universe, et cetera) but it had a [[UrExample definite start]], and it was here. Ironically enough, unlike most modern portrayals where the bad guys tend to be a [[PlanetOfHats single species]], both the heroes and the villains were multi-species and multi-planet (the heroes unusually so for the time period and possibly still to this day). |
| 171 | * FemalesAreMoreInnocent: Played straight with [[AntiVillain Illona of Lonabar]]. Averted with the Lyranians and the female villains in ''First Lensman''. |
| 172 | * FeminineMotherTomboyishDaughter: In ''Children of the Lens'', Clarissa Kinnison is described as a womanly feminine lady who tried hard to make her daughters grow up as feminine women too - and failed. They would not play house, or play with dolls; instead they played with atomic engines, flitters, and speedsters, and they also enjoyed roughhousing with their big brother Kit. |
| 173 | * FinalBattle: Starting with ''Galactic Patrol,'' each book ends with a Final Battle of Civilization against Boskone. The ''final'' Final Battle, in ''Children of the Lens,'' is necessarily a psychic one, since the Eddorians [[NighInvulnerability cannot be killed by any physical force, however applied]]. |
| 174 | * FinishHim: Mentor to Kim Kinnison, regarding Gharlane, and with good reason: "Destroy him therefore, forthwith, before he regains consciousness, lest much and grievous harm befall you." |
| 175 | ** Revealed in the following book to be a subversion. Gharlane was already dead, and Mentor was employing ExactWords: "Destroy" instead of "slay" or "kill" - and the "much and grievous harm" would be ''psychological'' harm if the 'mad Arisian' illusion cracked and Kinnison learned about the Eddorans. |
| 176 | * FlorenceNightingaleEffect: The Chief Surgeon and the Port Admiral try to set this up between Clarissa and Kinnison, only for the two of them to [[BelligerentSexualTension annoy the hell out of each other]] at first. Later, of course, they do fall in love. [[spoiler: As the Arisians had intended them to do all along. They were the penultimates in their breeding program.]] This is lampshaded early on: in the first book ''Triplanetary'' it's mentioned ... and demonstrated ... that [[spoiler:the two breeding lines would instinctively be incompatible with each other until the time was right.]] |
| 177 | * ForcedIntoEvil: Not all Boskonians are irredeemably evil; in fact, many are as much victims of their oppressive systems as the people the Galactic Patrol tries to protect. The Lensmen try to recover and deprogram the less hardened ones when they can afford to make a distinction. |
| 178 | * FridgeHorror: "Lensmen pay their debts - even to spiders and worms." After Kimball Kinnison gets help from animals, he rewards them by guiding them to find food. Except that [[spoiler:both the spider and the worm lived on planets that he later annihilated]]. The same thing happened earlier with a dog, except it doesn't even mention him rewarding the dog [[spoiler:, which probably perished in a drug-induced stupor even before its planet blew up]]. |
| 179 | * FriendOrFoe: Telling the difference was one of the reasons the Lens became a necessity. One of the advantages the Lens has over any other badge of office is that it's impossible to fully duplicate one as a counterfeit. |
| 180 | * FTLTestBlunder: In the first test of the inertia-neutralising "Bergenholm", it turns out that the neutralisation field extended far beyond the hull of the ship, which results in every nearby object being flung through the air at extreme velocity when the ship takes off. Between the resulting chaos, and the fact that the departure was too rapid for sensors to track (reaching faster-than-light speeds instantly, with no period of acceleration), it appears at first as though the test ship was simply destroyed. Fortunately the ship and crew are fine in the end, apart from suffering the equivalent of severe space-sickness when inertia is removed. |
| 181 | * FTLTravelSickness: The Inertialess Drive is the primary means of FTL travel; it leaves people feeling space-sick, although the feeling can be adjusted to. However, travel by [[OurWormholesAreDifferent hyperspatial tube]] causes a sickening sensation that no one ''ever'' becomes accustomed to. |
| 182 | * FutureSlang: Lots of it, including "zwilnik" as mentioned above, but the most prevalent is "QX" as a replacement for "OK." And "jets" replace "balls," as in "having the jets to pull this off." |
| 183 | * FuturisticSuperhighway: In the BigApplesauce of the future, Lensman Virgil Samms drives his gyro-stabilised two-wheeler onto the Wright Skyway, a limited-access superhighway with a maze of feeder ramps running all the way up the skyscraper he's working in, and higher (presumably exits for {{Flying Car}}s). The only problem is learning to ignore the bombardment of very noisy advertising (which he later discovers is NOT limited to humanity!). |
| 184 | * GadgeteerGenius: |
| 185 | ** Practically every inventor or engineer in the series can whip up new devices or radically modify and rebuild existing ones in a matter of minutes, often in the middle of a raging battle. Justified in Fred Rhodebush and Lyman Cleveland's case, since they are the acknowledged world experts in their fields. [=LaVerne=] Thorndyke is their equivalent in Kim Kinnison's era. |
| 186 | ** Kinnison (a combat officer) plays the role himself to a degree, on Velantia, but even here it's justified because the technical breakdown of the captured Boskonian battleship has already been performed by experts and the Velantian engineers are mostly duplicating from blueprints. When it comes to tapping the enemy's communications, however, he has to wait until his Chief Communications Officer arrives. Later in the series, he has technical experts to do the work for him. He does work out off his own bat that it is possible to adapt the Velantian thought-screens to function without the need for a metallic conductor to carry them, and then performs the necessary modifications himself. |
| 187 | * GambitRoulette: Not just the Arisian billion year plan ([[CrazyPrepared with redundancies]]!), but many of Kimball Kinnison's infiltration gambits require him to completely assume a new identity, at one point going so far as to systematically (and [[FakeMemories psychically]]) write himself into each and every portion of an enemy soldier's past! To say nothing of the identity that required him to become an [[spoiler:alcoholic drug addict, deflecting attention from himself by getting so smashed and high simultaneously that he could barely move a muscle. His mind, on the other hand...]] |
| 188 | * GenderRestrictedAbility: |
| 189 | ** Smith's stories had only one woman who was deemed worthy of the Lens. ''First Lensman'' had the Arisians HandWave it by explaining that the Lenses were intrinsically "masculine". Some of the authorized sequels just threw other Lenswomen in anyway. And a canon Lenswoman ''did'' eventually appear, throwing the original claim somewhat into question, but that's Arisians for you... they [[FromACertainPointOfView say whatever]] [[BatmanGambit elicits the desired reactions]]. |
| 190 | ** The Arisians told the first crew of Lensmen Candidates that there would be, eventually, just one human woman Lensman, which was Clarissa. Her daughters [[spoiler: are not fully human, therefore the Arisians were not lying.]] This was mostly Virgilia Samms' conjecture, rather than anything said verbatim by the Arisians. |
| 191 | * GeneralRipper: Roderick Kinnison, Kimball Kinnison's ancestor in the prequel ''First Lensman'', is a vanishingly rare ''positive'' example of this archetype. Not a lunatic, he is nevertheless a militarist, conspiracy theorist, advocate of preventive war and more than a little contemptuous of the civilian authorities. He remains a good guy because 1) he abides by the legit chain of command, and 2) the alien conspiracy he denounces ''[[NoMereWindmill is all too real]]''. |
| 192 | * GenericanEmpire: The civilization that the protagonists work for is only referred to as "Civilization." |
| 193 | * GenericFederationNamedEmpire: Civilization and Boskone. |
| 194 | * GladiatorRevolt: In ''Triplanetary'', a small group tries to overthrown Emperor Nero (who is really [[spoiler:Gharlane of Eddore]]). |
| 195 | * AGodAmI: [[spoiler: The Arisians and Eddorians]], and even more so, [[spoiler: Kimball Kinnison's children]]. |
| 196 | * GogglesDoSomethingUnusual: The ultra-wave "spy ray." |
| 197 | * GoodRepublicEvilEmpire: For all the extraordinary powers of enforcement the Galactic Patrol has, the Civilization it protects generally puts a high value on personal freedoms and local governmental autonomy. Boskone, on the other hand, is unapologetically despotic and malevolent. |
| 198 | * GreatOffScreenWar: The Jovian Wars. There were at least four of them, they resulted in the Triplanetary League forming from Venus, Tellus, and Mars. |
| 199 | * GuileHero: While Kinnison himself is certainly one, and every Lensman is expected to be one to some degree, the real shining example of this trope in the ''Lensman'' 'verse is Nadreck of Palain VII, who prefers to manipulate his enemies into fighting one another by using his powers to amplify their natural flaws, hatreds, and jealousies. He wipes out one Boskonian base that we see using these methods, and there's evidence that he's pulled the same trick on others. |
| 200 | * GuiltFreeExterminationWar: |
| 201 | ** Depending on the book. In ''First Lensman'', this is averted, but in chronologically later books, as the Boskonian war heats up, it becomes an axiom of battle that no quarter is ever asked or offered by either side, and belonging to Boskone is grounds for death without trial. Relaxed after [[spoiler: the destruction of Ploor. The Patrol is getting thoroughly sick of the {{Mook}} turkey shoot, and lets the fleeing Boskonians return to their homeworlds.]] |
| 202 | ** Aversions do occur where circumstances permit - when time constraints are sufficiently relaxed and/or the numbers of Boskonians involved are sufficiently small that it is practical to "rehabilitate" them rather than simply disposing of them. Examples include the Petrinos in ''First Lensman'', the crew of the base in the Blakeslee incident, Illona Potter, and last but not least Thrale, where vast resources are deployed to rehabilitate the entire planet. |
| 203 | [[/folder]] |
| 204 | |
| 205 | [[folder:Tropes H - P]] |
| 206 | * HarmfulToTouch: Lenses, when not being worn by their proper owners. This is explained as the Lens attempting to sync up with its rightful owner, which interferes fatally with anyone who doesn't fit. It's considered to be a useful feature, since it means they can't be stolen. |
| 207 | * {{Heavyworlder}}: The Valerians, who were originally human colonists, evolving into a HumanSubspecies because of it. |
| 208 | * HellBentForLeather: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. Much is made of the uniform of a Gray Lensman being plain, utilitarian, drab, and, well, gray, but it's only mentioned in passing that it's a gray ''leather'' uniform. |
| 209 | * TheHero: Kim Kinnison. |
| 210 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: See the entry for Nadreck the Palainian under MagnificentBastard. |
| 211 | * HiredToHuntYourself: Kinnison, while disguised as Major Gannel, arranged for this to happen to himself. He had the Patrol plant evidence that THE Lensman was tracing Boskonian communication lines, and then as Major Gannel had to show only a slight willingness to investigate before being ordered to do so. [[spoiler:This was set up to let Kinnison go off-planet and join the ''Dauntless'' in investigating a Boskonian ship traveling down a hyperspatial tube.]] |
| 212 | * HiroshimaAsAUnitOfMeasure: From a footnote, “Detet: the distance at which one spaceship can detect another.” A useful unit for ensuring there are no gaps in your watch-formation. |
| 213 | * HoneyTrap: It is revealed early on that this is a standard Boskonian technique, but Lensmen are made of stern enough stuff to resist. |
| 214 | * HonorBeforeReason: When Kinnison is deep undercover as meteor-miner and drug addict "Wild Bill" Williams, [[DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp he leaps into a crisis to save some people by repairing their busted Bergenholm]]. The people he helped assume he used to be a top-class engineer, [[MetaphoricallyTrue which he doesn't deny]]. [[TheWoobie Williams just implies the drug addiction led to his fall, and he's so ashamed of what he's become he wants his loved ones to think he's dead]]. Which ultimately makes his cover even more solid. |
| 215 | * HorrifyingHero: The Lensman Nadreck, a Palainian who [[AlienGeometry lives partly in another dimension]] and who "fights" by {{mind rap|e}}ing his enemies into submission. His (relative) altruism and courage make him something of an aberration among his own kind, who are all a species of intrinsically paranoid, ruthless cowards. |
| 216 | * HowDoIShotWeb: Lenses do not come with instruction manuals; each Lensman has to learn how to operate their own Lens in the manner they find most intuitive, to the point where almost all Lensmen are told ''never'' to return to Arisia or attempt further contact. Kimball Kinnison is the first (though not by much) to realise that its uses go far beyond what he was initially told about, and will need to approach the Arisians for help in working it out. When his Admiral reminds him of this injunction, he states that he does not recall being given the warning - and [[spoiler:with good reason; Mentor actually tells him that if he lived long enough, he would be bound to realise what he did and return for further training]]. |
| 217 | * HumanAliens: Kinnison not only manages to pass as a native on Thrale (a planet Civilization's run of humanity could not ''possibly'' have colonized – [[TransplantedHumans knowingly, anyway]]), but even manages to impersonate one of Boskone's officers there. |
| 218 | ** He ''did'' telepathically absorb practically all of the memories and skills of the Thralian officer he was replacing, and [[spoiler:unknowingly had the Arisians filling in the blanks where he couldn't.]] His Lens also enables him to tell when someone is suspicious and blank their suspicions accordingly. |
| 219 | ** Also, in the ''Lensman'' universe, convergent evolution is a scientific fact: all the separate branches of humanity are virtually identical, even if they arose in entirely different galaxies. This is attributed to all non-Eddorian life in the known universe sharing an ultimate ancestor (the Arisians), meaning that species differentiation would be produced only by evolving in different environments. This is brought up by characters in the series, where they will mention how close to baseline Tellurians a particular alien is, often saying something like "Tellurian to within ten decimal places." There is a two-dimensional scale, with characteristics listed left to right on some basis of decreasing significance, rated from A for "identical to Tellurian" to Z for "as different as possible" (the places are not "decimal"). The first seven places are stated to refer to, in order: type of atmosphere the being breathes, blood type (warm, cold, frigid etc), stance (bipedal, quadrupedal, etc), type and arrangement of head, type and arrangement of arms, type and arrangement of legs, type of skin. A species described as "Tellurian to ten places" has a classification of AAAAAAAAAA... and from what details of the code are described this can be decoded as meaning an oxygen-breathing, warm-blooded, upright biped with Tellurian-type head, arms, legs and skin. |
| 220 | * HumanityIsSuperior: Guess who runs Civilization? There were four species the Arisians selectively bred and eugenically improved for millions of years. The four races were the humans, the Velantians, the Rigellians and the Palainians. Humanity was considered the most desirable candidate of the four races because each of the others, despite being [[PunyEarthlings superior to humanity]] in many qualities, had a [[PlanetOfHats significant flaw]]: the Palainians were intrinsically cowardly and very bad at multitasking, the Rigellians too nonaggressive and unambitious, and the Velantians deficient in resistance to mind control and in attention span. Humanity, on the other hand, while having [[PunyEarthlings the fewest special strengths]], had ''[[JackOfAllStats no specific weaknesses]]''. |
| 221 | * IDidWhatIHadToDo: Admitted by both Conway Costigan and Nerado at the conclusion of the Nevian War. |
| 222 | * IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Gray Roger, like any good SpacePirate, tries to force himself on TheHero's LoveInterest. Subverted in that Roger [[spoiler:is actually an asexual alien who reproduces by binary fission and is mainly just trying to figure out what this "sex" thing is and why other races think it's such a big deal anyway.]] When he says he wants to use her for experiments pertaining to sex, what he means and what she... and TheHero... think he means are two entirely different things. |
| 223 | * ImaginationBasedSuperpower: The powers granted by each Lens are limited only by the bearer's ability to perceive what they're doing as possible. Even the ability to withstand another being's telepathic attacks is as much down to willpower as innate ability. [[spoiler:A lucky few -- including Kimball Kinnison -- discover that they've actually had innate powers of their own this whole time, and that the Lens only served to awaken them. This is not coincidental.]] |
| 224 | * ImmuneToMindControl: Subverted by a number of characters who ''believe'' that they are immune to mind control but learn differently. (Or who get mind-controlled without realizing it.) Played straight in the case of Karen Kinnison, who really is the ultimate in mental defense. |
| 225 | * IncorruptiblePurePureness: Incorruptibility is one of the prerequisites that determines whether or not someone is worthy of becoming a Lensman. It's more emphasized for human recruits, though, as not all non-human beings are subject to the same vices. |
| 226 | * InertialDampening: The Bergenholm inertialess drive, which was the [[TropeMaker origin of the trope]]. |
| 227 | * InsufferableGenius: Sir Austin Cardynge is Earth's mightiest mathematical brain, able to think in the language of mathematics. He's also a "conceited old goat" full of fury, but Kinnison notes that "you can afford to make concessions to a man with a brain like that." Furthermore, he's just the one named example of the Conference of Scientists, ''all'' of whom are insufferable geniuses and who collectively (with much friction and argument) develop the theory for two of the superweapons in the LensmanArmsRace. |
| 228 | * InterstellarWeapon: The hyperspatial tube-launched planets are probably one of the more effective examples in play. |
| 229 | * InvincibleHero: The main characters may appear as this to some readers since they tend to be good at nearly everything in the story. Even on the rare occasions when Kinnison is hospitalized, he always bounces back better than before. |
| 230 | * JackOfAllStats: Of the five Children of the Lens, Christopher. More generally, humans compared to the other races of the universe. ''Most'' generally, the Lensmen as a whole, as they often work alone, and thus need to be skilled at everything -- ranged combat, close combat, stealth, investigation, infiltration, diplomacy, starship piloting, starship ''repair'', everything. |
| 231 | * JokerImmunity: Boskone could give HYDRA a run for its money. It just ''keeps coming back''. |
| 232 | * JudgeJuryAndExecutioner: With their telepathic powers (and incorruptibility), the Lensmen generally don't bother with trials or due process. That said, quite a few Boskonians Kim Kinnison encounters not only keep their lives but get help to [[HeelFaceTurn become honest citizens of Civilization]]. |
| 233 | * KlingonPromotion: Standard operating procedure among the Boskonians, as their hierarchy is built on power and intimidation. If you can't keep your underlings from killing you and taking your job, you clearly weren't doing that well at it in the first place. |
| 234 | * LensmanArmsRace: TropeMaker and TropeNamer. To give merely the first incident in a long stream of one-upmanship: Triplanetary's first contact with the Nevians end badly when a single Nevian ship destroys a small fleet of spaceships and the city of Pittsburgh while hardly breaking a sweat. Within weeks, humanity has reverse-engineered their allotropic iron technology, developed an inertialess drive which can outrun anything the Nevians can field, and refitted an existing prototype spaceship, the ''Boise'', to take full advantage of these technologies and repay the Nevians in kind. [[SerialEscalation This trend continues throughout the series]]. And yet boots-on-the-ground investigation and infiltration ''never'' go out of style. |
| 235 | * LiterallyPrizedPossession: In "Children of the Lens" Kimball Kinnison wins ten millos in a side bet with his son. He has the one-cento coin mounted in a thousand-credit frame and presented to the librarians who won the bet for him. |
| 236 | * LoyalPhlebotinum: The Lenses, which kill anyone other than their owners who tries to wield them. |
| 237 | * LudicrousPrecision: The slang phrase "I check you to nineteen decimals" invokes this for effect, as a rather over-the-top way of saying "Your conclusions / suspicions match up with my own." |
| 238 | * MadMathematician: Sir Austin Cardynge. (Not actually insane, just... focused. Or perhaps Heinlein would call him ''un''sane.) And he's not necessarily the worst. Among Tellurians and similar species, it's an accepted fact that high levels of mathematical intellect will lead to a bit of instability, and the exceptions are at least Second Stage. |
| 239 | * MakeSureHesDead: One of the first signs that Helmuth is a cut above your run-of-the-mill pulp villain is the fact that he refuses to take Kinnison's [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat apparent death]] at face value and ''explicitly'' commands his underlings to look for the body to verify. |
| 240 | * TheManBehindTheMan: Boskone works like a giant onion around the Eddorians. Each layer plays TheManBehindTheMan to its subordinate group, which in turn has its own subordinate bunch. |
| 241 | * MechaMooks: Grey Roger's minions in ''Triplanetary''. Played with in that the escaping heroes unhesitatingly gun down both robots and humans on sight without a moral quiver (they are enemy troops after all). |
| 242 | * MembershipToken: Lenses serve as this for the Lensmen, as their inherent properties make them impossible to steal or counterfeit. |
| 243 | * MentalFusion: Mentor of Arisia is actually a fusion of four different Arisian minds, a technique the Children of the Lens later learn for themselves. |
| 244 | * MindRape: |
| 245 | ** Used heavily by the villains. Also [[GoodIsNotNice occasionally by the heroes]], [[PayEvilUntoEvil though mainly on villains who have already perpetrated mind-rapes themselves]]. Particularly [[MagnificentBastard Nadreck of Palain]], although his entire race's moral philosophy differs radically from that of humans. |
| 246 | ** Kim Kinnison pulls a neat inversion when rehabilitating the drug-blasted mind of a young woman who had been hypnotised into being an enemy agent. He leaves something in her head as protection for her, telling his colleagues afterwards that the next person who tries to hypnotize her will be lucky if he escapes with his life. |
| 247 | ** Camilla Kinnison pulls a mild variant of this on an obnoxious fellow who hits on her at a spaceport, painting an image of herself in his mind as a Hellraiser-like cosmic horror who will eat him the next time they cross paths. |
| 248 | * MindVirus: By the end of the series, Boskonia's subliminal propaganda is sufficiently advanced that mere exposure to it ''in writing'' is sufficient to drive whole populations insane, causing mass disturbances and breakdowns in public order. |
| 249 | * MinovskyPhysics: Ultra-waves, ether, [[spoiler: thought-waves]], the Bergenholm (extended right to and past to the logical conclusion of "just how big an object can we throw around?"). |
| 250 | * TheMole: One of Kinnison's usual tactics, successful to the point that he eventually ends up running the Evil Empire in time for their (at that stage in the story) climactic battle with Civilization. |
| 251 | * MoleInCharge: In a heroic example, Kimball Kinnison goes undercover as "Major Gannel" on Thrale and rises far enough in the ranks during his mission to become the next (and last) Tyrant of the planet. |
| 252 | * MookHorrorShow: |
| 253 | ** Any time Nadreck is unleashed at the {{Mook}} Boskonians. Since he is both more or less the most UnscrupulousHero imaginable ''and'' a borderline EldritchAbomination himself, they are ''entirely'' justified in being ''terrified'' of him. |
| 254 | ** Kinnison sometimes approaches this as well, though not to the same degree. |
| 255 | ** Any of the protagonists is a OneManArmy who can take on large numbers of mook enemies and win. Even [[IncorruptiblePurePureness gentle Clarissa]] has done this on occasion. What '''makes''' Nadreck this trope is that he usually doesn't just kill the mooks, he ''drives them mad, Cthulhu-style''. |
| 256 | * MouthOfSauron: Helmuth, "speaking for Boskone," appears to be the BigBad of the series at first (if you read the series in publication order), but he turns out to be only a part of a much vaster scheme orchestrated by the Eddorians themselves. Note that Helmuth actually predates Sauron; ''Galactic Patrol'' was published fifteen years before ''The Fellowship of the Ring''. |
| 257 | * MultipleChoiceChosen: Takes place at a species level. The Arisians have been selectively breeding four species to the point where their offspring would be Stage 3 Lensmen. They eventually settle on humans. |
| 258 | * MundaneUtility: The ability to render objects inertialess is not just used for FTL travel, but also to replace elevators. Step out into a yawning shaft, drop "free" for fifty or a hundred floors in a fraction of a second, and walk out at the desired level without a hair being mussed. The one drawback is that skirts are out as female office wear. |
| 259 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Played with in ''Masters of the Vortex.''. Medury took great pains to ensure he was doing no harm before he [[spoiler:triggered the first Vortex.]] By the time the Cahuitans discover what the 'kindling' for their incubators actually was, they've evolved beyond remorse but they do act immediately to minimize the damage they've caused. |
| 260 | * NeverFoundTheBody: |
| 261 | ** The nature of high-energy space warfare means you usually don't have a body to find, which Grey Roger uses –''twice''– to his benefit. |
| 262 | ** Helmuth of Boskone is smart enough to know never to assume NoOneCouldSurviveThat and insists to his mooks that they ''always'' try to find the body. It's not enough to save him in the long run, but it does help make him one of Kinnison's most dangerous opponents. |
| 263 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: In ''Masters of the Vortex'', a loose atomic vortex can be destroyed with high explosives if you can match the characteristics of the charge to the activity of the vortex at the time of detonation. If not, you either feed the vortex (and make it larger) or spread it into multiple smaller vortices all over the place. Played straight; it's a mistake of the latter type which costs Neal Cloud his wife and children (though not at Cloud's own hands; the mistake was made by a 'bungling nitwit' who is bluntly stated to have died in the attempt). |
| 264 | * NiceToTheWaiter: Even when he's infiltrating the bad guys' organization to work his way up the hierarchy, Virgil Samms refuses to take credit for work those under him did. And when Kim Kinnison sifts through a broken-down, burned-out meteor miner's head to find the information he's looking for, he cures the man's epilepsy and gives him the drive to go back out into space and succeed. In fact, when Kimball uses a ''spider'' as part of his scheme, he makes sure to find a nice, juicy fly for the spider to eat as well, and it's all part of the same thing. |
| 265 | * NoConservationOfEnergy: Averted; whether it's ray guns ''[[DisintegratorRay actually]]'' [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath vaporizing people]] or DeflectorShields reradiating energy to their surroundings and setting them on fire, Smith is one rare sci-fi author who understands that not only does energy have to be generated, it also has to ''go somewhere''. |
| 266 | ** Metal objects don't simply disappear - they glow, melt, and even evaporate if the beam is powerful enough. |
| 267 | ** In the climactic battle of the last book, anti-matter projectiles are used, and Smith very explicitly states that when an electron and positron collide, they annihilate, giving rise to two photons of ''very'' hard radiation. The really ''big'' anti-matter projectiles can fill volumes with diametres best expressed in light-minutes with lethal levels of ionizing radiation. |
| 268 | ** In ''Masters...'' Neal Cloud realises this aversion just before he blows out Vortex Number One - the resultant explosion is considerably more violent than he had originally anticipated, and the careful preparations made for his safety are woefully inadequate. He barely gets away with his life. |
| 269 | * NoNonsenseNemesis: Since Boskonia cares more about efficiency than [[ForTheEvulz villainy for its own sake]], there are quite a few of these. Helmuth from ''Galactic Patrol'' stands out -- his personal {{catchphrase}}, "Your reports are neither complete nor conclusive," and the fact that he's smart enough to ''never'' assume NoOneCouldSurviveThat (and chews out a group of {{Mooks}} who do) show that he attaches great value on certainty and thoroughness of information. In fact, Boskonia's all-business and self-serving attitudes are one of the biggest things that distinguish it from the [[CentralTheme more familial]] Patrol. |
| 270 | * NotSoDifferentRemark: At the end of ''First Lensman'', the Patrol has the enemy fleet on the ropes and the enemy subfleet commanders are invited to parley rather than be butchered. Samms scans their minds as they come aboard his ship and gets a shock when he finds that one of the enemy commanders is of Lensman grade. |
| 271 | * NotTheFallThatKillsYou: Smith was also capable of telling physics to take a hike when it suited the story. For instance, he had characters matching "intrinsic velocities" in ways that conveniently ignored just how astronomical (in the literal sense) those velocity differences must have been, up to and including high fractions of lightspeed. Smith's {{Technobabble}} explanation of the impossibly stormy atmosphere of the planet Trenco pretty much ignores the laws of thermodynamics, and his calculations for the destructive power of his ultimate explosive Duodec are an elaborate joke in the form of a mathematical formula. Smith was reportedly delighted to be called on this, because it meant his fans were paying attention. |
| 272 | * NuclearOption: More like Casual Nuclear War, for lack of a better term. Several variants of atomic weapons are used: ''Super-atomic bombs'' which convert their entire rest-mass into energy, and ''duodecaplylatomate'' (or "duodec," for short), an extremely high-yield nuclear explosive described as "the quintessence of atomic destruction" and similar phrases. And of course, the famous ''negabombs'', [[ScienceMarchesOn "antimatter"]] projectiles that come in every size [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill up to planetary mass]]. All are used increasingly liberally as the war escalates; expect no trace of any NuclearWeaponsTaboo. |
| 273 | * ObliviouslyEvil: The vast majority of Boskonia's rank-and-file are unwitting pawns, totally in the dark about their state being run by a conspiracy of monstrous aliens. While many of them still manage to be quite thoroughly despicable individuals for [[HumansAreBastards more soberingly mundane reasons]], many more are simply conscripts JustFollowingOrders. Some are actually [[AntiVillain genuinely good people]] who will fight fanatically against the forces of Civilization to their last breath -- Because the very effective Boskonian propaganda machine has convinced them that ''Civilization'' is an evil empire out to enslave and exterminate ''their'' people. |
| 274 | * OhCrap: Virgil Samms's crew has one after realizing that some of their opponents they took as merely corrupt and greedy politicians are actually in the direct employ of the Triplanetary League's major enemy. |
| 275 | * OhMyGods: Spacemen have their own god, named Klono, who shows up in expletives like "Holy Klono's tungsten teeth and curving carballoy claws!" The Valerians prefer Noshabkeming, but quite a few spacemen say prayers to both. |
| 276 | * OldSchoolDogfight: Averted - the closest thing they have would be speedsters, used for scouting and transportation. |
| 277 | * OmniscientMoralityLicense: |
| 278 | ** The Arisians like to jerk the lesser races' chains a lot, but it's for their own good. (Eventually.) Of course, the Atlanteans, the Romans, and the Americans (and the rest of the modern-day nations of Tellus) might have a different opinion of 'their own good', considering what the Arisians permit to happen to them. And that's just Tellus... The alternative, however, would have been worse. |
| 279 | ** The Lensmen effectively have this delegated to them. Because the Arisians have checked them for corruptibility and found them sound, any Lensman of a certain rank (a Gray Lensman) is set above the laws of Civilization, authorized to act as JudgeJuryAndExecutioner. They have unlimited authority because abuse is not a concern. They still make mistakes, get killed, and have moral qualms. |
| 280 | * OneRiotOneRanger: Kinnison frequently takes on Boskonian bases single-handedly and wins. He's rarely far away from backup forces that are ready to move at his signal, but even then, most of the time they only come into play to mop up after he's already dealt the deciding blow. |
| 281 | * OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Played with in ''Grey Lensman''. [[spoiler:When the Eich try to invade Arisa, one Arisan grabs hold of their leaders' minds and stops them cold. He informs them that they are completely outmatched, and he'll let them live, as a lesson to the others. When the psychologist sneers that the Arisan is "dealing with the Eich", and manages to move "by sheer effort of will", the Arisan basically goes "So, what?", smacks him upside the mental head, and stops him. This might be the most casual way we see ''any'' Arisan speak in the ''entire series'', and the mockery shows ''precisely'' how little of a threat the Eich are, even before he starts lecturing them.]] |
| 282 | * OurDragonsAreDifferent: The Velantians. For one thing, they're incredible telepaths. |
| 283 | * OurNudityIsDifferent: Some physically human societies have either radically different nudity taboos or none at all, and Lensmen are expected to adopt local customs unless some pressing reason not to do so is in play. Most of them are so used to it that they do not even think about it, but Clarissa strongly dislikes working in the nude (though she can and will do it if necessary). A few human races are the opposite, as well, with clothing rules that cover everything, like the Tomingans. |
| 284 | * OutsideContextProblem: The Nevians in ''Triplanetary'' - when they first show up wreck both the Patrol and the pirate fleets. Once the ''Boise'' gets the proper upgrades, however... |
| 285 | * TheParalyzer: The Nevian Paralyzer gun. Most of the other hand weapons don't have a stun setting as default, although it's implied that they can be tuned or modified in the field to produce it. |
| 286 | * PardonMyKlingon: The Lenses assign random words to alien concepts with no direct human equivalent, and all the Lenses use the same word afterwards. |
| 287 | * PerpetualStorm: ''First Lensman'' has the planet Trenco, which has forty seven feet of rainfall each night, the worst electrical storms in known space, and wind velocities of over 800 miles per hour. |
| 288 | * PoweredArmor: According to many, the UrExample, certainly a very early one (decades before Literature/StarshipTroopers). Includes [[DeflectorShields protective force-fields]], [[InertialDampening inertial dampening tech]], [[JetPack rocket thrusters]], a generous [[EnergyWeapon heat ray]], and [[AwesomeButImpractical the multi-kilohorsepower engines required to move it around]]. |
| 289 | * PowerOfLove: This is what enables [[spoiler:Clarissa to find and bring back Kinnison after he went through the [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Hell Hole]] and was trapped in a far off dimension that not even Mentor and the children could find. The chapter's even ''called'' "The Power of Love".]] |
| 290 | * {{Prequel}}: ''First Lensman'', the last Lensman novel written by Smith, which finishes linking ''Triplanetary'' to the rest of the series. |
| 291 | * ProstheticLimbReveal: After Port Admiral Haynes undergoes an experimental regeneration treatment (and needs assistance because his prosthetics don't fit any more) Nurse Clarissa [=MacDougall=] is shocked to discover just how many prosthetic parts Haynes had. |
| 292 | -->'''[=MacDougall=]:''' I had no idea, Admiral Hynes, that you... that there...\ |
| 293 | '''Haynes:''' That I was so much of a rebuild? |
| 294 | * ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Worsel of Velantia, and also the confusingly named (Human) Valerians and their scion, Van Buskirk (who are a HumanSubspecies because of the high gravity of their planet). |
| 295 | * PsychicBlockDefense: Mechanical thought-screens and their psychically generated equivalents. The former are not always unbreakable, but are in widespread use even among natural telepaths, as they offer the advantage of not requiring any effort from the wearer to maintain his, her or its own psychic shields around the clock. Just make sure the new power-pack is connected in parallel before you slip out the used one... |
| 296 | * ThePsychoRangers: By ''Children of the Lens'', the Eddorians have seemingly come up with a way to create Lenses of their own and begin fielding "Black Lensmen" in an attempt to counter Civilization's finest. The results are rather disappointing, [[spoiler:to the point that the Children of the Lens deem the Black Lensmen to be a non-issue without even doing anything about them, making their existence feel like a RedHerring.]] |
| 297 | * PurpleProse: |
| 298 | ** Each space battle seems to be a test to see if Smith can one-up himself. |
| 299 | --->"And from the mouth of that gargantuan cone [of battle] there spewed forth a miles-thick column of energy so raw, so stark, so incomprehensibly violent that it had to be seen to be even dimly appreciated. It simply cannot be described." (... And he was only up to the second book in the series by this point!) |
| 300 | ** Smith hangs a huge, hilarious lampshade on his own purple writing style in ''Children of the Lens'' -- there's a scene where Kinnison is traveling undercover as a ''writer of pulp space operas'', and the few paragraphs of his latest work that are quoted are so over-the-top they make the narrative in which they're embedded sound as spare and laconic as Hemingway. |
| 301 | [[/folder]] |
| 302 | |
| 303 | [[folder:Tropes Q - Z]] |
| 304 | * QuittingToGetMarried: Clarissa comments at the end of ''Gray Lensman'' that she's facing a huge amount of demerits for having not one, but ''three'' men in her quarters[[note]]one of them is her love interest Kinnison which under other circumstances might well be considered irregular to say the least, but the other two are ''extremely'' senior officers and all three are [[IncorruptiblePurePureness Lensmen]], so she's just joking[[/note]]. The chief surgeon (one of those men) assures her she won't get in trouble, because her resignation to marry Kinnison will be backdated to before the meeting. (Note that Clarissa hadn't said anything about resigning, everyone[[note]]including Clarissa, to be honest[[/note]] just assumed she would, and a woman quitting her career to get married was par for the course when the stories were first published.) Turns into a TenMinuteRetirement when Mentor delivers a psychic DopeSlap to Kinnison at the beginning of ''Second Stage Lensmen'' ... but before she gets to go through with the wedding at the end of that book, she resigns again[[note]]from the Nursing Corps; by that point she's a Lensman herself, and you don't resign from ''that'' job while you're still breathing, or whatever your species' equivalent is[[/note]]. |
| 305 | * RayGun: By the time of Galactic Patrol, [=DeLameters=] are standard Patrol equipment, capable of vaporising anything that doesn't have advanced shielding. |
| 306 | * RaygunGothic: Before it was retro, even. |
| 307 | * ARealManIsAKiller: All Tellurian Lensmen are male, because a Lensman must be able to kill without a conscience if the situation calls for it and only men can be natural-born killers like that; women, supposedly, just don't have that kind of sociopathy in them. Virgilia Samms is disqualified from being a Lensman for this reason, and she says that there will one day be a woman Lensman, but she'll be an absolute freak of nature. [[spoiler: Actually, Virgilia's being fed a crock of bullshit. The Arisians don't want women in the Lensman corps because it might screw up their breeding program.]] |
| 308 | * TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: |
| 309 | ** Helmuth receives one when he tries to visit Arisia: |
| 310 | --->'''Mentor''': Inflated -- overwhelmingly by your warped and perverted ideas, by your momentary success in dominating your handful of minions, tied to you by bonds of greed, of passion, and of crime, you come here to wrest from us the secret of the Lens, from us, a race as much abler than yours as we are older -- a ratio of millions to one. |
| 311 | ---> You consider yourself cold, hard, ruthless. Compared to me, you are weak, soft, tender, as helpless as a newborn child. That you may learn and appreciate that fact is one reason why you are living at this present moment. [[MindRape Your lesson will now begin]]. |
| 312 | ** Later, one of the lesser Guardians does the same to a couple of trespassing Eich leaders. Unlike Helmuth, they remain stubborn in the face of his overwhelming mental power -- so he kills them while their colleagues watch, as a demonstration of just how outmatched they are. |
| 313 | * RedOniBlueOni: In ''First Lensman'', Roderick Kinnison and Virgil Samms have this sort of dynamic going, with Rod's impulsive charisma balanced by Samms's methodical cunning. |
| 314 | * RevengeIsSweet: The Overlords of Delgon had been enslaving and torturing Velantians to death for millennia. With the help of the Galactic Patrol, the Velantians became able to go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, and whenever they successfully wiped out a den of Overlords it felt ''wonderful.'' One particular episode in ''Second Stage Lensmen'' had Worsel of Velantia return from a raid on a den of Overlords radiating "self-satisfaction, bliss, and contentment." This despite being banged up, stitched up, and bandaged due to injuries received in the fight. |
| 315 | * RuleOfCool: Averted, surprisingly; the basic fictional scientific principles such as the Bergenholm drive, hyperspatial tubes, force fields, rays etc are all handled with consistency and care. Smith finds new ways to apply these principles, rather than whipping out more AppliedPhlebotinum. Even his predilection for the BoardingParty, and, of course the Valerian Space Axe RecycledInSpace, are solidly justified. Though the Bergenholm drive only averts it in the basic view; in the details it is more an example of playing it straight. "Inertialess" objects still display inertial behaviour in cases where it would be too awkward to behave "realistically". For example, true inertialessness would halt all thermal motion of atoms and molecules, which would wreak lethal havoc on any biological system, far beyond the "space-sickness" which is the worst such effect described (and then only in the case of the first prototype, later developments avoid this). A spaceship going inertialess in a gravity well would instantly, without perceptible time-lapse, fall to the bottom of the well and likely be vaporised in the heart of a star; again this simply does not happen, and the behaviour of the Bergenholm drive in relation to gravitational fields can only be explained by assuming it to also function as a Cavorite-style gravity shield - the first test of the initial prototype inertialess drive indeed does exactly this. |
| 316 | * RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Worsel, to avenge the millennia his people suffered at the hands of the Overlords of Delgon (not to mention his own suffering), vows to obliterate the entire species from the universe. Pretty much does. Considers the fact that he has to torture some of them for information to be a bonus. This is a species that tortures its victims slowly to death in order to enjoy their agonies and then consume their life-force as they die. Not because they need to do so to live or anything, they just like it. Little wonder that the Velantians' allies saw fit to help them destroy it. |
| 317 | * SaveTheVillain: Lensmen will try to save even Boskonian agents if rehabilitation is at all possible. They have no hesitation about destroying those that prove to be too hardened or indoctrinated to save (which generally translates to pretty much all of the upper echelons of their leadership). |
| 318 | * ScaryDogmaticAliens: Boskone is TheEmpire pitted against the benevolent and free [[TheAlliance Civilization]]. Consider the stories were written in the run-up to, and during, WWII and you can see who they stand for. It's probably not coincidence that the title of the Eddorian leader is also one of the titles of the German Kaiser ("All-Highest"). Also Cf. Helmuth von Moltke, German commander at the start of the First World War. |
| 319 | * SchematizedProp: Any and all weapons, but particularly the [=DeLameter=] blaster. Almost all spaceships. |
| 320 | * ScienceHero: Quite often, the tide of the war against Boskone is changed as a result of brilliant scientists whipping up the newest Big Thing just in time to give the {{Space Pirate}}s a thrashing. |
| 321 | * SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: |
| 322 | ** Averted; Smith appears very much aware that he's portraying a galaxy-wide civilization. Here's the Gray Lensman on leading the assault on a major Boskonian stronghold: |
| 323 | --->'''Kinnison:''' "With around a million fleets to handle we can't spend spend much time on any one." |
| 324 | ** The starships of the Galactic Patrol use total conversion of matter to energy for their engines. At first, the power was conducted in meters-thick, liquid-helium-cooled silver busbars, because nothing less could handle it. It's specifically noted that to utilize their extreme power sources to their fullest, they needed to go a step further than that and discover [[UnObtainium room-temperature superconductors]]. |
| 325 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After [[spoiler:Ploor]] is destroyed, the remnants of the Boskonian fleet flee back to their respective planets. The Patrol, thoroughly sick of killing mooks like shooting fish in barrels, lets them go. |
| 326 | * SecretWeapon: Primary beams, kept secret from the Boskonians throughout most of ''Gray Lensman.'' The Galactic Patrol only used them when they knew none of its victims could escape to tell the tale. |
| 327 | * SequelReset: Every one of the original four novels ends with the Lensmen thinking they've ''finally'' destroyed the nerve center of Boskone's operations and wrapped things up for good... which means that every sequel has to have a scene establishing that, no, there's still one level higher to go (at least until they finally confront the Eddorians). |
| 328 | * SerialEscalation: Goes hand-in-hand with the Lensman Arms Race. Each book introduces at least one superweapon that's ultra-powerful at the moment it's revealed but that becomes so ubiquitous by the sequel that it's practically the new baseline for weapons tech, resulting in scientists on both sides developing still more powerful superweapons in an effort to break the status quo. Wash, rinse, repeat. |
| 329 | * ShadesOfConflict: The general perception of Boskonia in Civilization early on, fueled by numerous war crimes and atrocities, is that they are all deranged psychopaths and deserve no mercy. While remaining largely true for some particularly vile units and organizations, this gradually changes as more or less peaceful contacts with the enemy increase, and people realize that there are both more and less evil individuals and cultures within Boskonia's not completely monolithic evil empire. |
| 330 | * ShipperOnDeck: After Kinnison's disastrous encounter with the Wheelmen in ''Galactic Patrol'' ends up with him laid up in a hospital, Doctor Lacy and Port Admiral Haynes conspire to set him up with Clarissa [=MacDougall=], an eligible nurse who happens to also be related to the Samms family. The two do eventually fall for one another. [[spoiler:Just as the Arisians intended from the start of their breeding program.]] |
| 331 | * ShowDontTell: For all the [[TechnologyPorn loving detail Smith put into his descriptions of technology and military tactics]], his character descriptions tended to be "This is what you should think about this character." |
| 332 | * ShownTheirWork: For such a dated (and often over-the-top) series, Lensman can be surprisingly hard science-fiction at times. |
| 333 | * SkipTheAnesthetic: Played with in ''Gray Lensman''. Kinnison has barely survived torture and needs radical surgery. He offers to just keep his mental nerve block up, but the doctors convince him that he needs to be out cold due to possible psychological trauma from what they'll have to do to him. Then the anesthesia only blocks the pain and leaves Kinnison conscious. Worsel has to be brought into the operating room to put Kinnison under via mental powers. |
| 334 | * SleazyPolitician: In the prequel ''First Lensman'', [[EvilChancellor Senator Morgan]], who mixes shady political dealing and ties with [[EvilInc corrupt corporations]] and [[TheMafia the mob]] with secret subservience to the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens evil alien empire]]. His [[TheDragon chief aide]], Herkimer Herkimer III, is probably the closest thing ''Lensman'' has to an utter monster. (Well, [[EldritchAbomination as far as human beings are concerned, at least]].) Morgan can probably also be considered a mild StrawmanPolitical against left-wing economic populism. |
| 335 | * SleepCute: Costigan and Clio Marsden share a chaste moment of slumber together after their rescue from Grey Roger's clutches. |
| 336 | * TheSoCalledCoward: Nadreck refers to ''himself'' as a DirtyCoward. He's also probably the second most effective Lensman in Civilization, prior to the Children of the Lens; the fact that he doesn't stick his neck out leads him to take no risks and defeat the enemies of Civilization with consummate skill, efficiency, and [[GuileHero guile]]. |
| 337 | ** His race regards cowardice as a ''virtue''. At one point, he's acutely embarrassed by the fact that he was forced to personally kill three enemies in single combat, instead of manipulating them into killing each other. Like the other few ''hundred'' enemies in the base. |
| 338 | ** Eventually, the human penultimate, Kimball Kinnison, reluctantly comes to the conclusion that Nadreck is right about this, and that he has to adopt the same sort of ruthless, coldly pragmatic thinking to succeed. He doesn't enjoy it one bit. |
| 339 | * SoLastSeason: The powers of Civilization, Boskone, and the Lensmen keep going up and up and up... by the final novel, even the superhuman Kimball Kinnison has to take a back seat to the ''final'' Guardians of Civilization. |
| 340 | * SolarSystemNeighbors: Martians and Venusians are mentioned, while Pluto was colonized by the exosolar Palainians long before Earth (Tellus) discovered space travel. |
| 341 | * SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: Boskone, played to the hilt. Every time Kinnison thinks that ''this'' time Boskone is for sure, absolutely, 100% beyond a doubt finished... surprise! Those bad guys were just a puppet of the ''next'' and [[SerialEscalation even more dangerous]] layer of Boskone. |
| 342 | * SpaceBattle: While most of the action centered on the larger-than-life heroes as individuals, occasionally the emphasis shifted to the larger-than-life fleets of space battleships they commanded. |
| 343 | * SpaceFriction: When you're totally inertialess, running into a hydrogen atom in the almost-perfect vacuum of space actually ''does'' qualify as friction. Friction from the interstellar medium, in fact, is the ''only'' limiting factor on the acceleration of an inertialess drive. |
| 344 | * SpaceIsCold: During Virgil Samms's visit to a sub-zero planet, Smith takes pains to explain that the vacuum of space is a very poor heat conductor. The metallic ''ground'', on the other hand... |
| 345 | * SpacePirates: The Boskonian empire before they turn out to be a GreaterScopeVillain. Not a hard mistake to make, when it's the only face the enemy shows you. |
| 346 | * SpacePolice: The Galactic Patrol serves as Civilization's peacekeeping force, though they're a lot more overtly military than a lot of other examples of the trope. Standard Lensmen serve as special agents and have broad authority to deputize whoever they think is necessary to help them with whatever their mission is; the Grey Lensmen have even more extraordinary powers, both legally and (usually) in terms of abilities, as they have free rein to investigate just about anything that catches their attention with minimal oversight. |
| 347 | * TheSpartanWay: Present, though somewhat downplayed. In ''Galactic Patrol'', it's mentioned that out of an initial selection pool of one million per planet per year, only about one hundred are deemed worthy of receiving a Lens. Given that a typical Lensman is among the most physically, mentally, and morally tough people in the galaxy, it's to be expected that the selection process must be quite demanding. Even those who wash out still have learned valuable skills that the Galactic Patrol can and does put to good use. |
| 348 | * StalkerWithATestTube: The Arisians have been interfering with most of human history, conducting a breeding program to produce humans with mental powers exceeding their own. The Kinnisons become the end result. |
| 349 | * StateSec: The Galactic Patrol in ''First Lensman'' is a heroic example. They function as SecretPolice and spy on Boskone's organization, but also quickly absorb the Triplanetary Service (a regular military outfit) and other military forces of Civilization, as well as building their own fleet. By the time of ''Galactic Patrol'', they have completely subsumed Civilization's government. |
| 350 | * StarfishAliens: The Nevians, Palainians and Rigellians, among others. Thoroughly inhuman and occasionally monstrous aliens who (at least insofar as the named examples are concerned) are either humanity's allies from the start or become so. |
| 351 | * SubmersibleSpaceship: In ''Galactic Patrol'', it's mentioned that the "big teardrop" spaceships sink in water but are readily maneuverable underwater. Later on, there's a brief report that a fleeing spaceship "dove into the deepest ocean of Corvina II, in the depths of which all rays are useless." |
| 352 | * SubspaceAnsible: The Lens allows telepathic communication with other Lensmen or powerful telepaths, at a range depending on the skill and power of the individuals involved. If they're advanced enough, Lensmen in different galaxies can communicate with each other with no more difficulty or inconvenience than an online chat room. |
| 353 | * SufficientlyAdvancedAliens: Arisians and Eddorians. Arguably the Ploorans. All three races appear to be [[spoiler: naturally evolved Level Three telepaths.]] |
| 354 | * SuperBreedingProgram: The Lensmen are the product of an Arisian breeding program to create a race of ultra-powerful telepathic beings to defeat the Eddorian menace. |
| 355 | * SuperiorTwinTeamwork: In ''Children of the Lens'', the titular children are two pairs of twin sisters plus their older brother. Once grown, they can form a MentalFusion called the Unit, at one point described by [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Mentor of Arisia]] as "the most powerful and the most nearly perfect creation this universe has ever seen." Unusually for twin tropes, the twin sisters are non-identical. |
| 356 | * SuperPrototype: Numerous {{Cool Ship}}s, from the ''Brittania'' to the ''Chicago''. |
| 357 | * SupportingLeader: Kinnison's controller, Port Admiral Haynes, doesn't get himself directly involved much unless there's a space battle of stupendous scale to coordinate. Nevertheless, his leadership and support often prove invaluable whenever Kinnison finds himself in a tight spot. |
| 358 | * TakingYouWithMe: When fighting a losing battle, Boskonian gun crews purposely overload their weapons. This burns out the gun and kills the gun crews, but the resulting high powered beam is enough to break through the shields of the Patrol's defensive cruisers. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain It backfires when Patrol scientists figure out a way to safely use the method]], creating the devastating primary beam. |
| 359 | * {{Technobabble}}: Mixed liberally with actual science, and Smith was reportedly delighted by fans who could spot the difference. |
| 360 | * TechnicolorEyes: The non-Kinnison breeding line is characterized by auburn hair and "gold-flecked, tawny eyes". |
| 361 | * TelepathicSpacemen: The point of the story. |
| 362 | * TerrorHero: Nadreck of Palain's M.O. is to play on his foes' fears and paranoia from the sidelines until they go insane and destroy one another. He's used this technique to wipe out ''entire bases''. In fact, Nadreck prides himself on this technique so much that the one time it doesn't quite get to 100% (forcing him to invade the base and ''personally'' kill the last three Boskonian personnel who didn't crack), he is ''humiliated'', treating the matter as MyGreatestFailure. |
| 363 | * TooAwesomeToUse: Invoked and discussed within the context of the perpetual game of one-upmanship that is the Lensman Arms Race. Every so often, the scientists of either Civilization or Boskone will come up with something leaps and bounds ahead of what the other side can deal with. However, they'll intentionally hold off on using it until a decisive moment or unless they can guarantee no enemy survivors will report back to headquarters, because they know that their enemy will be able to analyze, reverse-engineer, and develop their own countermeasures for anything wielded against them. |
| 364 | * TouchedByVorlons: Several characters are touched by the Arisians to varying degrees, particularly the second-stage Lensmen in the later books. Generally speaking, this is when said humans are in direct opposition to an Eddorian, [[spoiler: specifically Gharlane,]] and require protection. |
| 365 | * TractorBeam: They appear here first, as an offshoot of research into anti-inertia forcefields. Interestingly, against negamatter bodies, they behave in the exact opposite fashion, repelling them instead of capturing them. The inverse of the tractor, the pressor, also exists - although it has never enjoyed the same percolation into popular culture as its attractive brother. |
| 366 | * TrademarkFavoriteFood: Kinnison and his big, thick, rare beefsteaks. |
| 367 | * {{Transhuman}}: The end goal of the Arisians' great eons-long plan, realized by Kim and Clarissa Kinnison's offspring, is the creation of a species of superbeings to whom the powers of even a Second-Stage Lensman are second nature from birth. |
| 368 | * TranslatorMicrobes: The Lens of Civilization allows its wearer to communicate with anyone as if in their native language; the wearer doesn't hear the original sounds at all. |
| 369 | * {{Tsundere}}: Clarissa Kinnison (''nee'' [=MacDougall=]) may be one of the prototypes for the "feisty, temperamental redhead that ultimately falls for the hero" archetype that's so prevalent in science fiction. |
| 370 | * TwinSwitch: First Lensman Samms does a variation on this so he can [[TheMole infiltrate a drug cartel]] while under Patrol protection. The reason he can switch with his cousin is carefully explained. |
| 371 | * UsefulNotes/TypesOfNavalShips: Played with. Speeders are smallest (room for one or two people) and fastest. Covettes, frigates, and destroyers aren't used at all. Cruisers are generally designed for specialized tasks, such as prevent hostile ships from going "free", scouting, or launching negabombs. Battlecruisers are used for commerce raiding (by the Boskonians), or for fighting commerce raiders (by the Patrol). Battleships and super-dreadnoughts are front-line combat units although we see far more of the latter then former. Finally, the slow maulers and super-maulers were designed for planetary bombardment, although thanks to the strength of theater shields they proved more successful in ship to ship combat. |
| 372 | * TheUnfettered: Gray Lensmen, officially called Unattached Lensmen, are free to pursue whatever avenues they desire in pursuit of their moral duty to protect Civilisation, and are given pretty much a blank check to use Civilization's resources as they see fit in that pursuit. Technically they are answerable to the Galactic Council and the Port Admiral of the Galactic Patrol, but in the field they answer only to their own conscience. |
| 373 | -->'''Kimball Kinnison:''' On this job I can recognize nothing of good taste, of courtesy, of chivalry, or even of ordinary common decency. |
| 374 | * {{Unobtainium}}: Dureum, a "super-dense" metal which allows it to be used inside of Hypertubes. |
| 375 | * UnscrupulousHero: Nadreck of Palain. All Gray Lensmen are expected to be somewhat [[DirtyBusiness pragmatic and utilitarian]]. But Nadreck takes it up to eleven, in part because Palainian culture [[BlueAndOrangeMorality considers deceit and cowardice to be virtues]]. Make no mistake, if Nadreck is after you, he will absolutely arrange your death in any of the ways that his cunning, his resources, and his powers allow... but he'll only ''personally'' assault you as a desperate last resort. |
| 376 | * UnstoppableForceMeetsImmovableObject: Invoked by the narrative when [[spoiler:Helmuth's base self-destruct system]] triggers a tremendous duodec explosion, with the ''planet'' being the immovable object. The result is [[spoiler:the planet temporarily breaking apart, before crashing back together, deformed beyond recognition]]. |
| 377 | * UnusualEuphemism: By Klono's Carballoy Claws! Also a FutureSlang version of CurseOfTheAncients. Klono seems to have whatever alliterative attributes the person swearing by him wants him to have: iridium intestines, gadolinium guts, ''und so weiter.'' Lampshaded as being why he's such a popular space-god. "He's got so much stuff - teeth and horns, claws and whiskers, tail and everything - that he's much more satisfactory to swear by than any other space-god I know of." |
| 378 | * UnwillingRoboticisation: What happened to Clio's guide - and possibly others - in Triplanetary. |
| 379 | * WallOfText: It seems [[TalkingIsAFreeAction Talking and Talking and Talking is a free action...]] It's mentioned that telepathic communication is vastly faster than speech. |
| 380 | * WeDidntStartTheFuhrer: Or the Kaiser, or Nero, or the Tyrant of Asia... ''Many'' of history's most famous tyrants were actually Eddorian sleeper agents. |
| 381 | * WeHaveReserves: When Patrol marines storm a Boskonian battlecruiser, the defending officers have no reservations about tossing armour-piercing grenades into the melee, which kill almost as many of their own forces as they do of the Patrol attackers. |
| 382 | * WeirdWorldWeirdFood: The planet Trenco, where anything has to be willing to eat anything in order to survive, and usually does - to the point where a creature will take pains to finish its lunch even while being lunched upon itself. |
| 383 | * WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture: Possibly the TropeCodifier. The credit is the base currency of Civilization. |
| 384 | * WhatMeasureIsAMook: |
| 385 | ** As the series goes on, we learn much of Boskone is ObliviouslyEvil and honestly thinks Civilization are the bad guys who'll do horrible things to captured Boskonians (lampshaded in ''First Lensman'', where the surviving Petrinos switch sides upon realizing how badly they've been lied to and used). Kinnison occasionally feels really bad about committing what amounts to mass murder of people who present about as much of a threat to him as an ant does do a boot. |
| 386 | ** Kinnison is deeply disturbed when the bad guys capture and murder some of his crew in a mission gone wrong. His boss Haynes tries to tell him these things happen, and says any man in the Patrol would still give his eyeteeth to ride out with Kinnison, but it doesn't take. [[spoiler:Kinnison even tries to "fix" the qualifications of a volunteer SuicideMission so he's the one who goes, but his friends beat him to the punch and prove they're better qualified. They also remind him his life is worth a lot more than just about anyone else's. This is probably why Kinnison likes working alone whenever he can.]] |
| 387 | * WorthlessYellowRocks: |
| 388 | ** Iron, the basis of the Nevians' technology and economy: five pounds is a king's ransom, but to humans it's so common we build our ships' hulls out of it! |
| 389 | ** The "super-atomic motor" in the stories works by converting the total mass of the fuel into energy. "Allotropic Iron" is an artificially produced allotrope that packs a lot of mass into a very dense liquid, and as such, makes a very efficient and easy to handle fuel for their ship's atomic motors. |
| 390 | ** Illona goes around wearing shedloads of credits in jewels, but they're not considered a big deal on her home planet of Lonabar. She's wearing so much jewellery, in fact, they let Kinnison set up a cover identity as a shady jewel dealer. |
| 391 | * WorthyOpponent: Kinnison and Helmuth ''deeply'' respect each other's capabilities, which is part of why they try so hard to kill each other. Two books later, Helmuth is still Kinnison's gold standard for a careful and skilled opponent, to the point where the latter expresses honest dismay when he catches Boskone's minions making mistakes that would have never happened on Helmuth's watch. |
| 392 | * WouldntHitAGirl: Kinnison can mow down ''male'' thugs left and right without batting a lash, but he never harms a woman, end of discussion. Not even when they try to kill him or when he thinks they're literally waving thionite in his face. This causes him no small headache when he is forced to deal with the genocidally misandric matriarchs of Lyrane II. |
| 393 | * YouAreNumberSix: In Boskonia proper, the inhabitants have "registry numbers" rather than family names. It's unclear whether this is only true for some of its sub-divisions, or true only for the lower classes; it doesn't seem to apply to the elites. |
| 394 | * YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: Except for the two prequels that he is not in, all of the novels end with Kim thinking that [[SortingAlgorithmOfEvil THIS time he's finally obliterated Boskone's leadership for sure...]] Although in ''Children...'' he begins to think that "there IS no top". (Thankfully for Civilization, he's wrong, even if the ''final'' layer is above his paygrade.) |
| 395 | * YouHaveFailedMe: Helmuth loves this trope, [[VillainHasAPoint mostly because it encourages his minions to be thorough in their work]], but he's not above sparing underlings who defy him (Gildersleeve's crew). |
| 396 | [[/folder]] |
| 397 | |
| 398 | !!The ''Lensman'' anime contains the following tropes: |
| 399 | |
| 400 | [[folder:Anime Tropes]] |
| 401 | * TwoDVisualsThreeDEffects: For several spacecraft, a holographic Helmuth communicating to his minions, an illusionary chase sequence, and the Lens. The anime was one of the first uses of CG for the mass market. |
| 402 | * BigDamnHeroes: When the young Lensman Kim and his friend Van Buskirk are attacked by a mass of carnivorous plants on a planet, the boy inadvertently uses the Lens to send out a distress call. Another Lensman responds, saying he's on his way, and [[GunshipRescue dives out of the sky to blast them free]]. [[note]]That Lensman was the anime's version of Worsel. The scene was more or less adapted from the ''Galactic Patrol'' novel, although Worsel wasn't a Lensman yet in the original story.[[/note]] |
| 403 | * TheCameo: The crowd on planet Radelix in the movie features some rather surprising faces, including discolored cameos from [[Manga/GeGeGeNoKitaro Nezumi Otoko]], Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial, a [[Series/UltraQ Kemur Man]], [[Series/UltraSeven Alien Metron]], and [[Franchise/StarWars Boba Fett]]. |
| 404 | * DoomedHometown: Boskone destroys the peaceful farm world that the anime version of Kimball called home practically as soon as the Lens is on his hand. |
| 405 | * EldritchAbomination: Helmuth, oddly enough, in the books he's just a blue skinned humanoid with a machine gun. In the anime the ''whole'' planet of Boskone [[GeniusLoci is his body.]] |
| 406 | * EvilIsVisceral: Boskone ships are purple organic-looking blobs, in contrast with the silver geometric shapes of Galactic Patrol ships. |
| 407 | * InNameOnly: Let's just say that the anime's plot has more in common with ''Franchise/StarWars'' than any of the ''Lensman'' books. The main, [[BroadStrokes if not the only]], elements they kept from the novels were the Lens itself and the names of the characters. |
| 408 | * {{OEL Manga}}: The American indie comic publisher Eternity Comics published an adaptation of the anime from 1990 through 1991. According to their comments in collections, the adaptation's writers Paul O'Conner and Tim Eldred deliberately attempted to follow the BroadStrokes of both the anime and the original novels as much as possible in their version. |
| 409 | * RecycledSoundtrack: The Harmony Gold dub used part of the score for the unreleased ''Anime/RobotechIITheSentinels''. |
| 410 | * RobotBuddy: Sol. |
| 411 | * StarfishAliens: Helmuth and the rest of the Boskone. |
| 412 | * TakeUpMySword: Kim is given his lens by a dying Lensman he finds when he saves the ''Britannia'' from crashing. (Of course, Lenses ''just don't work that way'' in the original series.[[note]]During an early screening at Worldcon '84, the fans in the audience were horrified and started screaming "No, don't touch it!" until the lens was shown not to be deadly.[[/note]]) The anomaly is immediately [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the film.[[note]]Receiving his lens from a dying Lensman is identical to how Hal Jordan received his Green Lantern ring from a dying Abin Sur, Green Lantern Corps being widely noted for being an expy of Lensman.[[/note]] |
| 413 | * TronLines: Spreading from the Lens on the back of Kim's hand. |
| 414 | * YouHaveFailedMe: Helmuth has two generals at the beginning, and none at the end due to this. |
| 415 | [[/folder]] |
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