Line #33 Literature/SagaOfTheExiles


1	Creator/JulianMay's ''Saga of the Exiles'' tells the story of human malcontents who leave the Literature/GalacticMilieu, a [[TheFederation Federation]] of six allied psychic races including Humanity, and travel via a PortalToThePast to the Pliocene Era of Earth's history 6,000,000 years ago. The past is not quite what anyone expected.
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3	The time-travelers arrive to discover the Pliocene is already inhabited by a dimorphic race of aliens ('exotics'). The exotics, who have fled their home galaxy because of religious persecution, are marooned on Pliocene Earth as well. The exotics have difficulty reproducing on Earth, and so have enslaved many of the humans in an effort to overcome this problem, interbreeding with the more robust humans and influencing the legends of Myth/CelticMythology and TheFairFolk.
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5	The books making up the tetralogy are;
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7	* ''The Many-Colored Land''
8	* ''The Golden Torc''
9	* ''The Nonborn King''
10	* ''The Adversary''
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12	There was a non-fiction book entitled ''A Pliocene Companion'' that featured a guide to names, places, objects and so on and some essays by the writer elucidating certain aspects of the series. Any entry below citing WordOfGod is likely to have this as its origin.
13	----
14	!!Provides Examples Of:
15	* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: Marc and Elizabeth [[spoiler:move on from the Pliocene to nurture the Duat galaxy at the end of ''The Adversary''. However, Marc comes back as Atoning Unifex in the Literature/GalacticMilieu trilogy, and it is revealed that Elizabeth eventually died.]]
16	* AuthorAvatar: WordOfGod identifies Claude as this; he carries her family's original Polish surname (''Majewski'').
17	* BigDamPlot: [[spoiler: Felice destroys the natural structure at Gibraltar that keeps the Atlantic from filling the Mediterranean Sea, thus wiping out the Tanu capital city in a GiantWallOfWateryDoom.]]
18	* BreadEggsMilkSquick: Felice's dagger is useful for "picking teeth, cutting sandwiches, pricking out transponders from rustled cattle, and putting out the lights of casual assaulters."
19	* BroughtDownToNormal: Elizabeth was a powerful metapsychic until she suffered an accident. [[spoiler: Her power is then restored by the trauma of passing through the time-gate.]]
20	* ButtMonkey: Tony Wayland, oh so much. This guy just can't catch a break [[spoiler: Until the very end]]. Of course, this is to be expected given that he is a not so subtle nod to the mythical [[Myth/WaylandTheSmith Wayland Smith]].
21	* CombatPragmatist: Aiken Drum, whose explanation of this might as well be the CombatPragmatist Creed:
22	--> ''I fight with the weapons I have. It's the only sensible way.''
23	* TheFairFolk: The Tanu and Firvulag, who match well to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts respectively, the Tanu representing the tall and beautiful archetype, while the Firvulag the darker, more goblin-like side. Most of the named exotics correspond directly to members of [[Myth/CelticMythology the Tuatha de Danaan and the Fir Bolg or Fomor]] -- Nodonn/Nuada, Lugonn/Lugh, Pallol/Balor, et cetera.
24	* FantasyGunControl: The types of weaponry permitted through into Exile are strictly controlled, and the Tanu confiscate it all anyway. The Tanu and Firvulag don't use firearms, except for some of their ritual weapons.
25	* FelonyMisdemeanor: Aiken Drum is sentenced to Exile for being a recidivist criminal, but his crimes were more on the level of juvenile pranks.
26	* FlyingDutchman: Richard Voorhees.
27	* GreyAndGrayMorality: Neither the Tanu or the Firvulag are presented as particularly good or evil: the Tanu enslave humans, and the Firvulag are at war with the Tanu and not presented especially sympathetically either. Most of the humans in the series also commit a range of... less than moral actions.
28	* HalfHumanHybrid: There are a lot of Tanu-human hybrid children in the Pliocene. Justified by the sentient ship having been told to find the most compatible planet for the exotics' exile.
29	* HonorBeforeReason: The exotics fled to Earth so they could continue to practice their bloody apocalyptic battle-religion, rather than live in peace as part of the emerging Duat Mind.
30	* HorseOfADifferentColor: Humans who serve the Tanu train [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalicotherium chalicotheria]] ("chalikos"), a Pliocene-era herbivore, to fill the role of horses.
31	* IfICantHaveYou: [[spoiler:You'll go OutWithABang and your mind will be subsumed, before the same thing is done to your [[MurderTheHypotenuse mate]]. Which is what Aiken does to Mercy and then to Nodonn at the climax of ''The Nonborn King''.]]
32	* ImAHumanitarian: The larger Firvulag (Ogres) are often this. From their point of view, this is [[ValuesDissonance hardly immoral]] since they consider humans to be nonpersons.
33	* InvoluntaryShapeshifting: In the aftermath of [[spoiler:Aiken's subsumption of Mercy and Nodonn's metapsychic complexuses, he begins to exhibit chimerism while in the throes of subsumption-induced metapsychic dysfunction / onset of madness, to the point of shapeshifting into a three-headed hermaphrodite chimera with boobs and a GagPenis.]]
34	* JediMindTrick: The Coercive metafunction allows people to control others in many ways, but there's a scene in the second book (written 1982) which is probably a deliberate shout-out with the way that the mind-whammied targets repeat what they're told.
35	--> Felice's coercive power settled without trace over the will of the majordomo. "We will pay our respects to the High Faculty of the Guild, such as may be up and about, before retiring. Coming as we do from doleful Finiah, we have need of fraternal support and sympathy. You will be glad to conduct us into headquarters personally."
36	--> "I will be glad," the man repeated mechanically, "to conduct you into headquarters personally."
37	* LoveMakesYouDumb: Bryan is aware that his passion for Mercy is blind and self-destructive, but he chooses not to care.
38	--> Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
39	--> And yet I love her till I die.
40	* MarsNeedsWomen: Tanu of both sexes love sex with humans, but they also use human women as surrogate mothers (their females can't carry a fetus to term on Earth) to the point of wearing them out with constant pregnancies.
41	* MeaningfulName: Lots of them, since many characters are references to mythology. Also played for irony with Felice, whose name means 'happy' and who is ''very much not'', or with Mercy, who might be better called ''la belle dame sans merci''.
42	* MyOwnGrandpa: [[spoiler:See the second point under StableTimeLoop below for a species-wide example.]]
43	* NoManOfWomanBorn: The Nonborn King was generated from a test tube.
44	* OlderThanTheyLook: Many of the Ocala rebels have undergone rejuvenation, so they look thirty or forty but are really a few decades older. Owen Blanchard, the oldest of the Rebels, is about a hundred and forty and looks to be a normal old man. Marc is also self-rejuvenating; he looks fairly young but is actually about seventy at the time of the series.
45	* PsychicPowers: The Tanu are organized into five psychic guilds: each guild has a guild leader and its own heraldic colours, which allow others to instantly recognize the person's primary metapsychic power. Coercive (Blue), Creative (Green), Psychokinetic (Rose-gold), Farsensing (Purple) and Redactive (Red).
46	* PsychoLesbian: Felice. Almost everyone treats her like a dangerous wild animal, whether she's yet rightly earned their fear or not. The one person who's slightly nice to her, Felice believes herself to be obsessively in love with. Unfortunately, that one person is a nun.
47	* RagTagBunchOfMisfits: Pretty much every human who passes through the time gate, since almost without exception, they're people who don't, can't or won't fit into the society of the Galactic Milieu.
48	* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: The Tanu and the Firvulag, many of whom came to Earth on Brede's Ship, making them at least about a thousand. And then there's Brede herself.
49	* SanDimasTime: The time-gate always drops people six million years before the current modern date, so effectively the same amount of time has passed on both sides since travel began.
50	* {{Satan}}: Marc is identified as The Adversary.
51	* ScienceFantasy: Spaceships, psychics, PortalToThePast and TheFairFolk. Something for everyone.
52	* SecondLove: [[spoiler:Elizabeth Orme and Marc Remillard, for each other. Lawrence Mallory was killed in a post-Rebellion accident which also took away Elizabeth's metafaculties, while Cyndia Muldowney was instinctively and lethally struck down by Marc after sterilizing him (cutting off Mental Man at the source) at the height of passion during the Rebellion (and his subsequent relationship with Patricia Castellane was strictly FriendsWithBenefits). The two discuss what they are to each other while the Grand Tourney duel between Minanonn and Medor was ongoing, and Elizabeth finally confesses[=/=]opens up to Marc during the climactic confrontation at Castle Gateway towards the end of ''The Adversary''; this is what convinces Marc to finally let go of Mental Man and send his children through the time gate, back to the Galactic Milieu.]]
53	* ShapeShifting: Many characters are able to shapeshift through use of the Creative Metafunction. Aiken Drum turns into a series of different animals [[spoiler: reflecting his personal growth and increased metapsychic strength]]. Marc turns his son Hagen into a fish for a while as a punishment and in the later books Felice can turn into a raven. Also see Voluntary Shapeshifting below.
54	* StableTimeLoop: The ''Theory of the Persistence of Temporal Event Nodes'', a corollary of the Milieu's dynamic-field theory formalized by [[spoiler:Alexis Manion]], ensures that alternate timelines or temporal paradoxes wouldn't exist, such that travel into the past will always yield this trope. Two examples:
55	** [[spoiler:Marc Remillard and Elizabeth Orme travel to the Duat galaxy to help them with their psychic development. Afterwards Marc returns alone to the Milky Way and attempts to raise the native species to operant metafunction. His first success is with the Lylmik, who are the ones who create the Galactic Milieu, against which the Metapsychic Rebellion take place, causing Marc to go back to the Pliocene where he meets Elizabeth in the first place...]]
56	** [[spoiler:Genetic traits for metafunction are revealed to have been part of humanity's Tanu and Firvulag heritage. Meaning that operant Milieu humanity ultimately stems from the exotics mating with their distant descendants, the time-traveling Exiles.]]
57	--->[[spoiler:'''Claude (to Nodonn Battlemaster):''' You fool. We came from here.]]
58	* TooDumbToLive: The psychiatrist who treats Felice refuses to let her go into Exile voluntarily, but tells her that recidivist murder will get her a spot. NeckSnap follows.
59	* TooKinkyToTorture: Felice, eventually. Or rather, torture drives her insane to the point where pain becomes no longer a bad thing. And also unlocks her massive psionic super-powers, allowing her to [[NiceJobFixingItVillain destroy the people who were torturing her.]] Oops.
60	* TheTrickster: Aiken Drum was very fond of playing tricks on basically everyone around him, both before and after his Exile.
61	* TwinTelepathy: Kuhal Earthshaker and Fian Skybreaker are Tanu twins who appear to share one mind through telepathy. When Fian dies, Kuhal lapses back into latency and has to learn to be a whole person. [[spoiler:Which he does in Skin with Cloud Remillard, who becomes his soulmate and eventually marries him.]]
62	* VaginaDentata: Do not attempt to rape a Firvulag woman. It will end badly for you.
63	* VoluntaryShapeshifting: The Firvulag appear to do this, though it's accomplished through illusion rather than actual bodily change, and other Firvulag can see through it.
64	* WeaksauceWeakness: Iron is deadly poisonous to full-blooded Tanu and Firvulag. And since the exotics are all but stated to eventually become TheFairFolk of humanity's collective unconscious, it is implied that this weakness gave rise to the trope of ColdIron.
65	* WholesomeCrossdresser: Mr. Betsy, who likes to dress up as Queen Elizabeth.

Context Literature / SagaOfTheExiles