Darth Wiki / Endless Conflict

"Every war ends in time, even supposedly this one."

tagline for the series as a whole.

In the year 2472, open war has begun between the forces of the Starlight Alliance and the Preyaran Daemonyte. As battles in space and on land erupt, the Cold War of the past centuries boils over in a grand struggle to end the Endless Conflict once and for all.

Or so the sides hope.

Endless Conflict tells the story of Mathias "Mat" Watkins, Tenchi Yamanaka, and a young Terran named Daniel as they live and fight the final phase of the eponymous conflict to whatever conclusion it may bring. Spanning a planned trilogy, the series begins where it all begins early on for the characters, exploring who they are and why they are that way but then thrusts them straight into the action as the universe drags them straight into the conflict and continues on from there.

The series is notable for its Deconstruction of the Space Marine and traditional futuristic military sci while set in a grand Space Opera. Tactics are examined, personalities exposed, and even the lines between sides grows blurred as the story unfolds. Additionally, nothing major about the series is planned and created ahead of time because the author hates outlining though connecting the major events is largely done on improvisation or freewriting.

A labor several years in the making from a design standpoint, and as of yet still far from finished, Endless Conflict strives to be the best it can be or die trying. If I ever get it finished and/or published that is...

This series also is known for being poorly written and eternally unfinished.

Every war has Tropes, even supposedly this one. ^note Everything mentioned here has either been written or is planned to be written into the series by the time it is finished.

• Abnormal Ammo: Preyaran bow-launchers. They shoot rocket propelled grenades. See also Schizo Tech and Rule of Cool below.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Mathias' katana nicknamed Blade Zero and numerous other examples from across the series.
• Ace Pilot: Colonel Roy Jansen. Also seen, Anzan and Boren.
• Action Girl: Jessie. And it shows she's no pushover. Admiral Lin and her crew also qualify.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Quite a few. Some of which lapse into Seinfeldian Conversation
• A Father to His Men: Colonel Barry Smith. Also the Swordmaster Khornan.
• Airstrike Impossible: The 3 fighter run against the Preyaran Assault Carrier in "Cosmic Fairytale".
• Air-Vent Passageway: In the chapter "Behind Enemy Lines" Mathias does this via a quick Wall Jump to get away after a distraction.
• The Alliance: The Starlight Alliance naturally.
• Aliens Speaking English: Both straight and Translation Convention in play.
• Alliterative Name: General James Jay Jameson.
• All Part of the Show: the Mat/Tenchi fight in "What Was Once Benign" was confused as part of a show. Even the crowd that gathered around it was captivated. Mat and Tenchi consider humoring them further when the fight ends.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: After bailing from his fighter in "Cosmic Fairytale", Mathias nearly runs out of his oxygen supply after drifting for hours. Fortunately, he's rescued.
• Angst? What Angst?: Mathias and Tenchi can get over things that would normally in fiction result in Wangst. Sometimes however it does take a little push or a few words.
• Anime Hair: The Preyaran race has elements of this.
• Anyone Can Die: And how! Even a name and basic characterization doesn't save you from the long arm of mortality. As is written so far, there's around a 70% casualty rate for named characters. Closer to 90% for unnamed.
• Arc: The series relies on this for many parts. There are even small arcs within the larger arcs.
• Arc Words: "One day".
• Armor Is Useless: Subversion. Armor can and does survive small arms fire just fine in many cases.
  • Flak Jacket: The "helmet comes off" variety of scene plays interestingly. Anzan gets a graze on his helmet and takes it off. The guy next to him however after calling on his luck eats a shot to the head.
• Asteroid Thicket: "Cosmic Fairytale" takes us to a gas giant's ring system. As expected it's dense, but the objects are rarely bigger than a basketball or other small object. Except of course for the Trojan that drifted in. See Wronski Feint below.
• Attack Drone: Preyaran Defensive Drones are point defense craft used on larger vessels. See Bullet Hell below.
• A Twinkle in the Sky: The incoming object type. Only it specifies something much worse than somebody or something falling out of the sky.
• Audible Sharpness: Swords are sometimes described as having a singing sound to them.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: The Preyaran Kasha and Karakasa have variants that serve these roles. The Terran UCV and LAV-36 Defender also qualify.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Multiple times involving various characters.

  • Four-Star Badass: General James Jay Jameson, Judicator Jornal, Swordmaster Khornan, Vyron Supreme Commander Atrexis in the second and third books.

• Badass Adorable: Jessie. In a different way, Samantha Watkins.
• Badass Army: all over the place. All sides get to prove how badass they are on page.
• Badass Back: A time or two...
• Badass Boast: Mathias when referring to Blade Zero.
  "Because there is nobody it cannot cut!"
• Badass Creed: The motto of Assault Team Bravo.
  "We go where everyone else is afraid to."
• Badass Crew: The bridge crew of the CSS Endeavor when it matters.
• Badass Driver: If a vehicle scene is shown, someone somewhere will do something badass.
• Baseball Episode: the beginning of the chapter "It Was A Gift" has a game of baseball played by Mat, Tenchi and Samantha.
• Battle in the Rain: The final battle between Anzan and Mathias in the first book has a rainstorm beginning just before they fight. Additionally, it shows up a couple more times in the second and third books.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: During the final battle of the first book, the scene also takes place on a burning bridge.
  • The third book takes this trope up to eleven in the second Nees (pronounced "niece") fight. Both Nees and Mathias are squaring off along an active lava flow burning its way through the nearby forest. It also serves to show just how Hot-Blooded (no pun intended) and full of rage they are for the fight itself.
• The Battlestar: Preyaran, Feyline, Terran and Vyron assault carriers all qualify.
• Beach Episode: in a non-Fanservicey way. The second book opens up the scene we first see the main characters on a beach while they are on rest from the events of the first book. At the end of the episode, the call comes in for them to go back to action.
• Beam Spam: Minovski Particle weaponry can be described as this.
  • More Dakka: The alternate interpretation of how Minovski Particle weaponry works. Preyaran and Terran weaponry seems to love this idea.
• Beast Man: The Feyline are humanoid felines.
• BFG: Several weapons in the series. A notable one is the Feyline Breyl Automatic Rifle which is sometimes referred to as a "Big Ass Rifle".
• Big Damn Heroes: Colonel Smith and AT:Bravo do this to Mathias and company in "The Insurgent" arc.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: The melee weapons that can be equipped on M-Techs. Tungsten blades designed for cutting through armor. As you might expect, they aren't used frequently but it was designed as a last ditch weapon owing to the close distances the Preyarans fight in their versions. Some M-Tech pilots like the Preyaran Boren prefer to have these on hand either as part of their tactics or just in case.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Colonel Barry Smith.
• Bridge Bunnies: Admiral Lin's bridge crew is nothing but women. She's the one in command too.
• Brooklyn Rage: General James Jay Jameson
• Bullet Hell: First described in "Cosmic Fairytale". Preyaran Defensive Drones always keep their numbers in a formation and use three dimensional bullet patterns consisting of spreads, spirals, circles and other shapes to draw enemy fighters away from their parent ship or in order to wall them off from evading the parent ship's own point defenses. Colonel Roy Jansen seems to be fond of these tactics. In the third book, one of the Vyron Commanders in conjunction with the flagship of the Vyron fleet uses this against Mathias.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: A rare heroic example. In one of the final battles in the third book, Daniel of all people delivers one to Atrexis.
• The Captain: Admiral Lin of the CSS Endeavor. She cares more about her crew's lives than can possibly be shown.
• Carry the One: when calculating a grid square reference in chapter 14.
  "Let’s see grid square between the two lines here, carry the two…ah here we go! Grid square coordinates are two-three-four-eight-three-niner-niner-one"
• Character Development: Tons.
• Chekhov's Gun: If a weapon or anything gets described, it's going to be used somewhere.
  • Chekhov's Armoury: A wee bit more accurate of a statement than the above.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: No gun goes off just once. The same item can and will be used again and again. It's modeling realism in the sense that you never use something just once if you can help it.
  • Chekhov's Skill: the method used by Tenchi to disarm Mat in the friendly fight in "What Was Once Benign" comes back in the third book in Mat's fight against Atrexis. Only this time Mat's learned how to use it to his advantage.
• Cold Sniper: Daniel when you're downrange of him.
  • Friendly Sniper: what he is to Mat and Tenchi.
• Colonel Badass: Colonel Barry Smith of Assault Team Bravo.
• Cool Plane: Talon Strike Fighters and Mirais.
• Danger Deadpan: Colonel Roy Jansen of course.
• Death In All Directions
• Deconstruction: of futuristic military sci fi and Space Marines.
• Defensive Failure: Samantha pulls this against Soras. Justified in that she's a civilian at the time with no firearms experience and she just saw her (military) companion in the church get brutally slaughtered.
• Deflector Shields: Notable aversion despite the nigh Sci-Fi Kitchen Sink. Shields are not present in the Endless Conflict universe.
• Dodge by Braking: Colonel Jansen is a master of such maneuvers. See Wronski Feint also.
• Embarrassing First Name: Jessie's first name is Jessebelle. She hates it.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Jessie's middle name is Marietta. She hates it too.
• The Empire: the Preyaran Daemonyte is an Empire, but it is by no means anywhere near malevolent or evil.
  • A better example emerges in Voronov's New Galactic Order (NGO) near the end of the third book.
• Enemy Mine: somewhat of a case at the beginning of the Vyron's bulk attacks. The Preyarans quickly realize they cannot stand against 2 threats from both the Alliance and the Vyron alone. The Swordmaster Khornan is the first to offer his hand in friendship in fighting the Vyron invasion.
• Every Japanese Sword is a Katana: Averted. Tenchi's swords are Kodachi, intermediate swords greater in length than a dagger or other short sword, but lesser than a katana.
• Explosions in Space: Frequently the "bright spherical flash" type. Other kinds however just show pulverization or disintegration or some other nasty vehicular breakup.
• Fantastic Racism: The term 'elf' when used by Terran speakers towards Preyarans is not exactly a friendly moniker.
• The Federation: The sides that make up the Starlight Alliance.
• Foe Romance Subtext: Mat and Anzan seem to tease each other this way.
• Freak Out:
  • Daniel gets a truly character changing one near the end of the second book with Jornal's death.
  • Mathias gets one too when Samantha is run through by Soras' blade in "Big Brother Comes".
• Fun with Acronyms: The Terran UCV stands for Urban Combat Vehicle.
• Gatling Good: Gatling weaponry shooting Minovski Particles is the standard weapon on the Talon Strike Fighter. Mounted 40mm versions as ship-board point defenses, as well as on gunships and aerial transports also exist.
• Genre Throwback: The story as a whole is more reminiscent of classical sci-fi that tells a good story first such as that of Heinlein and pulp magazines than the Technobabble and Technology Fetish more modern works like.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Colonel Smith delivers the almighty Bright Slap upon Mat in the immediate aftermath of the chapter "Big Brother Comes". This coupled with a nice talk and Smith's boisterous personality does lift him out of his funk.
• Gunship Rescue: a variation or two happens from time to time.
• Half-Human Hybrids: The Vyron are a genetically bred race built from Terran and Preyaran sources as part of a conspiracy led by former Terran pilot Mikhail Voronov. Mistress Bellah of the Antara Council is also in on it and may in fact hold more power over it than Voronov.
• Helmet-Mounted Sight: M-tech piloting helmets have these integrated into them. Helmets for piloting Talons, Valkyries and Vikings with this also exist.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Jornal grows ever more into this in the second book owing to the Vyron invasion. After Jornal's death, Daniel takes up the trope more and more.
• High-Altitude Battle: Any duel or battle involving M-Techs and low orbit. Low orbit is about as high altitude as you can get.
• Hot-Blooded: Nees. He's extremely passionate about what he does.
• Humongous Mecha: M-Techs. Standing at 18 feet (~5 meters give or take) tall and wielding fairly powerful and diverse weaponry. They do not however have superior armor to tanks thus are reliant on their jump pack boosters to evade enemy fire. They are also expensive as hell and not suited for production priority over main battle tanks and gunships. But they are a popular Special Ops vehicle.
• I Call It Blade Zero
• Implausible Fencing Powers: averted. Characters are skilled with swords, they just don't pull off impossible feats like deflecting particle beams with them.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Daniel has never been known to miss a shot with his Feyline-made M6 Ascendant Battle Rifle. This skill strongly suggests he's had many years of live fire practice long before ever joining the Terran military and nobody in the Terran military knows why.
  • It's also Lampshaded in the line...
  "Don't you ever miss?"
• Incoming Ham: "LET...HER...GO"
• Interservice Rivalry: Military setting natch.
• Is That A Challenge: Delivered word for word by Anzan in "The Samurai and The Rival" towards Mat in their first fight.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Mat's sword Blade Zero is one made of Invincium. Tenchi's are kodachi however.
• Kill Sat: The SatDef system. Originally they are orbital defense satellites intended to engage enemy ships. But they are too few to make any real significant deterrent.
• The Lancer: Tenchi Yamanaka. Bonus points since he's technically superior in sword skill owing to longer experience.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Mistress Bellah is Anzan's long secret mother. Despite repeated contact, Anzan never realizes this until she herself in the final battle says so. Swordmaster Khornan was in on the whole thing even knowing what Bellah was up to at his death. He tries to tell Anzan this however.
• Macross Missile Massacre: A favored tactic of the Preyarans and Terrans. Rocket barrage artillery is common as are aircraft and ship weaponry designed to fire off multiple missiles in quick succession.
• Made of Explodium: Vehicles and ships in general have a tendency to explode under certain conditions.
• The Medic: Samantha grows to play one of these following the Tarsian Campaign. But she's not a front-line duty in most instances.
• Military Alphabet: Used frequently.
• Minovsky Physics: The basis of weapons and faster than light travel (technically subdimensional). The rules are very strictly adhered to and consistent across the series.
• My Hero, Zero: Blade Zero was named this way, "because there is nobody it cannot cut".
• Myth Arc: The whole series is effectively one giant arc.
• Narm: "Dryerball"
• Neck Snap: Multiple places but best known in "Behind Enemy Lines". Bonus points for the usage of You Are Already Dead mentioned below.
• Novelization: Inverted. Originally this was going to be a Video Game. Then the author started writing stuff down and liked what came out. Thus continuing where it went from there into being a book series first.
• No Warping Zone: The Hynemann Barrier is the point where safe subspace jumps become possible owing to the effects of gravity interfering with subspace jumps via Minovski radiation. Jumping inside the barrier is possible, but unreliable in its destination or safety. Which is why La Grange Points are featured as a popular warp zone by military vessels.
• One-Hit Polykill: First done by Daniel in "Big Brother Comes". Overpenetration in general is fairly common.
• One-Man Army: Everyone on Assault Team Bravo has done acts of this.
• Our Elves Are Different: Space elf variety in terms of the Preyarans. However unlike traditional elves, Preyarans are biologically more or less identical to humans. They live comparable lifespans, have comparable intellectual and physical ability, hell were it not for the ears and the exotic hair colors and styles, a Preyaran could easily be mistaken for a very curvy Terran. The Feyline note this is a very peculiar, yet amusing stellar coincidence.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: a couple of uses, but this one stands out.
  "That was only the fifth hardest five minutes or so in the last three years we’ve been through."
  Tenchi Yamanaka
• Parodies for Dummies: The in-universe book Colonel Smith has titled The Complete Moron’s Guide to Squad Level Tactics 3rd Edition
• Pettanko: Jessie.
  • Petite Pride: Also applicable to Jessie.
• Pillar of Light: Coming down...
• Planet Terra: Humans are known as Terrans to the other races. The Terrans themselves wear wear this label as a badge of honor.
  • Humans by Any Other Name
• Point Defenseless: Subverted. Ships' point defense weaponry is a very real danger to fighter pilots and routinely intercepts enemy missiles. Nobody is safe from them.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Preyaran species as a whole loves this trope. They live by honor and die by the sword. The Feyline also have learned elements of this too. Hell even at times the Terrans abide by this trope.
• The Quiet One: Daniel at least towards most people. He's warmed up to Mat and Tenchi but even then doesn't say much in total.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Mathias deals a rapid chain of this to a hapless guard in "Behind Enemy Lines".
• Real Robot: M-techs are these but unlike Real Robot shows
• Recursive Ammo: FGM-134 Cluster missiles fired as artillery. They inherit the long standing title of "grid square eraser" earned by many weapons in the Endless Conflict verse.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Mat (red) to Tenchi (blue).
• Repetitive Name: General James Jay Jameson.
• Reporting Names: The names of Preyaran equipment. The Preyarans themselves liked the names and kept them.
  • Theme Naming: Preyaran vehicles are often named after Japanese Youkai.
    • Meaningful Name: The names of which often correspond to their role.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: The Vyron have a high power sidearm...that happens to be a revolver that shoots Minovski Particle bolts.
• Rule of Cool: Mecha, tanks, starfighters, swords, Preyaran bow-launchers and more all are there and this is one of their main reasons each.
• Running Gag: "Don't you ever miss?" Mentioned several times across the series after Daniel pulls impressive feats of accuracy.
• San Francisco: The early parts of the first book take place here. Mathias, Samantha, and Tenchi call this place home.
• Scenery Gorn: Scenes of broken city skylines and various battle scenes go into a fair bit of detail.
• Scenery Porn: From time to time the scenery gets more focus than it should.
• Schizo Tech: Preyaran bow-launchers. They are effectively compound short bows more akin to what you'd find in Feudal Japan or in a Fantasy novel...except they shoot unguided rocket propelled grenades and serve as the Preyarans' standard issue light anti-tank weapon. Also in the second and third books, the Vyron have bolt-action particle beam rifles. Yes it's as crazy as it is awesome.
• Sci-Fi Kitchen Sink: Much of the entire realm of Science Fiction is used here. Mecha? Yep. Energy weaponry? Yep. Faster Than Light? Yep. and more.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Averted. Everything is used to scale deliberately even so far as to actually crunch numbers for velocities and distances.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: A recurring trope/Running Gag. Many conversations in the books are little more than just talking about nothing in particular. Not about the story, not exposition, not even about the scene in question or what they are doing.
• Serial Escalation: Everything that shows up tends to be topped as the series goes on.
• Shout-Out: some but not that many. Some of them include...
  • Casablanca: "Of all the posts in all of space, you just had to land on mine" (A take on the gin joints line)
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Minovski Particle itself is a deliberate Shout-Out to this series.
  • Halo: quite a few parts of Chapter 14 are a direct Homage and Shout-Out to the E3 2003 Halo 2 trailer.
• Shown Their Work: Every star system in the series is located at a real star within 25-30 light years of Earth. Bladed weapons were researched for the main characters too and it shows. As is knowledge on tactics, point defenses, assorted technologies and other things.
• Show Within a Show: The So Bad, It's Good B-Movie I Was A Space Marine mentioned in the first book. The Soap Opera Telenovela La Familia Pequeña is another.
• Soap Within a Show: See above.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Jessie is never seen without her Breyl Automatic Rifle or other such BFG.
• Space Fighter: Talon Strike Fighters and Mirai interceptors are used both in space and planetside as air support.
• Space Is an Ocean: No way. This is attacked as ship to ship battles can actually move around in three dimensions. Starships themselves can attack in just about every possible direction.
• Spam Attack: Blades, fists, you name it it's likely somewhere in there.
• Spell My Name With An S: Jessie's full name is spelled Jessebelle Marietta Noland, not anything else.
• Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: In a way sort of. Assault Carriers are among the primary means of shuttling first strike troops to anywhere and providing air and logistical support to do so. Additionally they can engage other capital ships proficiently. They are the strongest ship class in Endless Conflict. Cruisers are used as fire support for Assault Carriers and various operations or they are used for space-based interdiction of vessels traveling slower than light. Destroyers are the most numerous vessel but are mainly just escort, interdiction, and point defense roles of the bigger ships. Frigates and corvettes exist, but are mainly planetary point defense or used as a Zerg Rush.
• Standard Sci Fi Setting: Definitely not standard setting but some elements are there.
• Stuff Blowing Up
• Take It to the Bridge
• The Stinger: Every book has a little section after the Epilogue and credits pages. In the first two books, they are effectively Sequel Hooks that wrap up or continue plotlines left lingering in reader's heads.
• Tear Jerker: Near the end of the Soras/Mat fight in "Big Brother Comes". Near the end of the second book: Jornal's death at the hands of Atrexis. It's just all over the place.
• Try and Follow: Mat pulls this off in Chapter 15 trying to evade a Tengu gunship. It doesn't work.
• Unobtanium: The aptly named Invincium used on Tenchi's and Mathias' swords. It's all but indestructible to wear, corrosion, heat and impact and has a nice silvery blue color. But it is extremely difficult to make and work with which hampers its use. Tenchi's father Master Matsui Yamanaka is one of the few people who knows Invincium's properties extremely well and knows how to work with it.
• Verbal Tic: Jameson's "yeah" seen attached to sentences.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: The use of the Military Alphabet and numerous other things are not meant for those who don't know. This is not a bad thing however.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Mat and Tenchi.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The 406mm main guns as seen on Preyaran, Terran and Feyline as well as later Vyron Cruisers and Assault Carriers are these in contrast to what they do to small craft and fighters.
  • The SatDef system mentioned in Chapter 14. One shot can destroy an assault carrier.
• We Have Reserves: The Vyron pay little heed to casualties unless the numbers of casualties are very significant aka huge. Even losing a single assault carrier is of little concern to them. Unfortunately this backfires when the Preyarans, Terrans and Feyline lure them into a trap that wipes out the vast bulk of their remaining forces at the time allowing them to counterattack and win the war.
• World of Badass: That just about covers the rest...
• With Friends Like These...: Mat and Tenchi.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Averted. As the scale entry mentions. Exact distances and velocities were calculated and revised during writing. Part of Shown Their Work.
• Wronski Feint: Colonel Jansen pulls one of these against a Mirai fighter in "Cosmic Fairytale". The crash object in question is a Trojan Asteroid that had drifted into the nearby gas giant's ring system.
• Years Too Early: if you think Tenchi can strike Mat out in the Baseball Episode.
• You Are Already Dead: Spoken exactly (in subtitled/translated Japanese) by Mat after delivering a Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs against a Preyaran guard in "Behind Enemy Lines". However this doesn't kill the guard, but a follow up Neck Snap quickly takes him out.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Subtitled and said in "What Was Once Benign".
• Zerg Rush: seen repeatedly throughout the series. Conservation of Ninjutsu does come into play on some times and doesn't in others. Regardless the effects and results of such tactics are shown realistically.

And many many more on future revisions.