2781. Newly trained fighter pilot Lieutenant Drago Tell Dramis finds himself embroiled in a desperate plan to divert a comet on a collision course with the planet Hera. But that's only the start of his troubles, as he finds himself cast as the poster boy for Beta Sector just as political unrest breaks out in Alpha Sector. To keep him out of the way, Drago's squadron is assigned to maintenence work on the solar arrays of planet Earth. Even a member of the notorious Tell clan can't get in trouble there... right?
Wrong. Before the arrays are fixed, Drago will become embroiled in everything from sabotage, kidnapping plots, a co-worker's love life and a daring mission into the corona of Sol itself. And along the way, he'll find himself learning a secret from the heart of his own clan...
The Drago Tell Dramis 2781 sequence is a prequel series by the author of Earth Girl and follows the adventures of Jarra's cousin Drago as a newly-qualified pilot. The series consists of short story Hera 2781 followed by novels Hestia 2781, Array 2781 and Sol 2781.
Tropes:
- Accuser of the Brethren: Drago's father Dragon Tell Dramis is repulsed to his core by the lies necessitated by Jaxon's actions, doesn't believe he's sincerely contrite and has repeatedly tried to get him thrown out of the Tell clan.
- The Ace: Drago, who has just left the Military Academy with the highest scores in a decade and continues to perform feats of badassery, to the point of becoming a feature in a plan to open the position of General Marshall to candidates from Beta Sector.
- The Atoner: Discussed in detail with the Betan concept of Fidelis.
- In Hera 2781, Drago is trying to atone for his horrible behaviour towards Gemelle. Gemelle forgives him after his attempted Heroic Sacrifice.
- In Hestia 2781, Drago learns that Jaxon is desperate to atone for his part in Jarra's abandonment, although Drago doesn't know the details until near the end. Prior to that, the limited information he has leads him to conclude that Jaxon caused the accident that caused Jarra's death soon after her birth. See Broken Ace.
- The entire Tell clan (those that know about the above revelation, anyway) are required to be this trope until such time as Jarra makes contact and they are able to make things right with her.
- Befriending the Enemy: Trisha and Patia are members of Drago's fighter pilot wing and can't stand each other... that is, until they bond over a mutual new hobby: Drago watching. They start noting odd things Drago does for perfectly good reasons, whether it's suddenly taking issue with cream-coloured couches, running outside naked or randomly deciding to build a snowman at three in the morning. Points are awarded based on weirdness, unpredictability and being a nardle brain.
- Big Secret: The Tell clan has many.
- Drago discovers in Hestia 2781 that Jarra is alive and a ward of Hospital Earth.
- In their coming-of-age ceremony at eighteen, direct descendants of Tellon Blaze are told that Jarra Tell Morath and Draco Tell Dramis were Tellon Blaze's biological children, stolen as frozen embryos and raised by Cioni's Apprentices. This makes Drago, Jaxon, Gemelle, Jarra, Dracia and Persephone Tellon's great-grandchildren.
- Broken Ace: Jaxon Tell Galad, Drago's cousin and Jarra's brother. Described as blindingly capable and totally unreliable due to his habit of running off to search for Jarra. His team consider him a "chimera" due to his mood swings while Drago considers him a "two-sided coin," with a golden and a tarnished side. Even when offered a reprieve from his breach of Fidelis due to his part in averting the Hera disaster, he refuses to accept it as the victim of his actions, Jarra, can't benefit from that act. This leads Drago to realise that, in order to stop punishing himself, Jaxon must be involved in bringing the corrupt members of Hospital Earth to justice, because that will benefit Jarra.
- Call-Back: At one point, Drago quotes a famous ancestor of his who said, "Dying is a bad tactical move as it severely limits your future actions."
- Call-Forward: When imagining how to approach Jarra for the first time, Drago imagines he'd keep it casual rather than risk alienating her with overfamiliarity, and decides on simply introducing himself by name and mentioning that they "share a couple of great-grandparents." That's exactly the approach he ended up using in Earth Star.
- Character Development: Shown with Drago and Betha, his Liason Officer aboard the Earth Europe Array. He's very interested in a relationship, but she's interested in two other men. Realising that she won't be able to return his affections even if that doesn't work out, Drago is happy to be her friend instead. This marks a huge improvement on his behaviour towards Gemelle, whose relationship he sabotaged when she turned him down. Gemelle herself remains skeptical.
- The Chessmaster: Colonel Leveque, as in ''Earth Flight''. Your undercover operative has to rearrange the mission at the last minute because her cousin has called her with a family emergency that could cause another security issue? Fine, just incorporate him into your plan. Drago ends up playing the intended kidnap victim's secret Betan lover, now dead, in a plan to get the mastermind of the kidnapping plot to incriminate themselves. This allows Leveque to respond to accusations that the whole kidnapping plot was faked by corrupt Military Security officials by having Drago interviewed on a news program and state exactly what he witnessed while posing as a corpse; just enough of his face was visible in the video to confirm he was present. Drago is an ideal witness as he's practically worshiped as the hero of Hera, he has no undercover career to endanger and as he hails from an aristocratic Betan clan he clearly doesn't need to take bribes.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: A family trait for the Tell clan as a whole. Naturally a party containing two members of that clan have no hope of crossing a transport hub without someone trying to take everyone in it hostage. General Renton Mai warns Colonel Leveque that he's "at capacity" with two Tells (Gemelle and Drago) in his operation.
- Continuity Nod:
- Hestia 2781 shows the beginning of Drago's habit of getting himself demoted when he doesn't feel he deserves the field promotion he got for his actions in Hera 2781.
- Hestia 2781 establishes that the Tell clan is descended from both Sean Donelly and the Wallam-Crane dynasty. This establishes Blaze and Tad as their direct ancestors.
- In Earth and..., Jarra is irritable about being harassed by a "baby hunter," someone who is illegally searching for the Handicapped child they gave up. She's especially annoyed by her ridiculous plan to find the kid; wander round transit terminals bugging any girl who looks like they might be her, despite the overwhelming odds against running into her this way. Turns out her brother is trying to find her using the same desperate method.
- Drago gets embroiled in an undercover operation of Gemelle's and meets her colleague, Royal Tar Cameron. Earth-Prime establishes them as a married couple.
- Damsel in Distress: Averted hard with Gemelle, and learning that she doesn't need his help is Drago's Character Development forHestia 2781.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Draco and Jarra, Drago's grandfather and great-aunt, were stolen as frozen embryos by Cioni's Apprentices and raised as living weapons until they realised the truth and sought out their birth families. Jarra apparently moved on just fine, going on to have a stellar military career, but Draco became The Dreaded, earning himself a dishonourable discharge in his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Apprentices.
- Dark Secret: That the Tell clan have abandoned one of their own, Jarra, who is Handicapped and being raised as a ward of Hospital Earth. This is a horrific breach of Fidelis that dishonours all clan members who know about it, hence why almost everyone believes Jarra to be dead.
- Dramatic Irony: Loaded with this trope for readers of Earth Girl.
- Jarra didn't die, but was born Handicapped and is now a ward of Hospital Earth, but Drago doesn't until the end of Hestia 2781.
- Gemelle explains that the Tell clan are stuck in a kind of limbo regarding Jarra until she turns fourteen and contacts them. In fact, she won't do so until she's eighteen, out of anger at being abandoned.
- After learning a little about Hospital Earth's treatment of its wards, Drago is concerned that Jarra may turn out a meek little doormat. He probably shouldn't worry too much.
- The Dreaded:
- Dragon Tell Dramis, Drago's father, is domineering, loud and not at all subtle. He's successful in the military because he's very good at his job, and is often useful as a nuclear option. He was brought in by the Tell clan to find out where Jarra has been sent, finally forcing Hospital Earth to admit that the information is no longer available, and won't be until she's fourteen.
- Even more so for his father Draco. The full details of his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Cioni's Apprentices are not widely known, but are apparently enough to influence military policy on dealing with the Tell clan.
- Entitled to Have You:
- When Drago and Gemelle were in Military Academy together, he became infatuated with her and developed this attitude, finally lying that her boyfriend was cheating on her and destroying their relationship. He quickly regretted his actions, but the damage was done. in Hestia 2781, Gemelle admits that it wasn't a good relationship and she partly believed Drago's lies because the boyfriend had given her reason to. Drago concludes that he didn't hurt Gemelle with his actions as much as he thought, but those actions were still inexcusable.
- Less excusable still is his older cousin Cordelia. The most infamously unpleasant of the Tell clan, she was unrelentingly hostile to Draco and Jarra when they arrived at the clan hall. However, after learning that they were the biological children of Tellon Blaze, she changed her tune and started pandering to them instead, especially determined to lure Draco into marriage and have his children. Both siblings saw through that, however, and brushed her off, with Draco eventually marrying Persephone. Cordelia, who unpleasant as she is never married, continued harbouring a grudge against both siblings' progeny, culminating in throwing a crystal water pitcher in Drago's face in what she later admitted was a murder attempt.
- Exotic Extended Marriage: Drago is disappointed to learn that his Liason Officer and crush, Betha, is romantically interested in two of her colleagues, Ethan and Baird. Fortunately, this is a future where "triad" marriages are legal, if not socially acceptable on Earth. Drago encourages her to go for it anyway, and as the others are both happy with the arrangement, they get married. The addendum to Sol 2781 notes that Betha piloted one of the Earth solar arrays at the end of Earth Girl, with both her husbands on board, and that all three survived.
- False Flag Operation: The political situation on Hestia is infamously fraught, with two extreme factions (the Liberal Left and the Revolutionary Right) and the Unite Hestia party as a tiebreaker. The Big Bad of Hestia 2781 is a Revolutionary Right leader who orchestrated the kidnap of a Unite leader's daughter, which was to be discovered and blamed on the Liberal Left, resulting in Unite and the Right banding against the Left. However, Military Security discover the plot and Gemelle takes the place of the intended victim. After Drago is sucked in for a bit of theatre involving some dramatically faked deaths, the true culprit is caught.
- Fantasy Counterpart Religion: Religion in the Portal Future is finally discussed when Major Steadman reveals herself as a Worldist. This religion is apparently often misunderstood as planet worship, when in fact it's about worshiping the Deity by visiting as many of Humanity's worlds as possible; each must be visited for a week or more to count, and Earth must be one of them. When Worldists meet, they greet by asking each other's "number" (of planets visited). The reply is either, "I am young in wisdom; my number is (e.g.) 43," or, if they've visited over 100, "I have attained wisdom and now seek the perfection of a thousand." Drago borrows Major Steadman's Worldist cloak as a disguise to search for Jaxon, as it has a hood that hides his face.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Drago is sleeping nude in his accommodation dome when he hears screaming outside and runs outside, weapon drawn (not a euphamism!), to deal with the situation: a stray rabbit on the compound.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- both Jaxon and Drago intend to sacrifice their lives to deflect the comet away from Hera, and either one of them acting alone would have died. When it became clear that missiles weren't doing enough, Jaxon intended to fly towards the comet and activate the self-destruct on his dart. Realising this, Drago takes his place. The dart auto-ejects him, which wouldn't have saved his life except that Jaxon was already in place to catch him from his own attempted sacrifice. The whole thing comes off like a brilliant plan they came up with on the fly and gets them both promoted.
- In Sol 2781, when Drago and Betha are both using zero-G wings to repair a solar watch satellite, Betha's wings are affected by the radiation and give out, endangering her life as she plummets towards the sun. Drago leaves cover and dives after her, not caring that his own wings could easily fail in the same way.
- Honor Before Reason: Gemelle considers Jaxon in this way regarding his Fidelis debt to Jarra. Not that his actions weren't reprehensible, but Gemelle considers his waiving of the defence that he was a legal minor at the time foolish. Jaxon maintains that he knew exactly what he was doing and therefore won't allow himself to hide behind his age, but Gemelle thinks he's overestimating his awareness at the time.Gemelle: When I was twelve, I thought I knew everything.
- Their aunts Seanna and Nadira get in on the act when Jaxon refuses to accept a reprieve for his actions in the Hera crisis as his victim, the Earth-bound Jarra can't benefit from this action. The aunts give Drago the task of convincing Jaxon otherwise. Finally, when Jaxon is instrumental in The Plan in Sol 2781, Gemelle and the clan go behind his back to enforce the reprieve when he's still on the mission and can't object.
- Honor-Related Abuse: Hera 2781 delves into some of the incredibly complex rules of Fidelis in Betan society, particularly what happens when someone has breached Fidelis. Basically, everyone who knows about it is required to verbally abuse the culprit and treat them as Persona Non Grata, as a ham-fisted way of encouraging them to change for the better. This behaviour can only end when the injured party decides they've achieved that change, informing any clan member of the reason for the behaviour drags them in and just staying out of it and not taking sides doesn't seem to be an option. Drago's situation with Gemelle causes enough trouble once he's forced to let Jaxon in on it, but that pales in comparison to Jaxon's own situation. When Jarra was born Handicapped and portalled to Earth, Jaxon threatened to kill himself rather than move there with her. By the time that situation was resolved, it was too late and Jarra had already been sent through an administrative anonymisation process that makes it impossible for them to find her. This involves the whole clan in a shameful breach of Fidelis by abandoning their child, which is compounded when the need to restrict the information forces them to stage a fake funeral for her. Basically, the entire clan is indebted to Jarra and has no way of making it right unless she reaches out to them.
- It's mentioned in Sol 2781 that there is a way to declare the culprit redeemed on a provisional basis in the injured party's absence, if the culprit has demonstrated that they've changed. Jaxon is offered this after his actions in Hera 2781, but refuses on the basis that the victim of his actions, Jarra, can't benefit. Drago is given the job of persuading him, for everyone's sake, but realises that the only way is for Jaxon to do something that benefits the people of Earth, including Jarra.
- Internal Reveal: Gemelle is forced to let Drago in on the secret that Jaxon's unstable behaviour is caused by his guilt over their baby sister Jarra being made a ward of Hospital Earth due to Jaxon's selfish actions. Prior to this, Drago had been told she died at birth, and had concluded that Jaxon was responsible for her death.
- Mad Scientist: The actions of Cioni's Apprentices, mentioned in passing in Earth Girl, are expanded upon somewhat.
- The Persephone Incident apparently involved mind control technology, and left Drago's grandmother with no memories. This led her to rename herself Persephone Incarnate, alienating her family and leaving her vulnerable to a controlling marriage to Draco Tell Dramis.
- Whatever happened on Gymir resulted in the outlawing of A.I.s, robots and cyborgs.
- Mistaken for Flirting: One of the people who broke Drago's nose was the girlfriend of one of his classmates, who mistook a friendly smile for an advance and snuck into his bed. She wouldn't leave when he asked her to and finally lost her temper when he tried to make her leave.
- Never My Fault: Drago's cousin Cordelia is notorious for refusing to accept the consequences of her actions, and probably deserves her own page.
- When Drago's grandfather and great-aunt, Draco and Jarra, were accepted into the clan, Cordelia relentlessly hassled them, insisting they didn't belong. After discovering that they were Tellon Blaze's biological children, with a far better claim to clan membership that hers, she changed her tune and started sucking up to them instead, intending to lure Draco into marriage and have his children. It doesn't seem to have occurred to her how transparent this behaviour would be, or that she'd already burned that bridge with her prior behaviour. Because of this rejection, she bullied Draco's son and grandchildren, viewing them as the offspring that should have been hers.
- When Drago's father introduced his mother to the clan, Cordelia was present with her latest boyfriend, who she was hoping to marry as her last chance to have children. However, jealous that Madrigal was already pregnant, she started heckling her until Dragon exploded at her, denouncing her in public and scaring the boyfriend away. She holds a grudge towards Madrigal for this, accusing her of ruining her one chance to have children, as if she hadn't driven many boyfriends away before with her bad behaviour.
- Having always wanted and failed to have children herself, she complained that the clan children wouldn't come to her for cuddles, failing to connect this with her bullying behaviour towards them.
- She especially singled Drago out for bullying throughout his childhood, culminating in an incident where she harped on about his birth occurring so soon after his parents' wedding, flat-out calling his mother a Gold Digger who trapped his father into marriage with a baby that wasn't his and telling Drago he had no place in the clan (the most serious breach of Fidelis imaginable). Later, when Drago and Jaxon are the famous heroes of Hera, she takes their refusal to have anything to do with her as a personal affront, as if she hasn't more than earned their rejection.
- When Drago collides with an off-course shipment to deflect it from the Earth Europe solar array, she abuses her place as a superior officer and clan member to force him to attend her dinner party under cover of getting him medical care. He gets rid of her by declaring he'd rather die than set foot on any ship she was on, and when he's forced to explain this declaration to Dr. Mandanna she becomes furious and gatecrashes Cordelia's dinner party to yell at her in front of her guests for attempting to kidnap someone in need of medical attention to boost her social standing. Naturally, Cordelia decides this is all Drago's fault.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten:
- After using the solar array ship to deflect a shipment of parts sent on a collision course with the solar array, Drago starts hearing jokes about his habit of colliding with things on purpose.
- After letting Cordelia break his nose with a water pitcher, people line up to ask Drago why he didn't just duck (he thought she was just going to splash water in his face, and with vid bees watching he'd have evidence to take action against her).
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After learning the truth about Jarra, Drago knows his father will want to discuss it with him and expects his usual bullish behaviour. Instead, his father throws him completely by asking when would be a good time to call. He's even more weirded out on the call itself, when the General speaks quietly and politely and listens to him. It's clear that, by learning the truth, Drago has "graduated" to being a full, adult member of the Tell clan who shares their burden of broken Fidelis.
- Refuge in Audacity: Jaxon's plan to avoid unwelcome attention while trying to find Jarra? Wear a Roman soldier's costume. It blends in perfectly thanks to the events and occasions related to Earth's history, and the helmet obscures his face nicely. He even qualified as a tour guide so no one will look twice at him, which is an impressive amount of dedication to a plan (hang around transit terminals and hope she walks by) that will not work.
- Running Gag:
- Poor Dr Mandanna becoming increasingly annoyed, then finally resigned as Drago repeatedly ends up in her care after an Incident.
Dr Mandanna: Stop. Getting. Injured.- Drago wonders a couple of times who will be the fourth person to break his nose. After Cordelia becomes that person, he starts wondering who number five will be.
- Stalker with a Test Tube: Cioni's Apprentices apparently had a Genetic Harvesting program, for which they stole stored genetic material from people they find especially promising. This included two frozen embryos belonging to the Tell clan, who escaped, tracked down their clan and became Jarra Tell Morath and Draco Tell Dramis. Specifically, they were Tellon Blaze's children.
- Trapped with the Therapy Session: When Drago's meeting with Gemelle gets him caught up in her undercover mission, he ends up hiding in the room while she deals with a kidnapping attempt. One of the kidnappers is another undercover agent and colleague of hers, and once the situation is under control he asks Gemelle about a Relationship Upgrade. Drago is treated to a summary of their whole relationship history, emotional states and Gemelle's recent love-'em-and-leave-'em approach to relationships before Colonel Leveque comes in and orders him to reveal himself.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Variation. Drago's father is highly demanding, expecting perfection from everyone but especially Drago, and has the delicacy of a rampaging Asgard bison. It's noted that when Drago graduated Military Academy with the highest flight scores in a decade, all his father said was that he could still have done better. However, Drago seems to just accept this as the way his father is, although he does intend to shield his younger sisters as much as possible.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Betha calls Gemelle out on her snide comments about Drago after he just saved Betha's life. Drago tells her it's a Fidelis matter, but Gemelle admits Betha is right; Gemelle forgave Drago under Fidelis, and therefore has no right to continue sniping at him.
