Lieutenant Mazel Rheum is having a bit of an identity crisis. Until recently she was two completely different people; Mazel Tabbith, an unremarkable feline lieutenant in the Tri-Galactic Navy, and Darius Rheun, a Great Dane with a millennia-old memory chip in his head. Now, Darius is dead and the Rheun chip has passed to Mazel, leaving her unsure of herself amongst the hundreds of lifetimes she now remembers. But, at this pivotal moment Mazel Rheun has an opportunity to finally learn where she came from, through the unexplored Nexus Nine.
Nexus Nine is a 2019 science-fiction novel by Mary E. Lowd, set in the same universe as her Tri-Galactic Trek stories.
Tropes:
- Affectionate Parody: Of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, albeit more subtly than most of Lowd's other Tri-Galactic Trek stories.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The octopi uploaded themselves into the nexus pathways they built. They copy the Rheun chip when it passes through Nexus Nine.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Subverted, as Mazel Rheum is passing through Nexus Nine she compares the colors to a Van Gogh painting and briefly entertains the notion that she was Vincent Van Gogh in a past life, before remembering that she was an octopus that century.
- Brought Down to Normal: Omoleura's species removes the Rheum chip from Mazel, reducing her to an ordinary cat with only vague remnants of a millennia-old life until it's returned in the last chapter.
- The Federation: The Tri-Galactic Union.
- The Fog of Ages: Mazel doesn't know how old the Rheun chip is, she remembers being human before they uplifted other species and octopus before that, but can't remember if the octopus civilization made the chip they did or if it was even older than them.
- Intelligent Gerbil: Aside from the uplifted species from Earth there are aliens who resemble bears (Ursines), birds (Aviorans), lizards (Reptassans), and frogs (Phiboons).
- Interspecies Romance: A couple side characters are a feline/canine couple. Mazel starts to get close to an Ursine security officer too.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: Security Chief Omoleura is an insectoid alien who involuntarily undergoes metamorphosis to look like the species around zhim.
- Matter Replicator: The food-synthesizers on Nexus Base Nine often malfunction.
- Mayfly–December Friendship: Mazel Rheum spends most of the book reconnecting with Darius's friend Shep Bataille. She's scared to try inserting herself into the lives of his husband and son though.
- The Milky Way Is the Only Way: Averted, it's called the Tri-Galactic Union for a reason. They make contact with a fourth galaxy over the course of the novel.
- Portal Network: Nexus passageways are wormhole-like knots in space-time that connect paired galaxies.
- Precursors: Humans, or "The First Ones" created many of the uplifted species of the Tri-Galactic Union, there's also the species that built the Nexus pathways, and Rheun remembers that octopi had an advanced society millions of years before humanity.
- Precursor Worship: Dogs in particular tend to worship humans as the "First Ones". Rheun is understandably reluctant to tell dogs that they were human in prior lives, and octopi before that. The Aviorans worship the builders of the Nexus near their homeworld, or "Sky Nest" as they call it, whom they refer to as "The Unhatched".
- Pronoun Trouble: Omoleura uses the gender neutral pronouns "zhe" and "zir".
- Teleport Interdiction: Mentioned in passing, the Aviorans have anti-teleportation fields over their holy sites, a measure stemming from the Reptassan occupation which necessitates taking a shuttle down and rowing a boat across the lake.
- Transferable Memory: The Rheun chip has accumulated memories from many hosts over thousands of years, from the prehistoric octopi to humans to dogs and cats and various aliens. It has issues with Omoleura's physiology though.
- Uplifted Animal: Humanity uplifted dogs and cats, the religion of the First Ones tends to suggest that the other animalistic aliens throughout the galaxies were seeded by them too.
- Ursine Aliens: One alien species in the Union are basically bears. Rheum was one a few lifetimes back, and Mazel retains an interest in their culture and cuisine.
