Pandora's Legions is a Patchwork Story by Christopher Anvil, connecting four associated works: Pandora's Planet, a novel, and the short stories "Pandora's Envoy", "The Toughest Opponent", and "Trap".
Klide Horsip is a Planetary Integrator, given the job of taking a newly-pacified little planet and integrating its people into the Integral Union, an organization of worlds led by a humanoid species called Centrans. Typically, phase one (taking military control of the planet) takes ten to twelve days. For this particular little world, it took 127, because their technology wasn't that far behind that of the Union, and they're generally smarter.
The world in question is called "Earth" by its natives, by the way.
And so, Horsip and his Military Overseer, Brak Moffis, get to find a way to turn Earthmen into useful members of Integral Union society...willingly, if possible.
Meanwhile, Colonel John Towers ends up working for the Centran military, helping pacify worlds being problematic in different ways, including Centralis II - the world that the Centrans considered the worst ever before they came to Earth.
Tropes appearing in Pandora's Legions include:
- Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: Inverted. Earthmen never discovered the "positive null-void" law, essential for faster-than-light travel among other things, so we got considerably more advanced with the technology we did have, leading to Insufficiently Advanced Aliens.
- Animal Mecha: The Mark III Superconda, a giant robotic snake with fusion guns. It can be controlled remotely or from an internal cockpit.
- Are You Sure You Want to Do That?: Horsip threatens a General Failure who is getting in his way. Said General Failure doesn't take the hint, requiring Horsip to exercise the full authority he has been given.
- Attack Animal: Towers's unit includes trained lions, wolves, and armored gorillas.
- Batman Gambit: An amazing one by the Integral Union High Council. They deliberately let the Earthmen loose to take over a small piece of the Union, to see which of their ideas would be worth keeping and which would not. They could then take down the bad ones while their organization consisted mostly of Centrans, susceptible to becoming Mikerils. Meanwhile, they could see which human organizations would be worthy of joining with them.
- Bee-Bee Gun: One of Towers's tricks is to fire biting insects into enemy areas - not usually bees, but black flies and similar nuisance insects.
- Beyond the Impossible: The Centran view of Earthman sniping ability, initially thinking that it's exaggeration for conversational effect.
- Big Damn Heroes: The Union battle fleets coming in from the Safe Zone.
- Boldly Coming: Averted during the occupation of Earth, although not by choice. Earth women want nothing to do with Centran soldiers, leading to the Centran soldiers being particularly edgy.
- Bothering by the Book: Both Horsip and Towers use the bureaucracy against obstinate bureaucrats.
- Briar Patching: Senior Integrator Argit realizes the key to getting the Earthmen to join them is to make it seem like the Centrans don't want them to join.
- Chekhov's Gun: The restriction of Earthmen to the "Open Zone" of the Integral Union. It's easy to forget that the part of the Union that the story takes place in is just a small section...until battle fleets from the Safe Zone start to arrive to back up Horsip.
- Code Name: Towers is given the code name "Able Hunter", although this isn't to hide anything. "Able Hunter" is a member of the Supreme Staff, and the code name is assigned to John Towers, but it could be reassigned if needed.
- Colonel Badass: John Towers. Also Majorly Awesome and a Four-Star Badass, depending on whether you're referring to his Integral Union rank (colonel), his permanent Earth military rank (major), or his brevet Earth military rank (general).
- Defeat Means Friendship: The Centrans manage to subdue Earth finally, and then immediately loose Earthmen on a large chunk of the Integral Union. At the end, two Earthmen are added to the High Council.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The Centrans threaten to kill ten Earthmen for every Centran killed.
- The Dreaded: Before encountering Earth, Centralis II was the absolute worst situation the Union had ever seen. Afterwards, Centran soldiers say that Centralis II is like a vacation by comparison.
- The Empire: A somewhat less-evil version; the Integral Union is an organization bent on assimilating worlds for the benefit of all, whether they want to be assimilated or not.
- Evil Makes You Monstrous: The Mikerils. They're Centrans who are stressed by 'sinning', making them susceptible to a communicable disease that transforms them into ravening monsters.
- Evolutionary Levels: Centrans are humanoid, but in ways we would see as more primitive - they're hairier, have smaller brains, and still have tails, for example. They are also notably less intelligent.
- Exact Words: In response to the Disproportionate Retribution, Earthmen proceed to make life as miserable for the Centrans as possible, without killing them.
- Fantastic Racism: The 'kingmen' of Centralis II have a strict caste system, but consider even the lowest kingman to be far superior to any alien.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The ultimate Centran plan to deal with Earth. Centrans in a state of 'sin' are susceptible to being converted to Mikerils. By letting humans take over large chunks of the area, creating large organizations full of Centrans, they are able to cut the support of these groups by condemning them, causing the 'sinful' Centrans to turn into Mikerils and destroying the group from within.
- Humanity Is Superior: Earthmen are notably smarter than Centrans. (Possibly an Enforced Trope, as the initial works were published by John W. Campbell.) However, just because individual Earthmen are generally smarter than individual Centrans, that doesn't mean that every Earthman is smarter than every Centran, and it doesn't mean that the collective experience and wisdom of the Centrans can't corral the Earthmen.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: Centrans refer to themselves as 'humans' and Earthmen as (among other things) 'lop-tails'.
- Hypno Pendulum: Earthmen escape from prison by using a shiny key to hypnotize their captors.
- Insufficiently Advanced Alien: Centran military tech is not as advanced as Earth's; they don't have tanks, sniper rifles, or machine guns, for example. They're able to win because of their control of space more than anything else.
- Just the Introduction to the Opposites: The story starts off with the feel of Earthmen invading an alien planet, only to turn out that we're seeing Humans Through Alien Eyes.
- La Résistance: The Earthmen trying to make Centran occupation of Earth into a bloodbath.
- Let's See YOU Do Better!: At the end, the Columbians complain that the whole plan for integrating Earth ideas was wasteful and unnecessary. In response, they're told that a new planet has been found with humanoids as much smarter than Earthmen as Earthmen are smarter than Centrans, and asked how to deal with them.
- Nicknaming the Enemy: Centrans try coming up with Fantastic Slurs for Earthmen - the best they find is 'lop-tails' as Earthmen don't have tails.
- Properly Paranoid: Horsip thinks Moffis is being paranoid about the abilities of the Earthmen, until he sees them attack.
- Real Estate Scam: One of the tricks Earthmen use on the Centrans. The Earthmen sell a "sun-drenched quarter acre" of Florida swampland to the Centrans, with the Centran unit's space transport as collateral on the loan. As the Centrans have no Earth money, they default on the loan and the space transport is repossessed.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Towers is sent over to work with the Centrans because he's outspoken and too good at his job, relative to his superiors.
- Technology Levels: In-universe example. Earth is described as being at "Centra 0.9" or slightly better.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The original story of Klide Horsip and the stories of John Towers were published separately; in the Patchwork Story, they generally alternate by chapter.
