Literature / Railhead

Step aboard – the universe is waiting.

"The Interstellar Express was thundering down the line from Golden Junction, and singing as it came."

Railhead is a trilogy of Post-Cyberpunk Space Opera YA novels by English writer Philip Reeve, and is considerably Lighter and Softer than his better-known sci-fi series Mortal Engines, but featuring similarly extensive Worldbuilding. The eponymous first instalment, Railhead, was released in 2015, followed quickly by a sequel, Black Light Express, in 2016, and the finale, Station Zero, in 2018.

By the 30th Century CE, humans have spread to the stars, colonising and terraforming hundreds of worlds, all thanks to the K-Bahn: a network of mysterious 'K-Gates' allowing instant travel across interstellar distances, and fusion-powered sentient locomotives that transport passengers and cargo between them. The nations and alliances of Old Earth have long dissolved and humanity is ruled by the Network Empire, a system of governance whereby the most powerful of the Corporate Families takes the throne, supported by the might of Railforce. Under the watchful eyes of the Guardians, the (mostly) benevolent AI caretakers of humanity, technology has advanced at a dizzying rate, with advanced genetic engineering, Motorik, flying cars, neural headsets and much more all ubiquitous.

The narrative follows Zen Starling, a petty thief from the downtrodden factory world of Cleave with nothing in his future besides aimlessly riding the rails, who suddenly finds himself caught up in a plot involving the enigmatic Dhravid Raven and his quirky Motorik assistant Nova. Raven has a simple offer for Zen: steal something only he can steal, in exchange for riches beyond his wildest dreams. Sounds simple enough. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

And so Zen and Nova begin a journey into the heart of the Network Empire, evading their Railforce pursuers, travelling through long-abandoned stations, infiltrating the Imperial court, falling in love along the way, and uncovering secrets the Guardians themselves would prefer to keep hidden, secrets pertaining to the very origins of the Network itself…

Warner Bros. snapped up the rights to Railhead in April 2014, before it was even published, and was planning to produce a cinematic adaptation, with Doug Liman reportedly brought on as director. However, there’s been little news of the project since then: it's possibly languishing in Development Hell, but may have been quietly shelved, especially after the 2018 adaptation of Mortal Engines resulted in the Mother Of All Box Office Bombs.

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This series contains examples of:

General tropes

• All There in the Manual: Each book contains a glossary in the final few pages which provides all kinds of supplemental material on setting elements and backstory. Philip Reeve also produced a fairly long blog post that goes into a lot more detail on the trilogy's Worldbuilding process.
• Altar Diplomacy: Enforced at a grand scale in the Network Empire: agreements between the Corporate Families are always sealed by marriage, a hold-over from the earliest days of expansion on the Network, when something more permanent than a contract was needed to secure cooperation on a centuries-long terraforming project. As such, the scions of the Families are destined to become bargaining chips as soon as they come of age.
• Always Save the Girl: Nova being in danger seems to bring out the best in the usually selfish Zen, who has rescued her in every book. In Railhead he rejects his new life of wealth and comfort and risks capture by Railforce to recover her from Spindlebridge, in Black Light Express he leads a mission to recover her from the Kraitt, and in Station Zero he, while mortally wounded, carries her body to reunite with the Railmaker.
• Attack Drone: These appear frequently in the series, ranging from tiny micro-missiles disguised as hummingbirds to the archaic mid-size 'Beetles' and much more dangerous models used in railwar.
• Become a Real Boy: Nova, who starts off as Raven's quirky assistant, is far more sentient than a normal Motorik and attempts to make herself more human by programming herself freckles, and installing modifications that allow her to obtain energy from food. Ironically enough, Station Zero would reveal her to be about as far from human as it's possible to get, being the disembodied consciousness of the Railmaker.
• Benevolent A.I.:
  • The Guardians... Generally. Their individual personalities run the gamut from the Mordaunt 90 Network, being perhaps the straightest example of this trope, to the Twins, who are straight-up Knight Templars. All seem to share the same flaws of taking their duty to protect humanity a little too far and a massive superiority complex, given that they refuse to allow other AIs of their caliber to be built and killed the Railmaker simply because it was more powerful than them.
  • Pretty much all the trains, sans the Thought Fox, encountered throughout the series are friendly and go out of their way to help the protagonists. They even pull a collective Big Damn Heroes in Station Zero by refusing to fight for Elon Prell and scuppering the Guardians' plans to close the Web Of Worlds gate.
  • Flex and Nova, the only two sentient Motorik characters. The former is quite possibly the kindest and most altruistic character in the series.
  • The Railmaker, which built the K-Gates solely to connect all sentient species (and machines) of the universe. Considering what happened to it, maybe it was a bit too benevolent.
• Brain/Computer Interface: A 'headset' is a device which provides a non-invasive form of this - most individuals have access to one with similar functionality to a smartphone, albeit one with a mental interface that can stream audio and video direct to the brain's sensory areas. More advanced models can be used to control military hardware remotely or even commune directly with the Guardians.
• Creepy Good:
  • The Hive Monks are sentient swarms of roach-like insects that assemble a roughly human-shaped armature and wear strange white paper masks, giving them a creepy effect, but they mean no harm and actually help out Zen during the first book.
  • Then we discover they're lost members of the Neem, an alien race who utilise spider-like Powered Armor suits in place of the Monks' crude endoskeletons and would seem perfectly at home on the other side of a Bug War — but they're just as friendly towards humans as most of the Web of Worlds and are actually the main military power standing in the way of the actually dangerous Kraitt. By the time of Station Zero, they're humanity's closest allies on the Web.
• Cryo-Prison: The standard form of incarceration throughout the Network Empire. It is mentioned that this is a leftover relic from the Empire’s early days when planets were still being terraformed, and thus space and resources were scarce, making it a good way to remove criminals from society. They are kept only out of tradition, as there’s no way to rehabilitate the prisoners and most, when released are suffering from such huge culture shocks that they immediately return to crime.
• Cool Train: Given that they are nuclear-fusion-powered, controlled by fully sentient AI, crewed by maintenance spiders, and are the only form of transport capable of crossing the K-Gates, every train in the setting counts, although some deserve special mention:
  • The Noon Train, capable of carrying the entire Imperial court in all the ludicrous luxury that entails, pulled by a pair of ancient locomotive lovers.
  • The Damask Rose, a grouchy yet kind-hearted old locomotive recovered from the Dog Star Line by Zen and Nova - which turns out to be surprisingly well-armed.
  • The Ghost Wolf, a battle-hungry yet surprisingly affable wartrain introduced in Black Light Express, and possibly the only C12 Zodiak not to go insane.
• Corporate Warfare: The Corporate Families, being the dominant powers that be in the Railhead universe, maintain forces of Corporate Marines, (CoMa) to protect themselves from "hostile takeovers" launched by their rivals. Open fighting was far more common historically, with Railforce now serving as a peacekeeping force that tips the scales in favour of the reigning Imperial family, with most CoMa reduced to bodyguards and ceremonial duties by the time of the trilogy. However, some corps such as the militaristic Prells still maintain a large standing army.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • During the climax of Railhead, Railforce sends a wartrain to stop Raven at Anais Six's request, commanded by Malik and carrying its interface. Raven quite easily blows it off the tracks with well-aimed missiles.
  • Midway through Black Light Express, the Noons' old enemies the Prell family launch a lightning strike on Grand Central, the capital world of the Empire, to seize the throne... And win, within a few hours. They were helped by the fact that large sections of Railforce were already on their side.
  • The Kraitt have been a menace to the other denizens of the Web of Worlds for over a thousand years... But once it is connected to the Network Empire, the Noons' forces wade in and stamp out the Kraitt in a matter of months. Bearing in mind that the Noons are a Vestigial Empire at this point in the story demonstrates just how much Humans Are Superior compared to the races of the Web.
• Deus est Machina:
  • The Guardians, a group of 12 centuries-old and immensely powerful AIs that guided humanity in constructing the Great Network and are revered as gods by its citizens. However, they are vulnerable to petty human vanities, favouritism and grudges, can (with enough effort) be deceived and hidden from, and even occasionally fall in love with mortals. Essentially, the digital equivalent of Physical Gods.
  • The Railmaker, an alien 'data-entity' that was responsible for creating the K-Gates, building Dyson spheres (yes, plural) to power them, and other physics-and-reality-warping feats making the Guardians look like desktop PCs in comparison. As a result they killed it out of spite, terrified it would supplant them. However, it turns out to be Not Quite Dead – Raven rescued a fragment of its personality much later which he used to create Nova, with the Railmaker reforming once she enters its home-world core.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • When the Guardian Anais Six fell in love with Raven, she ascended him to near-digital-godhood and gave him access to the boundless information of the Datasea... Forgetting that this was allowing him to access secrets (such as the existance of alien civilisation) that the Guardians really wanted to keep under wraps.
  • The Railmaker, a godlike alien AI, decided to connect the myriad peoples of the universe through the K-Gates. However, it didn't consider that some civilisations might feel threatened by it and neglected to put up any sort of defences, allowing it to get taken out by the Guardians.
• Digital Abomination: The Railmaker probably counts as this. It's an alien "data entity" of murky origin, powerful enough to construct multiple Dyson Spheres. Luckily for the galaxy, it's very friendly.
• Divine Date: Guardians occasionally fall in love with humans, as occurred between Raven and Anais Six, though it's mentioned that this was not the only case, and any long-term lovers get the substantial benefits of never having to worry about any material needs, being able to attend the glitziest parties and events, and having their mind uploaded into the Datasea to become something immortal and beyond human, even allowing for control of multiple bodies.
• Earth That Used to Be Better: Taken to the Logical Extreme: Since Earth doesn't have a K-Gate, or at least, that's what everyone thinks, it's been completely abandoned and converted into a planetwide wildlife preserve, accessible only by particularly interested tourists with deep pockets.
• Eating Machine: Nova is able to eat human food, her favorite being toast (corners first). However, she doesn't need to do this, and it's a custom self-modification to help her feel more human.
• Eccentric A.I.: Vohu Mana is among the strangest of the Guardians. Its avatar is a flying dog named Pugusus, rather than the more impressive humanoid forms of its fellows, and it's obsessed with creating an Artificial Afterlife for its followers. This includes maintaining a personal collection of brain-downloads of 'interesting' individuals, including Dhravid Raven, a man who has repeatedly outwitted Vohu's fellow Guardians. Needless to say, they would not be pleased to discover this.
• Fantastic Racism: While the humans of industrial planets have a very good reason to dislike Motorik, smashing them up and sticking their heads on poles is going way too far. Possibly Downplayed as it's implied most Motorik aren't exactly sentient, but, as in the case of Flex, they are fully capable of being so.
• Fantastic Slurs:
  • "Wire Dollies" is a derogatory term for the android Motorik.
  • The Noon CoMa in Station Zero refer to their Kraitt enemies as 'skinks'.
• Foreshadowing: The Hive Monks' religion involves constant travel through the K-Gates in a vain attempt to find the "Insect Lines", a new Network that serves as paradise for their species. In Black Light Express it turns out that the Insect Lines are actually the Monks' ancestral memories of the Neem Nestworlds, and the Monks are enraptured when they discover that there's a way back home.
• God in Human Form: The Guardians are able to download their consciousnesses into artificial bodies known as "interfaces" — some are human, others are strange humanoids, animals, or even mystical creatures such as centaurs.
• Grey-and-Grey Morality: Very prevalent throughout the series. Both sides of all the main conflicts (Raven/The Guardians, The Noons/The Prells and The Guardians/The Railmaker) have some degree of nuance, and very few characters are outright heroes or villains, with the main protagonist even being a Nominal Hero. To elaborate:
  • The villainous exceptions to the latter rule are The Twins, who are considered rather unstable by the rest of the Guardians, and The Tzeld Geckh Karniess, the Evil Overlord matriarch of a Proud Warrior Race that lives to fight and destroy. On the other side of the spectrum, Flex and the Railmaker are never portrayed as anything other than altruistic and kind, and both wind up dead as a result, albeit temporarily.
  • Raven is a conniving and charismatic master manipulator, who's only out for himself and willing to get many killed to further his schemes. However, his goal, of escaping the Great Network and the Guardians by opening a new K-Gate, is sympathetic and understandable.
  • The conflict between the Noons and the Prells is riddled with this, as it's often difficult to see that much difference between them, given that they're both Corporate Families who wish to maintain the (exploitative and elitist) status quo. While the Prells did violently overthrow the Noons in Black Light Express, they did so with the absolute bare minimum of collateral damage, and were indeed correct that Lyssa Delius had seized power by using Threnody as a Puppet Queen. The Prells are also seemingly more xenophobic and wish to close the gate to the Web of Worlds, but at this point in the story the Noons are a Vestigial Empire who'll take any advantage they can get, and it's not clear what their attitude on the aliens would have been from their previous position of dominance. Then, their leader Elon Prell is portrayed in Station Zero as a somewhat pathetic Grumpy Old Man bogged down by The Chains of Commanding and hating his position as Emperor. Finally, Threnody Noon does finally introduce a limited form of democracy to the Empire after reclaiming her throne, but also develops a nasty habit of dispatching her new Kraitt bodyguards to viciously kill her enemies. While the Prells are probably worse overall, they're by no means Card Carrying Villains.
  • The Guardians are a bunch of egotistical, self-righteous and honestly rather lazy A.Is that view further technological development as a risk to their power and godlike status, and killed the Railmaker because they were scared it would supplant them in humans' eyes. However, they do genuinely seem to care about protecting humankind in general and do have a valid point when it comes to the Railmaker — despite its (seemingly genuine) benevolence, it was so mind-bogglingly powerful that if it ever turned nasty humans would be screwed.
• Humans Are Superior: Even the Neem, the most advanced species on the Web of Worlds, are centuries behind humanity in terms of technological development. There's a perfectly logical explaination for this - after the Guardians killed the Railmaker, all the aliens, who had come to rely on its technology, were plunged into a dark age known as the 'Blackout' and after recovering became fearful of advanced tech. Humanity, unknowingly being the instigators of this, suffered no such setback. Of course, once the Railmaker is revived at the end of Station Zero, this is no longer the case.
• Innocent Aliens: The vast majority of the inhabitants of the Web of Worlds, except from the Kraitt, are peaceful traders who are nothing but welcoming to their new human visitors. None of them can pose a threat to the Network Empire in any case, being technologically outmatched in every way by humans.
• In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race: It's noted in Railhead that Zen is brown, like most people on the Network, while the Prells are seen as abnormal for being extremely pale.
• Jerkass Gods: The Guardians, though on a macro scale as they (except from maybe the Twins) don't tend to screw with people directly. Instead, they are fully capable of ending war and poverty, and dramatically advancing human civilisation through the use of technologies such as Brain Uploading, but don't. Instead they prefer to role-play as deities and preserve their own superiority, necessitating the archaic system of power that is the Network Empire. They refuse to permit the development of any other advanced AIs, and killed the Railmaker as they were convinced it would overshadow them.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Played with regarding Zen — he does mostly get away with causing the Spindlebridge crash and its accompanying massive death toll, but he is haunted by guilt for it.
  • Raven. While he is seemingly Killed Off for Real at the end of Railhead, a copy of his personality (which was squirrelled away by the Guardian Vohu Mana) is recovered by Zen and Nova, who believe him to be the Railmaker's disembodied consciousness — and while this turns out to be false, he's able to offer Threnody a means to retake Grand Central, in exchange for a new body. While he does seem uncomfortable when Threnody mentions Spindlebridge, he doesn't display all that much regret.
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade:
  • Anais Six is forced to kill off the bodies of Raven, her former lover, after he attempts to leak evidence of the existence of aliens to the public. Needless to say, it doesn't work, and one clone escapes.
  • The Twins do their darndest to kill everyone who knows about the Desdemor gate before they block it in Black Light Express. They succeed in shooting Malik, but Threnody and Chandni are able to escape.
• Lovable Rogue: Zen Starling, the young petty thief who becomes the main protagonist of the trilogy. While quite selfish and not especially heroic, he does steal and accept Raven's job in order to help out his family, and later his affection for Nova causes him to throw himself into dangerous situations to protect her.
• Mechanical Insects:
  • All trains carry a complement of maintenance spiders in place of a human crew, which are used to carry out repairs, refilling, luggage handling, and occasionally as Improvised Weapons.
  • Played With regarding the the Neem, who aren't mechanical insects, but sentient swarms of insects that 'wear' spiderlike Powered Armor.
• Militaries Are Useless: Railforce folds like a house of cards both times it's called upon to defend Grand Central — the very capital of the Network Empire it's supposed to defend. However, it is Justified on the grounds that many Railforce officers were willing to help the Prells take over the first time round, and the trains themselves revolted when the Noons reclaimed the throne.
• Modern Stasis: Since their creation the Guardians have decreed that no more advanced AIs can be created — they only begrudgingly allowed the creation of the android Motorik, who are limited to a human-level intellect at best and usually operate far below that. As a result, humans in the series have access to all manner of advanced technology, but still use the Internet, projectile weapons and manual labour, and crime and poverty still exist. The reasons for this are twofold, and explained further by Philip Reeve in his blog: first, the Guardians are "jealous gods" who rather enjoy lording it over humanity and don't want to share, and second, if this hadn't happened humanity would be an unrecognisable post-Singularity civilisation which would be difficult to understand or write about.
• Mysterious Past: The Railmaker is an alien being of almost unfathomable power — and that's basically all that is known about it, other than the fact that it's inorganic. Is it a Hive Mind or Mind Hive, an AI which outlived its creators, or something else entirely? Nobody knows. When Zen finally asks it/Nova at the conclusion of Station Zero, they can only respond "it's complicated".
• Nominal Hero: Zen Starling, full stop. Even though he is a Lovable Rogue, pretty much everything he does throughout the series is done either with the aim of bettering himself and his family, or out of love for Nova, who has the more traditionally-heroic mindset.
• Organic Technology:
  • Commonplace in the Network Empire, where it's often used to rapidly grow buildings from wood or ivory. Said buildings have allegedly gone out of fashion by the time of the series, as they have a habit of randomly sprouting new extensions if poorly maintained.
  • The Railmaker also makes extensive use of it, in the form of a coral-like building/lighting material, plus the biomechanical morvah trains and K-Gate-creating Worms.
• Portal Network: The K-Gates, often referred to collectively as the K-Bahn, which can instantly transport matter across light years in an instant. For some reason, the only things which can pass through them are sentient trains, plus their cargo and passengers.
• Post-Cyberpunk: The general "vibe" of the Network Empire. Sure, there's poverty, greedy Mega Corps and self-aggrandizing A.I.s, but life for most ordinary folks isn't too bad and mostly untroubled, and none of the advanced technology has had the chance to Go Horribly Wrong. The Imperial family is far more interested in hunting, partying and internal power games to bother with Crushing the Populace, and indeed one of the things the Guardians seem to be best at is breathing down the necks of the Corporate Families to ensure they get as few people killed in their squabbles as reasonably possible.
• Precursors: After the Noon Train heist, Raven reveals to Zen that the Guardians didn't actually build the K-Gates — instead, they were assembled by a mind-bogglingly advanced alien race known as the Railmakers. Later on it turns out that the plural was incorrect, and there was only one Railmaker — a benevolent data-entity so powerful the Guardians killed it out of a combination of fear and envy.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Played with regarding the Motorik. In most cases, they're only quasi-sentient and controlled by an external computer system, others such as Nova and Flex are indeed fully self-aware, raising some uncomfortable questions as to exactly to what extent the others are suppressed.
• Robosexual: Zen and Nova. In Railhead, they have several moments of Ship Tease on the Noon train, he risks his life and liberty to save her after she is lost in space, and they finally share The Big Damn Kiss before passing through Raven's K-Gate. They're an Official Couple for the rest of the series.
• Shout-Out:
  • All trains choose whimsical names for themselves upon activation, most of which are obscure Parental Bonus style references not aimed at the target audience — the practice itself is very similar to Culture ship names.
  • The "less adoring subjects" of Emperor Mahalaxmi refer to him as the "Fat Controller".
• State Sec: Railforce, which is somewhat of a hybrid of this trope and Space Police — they seemingly act both as a "federal" law-enforcement agency that targets criminals local security forces or CoMa are unable to deal with, and a internal security force/standing army that enforces the Emperor's claim to the throne and maintains the Network Empire's stability. That is, until Black Light Express where large sections of it pull off a Military Coup to unseat Rail Marshal Delius and Empress Threnody.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: The Railmaker. What else is there to be said about a being that can create a whole array of Dyson Spheres? It created the K-Gates, seemingly fail-safed to the extent that they kept functioning for centuries after its death, developed oodles of super-advanced Organic Technology, and seemingly nurtured the development of several of the races on the Web of Worlds to help with its aim of connecting the sentient species of the galaxy.
• The Worm That Walks: Hive Monks, formed by a type of cockroach-like insect that gains sapience and the ability to speak when in large swarms, which proceed to construct a human-shaped armature for locomotion, a robe, and a mask. Nobody's quite sure where they came from, but the most popular theories suggest that they are ordinary insects that were mutated after clinging to the outside of K-trains. Turns out that they're part of the alien Neem, and were isolated on the Network after the Railmaker's destruction.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Mention is made (however briefly) of a dangerous terrorist group known as the Human Unity League — whose goals, to restore democracy and end the rule of the Guardians, would typically lead to them being portrayed as La Résistance in many a science-fiction setting. They did launch a "nasty" conflict known as the Spiral Line Rebellion with the military backing (initially covertly, then openly) of the Prell family, meaning they're no saints by any means, but it remains unclear if they are genuinely well-intentioned, power-hungry opportunists, anti-machine fanatics, Bomb-Throwing Anarchists whose only aim is to "smash the system", or any combination of these. There's simply not enough information given about them to tell, and most of it comes from sources with a pro-Empire bias.

Railhead

• And I Must Scream: As she and Zen make their escape from Spindlebridge in Railhead, Nova is grappled through the chest by a damaged Noon Beetle and dragged out into space. Of course, since she's a Motorik, the lack of oxygen and extreme temperatures can't kill her, and she is left drifting above Sundarban for several weeks before Zen returns to save her.
• And the Adventure Continues: The story ends with Zen and Nova travelling together through Raven's new K-Gate, towards unknown alien stations.
• Bait the Dog: At first, it seems as though the Thought Fox is seriously considering Flex's offer to paint it with a beautiful dragon motif. Then, likely for its own twisted amusement, it burns them to cinders with a flamethrower.
• Cool Old Lady: Lady Sufara Noon, the Emperor's sister, is a remarkably sharp-witted woman who quickly takes a shine to Zen (pretending to be Tallis Noon) and his rather blunt attitude, displaying a lack of the Imperial snobbery she dislikes.
• Future Imperfect: Raven mentions that Klingon was among the languages of Old Earth.
• Honey Trap: To enable the Noon train job, Raven hires an attractive criminal named Chandni Hansa to seduce Tallis Noon so Zen can take his place. However, Chandni gets bored and decides simply to rob her mark at the worst possible time.
• Impersonation Gambit: Central to Raven's plan. Since Zen is a stolen Noon Designer Baby, he has Noon DNA and can board the Imperial train using the alias of 'Tallis Noon', an obscure relative to whom Zen bears a Strong Family Resemblance and Raven is able to, ahem, distract.
• Manipulative Bastard: Raven. He promised Zen untold riches in exchange for stealing the Pyxis from the Noon Train... But neglected to mention that his plan involved crashing said train and killing dozens, if not hundreds, of people, forcing Zen to become a fugitive and live with the guilt for the rest of his life.
• Mini-Mecha: A bipedal exo-suit with powerful manipulator claws known as an "Iron Penguin" is a common sight in industrial areas across the Network, and one was pressed into a (temporary) combat role during anti-Motorik riots on Cleave.
• More Despicable Minion: The de facto Big Bad Dhravid Raven is a refined and charismatic Anti-Villain, while his wartrain the Thought Fox is a sadistic trigger-happy killer.
• Near-Villain Victory: Raven almost gets exactly what he wants: to escape through his new K-Gate and explore alien worlds, free from the Guardians at last. This only gets derailed because Zen seeks him out at precisely the wrong time, after attracting the attention of Railforce and Anais Six, and even then these foes would have been a mere delay were it not for that one sky-ray.
• Paradise Planet: Summer's Lease, a peaceful, lightly populated world where Zen dreams of living one day — he's eventually able to buy a house there for his family using his payment for the Noon train job.
• Perky Female Minion: The energetic and friendly Nova is this to the inscrutable Raven.
• Properly Paranoid: Yanvar Malik, who spent most of his life hunting down Raven's bodies, is certain that Raven is still out there somewhere in the far reaches of the Network, up to no good. He's thrown away a promising career in order to continue hunting for the elusive mastermind, with his superiors being convinced he's chasing a ghost. He is, of course, bang on the money.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Just as he's about to turn on the Worm and journey through the new K-Gate it creates, Raven gets sewered by one of Desdemor's sky-rays, as the defence systems which were supposed to be keeping them away got destroyed in the Final Battle between him and Railforce.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: The Heavy is Yanvar Malik, a grizzled Railforce officer (at least, initially) who has spent most of his life hunting down the many bodies of Raven and believes he's still hiding somewhere, even though his superiors and the Guardians are sure he's dead. He very much respects his target, and harbours no ill will towards Zen and Nova, to the point that he shoots his boss, a Guardian interface, no less, to allow Zen and Nova to escape together through the new K-Gate once Raven's last body is finally killed.
• The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: After Emperor Mahalaxmi XIII is killed in the Spindlebridge crash, Threnody's sister Priya Noon becomes Empress — and despite being quite literally born to rule, she proves to be a paranoid and unpopular Nervous Wreck, leading to Rail Marshal Delius effectively staging a coup to replace her with the much better-liked Threnody, who she will be able to manipulate to her own ends.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Kobi Chen-Tulsi starts off as a boorish Upper-Class Twit, who's livid that Threnody, his betrothed, is flirting with Tallis/Zen, and tries to arrange a Hunting "Accident" for the impostor. After he nearly gets killed by the beast they were actually supposed to be hunting, he mellows out considerably, being genuinely supportive to Threnody in the aftermath of the Spindlebridge disaster, and is even somewhat friendly to Zen after he threatens them into helping him recover Nova.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: Raven seeks out Zen for his grand plan to steal the Pyxis, as he's a Noon Designer Baby whose surrogate mother spirited him away from their medical facilities. As a result, he's possibly the only person in the Network Empire not affiliated with the Noons who can fool their train's genetic security systems.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A notable Aversion. After Zen steals the Pyxis for Raven, the logical course of action would be to kill him — he's no longer needed and is a loose end who is aware of Raven's existence and the location of his hideout, if not his ultimate plans. However, Raven keeps his word and makes him rich partially because, as he notes to the young man, Zen reminds him of himself. This ultimately backfires on Raven and Zen becomes an unwitting Spanner in the Works for his plan, while he would have got off completely scot-free had Zen been dead.

Black Light Express

• Action Bomb: A "Railbomb" is a train consisting primarily of a giant antimatter warhead, controlled by an AI whose only desire is to detonate gloriously after travelling through the target K-Gate, with the resultant explosion blocking it completely. This rather disturbing weapon was unsurprisingly a creation of The Twins.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Nova is a fan of ancient human movies (as in, black-and-white classics), and conveniently, the Hetrasec, an antelope-like Proud Merchant Race, share her enthusiasm - while travelling around the Web of Worlds she sells a whole bunch of them to a Hetrasec couple, who end up doing a roaring trade out of it.
• Back for the Dead: After receiving a significant amount of focus as The Heavy of Railhead, Yanvar Malik returns briefly when Threnody and Chandni end up in Desdemor, only to be unceremoniously gunned down by a Twins-controlled Motorik.
• Deadly Euphemism: The Neem military's official title is the "Hard Diplomacy Office".
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: By 'killing' the Railmaker with a computer virus, the Guardians managed to take down a (friendly) Digital Abomination that was a strong type II on the Kardashev Scale, while the Guardians at this point hailed from Earth, 20 Minutes into the Future. It's strongly suggested that this staggering feat was only possible because the Railmaker was an Actual Pacifist which didn't see the need for any kind of weapons or defences.
• Evil Chancellor: ZigZagged with Rail Marshal Lyssa Delius, the Social Climber head of Railforce, the Empire's Space Military Police. At the end of the first book she realises she can replace the paranoid and unpopular Empress Priya Noon, who took over after Mahalaxmi's death, with her sister Threnody, whose inexperience allows Delius to all but seize control of the Network Empire for herself. The Noons' enemies quickly cotton onto this and portray her as such, but her 'evil schemes' seem to mostly consist of policies that benefit the working classes like restricting the use of Motorik labor.
• G-Rated Sex: At the end of the first chapter, there's a scene describing Zen and Nova lying in bed together, staring into each other's eyes, with lots of flowery description making it clear that they probably just "did it". To whatever extent that "it" is possible, anyway.
• Insufficiently Advanced Alien: The Railmaker. An alien 'data-entity' of mysterious origin, with a godlike level of power allowing it to cage multiple stars to provide power to its K-Gates and other megastructures. Unfortunately for it, however, it's not only an Actual Pacifist, but the concept of war and hostility is so far from its mind that it doesn't even consider that it could be seen as a threat, and thus possesses no weapons or defences whatsoever. And, as it works to connect the civilisations of the galaxy together, it encounters the Guardians on Earth 20 Minutes into the Future, who destroy it easily with a virus as it could weaken their own rule over humanity.
• Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: Under the Kraitt's matriarchal society, all women are warriors, while scientists are a 'lesser' role filled by males. The Tzeld Gehk Kharneiss even kills one of her technicians to prevent him from claiming too much credit.
• Lizard Folk: The Kraitt, a young race of bloodthirsty raiders on the Web of Worlds, who are reptilian and only roughly humanoid.
• Made of Indestructium: The C12 Zodiak class of wartrains, designed from the ground up to be the biggest, baddest and toughest fighting machines on the Network, have an almost impenetrable layer of thick ceramic armour protecting their hull. In Black Light Express, one of them, the Ghost Wolf, is able to No-Sell dozens of missiles and smash straight through tanks blocking the line as if they were cardboard.
• Noble Demon: Laira Prell, who is an Officer And A Lady literally as well as metaphorically. She's fully on board with her family's militarism and goal to seize the Imperial throne, but is dismayed when that goal is achieved through underhanded means rather than a 'proper fight'. Her obsession with honour causes her to willingly torpedo her own career in Black Light Express, warning her enemy Threnody that two assassins are being sent after her.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The Prells' assault on Grand Central is explicitly stated to have claimed 100 lives... Even though the planet is the capital of a galactic empire, with individual skyscrapers stated to have tens of thousands of residents, and the assault kicks off with missile strikes on the Imperial palace, a huge public building. No matter how good the Prells might be at reducing collateral damage, and even if this includes civilian casualties only, the number is almost impossibly low.
• Starfish Aliens: The Hath - they resemble a sheet of canvas stretched between thin limbs, have rows of eyes on the side of said sheet like a starfish, and feed by sitting in nutrient-rich pools. When Zen and Nova first see them, they are mistaken for tents.

Station Zero

• The Chains of Commanding: Elon Prell, after achieving his life's ambition to become Emperor, discovers that he hates it, and prefers hunting and war to the endless bureaucratic tasks of the monarchy.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: As Threnody and her forces are storming the Imperial Palace during the Noons' retaking of Grand Central, Threnody comes across Pryia, her Alpha Bitch sister who defected to the Prells. Without a word, Threnody stabs her in the chest and allows her to be Eaten Alive by her Kraitt Lizard Guard. According to Skar, a battle isn't over for the Kraitt until this happens to the enemy commander, but that doesn't make it any less of a horrible way to go.
• Heroic Sacrifice: At the book's climax, the Ghost Wolf is taken over by the Mordaunt 90 Network and used to wreak havoc across the Railmaker's home-world and destroy the Damask Rose. However, the train is able to wrest back control over one of its weapons systems and blow itself up before the Guardian can use it to finish off Zen and Nova.
• Lady of War: By this point, Threnody has had it with being a Puppet Queen, and transforms herself into the "Red Empress", personally participating in the battle to retake Grand Central for the Noons in a custom-built suit of body armour, accompanied by her Kraitt bodyguards.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Skar is just as bloodthirsty and vicious as any other Kraitt, but is far more intelligent than essentially any other member of his race. He's bright enough to recognise that his people are outmatched by humans not just because their technology is centuries more advanced, but because their forces have actual military discipline rather than being disorganised bands of raiders.
• Self-Disposing Villain: Elon Prell gets himself killed in a hunting accident (a genuine one, not that kind) before Threnody's forces get anywhere near him.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Nova believes Raven to be the Railmaker's disembodied consciousness, and travels with Zen to recover a copy of his personality. Said copy then informs them that Nova is the fragment. But as a result of their excursion, the Guardians manage to take over the Ghost Wolf and use it in an attempt to destroy the Railmaker once and for all, leading to the destruction of it, the Damask Rose, and the near-death of both Zen and Nova themselves.
• Soldier vs. Warrior: Played with. When the warbands of the Kraitt (warriors) go up against Noon Corporate Marines (soldiers), they get ground into paste. Skar is smart enough to realise that the humans haven't won just due to technical superiority but by having proper tactics and military discipline, while the Kraitt often kill each other in order to determine leadership.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Downplayed. When Threnody launches her attack on Grand Central, many of the Railforce wartrains refuse to fight or get blocked by civilian locomotives, allowing her and the Noons to retake control. This is because the Prells want to close the K-Gate leading to the Web of Worlds, and allow the Guardians to destroy the Railmaker — since trains love nothing more than to travel to new stations, they'd prefer that this doesn't happen.
• Villain Decay: After the Twins attacked all of the other Guardians on Khoorsandi at the climax of Black Light Express out of desperation to block the new K-Gate, the other Guardians quickly join forces to severely limit their powers, resulting in them being able to do nothing but complain by this point.

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