Boldly going because they're completely lost.
Space Academy Dropouts is a Affectionate Parody Space Opera by C.T. Phipps and Michael Suttkus. It is the first book in the Space Academy series.
The newly renamed Vance Turbo has sabotaged his own career at Space Fleet Academy due to a desire to atone for training accident. Unfortunately, his actions result in him getting press-ganged into an expendable crew of misfits recruited by a legendary starship captain.
Their mission? To recover a collection of lost sun-destroying missiles that could restart a galactic war. Unfortunately, Vance is smart enough to know something is wrong with this picture. After all, no sane person would recruit this crew to save the universe.
It is followed by Space Academy Rejects.
This book contains the following tropes:
- The Alleged Starship: The E.S.S. Black Nebula is an incredibly old Earth starship that has been de-mothballed for their mission.
- Big Bad: Captain Elgan proves to be an Evil Mentor who set the entirety of the crew up as decoys so he could steal the Elder Race artifact onboard the Starkiller XII.
- Bittersweet Ending: The SKAMM threat is ended and much of the crew is accepted back into Space Fleet but a lot of the crew is killed in the process.
- Benevolent A.I.: Wadsworth is an unconventional example as he rebelled against his crew members because he didn't want to commit genocide.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The General is a Notha prisoner and wants to see all of them destroyed. He constantly switches alliances from Vance to the pirates to his captors to Vance again. It gets him unceremoniously killed as Vance is the only one who wants to see him treated as a prisoner of war with all the rights and protections this entails.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Captain Elgan and his inner circle subject the General to this via Electric Torture. Vance reacts with disgust and outrage. Interestingly, no one reacts as if this will do anything to get the General to cooperate, it’s done purely to punish him for the crime of being Notha.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Vance gets a Lieutenant’s commission in Space Fleet as well as a medal for his efforts. Most of the crew of the Black Nebula break up, though, and go their separate ways. The SKAMMs are destroyed, the Elder technology recovered, and the plot foiled.
- Friends with Benefits: Vance establishes this with both Hannah and Trish both, which is impressive given he's only on the ship for a couple of weeks.
- Good All Along: Wadsworth, the "insane" AI that stole the SKAM Ms in the first place, did so because he didn't want to be party to genocide.
- Killed Off for Real: Lorkan, Picnic, Fifteen, Ketra, and Captain Elgan are all killed off before the end of the story.
- Mind Rape: Trish is almost driven insane by the programming directives that directly contradict her primary purpose of protecting the crew. She gets better when Vance successfully removes them.
- The Mole:
- Vance believes Lorkan is a mole. He's right, but that's because all of Captain Elgan's loyalists are. There’s also an assassin bioroid left on the ship.
- Leah Vance is a mole within the already spy-ridden crew for the legitimate authorities, investigating Captain Elgan for very justified suspicions of running a rogue military op.
- Ragtag Band of Misfits: The entirety of the E.S.S Black Nebula crew. Literally everyone onboard. Vance is stunned to find out he’s The Paragon by comparison.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: The IMS General Bedford Forest is full of a bunch of white supremacist Neo-Confederates pretending its still the 19th century and armed to the teeth.
- Killed Off for Real: Lorkan, Picnic, Fifteen, Ketra, and Captain Elgan are all killed off before the end of the story.
- Token Evil Teammate: Vance attempts to recruit the General to their cause by appealing to the fact that war wouldn't serve either of their interests.
- Was It All a Lie?: Happens twice. The first time with Captain Elgan and the next with the discovery that Leah was The Mole all along.
- You Are in Command Now: Vance finds himself in charge of the ‘’Black Nebula’’ after Captain Elgan’s apparent demise. It turns out it was his Death Faked for You.
