The world of 25th-century Meriga, ravaged by climate change and fossil fuel depletion, is home to Trey sunna Gwen. Trey works as a ruinman's prentice in Shanuga — the ruinmen being the ones who adventure through the dangerous ruins of buildings from the old world, looking for scrap metal or other things they can sell. A near-death experience in the ruins leaves Trey a full-fledged ruinman, as well as holding one of the most valuable treasures of all: a letter that could help find Star's Reach, an ancient complex used for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Taking finder's rights to the letter's contents, Trey and his new prentice, Berry, set off on a quest to find Star's Reach and whether the ancients really did manage to contact aliens, going on an adventure across deindustrial Meriga on the way. However, Trey's journey will be a dangerous one — powerful figures and forces also want to find Star's Reach, for reasons far more sinster than mere money or fame...
Tropes used in Star's Reach:
- Adventurer Archaeologist: The ruinmen are a for-profit variation. They adventure through old buildings to salvage scrap metal and other valuables, which is a task fraught with both danger and treasure.
- After the End:
- The book takes place in 25th-century Meriga, after the old world, and specifically the United States, succumbed to climate change and fossil fuel depletion. However, it serves as a reconstruction of the concept; although much has been lost from the collapse, human life continues, and Trey and the other characters can still find meaning in their lives even after the decline and fall that ended the old world.
- The Cetans encountered their own end of the world before humans did. They also burned their equivalent of fossil fuels and radically changed the atmosphere, creating droughts — something far worse for them, because they can't stay together for long outside of the gasoline oceans and rainstorms on their planet. All of the Cetans broke up into their unintelligent swimming forms, and it took many centuries before the climate healed enough for their civilization to begin anew.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In-Universe, this trope was common enough that robots have become another type of monstrous creature that tales are told about, like vampires and werewolves.
- The Alleged Car: The Jennel Mornay is an Alleged Riverboat, looking very old and ramshackle compared to the newer ones. It gets the heroes to Memfis, but Trey is rather unimpressed with how it looks.
- Always Second Best: This is why Eleen was sent away from the Versty. Two chair positions opened up in her field, but other aspiring scholars were always picked over her.
- Anachronic Order: While writing the story, Trey keeps jumping back and forth between recounting the journey that led him to Star's Reach, and the new discoveries they're making there.
- Bizarre Alien Psychology: The Cetans don't think in terms of numbers like humans do, because their bodies are amorphous and shifting; if a Cetan wants to grab something, it grows a few fingers and grasps it, then dematerializes the fingers once it's done. Instead, they think in "flows", which are covered by the branch of mathematics humans call calculus. Cetans can conceive of our math, but they find it as difficult and unintuitive as most people find calculus.
- Buried Alive: The standard punishment for extracting or using any form of fossil fuels. Cunnel Darr inflicts this on a glassblower who was caught extracting natural gas from a gas vent.
- Chekhov's Gun: The letter Trey finds that sends him on his journey to Star's Reach has "CURTIS" written on the back — which he assumes is the name of the dead soldier found alongside the letter, as all the information on the front is more eye-catching. CURTIS is a name, but not of the soldier: rather, it's the name of a military base which turns out to be Star's Reach.
- Crowbar Combatant: Trey and Berry use pry bars as their weapons the few times they have to fight.
- Deal with the Devil: The idea is still alive in Meriga, much to the chagrin of the priestesses. However, their take on it is a bit different; instead of being obviously demonic, the figure who appears before you is a man in strange clothes called Dell. Dell will give you whatever you want, but will appear at some point in the future and take whatever he wants from you in exchange — and both you and he know that he'll take whatever means the most to you, even more than what you asked for. Trey compares his alliance with Jennel Cobey to a Dell's bargain, in that he's getting help from a powerful figure who could take anything from him any time he wants.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The values of the average Merigan are very noticeably different from ours, since their worldview has been shaped by devastating natural disasters and climate change paired with the depletion of fossil fuels. Most characters, Trey included, have more of a sense of respect for nature, and are less terrified of death, seeing it as "getting reborn" or "going back into the circle of life". Additionally, burning fossil fuels is viewed as a mortal sin, due to it having caused said climate change in the first place.
- Devious Daggers: Plummer draws a knife when he first encounters Trey and Berry, before they've properly introduced themselves. While far from a Psycho Knife Nut, he's very secretive about his life and his membership in the Rememberers' Guild, and has a tendency to disappear when you're not looking.
- Divided States of America: During the end of the old time, the United States fractured into several countries, and Meriga only comprises some of the states in the center of the country. Other countries formed from its collapse include Jinya in the Appalacians and Nuwinga around New England, and the expanded Meycan Empire is implied to have absorbed some of the southern states. Other states were lost entirely to the rising oceans.
- The Don: These are apparently the ruling class in Meyco. They seem to be less shy than jennels about flaunting their wealth and power; Trey thinks of them as "jennels with attitude", and when he gets to have a very high-class meal, mentions that he's eating like them.
- The Dreaded: Ruinmen are feared by some people despite how useful they are, as they know the secrets of ancient ruins and the potential horrors within. It's mentioned that some who anger the ruinmen fall very sick and swiftly die, in a manner identical to radiation poisoning. However, the raw military force of a jennel is enough to give even ruinmen pause.
- Driven to Suicide: The inhabitants of Star's Reach almost all committed suicide when they discovered the truth about alien civilizations: that they exist, but that humans will never get to meet them in person. When Anna discovers this, she takes her own life as well.
- Elvis Impersonator: These are apparently pretty popular in Meriga, and are common enough that they're collectively referred to as "elwuses". While on the road to Troy, Trey meets an elwus named Cash, who rakes in a decent amount of bits with his travelling act.
- End of an Age: Most people consider the old world to have ended when the fuel ran out, or think it will end when the Spire falls. Trey, though, thinks it ended when Jennel Cobey died, as he was the last person with the means and motive to try and revive the technology of the old world.
- Everyone Has Standards: Nobody in Meriga, be they a ruinman, a priestess, or a cunnel, has any mercy for someone caught using fossil fuels.
[Cunnel Darr] turned to the crowd. "Does anyone have any doubt of his guilt?" It wasn't a pointless question. If even one person had said yes the cunnel would have had to call up a jury on the spot and hold a trial; [...] but nobody said a word.
- Evil Plan: Jennel Cobey's plan is to use the information about Lost Technology in Star's Reach to construct powerful war machines, letting him seize power.
- Extinct in the Future: Sheep (well, cheap) are extinct in Meriga, due to a disease making it more expensive to herd them than llamas. However, Trey doesn't mention whether they're extinct in other places in the world.
- First-Contact Math: Both the humans and Cetans tried this to see whether there was intelligent life in the galaxy. Unfortunately, because their basic math systems are so wildly different from each other, it took a while for both sides to catch on.
- Flooded Future World: In addition to changing the weather patterns across the world, climate change has caused the seas of the 25th century to be notably higher than they are today. It's mentioned at several points that the presden's house used to be located in Deesee before it was flooded, forcing the government to relocate it to Sisnaddi.
- Future Imperfect: Most people in 25th-century Meriga don't know much about the "old world" of our present day, due to how much was lost in the collapse. This is what spurs Trey and Berry's journey to the Versty in Melumi; they need to get the letter Trey found translated, to find out what the mysterious words like "potus" mean. The scholars, for their part, know a decent amount about the old world, but still have some gaps in their knowledge, such as being unable to pin down what "WRTF" stands for.
- Gaia's Vengeance: The people of Meriga consider the droughts, fueled by climate change, to have been this in the past. According to their new mythology, the rains only started coming again when Mam Gaia decided that humanity had suffered enough for its actions.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Trey's ultimate decision to abandon his relationship with Eleen shows that love doesn't always overcome all obstacles, and that it's entirely possible for two people who truly love each other to go their separate ways for other reasons.
- Hereditary Republic: The "presden" of Meriga is a monarch in all but name, with an election only being held if they have no heir. Even then, said "elections" are implied to be more like a violent struggle for power among the jennels.
- High-Voltage Death: Many of the ancient buildings excavated by the ruinmen are filled with electrified floor tiles, which they suspect were placed by the ancients as a trap for any invaders. The tiles remain lethal even after several hundred years, due to being powered by nuclear energy, and must have the charge drained from the system before they're safe to walk on. Jennel Cobey ultimately meets his end by stepping on one as he's about to kill Trey.
- I Am X, Son of Y: This has mostly supplanted last names in Meriga for casual use, with last names only being used in formal situations. Trey gives his full name as "Trey sunna Gwen"; Berry, due to having been abandoned by his family, gives his as "Berry sunna nobody" or "Sharl sunna Sheren". Notably, this is a matronymic naming convention; nobody is ever seen referring to themselves as "sunna" or "darra" a male name.
- Initiation Ceremony: The hazing process done by senior ruinmen on new recruits is to go meet a robot in the basement of their dormatory... which is actually just a metal glove concealed by the darkness. Before this process, new ruinmen are given boring menial labor tasks and spare meals, to weed out the ones that don't have what it takes. If they persist and show determination through this, then they start getting treated better.
- King Incognito: Trey's prentice Berry seems relatively unassuming at first, outside of his loyalty and dedication to finding Star's Reach. Late in the book, however, it's revealed that he's really the son of the current presden; his real name is Sharl sunna Sheren. He was cast out due to being a tweennote , so he decided to become a ruinman and gambled everything on Trey finding Star's Reach. When the current presden dies, he's able to use his royal status to stop the Succession Crisis before it gets going and prevent another civil war.
- Language Drift: Although the language of 25th-century Meriga is mostly comprehensible, some changes have occurred, such as "general" and "colonel" becoming "jennel" and "cunnel", "llama" becoming "lom", "apprentice" becoming "prentice", and "master" becoming "mister". "Government" is also in the process of becoming "gummint", though some, like Plummer, still pronounce it the old way. This also applies to place names, with Tennessee becoming "Tenisi" and Detroit becoming "Troy". This is not universal; some higher-class characters, such as Jennel Cobey, still write like a modern person would.
- Last of Her Kind: Anna is the last of the inhabitants of Star's Reach.
- The Metric System Is Here to Stay: Trey frequently measures things in "meedas" and "senamees", and he tracks larger distances in "kloms".
- Mysterious Backer: Plummer is a great help to Trey on his journey to Star's Reach, regularly giving him a place to stay or transport assistance, but Trey knows very little about him until late in the book.
- Non-Ironic Clown: Several of them show up at a travelling circus (or, in the future, "sirk") Trey visits. He laughs until he cries at a ruinman clown, who constantly tries and fails to break into a moving ruin with an oversized pickaxe.
- No Name Given: Almost none of Plummer's friends and companions use their names when interacting with each other or Trey.
- Old Maid: Circle works under a variant of this; women aren't allowed into it if they don't have a child by the time they're twenty.
- Ragnarök Proofing: Downplayed. Most of the 400-year-old technology the ruinmen find doesn't work and is only good for scrap metal, but a small amount of it still functions, which includes the computers at Star's Reach. Tashel Ban explains this when he says that these computers were created under IOC ("interruption of continuity") guidelines, and built to be much more durable and fault-tolerant than usual in the face of collapse.
- Scavenger World: The ruinmen are the scavengers of this world, exploring ancient ruins to salvage the metals and other valuables within.
- Serious Business:
- Plummer is serious about making sure that Trey doesn't tell anyone about him or his friends, saying that he'll have a knife against his throat if he does. The person holding the knife would be one of the Swords in the Rememberers' Guild, of which Plummer is a high-ranking member.
- Where you stay during the rains in Memfis, when the different groups in the city party and celebrate, is taken very seriously. Trey mentions that it's entirely possible to get killed if you're in the wrong district at the wrong time.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Only comparatively. Jennel Cobey writes like a modern person would in his letters, which makes him come across as very eloquent and formal to Trey, who's used to speaking in Language Drift-affected English.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the books Trey finds and preserves at Star's Reach is pretty obviously Dune.
- The circuses of the future are called "sirks", which is a reference to Cirque du Soleil.
- Snake Oil Salesman: Plummer certainly acts like one when selling his medicines and elixirs. According to him, they work surprisingly well, and even better than the herbal remedies recommended by the priestesses, but this is not confirmed. He uses the common trick of getting an assistant who's in on the act — in his case, Trey — to pretend to be sick, then suddenly cured after drinking up.
- Starfish Aliens:
- The inhabitants of planet Tau Ceti II look a little like yellow sheets of plastic, and have a solitary, swimming, animalistic phase and a communal, terrestrial, intelligent phase of life. Instead of sight, their primary sense is sensing lines of magnetic force. They'll start to dry out if they spend too much time on land; the first structures Cetans built were bowl-like buildings to collect the rain and prevent themselves from drying out, and before then, they lived in terrain with a similar structure, just like how humans built tents and huts after living in caves. Despite how different they are from humans, though, they share some important qualities, and both pursued the dream of finding other intelligent life in space.
- All of the other alien species Trey's team see in the video at Star's Reach certainly qualify. At one point, Trey describes an alien which looks like an upside-down, seven-petaled flower with eyestalks... and then mentions that he remembered it more because it looked more like a human being than most of the others did.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Although they're both on Trey's side, there's a lot of tension between Tashel Ban and Thu during their time at Star's Reach. The reason for this is their diametrically opposed worldviews; Tashel Ban believes that the Lost Technology in Star's Reach could help give back some of the comforts of the old world, while Thu is fundamentally opposed to anything like this, seeing it as too risky. The tension dissolves by the end of the book, as the technology in Star's Reach isn't powerful enough to do anything like what Tashel Ban had hoped.
- Vorpal Pillow: This is the method favoured by Circle members for disposing of babies with birth defects.
- Wasteland Warlord: The jennels and cunnels serve as regional and local authorities, respectively. Several jennels make up the presden's court, so they serve as both warlords and nobles.
