Are we the lucky ones?
A series of novels set in The Division universe by Ubisoft. It chronicles the story of the Dollar Flu and the fall of the United States into anarchy following its release. It stars various agents of the Strategic Homeland Division (AKA SHD or "The Division").
Each of the books stars a different agent of the Division and follows how they are recruited, deal with the various crises that emerge, and make moral choices related to the impossible situation they find themselves in. The books tend to be set during the build-up to the events of the first game or set between the first and second one.
The books are officially Canon to the game's universe as references begin showing up to their events in the The Division 2's expansion seasons.
- The Division: New York Collapse (2016) - A companion guide to the post-Dollar Flu New York.
- The Division: Broken Dawn (2019) - A novel about a Division agent named Diaz and April Kelleher.
- The World of Tom Clancy's Division (2019) - A guidebook to the various factions and the state of the world.
- The Division: Hearts on Fire (2021) - An audiobook hosted on Audible. Melanie Hoskins is an Action Girl recruited during the early days of the pandemic. A tie-into the Operation: Crossroads.
- The Division: Recruited by Thomas Parrot (2022) - A young woman named Maira Kanhai is recruited into the Division after the outbreak. A Operations Crossroads novel.
- The Division: Compromised by (2022) - Environmental terrorists threaten rebuilding as hard choices must be made in Texas. A Operation: Crossroads novel.
These books have the following tropes:
- Action Girl: All of the female Division agents are given the same training as the men in guns, tactics, and survival for the day they're activated.
- Armies Are Evil: The worst villains are the True Sons, Last Man Battalion, and Black Tusk PMC are the worst. The JTF, the one good guy faction, has done terrible things.
- After the End: The majority of the books take place after the collapse of American society after the Dollar Flu has ravaged the country.
- All There in the Manual: The World of Tom Clancy's Division is the manual and describes large amounts of lore about the state of the world not present in the game that would later be canonized by the sequels.
- City of Adventure: New York City transforms from a thriving metropolis to a lawless anarchic hellhole where people fight for survival.
- Conspiracy Theorist: The Outcasts and Cleaners are both revealed to have elaborate theories about how the Dollar Flu was created as well as spread. Despite the existence of real conspiracies in-setting, all of their views are completely wrong.
- Darker and Edgier: The Division games are third person shooter RPGs so it is a power fantasy where you shoot down hundreds of opponents. Here, just a few armed individuals is a threat to any agent. Killing is also traumatizing.
- Democracy Is Flawed: The United States badly mishandles the Dollar Flu and is subsequently devastated by the pandemic. This is in part due to the fact that its elected leaders do not prioritize dealing with the virus over the the public backlash.
- Government Agency of Fiction: The SHD are a fictional department of Homeland Security that is meant to deal with catastrophic disasters.
- Hero of Another Story: Each book, except for the guide books, has a different Division agent and their story.
- Kill It with Fire: The Cleaners MO is to wipe out any problems they encounter with flamethrowers.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: The Cleaners are shown to burn down quarantined apartment buildings that are already cut off from the rest of the city and killing both the recovering as well as sick alike. This prevents people who might have been subsequently immune from helping rebuild society.
- The Plague: The Dollar Flu is the basis for all of the books as it wipes out whole chunks of the United States.
- Private Military Contractor: The Last Man Battalion operates as employees of Wallstreet executives until deciding to go rogue.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Cleaners believe anything and everything they do is justified by destroying the virus. This is undermined by the sadistic pleasure they take in burning people alive and questionable results of their efforts.
- Western Terrorists: The in-game enemies like the True Sons, Cleaners, and Outcasts are treated more like these than criminals or rioting citizens. Their actions are frequently shown to target civilians and are designed to intimidate the populace versus survival.
- Wrong Genre Savvy:
- The Cleaners and Outcasts believe that the government created the Dollar Flu to justify a military takeover of the United States. It was actually created by a random radical virulogist. There is a conspiracy to take over the United States but it's by the Black Tusk PMC and their government stooges who had nothing to do with the plague.
- Many people believe the Division is State Sec and part of the takeover of the US by CERN. The Division is just made of a bunch of everyday citizens recruited as a Sleeper Agent in the event of a catastrophe.
