Literature / The Nature of Predators

There were two known instances of a predatory species achieving sentience in the galaxy.

- Chapter 1 opening line after the transcription subject note and the date.

The Nature of Predators is a science fiction Web Serial Novel by SpacePaladin15, and hosted on the /r/HFY subreddit. The first episode was posted in 2022.

In 2136, the first Human expedition to the stars leaves Earth and reaches Gliese 832. When they reach it, they find out that it is inhabited by the Venlil Republic, a member of the Federation, a coalition of numerous species, all of them herbivorous. Terrified by the predatory humans, the Venlil struggle to see them as anything else but monsters, but eventually get over their fears. Unfortunately, not all species of the Federation are as willing to look beyond Humanity's diet, especially as the Arxur, lizard-like carnivorous aliens, have been ravaging the galaxy for centuries...

In addition to the main story, the author has written canon one-shots and miniseries set in the same universe for patrons on Patreon. The first episode of the bonus miniseries can be found for free here.

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Memory Transcription Subject: Troper, Life-Ruining Corps

• Abandon Ship: Kalsim gives the order as his ship loses all propulsion on a collision course with Earth.
• Abusive Precursors: The Kolshians and Farsul, the two most advanced species in the galaxy, have been cruelly remodeling all alien species they find to fit their worldview. None have been more altered more severely than the Venlil, who were punished for resisting by a forced genetic alteration that caused them to lose their sense of smell and made them unable to run fast, to remodel them into the perfect prey, on top of a brutal indoctrination campaign involving raising the modified children offworld.
• Absolute Xenophobe: The Arxur are hostile to every single federation species, but they are less so with humanity, due to them being fellow predators. Later in the story we see that this is very much an Enforced Trope for their species by the ruling powers, and not all of them agree.
• Ace Pilot: Marcel is particularly adept at flying his patrol ship at a group of Arxur bombers, buying time for a U.N. relief force to arrive in order to defend a nearby Venlil outpost.
• Action Politician: UN Secretary-General Meier certainly fits this role, especially in chapter 46, when he decides to fly straight to an Arxur outpost to have a conversation and hopefully put pressure on the Federation's extermination fleet to turn around.
  Meier: "Actually, an Arxur captain gave us the location of one of their spy outposts. I’m going to fly within comms range, and strike up a nice conversation."
• Actually Pretty Funny: One Venlil finds it amusing that the humans, upon seeing an arthropod species, get much the same reaction to it as everyone else does to humans.
• Airstrip One: Venlil Prime isn't the true name of the Venlil homeworld. Prior to the Federation's indoctrination campaign, it was known as Skalga, which roughly translates to Death World; a fitting name for a warrior species.
• Alien Blood: Several examples. Zurulians are noted to have green blood, Venlil have orange, and Takkans have blue blood.
• All There in the Manual: The truth of the memory transcriptions is an example of this. Apparently, the entire story is a history project set in the future, using brain scans of the viewpoint characters. This can be good or bad depending on how you look at it.
• Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: The Federation species may be far more advanced than the Terrans on many fronts, but their knowledge of ecology and psychology fall behind even 20th century humanity. Every mental condition from autism to sociopathy falls under the blanket diagnosis "predator desease", and an entire career path exists solely dedicated to driving carnivorous animals to extinction, environmental consequences be damned.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Attempted by humanity when they let the Extermination fleet know that they tipped off the Arxur to the location of their now undefended homeworlds. The extermination fleet doesn't buy it as even though Kalsim realizes that the humans aren't bluffing, he still gives the order to begin the attack on Earth.
• Alpha Strike: Kalsim orders a devastating one to start the Battle of Earth. It destroys a third of the defending force right off the bat.
• Always Chaotic Evil:
  • The Arxur are known for their violent campaigns against the galaxy, and have show little qualm at the thought of eating sapients. However, they weren't always like this, and have been forced into the current state of affairs by an artificial disease that killed all their livestock and manipulation by their leaders. Furthermore, there are Arxur who are interested by Humanity's proposal for alternate, non-sapient food sources, and in improving things generally.
  • Averted for the story as a whole however. In all races, even the more hostile ones, we see a mix of good and evil characters.
• Ambiguous Situation: In chapter 39, just how much of what the Arxur prisoners said was true? While the Federation was hardly unwilling to do morally ambiguous experiments on them, as shown when they weren't fazed when their attempt to "cure" the Arxur's carnivorism ends up with all test subjects dying of malnutrition, did it really create the anti-livestock bioweapon? Or was it the Northwest Block that staged a False Flag Operation? Chief Nikonus in chapter 67 denies that the Federation killed their livestock, but the Federation's constant rewritings of history makes him a highly Unreliable Narrator.
  • Chapter 100 reveals that Nikonus was telling the truth- the Northwest Bloc unleashed the virus as an attempt to weaken their opponents in the Civil War, but ended up inadvertently infecting their own cattle as well.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Kalsim, who previously showed little qualms bombing cities on Earth, killing billions, has second thoughts killing Arjun partially due to this trope, and partially due to Wouldn't Hurt a Child (which hardly stopped him during the bombing).
• An Arm and a Leg: Tarva loses her tail in the bombing of the memorial ceremony. This is a big deal for venlils, as their tails are used for communication purpose.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: this happens at the end of the Gojid Cradle plotline. Marcel and Slanek have become our main point of view for the war against the Arxur and in this case, the Federation, when they abruptly leave for earth and Sovlin of all people becomes our primary protagonist for the war storyline with the Arxur. Sovlin's position as the primary antagonist is then taken by Kalsim.
• Antimatter: It is used in high-yield bombs made by the Arxur and the Federation.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Marcel concludes his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Sovlin in chapter 27 with one.
  Marcel: I’m proud to be human, and I wake up every morning without feeling like a total piece of shit. Can you say the same?
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Or Explosions in Space with humanity's use of nuclear weapons in orbital battle. while Downplayed due to the acknowledgement that there wouldn't be shockwaves in the vacuum of space, they were somewhat more effective than they should have been.
• "Ass" in Ambassador: Jerulim, the Krakotl ambassador, is absolutely vitriolic in his rhetoric against humanity, even suggesting to kill Noah, in spite of any Diplomatic Immunity!
  • Coji the Duerten ambassador is another example. Rude and hostile to humanity, partially because of her race's valued homogeneity in opinion; one of those opinions shared by the species is that humans are not to be liked or trusted. She works with humanity only out of pragmatism and with a bare minimum of that, too. The Duerten did show up to the Sapient Coalition meeting, but after Isif showed up and was not soundly rejected by humanity, she and the rest of the Duerten left.
• Attack Drone: A project developed by the human General Jones, a fleet of drone fighters is rolled out in time for the defense of earth. The drones are noted as having reaction speeds far superior to humans, and are able to pull off maneuvers that no human would be able to withstand the G-forces of.
• Awful Truth: Chief Nikonus reveals to Sovlin and Cilany that the Arxur are correct to think that the Federation tried to make them become Vegetarian Carnivores, horrifying Sovlin. Worse, the Arxur were merely the first failures at such a program. Successes included the Krakotl... and the Gojid.
  • The Galactic Archives reveals are partially information that we already knew, but they also tell us that the Venlil used to be strong and defiant and were weakened and humiliated on purpose, the Duerten were transformed from a society full of debate to one that valued going along with society's opinions unquestioningly, and the Thafki were allowed to almost go extinct 'in the wild' on purpose, among other things.
• Bedlam House: Federation mental health treatment is apparently like this. The only mental health diagnosis the Federation has is 'predator disease', which describes any inconvenience to society, from sociopathy to ADHD to dissent. Predator disease treatment facilities are full of torture, complete with painful electroshocks, mindnumbing drugs, shock collars, lobotomies, guards everywhere, and punishments for attempts to escape.
• Befriending the Enemy: This starts to happen with Sovlin while he is reluctantly working alongside humans in the effort to retake his homeworld, but he quickly backslides into a distrust of humans after they interrogate an Arxur prisoner and its answers don't line up with the Federation view of the Arxur. He does get over it, though, to the point that he doesn't consider humans 'the enemy' anymore.
• Buried Alive: Some of the bunkers survived the Krakotl armada bombing earth, others were destroyed, and still others, particularly the bunker where Marcel's wife and Nulia are, suffered the upper areas collapsing and sealing the occupants inside.

Call a Pegasus a "Hippogriff": The Arxur are referred to as "the grays" by the federation races, even though they're Lizard Folk rather than slender, big-headed, gray-skinned humanoids.

• The Cavalry: Two examples in a row during the Battle of Earth. The first is the Zurulian fleet coming to attack the Krakotl armada from behind. The second is the fleet under the command of Chief Hunter Isif of the Arxur.
• Characterization Marches On: Characters change as the story goes on. For example, Marcel becomes more volatile after experiencing trauma at the hands of Captain Sovlin.
• Cheerful Child: Nulia rapidly gets very attached to Marcel, and in general seems to rarely be in a bad mood.
• Childless Dystopia: Kalsim toys with the idea of subjecting Humanity to this on a backwater planet until the last one dies of old age instead of simple antimatter-induced obliteration.
• Combat Pragmatism: Carlos wins a fight against an Arxur in chapter 60 by blinding him with his flashlight.
• Comically Missing the Point: Isif, when he dismisses the Venlil as "pets" of the humans, despite knowing full well that the two parties are on equal footing. It turns out that Isif was fully aware of how humanity views the venlil, and this was a deliberate invocation of the trope in order to protect everyone involved.
• Condescending Compassion: Kalsim views predators with a particularly extreme form of this. After all, so he says, it's not their fault that they were born abominations to be slaughtered to the last!
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: As punishment for the the Farsul's genetic mutilation and cultural genocide of countless sapient species, including their attempt to "cure" the humans of carnivory, the humans literally ground the Farsul to their home planet by surrounding the planet in space debris and scattering FTL disruptors in orbit so they can never leave again.
• Crapsaccharine World: The Federation in a nutshell becomes this if you examine it from up close. In theory, it's a place where all prey species can live freely, in practice it's rife with corruption, stronger members bullying the weaker ones, the exterminators are overzealous to the point murder can go unpunished if reframed as a predator attack, a 'predator disease' diagnosis can cause everyone from sociopaths to dissidents to those with ADHD to get 'treated' by being drugged, lobotomized, or locked up in a facility indefinitely, and that's before we consider that it was built upon several total cultural genocides, not to mention the whole war with the Arxur is just another ploy by the Kolshians and Farsul to maintain their iron grip.
• Create Your Own Villain: Humanity wasn't interested in fighting the Federation species, until said species tried to attack them first. If the Gojid and the Extermination Fleet species didn't attack humans, they wouldn't have attacked them.
  • According to the Arxur, the Federation killed all of the Arxur's livestock in an effort to get them to stop eating meat. Being obligate carnivores, this didn't work, and the Arxur searched the Federation planets for replacement livestock. However, the Federation killed all of the "predators" on their planets, which includes any animal that was seen eating meat, including primarily herbivorous species. Any large non-sapient herbivorous species got wiped out as well because they were seen as both being dangerous when provoked and as competition for the food sources that the ubiquitously-herbivorous Federation members used. This means that all of the non-sapient animals the Arxur found were too small to serve as livestock. The only options for replacement livestock were the sapient Federation species. More recent information updates this, adding that the Arxur were the ones who killed all their cattle and kept their populace from finding other non-sapient livestock; however, a conversation between Nikonus and Giznel tells us that the Federation purposefully let the Arxur live so they could provide a common enemy and a means of removing unwanted species.
• Crowd Panic: Very common among Federation species, as the Federation purposefully greatly increased their fear response. Stampedes that leave many casualties and cause parents to abandon their children are considered a fairly routine occurrence.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The Gojid casualties when the Arxur invade their homeworld, being ripped apart and eaten. Really, any victims of the Arxur are likely to suffer this. Kalsim also has a close brush with one, when Arjun's father manages to get a noose around his neck. Luckily, Arjun convinces his dad to let Kalsim live.
• Culture Clash: Alien cultures are very different from human cultures. Notably, alien cultures tend to be very anti-predator, with much more internal cohesion than human cultures.
  • At one point, Slanek mentions that he found a dead rodent on a sidewalk. The response to this was school being cancelled and a curfew being established while Extermination Officers swept the area for predators. They eventually determined the rodent didn't die of predation. Tyler, one of the humans present at this reveal, mouths "What the fuck?"
  • This over the top response is contrasted with the reveal by Tarva and Recel to Noah about how the Arxur were able to blitzkrieg the Federation and establish such a significant foot-hold, despite the fact that humanity is unable to do so despite being in a relatively better position than the Arxur were: due to humanity's warlike nature, we have maintained a military into the Interstellar Age, while the Federation did not even have a basic anti-pirate force before the Arxur attacked. After all, why would you need to fight when everyone gets along?
    • A contributing factor is that the Federation species have only ever fought themselves for resources(likely during famines and after local ecological collapses), at least according to their sanitized history, whereas humans will fight over land, ideology, and anything else at the drop of a hat...
  • The UN peacekeepers Carlos and Samantha are given an explanation of the Federation's views on (non-sapient) predators in Chapter 61:
  Samantha: Well, now I see what the flamethrowers are for...
  Must you burn predators at the stake? It’s the worst way to die!
  Solvin: It cleanses the affected area. Not just of any offspring or other dens, but also any traces of their filth. I don’t want to step in fecal matter that used to be an animal…no offense.
  Cilany What if your traces and fluids get in the water supply? Or half-eaten carcasses you leave behind attract more predators? Gross.
• Darkest Hour: In chapter 49, the Krakotl armada has successfully breached Earth's defense, and starts bombing the planet. Cities are lost one after the other, and what remains of the UN and Venlil fleets are too disorganized to prevent further damage. As another Federation fleet approaches, the Terran high command considers actually surrendering, even knowing that this would probably doom mankind, when the fleet reveals itself to be friendly.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: Both sides of the Forever War between the Dominion and the Federation could easily end it, but their elites make it carry on to stay in power:
  • On the Dominion side, Betterment is keeping the population starved on purpose, and makes sure never to seek another planet with nonsapient lifeforms, so that its population remains convinced that the only possible food source is the Federation.
  • On the Federation side, the Kolshians and Farsul are actually much more powerful than the Dominion, and could easily defeat all Arxur forces, followed by Final Solution on their world, but they purposefully never muster these fleets to force the other races into compliance, as well as sometimes sacrificing some of them to keep the others in check.
• Deer in the Headlights: The apparent default response by Federation members when faced with a Human. it's usually followed by either violence, fear, or a "please don't eat us". Fortunately, it appears that exposure attenuates the effects, as the POV Venlil characters slowly get accustomed to being around Humans.
• Disproportionate Retribution: This is the standard Exterminator modus operandi: namely, all predators must burn for being predators, even if they aren't dangerous to sapients, and so must any non-predator deemed even slightly dangerous or seen eating meat even once. As Slanek remembers, something as small as a dead rodent (that didn't even die from predators) is considered to be a threat worthy of enforcing curfews and closing schools.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Kalsim, while seeming like a more reasonable antagonist than Sovlin and a Well-Intentioned Extremist, has a thought process similar to the way that the Nazis talked about and justified their actions.
• Dramatic Irony: Several such examples happen in short succession to Kalsim's crew when crashed on Earth.
  • The group first decides to put Thyon to safety from predators by lifting him up a tree. What the group hasn't realized is that they landed in India, in the middle of a tiger reserve, which are excellent climbers... to say nothing of the other predatory species found in India that are good at climbing, such as Leopards and Pythons.
  • Kalsim reasons that due to them being about a hour's worth of walking ahead of him, Arjun's father must have abandoned his stalking to fetch a vehicle, or something faster. Of course, since humans are persistence predators, Arjun's father is right on their tails, stalking them for the right moment to strike.
  • The remaining three then come across a venomous snake, and do not heed Arjun's warning that it's deadly, reasoning that since it has eyes on opposite sides, it's a harmless prey animal. Sure enough, the snake is only further aggravated, and bites Zarn, leading to him slowly dying.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In chapter 1 of the main story, Tavra remembers the Arxur shooting young Venil so that they fall into a mass grave, and stating that the Arxur mailed back pieces of Tavra's father. Later installments show that the Arxur's primary motivation is to avoid total starvation, to the point that a lower-ranking soldier was executed for wasting food by throwing it out an airlock. Shooting people to throw into a mass grave would just be wasteful to the Arxur, since they would then have to go back into the pit to eat it, as well as spit out the bullet, while mailing prey pieces of their relative would be akin to mailing sushi to a goldfish- not only is it a waste of food, it's a waste of time. The Arxur famine is actually purposefully maintained by Arxur leadership in order to maintain control, though it's unclear how wasting food like this is justified to the grunts doing it. Propaganda and cruelty being encouraged likely helps.
• Engineered Public Confession: Chief Nikonus' speech in Chapter 67, which was broadcasted to the whole of Aafa and later carried to many other Federation planets.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Prey races of the Federation view humans through a lens of "They are predators and will do anything possible to kill and eat us," ignoring clear evidence that humans tend to be more complex than that. An excellent example is when Sovlin, in an early scene, intercepts a transmission between two human pilots expressing doubts about the attack they're about to perform, and dismisses it as "They somehow know that the Gojid are listening in and staged the whole thing," despite Solvin's own people pointing out how unlikely that is.
  • It is shown that the Federation does not have a concept of actual psychology or ecology, as their psychology is only used for rooting out inconveniences to society and not so much for helping them, and their ecology is warped to fit their 'predators are evil' ideology. They are suspicious or incredulous of human versions of those concepts, even if they recognize that their lives have been filled with propaganda, since they don't have any other ideas. The individuals in the Federation who hold these views generally aren't evil, but their ideology is.
• Evil vs. Evil: The Federation-Arxur war fits this trope to a T. On our left, we have the Dominion, A Nazi by Any Other Name regime where the only food is sapient. On our right, we have the Galactic Federation, a violent People's Republic of Tyranny built upon countless cultural genocides as well as a few genetic rewritings for good measure. Oh, and both parties could end the war, but doesn't so that their power doesn't wane.
• Exact Words: Carlos gets into a fight against an Arxur in chapter 60 with the rules "No weapon, no biting". Blinding the Arxur with a flashlight, which isn't a weapon, does not violate those rules.
• The Famine: The Arxur are seen stopping in the middle of a battlefield to eat, which can be taken either as them succumbing to predatory instincts, or as them being very low on food. According to the Arxur, first contact with the Federation resulted in the Federation releasing viruses that killed all of their livestock, and giving Arxur treatments which made them incapable of eating meat. Being obligate carnivores, this resulted in widespread famine. Of course, the famine was/is caused on purpose by Arxur leadership to keep the population in line, according to Giznel. It's still a famine for the average Arxur, though.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The Federation, being solely composed of prey species, is highly aggressive against predators.
  • The Arxur, in turn, are fully willing to enslave (and eat) any species they come across, dismissing them as not really being sapients for not eating meat.
  • Among the Federation, the Yotul get little respect for being a recently uplifted species. More generally, many species have stereotypes which can cause them to be viewed negatively, such as the Venlil being weak.
• Fantastic Slurs: "Gray" is one that most herbivorous species use for the Arxur. The Arxur themselves demean herbivores by calling them "leaf-lickers".
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: It exists in this universe, in the "hyperdrive"/"warp drive" variety. Ships shift to subspace, where they can warp space around them to reach their destination faster. This also means that it is possible to intercept ships travelling at FTL speed by forcefully pulling them out of subspace.
• Feathered Fiend: The Krakotl, with their high aggressiveness against predators, certainly are this to humans. Of the named three we know off, which would be Jerulim, Jala and Kalsim, the first is an "Ass" in Ambassador, the second is a sociopath, and the third outright gives the order to Kill All Humans. Eventually subverted once we meet a helpful Krakotl character in chapter 83, as well as Luala from the Human Exterminator side story.
• The Federation: The Galactic Federation was founded during what's around the 15-16th century on Earth, and is made of 295 species and counting. However, it fits the trope in name only.
• Final Solution:
  • Has been attempted on Humanity several times already:
    • Humanity was discovered by the Federation well before their First Contact during World War II, and plans for extermination were made. However, the destructions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed by numerous nuclear tests were mistaken for a global nuclear war by the Federation, leading them to believe they wiped themselves out. Their showing up at Tavra's door was more than a little bit of a shock.
    • The Gojid start preparations for a genocide, but are defeated by a UN preemptive strike on the Cradle, their homeworld.
    • A Krakotl-led coalition of pro-extermination species amass a fleet to attack Earth against the Federation summit's resolution starting in chapter 43. The armada manages to reach Earth and breaches its UN-Venlil defense, and starts bombing major population centers with antimatter bombs, causing more than a billion victims. It ends only by the combined efforts of the Zurulian fleet and the Arxur.
  • The omnivore species found by the early Federation before the Arxur had to choose between either a total cultural genocide, complete with forced conversion to vegetarianism on top of that, or genocide period.
• First Contact: The story begins with this between Humanity and the Venlil Republic.
• First-Person Peripheral Narrator: Slanek serves as a first-person peripheral narrator for Marcel's story.
• First-Person Perspective: Every chapter is narrated by one of the protagonists.
• Flaunting Your Fleets: Two main examples: the Arxur and the Federation.
  • The Arxur certainly have a flair for the dramatic, as whenever they show up in force they bring enough ships that the Federation is always forced to retreat. Perhaps the first time that they actually show up with a significant force for them, the observers are shocked into silence by the sheer numbers.
  • The Federation ships, as noted by Kalsim, have a distinct uniformity and are all similar in appearance, as opposed to the fleet that humanity throws together, mainly composed of whatever ships they could retrofit or otherwise press into service.
• Foil: Captain Sovlin and Captain Kalsim are both antagonists who seek to Kill All Humans; however, their similarities end there. Indeed, Sovlin is shown to act irrationally, being fully blinded by his hatred of predators to the point he becomes incapable of recognizing feelings in Marcel; he ends up breaking down entirely when he realizes that humans aren't unfeeling monsters. Kalsim, meanwhile, is a rational actor: his justification for genocide isn't hate, but rather cold-blooded pragmatism; he is also utterly convinced that he is doing the right thing.
• Forever War: By the time the story begins, the Arxur-Federation War has been going on for several centuries, with no sign of stopping any time soon.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: The story starts out with two PoV characters: Tarva and Slanek, who each have their own things to deal with (along with a brief PoV from Meier.) then, with the introduction of Sovlin, the story devolves into Three Lines, Some Waiting, and at the chapter 43 mark, the story goes fully into this trope with the introduction of Kalsim. And that’s not even getting started on the canon-compliant fan stories, at least two of which seem to have been canonized.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Sovlin reveals to Marcel that his intense hatred against predators stems from him losing his family to the Arxur, but he himself admits it doesn't excuse what he did.
• Generic Federation, Named Empire: the Federation isn't ever given a name, while the Arxur group is referred to by their own members as "the Arxur Dominion".
• Godzilla Threshold: Faced with an unstoppable armada planning to wipe out Earth, Humanity has no other choice than to engage negotiations with the Arxur, even knowing that it will make all of their few allies furious.
• Good Republic, Evil Empire: At first glance, the Galactic Federation is the good guys against the much worse Arxur Dominion. However, the Federation committed countless atrocities in the past, continues to commit many more, and are openly genocidal towards humans. Worse, the Arxur Dominion was actually the victim in an attempt by the Federation to forcibly erase their culture, igniting the Arxur-Federation war.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: The Federation tried to turn the Arxur into Vegetarian Carnivores just like the omnivore races before, but since the Arxur are obligate carnivores, all test subjects starved to death. Not that it was necessarily an unwanted consequence for the Federation.
• Gone Horribly Right: The plan by the Northwest Bloc as the Federation was uplifting the Arxur was originally to reverse-engineer the viral agent used for the aforementioned gene modification into a bioweapon that would kill all livestock on the planet but theirs. Instead, it killed all the livestock on the planet, period.
• Government Conspiracy: As we learn in Chapter 67, the Kolshians and the Farsul are the two founding species of the Federation, and have conspired to wipe out any trace of omnivory or predation from every species they encounter, so they can be as useful as possible. Actions taken to accomplish this include giving all the omnivores a "cure" for their meat-eating habits, inventing anti-predator religions, and rewriting history.
• Great Offscreen War: The Satellite War was a conflict that was fought a few decades before the start of the story on Earth. Little is known about it, but it apparently involved the United States, Russia and China.
• Heel–Face Turn: Recel has one upon witnessing his captain's extended torture of Marcel. Unable to bear it, he holds Sovlin and Dr Zarn at gunpoint and stages a rescue of Marcel and Slanek. Sovlin himself later has one upon the realization of how horrible his actions were.
• Herbivores Are Friendly: Subverted. The Venlil are nice enough, but there are many other, much less friendly herbivore species, some to the point of being genocidal against humanity.
• Homeworld Evacuation: When the Arxur show up at the Gojidi cradle, Humanity is quick to start trying to evacuate the Gojid civilians.
• Hot Sub-on-Sub Action: Happens during the attack on Talsk when the submarine Sovlin is in encounters defending subs on its way to the Galactic Archives.
• Humans Are Special: Humanity is one of the only two carnivorous species known to the Federation, and the only one to be omnivorous. Unfortunately, since the other one is the Arxur, this lands Humanity in a lot of troubles. However, humans are also deeply empathetic, which allows them to prove their prey neighbors that they aren't monsters. The "only omnivorous" part is eventually proven to be false: there used to be a lot more, but they got converted by the Federation.
• Hyperspeed Escape: Averted Trope with the subspace FTL method employed in this universe. ships leave trails behind them and can be detected by sensors, as well as the fact that they must remain stationary for several minutes while the drives activate.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: Chief Hunter Isif dismisses Meier's fear that the Arxur will double-cross and kill Humanity by saying that they already knew of Earth prior to Humanity reaching the stars. Had they wanted to Kill All Humans, they'd have done it then.
• Interspecies Romance: Noah become Tarva's lover in the aftermath of the terrorist plot arc.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Humans are often referred to as "it" by antagonists such as Sovlin or Kalsim. In particular, in chapter 55, Zarn almost kills Arjun, the child they're using as hostage, just for objecting to being called so. In chapter 58, we see a mutual example between Isif the Arxur and Slanek the Venlil, both referring to the other as "it".
• It's Personal: Sovlin has a massive vendetta against the Arxur, and predators in general.
• It's Raining Men: The U.N. forces deploy paratroopers as part of their assault on the Gojidi Cradle World, as a way to bypass the heavy anti-air defences.
• Just Following Orders: Kalsim seems to use this excuse for himself a lot, that he has been given a good mission and that there is no other way forward. Never mind that he's the one in command at the moment so all the orders are ones that he has issued...
• Karma Houdini: Very strongly implied by one of Kalsim's PoVs where he recalls how he once saw the eviscerated body of an elderly krakotl, which was concluded to be the result of a predator attack and incinerated. However, the fact that the body wasn't consumed, that this happened within a city and most importantly that the predator was never found despite an intense hunt paints a completely different picture: it was a murder, that the perpetrator successfully framed as a predator attack.
• Kill All Humans: See Final Solution. Attempted at several points in the story, but none come closer from succeeding than Captain Kalsim, who manages to kill more than a billion humans before being stopped.
• Kill the Cutie: Zarn and Jala seem determined to do this to Arjun.
• Kill It with Fire: A favored method of Extermination Officers, both against predatory animal nests by dousing them in gasoline and against the predators themselves using flamethrowers. Disturbingly, they seem to consider this a mercy.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Humans extensively use slugthrowers in combat, as seen in chapter 72. This is normally inefficient against shielded vessels, but the UN arsenal includes shield-piercing projectiles, allowing the guns to score massive damage.
• Knight Templar: Captain Kalsim is absolutely convinced that attempting to genocide humanity is righteous and must be done.
• Lack of Empathy: Jala, being a sociopath, has no semblant of empathy. As such, as Zarn lays slowly dying from a venomous snake bite, Jala cold-bloodedly kills him for slowing the group. Then she prepares to do the same to Arjun…
• Laser-Guided Karma: Against Kalsim. You want to nuke the Earth? Fine then, but now you're gonna crash-land in India, in the middle of a tiger reserve.
• The Leader: Slanek is literally the only PoV character that has never qualified as this.
  • Tarva is the governer over the Venlil Republic
  • Meier is the UN Secretary-General when we first meet him
  • Sovlin was a captain within the Federation space fleet, and was at one point the commander of an armada sent out to respond to Venlil Prime's distress signal
  • Kalsim was the leader of a massive joint-forces fleet sent to try and wipe out humanity.
• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • A favorite doctrine of Kalsim and Jala. Somewhat deconstructed in that all those missiles expended at the smallest ambush are missing when the time comes to defend the fleet against the Arxur.
  • Humanity one-ups it during the Battle of Earth with a series of nuclear missile barrages.
• Mama Bear: Glim gets thrown out of a bar after making bigoted remarks about the bartender's soon-to-be-adopted human son.
  “How dare you speak like that about my son! You’re disgusting. Get the fuck out of my bar.”
• Meaningful Echo: Sovlin at one point answers to two vastly different situations, albeit ones with a similar threat to himself, with the exact same line. Lampshaded as he recognizes the irony within his words.
  "Fire away. You wouldn't dare."
  Line spoken by Sovlin in chapter 4, and later in chapter 66
• The Medic: The Zurulians are mainly known for a specialization in medical technologies, with the vast majority of them that we have seen being doctors, and most of their spacefaring vessels being medical ships.
• Mission Control: We see numerous characters winding up in this role, such as generals Kam and Jones, Marcel, and Slanek.
• Moment Killer: In chapter 105, Noah and Tarva try to kiss, but are interrupted by Glim who thinks Noah is eating her face.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Zarn. Despite being a Federation medical officer, he is shown to take great pleasure in Sovlin's torture of Marcel, and once wrote an ethics paper on how the extermination of humanity was the Federation's 'moral duty'.
• Murder by Inaction: Taken to its Logical Extreme to Final Solution by inaction by the Federation leaders to the Thafki, who due to being partially aquatic had a heightened chance to discover the Galactic Archives and the Government Conspiracy it contained. As a result, when the Arxur attacked their homeworld, the Federation ignored any call for help.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After his actions end up getting his homeworld invaded, and seeing that he was wrong thinking that Humans are monsters, captain Sovlin decides to surrender himself to them.
• Nature Is Not Nice: The Federation has a warped understanding of this, being ignorant of many real world ecological concepts. They see predators as a blight on the universe that will expand/breed explosively, as opposed to a stabilising influence on the local ecosystem that usually have lower birth rates than their prey. To them, nature is something to be mastered not accommodated and anything other than a peaceful herbivore is an evolutionary mistake, seeing how nature is as how it should not be. The truth, that predators are a vital part of nature and that an ecosystem is meant to be 'red in tooth and claw', is seen at best as junk science, and at worst as the rantings of an Evilutionary Biologist or a Religion of Evil.
  • Kalsim reveals that the main/only religion of the Krakotl explicitly regards predators as being created by the God of Evil. After having landed in a tiger/wildlife reserve in India, he interprets it as a place for humans to worship violence and predation, and even after talking with Arjun, he is unable to comprehend preserving a predatory species for altruistic reasons.
  • Later, the group encounters a venomous snake (likely a cobra). Despite Arjun's fear, the Federation soldiers believe it to be a prey animal (which, while technically true, the Feds see as synonymous with herbivore). This eventually results in the death of both Zarn and Jala.
• Noble Demon: Chief Hunter Isif is fair in his negotiations, backs his word, proposes to give the humans an extra delay to fulfill their bargain to deal with the immense damage Earth suffered, and is secretly willing to broker a permanent peace between the Arxur and prey species by finding alternate food sources.
• Non P.O.V. Protagonist: Most of the human protagonists, such as Noah and Marcel, are denied any POV chapters. UN Secretary-General Meier does get some PoV chapters, but they are sparse compared to the others and Tarva takes priority over him during any scenes that they share.
• Nuke 'em: Used liberally by Humanity during the battle of Earth against the extermination fleet. By the end of the battle, the tens-of-thousands-strong warhead reserve of Earth has been all but depleted. Also used liberally by the few extermination fleet ships that manage to make it through, just with antimatter warheads instead of fission/fusion warheads.
• Odd Friendship: Isif befriends Felra, a Dossur, on a federation Internet chat. After meeting him for real, while she is scared of the Arxur, she decides to stick with him, knowing that there is more to Isif than his species, and that he's not actually evil. She even helps him when he starts his rebellion against the Dominion.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Tarva lost her daughter to an Arxur gas attack that left her brain-dead and forced Tarva to Mercy Kill her by ordering her life support unplugged.
  • Sovlin, whose entire family was killed in an Arxur raid, while he was on a video call with them. This led to him utterly hating the Arxur, and predators in general.
• Outranking Your Job: Marcel is an inverted example in that he keeps getting involved in matters that would be far above his rank - Word of God says that he's probably a captain - what with him taking part in coordinating defensive efforts when earth is attacked. Granted, he doesn't do too much that would require specialized knowledge and training, so it seems more like humanity's leadership is keeping him close for PR purposes.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Marcel gets fiercely protective of Nulia, the Gojid child he adopts.
  • After Kalsim's crew kidnaps Arjun, his father starts stalking the group, to strike at the first chance. When a shootout ends with Jala and Zarn dead, he strikes at Kalsim, who is lucky that Arjun pleaded to spare him, or else he'd have been hung by the furious man.
• Parting-Words Regret: Sovlin shows extreme regret about the fact that his last conversation with his protégé and second in command Recel prior to the events of The Arxur's arrival on the Gojidi Cradle, where Recel and Slanek's statements about humanity are proven right, was sour.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: While it was already known to have genocidal tendancies early on, the Galactic Federation reveals itself to be more and more of one as the story goes on. It is shown to be totalitarian, with undesirables being branded as having "Predator Disease", and its Forever War against the Dominion is actually just another way for its elites to stay in power.
• Planet of Hats: There are several possibilities, but the one that sticks most is the Zurulians, who are most known for medical skill. All Zurulian characters that we have met have been affiliated with medical practice in some way.
  • Fans have also suggested the hat that humanity wears as being "space druids" since the Federation have largely wrecked their environments and display a notable lack of understanding of basic ecology.
  • The Arxur wear one of "Sapient-eating Proud Warrior Race Fascists," but it should be noted that this is a combination of being forced into that role by factors beyond their control, and an oppressively powerful state security apparatus.
  • The Galactic Archives raid reveals that the Federation pushes species into 'hats' during the uplift process, so they can serve specific purposes, such as the Zurulians being medicine-oriented and the Krakotl and Gojid being military species.
• Please Keep Your Hat On: Humanity with the Federation. The species of the Federation, being prey species with side facing eyes, consider front-placed eyes to be a mark of a carnivorous predator, and as such feel fear whenever a human looks at them or smiles (the Federation species also convey emotion via tails or ear twitches, so they just view human smiles as hungry snarls). Hence, it is quickly decided to make a covering for the mouth and eyes, which all humans that aren't on earth are encouraged to wear as much as possible.
• Powder Keg Crowd: An anti-alien human crowd is demonstrating outside the remembrance ceremony building in chapter 63. It starts peacefully, but a terrorist strike against the ceremony causes all hell to break loose, with a riot starting and a protester fatally shooting Meier.
• Precision F-Strike: Applies to Tarva in chapter 46, when she finally looks an Arxur in the eyes and manages to stand up to it.
  Tarva: “F-fuck you, scaly wretch. I hope you rot in a furnace.”
• Predators Are Mean: The Federation believes all predators to be so and, to be fair, the Arxur can't be exactly called angels with their To Serve Man tendencies and all. However, not only is the Federation hardly nicer, but the Arxur's behavior may be the Federation's fault. The Arxur are the threat to the Federation that they are due to a combination of manipulation by their leadership and permission from the Federation elite, so they could reinforce anti-predator propaganda, provide a common enemy, and take out unwanted species.
• Proud Warrior Race: Prior to being indoctrinated by the Federation, the Venlil were actually a combative species with a honor culture. The Federation destroyed their natural defenses and broke their spirit by gaslighting them into believing themselves to be weak.
• Ramming Always Works:
  • It doesn't work half bad in chapter 47 against the Krakotl fleet. It helps that the "ships" that do the ramming are asteroids equipped with FTL drives...
  • A more straightforwards example happens in chapter 75 when a UN ship rams a Farsul vessel.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: UN Secretary-General Elias Meier. His primary goal at all times is to protect humanity and try to bring an end to the bloodshed so that he people can exist safely alongside the Federation.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Marcel gives an excellent one to Sovlin following the latter's surrender to humanity.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Many federation species fall somewhere on the small cute and fluffy spectrum. the venlil are essentialy lamb-puppies, the dossur are mouse-sized rodents, and the Zurulians are explicitly compared to teddy bears. All three of these species tend to evoke nurturing instincts in humans, with Baby Talk and petting ensuing in short order.
• La Résistance: Isif, encouraged by the UN, eventually decides to go rogue against the Dominion to pursue an end to its cruelty.
• Scam Religion: As of Chapter 67, we know that the Krakotl and Gojid religions were invented by the Kolshians/Farsul in order to control them better and distance them from their omnivorous roots. Other anti-predator religions were also likely invented for the same purpose.
• The Sociopath: The Federation views predators as being these, to the point that they call a lack of empathy and/or fear "Predator disease" and immediately distrust anyone that fits those criteria.
  Thyon: “Captain, answer me honestly. Does Jala have Predator Disease?”
  Kalsim: “That terminology is ignorant; predators do feel fear. Jala is an asset that I have under control. She knows I’m the only thing stopping her from being thrown in a deep, dark hole.”
  Thyon: “I don’t believe for a second that predators feel anything…but she has more in common with them, either way. How can you trust her not to side with them?”
• Sociopathic Soldier: Jala shows many of the hallmarks of this trope, being positively giddy at the thought of exterminating Humanity.
• The So-Called Coward: Venlils are often dismissed as cowardly by the rest of the Federation; however, many of them prove a lot braver than other races would think. As such, they are willing to see past their prejudice towards predators despite being initially terrified of humans, defy the rest of the Federation to protect them, or even join strength with the Humans against the extermination armada, despite knowing that the fight is virtually hopeless.
• Spoiler Opening: The "Memory Transcription Subject" line at the beginning of each chapter spoils that the character should wind up surviving long enough to have their memories transcribed after the events of the story. This is Subverted Trope in the case of UN secretary-general Elias Meier, whose death is revealed in chapter 68, along with the fact that a brain scan was conducted shortly after his death by a group of xenophobic Venlil in order to figure out what separates the "good" humans from the "bad" humans.
• State Sec: The federation's exterminator forces tick many of the boxes for this, with better equipment than normal soldiers in the form of flamethrowers and fireproof gear, as well as some autonomy from the government and official military (though in the latter case most of the high-ranking members of the Federation's military forces appear to be former exterminators, such as with Kalsim).
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Glim, an Extermination Officer, escapes from the hospital in chapter 81, after being rescued from Arxur captivity. Chapter 82 is a conga-line of culture shock as he wanders through the Venlil capital city, now fully accepting of humanity, culminating in the Mama Bear incident above.
• Stunned Silence: Kalsim, upon the arrival of reinforcements for humanity in the form of Isif's sector fleet. Upon the realization of who they are this quickly transitions into Oh, Crap! and Deer in the Headlights.
  Comms technician: "Sir, more unknown ships incoming! There’s…"
  Kalsim: "Where from? How many? Speak!"
  Comms technician: "T-thousands. The subspace trails are from all over the place…"
• Summon Bigger Fish: As the Krakotl-led armada grows ever closer to Earth, the UN organizes an expedition to Arxur space to inform them that Krakotl territory is undefended, in the hopes that they will turn around and defend their territory. It fails, as Kalsim pleads for a Taking You with Me, but the Arxur decide to come to Earth's rescue instead, turning the tide of the battle.
• Super-Persistent Predator: humanity, but make sure not to tell the Federation that. They're scared enough by humans as it is.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Kalsim is this to Sovlin, becoming the new anti-human viewpoint character shortly after Sovlin turns himself over to the UN.
• Switching P.O.V.: Many different characters, such as Tarva or Sovlin, have their own P.O.V. chapters in the story.
• Taking You with Me: When the UN broadcasts to the Krakotl-led armada that they informed the Arxur of the vulnerability of the Krakotl homeworld, Kalsim claims that it must be a bluff, as even thought he doesn't believe it to be, he thinks that exterminating humanity is worth the sacrifice of his world. Later, as it becomes clear to Kalsim that the Battle of Earth is lost for the Federation after a massive fleet of Arxur vessels enter the Solar System, blocking any retreat, Kalsim orders all remaining ships to charge forwards, to launch as many antimatter bombs on Earth as possible before being destroyed.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Isif is willing to help humanity following the battle at earth, and while the humans are strongly opposed to the idea of accepting aid from the Arxur due to the whole eating sapients thing and the fact that it will strain their other alliances, they don't have much of a choice.
• Teleport Interdiction: The subspace drives used leave trails behind them that can be detected on sensors and certain machines can create a pulse that forces ships back into realspace.
• There Are No Therapists: Not in the Federation, anyway. Solvin clearly has undiagnosed PTSD after witnessing the death of his family, and Jala's "Predator Disease" is just a violent form of sociopathy that has gone untreated. In fact, most forms of mental illness, neurodivergence or dissent in the Federation are branded under the umbrella term of "Predator Disease" to be at best gentled using chemical treatment, and at worst spend the rest of their days in a Bedlam House.
• Tidally Locked Planet: Venlil Prime, which is the exoplanet Gliese 832 c. Also cue Big Dumb Object for the orbital infrastructures deployed by Venlil scientists in additions to smaller scale measures that expanded the habitable regions of the planet, including atmospheric aerosols and an artificial cloud cover. this can be looked at as terraforming efforts, if not for Sovlin's statement that Venlil Prime was actually more habitable than some of the Federation's colony worlds.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Sovlin is devastated to learn that the Gojids were originally omnivores that were 'cured' by the Federation. He's not the only one, though- and many other races are still trying to figure out how to fit this fact into their worldview.
• Too Dumb to Live: Zarn. He thinks that a venomous snake is a harmless prey animal due to having eyes on the sides of its head, approaches it despite Arjun's complete terror when faced by the snake, and then gets bitten. Then he refuses to trust Arjun when he says that the only way he'll survive is by getting to human medics. It's almost a mercy when Jala puts a bullet through his head.
• Translator Microbes: The Federation has developed a means of instant translation, which seems to be capable of bridging any language barriers between sapients; however, its nature is never elaborated upon within the story.
  • Word of God is that the translators are implant based and opt for semantic rather than literal translation, thereby minimizing the risk of a point not being understood. It is also noted that the translators have a language database that is compiled using machine learning algorithms to decipher languages, hence why the aliens can speak English.
• Trauma Conga Line: Sovlin seemingly only goes from one disaster to another, each one further damaging him emotionally. To behold: he lost his entire family to the Arxur, after torturing Marcel, he gets betrayed by his disgusted second-in-command Recel, whom he considered like a son, the resulting war against the Humans culminates in much of the Cradle's population being slaughtered by the Arxur, and he realizes how terrible his actions were, resulting him to surrender himself to the humans in shame. Then he finds out that what he knew about the Arxur was lies, Earth gets attacked by the Extermination Armada forcing him to flee again, he learns Recel was killed by the Federation before being able to reconciliate with him, and to top it all off as he tries to prevent a war of annihilation between the Humans and the Federation, he learns that the Gojids used to be predators, too.
• To Serve Man: The Arxur preys upon any other sapient species in the galaxy. This is due to them getting any and all native livestock and even the potential usable non-sapient alien replacement food sources decimated, in an attempt by the Northern Bloc to seize total power that has Gone Horribly Right and killed all livestock on the planet. Some Arxur, however, such as High Chief Isif, think that this situation cannot last and want to find alternate, non-sapient food sources.
• The Unfettered: Kalsim is a Downplayed example of this. While he does acknowledge his hypocrisy and shows remorse for some of his actions, he steadfastly refuses to change his belief that Humanity must be exterminated.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Claimed by the Federation, as when they colonize a planet they routinely wipe out all predators. And opportunistic omnivores. And animals with eyes to the fronts of their heads... How have they not suffered a complete environmental collapse yet?
• The Victim Must Be Confused: After the Venlil suddenly shut down any and all contact with the Federation after a distress signal, and Marcel being captured by Sovlin, it never occurs to the latter that Governor Tarva didn't shut down communications with the Federation after her contact with humans because she genuinely wanted to protect the Humans, not because she was threatened.
• Vegetarian Carnivore:
  • Marcel, being a human vegetarian, is this in the eyes of aliens.
  • An attempt to make the Arxur into these went horribly wrong because the Arxur are obligate carnivores and hence cannot go vegetarian. All those who were made unable to eat meat died, which is implied to be what the experimenters intended to happen...
  • Prior to that, there were the Gojid and the Krakotl who were successfully made into this, as both were originally omnivores.
• Villainous Breakdown: After Shaza realises she has been tricked and lost her entire sector, she has this to say to humans:
  “You irreverent grass-munchers really fucked up now! How dare you destroy Dominion assets?! I’m going to burn this fucking planet to the ground! Since you killed my food, I’m going to make a cattle farm solely of humans to replace it! That will put you back in your fucking place! You will regret this.”
• Villainous BSoD: Sovlin has a severe one in chapter 26, after seeing humans save civilians even in the midst of the Arxur invasion of the Cradle, and comes to realize how evil he was against Marcel. He openly weeps, considers taking his own life, and finally settles to surrender himself to the humans.
• Villainous Rescue: is there any other way to describe Isif showing up at earth with an Arxur battle fleet and a promise to help humanity beat back the Extermination fleet?
• War Is Hell: The invasion of the Cradle by the UN fleet is an ugly affair, especially since the sight of predators makes the Gojid crowds panic in massive stampedes that leave behind thousands of dead, children included. And then the Arxur attack...
• Watching Troy Burn: Sovlin witnessed his family die while he was unable to do anything, and the defense fleet over earth can't do anything but watch as the Extermination Fleet drops their bombs.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kalsim, who seems to genuinely believe that his actions are for the good of the many, even though all that he’s accomplishing is to turn humanity against the Federation.
• We Need a Distraction: During the battle of Talsk, the UN clears the way to the Galactic Archives by deorbiting Talsk's moon and forcing the defending fleet to re-orbit it.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 39: We finally see the point of view of an Arxur, who explains that the Federation is at least partially responsible for the Arxur-Federation War.
  • Chapter 48: The Battle of Earth starts, with its defenders facing overwhelming odds. The defenses end up being breached, and the extermination of Humanity begins.
  • Chapter 67: Not only did the Federation actually make the Arxur allergic to meat as the Arxur said, it is confirmed they did so to several Federation species before, including the Krakotl and Gojids. Reporter Cilany, along with Sovlin, records Chief Nikonus, whithout him realizing, admitting that his species, the Kolshians, along with the Farsul, actively planned this, starting with the Krakotl, and would have wiped them out had they refused to commit to herbivorism, as they would have done with any other species doing the same, used cultural and and religious propaganda to make sure they fanatically supported anti-predator actions and, along with large scale censorship and historical revisionism, to hide all of these acts, while admitting he would be willing to resort to murder to keep them hidden. The recording was being broadcast live.
  • Chapter 100: The Federation-Arxur war is revealed to be kept a Forever War on purpose by both parties so that they may continue to rule.
• Would Hurt a Child: Zig-Zagged with Kalsim, to an almost absurd degree. While he refuses to allow Arjun to die - even executing Jala when he is faced with making the decision of which one will live, he fully believes that adult predators are unstable and dangerous, and therefore the "pups" must be exterminated before they can reach that stage. Played completely straight with Jala and Zarn, however, who hardly have such qualms.
• Xenophobic Herbivore: The Federation is comprised of herbivores that are afraid of predators, and many see predatory life as something which must be wiped out. In addition to being xenophobic towards Humans and Arxur, the species in the Federation have killed off almost all of the non-sapient predators on the worlds they inhabit, including primarily herbivorous animals that were once seen eating meat.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: This was Chief Nikonus' original plan to deal with Humanity: first make them fight the Arxur to weaken them, then either they get wiped out or they are weakened by the ordeal, making them much easier to clean up. At least, he says that was his original plan.