History Literature / Chrysalis

->''"Humanity once looked up to the stars with hope. We were fools. The stars are where monsters live. They came without warning. They didn't stop until all of humanity was destroyed. For decades I've mourned. But the time for mourning is over, now it's time for vengeance. No longer will we fear what lies among the stars. Today, the stars will learn to fear us."''

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: {{Deconstructed}}. All alien races seen on the story seem to be very conservative about how they use technology to improve their minds and bodies, limiting themselves to pretty much just translators and augmented reality implants. Powerful AIs are also explicitly banned by Galactic Law. This ultimately proves to be a massive disadvantage when they go to war against the Terran, who is very much an aversion of this trope and is therefore able to wipe the floor with them.

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: All alien races seen on the story seem to be very conservative about how they use technology to improve their minds and bodies. For example, in regards to cybernetic implants, more advanced ones like Daokat's race are still limited to retinal displays and translators, whereas backwater ones like the Xunvirians have more or less nothing. This is implied to be a direct result of powerful AIs being banned by Galactic Law. Doesn't work however once the Terran, an aversion of this trope, enters the scene and wipes the floor with his alien enemies.

* {{Transhuman}}: Being an uploaded consciousness, the Terran qualifies by default. [[spoiler:His creations, the Terrans, however, are in a little more of a grey area. They are AIs, and were never human to begin with, but nonetheless are [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot programmed to act exactly as humans would]] and are intended to be the successors of humanity]].

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: All alien races seen on the story seem to be very conservative about how they use technology to improve their minds and bodies. For example, in regards to cybernetic implants, more advanced ones like Daokat's race are still limited to retinal displays and translators, whereas backwater ones like the Xunvirians have more or less nothing. This is implied to be a direct result of powerful AIs being banned by Galactic Law. RealityEnsues once the Terran, an aversion of this trope, enters the scene and wipes the floor with his alien enemies.

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: All alien races seen on the story seem to be very conservative about how they use technology to improve their minds and bodies. For example, in regards to cybernetic implants, more advanced ones like Daokat's race are still limited to retinal displays and translators, whereas backwater ones like the Xunvirians have more or less nothing. This is implied to be a direct result of powerful AIs being by Galactic Law. RealityEnsues once the Terran, an aversion of this trope, enters the scene and wipes the floor with his alien enemies.

* Transhuman: Being an uploaded consciousness, the Terran qualifies by default. [[Spoiler:His creations, the Terrans, however, are in a little more of a grey area. They are AIs, and were never human to begin with, but nonetheless are [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot programmed to act exactly as humans would]] and are intended to be the successors of humanity]].

* OhCrap: when Daokat and Nakstani pay a visit to Yovit knowing it'll most likely be the site for the next Terran attack, they do so thinking they're in to watch a mild skirmish between two backwater alien races. As soon as the Terran's mothership comes out of the warp tunnel, the sheer, utterly unprecedented size of it is enough for both to realize what they just got themselves into.

* WasOnceAMan: The Terran is aware from their "birth" that they were once human, complete with memories as a human. The Terran has a contradictory relationship with their humanity throughout the story, making design and military decisions that are intended to preserve their humanity sometimes at the cost of effectiveness, yet during times when they realize they've inadvertently behaved more like a machine, they usually don't seem too bothered by it in the end.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: The DUST audio adaptation removes the final chapter of the original story, which [[spoiler:depicts humanity and what remains of the Terran choosing to rebuild Earth for a better, more peaceful future]]. The audio play leaves off with Daokat concluding that [[spoiler:Thomas the android was lying about the Terran being dead, with a tone that is far more ominous and suggests that the Terran and/or the humans as a whole might be considering continuing the war in the future]].

* GenderFlip: In the DUST audio adaptation, the Terran is voiced by Matt Wolf and is [[AllThereInTheManual referred to in episode descriptions with masculine pronouns]], although the text of the story is not altered to match this; everybody else calls the Terran an "it", or carefully avoids using pronouns at all. In the original text, this served to foreshadow the reveal [[spoiler:that the Terran is made up of the incomplete brain scans of 5 different researchers, both men and women, and thus has no gender - or even a name]]. This reveal is absent on the adaptation, however.

* AmnesiacHero: Played with; the Terran actually has lots of memories of their life as a human, but they don't always make sense and sometimes even contradict each other. It makes them feel a bit like they're losing their mind, so they try not to examine their memories in much detail, [[spoiler:which serves as a clue as to the Terran's true nature]].

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: The DUST audio adaptation removes the final chapter of the original story, which [[spoiler:depicts humanity and what remains of the Terran choosing to rebuild Earth for a better, more peaceful future]]. The audio play leaves off with Daokat concluding that [[spoiler:Thomas the android was lying about the Terran being dead, which a tone that is far more ominous and suggests that the humans might be considering continuing the war in the future]].

* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The final chapter reveals that [[spoiler:the human-minded robots the Terran created for their army have recolonized the Earth and]] built themselves hairless android bodies with BarbieDollAnatomy. A popular way these androids adorn themselves, in lieu of hairstyles or clothing, is by changing the color of their normally white, shiny plastic skin to various patterns.

* TheUnfettered: The Terran's one and only aim is to avenge the destruction of Earth and humanity, and the only thing that (theoretically) fetters them is a desire to remain 'human', which to them means not using their BrainUploading-induced state to cheat death. This does absolutely nothing to prevent them from killing millions upon millions of Xunvirans, and it falls apart completely when [[spoiler:the Xunvir get over their initial shock and nearly bring the Terran to the brink of death in battle]].

* OhCrap: when Daokat and Nakstani pay a visit to the Xunvir farming colony knowing it'll most likely be the site for the next Terran attack, they do so thinking they're in to watch no more than a mild skirmish from the safety of the planet. As soon as the Terran's mothership comes out of the warp tunnel, the sheer, utterly unprecedented size of it is enough for both to realize what they just got themselves into.

* NuclearOption: while the other alien races avoid using nuclear weapons close to inhabited planets for fear of causing harmful [=EMPs=] and escalating conflicts, the Terran has no such qualms. His use of nuclear kamikaze drones in the battle of Yovit alone was so severe, people in the planer could see massive auroras across the horizon; and that was before he started nuking the planet itself, mind you.

* BrainUploading: The Terran WasOnceAMan, complete with memories from their time as a biological human, and their brain is stored in a server array. These memories are very hazy and imprecise, however, as the brain scanning technology used to create the Terran wasn't optimal [[spoiler:and couldn't make a scan without missing huge chunks of the brain. The brain of 5 researchers had to be scanned and then joined together Frankenstein-style to create a functioning individual.]]

* BrainUploading: The Terran WasOnceAMan, complete with memories from their time as a biological human, and their brain is stored in a server array. [[spoiler:The catch, though, is that since the brain scanning technology used to create the Terran was still incomplete and couldn't make a scan without missing huge chunks of the brain, the brain of 5 researchers had to be scanned and then joined together Frankenstein-style to create a functioning individual.]]

* NuclearOption: while the other alien races avoid using nuclear weapons close to inhabited planets for fear of causing harmful EMPs and escalating conflicts, the Terran has no such qualms. His use of nuclear torpedo drones in the battle of Yovit alone was so severe, people in the planer could see massive auroras across the horizon; and that was before he started nuking the planet itself, mind you.

* GenderFlip: In the DUST audio adaptation, the Terran is voiced by Matt Wolf and is [[AllThereInTheManual referred to in episode descriptions with masculine pronouns]], although the text of the story is not altered to match this; everybody else calls the Terran an "it", or carefully avoids using pronouns at all. In the original text, this served to foreshado the reveal [[spoiler:that the Terran is made up of the incomplete brain scans of 5 different researchers, both men and women, and thus has no gender - or even a name]]. This reveal is absent on the adaptation, however.

* BrainUploading: The Terran WasOnceAMan, complete with memories from their time as a biological human, and their brain is stored in a server array.

* GenderFlip: In the DUST audio adaptation, the Terran is voiced by Matt Wolf and is [[AllThereInTheManual referred to in episode descriptions with masculine pronouns]], although the text of the story is not altered to match this; everybody else calls the Terran an "it", or carefully avoids using pronouns at all. Going by the original text, the Terran has an AmbiguousGender at most.

* CyberneticsWillEatYourSoul: The Terran sets certain limits upon itself, such as using humanoid robot soldiers instead of the more practical insect-like ones, out of fear it might lose its humanity if it gets too comfortable with its new mechanical nature. This trope is ultimately subverted, though, because what was ''really'' eating the Terran's soul was its desire for revenge.