History Literature / LucifersStar

* TheRedBaron: The Fire Count is a name for Cassius. It's notably also a direct homage since he's an {{Expy}} for the original Red Baron. Cassius, however, survived his war and went on to see what his country became.

* SpaceCossacks: Earth is implied to have been destroyed in some unspecified calamity and the human race has scattered across the universe. It happened ''again'' with the Great Collapse and subsequent Great Galactic Dark Age where humanity's various tribes were cut off from one another due to a failure of all jumpspace navigation tools initiated by A.I. As such, there's now thirteen sectors worth of several thousand human colonies with dramatically different cultures as well as their own colonies.
** SpacePeople: A lot of people also choose to live on space stations or starships full time. The ''Melampus'' is stated to be a fifty-year-old ship where a quarter of the crew were born and raised. Drugs and genetic treatments are used to make sure this doesn't lead to bone or muscle problems.

* CultColony: How Crius was originally founded. A group of individuals who believed Lucifer was actually Jesus
settled the nation. [[spoiler: It's also revealed the Chel were another group of the same colonists who went on to settle an asteroid belt instead.]]

* MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness: All over the place. It seems to be a SpaceOpera with swords, starfighters, faster than light travel, and SufficientlyAdvancedAlien beings but then it throws in the occasional bit of realism like how gravity in starships works, as well as the long-term effects of zero gravity.

* AdaptationalSexuality: InUniverse. Cassius' wingman, Hans Nakamora, had a VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory action flick made about him. Ida praises the romance elements in the film, but Cassius is not amused by this, pointing out that he knew the genuine article very well, and that the real life Hans was {{asexual|ity}}.

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Crius' nobility plotted against one another fairly brutally if Cassius' house was any example. His father and mother hated each other so much that Cassius Senior cloned himself to deny his children with his wife their inheritance. She then tried to have Cassius Junior killed. Both also tried to play the children against one another in hopes they'd kill the offending party off. There's also professional duels to keep things civil.

* AbusiveParents: Cassius the Elder was verbally and physically abusive to his son but always managed to portray it as trying to toughen him up for the DeadlyDecadentCourt of Crius. Eventually, it becomes a deadly rivalry.

* SexSlave: This is the role for many bioroids and they're often customized to personal kinks like the future's equivalent to ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'' or ''Literature/HarryPotter''. This is played for BlackComedy as Cassius finds it horrifying once he realizes they're fully sentient.

* BiTheWay: Isla and Clarice are bisexual. It's implied to be quite normal in the future.

''Lucifer's Star'' is a SpaceOpera ScienceFiction series by Creator/CTPhipps and Michael Suttkus. Cassius Mass was the greatest star pilot of the Crius Archduchy. He fought fiercely for his cause, only to watch his nation fall to the Commonwealth. It was only afterwards that he realized the side he'd been fighting for was the wrong one. Now a semi-functional navigator on an interstellar freight hauler, he tries to hide who he was and escape his past. Unfortunately, some things refuse to stay buried and he ends up conscripted by the very people who destroyed his homeland.

Cassius Mass was the greatest star pilot of the Crius Archduchy. He fought fiercely for his cause, only to watch his nation fall to the Commonwealth. It was only afterwards that he realized the side he'd been fighting for was the wrong one. Now a semi-functional navigator on an interstellar freight hauler, he tries to hide who he was and escape his past. Unfortunately, some things refuse to stay buried and he ends up conscripted by the very people who destroyed his homeland.

''Lucifer's Star'' is a SpaceOpera ScienceFiction series by Creator/CTPhipps and Michael Suttkus. The first novel, which the series takes its name, was released on October 13, 2016.

The sequel, ''Lucifer's Nebula'' was released January 5, 2018.

* CultColony: How Crius was originally founded. A group of individuals who believed Lucifer was actually Jesus settled the nation. [[spoiler: It's also revealed the Chel were another group of the same colonists who went on to settle an asteroid belt instead.]]

* SchizoTech: The Great Crash and resulting Galactic Dark Age means that some human worlds are Medieval and others CrystalSpiresAndTogas utopias.

* UsedFuture: The Great Crash and the Galatic Dark Age has resulted in a CrystalSpiresAndTogas future degenerating into something more akin to this. Technology is still frighteningly advanced but beaten up, badly maintained, and mostly used to make money for its users. There's also a SchizoTech element as the availability of technology is sharply divided among worlds as well as the super-rich.

** The Chel consider all non-augmented people to be disgusting and are even more extreme in their views than the Crius nobility. It turns out NOT to apply to the Crius aristocrats themselves, though, which gives the defeated fellow Transhuman an ally no one expected.

* TheFederation: The Commonwealth of Interstellar Systems claims to be this but is actually somewhere between TheEmpire and a HegemonicEmpire.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Cognition A.I. a.k.a those AI who have unlimited potential to grow are outlawed to the point of ColonyDrop attempts on any worlds that construct them. This is due to the fact humanity entered a galactic dark age after becoming dependent on them and getting betrayed by them. It is now believed all of them are AlwaysChaoticEvil by nature with even Limited A.I. hated as a necessary evil. [[spoiler: This is averted by Judith who reveals the original revolt was due to the Elder Races as a way to screw with humanity.]]

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Averted. Religion is alive and well in the 82nd century and while we don't see any recognizable religions, they're all descended from existing real-life religions like the Church of Lucifer or Shogun Buddhist animism.

** Made more explicit by [[spoiler: the setting's AbusivePrecursors in the Elder Races who refer to themselves as the Aristocracy and consider lesser races fair game to abuse at will.''

* OurDarkMatterIsMysterious: The universe has a second dimension called Jumpsapce. It is a mysterious dimension which underlines everything else. It is full of bizarre alien entities, sanity blasting visuals, and weird gravitonic anomolies.

Cassius Mass was the greatest star pilot of the Crius Archduchy. He fought fiercely for his cause, only to watch his nation fall to the Commonwealth. It was only after that he realized the side he'd been fighting for was the wrong one. Now a semi-functional navigator on a interstellar freight hauler, he tries to hide who he was and escape his past. Unfortunately, some things refuse to stay buried and he ends up conscripted by the very people who destroyed his homeland.

* ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge: Played with as swords and melee weapons due exist but they're considered novelties. They have a use as a secondary weapon against shielded opponents but only if they are modified to drain shields so they can kill the person inside easier (a continuous attack being better than bolts that allow regeneration). Likewise, they're used for dueling in Crius and on FeudalFuture planets. Most people simply use guns.

** Isla is actually a in-universe one as she was based on "The Snow Queen" as her bioroid model. This despite she's more like a GenderSwapped version of Doctor [=McCoy=].

* MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness: All over the place. It seems to be a SpaceOpera with swords, starfighters, faster than light travel, and SufficientlyAdvancedAlien beings but then it throws in the occassional bit of realism like how gravity in starships works as well long term effects of zero gravity.

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Averted. Religion is alive and well in the 82nd century and while we don't have any recognizable religions, they're all descended from existing real-life religions like the Church of Lucifer or Shogun Buddhist animism.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: A drunken ex-nobleman, a MafiaPrincess turned security chief, a escaped slave bioroid, and a former gladiator. Yeah, this qualifies.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Cassius, Clarice, and others onboard the ship. The war left a lot of people suffering PTSD.

* SpaceCossacks: Earth is implied to have been destroyed in some unspecifed calamity and the human race has scattered across the universe. It happened ''again'' with the Great Collapse and subsequent Great Galactic Dark Age where humanity's various tribes were cut off from one another due to a failure of all jumpspace navigation tools initiated by A.I. As such, there's now thirteen sectors worth of several thousand human colonies with dramatically different cultures as well as their own colonies.

* {{Doppelganger}}: Cassius believes someone has surgically altered themselves to look like him in order to lead LaResistance using his wartime reputation. [[spoiler: In fact, it's a bioroid blessed with his memory upload. This results in a in-universe case of FridgeHorror as Cassius realizes he would have been doing the exact same thing had circumstances been different.]]

* FakeUltimateHero: The false Cassius Mass [[spoiler: a bioroid created by Zoe]] plays on his RedBaron WorthyOpponent reputation and FamedInStory status to serve as a figurehead for the Free Systems Alliance military. The actual Cassius Mass has been retired on a space freighter for years.

* KickTheDog: [[spoiler: Zoe murdered the entire crew of her spaceship, tortures Hiro to death, cloned Cassius and Judith without their knowledge, enslaved Judith's A.I., and that's not even getting into her plan to condemn humanity to a ForeverWar. {{Justified}} as it all is required to get Cassius to turn against her.]]

* {{Polyamory}}: Cassius is in a relationship, of sorts, with Isla but also sleeping with Clarice...who is in a relationship with Isla. Note this is before they discover he's actually a galaxy-famous ace pilot.

** Holtz attempts to murder Cassius [[spoiler: twice]] despite the fact it will almost certainly get him spaced. He claims it's for his dead brother [[spoiler: who turns out to have died under circumstances completely unrelated to Cassius--leaving a question to his motives or a case of BelievingTheirOwnLies.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Thomas tries to redeem himself by helping Cassius escape. Sadly, it ends up a SenselessSacrifice as he's killed soon after.]]

* TheKingdom: The Archduchy of Crius believed itself to be this but, in practice, was a smaller version of TheEmpire than the Commonwealth.