History Literature / OldMansWar

* ''The End of All Things'': The sequel to ''The Human Division''. Despite what the name suggests, Scalzi has confirmed that this novel is by no means necessarily the final chapter in the Old Man's War universe. However, it will resolve the previous book's titular human division (between Earth and the Colonial Union), and reveal the nature and extent of [[spoiler: TheConspiracy exacerbating the division and playing the Earth, the CU, and the Conclave against one another]].

** Comments from veterans that he's served with suggest that it's not an act: he really is that way.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Although it is definitely its own novel, ''Old Man's War'' is, according to Scalzi, a riff on [[Creator/RobertAHeinlein Heinlein's]] ''Starship Troopers,''.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Consu have an... interesting way of making the galaxy a better place. See AbsoluteXenophobe above.

* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:Weaponized [=SmartBlood=] and the use of trees climbing to avoid hostile guns]] in ''The Ghost Brigades''.
** ChekhovsBoomerang: The [[spoiler:[=SmartBlood=]]] thing comes up no less than three times: [[spoiler:once when it kills a mosquito, once when Jared uses it to blind an enemy in combat, and finally (and most epically) when he uses it as a TakingYouWithMe to counter Boutin's GrandTheftMe.]]

* FictionalUnitedNations: The Conclave, intended by its creator to put an end to the incessant territorial warfare between the LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces and divvy up colony worlds fairly. First mentioned in ''The Ghost Brigades'', ''The Last Colony'' and ''Zoe's Tale'' deal with an attempt by the Colonial Union to sabotage it. [[spoiler:After determining that the alien in charge had the right idea after all, especially since the Union's success immensely pissed off 412 different species, he and Zoe help the Conclave reform and pull the BenevolentAlienInvasion above.]]

* BlueAndOrageMorality: The Consu have an... interesting way of making the galaxy a better place. See AbsoluteXenophobe above.

-->'''Perry''': [[OddFriendship I liked her immediately.]]

* WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture: Mostly for the trademarked hardware that makes up a CDF soldier's body: the smarmy focus-group-style names are almost a running gag.

* TheBadGuyWins: How [[spoiler:''The Human Division'']] ends, with [[spoiler:the conspiracy succeeding in driving a permanent wedge between Earth and the Colonial Union.]]

* StarCrossedLovers: Harry and Danielle look like they're heading in that direction by the end of ''The Human Division.''

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Subverted.

* GovernmentConspiracy (see BatmanGambit below)

** FridgeBrilliance as well - The "mystery" of the real Roanoke isn't really a mystery; the colonists all went off to join the native Americans. [[spoiler:Which is exactly what the Perry family does by the end of ''The Last Colony''.]]

** It's weird in 2014 how Bender, described as "two time Democratic senator from Massachusetts, former ambassador to France, Japan, and the United Nations, Secretary of State in the otherwise disastrous Crowe administration," sounds in 2014 like a possible {{Expy}} for John Kerry, who wouldn't become Secretary of State until 8 years after the book was published.

* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty: All members of the CDF look like in their mid-twenties (with green skin and feline eyes).

** Possibly also an example of ItAmusedMe.

* [[DefeatMeansFriendship Defeat Means We Tolerate You For A Bit]]: Want answers from the Consu? Their religion ''does'' allow you that right. You have to kill their dishonored criminals in single combat to the death. (In case you were wondering, the average Consu is 8' tall, covered in a sturdy exoskeleton, and has a set of mantis-like limbs that come in handy for disembowelments.) For each one your side kills, they will truthfully answer one question of your choice.

* [[NeverAcceptedInHisHometown Never Accepted On His Homeplanet]]: Big time {{masquerade}}.

** BenevolentAlienInvasion: [[spoiler:Earth's enforced isolation is ended by a Conclave trade fleet.]]

* [[spoiler:TheBadGuyWins: How ''The Human Division'' ends, with the conspiracy succeeding in driving a permanent wedge between Earth and the Colonial Union.]]
* BatmanGambit in multiple ways: [[spoiler:In ''The Ghost Brigades'', Charles Boutin's attempts to gain revenge on the Colonial Union and repeated adapting to changes in plans; In ''The Last Colony'', they're all over the place--The Colonial Union's attempt to destroy the Conclave, John Perry's plan to defeat Admiral Eser, and the most convoluted, General Szilard's "plan" to bring the Special Forces into the open.]]
* BiotechIsBetter: In the later novels the CDF starts phasing out the cybernetic [[BrainComputerInterface BrainPals]] in favor of completely biotech ones. It's implied that their long-term goal is to introduce the genes to the baseline human population. In addition the [[SpacePeople Gameras]] are 100% biotech in contrast to the CDF's normal soldiers that are a mixture of bio- cyber- and nanotech with the objective of eventually making them capable of breeding true and forming a human species that doesn't need to compete with aliens for planets.

* BolivianArmyEnding: Near the end of ''The Ghost Brigades, [[spoiler:Harvey]] is left alone on a planet swarming with hostile Obin, with days until possible rescue. The next chapter [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome strongly implies he survived]].
* BrainInAJar: Mentioned in ''The Ghost Brigades'' as the CDF punishment for refusing direct orders. [[spoiler:The [[TheConspiracy Evil Conspiracy]] in ''The Human Division'' uses them to turn spacecraft into drones, with the added bonus of making it look like the Colonial Union is behind things, thanks to the aforementioned punishment.]]
* BrainUploading: Central to the series. The CDF recruits retirees and transfers their adult consciousness into a speed-grown SuperSoldier body partially based on their DNA. Their Special Forces are ''fully'' synthetic people given a 'starter personality' by nanotech in their brains, but these soldiers - while superior - lack emotional maturity... and [[FantasticRacism aren't completely trusted]] by their GenreSavvy creators.

* BullyingADragon: The CU's plan to break the Conclave turns into this. [[spoiler:They humiliate the Conclave by using Roanoke as bait for their unified fleet and destroy it. Somehow they didn't realize that nearly every ship in the fleet was the flagship of each member race, meaning they just gave 412 different races a personal kick in the nuts.]] So they get the internal strife they wanted, but [[NiceJobBreakingItHero it's largely over whether or not to wipe out all humanity in retaliation]]. Turns out, though, that it worked out better than it seemed it would when it happened, as explained in the Conclave chapter of The Human Division.

* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:Weaponized [=SmartBlood=] and the use of trees climbing to avoid hostile guns in ''The Ghost Brigades''.]]

* ColonyDrop: In ''The Ghost Brigades'', one of the techniques used by the Special Forces to cover their tracks is to drop an asteroid on the site of their activities. They've apparently used this trick often enough to become very good at making it look like an accident. They also drop asteroids (with some pre-placed seismic sensors) to spot underground caves and complexes.

* DyingMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler:Jared Dirac planting a Trojan Horse virus in his body that will destroy it when the guy taking it over opens a message explaining just how screwed he is.]]
** Also [[spoiler: Captain Coloma]] at the end of all things.

* FirstPersonSmartass: John, Zoe, and Harry. Especially Harry for his chapter of "The End of All Things". In contrast, the ''Sagan Diaries'' indicates that Jane is exactly as fun in her head as she is in person.

* {{Gendercide}}:The Crimp which made 1/3 of Earth's male population sterile.
* [[GladToBeAliveSex Glad To Be Alive Orgy]]: In ''The Ghost Brigades'' this is apparently a tradition after each mission for the Special Forces.

* GraveMarkingScene: The first thing John Perry did on his seventy-fifth birthday was visit his wife's grave. Similarly, Zoe Boutin visits her family grave at the end of ''The Ghost Brigades''.

* GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe: The members of the CDF, their skin is photosynthetic, they are all in perfect physical shape, they won't age past appearing to be in their early twenties, and they are possibly even altered to look sexier than their normal genetics would allow to encourage bonding and to exploit the natural human tendency to treat good looking people better.
** Ruiz calls out minorities during his spiel at the start of basic training... then yells "BULLSHIT! You're all green!" (He has NWordPrivileges, since his original body was Hispanic.)
* GreyAndGreyMorality: And plenty of it. Interestingly, it's often the Colonial Union (i.e., ''humanity'') that comes across as a slightly darker shade of grey, though it's a very close-run thing.
* GuiltFreeExterminationWar: The CDF leadership seems to feel this way in regards to their alien neighbors. It's not an entirely uncommon feeling: if nothing else, spacefaring races almost categorically refuse to share planets with each other, and exterminating someone else's colony prior to establishing your own is common practice.
** Subverted, however, by the narrative itself (which doesn't seem to agree with this), and by the fact that enough people eventually got fed up with this to form the [[TheFederation Conclave]].

* ItsRainingMen: When using a DropShip to land on a hostile planet is unworkable, the CDF troopers can sky-dive from orbit, protected by a heat shield made from nanomachines which turns into a parachute before landing. While sometimes used by regular CDF troopers, this is a Special Forces signature move.
** In "The Human Division", this maneuver is used [[spoiler: for Wilson and Danielle to escape the destruction of Earth Station.]]
* KickTheDog: The CU does this a few times in each book, with increasing severity as the story goes along.
** [[spoiler: Equilibrium]] does almost nothing but this throughout ''The Human Division.''

* MildlyMilitary: Heavily averted in ''Old Man's War,'' where professionalism and discipline are repeatedly displayed to be the only things standing between CDF soldiers and being eaten by aliens.
** It occurs to some extent in ''The Ghost Brigades,'' though, justified by the characters being SuperSoldiers taught to fight from birth: being an effective soldier is ingrained deeply enough into their identity that strict military discipline is redundant. But even they stick to business once they're on the clock, though.
** Seen later on in Heather Lee's squad in ''The End Of All Things,'' who spend most of their episode bickering and debating the CU's response to colonial unrest.

* RankUp: Perry starts ''Old Man's War'' as a recruit, and is commissioned as a lieutenant by the end. It's mentioned in ''The Lost Colony'' that he later rose to be a Major and commanded a battalion before retiring. In comparison, Harry Wilson, in the same time period, seems to have topped out as a Lieutenant, possibly because he doesn't toe the party line and tends to annoy his superiors.

* ScaryDogmaticAliens: The Consu. Curiously enough, though, that dogma makes them ''less'' dangerous than they might be - they could easily steamroll everyone else in the galaxy, but their philosophy/religion calls on them to fight 'fairly' in their continued effort to help other races 'perfect' themselves. In their eyes, it's a species-wide EarnYourHappyEnding: in the eyes of most of their neighbors, it's random, scary mayhem.
** Also, [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters The Colonial Union]]: a fascist, xenophobic, and violently expansionistic state that keeps its own people in the dark and farms them to populate colonies and die in endless wars.

* SmartGun: the Colonial Marines' weapons are biometrically locked, computer-controlled and programmable {{Swiss Army Gun}}s. Special Forces can also control the gun remotely.

* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:Dirac's nasty surprise for Charles Boutin after the latter took over Dirac's body]].
** [[spoiler:How Captain Coloma deals with the ''Erie Morningstar''.]]

* ThemeNaming: Special Forces soldiers have the last name of a famous person in science and philosophy (or science fiction, for the Gamerans). Their troopships, similarly, are not named after cities like those of the regular CDF (and the Mobile Infantry in ''Starship Troopers:'') they're named after birds of prey.

** FridgeBrilliance as well - The "mystery" of the real Roanoke isn't really a mystery; the colonists all went off to join the native Americans. [[spoiler:Which is exactly what the Perry family does by the end of "The Lost Colony]]

* WorthyOpponent: John gets two in 'The Last Colony', in the form of [[CommanderContrarian Manfred Trujillo]] and [[VisionaryVillain General]] [[NecessarilyEvil Gau]]. [[spoiler:By the end of the book, he's good friends with both.]]

'''''Old Man's War''''' is a series of SpaceOpera novels by author Creator/JohnScalzi. Its follows the recruits of Earth's [[SpaceMarine Colonial Defense Force]], tasked with protecting Mankind's far-flung colony worlds from ruthless alien species. The twist? All recruits to the CDF are ''elderly citizens''; the minimum sign up age is 75 years old. Recruits sign up while they are still on Earth, having already lived a long life, and are then given young, genetically-enhanced bodies upon joining the CDF.

* [[DefeatMeansFriendship Defeat Means We Tolerate You For A Bit]]: Want answers from the Consu? You have to kill their dishonored criminals in single combat. For each one your side kills, you get one question.

* BrainUploading: Central to the series. It has become much faster and simpler to create a SuperSoldier body and then import an adult consciousness into it, than to speed-grown soldiers
** It is faster and more efficient to raise speed-grown {{Super Soldier}}s. The CU prefers to transfer adult consciousnesses because these soldiers are [[FantasticRacism more trusted]] than the speed-grown Special Forces.

** In ''Old Man's War'', two of Perry's fellow recruits are named [[Creator/NeilGaiman Gaiman]] and [[DaveMcKean McKean]].
** ''The Ghost Brigades'' introduces the Gamerans, whose collective name [[{{Gamera}} is itself a shout out]], and who take their individual names from science fiction writers, including [[Creator/CharlesStross Stross]] and [[GeorgeRRMartin Martin]].