History Literature / Sten

* InformedAttribute: Sten's aformentioned [[CombatPragmatist Combat Pragmatism]]. He's never shown committing violence toward any female, despite the universal gender-equity of his society. The vast majority of the fighting females happen to be on his side in most cases; if they aren't, (like an assassin, or Lady Atago) it's usually someone else who does the job for him.

** Allan Cole shared a more contemporary recipe for stregg in the Sten Cookbook.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: AnyoneCanDie, but those who make it out of one book alive have a good chance of turning up again in a later novel, even in passing.

* RealityEnsues: The Emperor has ruled over multiple galaxies for hundreds if not thousands of years. As a result, he winds up with a lot of people who wind up blaming him for their problems, even if he didn't have anything to do with them, and some of those people manage to do a lot of damage.
** [[spoiler:The Privy Council have the Emperor assassinated. The Empire runs on [=AM2=] and the Emperor is the only person who knows where to get it, and the Privy Council can't find it. Things don't go well for them when everyone starts running short of fuel.]]
** [[spoiler:The Emperor tries to kill Sten by blowing up the Manabi homeworld. This wipes out the Manabi, a pacifistic race of diplomats who everyone admired, and earns him a ''ton'' of hatred from people, because nobody believes that A, Sten did it, or B, that it was justified.]]

* AristocratsAreEvil: Just about all of them, unless you count Kilgour. As it turns out, [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped that's the series' point.]]

* ActionGirl: Bet, Cind, and pretty much every female in the series.

* MindProbe: One of the more unpleasant devices Rykor (and others liker her) can use is a machine that scans every memory you've ever had. It's unfortunately of limited use on those who have been driven insane, however, so when they use it on a guy who's gone catatonic from nearly being eaten by a StarfishAlien, they mostly get jumbles with only a few clue threads.

** The Jannisars

** Famed diplomat Sr. Ecu sends the equally renowned psychologist Rykor a copy of an ancient Earth manuscript. Rykor says she finds the idea of [[Literature/{{Foundation}} "psychohistory" fascinating, but found the protagonist "Selden" rather repellent]].

** Sten's friend Ida acted as a stockbroker for him, and her investments made him wealthy enough to own an uninhabited but Earthlike ''planet'', Smallbridge. (HoratioHornblower became Baron Hornblower of Smallbridge.)

* AnyoneCanDie: And they usually do. Though some return.

** Littered with these, from ''reaganbaker'' as a political tactic to Air Marshall Billy Bishop's great-great-great...grandson as one of Sten's fellow students.

* StuffBlowingUp: Kilgour's specialty

** Mercury Corps call the "appear unlike who you really are and like no one in particular" camouflage tactic a [[Creator/RobertAHeinlein "Great Lorenzo"]].

The '''Sten''' series is a science fiction saga written by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch. The eponymous protagonist is an orphan from a hellish industrial space station, who escapes prison and indentured servitude to join the Emperor's armed forces (well, he was sort of pressed into the service, but it beat the hell out of industrial slavery).

Throughout the course of the series he adds to his rank, consequence and {{badass}}ery. He has as much [[ChickMagnet success with women]] as one would expect of a covert operative, only with more monogamy than your average Film/JamesBond.

Because almost every single character in the series is a member of a military, expect to see a lot of CombatTropes, MilitaryAndWarfareTropes, EspionageTropes, and BadAss tropes.

* BadAss: Sten is, indeed.

* NepaliWithNastyKnives: the Gurkhas, real-life badasses who continue to be badass in space.

* BattleCry: "Ayo Gurkhali!" (Which is the [[NepaliWithNastyKnives Gurkhas']] ''real'' battle cry.) In English, the full version of this BattleCry means [[BadassBoast "Blood for Kali, the Ghurkhas are coming!]]"

** Famed diplomat Sr. Ecu sends the equally renowned psychologist Rykor a copy of an ancient Earth manuscript. Rykor says she finds the idea of [[{{Foundation}} "psychohistory" fascinating, but found the protagonist "Selden" rather repellent]].