History Literature / TheInterdependency

* Foreshadowing: When the narration talks about Rennered Wu's death, it mentions that while the report made it clear it was an accident, it also said that such an accident should have been unlikely, and that Rennered was supposed to announce his engagement to Nadashe after the race was over, something that had stuck with Cardenia/Grayland. [[spoiler:''The Consuming Fire'' reveals that while Nadashe wasn't behind it, her mother was.]]

* ClusterFBomb: Kiva has a hard time saying a sentence without at least one swear word in there. She appears to have picked that up from her mother, Countess Huma Lagos. According to the family legend, Kiva's first word was "fuck", something she believes to be true.

* VirtualGhost: See BrainUploading above.

The second book's preliminary title is ''The Last Emperox''.

* AllPlanetsAreEarthlike: Averted. In the 1500 years of space exploration, only one other planet capable of supporting life has been found and settled - End. Every other planet in the known universe (47 systems) is either a lifeless rock or an equally lifeless gas giant. As such, the vast majority of settlements across the Interdependency are artificial habitats either in orbit or under the rocky surface of planets. End is the only colony where people live openly (after Earth was lost to the rest of humanity).

* RealityEnsues: Any scientist, no matter how brilliant, needs peers to check their work. This is why Marce and his father, who could find each others' mistakes, got more accurate results than an equally brilliant scientist in the pay of [[spoiler: the Nohamapetans.]]

* ThrownOutTheAirlock: Kiva interrogates Chat Ubdal by briefly doing this, and then dragging him back in. After the crew of the Red Rose's attempts to kidnap Marce go royally south (partly because they passed off a disguised Chat as Marce), he gets spaced permanently.

* RealityEnsues: Any scientist, no matter how brilliant, needs peers to check their work. This is why Martin and his father, who could find each others' mistakes, got more accurate results than an equally brilliant scientist in the pay of [[spoiler: the Nohamapetans.]]

* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The Duke of End and the Count of Claremont are never given names, always referred to by their titles or, in the case of the Count, as "Father" or "Dad" by his children.

''The Collapsing Empire'' focuses on three point-of-view characters: the newly-crowned Emperox Grayland II, Lord Marce Claremont (a Flow physicist and son to the Count of Claremont, a province on End), and Lady Kiva Lagos (daughter to Countess Huma Lagos of the mercantile House of Lagos, who has inherited her mother's penchant for {{Cluster F Bomb}}s). The three characters get involved in the latest and, possibly, biggest crisis the Interdependency has ever faces: [[spoiler:the upcoming collapse of the Flow network, spelling doom for the Interdependency]].

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Generally played straight, as leaders of the Houses tend to also run their financial empires. Their scions tend to either work in the family business or have regular jobs. As for minor nobles, such as the Count of Claremont, his official job is to assess Imperial taxes on End ([[spoiler:it's just a cover for his real job - figuring out what's going on with the Flow]]). The Count's children are a physicist and a former Imperial marine.

** More conventionally, Kiva has one of Ghreni's agents who snuck aboard her ship spaced. Briefly. When they reel him back in, he promptly spills his guts.

* TheEmperor: The ruler of the Interdependency is called "Emperox", a gender-neutral title that is, apparently, pronounced "empero" (according to the audiobook, at least). The Emperox's word is law, although the Interdependency government has other branches, such as the Parliament (composed of representatives of the noble Houses; the Emperox is also the representative of House of Wu, although he/she typically abstains from voting). Any Parliament bill can be vetoed by the Emperox, although there may be political repercussions for doing that.

* ArrangedMarriage: Sort-of. While an emperox may marry whomever he or she wishes, there tends to be strong political pressure to marry a member of a powerful House in order to secure a political goal. Cardenia's late brother Rennered was planning on marrying Nadashe Nohamapetan. However, Rennered's death put an end to that, although not as far as House Nohamapetan is concerned, as they claim that the arrangement was not so much between Rennered and Nadashe as between House Wu and house Nohamapetan, implying that Cardenia has to marry a member of that House, probably Amit. When Cardenia sarcastically replies that she would rather marry Nadashe than Amit, she is calmly told that this option would be acceptable as well. In fact, she later does muse on doing just that, finding Nadashe to be far more interesting than her dull brother, but Cardenia's sexual preference is firmly in the "hetero" range, so she doesn't find Nadashe to be attractive enough from that viewpoint.

* EarthThatWas: Earth has been cut off from the rest of humanity for over a 1000 years, so no one knows what happened to the people there.

* UnexpectedSuccessor: Cardenia Wu-Patrick is the bastard daughter of Emperox Attavio VI. She was never raised as a princess and did not expect (or want) to inherit the throne, leaving it to her half-brother Rennered, who was actually groomed for the role. After Rennered's tragic death during a race, the dying Emperox makes Cardenia his chosen heir instead of any number of cousins and nephews/nieces. Cardenia only has a few months to process the shock before she has to formally step up to her new office.

''The Interdependency'' is a sci-fi series of novels by Creator/JohnScalzi. The series currently consists of only the novel ''The Collapsing Empire''.

* FeudalFuture: The Interdependency is ruled by an emperox and various noble Houses. Each House is also a corporation.