History Literature / TheMachineriesOfEmpire

* FirstEpisodeSpoiler: It's a bit hard to talk about ''Raven Stratagem'' without mentioning that ''Ninefox Gambit'' ends with [[spoiler:Jedao seemingly dead, and Cheris possibly possessed by his consciousness.]]

''The Machineries of Empire'' is a military ScienceFantasy trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee.

* SuddenlyVoiced: Brezan is mildly freaked out when one of the Andan servitors suddenly speaks in human words, as he's used to them communicating by machine whirrs and bleeps.

* EqualOpportunityEvil: Despite all the negative aspects of its society, the Hexarchate is notably free of gender-discrimination and homophobia, with men, women, and non-binary people all having representation in the leadership and widespread same-gender relationships with no social disapproval. There is still some lingering bigotry against binary trans people, but even this is depicted as limited to particularly old-fashioned circles.

* YourDaysAreNumbered: The Vrae Tala clause. [[spoiler:It allows a Kel to shut down their own formation instinct, so they can use their own initiative in situations where blindly obeying orders would lead to disaster, but kills them exactly one hundred days after it's activated so they don't just go rogue whenever.]]

* YourDaysAreNumbered: The Vrae Tala clause. [[spoiler:It allows a Kel to shut down formation instinct, but kills them exactly one hundred days after it's activated.]]

* AboveTheInfluence: While the formation instinct would basically force Khiruev to have sex with Jedao, should he order her to, and he's definitely attracted to her, he manages to restrain himself.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: Shuos Jedao. He claims he doesn't remember much of what happened at Hellspin and that it's currently presumed he had some sort of psychotic break. He seems genuinely regretful for his past actions and is willing to help Cheris and serve the Hexarchate. On the other hand, years of investigation found no issues or problems in his mind, and everyone "in the know" is certain he cannot be trusted.

* TheAtoner: Jedao tells Khiruev that he's defending the Hexarchate from the Hafn because he wants to atone for his actions at Hellspin, though he doesn't expect - nor desire - actual forgiveness. [[spoiler:Enforced, as Nirai Kujen did [[{{Brainwashed}} psych surgery]] on him to turn his guilt into a desire for atonement]]

* BatmanGambit: Jedao's master plan. [[spoiler:He used his military genius to become a hero, then murdered everyone in Hellspin fortress knowing that he'll be executed for it, but also knowing that the Kel Command will not let his genius go to waste. This would mean that they'd put him in the black cradle, and that he'll be called out of it whenever a Hexarchate-threatening crisis arises. This in turn would allow him to wait for the perfect moment to ''overthrow'' the Hexarchate.]]

* BavarianFireDrill: [[spoiler:Jedao]] takes over the Swanknot swarm by waltzing aboard under the pretense of being sent there by the Kel Command and then pulling rank on everyone present.

* BeneathNotice: The servitors see many things because no one pays attention to them. They also make excellent infiltrators. [[spoiler:One of them kills the skilled assassin Vahenz, who was not thinking of threats from that quarter. In the second book, Cheris recruits a large number of them to act as spies and assassins for her.]]

* BodyDouble: Mikodez's siblings have all been modded (up to and including sex change) to be his body doubles, a job that mostly consists of them sitting at meetings and making visits Mikodez himself doesn't have time or patience for.

* BrotherSisterIncest: Mikodez and his brother Istradez are lovers. Their parents know about it and don't even mind, reasoning that their two most energetic children might just as well keep themselves occupied.

* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Kel Command would much rather terminate Jedao, but he's too brilliant to throw away.
* TheChainsOfCommanding: To win, Cheris often has to commit terrible atrocities and send thousands of people to her death. Even though she knows, emotionally, that this is the right thing to do, it weights heavily on her.

* CruelTwistEnding: Downplayed; [[spoiler:at the end of ''Ninefox Gambit'', the Fortress of Scattered Needles is conquered and Cheris breathes a sigh of relief that she'll finally be rid of Jedao and her life will return to some semblance of normality, only for Kel Command to send a fleet and kill everyone in an attempt to get rid of the undead general once and for all. Cheris is the only survivor and she ends up possessed by Jedao.]]
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Jedao has a few events in his past that messed him up badly, like [[spoiler:his superior raping him (with everyone knowing what happened), him and his fellow agent being bombed by their own allies and the Hellspin Massacre.]]
* DeadlyPrank: In the Shuos academy, Jedao's contribution to the game competition was a game based around breaking rules. One of his friends ended up getting caught by a Doctrine official, while yet another claimed that she was the one to create the game, and both were grievously punished.
* DeadpanSnarker: Most of the cast. The unnamed Nirai wraith who helps Cheris get used to having another mind in her head and keeps and eye on Jedao is particularly snarky towards the undead general.

** In the same book, it turns out that [[spoiler:Jedao has actually died at the end of ''Ninefox Gambit'', shielding Cheris from an exotic weapon, and it's Cheris who's been pretending to be Jedao all along, aided by having all of his memories.]]

** The Kel culture values martyrdom and total obedience and brainwashing is considered par for the course.
** Polygamy is perfectly normal, as are non-standard sexualities and gender identities.

* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler:Shuos Jedao's mind takes over Cheris's at the end of the first book, though she retains some of her identity and name.]]

** [[spoiler:Jedao Two sees Dhanneth as having done this because of their [[QuestionableConsent affair]]

* TheEmpire: The Hexarchate is a powerful entity that enforces its calendar upon everyone, inducts nearby polities by force, if necessary, responds violently to any rebellion and tortures heretics to keep its calendar going.

* FantasticCasteSystem: The Hexarchate government is divided into six factions: Rahal (leadership, policing, law), Nirai (technology), Andan (culture, diplomacy, finance), Vidona (doctrine, calendar, education), Shuos (espionage, sabotage, assassination) and Kel (military). While a lot of people - perhaps even the majority - don't belong to any faction, to have any career in the factions' specialties or government, you must join a faction. All factions (except for Shuos, or so they say) have their exotic effects.

* FasterThanLightTravel: The mothdrive enables Hexarchate moths to travel between star systems. It's exotic technology.

* FieldPowerEffect: The Hafn calendric warfare is apparently based on drawing energy from the land, such as their homeworlds, which is why their art is focused on pastoral scenes and why [[spoiler:the Fortress of Spinshot Coins's phantom terrain ends up working against the Hexarchate - the Hafn use it to channel their power.]]

* FirstEpisodeSpoiler: It's a bit hard to talk about ''Raven Stratagem'' without mentioning that ''Ninefox Gambit'' ends with [[spoiler:Jedao possessing Cheris and completely taking over her body.]]
* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Near the end of ''Ninefox Gambit'', Cheris realizes that [[spoiler:the "friendly" fleet is here to destroy her ships]] just in time to start giving orders, but not in time for anyone to do what she's telling them.

* TheGhost: Kel Command, who are responsible for putting Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao together; they are more dangerous to Cheris than the heretics are because of how much they want Jedao to be dead and because of how incompetently they are using their army. They are a composite mind. We don't meet any of them in ''Ninefox Gambit'', but in ''Raven Stratagem'', one of them, Kel Tsoro, participates in meetings of the Hexarchs.
* {{Glamour}}: The Andan faction ability is enthrallment, which allows them to put any person of lower social status under their spell, though it grows less effective the more often it's used on any given target. It also can only be targetted at one specific person at a time, and for full effectiveness they need to know quite a lot about the target. [[spoiler:This is why Tseya fails to glamour Jedao in ''Raven Strategem'', because the person they think is Jedao is actually a mental hybrid of Cheris and Jedao with rather more Cheris.]]
* GoodWithNumbers: Cheris is practically a prodigy, and a lot of her skill in command comes from her ability to utilize the complex mathematics involved in calendrical warfare.

* GreyAndGreyMorality: It's hard to say who the good guys and bad guys are. Is it the Hexarchate, TheEmpire that nonetheless leaves most of its citizens to live in peace? The heretics, who took over the Fortress of Scattered Needles but have decent intentions? Shuos Jedao, who's [[spoiler:willing to commit mass murder to destroy the Hexarchate]], but is nonetheless helpful and even friendly to Cheris?

* TheHeretic: People who want to leave the Hexarchate and stop using the High Calendar are labeled heretics and if captured, they're tortured by the Vidona to celebrate holidays.

* ImmuneToMindControl: Kel Brezan is a crashhawk, meaning the formation instinct didn't take and he doesn't feel the need to slavishly obey orders of his superiors. On one hand, this allows him to oppose [[spoiler:Shuos Jedao when he utilizes the instinct to take over the Swanknot swarm]], but on the other, crashhawks are usually kicked out of Kel upon being discovered because they're considered unreliable.

* KlingonPromotion: Among the Shuos, it's considered natural that to get promoted, you have to assassinate your superior. For this reason, the position of a Shuos hexarch changes hands exceptionally often - or at least it used to until Shuos Mikodez got the job.

* LongGame: Jedao is playing one; [[spoiler:he's essentially tricked the Hexarchate to put him in the black cradle so that he can wait for the best moment - and the right host - to turn against it.]]
* MadScientist: Nirai Kujen, whose experiments have taken the lives of more than a few people and who often tinkers with people's minds to make them docile just because he can. He came up with the concept of the High Calendar and designed it to be based on ritual torture even though he could have chosen other ways.

* TheMirrorShowsYourTrueSelf: When looking in a mirror, Cheris sees Jedao instead of herself.

** Mikodez really is a sociopath with morality, who maintains an overall good orientation despite his lack of morals, because he intellectually thinks that treating other people well is more effective in keeping society stable and avoiding trouble.

* NoKillLikeOverkill: To make sure they [[spoiler:get rid of Jedao]] once and for all, the Kel Command [[spoiler:destroys the entire fleet.]]

* NonPromotion: To lead the siege of the Fortress of Scattered Needles, Cheris is given the rank of brevet general. Unfortunately, Kel formation instinct doesn't respond to brevet rank, and she has to prove herself to her subordinates the hard way.

* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: At the end of ''Raven Stratagem'' [[spoiler:Cheris changes the calendar to make all calendric effects - including formation instinct - voluntary for the recipients, and Mikodez kills all other hexarchs. The book ends on what's very clearly the opening days of a civil war.]]

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Jedao is kept in the black cradle when not attached to a living human. He can't control Cheris's body and can't read her mind, but he can see in all directions at once, including watching her expression. He can talk to Cheris and is visible for her in mirrors, and his signifier replaces hers. He'll take a hit from any exotic weapon for her, and can be physically pushed into her body if she swallows wraith glass.

** The High Calendar is partly dependent on torturing large numbers of heretics on holidays.

** To cow Jedao and Cheris into submission, the Hexarchs threaten to purge the Mwennin, a minority to which the latter belongs (Jedao's own Shparoi are long gone by this point). [[spoiler:As Cheris's mind is dead at this point, Jedao refuses to let it cow him and they follow through with the threat, with less than a few thousand Mwenning managing to escape the ensuing genocide.]]

* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Nirai Kujen is, famously, the only man in Hexarchate who managed to achieve immortality using the calendar. He's a prominent character in Jedao's backstory, which happened several hundred years ago, and he's still the Nirai hexarch. Oh, and he still appears to be in the prime of his youth.

* SuicideAttack: [[spoiler:Mikodez kills the other hexarchs by sending his own brother Istradez to blow himself up, although Istradez volunteered.]]

* TraumaInducedAmnesia: Jedao has only snippets and flashes of memories from the Hellspin Massacre as a result of what he did there.

* WithFriendsLikeThese: The various factions of the Hexarchate are always infighting, and the Kel Command is almost as dangerous to Cheris as the heretics in the Fortress of Scattered Needles are, if not more so.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:When Cheris, Jedao and their fleet retake the Fortress, the Kel Command shows up to execute them.]] Interestingly, it's implied heavily that [[spoiler:Nirai Kujen]] had a hand in arranging this because he was attempting to strike before his co-conspirator could do this to ''him'', as [[spoiler:with Cheris's mathematical skill, Jedao doesn't need him any more.]]

* ZeroApprovalGambit: [[spoiler:Jedao deliberately massacred his people at Hellspin so that he'd be executed and put in the black cradle.]]

* DeadpanSnarker: The unnamed Nirai wraith who helps Cheris get used to having another mind in her head and keeps and eye on Jedao is incredibly snarky towards the undead general.

* DrivenToSuicide:
** The calendric rot's EmotionBomb makes Cheris suicidal until Jedao talks her through it.
** [[spoiler:Back when Jedao was still alive, his hexarch raped him, and he would've killed himself because of it if it wasn't for his friend finding him and dragging him out to spend some time in other people's company.]] It seems he's had suicidal tendencies ever since.
** Jedao mentions at one point that one of his siblings committed suicide on an anniversary of the Hellspin Massacre.

* {{Foil}}: Cheris and Jedao. Cheris is a straightforward Kel who's a math prodigy to the point where everyone's surprised she's not a Nirai. She's an infantry captain and her signifier, the Ashhawk Sheathed Wings, means she's very stable mentally. By contrast, Jedao is a cunning Shuos, has dyscalculia, has mostly led fleets throughout his career and his signifier, Immolation Fox, is considered an alarm bell by people who know the meaning of it.

* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Nirai Kujen is, famously, the only man in Hexarchate who managed to achieve immortality using the calendar. He's a prominent character in Jedao's backstory, which happened several hundred years ago, and he's still the Nirai hexarch.

* SapientShip: [[spoiler:All moths are sentient]].

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Jedao is willing to [[spoiler:murder a million people to have a shot at overthrowing the Hexarchate]].

* TheAtoner: Jedao tells Khiruev that he's defending the Hexarchate from the Hafn because he wants to atone for his actions at Hellspin, though he doesn't expect - nor desire - actual forgiveness.

* ArcWords: In ''Ninefox Gambit'', "Yours in calendrical heresy, Vh."

** Mikodez is good enough that he’s outplayed his rivals to hold the Shuos hexarch’s seat for sixty years. Very few of his predecessors managed more than a decade. While it’s not suggested he intended the consequences it’s also notable that he was very keen to bring Cheris and Jedao together, rather than one of Kujen’s candidates after confirming her math skills are the same level as Kujen’s and things tend to work out to his advantage.

* TheChessmaster: Jedao is a brilliant planner, and knows how to manipulate both individuals and armies into doing what he wants them to.

* SociopathicHero: Explored with at least three different characters.
** Mikodez really is a Sociopathic Hero, who maintains an overall good orientation despite his lack of morals, because he intellectually thinks that treating other people well is more effective in keeping society stable and avoiding trouble.
** Jedao really tries to be a Sociopathic Hero, because he thinks it's necessary, but is deeply tormented as a result.
** [[spoiler:Kujen tried to turn himself into a SociopathicHero because he found being a WellIntentionedExtremist too painful, but ended up as just a sociopathic villain because he didn't account for MotiveDecay.]]

* PropagandaPiece: [[invoked]] Jedao has Cheris drop dozens of propaganda leaflets, alcohol and drugs to shake the resolve of the Fortress's occupants.

* HumanSacrifice: Regular ritual-torture-to-death is required to keep the Hexarchate's calendar functioning. [[spoiler:Cheris powers her calendar spike by sacrificing the Kel Command and everybody else aboard their space station.]]

* {{Glamour}}: The Andan faction ability is enthrallment, which allows them to put any person of lower social status under their spell, though it grows less effective the more often it's used on any given target.

** Drones are shaped like stylized animals, with a particular animal depending on the owners' faction and the drone's purpose.

* AttackDrone: Generally averted, as drones are incapable of channeling formation effects... under Hexarchate calendar. When Cheris realizes this isn't true for the heretic calendar, she utilizes drones in combat as well.

* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: The drones try to help Cheris because she treats them as friends rather than equipment.
* BeneathNotice: The drones see many things because no one pays attention to them. They also make excellent infiltrators. [[spoiler:One of them kills the skilled assassin Vahenz, who was not thinking of threats from that quarter. In the second book, Cheris recruits a large number of them to act as spies and assassins for her.]]
* BenevolentAI: Drones are uniformly helpful and courteous toward humans, in spite of being treated with contempt. Many of them even go beyond their duties to protect people.

* BoardingPod: Used to deliver propaganda, Shuos infiltrators and drones into the Fortress.

* DistractedByTheSexy: The drones' favourite meeting place on Cheris's ship is near the spot where the various couples aboard go to make out, as they're so busy with each other, they don't realize there's a secret conspiracy meeting going on a few metres away.

* FantasticCasteSystem: The Hexarchate government is divided into six factions: Rahal (leadership, policing, law), Nirai (technology), Andan (culture, diplomacy, finance), Vidona (doctrine, calendar, education), Shuos (espionage, sabotage, assassination) and Kel (military). While a lot of people - perhaps even majority - don't belong to any faction, to have any career in the factions' specialties or government, you must join a faction. All factions (except for Shuos, or so they say) have their exotic effects.

* GadgeteerGenius: Kel Khiruev can build an assassin drone from a music box, pieces of a watch and some junk lying around her room.

* HollywoodHacking: In the ShowWithinAShow Cheris is watching with a group of drones, the Nirai love interest's "hacking" leaves the drones snickering and mocking the screenwriter.

* MadScientistLaboratory: Khiruev's subordinates joke that the drones must see her room as this, thanks to her habit of collecting various pieces of junk and assembling and disassembling machines. As the story goes, drones use it to scare baby drones into behaving.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: The drones pretend to be less sentient and stupider than they actually are to give themselves more freedom of movement and so that people wouldn't suspect them of scheming.

* RobotBuddy: Cheris is very friendly with drones, and they help her and are friends with her in turn.

* ScienceFantasy: You have spaceships, space forts, guns and sentient drones, but you also have shapeshifting shadows, possession and calendar-based RealityWarping.

** The dramas that Cheris is watching with the drones in her spare time.

* SuddenlyVoiced: Brezan is mildly freaked out when one of the Andan drones suddenly speaks in human words, as he's used to them communicating by machine whirrs and bleeps.

* TheUnintelligible: Most drones "speak" in bleeps, whirrs and other machine noises, meaning few people can understand them.

* BeneathNotice: The drones see many things because no one pays attention to them. They also make excellent infiltrators. [[spoiler:One of them kills the skilled assassin Vahenz, who was not thinking of threats from that quarter.]]

* NonPOVProtagonist: Shuos Jedao is pretty much the main character of the series, but apart from a few flashback sequences seen through Cheris's eyes, he's never a point-of-view character in the books.

* ThePurge: To cow Jedao and Cheris into submission, the Hexarchs threaten to purge the Mwennin, a minority to which the latter belongs (Jedao's own Shparoi are long gone by this point). [[spoiler:As Cheris's mind is dead at this point, Jedao refuses to let it cow him and they follow through with the threat, with less than a few thousand Mwenning managing to escape the ensuing genocide.]]

* SplitPersonalityTakeover: In ''Raven Stratagem'', Cheris's body has entirely been taken over by Jedao's mind. [[spoiler:Apparently, she's actually Cheris with access to Jedao's memories and talents, Jedao's personality is completely dead, and she's impersonating him to take advantage of his reputation and his formation-instinct power over the Kel swarm.]]

* TheGhost: The Kel Command, who are responsible for putting Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao together and who are just as dangerous to Cheris as the heretics are because of how much they want Jedao to be dead.

* SplitPersonalityTakeover: In ''Raven Stratagem'', Cheris's body has entirely been taken over by Jedao's mind. [[spoiler:Apparently, she's actually Cheris with access to Jedao's memories and talents, and Jedao's personality is completely dead.]]

* MilitaryScienceFiction: For all the calendric warfare, possession and mind control, this is still a story about navies and armies of various factions duking it out.

* TouchOfDeath: The Vidona faction ability is "deathtouch", which works by turning the target into flat piece of paper.

* EqualOpportunityEvil: Despite all the negative aspects of its society, the Hexarchate is notably free of gender-discrimination and homophobia, with men, women, and non-binary people all having representation in the leadership and widespread same-gender relationships with no social disapproval.

* SexualExtortion: It's mentioned that sexual relationships between Kel, [[UnequalPairing especially Kel of different rank]], are strictly forbidden, because the formation instinct means the junior Kel has no choice but to obey a superior, making it impossible for the sex to be truly consensual. Despite draconian punishments, and attempts to reduce the problem with libido-suppressing drugs and plenty of [[ADateWithRosiePalms porn]], it still happens quite frequently