History Literature / ThePentagonWar

* SpaceStation: The massive Gate Guards that hover menacingly near each side of a hyper hole link. And Station Jove.

* SpaceStation: The massive Gate Guards that hover menacingly near each side of a hyper hole link.

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Jennifer Doe]]

* InsufficientlyAdvancedAlien: When Centaurians first encountered us primitive, backwards humans, they had harnessed the power of controlled proton fusion in the QC&C reactor, and built interstellar {{Ramscoop}}s that conquered the drag problem. Yet, they'd never even thought of computers or nuclear weapons.

* NamingYourColonyWorld: Two major asteroid clusters in the Human-Centauri Habitat Ring are named New France and New Mars. The planets of the UV Ceti system (all uninhabited) are named after whales, because Cetus is the whale constellation.

* NamingYourColonyWorld: Two major asteroid clusters in the Human-Centauri Habitat Ring are named New France and New Mars. The planets of the UV Ceti system are named after whales, because Cetus is the whale constellation.

** Conversely, Centaurians' lack of a sense of smell means they also lack sinuses and nasal cavities. When they try to speak human languages, it souds like a hubad with his dose stuffed up.[[hottip:*:It sounds like a human with his nose stuffed up.]]

* AlienArtsAreAppreciated: The name ''Mercurand'' was coined by combining Mercury, the fleet-footed messenger from ancient Greek mythology, with Gellimand, the Centaurian personification of light.

* TheChosenOne: Torra Zorra is the only one whom [[spoiler:Arnold's "ghost" can use to communicate]]. Too bad for Torra's plans to finish its tour of duty and make a baby or two.

* OurWormholesAreDifferent: Hyper holes are flat, permanent 200-meter circular holes in space that lead, through an infinitely thin layer of hyperspace, to a parallel space in which time and matter have no meaning. They are created by the detonation of a hyper bomb. If two hyper bombs are pointed directly at one another and set off at the same time, the two holes they create are "linked" -- anything entering one hole travels through parallel space infinitely fast and immediately exits the other. Light travels through a "hyper link" just like matter does, so if you look at one linked hyper hole you're basically seeing the view from the other. You could stand in the middle of a hyper hole link, straddling it, and not even be aware that you're in 2 places at once.

* RunTheGauntlet: Three times:

** Conversely, Centaurians' lack of a sense of smell means they also lack sinuses and nasal cavities. When they try to speak human languages, it souds like a hubad with his dose stuffed up. [[hottip:*:It sounds like a human with his nose stuffed up.]]

* HomemadeInventions: The Mad Scientist built the [[spoiler:Zero Drive]] with the spare parts shipped to him for his Phased Antimatter Bomb project.

In 1980, at the tender age of 15, ThisTroper (username: Tropers/{{tracer}}) thought, "Why do wars always have ''two'' sides fighting each other? Why not a war with, say ''five'' sides?". So saying, I hauled out my dad's mechanical typewriter and banged out a 40-page story in which I tried to describe a "realistic" space war between five star systems.