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If you're looking for the TabletopGame, go [[TabletopGame/DarkFuture here.]]
If you're looking for the novels or other fiction about the game, go [[Literature/DarkFuture here.]]
If you're looking for the trope "Bad Future", go [[BadFuture here.]]
If you're looking for the novels or other fiction about the game, go [[Literature/DarkFuture here.]]
If you're looking for the trope "Bad Future", go [[BadFuture here.]]
to:
If you're looking for the TabletopGame, go [[TabletopGame/DarkFuture here.]]
]]//
If you're looking for the novels or other fiction about the game, go [[Literature/DarkFuture here.]]
]]//
If you're looking for the trope "Bad Future", go [[BadFuture here.]]]]//
If you're looking for the novels or other fiction about the game, go [[Literature/DarkFuture here.
If you're looking for the trope "Bad Future", go [[BadFuture here.
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Not to be confused with the trope, BadFuture.
to:
If you're looking for the
If you're looking for the novels or other fiction about the game, go [[Literature/DarkFuture here.]]
If you're looking for the trope "Bad Future", go [[BadFuture here.]]
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[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yeovil_2_3826.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300: "A tongue-in-cheek kaleidoscope of [[CyberPunk cyberpunk]], [[HPLovecraft Lovercraftian horror]]...and ninja nuns." - '''Alex Stewart''', ''Vector'']]
''Dark Future'' was a tabletop miniature wargame produced by GamesWorkshop and originally published in 1988.
Dark Future was set in the [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture near-future year of 1995,]] with a world controlled by global megacorporations where the populace was divided into those who lived in the increasingly barren deserts and wastelands and those who lived in the cities. Even city-dwellers were further demarcated into the fortunates who could afford to live in corporately-controlled Policed Zones or [=PeeZees=] and the have-nots who lived in the un-policed, dangerous slums referred to as "[=NoGos=]." The game primarily focused on the United States; environmental damage having caused a significant increase in desertification, caused by over-farming; over-industrialization and increasing water shortages and drought. The original rulebook describes the waters of the Pacific Coast as being "too polluted to evaporate," and Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado forming what's officially designated "The Great Central Desert." Utah, Nevada and Arizona have developed into a sort of North American Atacama Desert, and Manhattan has had to build huge concrete flood defences that see Long island connected to the mainland.
Law Enforcement in the game setting has been extensively privatized. The Deregulation of Law Enforcement Act in 1985 and the subsequent Enderby Amendment allowed individuals with an appropriate government license to conduct law enforcement (including the use of deadly force) and towns, cities and neighbourhoods to tender contracts for individuals and companies to carry out law enforcement duties on their behalf. The aforementioned Sanctioned Operatives are a product of this deregulation, and range from independent freelancers to fully-fledged companies, referred to as Agencies, with their own private armies, legal and PR departments. There's even sub-contracting to be done, as Policed Zone companies hire independent Ops to conduct off-the-books assignments, detective work, espionage and more dangerous tasks they don't want to deal with.
The game was successful enough for GamesWorkshop to commission a series of novels based on the setting. These started out with the short story anthology ''Route 666,'' and was relatively short-lived; the best-known and remembered being the trilogy of novels written by horror novelist and film critic KimNewman under the pen name Jack Yeovil. These expanded significantly on the background and setting provided in the 1988 rulebook and mixed in elements from horror and played with various well-known dystopia tropes while mixing in a healthy dose of pop-culture references, [[AlternateHistory alternate-history]] jokes and cameos from other fictional properties. Although GW have never done anything with the game, Newman's novels (much like his {{Warhammer}} works involving Genevieve the Vampire), remained popular enough to survive beyond the lifespan of the game and have been republished by Black Library, though the final installment of his ''Demon Download'' series, ''United States Calvary'' remains unpublished.
Works In The Dark Future Setting:
* ''Route 666'' [1990]: An anthology of short fiction by GW regular authors KimNewman, Brian Craig and [[GotrekAndFelix William King]].
* ''Demon Download'': Newman-as-Yeovil's first Dark Future novel and the first book in the series that came to share the name.
* ''Krokodil Tears'': Part Two of the ''Demon Download'' series.
* ''Comeback Tour'': Part Three of ''Demon Download.''
* ''Ghost Dancers'': Novel by Brian Craig expanding on his ''Route 666'' story ''Kid Zero and Snake Eyes.''
* ''Route 666'' [[KimNewman Jack Yeovil]] novel expanding on the titular short in ''Route 666.''
* ''Golgotha Run'' by Dave Stone.
* ''American Meat'' by Stuart Moore.
* ''Jade Dragon'' by James Swallow.
* ''Reality Bites'' by Stuart Moore.
This page deals with examples from the novels by KimNewman and the wider setting created therein.
[[caption-width-right:300: "A tongue-in-cheek kaleidoscope of [[CyberPunk cyberpunk]], [[HPLovecraft Lovercraftian horror]]...and ninja nuns." - '''Alex Stewart''', ''Vector'']]
''Dark Future'' was a tabletop miniature wargame produced by GamesWorkshop and originally published in 1988.
Dark Future was set in the [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture near-future year of 1995,]] with a world controlled by global megacorporations where the populace was divided into those who lived in the increasingly barren deserts and wastelands and those who lived in the cities. Even city-dwellers were further demarcated into the fortunates who could afford to live in corporately-controlled Policed Zones or [=PeeZees=] and the have-nots who lived in the un-policed, dangerous slums referred to as "[=NoGos=]." The game primarily focused on the United States; environmental damage having caused a significant increase in desertification, caused by over-farming; over-industrialization and increasing water shortages and drought. The original rulebook describes the waters of the Pacific Coast as being "too polluted to evaporate," and Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado forming what's officially designated "The Great Central Desert." Utah, Nevada and Arizona have developed into a sort of North American Atacama Desert, and Manhattan has had to build huge concrete flood defences that see Long island connected to the mainland.
Law Enforcement in the game setting has been extensively privatized. The Deregulation of Law Enforcement Act in 1985 and the subsequent Enderby Amendment allowed individuals with an appropriate government license to conduct law enforcement (including the use of deadly force) and towns, cities and neighbourhoods to tender contracts for individuals and companies to carry out law enforcement duties on their behalf. The aforementioned Sanctioned Operatives are a product of this deregulation, and range from independent freelancers to fully-fledged companies, referred to as Agencies, with their own private armies, legal and PR departments. There's even sub-contracting to be done, as Policed Zone companies hire independent Ops to conduct off-the-books assignments, detective work, espionage and more dangerous tasks they don't want to deal with.
The game was successful enough for GamesWorkshop to commission a series of novels based on the setting. These started out with the short story anthology ''Route 666,'' and was relatively short-lived; the best-known and remembered being the trilogy of novels written by horror novelist and film critic KimNewman under the pen name Jack Yeovil. These expanded significantly on the background and setting provided in the 1988 rulebook and mixed in elements from horror and played with various well-known dystopia tropes while mixing in a healthy dose of pop-culture references, [[AlternateHistory alternate-history]] jokes and cameos from other fictional properties. Although GW have never done anything with the game, Newman's novels (much like his {{Warhammer}} works involving Genevieve the Vampire), remained popular enough to survive beyond the lifespan of the game and have been republished by Black Library, though the final installment of his ''Demon Download'' series, ''United States Calvary'' remains unpublished.
Works In The Dark Future Setting:
* ''Route 666'' [1990]: An anthology of short fiction by GW regular authors KimNewman, Brian Craig and [[GotrekAndFelix William King]].
* ''Demon Download'': Newman-as-Yeovil's first Dark Future novel and the first book in the series that came to share the name.
* ''Krokodil Tears'': Part Two of the ''Demon Download'' series.
* ''Comeback Tour'': Part Three of ''Demon Download.''
* ''Ghost Dancers'': Novel by Brian Craig expanding on his ''Route 666'' story ''Kid Zero and Snake Eyes.''
* ''Route 666'' [[KimNewman Jack Yeovil]] novel expanding on the titular short in ''Route 666.''
* ''Golgotha Run'' by Dave Stone.
* ''American Meat'' by Stuart Moore.
* ''Jade Dragon'' by James Swallow.
* ''Reality Bites'' by Stuart Moore.
This page deals with examples from the novels by KimNewman and the wider setting created therein.
to:
[[caption-width-right:300: "A tongue-in-cheek kaleidoscope of [[CyberPunk cyberpunk]], [[HPLovecraft Lovercraftian horror]]...and ninja nuns." - '''Alex Stewart''', ''Vector'']]
''Dark Future'' was a tabletop miniature wargame produced by GamesWorkshop and originally published in 1988.
Dark Future was set in the [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture near-future year of 1995,]] with a world controlled by global megacorporations where the populace was divided into those who lived in the increasingly barren deserts and wastelands and those who lived in the cities. Even city-dwellers were further demarcated into the fortunates who could afford to live in corporately-controlled Policed Zones or [=PeeZees=] and the have-nots who lived in the un-policed, dangerous slums referred to as "[=NoGos=]." The game primarily focused on the United States; environmental damage having caused a significant increase in desertification, caused by over-farming; over-industrialization and increasing water shortages and drought. The original rulebook describes the waters of the Pacific Coast as being "too polluted to evaporate," and Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado forming what's officially designated "The Great Central Desert." Utah, Nevada and Arizona have developed into a sort of North American Atacama Desert, and Manhattan has had to build huge concrete flood defences that see Long island connected to the mainland.
Law Enforcement in the game setting has been extensively privatized. The Deregulation of Law Enforcement Act in 1985 and the subsequent Enderby Amendment allowed individuals with an appropriate government license to conduct law enforcement (including the use of deadly force) and towns, cities and neighbourhoods to tender contracts for individuals and companies to carry out law enforcement duties on their behalf. The aforementioned Sanctioned Operatives are a product of this deregulation, and range from independent freelancers to fully-fledged companies, referred to as Agencies, with their own private armies, legal and PR departments. There's even sub-contracting to be done, as Policed Zone companies hire independent Ops to conduct off-the-books assignments, detective work, espionage and more dangerous tasks they don't want to deal with.
The game was successful enough for GamesWorkshop to commission a series of novels based on the setting. These started out with the short story anthology ''Route 666,'' and was relatively short-lived; the best-known and remembered being the trilogy of novels written by horror novelist and film critic KimNewman under the pen name Jack Yeovil. These expanded significantly on the background and setting provided in the 1988 rulebook and mixed in elements from horror and played with various well-known dystopia tropes while mixing in a healthy dose of pop-culture references, [[AlternateHistory alternate-history]] jokes and cameos from other fictional properties. Although GW have never done anything with the game, Newman's novels (much like his {{Warhammer}} works involving Genevieve the Vampire), remained popular enough to survive beyond the lifespan of the game and have been republished by Black Library, though the final installment of his ''Demon Download'' series, ''United States Calvary'' remains unpublished.
Works In The Dark Future Setting:
* ''Route 666'' [1990]: An anthology of short fiction by GW regular authors KimNewman, Brian Craig and [[GotrekAndFelix William King]].
* ''Demon Download'': Newman-as-Yeovil's first Dark Future novel and the first book in the series that came to share the name.
* ''Krokodil Tears'': Part Two of the ''Demon Download'' series.
* ''Comeback Tour'': Part Three of ''Demon Download.''
* ''Ghost Dancers'': Novel by Brian Craig expanding on his ''Route 666'' story ''Kid Zero and Snake Eyes.''
* ''Route 666'' [[KimNewman Jack Yeovil]] novel expanding on the titular short in ''Route 666.''
* ''Golgotha Run'' by Dave Stone.
* ''American Meat'' by Stuart Moore.
* ''Jade Dragon'' by James Swallow.
* ''Reality Bites'' by Stuart Moore.
This page deals with examples from the novels by KimNewman and the wider setting created therein.
Changed line(s) 28,101 (click to see context) from:
!!Contains Examples of:
* ActionGirl: Jessamyn Bonney and Chantal Juillerat.
* AlternateHistory: JFK didn't get to be President. Or assassinated. He never even got elected after his affair with Marilyn Monroe was exposed.
** Yuri Gagarin never made it back to Earth, bringing about the end of Soviet attempts at manned spaceflight.
** Nelson Mandela was made Pope in 1970.
** Following a series of riots in 1961, with one especially large one at a Madison Square Garden concert which killed Chuck Berry, Little Richard, three thousand concert goers and left Jerry Lee Lewis a paraplegic, Rock 'n' Roll was effectively outlawed and Elvis disappeared into the army.
** America didn't take part in the Vietnam War. Instead, it was the U.S.S.R that did, and it ended up ruining the Soviet Union. The war was costly, a political disaster and crippled the Soviet Space Program and saw a successful coup led by Yuri Andropov that ushered in a more democratic Soviet State. Boris Yeltsin is still President in 1998, though.
* ArcWords: In ''Comeback Tour'':
--> ''"...the sky belongs to the stars."''
--->-- '''Buddy Holly'''
* BadFuture: Not to be confused with, but definitely an example of.
* BigBad: Elder Seth, The Summoner. Immortal, head of a subverted Christian sect devoted to bringing about the victory of the Dark Ones and the end of the world.
* BiggerBad: The Dark Ones. The Dark Ones are combination of various cultures demons and the [[HPLovecraft Great Old Ones]]. Azathoth and Nyarlathotep get direct namechecks in ''Krokodil Tears''.
* BodyHorror: There's a modest amount of it going on in ''Demon Download;'' Duroc carrying the demon intended to possess Fort Apache's mainframe in his body as a fake credit card. ''Comeback Tour'' gets a lot more, between the mutant Suitcase People (people mutated into alligators and other reptilian forms by[[spoiler: [=GenTech=] experimentation]]), the true origin of The Waltons (see the entry for PathOfInspiration) and Duroc's nightmares about temporarily serving as host to the Jibbenainosay.
* BrainInAJar: The Rev. Harry Powell, creator of the Word of The Lord broadcasting system, ends up one of these. A brain in a jar in a tank, mind you. One which wanders the Arizona highways, demanding donations from sinners and blasting the unrepentant with napalm.
** ''Demon Download'' also mentions in the same piece of exposition that KenDodd, WaltDisney and HowardHughes have all gone to Gentech to undergo the 'Donovan Treatment' and have their brains stored in bio-fluid filled jars until new bodies can be grown for them.
* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as Constant {{Drachenfels}}; welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
* ChekhovsGift: [[spoiler: The guitar 'ti-Mouche gives Elvis after he plays in the Cajun camp]] in ''Comeback Tour.''
* ChurchMilitant:
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Commander Fonvielle in ''Comeback Tour,'' who regards the Josephites as new NASA staff and Roger Duroc as the new President of the United States, while being otherwise entirely competent and connected to reality. He's also a literal Space Cadet.
* ContinuityNod: ''Comeback Tour'' has a several news reports which make mention of events from ''Demon Download'' and ''Krokodil Tears.''
* CoolCar:
* CrapsackWorld: And how. Distilled elements from JudgeDredd, Robocop, MadMax combined with a ruined environment, corrupt government and privatized police forces. Throw in resource shortages, evil corporations and a whole subculture devoted to being AxCrazy and leave to simmer gently. Oh, and Racial Equality? Never really happened in America. Slavery? Still legal...sort of. It's been renamed indenture and it's more wage slavery, but it's still heavily slanted against black people.
* CyberPunk: Whilst toying with elements from Horror; the cynical worldview damaged environment and overall dystopian feel to the Dark Future novels setting lends itself solidly to the CyberPunk trope.
* {{Cyborg}}: Chantal Juillerat and Jessamyn Bonney both have a variety of cybernetic augmentations; relatively minor in Chantal's case but much more extensive in Jessamyn's. [=Gentech=]'s Bio Division retails a wide variety of cybernetic alterations, augmentations and enhancements from the practical (replacement limbs and combat gear) to the cosmetic (yes, they can cybernetically enhance your penis).
* DealWithTheDevil: Elder Seth is implied to have been the middleman between various parties and the Dark Ones in this deal. He openly states that Presley could've had one, and it's strongly suggested that Colonel Parker, Presley's manager (in the books and the real world) already did.
--> '''"Colonel Presley could have made a deal with me. I have always taken an interest in music. His life would have been different."''
--> ''"Better?"''
--> ''"Different."'''
--->-- '''Elder Seth and Krokodil''' ''Comeback Tour''
* DeepSouth: The main Op Agency in the the Southern States is called 'The Good Ole Boys,' and the most prevalent gangcults are the Klu Klux Klan and The Knights of The White Magnolia. The G.O.B are portrayed as being pretty much an entire organization of [[Film/LiveAndLetDie J.W Peppers]] and [[TheDukesOfHazzard Boss Hoggs]], chewing tobacco, lording it over "the coloured folks" and generally being a bunch of bigoted rednecks.
* DemonSlaying:
* {{Determinator}}:
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
* DividedStatesOfAmerica: Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas and Kentucky are unofficially known as the Independent States of America. As mentioned below, Utah was sold to an Expy of the Mormon Church and was renamed Deseret by them. It's a sufficiently separate state that it's citizens have their own passports.
* DoAndroidsDream: In ''Comeback Tour,'' it's specifically mentioned that even people who are almost entirely cybernetic need to 'switch off' for several hours at a time to engage in R.E.M sleep and also to dream.
* TheDragon: Elder Roger Duroc to Elder Nguyen Seth.
* EldritchAbomination:
* ElectronicEyes: Jessamyn has an electronic eye, which can see into other spectra.
* ElvisLives: "It's 1998 and the King of Rock and Roll is still alive. After twenty years in the U.S Army, Colonel Elvis Aron Presley...is carving out a legend as the toughest independent Sanctioned Op in the South." '''back-cover blurb''', ''Comeback Tour''
* EvilMinions: Once Josephites go Walton, they definitely fall into this, having been transformed into clone-like, unquestioning 1950s American cliches with only two faces between them; one male and one female.
* EyeBeams: Jessamyn's eye also has an 'optic burner' installed so she can shoot people who get up close and personal with it.
* EyepatchOfPower: Jessamyn's ElectronicEye? She keeps it behind an eyepatch.
* FutureSlang: Most of the future neologisms listed in the game's rulebook get recycled in the books, and Yeovil's substitute 'freak' for most instances of 'fuck.'
* HauntedTechnology: The ''Demon Download'' series is replete with this trope. Unsurprising, really, given the title of the first novel and the series overall. The first book has a demon infecting computer systems and operating any technology those computer systems are connected to, resulting in a demon-possessed United States Road Cavalry cruiser and later on, possessed kitchen appliances. In ''Comeback Tour'', the only reason the Josephites are able to get Needlepoint working is that [[spoiler: they're using voodoo to have the KillSat possessed by Elder Seth.]]
* HealingFactor: Jessamyn, after having been worked on by Dr. Threadneedle in ''Krokodil Tears,'' has his patented regeneration system as one of her many cybernetic augmentations, enabling her almost instantly heal minor to moderate injuries and shrug off major wounds. It doesn't make her, or its inventor invincible though.
** Elder Seth also has this. In ''Krokodil Tears'' he bites off the tip of his own finger to use in a ritual, knowing it'll grow back. His is entirely supernatural, though.
* HollywoodExorcism
* JacobMarleyApparel: The various ghosts of astronauts and cosmonauts seen by Fonvielle at Cape Canaveral all wear whatever they were wearing when they died; usually spacesuits. The ghost of Yuri Gagarin appears as a mobile, man-shaped conglomeration of ash.
* JapanTakesOverTheWorld: The [=GenTech=] Corporation, a Korean-Japanese conglomerate and the series' dubious MegaCorp. [=Gentech=] has controlling interests in most non-Asian corporations, it's own corporate currency which is accepted as legal tender by various countries and organisations, and has its financial claws dug deep enough into the U.S.A that the yen is legal currency in many American states.
* KillSat: ''Comeback Tour'' has the Needlepoint System. A world-encircling network of laser-equipped kill sats inteneded to be "capable of knocking out a flight of Soviet bombers scrambling in Tashkent or a cockroach crawling across a loft floor in Harlem." Needlepoint proved to cripplingly expensive to deploy and NASA could never get it to work, leading to it being nicknamed the "Needledick System."
* MadScientist: Dr. Zarathustra, head researcher of [=GenTech=] is widely implied to be at the very least skirting the edges of sanity.
** Dr. Simon Threadneedle, genius cyber-surgeon and definitely a bit on barmy side.
** Dr. Ottakar Proctor. He's a genius-level economist, Presidential adviser and Godfather to the First Family. Also a keen opera fan and he's written theses on cultural dynamics in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Oh, and he's a sociopathic serial killer with six hundred and forty-eight corpses to his tally.
* Mutants:
* NGOSuperpower: [=GenTech=].
* PathOfInspiration: Praise the Lord and rejoice as you follow the Path of Joseph. Please ignore side-effects like your toes fusing together, your genitalia disappearing and turning into a shop window dummy version of Donny or Marie Walton, or helping to bring about the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
* PollutedWasteland: The Pacific Coast is, as quoted above. Utah is so much of a wasteland that the U.S Government ''sold'' the whole state to the religious group, The Church of Joseph.
* Really700YearsOld: Elder Nguyen Seth, The Summoner. In ''Demon Download'' it's stated that Seth first came into contact with Roger Duroc's family during the Albigension Crusade. That took place in the 13th century, and it's hinted by Seth that he's ''much'' older.
--> ''"I remember a hundred years ago as if it were the last minute. A thousand, two thousand, ten thousand years ago."''
--->-- '''Elder Seth''', ''Comeback Tour''
* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: Averted. The Suitcase People are actually fairly civilised and polite, so long as you're not mean to them.
* ShoutOut: KimNewman at work. Even under a pseudonym, writing for GamesWorkshop, the Dark Future novels were just as shout-out-tastic as ever.
* ShownTheirWork: Kim Newman did quite a bit of research on Elvis for ''Comeback Tour,'' and it shows. From the extensive song titles to the little details about how The King cut his first acetate at Sun Records and his family background, there's a wealth of detail that most people would have no clue about.
** He also did fair bit on NASA history to flavour the history of Cape Canaveral with accuracy and some neat little ShoutOut moments to past astronauts.
* SuperSenses:
* SuperStrength:
* TakeThat: The Church of Joseph are a fairly widely-aimed swipe at Christian Fundamentalism in general and, with their HQ in Utah, the Mormon Church in particular. That long-term members of the Church eventually turn into Donny and Marie Walton clones is a light-hearted jab at certain aspects of American culture.
** Rev. Powell and his corrupt church in ''Demon Download'', Gary The Guru in ''Krokodil Tears.''
* {{Troperiffic}}: see above.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Dark Future pretty much exemplifies this trope; from it's not even a decade away setting, accentuated urban decay, inner city crime gone wild, dubious [[MegaCorp Mega Corps]] and Japan taking over the world in the shape of the [=GenTech=] Corporation.
* UnusualUserInterface:
* WeCanRebuildHim:
----
* ActionGirl: Jessamyn Bonney and Chantal Juillerat.
* AlternateHistory: JFK didn't get to be President. Or assassinated. He never even got elected after his affair with Marilyn Monroe was exposed.
** Yuri Gagarin never made it back to Earth, bringing about the end of Soviet attempts at manned spaceflight.
** Nelson Mandela was made Pope in 1970.
** Following a series of riots in 1961, with one especially large one at a Madison Square Garden concert which killed Chuck Berry, Little Richard, three thousand concert goers and left Jerry Lee Lewis a paraplegic, Rock 'n' Roll was effectively outlawed and Elvis disappeared into the army.
** America didn't take part in the Vietnam War. Instead, it was the U.S.S.R that did, and it ended up ruining the Soviet Union. The war was costly, a political disaster and crippled the Soviet Space Program and saw a successful coup led by Yuri Andropov that ushered in a more democratic Soviet State. Boris Yeltsin is still President in 1998, though.
* ArcWords: In ''Comeback Tour'':
--> ''"...the sky belongs to the stars."''
--->-- '''Buddy Holly'''
* BadFuture: Not to be confused with, but definitely an example of.
* BigBad: Elder Seth, The Summoner. Immortal, head of a subverted Christian sect devoted to bringing about the victory of the Dark Ones and the end of the world.
* BiggerBad: The Dark Ones. The Dark Ones are combination of various cultures demons and the [[HPLovecraft Great Old Ones]]. Azathoth and Nyarlathotep get direct namechecks in ''Krokodil Tears''.
* BodyHorror: There's a modest amount of it going on in ''Demon Download;'' Duroc carrying the demon intended to possess Fort Apache's mainframe in his body as a fake credit card. ''Comeback Tour'' gets a lot more, between the mutant Suitcase People (people mutated into alligators and other reptilian forms by[[spoiler: [=GenTech=] experimentation]]), the true origin of The Waltons (see the entry for PathOfInspiration) and Duroc's nightmares about temporarily serving as host to the Jibbenainosay.
* BrainInAJar: The Rev. Harry Powell, creator of the Word of The Lord broadcasting system, ends up one of these. A brain in a jar in a tank, mind you. One which wanders the Arizona highways, demanding donations from sinners and blasting the unrepentant with napalm.
** ''Demon Download'' also mentions in the same piece of exposition that KenDodd, WaltDisney and HowardHughes have all gone to Gentech to undergo the 'Donovan Treatment' and have their brains stored in bio-fluid filled jars until new bodies can be grown for them.
* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as Constant {{Drachenfels}}; welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
* ChekhovsGift: [[spoiler: The guitar 'ti-Mouche gives Elvis after he plays in the Cajun camp]] in ''Comeback Tour.''
* ChurchMilitant:
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Commander Fonvielle in ''Comeback Tour,'' who regards the Josephites as new NASA staff and Roger Duroc as the new President of the United States, while being otherwise entirely competent and connected to reality. He's also a literal Space Cadet.
* ContinuityNod: ''Comeback Tour'' has a several news reports which make mention of events from ''Demon Download'' and ''Krokodil Tears.''
* CoolCar:
* CrapsackWorld: And how. Distilled elements from JudgeDredd, Robocop, MadMax combined with a ruined environment, corrupt government and privatized police forces. Throw in resource shortages, evil corporations and a whole subculture devoted to being AxCrazy and leave to simmer gently. Oh, and Racial Equality? Never really happened in America. Slavery? Still legal...sort of. It's been renamed indenture and it's more wage slavery, but it's still heavily slanted against black people.
* CyberPunk: Whilst toying with elements from Horror; the cynical worldview damaged environment and overall dystopian feel to the Dark Future novels setting lends itself solidly to the CyberPunk trope.
* {{Cyborg}}: Chantal Juillerat and Jessamyn Bonney both have a variety of cybernetic augmentations; relatively minor in Chantal's case but much more extensive in Jessamyn's. [=Gentech=]'s Bio Division retails a wide variety of cybernetic alterations, augmentations and enhancements from the practical (replacement limbs and combat gear) to the cosmetic (yes, they can cybernetically enhance your penis).
* DealWithTheDevil: Elder Seth is implied to have been the middleman between various parties and the Dark Ones in this deal. He openly states that Presley could've had one, and it's strongly suggested that Colonel Parker, Presley's manager (in the books and the real world) already did.
--> '''"Colonel Presley could have made a deal with me. I have always taken an interest in music. His life would have been different."''
--> ''"Better?"''
--> ''"Different."'''
--->-- '''Elder Seth and Krokodil''' ''Comeback Tour''
* DeepSouth: The main Op Agency in the the Southern States is called 'The Good Ole Boys,' and the most prevalent gangcults are the Klu Klux Klan and The Knights of The White Magnolia. The G.O.B are portrayed as being pretty much an entire organization of [[Film/LiveAndLetDie J.W Peppers]] and [[TheDukesOfHazzard Boss Hoggs]], chewing tobacco, lording it over "the coloured folks" and generally being a bunch of bigoted rednecks.
* DemonSlaying:
* {{Determinator}}:
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
* DividedStatesOfAmerica: Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas and Kentucky are unofficially known as the Independent States of America. As mentioned below, Utah was sold to an Expy of the Mormon Church and was renamed Deseret by them. It's a sufficiently separate state that it's citizens have their own passports.
* DoAndroidsDream: In ''Comeback Tour,'' it's specifically mentioned that even people who are almost entirely cybernetic need to 'switch off' for several hours at a time to engage in R.E.M sleep and also to dream.
* TheDragon: Elder Roger Duroc to Elder Nguyen Seth.
* EldritchAbomination:
* ElectronicEyes: Jessamyn has an electronic eye, which can see into other spectra.
* ElvisLives: "It's 1998 and the King of Rock and Roll is still alive. After twenty years in the U.S Army, Colonel Elvis Aron Presley...is carving out a legend as the toughest independent Sanctioned Op in the South." '''back-cover blurb''', ''Comeback Tour''
* EvilMinions: Once Josephites go Walton, they definitely fall into this, having been transformed into clone-like, unquestioning 1950s American cliches with only two faces between them; one male and one female.
* EyeBeams: Jessamyn's eye also has an 'optic burner' installed so she can shoot people who get up close and personal with it.
* EyepatchOfPower: Jessamyn's ElectronicEye? She keeps it behind an eyepatch.
* FutureSlang: Most of the future neologisms listed in the game's rulebook get recycled in the books, and Yeovil's substitute 'freak' for most instances of 'fuck.'
* HauntedTechnology: The ''Demon Download'' series is replete with this trope. Unsurprising, really, given the title of the first novel and the series overall. The first book has a demon infecting computer systems and operating any technology those computer systems are connected to, resulting in a demon-possessed United States Road Cavalry cruiser and later on, possessed kitchen appliances. In ''Comeback Tour'', the only reason the Josephites are able to get Needlepoint working is that [[spoiler: they're using voodoo to have the KillSat possessed by Elder Seth.]]
* HealingFactor: Jessamyn, after having been worked on by Dr. Threadneedle in ''Krokodil Tears,'' has his patented regeneration system as one of her many cybernetic augmentations, enabling her almost instantly heal minor to moderate injuries and shrug off major wounds. It doesn't make her, or its inventor invincible though.
** Elder Seth also has this. In ''Krokodil Tears'' he bites off the tip of his own finger to use in a ritual, knowing it'll grow back. His is entirely supernatural, though.
* HollywoodExorcism
* JacobMarleyApparel: The various ghosts of astronauts and cosmonauts seen by Fonvielle at Cape Canaveral all wear whatever they were wearing when they died; usually spacesuits. The ghost of Yuri Gagarin appears as a mobile, man-shaped conglomeration of ash.
* JapanTakesOverTheWorld: The [=GenTech=] Corporation, a Korean-Japanese conglomerate and the series' dubious MegaCorp. [=Gentech=] has controlling interests in most non-Asian corporations, it's own corporate currency which is accepted as legal tender by various countries and organisations, and has its financial claws dug deep enough into the U.S.A that the yen is legal currency in many American states.
* KillSat: ''Comeback Tour'' has the Needlepoint System. A world-encircling network of laser-equipped kill sats inteneded to be "capable of knocking out a flight of Soviet bombers scrambling in Tashkent or a cockroach crawling across a loft floor in Harlem." Needlepoint proved to cripplingly expensive to deploy and NASA could never get it to work, leading to it being nicknamed the "Needledick System."
* MadScientist: Dr. Zarathustra, head researcher of [=GenTech=] is widely implied to be at the very least skirting the edges of sanity.
** Dr. Simon Threadneedle, genius cyber-surgeon and definitely a bit on barmy side.
** Dr. Ottakar Proctor. He's a genius-level economist, Presidential adviser and Godfather to the First Family. Also a keen opera fan and he's written theses on cultural dynamics in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Oh, and he's a sociopathic serial killer with six hundred and forty-eight corpses to his tally.
* Mutants:
* NGOSuperpower: [=GenTech=].
* PathOfInspiration: Praise the Lord and rejoice as you follow the Path of Joseph. Please ignore side-effects like your toes fusing together, your genitalia disappearing and turning into a shop window dummy version of Donny or Marie Walton, or helping to bring about the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
* PollutedWasteland: The Pacific Coast is, as quoted above. Utah is so much of a wasteland that the U.S Government ''sold'' the whole state to the religious group, The Church of Joseph.
* Really700YearsOld: Elder Nguyen Seth, The Summoner. In ''Demon Download'' it's stated that Seth first came into contact with Roger Duroc's family during the Albigension Crusade. That took place in the 13th century, and it's hinted by Seth that he's ''much'' older.
--> ''"I remember a hundred years ago as if it were the last minute. A thousand, two thousand, ten thousand years ago."''
--->-- '''Elder Seth''', ''Comeback Tour''
* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: Averted. The Suitcase People are actually fairly civilised and polite, so long as you're not mean to them.
* ShoutOut: KimNewman at work. Even under a pseudonym, writing for GamesWorkshop, the Dark Future novels were just as shout-out-tastic as ever.
* ShownTheirWork: Kim Newman did quite a bit of research on Elvis for ''Comeback Tour,'' and it shows. From the extensive song titles to the little details about how The King cut his first acetate at Sun Records and his family background, there's a wealth of detail that most people would have no clue about.
** He also did fair bit on NASA history to flavour the history of Cape Canaveral with accuracy and some neat little ShoutOut moments to past astronauts.
* SuperSenses:
* SuperStrength:
* TakeThat: The Church of Joseph are a fairly widely-aimed swipe at Christian Fundamentalism in general and, with their HQ in Utah, the Mormon Church in particular. That long-term members of the Church eventually turn into Donny and Marie Walton clones is a light-hearted jab at certain aspects of American culture.
** Rev. Powell and his corrupt church in ''Demon Download'', Gary The Guru in ''Krokodil Tears.''
* {{Troperiffic}}: see above.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Dark Future pretty much exemplifies this trope; from it's not even a decade away setting, accentuated urban decay, inner city crime gone wild, dubious [[MegaCorp Mega Corps]] and Japan taking over the world in the shape of the [=GenTech=] Corporation.
* UnusualUserInterface:
* WeCanRebuildHim:
----
to:
* ActionGirl: Jessamyn Bonney and Chantal Juillerat.
* AlternateHistory: JFK didn't get to be President. Or assassinated. He never even got elected after his affair with Marilyn Monroe was exposed.
** Yuri Gagarin never made it back to Earth, bringing about the end of Soviet attempts at manned spaceflight.
** Nelson Mandela was made Pope in 1970.
** Following a series of riots in 1961, with one especially large one at a Madison Square Garden concert which killed Chuck Berry, Little Richard, three thousand concert goers and left Jerry Lee Lewis a paraplegic, Rock 'n' Roll was effectively outlawed and Elvis disappeared into the army.
** America didn't take part in the Vietnam War. Instead, it was the U.S.S.R that did, and it ended up ruining the Soviet Union. The war was costly, a political disaster and crippled the Soviet Space Program and saw a successful coup led by Yuri Andropov that ushered in a more democratic Soviet State. Boris Yeltsin is still President in 1998, though.
* ArcWords: In ''Comeback Tour'':
--> ''"...the sky belongs to the stars."''
--->-- '''Buddy Holly'''
* BadFuture: Not to be confused with, but definitely an example of.
* BigBad: Elder Seth, The Summoner. Immortal, head of a subverted Christian sect devoted to bringing about the victory of the Dark Ones and the end of the world.
* BiggerBad: The Dark Ones. The Dark Ones are combination of various cultures demons and the [[HPLovecraft Great Old Ones]]. Azathoth and Nyarlathotep get direct namechecks in ''Krokodil Tears''.
* BodyHorror: There's a modest amount of it going on in ''Demon Download;'' Duroc carrying the demon intended to possess Fort Apache's mainframe in his body as a fake credit card. ''Comeback Tour'' gets a lot more, between the mutant Suitcase People (people mutated into alligators and other reptilian forms by[[spoiler: [=GenTech=] experimentation]]), the true origin of The Waltons (see the entry for PathOfInspiration) and Duroc's nightmares about temporarily serving as host to the Jibbenainosay.
* BrainInAJar: The Rev. Harry Powell, creator of the Word of The Lord broadcasting system, ends up one of these. A brain in a jar in a tank, mind you. One which wanders the Arizona highways, demanding donations from sinners and blasting the unrepentant with napalm.
** ''Demon Download'' also mentions in the same piece of exposition that KenDodd, WaltDisney and HowardHughes have all gone to Gentech to undergo the 'Donovan Treatment' and have their brains stored in bio-fluid filled jars until new bodies can be grown for them.
* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as Constant {{Drachenfels}}; welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
* ChekhovsGift: [[spoiler: The guitar 'ti-Mouche gives Elvis after he plays in the Cajun camp]] in ''Comeback Tour.''
* ChurchMilitant:
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Commander Fonvielle in ''Comeback Tour,'' who regards the Josephites as new NASA staff and Roger Duroc as the new President of the United States, while being otherwise entirely competent and connected to reality. He's also a literal Space Cadet.
* ContinuityNod: ''Comeback Tour'' has a several news reports which make mention of events from ''Demon Download'' and ''Krokodil Tears.''
* CoolCar:
* CrapsackWorld: And how. Distilled elements from JudgeDredd, Robocop, MadMax combined with a ruined environment, corrupt government and privatized police forces. Throw in resource shortages, evil corporations and a whole subculture devoted to being AxCrazy and leave to simmer gently. Oh, and Racial Equality? Never really happened in America. Slavery? Still legal...sort of. It's been renamed indenture and it's more wage slavery, but it's still heavily slanted against black people.
* CyberPunk: Whilst toying with elements from Horror; the cynical worldview damaged environment and overall dystopian feel to the Dark Future novels setting lends itself solidly to the CyberPunk trope.
* {{Cyborg}}: Chantal Juillerat and Jessamyn Bonney both have a variety of cybernetic augmentations; relatively minor in Chantal's case but much more extensive in Jessamyn's. [=Gentech=]'s Bio Division retails a wide variety of cybernetic alterations, augmentations and enhancements from the practical (replacement limbs and combat gear) to the cosmetic (yes, they can cybernetically enhance your penis).
* DealWithTheDevil: Elder Seth is implied to have been the middleman between various parties and the Dark Ones in this deal. He openly states that Presley could've had one, and it's strongly suggested that Colonel Parker, Presley's manager (in the books and the real world) already did.
--> '''"Colonel Presley could have made a deal with me. I have always taken an interest in music. His life would have been different."''
--> ''"Better?"''
--> ''"Different."'''
--->-- '''Elder Seth and Krokodil''' ''Comeback Tour''
* DeepSouth: The main Op Agency in the the Southern States is called 'The Good Ole Boys,' and the most prevalent gangcults are the Klu Klux Klan and The Knights of The White Magnolia. The G.O.B are portrayed as being pretty much an entire organization of [[Film/LiveAndLetDie J.W Peppers]] and [[TheDukesOfHazzard Boss Hoggs]], chewing tobacco, lording it over "the coloured folks" and generally being a bunch of bigoted rednecks.
* DemonSlaying:
* {{Determinator}}:
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
* DividedStatesOfAmerica: Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas and Kentucky are unofficially known as the Independent States of America. As mentioned below, Utah was sold to an Expy of the Mormon Church and was renamed Deseret by them. It's a sufficiently separate state that it's citizens have their own passports.
* DoAndroidsDream: In ''Comeback Tour,'' it's specifically mentioned that even people who are almost entirely cybernetic need to 'switch off' for several hours at a time to engage in R.E.M sleep and also to dream.
* TheDragon: Elder Roger Duroc to Elder Nguyen Seth.
* EldritchAbomination:
* ElectronicEyes: Jessamyn has an electronic eye, which can see into other spectra.
* ElvisLives: "It's 1998 and the King of Rock and Roll is still alive. After twenty years in the U.S Army, Colonel Elvis Aron Presley...is carving out a legend as the toughest independent Sanctioned Op in the South." '''back-cover blurb''', ''Comeback Tour''
* EvilMinions: Once Josephites go Walton, they definitely fall into this, having been transformed into clone-like, unquestioning 1950s American cliches with only two faces between them; one male and one female.
* EyeBeams: Jessamyn's eye also has an 'optic burner' installed so she can shoot people who get up close and personal with it.
* EyepatchOfPower: Jessamyn's ElectronicEye? She keeps it behind an eyepatch.
* FutureSlang: Most of the future neologisms listed in the game's rulebook get recycled in the books, and Yeovil's substitute 'freak' for most instances of 'fuck.'
* HauntedTechnology: The ''Demon Download'' series is replete with this trope. Unsurprising, really, given the title of the first novel and the series overall. The first book has a demon infecting computer systems and operating any technology those computer systems are connected to, resulting in a demon-possessed United States Road Cavalry cruiser and later on, possessed kitchen appliances. In ''Comeback Tour'', the only reason the Josephites are able to get Needlepoint working is that [[spoiler: they're using voodoo to have the KillSat possessed by Elder Seth.]]
* HealingFactor: Jessamyn, after having been worked on by Dr. Threadneedle in ''Krokodil Tears,'' has his patented regeneration system as one of her many cybernetic augmentations, enabling her almost instantly heal minor to moderate injuries and shrug off major wounds. It doesn't make her, or its inventor invincible though.
** Elder Seth also has this. In ''Krokodil Tears'' he bites off the tip of his own finger to use in a ritual, knowing it'll grow back. His is entirely supernatural, though.
* HollywoodExorcism
* JacobMarleyApparel: The various ghosts of astronauts and cosmonauts seen by Fonvielle at Cape Canaveral all wear whatever they were wearing when they died; usually spacesuits. The ghost of Yuri Gagarin appears as a mobile, man-shaped conglomeration of ash.
* JapanTakesOverTheWorld: The [=GenTech=] Corporation, a Korean-Japanese conglomerate and the series' dubious MegaCorp. [=Gentech=] has controlling interests in most non-Asian corporations, it's own corporate currency which is accepted as legal tender by various countries and organisations, and has its financial claws dug deep enough into the U.S.A that the yen is legal currency in many American states.
* KillSat: ''Comeback Tour'' has the Needlepoint System. A world-encircling network of laser-equipped kill sats inteneded to be "capable of knocking out a flight of Soviet bombers scrambling in Tashkent or a cockroach crawling across a loft floor in Harlem." Needlepoint proved to cripplingly expensive to deploy and NASA could never get it to work, leading to it being nicknamed the "Needledick System."
* MadScientist: Dr. Zarathustra, head researcher of [=GenTech=] is widely implied to be at the very least skirting the edges of sanity.
** Dr. Simon Threadneedle, genius cyber-surgeon and definitely a bit on barmy side.
** Dr. Ottakar Proctor. He's a genius-level economist, Presidential adviser and Godfather to the First Family. Also a keen opera fan and he's written theses on cultural dynamics in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Oh, and he's a sociopathic serial killer with six hundred and forty-eight corpses to his tally.
* Mutants:
* NGOSuperpower: [=GenTech=].
* PathOfInspiration: Praise the Lord and rejoice as you follow the Path of Joseph. Please ignore side-effects like your toes fusing together, your genitalia disappearing and turning into a shop window dummy version of Donny or Marie Walton, or helping to bring about the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
* PollutedWasteland: The Pacific Coast is, as quoted above. Utah is so much of a wasteland that the U.S Government ''sold'' the whole state to the religious group, The Church of Joseph.
* Really700YearsOld: Elder Nguyen Seth, The Summoner. In ''Demon Download'' it's stated that Seth first came into contact with Roger Duroc's family during the Albigension Crusade. That took place in the 13th century, and it's hinted by Seth that he's ''much'' older.
--> ''"I remember a hundred years ago as if it were the last minute. A thousand, two thousand, ten thousand years ago."''
--->-- '''Elder Seth''', ''Comeback Tour''
* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: Averted. The Suitcase People are actually fairly civilised and polite, so long as you're not mean to them.
* ShoutOut: KimNewman at work. Even under a pseudonym, writing for GamesWorkshop, the Dark Future novels were just as shout-out-tastic as ever.
* ShownTheirWork: Kim Newman did quite a bit of research on Elvis for ''Comeback Tour,'' and it shows. From the extensive song titles to the little details about how The King cut his first acetate at Sun Records and his family background, there's a wealth of detail that most people would have no clue about.
** He also did fair bit on NASA history to flavour the history of Cape Canaveral with accuracy and some neat little ShoutOut moments to past astronauts.
* SuperSenses:
* SuperStrength:
* TakeThat: The Church of Joseph are a fairly widely-aimed swipe at Christian Fundamentalism in general and, with their HQ in Utah, the Mormon Church in particular. That long-term members of the Church eventually turn into Donny and Marie Walton clones is a light-hearted jab at certain aspects of American culture.
** Rev. Powell and his corrupt church in ''Demon Download'', Gary The Guru in ''Krokodil Tears.''
* {{Troperiffic}}: see above.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Dark Future pretty much exemplifies this trope; from it's not even a decade away setting, accentuated urban decay, inner city crime gone wild, dubious [[MegaCorp Mega Corps]] and Japan taking over the world in the shape of the [=GenTech=] Corporation.
* UnusualUserInterface:
* WeCanRebuildHim:
----
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* ''Route 666'' [1990]: An anthology of short fiction by GW regular authors KimNewman, Brian Craig and [[GotrekandFelix William King]].
to:
* ''Route 666'' [1990]: An anthology of short fiction by GW regular authors KimNewman, Brian Craig and [[GotrekandFelix [[GotrekAndFelix William King]].
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* DeepSouth: The main Op Agency in the the Southern States is called 'The Good Ole Boys,' and the most prevalent gangcults are the Klu Klux Klan and The Knights of The White Magnolia. The G.O.B are portrayed as being pretty much an entire organization of [[Film/LiveAndLetDie J.W Peppers]] and [[TheDukesOfHazzard Boss Hoggs]], chewing tobacco, lording it over "the coloured folks" and generally being a bunch of bigoted rednecks.
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* Determinator:
to:
* Determinator:DeepSouth: The main Op Agency in the the Southern States is called 'The Good Ole Boys,' and the most prevalent gangcults are the Klu Klux Klan and The Knights of The White Magnolia. The G.O.B are portrayed as being pretty much an entire organization of [[Film/LiveAndLetDie J.W Peppers]] and [[TheDukesOfHazzard Boss Hoggs]], chewing tobacco, lording it over "the coloured folks" and generally being a bunch of bigoted rednecks.
* DemonSlaying:
* {{Determinator}}:
* DemonSlaying:
* {{Determinator}}:
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* ChurchMilitant:
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* Determinator:
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The game was successful enough for GamesWorkshop to commission a series of novels based on the setting. These started out with the short story anthology ''Route 666,'' and was relatively short-lived; the best-known and remembered being the trilogy of novels written by horror novelist and film critic KimNewman under the pen name Jack Yeovil. These expanded significantly on the background and setting provided in the 1988 rulebook and mixed in elements from horror and played with various well-known dystopia tropes while mixing in a healthy dose of pop-culture references, [[AlternateHistory alternate-history]] jokes and cameos from other fictional properties. Although GW have never done anything with the game, Newman's novels (much like his [[Warhammer]] works involving Genevieve the Vampire), remained popular enough to survive beyond the lifespan of the game and have been republished by Black Library, though the final installment of his ''Demon Download'' series, ''United States Calvary'' remains unpublished.
to:
The game was successful enough for GamesWorkshop to commission a series of novels based on the setting. These started out with the short story anthology ''Route 666,'' and was relatively short-lived; the best-known and remembered being the trilogy of novels written by horror novelist and film critic KimNewman under the pen name Jack Yeovil. These expanded significantly on the background and setting provided in the 1988 rulebook and mixed in elements from horror and played with various well-known dystopia tropes while mixing in a healthy dose of pop-culture references, [[AlternateHistory alternate-history]] jokes and cameos from other fictional properties. Although GW have never done anything with the game, Newman's novels (much like his [[Warhammer]] {{Warhammer}} works involving Genevieve the Vampire), remained popular enough to survive beyond the lifespan of the game and have been republished by Black Library, though the final installment of his ''Demon Download'' series, ''United States Calvary'' remains unpublished.
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* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: Averted. The Suitcase People are actually fairly civilised and polite, so long as you're not mean to them.
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* Cloudcuckoolander: Fonvielle in ''Comeback Tour,'' who regards the Josephites as new NASA staff and Roger Duroc as the new President of the United States, while being otherwise entirely competent and connected to reality.
to:
* Cloudcuckoolander: {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Commander Fonvielle in ''Comeback Tour,'' who regards the Josephites as new NASA staff and Roger Duroc as the new President of the United States, while being otherwise entirely competent and connected to reality.reality. He's also a literal Space Cadet.
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* Cloudcukoolander: Fonvielle in ''Comeback Tour,'' who regards the Josephites as new NASA staff and Roger Duroc as the new President of the United States, while being otherwise entirely competent and connected to reality.
to:
* Cloudcukoolander: Cloudcuckoolander: Fonvielle in ''Comeback Tour,'' who regards the Josephites as new NASA staff and Roger Duroc as the new President of the United States, while being otherwise entirely competent and connected to reality.
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* Cloudcukoolander: Fonvielle in ''Comeback Tour,'' who regards the Josephites as new NASA staff and Roger Duroc as the new President of the United States, while being otherwise entirely competent and connected to reality.
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* JacobMarleyApparel: The various ghosts of astronauts and cosmonauts seen by Fonvielle at Cape Canaveral all wear whatever they were wearing when they died; usually spacesuits. The ghost of Yuri Gagarin appears as a mobile, man-shaped conglomeration of ash.
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** Elder Seth also has this. In ''Krokodil Tears'' he bites off the tip of his own finger to use in a ritual, knowing it'll grow back. His is entirely supernatural, though.
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* ChekhovsGift: [[spoiler: The guitar 'ti-Mouche gives Elvis after he plays in the Cajun camp]] in ''Comeback Tour.''
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* ArcWords: In ''Comeback Tour'':
--> ''"...the sky belongs to the stars."''
--->-- '''Buddy Holly'''
--> ''"...the sky belongs to the stars."''
--->-- '''Buddy Holly'''
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Added DiffLines:
* HauntedTechnology: The ''Demon Download'' series is replete with this trope. Unsurprising, really, given the title of the first novel and the series overall. The first book has a demon infecting computer systems and operating any technology those computer systems are connected to, resulting in a demon-possessed United States Road Cavalry cruiser and later on, possessed kitchen appliances. In ''Comeback Tour'', the only reason the Josephites are able to get Needlepoint working is that [[spoiler: they're using voodoo to have the KillSat possessed by Elder Seth.]]
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* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as Constant Drachenfels; welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
to:
* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as Constant Drachenfels; {{Drachenfels}}; welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
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* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as Constant Drachenfels welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
to:
* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as Constant Drachenfels Drachenfels; welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
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* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as [[Drachenfels Constant Drachenfels]], welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
to:
* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as [[Drachenfels Constant Drachenfels]], Drachenfels welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
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* BiggerBad: The Dark Ones. The Dark Ones are combination of various cultures demons and the [[HPLovecraft Great Old Ones]]. Nyarlathotep gets a direct namecheck in ''Krokodil Tears''.
to:
* BiggerBad: The Dark Ones. The Dark Ones are combination of various cultures demons and the [[HPLovecraft Great Old Ones]]. Azathoth and Nyarlathotep gets a get direct namecheck namechecks in ''Krokodil Tears''.
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* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached.
to:
* CanonWelding: HPLovecraft's Great Old Ones, inserted into a GamesWorkshop novel based on a game about cars with guns attached. ''Krokodil Tears'' has a sequence in which Elder Seth witnesses an alternate version of himself as [[Drachenfels Constant Drachenfels]], welding KimNewman's Warhammer novels to the Dark Future canon.
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* FutureSlang: Most of the future neologisms listed in the game's rulebook get recycled in the books, and Yeovil's substitute 'freak' for most instances of 'fuck.'
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* HealingFactor: Jessamyn, after having been worked on by Dr. Threadneedle in ''Krokodil Tears,'' has his patented regeneration system as one of her many cybernetic augmentations, enabling her almost instantly heal minor to moderate injuries and shrug off major wounds. It doesn't make her, or its inventor invincible though.
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* ContinuityNod: ''Comeback Tour'' has a several news reports which make mention of events from ''Demon Download'' and ''Krokodil Tears.''
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* DealWithTheDevil: Elder Seth is generally implied to have been the middleman between various parties and the Dark Ones in this deal.
to:
* DealWithTheDevil: Elder Seth is generally implied to have been the middleman between various parties and the Dark Ones in this deal.deal. He openly states that Presley could've had one, and it's strongly suggested that Colonel Parker, Presley's manager (in the books and the real world) already did.
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* DealWithTheDevil: Elder Seth is generally implied to have been the middleman between various parties and the Dark Ones in this deal.
--> '''"Colonel Presley could have made a deal with me. I have always taken an interest in music. His life would have been different."''
--> ''"Better?"''
--> ''"Different."'''
--->-- '''Elder Seth and Krokodil''' ''Comeback Tour''
--> '''"Colonel Presley could have made a deal with me. I have always taken an interest in music. His life would have been different."''
--> ''"Better?"''
--> ''"Different."'''
--->-- '''Elder Seth and Krokodil''' ''Comeback Tour''
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-> ''"I remember a hundred years ago as if it were the last minute. A thousand, two thousand, ten thousand years ago."''
-->-- '''Elder Seth''', ''Comeback Tour''
-->-- '''Elder Seth''', ''Comeback Tour''
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* Really700YearsOld: Elder Nguyen Seth, The Summoner. In ''Demon Download'' it's stated that Seth first came into contact with Roger Duroc's family during the Albigension Crusade. That took place in the 13th century, and it's hinted by Seth that he's ''much'' older.
-> ''"I remember a hundred years ago as if it were the last minute. A thousand, two thousand, ten thousand years ago."''
-->-- '''Elder Seth''', ''Comeback Tour''
-> ''"I remember a hundred years ago as if it were the last minute. A thousand, two thousand, ten thousand years ago."''
-->-- '''Elder Seth''', ''Comeback Tour''
