History TabletopGame / Space1889

* AlienSpaceBats: Edison's invention of aetherflyers and the discovery that Mars was inhabited and had liftwood would seem like a Alien Space Bats even to humans who understood enough aether theory to suspect space flight was possible. From the Marsian perspective weird earthlings coming out of nowhere and creating new conflicts with their superior weapons must have seem even more Alien Space Bat-ish.

* GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe: Although still frowned on in polite society, Canal and Hill Martians are generally attractrive by human standards. Female Canal Martians tend to be portryed as this in artwork, while Hill Martians are closer to NubileSavage.

It is set in an AlternateUniverse Victorian era where [[AllTheoriesAreTrue the scientific theories of the day are true]]; a luminiferous aether fills the depths of space, which is what people use to travel from world to world in {{Cool Airship}}s. Indeed, the game describes itself as Victorian-era science fiction. As the game is set in an alternate-Victorian era, all the great powers have colonies on the other planets.

* DumbMuscle: Sef in Beastmen of Mars and Bobby MacCraken in Caravans of Mars.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: the likely fate of the villain in [[spoiler: Ausonian Stalker from Tales from the Ether.]]
* HollywoodCostuming: averted. The illustrations mostly show some version of late 19th century attire.

* HostageSituation happens a few times. Very likely to occur in [[spoiler: “The Mystery at Fort Dickerson”]] from “More Tales from the Ether”.

* HumanPopsicle in the main book, human hibernation is one of the things that can be invented. It does not involve freezing, though.
* HumanSacrifice: practiced by thuggee, Cult of the Worm and Cult of Phobos.
* HumansAdvanceSwiftly: indeed, compared to Martians.
* HumansAreDivided: averted in that Martians are at least as divided as humans. Many Martian nations are essentially just one city and the surrounding area.

* AllohistoricalAllusion: Surprisingly completely absent, unless you count Otto Strabisnäs, a nutcase who doesn't believe in the ether theory and instead has developed his own wave-particle duality theory in the adventure ''Canal Priests of Mars''. Since Otto Stravisnäs is ahistorical but his crackpot theory is the correct on in our world, this is more like an alloscientific allusion. The reason for the absence of allohistorical allusion in what is obviously a piece of alternate history could be that this is alternate history very close to real history.

* AllPlanetsAreEarthLike: Mercury, Venus, Mars and the moon can all support human life quite easily (albeit not necessarily comfortably), although only Mars has any sort of civilization on it. Mercury has only very basic life, such as trilobites. Venus has sentient Lizardmen, although they are only at the Stone Age level. Mars has an ancient civilization based around their canals, although they have lost the technology necessary to build new canals or even to maintain their cities. The Moon can also support life, although there is no atmosphere on the surface—it only exists nearer to the Moon's core.

** The Selenites on Luna are sentient, man-sized ants.

* BenevolentAlienInvasion: This is how Europeans feel about their presence on Mars, Venus, Africa, and Asia.

* GreekFire: Something very similar is a possible invention according to the main book: “Liquid fire: A compound which burns fiercely when exposed to oxygen. Water will not extinguish it but dry sand will.”

* Silicon-Based Life: Most of flora and fauna on the hot side of Mercury (always facing the sun) are silicon based.

* SolarSystemNeigbhors: Most of the inner planets are inhabited

* WeatherControlDevice: The Weather Control Ray is a possible invention in the main rules. It allows the user to bring on storms or disperse them.
* Well Intentioned Extremist: Lieutenant commander Friedrich Bertram von Reden became a sky pirate to build a socialist utopia on Venus. However, he plans to build up his fleet by robbing other airships and then massacres their crews if they refuse to join him.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: There are dinosaurs on Venus somewhat justified by Victorian ideas of aging worlds where Venus is a younger world than Earth. However, the real reason is of course that everything is better with dinosaurs.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Victorian mass media, id est newspapers, works like this sometimes historically and in the game. Newspaper readers might angrily demand a rescue expedition for the latest white explorer who set off in harm’s way on purpose, while ignoring such things as King Leopold’s multimillion-body-count-genocide in Congo.

* AsimovsThreeKindsOfScienceFiction: Two of three types are well represented in the game. In the sourcebooks the new technologies are described in reasonable detail and the adventures are, well, adventures. The social effects of the inventions mentioned are small (such as the difficulty of keeping clothes in their proper places in zero-G) and Europeans treat the other planets as just other colonies. Instead the historical conventions of late Victorian Era are played straight.

* NiceHat: it’s the late Victorian era. Plenty of impressive-looking hats, particularly for the ladies.

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: Relatively hard, perhaps 3.5. Two great exceptions to known laws of physics; liftwood and ether. Technologies built on these are explained in some detail and apart from these two exceptions, generally workable and within range of technology anno 1889. There are sometimes miracular devices appearing in some adventures, and typically destroyed by the end of the adventure. Some adventures are diffenerent though. Tree of Souls in Challenge 46 has a dead person rising and creating zombies with incantations with no scientific explanation at all.

* SocietyMarchesOn: An alternate history version: Mankind achieves space travel in 1870 and meets other intelligent species and gets access to material that makes flying ship possible -all other things being the same, including society. The discovery of other intelligent species, for instance have almost no effect on human society and european colonists treat the new planets as new places to explore, trade with and colonize and martians and lizard men as just new form of natives. Player characters are supposed to generally embody Victorian society and values, the players, of course, disagree with much of these. The in-game society is justifiably old-fashioned since it is actually set in an alternative past.

* AccentuateTheNegative: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. The game described but does not dwell very much on the dark sides of Victorian Britain or on the time in general. The average Victorian believes in Progress so it's mostly inverted in-universe too. This is a fairly optimistic game in general.

* AllGravityIsTheSame: Mars has .9 gs for some inexplicable reason. Presumably either to explain why it has a breathable atmosphere or to avoid writing up rules for Martian gravity.
** Averted for other planets, Mercury has only 40% gravity and Luna is only 16%

* AlternateHistory: The history is different, but similar. Given that laws of nature are slightly different some discoveries from the 18th century must have been different. However, the real point of divergence is 1870 when Edison travels to Mars. However, that changes, historical events on Earth surprisingly little and events basically follow their original path.
** The newest edition plays up the alternate history more. Such as the Confederate States of America winning the Civil War and the Paris Commune successfully taking over France.

* BlatantLies: Victorian-style manners run in part on this. “We are here to protect your independence.” “He is not at home.” “My most respectable opponent…”

* BornAgainImmortality: in ''Canal Priest of Mars'' we learn that the Canal Keepers of Garyaan believe this is what happens to [[spoiler: Seldon, the person that united Mars a few millennia ago]]. Game Master desides if it is true.

* InnocentBigot: this behaviour would be perfectly good roleplaying in many situations in Space 1889. For instance, in the introductory adventure on the moon it is perfectly reasonable for the player characters to react to the insect-like Selenites with something like: “Gosh I thought giant ants would be stupid, hive-minded and vicious –but you’re just people who just happens to look really unpleasant to us.”

* InsaneEqualsViolent: the vast majority of [=NPCs=] with the motivation “insane” are violent and hostile to the player characters.

* KaiserReich: The antagonist often ends up as this, which is surprising given that Britain was more hostile to France and Russia in 1889, and there is nothing in the alternate history that would make them particularly more hostile.
** The current edition is a bit better about this. Though the villain of one published adventure is German, Germany is no longer the go-to antagonist of the game. The Mars sourcebook even has an excerpt from a German soldier showing [[EveryoneHasStandards disgust at the sheer brutality of the Belgian territories]].

* LizardFolk: Hmm, could the lizardmen of Venus fit this trope?

* MadScientist: in many adventures, the antagonist is this trope.

* MalevolentMaskedMen: in Kronos, Leader of the Brotherhood of Luxor in Red Sands.

* NubileSavage: illustrations of Hill Martian men and women sometimes fall into this trope combining it with GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe. The of Steppelords of Mars, though, makes it clear that wasting water for washing is a crime and a taboo but there is not trace of this in the illustrations.
** Canal Martians are probably closer to {{Green-Skinned Space Babe}}.

* PayEvilUntoEvil: player characters are usually expected to kill the bad guys.

* PowerCrystal: A relatively scientific and mundane version. A glowcrystal from Mercury can work as a powerful rechargeable battery (not magic battery, perfectly regular battery giving away electrical DC current, just much better than late 19th century batteries and you charge it by sunlight rather than electricity). In Puzzle of the Shard in Challenge 42 there is a more powerful version that can store and release sunlight in powerful and dangerous quantities.
** Crystals actual form a large part of Ancient Martian Technolgy. Ranging from heat and light sources, to energy weapons, and even used as recording devices.

* RealMenHateAffection: it’s late 19th century and most of the characters are British.

* {{Scienceville}}: Port Progress. A city founded by Thomas Edison to be a haven for scientists and inventors.
* ScienceIsBad: Clearly inverted—This is a game with about a time where belief in progress is strong.
* SeaMine: Canal Priests of Mars have an aerial version.
* SecurityCling: On the cover of ''Caravans of Mars''.

* SendInTheSearchTeam: Fairly common start of an adventure.

* SkyPirate: The role is a bit difficult to pull off without support from some Martian city, so privateers are much more likely than a true pirate; Shaptash employs privateers against the British. The adventure "Mission to Shaptash" in Challenge 76 is about this.
**On Venus, the German authorities don't yet realize that one of their missing zeppelins was actually stolen by it's commander and his crew to become sky pirates. They even have a jolly roger flag (but it is colored red with a hammer and sickle under the skull becaue they want to overthrow the colonial powers and establish a socialist utopia)

* SubspaceOrHyperspace completely averted. Space ships use ether to travel fast, but still in perfectly regular space.
* SuccessionCrisis British excuse for their colony on Syrtis Major.
* SukhomlinovEffect generally inverted, the Europeans have colorful uniforms and will easily defeat rat-tag enemies.
* SuperIntelligence: there is an intelligence amplifier in Moon of Madness from Challenge 67.

* UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire: Obviously
* TheChessmaster: Kronos, leader of the Brotherhood of Luxor in Red Sands.
* TheFogOfAges: happens in [[spoiler: Beastmen of Mars]].
* TheGreys: the Moon-men look quite a bit like this, their behaviour is different.
* The Gunslinger: The Saarpak-Naado, or Revolver Knights, are a mix of knight-errant and gunslinger. They travel across Mars investigating crimes and punishing the guilty, weilding muzzle-loading (but extremely accurate) multi-shot pistols. lIke everything on Mars, they have also been in decline and are few in number now.
* TheMagicVersusTechnologyWar: happens fairly often that some shaman manages to convince a bunch of natives that their faith or magic will make them invulnerable to the Europeans bullets or something like that. Since this is a world were magic doesn’t work but technology certainly does the result is a curb-stomp-battle.
* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: mostly justified. Most adventures take place far away from human civilization and the player characters find themselves needing to do a bit of everything. Also even in the most advanced, urban, human civilizations people are a lot less specialized and trained in a speciality than they are today. It is not too difficult for an amateur detective to have useful knowledge a professional police investigator does not, to mention a regular beat cop. Furthermore social status is greatly respected and can allow you to push professionals around. If Lord X wants to demonstrate to a professional teacher how teaching should be done, the teacher is very likely to put up with it and keep his groaning silent.
* TheManBehindTheCurtain: in Beastmen of Mars the players will find out who is behind the horrifying Cult of the Worm. He’s fairly underwhelming, yet not…
* ThePigPen: Nomad Martians have a strict taboo for and punishments against wasting precious water (anything other than Martian, animal or plant consumption or Martian food preparation is wasting).
* TheQuisling In the human-occupied parts of Mars plenty of Martians try to do the best of the situation and curry favour with the new rulers. Many of their own race will see this as treason.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Justified. It’s 1889. Scientific and therapeutic psychology is barely invented.
* TheReptilians: Lizard men of Mars. They are not evil or sadistic though.
* TheRoleplayer: the game´s intended audience is people who like to play an adventure type story while playing a Victorian character. The very simple rules do not leave much room for min-maxing or munchkining. A munchkin player with a repeating rifle and a good marksmanship skill could kill the technologically inferior enemies easily, but once the enemy is in range there is very little that will protect him from enemy musketballs and arrows (no dodge skill, no camouflage, no bullet stopping armor unless we are talking about close combat). On the other hand, the detailed background put much emphasis on understanding Victorian society and mindset.
* TheSocialDarwinist: absent in the Space 1889 adventures, despite the fact that it was historically quite present and mainstream in 1889.
* TheWarOfEarthlyAggression: Many Canal Martians’ view on the Shaptash uprising and the British Oenotrian war.
* TheWildWest: A few places throughout the Solar System can have a very western vibe.
** The actual American Wild West is not over yet. In fact, the New Mexico Territory is even wilder (even called the Wild Wild West in the corebook), because it has essentially been declared a neutral zone between USA and CSA. There is no official government in the region, except for some larger towns that usually controlled by local businessmen.
** The North Polar Regions of Mars have this feeling. The only civilization being independent city-states on edge of a tundra like wilderness.

* {{Ruritania}} is in Soldier’s Companion with flag, uniforms and military units.

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Many of the Martian city-states have one of these.

* Scienceville: Port Progress. A city founded by Thomas Edison to be a haven for scientists and inventors.

* Cossacks: The Cossacks form the bulk of the Russian military on Venus. The official governor of the Russian colony suspects that their commander may declare independence the first chance he gets.

* Domesticated Dinosaurs: Lizardmen and most human colonists use domesticated dinosaurs.

* {{Demythtification}}: Much Martian history is now legend. In many stories the player characters get to discover what is the truth behind these legends.