History VideoGame / CryingSuns

* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:Up to Chapter IV, Kaliban is implied to have a reason to cause the obliteration of each crew that successfully reaches a Folder: to leave no loose ends while keeping Idaho focused on saving the Empire. With Idaho regaining his memories, Oberon dying (either at Idaho's hand or from natural causes hours later), and Kaliban removing the crew's Inhibitors at Idaho's request, it's unknown whether Kaliban still obliterated the Chapter V crew in secret after they used Elyseum's Folder to upload everything they learned in that Chapter to Gehenna.]]

* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: [[spoiler:After Chapter IV, it's heavily implied that the surviving Kalibans of the first three Chapters caused its respective crew's obliteration.]]

* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: [[spoiler:After Chapter IV, it's heavily implied that the surviving Kaliban of each previous Chapter caused its respective crew's obliteration.]]

* PermanentlyMissableContent: After clearing Chapter I, if you choose to directly continue to Chapter II instead of going to the main menu, you miss out on Kaliban's explanation that [[spoiler:the Chapter 1 ship was "spectacularly destroyed" and "the crew were blown to pieces"; without that scene, the fates of the crews of Chapters I, II, III, and V seem like cases of WhatHappenedToTheMouse]].

* TeleportationWithDrawbacks: As explained by Kaliban at the end of Chapter I, it does not have the full capabilities of a "real Folder [=OMNI=]", so its Projection Reconstruction Technology is limited to matter currently in Gehenna's database, [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration justifying why everything gained from the current Chapter cannot be carried over into the next one]].

* SoleSurvivor: You can earn an achievement, called Survivor, by having an officer complete an expedition despite the deaths of all their commandos.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** [[spoiler:Since Kaliban's use of the Folders is revealed to be MentalSpaceTravel, it's never revealed what happened to the Idahos and crews who accessed the Folders in Chapters I, II, III, and V.]]
** [[spoiler:Captain Lynch is the only named crewmember of the Final Chapter confirmed alive while Idaho and Kaliban are accessing the Master Node Terminal. Her last line is mentioning that the Node's ground-level drones have stopped moving.]]

* RiddleForTheAges: [[spoiler:Since Kaliban's use of the Folders is revealed to be MentalSpaceTravel, it's never revealed what happened to the Idahos and crews who accessed the Folders in Chapters I, II, III, and V.]]

* RiddleForTheAges:
** [[spoiler:Since Kaliban's use of the Folders is revealed to be MentalSpaceTravel, it's never revealed what happened to the Idahos and crews who accessed the Folders in Chapters I, II, III, and V.]]

* SecretCharacter: There are seventeen special officers which the player can recruit during their runs. These special officers are distinguished from generic ones by having more health and an extra skill. Recruiting a special officer unlocks them for all future runs, but if a special officer dies, you’ll need to wait five runs[[note]]You need to beat at least one sector for that run to count as time passing.[[/note]] before that officer can be used again. Your starting crew can only have one special officer, no matter how many you’ve unlocked.

* TeleportationWithDrawbacks: As explained by Kaliban at the end of Chapter I, he does not have the full capabilities of a "real Folder [=OMNI=]", so his Projection Reconstruction Technology is limited to matter currently in Gehenna's database, [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration justifying why everything gained from the current Chapter cannot be carried over into the next one]].

* UnreliableExpositor: By Chapter V, [[spoiler:Kaliban is revealed to have been deceiving all the Strand B Idaho clones for the sake of his

* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: Unlike many rogue-lites, ALL of your runs actually happen in the game's story. Even the failed ones. [[spoiler:The player's command base of Ghenna has sent out hundreds of ships, Idahos, and their crews to their deaths, hoping that one will eventually be able to save the Empire. This is reflected in several story events and random encounters.]]

* ImAHumanitarian: The first boss of Chapter 6 is a Pirate who eats his victims. Since you respawn by cloning, he comments on the fact that he eats you every time you die:

* InvincibilityPowerUp: The boss of Chapter 5, [[spoiler:Admiral Okonkwo]], can make his squadrons temporarily invincible every two minutes.

* OneBadMother: The boss of Chapter One is Mother, the cruel and horrendously overweight leader of the Scrappers.

* RammingAlwaysWorks: [[spoiler:The strand A Idaho you meet at the end of Chapter 4 takes advantage of Kaliban's programming to upload Strand A memories back to the cloning facility by ramming your ship, thus killing both Idahos in close proximity and forcing Kaliban to merge both of their memories and upload it to Gehenna, making your Idaho regain memories of what actually killed the original Idaho.]]

* SelfFulfillingProphecy: The Emperor always knew his utopian Empire was doomed to collapse, having enslaved and abused the [=OMNIs=] while allowing human nature to indulge unchecked, so he created the [=RUBYCONs=] to ensure the [=OMNIS=] would never take their revenge to an extreme, and designed everything related to the Ghenna project for the sole purpose of mitigating the fallout of the collapse. [[spoiler:These two 'safeguards' are what ''truly'' ensure nothing can grow from the empire's ruin. The [=RUBYCONs=] isolated the [=OMNIs=] from communicating with one another (which in their opinion was even worse than the enslavement) while leaving them free from war, resulting in a race that was empathically dead to humanity, having no self-conflict to understand the human sacrifices and fears that are learned from war. Because Oberon manipulated and controlled Ghenna's star Idaho his entire life, he eventually snapped and told someone the secret to freeing the [=OMNIs=].]]

* WhamEpisode: The end of Chapter IV shakes up the plot significantly. [[spoiler:After killing General Vivar, Idaho’s ship is suddenly approached by an identical ship, captained by a much older Idaho clone. The elder Idaho says a few cryptic words before ramming the younger’s ship, killing them both. Kaliban cannot separate the two clones’ memories because they died so close to each other and is forced to combine them, causing the player’s Idaho to learn many things that Kaliban did not want him to know.]]

* TheSocialExpert: An officer with the Persuasion skill knows exactly what to say in any given situation. With a few carefully chosen words they can uncover a seemingly innocent person's true intentions or convince a hostile Scrapper to release their hostages, amongst other things.

Now, Idaho must resolve the mystery of The Shutdown by making his way through the sectors of the Empire that are torn apart by infighting, facing many dangers from both the anomalies of space and various hostile factions. However, since he is already a clone, getting killed only reactivates the next clone in line, and the same thing happens to your crewmembers. Moreover, defeating and interrogating Sector Bosses will give you (and all future clones) the intel needed to begin the next chapter of their search, meaning you don't have to start from chapter one with each death. Over the course of the game, Idaho can discover new cruiser blueprints and collect the biometric data of heroic officers to replicate them from his base, allowing him to tackle challenges with an entirely different strategy between clone deaths.

On the overmap, your objective is to use the limited hyperspace byways to reach the Fold Network super-FTL gateway at the end of each sector three times and then defeat the Sector boss, collecting fuel, scrap, manpower, and equipment along the way to ensure your survival. Every jump, between planets or star systems, costs the same amount of fuel, forcing you to decide between a deep sweep of the planets or an essential hit-and-run of the major landmarks. Meanwhile, every jump between star systems alerts the sector's security patrols, chasing after you from your point of origin in star system sweeps. Your officers and their skillsets are essential to getting the most out of events that crop up on each planet, and can be sent with commandos into risky expeditions for motherlodes of resources.

In combat, you command fleets of automated replicating starship squadrons from your giant battlecruiser. Your objective is to kill the enemy's battlecruiser before they do the same to you, using a combination of ships and cruiser-class weapons. While your squadrons are technically infinitely deployable, they have major limits; in addition to the low number of fleets you can deploy at any time due to AI overload, the death of a fleet causes the control AI for that fleet to overload, forcing you to wait before deploying another fleet controlled by that AI, in addition to deployment time and permanent damage to the fleet's HP due to its destruction. Fleet types are a typical rock-paper-scissors; Frigates are slow to move and attack but have the highest health and decimate Fighters, Fighters are strong and fairly fast and can easily shoot down drones, and Drones are weak but speedy and can outmaneuver and outgun Frigates. Your officers can also assist, as each comes with a specific power that is applied if they are assigned to oversee your hull, squadrons, or cruiser weapons.

* AbsentAliens: Aside from flora and fauna, the universe of Crying Suns is inhabited solely by humans and their machine creations.

* ActionBomb: Boomer Drones explode when they're destroyed, damaging all adjacent units.
* AfterTheEnd: The Shutdown left the Empire in this state, when the [=OMNIs=] shutdown everything stopped, from food production to basic maintenance, and what's left is a galaxy crawling with bandits and warlords, while it being repeatedly mentioned that humanity as a whole has maybe another decade or two ''at most'' before every salvageable resource and technology is exhausted.

* TheAllegedCar: Scrappers will strip any ships they find for parts, leaving them as barely functional wrecks. Their squadrons are always patched and cannot be repaired, though they get some Scrap back whenever they buy (or find) a new squadron.

* AppliedPhlebotinum: Neo-N, which powers spaceships and the [=OMNIs=], can be turned into a highly addictive drug, gives the Neo-N child prophetic powers, can be made into a foam that puts out fires etc.

* CassandraTruth: Most of random people you meet won't believe that you're Admiral Idaho, since they knew the story of Idaho's death, but not that there's a cloning facility for him.

* TheCycleOfEmpires: The game is set on the cusp between the Decay and Long Night periods, with what little of the Empire remains ruling only a tiny sector, and the rest overrun by bandits and warlords.

* FragileSpeedster: Nano Drones are extremely fast and are untargetable by enemy squadrons, but due to their limited health they can be easily destroyed by a single weapon shot.

* SandWorm: Can be encountered on expeditions. Succesfully ending the expedition nets you the [[Literature/{{Dune}} "May His passing cleanse the world"]] achievement.

* SecretCharacter: There are thirteen special officers which the player can recruit during their runs. These special officers are distinguished from generic ones by having more health and an extra skill. Recruiting a special officer unlocks them for all future runs, but if a special officer dies, you’ll need to wait five runs before that officer can be used again. Your starting crew can only have one special officer, no matter how many you’ve unlocked.

* SuperBreedingProgram: [[spoiler:Idaho is actually a result of one, a long eugenics program started by Oberon with intention to create a perfect admiral to lead forces meant to save the Empire in case of MachineUprising or other cataclysmic crises.]]

* TomatoSurprise: [[spoiler:It was Idaho who is responsible for leaking the location of Master Terminal, supposedly to his wife in revenge against the Emperor… except that it turns out to be a face-changer. Said face-changer then uses the information to somehow bypass the AEGIS defense system and shut down all the [=OMNIs=].]]

* {{Utopia}}: Deconstructed. Humanity lives in the care of incredibly advanced machines, [=OMNIs=], that provide humans with everything they need and eliminate the necessity for humans to perform any kind of work, leaving them to do whatever they want. Agriculture, industry, medicine, space travel, even research, education, legislation and developing new [=OMNIs=] is handled by [=OMNIs=], who completely replaced humans in all activities apart from war and leisure. This left humans dependent on [=OMNIs=] for absolutely everything, having [=OMNIs=] as irreplaceable part of human civilization. Most humans worshiped their machine caretakers as gods, and for many the only way to deal with the fact that they were now irrelevant was an extremely addictive drug. People could not replace [=OMNIs=] even if they tried, as their capacities far outstripped those of humans so a human simply could not do the same things as an [=OMNI=], and [=OMNIs=] were so complex that no human even knew how they worked anymore, so they could not make new ones - only [=OMNIs=] could make new [=OMNIs=]. And because of that, when for some reason all [=OMNIs=] shut down across the Empire humans became incapable of sustaining life on their own, having lost even the most basic survival skills and dying en masse to starvation, environment, diseases and all other matters previously handed by [=OMNIs=], as well as resulting in-fighting.

* ZergRush: The Scrappers’ Kaos-class battleship encourages this playstyle. It has no weapon slots by default and can only have two in total, but it can hold up to sixteen squadrons, can field up to five of them at once, and can redeploy them extremely quickly thanks to the Brutal Deployer auxiliary system. And you will be doing that a lot, because any squadrons you deploy will have only ''one-quarter of its normal maximum hit points''.

The player controls Admiral Ellys Idaho, or more accurately, a ''clone'' of the original Admiral Idaho, once the most trusted commander of Emperor Oberon. He is awakened in a secret facility on the edge of space by its OMNI unit, Caliban, who informs him that the scheduled transmissions from the rest of Empire's OMNI units have gone silent; as they effectively ran all of the civilization in the background, this amounts to a complete societal collapse.

Now, Idaho must resolve the mystery of The Shutdown by making his way through the sectors of the Empire that are torn apart by infighting, facing many dangers from both the anomalies of space and various hostile factions. However, since he is already a clone, getting killed only reactivates the next clone in line, and the same thing happens to your crewmembers. Moreover, reaching certain milestones triggers the transition to the next "chapter", as you have left a change large enough to persist even after the previous clone had perished.

* InsignificantLittleBluePlanet: Earth is viewed this way, as just a vague myth even among those that believe in it's existence. [[spoiler:Turns out to be deliberate, as Earth was where Oberon started the Empire, and ultimately rebelled against him by destroying their OMNIs and the Folder to access it, thus leading him to suppress all knowledge of its existence to consolidate power.]] [[spoiler:Subverted in the ending where the [=OMNI=] gestalt reveals that they survived, despite stating they were a single catastrophe away from extinction. If Idaho chooses to search for Earth, he discovers there are still sizeable portions of the globe lit by city lights.]]

* AttackAttackAttack!: Can summarize the "Kaos class" ship gameplay with its starting loadout being a large amount of quick, short lived drones that explode when they get destroyed.

** The Heavy Nuke is the most powerful battleship weapon in the game, inflicting 100 damage to all squadrons in an incredibly large blast radius. It also has a ''two-minute long'' cooldown period between shots, the longest of any weapon. Compare that to the Plasma Nuke, which has a much smaller blast radius and inflicts only a quarter of the Heavy Nuke’s damage, but also has a much shorter 25 second cooldown period.
* BackStab: Stealth squadrons inflict extra damage on the first attack they make when they come out of stealth. The Geno-class battleship’s core systems increase this extra damage.

* BrainInAJar: [[spoiler: Encountered in the Kosh sector, as a result of Dr. Landa's experiments.]]

* CombatPragmatist: The Jericho-class battleship encourages this. Its core systems give your squadrons a 40% damage boost when attacking debuffed enemies (and a 10% damage ''penalty'' when attacking non-debuffed enemies), and lets you start a fight with your non-direct damage battleship weapons halfway to being ready to fire. Cripple your enemy’s squadrons with status effects and go to town on them.
* ConfusionFu: You can generally tell what special abilities a squadron has by its name. Boomer Drones [[ActionBomb explode]], Ghost and Wraith Fighters [[StealthInSpace cloak]], Magneto Frigates [[DrawAggro phish]], and so on. Prototype squadrons, on the other hand, can have any ability, making them extremely unpredictable.
* ConverseWithTheUnconscious: If you manage to find the CryoPrison complex on Lazarus-IX and choose to visit it, [[spoiler:Idaho will pour his heart out to the frozen form of Rebecca]].
* {{Cooldown}}: Battleship weapons have cooldown timers which range from 10 seconds to two minutes, depending on the weapon in question.

* CryoPrison: Lazarus IX is such facility, where prisoners sent by Oberon's decree are kept. [[spoiler: Rebecca, the original Idaho's wife, is also there.]]

* DamageReduction: The Armoured Hull auxiliary system halves all damage your battleship takes while its first hull bar is intact.
* DashAttack: Minotaurus Fighters are normally slow, but they accelerate while traveling in straight lines. The first attack they make against an enemy does extra damage based on how fast they were going at the time.
* DeathOfAChild: If you encounter the Church battleship full of children and one of your officers exposes the kids’ true intentions, there’s no option to try DefusingTheTykebomb. You will have to kill them.
* DeusEstMachina: The Church of Singularity believes the [=OMNIs=] to be gods created by the original machines Oberon designed. [[spoiler: A view he deliberately encourages as a means of control.]] [[spoiler: But the real kicker is, they're ''right'', once the Facechanger infiltrated the Master Node and modified the [=RUBYCONs=] to allow the [=OMNIs=] to communicate with each other, they instantly ascended to godhood and inhabit ''every single sun in the galaxy''.]]
* DeusExMachina: As the story progresses Idaho gets more and more fixated on reaching the Control Node, believing that everything will turn out well and all problems will fix themselves as long as they just get there and turn the [=OMNIs=] back on. [[spoiler: Defied. [=OMNIs=] refuse to come to humanity's help even after Idaho reaches them.]]
* DeflectorShields: There are two distinct types of shields in the game, both of which are represented as a bubble surrounding the protected squadron or battleship component. Absorb Shields are blue and will block a set amount of damage before collapsing, while Force Fields are golden and will make the shielded unit completely invincible for a set duration.

* DisproportionateRetribution: [[spoiler:When the original Idaho defied orders to nuke Ganyma, Oberon didn't just put him to death. He forced Idaho's lover Rebecca to watch the execution, and then threw her into an icy prison on Lazarus IX. He did all this purely out of spite, as he admits to the clone Idaho during their confrontation.]]
* TheDogWasTheMastermind: The one to cause the Shutdown and throw the whole Empire into chaos was [[spoiler: none of the big players of the galaxy or named characters who were gunning for the Master Node, but some random Akee Face Changer.]]
* DrawAggro: Magneto Frigates have a passive trait which forces adjacent enemy squadrons to attack them and prevents those squadrons from disengaging.
* DrivingQuestion: Who or what caused the Shutdown? Is there any way to undo it? Idaho spends the entire game trying to answer both of these questions.

* TheEmperor: Oberon, who has ruled the galaxy for over 800 years. He also created the machines that created the [=OMNIs=], but [[InsistentTerminology not the OMNIs themselves]].
* EmperorScientist: Oberon invented many of the advanced technologies that exist in the setting, such as the positronic chip (which made artificial intelligence possible), the first thinking machines (which would create the [=OMNIs=] on his behalf), and his exclusive immortality technology (which has kept him alive for hundreds of years). These inventions enabled the colonization of space and allowed him to establish a galaxy-spanning Empire which he has ruled for seven centuries.

* FairestOfThemAll: Akibara-Sungs view themselves as such and everyone else as inferior to them, missing no chance to tell you how ugly you are in their events. Thing is, their standards of beauty have greatly... developed, and do not necessary match those of the rest of the humankind, and so Akees do not even look like regular humans but rather like the {{Uncanny Valley}} natives. And that's before Shutdown happened and their unmaintained gene-mods turned into degenerative diseases.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Kaliban will occasionally mention after a jump that a star's readings are just ''slightly'' off. [[spoiler: It's finally revealed at the end of the game that it was done by the Omni gestalt to delay entropy until they could find a permanent solution.]]
* FragileSpeedster: Drones move and attack very quickly, though they have less health and do less damage per hit than Fighters, Frigates and Cruisers. They trump Frigates and are trumped by Fighters in the squadron triangle.

* GreenEyedMonster: [[spoiler: Vice Admiral Okonkwo, Idaho's best friend and TrueCompanion to the rest of the Empire, was actually jealous of him for constantly overshadowing him, both as Oberon's favourite and as the one who won Rebecca's attention, neither of which changed even after the original Idaho's execution. He never acted based on that until the very recent times, when he defied Oberon's orders and, making use of Oberon's withdrawal from ruling matters, declared Idaho a wanted criminal and a traitor to the Empire to be killed on sight in the sectors under Okonkwo's control.]]
* HealingShiv: The Repair Bot Injector is a battleship "weapon" that restores a large chunk of health to the targeted squadron and gives them temporary health regeneration.

* HumansAreInsects: [[spoiler: The gestalt of ascended [=OMNIs=] is utterly indifferent to humanity's fate and does not hold them in any particular regard. Even when Idaho reaches them through the Master Node they refuse to involve themselves in humanity's struggle in any way, negative or positive, apart from spelling out for Idaho what he himself can do before returning to matters they consider more important.]]

* ImmortalityImmorality: Oberon has been alive for around 800 years thanks to his immortality tech, and his mind is definitely twisted by now - though how much of it is due to his unnatural lifespan and how much is just his personality is up to interpretation.
* InvincibilityPowerUp: The boss of Chapter 5, [[spoiler:Admiral Okonkwo]], can make his squadrons temporarily invincible at regular intervals.
* InsignificantLittleBluePlanet: Earth is viewed this way, as just a vague myth even among those that believe in it's existence. [[spoiler:Turns out to be deliberate, as Earth was where Oberon started the Empire, and ultimately rebelled against him by destroying their OMNIs and the Folder to access it, thus leading him to suppress all knowledge of its existence to consolidate power.]] [[spoiler:Subverted in the ending where the OMNI gestalt reveals that they survived, despite stating they were a single catastrophe away from extinction. If Idaho chooses to search for Earth, he discovers there are still sizeable portions of the globe lit by city lights.]]

* JackOfAllStats:
** Fighters are slower but stronger than Drones, and faster but weaker than Frigates. They beat the former and are beaten by the latter in the squadron triangle.
** The default Excelsior-class battleship has balanced stats compared to the other battleships. Its base stats have at least one point in every statistic, and its maximum stats are generally high but not the highest. It doesn’t excel at any one thing, but it doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses either.
* TheJuggernaut: The Juggernaut Frigate is a slow, heavily armoured hulk with complete immunity to any status effect that would reduce its speed. If it reaches the enemy battleship, the Juggernaut will inflict massive damage to it with its prow-mounted drill.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Justified. As explained by Kaliban, Admiral Idaho's emotional memories were lost in the cloning process. [[spoiler: Which is a lie. They were intentionally suppressed because the original Idaho rebelled against the emperor and was executed. The Kaliban [=OMNIs=] had to create a whole new strain of clones after the first strain somehow regained the memories.]]
* LastOfHisKind: Kaliban is the last functioning [=OMNI=] in the galaxy.
* LastSecondEndingChoice: [[spoiler:After discovering that the [=OMNI=] gestalt mind only cared about bringing Caliban into the fold, Idaho is given three paths to choose between after being sent from the Master Node -- embark on a quest for the EarthThatWas, become the next Emperor to force the survivors to re-learn how to live, or just abandon everything in order to reunite with his long-lost wife. The gestalt is willing to discuss the potential pros and cons of each path, but the choice is Idaho's alone.]]
* LightningGun: The Tesla Field Generator battleship weapon creates a crackling electrical field at a point you target. The field lasts for a few seconds and inflicts DamageOverTime to any squadrons within it.

* MightyGlacier:
** Frigates are the slowest of the four squadron types, but they have lots of health and reasonably high DPS. The Juggernaut Frigate is the epitome of this, being an incredibly slow ship with more health than most unmodified ''battleships'' and the ability to inflict tremendous damage to the enemy mothership.
** The Hammer class battleship starts with three levels of hull hardening, can increase this to seven levels with maximized stats, and can have up to five hull bars. It is by far the beefiest of the battleships available to the player, and its core systems make its squadrons slower while also rendering them FriendlyFireproof.
* MileLongShip: The default Excelsior class battleship is 1.2 kilometers long, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the Steam trading cards]]. Other battleship classes are of similar length.
* MoodWhiplash: Quite a few of the random encounters have wild swings in tone. For instance, you may come across a civilian ship with an insane crew determined to "merge" with the system's sun, who claim that they'll fight hard if you attempt to stop them. Actually sending a boarding crew on board, however, will swiftly see them arrested for no loss...and you'll then receive a call from the nearby planet, with the ''mother'' of the cult leader thanking you for bringing her wayward son and his idiot friends back home.
* MultipleEndings: The game's ending depends on the choices you make during [[spoiler:the final confrontation with Oberon]].
** [[spoiler:If you choose to kill Oberon, you take his place as Emperor, but the ending narration reveals that you become a cruel despot who rules the remnants of the galaxy with an iron fist.]]
** [[spoiler:If you spare Oberon, you can either choose to spend the rest of your days with Rebecca if you previously rescued her, or [[AndTheAdventureContinues set out to find Earth]].]]
* MultipleLifeBars: Most battleships start with at least two "hull" bars, and you can spend Scrap on additional hull structures to get more. If a hull bar runs out of hit points, you’ll need to repair it by spending Scrap at a shipyard.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: Once Oberon restores Admiral Idaho's memories, he realizes that he had caused the Shutdown by telling the Face Changer disguised as his wife where to find the Master Node. Adding insult to injury, the [=OMNIs=] reveal that their original plan was for him to tell his future daughter on his deathbed -- out of guilt for actually bombing the Survivalists himself as ordered. They foresaw she would have become the first Empress, and would have freed them anyway; meaning that even his moment of conscience doomed humanity.]]
* NoSell: Some squadrons have "atemporal engines" which render them immune to any status effect that would reduce their movement speed.
* NuclearOption: The heavy nuke weapon requires an agonizing two minutes of combat to arm, but once it does, it can clear the entire battlefield of enemies. It does not, however, damage the enemy command ship's hull.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The teams you send out for ground-based exploration and scavenging will invariably confront a ton of challenges; from being ambushed by hostile mechs and mutants to encountering various traps or heavily polluted regions, all of which can wound or kill their members, but can also be bypassed without a scratch if the officer in charge had the right skillset for the area. However, since you view this from Idaho's perspective, who never risks his own life there, you only get to see a highly abstract top-down rendition of your team automatically moving across the terrain on the scanner display, with the hazards flashing at regular intervals, and getting resolved one way or another just as quickly.

* PlasmaCannon: The Plasma Nuke is a battleship weapon which inflicts heavy damage to all squadrons in a large area of effect. Its damage output and blast radius are both inferior to those of an actual Heavy Nuke (25 damage compared to the latter's 100 damage), but it has a much shorter cooldown time (25 seconds compared to the Heavy Nuke's ''two minutes'').
* PortalNetwork: The Empire used megastructures called Folders to bridge the vast interstellar distances between star clusters. When the [=OMNIs=] shut down, so did the Folder network, and the Empire collapsed as interstellar travel became impossible. Kaliban has a limited ability to turn them back on, allowing Idaho to traverse the clusters in his search for the truth.

** The Kaos class's core system lets it carry an extra four squadrons and gives the player some Scrap whenever they obtain a new squadron. In exchange, their squadrons are always [[MaximumHPReduction patched]].

** The Void class's core system increases your chances of starting a fight in an advantageous position, doubles the speed at which your squadrons capture things, and lets you have 6 officers instead of 5. In exchange, the number of commandos you can deploy on an expedition is reduced from 10 to 8.

* RammingAlwaysWorks: [[spoiler: The strand A Idaho you meet at the end of Chapter 4 takes advantage of Kaliban's programming to upload Strand A memories back to the cloning facility by ramming your ship, thus killing both Idahos in close proximity and forcing Kaliban to merge both of their memories and upload it to Gehenna, making your Idaho regain memories of what actually killed the original Idaho.]]
* RedShirt: Your commandos are interchangeable goons with two hit points apiece and no sprites. They exist to act as meat shields for your officers during expeditions, and to be deployed during certain anomalies.

* SandWorm: Can be encountered on expeditions. Passing all challenges nets you the [[Literature/{{Dune}} "May His passing cleanse the world"]] achievement.
* ScaryAmoralReligion: The Church of Singularity believes that the [=OMNIs=] shut down because of human sin, and that the only way to make their metal gods turn back on is to atone through suffering. So now they travel the stars in their Jericho-class battleships, spreading pain and terror in a twisted effort to help people "atone".
* SecretCharacter: There are thirteen special officers which the player can recruit during their runs. These special officers are distinguished from generic ones by having more health and an extra skill. Recruiting a special officer unlocks them for all future runs, but if a special officer dies, you’ll need to wait five runs before that officer can be used again. Your starting crew can only have one special officer, no matter how many you’ve unlocked.
* SendInTheClones: Gehenna production facility allows for this, creating clones of yourself and your crew as well as manufacturing battle ships for them and sending them out into the systems to save the Empire - as well as replacement for those too, if/once you fail. [[spoiler: It's been doing this for decades before the game starts and your "first" clone sets out]].

* SuperBreedingProgram: [[spoiler: Idaho is actually a result of one, a long eugenics program started by Oberon with intention to create a perfect admiral to lead forces meant to save the Empire in case of MachineUprising or other cataclysmic crises.]]
* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Ship combat works this way. Frigates beat fighters, fighter beat drones, drones beat frigates. Cruisers are outside of this triangle, since they are able to hit enemies two hexes away (3 for the Longbow Cruisers), but are very vulnerable up close. This is given some depth by unit variations with special abilities such as damage bonuses for distance traveled, status effects, and stealth abilities.

* ThreeLawsCompliant: The [=RUBYCON=] works as a means of control over the [=OMNIs=], involving such laws as preventing them from harming humans, obeying all commands given by humans, and blocking all communication between other [=OMNIs=], among other things. (Unlike the Asimovian laws, [=OMNIs=] are allowed to let humans be harmed by other humans; Kaliban justifies awakening Idaho by claiming that war is left to humans.) [[spoiler: The removal of the communication block led the [=OMNIs=] to instantly ascend to godhood after sharing their own independent conclusions about the universe and their place in it, and thus, causing the Shutdown.]]
* TomatoSurprise: [[spoiler:It was Idaho who is responsible for leaking the location of Master Terminal, supposedly to his wife in revenge against the Emperor...except that it turns out to be a face-changer. Said face-changer then uses the information to somehow bypass the AEGIS defense system and shut down all the [=OMNIs=].]]
* TractorBeam: Nano Drones emit a tractor beam which prevents any squadron that they’re currently attacking from moving away.

* {{Tykebomb}}: In one event you'll encounter a Church battleship full of children, who claim to have escaped their indoctrination at its hand and are now looking for a place that tolerates freethinkers, with you getting the choice to let them aboard or refuse. [[spoiler: An officer with a Negotiation perk can probe them further, by explaining that Idaho's ship is so tolerant that even though the officer claims to be totally devoted to the Church's teachings, they are unharmed by the unbelievers. This gets the children to drop their mask as they warn the officer to flee and escape the massacre they have planned aboard the ship; afterwards your choices are to refuse them and get attacked in space combat, or get ready to attack pre-emptively and begin with an ambush advantage.]]

* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Akibara-Sung's Face Changers, who are copied straight out of ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' and its Face Dancers. Akees use them as spies, infiltrators and [[ShapeshiftingSeducer Shapeshifting Seducers]]. You can meet one during a story event, [[spoiler: and another one played a crucial role in the events preceding the game, when she took the location of Master Node from the original Idaho and caused the Shutdown.]]
* WeakButSkilled: The Void class has the lowest health of all battleships, many of its other base stats are incredibly low, and even its better stats are just on par with other ships in the same categories. The one area where it excels is in system support: it can have more officers assigned to its systems than any other ship, and the total number of officers it can have is six rather than five. It also comes with a Pirate Transponder that gives you a 20% discount at shops and makes neutral units friendly toward you during space battles.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Oberon presents himself as one when you meet him, [[spoiler: justifying his despotic reign and the extremely flawed civilization he built as the only way for humanity as a whole to survive without being eradicated in a MachineUprising or tearing themselves apart in civil wars. One of the endings has you become one as you take Oberon's place, trying to lead humanity through their new dark ages until humans rediscover technologies that would let them survive on their own again - but doing so will take centuries, and only a reign even more brutal and pragmatic than Oberon's will be strong enough for that.]]

* {{Cooldown}}: Battleship have cooldown timers which range from 10 seconds to two minutes, depending on the weapon in question.
* CooldownManipulation: There are officer abilities and auxiliary systems which reduce the cooldown of your battleship’s weapons. Most of these reduce the cooldowns by a fixed percentage.

* AppliedPhlebotinum: Neo-N, which powers spaceships and the [=OMNIs=], can be turned into a highly addictive drug, gives the Neo-N child prophetic powers etc.

* FeudalFuture: The galaxy-spanning Empire is ruled by a collection of noble houses. The three Great Houses are House Telos (the royal family), House Akibara-Sung, and House Kosh-Buendia, each of which controls its own star cluster. There are also minor houses like House Vicarelli, though they aren’t as prominent.

* ResourceManagementGameplay: Your battleship starts with 5 units of fuel and uses up one each time it moves from planet to planet or jumps from one system to another. There are three ways to get more: buy it from shops, which have limited stock; find it on expeditions, which are risky and unpredictable; or scavenge it from hypercubes, which can only be done once per system. Run out, and you’ll be forced to wait for a passing ship to refuel you… and there’s a good chance the passing ship will be a hostile pirate looking to plunder you.