History XUniverse / Tropes0ToF

* BareYourMidriff / FormFittingWardrobe / MsFanservice / {{Stripperiffic}} (whew!): Saya Kho is frequently depicted as such. [[http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/attachments/397450d1301531304-spieler-frauen-die-beliebtesten-frauen-charaktere-computerspielen-x3saya.jpg This image]] is on the back of ''X3: Gold Edition''.

** The [[SpaceColdWar Terran Conflict]] turned into a hot war after Saya Kho blew up the Torus Aeternal in ''X3: Albion Prelude'', a Planetary Societal Disruption for Earth. A year later the {{Precursors}} shut down the gate system ([[WildMassGuessing maybe to prevent the younger races from obliterating themselves]]), which likely caused Galactic Societal Collapse.

* {{Two-D Space}}:

** Pirate ships have poor stats (worse in every regard to the race ships they're based on), but their ships typically offer a huge variety in compatible weapons and often can use fairly large weapons. {{Justified}} by fluff: pirate fighters (except the [[EliteMook Blastclaw]]) are obsolete production models modified and updated to be competitive with current ships. Their capital ships and space stations are kitbashed hulks and derelicts.

** [[http://i.imgur.com/GTkAR.jpg OTAS Boreas M2]], a destroyer looking like something from ''{{Babylon 5}}'', and can outgun basically every ship in the game.

** The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAQ7x8K6Yjg&t=1m5s Boron Megalodon]]. Originally in the Xtended Terran Conflict mod, but now part of ''Albion Prelude''

* {{Dronejam}}: Civilian ships are famous for docking at your stations and just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing for several minutes before undocking. This can prevent your own ships from docking, including when the ship is under attack and trying to dock for protection.
** This got so bad that a mod was made whose only purpose is the forced undocking of all ships currently docked to a station.

* BadassBandolier: In the ''X3'' trilogy, several pirate NPCs and, somewhat confusingly, one Split NPC who sometimes gets mistaken for a pirate because of it.

** The destruction of the Torus Aeternal caused millions (if not billions) of tons of deorbiting debris to rain down on Earth.

** Some critical weapons are also exceptionally rare. Incendiary Bomb Launchers (the "primary" frigate weapon) and Plasma Burst Generator have only a couple factories in the universe, and they are all Pirate or Yaki owned -- meaning you need to befriend the Pirates and the Yaki in order to buy them. Since Pirates shoot ''anything'' that enters their sectors, the stations are also typically nearly empty of resources, meaning that you'll probably need to stock them up yourself, then wait for the wares to be produced, then buy them. When ''Albion Prelude'' came out, preexisting Flak Artillery Array production stations were completely non-existent, meaning the only way to get Flak arrays was to buy and build your own (very expensive) Flak forge, then stock it up, or farm enemy capital ships and hope they drop standard flak weapons.

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* AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit: The Outsiders in the backstory and Encyclopedia are full blown Type [=IVs=], and the Ancients are borderline Type [=IVs=]. DysonSphere and Matrioshka Brain civilizations are mentioned, and they fit into the borderline Type [=IIs=]. However, all the races the player actually interacts with are at best high-end Type Is.

** A rather extreme case of this makes the destruction of the Torus make military sense (since the Torus acts partially as an orbital defense station, destroying it opened the way for the Argon to invade Earth), though it's still an atrocity.

** In ''Albion Prelude'', racial military ships will attack your PlayerMooks when you're OOS regardless of your reputation with them.

** ''X: Rebirth's'' player ship is armed with drones that can be flown remotely. This is something of a bone of contention among the fans, for reasons explained on the [[YMMV/{{X}} YMMV tab]].

* BossInMookClothing: Pirates armed with Plasma Burst Generators, and Xenon fighters armed with Pulsed Beam Emitters. Then there is the dreaded Phased Shockwave Generator in X3:R, which is a Plasma Burst Generator with a 90 degree sphere of doom ahead of the firing ship. Thankfully nerfed to capital ship-only in X3:TC.

* FanNickname: The "auto-pillock" is ArtificialStupidity in ship guidance. "Betty" is the ship's computer voice.

*** The Argon are also sort of UnitedSpaceOfAmerica, with a president and senate. Every space station and planet in the Federation gets a senator.

* AbsentAliens: Subverted in the backstory. The only reason the Terrans didn't meet any aliens during their early explorations is that the Old Ones had modified the gate system to keep the Terrans isolated.
* AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit: The Outsiders in the backstory and Encyclopedia are full blown Type [=IVs=], and the Old Ones are borderline Type [=IVs=]. DysonSphere and Matrioshka Brain civilizations are mentioned, and they fit into the borderline Type [=IIs=]. However, all the races the player actually interacts with are at best high-end Type Is.
* AbusivePrecursors / BenevolentPrecursors : The Old Ones ''do'' have theoretically good goals, like doing something about that whole "Heat Death Of The Universe" ''thing'', and they consider the PortalNetwork they built and maintain a gift to the younger races. On the other hand, they've got a nasty habit of thinking about the younger races as one collective group, making them [[WellIntentionedExtremist frighteningly]] willing to toy with other species. Since their most direct method of manipulation involves switching gate pairs in the PortalNetwork, this means that they do things like start interplanetary wars seemingly ForTheLulz, [[YouCantGoHomeAgain separate colony ships from their home planets]], simply lock fleets in deep space with nowhere to go, or [[InferredHolocaust turn off the entire system of interstellar travel]]. On the gripping hand, that bit about shutting down the entire PortalNetwork also came in response to the [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon terraformers, who have a bad habit of terraforming people out of existance]], [[OhCrap having control of a large portion of the galaxy]].

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Old Ones' goals and motivations are basically incomprehensible to the young races. Since they've been around longer than Earth has been Earthlike (over 3.2 billion years), they've had the chance to become Type IV on the Kardashev scale, and their main plan is intended to prevent the heat death of the universe. But because they've been united for so long, they seem to have forgotten that other groups might not be so unified. Like the young races, for instance. Also, for some bizarre reason they told the Commonwealth not to finish off the Xenon after the Second Xenon Conflict, [[FridgeLogic even though it was the Xenon that derailed their long-term plans in the first place]].