Line #27 Literature/AeonLegionLabyrinth


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/coverebook2.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''A quiet day of surfing the internet at the local library [[ActionPrologue was interrupted when Nazis kicked in the front door]].''--'''Opening line''']]
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4	->''"[[ArcWords I have seen the steel in you]]."''
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7	"Labyrinth" is the first book in the Aeon Legion series, a ScienceFiction TimeTravel series by J.P. Beaubien, creator of ''WebAnimation/TerribleWritingAdvice''. Published on March 2016, the story follows [[UnlikelyHeroine Terra Mason, an ordinary girl about to graduate high school]], who discovers a hidden world of time travel after witnessing a battle between the [[TimePolice Aeon Legion]], an elite force that protects history, and a force of [[StupidJetpackHitler time traveling]] [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]] led by the [[AffablyEvil charismatic]] [[BigBad Hanns Speer]]. During the battle, Hanns's cunning almost allows him to steal [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight a history book]], but Terra [[IncitingIncident works up enough courage to stop him from changing history]].
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9	Impressed with Terra's bravery, [[TheMentor Alya Silverwind, one of the Aeon Legion's greatest heroines]], offers Terra an [[FantasticRecruitmentDrive opportunity]] [[CallToAdventure to attend]] the Legion's [[AcademyOfAdventure academy]]. There Terra learns how to use [[AppliedPhlebotinum technology]] that [[TimeMaster controls time itself]], but she has to master it before the academy's final test; [[DeadlyTrainingArea a deadly series of trials called the Labyrinth]]. Unfortunately, she has to compete with some of history's greatest soldiers and warriors in order to earn her place in the Legion.
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11	While Terra struggles to survive the Legion's training, Hanns prepares to enact a plan that could not only secure the [[GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel Third Reich’s place in history]], but finally challenge the Aeon Legion's control of time. However, [[AntiVillain Hanns]] remains unaware of the Nazi Party's [[FinalSolution many atrocities]]. Both Terra and Hanns are equally determined to prove themselves a hero.
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13	The story takes place in [[PlaceBeyondTime The Edge of Time]], a place where all time overlaps. There are many branching lines of energy called continua that each contain an AlternateHistory. Most of the action takes place in a powerful city state floating in the Edge of Time called [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas Saturn City]]. The Aeon Legion acts as Saturn City's defense force and they police all time travel within the Edge of Time. The Edge of Time is periodically beset by various threats that only the Aeon Legion has any chance of stopping. These threats range from the familiar such as Nazis, to the bizarre like the [[BugWar hyper evolving Manticores]].
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15	The story is a soft science fiction. There are no [[TemporalParadox paradoxes]] and the physics of time travel are glossed over. The story has a heavy emphasis on action scenes and reads more like a fantasy story than science fiction.
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17	Has a character sheet ''[[Characters/AeonLegionLabyrinth here]]'' and has a page dedicated to the analysis of the book's primary themes and motifs ''[[Analysis/AeonLegionLabyrinth here]]''
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19	----
20	!!This book provides examples of:
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22	* AcademyOfAdventure: The Aevum Academy in Saturn City.
23	* TheAgeless: The shieldwatch's HealingFactor can also be used to render the user biologically immortal as the user can keep restoring themselves to youthful state.
24	* AllThereInTheManual: There is a lengthy index in the back of the book explaining much of the world's inside information as well as more details on the technology and history of the Aeon Legion universe.
25	* TheAlcatraz: Tartarus has twelve levels each housing more dangerous criminals than the last. Level ten holds things like [[BigCreepyCrawlies Manticores]] and no one knows what's on level twelve. Also functions as a SecretGovernmentWarehouse for recovered singularity technology.
26	* AlternateHistory: Time has several of these called a continuum that branch out at different points. Ours is called Continuum Lambda.
27	* AppliedPhlebotinum: Singularity Technology is this for the setting. Technology designed by singularity class [=AIs=] is barely understood within the setting itself. A number of singularity technologies are shown, but the most prominent is the ''shieldwatch''. The shieldwatch can [[TimeMaster control time]] and grants the user a number of powerful abilities. The only limitations are the shieldwatch's short range and limited power supply. It also cannot directly affect other people who are not the user. For example, the user cannot force age people or trap them in stasis.
28	* ArcNumber: A lot of things seem to come in 12s such as the number of zones in Saturn City, the number of Legendary Blades, the number of Trials in the Labyrinth, etc.
29	* ArcWords: "I have seen to the steel in you."
30	* BootCampEpisode: Most of the book's plot is essentially this, though the Legion's training is more akin to special forces training. All recruits endure an intense physical and academic regimen while learning the skills to defend history.
31	* CrapsaccharineWorld: Saturn City looks awesome at first glance. Everyone is immortal. There is no crime. People are nice and accepting of outsiders, mostly. However, the Edge of Time outside of Saturn City is constantly beset by escalating threats that are changing and evolving while Saturn City and the Aeon Legion itself remains stagant. Each threat is only barely kept at bay thanks to Alya constantly finding [[ChosenOne Qadars]] who all end up sacrificing themselves to stop it.
32	* ChosenOne: Alya seems to have a knack for finding these. In setting they are referred to as Qadar and have a special connection with fate.
33	* CityOfAdventure: Saturn City though really most of the adventure part seems to be in the Academy.
34	* ClimbingTheCliffsOfInsanity: Terra's successful scaling of a large cliff when the other recruits fail to is a major turning point for her character in the story. Terra's climbing skills also come in useful during the Trial of War when she scales a glacier.
35	* ColdBloodedTorture: When the recruits are captured and interrogated. [[spoiler:Turns out it was all a SecretTest.]]
36	* ComingOfAgeStory: For Terra. She goes from a timid, directionless high school graduate to joining an elite time traveling force and fighting Nazis.
37	* CoolSword: The Aeon Edge. It uses time to cut through pretty much anything. Terra compares cutting through steel feel like cutting through air. It also has a burst function that sends out a wave of energy powerful enough to rip through a tank. It requires ammo to use and has a stun mode.
38	* CrypticBackgroundReference: A lot of characters and history is mentioned, but never explained in detail. Some of those details, like the Kings of Time, do become important later on.
39	* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: Saturn City gives off this vibe. It seems to be a mesh of Arabic, Latin, and Greek culture.
40	* DaysOfFuturePast: The Aeon Legion is considered the most advance military in human history and they use swords.
41	* DeadlyTrainingArea: The Labyrinth which consists of 12 trials. These trials can be anything from solving logic puzzles while being attacked by condemned prisoners, surviving a DeathWorld, battling two whole armies, or even fighting other recruits in one on one duels while in a volcanic wasteland.
42	* DeathWorld: Any place a Manticore decides to live since it spawns a nightmarish ecosystem wherever it nests.
43	* DeflectorShields: One of the shieldwatch's abilities is that can freeze projectiles in stasis.
44	* EmpireWithADarkSecret: [[spoiler:Kairos claims that Saturn City is draining all of time for its own use.]]
45	* TheDreaded: No one really wants to talk about the Faceless in great detail. They even make Alya nervous and she charged an army of Nazis because it looked like fun.
46	* TheFaceless: What the Faceless are. [[spoiler:Also Kairos once she comes back with a mask and the Captain who is later revealed to be Lycus.]]
47	* FailedAuditionPlot: The instructors reject Terra out of hand when they first meet her on the reasonable grounds that she is an out of shape civilian trying to join an elite military organization. She has to face down Lycus in a battle of wills just to be let into the training program. Nikias also reveals that the instructors do this to almost everyone just to see if they come back to try again.
48	* FantasticRecruitmentDrive: The Aevum Academy and the Aeon Legion's recruitment system usually offers [=MIAs=] a chance to join since history has already written them off as dead. Most jump at the opportunity to become immortal. Recruitment of native Saturnians is not a viable option since Saturn City's population growth is stagnant.
49	* FieldOfBlades: Kairos's Garden near the Academy is this. It is also a memorial to the fallen.
50	* FieldTripToThePast: The Survival Test which takes place in the Cretaceous period.
51	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Almost all of the recruits are [=MIAs=] from various points in history so they tend to clash with the other recruits and suffer from culture shock.
52	* GardenOfEvil: A Manticore ecology is extremely toxic and populated with predatory monstrosities. Both the toxic flora and fauna get bigger the deeper in one travels.
53	* GeographicFlexibility: Saturn City has a lot of different areas for a single city including a park, prison, numerous recreation areas, and an AcademyOfAdventure.
54	* GetIntoJailFree: Hanns does not seem bothered when he is captured by the Aeon Legion.[[spoiler:Because this is Hanns's plan. He needed a way to get into Saturn City. He actually plans to break into the Saturn City's archives and steal the city's entire historical database.]]
55	* GivingRadioToTheRomans: Discussed and defied. Hanns mentions that stealing technology from the future would be worthless to them as they don't have the infrastructure to even maintain the stolen tech.
56	* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Since a Shieldwatch can restore most injuries by rolling back time. This allows the instructors to be extremely brutal to the recruits.
57	* GottaKillEmAll: [[spoiler:What Kairos claims her mission is. Specifically, she plans to hunt down the Legendary Blades whose time travel has damaged time the most.]]
58	* GreatOffscreenWar: The Legion has had several of these like the First Temporal War against a people called the Kalians who used advanced energy weapons. Also the Faceless War fought against monsters called the Faceless. It was the one war the Aeon Legion almost lost.
59	* HealingFactor. The shieldwatch can roll back time to when its user was not injured. Its main limitation is that if the user's spine or brain is damaged, then they [[LaserGuidedAmnesia will lose their memory once restored]]. And it cannot bring the dead back to life.
60	* HeroAcademy: What Lycus wants the Aevum Academy to be.
61	* HiddenPurposeTest: Most of the tests and training sessions. [[spoiler: Particularly the first day which requires the recruits to attempt all three tests even though they are told the tests are optional.]]
62	* HighTurnoverRate: Aeon Legion training. The training starts with thousands and ends with around a hundred.
63	* HumanoidAbomination: The Faceless. God, the Faceless...
64	* ImmuneToFate: Those without a connection to fate are called nulls. [[{{Seers}} Sybil]] cannot see them very well. A null's influence on events is usually negligible.
65	* InfiniteSupplies: The shieldwatch serves as a MatterReplicator and can easily create copies of most objects by moving areas around in time.
66	* LectureAsExposition: Centurion Shani delivers a number of these during the academic part of the Legion's training.
67	* LegendaryWeapon: The twelve Legendary Blades wielded by the longest lived and most powerful soldiers in the Legion. Only four are introduced. Some of the wielders even adopt the name of their weapon.
68	* LivingForeverIsNoBigDeal: How most Saturnians seem to regard immortality.
69	* MisplacedWildlife: The Trial of Survival in the Labyrinth is full of predators from various time periods mixed together.
70	* NamedWeapons: Each Legionnaire's aeon edge is named and they also use that name as their alias. [[Spoiler: When Lycus is facing down the masked legionnaire and she refuses to give him her name, he asks for the name of her weapon instead, as that is the tradition.]]
71	* OnlyOneMeAllowedRightNow: When someone time travels, they become the 'original'. That original will override any other instance of that person when in the same time. This makes it impossible to meet yourself since you override your non time traveling self. It could be assumed that bringing another non time traveling version of yourself into the Edge of Time would also erase that instance since they did not time travel first. This makes it impossible to meet yourself.
72	* OurTimeTravelIsDifferent: Seems to be a variant of wormhole time travel. In this case a shieldwatch moves the user into the Edge of Time where all time overlaps. From there they can move to another location in the Edge of Time which will shift their position when they return to normal time. Hanns's time machine seems to work by bridging both time and space. A legionnaire comments that this is unusual for time travel machines.
73	* PerfectHealth: Justified since the shieldwatch can restore their user to a healthy state.
74	* PlaceBeyondTime: The Edge of Time where all time blends together. Also where Saturn City is.
75	* PleasurePlanet: Saturn City has a massive industrial and research zone, but none of the citizens seem to care about it, spending most of their time partying instead.
76	* PowerGlows: The Temporal Singularity does this. Also the edge of the aeon edge blades.
77	* Really700YearsOld: Most of the native Saturnians are centuries old. Their age is marked by how many streaks of silver hair they have, as they get one silver lock per lifetime lived. It gets really hard to tell after their entire head goes silver, though.
78	* ReforgedBlade: [[spoiler:Kiaros's old blade is reforged and given to Terra after she survives the Labyrinth.]]
79	* {{Seers}}: Called Sybil in setting and are marked by the strange headpieces that cover their eyes. They use precognition to foresee time traveler's attempts to alter time as well as threats to Saturn City and alert the Legion. They cannot see nulls very well since nulls are people without a strong connection to fate.
80	* SecretTest: The academy instructors love these. [[spoiler:Like the interrogation test where the recruits are tricked into thinking they were abducted and tortured by an enemy force all to see if they could resist interrogation and escape on their own.]]
81	* SetSwordsToStun: The aeon edge has a non lethal setting that freezes anything it touches in a stasis field. Justified in that they often don't want to kill temporal criminals who may need to live on in their own times.
82	* ShiningCity: Saturn City. Self proclaimed greatest city in human history. Saturn City citizens enjoy eternal youth and basically have all the time they want to dedicate to partying. Given the silvery white metal architecture, it is also a literal example of this trope as well.
83	* SicklyGreenGlow: The Manticore ecology gives this off with their bio luminescence.
84	* SocietyOfImmortals: Saturn City hosts such a society. Their population growth is stagnate to prevent overcrowding and what few new Saturnians are born are a result of a lottery with the rest of their limited growth coming from immigrants to serve in the Aeon Legion. Their culture also seems to consider ambition taboo.
85	* SuperReflexes: The shieldwatch can speed up the user's reflexes. This makes them very hard to hit even with bullets.
86	* TheSingularity: Most continua achieve one of these and it usually destroys them. Also refers to an object called a Singularity that allows singularity technology to be produced. It is the source of AppliedPhlebotinum in the setting.
87	* SwordOverHead: [[spoiler:Terra almost kills Hanns, but can't force herself to do it.]]
88	* TimeCrash: It's so bad that Saturnians use it as a curse word.
89	* TimeStandsStill: The shieldwatch can slow down, speed up, or stop time around the user.
90	* TimeTravel: Seems to operate on [[TimeyWimeyBall Timey Wimey]] rules.
91	* TomTheDarkLord: Would you really expect one of the worst dictators in history to be named Devin?
92	* TrialByCombat: A Trial of Blades is used to settle differences between legionnaires.
93	* TrainingFromHell: The academy training program. Because of the [[GoodThingYouCanHeal shieldwatch's healing power]] the instructors can be as brutal as they want. There is no safety gear, no rules, and no hesitation as anyone who holds back is told to quit.
94	* TransformationSequence: The shieldwatch can summon a ring to pass around the user that changes both their age and clothing. It can be used for disguises.
95	* TranslatorMicrobes: Called a Sonic Cipher, these devices fit in a person's ears and provide real time translations.
96	* TrappedInThePast: The Survival Test in which the Academy instructors throw the recruits into the Cretaceous period.
97	* TronLines: The fadelines that allow quick travel between areas appear like this.
98	* WrittenByTheWinners: When Terra looks up war crimes in the First Temporal War, Saturn City is awfully evasive about their crimes while the Kalian war crimes seem overblown.
99	* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Most of the recruits since they are technically [=MIA=] in their own times. If they returned, then they would mess up history.

Context Literature / AeonLegionLabyrinth