Line #34 Literature/TimeScout


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tales_of_the_time_scouts.png]]
2	At some time in the recent past, there was [[NoodleIncident The Accident]]. It caused massive destruction along all the world's coastlines, killing millions. Now it's a WorldHalfEmpty, as TheMafia's connections with construction means that they've gotten incredibly rich and powerful during reconstruction of the world's coastal cities. Also, there's the time strings. Shortly after The Accident, mysterious portals began to open, allowing people to step into the past. Only the Time Scouts are crazy enough to step through an unexplored gate, into an unknown and dangerous history. Also, you can't exist in two times at once, adding the risk of Shadowing yourself and dying instantly...
3
4	Known as gates and strings, the time portals are now part of a tourism industry. Some gates are owned by private companies, some by the government. There are a number of laws related to the use of the gates and profits thereby.
5
6	Set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, the Time Scout books by Creator/RobertAsprin and Linda Evans follow the lives of the residents of Time Terminal 86, Shangri La Station, La La Land. Much of it involves time travel.
7
8	There are four books in the series:
9	* ''Time Scout'' (1995): Margo Smith is desperate to become the first female time scout. She's on a deadline, and she's not taking no for an answer.
10	* ''Wagers Of Sin'' (1995): Skeeter Jackson is a thief, a con man, and all around scoundrel. He's got a dark and troubled past, a dark and troubled future, and he's just made a very deadly wager.
11	* ''Ripping Time'' (2000): Jenna Cadrick is on the run from a murderous organization. She has no friends and no experience, but she's fighting for her life and running through time. Shangri La's about to get hit, hard, by enemies it didn't know it had.
12	* ''The House That Jack Built'' (2000): The first direct sequel, Jenna's still on the run and Shangri La's mired in chaos. And then UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper starts killing downtimer whores in VictorianLondon.
13
14	!! Tropes appearing in this series:
15	* AbusiveParents:
16	** Margo's father is an alcoholic who, it's implied, beat her mother to death when she found she had, in desperation, turned to sex work to keep the family afloat.
17	** Skeeter's parents were emotionally neglectful, not physical, such that he turned to petty crime just to get attention. [[spoiler:Then he fell through a portal and ended being raised alongside ''Genghis Khan''.]]
18	** Jenna's father is a mob boss who had her favorite aunt killed, had her fiancee killed, and also tried to murder Jenna because she might know his horrible secret.
19	* AlasPoorVillain: Poor Lupus Mortiferus. Granted, he wanted to murder the crap out of Skeeter, but he ended up stranded in ancient [=MesoAmerica=]. In-universe, Skeeter pities him.
20	* TheAlcoholic: Margo's father.
21	* AmbiguousGenderIdentity: Armstrong. He could be a feminine man. She could be a masculine woman. She never identifies as either and he can pass for either. His hair is cut short, she wears wigs, and long-necked clothing eliminates the possibility of seeing an adam's apple.
22	* AmoralAttorney: [[WriterOnBoard The excuse for why]] they're not allowed on Shangri La.
23	* AnachronismStew: Avoided for travel into the past. You don't want to be noticed by the natives. But the time terminal is called La La Land for a reason. It's not unusual to see a Roman slave casually chatting with an 1885 Denver cowboy in a medieval Japanese restaurant. That is to say, uptimer travelling to ancient Rome talking to another traveling to 19th century Denver in a cafe that mostly caters to tourists heading to medieval Japan.
24	* AncientRome: The destination of the Porta Romae and the home of Marcus, Ianira's husband the father of her children.
25	* ApocalypseHow: Class 0. The Accident devastates coastal communities, but mostly leaves society and technology intact.
26	* ArabianNightsDays: The newest gate leads to ancient Arabia and is named Literature/ArabianNights. This is the theme for the commercial area being built around it.
27	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Occasionally. Particularly glaring is the presence of Aleister Crowley in Victorian London as a Satanist. He was alive, yes, but he was only fourteen years old. He was also living in the country with his uncle and still a Christian. He was also never a satanist, but a hedonist and mystic.
28	* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: AuthorAppeal distorts the depiction of martial arts.
29	* ArtisticLicenseSpace: Reading stars like a clock is portrayed as much more difficult and complex than it actually is.
30	* AuthorAppeal: This is Asprin's stock in trade in all his books, typically having a good guy go on a short little lecture about something Asprin believes. ''This'' series was written after Asprin got hooked for tax evasion, so his rants changed focus and showed up more often.
31	** First, most positively, the series is a love letter to Asprin's amateur love of history. Time guides and time scouts alike genuinely love the past locations, for all their faults.
32	** Generally, the critique of the BadPresent. The present has gone LawfulStupid with regard to gun control, political correctness, and requiring things like a class in etiquette instead of a much-desired math class.
33	** The residents of La La Land all prefer simple, practical approaches like carrying weapons when you're in a dangerous place, being forthright about the flaws of both past and present, and applying engineering and logic to everything (though they don't sneer at etiquette - skip that class in downtime taboos and you're liable to get burned at the stake or worse).
34	** Every hero shares the same disdain for those acceptable to mock: lawyers, "newsies", taxes, mean cops, and [[SexTourism zipper jockeys]].
35	** Finally, the time scouts are expected to be masters of anything they might need to know in order to fit in and survive downtime, which means studying all of history, all languages, and all skills. By the end of his career, Robert Asprin despised working and preferred to pursue random hobbies, like martial arts, archery, and drinking.
36	* AxCrazy: Jack the Ripper. Twice.
37	* BadGuysPlayPool: Kit Carson's [[ThatOneBoss been trying for years]] to beat Goldie Moran.
38	* BadPresent: The Accident ruined the world and made the past available. The present suffers in comparison. Also a bit of AuthorAppeal there.
39	* BadassBookworm: All the scouts and guides have the equivalent of multiple degrees in history, language, mathematics, and ass-kicking. Kit Carson is the primary example in-universe.
40	* BadassCrew
41	* BadassFamily: Meet Kit Carson, his granddaughter Margo Smith, and her fiance Malcolm Moore.
42	* BadassNative: The general consensus on downtimers. Specifically, Jack the Ripper. Also, Skeeter's adopted Mongolian family.
43	* BadassTeacher: Kit and Malcolm are general mentors in scouting for Margo. Anne's career is teaching guns, and she and Kit vie for the position of second deadliest person of Shangri La. Sven, the number one, spends his days teaching almost any martial art (principally [[WriterOnBoard Aikido]]) and how to use any blade.
44	* BattleCouple: Margo and Malcolm
45	* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: One of the popular theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper in the lead-up to that summer in Victorian London is that he iswas a rogue uptimer.
46	* TheBermudaTriangle: An unstable nexus gate is a semi-permanent, semi-unstable gate that leads to a place with a whole host of semi-permanent, semi-unstable gates... The one in Shangri La opened up under a coffee kiosk and dropped it into... the Bermuda Triangle (semifacetiously, maybe not). It's definitely water, and definitely dangerous. Those who leaped to the kiosker's rescue went through half a dozen unstable gates trying to get back.
47	* BigDamnHeroes: Quite a few.
48	** In ''Time Scout'', Kit and Malcolm come to 16th century DarkestAfrica to rescue Margo and Kynan from Portuguese soldiers.
49	** Subverted in ''Wagers of Sin'' when Skeeter crashes the Porta Romae just in time to rescue Marcus after a mad dash across La La Land. Also present is Lupus Mortiferus, who brutally clubs Skeeter down.
50	** Played straight a few weeks later when Skeeter finally rescues Marcus and takes him home.
51	** In ''Ripping Time'', Armstrong shows up just in time to save Jenna from Jack the Ripper.
52	** In ''The House That Jack Built'', Kit and Skeeter catch up to Paula Booker and some guides being pinned down by native bandits outside Denver.
53	** Also in ''The House That Jack Built'', Skeeter tracks down his new adopted family after many weeks of searching so that he can help rescue them from TheSyndicate.
54	* BlindJump: Unless you're really lucky, you can't know when/where a gate opens to.
55	* BloodSport: Ancient Rome is a tourist destination. So is Ancient Mongolia. And Late Modern Denver, and Medieval Japan. A lot of these places have dangerous games. Like boxing.
56	* BornInTheWrongCentury: The time scouts/guides who love the past don't necessarily hate the present. However, they really do love the past.
57	* {{Brainwashed}}: Poor Prince Eddy.
58	* BrainWashedAndCrazy: Poor James.
59	* BulletProofVest: Skeeter, Armstrong, and Jenna all wear them at various times, sometimes even when it's dangerously anachronistic.
60	* TheCaptain: Kit's more or less in charge of the time scouts and guides when things go to hell.
61	* CasualTimeTravel: It's somewhat expensive, like two weeks in Italy, but it's certainly no more exotic than that.
62	* ChangedMyJumper: Averted. Time travellers are encouraged to buy appropriate costumes. Doing so properly can be very expensive, not necessarily because of rare materials, but because most sewing was done by hand in the past, and machines can't simulate [[StylisticSuck the necessary imperfections]].
63	* TheChase: Several. Usually involving Skeeter.
64	* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Chuck Farley. Goldie tries to scam him; he lets her start, then robs her blind. Skeeter tries to scam him; he lets him start, then robs him blind. Marcus tries to repay his purchase price; he kidnaps him downtime, [[MoralEventHorizon resells him into slavery]], and [[KickTheDog robs him blind]]. As soon as he's arrested, he betrays his employer.
65	* ClassTrip: Margo gets two. Each one goes wrong.
66	* CompellingVoice: One of the magic powers of UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, and his primary tool on the path to power.
67	* ConMan: How Skeeter used to make a living. How Goldie always will. They're both outclassed by Chuck Farley.
68	** CardSharp: Skeeter knows about this, though he doesn't get the chance [[ShowDontTell to demonstrate]] in story.
69	** {{Hustler}}: Skeeter's a master of the short con. He's lied about being a time scout, a time guide, a luggage handler, a bookie, and a SnakeOilSalesman. All in a single book. Goldie loves these, too. So does Chuck.
70	** SnakeOilSalesman: Skeeter starts one of these schemes but gets interrupted. People like this abound on TT86, much to the annoyance of Ianira Cassondra, who makes ''real'' potions.
71	** ConMenHateGuns: Skeeter would prefer to use a Mongolian recurve bow, but he'll make do.
72	** FixingTheGame: Skeeter doesn't hesitate to cheat when he has to. In a quiet moment of awesome, he describes how a game was rigged three different ways in ''The House That Jack Built''. He then establishes himself at a card game with an amusing anecdote about a mechanic.
73	* CondemnedContestant: How Skeeter ends up in the arena.
74	* ContrivedCoincidence: Paradox doesn't happen because.
75	* ConvenientEscapeBoat: During one escape, Skeeter ends up in the Tiber. Fortunately a boat happens to be right at hand. Also, a Convenient Escape Horse, in that as soon as he gets out of the water he happens upon a champion racing horse.
76	* CoolHorse: How Skeeter escapes from Lupus the first time. How he wins in the arena.
77	** An unstable gate opens up on the Battle of Orléans, accidentally dumping Margo in it. She comes back through and is followed by a Welsh bowman and a French knight. The Welshman keeps trying to kill Margo (he thinks she's Joan of Ark). The horse rears and drops the knight, who immediately bolts back through the gate. A stupid 86er figures a trained war horse has to be worth a bundle and nearly dies for his trouble.
78	* CorruptPolitician: Senator Caddrick is in league with the Mafia to commit drug smuggling and ''human trafficking''.
79	* CostumePorn: You really don't want to stand out when you go downtime, and clothes really do make the man. Connie Logan's "Clothes And Stuff" is ''the'' place to buy your outfits. They're always top of the line, and usually very expensive. If they don't look ''very good'', it's because she deliberately made them look bad to fit the destination and role the client needs them for..
80	* DamselInDistress: Margo in the first book, Birgitta in the third, Ianira in the third and fourth.
81	* DarkMessiah: Jack the Ripper. And Aleister Crowley.
82	* DarkestAfrica: When Margo goes rogue, she takes a trip to 17th century Africa. It doesn't end well.
83	* DeadGuyJunior: Kit's ex named his daughter Kitty.
84	* DeadlyTrainingArea: How the past is viewed. You go into the past without the proper training and you can wind up dead fast.
85	* DecadeDissonance: In Victorian London, neighborhoods of opulent wealth butt up against neighborhoods of desperate poverty. The Ripper Terror exposes the desperation of the worst neighborhoods of London's East End, and leads to reforms that ease the horrible conditions therein.
86	* DecoyProtagonist: Margo is the central character of ''Time Scout''. Then Skeeter steps in for ''Wagers of Sin'' and walks away with much of the rest of the series.
87	* DefeatingTheUndefeatable: Lupus Mortiferus has one hundreds of times in single combat. Skeeter steals a fortune from him. Who does Skeeter end up facing in the arena? How does it end?
88	* DepravedBisexual: Jack the Ripper
89	* DetectiveMole: Sid.
90	* {{Determinator}}: Lupus Mortiferus is determined to get his money and his revenge.
91	* [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Did You Just Kill Jack The Ripper]]?
92	* [[DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu Did Jack The Ripper Just Kidnap You]]?
93	* DisappearedDad: Margo thinks Kit walked out on her grandmother to seek out a life of adventure as the first of the time scouts. Turns out ''she'' left ''him''. [[ManlyTears It still hurts.]]
94	* DisposableSexWorker: Multiple different cases.
95	** Margo's mother in DeathByOriginStory, was a SingleMomStripper, only she was still married to and living with her drunk, abusive husband.
96	** Half of Jack the Ripper's motivation for killing whores.
97	*** Subverted in that the other half didn't give a damn, but the whores happened to be in possession of {{PlotCoupon}}s Jack needed to get back.
98	** Also, whereas most dead hookers are women, the Ripper's first victim is a gay male prostitute.
99	* DistractedByTheSexy: Malcolm often has trouble focusing around Margo. She also tends to cause minor pedestrian traffic jams.
100	* DowsingDevice: There are detectors that can sense the presence of a gate. They can tell when it's unstable, too.
101	* DrowningMySorrows: Margo eventually muses that his may be part of her father's problem; she has a dead younger brother.
102	* EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Time portals only ever open on the surface of the earth. The only barrier appears to be time, not space.
103	* ElaborateUndergroundBase: Shangri La.
104	* ElvisImpersonator: During a discussion of the Church of Elvis, Malcolm does a fairly good rendition of "Heartbreak Hotel", finishing it with [[CatchPhrase "thankyouverymuch"]].
105	* ElvisLives: The Church of Elvis insists that Elvis is alive and worships him as a messiah.
106	* EmergencyImpersonation: Skeeter takes Armstrong's place.
107	* EnigmaticMinion: Chuck Farley
108	* EnlightenmentSuperpowers: Hinted to be the source of Ianira's PsychicPowers, explicitly stated to be the source of Jack the Ripper's.
109	* EscapeFromTheCrazyPlace: The only goal of [[spoiler:Jack the Ripper]] when he gets trapped on Shangri La in the last book.
110	* EverythingIsAnIpodInTheFuture: Averted. The computers that scouts carry look like battered tins. Their satchels are just basic, tough leather satchels.
111	* EvilLuddite: Anyone who doesn't like time gates or modern guns is presented as vile.
112	* EvilWeapon: Modern villains have modern, ie evil, guns. The heroes all use period weapons. This is especially {{Anvilicious}} when the villains take modern weapons downtime and the heroes use period pieces uptime.
113	* FaceHeelTurn: Skeeter.
114	* FailsafeFailure: The many systems Time Tours and BATF have in place are ... completely useless. And then some.
115	* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Things are looking very good for Skeeter at the end of ''Wagers Of Sin''. At the start of ''Ripping Time'', he's working several menial jobs. Given his past, there really wasn't any way he could just become a hero.
116	* FanOfThePast: History tourism is a thing. Time guides are basically incredibly competent tour guides who also have Ph.D.s. Time scouts are all Franchise/IndianaJones.
117	* FantasticRacism: Persons with indeterminate genitalia or intermediate gender face discrimination. The response of some to "intersexuals" is well over the top.
118	* TheFashionista: Margo dresses well. Timeless class. And when she first encounters Connie Logan's shop, she practically orgasms.
119	* FieldTripToThePast: In order to psych Margo up and get her interested in her difficult historical research, she's given a few tours downtime. First to Victorian England, then to Ancient Rome. She makes some serious mistakes each time, but also experiences some of the joys of learning.
120	* FieryRedhead: Margo is hotblooded.
121	* {{Fingore}}: Good going, bad guy, you just dipped your hands in molten bronze.
122	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Uptimers often make fatal mistakes downtime. Downtimers trapped uptime are the most pitiful refugees ever; many go mad.
123	* FunWithAcronyms: The organization dedicated to recovering and returning stolen downtime art is the International Federation of Art Temporaly Stolen: IFARTS.
124	* TheFundamentalist: The Ansar Majlis and their uptime recruiters.
125	* FutureSlang: Mostly averted, but at one point Margo comes to Shangri La from a semester at college with a little uptime slang that hasn't filtered through Primary. Also, the series has its own jargon regarding the time portals and time travel.
126	** Also inverted with the downtime destinations. The language barrier doesn't exist in London or Denver, right? Wrong; after more than a century, the language and slang are wildly different.
127	* GenderFlip: One of the theories floating around is that the Ripper Watch Team might be looking for ''Jill'' the Ripper.
128	* GetBackToTheFuture: Uptimers occasionally get into scrapes downtime and have to work hard to get back to the future. This usually involves escaping from angry downtimers and their prisons, and getting past the hidden security that's been set up around the gate. Oh, and the gates go at intervals, so you have to get there at the right time.
129	* GivingRadioToTheRomans: Sort of. One downtimer gets his hands on uptimer materials and eventually discovers his way through the gates to La La Land.
130	* GladiatorGames: Ancient Rome is a tourist destination. Tourists go and watch sometimes. Scouts and guides and tourists sometimes get unlucky and end up playing along.
131	* AGodAmI: Jack the Ripper.
132	--> "If a mere chit can be taken for a goddess, then I shall certainly rule as a god!"
133	** Ianira Cassondra is called the Living Goddess. Her psychic powers and strength of character have sparked revived worship of Artemis uptime.
134	** Skeeter spent some time being worshiped as a living god, too.
135	%%* GoodFeelsGood: Skeeter's new job is much more satisfying than his old job.
136	* GuileHero: Time scouts are badass, but they ''prefer'' to be invisible. Skeeter takes clever up to eleven.
137	* TheGunslinger: Every time scout more or less by definition. Kit, Malcolm, Margo, and Ann all [[ShowDontTell demonstrate this]].
138	* Handguns: It's considered poor practice for a time scout not to be proficient with handguns.
139	* HeelFaceTurn: Skeeter.
140	* HellBentForLeather: When Margo shows up the first time, it's in a tight, leather miniskirt. It causes quite a bit of damage.
141	* [[HeroStoleMyBike Hero Stole My Horse]]
142	* HeroicBSOD: Malcolm takes Margo to Brighton during her special trip to London. Normally, he doesn't take clients to the beach in February, and when they do go to the beach he usually avoids Brighton. That's because he's from Brighton and his younger brother drowned during The Accident. He has a breakdown and Margo has to keep him in one piece.
143	* HiddenElfVillage: Shangri La is a complex warren of tunnels inside a Himalayan mountain in 1912.
144	* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Expanded to ''any'' downtimer who is "important to history".
145	* HorseJump: In the final book, Skeeter's horse jumps over a crashed wagon, but doesn't land well. In ''Wagers of Sin'', Skeeter jumps a horse over a small shrine, exciting the arena's crowd. Then he stands on the horse's back and uses a spear to pole vault over the wall, a moment of ...
146	* HorsebackHeroism: Skeeter learned this in Mongolia. It comes to his aid many times. "If it's a horse, I can ride it." In the arena, he uses it to win a fight, escape the arena, and rescue Marcus.
147	* IAmAHumanitarian: Why Jack cuts out a victim's kidney or uterus.
148	* INeedAFreakingDrink: '''All. The. Time.''' Some of the characters appear to be borderline alcoholics. Had a hard day? Have a drink. Had a long day? Have a drink. Got bad news? Have a drink. Talking to someone you don't like? Have a drink. Celebrating? Have a drink. Having a drink? Have a drink.
149	* IWasBeatenByAGirl: Their first two bouts go to Malcolm. The last two go to Margo. That he, an experienced guide twice her age got manhandled convinces him he hasn't been spending enough time at the gym. That she, too, is spending time there is [[MsFanservice just a bonus]].
150	* IdenticalStranger: Skeeter and Armstrong look very similar. It's the coloring and the bone structrue.
151	* IdleRich: Prince Albert Victor, AKA "Eddie". This is also Malcolm's cover when he goes to VictorianLondon; he's a landholder in the British Caribbean. It explains his long absences, his idiot friends from America, and the occasional wobble in his accent.
152	* ImprovisedWeapon: A time scout prefers to be armed, but he'll use what he can get his hands on. Skeeter and the downtimers aren't afraid to improvise, either, though they have their preferred weapons when they can get their hands on them.
153	* IntersexTribulations: Dr. John Lachley was born with ambiguous genitalia. A little of each. Combined with a [[DarkAndTroubledPast terrible childhood]] in the CrapsackWorld of London's East End, and you've got one hell of a FreudianExcuse.
154	* InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous: While investigating Jack the Ripper, the Ripper Watch Team runs into William Butler Yeats at a social club. Cue massive fangasm by the time guide in charge.
155	* ItWillNeverCatchOn: One unpleasant downtimer goes on a misogynist rant when he encounters a female uptime reporter. He particularly laments that women are taking mens' jobs, usurping respectable professions like the secretary, polluting the office with their wanton ways.
156	* UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper
157	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Skeeter's a thief and a ConMan who ruined people's vacations, even lives. Of course, he had a little bit of an excuse, but, in the end, he was just drifting. He stole, he gambled, he drank, and he gave most of his money to charity. Wait, charity?
158	* KarmaHoudini: Jack half gets away with it.
159	* KillItWithFire: During the final chase, the bad guy deters pursuit by throwing a burning rag on a barrel of black powder in a shed filled with explosives.
160	* LikeADuckTakesToWater:
161	** La La Land has a small population of stranded downtimers. Some have a [[FishOutOfTemporalWater great deal of trouble coping]], some going insane, some [[DespairEventHorizon walking through random, unstable gates]]. Others learn to cope fairly well. The downtimers organize their own small community to help them all to cope.
162	** One downtimer even deliberately sought out the station and [[GoneHorriblyRight coped a little too well]].
163	* LivingLegend: Kit Carson is one of the first ever time scouts. Margo Smith is his granddaughter and the first ever female scout. Ianira Cassondra has sparked a revival of the worship of Artemis and is an object of worship in herself.
164	* MagicAIsMagicA: There are a few rules to time travel that aren't broken.
165	** No paradox. Don't bother trying.
166	** If you exist twice in the same time, you'll die. It's called shadowing yourself. You can't cross your own shadow and live.
167	* MagicAntidote: Lots of [[SnakeOilSalesman Snake Oil Salesmen]] sell these on Shangri La. Skeeter starts such a scam but gets interrupted. Ianira may just make the real thing. Skeeter's scheme was based on a SacredPool believed to have such properties near Marcus's childhood home.
168	* MagicPlasticSurgery: Skeeter goes under the knife to look like another person. Attempted justification: IdenticalStranger. Skeeter very strongly resembles him.
169	** But played straight earlier. Dr. Booker is her own model and has dozens of pictures of herself looking wildly different.
170	* MamaBear: Ianira. In ''Wagers of Sin'', the fact that Skeeter was trying to rescue the father of her children gave her words extra weight, for both uptimers and downtimers.
171	* MasterOfDisguise: Chuck Farley.
172	* MedievalMorons: Downtimers are initially presented as superstitious fools, mostly incapable of handling life uptime. Their presentation gets better as the books go on.
173	* TheMole: TheSyndicate is very good at insinuating their agents.
174	** They have downtimer terrorists working construction on the new ArabianNightsDays gate, perfectly placed to start riots and murder their enemies.
175	** They put {{Professional Killer}}s on baggage crews to hunt down and murder people running from those same ProfessionalKillers.
176	** They get a SmugSnake ProfessionalKiller head of evil security placed on the search and rescue mission going after those same people.
177	* MoneyToThrowAway: Skeeter and Marcus need a distraction. It works.
178	* MoralityPet: Marcus, for Skeeter, before his HeelFaceTurn. Afterward, he's devoted to the downtimers in general, but Marcus and his family are special.
179	* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: Malcolm is occasionally impressed by Margo's ferocity.
180	-->'''Malcolm:''' Malcolm was reminded of some lines from his favorite poet. [Creator/RudyardKipling] [[note]]His favorite poet is actually Creator/WilliamButlerYeats, and the poem is misattributed to Yeats in the book[[/note]]
181	-->But when hunter meets with husband\
182	each confirms the other's tale\
183	the female of the species\
184	is more deadly than the male.
185	* MountedCombat: Like his Mongolian family, Skeeter can ride a horse in battle. One time, it was a trained warhorse.
186	* MsFanservice: Margo loves tight clothes, has quite the bosom, and there are many comments and observations scattered around about her attractiveness.
187	* MySecretPregnancy: Kit never suspected he had a granddaughter. Because he never knew his Sarah was pregnant. He had to ask his granddaughter whether he'd had a daughter or a son.
188	** Jenna has an extra reason to hide hers: she's disguised as a man with surgically implanted facial hair.
189	* NecessaryFail: Why paradox is averted.
190	* NextSundayAD: The series is set here or TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. It's implied to be the latter, but there are no practical differences apart from the time travel. Most of the action happens on the time terminal or in the distant past anyway.
191	* NoEqualOpportunityTimeTravel: The race issue is never brought up, but women cannot be scouts. ''Period.'' They ''can'' be guides. This isn't sexism; it's logistics. Guiding and scouting are wildly different professions: guiding is a fairly safe if high-competence profession strictly limited to well-explored times and places where a woman can learn to blend in. Scouts, on the other hand, go through new, possibly unstable Gates to unknown destinations, where they are likely to be killed if they can't blend in from the start. Due to cultural and temporal differences in how women were expected to behave and dress, blending sufficiently on short notice is orders of magnitude more difficult for a woman than for a man and it's difficult enough for a man. (Kit Carson is the only professional scout to ''retire''. All the others ''died''.) When Margo tries, she's captured by downtimers almost instantly, ends up tortured, gang-raped, and almost ''burned at the stake''.
192	* NoWomansLand: The past is treated this way. {{Qurac}} is explicitly called as much. The downtimer Muslim cult is presented as rabidly misogynistic, especially hating the revived worship of Artemis because it has a female deity.
193	* NoodleIncident: The Accident is never described in detail. All we know is that it caused global tsunamis and significant damage to all coastal communities and, somehow, started the time portals. And it happened in the winter.
194	* OnlyOneMeAllowedRightNow: If you try, you die.
195	* Organized Crime: Following The Accident, organized crime is rampant and becomes important in the later books.
196	** LondonGangster: One of the few of these tropes that occurs downtime rather than up. Not very organized, but vicious and criminal.
197	** TheMafia: They own the eastern seaboard and are implied to be a significant part of TheSyndicate.
198	** MafiaPrincess: Jenna Caddrick. She knows her father's a bastard, but she didn't know he was a monster.
199	** TheMafiya: Also powerful, and implied to be another part of TheSyndicate.
200	** TheSyndicate: A multinational organization with Caddrick as their pet senator. [[spoiler:They're running drugs and sex slaves using the newly revived Temples of Artemis as their front. To prevent investigation of the temples, they murdered a famous and beloved actress heavily involved with the temples and go after Ianira and her children using Islamic extremists as their front for the murders so that the outcry will prevent the nascent investigation into the temples.]]
201	** {{Yakuza}}: The final leg of TheSyndicate tripod. Caddrick has significant business interests in Japanese construction. Japan was hit ''very'' hard by the tsunamis that followed The Accident. They also love to visit Kit Carson's Neo Edo hotel, and to go downtime to medieval Japan.
202	* OurTimeTravelIsDifferent: A variant of wormhole time travel. Each gate is a string connecting two points in time.
203	* OutWithABang: Someone conjectures that sex with Margo would kill you. His interlocutor implies it would be worth it.
204	* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Averted. Islamic terrorism is a huge problem (they're even recruiting downtimer jihadists), and the presence of an ancient priestess with mystical powers on Shangri La has caused a massive surge in the worship of Artemis. Oh, and Islam has a particular problem with the ''female'' deity of this new worship.
205	* PapaWolf: Marcus will go through hell for his little girls. So will Armstrong.
206	** As soon as he finds out Margo's his granddaughter, Kit becomes very protective of her. Skeeter, having tried to scam Margo before anyone knew, walks very, very shy around both ever after.
207	* PermaStubble: Kit always sports a little mustache, but when things go to hell during Ripper Season, he ends up with manly stubble.
208	* PetTheDog: Skeeter's introduced as a minor villain in the first book. The second doesn't give you much reason to think otherwise, until you learn about his back story. Just before that happens, he keeps a promise and gives a small fortune to a friend.
209	* PhotoDoodleRecognition: Skeeter Jackson uses this to show that a few missing people went downtime to the Old West disguised as a caballero, a fancy lady, and a porter headed for a shooting competition.
210	* PhotographicMemory: Brian Henrickson remembers everything he's ever read. He's the Time Terminal's librarian.
211	* PintSizedPowerHouse: Anne, Margo, and Sven are all short and deadly.
212	* PlotRelevantAgeUp: [[spoiler:Armstrong, Marcus, and his children]] run to Denver, then to London. They show up in London a few hours before they leave for Denver, three years older. Tragic, as it means [[spoiler:Ianira has lost three years of her children's lives.]]
213	* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Mostly averted. The effort is to be accurate to the time periods, for good and for ill.
214	* PopularHistory: Again, mostly averted. The authors go to some effort to make sure they avoid the worst stereotypes and be historically accurate. How well they succeed depends on your own knowledge.
215	* PortalCut: Averted. One portal closes on a lemming and it gets sucked back to the past with a startled look on its face.
216	* PortalToThePast: The portals are exactly and explicitly linked. The station schedule for each gate lists three times for each, station time, present time, and past time. Except Primary, which links only the station and the present.
217	* PowerupMount: Skeeter is doing fairly well, holding his own in the arena. Then a horse ambles by and Skeeter becomes like unto a god.
218	* ProfessionalGambler: One of Skeeter's vices.
219	* ProfessionalKiller: In the last two books, hordes of these chase the heroes through time.
220	* PsychicPowers: Ianira has several, as does Jack the Ripper.
221	** FaintingSeer: Ianira can See a lot of things and sometimes she faints:
222	*** She can ''almost'' see the face of Marcus's kidnapper/former master. He's a MasterOfDisguise so capable it even befuddles her psyche.
223	*** Ianira gets visions of the future, usually bad. "It is from uptime the danger comes."
224	*** Sometimes she falls into involuntary prophetic trances that leave her weak, even unconscious.
225	** Postcognition: She can also see things that have already happened.
226	** TheEmpath: She and Margo have an instant connection thanks to their similar histories and magic powers. Ianira's eyes ''will'' pierce your soul, and Margo has a literal heart-stopping smile.
227	*** Further, when Skeeter wakes up in pain, she comforts him. He begins weeping because only one person has ever been that kind to him. She immediately knows why.
228	---> '''Ianira:''' It is all right to weep out the pain, Skeeter. A man can go only so long alone, untouched, unloved. You miss your fierce Khan, I know that, but you cannot go back, Skeeter.
229	* PyrrhicVictory: Congratulations, Skeeter! You just stood up to a bully! A bully with massive wealth, criminal connections, government power, and a vindictive nature. And you've a checkered past he won't have ''any'' trouble using against you.
230	* {{Qurac}}: The downtimer jihadists and their uptime recruiters are presented as Muslim extremists and rabid misogynists.
231	* ReallySeventeenYearsOld: When Margo first shows up she claims to be eighteen. Halfway through the first book she celebrates her ''seventeenth'' birthday.
232	* RearingHorse: The horse in the arena protests Skeeter jumping on; he brings it under control.
233	* RecruitingTheCriminal: Kit doesn't quite say "Set a thief to catch a thief", but he comes pretty darn close.
234	* ReligionOfEvil: That practiced by Jack the Ripper. And Aleister Crowley.
235	* RetroactivePrecognition: Pretty much what scouts and guides really want to take advantage of. They want to see and observe important historical events first hand. In the series, the only time it's deliberately taken advantage of is by the Ripper Watch Team, finally learning who Jack the Ripper was.
236	* RevolversAreJustBetter: Given that most gates lead to times before automatic and semiautomatic weapons, this just plain sense. Why carry anything but a revolver when nothing but revolvers exist?
237	* SadisticChoice: Here's your choice, assassin, you can stay here in downtime London where they'll lop your damaged hands off, or you can come home with us and receive the best of modern care and tell us all about your criminal bosses.
238	* SanDimasTime: It's explicitly part of how the time portals work. Every portal moves a fixed distance backwards in time and the return portal moves that same fixed distance forward. Probably just as well since it helps to avoid the risk of "shadowing" yourself.
239	* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Malcolm refuses to work for Time Tours, believing they're ruining time tourism. He prefers to genteelly starve with his principles as an independent guide.
240	* SealedBadassInACan: Partly how Jack the Ripper operates.
241	* SexTourism: Some people go downtime to have sex with downtimer whores. This is viewed ''very'' negatively and explicitly referred to as rape. They're called "zipper jockeys" - and as many of them have modern circumcisions, they have to visit the(''female'') doctor in La La Land to have their foreskins restored in order to avoid anti-Semites. She deliberately makes the operations as painful as possible.
242	* SharpDressedMan: Turns out Malcolm's quietly a clothes horse. His favorite persona for Victorian London is as an eccentric globe-trotting gentleman and he has to keep up with changing styles. Contrast AncientRome, where he's usually a collared slave.
243	* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Suberted. It's acknowledged that they have good stopping power at close range, but aren't any good beyond that, unless you're hunting birds. Skeeter's given a shotgun not because it's better, but because he's worse.
244	* ShutUpHannibal: Kit shuts up Caddrick then goes back to bed.
245	* SightedGunsAreLowTech: Averted. Guns are among the things treated [[ShownTheirWork realistically]]. Old guns are treated as more difficult than modern guns, as among modern advancements are those that make them easier to use. But even dangerous modern guns (mostly just described as being "modern" and "evil looking") still have sights.
246	* TheSlowPath: Shows up in the final book. It's a very risky maneuver; gates aren't permanent. No matter how stable, any gate risks going unstable and disappearing.
247	* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: Carl's got a baby on the way.
248	* SpaceBrasilia: Averted. The architecture is outlandlishly diverse, with everything tending to look like the art and architecture of the nearest tourist gate.
249	* {{Squee}}: When Kit and Malcolm take Margo shopping in preparation for her trip to London. She goes catnip crazy for the fancy clothes.
250	** While investigating UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper's occult connections, the Ripper Watch Team runs into Malcolm's favorite poet, Creator/WilliamButlerYeats. He can barely restrain from soiling himself.
251	* StageName: It's doubtful that his parents named him Lupus Mortiferus. The book translates it as "The Death Wolf". It's closer to "The Wolf KILLING", which is also appropriate.
252	* StealingFromTheHotel: This is one of Kit Carson's primary complaints about tourists. That and paperwork.
253	* StylisticSuck: Most things in the past were hand made, and most people paid attention to things like clothes and weapons. Therefor, a scout's, guide's, or tourist's gear has to mimic the imperfections of hand made equipment.
254	* SufferTheSlings: Corydon, the Greek Hoplite, favors a sling, to great effect.
255	* SwappedRoles: Skeeter poses as Armstrong to lure out a bad guy. That's because Armstrong isn't expendable; Skeeter is.
256	* TapOnTheHead: Skeeter gets knocked out from behind and spends several days recovering.
257	* ATasteOfTheLash: Skeeter's training in the Roman arena.
258	* TemporalMutability: There are several varieties of Enforced Immutability.
259	** You can't cause paradox. Anything that ''really'' matters can't be changed. There's no human enforcement, ContrivedCoincidence just prevents it.
260	** Things that ''can'' be changed are governed by uptime laws, mostly having to do with preventing profiteering and the theft of past treasures. This is governed by the Bureau of Access Time Functions (BATF).
261	* TemporalParadox: Averted. It doesn't happen. Explanation is never provided.
262	** Well, an explanation of ''how'' it doesn't happen is provided (in short, ContrivedCoincidence keeps you from making any major, potentially-paradox-inducing changes to history, and existing at the same point in time more than once is instantly fatal to your current self, preventing you from undermining your presence by default), but not ''why'' the universe is set up that way in the first place.
263	* TimelineAlteringMacGuffin: Sort of. It's possible to go back in time and gamble on past sporting events. But it's illegal.
264	* TimePolice: The BATF. Generally, they just keep people from profiteering from time travel and prevent excessive looting of historical treasures.
265	* TimeTravel: A limited form. Each gate opens for a limited interval at one location, and connects to a specific time and place. The two ends are linked, advancing forward in time at the same rate. If it opens on November 4th, 1913 in Rome and connects to September 13th, 1209 in London, and reopens on November 10th, 1913 in Rome, it will connect to September 19th, 1209 in London.
266	* TimeTravellersAreSpies: Or at least dangerously noticeable. And getting noticed can be fatal.
267	* TheTimeTravellersDilemma: Not everyone in the past can be killed. Even if they can, it doesn't mean you have the ''right'' to kill them. Even in self defense. You are a foreigner and a trespasser and have the responsibility to be as invisible as possible.
268	* TimeTravelEscape: A group of activists request that this be attempted for Jack the Ripper's victims. They argue that random downtimer whores can't ''possibly'' be important enough to be paradox-proof. The main characters roll their eyes at this; it's not the people, it's the history that matters. In other words, averted.
269	* TimeTravelTenseTrouble: Generally avoided. Talking about past events uses the past tense. When it's a past event that's in the future on the other side of the portal, it uses the future tense. Sense the portals all use SanDimasTime, it works.
270	* TimeTravelForFunAndProfit: Oh my yes.
271	** Time tourism is big business. In fact, several gates are owned, top to bottom, by private companies.
272	** The CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit is never tried. Probably too obvious; the banks and police are alert to it and would avoid it.
273	** Other methods are generally illegal. Basically, people from the future have a ridiculously unfair advantage and we have an obligation to not take advantage of that. Also, taking treasures and art relics from the past is seen as a sort of rape. Even though some things are protected by paradox... [[TimeyWimeyBall for some reason.]] The TimePolice exist to prevent these more complex methods.
274	** Goldie tries it anyway, persuading Margo to go Downtime to West Africa in a scheme to plant diamonds for Goldie to retrieve later. However, it's actually a real estate scam, convincing a mark that she has a line on precious gems not controlled by De Beers. Even so, Margo seeded the site with enough gems that they're worth a small fortune.
275	* TimeyWimeyBall: Generally averted. [[MagicAIsMagicA The time portals]] are generally straight forward and don't let things get complicated, they just give access to a very few specific and largely unconnected times and locations, but when people start hopping around to multiple locations, and when it's possible to move from Denver 1885 to London 1888...
276	* TitleDrop: Rather gratuitously in the epilogue of the last book. ''Time Scout'' is dropped every time someone talks about scouting. ''Wagers of Sin'' only makes it to the cover. ''Ripping Time'' is an actual period of time in universe[[note]]The period of time during which the Ripper murders occurred.[[/note]] and is mentioned several times.
277	* TrainingFromHell: How Margo views her relatively benign training as a scout. However, when she goes rogue and travels into the past on her own, she gets a very rough lesson in scouting. Also, Skeeter's childhood.
278	* TrappedInThePast: This can happen. Time strings (the two gates and their opening schedule) have varying degrees of stability. If a gate goes unstable and disappears... In fact, one protagonist fell through a random, unstable gate as a child, but got lucky and was rescued when a stable gate was scouted nearby five years later.
279	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The technology is more or less the same as today. The only part of this that makes it SpeculativeFiction is the time travel gates, which are poorly understood accidents.
280	* VictorianLondon: Many downtime plots take place there. Then. Whatever.
281	* VictoryIsBoring: Skeeter's life post HeelFaceTurn is rather disappointing. It comes to a head: You just beat up a knife-wielding thug and handed him to the cops! You just carried the woman he was beating to the hospital, receiving warm congratulations! You just handed a truant kid over to the cops and felt a connection with a formerly antagonistic cop! You just got to stand up to a bigot! You ... just got fired. Now what?
282	* WeaponBasedCharacterization: Each character tends to have one or more preferred weapons.
283	** Aversion: Sven loves all weapons.
284	** Anne has a pair of delightful little [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webley_Revolver Royal Irish Constabulary Webleys.]]
285	** Skeeter pines for the recurve bows of his youth, but he'll use a gun. In the Arena, he [[GuileHero tricks them]] into giving him a lariat and a trident, those being what he was trained with and what was closest to the spears of his youth respectively.
286	** Jack the Ripper prefers an [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jambiya Arabian jambiya]] for the ceremonial taking of heads.
287	** Kynan Rhys Gower prefers his longbow or a war maul. But when their superiority is demonstrated in the face of an angry Cape buffalo, he asks, "You show gun?"
288	* WeirdnessSearchAndRescue: Getting stuck in the past (downtime) isn't common, because it's an industry and everyone involved is very, very careful. However, it does happen occasionally, and when it does, the best are sent after them. The best being, basically, Franchise/IndianaJones, only with a much better ability to blend in. Time scouts and guides are trained to be invisible anywhen they go.
289	* WellDoneSonGuy: Margo wants to be a time scout to rub it in her dying father's face.
290	** Skeeter also fits this trope. When he says "My father made me the man I am today." he means it as the absolute truth. He just don't know ''which'' father. One he hates, the other he loves and fears.
291	* WhatYearIsThis: It's difficult to know what the date is on the other side of a gate. It's possible to see through it, but unless you're lucky, there won't be any human architecture or artifacts to identify it (the most common method for determining dates of a photograph). So a scout has to use other methods once he's on the other side. Since the result of imprecise dating can be fatal, they need to be precise. It involves [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_clock taking a star fix]] and doing some math.
292	* [[WhoShotJFK Who Was Jack The Ripper?]] A significant part of the last two books is the investigation into the Ripper murders.
293	* TheWildWest: The Denver tour gate. 1885.
294	* WorldOfBadass
295	* YeGoodeOldeDays: Averted. In fact, the suggestions given in the first paragraph of that trope are taken up by people in the book! They get multiple shots, they take many, many preparations against death and disease, they understand that they may have to be quarantined when they return, and men intending to go brothel-hopping downtime even get ''surgically restored foreskins''.
296	* YouCantFightFate: You can act in the past, picking things up, talking to people, even killing people. However, if someone is crucial to some later act, he cannot be killed. YOU can, though, so you should be careful not to anger the wrong person. Paradox will be averted through a convenient coincidence.

Context Literature / TimeScout