Line #8 VideoGame/HeavensVault


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/heavens_vault.png]]
2
3	->''"Stories don't have tidy beginnings. The past is always present. But there has to be a spark. Something that brings the past to light."''
4	-->'''Aliya Elasra''', ''in the intro''.
5
6	''Heaven's Vault'' is an archaeological adventure video game developed and published by indie studio Creator/InkleInc. The game was released for Windows in April 2019.
7
8	The player takes control of Aliya Elasra, a young female archaeologist, who is suddenly recalled from studying the forgotten history of the Nebula, the stretch of space she lives in. A well-known member of her university has gone missing, and Aliya has been chosen to track the man down and find out what happened to him. What starts as a simple job quickly escalates into an epic journey that takes Aliya far beyond the boundaries of known space into regions no human has been in centuries, and what she discovers has the potential to change the fate of the entire Nebula forever.
9
10	''Heaven's Vault'''s most distinctive feature is [[ConLang Ancient]], a meticulously-constructed fictional language that is mostly unknown InUniverse when the story begins. It's up to the player to use the few words Aliya knows to discern the meanings of more complex texts they discover on their journey, using logic, intuition and often [[TrialAndErrorGameplay plain guesswork]].
11
12	The {{Novelization}} was released in November 2021 in two volumes subtitled ''The Loop'' and ''The Vault''.
13
14	A fan-based MiniGame, ''Vaultle'', was also created, which is VideoGame/{{Wordle}} in Ancient.
15
16	----
17	[[foldercontrol]]
18	[[folder:Tropes featured in the game]]
19	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Aliya has at least two of them that appear on-screen (shady bar owner [[WifeHusbandry Timor]] on Elboreth and librarian [[NiceGuy Huang]] on Iox), and it's implied through dialogue that guys hitting on her against her will is a frequent occurrence.
20	* AdventurerArchaeologist: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. Aliya dresses sensibly for her job, is physically incapable of the superhuman athletic feats popularized by the trope, makes efforts to treat ruins and artifacts with respect, and is just as much of a scholar as anyone at the University. The whip-and-pistol aspect of the trope is also averted, aside from a single "swordfight" that's [[PlayedForLaughs played for laughs]]. Yet, true to this trope, she makes history as well as she discovers it.
21	* AdventurousIrishViolins: Pretty much the entire soundtrack consists of gentle violin pieces mixed with OneWomanWail, as befits a game about exploring unknown reaches of space.
22	* AfterTheEnd: The Nebula is a broken place littered with the ruins of at least half-a-dozen lost civilizations. Most had far more advanced technology than the current Ioxian Empire, to the point that present-day characters like Aliya [[LostTechnology can still use some of the old tech without understanding how any of it works]].
23	* AIIsACrapshoot: Six has been assigned to support Aliya in her task of tracking down Renba, but that doesn't mean it's actually on her side. Its primary user is Professor Myari, and whatever order she gave takes precedence over what Aliya wants. This frequently results in Six ratting Aliya out without a care in the world. It doesn't do it out of any form of malice, but if you want to do something you don't want Myari to know, don't do it while Six is around to witness it.
24	* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
25	** Structuring a newly discovered text fragment is often the trickiest part in translating Ancient, especially once longer and longer fragments start showing up. Thankfully, with every wrong attempt on your part, the game removes incorrect words from the available roster to keep you from translating in circles. If you do not have enough information to find the right word boundaries (i.e. there are multiple unknown words next to each other), Aliya comments on how the text is too complex for her to decipher right now.
26	** The first patch introduced a sorely needed fast-travel feature that allows you to set a target on the map and let Six pilot the ''Nightingale'' there, provided you've already explored the route personally. AndThereWasMuchRejoicing among the fan base, considering how many players found the travel system on the rivers to become boring and tedious after a short time.
27	** While travelling, if you miss a turn, you can press backspace to return to before the turn. This can save quite a large amount of backtracking in some cases.
28	** One of the [[TimedMission Timed Mission sites]] features a key item that you can't pick up until certain environmental conditions have changed that make it accessible. If you achieve these conditions but run out of time before you can collect the item, Six will bring it to the ship for you since you can't go back to retrieve it. If you ask them about it, they state that it seemed wasteful to leave it behind.
29	* ApocalypseHow: A [[ApocalypseHow/Class6 Planetary-scale Total Extinction]] is already in progress when the game begins, and has been for quite some time because the rivers that connect the moons and provide them with water are drying up. Once they're gone, all life in the Nebula will end. [[spoiler:Finding the ''Heaven's Vault'' reveals that the spaceship's crash landing (namely, the release of its reactor's energy) was responsible for creating the rivers in the first place. It's been busy reabsorbing this energy ever since, which is why the rivers are weakening all over the Nebula. The player has the choice between shutting the ship down to restore the Nebula, [[MurderByInaction doing nothing]], or [[FaceHeelTurn allowing the ship to complete the process before teleporting away with it, leaving the Nebula to die]].]]
30	* ArtificialGravity: Iolite crystals can be used to reduce gravity within an area, making things lighter.
31	* AsteroidThicket: The Nebula is a bunch of rocks floating around in space, the bigger ones (that are still just small asteroids) are called "moons" and has humans settled on them, probably by the means of ArtificialGravity. There is a network of rivers flowing around the Nebula, providing a safe way to travel between these moons.
32	* AutoSave: The game auto-saves when you leave a moon or when enter the menu, provided you are not in the middle of some sequence. This is why most of the time when you enter the menu, it will say "saved just now".
33	* BiggerOnTheInside: The moons are a very weird example. From the outside they look like lifeless, formless asteroids a couple hundred meters across at most, but once you land there, you get to explore locations that look like they're situated on an actual moon's or planet's surface, complete with blue atmosphere, cities, farmland and an entirely different topology.
34	* BoldExplorer: Aliya being one is a key aspect of her personality, and part of the appeal of the game. It also rubs off on Six over time, as evidenced by them starting to point out uncharted waters or airless ruins that they explore for you independently.
35	-->'''Six:''' Perhaps we could explore?\
36	'''Aliya:''' We'll never ''find'' anything if we only take paths we ''know''.
37	* BookEnds: The game starts and ends with a voiceover of Aliya saying that ''"Stories don't have tidy beginnings. The past is always present."''.
38	* BrainUploading: One example of LostTechnology in this universe allows the user to create some sort of virtual copy of their consciousness for upload into a special device. The {{Precursors}} that developed this tech used it to store the complete, conscious minds of the deceased for eternity. Strangely, the few people with access to it in the present mostly seem to use it for long-range communication instead, which brings up all sorts of horrifying implications. [[spoiler:It's made by deliberately tampering with hopper lens to allow teleportation of the mind, but not the body.]]
39	* CantUseStairs: Robots move around on treads, meaning they cannot use stairs. Observing the presence of stairs and ramps (or lack of that), you can deduce whether a place was designed for humans, robots, or both.
40	* CelShading: The game's visual style is based on this technique, coupled with pre-drawn sprites (especially for characters).
41	* ChildlessDystopia: Aliya notices that there are no children on Maersi. It is implied that it is the consequence of the despotic rule of Iox.
42	* ConLang: The bread and butter of the game. Ancient is a set of about 40 glyph-like characters that form an entire, fully functional language that was specifically designed for this game. Initially, Aliya only knows a few simple words, so the first third of the game is basically an exercise in educated guessing until she can confirm the accuracy of her guesses by cross-referencing their use in multiple text fragments. As her dictionary expands, increasingly more complex texts can be translated. Each glyph also corresponds to a syllable or sound, so it is possible to figure out what spoken Ancient sounds like (if tedious, as there are very few clues).
43	* ConvenientlyPreciseTranslation: Ancient matches English closely enough to have the same kind of grammatical ambiguity for the sake of narrative drama.
44	* CoolShip:
45	** Aliya's ship, the ''Nightingale'', is a cute steampunky wooden vessel that sails on space rivers between worlds.
46	** And of course there's [[spoiler:the titular ''Heaven's Vault'', an actual spaceship that crash-landed centuries ago at the very edge of the Nebula. You only get to see its inside, but that's impressive enough even before you learn [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt what the thing is capable of]].]]
47	* CrapsackWorld: The Nebula is not exactly a nice place to live. Everyone lives under the yoke of the [[TheEmpire Ioxian Empire]], with all the anti-colonialist sentiments that entails. Only a handful of places are somewhat well off while the rest are {{Wretched Hive}}s rife with poverty, famine and crime. On Elboreth, slavery is commonly practiced, and a human life seems to be worth less than dirt. Worse, the Rivers - the stellar pathways that interconnect the colonies - haven been weakening for centuries, and since few worlds are self-sufficient, most of mankind in the Nebula is already circling the drain. It's up to the player to either improve things however slightly, leave them as they are, or hammer the final nail in mankind's proverbial coffin.
48	* CrownOfPower: The Crown of the Empire is said to be more than just a symbol of power: it contains advanced technology. However, finding out its exact nature is beyond the ability of even [[WrenchWench Oroi]].
49	* DeadManWriting: [[spoiler: Renba, expecting his potential demise on his quest, records one final message and embeds it in Six's core to be discovered by whoever follows his trail. He assumed it would be Myari and spends a decent amount of the message speaking towards her, leading to some confusion when Aliya triggers the message instead.]]
50	* DeadpanSnarker: Oroi can be this. Being one of the nicer characters, she will sarcastically point out if she thinks you are doing something wrong without going full {{Jerkass}}.
51	* DesertPunk: Water is abundant only on a few moons, and on most of them are rather dry. Thus water is a valuable resource. No wonder that Kibenya, the water goddess, is the most worshipped deity out there. Furthermore, the rivers are drying up, causing the whole Nebula to slowly die.
52	* DoubleMeaningTitle: The fact that "vault" has multiple meanings becomes a plot point later in the game. [[ViewersAreMorons One of the characters even spells it out to ensure that it doesn't go over anyone's head]].
53	** Conversely, [[IncrediblyLamePun eagle]]-eyed players might cotton onto this much earlier by noticing that the word for ''vault'' has [[spoiler: a marker indicating that it's a verb, or that it has two instances of the glyph meaning "above"/"high"]].
54	* EternalRecurrence: The dominant religion in the Nebula is "the Loop", a belief in the cyclicity of all things. Loopers believe that everything that happens has already happened before countless times, which gives rise to an extremely blasé attitude towards historians and archaelogists like Aliya. Some of the more reasonable Loopers realize that, assuming their beliefs are correct, digging up the distant past offers a direct look at the future, but whether any of this makes sense or has some truth to it is ultimately left ambiguous. It also serves as a [[SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration convenient justification]] for NewGamePlus.
55	* EverythingSensor: Played with. Six can scan and calculate a wide range of things, from determining a rock's planet of origin to monitoring Aliya's blood oxygen levels, but there ''are'' set limitations to what their sensors can pick up. Aliya assumes the trope is being played straight, to Six's annoyance.
56	-->'''Aliya:''' Can't you scan for Renba?\
57	'''Six:''' Mistress has mistaken me for a dog. Perhaps you believe that if I had a scrap of ''cloth'' I could track his ''scent''.\
58	'''Aliya:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Can you do that?]]\
59	'''Six:''' No, mistress. If I ''see'' him, I will let you know.
60	* EvilCripple: Aliya can free a crippled slave named Yazi on Elboreth in return for his help in tracking down Renba's last dig site. Once they get there, [[spoiler:he reveals that he only helped her to rescue another worker Renba abandoned on the moon when he left. While that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, the fact that they attempt to leave Aliya behind in revenge for something she had no hand in squarely puts him into villain territory. Six foils the plan by hoppering itself and Aliya back to the ship before the workers can hijack it, [[KarmicDeath leaving them both to die on the dead moon]] unless Aliya objects.]]
61	* FantasticRacism:
62	** If you were born on Iox, the Ioxian Empire's throne world, don't expect a warm welcome on any of the colonial moons like Elboreth. "Ioxian" is considered a slur in these parts, and the people waste no time blaming Ioxians for every bad thing they can think of. Aliya is not exempt despite being an Elborethian herself - merely relocating to Iox, even if it wasn't your own choice, is grounds enough for discrimination. On the flipside, most high-ranking Ioxians consider Elborethians barely better than the dirt under their feet, so at least the discrimination is mutual.
63	** Also, nobody seems to like the clearly sentient robots. This is a world that gleefully averts SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil, which should tell you all you need to know about how robots are being treated... and your PlayerCharacter is one of the worst offenders, to boot. [[spoiler:Given the existence and [[RobotWar downfall]] of the Steel Empire, however, this may be justified, as bad as it is.]]
64	* FlashyTeleportation: With light-orb effects. Through the use of "hoppers" in this game, these short-ranged teleporters are often used to visit moons where the ''Nightingale'' can't land. Others were set up to facilitate passage through physical gates that were never meant to be opened the old-fashioned way. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that hopper technology doesn't actually seem to have any range restrictions. It's just that nobody knows anymore how to make full use of the few ones that're still active after centuries without maintenance.]]
65	* FloatingContinent: The game constantly refers to them as "moons", but the various places Aliya visits are basically just hunks of rock floating in space that have Earth-like gravity and somehow manage to retain an atmosphere.
66	* {{Foreshadowing}}: The great questions of the game--how did the rivers form, why are they drying up, and what does it have to do with the ancient observatory and Heaven's Vault that keeps coming up every now and then--get several fragments of answers as you explore the different ruins throughout the game. The biggest one is The Book of Lost Future, which, if you have enough knowledge of Ancient to read it, will tell you quite a lot about [[spoiler:the nature of Heaven's Vault]].
67	* FutureImperfect: This is enshrined within the game's very interface - if Aliya has the wrong idea about a place, for example, the pause menu screen will call it what she thinks it is. And in the story, Elborethian legend states that the city's inaccessible highest building houses an eagle that, if awoken, will destroy the Nebula. That's just silly, of course. [[spoiler:That's not where it's kept.]]
68	* GiveMeYourInventoryItem:
69	** You can offer various merchants your hard-earned artifacts in exchange for goods or leads on new sites, which removes the proffered artifacts from your inventory permanently. Showing inscribed artifacts to Huang to check your translations has him ask if you want to hand over the artifact for storage at the University, but he gives you the option to refuse and keep it for yourself.
70	** If Six watches you discover the Crown of the Empire they'll be obligated to tell Myari about it. From that point on, she'll demand that you give it to her, and she'll hound you for it every time you talk to her if you've lost it [[spoiler:or given it to Oroi for inspection/safekeeping]].
71	* TheGhost: [[spoiler:Renba, the missing roboticist, is never actually seen or heard in the game because he was KilledOffscreen long before Aliya finds what's left of his ship.]]
72	* GhostAmnesia: [[spoiler:Six was once a living person before becoming a robot, and they occasionally remember bits and pieces of their past life as you explore various places that they once frequented.]] What portions of these recollections they share with Aliya are generally either confusing, disturbing, or both.
73	* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: First Empress Enkei was a nasty piece of work back when she was in power, bearing all the hallmarks of your typical ruthless, power-addled tyrant. Then she [[AGodAmI declared herself a goddess]] and eventually attacked and destroyed ''her own empire'' for reasons that completely elude the Nebula's present-day citizens. [[spoiler:When her personality eventually manifests itself in Six, she can't do a whole lot except insult Aliya every chance she gets, but it's abundantly clear that she would set the Nebula aflame without a second thought ''again'' if given the chance. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking She's also a massive jackass in general]].]]
74	* GuideDangIt: The game's nonlinear narrative structure goes well with its adventure premise but makes it difficult to experience it in full without multiple replays or some outside help. Most sidequests and character arcs have MultipleEndings that usually aren't hinted at, and even if they are, finding out what's possible and what comes of it often remains a challenge regardless. It's also very easy to accidentally trigger the final PointOfNoReturn, which can be done with at least one major location completely unexplored. Achievement hunters in particular will have a hard time achieving OneHundredPercentCompletion without consulting an online guide or three.
75	* HeavenAbove: The word for heaven in Ancient has the glyph "up" in it. [[spoiler:In fact, it's composed of "place-star", and "star" is "noun-light-up"]].
76	* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Elboreth used to be one of the most important place in the Holy Empire, with Catkis serving as a fortified citadel for the elite. Nowadays, it's a WretchedHive of crime, porverty, and slavery.
77	* HyperspaceArsenal: A minor example. Aliya's storage space on her person consists of a small hip satchel, into which she can fit things like a two-foot-long fire poker or a ceramic tile the size of her head.
78	** Six is also capable of this in at least one instance despite being unable to pick things up, somehow transporting a book the size of their body back to the ship if you fail to collect it before leaving the site.
79	* IndoEuropeanAlienLanguage: Ancient has the same grammar as English, the main differences being the lack of spaces and articles. An AcceptableBreakFromReality, as otherwise deciphering the language would be much more difficult.
80	* InformedFlaw: Toward the end of the game, we are told that apparently Aliya was born with a lung disease called shearlung. This has had no impact at any point in the game, as every instances of breathing issues were for obvious reasons, such as explicit lack of air.
81	* JerkassHero: Aliya is a woman with NoSocialSkills and a deep dislike of robots, which makes it ''very'' easy to make her be rude and dismissive to humans and her RobotBuddy alike. In fact, the majority of her dialogue options are mean or otherwise offensive in some way, and you have to be very careful with your responses if you want to play as a more traditionally nice heroine. Worse, most [=NPCs'=] behavior changes depending on how you treat them, so pissing them off too often results in a WorldOfJerkass where ''everyone'' treats the other like crap.
82	* KickTheDog: The fact that you can hawk Six to some shady guy you just met can be considered this by those who like the thing. It's JustFollowingOrders after all, regardless of how annoying that can make it at times. For those who take offence at its incessant whining and meddling, however, finally getting rid off it can feel immensely satisfying. You even get an achievement for it.
83	* LaResistance: A full-scale uprising toppled the Empire back in the day by way of storming Iox and slaughtering nearly everyone there in an event referred to as the Fall. [[spoiler:Myari's belief in the Loop, and subsequent fear of the Fall repeating itself, is the impetus behind Renba's activities and the reason she sends Aliya of all people to pick up his trail when he disappears.]]
84	* LateToTheTragedy: [[spoiler:When Aliya finally catches up with Renba, all she finds is the still-smoldering remains of his ship.]]
85	* LittleStowaway: What Aamir was supposed to be doing [[spoiler: before disappearing to the domed market moon.]]
86	* LockAndKeyPuzzle: Several exist in various locations, usually locked chests or doors. Interestingly, actual keys are almost never used to solve these puzzles; most often Aliya simply picks up a nearby object and uses it to pry the thing open.
87	* LogicBomb: [[spoiler: The robot crew of the ''Heaven's Vault'' are trying to repair the ship by reabsorbing the energy from the rivers. However, doing so will jeopardize the lives of the Nebula's inhabitants, which their Ethical Cores prevent them from doing. As such, they are trapped in a loop, unable to abandon their task or commit to sacrificing the people's lives, until Aliya steps in to make the decision for them.]]
88	* LostLanguage: Ancient, the ancient language of Nebula, has saw its meaning lost in the times, and Aliya has to decypher it.
89	* LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair: It is all around in the history of the Nebula. The Age of Sail was a prosperous age with advanced technology and bustling trade between moons. They built robots that TurnedAgainstTheirMasters and enslaved humans, resulting in the Steel Empire. Eventually, the humans took over again, forming the tyrannical Holy Empire. Elboreth, the former place of power, were turned into a WretchedHive, the capital of the empire now being Iox. The Holy Empire was toppled [[spoiler:by the very person who had founded it (her personality transferred into a robot)]], followed by what's labeled as a Dark Age and a Modern Age. In the present, while Iox is still the most powerful of the surrounding moons, it is just a shadow of its former self. Most of the history has faded into obscurity. [[LostTechnology Ancient technology]] (most notably robots and hoppers) is occasionally being used without understanding how it works, and being far from being able to utilize their full potential. The Elborethians have forgotten that their home was once a place of power, and they treat ancient artifacts as junk. The Ioxians are struggling to decypther Ancient, the language of the old empires, and are prone to superstition over science.
90	* LostTechnology: All over the place, but most prominent are the robots. Nobody knows where they came from or who made them. Hell, most were found buried in concrete under the Ioxian University, and only a handful of scholars understand enough of their technology to press them into service and keep them docile most of the time.
91	* MadeOfExplodium: [[spoiler:Renba's ship, apparently.]] The fact that the thing blew up at all, and with such power to boot, baffles not only Aliya to no end. Six hypothesizes the use of some exotic, incompatible fuel as the cause.
92	* TheManBehindTheMan: Every robot has a "primary user" whose orders override anything another master wants from them. Six's primary is Professor Myari, much to Aliya's chagrin, and it's implied that Myari herself answers to an even higher power.
93	* MerchantCity:
94	** Renaki is a merchant ''moon''. The explorable map consists of two shopping plazas crammed with goods and stalls. The player is able to exchange artifacts for various items here, but there's nothing of substantial value for sale unless you're trying to unlock the gecko-related achievements (or really want an apple).
95	** There is another merchant moon you can discover that was this in the Age of Sail. It's now in ruins.
96	* MonochromeApparition: The robots' holographic faces, if you consider [[spoiler: the [[BrainUploading preserved consciousness of the dying]]]] to be ghostly.
97	* MultipleEndings: Downplayed. The game gives you multiple options how to wrap up its story, but since it ends immediately afterwards, what you choose has no actual effect aside from unlocking a different achievement. That said, most individual story arcs have several possible outcomes, many of which also lead to different achievements. [[GuideDangIt Good luck witnessing them all (or at least the best ones) without a guide, though]].
98	* NeverForgottenSkill: [[spoiler:Six]] is quite an efficient sailor, despite having no memory of ever controlling a ship before. They're good enough at it that they can [[spoiler:sail halfway across the Nebula solo to reunite with you if the god statue at the quarry moon hoppers you to Elboreth.]]
99	* NewGamePlus: Finishing the story allows you to start a new game with all the Ancient knowledge Aliya had acquired in the first run. It also ups the scope and difficulty of the inscriptions you find. For instance, the very first Ancient text you're given in the game has two words in a standard game and five in NG+. Also, [[spoiler:if you chose to Vault away in the prior run, Aliya will have her surname changed from Elasra to Mazwai, and the Chronicles of Mazwai will be changed to the Chronicles of Elasra.]]
100	* NiceGuy: In a world full of selfish assholes, Ioxian librarian Huang is the only unambiguously nice and helpful person around. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential You can still treat him like crap]] if that's how you want to play it, but the worst he does is show some mild exasperation, unlike most other [=NPCs=] that immediately go into full {{Jerkass}} mode in return.
101	* NoPunctuationPeriod: Ancient has neither punctuation nor spaces. There are not even articles.
102	* ObstructiveForeground: Various parts of the environment sometimes get in the way of the camera, especially in confined spaces like caves and hallways. The game tries to work around this by pulling the camera in closer, but in some cases this makes it even more difficult to get around.
103	* OffscreenTeleportation: Six does this every time Aliya takes a route it can't follow. You only have a few minutes to act and explore unobserved before the damn thing suddenly appears behind you and continues to pester you. Typically they employ literal teleportation by way of a hopper eye that Aliya didn't notice, but more than once their solution is to find the nearest elevated surface and simply roll off it to access the area below.
104	* OhMyGods: Typical exclamations by Aliya, usually when encountering rapids, are "by the rivers", "by the stars", "by the Goddess".
105	* OnceMoreWithClarity: The prologue shows Aliya and Six climbing up a mountain to a statue and a boarded-up house. Nothing much is explained about it other than that it happens a few weeks after the start. It seems more like a scene to set up what Aliya and Six do normally. [[spoiler:Then you get to the end game and understand: the place in the prologue is Renba's Observatory]]. However, [[spoiler:due to choices made during the game, some of the scene can change, like, say, Six being replaced by the Empress, or missing altogether if you sold him]].
106	* OnlyOneSaveFile: Single save only. Mainly saving by AutoSave.
107	* PardonMyKlingon: The slave trader uses words towards Aliya such as ''farwet'' and ''sallehua''. The exact meaning is not explained, but from the context they must be swear words in Elborethian patois.
108	* PlayingTheHeartStrings: The entire soundtrack is slow, emotional, and contemplative. Several tracks feature a solo cello.
109	* PricelessPaperweight: Various items you find over the course of the story appear as decor in your ship, but Aliya seems to have interesting ideas on how to store them. The Crown of the Empire, which Aliya describes as the greatest find of her life, can be found unceremoniously hanging on the back of a chair, and the iolite crystal from Maersi spends the rest of the game plunked in a coffee pot once you're done with it. It's also how Timor and Tapi managed to find things of value for you, since a lot of Elborethians don't know the value of what they actually have, given how many of those things are there on Elboreth.
110	* PointOfNoReturn: [[spoiler:Finding the Aquifer and rerouting the water to the ''Heaven's Vault'']] locks you into the endgame. Unfortunately, there's absolutely no warning given that this will happen, and getting to this point doesn't seem to have any causal connection to its premise of "explore and translate", so for first-time players it tends to come completely out of the blue. This can also results in player missing explorable locations if they activated the thing before they can explore those places first.
111	* ProjectedMan: The robots have a projection as their heads and hands. They use it to show their emotions, but otherwise cannot interact with the environment.
112	* {{Reincarnation}}: Since Loopers already believe that the universe is basically a BrokenRecord of itself, believing in reincarnation is a fairly natural conclusion. Professor Myari is repeatedly stated to believe that she's a reincarnated empress, but no proof is ever presented neither for her claims nor the existence of reincarnation on the whole. [[spoiler:Especially given that it's more likely for Emperors' minds to be preserved as robots.]]
113	* RagnarokProofing: Most obviously the robots, which were created a thousand years ago or more, then buried in concrate for hundreds of years, are still functional. There are also functioning lights and machinery on some of the abandoned moons you discover.
114	* RedHerring: Sometimes an indication appears that there is something on the ground, but if you take a look, you realize that there is really nothing.
115	* RestrainingBolt: Robots have a so-called Ethical Core that prevents them from doing anything that would endanger the wellbeing of their assigned master. However, this gives them enough autonomy to act against their master's orders if he or she is putting themselves in danger.
116	* RoaringRapids: The way to travel between moons is to navigate the rivers that flow in space. You can only go downstream, so when planning your route it is important to take the flow direction into account.
117	* RobotBuddy: Aliya is accompanied by one she calls Six, because [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin it's the sixth one she's been given by the University]]. All the others were lost in the line of duty, and she makes no secret of the fact that she was directly responsible for at least a few of these "accidents".
118	* RobotWar: Part of the Nebula's extensive backstory involves a large-scale robot rebellion. [[spoiler:And then there's human rebellion against the robots, which ended the Steel Empire.]]
119	* SceneryPorn: Sailing the Rivers through the Nebula provides an endless parade of gorgeous space vistas, and many of the moons you get to visit are no less pleasing to the eye.
120	* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The Nebula is supposedly a space formation with the "moons" being asteroids. Travelling between them with the speed of a river (even a really fast one) would take years even if they are close to each other. Yet, Aliya sails casually across the nebula in no time. The novelization even says that travel between Elboreth and Renaki takes several hours, which means that the game world must not be bigger than a few tens of kilometers across. In the game it's even less due to [[CompressedWorld playability reasons]].
121	* ServileSnarker: If Six isn't currently pestering Aliya to stop putting herself at risk, it's usually snarking at her without dropping its servile demeanor.
122	* ShoutOut: Completing 10 translations unlocks the [[Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk Reader of the Lost Marks]] achievement before completing 20 translations follows up with [[Franchise/TombRaider Tomb Reader]].
123	* SkewedPriorities: At Renba's dig site, [[spoiler:entering the tent camp at the far end of the map results in Aliya's crippled help stabbing her in the back by taking her ship and leaving her marooned on a dead moon. Six immediately urges her to hopper back to the ''Nightingale'' before it is too late, but [[TooDumbToLive Aliya can still insist on continuing exploring the dig site while the wannabe pirates are quickly approaching the ship]]]]. If you take too long to come to your senses, [[ButThouMust Six will simply hopper you back on its own volition]].
124	** Also applies to every moon where thin atmosphere or poor environmental conditions put you on a time limit for exploring before Aliya's lungs fail. Six will frequently remind you of your deteriorating condition and you can brush them off, but they ''will'' hopper you away before you're done looking around if the situation gets too dire.
125	* SnarkToSnarkCombat: Though it takes some effort, managing to develop a friendship with Six leads to ''loads'' of this.
126	-->'''Aliya:''' [asking them to wait while she finds a way into a ruin] Try not to ''rust''.\
127	'''Six:''' I will ''lick'' myself clean, Mistress.\
128	----
129	-->'''Aliya:''' Wish me luck, Six.\
130	'''Six:''' I will keep watch for your ''common sense'', Mistress.\
131	----
132	-->'''Aliya:''' Lizard seller must be a low status occupation.\
133	'''Six:''' I cannot ''imagine'' why.\
134	----
135	* SpaceIsAnOcean: Almost literally as you're traveling between locations by sailing on rivers that snake through space, complete with currents, rapids and calms. Space travel is referred to in distinctly nautical terms. [[spoiler:This doesn't seem to apply to the titular Heaven's Vault, however, which seems to have came to the Nebula in some kind of [[FasterThanLightTravel FTL drive]], presumably a Jump Drive, given that the word "Vault" is being used as a verb.]]
136	* TeleportationWithDrawbacks: Teleportation is range-limited by depending on LostTechnology that went centuries without maintenance.
137	* ThankingTheViewer: At the end, an untranslated Ancient text is shown. [[GeniusBonus If you (the player, not the character) managed to master the language enoguh]], you can figure out its translation, which is roughly "thank you for playing".
138
139	* ThreeLawsCompliant: The robots have an Ethical Core that prevents them from doing harm to humans. The question of how ethical they really are comes up occasionally during the discussions between Aliya and Six.
140	* ThrownOutTheAirlock: How Aliya's previous RobotBuddy Five left her service, which she has little qualms about telling Six to their holographic face. Her accounts of how exactly it happened are a bit unclear about whether it was part of an emergency manoeuvre in space, or simply the most convenient way to get rid of yet another robot she didn't want. Unsurprisingly, Six isn't particularly thrilled to learn of this and will suggest that you should go look for Five on the off chance that they're still alive.
141	* TimedMission: A handful of segments put you on a time limit, usually denoted by Aliya's health bar running out for one reason or another, but sometimes you get no indication whatsoever of how much time you have left (or that there even ''was'' a time limit in the first place).
142	* TitleDrop: It takes about half the game for the Heaven's Vault to start popping up on Aliya's radar, after which it still takes some time before tracking it down becomes her primary objective.
143	* TrialAndErrorGameplay: Ancient writing [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua completely lacks spaces]], so the first thing you usually need to do upon finding a new inscription is to figure out how many words you're actually dealing with. This is usually done by allocating the words you already know and then hope that it's enough for Aliya to divvy up the fragment into its constituent parts. The nature of Ancient makes this trickier than it sounds because a string of glyphs that you know gains a related but different meaning if there's another glyph in front of or behind it, and if you haven't "discovered" this word somewhere else before, you can't place it. Fortunately, [[AntiFrustrationFeature the game automatically crosses out incorrect words]] in your roster every time Aliya realizes that she/you got it wrong, so assuming you have enough correct words left in the end, the true structure of the text fragment eventually reveals itself if you're sufficiently tenacious.
144	* TriggerPhrase: [[spoiler:Speaking to robots in Ancient allows one to access lower functions directly and ask them questions about the world as it once was, but with the caveat that they can only respond in Ancient.]] Even Aliya's knowledge of the language isn't terribly useful here, as she's only familiar with ''written'' Ancient. [[spoiler: Her knowledge of Elborethian patois is more helpful.]]
145	* TroubledChild: Aamir, a little boy who was [[spoiler:hoppered from Elboreth to a potentially-haunted abandoned ruin]] and stranded alone there for nearly a year before Aliya finds him. He's still fairly upbeat and plucky, but he also believes that he's dead and that [[spoiler: the gate he went through]] hates him and will kill him again if he goes near it.
146	* {{Tsundere}}: [[spoiler:Empress Enkei]] vacillates freely between being nice (albeit a bit patronizing) to Aliya and insulting her in every other sentence for no reason other than to confirm that yes, she's an A-grade {{Jerkass}}.
147	* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: During the Steel Empire robots enslaved humans.
148	* UnsuccessfulPetAdoption: The gecko you buy on Renaki runs away almost immediately (before you even give it a name, if you take too long to decide!). It eventually pops up again on your ship, and if you ask how it got there, Six implies that their fear of it getting inside their internal workings came true and it hitched a ride aboard. From that point on it appears in various places on your ship as a decoration.
149	* UnusualPetsForUnusualPeople: Aliya eagerly trading away historical artifacts at a market stall for a wild gecko that immediately runs away.
150	* WakingUpElsewhere: A minor example. While [[TimedMission exploring planets where Aliya can't survive long due to poor atmospheric/environmental conditions]], if you hang around until the health/stamina bar bottoms out Six will hopper Aliya back to the ship upon her collapse. After a brief rest period in the hammock, she comes to and is back to business. [[spoiler:Except on the Quarry Moon. If you go down the mining shaft, you'll eventually run out of her stamina bar, but the only way to get out of there is to get to the crystal you found down there, which turned out to be a hopper lens that teleported you to Elboreth]].
151	* WeaksauceWeakness: Due to their tracked chassis, robots are incapable of climbing stairs or mounting anything taller than a pebble. This also becomes a minor plot point later on because it helps discern whether a ruin was meant for accommodating humans or robots. No ramps? No robots.
152	* WeaponJr: Played with. During the "fight" with [[spoiler: Aamir]], he wields a stick he found as a sword. ''Aliya'' can wield a wooden sword found nearby, if you picked it up.
153	* WeNamedTheMonkeyJack: You can buy a gecko on Renaki and pick from a lengthy list of names for it, including Janniqi and Huang.
154	* WifeHusbandry: The bar in the Elboreth slums is run by a shady guy called Timor. He basically raised Aliya before she was taken away to Iox, yet he constantly and unsubtly attempts to convince her to marry him, ostensibly for her own good. [[NoJustNoReaction She's as creeped out by this as any sane person would probably be]].
155	* WretchedHive: Pretty much every settled world that isn't Iox is one, but Elboreth is easily the worst of the lot. Six comments on it constantly, which usually garners prickly responses from Elboreth-native Aliya.[[spoiler: If Six turns into Enkei, she outright refuses to come out of the ship because she feels the place is so much below her]].
156	* WrenchWench: Oroi is a mechanic and she is fascinated by any machinery, especially the LostTechnology kind.
157	* YouAreNumber6: Aliya's robot is named Six, because it's her sixth robot. She apparently named her previous ones similarly before she "lost" them.
158	[[/folder]]
159
160	[[folder:Tropes specific to the novelization]]
161	* AdaptedOut: Tapi does not appear in the book.
162	* AdaptationalJerkass: Enkei is JerkAss enough in the game, but takes it up to eleven in the book. She does not stop at constantly insulting her, but bosses her around, threatening her to hopper her into a wall[[spoiler:, and even steals her ship once]].
163	* AdaptationExpansion: The book shows the backstory of Aliya, of how she got her ship and how she got to Iox.
164	* AnachronicOrder: When Aliya arrives at Heaven's Vault, the narrative jumps back and forth between her climbing the mountain to reach the Vault, and her translating the texts in the entrance hall of the Vault.
165	* DecompositeCharacter: In the game Six/Enkei is the only robot Aliya has. In the book we meet Aliya's first robot Talliin. [[spoiler:He travels with Aliya after Six turns into Enkei and Aliya has to ditch her.]]
166	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The table of contents looks like a timeline, each age translated to the title of each part of the book, which loosely represents the age Aliya explores in that part.
167	* PaintingTheMedium: Ancient features heavily in the book's editing. Each part's title is written out in both English and Ancient. Within the parts, chapters are numbered in Ancient only. Within the chapters, sections are separated by the "separate" Ancient symbol. Near the end, [[spoiler:we see snippets of the story of Mazwai, which are marked with the word "past" in Ancient]].
168	* PragmaticAdaptation: The book stays mostly true to the game's events. Most deviations are either leaving out repetitive parts from the game, such as exploring ruins to find moons, or changing details that enhance the story but wouldn't have worked well in the game's format.
169	* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Aliya and Enkei have the same purpose: to get to Heaven's Vault and save the Nebula from whatever darkness is threatening it. Unfortunately, the two doesn't get along well.
170	[[/folder]]

Context VideoGame / HeavensVault