This series covers centuries and numerous planets. This only scratches the surface.
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Political Factions
Polesotechnic League
Alliance of trade venturers in the beginning of human exploration of the stars.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Hanseatic League. Other comparisons include the traders in the day of Elizabeth I
- Gratuitous Greek: The name was suggested by Anderson's wife and means "skilled traders".
- Let's Get Dangerous!: They may be merchants but they are dangerous folk to pick a fight with.
Early Terran Empire
Founded by a cargo of Terran slaves who mutinied, sailed to their captor's world with the ship and attacked it, then used their reputation to rally a force to conquer the stars.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Empire does bad things but there is always a line it won't cross.
- The Federation: Both the Early and Late Terran empires are more like a federation then an Empire. They bring peace and civilization, and while the early terrans are conquerors, neither are tyrannical as such; the empire has a sense of justice and does not interfere much with the lives of it's citizens; such injustice as it commits is usually through sloth or Realpolitik rather then being maliciously cruel, and it always has limits to what it will do in the name of policy.
- Humans are Leaders: It is of course the Terran Empire. That said any alien may be a full citizen if they are willing to accept Imperial Law.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The founders were the cargo of a slave ship.
Ythrian Domain
Confederation of Ythrian choths.
- Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Downplayed, it's not that bizaare just different from humans. Ythrians are only aroused part of the year but are really aroused at that time. As a result Ythrian couples think of themselves first as a parental partnership and second as lovers.
- Feuding Families: Ythrians don't seem to have massive wars among themselves as often as humans(though not unknown especially given their territorial jealousies)but feuding is an old part of their history. The threat of "crying Oherran"(declaring feud) on a choth is the only coercive mechanism in their interchoth politics.
- Had to Be Sharp: During the time between the fall of the Polesotechnic League and the rise of the Terran Empire, Ythrians and their human allies had to fight to keep their civilization in a chaotic universe, even before the war with the Terran empire.
- Honor Before Reason: Otherwise known as "Deathpride".
- Noble Bird of Prey: Quite big, formitable, analogically avian, and very predatory with "deathpride" to match.
- Proud Warrior Race: Downplayed. Ythrians are not a conquering species like Humans or Meresians. However they are proud, assertive, and always willing to fight for their Deathpride.
- Real Men Eat Meat: Real Ythrians Eat Meat, which is why any Ythrian who can be is a hunter or a herder.
- Warrior Poet: Most Ythrians seem to be this as do Humans who spend much time around them.
Avalon
A planet in the Ythrian Domain inhabited by Humans and Ythrians and the center of several stories. It is a pleasant world and both Ythrians and Humans try their best to get along with each other and are willing to work and fight beside each other. However their relationship is not sentimentalized and can be hard work sometimes.
- All Planets Are Earthlike: Avalon is Earthlike anyway. As a bonus, there are few people, Human or Ythrian on the planet making it a very pleasant world.
- An Aesop:
- Friendship with people strange to you is harder work then it sounds, even when you are trying your best, but it is worth it.
- Freedom is worth working for and fighting for.
- The Alliance: Between Humans and Ythrians within Avalon. And between Ythrian Choths. And between Avalon and the rest of the Ythrian Domain.
- Culture Clash: It is not a perfect world and Humans and Ythrians do sometimes rub each other the wrong way.
- Determinator: Even after the fleet was destroyed and most of their allies had been forced to make peace they thumbed their noses at the Terrans.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: There are a number of similarities to Medieval Iceland. The humans are descended from dissidents, and the Ythrians legal system is similar to that of Iceland.
- Going Native: Humans sometimes get adopted into Ythrian clans, and a few Ythrians take a liking to human ways, to the point where there are bars specially for Ythrians in human towns.
- Libertarians IN SPACE!: Ythrians are libertarian by biological instinct, but humans were refugees from expanding government institutions and have as little government as humans can get away with.
- Meaningful Name: Avalon and names of individual Avalonian geographical features have a tendency toward the mythical or poetic expressing the inhabitants' poetic sensibilities.
- The Migration
- Multicultural Alien Planet: It is a human planet as well as an alien one of course and that is the biggest divide. There are plenty of divisions within Ythrians as well. Cultural divisions are mentioned less among humans.
- Odd Friendship: The whole planet is an odd friendship in the sense of having two species living amiably on the same world. Although most Humans in the series have a favorable opinion of Ythrians in any case.
- The Republic: The humans are a republic, the Ythrians are a confederation of choths.
- Settling the Frontier
- Space Cossacks: Humans on Avalon are descended from Falkayn leading a party to escape the decay of the Polisotechnic League
- Warrior Poet: Ythrians are warrior poets and it rubs off on humans.
Late Terran Empire
The Terran Empire in its waning in Flandry's time
- The Federation: Like the Early Terran Empire(see above). Less expansionist but also less competent.
- Lesser of Two Evils: Flandry knows that the Empire is corrupt, senile, and eventually doomed, but fights for it because anything else would be worse.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Zigzaged. Many are obstructive but a few are badass. And in any case they have four million star systems to manage.
Merseian Rhodunate
A rival empire determined to conquer for the glory of its master race.
- Affably Evil: Who says you have to be rude when conquering and enslaving people?
- Mirroring Factions: Like Humans they gained experience from a hard planet that they took into an equally hard universe. Like Humans they are warlike conquerors with a history of hunting for meat and fighting among themselves as well as with other races.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Not specifically Nazi-like, but possessing an ideology of conquest and racial destiny.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: David Falkayn saved them from extinction. Which is why their descendants are gratefully trying to subjugate humans (although the specific way Falkayn saved them played a part in shaping their culture in an unpleasant directionnote ).
- Proud Warrior Race: And they regard humans as fellow warriors.
- Warrior Poet: No question they are warlike and aggressive. They are also cultured about it.
Major Characters
Nicholas van Rjn
Head of Solar Spice and Liquors in the days of the Polesotechnic League. More powerful then many heads of state.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Mixes metaphors and talks in a seemingly plebian manner.
- Pragmatic Villainy: He would never admit to having heroic motives; for instance he maintains that the reason he doesn't let his underlings take advantage of natives is that it is bad for discipline.
- Self-Made Man: Started off as a prospector, spacer, roving trader, and general knockabout.
- Shrouded in Myth: By Flandry's time generation's sense he has tales told about him on many a planet.
- Spice of Life: His company is Solar Spice and Liquors.
David Falkayn
Captain under Van Rjn. Later founder of the Human-Ythrian colony on Avalon.
- Meaningful Name: He was a founder of a colony shared with eagle-like Bird People and his name is Falkayn. His homeworld is Hermes, after the Greek god of travel (including commerce), as appropriate for a merchant.
Christopher Holm, aka Arinnian
An Avalonian poet, Human friend of Ythrians, and Writer of the Earthbook of Stormgate which is a Ythrian clan's history of Van Rjn and Falkayn. Officer in the Avalonian Home Guard during the Terran-Ythrian war.
- Courtly Love: Unrequited feelings for a Ythrian woman specifically. Ends up marrying a human though.
- Meaningful Rename: Arinnian is his Ythrian name.
- Military Brat: His father is an admiral.
- Warrior Poet: He's an Avalonian so it goes without saying. But he does not spend much time personally fighting and mostly carries messages around to various Ythrian leaders.
Dominic Flandry
A spy for the Terran Empire.
- Tragic Hero: He knows the Empire will collape soon and all he can do is delay it,
Aycharaych
An enemy of Flandry. A member of an ancient telepathic race serving the Merseians.
- Dragon with an Agenda: No one knows why he is serving the Merseians. Presumably not out of love.
- It Amused Me: Flandry sometimes suspects this to be his main motive. At the least it is certainly one of his motives.
- The Spymaster: Though he often is found in the field himself, he also spends much time manipulating others.
