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"All warfare is based on deception."

The Belisarius Series is an epic Alternate History saga written by David Drake and Eric Flint.

Consists of the books:

  • An Oblique Approach
  • In the Heart of Darkness
  • Destiny's Shield
  • Fortune's Stroke
  • The Tide of Victory
  • The Dance of Time

The story follows the exploits and careers of the great Byzantine general, Flavius Belisarius; except there is one minor difference from Real Life history. A war in The Future between two posthuman and transhuman factions has spilled into the past as both groups are attempting to alter history to establish a future more to their liking. On one side, you have the 'New Gods,' who are obsessed with genetic purity of the human race. They have sent a cyborg called Link (no relation) to aid the Malwa Empire in India in achieving global dominance and instituting the eugenics program to shape the future humanity more to their liking.

Link's primary target is the Eastern Roman Empire and its belief in meritorious accomplishment. Their opponents, the Great Ones, send a crystalline AI called Aide to advise the Roman general Belisarius and provide him the technology to defeat the Malwa.

Is the Spiritual Successor to The General Series, also co-created by Drake. Nothing to do with Donald P. Bellisario.


The Series Provides Examples of the Following Tropes:

  • 0% Approval Rating: In the second book, Prefect John of Cappadocia, a rapist, extortionist, killer, torturer and flat out Corrupt Politician even before committing treason on a grave scale.
''He had often been called the most hated man in the Roman Empire. Few had doubted that claim, in the past. None doubted it now.
  • Adapted Out: A number of Real Life people were left out of the series, presumably to keep the cast from becoming any more massive than it already is. Among the most noticeable is Comito, who was Sittas's wife and Theodora's older sister. Theodora's illegitimate daughter (whose name has been lost) also suffered a kind of Death by Adaptation, as it's mentioned in the series that Theodora nearly died in childbirth and her baby didn't make it—in real life, her daughter survived to adulthood, married a relative of the late emperor Anastasius, and had at least one child of her own. Justinian's relatives—namely, his sister Vigilantia, his cousin Germanus, and his various nieces and nephews—are also absent, allowing Belisarius's adopted son Photius to inherit the purple when Justinian is incapacitated (granted, the One-Steve Limit might have contributed to this, too, as his family included another Justinian, multiple Justins, and a Justina.) Antonina also had several other children from previous relationships, none of whom appear in the series, plus she and Belisarius had a daughter called Joannina, who is similarly missing.
  • Alien Space Bats: The series being a prime example of this, its divergence is the result of a Terminator Twosome of warring AIs from the future. Link was sent by a group of Master Race-type purists to prevent a future full of what they see as Transhuman Treachery, while Aide was sent by kind, gentle Transhuman Aliens (of the Space Whale persuasion) Link is trying to Ret-Gone.
  • The Alliance: Persia and the Roman Empire (traditional enemies), plus Roman ally Axum, against Malwa. Later some Asian countries, reformed after being taken back from Malwa, assist, but it's not a formal alliance as much as having a mutual enemy and mutual respect for one another.
  • The Alleged Steed: The Axumites, being familiar with African elephants, take some time to dissect the allegation that the large unruly beasts they have been presented with in India are in fact elephants and not, for example, big tapirs with delusions of grandeur.
  • Angrish: Belisarius is reduced to this in Destiny's Shield, when Antonina refuses to take along guards on her trip to Egypt.
  • Aliens Speaking English: Some of the jokes - like Anastasius' constant puns about Valentinian's murmuring - are language games and therefore inexplicable outside the assumption that the characters are speaking English.
  • Altar Diplomacy:
    • The marriage of Photius and Tahmina, to cement an alliance between Rome and Persia.
    • The marriage of Eon and Rukaiya, to strengthen the political ties between Ethopia and Arabia.
  • Alternate History: 6th century AD history is turned on its head by the arrival of two time travelers from the far future. One of the arrivals is a sentient crystal sent to aid the titular Roman general against a future traveler engaging in a genocidal campaign on the Indian subcontinent bent on world domination, seeking to generate a "pure" race, instead of the energy beings that mankind had evolved into in the crystal's time.
  • Ambition Is Evil:
    • Played Straight with Narses, who is an Anti-Villain obsessed with ambition for power and even more, ambition to prove himselve the best Chessmaster of them all.
    • Downplayed with Theodora and Justinian, whose ambition does not make them evil but does make them proud, curmudgeonly, and sometimes paranoid.
  • A Million Is a Statistic: Averted. Eon uses the sheer magnitude of the sack of Ranapur (200,000 dead, about as many people as are in all of Axum) to show the leaders of Axum just how unimportant their concerns are in comparison to the Malwa threat.
  • Ancient Grome: Averted, but an author's note had to be put in to address fans who thought this was in effect due to the Byzantine Empire being a mostly Greek empire that still calls itself the Roman Empire.
  • Ancient Persia: Much of the series is set here, with the Sassanids under Khusrau Anushirvan being the initial enemy and eventual ally of the Byzantines under Justinian. The third and fourth books largely involve the Roman and Persian armies allying to break the Malwa siege of Babylon and then retake the port of Charax.
  • Ancient Rome: The setting, with a few 'modifications.'
  • Animal Metaphor: Valentinian is compared with both a mongoose and weasel, Belisarius a couple times with a mongoose, Michael of Macedonia with a hawk, his friend Bishop Cassian with an owl, both Ousanas and Rao with panthers, Sanga with a tiger, Sittas with a wild boar. Antonina is compared with a shark once.
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse: Early in the series, we see Antonia fleeing assassins through the streets of Constantinople and ducking into a small eatery. She confronts the owners and slams a heavy purse on the table, offering it insistently as rent for the shop, then pulls out a dagger and tells them "or take the knife, in your fucking guts!"
  • Antivillain: Narses, despite his treachery, retains sympathy through his good sense and his occasional Pet the Dog moments. In some ways he is a Tragic Villain overcome by his ambition.
  • Anyone Can Die: Belisarius, of course, survives to the end, but everyone else's head is on the chopping block, including well developed and likeable characters.
  • Arranged Marriage: Photius and Tahmina, Eon and Rukaiya. And then Ousanas and Rukaiya, after Eon's death.
  • Badass Boast: Antonina, explaining her role in pacifying Alexandria.
    "I'm not in the business of 'making points,' Theodosius," she hissed. "I'm not a schoolteacher, instructing unruly students. I am the rod of authority in Alexandria. I am the axe of the Empire."
  • Badass Preacher: Michael of Macedon is well respected by pretty much everyone outside of the church higher-ups, and has at his command a religious-based Badass Army, the Knights Hospitaler, who help thwart the Malwa-supported rebellion in Constantinople.
  • Bad Boss: Almost none of the Malwa leadership care the least bit about their troops, whether it's from egotistical arrogance, like with Skandagupta and Venandakatra the Vile, or out of ignorance, like with Link and its nearly complete lack of understanding about human nature. Venandakatra in particular comes dangerously close to becoming a parody of this trope with his over-the-top sadism.
  • Balance of Power: After the war Belisarius supports Rome keeping areas of the Malwa empire that he had conquered, less for the glory of Rome then to make sure that there is another large faction in India to support the Balance of Power. On the other side the Malwa use the Kushans, the Rajputs, and the Ye-tai to balance each other and to jointly keep the proles in their place. Part of Belisarius' plan is to encourage the defection of the first two, who aren't all that fond of the Malwa anyway.
  • Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Midriff-baring saris are standard women's wear in India. Respectable women wear them out of the practicality of baring their midriffs in the hot and humid Indian climate.
    • Saris are noted as being feminine but not particularly vulgar when worn by prostitutes. What marks a prostitute in India is the addition of an orange waist-scarf and large bangles worn on the ankle.
    • Irene, when she visits India, is advised to wear a midriff-baring sari for the sake of comfort. She declines, continuing to wear hot and uncomfortable Roman robes to mark her status as the envoy from the Roman Empire.
    • Anna feels tempted when she sees another woman wearing a midriff-baring sari, but it's not until she reunites with her husband and is told by him to do so that she starts wearing them herself.
  • Battle Couple: Bellisarius and Antonia, Rao and Shakuntala. The Theodoran Cohort is full of Battle Couples.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: When Belisarius and Shakuntala are trapped in Kausambi, Belisarius escapes by killing a member of the imperial bodyguard, taking his uniform, and doing a Drill Sergeant Nasty routine on any Malwa troops who get in his way, which was easy enough for him as he is already an experienced and charismatic military officer and the Malwa common troops have been harshly conditioned to never question orders from their superiors. So the soldiers judged that ignoring any suspicions they had would allow them to remain safely inconspicuous while bringing them up was much more likely to get them punished for insubordination than rewarded for alertness.
  • Because I'm Good At It: The reason Belisarius must remain a soldier, even though some days he really wishes he could have been a blacksmith instead.
  • Becoming the Mask: While entirely practical about not wanting to waste good talent or upset their notorious honor, after commanding a Rajput army not all of Damodara's decisions could be explained solely by pretending to be honorable.
    Aide: A man who rides a tiger long enough begins to think like a tiger himself.
  • Big Bad: Link is ultimately behind the Malwa threat, not only being in ultimate command of its uncountable hordes, but being the source of the technology the Malwa empire uses to overwhelm other empires.
  • Big Brother Instinct: When Valentinian and Anastasius come to "kidnap" Rana Sanga's family they see Rajiv Sanga in front of his mother and siblings with a knife and find it quite difficult to persuade him of the circumstances.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Link is destroyed and Aide gains humanity . . . but the victory means that Aide's existence is now a time paradox, so he dies soon after. There's also the loss of all their other beloved friends and comrades, but the future—for now—looks bright.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: The good guys are medieval people and tend to act like it in most ways. However the author goes far out of his way to make sure the bad guys are properly "evilized".
  • Blatant Lies:
    • No one actually believes Damodara's claim to be rightful emperor, including Damodara, but everyone on his side is happy to go with it.
    • In the final books, Irene establishes an all-female bodyguard for herself as queen of the new Kushan kingdom Kungas is building called the "Sarmatian Guard", even though the last Sarmatians died out centuries ago, because Kungas' kingdom is in the region they used to occupy, and it helps give him legitimacy. Later on, a group of Ye-tai defect to the new Kushan kingdom by explaining they're all half-Sarmatian, on their mothers' side, a claim everyone knows to be patently untrue but is accepted anyway. Later deserters also end up using this excuse as well.
  • Blood-Splattered Warrior: Rana Sanga is seen like this at one time. It is specially noted that none of the blood is Sangas.
  • Boring, but Practical: While Aide does help the Romans make gunpowder weapons, he also gives them boring but practical advances with things like stirrups: easy to make, simple to use, and instantly makes your cavalry far more effective.
    • OTOH, the ramifications of the introduction of stirrups is ridiculous enough that all but the most esoteric military historians have to have the advance spelled out for them; it's akin to the "shoot the swordsman" scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
      "Marvelous, aren't they? Improves visibility, too. See, Sittas! You can look all around, without ever having to worry about your balance. You can even draw your bow and shoot straight over your back as you're withdrawing. And, of course, you already saw how much more effectively you can wield a lance. No more of that clumsy overhand business! No, no. With stirrups you can use a lance properly, with all your own weight and the weight of your mount behind the thrust, instead of being a spear-chucker sitting awkwardly on a horse."
      • Not Included; Sittas — an experienced cavalryman twice Belisarius' weight before counting his armor — repeatedly screaming "YOU CHEATED!" after Belisarus smacks him right off his horse in a joust.
    • Throughout the series, Belisarius himself reins other characters in (including Aide) when he feels they are aiming too high with the advanced technology: he wants equipment the Romans and their allies can produce and field now instead of better weapons that would take too long to manufacture. Though he also admits it's a balancing act; the Malwa — having started earlier and an actual power-behind-the-throne capable of demonstrating the manufacturing techniques — begin the series with a significant technological advantage. Belisarius has to focus on Boring, but Practical stuff he can implement quickly — making up the difference with cunning battle strategies — but he also has to develop the advanced stuff as quickly as possible or he'll lose the whole game once the Malwa develop it first.
  • Broken Bird: Theodora had a tough life growing up, but what happened to her husband during the Malwa-supported revolt drove her hatred of most men and general mistrust to even greater heights..
  • Breast Plate: Belisarius's wife, Antonina. This series lampshades the hell out of the trope, though the armor in question provides more coverage than most examples of the trope.
    Antonina: [upon seeing how creatively the armorer interpreted her instructions] My tits are not that big.
  • Bruiser with a Soft Center: Valentinian and Rana Sanga are remorseless in their military goals, but love their respective children, and most of the badasses have their particular issues in which they reveal their softer side.
  • The Butcher: Deconstructed. It is commented that if Venandakatra had been called "The Cruel" or something similar it might imply that people think him a Magnificent Bastard even if they hate him. But no one respects someone called "The Vile".
  • Butt-Monkey: If a pimp is mentioned (who is still alive), expect some badass character to shortly ensure they are no longer living...or at least beat them so badly they wish they were dead.
  • Catchphrase: "Deadly with a blade is Belisarius."
  • Call That a Formation?: Well dealt with. More then once a properly dressed formation rolls over a battered or ill-disciplined one like a steamroller. Roman cataphracts are specifically noted as not advancing at a gallop lest they become disoriented.
  • The Cavalry: Damodara's army arives in time to save Lady Damodara and Lady Sanga. They are composed of Rajputs so they really are cavalry.
  • Chainmail Bikini: Belisarius' shapely wife Antonina receives a cuirass with gigantic brass boobs. It is immediately made a joke, she calls it "obscene", and her maidservant makes a joke about her gigantic tits scaring the enemy off. Said maidservant later imitates Antonia (while the real Antonia is elsewhere) to deceive the Malwa, mostly with the help of said obscene cuirass.
  • The Chessmaster: Narses is this in spades. Also covers Belisarius, not to mention spymaster-turned-queen Irene.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: When Justinian is blinded, the throne is passed down to Belisarius's child-aged stepson Photius, as Justinian and Theodora had no children and there were no other contenders. Subverted in that Theodora continued to hold the real power while acting as Photius's regent.
  • Child Soldiers: Under Valentinian's tutelage, Rajiv turns out to be an appallingly competent example, specifically a Kid Samurai.
  • Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards:
    • The Kushans serve as Shakuntala's bodyguards once they break with the Malwa empire, due to the fact that her own empire's troops were mostly slaughtered during the Malwa onslaught.
    • The Khmer eunuchs and assassins that serve Link are chosen for the sake of having a truly competent and utterly trustworthy personal guard.
  • Chekhov's Gun, being carried by Chekhov's Gunmen: The Dance of Time features brief passages involving a small (but heavy) bombard being hauled halfway across Eurasia and back as a Malwa assassination team chases their target and then gives up to return to headquarters. It's looking like it's shaping up to be a "Shaggy Dog" Story featuring a cast of Butt Monkeys, but they wind up in just the right place at just the right time for the bombard to bring the series to a conclusion.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Narses is the most loyal spymaster one can hire so long as there's something actually worth intriguing for, but betrays his current employer whenever the struggle is won and it's time to rest and enjoy the fruits of success. This is because he only cares about the game, and success bores the pants off of him. His final employer (and he goes through several in the series) proves smart enough in the end to arrange for Narses to seek new independent business opportunities in a distant country, the instant the war is over. Not coincidentally, this is the only employer Narses didn't end up betraying and trying to have murdered.
  • Cincinnatus: Belisarius is given multiple opportunities to seize power, but he's never so much as tempted by the thought, and he remains loyal to Justinian to the end even in the Bad Future. Justinian and Theodora both find this incomprehensible, as they've spent their whole lives clinging to the power they've managed to attain.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: A variant. When Justinian leaves Constantinople to join Belisarius on the front lines, Theodora immediately starts abusing their newly-acquired telegram technology to send dozens of messages demanding and/or tearfully pleading that Justinian come home, often while threatening him with dire consequences if he doesn't stop "playing soldier." It quickly gets to the point where they avoid constructing additional infrastructure just so she can't bombard them with messages even more easily. It isn't romantic rivals that Theodora is concerned about, though—she and Justinian are Happily Married (in the sense that they're both unpleasant and miserable people when it comes to everything but their surprisingly healthy relationship) and she really doesn't like him being away from her or putting himself in danger.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Plenty of them, starting with Belisarius, but none more than Valentinian.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: Malwa. Most of its soldiers were trained at the Malwan Military Academy. At the other end, you have the likes of Valentinian ("the Mongoose"), Raghunath Rao ("the Panther", "the Wind of the Great Country"), and Rana Sanga (who needs no other name).
  • The Consigliere: Ousanas is kind of a combination of this and Battle Butler for Eon.
  • Consummate Professional: Belisarius, Narses, and others Valentanian. Also the Roman Army in general by comparison with the Proud Warrior Races who make up both their allies and their Worthy Opponents, and by comparison with the Malwan Slave Mooks.
  • Cool Versus Awesome:
    • Belisarius versus Damodara in Fortune's Stroke. Rana Sanga versus Valentinian.
    • When Rana Sanga is fighting Valentinian the Rajputs consider this their special moment. To the point of shoving out any Malwa who wish to come and watch except those few who have proven their valor by Rajput standards.
  • Crash-Into Hello: Irene first meets Kungas by accidentaly running into him. And giving his imposing figure, she actually thinks he's a statue for a moment.
  • Cyborg: Link. The actual machinery, it's pointed out, is elsewhere, buried deep in the palace, while Link itself lives in specially prepared dynastic females, passing to the next when their predecessors die. Noted by several characters are the hosts' empty, inhuman eyes. Of course, without the machines, it's stuck in the body until it dies or it manages to build new machines.
  • Decadent Court: Each side has at least one, but the Malwa one really takes the cake.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Everyone, at one point or another.
    • Even an unnamed Malwa bodyguard gets one; when Belisarius, reminded he's carrying a tiny knife for sharpening pens, says he supposes it could kill a chicken — after a fierce battle — the guard says the chicken would win.
    • Aide is one of the best at this, even though when he started he didn't even know how to directly communicate with people.
  • Decapitation Presentation: Every prominent member of the coup against Justinian who is killed in the process or executed afterwards has his head put up on a pike to see.
  • Defeat Means Friendship:
    • Rana Sanga's Pathan guide. He is nominally a slave and serves Rana Sanga faithfully because Rana Sanga took him captive and treated him well. The Pathan figures that anyone who can defeat him deserves his Undying Loyalty.
    • The Kushan forces in the Malwan army do this for Belisarius.
  • Defiled Forever:
    • Subverted. Holkar's daughters are afraid this will happen to them because they have been made Sex Slaves. Instead Valentinian and Anastasius marry them, they are welcomed back by their father, supported by Shakuntala, their past is covered up by Adjutasutra's machinations and no one who knows about it says anything for obvious reasons.
    • In Belisarius' vision, Rao actually hopes Shakuntala won't resist Venandakatra because he doesn't care about all that but cares about her life. Shakuntala however turns out to be of different mind, rather to Venandakatra's regret.
    • Both Antonina and Theodora were prostitutes before the series' beginning, and they are never allowed to forget it. Antonina is viewed slightly more favorably because she was supposedly choosier about her clients, but Theodora, who was a borderline Sex Slave, gets less sympathy.
  • Defiant to the End: The Romans, Rao, and Shakuntala in the Bad Future alternate universe Aide showed Belisarius.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: Even the good guys can be remarkably cavalier about human life. An interesting example of in-verse Values Dissonance comes toward the end when Belisarius orders rebelling Rajputs to burn out the country to deprive the Malwans of forage. Belisarius dislikes giving the order because it's hard luck on the peasants. The Rajputs dislike carrying it out because it is an unsportsmanlike way to fight.
    • The Christians of the era have little problem with drinking, swearing, and pre-marital sex. The kingdom of Axum is very conspicuously and devoutly Christian, but the king can still have concubines, and the prince has several lovers, which are discussed openly. Antonina even notes that the ultra-Orthodox and ultra-Monophysite monks of Alexandria are more like fanatical, smelly, shaggy thugs with clubs (and experience using them) than the peaceful Franciscan monks of the future. Brawls are common. In response, the good guys deploy their own order of warrior monks.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When Belisarius evacuates Charax, he not only pulls out all his troops and the surviving civilian population, they also take all the domestic animals just to spite Link and leave the Malwa a completely lifeless ruin.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The basic plot revolves around normal humans from sixth-century Eurasia battling an alien robot monster from the future.
    • Antonina does this in book 4 when she unloads her pistol into the Link's face.
    • Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Narses lying to the Link, and getting away with it.
  • Dope Slap: As dawazz to Prince Eon, it was part of Ousanas' job to deliver one of these whenever Eon needed correcting in his behavior.
  • Dowry Dilemma: Tahmina's dowry could have been an extortionate sum that bankrupted the Persian Empire, but instead was simply a horse and a horse-bow, in reference to a saying that a Persian should teach his son to "ride a horse, to shoot a bow and to despise all lies."
  • Drowning My Sorrows: It became something of a tradition of Antonina's, when Belisarius goes away on a potentially hopeless mission against the Malwa, to get thoroughly trashed, accompanied by Irene.
  • Duel to the Death: Invoked, and averted. Valentinian fights Rana Sanga in a three hour duel, after which Rana Sanga cracks his skull and decides to end the duel without sullying it by executing a Worthy Opponent. Averted completely in Raghunath Rao and Rana Sanga's duel in The Dance of Time. They fought a legendary duel in their youth, which is described as a day-long affair they began mounted, on foot and finally, exhausted, exchanging philosophical barbs. In the second duel, Raghunath Rao disarms himself, leaving himself at Rana Sanga's mercy. Damodara intervenes and stops the duel, to the relief of Sanga, who is trapped between his duty to Malwa, respect for Rao, and his honour.
  • Due to the Dead: At the beginning of Fortune's Stroke Rana Sanga goes out of his way to make sure that fallen Persian warriors are treated according to Zoroastrian custom.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: King Eon during an attack on a Malwa sea port, when he winds up forced to advance into the Malwa fortress guarding the port.
  • Easy Logistics: Averted in the sense that the writer does go out of his way to introduce the effects of logistical problems.
  • Elective Broken Language: Despite being fluent in several languages, Ousanas often deliberately speaks pidgin, either as a ruse or as a joke.
  • The Empire: Both sides, only the Romans (and later, the Persians and Ethiopians) are the nice guys and the Malwas are firmly in the villainous variety of empire, until the last novel.
  • Enemy Mine: Rome and Persia put aside centuries of warfare to ally against the Malwa.
  • Enemy Civil War: Belisarius's grand scheme is to instigate one of these. He realizes the Romans can't possibly defeat the Malwa empire toe-to-toe, so instead he focuses on the faultlines in the empire, splitting various subordinate peoples away from their control, culminating in Damodara's coup
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Narses refuses to assassinate the families of Damodara and Rana Sanga, but instead spirits them away to where they can be safe. It is not said whether this is out of standards or because he thought he might have use for them later. Or maybe both. Or maybe he was just so disgusted with Malwan incompetence that he wanted to at least have an efficient master. It is hard to tell what lurks in his convoluted mind.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The other reason (see Indy Ploy below) why Link consistently loses battles of wits with Belisarius, despite being a hyperintelligent AI. Link is not human, cannot even remotely understand humans, and reduces all questions of human psychology to statistical analysis and amoral self-interest. This worked fine for it as long as Link was dealing with large masses of downtrodden populations and/or the ruthless, self-centered Malwa royal elite. It failed epically when confronting actual heroes. Ironically this is also why Link got schooled by Narses, despite the fact that Narses is himself thoroughly evil. He was just the kind of evil that comprehended good perfectly fine, thank you.
  • Exact Words:
    • Belisarius uses it on Damodara to get a quiet word with Narses, who then drops the hint to Damodara regarding Rana Sanga's oath to obey the emperor. and Damodara in turn uses it to give Narses the go-ahead to do what he does best. Damodara also lets Belisarius know that he approves of the plan by saying that he hopes Belisarius is "a man with a proper respect for grammar".
    • In a minor moment of awesome, Rana Sanga is told to flog the guards who let Belisarius escape. As Rana Sanga didn't really think it their fault he gave them each two nominal blows with his quirt. In retrospect that might have been more dangerous for the guards as someone might have noticed the lack of scars.
    • Ye-tai general Toramana promised Nanda Lal that he'd be at the general's wedding to Rana Sanga's sister. Toramana later points out to Sanga that he made no guarantees that Lal would be able to flatter the bride. His head attends. In a jar.
    • This is actually how Narses manages to deceive Link, which is inhumanly good at detecting lies: by telling it only the (carefully chosen and worded) truth, and letting it make its own assumptions.
  • Exceptionally Tolerant: The main heroes sometimes come across as this even by twenty-first century standards.
  • Expecting Someone Taller: Valentinian's first impression of Raghunath Rao, one of India's greatest warriors: "The most ordinary looking fellow he had ever seen! Shortish...getting a little long in the tooth...well-built—no fat on those muscles—but he's no Hercules like Eon." Then he sees Rao move (casually jumping down a ten-foot drop), and is reminded why Rao is nicknamed "The Panther of Majarashtra".
  • Eye Scream:
    • Justinian is blinded to render him ineligible for the Roman throne.
    • Calopodius loses his sight when a Malwa cannonball strikes the viewing slit he's using.
    • John of Cappadocia, who blinded Justininan, has it even worse. The cataphracts arrive in time to see Theodora pissing in his empty eye sockets after she blinds him in revenge.
  • Fakeout Makeout: Eon engages in a rather more explicit version than usual, which both hides the lady in question and embarrasses the soldiers looking for her into leaving quickly.
    • Antonina's elaborate series of pretend affairs to mask the creation of the new Roman arsenal.
  • A Father to His Men:
    • Belisarius makes sure that his troops are well equipped, and won't needlessly spend them.
    • Antonia is a Mother to Belisarius' Men. In a vision of the future in Oblique Approach, Belisarius sees himself leading a charge and everyone shouting the Battle Cry "For the whore!"
    • Anna becomes this as well for her hospital service. The masses call both Antonina (in Constantinople, after the Nika victory) and Anna (in India) simply "the Wife".
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: Lady Sanga loves to cook, even though as a Rajput queen she would have any number of servants to do it for her.
  • Femme Fatale: Again, Antonina. However, she is a retired Femme Fatale and mostly has the position of an Ambadassador.
  • Feudal Overlord: Malwa is this to the Rajputs and Kushans.
  • Flexibility Equals Sex Ability: Shakuntala's flexibility gets her quite a bit of attention. She ends up surprising Rao on their wedding night by turning out to be an innate Sex Goddess, which is mostly attributed to her nimbleness and flexibility.
  • For the Evulz: Malwa is so evil that they seem to be trying for this at times. Venandakatra especially.
  • Four-Star Badass: Belisarius, even without the assistance from Aide.
  • Geeky Turn-On:
    • When Irene tells how many books she owns, John of Rhodes says "Marry me!"
    • Invoked by Antonia. A big part of why she chose Rukaiya as Eon's wife.
  • Genius Bruiser: Ousanas, Eon, Raghunath Rao, Anastasius... there are almost more genius bruisers named in this series than ordinary ones. Rana Sanga and Kungas are also bruisers who are very intelligent, if not outright geniuses.
  • Genre-Busting: At first glance it is simply intended to be a series of entertaining thought exercises in geek militarism. However it really goes on to become something very close to an epic.
  • Giving Radio to the Romans: Literally. Aide actually does give radio to the Romans. (And the stirrup, and gunpowder, and the basics of modern medicine, and...)
  • God Save Us from the Queen!: Although an extraordinarily competent administrator, Empress Regent Theodora's temper is such that she's repeatedly just on the verge of lapsing into this and having to be restrained from it by her loyal advisers. By the end of the series her immediate subordinates have resorted to simply deciding things on their own and then spending the rest of their time planning how to talk Theodora into it ex post facto. This ultimately leads to the hilarious extreme of "Send Justinian in first, he's the only one of us she won't try to have executed."
  • Hand Cannon: Antonina gets a hold of a double barreled pistol about half-way through the series. Any time it comes up, expect it to be described as "monstrous"; any time it's fired, expect Antonia to be spun around or knocked on her ass by the recoil.
  • The Hero Doesn't Kill the Villainess: Link used autistic girls as avatars and destroyed their personality. The first of these was destroyed by Belisarius' wife, the second by herself (because Link was stranded inside) and the third was executed by Belisarius' bodyguard, albeit on Belisarius' orders.
  • The High King : This is the official title of Eon's father; the negusa nagast, King of Kings. Later Eon himself. Kungas is considered this by the Pathans(their only king is their chiefs but their chiefs pay homage to Kungas).
  • Historical Domain Character:
    • Belisarius, Antonina, Justinian, Theodora, Sittas, Narses, Bouzes and Coutzes, John of Cappadocia, Procopius, Hypatius and Pompeius, Kaleb of Axum, Khusrau, and Baresmanas were all real people.
    • There were also real people named Rana Sanga, Raghunathrao (one word), and Skandagupta. Although, in their case, there's much more Artistic License than the above (such as being lifted from different time periods, for one). Other character names may have been taken from historical figures, but without any known similarity to that person.
    • For that matter, the Nika revolt was a real historical event, though not manipulated by agents of a time-traveling monster robot as far as we know. Likewise the Battle of Mindouos is almost a copy of the Battle of Dara, and Belisarius caught the Persians in a similar if not exact ambush in that battle in Real Life.
  • Historical Hero Upgrade:
    • In-universe, several of the characters wonder if this will happen to them in the distant future.
    • The Real Life Antonina was indeed a charismatic stateswoman who accompanied Belisarius on various campaigns and acted as Theodora's agent, but she never led an army of her own (and, needless to say, she probably didn't kill anyone with a meat cleaver, either.) There's also a fair amount of evidence that her relationship with Belisarius was much more strained than the happy marriage they share in this series, and that she was having at least one major affair.note 
  • Historical Villain Upgrade:
    • The Real Life Narses was never a traitor and was almost as much of a Four-Star Badass as the Real Life Belisarius. (The latter does get an acknowledgment in Dance of Time, when Damodara comments that Narses would make an excellent general.)
    • A relatively minor one, all things considered, but it's relevant to the backstory that Theodora's father abused her in a rather horrible way, and she took her revenge on him when she became Empress. The real Theodora's father was a bearkeeper named Acacius who died when she was a young child; he didn't live long enough to pimp her out as a teenager. There's nothing to suggest that she or her sisters harbored any kind of hatred towards him, and she certainly didn't have him killed. (That being said, however, the real Theodora was indeed a prostitute from a young age.)
    • Procopius' Secret Histories are dismissed as wild nonsense even less credible than a modern tabloid gossip rag, and several protagonists actively use his sensationalism to spread useful rumors. According to some interpretations, said Histories were never actually meant to be taken seriously, and may have been deliberate anti-Justinian propaganda Procopius could offer in exchange for his life if Justinian was overthrown.
    • There's a point near the beginning of book 2 where the narration refers to the Real Life timeline Justinian (as opposed to the alternate timeline Justinian) as the man who, "more than any other man, caused the final splintering of Greco-Roman civilization," partly because of his grandiose campaigns draining the treasury and partly because of the plague that bears his name. While it's true that his campaigns in Italy were expensive and may have overextended the empire in the long run, to say that he was almost singlehandedly responsible for the ultimate downfall of Eastern Rome is a massive hyperbole. His non-military achievements—namely his buildings and his legal reforms—are generally considered net positives, and it's unlikely that he could have done much to lessen the impact of the first ever plague pandemic in European history, especially without antibiotics or germ theory (or time-travelling robots from the future.) In any case, Constantinople survived until 1453, well over 800 years after Justinian died, so his reign certainly wasn't its death knell.
  • Honor Before Reason:
    • Rajputs. Which is why they don't like Malwa as their Feudal Overlord. Malwa has no honor.
    • Romans have a different sort of honor, as the Rajputs note. It is a reasonable honor and thus not as extreme as the Rajput variety. But it is there. Which is why Rajputs like Romans better then Malwans.
  • Honorable Marriage Proposal: One of Antonina's old colleagues is taken as a maid. When she becomes pregnant, a soldier gallantly offers to marry her thinking, after all, that he might really be the father.
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: It's significant to the backstory that both the Empress Theodora and Antonina start this way. One of the reasons Justinian seized the throne was to rewrite the laws to allow him to marry Theodora.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: In a possible future, Belisarius and Justinian ask Rao to kill them to so that they won't be captured alive by the Malwa and won't have to commit suicide, which to Christians is a mortal sin. Averted in that Rao then kills himself immediately afterward, because he doesn't share their religious beliefs and so painless suicide to escape death by prolonged torture doesn't bother him at all. Rao does note that he didn't really push either man anything even approaching hard enough to knock them off the cliff they're standing on. He shrugs and reasons that if the Christian God is just and merciful, he'll allow Belisarius and Justinian their little figleaf, no harm, no foul.
  • I Gave My Word:
    • Rana Sanga swore to obey the emperor of Malwa. This proves to be vulnerable to a certain amount of fudging as to who the emperor is, exactly.
    • Belisarius, meanwhile, would never have betrayed his vows to Justinian, even to defeat Link and the Malwa. Sittas jokes about this in the first book when he claims to Irene that the first oath Belisarius ever swore, when he was just four years old, was to a piglet that the animal should never be eaten. Belisarius, of course, kept the oath, and Sittas claims the adult pig is now roaming around Thrace, terrorizing the countryside.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Belisarius keeps thinking back to his original desire to become a blacksmith throughout the series, particularly while he is killing large numbers of people.
  • I Know You Know I Know: In Fortune's Stroke, Belisarius' forces face Damodara's. Damodara and his general Rana Sanga notice Belisarius puts up a harder fight when Damodara's forces try to move south, even though it makes no strategic sense and that's precisely where he should want them to go. They decide to ignore the "subtle bait" for his "trap" and head north, because they still outnumber him by 2-3 times. Actually, there is something to the south that Belisarius wants to hide, and he counted on their reaction.
  • I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: When Rana Sanga reports to Damodara that Belisarius successfully conned him and escaped from India, Damodara, knowing Sanga would be likely be executed for not catching him makes a point that Sanga doesn't have any proof he was actually chasing Belisarius, thus can't be sure of having failed to get him. When Sanga presents a gem used to pay for the camels used in the escape, which had been part of a Malwa bribe to Belisarius, Damodara says it could be a fake and doesn't prove anything. He quietly throws it in a river later. It comes up again in the final book.
  • If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: After the sack of Ranapur, Venandakatra and Skandagupta present the rebel leader and his family to Belisarius's party for rape and torture. Belisarius instead has Valentinian summarily dispose of the prisoners to A) demonstrate that he does not do the work of menials (the Malwa have boatloads of rapists and torturers, he is a general) and B) provide what mercy he could to the captives (six sword-strokes, the last head hit the ground before the first stopped rolling).
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Malwa Empire's favorite method of execution comes in two varieties: "long stake" and "short stake".
  • Impeded Messenger: In the second book, seventeen elite Malwa couriers are sent to spread an alarm against the Romans. Between efforts by the Romans and their allies to stop them, and the risks of riding too hard over bad terrain, only two of the seventeen survive. One falls off his horse, injuring himself, and isn't found in time to deliver the message; the other manages to avoid the ambushers, arriving at a destination where his successful delivery of the message amounts to nothing due to matters of geography.
  • Impoverished Patrician: Sudaba and Anna both come from these kinds of families; they marry lower-status but much richer men. (Naturally these turn out to be perfectly arranged.)
  • Indy Ploy:
    • Belisarius is just as good at inspired improvisation as he is at detailed planning. Lampshaded in that this specific quality is pointed up as to how he is able to consistently outperform a hyperintelligent cyborg capable of calculating all foreseeable contingencies to the zillionth decimal place — Belisarius is capable of improvising brilliantly when the "fog of war" throws up an unexpected complication, and Link isn't. As soon as Belisarius figures this out he starts deliberately encouraging chaos and confusion in the war, as he's far better at functioning in it.
    • While Link itself is probably as good a general as any in the series and reacts pretty well when surprises do come, the entire Malwa leadership structure is handicapped by their over-reliance on the supercomputer cyborg and a tendency to punish independent thinking and capability. This leads to the situation where the Malwa government is riddled with incompetents aside from a few, and since Link can't be everywhere at once, it allows Belisarius' side to pick away at the Malwa empire. Belisarius's final strategy is to isolate Link so that his allies can deal with the incompetent Malwa leadership.
  • I Want Grandkids: At the end, Belisarius asks one more favor from Photius and Tahmina. "As soon as you can manage it, I'd like a lot of grandchildren." Justified in that the hope is that the children will stabilize the dynasty and create a lasting peace between Rome and Persia.
  • Jeanne d'Archétype: Shakuntala, a young female leader and warrior who leads a powerful rebellion with charisma and cunning.
  • Lady of War: Antonina, Empress Shakuntala, Irene especially toward the end; for most of it she was mainly a lady of intrigue.
  • Lampshade Hanging: The author often uses this whenever it is starting to feel like a convention from a traditional epic. For instance when horsemen go on a glorious charge, it is commented that Upper Class Twits are too obsessed with these, glorious charges are rather rare, and this instance was only because a perfectly sensible general had managed to see one of the few occasions where it was a good idea.
  • Lensman Arms Race: There's a nearly constant battle to upgrade the advanced technology to the armies of both sides, in order to defeat their respective opponents.
  • Like Father, Like Son: Rajiv, son of Rana Sanga. Rajiv initially wants to play it very straight, copying his father's style of combat, but Valentinian warns him that most people who try to fight with Rana's honor and very direct approach die messily. He instead teaches Rajiv to fight more like him, with guile and not just strength.
  • Living Lie Detector: Link, for certain values of 'living', as it's a cyborg entity. It uses a superhuman perception of someone's reactions to detect a lie; as such, it can be fooled by someone able to control their own reactions and secure in the knowledge that they aren't technically lying.
  • Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Downplayed and Invoked when Shakuntala and Rao consummate their Perfectly Arranged Marriage, she ends up surprising him with her nimbleness and Comic Sutra knowledge, so he ends up not lasting very long. She acts mock offended, and teases him mercilessly about it, claiming she was "defrauded" and "cheated" and giving him silly Embarrassing Nicknames. This makes Rao relax and he gets a 'second wind':
    "Rao was laughing himself, now. The laughs grew louder and louder, as he heard his wife bestow upon him his new cognomens of ridicule and ignominy. The Pant of Majarashtra. The Gust of the Great Country—no! The Puff of the Great Country."
    "Laughter drove out shame, and brought passion to fill the void. Soon enough—very soon—the empress ceased her complaints. And, by the end of a long night, allowed—regally magnanimous, for all the sweat—that her husband was still her champion."
  • MacGyvering: Antonina is able to defeat the majority of the thugs sent to assassinate her through the offensive use of an overturned table, flour, a kitchen knife, and stew.
  • Made a Slave: This is the fate of many on the losing side of battles. Notable examples include Dadaji Holkar and his family (all eventually escaped or freed), a troop of Kushan soldiers (freed after working for Belisarius in the attack on Charax), and the few survivors of Ranapur.
  • Malwa Mook Hand-To-Hand Combat Academy: Malwa's armies are mostly made up of half-starved, poorly-trained peasant levies with little discipline and morale. They are used in Zerg Rush tactics and suffer horrific casualties.
  • Man of Wealth and Taste:
    • The Persian noble Kurush is so rich that his Roman guests are afraid to drink lest they drop one of his expensive glasses. The Romans are then assured to know that he had two chests full of them. And they are further assured that he is so rich that he hadn't bothered to find out how much his wine glasses cost. However despite his taste for finer things Kurush is a skillful and experienced warrior.
    • Subverted with the Malwa in general and Venandakatra the Vile in particular. Malwa command pavilions and palaces are described as ostentatious and vulgar displays of gratuitous greed.
  • Man Versus Machine: The core conflict is the cyborg Link, commanding the Malwa, fighting against the entirely human Belisarius.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Narses, bordering on full-fledged Magnificent Bastard.
  • Marriage Before Romance: Calopodius leaves for war shortly after his Arranged Marriage with Anna, so they don't have to think about their marriage. It doesn't work that way.
  • The Medic: Anna. While going through Belisarius's supply lines she visits field hospitals plagued by lazy surgeons and gives them a full-out Drill Sergeant Nasty treatment. She even ends up founding a proto-Red Cross.
  • Mercy Kill:
    • When Belisarius is trying to evacuate the very badly abused female survivors of the city of Charax, twelve of them are so close to death that there doesn't seem any way to move them. One of the other survivors simply picks up a knife, stone-faced, and orders everyone else out of the room.
      She even took time to clean the knife.
    • A Puppet King for a coup against Justinian begs for mercy after being captured. Upon getting an inkling of how wrathful the empress is feeling, Belarus supplies it in the form of having him decapitated before being presented for Theodora to order something worse for.
    • Both Justinian and Belisarius die this way in a vision of a potential Bad Future; they know that they'll be forced into suicide if the Malwa capture them alive, but their religious beliefs forbid taking one's own life no matter the circumstances, so they ask Rao to kill them to spare them from eternal damnation. Rao complies and pushes them both off of a high ledge. Subverted slightly, however, in that it's implied that Belisarius jumped, and Justinian is convinced they'll be denied entrance to heaven anyway.
    • When Nanda Lal is trying to light a fire under Venandakatra, he orders Venandakatra's set of pre-teen Sex Slaves taken out and beheaded. Seeing how they have been beaten and abused, he realizes he's probably doing them a favor.
  • Mooning: The Axumites do this to mock Venandakatra during the celebration of Shakuntala's wedding. They rotate through the platform facing Venandakatra three times, because the crowd loves the sight of four hundred bare black asses hanging over the battlements to taunt Malwa.
  • Moe Couplet: One involving Dhruva's baby and the harsh and hardened Valentinian, of all people. Said baby forms an attachment to him, and as much as Valentinian grouches about it, he is genuinely happy to coddle the child. This leads to a genuine attachment forming between him and Dhruva, and the two later marry.
  • Murphy's Bullet:
    • Ashot dies from a musket shot, which ricochets under his helmet and breaks his neck. The shot is fired by a Malwa soldier from beyond maximum effective range. The Malwa army is already fleeing, leaderless and panicking.
    • John of Rhodes and Wahsi suffered similar fates from a blind-fired siege gun and a knocked-over rocket, respectively.
  • My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad: Rajiv is very proud of how great a warrior Rana Sanga is.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Valentinian (The Mongoose), Belisarius himself, Rana Sanga and most of all Raghunath Rao.
  • Nasal Trauma: In In The Heart of Darkness, Belisarius kicks Malwa spymaster Nandi Lal in the nose, permanently disfiguring him. Afterwards, Nandi Lal stops being Faux Affably Evil and becomes more openly nasty to match his new, ogreish appearance.
  • Nepotism: All high-ranking civil and military posts in the Malwa empire are reserved for the members of the dynastic clan. While some (like Damodara) are competent, many are not.
  • Nice to the Waiter:
    • Eon's servants are questioned about this before his coronation. The idea is that a ruler who is not nice to his servants probably won't be nice to his subjects. As it happens, Eon passes perfectly.
    • It's noted that weapons designer John of Rhodes is the sort of man who's only rude to his social equals or superiors. And then there's Kungas, whose character is revealed to Raghunath Rao when he walks into a room, swiftly assesses where he'll need to post guards, curtly gives his soldiers the orders to post those guards, and then leads them slowly and carefully across the room ... so they won't scuff the floor a servant was polishing just then.
    • One of Shakuntala's best friend's was her maid whom she helps comfort when she is reunited with her after the maid was driven insane by her experiences during the sack.
  • Nobility Marries Money: Two of the marriages. Both turned out as Perfectly Arranged Marriage, Eric Flint having a fondness for this.
  • Onrushing Army: Done only a few times by the good guys. One occasion is at the end where the Malwans are battered and the defecting Rajputs are eager to gallop down on them and Belisarius has set up a good opportunity.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The severity of Narses's betrayal is made apparent by the fact that the normally-stoic Theodora breaks down sobbing in Antonina's arms upon learning about it. Irene is rattled.
  • Outside-Context Problem: Link, especially in the timeline without Aide.
  • Papa Wolf: Damodara's revolt was provoked partly by the realization that almost every result except him becoming The Emperor would result in the death of his family.
  • Peace Conference: Toward the end of the series. In this case, it was in a weird way a Peace Conference between allies; in a way. The Emperor of the Malwa had recently overthrown the one who had started the war and was simply clearing up loose ends. Thus in the last campaign he actually had been an ally. In the peace conference, the new emperor was giving himself a reasonably sized empire to begin his dynasty with, and letting his empire's former enemies worry about dividing the Plunder, a straightforward job for the most part as most of them just kept what they had conquered except for a massive palace with a hoard so big that it would inevitably be an object of interimperial rivalry if any one kept it. This problem was solved by donating it all to charity.
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage:
    • Photius and Tahmina, Eon and Rukaiya, Rana Sanga and his wife, Damodara and his wife. In fact, pretty much every Arranged Marriage in the series, whether on the Indian or Roman side, is perfectly happy.
    • Rana Sanga in particular is noted to be extremely devoted to his wife and their children.
    • Played With with Calopodius the Blind and Anna. Theirs was a purely politico-economic marriage, and both didn't particularly care for each other. He had one night with her before going off to war, and she stews bitterly afterward until she decides to track him down to the front to demand a divorce. To get there, however, she needs to pretend to be the dedicated wife of the now-popular Calopodius to get soldiers to help her. To do that, she grudgingly begins a correspondence with him. In the course of their long correspondence, they fall genuinely in love.
  • The Plan: First rescuing Shakuntala, then stopping the Malwan invasion by trapping Link's army in Mesopotamia without supplies, and checking Damadora's army (but leaving it intact), then collaborating in Damadora's defection and Narses' re-defection, the whole series is one of these, almost reaching Gambit Roulette territory. Indeed Narses seems to have believed Belisarius plotted the whole thing even if some of it happened by good luck.
  • Playing Drunk: In An Oblique Approach, part of the plan of Belisarius involves playing at being a drunken sot to fool Lord Venandakatra into thinking he was going to corrupt the general into the Malwa Empire's plans to conquer the world. To himself, Belisarius scornfully thinks that because of his country boy youth, he could have drunken Venandakatra under the table at the age of ten.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain:
    • Link goes back in time to make sure bigotry is assured in all its glory, even to the point of having a militarily incompetent empire because it's more important to keep lesser people down than it is to let them excel in your service.
    • Venandakatra is known for his many vices, in particular his abusive treatment of the pre-teen girls he claims as Sex Slaves. At one point, his current "harem" is taken away and beheaded on the orders of Nanda Lal, who realizes he's probably doing them a favor by granting them a Mercy Kill.
  • Police Are Useless: Apparently if someone is on the run in the Malwan capital the only thing the local garrison knows how to do is to mill around like an ant colony after someone poked a stick into it. Justified in that the Malwa capital is so full of corruption that the last thing the Malwa nobility wants is a competent police force — after all, all the important people already have their own bodyguards, and who gives a damn about the commoners?
  • Powder Trail: Used by Kungas when blowing up the Malwa gunpowder armory in Kausambi.
  • Praetorian Guard:
    • Kungas and his Kushans serve as this for Shakuntala. Interestingly she knew them first as her prison guards but they were so effective and conscientious at this that she was perfectly happy to have them as bodyguards. They in turn were happy to serve a monarch they could respect.
    • The Ye-Tai are described as performing this role for the Malwa. As they are outside the caste system, their high place in the social hierarchy is entirely due to their role as the Malwa's elite soldiers.
    • Discussed, with regard to Link's assassins. As an elite, they are highly trained but frequently have little actual experience. "As Praetorian Guards have done throughout history, they had slipped from being killers to murderers."
  • Pro-Human Transhuman: The Great Ones embody this trope, being all for freedom, diversity and free adaptation of the human race to the new circumstances, while their archrivals the New Gods are Politically Incorrect Villains bent on racial purity and conformism.
  • Professional Killer: Assassins appear in various guises. Some are thugs-for-hire who usually regret their job but Indian ones often appear in the train of powerful people, and it is sometimes implied that they are martial arts experts similar to Ninja. Rao and Shakuntala, for instance, are both trained in assassin skills.
  • Plunder: Belisarius has specific rules about this. It is all right to take this from the enemy when fairly distributed after the campaign is over. If soldiers just go off on their own they will hurt civilians and hurt the army's discipline as well.
  • Proud Warrior Race: Persians, Rajputs, Axumites—oh heck, this story is crawling with proud warrior race guys.
  • Puppet State:
    • Rajputs agreed to serve the Malwa empire, but are never really trusted, and generally treated poorly by them.
    • A more interesting example is Kungas' relation with the local tribes. One Army Scout calls him "Great King". Kungas notes that he is specifically saying in a complicated manner that Kungas is not his king because his loyalty is given to his tribe-but that he is obeying Kungas because he is now the Feudal Overlord of his tribe.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: Link commands through females of the royal Malwa family, with Link's hardware buried deep within the royal palace.
  • Rape and Revenge: Numerous times, and vengeance is most satisfying each time.
  • Rated M for Manly: The manliness in this book is so intense that it could be used to fuel the space shuttle.
    • Rana Sanga is pretty much the incarnation of this trope.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • While the good guys have them in charge, generally speaking, the notable example is Damodara simply because not only is he on the side of the bad guys, he's one of their most senior leaders.
    • Even Theodora and Justinian are generally reasonable in the sense of being rational. They aren't kind, but they are sensible, not usually sadistic (except when going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, as Theodora did at the end of the second volume), and if they are not good rulers per se, they at least have a good understanding of the Evil Overlord List.
  • Recruited from the Gutter: Antonina was a courtesan who married the Roman general of the title, thus becoming "respectable" (and occasionally joining him on campaigns). She later used her husband's reputation as well as her own intelligence to become a great stateswoman.
  • Religion of Evil: The Mahaveda cult preaches blind obedience to the Malwa leadership, and among its various rites is skinning the bodies of its victims, crafting them so that the wind will inflate them to look more like the original people.
  • Renowned Selective Mentor: An emperor hires one of the greatest warriors in India to train his daughter. Later she and her mentor get married and they become a Battle Couple.
  • Rising Empire:
    • The Malwa are supposed to be this but their Decadent Court really has more in common with Vestigial Empire. Kungas and Irene's Kushans in the later books follow this trope more closely.
    • Arguably the Malwa fulfil the Vestigial Empire trope too- they're one of the successor states to the Gupta Empire, and are simply rising because Link's machinations enabled them to dominate the Ye-Tai and other polities instead of slowly falling apart. So they're a Rising Empire coming out of the ashes of a Vestigial Empire.
  • Risking the King: Lampshaded. The Persian emperor makes Belisarius' bodyguards promise to keep him alive even if it requires arresting him. This is necessary because The Emperor feels he needs a Roman he can personally trust during a diplomatically sensitive joint military operation and Belisarius has an eccentric habit of getting to close to the fighting.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
    • The Axumites administer this after their king's palace is destroyed with many casualties. They intended to go to war anyway but now it was personal.
    • Whenever the Persians think they have the Malwa off balance they shout "Charax! Charax!" The Malwa know what that means.
  • Royal Brat:
    • Malwa princes are this—to the point of bringing ridiculously luxurious and impractical mobile palaces to the battlefield. They stay too far away from any danger and hardship to be effective commanders.
    • As part of a ruse, Eon pretends to be a Jerkass prince in front of the Malwa. He almost blows his cover as a Royal Brat by refusing to touch a Sex Slave who showed the signs of having been in a sacked city. As it turns out she was Shakuntala's maid.
  • Rousing Speech: Shakuntala is good at this, rousing the people of the Indian subcontinent to rise up against an evil empire that was thought to be unstoppable.
  • Ruling Couple: The Roman Empire and many of its eventual allies have what effectively amounts to co-ruling husband and wife teams, each part of the team filling in where the other isn't as strong.
  • Running Gag:
    • Maurice's gloomy pessimism, especially when things are going well.
    • Sittas' affection for cavalry charges.
    • Muttered comments by Valentinian, to which a third party says "I think he said <obscene commentary about second party>, but maybe it was <irrelevant, semi-nonsensical statement that sounds similar>" The gag is subverted at one point in Destiny's Shield, when Belisarius instructs Anastasius and Valentinian to behave as though they think he's an idiot. Anastasius translates Valentinian's muttered response as "He said: 'That won't be hard,'" and leaves it at that.
    • The over-the-top sarcastic fear assorted characters assert they have of pimps. Which is followed shortly thereafter by a brief passage describing the mayhem said characters have unleashed on the pimps.
    • The philosophical tendencies of Anastasius, Ousanas, and Rao are used as humor fuel throughout the books. All three of them find each other's opposing views utter tripe, and everyone unfortunate enough to listen to their exchanges is thoroughly exasperated, if not a bit terrified of having to sit through said exchanges.
    • Calopodius got excellent marks in grammar and rhetoric. Apparently, a useful skill for such things as running messages to uppity Persian grandees or fending off the advances of overly-amorous aunts. Turns into Chekhov's Skill later in the series.
  • Scarily Competent Tracker:
    • Abbu, chief of Belisarius' bedouin mercenaries.
    • Rana Sanga has a Pathan scout that fulfills the same purpose. Belisarius once escaped Sanga using a plan relying on the latter having some in his service.
  • Scary Black Man: The Axumites are widely known for being a Proud Warrior Race, especially on the high seas.
  • Schizo Tech: Roman Legions coexisting beside steam-powered ironclad gunships and riflemen, as the entire premise of the series. It handles it in a realistic manner too - as you see Link and Belisarius attempting to one-up each other throughout the series. Belisarius makes a point of grooming the officers who can see the potential in the new weapons.
  • Seduction-Proof Marriage: Invoked by John of Rhodes when he says he is not really such a Casanova as rumored: He looks carefully to see who is seduceable and Antonia is completely not, being Happily Married to Belisarius.
  • Servile Snarker: Ousanas — and, by implication, anyone holding the position of dawazz— uses snark as one of his tools in helping his charge grow up to be a man worthy of holding the Axumite throne.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Aide's purpose to time travel. Later subverted into not just fixing history, but making it better. A stable Roman Empire in the 6th century with extensive trading networks across the Middle East to India and Ethiopia. Link and the New Gods believe they're doing this as well. It's just that their idea of "right" is a cruel, violent eugenics program designed to weed out huge masses of people they view as undesirable.
  • Severed Head Sports: Implied as the final fate of Nanda Lal's head.
  • Sex God:
    • Irene describes Kungas as by far the best lover she has ever had.
    • Shakuntala, despite being a virgin, turns out to be a Sex Goddess during her wedding night with Rao. Apparently due her nimbleness and having diligently studied some unspecified sex positions and techniques. It actually causes Rao to finish too quickly, something she mercilessly teases him about.
  • Sex Slave: The normal fate of any woman in the path of the Malwa. In the good guy empires, concubinage is also practiced, but in that case it means roughly "woman a little like slave, a little like mistress, and a little like wife" and is often an honorable position; it is possible to be invited to be a concubine among the Axumites, Maratha, or Persians whereas no one would possibly find the position of Malwan Sex Slave attractive.
  • Sex Is Good/Sex Is Evil: For good people it is romantic. Bad guys rape for the fun of causing pain even when they are so powerful they can just command it.
  • Sexual Karma: All of the sympathetic protagonists have healthy and satisfying sex lives. By contrast, villainous Venandakatra is a pedophile who likes to beat or force himself on pre-teen Sex Slaves.
  • The Smart Guy: Aide helps not only Belisarius, but others with knowledge from the future, allowing technological advancement far more quickly than in the original timeline.
  • Spotting the Thread: Rana Sanga doubts that his wife and children were truly killed in a supposed bandit raid on their caravan because the report on the scene fails to mention the presence of onions or the small knife his wife used to cut them in the debris, which he knew she'd never leave behind.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Averted as often as not. Female characters are as apt toward badassery as male ones, at least the major characters. Lady Sanga stays in the kitchen when she can. But then she actually likes the kitchen.
  • The Siege/Storming the Castle: Both the good guys and the bad guys do this. At Kausambi at the end both good guys and bad guys are doing this at the same time (Damodara's and Rana Sanga's family are barricaded in a bunker inside the city while their army is hammering at the gates).
  • Smart People Know Latin: Not in this setting. Latin is the language of fallen West hick-dom, and even speaking Latin-accented Greek marks you as a slack-jawed yokel.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Antoni**n**a is frequently misspelled by readers as the more common Antonia.
  • The Stoic: Kungas, to the point where he sometimes qualifies for Frozen Face despite having nothing physically wrong with him. He eventually lightened up a little after marrying Irene.
  • Storyboarding the Apocalypse: Aide allows various characters to live through detailed visions of the future if Link and the Malwa win, as well as visions of the untampered timeline. Used to Set Right What Once Went Wrong in the case of Justinian's doubts about Belisarius's loyalties.
  • Stupid Evil: Actually, the Malwa come across as way too stupid for an Empire commanded by a superbeing from millions of years in the future, even considering the fact that Link doesn't care about the lives of its minions. It helps that it discourages initiative and independent thought. In the sixth book, it's even noted that most of the competent or intelligent officers were sent to the front and killed. This actually makes sense given that they're a fascist state led by a psychopathic robot from the future. Fascist states tend to quietly eliminate anybody who gets smart enough to question the system without being trustworthy enough to be part of the ruling class. Malwa's just going through some growing pains as the Link takes it from feudalism to fascism.
  • Suddenly Suitable Suitor: Rao and Shakuntala, except that she decides, after talking with Irene and Kungas and some soul-searching, to ignore the rules and marry him anyway for the sake of strengthening her political position as well as being what she really wanted to do anyway. (After spending 4 books pining over not being able to marry him, though.)
  • Suffer the Slings: The Theodoran Cohort uses slings and sling staffs to allow them to throw their grenades farther than by hand alone.
  • Techno Wizard: Rome. The Malwans have a head start, but once the Romans understand what's going on they actually make better versions of future weapons, not being as hampered by a restrictive social hierarchy that concentrates power in a relatively small handful of people.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • In The Tide of Victory, the allied fleet attacks a Malwa harbor with their new cannon-armed warships. When the guarding Malwa finally fires, the chief technical assistant for the Roman upgrade effort is assured that the Malwa couldn't possibly hit anything on their first shot, in a night engagement. A moment later, he finds himself knocked on his back by the cannonball striking the ship, killing John of Rhodes with a direct hit where he was standing.
    • On a less-serious scale scale, Menander comments that a raid on enemy shipping he's just completed is the one and only time he's seen a military operation go entirely according to plan — the wind's even blowing the resulting smoke away from him. A moment later, the engine of the ship he's commanding fails, followed by the inevitable You Just Had to Say It.
  • Terminator Twosome: Link versus Aide, on a grander scale than usually covered by the trope.
  • Time Travel: Central to the Plot Premise, although the future advisors are shown as already present in the past when the story starts.
  • To the Pain: According to Rao, it is part of the assassin's code to kill unusually distasteful targets by paralyzing them and then letting them bleed to death.
  • Tough Leader Façade: Shakuntala always tries her best to be a dignified ruler by hiding her emotions in public.
  • Training the Peaceful Villagers: The Theodoran Cohort, consisting of Syrian herders and their wives brought into military service to bolster Roman forces, using the new grenades developed with the assistance of Aide.
  • Transhuman Aliens: all of humanity millions of years in the future, diverged into uncountable descendant species; in particular, the New Gods and the not-even-biological Great Ones.
  • Translation Convention: The main Byzantine characters are presumably speaking a dialect of Greek but some of the puns and wordplay only make sense in English.
  • Trauma Conga Line:
    • The Aide-supplied vision of the Bad Future is this for Belisarius and, to a lesser extent, Justinian. Antonina, Photius, and Sittas are gruesomely murdered, and their flayed remains are left up for everyone to see as Constantinople falls to the enemy. Ultimately, both men are ostensibly mercy-killed by Rao, but it was really more of a suicide, and they both die thinking they'll be condemned to hell anyway.
    • The second book is one for Theodora. It begins with her discovering that Narses, the only Parental Substitute she ever had, betrayed her and plotted her murder. Then it ends with a fictionalized version of the Real Life Nika Riots, made worse by the meddling of a time-travelling AI from the future. Ultimately, she and Justinian are captured, Justinian is mutilated to render him ineligible for the throne, and both are very nearly killed. She does retain some power by becoming Photius's regent, but—as Photius points out to her four books later—the empire is no longer hers. She winds up going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after the riots, cementing her status as a badly Broken Bird.
  • True Companions: Belisarius's subordinates. Belisarius notes this himself several times, and attributes his victories to his ability to select intelligent subordinates and to instill loyalty in his Thracian cataphracts.
  • Try to Fit That on a Business Card: While Eon's full name, Eon Bisi Dakuen, is brief, that of his father, the king of the Ethiopians, is not. The formal name: Kaleb Ella Atsbeha, son of Tazena, Bisi Lazen, King of Axum, Himryar, Dhu Raydan, Saba, Salhen, the High Country and Yamanat, the Coastal Plain, Hadramawt, and all their Arabs, the Beja, Noba, Kasu, and Siyamo, servant of Christ. Eon's son would have a longer name as the Axumites ended the war with rather more territory.
  • Type Caste: Caste issues show up quite often, as significant parts of the series are set in India.
    • The Malwa are extremely strict about caste, which is one of their problems. Gunpowder weapons are all managed by the kshatriya, for example.
    • Dadaji, Shakuntala's chief advisor, is a low-caste vaisya, and that only because the Great Country is relatively liberal; in most places he'd be a sudra. Irene is amused by how upset the brahmins he negotiates with would be if they knew.
    • One of the key things Belisarius advises Damodara to do going forward is start minimizing the caste system and enabling more social mobility, saying that the caste system crippled India for millennia.
  • Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Venandakatra has a great procession across the territory of the Marathas (who had supported the Andran empire and been conquered in the process) to his palace where he is supposedly getting the Andran princess Shakuntala as a concubine just to remind everyone of Malwa's victory over Andra, celebrating like it was Venandakatra who won the war for Malwa.
  • Urban Warfare: The revolts in Constantinople and Alexandria, the Siege of Charax, the storming of Kausimbi. Especially Charax, with the Real Life battle for Stalingrad during WW2 mentioned as the inspiration for Belisarius.
  • The Uriah Gambit: Khusrau thinks cavalry charges against fortified defenders armed with rifles is a great way of dealing with disloyal and/or arrogant reactionary nobles, and to provide a distraction for more useful forces.
  • Victory by Endurance: Valentinian's usual strategy. His attempt to defy this in battle with Rana Sanga does not work out so well.
  • You Have Failed Me: Malwa are very fond of this. Particularly The Vile One.
  • Waif-Fu: Played realistically with Shakuntala. Yes, she was trained from age seven by one of the most fearsome warriors in India. Yes, she is extraordinarily fast and nimble. Yes, she is phenomenally strong for her size. But she's short and maybe 90 pounds soaking wet, and the drawbacks of that are routinely addressed.
  • Warrior Prince: Rana Sanga, and Eon, and others.
  • We Have Reserves: The Malwa; Link just doesn't give a damn about human life.
  • Well-Trained, but Inexperienced: Link's Khmer assassins and bodyguards.
    Link's assassins were the ultimate elite in Malwa's military forces. And therefore—just as Belisarius had estimated—suffered from the inevitable syndrome of all Praetorian Guards. Deadly, yes. But, also—arrogant; too sure of themselves; scornful of their opponents. Well-trained, yes—but training is not the same thing as combat experience. Those assassins had not fought a real opponent in years. As Praetorian Guards have done throughout history, they had slipped from being killers to murderers.
  • What's Up, King Dude?: Eon is first seen arm wrestling with Roman soldiers. He comes from an informal but spartan and militaristic culture where princes are first and foremost expected to prove themselves as soldiers and playing with soldiers is as natural to him as fighting beside them. The pragmatic reason for this is that the soldiers of the regiments are the ones who have final say on which prince will inherit the throne. A prince who is not liked by the common soldiers will not become king.
  • Wife Husbandry: Irene, Rome's spymaster, has to bully Empress Shakuntala into marrying Raghunath Rao, the great warrior assassin who raised her and trained her, even though they both want it. Made somewhat less troubling by the facts that Shakuntala was twenty years old at her wedding, at least one of her other possible royal suitors were also Rao's age, Rao at least was the man she wanted to marry instead of one of her many impending possible arranged marriages, and he doesn't want to betray her late father's trust in him.
  • The Women Are Safe with Us: Partly. All the good guys and Worthy Opponents agree that Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil, though some Old Soldiers take it as an unfortunate inevitability that soldiers will get out of control. Belisarius occasionally has to use extreme measures to prevent atrocities by Romans and once threatens to turn his men on a Hunnish mercenary unit (thus saving the daughter of a Persian Prince). Rajputs, being honorable folk, never touch a captive woman. Malwans are different of course. They love to Rape, Pillage, and Burn. In the Bad Future vision of Belisarius, Rao muses that it was this quality that the Malwa systematically broke out of the Rajputs. Thus shorn of their preciously held honor, there was nothing left for them but to be the Malwa's dogs.
  • Worthy Opponent:
    • Rana Sanga, to Belisarius, Raghunath Rao, and Valentinian. He just barely defeats Valentinian in single combat, takes him prisoner, and has him healed and treats him as an honored guest. When Sanga's army is forced to retreat from the invasion of Persia, he releases Valentinian. In the last two books, Valentinian's role in protecting Sanga's wife and children from a plot against them by Link and the Malwa dynasty is key to Sanga's Heel–Face Turn, and he eventually sends his own son and heir to be Valentinian's apprentice in the art of combat.
    • In the first book, Kungas to Raghunath Rao, prior to Kungas's Heel–Face Turn.
    • In the third book, a Malwa naval captain caught in an ambush recognizes there is no escape from a storm of arrows and "simply [stands]] there, silent, unmoving, presenting his chest to the enemy." His Persian opponents are so impressed by his courage that they take his corpse back to Babylon and place it in an honored resting place with their own dead.
  • You No Take Candle: Subverted with Ousanas; he initially speaks this way, but halfway through the first book it's revealed as a ruse; he's actually quite eloquent and well-spoken. He sometimes drops back into the pidgin as a joke or to emphasize how stupid he thinks the targeted person is being, however.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Played With:
    • When Eon is mortally wounded, he knows that he will be dead in two weeks
    • Belisarius and Justanian know that Theodora will die from cancer in her thirties. They decide not to tell her.
    • Belisarius tells Narses that his days are numbered. Subverted because it's a big number, much longer than Narses thought he had: 30+ years.
  • Zerg Rush: Done often by the Malwa, using masses of poorly trained and armed soldiers backed by a small group of "elite" troops armed with advanced Malwa tech. Usually leaves a mountain of corpses.


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