The major initial technology change is the invention of the Bobble, a projected sphere that completely separates the inside from the outside. This is initially believed to be permanent, which would lead to anyone trapped inside a bobble dying when their oxygen runs out. The inventors of the bobble quickly style themselves as The Peace Authority and eventually take over political power, bobbling all who oppose them in an ends-justify-the-means method of ending all war... as well as anyone might threaten their superiority.
The Peace War is set fifty years later, when the first generation of Bobbles begin to burst... revealing that not only are they not permanent, but that the nature of the bobbles is significantly different from what had been supposed.
Followed by The Ungoverned and Marooned in Realtime.
NB: The nature of the bobbles is a major plot twist in this novel, and will be protected by spoiler tags on this page, but in the sequels it is widely known (and the plot of one in particular is impossible to describe without it), so it is discussed openly on the pages for the sequels and may or may not be mentioned openly on various trope pages.
The Peace War contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Lawrence Livermore Labs invented the Bobble in 1997. They started World War III almost immediately. Fifty years later, it's a Feudal Future.
- Depopulation Bomb: Just as the Peace Authority came to power, the entire world was hit by numerous engineered plagues — these killed over 90% of the world's population, and remnants of them still caused life-threatening conditions during the Peace's reign. The Peace insist that they were the last gasp of pre-Peace governments, but most post-Peace individuals believe that the Peace released them as justification for their Enforced Technology Levels; control of all nuclear technology meant all technological civilization was dependent on them for electricity, but control of biotech meant that every human alive was dependent on the Peace for medical care.
- Divided States of America: The former United States has fractured into numerous smaller nations, a state of affairs encouraged by the Peace Authority because it means none of them are large enough to pose a threat. The only one that bears much resemblance to the former US is the Republic of New Mexico; other forms of government represented include the feudal autocracy of Atzlan (formerly southern California) and a region with no central government where the peace is kept by protection companies.
- Enforced Technology Levels: The Peace Authority prevents anyone save themselves from using nuclear power, and puts a similar amount of effort into policing biotech. Supposedly this to prevent nuclear and biological warfare, but it also creates a Terminally Dependent Society that relies on the Peace for electricity and medicine — and it's all but stated that the Peace actually started World War III specifically to destroy their competition.
- Failed Future Forecast: It's a relatively minor point because of the Peace Authority rendering previous political realities irrelevant, but it is mentioned several times that the Soviet Union was still going strong when the Peace War broke out in 1997.
- Feudal Future: The Peacers enforced one by blaming industrial civilization for nuclear warfare.
- Flashback B-Plot: The first half of the novel has interludes every few chapters headed "Flashforward", in which the crew of a shot-down recon flight try to figure out where they are and who they can turn to for help. In chapter 17 the main plot catches up to the day that the flashforwards take place.
- Homing Projectile: The Tinkers have come up with smart bullets that can be fired from a machine pistol. Lock in your targets, blind-fire one burst in their general direction, and still score a direct hit with every single bullet.
- Interface with a Familiar Face: Paul Naismith has given his house AI the face and voice of his old girlfriend, who was the first opponent of the Peace Authority to be Bobbled.
- Law Enforcement, Inc.: Protection companies like the Santa Ynez Police Company are the closest thing some parts of the Divided States of America have to a government.
- Old Master: Paul Hoehler/Naismith; remarkable in that he really is old, with all the drawbacks that come with advanced age.
- Portal Cut: Bobbles cut through anything intersecting the field's boundary when they form.
- When Vandenberg Air Force Base was bobbled during the Peace War, an aircraft was on the edge of the volume of effect and one wing was sliced off by the boundary.
- Later in the book, one of the protagonists is trying to escape a secret hideout before the villains bobble it, and nearly makes it; his friends, searching for him, find the tips of two of his fingers, the only part of him that was outside the bobble when it formed.
- Post Cyber Punk
- Red Shirt: The flight crew of Allison's recon mission that's shot down by the Peace Authority. One of them is killed during the landing; the other survives long enough to discuss the situation they're in with Allison before being shot by the Peace Authority troops who come to round up survivors. He also delivers a lampshading hanging, mentioning a few movies that their situation reminds him of and remarking that he doesn't like the way they start with a full crew and then kill off anyone who isn't a main character.
- La Résistance: The Tinkers, a secret underground of people developing advanced technology in defiance of the Peace Authority's bans.
- Smart People Play Chess: Paul Naismith, a scientific genius known as the Tinker wizard, plays chess recreationally, and Mike Rojas asserts that he's never seen Paul lose a game except when he wanted to. Wili, Paul's chosen successor, also plays chess at high level; at one point, he enters a chess tournament where most of the competitors sport various computer enhancements, plays unenhanced and nearly wins.
- Sphere of Destruction: The effect of using a Bobble as a weapon.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: The Peace Authority have created a world without armed conflict — at the cost of most of the world's population, all strong governments (save themselves), and industrialized civilization.
- Their response to losing to the Tinkers is especially grotesque; "Operation Renaissance" — mine the San Fernando Valley with nuclear weapons, bobble up their facilities, then blow everything to hell. Della Lu, who up to that point was a dedicated tech cop and remorseless killer, balks at this, and simply knocks the trigger for the mines out of her boss's hand and bobbles without firing the nukes.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- Hamilton Avery, the leader of the Peace Authority, seems to genuinely believe that the ends justify its means.
- Della Lu is initially a believer in the Peace Authority cause, and does some unpleasant things in its service, but eventually comes to recognize that it's gone too far.
