Zones of Thought/YMMV


 * Author Tract: A Deepness in the Sky often veers in this direction, particularly whenever there are comparisons between the Emergent civilization and Qeng Ho.
 * Complete Monster
 * Tomas Nau from A Deepness in the Sky and, apparently, the entire ruling class of Emergents. It seems like Thomas Nau in particular is trying to collect atrocities the way normal people collect stamps. Rape, genocide, and slavery are his favorites, and the he has all sorts of futuristic tools to help him with all three.
 * Flenser and Steel from A Fire Upon the Deep, although this only applies to the past Flenser -- by the time Flenser appears in the story, he's partly a different person, due to the Tines being small-scale hive minds. It's complicated.
 * hits this stage in Children of the Sky. Not that he wasn't a sadistic and selfish asshole who betrayed his country and parent apparently for the hell of it in the first book, but in the sequel he gets alot more screentime to establish the true scope of his evilness.
 * Downer Ending: If you read both A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky,
 * Humans Are Special: Averted. Humans are not special at all. Well, except Pham Nuwen, who is so awesome
 * Memetic Mutation: Hexapodia is the key insight!
 * Moral Event Horizon: Tomas Nau: when we meet him he's already over the horizon by several million klicks -- but it takes time for the truth to come out. If he hadn't already passed it before, we see several MEHs for him in text, but the biggest one is probably.
 * Moral Event Horizon: Tomas Nau: when we meet him he's already over the horizon by several million klicks -- but it takes time for the truth to come out. If he hadn't already passed it before, we see several MEHs for him in text, but the biggest one is probably.