Familias Regnant

The Familias Regnant 'verse of Space Opera novels by Elizabeth Moon includes:

• Hunting Party
• Sporting Chance
• Winning Colors
• Once a Hero
• Rules of Engagement
• Change of Command
• Against the Odds

The setting is a Feudal Future interstellar federation ruled by the Familias Regnant, a group of noble families headed by a hereditary monarch.

The first three books form a trilogy: Heris Serrano resigns from the Regular Space Service to avoid court martial after disobeying her bloodthirsty commander and achieving her objective without getting her crew killed, and faces an unattractive future career flying an old lady around in her space pleasure yacht. But the crew she inherits turn out to be engaged in dirty business and the woman who owns the ships is actually a pretty Cool Old Lady. On top of those, they get involved in Familias Regnant intrigue.

In the fourth book, focus shifts to Esmay Suiza, a Regular Space Service officer who appeared briefly in book three (although from book five on most of the major characters from the first trilogy, including Heris herself, start sneaking back in as supporting characters).

---

Tropes used in Familias Regnant include:

• Action Girl:
  • Esmay Suiza starts as this and slowly grows in Lady of War.
  • The Serranos seem to only marry/produce a woman who can analyse fleet tactics and discuss variations in cruiser specifications in casual conversation.
• Anti-Mutiny: Senior officers are unable to seize a ship to commit treason, because their juniors mutiny. High command subsequently has a full investigation to ensure that they weren't planning the insurrection against the traitors before they had evidence.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Not 100% but a lot of them are very ethically questionable. Many are a dangerous combination of incompetent, pompous and in charge of critical infrastructure. There is a considerable number who avert this and seem to focus on fixing the problems caused.
• Audio Adaptation: Courtesy of Graphic Audio.net Narration with full voice cast, Music and Sound Effects.
• Author Appeal:
  • Horses.
  • Nobility being incompetent and a waste of space unless some independent group acts as check and balance.
  • Texas, in the form of the the Lone Star Confederacy, but definitely not New Texas.
• Badass Family: The Serrano and Suiza families are examples. This also extends to all the named non-noble families, as each is either the high command of the Regular Space Service or the Ground Forces. Almost all of them were formerly sworn to serve one of the noble families, the Serranos are the only exception. The Suiza were a former Ground Forces family that betrayed their ruling dynasty and subsequently left the Serranos without a patron.
• Blood Knight: Every single male citizen of Aether's World. Every. Single. One.
• Break the Cutie: Brun and Esmay. Although the former happens for only one plotline and the latter is most of the second half of the series.
• Briar Patching: Though Esmay refers to it as "Brother Ass and the Cactus Patch".
• Cerebus Retcon
• Cloning Blues
• Cool Old Lady: All three of the main Aunts of the first trilogy.
• Famed in Story: A number of characters are extremely well known as they come from very politically important backgrounds.
  • Kevil Starbridge Mahoney borders on Living Legend status as he is the greatest legal mind ever, in-universe.
• Fate Worse Than Death: Being captured by the Blood Horde of Aether's World is not a nice experience.
• The Federation: Sort of; there's a noble class that runs a lot of corporations and only nobles can join the equivalent to parliament.
• Feudal Future: Albeit subverted as it indicates it originally started out as corporate franchise with the noble families all being shareholders.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game
• Immortality Immorality: Unlike other works the author goes into serious detail about the legal and social impacts this has on society when a wealthy upper class starts down this track.
• Lady of War:
  • Heris and Vida Serrano. Esmay is shown to be growing into this role by the series end.
  • Basically what all Serrano women grow up to be, there are others in the other fleet families, but the Serranos provide most examples.
• The Mafia: The Compassionate Hand act like this in other countries (in their own, they are the government). Naturally no one trusts them.
• The Men First: Serrano was told that resigning would mean her men would face no consequences.
• Military and Warfare Tropes: The writer is a former Marine.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: A staple of the author's works.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: One of the Aether's World commanders demonstrates this trait, the others are Blood Knights to a tee.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy:
  • The Bloodhorde of Aether's World. Albeit more psychopathic mass-murdering pirate than Proud Warrior.
  • The New Texas Republic borders on this, though it's overshadowed by the extreme level of Too Dumb to Live.
• Refuge in Audacity
• Royal Brat: So many exist that they created an entire military section staffed by them, the Royal Aero Space Service; it does not go well. Nearly everyone who isn't a member of the service knows they're pompous, incompetent glory hounds and that not a single one of them is fit to command a waste disposal unit, let alone an armed warship. After being disbanded, many are implied to go onto become (incompetent) pirates to sustain their extravagant lifestyles.
• Space Is an Ocean: Although the two dimensional plane issue that afflicts most cases of this trope is averted.
• Space Is Noisy: Played with -- it's mentioned that the computer systems on warships are programmed to generate sound effects appropriate to ongoing events to provide audio cues for the crew.
• Straw Misogynist:
  • The New Texas Republic is the second biggest offender of women's rights, practising slavery-esque polygamy, surgically muting women who speak out of turn, treating them as barely sentient beings.
  • Then there's Aether's World culture where the pun of "impaling a women with your manly spear" will be both a metaphorical and a literal act in that order and this is probably the best fate one can suffer there.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The Royal Aero Space Service to a man.
  • Otilla. Playing with socialist anarchists for fun is not good if you're from the family they most want dead.
  • Aether's Worlders will gladly fight hopeless one-sided battles (although their reputation for brutality means the other side is probably wearing brown trousers at best).
  • The men of New Texas. Abducting the daughter of the ruler of biggest power in the region, a nation so large it's barely aware they exist, sending a video message that basically says "come at me bro", and relying on their ruler not sending a rescue team because it might be viewed as a breach of integrity... Then there's their actually combat tactics which is essentially to telegraph your exact combat capabilities to everything within range by constantly running your weapons system so hot they blind your long-range early warning sensors.
• You Are in Command Now: How Esmay Suiza enters the series. Unlike some other examples, she is disciplined for this and cautioned about it happening again in the future.