Galactic Milieu

The Galactic Milieu Series by Julian May describes the struggle of the most powerful of the human metapsychics and their interaction with a galactic confederation of exotic beings.

The entire story takes place over roughly a 150 year period, starting with the birth of the narrator in 1945. History starts to diverge wildly and obviously from our in the mid 80s as psychic research becomes mainstream due to the actual existence of people with operant mind powers.

  • Intervention
  • Jack The Bodiless
  • Diamond Mask
  • Magnificat

The series is tightly linked to the Saga of the Exiles by the same author.

Tropes used in Galactic Milieu include:
  • Abusive Parents
    • Fury is a split personality formed when Denis was abused by his father as a baby.
    • Fury itself probably counts for its treatment of Hydra and its intentions for the nonborn Paramounts.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them - Quite narrowly averted with Dorothée, who becomes Dirigent of Caledonia at twenty, although the age of majority in the Milieu is sixteen.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With - Jack finds it easier to interact with ordinary humans when he's wearing a human shape.
  • Asexual - Marc believes he is asexual for several years. Anne also shows absolutely no interest in any romantic relationship.
  • The Ageless: The Remillard Clan. Each one appears to stop getting older at a different age.
  • Artistic License: Biology - Evolutionary Levels towards the "goal" of Unity.
  • Assimilation Plot
    • Most of humanity is to be evolved to "coadunation," in essence an altruistic racial unity, though not a Hive Mind. It's mentioned that humanity will become imperfectly coadunate; humans unable or unwilling to get with the program are exiled, imprisoned, lobotomized or euthanized.
    • Only operant metapsychics HAVE to assimilate, ordinary humans are mostly left to their own devices, unless they're violent criminals. Of course, the definition of "violent criminal" gets revised steadily downward over time.
  • Aliens Are Bastards And Are Trying To Assimilate Our Race Into A Hive Mind In Which We Will Lose All Our Individuality - The Rebels believe this.
  • Arranged Marriage - Denis and Lucille marry because they know their offspring will be very powerful metapsychics; they don't actually like each other much at the time. It works out though.
  • The Atoner - Marc Remillard, who goes through the Pliocene time-gate after the Rebellion, and eventually guides the Duat Galaxy into Unity and founds the Galactic Milieu, becoming a Lylmik, and naming himself Atoning Unifex. In Magnificat, after six million years, he says to the other four Supervisors that his atonement is still incomplete, although they don't appear to know what he means as they constantly ask him how he comes across all his information.
  • Badass Family - Not that the Remillards ever work together as a whole, but they're all pretty badass.
  • Badass Great Great Uncle - Rogi. And Denis is a Badass Grandpa. Especially as Fury.
  • Big Good - Atoning Unifex, who created the Milieu and guided it to its present state. Meaning Marc Remillard is arguably the Big Good and the Big Bad.
  • Big Screwed-Up Family - The Remillards. Most of them are good guys, but their internal problems drive virtually the entire plot.
  • Brain Without A Jar: Jack the Bodiless.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick - Jack to Diamond on their first wedding anniversary: "You change into something comfortable. I'll put away your flask of algiprote purée and set the table and grow a digestive tract."
  • Bridal Carry - Jack carries Dorothée out of the deep-driller like this in the end of Diamond Mask. They get married later.
  • Brother-Sister Incest:
    • Marc Remillard and Cyndia Muldowney, who is his half sister although neither of them are aware of it at first.
    • And artificially with Marc and Madeleine (real brother and sister) in creating the Mental Man babies. And not artificially when Madeleine is in her disguise as Lynelle Rogers.
    • Also Twincest with Dierdre and Diarmid Keogh.
  • Cain and Abel - Rogi and Don a little in Intervention, considering Rogi was toying with killing his brother, and also a little Denis and Victor, although the prime example is Marc and Jon at the end of the Rebellion.
  • The Casanova - Paul. The darker consequences of his affairs are given a lot of attention.
  • Cliff Hanger - At the end of Diamond Mask.

"And then Anne Remillard spoiled it all by coming into my bookshop and telling me that Denis was Fury."

  • Child Prodigy - Marc and Jack, who later become Teen Genii as well. Also Dorothée, who actually refers to herself as this as a five-year-old.
  • Cool Mask - Diamond Mask.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass - Rogi.
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set - The start of the Rebellion is broadcast on TV across the galaxy, and every psychic is involved in the end.
  • Driven to Suicide - Laura Tremblay. In a rather Squicky way too.
  • Earthshattering Kaboom - climax of the Metapsychic Rebellion.
  • Eccentric Mentor - Rogatien has many flaws, but he reduced Parni to ash at Jack and Diamond's wedding, and he did kill Fury.
  • Evilutionary Biologist - Marc Remillard
  • Dartmouth For Everyone - Although justified because the Remillards and Macdonald that go there are all incredibly clever anyway.
  • Fetus Terrible
    • Jon Remillard being the most obviously powerful, though many characters count including Marc who kills his twin in the womb.
    • Hydra
    • Mental Man
  • Five-Bad Band- Fury and Hydra after Gordo's death
  • Framing Device - Uses a framing device of an autobiography written by Uncle Rogi, the nail who constantly diverts human history while passing unnoticed.
  • Goo-Goo Godlike - Jack and Marc both have enormous metapsychic power as babies- Marc believes that Jack and Teresa summoned him to Earth in a metaconcert when Jack was a five-month foetus.
  • Gratuitous French
    • Many of the Remillards occasionally speak in French, although this is a Justified Trope, as the family has French roots and after the introduction of English as humanity's official language using one's ancestral tongue is said to be very fashionable.
    • In the case of Rogi, he was raised speaking French and is really incredibly stubborn.
  • Gray and Grey Morality - Both the Rebels and the Unity are portrayed as having their good points.
  • Gray Eyes - Marc, of the cold and strong-willed variety. Unifex often likes to have gray eyes in the bodies he creates for himself as well.
  • Green-Eyed Monster
    • Marc becomes steadily more jealous of Jack, thinking that he is a step up in evolution from the rest of humanity, and this is the root of his desire to create more Jacks through Mental Man.
    • Hydra is also envious of Fury's preoccupation with Marc which leads Gordo to try to kill him but only kill and expose himself in the process.
  • The Hero Dies - Jack and Diamond are both killed. Although this is obvious once you see their death dates on the family tree. Unifex also dies at the end of Magnificat, again pointed out by family tree.
  • Humans Are Special - Special dispensation given to humanity to make sure they don't kill themselves before entering galactic society. Where upon they become better at everything than everyone within 70 years of contact.
  • Hyperspace Is a Scary Place - The grey limbo, not to mention the pain barrier required to get there.
  • Immortality Begins At Twenty - The Remillards' self-rejuvenating gene kicks in at slightly different ages for them all, but (with the obvious exception of Jack) they do grow to adulthood normally and then just stop aging. Anne's aging is said to have stopped in her early forties.
  • Improbable Age - Some of the really powerful humans (Marc, Jack and Dorothée) are admitted to the Concilium at sixteen. Admittedly Jack and Marc are insanely smart and Dorothée isn't far behind, but they're certainly not adults.
  • Immortality - Most of the Remillard Clan have type II immortality.
  • Insufferable Genius - Jack a little, before he learns to be tactful about it.
  • In Vino Veritas - Rory Muldowney confronting Paul about Laura's suicide
  • It Was a Dark and Stormy Night - Start of Jack The Bodiless.
  • I Am Not My Father - For several years in his early adult life Marc tries to convince himself he is asexual. One of his main reasons is his disgust at his father's womanising.
  • I Have Many Names - Rogi devotes a couple of paragraphs to this for Dorothea Macdonald at the beginning of Diamond Mask: among her names and nicknames are Dee, Dody, Doro, Dodo, Dorrie, Dorothée, and later Diamond, Diamond Mask, and Illusio.
  • Kissing Cousins - Adrienne refers to Caroline and Dougie in Jack the Bodiless, and she herself is trying to hide her crush on Marc. Paul and Teresa are cousins of a sort, sharing Don as a grandfather. The Hydras.
  • Little Miss Badass - Fifteen-year-old Dorotheé is trying to hunt down the Hydras.
  • Mafia - Psychic mafia no less. Connor runs this in Intervention.
  • The Magocracy - The Concilium is limited to operants.
  • A Man Is Not a Virgin - Rogi assumes in Diamond Mask that, somewhere along the list of the women that Marc sometimes took to parties, "the invincible Franco hormones had done their stuff." He finds out he's wrong.
  • Masquerade Ball - In Diamond Mask. Dorothée gatecrashes and uses it as an opportunity to probe Remillards.
  • Meaningful Name - Yes, Atoning Unifex is the primary instigator of Unity in two galaxies, and is definitely atoning for something.
  • Mirror Match
    • Via a Stable Time Loop through the Saga of the Exiles Marc Remillard is actually leading both the Galactic Milieu and the Rebellion against it.
    • Sampled earlier, when Atoning Unifex quite thoroughly and easily quashes a pubescent Marc Remillard's scheme to steal a starship and escape to where his mother and Rogi are hiding.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Subverted: you'd think "Jack the Bodiless" was a name for a terrifying villain. Actually, Jon's a freakish mutant without a body, but he's also a saint and utterly devoted to the welfare of humanity, even if he's not specifically part of it.
  • Nepotism - An accepted part of Milieu politics.
  • Older Than They Look - People are able to be rejuvenated to make themselves look young again. Additionally, many of the Remillards are also self-rejuvenating. Rogi is a hundred and fifty or so at the end of the books but he hasn't aged past his fifties.
  • Omniscient Morality License - Atoning Unifex knows what's destined to happen because he lived through it; it's his job to make sure everything that must happen ultimately leads to the coadunation of humanity.
  • Power Levels
    • Random numbers thrown in occasionally, but any psychic is given a power grading in each school. Operant, Adept, Master, Grandmaster and Paramount Grandmaster. Guess which race has lots of Paramounts.
    • Humanity has six, and only three are officially recognized as such. The Lylmik? Rumor has it, all of them.
    • Marc, Jack, and Diamond Mask are officially recognized by the Galactic Milieu as Paramount Grand Master operants. Denis/Fury Is the unofficial fourth, although imperfectly trained and hampered by its dual nature. Mental Man doesn't count, as they were produced artificially and murdered en masse before they were "born". Two more are found in the Pliocene Exile series: Aiken Drum, who unwittingly shares the Remillard genome and magnified his own capabilities in a unique way; and Felice, who is easily the most powerful operant seen in the combined series, explicitly an entire magnitude more powerful than Marc wearing full 600x cerebroenergetic armor.
  • Power Perversion Potential - It's explicitly stated that metaphysic powers are used by many operants to enhance sex.
  • Psychic Powers - In spades in all the books.
  • Rage Against the Heavens - The books centre around Humanity's place in the already well established Milieu, who at least initially have the power of life and death over the entire human race.
  • Really Millions Of Years Old- The Lylmik, especially Unifex, take the form of relatively young humans on occasion.
  • The Reveal
    • at the very end of Intervention when Rogi addresses Atoning Unifex as Marc. Unless you figured it out before then.
    • Also a bit of a Luke, I Am Your Father moment (although the readers already know) when Rogi announces to Cloud and Hagen that the suspiciously familiar Lylmik is actually their six-million-year old father, still in the process of atoning for his past sins.
  • Royally Screwed-Up - The Hydras. And Victor.
  • Satan - Marc Remillard is referred to as both Abaddon and The Angel of the Abyss towards the end of the Rebellion. Also rather curiously inverted in his later incarnation as Atoning Unifex, who resembles God far more than the devil. He goes so far as to remind Rogi that he is not, when asked if he can foresee the time of the latter's death. "Moi, je ne suis pas le bon dieu, j't'assure!"
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections - If anyone did object, Atoning Unifex would have squashed them quickly, because the Remillards need to be the leaders of humanity when everything melts down.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money
    • Keiren O'Conner and Victor Remillard make their money by unscrupulous use of their metapsychic powers.
    • Despite knowing this financial and manufacturing empire was gained via criminal means that violate the Altruism Ethic that was a required part of Humanity entering the Milieu, no one anywhere seems to have a problem with the Remillard family keeping all of Victor and Keiren's wealth.
  • Stable Time Loop - See Mirror Match. Even more generally, Marc Remillard, one of the near-ultimate evolutions of humanity, goes back in time and, by his manipulation, ensures that he and the other Remillards will be born on schedule.
  • Twin Telepathy - Quite literally with Rogi and Don.
  • Twisted Christmas - The Dynasty perform the operation to get rid of Fury, who is residing inside Denis, on Christmas Day. It doesn't quite work out, either.
  • Trailers Always Spoil
    • In the exterior of the Frame, the reader is told practically the entire outcome before the start of each book.
    • The family tree also points out exactly who dies and when.
  • Unreliable Narrator - Averted. The prologue explains that the narrator's unique position means he's the only person who can tell the full and true tale to the galaxy.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means
    • The Simbiari attitude towards humanity. That little thing called "freedom" was the first thing to go by the wayside.
    • The Simbiari also have a case of raging jealousy for Mankind's potential and apparent favored status, deplore Humanity's primitive ethical evolution, are outraged at their premature admission to the Milieu, and are completely unable to comprehend Man's relatively freewheeling and lackadaisical mental outlook. Realistically, any other race would have been better as Proctors (the Krondaku stolid and unflappable, the Poltroyans similar in evolution and sympathetic to Mankind, the Gi right out by their own self-admission, and the Lylmik ginned up the idea of admitting humanity by themselves); however, the very asshole nature of the Simbiari and their harsh treatment of Humanity was a strong factor in causing the Metapsychic Rebellion, without which Marc would never have entered Exile and began his redemptive journey.
  • Villainous Incest - The Hydras are first cousins, and after Gordo's death are all cheerfully screwing each other. Although considering all the other incest in the books treated with a reasonable degree of sympathy (more cousins, siblings, half-siblings, and Victor and Denis being abused by their father as babies and becoming a monster and the core personality of Fury, respectively), this doesn't come off as particularly remarkable.
  • Wham! Line - See Cliff Hanger.
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