Sword of the Stars/YMMV

• Complete Monster: The hat of the Zuul.
  • Let me put it this way: they mind rape prisoners and their own slaves for fun and profit. The brighter the mind, the more fun they have and the more they learn. It's the worst thing they can do to you, but not by much...pretty much just being their slave is a Fate Worse Than Death, and a deferred death sentence anyway.
    • And the Abusive Precursors are returning by SOTS 2, bringing Zuul servants with them.
    • And the Suul'Ka are even worse. Unlike the Zuul, they don't have the excuse of being living weapons, or even Blue and Orange Morality - they are, in fact, Liir elders who use battle armor to live in space. Liir elders who enslaved, brutalized, and massacred their own childeren just so they wouldn't die. By the way, want to know why some of their servants are called "Screamers"...?
• Demonic Spiders: The Swarm, Von Neumanns and Crows can qualify for this, especially early game. Later, they're not a danger anymore (a group of colony ships with decent point defenses can defeat a Swarm). But, if you defeat the Von Neumann ships several times, you will be visited by the Von Neumann Berserkers - which can wipe the floor with a cruiser task force and then sterilize your colony. And then there's their system killer...
• Fan Nickname: Couple for the Grand Menaces.
  • "Sparky": The Planet Killer / Planet Eater.
  • "|Ortgay": The Peacekeeper Enforcer.
• Fridge Horror: A Suul'ka servant race is called the "Screamers" by the Morrigi. Frightening enough, but the literal translation means "those who are made to scream". Which begs the question: Why are they screaming?
  • Ascended Fridge Horror: Funny that the Morrigi should think that: The Screamers are, in fact, genetically modified Morrigi.
• Nightmare Fuel: The sequel, Lords of Winter, is shaping up to be chock full of this. From the first trailer: "But there's something else out there in the dark! SOMETHING EL- *static*" Amidst truncated screams in the background, shadows of massive... somethings slowly and completely enshroud the scene, leaving only space and blackness. "The Lords of winter are coming... for you." Have fun in sequelville, kids!
  • Some recent discussions on the boards have made clear that the Suul'ka are fantastically adept at mind control, to the point where it's likely that the great shame of the Morrigi is that the majority of their males were coerced into turning on the females and damn near genociding themselves.
    • Arinn Dembo has implied that they're so powerful when it comes to telepathy, they don't have a concept of "writing", simply because they don't need it.
      • The latest trailer implies that they are actually aeons old Liir, a psychic race that grows more powerful as they age.
    • Screw "implied" - they are Liir elders who have gotten too big to live in the sea...so they betrayed their own race and brutalized them into building space suits for them. Yes, you read that right: the Actual Pacifists have a chance of mutating into megalomaniac sociopaths out of fear of death.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: Averted; despite the lack of a full campaign mode, the rich lore is still one of the game's appeals and plays a role in AI behavour and tech forest rolls.
• Tear Jerker: The cries of your civilians (especially of the Morrrgi, who beg for you to save your women and children) during orbital bombardment/being eaten by a random encounter. If you've no more ships, and have entered the tactical battle, you can only wait until time is up, hearing their cries for help. *sniff*
• Insufferable Genius: Mecron. Full stop.
• Narm Charm: The infamously schlocky voice acting tends to grow on you after a while.