Tropes on Parade

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Just thought of a couple potential additions to the TV Tropes Wiki, but I'm not sure if they step on any preexisting toes.
The Lensman Arms Race
If a military conflict goes on long enough in a high-tech setting, each side will be struggling to gain and keep a technological advantage over the other. Sometimes, this process of escalation goes way over the top.
The title and best example of this trope comes from E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman novels (making this one of the Oldest Ones In The Book). Over the course of a decades-long struggle (that was only the surface of a deeper, eons-old war between cosmic beings using mortals as pawns), Civilization and Boskone went from ordinary starship battles to star-powered lasers, antimatter bombs, planets used as missiles, antimatter planets, faster-than-light antimatter planet missiles...
A second, in some ways even more ridiculous example is Smith's lesser-known Skylark series. By the final novel in the sequence, our heroes destroy two entire galaxies by teleporting every star from one into the close vicinity of every star in the other, causing each pair to collide and go nova, meanwhile teleporting every non-hostile world in the area to safe orbits around stars in a third galaxy, all while they themselves are safe in yet another galaxy entirely...!
Anime Example: Mobile Suit Gundam (original Universal Century timeline). At the start of the first series, the Federation has just produced the RX-78 Gundam, a high-power prototype mecha with the armor and weaponry of a battleship of the time, granting them a significant advantage over the first-generation Mobile Suits fielded by the Zeon Archduchy. By the end of that war, only a few months later, Zeon has built MS's that can just about hold their own against the Gundam and its mass-produced siblings. Seventy war-filled years later, the Victory II Assault Buster Gundam is three meters shorter than and half the weight of the RX-78, and boasts an inertialess drive system, a force-field, and more firepower than every Mobile Suit from the One-Year War put together.
Literary Example: Honor Harrington series by David Weber. (I leave it to bigger fans to fill in the details on this one.)

DuQuesne Karma
Sometimes, The Rival's struggle is completely hopeless. No matter what he does, no matter how hard he trains, no matter what technological marvels he invents or steals, the Protagonist is always, always three steps ahead of him.
Named for Marc C. "Blackie" DuQuesne, villain and antihero in E.E. "Doc" Smith's The Skylark of Space and sequels. DuQuesne is driven by the desire to prove himself intellectually and technologically superior to the hero, Richard Seaton, but repeatedly discovers that Seaton has already surpassed every new trick he can bring to bear.
Anime Example: This trope could easily have been called "Vegeta Karma."
--Sam
"Oh, there's crime here. I can smell it."

[Jinx999]

The first one is a variation of the "My Kung Fu is stronger than yours" trope.

[Bob Schroeck]

It might be different enough to work -- suggest it on the YKTTW page.
The second, go for it. I don't think there's anything like that on the wiki.

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Done, and I added a third suggestion for good measure:
The Jump Hero's Journey
Shonen manga characters have their own version of The Heros Journey (the trope entry on that needs an apostrophe, btw), that may be worthy of its own entry.
Let me try to hit the high points.
-Hero is introduced either possessing a supernatural power or gaining it in the course of the first couple of chapters.
-Hero fights some sort of evil, learning a little about his powers in the process.
-A greater evil rises, against which the Hero's powers are useless. Hero is made aware of a higher level of his power that will work, and undergoes Training From Hell to unlock it. (Repeat this step as necessary.)
-The Hero sets off to fight the greater evil, along the way making Rivals by the score and indulging in many instances of My Kung Fu is Stronger than Yours and I Am Not Left-Handed. (Possibly involving several rounds of I'm Not Left-Handed Either.)
-A band of sidekicks is accumulated along the way. Many of these are former or current Rivals.
-The head Great Evil is fought and defeated; the Hero and sidekicks return home.
Bleach. Beet the Vandel Buster. Shaman King. Do I need to go on here?
--Sam
"You talk as though you've already achieved--"
"Yeah."

[Morganite]

There's one I've been thinking about too, but I'm not sure of a concise way to describe it, or if it might be covered already.
No Retirement Save Death
These days pretty much all I watch on TV is the various CSIs and similar shows. And hardly anyone ever seems to leave their main casts alive.
Well, there was that one time in CSI:NY... Nope! She's the victim of the week in a later episode.
What about Gibbs in NCIS... Came back.
And pretty much every other one I can think of they just die right then with no surprises.
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)

[Kokuten]

My Tech-Fu is Stronger
The Honorverse, in the first few novels, is a loose transliteration of the Horatio Hornblower books, but then it turns into something... Different.
With the introduction of the Missile Pods (and to a lesser extent, the Grav Lance), the game is now technological oneupsmanship - can you keep your new (FTL comm, enhanced targetting, FTL fire control, enhanced grav shield, enhanced fusion reactor) secret long enough to build enough of them to deliver a crushing blow?
No, actually. But you _can_ come close enough to drag on the excitement and anticipation for eleven odd books.. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Bob Schroeck]

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No Retirement Save Death

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Morganni, that's there -- see Retirony.

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

[Morganite]

That doesn't seem like quite the same thing. That's about people dying just before they're supposed to be retiring... Wheras what I'm thinking of it how, retiring or not retiring, no one seems to get out of the show alive.
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

I set up the pages for Lensman Arms Race and, on the spur of the monent, the conspicuously absent Connecticut Yankee (with the subtrope It Takes A Village to Raise the Tech Level ).
DuQuesne Karma and the Jump Hero's Journey aren't being received very well, though, so if you like 'em, please head over to the YKTTW page and throw me some support? ^.^
--Sam
"How the hell did I do that?"

[Bob Schroeck]

I've generally stayed away from YKTTW, but when I get there later tonight, I will throw my support behind them.
ETA: Okay, I've been away from YKTTW too long. I couldn't find the relevant entries. Argh.

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

[NotDavies]

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No Retirement Save Death
These days pretty much all I watch on TV is the various CSIs and similar shows. And hardly anyone ever seems to leave their main casts alive.

---

Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) is set to leave Criminal Minds without dying early this coming season. Last season, one of the profilers left under a cloud, but she did leave alive.
Chris Davies.

[bmull]

One point of clarification, you said

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they themselves are safe in yet another galaxy entirely...!

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when, instead, they were in intergalactic space not in another galaxy. Remember, the working "maps" were on the order of parsecs in size and they needed room so nothing would interfere with the work. (Yes, I'm being pedantic, but I loved those books when I was young. ^_^)
With the "DuQuesne Karma" trope, the hero is not always ahead; however, if the antihero ever gets ahead something happens that causes him to give the advantage away, starting the struggle over again.
Unless I'm doing the search wrong, I don't see the old John W. Campbell "Terra ber alles" trope. Campbell, while Editor at Astounding, liked stories where Earth triumphs no matter how much it was the underdog at the beginning of the story. Many of his stories had that theme as the underpinning. In the short story collection "With Friends Like These" by Alan Dean Foster, Foster wrote a story called "With Friends Like These..." that paid homage to this aspect of Campbell's personality.

[Morganite]

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Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) is set to leave Criminal Minds without dying early this coming season. Last season, one of the profilers left under a cloud, but she did leave alive.

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I was wondering about her. I missed some episodes around that time due to bad work scheduling (and forgetting to set my vcr), so I knew *something* had happened, but wasn't sure what. (And on a side note, that's too bad about Gideon. I really like him.)
Still, the overall odds do not seem to be very good.
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)

[ECSNorway]

Re: DuQuesne Karma - isn't this sort of what the Lancer is all about being?--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[jpub]

Actually, the anime version of the Lensman Arms race could be termed the 'Villain of the Season', as evidenced in Sailor Moon, where each season had a new tougher enemy, with nastier, more devestating battles, yet...
...there were no consequences for the average person.

ee smith's Lensman/Skylark books also had this - they detonate galaxies and Earth is always fine.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[DHBirr]

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Re: DuQuesne Karma - isn't this sort of what the Lancer is all about being?

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From what I saw in TV Tropes under the "Lancer" heading, he's usually a member of the team, playing second fiddle to the leader. This may lead to serious rivalry or even turning his coat. DuQuesne, unless my memory is playing tricks on me, was Seaton's enemy from the very start. So -- I don't think it's at all the same thing.
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[NotDavies]

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Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) is set to leave Criminal Minds without dying early this coming season.

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Apparently, I was wrong. His character apparently commits suicide.
Chris Davies.

[ECSNorway]

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Actually, the anime version of the Lensman Arms race could be termed the 'Villain of the Season', as evidenced in Sailor Moon, where each season had a new tougher enemy, with nastier, more devestating battles, yet...
...there were no consequences for the average person.

ee smith's Lensman/Skylark books also had this - they detonate galaxies and Earth is always fine.

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So, sort of a combo of Sorting Algorithm of Evil and a partial Invisible To Normals?--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Morganite]

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Apparently, I was wrong. His character apparently commits suicide.

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Nope. Looks like they've decided to do something a bit more surprising.
I was thinking about the first episode of this season, and you know... Take that, throw in a few bits from the beginning of the second, and you've got a downer ending series finale. Except, of course, it's not a series finale, it's the beginning of a new season, so they've got to actually have the team *not* totally fall apart.
(On a side note, guy-whose-name-I-don't-know-how-to-spell's wife is annoying. Seriously, how can you hear about a situation like that and oppose helping without giving up any claim to humanity?)
Off on an entirely different issue, anyone know of a trope for a fanfic that takes place in an established universe, but the characters from the original series are usually off doing their own thing, with the story focusing on original characters?
"Academy Blues" is what made me think of this, but I've seen other examples too.
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)

[Kokuten]

call it the "don't mind me, just passing through" trope.
Or the "hey we live here too!" trope.
Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Sailor Moon Expanded was built on exactly that concept: a bunch of new characters having adventures parallel to those of the Senshi, occasionally interacting but never derailing canon in the slightest.
--Sam
"I bear no malice toward those coerced into evil. But for you wise yet wicked ones who feed upon Life's sacred fire -- THERE CAN BE NO FORGIVENESS!" (Mike Maxwell blending Yohko Mano and Gordon Lightfoot, from an unfinished SME tale)

[jpub]

EML:
Ever play Lord of the Rings: The Third Age? It was EA's blatant attempt to cash in on the popularity of LOTR and FF10 by ripping off FF10's systems and building an RPG with it.
It tells the story of this Gondorian shmoe whose mission is - get this - to catch up to the Fellowship. I think he needed to catch up to Boromir or Aragorn.
So, through the whole game, you interact with major characters of the saga, running your own quests parallel to the main storyline of the saga.
Lame premise, but wonderfully executed. I'll give EA this much, they reproduced the movie IP really well.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"