Alpha & Omega

Alpha & Omega: Apokalypse für Anfänger (Apocalypse for Beginners) is a Science Fiction novel (but try to google that title...) by the German author Markus Orths. It was printed in 2014.

Dramatis Personae:

• Gustav "Gusto" Humphrey Winter (* July 17th, 1935), inventor of the Board Game "Charity" (where you have to waste your money), hobby juggler, hobby philosopher, and incorrigible punster.
• Birte "Bitch" Maria Zacharias née Winter (* 1969), daughter of Gusto, heavily into esoterics, works in an esoterics shop where she is her own best customer, in fact.
• Kolja J. Zacharias (no Mysterious Middle Initial, he's simply named Josef, after his father), husband of Bitch and garbage disposal guy. Also a fan of The Beautiful Game, the local club SC Freiburg to be specific.
• Ferdinand "Alpha" Zacharias, Kolja's and Bitch's son, born in 2000. On January 1st, in fact.
• Sybille "Omega" Zacharias, Kolja's and Bitch's mysterious bald black adoptive daughter. Same age as Alpha.
• Buzz Monster (* 1972), richest man of the world.
• Sabrina Steward, particle physicist and black-haired nymphomaniac, daughter of a physics prof named Patrick and a Lisa Zacharias, who's an aunt of Kolja, the sister of his father Josef to be precise. She went to college with Brian Greene. And J. Richard Gott III was one of her teachers. She developed a new kind of string theory in fact, the 15-dimensional W-theory (developed from the real 13-dimensional M-theory).
• Escher, seemingly a white Husky, the hollow dog of the Zacharias family. He doesn't like to hear the command "Platz!"
• Matthias Schamp aka "Der Schamp" who makes True Art Is Incomprehensible projects.
• Tashi Tengrit (* 1969), a gay Buddhist monk from Nepal who falls in love and has sex with Kolja. He's in Germany because he thinks Omega was the new Dalai Lama.
• Henry Lamarque, half-German, half-French brain surgeon and former lover (#7, to be precise) of Birte. Henry in fact introduced her to esoterics. Also had sex with the "gay buddha". Will discover the "triple brains".
• Jimmy McGovern, a 2.6 meters tall robot with Artificial Intelligence and four ears, working as a librarian in the future of 2525.
• Elias Zimmermann, First Person Narrator, also from 2525, who does Mental Time Travel back to the present.

Not to be confused with Alpha and Omega or so. Doesn't have to do with alpha/beta/omega wolves or other animals in general either.

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Tropes used in Alpha & Omega include:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: "Gusto der giftige Gimli".
• Alcohol Hic: Or "Higgs", since this is coming from particle physicist Sabrina.
• Alliterative Name: Sabrina Steward
  • Weaver Wallace
• All Just a Dream: Gusto who went to the US (without thinking about it) and is broke now meets Buzz Monster, richest man of the world pretending to be a beggar. Of course Buzz gives him the thousand bucks for the flight back. Then Gusto wakes up in reality. Strangely, Buzz not only exists, but had the same dream at the same time.
• Alternative Calendar: Starting with Omega's birth. Introduced in 2056. Its acceptance was probably helped by the fact that it starts at 2000, so you just had to remove the 2 in front of the date.
• Ambiguously Autistic: Alpha. Until he's four he doesn't talk (unlike his adoptive sister), but then immediately starts talking like an adult. Also, he wants to become a programmer of Video Games (and later does).
• Answers to the Name of God: Or Gott, since this is a German story. Physicist J. Richard Gott III does.
• Apocalypse How: Threatens to destroy the whole Earth, no thanks to a particle collider. The subtitle "Apokalypse für Anfänger" even means "Apocalypse for Beginners".
• Arbitrarily-Large Bank Account: Buzz Monster of course. Hence, he can give Sabrina a blank check to build a bigger particle collider. He claims he wants to have Time Travel invented. She only writes down a sum with seven figures, though.
• Arc Words: "Black holes have no hair" (originally by physicist John Archibald Wheeler). Omega has an Unrealistic Black Hole in her brain, and is bald indeed.
• Artistic License Physics: A real black hole as big as a medicine ball would have the mass of about sixteen Earths, and probably have swallowed all of Earth, instead of sitting (mostly) quietly on Sabrina's desk.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: "Maha-So-Lati", allegedly Tibetian.
• As the Good Book Says...: Omega says "Let there be light!" in the UBH. Elias groans.
• Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: When Escher attacks Omega because she said "Platz!", Alpha distracts Escher by throwing a tennis ball.
• Auto Erotica: Kolja and Bitch. Harry was The Peeping Tom, but Kolja noticed, started to rev up the car, so the gravel under the wheels flew into Harry's eyes, and the guy became blind from it.
• Bald Black Leader Guy: Gender Flipped with Omega, who's a bald black girl and becomes a Messianic Archetype. And in fact saves the world.
• Bald Woman: Omega. Exaggerated, as she has not a single hair on her body, not even eyebrows. When she has to reveal this at Germany's Next Top Model, Heidi Klum says it's not so bad, they had a black girl named Aminata in 2014 who got her head shaved and won.
• Bedlam House: Where The Pope Innocent XIV is sent to after Omega prevents The End of the World as We Know It. He drops his clothes (except for the Calvin Klein underpants) and proclaims that people should accept that others are a bit different, and the church should donate its riches.
• Beyond the Impossible: The audience rate of 120%, when James Cameron makes a movie of the black hole destroying Las Vegas.
• Big Damn Heroes: Omega is Genre Savvy enough to save the world at the last possible moment. Twice.
• Big Fun: Weaver Wallace, Californian game producer, who coincidentally meets Gusto at a Board Game con where the latter wants to find somebody who'll buy his Board Game "Crashkurs". He's even fatter than Gusto and sweats even more, this helps with bonding.
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Kolja's father Josef dies when Alpha is born and Omega... appears. Leads to an Eureka Moment for Bitch who thinks that the kids should rather be named "Alpha" and "Omega".
• Bi the Way: Kolja has sex in the public bathroom at Frankfurt airport with "gay buddha" Tashi.
  • Henry Lamarque is this as well, having been Bitch's former lover and Tashi's sex partner.
• Bitch: Omega isn't a polite winner, calling Gabriela Sabatini a "Lahmarsch" (lameass) in public after winning Wimbledon 2019 and the two of them are compared. Her agent had recommended her to cause a bit of controversy.
• Bizarrchitecture: The future library has the shape of a "recursive spiralisk" - you have to go through all rooms, one after another, to get out again.
• Blue Eyes: Escher has them, FWIW.
• Bowdlerise: In Gusto's original game "Crashkurs" (crash course), you can waste money with champagne, whores etc. While Weaver Wallace likes this very much, he decides to remove the whores from the game and call it "Charity" instead.
• Brick Joke: Early in the book, blind guy Harry Schmelzer appears who wonders why there are no guide animals for blind people who can't stand dogs, like him. Later, he re-appears -- together with his seeing-eye moose!
• Buried Treasure: Bitch and Kolja find it on their island. Afterwards it turns out that it belongs to Buzz Monster -- he buries his gold ingots on lone islands like theirs.
• The Cameo: For the very James Cameron. Later, he is swallowed in by the Unrealistic Black Hole. Then, Elias, Escher and Omega are eaten by it as well.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Kolja barely manages to invite Bitch to Harry and Sally.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: Quadruple brains. They can't bear the discrepance between words and reality.
• Catch Phrase: The Triple Brains always say "Nein, du!" (No, you!) -- not in the sense of "No, you <censored>", but of "No, you go first!". It becomes their unofficial greeting.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: If using telekinesis when other humans can't counts as this, this trope applies to Omega. They're robbed after they're too lucky at the roulette table, another model she tries to sabotage wins instead of her -- in fact, because Omega interfered with telekinesis.
• Chekhov's Gun: The black chakra spider (with seven legs) which Bitch knitted after getting angry at Gusto.
  • The tennis ball Escher swallowed.
• Chekhov's Lesson: At one point, we (and the kids) get told how to save a kid when some piece of food is stuck in the throat, threatening to suffocate the kid. If nothing else works and you are no doctor who knows how to make a tracheotomy, push the morsel even deeper down the throat -- it can be removed later, what matters now is that the kid can breathe again. Omega will later do this to Escher, with a tennis ball.
• Close Enough Timeline: Gusto talks about how the theory of parallel universes implies that there might be a different one which is exactly like ours, except that one raindrop will fall one pico second (well, he says "piccolo second") slower than in ours.
• Clothing Damage: At the Victoria's Secret show, Omega has Denise's bra fail and fall down. Denise however reacts by I Meant to Do That, with success. So Omega has to lift her up in the air (as in, several meters) to get the Fantasy Bra as she wanted.
• Constantly Curious: Omega at the age of three. Fortunately, Gusto is patient. Their Q-and-A volley takes more than a page.
  • Alpha at six as well.
• Cool Plane: The Phantom Star Fantasy bomber, which costs 40 billion US$.
• Cosmic Deadline: Kolja will die in 2020 (and eventually does), so Elias Zimmermann has to escape from his body/mind before that date, and he knows it.
  • And meanwhile in 2525, a colossal meteorite is threatening to destroy Earth.
• Death by Childbirth: Birte's mother.
• Death by Sex: Sabrina in 2052, while having sex with Gusto aka The Great Gustoni. A great death for a nymphomaniac.
• Defictionalization: Matthias Schamp's HP der-schamp.de really exists
  • world2021.com OTOH is a website now, but only got 302 responses when the book was published.
• Delusions of Eloquence: Denise says "My whole success is blaséd [blasiert] on this shoe thing". (She means "based" of course.)
• Deserted Island: Where Kolja and Bitch end up after their plane crashes. Just like in their favorite movie Cast Away. Then, a suitcase by a rich woman (Loropheia Winstonsson, 60) ends up there too. They don't have much use for the stuff in it, don't even want to use her mink coat to sleep on, so they just drink the bottle of old cognac and use it for a Message in a Bottle. OK, and they use the taffeta of one dress to make a fishing net, just like in the movie. Later, another (flashing red) suitcase owned by the Dominatrix Karla Mendez full of sex toys and erotic lingerie ends up there, so they have something to spend the four years with.
• Despair Event Horizon: Even when he is the richest man in the world, all of his charity doesn't seem to help a bit. This isn't however what drives Buzz Monster over the edge.
• Diamonds in the Buff: Victoria's Secret Fantasy Bra, studded with jewels and worth 25 million US$. Omega wishes to wear it once.
• Dissimile: The Schamp is compared to 007. Except for his hipster glasses. And the hairdo. And the suit. And the brawn. At the end, the narrator admits he's rather an anti-007.
• Dominatrix: A Karla Mendez who was on the flight which crashed, and of which Kolja and Bitch are the only survivors. Her suitcase ends up on their island, and they put everything in it to its intended use.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Dreamer Party soon has an internal disagreement, leading to the creation of two wings: The Fundamental Dreamers who think they can't change the real world, and the Real(ist) Dreamers who think they can. - Instead of fighting a civil war, the former simply give in, so they can start saving the world.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Gustav and Birte prefer to be called "Gusto" and "Bitch" respectively.
  • Tashi Tengri doesn't want to be called "gay Buddha".
• Don't Ask: Elias inquires what the Hyperventicularbolidic parasynchronicity processor is which Jimmy just mentioned. The answer: This trope.
• Doorstopper: In the far future, the Encyclopedia of Barbarism - 8,000 pages.
  • Gusto's Philosophy of Excremence with 3,000 pages in three tomes also isn't something to sneer at.
• Driven to Suicide: It may look like it, but Sabrina jumped into the black hole to research it. Maybe she'd be able to see the naked singularity, who knows.
  • Many triple brains born in the early 21st century do this, because they're too empathetic to endure the suffering in the world.
• Dude, Not Funny: The blinded Harry Schmelzer to Gusto who suggests a "Blinde Kuh" (blind/seeing-eye cow, but also a children's game in Germany). Gusto manages to stop himself from suggesting a seeing-eye mole to Harry, fortunately.
• Eidetic Memory: Alpha has it.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Bitch" usually would count, but she embraces it in fact, because she doesn't like her birth name Birte, and would like to be a bitch. (Not that kind of bitch -- she thinks the word meant something like "slut"/Femme Fatale/The Vamp. And while she acts like it, seductive and whatnot, in practice she was still a virgin at 22 -- although everyone else around her believes she wasn't.)
• Epigraph: The book starts with a quote by Max Ernst about madness. (Later, BTW, Markus Orths would write a biographical novel about him, simply titled Max.)
• Eureka Moment: Buzz Monster has it when his 90-year-old German grandfather Wilhelm gives him a lecture about banks, especially how they're able to lend a million bucks while only owning 100,000 $, or 20,000 even. He decides to do high frequency trading, winning people's money by being able to trade faster than them -- and since he expects that people might get pissed at him if he wins too often like this, he decides to create 719 other identities.
  • Elias has another one after travelling back in time. He ponders that "If it rains, the windows will get wet" isn't the same as "If the windows get wet, it rained" -- after all, they might get wet for other reasons! This helps him to find out: Just because ordinary humans can walk through him, it doesn't mean that he couldn't control their bodies, like a non-Demonic Possession.
• Extreme Doormat: Kolja J. Zacharias. This might be the reason why Elias can control him that easily.
• Fan Girl: Bitch, of James Cameron, who gets a Cameo in the story. When she meets him, she wants to know more about Kyle Reese becoming John Connor's father, and whether this makes sense.
• Fantastic Slurs: The triple brains think about calling ordinary people "Hälftenschädel" (halves-skulls), but consider this too offensive which they don't want to be, so they call the rest of us "Doppelhirne" (double brains) -- incorrect but at least inoffensive.
• Fantastic Voyage Plot: After Elias can't escape from Kolja's body/mind, he decides to do this and dives deeper into Kolja's brain, where he meets Neuromücken (neuro-gnats), among other things.
• Fiction 500: Buzz Monster owns no less than two billion (long scale) / trillion (short scale) / million million British pounds. Only currency that counts. If you're objecting now that you've never heard of the guy: That's because he uses 720 identities, each of which owns just about 3,000,000,000 -- little enough to fly under the radar.
• Fluffy the Terrible: "Black Beauty", the Unrealistic Black Hole created at the particle collider CON in Nevada. (If you say now "There's no particle collider in Nevada!" -- it's because Buzz Monster had it built.)
• Foreshadowing: After the event with Escher and the tennis ball happens, Omega sticks her hand into Escher's mouth and has visions of her future: A man in a shark costume and even weirder things. She finds this disturbing and thus doesn't repeat it.
  • Bitch does a Tarot session for Gusto in September 1999. The cards predict that he'll meet a "dark woman" who'll help him, but lose a beloved human - and since he doesn't seem to love anyone but her...
  • Gusto mentions at some point - although he thinks these examples were absurd - that he might live 194 years or juggle with twenty balls. Both will happen.
• Friend to All Living Things: Alpha. In third grade, he saves a fly his classmate wanted to mutilate, and cares for it until it has recovered.
• Fun with Acronyms: Particle physicists coining the term "Dark Energy Potence Plasma" -- DEPP (one of the many German words for The Ditz).
  • Tashi founds the "Group Alternative Yoga" (GAY) after his one-day stint as the new Dalai Lama.
  • INTUITION, the Institute for Neuronal Triplebrain-Union-Influence-Theory of Intrinsic Orbal Network founded by Henry Lamarque.
• Future Imperfect: In the year 2525, Jimmy thinks that in our time, one reader for e-books was named "Kindchen" (German for "little kind/child" -- "Kindle"/"Kindel" is a dialect version).
• Geek: Alpha wants to become a Video Games programmer - and in 2019, he gets his dream job - and is hard to separate from his handheld.
• General Ripper: US Army general John Custer. He is not to be blamed for his name, though.
• Genius Bonus: Markus Orths mentions a lot from particle physics, like quarks, myons, SuSy, gluinos, winos, zinos, sneutrinos, higgsinos, the TOE, the M-theory with 13 dimensions of space, the W-theory with 15 ones (OK, that one he made up), the GUT, the creation of the universe, Dark Matter/Energy...
• A Goddess Am I: After winning Wimbledon, Omega thinks this for a short moment. This makes her literally lose the ground under her feet -- her telekinesis acts independently and makes her float. After this experience, Omega decides to defy this trope. Also because it'd make her a Narcissist, and she doesn't want that.
• A Goddess I Am Not: The first of her commandments, which Alpha is tasked to spread.
• Grandpa God: Deliberately inverted: Omega is female, young, black, and bald (and obviously without a beard).
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Omega floats up during her Victoria's Secret walk, but hits her head on the ceiling of Madison Square Garden. She gets caught by the hands of the folks in the audience. But still ends up dead. She gets better, after two days. Yep, one day faster than Jesus himself.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Gustav as the single father of Birte. He doesn't even mind that she quits school, just like that.
• Happily Adopted: Omega, by the Zacharias family. Her origin stays a mystery.
• Humans Are Bastards: Buzz Monster thinks this after watching some humans skinning cats and dogs.
• Identical Stranger: The alien looks like Elias! Well, to him. In fact, it appears to every quadruple brain like they look.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Second time Kolja and Bitch sleep together, in his apartment. One neighbor throws a can of tobacco in their direction.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Gusto, when he returns to his daughter and learns that she became the mother of Alpha, adopted black girl Omega, and own a mysterious dog now. "Do you have anything with more than 90 proof in the house?"
• Innocence Virgin On Stupidity: Bitch.
  • Kolja (bit younger than her) too.
• Insistent Terminology: Tashi always calls Omega "eure Nichtigkeit" (your nothingness).
• Instant Humiliation - Just Add YouTube: After the "gay Buddha" falls over on his Raging Stiffie, this leads to a "Buddha Dance" video which becomes a viral hit.
• Instant Web Hit: Denise's video of kicking off her shoe which lands in the face of one GNTM juror has millions of views on YouTube pretty fast.
• Interspecies Romance: When Schamp does an art project where he's disguised as a shark, a seven meters long great white shark tries to hump him. This he kinda had to expect, since he showered in shark girls' pheromones before. Still, even in a cage, a seven-meter Great White Shark trying to get fellatio... The shark gets killed, to the Schamp's chagrin. Then it turns out that the shark had swallowed Bitch's and Kolja's Message in a Bottle, so he can tell Gusto and family about it.
• Intrepid Reporter: RL Günter Wallraff, who's once again on an undercover mission -- this time, as one of the meek employees of The Pope who can get everywhere. The book he writes about this is titled Ganz Oben.
• Is It Something You Eat?: Elias asks this to Jimmy, about Kalladabs-Obores.
• It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY": Kolja pronounces "condom" as "Kon-DOMM" instead of the usual German "Kon-DOHM". First time this happens in school, everybody laughs at him, so he's traumatized. The second time, he does this when walking in on Alpha and Omega fooling around.
  • In the unpublished version of the novel, Sabrina reveals that you have to pronounce the name "Albert Einstein" like "Eins-Tein" (German for "one... tein"). To make a pun that on other levels of reality, there are great scientists named Albert Zweitein, Albert Nulltein, Albert Minus-Eins-Tein...
• It's a Long Story: Why Buzz Monster can speak very good German. (He had a German grandfather, so maybe not that long a story.)
• It's Not What It Looks Like: Non-sexual, this time. Gusto arrives to see six-year-old Alpha standing with a big sharp kitchen knife over a bloodied Omega. (Escher had attacked Omega because she said "Platz!", Alpha distracted Escher by throwing a tennis ball -- who swallowed it whole! Then, Alpha ran into the house to get a knife to make a tracheotomy to save Escher from suffocating. Fortunately, Omega had saved the situation already by pushing the tennis ball deeper -- at which point it made a sound that'd only make sense if Escher was hollow.)
• Just in Time: When Elias wakes up in the future, there are only seven minutes left.
  • In the last chapter, Omega has to save the world again. This time in 2525. Turns out that the huge meteorite threatening Earth is just a spaceship, and she makes the alien in it change the course. Everything's peaceful.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Kolja and Bitch want to have a baby, but his sperms are crippled. So they try to adopt a baby, but have to wait for years, as is common in such cases. In 1999, when they're already pretty close to the top of the list, Bitch gets pregnant.
• Likes Older Women: Gender Flipped, Sabrina mostly approaches older men. They're often lonely and desperate, so she doesn't have to be much of a Femme Fatale, but only ask them whether they want to fuck. No euphemisms involved.
• Long List: The sex toys they find in a suitcase when they're stranded on a Pacific island.
• Man Child: Gusto wasn't a very good single father to Bitch, only follows his needs, and actually preferred living like a bum to helping Bitch with her two babies (changing diapers and such). At this time, he's already living in her four-room apartment since he never held a real job, is too old for bartending (as he did for a long time), and the money from his game ran out.
• Mandatory Motherhood: When Omega returns, she is the only woman left who hasn't been sterilized. So she has to bear as many children (from different fathers) to make sure that the gene pool of humanity will become as big as possible.
• Meaningful Name: Bernadette Hell's is lampshaded. In German it means "bright", and in English...
• Minovsky Physics: Kalladabs-Obores are some of the smallest known particles, which move faster than light like tachyons - but not all the time, so it's possible to catch them. Which Professor Wayne John did in 167 (after Omega).
• Mental Time Travel: Elias does it (back to 2021), with the help of the Kalladabs-Obores -- a kind of tachyons, to have your mind travel to the past. The first people who tried this before him all became raving mad -- turns out that they couldn't interact with humans and people, because they were neither seen nor heard, so they were pretty lonely. For weeks or longer.
• Messianic Archetype: Omega, although she tries to defy it. After she seemingly dies, she returns from the dead after two days -- one day faster than Jesus even!
  • Omega compares Escher and Elias who accompany her into the Black Hole to the two felons ("Schächer" in German, which nowadays only refers to the two guys crucified next to Template:Jesus).
• Mind Over Matter: Omega can do telekinesis. She starts with levitating herself. She can do telekinesis even with items she can't see if she knows where they are. She is the only "triple-brain" with this power, however.
• Monumental Damage: Several of Las Vegas' skyscrapers are destroyed shortly before The End of the World as We Know It.
• Mundane Utility: When Gusto discovers that his adoptive granddaughter has telekinesis, he immediately thinks of using her power to win at roulette. She points out that she's only 16, and in German casinos like the famous Baden-Baden you have to be 21 at least, but Gusto simply gets her a fake passport. -- Then defied when they suffer a suspicious car accident on their return (they're rammed by a VW bus driven by suspicious Malevolent Masked Men - not guys working for the casino, but they've been looking out for lucky, inexperienced winners), and the money (150,000 Euros) is stolen. Omega isn't hurt, fortunately.
  • Later, he's more successful with a show in Las Vegas where he appears as "The Great Gustoni", managing to juggle not only 30 balls, but have them hang in the air and move at his command. Of course it's Omega sitting in the audience doing the real work. Then he jumps from a height of six meters, but she stops him 20 cm above the ground.
  • At Germany's Next Top Model, Omega uses her power to float, since her walk doesn't look good enough.
  • Then, Omega decides she wants to win Wimbledon 2019. Which she does -- 0:6, 6:0, 19:17.
• Name and Name: Although you wouldn't guess it initially.
• Name's the Same: Except flipped. There's a Prof. Wayne John who discovered the Kalladabs-Obores in (2)167. John Wayne will be confused with him.
  • Then, there's a US general Custer. John Custer, but the Unfortunate Name is Lamp Shaded.
• Nanomachines: Artificial insects exist in the future. Elias Zimmermann has Humbo the worker bee as a kind of pet. They can transform into all kinds of tools, like hammer, axe, saw, pliers etc.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Omega tries to sabotage The Rival Denise during her GNTM walk, so she uses her telekinesis to loose Denise's shoe and make it fly off. It hits Omega's favorite judge, but people love it, think it was intended, and (deliberately) kicking off a shoe becomes Denise's trademark.
  • Later, Omega meets Denise again at the Victoria's Secret show. Again tries to sabotage her (this time causing Clothing Damage, with her bra falling off), again it backfires.
  • US president Hillary Clinton decides to drop a nuke on the Las Vegas black hole. Instead, it becomes several times bigger.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Dr. Heinrich Lemmert (who had worked at a German Board Game publisher and declined Gusto's game) who lost his job, his wife, his everything after Gusto was successful thanks to Californian game producer Weaver Wallace, and bragged to the firm in a letter about it. When Lemmert who became a bum after that meets Gusto, this trope ensues.
• Not So Phony Psychic: When Bitch reads Tarot for Gusto, she finds that he'll live awfully long. Which he will indeed -- no less than 194 years.
• One Drink Will Kill the Baby: Averted, Bitch starts smoking right after Alpha's birth again.
• Only Child Syndrome: Kolja's the only child of Josef and Ilse from a small town in the lower Rhineland. Alpha, Omega, Bitch, Sabrina, and Buzz also don't seem to have blood siblings.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Gusto, Bitch, Alpha, Omega, Buzz Monster
• Our Presidents are Different: In this world/timeline, Hillary Rodham Clinton became POTUS.
• Overly Long Gag: "the end after the end..." where the phrase "after the end" is repeated about 30 times. And a bit later -- one page, to be precise -- again.
• Overly Prepared Gag: There's the character named Elias, and Omega calls tennis player Gabriela Sabatini a "Lahmarsch" (lameass), so when she wakes up from her two-day coma, she can say something that sounds like "Eli Eli Lama Sabakhthani" ("My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?").
• Pastimes Prove Personality: Quadruple brains really like to carve something into the bark of trees.
  • Kolja even has bedsheets of his soccer club, the [SC Freiburg]. Bitch thinks that's bedsheets appropriate for kids.
• The Peeping Tom: Harald "Harry" Schmelzer was gawking when Kolja and Bitch had sex in their car. He isn't sorry for doing that, even claims that people who have sex on parking places want people to peep.
• Playful Hacker: Alpha hacks the computers of Vatican City.
• The Pope: Innocent XIV, successor of Francis I and a hardliner who wants to revert the latter's changes. After Omega saves the world, he actually leaves the church.
• Possession: The narrator Elias Zimmermann when travelling to our present in The New '10s. He's in Kolja's mind now, and can also control the latter's body. But as long as Elias doesn't do anything, Kolja still can think, talk, and act as he likes.
• Potty Failure: When Kolja dies from his brain tumor in 2020, his bed ends up full of urine.
• Power Perversion Potential: When Elias Zimmermann has arrived in the present, with his mind in Kolja's body, he tests it by pinching Bitch's ass.
• The Prankster: Once, Birte and some other women (incl. a Bernadette Hell) into esoterics make a seance. To their surprise, their table really starts to rise. Yeah, but only because Gustav had been sitting under it.
• The Punster: Gusto. "Hässlichen Glückwunsch", "Grüß Pott", "Schöne Füße", "piss bald", "es (f)reut mich, dich zu sehen", "Lebens(p)hasen".
  • At the end of his life, Gusto jokes that barbarians were named this way because they prefer bar (German for: "in cash").
  • Even the title of his collected writings, "Gestammelte Schriften".
  • The narrator likes wordplays too.
  • Elias thinks puns have to be bad to be good.
  • Even the AI Jimmy isn't above it, talking about "piccolo seconds" and a "Zu-Falle".
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: Buzz Monster wants this at some time (he watched some humans skinning cats and dogs), so he uses his money to build the biggest particle collider (in Nevada) to create a black hole that'll destroy Earth. An Unrealistic Black Hole is created there indeed. Then he has regrets, however.
• The Quiet One: Kolja. Except when talking about his hobby, the SC Freiburg.
  • Also Alpha. If he isn't quiet, he's indulging in Little Professor Dialog.
• Raging Stiffie: The "gay Buddha" has it when sitting in an airport toilet at Frankfurt, meditating.
  • In fact, Tashi was born with one.
• Raised Catholic: Kolja. Originally he was supposed to become a priest even.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: After the accident with Escher happens, the surprised vet finds out that his machine says that Escher was completely hollow -- no inner organs, bones, blood, anything. Since his machine later works normally, he thinks it was a one-time flub.
• Really Gets Around: Sabrina Steward has slept with no less than 999 men until 2017 -- seriously, she counted them. Of course she wants someone special as #1000. Then she meets 80-year-old Stage Magician Gustoni, watches his awesome tricks, and wants him. Coitus ensues.
  • She doesn't kiss though and always uses a condom, for the germs, you know.
• Reincarnation: The "gay buddha" is in Germany because he thinks Omega was the new Dalai Lama.
• Riddle for the Ages: Where Omega actually come from? It's solved at the end of the story: She fell out of Escher that day, whom she calls "Papi" (Daddy) for this reason.
• The Rival: Denise Wanda Lager, who competes with Omega first at GNTM and later at the Victoria's Secret show to win the Fantasy Bra.
• Rocky Roll Call: Done by Kolja, Bitch, Henry, and Tashi. They spend a whole page on it.
• Sequel Hook: The narrator mentions that he might write one, called Gamma & Psi: Apokalypse für Fortgeschrittene. But he's just teasing.
• Serious Business: Even with a black hole close to destroying the world, Omega still wants to win the Fantasy Bra of Victoria's Secret.
• Sexless Marriage: Henry and Bitch come together after Kolja's death in 2020, but have no sex together. Seems they missed the opportunity in the past.
• Shaped Like Itself: Omega names Escher. When asked why she chose this name, she answers "Because that's his name."
• Short Title: Long Elaborate Subtitle: The subtitle "Apokalypse für Anfänger" means "Apocalypse for Beginners".
• Shout-Out: "Wie war das im Mittelteil?" (What was the part in the middle?)
  • Sabrina guesses Escher was named Gödel.
  • Buzz Monster wants to recreate the scene from Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Youth, of the guy who wants to become as rich as Rothschild -- and then, pretend to be a beggar.
  • Omega reads Paul Auster's Mr Vertigo. She feels good in that she isn't alone with her powers. And it's probably no coincidence that Buzz Monster makes a deal with Sabrina Steward in the restaurant "Le Vertig'o".
  • Cast Away isn't just Kolja and Bitch's favorite movie. They also end up on a deserted island in the Pacific and have to live like Tom Hanks there, and find out what to do there with the content of two suitcases. It's probably no coincidence that Escher swallows a tennis ball of the Wilson brand.
  • The fact that the book starts in the year 2525 might be one, to a certain song by Zager and Evans.
  • "Lass diesen Elch an mir vorübergehen!" Doubles as As the Good Book Says..., plus yet another pun.
  • The prologue (not counting the heading) starts with the words "Am Anfang war der Ort" (In the beginning, there was the place), a pun on "Am Anfang war das Wort" (In the beginning, there was the word).
  • "Das also war des Huskys Kern!" To Goethe's Faust, natch. Except that there, a poodle was involved.
  • A bed on which two people are having sex is described as squeaking just as the bed in Delicatessen.
  • Omega is nicknamed in-story "The Wizard of Oz", for her initials O.Z. of course.
  • Kolja calls himself "Babynator" (German title of The Pacifier -- which is from 2005) shortly after the birth of the kids.
  • In the UBH, Sabrina meets her father on the set of The Time Machine.
  • Halle Berry playing Storm in the X-Men Film Series is Omega's idol, of course.
  • Spine-Birotulip-Tirer-Weißschwert-Metrik is taken from an April Fool's Day Joke from ScienceBlogs, [here]. One equation in the Techno Babble contains "Zielfernrohr", which should be a hint.
  • Als sie über den Tisch kletterte (German title of As She Climbed Across the Table) by Jonathan Lethem is mentioned. It's a "grotesque love story" and has a female particle physicist as a protagonist and an Unrealistic Black Hole (which e.g. doesn't like to "eat" lightbulbs or hard-boiled eggs) as well -- fits.
  • "Es war der Nachtbus und nicht die Müllabfuhr" (It was the night bus, and not the garbage disposal), parodying Shakespeare's "It was the nightingale, and not the lark" (or rather, "Es war die Nachtigall und nicht die Lerche") from Romeo and Juliet.
  • Tashi = Gandalf, Schamp = Frodo Sam, Omega = Frodo, Alpha = Aragorn, Gusto = Gimli
  • Sabrina's father, Prof. Dr. Dr. Patrick Steward (* 1937, roughly), played a Morlock in The Time Machine (1960). That's why she gets nicknamed "daughter of the Morlock".
  • Before going to Las Vegas, the fellowship shouts: "Yippiyayeah, ihr Schweinebacken!" (Bruce Willis' "motherfucker" was bowdlerized to "Schweinebacke" [pig's cheek -- those in the face -- we think] in the German dub.)
  • They (Alpha, Bitch, Gusto, Schamp, Henry, Tashi, and Escher) compare themselves to The Magnificent Seven. Or the fellowship from The Lord of the Rings -- Bitch being the beautiful Elven queen, Gusto as Gimli, Alpha as Frodo...
  • The "death" of the black hole is compared to that of the Wicked Witch of the West.
  • Gusto quotes Ken Croswell: "From creation to cremation"
  • When the starship with the mysterious alien inside flies off, James Cameron (who's in the future, thanks to having fallen into the UBH) shouts after it: "Hasta la vista, baby!"
• Sidetracked by the Analogy: "If you collected Kolja's sperms, washed them, prepared them, put them into fine clothes, gave them rations..."
• Significant Birth Date: Ferdinand aka Alpha was born on January 1st in 2000.
• Sorry, Ociffer...: Sabrina to Buzz Monster during their talk when he suggests her to build the new particle collider Center of Neutrons (CON).
• Spell My Name with a "The": Or a "Der", since the story's a German one. Matthias Schamp aka "Der Schamp".
• Super Senses: Omega not only can see particles, but strings and how they're moving. She even sees them forming little M's (or W's, depending which way you look). Confirming the M-/W-theory.
• Techno Babble: The reason robots like Jimmy can't do Time Travel. It's got to do with the hyperventicularbolidic parasynchronicity processor.
• Telepathy: Quadruple brains have it.
• Tempting Fate: Alpha and Omega want to find out why they aren't supposed to say "Platz!" to Escher.
  • The Schamp says more than once that he'll stop drinking beer as soon as The Pope will leave the (Catholic) church. When that happens, a malicious barkeep gives him sparkling water with ice cubes and a lemon slice.
• Theme Naming: The titular Alpha and Omega. Of course, their real names are Ferdinand and Sybille.
  • They argue how to name the dog. Kolja's for "Beta", Gusto for "Gamma", Bitch for "Psi". It doesn't really matter, he listens to any name they call him.
  • Also, the famous carvers Lionel Messer, Peller, and Franz Zeckenhauer. Reminding of famous soccer players, in case the names don't tell you anything.
  • And the kids of Omega and Elias - twins - are named Adam and Eva.
• Toilet Humor: Gusto makes a philosophy of it, the philosophy of excremence (parodying Heidegger's philosophy of existence). As he states it, if you worry about death, think about all the shit you'll... make during your remaining life -- so all you'll lose are some tons of shit.
• Tonto Talk: Tashi has trouble with the German Language. At one point, he e.g. says "Ich bin das Ei" (I am the egg) when he means "Ich bin dabei" (I'm with this).
  • At one point, he mentions "Lughafenfluchbrandungen" (Flughafenbuchhandlungen -- bookshops at airports). That's German Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness for you.
  • But now enough of it, or this page would become twice as big.
• Too Many Halves: Omega is sometimes called "the first woman with three brain halves". It's lampshaded, and the correct expression "three brain thirds" used afterwards.
• The Topic of Cancer: Kolja dies of a brain tumor.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: That's Matthias Schamp's MO.
• True Art Is Unpopular: Matthias Schamp aka "Der Schamp" at one point claims that every author should be happy to find a single reader. Later, when one of his books was bought by 300 readers, he clarifies that he meant an enthusiastic reader.
• True Art Sticks It to The Man: The Schamp did his shark-themed performance because he wanted to protest "Mobilien-Haie". ("Immobilienhai" being a German term for the big guys in the construction/real estate business.)
• Undisclosed Funds: When the Schamp tells Gusto he has the letter from the Message in a Bottle, Gusto demands to see the real letter. When the Schamp asks why he should do that, Gusto says an undisclosed high number. The Schamp is willing to come now.
• Unfortunate Names: There is a Bavarian cardinal named "Johannes Joseph (never called 'JoJo' though) Nonnenbohrer" (nun-...driller). It's lampshaded.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The book was written in 2014 and mostly set Twenty Minutes Into the Future. The Syrian refugee crisis of 2015 is suspiciously absent.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: Omega has one in her brain. That's why she has one that's divided into three thirds instead of the usual two halves. Later, it is theorized that it was created when she fell as a baby and hit her hairless head pretty hard. Almost to No One Could Survive That levels. Gusto was pretty surprised.
  • Another one is created at the new particle collider in Nevada, and it is this trope oh so much. It starts very small, people expect it to disappear soon. Then it slowly grows to beach ball size, and spends much time on Sabrina's desk. It even gains the cute nickname "Black Beauty". Then, it "sleeps" for two years, i.e. doesn't get bigger anymore. But then... Before it is destroyed, it screams. Some people expect Omega (who fell into it) to re-appear again -- but instead, there's Sabrina reappearing (who was swallowed earlier).
  • The UBH even has a ground. It's lampshaded how unrealistic this is. In the UBH, Sabrina meets her father on the set of The Time Machine, swims through seas of scientific equations, before meeting Omega.
  • You can wish for anything in the UBH. Omega summons a white dress and a blonde wig she puts on to look like Marilyn Monroe.
  • And then there's Escher, the hollow dog, who turns out to be a White Hole.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Bernadette Hell spews a bit of yellow bile when Gusto revealed he fooled them.
• Wacky Americans Have Wacky Names: Buzz Monster, natch. Although it's just one of his 720 identities.
• Walking Spoiler: Elias Zimmermann
• Watched Star Wars 27 Times: Kolja and Bitch watched Cast Away seventeen times. Then, they end up on a Deserted Island themselves.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Gustav often wasn't around for Birte, leaving that job to a nanny and the state's institutions, to her chagrin.
• Widget Series
• Writers Cannot Do Math: At one point, the narrator mentions that if you took the 1389 pages of Doorstopper War and Peace and randomized them, the chance would be one in 10**1389 that they'd be in correct order. The real number would be 1389! -- the factorial of 1389, or 1389 * 1388 * ... * 2 * 1 if you prefer -- and be even bigger.
  • Also, the hypothetical "String tanga" equation t = a**nG/a can be simplified to t = a**(n-1)G. But that'd kill the pun.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Inverted. Omega spends several years in the UBH, but only minutes pass in Nevada.
• You Called Me "X" - It Must Be Serious: Kolja calls Alpha "Ferdinand!" only when things are really bad.
• You Keep Using That Word: Birte prefers to be called "Bitch" and acts that way -- except that she thinks "bitch" rather meant something like "slut".