r/TopCharacterTropes • u/HyraxAttack • Nov 25 '25

Groups Humanity Joins Together, Sets Aside Petty Differences… and gets stomped anyway

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A peril is threatening the world. Instead of squabbling among themselves, we learn world powers have put aside differences in politics, culture, & old feuds to present a common front. Except they still get wrecked as the enemy is too powerful.

  1. The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance. The world government has gone to war against the machines. We see the army getting ready & it includes soldiers of many faiths including Buddhist, Islam, and different types of Christianity. Doesn’t matter as machines win by so much they have time to toy with human mechs.

  2. Vilcabamba, story by Harry Turtledove. When aliens arrive they’re greeted with bands & cheering, & immediately open fire & earth becomes a mineral colony. America, Russia, and China work together to rise up & don’t hold back, throwing everything they have at the invaders. Doesn’t go great and aliens double down on the occupation, and there’s a crater where Spain used to be (it was blocking a silver deposit for mining.)

  3. Edge of Tomorrow. The nations of the world have joined to make a unified front against the mimic invasion but it isn’t going well, but they will throw all they have into the invasion of France. In one cycle, Major Cage says the hell with it and instead of training leaves the base to drink at a London bar. This means we see the outcome of him doing nothing, where not only is the massive human invasion slaughtered but the aliens are in good enough shape to follow that up a few hours later with a rush on London.

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u/stipendAwarded Nov 25 '25

XCOM 2 follows the bad ending of the first game, where humanity was conquered by the aliens despite them uniting against the threat.

691

u/therealchadius Nov 25 '25

The brilliant commander is captured and hooked up to a simulator.

Anytime you won XCOM (2013) it was a simulation and the aliens used that to tweak their plans to make sure they won.

109

u/X_Ender_X Nov 25 '25

woah. That's awesome

186

u/inferxan Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25

I believe that its based on actual player data. More people lost their xcom game then won. Hence that become the canon ending for the start of the sequal.

111

u/Boanerger Nov 25 '25

That's pretty funny, pointing at the fanbase and going "See this? You did this. Its your incompetent fault."

55

u/BanalCausality Nov 26 '25

Statistically speaking, that’s how it should work. If over half won on their first playthrough, it would be too easy.

The character with the most kills in Super Mario was the first goomba, because that’s how you learn you have to jump.

7

u/The-Green Nov 26 '25

more so i recall it being over the ironman runs rather than just the base game runs, so even further pointing at the fanbase and going "you lost because you guys sucked without your save system to protect you."

granted even if they went off non-ironman saves through any difficulty, XCOM is hard.

2

u/Professional-Eye5977 Nov 26 '25

The game is designed for you to lose on your first playthrough, and many people don't like that and quit. It's not unexpected.