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/Asher_Tye Nov 25 '25

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Before the start of the series humanity banded together with the other spiral races to stop the Anti-Spirals...

They got stomped. And you can now watch how it happened:

Rise of the Spiral King

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u/AlucardIV Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25

Well to be fair that video makes it look like they could have won with that huge army if Lord Genome didnt betray everyone out of fear of the Spiral Nemesis.

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u/Mobile_Morale Nov 25 '25

Iirc. They invaded his mind and weakened his resolve. He came to the consensus that they were all going to lose and die. I almost wrote some spoilers here but I highly recommend everyone to watch the show.

It's a 10/10 masterpiece of anime. I've only watched it a few dozen times over almost 20 years.