Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun

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Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is the second installment in the Command & Conquer: Tiberium series. Set in 2030, Tiberium is now spreading unchecked, forcing humanity to flee to the arctic or desert regions that can at least slow the substance's progress. As governments break down and GDI does its best to bring order from the chaos, Kane reappears to lead a reunified and invigorated Nod into battle once more. A crashed alien spaceship and an extraterrestrial artifact called the Tacitus hint at a larger purpose behind Tiberium, but ultimately Kane's attempt to use a missile to increase Tiberium's spread is thwarted with the man's death (again). The game was followed by the Firestorm expansion, in which Nod's battle AI, CABAL, revolts and leads a cyborg uprising, forcing GDI and the remnants of Nod to unite to defeat him.

Please note that this page is for tropes that feature in this game and its expansion only. Please add tropes relating to other games as well on the main Tiberian Series page.

Tropes used in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun include:

• Action Girl: Umagon and Oxanna.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Firestorm plot has either GDI or Nod accidentally discover CABAL (Nod's counterpart to GDI's EVA) is much more independent and self-aware than they realized, and are forced into a very reluctant Enemy Mine to take it down. In the GDI campaign, they hijack it to study the Tacitus and that blows up in their face. In the Nod version, it's initially recovered to reorganize Nod's infrastructure following the events of Tiberian Sun, and Nod discovers it has its own agenda, tries to stop the AI, and is forced to turn to GDI for help when it becomes dangerous enough to menace both simultaneously.
  • The ending, however, zigzags the crap out of either campaign ending: CABAL indeed did go off the rails, but only because it was taking a Knight Templar approach to an agenda Kane himself had in mind, and by the sequel, Kane resumes where CABAL left off.
• Awesome Yet Practical: The GDI Disruptors from Tiberian Sun. At 1300 credits a pop, they aren't too difficult to mass produce. However, each had its own Wave Motion Gun with a decent range that damaged everything in its path EXCEPT other disruptors. Provided that anti-air support can be provided, they're devastating.
  • Even serves this purpose in-universe. That same tech was discovered to be able to disrupt tiberium formation, and became the key tech thwy used to reclaim much of Earth from Tiberium for quite some time. This ceases to be effective when Tiberium mutates late during the third game though.
• Bland-Name Product: Several of the building names.
• Blond Guys Are Evil: Anton Slavik. Nod seems to love Hair Tropes.
• Cool Airship: The Kodiak. It even appeared in Battlestar Galactica.
• Drill Tank: In Tiberian Sun, Nod uses subterranean units such as the Subterranean APC and the Devil's Tongue, although only the first looks like a recognizable Drill Tank.
• Drop Ship: Used as a special unit in Tiberian Sun. Bonus points since the game stars Aliens's Michael Biehn as the player character in the cutscenes.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Tiberian Sun is infamous for this, with Visceroids, Tiberian Fiends, Tiberium Floaters, Veinhole Monsters destroying vehicles and buildings and the gas they produce killing infantry, Tiberium poisonous to infantry, ion storms causing lightning strikes and your planes to fall out of the sky and crash, etc. etc. On the one hand, this does realistically evoke the feel of a Crapsack World going to hell and anarchy because of the effects of Tiberium; on the other hand it is actually possible to win one-on-one skirmish battles without ever seeing the enemy, because the enemy was just overwhelmed by all the third-party nasties on the map.
• Evil Gloating: Kane gives a good one to Mike McNeil after breaking through the Hammerfest defenses in Tiberian Sun and stealing the sonic crystals, leaving behind a broadcast in which he glibly informs him that the sonic tank "will make an excellent addition to my collection", and that he is sorry to hear that McNeil's brother died a slow and painful death in the raid.
• Evil Laugh: CABAL likes to do these during missions in Firestorm.

CABAL: Cybernetic lifeforms will always be superior. EVA: Missile launch detected. CABAL: Kehahahahahahahaha!

• Evil Sounds Deep: CABAL.
• Free Wheel: When come vehicles explode.
• Hero Unit: GDI has Umagon, Ghost Stalker and Mutant Highjacker (in the campaign). Nod has the Cyborg Commando.
• Hufflepuff House: The Forgotten (mutants) in Tiberian Sun act as a third faction, reached out to by GDI and manipulated by Nod. Their units are, appropriately enough, cobbled together from odds and ends and include old vehicles left over from Tiberian Dawn.
• Les Collaborateurs: Jake McNeil in Tiberian Sun's Nod campaign.
• Reality Warper: The Disruptors' transparent beams distort not only what you see through them, but also even the unit's hitbox and life bar, which is very disturbing the first time you see it.
• Recursive Ammo: Nod's primary superweapon is the Cluster Missile which, upon detonating over the target and causing damage, releases several dozen small bombs that will fall around the original target and can devastate a sizable chunk of someone's base.
• Sensor Suspense: Tiberian Sun had the Mobile Sensor Array which, when deployed, could track enemies hidden by Fog of War, as well as Stealth and Subterranean units. The suspense part can even come into play with subterranean units, in that you can't tell whether what is about to pop up is a Flamethrower-tank or an APC loaded up with Cyborgs intent on murder.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the second video to the Nod campaign, a prominent GDI general implies this trope to the double agent General Hassan.