Enforced Cold War: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[To Love Ru]]'', Rito is forced to go to school with Yami, the infamous alien assasin known throughout the galaxy who wants to kill Rito, but doesn't because she's best friends with his sister. She will however try if he does anything ecchi towards her [[Accidental Pervert|which has Rito narrowly escaping death on a daily basis]]

* In ''[[Last Exile]]'', the countries of Anatoray and Disith are engaged in a long and bloody war under the supervision of the mysterious Guild, which directs the official battles which take place in the air between the country's respective air forces. The enforcement comes into play when one side gains too much of an advantage and is stopped forcefully by the forces of the Guild, in order to maintain the [[Status Quo Is God|status quo]].

* [[One Piece]]: {{spoiler|The Whitebeard War ends this way, as Shanks intervenes and threatens to take on any side if they don't stop the senseless violence. In this case, this is likely a short-term solution, as Shanks and his crew are about equal in power to the other factions. The only reason Shanks' threat held weight is because all the factions (Luffy's allies, The Whitebeard Pirates, the Blackbeard Pirates, and the World Government) were too weakened from the fighting up till that point.}}

* [[Dual Parallel Trouble Adventure]] utilized a very literal example of this trope. The two waring [[Humongous Mecha|mecha]] factions in the show only fought at pre-scheduled places and times, and the pilots were allowed to [[Graceful Loser|tap out]] when it looked like were going to lose. As in the [[Truth in Television|real life]] Cold War, the point of this was to keep the world from being [[Story-Boarding the Apocalypse|wrecked]] by the [[Weapon of Mass Destruction|weapons of mass destruction]] possessed by both sides.

 

== Fan Works ==

* This editor once wrote a short story centering around a pirate/ninja cold war, which had to be that way because all the cowboys, robots, samurai, and other cool things were forcing them to play nice on the surface.

 

** Comes out in full force around Quidditch matches, where Gryffindors and Slytherins usually end up in the hospital wing with antlers and leaks in their body. During the fifth book Harry had to walk with a protective guard of Gryffindors because the Slytherins kept trying to sabotage him.

* The treaty between Watches in the ''[[Night Watch]]'' 'verse, which is openly inspired (bordering on the [[Anvilicious]] actually) by the actual Cold War. Add two millennia-old [[The Chessmaster|Chessmasters]] with magic powers enough to make the most absurd [[Gambit Roulette]] seem timid. {{spoiler|The Inquisition is the higher power here.}}

* Inverted in the [[Isaac Asimov]] story, "The Gentle Vultures". In it, pacifist, herbivorous aliens go from world to world to help the survivors of the nuclear war that inevitably breaks out in every intelligent speccies except them. This help is given in return for tribute in the form of resources, creating a form of economic imperialism. When the aliens get to Earth, though, they discover that the Cold War situation is keeping nuclear war from occurring, and may do so indefinitely. {{spoiler|They then decide to force things by causing a nuclear war themselves. However, when a human that they abduct for information castigates them and compares them to carrion-eaters, they become horrified at the idea of what they're about to do and leave Earth to its own devices.}}

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

** The Organian Peace Treaty, forced on the Federation and the Klingons by [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] who found war in their backyard distasteful. This lead to a series of more direct Cold War metaphors, such as both sides intervening in a border planet's war.

** ''Deep Space Nine'' also had the sixth season opening arc in which the Dominion was in control of the station. To avoid collateral damage, Bajor did not ally with the Federation, so the main characters affiliated with the Bajoran government stayed on-board and worked side by side with the occupation forces. (Then again, they did eventually form an active resistance cell.)

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Most drow lives like that, in the framework of [[Evil Matriarch|Lolth]] [[Religion of Evil|theocracy]]: otherwise infighting turns into [[Ax Crazy]] all-out war and then genocide -- and [[Gods Need Prayer Badly|she needs them alive]].

** In ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' setting: enforced in the House wars of Menzoberranzan: espionage, conspiracy and secret raids against rival houses are permitted, even encouraged, but woe be to those who get caught. Failures to enforce it caused whole cities to be utterly destroyed (Golothaer, [http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Bhaerynden Bhaerynden aka Telantiwar] aka ''Great Rift''), ruined and taken by external force ([http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Insurrection Ched Nasad]) or weakened and massacred by neighbours ([http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Maerimydra Maerimydra]). Menzoberranzan barely escaped the same fate ''twice'' during Silence of Lolth (seven months) alone. And Baenre rule Menzoberranzan because it was their matron who said "stop the madness" when all-out fight began, Menzoberra was killed and the cavern itself seriously reshaped. They are ''that'' aggressive.

* [[Warhammer 40000]]: Oddly enough, given that in the forty-first millennium there is only war, this occurs for varying stretches of time between the Imperium of Man and various alien empires simply due to the fact that while the Imperium or said alien empire is tied up elsewhere a hostile peace exists between them. This occurs mostly with races such as the Tau Empire, which has on-off peaces with the Imperium on its border, rather than [[Ax Crazy]] races like the Orks or all-devouring galactic munchers like the Tyranids.

 

 

== Theatre ==

 

 

== Video Games ==

* An interesting variant shows up in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'': the Republic and the Sith are very much openly at war with each other, but both sides are dependent on trade with the neutral planet of Manaan, which supplies a unique and very valuable mineral used in medical supplies that neither army can do without. Thus, both the Republic and the Sith maintain a military presence and an embassy on Manaan, but have to avoid direct conflict lest the government cut off trade with the aggressor, and many of the quests on the planet are outright illegal acts of espionage against the Sith.

 

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* In the third season of ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', The [[Weird Trade Union|Guild of Calamitous Intent]] forces [[Affably Evil]] supervillain The Monarch to give up Dr. Venture as his arch-nemesis and find somebody else to antagonize. He doesn't take it well.

* ''[[Code Lyoko]]'': The Supercomputer is the team's main resource, and Aelita's survival is dependant on it. It also happens to house their enemy XANA {{spoiler|-- until the end of Season 2.}}