Great Offscreen War: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Maybe people still have to deal with its consequences. The war happened, and it left its ugly mark on the world. But it's [[Noodle Incident|never shown to the audience]] - we [[Take Our Word for It|never see]] a single [[Flash Back]] from the war, are never shown more than just a glimpse of what happened. The war will be referenced, but otherwise left mysterious, unexplained. Why it happened, how it ended, and what all the things that took place there (which people talk about [[Cryptic Background Reference|like it should be obvious]]) actually were, are never explained. The war is only a mysterious event of the past, included mostly to add a bit of mystery and [[Wild Mass Guessing|give people excuses for insane ideas]]. Needless to say, this trope can easily be processed into [[Fanfic Fuel]]

 

 

If said war is going on presently but the characters themselves aren't involved, then it is [[Behind the Black]].

Often used as a sub-trope of [[Cryptic Background Reference]]. Compare also [[Cataclysm Backstory]].

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* The ''[[Ghost in the Shell]]'' TV series is set sometime after both [[World War III]] ''and'' IV.

* ''[[Code Geass]]'' has the Britannian invasion and conquest of Japan, which we see only in flashbacks concerning young Lelouch, Suzaku and Nunally and the one from first episode opening sequence. There also was an alternate version of the Napolean wars, where Napoleon conquered Great Britain, making all the British aristocracy run to America, creating the Britannia Empire.

* ''[[Last Exile]]'' also has the war between its two major powers, which is mediated by The Guild. Much of the action of this war takes place BEFORE the actual story, as a few episodes in we discover that {{spoiler|one of the planets these factions live on is dying, essentially taking them out of the conflict for good. They're pretty much refugees after this point.}}

* In ''[[Blue Gender]]'', we don't actually see humanity get overtaken by the Blues.

* Mysterious conflict with [[Mazinkaiser SKL]], whose conseqences are related to events of the series.

* ''[[Naruto]]'' has the first three Great Shinobi Wars in backstory. All we know is Konoha won the 3rd one against Iwa, which Kakashi's team fought in, and many, many lives were lost during all three.

== Fan Works ==

* The Private War in ''[[The Jackson Legacy]]'' takes place a decade before the story kicks off.

 

== Film ==

* Twice in ''[[The Hunger Games]]:'' the [[After the End|civilizational collapse]] that led to the founding of [[Police State|Panem]], and the more recent "Dark Days" when Panem's provinces rose in an unsuccessful rebellion against the Capitol.

* [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[As You Like It]]'': Duke Senior was (somehow) deposed by his younger brother Fredrick and exiled to the Forest of Arden. A very blatant [[Deus Ex Machina]] at the end restores Senior to his rightful place.

** [[Othello]]'s military record might also count: he boasts at length of his experience with 'pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war', but we never see him fight.

** ''[[Macbeth]]'' begins with a recounting of a war between Scotland and Norway.

* The Last Great Time War from ''[[Doctor Who]]''. It was never shown, we know only that it caused a lot of destruction and wiped out entire races, including the Time Lords, whose last survivor was the Doctor. We find out that the Doctor was the one who ended the war, killing ''every'' Dalek (apart from [[Joker Immunity|a few who got away, of course]]) at the cost of also killing ''every'' Time Lord, including his own children and grandchildren. The Doctor has to deal with the consequences of the Time War from time to time and sometimes he or somebody else makes a reference to some events of it, but it's still mostly a mystery.

** Current showrunner [[Steven Moffat]] has gone on record saying that he will never show the Time War since there isn't enough money in the world to do it justice.

** Older episodes referred to similar such events, including the survivors of the destruction of Phaester Osiris defeating Sutekh and sealing him in a pyramid on Mars, or the ancient war between the Time Lords and the vampires shortly after the beginning of time.

** Ancient battles between the Fledgling Empires (including Gallifrey) and the Racnoss were mentioned in "The Runaway Bride".

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' has the Dilgar War, the first major interstellar war that the humans got involved in, as well as the previous Shadow War, which took place around a thousand years previously. We do see a glimpse of that era, mostly just some less advanced looking Minbari ships, but nothing of the war itself.

** Also the Telepath War. We are shown only before and after.

** Along with the numerous wars the Centauri Republic was waging with its neighbors in the third season, none of which are seen, or indeed the numerous smaller wars between the members of the League of Nonaligned Worlds in the same season.

** There are also allusions to various minor conflicts that the Earth Alliance took part in. Not to mention the Earth Minbari War, which we heard much about, but saw little of, until the prequel movie ''In The Beginning''.

** ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'' introduced one of the generals this way; the warlord Shimazu terrorized the populace with his Wolfblades 2,000 years ago until he is sealed in a mask.

** ''[[Power Rangers Mystic Force]]'' saw a group of wizards seal away the forces of the underworld only twenty or so years prior.

** Averted in ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'', where we get a number of flashbacks to Venjix's conquest of Earth the year prior.

** ''[[Power Rangers Samurai]]'' had the Nighlocks sealed away by samurai in feudal Japan, and apparently a number of skirmishes between them and the samurai's descendants in the intervening years.

 

== Tabletop RPG ==

** The [[Points of Light]] settings in 4th Edition has the war between the civilization of Nerath led by King Elidyr and the gnoll demon horde headed by Yeenoghu. There was also the war between the tiefling (half-devil) empire of Bael Turath versus the dragonborn empire of Archosia. [[Dungeon Crawling|Your characters most likely will start their career scrounging leftover supplies from said wars.]]

* ''[[Exalted]]'' has a few examples: the Primordial War, the Aftershock War, the Usurpation and the Balorian Crusade. All of these are provided some level of detail (specifically who was fighting and why), but the exact events of the wars are generally shrouded in mystery (typically because they all involved reality being damaged to some degree).

** And those are just wars involving the Exalted. The occasional hint is dropped regarding wars waged by gods in the era before humanity, and even occasionally to conflicts involving the Primordials prior to the existence of Creation.

* ''[[Freelancer]]'' has the [[The Empire|Coalition]]/[[The Alliance|Alliance]] war, the beginning of which was shown in ''[[Starlancer]]'' but which lasted for another century afterward and the winner is not the one the first game would indicate, as well as the 80 Years War between Rheinland and the [[NGO Superpower|GMG]].

* ''[[Star Wars]] [[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' has the Mandalorian Wars. Much of the information about it is from allusions and [[As You Know]] statements in the games, and lots of characters you run into in both games are war heroes or veterans from one side or the other.

* ''[[Cave Story]]'': References are made several times to a war for control of [[Artifact of Doom|the Demon Crown]]. It's implied that the protagonist and Curly Brace were combatants in this war, two of the few surviving soldiers from the army that massacred the Mimigas. {{spoiler|But that's ultimately revealed to be false when Curly regains her memories--she remembers fighting to destroy the Demon Crown, separate from any army, with the protagonist as her only ally.}}

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'': Prophecies has the actual Guild Wars, Factions has the Tengu Wars, Nightfall has the war against Palawa Joko.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has numerous wars in its long history: the [[Bug War|Rachni War]], the Krogan Rebellions, the [[Robot War|Morning War]], the First Contact War, the Skyllian Blitz and {{spoiler|the Reapers' genocide of the Protheans}}.

* [[Metal Wolf Chaos]]: The Arizona Conflict

* ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' has Gear War, apocalyptic conflict between humans and Gears, led by Justice. In some games you can play duels that happened back then.

* The Seven Hour War from ''[[Half Life]] 2''.

* In the ''[[Ground Control]]'' games: [[World War Three|World War 3]], the Independence Wars, the First Stellar War, the Terran-Viron conflict, most of the Second Stellar War. There are mentioned in a few brief lines in the [[All There in the Manual|manual]].

* In the ''[[Earth 2150|Earth]]'' series, we never get to see or read details about [[World War Three|World War 3]], only that it was a [[Nuclear War]] that destroyed all former nation-states. Only a few facts are known from before the war, mostly about the founding of the [[One Nation Under Copyright|Lunar Corporation]]. The game history starts after the war, with the creations of the [[Eagle Land|United Civilized States]] and the [[The Empire|Eurasian Dynasty]].

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'' has a vague recounting of a war which occurred before Link was born and led to the death of his mother, who left him in the care of the Great Deku Tree. It's implied that this was the war that led to the unification of Hyrule.

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'' mentions a similar conflict, describing how an evil tribe of powerful sorcerers (known in [[Fanon]] as the Dark Interlopers) came so close to getting the Triforce that the Spirits of Light had to entrap them in the [[Eldritch Location|Twilight Realm]], where they evolved into the Twili.

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword|The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword]]'' mentions an earlier conflict in which Hylia and her armies fought against armies of invading demons to keep the Triforce safe. In this case, the offscreen nature of the war is actually justified: in the early days of the war, the group from whose perspective we see were sent up into the sky on a [[Floating Continent]] with the Triforce to keep both safe and out of reach of the war.

* ''[[Fallout]]'' has the Great War, a two-hour war during which every nuclear-capable country in the world launched. No one knows who launched first.

*** Also the theory that a bored AI started it.

* Loghain of [[Dragon Age Origins]] often mentions the Ferelden rebellion against Orlais. Vague references to the war between the Qunari and the Tevinter Imperium are also present.

* ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' references The Great War between humans and Entelexeia. One of the party members is a veteran.

* The ''[[Fire Emblem Elibe]]'' games (being the 6th and 7th titles) had a great war between humans and dragons, referred to as 'The Scouring' that occurred roughly 1000 years before the events of the games. It ended with the humans supposedly killing off the dragons, when, in actuality, the dragons, on the verge of defeat, exiled themselves to the land of Arcadia, closing the gate portal behind them.

* ''[[Dungeons of Dredmor]]'' contains many references to a war between elves and dwarves that's taken place back on the surface; the dungeons are full of discarded weaponry and such.

* ''[[Hexx]]'' mentions the Chaos wars, which apparently involved one of the four deities in the setting.

* Lt. Surge in ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue]]'' refers to a war in which his electric Pokémon "zapped [his] enemies into paralysis." None of the subsequent games (except the [[Video Game Remake|remakes]], which repeated the line exactly) mentioned anything about this war.

 

 

== Web Comics ==

* One (probably two) of the four "Breakings" from ''[[The Dragon Doctors]]''.

* The war with the Other in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' occurred about twenty years before the events of the comic, which resulted in chaos across Europa and [[Mad Scientist|Sparks]] fighting one another in the resulting havoc. It only ended when Baron Klaus Wulfenbach showed up and smacked all of the insane Sparks down to establish his empire.

 

 

== Web Original ==

** Another possibility is that the war they mentioned is an attempt by Rooster Teeth to put the series into the Halo continuity. One example is the mention that the Freelancer-project was just one of the magic bullets created to win the war since the war was going really bad for the humans possibly referencing the different projects (for example Spartan II and III) during the covenant war. More can be read on the Red vs Blue [[Red vs. Blue/WMG|WMG page]]

 

== Western Animation ==

** Also notable is the war between rainicorns and dogs, which is never elaborated upon (beyond mention of Lady Rainicorn's father being saved by a dog at some point during it) but shown as a cause for great strife between the species.

* ''[[Futurama]]'' occasionally makes reference to some war or another, usually for a quick gag. The one time one is relevant to the main plot is in "Three Hundred Big Boys", where the spoils from a recently-won [[Bug War]] are spread among the populace.

** The only flashback material was repurposed clips from ''[[The Transformers (animation)|The Transformers]] Generation One''.

** Speaking of ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'', it contains references to the Third and Fourth Great (or "Cybertronian") Wars, the assumption being that there were a first and second. (They're probably in the fourth one. Or the fifth, if you consider the ending of [[Transformers: The Movie]] to be the end of that particular war.)

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]