Hopeless War: Difference between revisions

It's either the near future, the far future, or even the present, where there's a hopeless bleak war being fought between human and [[Bug War|some non-human enemy]]. Be it [[Robot War|sentient robots]], [[All Myths Are True|mythical creatures]], [[Beneath the Earth|subterranean]] [[Mutants]], or [[Alien Invasion|alien invaders]], [[Humans Are Bastards|or even other humans]]. In any case the humans are fighting a hopeless battle, where even a major victory is just a [[Pyrrhic Victory|hollow one]]. The human population has been [[Depopulation Bomb|reduced to small numbers]] because of this endless war. In some cases the war could even be a stalemate for the two opposing factions resulting in severe casualties on both sides. And more often than not, the war might have been intended as a minor engagement before things went [[Plethora of Mistakes|SNAFUBAR]], got complicated, and then [[It Got Worse|went completely to hell]], and now everybody is SOL. Its basically the war equivalent of [[Kick the Dog]], [[Shoot the Dog]] and [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]...and of course [[War Is Hell]]. In this bleak situation there's bound to be [[Despair Event Horizon]], [[I Did What I Had to Do]], [[Black and Gray Morality]], or [[Grey and Gray Morality]]. All for the sake of victory, But [[Was It Really Worth It?]]?

{{examples|Examples}}

** Also, [[Vampire: The Requiem (Tabletop Game)|the Kindred]] are also locked in multiple eternal struggles. They fight against [[Super -Powered Evil Side|the Beast]]. They fight with one another in a shadowy struggle for power. They fight against an [[Ancient Conspiracy]] of [[Hunter of His Own Kind|Vampire-hating Vampires]]. They fight against bloodthirsty packs of psychotic Vampires who want to [[Omnicidal Maniac|kill absolutely everybody]]. All this while trying to uphold the [[Masquerade]] because if they didn't, they'd have to fight humanity at large as well. And the [[Crapsack World]] is only getting worse no matter what happens.

** Also ''also'' in the New World of Darkness, the [[Changeling: The Lost (Tabletop Game)|Changelings]] are fighting a never-ending guerrilla war against [[The Fair Folk]], who will gladly drag any Changeling they can catch back to Arcadia, and generally have the power to do so. And that's not even counting spies the True Fae have planted [[Sixth Ranger Traitor|in the Changelings' midst]], [[Well -Intentioned Extremist|radicals whose extreme tactics in battling the Fae actually do the Changelings more harm than good]], and the various political machinations, infighting, and squabbles that inevitably occur between the different Changeling Courts, [[Inherent in The System|because it's the World of Darkness]]. And just to put the cherry of futility on the sundae of despair here, {{spoiler|the True Fae ''are'' Changelings, or, rather, what Changelings will eventually become when they finish growing to Wyrd 10.}}

* ''[[Gears of War]]'' has a bleak war going on between humans and a race of subterranean mutants called the Locust who literally come from up under the ground and begin to slaughter everything and everybody. Ironically and cruelly, most of the human casualties comes from the human military [[Nuke 'Em|scorching the planet]] (along with civilian survivors) with [[Kill Sat|orbital laser satellites]] in order to stop the rampaging hordes of Locust from commandeering cities and equipment that may be of use to them. Now the humans are fighting a dire guerrilla war with the Locust. In the first game you unleash a massive bomb that is supposed to either destroy the Locust or cripple them so badly that they cannot recover, you're treated to a cutscene of the bomb gloriously detonating and wiping out a ton of Locust, then the [[Hive Queen|Locust Queen]] reveals that the Locust have survived and the war is far from over. The second game brings new developments in the war: a lethal disease known as Rust Lung that comes from exposure to Imulsion, the COG's main fuel source, and the fact that the Locust have a [[It Got Worse|new weapon]] that can destroy entire cities, forcing COG onto the offensive to wipe out the Locust. However, it becomes apparent that the Locust are fighting their own losing war against humanity as well as [[The Virus|the Lambent]]. By ''Gears of War 3'', the COG has disbanded.

* ''[[Wing Commander (Video Game)|Wing Commander]]'' sometimes portrayed the war against the Kilrathi as hopeless, especially in the [[Tie -in Novel|Tie In Novels]]. So much so that the only way that humanity could come up with to win was a desperate strike against {{spoiler|the Kilrathi homeworld, completely destroying it and killing millions, if not billions of civilians to demoralize the entire race.}} The fact that it works is a miracle.

* The protagonist of ''[[Prototype (Video Game)|Prototype]]'' wages a [[One -Man Army|one man war]] against the legions of the Infected and the full military might of the [[Punch Clock Villain|United States Marines Corp]] and [[Armies Are Evil|Blackwatch]]. It is completely hopeless -- for ''them''.

* The ''[[Resistance]]'' series. A war that mankind is losing because their enemies, [[Alien Invasion|the Chimera]], are so advanced that everything the humans have tried against them has been proven either obsolete (like {{spoiler|the anti-Carrier serum in ''Resistance: Retribution.'' Even if James Grayson succeeded in killing off all the Carriers with it, it did nothing at the end, since the Chimera had already changed their conversion methods beforehand}}) or ends up [[Plethora of Mistakes|failing horribly]] (examples in question: {{spoiler|the British capturing an Angel in the second game, basically becoming bait for an attack, and the [[Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb|Fission Bomb in the second game]] ended up triggering the teleportation of Earth into some other place in space}}). It's also implied that {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|Daedalus']]}} [[Evil Plan|plan]] [[The Bad Guy Wins|worked.]] And finally, with most of the key characters [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|either dead or incapable of recovering]] from [[The Virus]], [[Failure Is the Only Option|the situation]] [[It Got Worse|just keeps getting worse.]] However, in the third and final installment, {{spoiler|The human managed to pull through with a cure and the more obvious problem was solved through liberal application of firepower from an [[One -Man Army]].}}

* In the [[Backstory]] for the upcoming ''Dawn Of Victory'' [[Game Mod|mod]] for ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'', Earth is [[Alien Invasion|invaded by aliens]] in the middle of [[World War Two|World War 2]] à la ''[[WorldWorldwar War(Literature)]]'' by [[Harry Turtledove]]. Despite the Scinfaxi (human name for the invaders) miscalculating the human level of technology, they proceed to [[Curb Stomp Battle]] humans to the brink of extinction using their [[Humongous Mecha]]. Humans only once manage to score a decisive victory by luring the enemy into an ambush in a major North American city and then proceeding to shell the city with massed artillery barrages, scoring a blow to the alien forces at the cost of an entire city. The Soviets manage to capture a supply of plutonium from a Scinfaxi convoy and use it to build an atomic bomb. The [[Nuke 'Em|detonation]] wipes out most of the enemy forces in the region. Seeing this, the [[Eagle Land|Americans]], the [[Those Wacky Nazis|Germans]], and the [[Imperial Japan|Japanese]] follow suit, forcing the Scinfaxi to retreat to the Southern hemisphere. Until nukes are built, this pretty much fits the trope.