One World Order: Difference between revisions

 

Note: If you happen to be in a Christian "End Times" story, and a single government controls the planet, watch out for [[The Antichrist|the dude]] with [[Beard of Evil|the goatee]]. Alternately, watch out for [[Man Behind the Man|the guy standing BEHIND the dude with the goatee]]. If the "villains" are seeking a '''One World Order''' to remove the political divisions that enable international war, they may be [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]]. If the villains go even further than that, it could be an [[Assimilation Plot]].

 

* In ''[[One Piece]]'', the entire world is ruled by the aptly named World Government. In the past, there were other countries (at least 20) but they banded together to defeat the old world power. Now a days there is a civil war led by the Revolutionary known as Dragon.

** There are ''still'' many minor governments, but the World Government is working hard to incorporate them (sometimes peacefully sometimes... not), or obliterate them and send their populations to slave works. [[The Empire|They are that kind of people]].

 

 

* In one ''[[Justice League of America]]'' story, it's [[Lampshade Hanging|explained]] that the reason so much cosmic weirdness gets drawn to Earth and not other inhabited worlds is that Earth is unique in the universe for having a multitude of different races and cultures. Go figure.

** Similiarly, ''[[Green Lantern]]''/''Sinestro Corps Secret Files'' claims that Earth is "the most diverse and emotionally rich planet in the universe, boasting more differing cultures and languages than most galaxies".

 

 

* One Nation Earth is in control of all the earth throughout all the movies in the [[Apocalypse]] film series so far, and has been shown to be rather oppressive to both Christians and [[With Us or Against Us|those who have not chosen a side]].

* The ''[[Starship Troopers]]'' universe had one government controlling Earth and all colonies. There was a massive war between China and Russia/Europe/America and after 90 years a wave of revolts in Europe overthrow the current governments and formed the United Citizens' Federation, then the Americas did the same. Finally they decided to go to war with China (and anybody who was left) to create the peaceful loving government we know. [http://starshiptroopers.wikia.com/wiki/United_Citizen_Federation Do you want to know more?]

 

 

* ''[[Thousand Shinji]]'': "Today there are no more nations, there is only humanity."

 

 

* In David Wingrove's ''[[Chung Kuo]]'', the entire world is ruled by the Seven and simply called the City, or Chung Kuo.

* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], most species on the galactic scene are very much from a [[Planet of Hats]].

 

 

* EarthGov from ''[[Babylon 5]]'' is one. However, rather than being a Monolithic One World Order, EarthGov is actually an alliance of most of the world's major powers at the time of First Contact. Europe, America, Russia, Japan and others. It's implied that many countries initially resisted the formation of EarthGov and that wars were fought over the issue. It is also implied that many countries even in 2200 are ''not'' equal members of the Earth Alliance, however the EA is the sole official representative of Humanity. At several points the issue is commented on. In the Movie ''A Call to Arms'', the primarily Russian-crewed ''Hermes'' commander greets Sheridan with, "On behalf of the Russian Consortium, which has lost many citizen in recent conflicts...". During the series someone from the 'Micronesia'? Consortium wryly comments that "they put more into EarthGov than they get out of it". EarthGov itself definitely falls in the ''[[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|realistic]]''. Crime, unemployment, homelessness and other social ills definitely continue to exist despite a Unified world government.

** This trope holds true for the Centauri and the Minbari as well.

 

 

* The "New World Order" conspiracy theory is played both ways in the ''Dark•Matter'' campaign setting for ''[[D20 Modern]]'' (well, unless your GM modifies things) -- the conspiracy theorists are right in that the UN intends to unite humanity, and they are right in that black helicopters are used by the UN elite forces. It's the other bits that are mistaken: It is suggested that the UN's leadership would prefer this to be a ''democratic'' state, which is one reason why it has taken so long, the UN have solid, sensible reasons for thinking a human unification to be a Good, or at least Necessary, Thing, and they have Christians amongst the top ranks.

* The Tau Empire in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'', though as their fluff is expanded, differences between Tau Septs are starting to appear.

 

 

* In the setting of ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'', the world (indeed, the solar system) is ruled by a single government, the WEC. Simply put, the WEC is every corporation in the world, merged into a hypercorporation, ruling the stead of a government.

** The truth is naturally more complex than that, but this is a very useful lie.

 

 

* In ''[[Futurama]]'' Earth is under one government based in Washington D.C., implying that the U.S. has taking over everything. Its flag, "Old Freebie" is just the Stars and Stripes with a globe in place of the stars. Earth, in turn, is part of the Democratic Order of Planets (DOOP), analogous to the United Nations (or to [[The Federation]], which is how the ''[[Star Trek]]''-obsessed Fry understands it).

** Moreover, all bureaucrats—apparently all of them, in all organizations, commercial, governmental or otherwise, large enough to require any bureaucrats—are members of a single Central Bureaucracy.

 

 

* In the ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]], species that don't have much to do with the greater galaxy are quite capable of maintaining several different cultures, factions, sects, teams, and fan clubs.

** A good aversion of [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]. Since a vast majority of star systems in the galaxy can ''(and do)'' support sentient life, there are simply far too many races and planets for all of them to be homogenized under one banner. Even [[The Empire]] at it's height controlled maybe 60-65% of the galaxy and had nowhere near enough soldiers or starships to make their presence known outside of space-faring systems, with many "mini-Empires" and planets that enjoyed ''de facto'' autonomy. Chances are good that hundreds, maybe thousands, of star systems within the Empire's borders watched it come and go without ever having known it was there.

 

 

* Averted, subverted and occasionally played straight in the [[Humongous Mecha]] manga series ''[[The Five Star Stories]]'', where out of the half-dozen or so habitable planets orbiting the titular stars, only one is unified under a single government and wars between the various countries on the other planets are extremely common. As national identity is a major theme in the series, the aforementioned planetary empires attempts to unite the others through military conquest later in the series... doesn't turn out so well. On the other hand, in the series' backstory, we find that the entire ''galaxy'' and then some was united in a mystical "Super Empire" in the distant past.

* The [[Gundam]] series in general are a subversion of this trope; when colonies are established in space, they inevitably try to become independent from Earth resulting in Space Wars.

 

 

* Inversion of [[Enforced Trope]] in ''[[An Entry With a Bang]]!'': The writers have mostly agreed that, despite Clancy-Earth presenting a united front in their relations with the ''[[BattleTech]]'' entities, the countries on C-Earth proper will not unite into a super-entity in its purest state of a truly singular government, but exactly what the CSN's political structure is to be instead is a discussion that has [[Flame War|gotten inflammatory]] at times.

 

 

* In The [[Strugatsky Brothers]] novels, One World Order appears to be the natural consequence of achieving a certain degree of technological/social advancement. Earth and all the [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] Earthlings encounter have a One World Order, but the various [[Crapsack World]]s inhabited by humanoids have warring nations messing things up even further.

* [[Ursula K. Le Guin]]'s ''The Left Hand Of Darkness'', in which Gethen has several different countries. The protagonist eventually visits the country of Orgota, to find that its government and customs are vastly different from Karhide, and even mentions that he's not as familiar with the native language.

 

 

* [[Lampshade]]d in ''[[Alien Nation (TV series)|Alien Nation]]'' when Sykes is surprised his Tenctonese lady friend follows a more "Eastern" religion, then admits it's stupid to think an entire race of people would only follow one belief system.

* Both the Minbari and the Centauri in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' had wide enough variations in languages that different representatives had different accents when speaking in English (Lennier vs. Delenn, Vir vs. Londo). (But they still had monolithic cultures, against which Earth's diversity was [[Lampshade Hanging|deliberately contrasted]] in a first-season episode.)

 

 

* The backstory universe of ''[[BattleTech]]'' has the One World Order forming and collapsing no less than 4 times! First Earth became a one-world order who sent out space colonies. Eventually the colonies rebelled into several bickering nations. Finally a force of personality united the bickering 5 major nations into a united One-Galaxy Empire. This collapsed after a Usurper killed the leader and his family and the five nations each claimed the throne. The Army of the now gone One-World Government fled and set up a new one world government of its own (the Clans). After 300 year of fighting, these clans returned. After an initial thwarting, the One-world-Order leader of the Clans was dissolved. In eventual response to the invasion, the 5 governments recreated the original one-world government again as a united force to stop the invaders. after the invaders stopped, the government, its mission accomplished, was dissolved. At which point an army of religious fanatics attempted to take on the whole galaxy to recreate another one-world government in their own image. The point seems to be that One World Orders aren't viable...up until you realize that if a sustainable version were to be created, the game would end.

** ...or just tear themselves apart anyway, [[Humans Are Warriors|'cause that's how we roll]]. After all, [[Real Life]] governments of all sizes have a habit of doing this once there's nobody left to fight, too. ''[[BattleTech]]'' always was one of the more intensely political fantasy/sci-fi universes.

 

 

* {{spoiler|The final villains of}} ''[[Ace Combat]] Zero: The Belkan War'' seek to bring about peace and correct the non-OWOness of humanity by eliminating the political entities, ergo governments and borders, that lead to war.

* ''[[Galactic Civilizations]] II'' appears to follow this trope at first, with civilizations named after their race and all the usual trappings. But in many situations it's highlighted that none of these space-faring civilizations speak for ALL their species, just the ones that got into a big ol' pile and started starfaring together. For example: If any one planet has a monumental population boom, the news will go out of its way to state that the 2 billion new faces couldn't possibly have been born in less than a year, and that much of it is from same-race foreign immigrants applying for citizenship.

 

 

* In the [[Chaos Timeline]], {{spoiler|the Logos (hackers) succeed doing this.}}

 

 

* Parodied in ''[[South Park]]'', where it is revealed that in the rest of the Universe, each ''species'' has its own planet; Earth was created to be a bizarre mix of all different kinds of things (gazelles, lions, Jews, Arabs, etc.) to form the basis of a TV show.

* The entire premise of ''[[Transformers]]'' is that there are two distinct and warring factions of the same alien race. The overall culture within each faction is largely monolithic, however (Autobots bland and friendly, Decepticons backstabby), and very few characters are presented as neutral or independent. Occasionally, we had characters with unusual or seemingly inappropriate personalities who were nonetheless distinguished by their alliance. Later examples present more complex cultures, especially ''Beast Wars''