Running Both Sides: Difference between revisions

 

* ''Random Factor'' series: a giant space war has been going on for years. Then stuff starts going wrong, and the main character manages to gain access to the sentient AI running his side's war effort... but finds that actually, the two sides are orchestrating the war pretty precisely. Oh, and the people actually fighting and dying are half-size test-tube clones, on half-size space ships. Saves money, that way.

* ''[[Illuminatus]]'': {{spoiler|Hagbard Celine is the leader of both the Legion of Dynamic Discord and the Illuminati.}}

* In ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', the resistance turns out to be run by the central government. Furthermore, many have theorized that the three world governments are encouraging a state of constant warfare among them in order to better control their own populations.

* In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''Dragon Jouster'' series, it is discovered that both leaders of the warring nations (expys of Upper and Lower Ancient Egypt) are being manipulated by a corrupt Magician's Guild. The death-energies from the soldiers in battle are harnessed as sacrifices to fuel an immortality/youth spell.

* Tanya Huff's ''Valor'' series has this as a reveal in the last book: A heretofore unknown shapeshifting alien race started an intergalactic war just to study how the different species would behave, like mice in a labyrinth.

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Virgin New Adventures|New Adventures]] novel ''Toy Soldiers'', there's a war where it turns out that both sides are being run by the same supercomputer, which had set the whole thing up because it had heard somewhere that periods of conflict often produce flowerings of creativity.

* ''[[Ender's Game]]'' has Peter and Valentine Wiggin. They are genius children using primitive, pre-Internet [[Sock Puppet|Sock Puppets]], Locke and Demosthenes respectively, to manipulate the major political thinkers through phoney debates; Demosthenes a warmongering demogogue, Locke a diplomacy-minded intellectual, and contrary to Peter or Valentine's actual beliefs. It's all an elaborate plan on Peter's part to formally establish himself as a great political mind, with influence and hopefully ''power'', without the handicap of his age.

 

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== Video Games ==

 

* The recurring CEO/weapon merchant/villain in ''[[Rogue Galaxy]]'' attempts to do this with the two biggest nations around so that he can continue to profit.

* ''[[Crackdown]]'': [[The Reveal]] at the end of the game is that the leader of The Agency, a superpowered law-enforcement agency for which you're an agent, was the reason the city turned into such a den of crime in the first place — he'd been supplying the gangs with weapons, transportation and intel for years, turning them from random punks into serious threats. Thus, he got an excuse to declare martial law and unleash the Agents on the city... exactly what the point was, though, is never explained.

** In the backstory {{spoiler|The Templars were behind both the Allies and the Axis during World War 2. Churchill and Hitler were both part of the Order.}}

* In ''Headhunter'', the head of the criminal organisation also turns out to be the one in charge of the Anti-Crime Network.

** Well, the party and Dmitri Yuriev. {{spoiler|Wilhelm}} has accounted for his actions and doesn't see him as a real threat, but Yuriev isn't actually under his control. Ormus/U-TIC, Vector, Hyams Heavy Industries, and large parts of the Federation, on the other hand...

 

== Web Original ==

 

 

== Webcomics ==

 

* In ''[[Order of the Stick]]'', {{spoiler|Elan's father's adventuring party}} [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0758.html has arranged to rule the better part of a continent by doing this].