The Eternal Churchill: Difference between revisions

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== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[Independence Day]]'' is a big one. In fact, this trope seemed to be largely the premise of the entire film.

{{quote| "We will not go quietly into the night...we will not vanish without a fight! We are going to live on! We are going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"}}

{{quote|"We will not go quietly into the night...we will not vanish without a fight! We are going to live on! We are going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"}}

* Ditto the film versions of ''[[Lord of the Rings|The Two Towers]]'' and ''[[Lord of the Rings|Return of the King]]''.

** [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand!]] [[This Is Sparta|MEN! OF THE WEST!]]

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** Indeed, even the aliens acknowledge this: one major difference between Yeerks and humans is that Yeerks will give up if they know they're going to lose, while humans won't. Some, like the Yeerk that controlled Jake or Visser Three, think this is basically pointless, but Visser One was smart enough to realize this would make conquering humans a harder task to accomplish.

** Stated almost flat-out by one of Visser One's hosts:

{{quote| Allison: "You think you know us. You know nothing. You’ve seen the world through the eyes of a defeated soldier and a junkie bimbo. You know nothing. We’ll defeat you, Edriss." }}

{{quote|Allison: "You think you know us. You know nothing. You’ve seen the world through the eyes of a defeated soldier and a junkie bimbo. You know nothing. We’ll defeat you, Edriss." }}

** From Ax's "Earth Diary": "''Give me liberty, or give me death.'' A human named Patrick Henry said that. I wonder if, when the Yeerks invaded, they knew humans said things like that. I wonder if they truly knew what they were getting into."

* E.E. Knight's ''[[The Vampire Earth]]'' series has a heavy dose of this, at least when it comes to the humans that aren't [[The Quisling|Quislings]].

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== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* There were a few examples of this in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', which probably contributed to why the Doctor liked the human race so much.

{{quote| '''Colonel Alan Mace:''' Attention all troops! The Sontarans might think of us as primitive, as does every passing species with an axe to grind. They make a mockery of our weapons, our soldiers, our ideals. But no more. From this point on, it stops. From this point on, the people of Earth fight back and we show them. We show the warriors of Sontar what the human race can do. <much slaughter of the Sontarans ensues>}}

{{quote|'''Colonel Alan Mace:''' Attention all troops! The Sontarans might think of us as primitive, as does every passing species with an axe to grind. They make a mockery of our weapons, our soldiers, our ideals. But no more. From this point on, it stops. From this point on, the people of Earth fight back and we show them. We show the warriors of Sontar what the human race can do. <much slaughter of the Sontarans ensues>}}

** Near the end of Day Four of ''[[Torchwood]]'': "Children of Earth", we're led to believe that this will happen. Then the trope is horribly, horribly subverted.

* The ''[[Babylon 5]]'' movie ''In the Beginning'' depicts the last stand of humanity against the onslaught of the Minbari Federation. Of the war, the following was said:

{{quote| '''Londo Mollari''': The War. The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. Where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it; They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones, and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself, never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage. Their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns, when they ran out guns they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for ''two years''; they never ran out of courage. But in the end, they ran out of ''time''.}}

{{quote|'''Londo Mollari''': The War. The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. Where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it; They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones, and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself, never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage. Their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns, when they ran out guns they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for ''two years''; they never ran out of courage. But in the end, they ran out of ''time''.}}

** Actually, ''In The Beginning'' had back-to-back speeches about the same situation, and the latter was a flat out [[Tear Jerker]].

{{quote| '''Earth Alliance President''': Are we on? This is... this is the President. I have just been informed that the midrange military bases at Beta Durani and Proxima 3 have fallen to the Minbari advance. We've lost contact with Io and must conclude that they too have fallen to an advance force. Our Military Intelligence believes that the Minbari intend to bypass Mars and hit Earth directly and the attack could come at any time. We have continued to broadcast our surrender and a plea for mercy and they have not responded. Therefore we can only conclude that we stand at the twilight of the human race. In order to buy time for our evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for the support of every ship capable of fighting to take part in a last defense of our home world. We will not lie to you, we do not believe that survival is a possibility. We believe that anyone who joins this battle will never come home. But for every ten minutes we can delay the military advance, several hundred more civilians may have a chance to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere. No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of a people. But I ask you now to step forward one last time, one last battle to hold the line against the night. May God go with you all. }}

{{quote|'''Earth Alliance President''': Are we on? This is... this is the President. I have just been informed that the midrange military bases at Beta Durani and Proxima 3 have fallen to the Minbari advance. We've lost contact with Io and must conclude that they too have fallen to an advance force. Our Military Intelligence believes that the Minbari intend to bypass Mars and hit Earth directly and the attack could come at any time. We have continued to broadcast our surrender and a plea for mercy and they have not responded. Therefore we can only conclude that we stand at the twilight of the human race. In order to buy time for our evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for the support of every ship capable of fighting to take part in a last defense of our home world. We will not lie to you, we do not believe that survival is a possibility. We believe that anyone who joins this battle will never come home. But for every ten minutes we can delay the military advance, several hundred more civilians may have a chance to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere. No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of a people. But I ask you now to step forward one last time, one last battle to hold the line against the night. May God go with you all. }}

* ''[[Space: Above and Beyond]]'' was all about this trope: humanity banding together against the evil "chigs". In the pilot, the Secretary-General of the United Nations makes a very Churchillian speech about "the coming storm", then quotes Churchill directly (the Battle of Britain "Never has so much been owed by so many to so few" speech) after the Wildcard's first major victory.

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* ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' will be this on a galactic level, but it starts on Earth.

** At the end of the last DLC for ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', a [[The Messiah|Paragon]] [[The Determinator|Shepard]] [[Shut UP, Hannibal|also gives]] [[Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?|this trope]] to [[Eldritch Abomination|Harbinger]] right after s/he already flipped them off again.

{{quote| '''Shepard:''' "Maybe you're right: [[Failure Is the Only Option|maybe we can't win this]]. But we'll fight you regardless. Just like I did with [[Mass Effect 1|Sovereign]], just like I'm doing now. No matter how insignificant we might be, we ''will'' fight. We ''will'' sacrifice, and we ''will'' find a way. [[Humans Are Special|That's what]] [[Humanity Is Superior|humans do]]."}}

{{quote|'''Shepard:''' "Maybe you're right: [[Failure Is the Only Option|maybe we can't win this]]. But we'll fight you regardless. Just like I did with [[Mass Effect 1|Sovereign]], just like I'm doing now. No matter how insignificant we might be, we ''will'' fight. We ''will'' sacrifice, and we ''will'' find a way. [[Humans Are Special|That's what]] [[Humanity Is Superior|humans do]]."}}

* Partly subverted by ''The Ur-Quan Masters'' (AKA ''[[Star Control]] II''). At the beginning, humanity ''has'', indeed, been defeated, trapped beneath [[The Wall Around the World|planetary shields]] in "[[Vichy Earth|Fallow Slavery]]", and the small detachment of humans left in a space-station outside the shields are nice and obedient to the eponymous Ur-Quan masters. (It helps that they can't maintain life support without Ur-Quan assistance.) Until the player character shows up with a Precursor spaceship. ''Then'' they rebel, and put together [[The Alliance]] with great speed, before taking on the Ur-Quan directly.

** The Ur-Quan specifically chose to use planetary shields to [[Averted Trope|avert]] [[Genre Savvy|this trope]]. Any race too courageous to agree to serve them would end up trapped in an [[Sealed Good in a Can|impenetrable force field]]. This allows the Ur-Quan to win against enemies who were too dumb to [[The Determinator|know when they're beaten]], without having to [[Kill'Em All]].

** If you talk to Commander Hayes, he reveals that Earth kept the war going right up to the point where Ur-Quan ships were positioned in orbit, ready to glass the entire planet.

* The Terran Faction in ''[[Starcraft]]'' invokes this. They're a bunch of colonists descended from outcast criminals from Earth (think Australia [[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE]]) with [[Used Future]] technology, and fighting against both the [[Horde of Alien Locusts|insatiable rampage]] of [[Bug War|the Zerg]], and the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|hyper-advanced]] [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Protoss]]. And yet, [[Badass Normal|they hold]] [[Badass Army|their own]]...

{{quote| '''Emperor Arcturus Mengsk ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}w8mmX9IjkhI Inauguration Speech])''': ''And to all the enemies of humanity, seek not to bar our way, for we shall win through - no matter the cost!''}}

{{quote|'''Emperor Arcturus Mengsk ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}w8mmX9IjkhI Inauguration Speech])''': ''And to all the enemies of humanity, seek not to bar our way, for we shall win through - no matter the cost!''}}

** However, Mengsk is one of the less evil villains, and his only goal is more and more power.

*** True, but at least he seems to be trying to keep his promise, up until the UED starts kicking apart his empire.