Command & Conquer/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• This troper felt that the US President in Red Alert 3 being an Imperial cyborg spy was incredibly stupid and out of the blue, even for a series as camp as this one. However, playing through the Ally and Soviet campaigns a second time made me realise just how brilliant a development it was: the Empire infiltrated the HIGHEST LEVELS OF AMERICAN OFFICE, giving themselves an incredible means to deflect attention away from Japan, and onto the Soviet Union. It suddenly became a pretty slick twist. - poptart_fairy
  • It also makes MORE sense during the Allied Campgian as said President goes off to launch attacks as the Soviets with super weapons. This makes sense because since he's an Imperial cyborg he was ordered to shoot at the Soviets and stop them from joining forces and get them fighting each other agian.
  • In the Allied campaign in Yuri' Revenge, after you go back in time, the war against the Soviet Union is won without you doing a single mission against them. At first, it seemed odd, until I realized - your earlier self was still around. The Allies found themselves with two commanders, so they sent one against Yuri, the other against the Soviets. Incidentally, this also means that there are two Tanyas.
• In Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars, the Scrin's "vehicles" are all either hovercraft or legged walkers. They don't use any treaded or wheeled vehicles. At first this just seemed like a design decision to emphasize their alien design and advanced technology. It wasn't until later that I realized that they were designed to operate on planets heavily converted by tiberium - worlds that were naturally going to have nightmarish terrain of jagged crystalline structures that would be impossible to drive wheeled or tracked vehicles through, but that hovering or legged vehicles would much more easily navigate. Suddenly, the Scrin's weapons design isn't just alien, its exceptionally practical for the environments they work in. --User:Unknown Troper
• C&C 4 is the black sheep of the series, and Kane seems to be doing some very stupid things, such as seeming to leave the implants in the open. Then you realize; he left the implants relatively open because most of them are living 'normal' lives! That's right, he's putting his plan's keys in the least likely of places, people (such as Dr. Pascal) who are either going to be high on GDI's protect list, or can defend themselves (in this case, the player). Then you realize in the Nod campaign (whose events are generally canonical, as it ties into the GDI campaign), that Colonel James is with Gideon to take down Nod; and James had Pascal tied up and gagged when she met him. That means that Gideon didn't get Pascal or the other implant holders at random or by idiocy on Kane's part; they were betrayed from the inside. It's dual layered, and it failed, but the fact that Kane learned not to put things in heavy Nod bases that are screaming "Kane's Big Scheme!" helps. To list; Tib Dawn: Temple Prime got ionized. Tib Sun: He aimed to fire a giant world-killing missile, expecting to be able to stop GDI. He can't stop GDI. Tiberium Wars: He tricks GDI into 'winning' the war to get his goals. Tiberian Twilight: He does his best to avoid putting his keys in places that you'd expect the Dark Messiah to keep it. Further brilliance occurs with the Motion Comic; Kane mentions that the device he wants Peirce to recover is "protected against [his] kind", and it's a key to "Ascension." The implants were the key. The basic design of the implants was basically taken from something that isn't supposed to be used by people like Kane, so that's why he couldn't use it. Doesn't excuse everything, but it makes a lot more sense than just it was a bunch of flukes. - User:Luke Danger
• Not sure if this should go here or under "Game Developers", but when this troper read an article describing Westwood's original plans for C&C3, including a plot point where a Nod psychic named Yuri is accidentally sent back in time via chronosphere, he wondered why EA didn't include this brilliant plot point in their version of the game. Then it hit him: tying the two Westwood franchises together would only serve to justify all the backlash EA recieved for Generals being called a "Command & Conquer" game. It's in EA's best interest to pretend all three series are completely distinct universes with no crossover whatsoever. - sirbacon
• Command and Conquer Red Alert brilliance- Nadia poisons General Gradenko and Stalin in the same manner; a cup of tea, laced with poison, "made by herself." Russians love their tea the way Stalin loves indiscriminate murder.
• So, I was wondering why the Scrin didn't just Tiberiumify Mars or a super-Earth somewhere given that Tiberium is actually a harvest, not really a terraforming agent and it would be easier to just seed planets without hostile natives who might intefere with the process or at least the locals wouldn't be as hostile if it's not their planet. Then it occurred to me that they probably deliberately target life-bearing planets in order to pre-emptively eliminate potential threats.
  • The initial version of tiberium is also an infection and transformation of local plant life. It isn't until later on that it transforms into the Von-Nuemann crystal. Therefore, tiberium grows best on life-bearing planets.
• I wondered why the hidden campaign in Red Alert pit you against giant ants as a force with a combination of Allies and Soviet units, and why the units were a yellow-ish colour. I always assumed that the Allies and Soviets had teamed up to fight the ants, and that the yellow was from the ant blood or something. Then, it hit me. You're not Allies. You're not Soviet. You're the goddamn Global Defense Initiative!
  • Given how you have direct access to Mammoth Tanks, this probably means that Tiberium is connected to Red Alert - whichever branch of Red Alert the Giant Ants campaign is considered canon in.
• Yuri paints his forces purple, and tends to steal units from the Allies (blue) and Soviets (red). Since Yuri uses both faction's units at the drop of a hat, it makes perfect sense that he use a color which is a mix of both the other faction's colors.
• In the final missions or GDI and Nod in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun: Firestorm, I questioned why CABAL would leave the relay nodes for his Firestorm walls outside of his infinite barrier of protection, where his ultimate weapon, the Core Defender, can't reach you. Then it hit me. The Defender is a caged beast.

Fridge Logic

• Kane in Tiberium Wars says that first two wars were just to weaken GDI. Ignoring all the time GDI is given to recover in between wars, it looks more the wars had the opposite effect since by Tiberian Sun, GDI has supplanted every other army, and by Tiberium Wars has supplanted any existing government. To top this off, Kane's Wrath indicates that GDI wiped Nod off the map in the 2nd and 3rd Tiberium wars, leaving Kane to have to work to rebuild it from the ground up after the 2nd.

Fridge Horror

• While Red Alert plays most everything for laughs, when looks at how the USSR and Imperialist Japan treated people they conquered, and how background material for Soviet units in Red Alert 3 indicates them crossing the Moral Event Horizon more than once, them wining in their campaigns would plunge the world into a cruel age of oppression and death, especially if the Empire of the Rising Sun won.

---

Back to Command & Conquer