The War of Earthly Aggression

Earth might look good if you're living in the capital of the Terran Empire or The Federation, but what about for all the folks on the offworld colonies?

We've got news for you: The colonies have rebelled against taxes, telepathic Gestapo, and pretty much every other injustice that Earth has inflicted on them, spawning a movement that strongly parallels historical insurrections on an interplanetary or even an interstellar scale.

An interesting note is that, since the Earth loyalists are frequently The Federation, The War of Earthly Aggression has a much higher chance of subverting The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified than any other "rebellion" plot-line. As a general rule, however, The War of Earthly Aggression is usually depicted in morally ambiguous terms, with both the loyalists and the rebels having good reasons for the conflict, and often one can find Psychopaths or Complete Monsters on either side.

The trope title comes from "The War of Northern Aggression", a political term for the American Civil War. (Go ahead, guess which side applied the label.) And Knowing Is Half the Battle. So to speak.

Associated Tropes:

Examples of The War of Earthly Aggression include:

Anime

  • This is one of the most common themes in Gundam. Due to Gundam's influence, it's also a common theme in Humongous Mecha anime as a whole.
    • The original Mobile Suit Gundam had the Principality of Zeon, who declared war on the Earth Federation and then tried to Colony Drop their military headquarters right off the map.[1] The next couple of stories spring from this conflict (and the Expanded Universe implies that there's some Zeon influence even further down the line.
    • Mobile Suit Gundam F91 has a group of aristocrats start taking over colonies. Interestingly, they succeed in part because The Federation has started stagnating into uselessness.
    • In Gundam Wing, the five Gundam Pilots were sent to Earth to beat the stuffing out of the oppressive Earth government and win colonial independence. The Movie shows that this is preferable to the original plan, which would have involved a Colony Drop and taking over in the ensuing chaos.
    • Gundam X has this in its backstory, which is inspired by the original series. Late in the series we get another war, though this one is also over Newtypes.
    • Gundam SEED plays with this, since while the war was ostensibly about independence, both sides end up being lead by racist scumbags who want to wipe each other out.
    • Gundam AGE has the UE, which turn out to be Martian colonists who were abandoned by the Earth Federation some 150 years ago and are still bitter.
  • The war in Martian Successor Nadesico, while originally presented to the Earthlings as an attack by alien invaders, turns out to be something like this.
  • In Vandread, Earth humans were harvesting body parts from the rest of humanity, who were divided into unwitting colonies.
  • Mars Daybreak has the type of conditions that usually results in this as a backdrop for the series, though nothing comes of it by the end.
  • The Backstory of Legend of the Galactic Heroes had one or two of these in the distant past; in the end, Eath was so thoroughly trounced that by the time of the main story, it's an impoverished backwater way out in the Empire's boonies.

Comic Books

  • In Insurrection, set in the Judge Dredd universe, a Mega-City One colony grants full citizenship rights to Mutants, robots, and uplifts in order to fight off an alien incursion. When the authorities back on Earth demand that status quo be restored, the colony goes into open rebellion and renames itself Liberty, then seeks to inspire other colonies to also rebel.

Film

  • The Mars Resistance version of this trope was seen in Total Recall.

Literature

  • The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. Neither side is shown to be really evil, per se, it's just that people on the Moon discover that their ecology is on the brink of collapse (due to their exporting almost exclusively agricultural products and never getting imports of things like water in return) and Earth not believing them. Of course, the Moon is much more sympathetic, not only because the story is from their POV, but also because Earth regards them as literal scum of the Earth due to lunar colonization's origins as a Penal Colony.
  • Cleverly averted in Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy: a policy of "ethnic streaming" (all colonists coming from the same country on Earth) and independence of colonies once they were properly established ensures that, politically at least, The Confederation is more or less stable... that is, if you don't count the Antimatter Syndicates, and, later, the Possesed.
    • The first extrasolar colonies did not follow ethnic streaming, and so, served as an example for future generations: they were splintered into warring nations and financially bankrupt.
  • The Red Mars Trilogy seems to have this, where a revolution in the first book is slapped down with orbital lasers and whatnot, but the 2nd one works, in part due much better planning.
  • Revolt on Alpha C by Robert Silverberg.
  • Harry Harrison's To The Stars trilogy has a Big Brother-like Earth lording it over interstellar colonies set up to be totally dependent upon each other. Since each colony requires numerous goods (which they are never allowed to stockpile) each made only on one of the other colonies, it would be impossible for a revolt to succeed unless every colony did so at once. Which they do.
    • Earth is not entirely united, though. There are several rogue states that cling to old ideals, such as democracy, the strongest of them being Israel. The last novel makes it clear that a revolution can only succeed with a simultaneous assault on the surface and space.
  • In Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves, the leader of the Lunar separatist group has the long term goal of actually making the moon mobile so it can leave earth orbit and even the solar system entirely. The rebellion, however, is put down by the other separatists holding a quiet vote and deciding he is getting a bit wacky and should step down.
  • In Kurt Vonnegut's novel The Sirens of Titan, Winston Niles Rumfoord creates the Martian civilization using brainwashed disenfranchised people from Earth and sends them on a mission to conquer Earth, arming them only with enough equipment to put up a pathetic fight as Earth unites against the pitiful alien invaders, triggering a world-wide existential crisis which allows for Rumfoord to institute the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent religion.
  • Martian Rainbow by Robert L. Forward plays with the trope a little. First, a Russian colony on Mars is forcibly conquered by American-led United Nations forces when the Russians won't let anyone else set up colonies there. Then the resulting UN scientific colony is cut off after the leader of that multinational fleet hooks up with a corrupt televangelist, gets himself elected President of the World, and makes all space travel illegal as part of a general anti-science campaign to satisfy his religious backers, who have in the meantime declared him the new Messiah. So the scientists in the Mars Colony, cut off from resupply and rescue, are essentially forced to admit they are now independent, and try to make a go of things. Finally, they send the chief scientist from the Mars base, who happens to be the identical twin brother of the Dark Messiah President of Earth, to assassinate his brother and take his place, and resume legal space travel. Did I mention that both twins are Neil Armstrong's identical grandsons?
  • In Larry Niven's A World Out of Time, Earth tries to assert its influence on the extrasolar colonies it has seeded. They then go to war by firing neutron stars at each other.
  • In Charles Harness' The Ring Of Ritornel, Earth has been bombed back to the Azoic after starting a nuclear war against rebellious colonies, and is so execrated that most people have forgotten that "Terror" used to be "Terra".
  • In The History of the Galaxy series, the First Galactic War starts when the Earth Alliance president orders the invasion of the Dabog colony, one of the many which refused to submit to Earth rule. When the invasion fails due to the farmers proving themselves a little too good at fighting, the fleet admiral nukes the planet. The other Free Colonies band together and turn what was supposed to be a Blitzkrieg into a decades-long war, which Earth eventually loses (due to a betrayal in their top brass). The war turns the colonies into industrial and scientific powerhouses that later form the core of the Confederacy of Suns. Earth is left alone but under watch, populated by only a few million people (most having escaped the horrors of war).
    • The invasion of Dabog is detailed in the novel Dabog, where it's revealed that the Earth Alliance never made itself known to the colonies. They merely sent spies to infiltrate the colonies and detemine if the colonials would accept additional settlers from Earth (whose population numbers in the hundreds of billions). While the colonials claim they would accept more people, they wish to reserve the right to select appropriate candidates (i.e. people with useful skills and no criminal past). Not liking this, the President sends a strike fleet to Dabog. There are to be no ultimatums, no negotiations. The fleet makes itself known by nuking two cities from orbit. Even the Earth soldiers don't much care for the colonists.
  • Philip K. Dick's Time Out of Joint. The conflict (between Mars and Earth) is revealed in the Twist Ending. The protagonists decide to side with Mars.
  • The Stars My Destination has a very brutal war between the Inner Planets (Earth, the moon, Mars, and maybe Venus as well) and the Outer Satellites. The Outer Satellites have no qualms about nuclear carpet-bombing the Earth, but the Inner Planets are quite eager to use a superweapon, so neither side is particularly noble.
  • David Weber, author of the Honor Harrington novels, also wrote 4 novels with Steve White set in the universe of Starfire, a tabletop wargame. In one of the novels, Insurrection, the Terran Empire has grown so huge that its central government no longer reflects the interests of the Fringe Worlds, instead listening only to the core Heart Worlds and the the closer-to-home Corporate Worlds. So, the Fringe Worlds declare their independence, and form their own multi-star-system nation. Naturally, the Terran Empire has to send its own fleets out to the Fringe Worlds to try and regain control.
    • And now The Honorverse is doing it too in the war against the Solarian League.
  • The Company Wars as part of the Alliance Union universe, a Melee a Trois between the Earth Company, the Union, and the Merchanter's Alliance.
  • Forms part of the background tension in Final Days. The Coalition (which does not even represent the entire earth, only North America and possibly Europe) has monopoly on wormhole technology and makes sure the colonies are dependent on Earth. When things start to go bad, the top members of government evacuate to the colonies. They make sure to bring with them a lot of troops to persuade the locals to accept their leadership. If Newton colony is anything to go by, things will be rough.
  • This is the setting of Colin Kapp's The Ion War. (The title refers to a new Applied Phlebotinum, "para-ion transformation," which makes certain Terran troops into Super Soldiers — and then some of them into Phlebotinum Rebels.)
  • A former System States Alliance officer in H. Beam Piper's The Cosmic Computer expresses attitudes strongly resembling those of the South following the American Civil War. The short story from which that book was rewritten, though, includes a passage dismissing his views as propaganda:

Conn swore impatiently. "You've been listening to old Klem Zareff ranting about the Lost Cause and the greedy Terran robber barons holding the Galaxy in economic serfdom while they piled up profits. The Federation didn't fight that war for profits; there weren't any profits to fight for. They fought it because if the System States had won, half of them would be at war among themselves now."

Live-Action TV

  • Firefly: Although Earth was ancient history, the war between the Alliance and the Independents over Unification is the same basic pattern, fought between rich central worlds and poor, far flung colonies.
  • Babylon 5 had, as well as the Mars Resistance, resistance against Earth by Babylon 5, Proxima 3 and Orion 7. It takes action from Babylon 5 to end the military blockade of Proxima 3 and to free Mars. Orion 7, which is supposedly part of the Rebellion and not blockaded doesn't show up much.[2]
  • Came up sometimes on Blake's 7, but only one episode at a time and one planet at a time. It was the theme of the whole series, but the rebellion seemed to be a lot less organized and systematic than the other examples of this trope.
  • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Maquis were rebelling because they felt the Federation sold them out. In fairness, the Cardassians were committing blatant treaty violations, and the Federation wasn't exactly very quick to respond.
    • That was a pretty complicated situation borne of a monumentally stupid redrawing of lines on the map where Federation citizens ended up on the wrong side of the line... and in fairness to the Federation, there were more than a few in the hierarchy that were on the side of the Maquis (and the Cardassians also had to cede worlds as well) - it's just that the Federation didn't want another war. As far as Star Trek goes, this is one of the few political situations that had actual depth and not just good vs. evil.
      • Also note that it wasn't a clear 'wrong side of the line'. Some colonies ended up in an ambiguous 'demilitarized zone'. Others ended up in enemy space and were evacuated, but many of the colonists refused to leave.
    • The most out-and-out example of this trope would be the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe, which is hell bent on conquering every non-human species in the universe. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine shows that eventually they were overthrown, which triggered a reverse insurrection of the enslaved humans.
      • To clarify, this was the result of the events in an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, where alternate-universe Spock (he of the goatee) becomes the Terran Emperor and institutes a series of far-reaching reforms. In Deep Space Nine, we learn that Spock's less-violent and more fair leadership backfired on him, as increasing civil rights given to the former slaves led to successful uprisings and the destruction of the Empire. Like many of the better Deep Space Nine ongoing story arcs, it took something that already existed in the Trek universe and added an extra layer of complexity and realism, subverting the usual idealism of the previous series.

Tabletop Games

  • Commonly occurs in Warhammer 40,000. The Imperium of Man considers itself the sole authority for all of humanity, and thus until recently was constantly fighting wars of conquest and Xeno eradication, and there's always a rebellion to put down somewhere in the galaxy.
    • Until recently?
    • Until recently the Imperium was winning. Now it's constant wars of trying to hold onto Imperium-controlled worlds.
  • Tech Infantry has the Frontier Worlds Territory and a few other colony-world minor political entities who broke off from the Earth Federation, along with the various internal rebel groups who aren't so much interested in independence as in taking over the whole shebang for themselves.
  • The backstory of BattleTech has this occurring all the damned time.
  • Dream Pod 9's older franchises tend to incorporate this. In Heavy Gear Earth decides to reclaim its colonies after years (well, more like a millennium) of neglect only to find the Terra Novans are more than willing to fight them rather than each other. Jovian Chronicles also has this, but things aren't so clear cut.
    • And the Atlanteans. And the Caprician Liberati. And whatever we learn about New Jerusalem in 2012.
  • SPI's Battle Fleet Mars. The human colony on Mars revolts against Earth's control and tries to become independent.
  • Traveller has some interesting variants of these. In one Earth (and the rest of the Solomani states) has become an Insignificant Little Blue Planet and does not like it. They join with a number of planets to rebel forming the Solomani Confederation. We are given to understand that the new state is a repressive and unstable Police State unlike the Imperium 's benevolent rule.
  • In the default campaign setting of Tomorrow's War colonial insurrections are more common than wars between the different nations of earth (hence the rules for "asymmetric warfare") most notably the secession of the New Soviet Federation from the Russian Empire. Though most of the example scenarios are battles between independent colonies on Glory (claimed by a Mega Corp that allows anyone with the funds to settle) and their allies from earth, resulting in a situation more like the Vietnam war.

Video Game

  • The Moon Shall Rise Again: video game dealing with a revolt on a moon colony (parodied in an episode of Futurama).
  • Killzone, while not involving Earth itself, involves a separatist movement from an Earth-like (Earthlike? Have you seen that place?) planet breaking away to form a new colony separate from the human colony, forming a totalitarian Nazi-like regime, and then invading the mother planet en-mass.
    • It's worth noting that the separatist movement in this case is technically no longer the same subspecies as mainline humanity—the planet they were on is incredibly hostile to human life, and even with protective measures, they needed to adapt significantly to survive; they consider ordinary humans inferior and worthy of being enslaved or wiped out.
      • It actually went both ways, humans hate the Helghast and want them dead, and it didn't even begin with a speciesist conflict. It began with the Helghan Corporation objecting to the UCN's unfair treatment of the corporations they sent to colonize planets for resources, and the ISA was sent to drive them out of Vekta, forcing them to settle on the only other world they had, Helghan.
  • The Red Faction series is all about this trope, focusing on various La Résistance groups of Martian colonists fighting against an oppressive, Earth-centric government.
  • Escape Velocity and Escape Velocity Nova both feature wars the Earth lead governments are starting against outer colonies. Who won depended on which side you supported.
    • Nova has a clear case in the backstory, with the Colonial Council towards the end, but the current batch of Federation/Auroran Wars aren't quite that clear- the entire reason the Federation's direct predecessor was formed was Auroran aggression (granted, then the Auroran Empire ended up getting formed because that government was too indiscriminate in its counterattack).
  • The Halo Expanded Universe revealed that there were rebel elements fighting against the UNSC, some of which continue their struggle even after the Covenant invasion has begun. The Spartan program was originally implemented to help put down the revolts.
    • There revolts had the effect of preparing humanity for the coming Covenant, so they had a positive effect in the end.
  • StarCraft has a lot of these. The whole plot kickstarts when Raynor, marshall of a tiny little backwater colony, joins the rebels out of spite against the Confederacy's suspiciously lengthy response to a Zerg infestation. After the Confederacy is overthrown, the United Earth Directorate is sent to reclaim the territories lost to the Zerg, The Terran Dominion and the Protoss. It might seem like the UED are Les Collaborateurs... problem is, the rebels and the resulting Terran Dominion was pretty much as bad as the Confederacy.
    • There was also the little fact of General Duke imprisoning Raynor for destroying an obvious Zerg infestation. Anyone would be upset at this point.
  • A galaxy-wide civil war is the setting of Supreme Commander, and while all three sides are shades of grey, the since-replaced Earth Empire started the wars against both the Cybrans and the Aeon, not to mention the Seraphim.
    • But the Earth Empire collapsed on itself long ago, and the succeeding United Earth Federation was merely trying to hold on its territory while the Crusading Aeons wanted to convert or exterminate by force. The Cybrans' struggle is greyer, as they try to free cyborgs who are essential to the proper administration of the UEF territories. The UEF is really on the defensive there.
  • The Asian campaign in Empire Earth: Art of Conquest is about Mars rebelling against the Earth government.
  • In Zone of the Enders, Earth keeps a tight leash on the Martian and Outer System colonies, which is explored more in-depth in the Anime Dolores, I and Gaiden Game Fist of Mars. The largest Rebel group turns out to be almost just as bad as The Federation, and that's before their leader goes batshit insane.
  • 'Incoming' was a game centered on a sudden mass invasion of Earth by aliens - the plot gradually goes from defending, to launching an attack on the Moon (delivered via Space Shuttles!), where it is detected that the aliens are teleporting in from - you put a stop to their shenanigans.
    • Now, fastforward many years. 'Incoming Forces' has you in the perspective of an alien federation whose planets are suddenly invaded by crusading...humans. Yes, those same humans who about 20 years ago were nearly killed. Not the same alien race, mind; Humans were just plain omnicidal at this point.
  • Not quite this trope, but the whole point of Ground Control II: Operation Exodus is the desperate fight of the Northern Star Alliance against the ruthless Terran Empire. The difference is that the colonies that make up the NSA have rebelled centuries before, and the government they have rebelled from no longer exists, having been taken over by the Draconis Empire, which renamed itself the Terran Empire after conquering Earth. As far as the imperials are concerned, though, all of space rightly belongs to them.
  • The "A New Hope" scenario of Sword of the Stars is about this.
  • The first Colony Wars is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Power Dolls is about the independence war of planet Omni against the Earth forces.

Web Comics

  • Angels 2200 milks the "morally ambiguous" version of this trope for all it is worth: the Terrans have a State Sec and use biological warfare; The Colonials use Child Soldiers as kamikazes and torture their prisoners. On balance the Terrans come out slightly on top, since most of their viewpoint characters are noble warrior types whereas the Colonials' commander tends to do Magnificent Bastard things like deliberately sacrificing his own troops as bait.
  • In Galactic Maximum, the Backstory of the Great Solar Wars. The Federation is the aliens who showed up to help the colonists.
  • The first arc of Escape from Terra details the United World's brief attempt to bring down the Cerean "rebellion".
  • Details about the conflict are sketchy, but in the backstory of Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro na, Earth and the Lunar colonists fought a bloody war that ended in stalemate and an uneasy peace.

Western Animation

  • Earth government in Exo Squad has previously crushed the first neo-sapiens rebellion on Mars.
  1. ↑ They missed and ended up wiping Sydney, Australia off the map instead
  2. ↑ Though it did spawn a badass audio fanfic.
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