History WesternAnimation / ShadowRaiders

* BigDamnHeroes: During the battle against Remora:
--> '''Jade''': This is Commander Jade of Planet Rock. By Lord Mantle's decree, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome I commit the battle moons to the service of the Alliance!]]

--> '''Jade''': This is Commander Jade. By Lord Mantle's decree, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome I commit the battle moons to the service of the Alliance!]]

* [[LastOfHisKind Last of Her Kind]]: Princess Tekla, the sole survivor of Planet Tek.

* MilitaryCoup: Femur comes perilously close to this after he [[spoiler: orders his fleet to fleet the battle of Remora.]] Pelvis makes it clear that the military's patience with him is nearing its breaking point.

* MilitaryCoup: Femur comes perilously close to this after he [[spoiler: orders his fleet to fleet the battle of Remora.]] Pelvis makes it clear that their patience with him is nearing it's breaking point.

* '''General Voyd'''-- TheVoiceless.

* RoyalsThatActuallyDoSomething: Of the main cast, the vast majority are royals, and to their credit they actually pull more than their weight. Unfortunately, this means that any away missions puts a significant portion of the Alliance leadership at risk.

* FantasticRacism: All of the races hate all of the other races, mainly due to the history of mutual raiding. This really causes trouble in the series, particularly when [[spoiler: the people of Fire lose their planet and must emigrate to the moons of Rock.]] Comes with {{Fantastic Slurs}} as a matter of course.
** Fire and Ice are so racist towards each other that they actually believe that touching a member of the other species is fatal. It isn't, and we even see Zera use an Ice-based healing technique on Pyrus, but physical contact between the two species ''does'' cause steam to start rising from the point of contact.
* FantasticSlurs: "Rockhound" is the traditional slur for the people of Rock. Jade typically uses "toad" and "reptile" to refer to Femur, implying that these are common insults for the inhabitants of Bone. Fire people are often called "hotheads" and "lavaheads", and Ice people have been referred to as "ice fleas" and "insects".

* FantasticSlurs: "Rockhound" is the traditional slur for the people of Rock.

An AllCGICartoon from MainframeEntertainment, makers of ''ReBoot''. ''Shadow Raiders'' tells the story of a quartet of planets divided by war for generations as they band together to defend from [[PlanetEater The Beast.]] Princess Tekla, not just the [[LastOfHisKind last survivor of her kind]] but of her ''solar system'', flees her doomed world to warn the people of [[SingleBiomePlanet planets]] Fire, Bone, Rock and Ice about the coming threat. Graveheart of planet Rock, King Cryos of Ice and Princess Tekla [[PursuedProtagonist fight off her pursuers]] and band together. From there, the story chronicles the struggles to form an [[TheAlliance Alliance]] against the Beast; battling prejudice, hatred, and suicidal pigheadedness, and that is just ''[[RagTagBunchOfMisfits among each other!]]''

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The Prison Planet is used to teleport the Beast Planet and strand it in some far off section of the galaxy saving the cast, but the Beast itself is still active and is still preying upon other worlds.]]

* NeverSayDie: Averted all to hell and back. One episode, "J'Accuse," seems devoted to doing nothing ''but'' saying variations on the words murder, kill, and the titular die as often as possible. Fitting, considering it is about a murder case.

* {{Precursors}}: The builders of the world engines. They seem to have been on ''every'' planet encountered by the main characters, and they might even have been more advanced than we believe with the teleportation engines of the prison planet, but who and what they are is still a mystery. Presumably the third season would have dealt with them, as it was intended to deal with the origin of the Beat, but now we will never know.

* ProductionThrowback: The show mirrors catch phrases from the other Mainframe produced shows. [[WesternAnimation/BeastWars "By the Matrix..."]] and [[{{Reboot}} "Stay Frosty"]].

An AllCGICartoon from MainframeEntertainment, makers of ''ReBoot''. ''Shadow Raiders'' tells the story of a quartet of planets divided by war for generations as they band together to defend from [[PlanetEater The Beast.]] Princess Tekla, not just the [[LastOfHisKind last survivor of her kind]] but her ''solar system'', flees along with the Beast armada to warn the people of [[SingleBiomePlanet planets]] Fire, Bone, Rock and Ice about the coming threat. In an EnemyMine situation, Graveheart of planet Rock, King Cryos of Ice and Princess Tekla [[PursuedProtagonist fight off her pursuers]] and band together. From there, the story chronicles the struggles to form an [[TheAlliance Alliance]] against the Beast; battling prejudice, hatred, and suicidal pigheadedness. And that's just ''[[RagTagBunchOfMisfits among each other!]]''

* '''Graveheart''' -- ''"[[WorkingClassHero I'm just a miner.]]"'' Not just a [[BigDamnHeroes big hero]], but also TheHeart who keeps the warring temperaments of the Alliance to working together. Surprisingly humble, open, and level headed.
* '''Princess Tekla''' -- The [[SmartGuy brain]] of the group, she's sensitive and somewhat [[MyGreatestFailure haunted by the death of her planet]]. She's a [[ChromeChampion silver]] RobotGirl who is somewhat naive about [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter who to trust]], though she gets better about it.

* '''Jade''' -- TheLancer to Graveheart, she's a proud warrior to Graveheart's humble miner. Distrustful and somewhat disdainful of others, undeservedly (at least when not talking about Femur).
* '''Prince Pyrus''' -- ''"I'm the Prince, I get to do what I want"'' HotBlooded child prince of Fire, he chafed under the role of leader but was often assertive and responsible. Despite his quote, he wasn't so much a brat as unchained by "tradition", especially when it was xenophobic. His [[PowerOfTrust trust]] in Femur was one of the things that helped the latter be somewhat less jerky.

* '''Zuma''' -- A late addition, a psychic woolly being who is wise and contemplative ... yeah, she got maybe two episodes tops, and not very deep ones either.

With the enemy, you have three characters, which are technically (if not actually) part of [[EldritchAbomination The Beast Planet]], a single organism.

There's also a dos game based on the toy line: 'War Planets: Age of Chaos'

* AbdicateTheThrone: King Cryos does this at one point after becoming worried that he's letting personal priorities interfere with his duty.
** His successor later abdicates in favour of returning the throne to Cryos.
* AChildShallLeadThem: Prince Pyrus.

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: For some reason [[EpilepticTrees (possibly Precursor involvement)]], everyone, including aliens from different solar systems, all speak the same language.

* ApocalypseHow: the basis of the series. The Beast Planet is a {{Planet Eater}}, and its combination of ability to travel between galaxies and actively seeking out "prey" could bump it to a Class X-2 threat.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Graveheart. Usually the compassionate and mild-mannered leader of the Alliance... but keep in mind that this is also the same man who [[spoiler: snapped like a twig and took out most of Fire's aerial fleet ''by himself'' after his brother was killed right in front of him.]] In other words, ''not'' someone you want to piss off.
* {{BFG}}: The Sonic Cannons.
** [[spoiler: The main batteries of Remora and the Beast Planet also qualify. Especially the latter, given that even one of those guns can destroy a planet from half a system away.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: Every Damn Episode
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The Prison Planet is used to teleport the Beast Planet and strand it in some far off section of the galaxy saving everyone! Except that the Beast is still active and now has the technology of the Prison Planet alonside what it had before.]]
* BookEnds: [[spoiler: "Planet X: On Doomsday".]]
* {{Bowdlerise}}: But not so much as to stop this series from being very adult at times.

* CampGay: ''Pelvis''.

* DaddysGirl: Zera. So much so that her dad [[spoiler: abdicates the throne]] because he realises that she'll always come first, even over his duty.

* DepravedBisexual: Jewelia could be considered this. She spends most of her screentime hitting on Graveheart (and arguably Cryos) in the creepiest manner she can, and then does it to Jade when they finally duke it out in "The Long Road Home":

* EldritchAbomination: The unstoppable Beast Planet and its demonic extensions. It doesn't spread madness, but no matter what happens, '''nothing can harm it.'''
* EtTuBrute: [[spoiler:Jade]] gets mixed up in a particularly cruel case of betrayal, when the group's survival depends on a reluctant king. [[spoiler:She ends up giving a valuable tool to the power hungry King of Rock to ensure his co-operation. Her position as his Captain of the Guard doesn't help, and when she chooses loyalty to her king, she ends up betraying her friends]]
* EvilChancellor: Averted with the Vizier. Despite displaying outright contempt for the other members of the alliance, he admits that he does respect them. Played straight later on when [[spoiler: an evil duplicate of him turns up.]]
* EvilerThanThou
* FacelessMasses: Just about every soldier in the four planets. And ''they were the good guys!''. Taken to its literal extreme by the Beast Planet, whose soldiers are actually called drones and are literally nothing but mindless extensions of the Beast Planet itself.
** Somewhat subverted in the second season, as you get to see the faces of a few troopers and the ones from Rock and Fire do indeed have unique faces. Played straight with Bone and Ice however, since the former never shows the common trooper without their "smart suits", and the latter all resemble their king down to the mandibles.
* FantasticRacism: all of the races hate all of the other races, mainly due to the history of mutual raiding. This really causes trouble in the series, particularly when [[spoiler: the people of Fire lose their planet and must emigrate to the moons of Rock.]] Comes with {{Fantastic Slurs}} as a matter of course.

* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: Princess Tekla

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Sometimes they did not even ''bother'' with the radar: King Cryos actually says that Graveheart's companions damn him to death. ''He uses the word "damn!"'' When they at least acknowledged the radar they still had more blatant sexual innuendo than many prime-time shows of the time. In an early episode, Graveheart asks Jade if she "remember(s) that tunnel?" in a moment of high tension. Jade stares at him and wants to know how he can think of that ''now.'' In the second series, a slightly tipsy Jade tells Tekla that Graveheart came out of the tunnel "wearing nothing but a salute!" Either that was one hell of a game of truth or dare or the show's OfficialCouple were pretty wild back in the day...
** Jade once says "I'd rather nurse a beast drone".

* InterspeciesRomance: Femur has a real thing for women who are not from his planet. He hits on Lamprey in his introductory episode (until she reveals her true nature as his enemy), and then flirts with the "reactivated" Tekla up until it is revealed she is being possessed by Lamprey. His steadiest "crush" is Jade, blunt-spoken warrior-woman of Rock, whom he flirts with through the entire series. His brother also seems attracted to her when they meet in the final episodes, and there seems to be something between Graveheart and Tekla throughout the series. And then there is [[PuppyLove Pyrus and Zera]], despite the [[FridgeLogic complications]] of a fire/ice romance...

** This, surprisingly, also goes for it's troops. Beast Drones, due to being composed of null matter, can and will shrug off all attacks made on them unless it hits the containment unit. It's also their way of psychologically attacking enemies, since rarely do their prey know where to hit, and fruitlessly aim at their stomachs and heads. Hilariously they turn into GlassCannons if you know where to aim, since Zera once killed a drone by ''flinging rocks at it''.
* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Let's face it, the accuracy of the Beast Drones drops measurably when firing at heroes when compared to firing at the {{RedShirt}}s. Unlike your typical kids cartoon though, ''a lot'' of those get atomized onscreen.
** Hilariously used in one episode. Whereas normal troopers will explode with their ship if it's even grazed by a Drone's attack, the heroes' ship (which is the exact same ship used by their mooks) survives two or three direct hits and the only thing knocked out was the engines.

* KarmaHoudini: Femur, who stole the Battle Moons and got a good many people killed while they stole them back, [[spoiler: and then he turned and fled in the battle of Remora, actually calling Lamprey and begging for a deal to sell out the other members of TheAlliance. Of course, his own people threatened revolt afterwards so he ''had'' to make amends or be executed by his own race, but he still ends the series as Emperor of Bone, even after his bigger, stronger and smarter brother returns from his forced exile.]]
** Then again, Femur did legitimately take the throne, according to the screwed up priorities of the planet.
** [[spoiler: The Beast. The very last shot of the series is the Beast eating another planet, unimpeded and unopposed.]]

* MarketBasedTitle: It was called "Shadow Raiders" in Canada because Canadian kid's TV shows can not have the word "war" in the title. For this reason, another MerchandiseDriven show by Mainframe was named "[[WesternAnimation/BeastWars Beasties]]" in Canada...

* NoSympathy: Empathy is not Jade's strong point...
* OfficialCouple: Graveheart and Jade, second season. [[spoiler:Although it's not known what effect Jade's promotion to Queen of Planet Rock will have on things]].

* PigeonholedVoiceActor

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Miners, soldiers, royalty and refugees and do not like, trust or cooperate with each other? Of ''course'' they are the heroes.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Vizier, to a degree. While never being evil or doing anything overtly bad, he'd maintained a hostile and suspicious attitude towards the alliance as a whole and its leaders in particular. After secretly watching them try and fail to save Planet Fire from the coming Beast and witnessing their distress upon realizing the hopelessness, he opts to remain on Planet Fire for its final moments while informing Pyrus that he'd been wrong.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: A lot. Distances and sizes are probably the most egregious. [[MST3KMantra Well, it's a cartoon]])
** Case in point: they've managed to get from one end of their system to the other in a matter of hours.

* TakingYouWithMe: When [[spoiler:Planet Fire's World Engines fail]], and it falls so far behind the rest of the Cluster that it will be inevitably devoured by the Beast, [[spoiler:the Grand Vizier orders it evacuated. Then he [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome deliberately turns it around]] and ''rams'' the Beast with Planet Fire]].
** The self-destruct of [[spoiler:Planet Jungle]] is also a variant of this, since its World Engines were inoperative and it was going to be eaten anyway.

* WaveMotionGun: In the episode where Tekla and Graveheart try to persuade Lord Mantle to join their alliance, Vox plays a recording of the last stand of planet Water from Tekla's home solar system. The inhabitants of Planet Water turned their entire world into a wave motion gun to try and destroy the Beast. The result was less than impressive. The battle moons also use these as their main weapon.
** Of course, [[PointyHairedBoss Lord Mantle]] was more than confident that planet Rock would do fine by itself and defeat the Beast with the use of the three remaining Battlemoons. [[spoiler: Needless to say, when he betrays the Alliance to prove just that they don't even slow it down.]]
* WorkingClassHero: As Graveheart often reminds us, [[CatchPhrase he's just a miner]], but he's a very capable leader. This instance of this trope isn't used to cast any disparagement on upper-class or educated people, though, as royalty like Prince Pyrus and King Cryos are shown to be just as heroic.

* ProductionThrowback: The show mirrors catch phrases from the other Mainframe produced shows. [[BeastWars "By the Matrix..."]] and [[{{Reboot}} "Stay Frosty"]].

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The Prison Planet is used to teleport the Beast Planet and strand it in some far off section of the galaxy saving everyone! Except that the Beast is still active and now has the technology of the Prison Planet alonside what it had before.]] It just barely avoids being a total ShootTheShaggyDog story.

* HotAmazon: Jade is even ''called'' an Amazon, which is especially notable considering humanity has never even appeared in the show.