Failed State

Thomas Cole's The Course of Empire: Destruction (1836)

"In such condition [of man without government] there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain. Consequently, no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

A failed state is a Sub-Trope of Crapsack World where, for one reason or another, a nation's government has all but collapsed. Maybe a war has drained its wealth and resources, or a famine or disease has devastated its population, and everyone is too busy scrounging for food to support a bureaucracy. Maybe a series of Civil Wars or coups d'êtat has left the nation too chaotic and divided to be effectively governed. Either way, the existing central authority has been weakened to the point where it's unable to enforce the law or provide for its citizens.

Unlike dictatorships or other selectively-oppressive governments, a failed state isn't a country that chooses not to provide for certain citizens. Rather, a failed state is physically unable to govern due to a lack of infrastructure, high rates of crime and poverty, and a lack of proper leadership, education, or technological progress. At the same time, a failed state hasn't completely collapsed or been replaced yet: it's teetering right on the edge. Oftentimes, the only reason a nation like this hasn't already been conquered is that no one wants the responsibility of cleaning up the mess (or that no one is strong enough to do so).

In many cases, setting-appropriate criminal gangs (often bikers, The Cartel or Bandit Clans) will rise up, operating openly due to the lack of any government-owned law enforcement; in extreme cases, this will lead to the development of brutal warlord rulers in lieu of organized government. Other times, corporations will fill in the gaps, providing their own services (for those who can pay). In the absence of either of these, a failed state may simply devolve into near-anarchy. If anything remains of the government, it's likely too busy defending its few remaining resources to help anyone else.

Rule of law is virtually nonexistent either way; judicial authorities are, at best, extremely incompetent, and are more often than not outrageously corrupt. Sentences are arbitrary and vary wildly, and can be easily swayed via bribes or other means of currying favor with the police and judiciary, which in turn leads to the public having zero faith in the judicial system. This typically leads to widespread issues with vigilantism and mob justice, and all the fun things that that entails, like summary executions, honor and vendetta cultures, and blood libel. In the worst cases, this can lead to genocides and ethnic purges.

Common in the Cyberpunk genre, where private corporations frequently become more powerful than the governments that host them and gain control over key social services. Also common in medieval or antiquity-based settings, which have had real-life historical examples of failed states and receding central authority. May overlap with apocalyptic worlds, if governments aren't completely wiped out but are still unable to perform their designated functions.

Not to be confused with Vestigial Empire, though those can often result in failed states in the provinces governed by a weakening empire. Super-Trope to Fallen States of America, which is for settings where the United States has become one of these. Can be used to justify Allowed Internal War, Capitalism Is Bad, Democracy Is Bad, or Fascist, but Inefficient. Compare with Soiled City on a Hill, Ungovernable Galaxy, and Wretched Hive.

Sadly, this trope is Truth in Television, especially in the developing world. However, due to the nebulous definition of "failed state" in contemporary politics, No Real Life Examples, please!

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Berserk: The Kingdom of Midland collapses into near-anarchy after the end of the Golden Age Arc, having suffered significant military losses in first the Hundred-Year War and then from turning on the Band of the Hawk, as well as a Succession Crisis caused by the death of its heir (the king's younger brother, assassinated by Guts on Griffith's orders), queen (ditto), and king (natural causes) in rapid succession, leaving only the Princess Classic Charlotte alive of the royal family. This leaves it easy pickings for the brutal Kushan invasion. Even after the other neighboring states form a military alliance to launch a crusade against the Kushans, all the talk is of dividing Midland up between them in the event of victory rather than restoring it.
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00: At the start of the show, the Kingdom of Azadistan is in an economic crisis as a result of the wide use of solar energy. This led to wars with neighboring countries and civil unrest caused by terrorism. Princess Marina Ismail tries to negotiate with the international community for foreign assistance to save her ailing country only to fall on deaf ears. It doesn't help that Ali al-Sanchez captures the leader of the opposition to sow discord between the radicals and Marina's government. Fortunately, Celestial Being stops this from happening when Setsuna saves the opposition leader and has he and Marina negotiate for peace and reformation. However in Season 2, Azadistan's economy worsens and the opposition leader passed away, leading to more violence and unrest. Then, the A-Laws arrested Marina for her connections with Celestial Being. Setsuna saves her again but when they try to go back to Azadistan, al-Sanchez has already destroyed much of the country. This causes the Earth Federation Sphere to swoop in and occupy Azadistan by abolishing its government.

Comic Books

• Doctor Doom: Part of the reason Doctor Doom always regains his rule of Latveria is that without him, Latveria is prone to collapse into one of these. While often portrayed as a Ruritania, Latveria also has quite a few stockpiles of advanced weapons (because of, you know, Doctor Doom) and so it's in everyone's best interests that the various factions who would love to rule Latveria in Doom's place don't actually get their hands on them... or worse, begin exporting them.
• Transformers:
  • The Transformers (IDW): It's eventually revealed in series such as Transformers: More than Meets the Eye that Cybertron as a whole is viewed as one of these by the wider galactic community. While the Autobots are nominally the pre-existing government ^note in Transformers Megatron Origins the pre-war Autobots are merely the police force , their claim isn't taken seriously simply due to the fact that Cybertron itself is a dead world and the Cybertronians as a whole spread out throughout space engaged in their Forever War. Even when Cybertron is restored and the war ends in the aftermath of Transformers: All Hail Megatron, it's mentioned that the Galactic Council refuses to acknowledge the Autobots as the government of Cybertron due to factors such as a dire housing shortage (most of Cybertron had been restored to a primordial state and only the former Autobot capital of Iacon is inhabitable), the Autobot inability to represent a majority of Cybertronians (a large chunk of the population consists of neutrals who want nothing to do with Autobots or Decepticons, not to mention several holdout Decepticon forces who refuse to accept the war is over and so continue attacking organic worlds) and Megatron, the one held responsible for the countless lives lost throughout civilised space, has been allowed to join the Autobots as part of the peace arrangement (making him a Karma Houdini in their eyes).
  • The Transformers (Marvel): In the backstory to the series, Cybertron itself was on the verge of becoming one of these due to the critical fuel shortage. In theory, the capital city of Iacon is first among equals of the various city-states of Cybertron and under the rule of the Autobot Overlord. In practice, the Overlord's real power only extends to Iacon itself, with the other city-states only paying him lip service. After the Overlord dies (thanks to a Bodyguard Betrayal on the part of his escorts Megatron and Ravage, who leave him to die of Energon starvation), Cybertron nearly collapses into all-out war between the various states, until Megatron forms the Decepticons and launches his war for domination.

Film — Live-Action

• Batman Begins: Invoked by the League of Shadows. R'as al-Ghul claims credit for attempting to weaponize economics to collapse Gotham City in the film's backstory, having viewed it as a Soiled City on a Hill. Thomas Wayne's philanthropic efforts, and then his death inspiring the rest of Gotham's Blue Bloods to contribute, threw a Spanner in the Works, prompting the main plot of the film, where the League weaponizes Jonathan "Scarecrow" Crane's fear toxin to achieve the same end.
• Black Hawk Down dramatizes the US Army's effort to remove violent warlords from Somalia, where bands of thugs are hoarding relief supplies meant for the sick and starving people. As was true in real life, the government of Somalia exists pretty much in name only, with the rival warlords having carved up the country into fiefdoms, with their armed militias imposing thug law on the helpless masses.
• Captain America: Civil War: Zemo specifically describes the fictional Eastern European nation of Sokovia as being a failed state even before it was completely destroyed in Avengers: Age of Ultron, due to the chaos HYDRA caused in the region.
• Children of Men: The United Kingdom teeters between being a Police State and one of these, having to deal with hordes of refugees and a failing economy. Multiple other nations have already collapsed entirely due to the infertility crisis.
• Mad Max: The first film in the series happens Just Before the End. There still appears to be a semblance of government, with a police and court system still operating in an official capacity. However, the government has little remaining law enforcement capabilities, allowing the film's criminal biker gangs to run rampant.
• RoboCop (1987): The city of Detroit still has a government and a police force, but both are seriously undermanned and underfunded. As a result, crime is running wild in the city, which is nearing total collapse. The outsourcing of law enforcement to Omni Consumer Products is what kicks off the events of the movie.
• Star Wars: Downplayed with the Galactic Republic in the prequel trilogy. It's still marginally functional, but so comically corrupt and inept that, in The Phantom Menace, the Senate's response to a private corporation attempting to extort a member state with a military blockade is to scratch their collective butts and idly wonder if maybe that's possibly their problem. The Supreme Chancellor (equivalent to a prime minister) is forced to go behind the Senate's back to get the Jedi Order involved, and then — due to Sheev "Darth Sidious" Palpatine exploiting the Republic's failure to provide basic governance in order to overthrow it altogether — is fired by the Senate for his trouble.

Literature

• The Admonitions of Ipuwer were a long litany of the ills befalling Ancient Egypt during the First Intermediate Period, a time when "chaos reigns and order has been forgotten". Grievances of the time included widespread looting, lack of maintenance of vital infrastructure, and female slaves freely talking to their mistresses.
  Behold, things have been done which have not happened for a long time past; the king has been deposed by the rabble.
• The Daevabad Trilogy: The djinn King Ghassan fractures his nation as he takes more and more extreme measures to keep control over his perceived enemies. By the second book, he can't equip his armies or even get the trash collected from the streets of his capital, and his own son rebels in disgust.
  Hastet: A slight diminishment in taxes does not do the damage I know you've seen. Keeping a third of the population in slavery and squalor does. Oppressing another third to the point where they self-segregate does. People do not thrive under tyrants.
• Discworld: In Monstrous Regiment, Borogravia is a country locked in a never-ending and pointless war with its neighbour Zlobenia. Borogravia is expressly based on the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, like its Roundworld counterpart in 1918-19, is collapsing from the inside. There are shortages of everything, religious extremism has risen, and what will turn out to be the very last draft of new Army recruits is on its way to the front lines.
• The Faraway Paladin: From its heyday in the Union Age, civilization on the continent of Southmark collapsed into banditry and warlordism following a massive demon invasion 200 years ago: the Three Heroes Sealed Evil in a Can but were forced to spend the next two centuries guarding his prison, and a dragon occupies the former kingdom of the dwarves. The Kingdom of Grassland has a coastal colony in Whitesails, but until protagonist Will joins forces with Duke Ethelbald and begins leading adventuring parties south to clear remaining demons and monsters out of Beast Woods in volume 2, they have zero control over the hinterlands.
• Honor Harrington: The Silesian Confederacy is a conglomerate of around sixty star systems ostensibly under one banner. In reality, it's so rife with corruption and inept leadership that it is utterly unable to maintain order and security within its borders and its own member worlds are frequently fighting each other. The strongest military presence in the region is usually either the Royal Manticoran Navy or the Andermani Navy, both of which use the Confederacy as a place to send young officers to cut their teeth against the pirates and other troublemakers.
• RCN: Defied. The stated reason for the peace treaty signed by the Republic of Cinnabar and the Alliance of Free Stars between books seven and eight is because the Forever War between the two superpowers had become so expensive that both sides were nearing economic disaster. If they hadn't made peace, they probably both would have disintegrated, likely taking most of human space with them.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: In A Storm of Swords, Daenerys overthrows the slaver aristocracy of the city-state of Astapor, installs a government of freedmen, and moves on to conquer the other cities of Slaver's Bay. Not long afterwards, a man named Cleon claims the new government to be plotting to return power to the slavers, has them executed, and names himself king. Cleon proves to be an inept ruler and, under his attempted oversight, Astapor rapidly degenerates into an anarchic state, where each ziggurat palace becomes an independent armed camp and the markets grow empty of food and necessities. In A Dance with Dragons, things continue to degenerate when Yunkai'i forces besiege the city, Cleon is assassinated for his throne, his successor is killed in the same manner by two competing would-be monarchs, and a dysentery epidemic breaks out for good measure. By the time the Yunkai'i breach the gates, nothing is left of Astapori society but a chaotic, dying ruin.
• Star Wars Legends: The Empire became this the very second the Emperor was killed in Return of the Jedi, as he had arranged the entire system to revolve around him (and in various cases, he enforced it through constant Force mind-linking). After his death (and rebirth, and re-death; It's a Long Story) the Empire is very quickly reduced to The Remnant with a variety of warlords causing mayhem and dog-kicking galore, with effective leaders very few and far between (Thrawn and Pellaeaon being notable examples of the latter). While Admirals Daala and Pellaeon were eventually able to reunify and stabilize it and eventually make peace with the New Republic, it would take more than a century for the Empire to truly come Back from the Brink.
  • The Republic (see Film above) was in even worse shape in the expanded universe than the films. Megacorps had Senate seats. Planetary governments that were covertly or even overtly feudal or dictatorships with rampant abuse by corrupt local officials and the Republic having little to no way of enforcing their own laws, or looking the other way because of political circumstances. Most citizens lived in such horrible poverty that crawling your way up to a one-room squat on a City Planet surface was considered "making it." The local crime cartel was more of a presence in daily life than one's elected officials, and many Senators were either outright in the back pocket of these cartels or playing Realpolitik with them. Add several points in the Old Republic era where decades or centuries of Jedi-Sith warfare left dozens of blighted planets and trillions of displaced refugees.

Live-Action TV

• Britain (and perhaps most of the developed world), is teetering on the edge of this in the final instalment of Quatermass. Cities have become battlegrounds for warring youth gangs, there is little fuel or food (and what there is is strictly rationed) and the infrastructure has essentially collapsed, with frequent power cuts and a third world transport system. The civilian police have been replaced by overly aggressive and incompetent mercenaries and, whilst there is still a functioning army, it is incapable of regaining control. In fact, the government seems to have been reduced to the role of a fading colonial power, with local authority in the hands of District Administrators. It is implied that there are pockets of the country that are not so far gone (Quatermass is unaware of how bad the situation is when he comes to London) but they seem to be rural areas far removed from the big cities.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Tasha Yar hailed from the failed Turkana IV colony, whose government had begun to collapse in the 2330s. The government was overthrown in 2352 by two of the largest gangs, called cadres and seceded from the Federation. What followed was a period of lawlessness with drugs, violence, and the ever-present threat of rape gangs preying upon young women. Only a few, such as Tasha Yar, managed to escape from the colony, with Yar becoming a Starfleet officer.
  • The Federation itself becomes a failed state of sort in the third season of Star Trek: Discovery in the century following the spontaneous detonation of every active warp engine after the dilithium crystals within became inert. With the Federation unable to sustain such a large, space-going nation it begins to fall in upon itself, a trend that is not reversed until the late 32nd century, when the Discovery locates a large enough dilithium supply to bring resources back up to pre-Burn levels.

Music

• Ratos de Porão claims this about Brazil in the track S. O. S. País Falido.

Subdesenvolvimento, no dia a dia subnutrição

("Underdevelopment, daily malnutrition")

Estamos a um passo do caos num mar de promessas e corrupção

("We're a step away from chaos in a sea of promises and corruption")

Tabletop Games

• Pathfinder:
  • In 4667, the former Chelish province of Galt revolted and broke away after the devil-worshiping Thrune dynasty took power in Cheliax. The attempt to establish a democratic republic devolved into a Revolving Door Revolution in only a year after a prominent revolutionary was murdered by Red Mantis assassins. Galt has been limping along in complete economic collapse with only token governance ever since: over half the seats in the Senate are vacant and the only significant power center is the Gray Gardeners, the secretive order of executioners who maintain the final blades upon which accused enemies of the Red Revolution are beheaded.
  • Taught by Experience, the revolutionaries of neighboring Andoran, who admired the Red Revolution's goals but not its result, successfully defied the trope in the People's Revolt of 4669: they overthrew their Chelish aristocracy with the bare minimum amount of bloodshed and managed to establish the first large, successful popular democracy in the Inner Sea Region.
  • The northeastern region of the River Kingdoms, known as the Stolen Lands, are so named because no attempt to establish more than token settlements there seems to survive for very long between monster attacks, bandits, pranks by local fey, and natural disasters. The name refers to a local superstition that the region has been "stolen" from humanity. There turns out to be a reason for this in the Kingmaker Adventure Path: since ancient times, the elder nymph Nyrissa has been propping up one civilization after another and then arranging its destruction, in order to win a bet with the Lantern King and get her heart back from him.

Video Games

• BioShock: Widespread ADAM addiction and a violent civil war (which started on the 1959 New Year's Eve by rioting from Atlas's supporters) caused the collapse of any government authority in Rapture. The only law enforcement officers Jack meets in the city are ADAM-addled splicers. The deaths of Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine would cause further chaos since they were the sole major power players in the city. Only Sofia Lamb's Family was able to bring a modicum of order to the city.
• Bloodborne: Yharnam has all but collapsed before the events of the game, with most of its inhabitants having either hidden or been transformed into beasts due to the blood plague. Much of the city is governed only by mobs of citizens who chase down outsiders and plague infectees, burning many at the stake.
• Crusader Kings II:
  • Civil wars in a realm can cause it to fragment.
    • In earlier versions of the game, a Revolving Door Revolution scenario could occur due to Artificial Stupidity, where factions that had just succeeded in overthrowing a prior liege would almost immediately start plotting against the next liege due to "new ruler" penalties to Relationship Values. This tended to end with all parties fighting each other to exhaustion and often getting conquered by other countries. The 2.7 patch mitigated this by giving usurpers an opinion bonus with their former faction supporters.
    • In Muslim lands, a successful decadence revolt against a realm's ruler can cause the uppermost title of the realm to be destroyed, causing all rulers of the next rank down to become independent.
  • With the Jade Dragon DLC, a ruler who has a good relationship with the Emperor of China can ask them to invade another realm with the "Shatter" casus belli. Victory by China with this CB causes the highest title held by the targeted ruler to be destroyed and their vassals made independent.
• Diablo IV: Kehjistan's decline has accelerated in the fifty years since the last game. Malthael's attempted genocide wiped out a large portion of the nation's population and soon demonic hordes began sieging the nation. Emperor Hakan II chose to withdraw his army and seal Caldeum's gates, leaving the rest of Kehjistan to its fate. With the sacking of Caldeum at the end of the game, it is likely Kehjistan has completely ceased to exist as a unified nation.
• Dishonored: The kingdom of Gristol has developed into a failed state due to the outbreak of the Rat Plague (which has devastated its working class) and the corruption of its aristocrats. Though the Lord Regent manages to keep some order through authoritarian methods, the city of Dunwall is already well on its way to total collapse, with entire quarters having become abandoned.
• Elden Ring takes place in the husk of a continent-spanning kingdom in the aftermath of its Cosmic Keystone being shattered, its God-Emperor Queen Marika vanishing, and a devastating civil war. By the time you start the game, only its heartland, the Altus Plateau, remains under its control, and even then the region is shot through with Godskin cultists and ruins. The royal capital, Leyndell, remains heavily defended, but once you pass its gates you'll find it a ghost of its former glory, with empty and untended streets, houses sealed up, and rubble going unrepaired. One section of the city is filled with dead and dying commoners piled up together, with only a handful of physicians tending to them — another is infested with mindlessly hostile undead, despite royal knights patrolling just streets away. Marika's successor, King Morgott, calls himself "last of all kings" when encountered, and it's not hard to see why.
• Fear & Hunger: The kingdom of Rondon is heavily implied to be one of these, marred by extreme urban poverty, bandits and brigands, cults centered around the worship of ancient gods, and an unnamed plague sweeping through its borders. And that's not even mentioning the darkness which has rooted itself in the dungeons of Fear and Hunger, massacring the kingdom's few soldiers and placing everyone in danger of the monsters and madness lurking within.
• Genshin Impact: The nation of Mondstadt is "ruled" by the Anemo Archon Barbatos; the God of Freedom. The key word here being "Freedom" because Barbatos prefers a hands-off approach to ruling his country by... not ruling it at all and allowing its people to do as they please. As a result, Mondstadt has no centralized government surrounding its Archon, and the closest thing to a governing body, the Knights of Favonius, act more like a peacekeeping military force than a government. This unfortunately has the side effect of it becoming a magnet for trouble as, due to Barbatos' constant absence and neglect, this allows the Fatui from Snezhnaya to walk all over Mondstadt like it's their playground, and the Abyss Order to establish numerous hideouts as stepping stones for their attacks on the capital city. In fact, according to lore, Barbatos' absence once caused the aristocracy to seize Mondstadt and establish an oppressive dictatorship, only getting involved to overthrow it once the situation got too out of hand. Even the Knights themselves have been criticized by a few characters (most notably Diluc) to be inept and inefficient at their role of protecting Mondstadt.
• Knights of the Old Republic: Though the rural world of Dantooine is governed by the Jedi enclave there, the Jedi are so busy with the war against Malak that their control over the planet has been waning. By the events of the first game, the enclave is unable to protect many citizens from Mandalorian raiders, and several large families have taken to warring with each other over land and resources. Things are even worse in the sequel since the Jedi Enclave was destroyed by Darth Malak in the middle of the first game, with a mini-Civil War about to start between mercenaries hired by the Exchange and a fledgling local government established at Khoonda.
• The New Order: Last Days of Europe:
  • The game features several "anarchy" regions (not to be confused with genuine anarchist nations) in northeastern Siberia, which are nations that have managed to lay claims on territory, but are too dysfunctional to function as actual states. Many of these are eventually consolidated into a single functional state, the Divine Mandate of Siberia, after the rise of prophet Alexander Men.
  • Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan can devolve into this if Japan assassinates enough of their leaders when they try and unify Central Asia into a Turkic superstate.
  • Germany can permanently collapse if Reinhard Heydrich commits suicide after the SS Civil War, dissolving into anarchic chaos.
  • RK Moskowien temporarily collapses after Siegfried Kasche disappears.
  • Dirlewanger's Realm will permanently collapse after Oskar Dirlewanger dies (not that it's much of a loss).
  • Komi, located in what was once northwest Russia, quickly devolves into a failed state due to the chaos within its extremely politically-divided government. If Sergei Taboritsky successfully becomes head of state, he establishes an inefficient, incredibly genocidal fascist regime across Russia, which inevitably collapses after he dies of insanity and/or a stroke.
  • Omsk, also known as the Black League, will collapse into several dysfunctional warlord states if it fails to effectively deal with internal rebellions.
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker: The northeastern region of the River Kingdoms where the game takes place, known as the Stolen Lands, are so named because no attempt to establish more than token settlements there seems to survive for very long between monster attacks, bandits, pranks by local fey, and natural disasters. The name refers to a local superstition that the region has been "stolen" from humanity. There turns out to be a reason for this: since ancient times, the elder nymph Nyrissa has been propping up one civilization after another and then arranging its destruction, in order to win a bet with the Lantern King and get her heart back from him.
• Sunless Sea: In the alternate timeline of the game, it appears Vienna (and Austro-Hungary as a whole) is slipping into failed state territory. Vienna itself has become a haven for Revolutionaries with a capital R, Bomb-Throwing Anarchists from London who have taken over so completely that most of the graffiti in the city is in English rather than German, and most of the lamps in the city have been smashed by Liberationists. The crown has been unable to keep this unrest down in their very own capital, leading to poverty (complete with one of the city's most famous cafés being burned down by its debt-threatened, anarchist-opposing owner), and technically foreign agents (the Gentleman from the Bureau serves some very high powers indeed) are growing their powerbase because they're the only ones getting things done.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron: Invoked according to Word of God in regards to the design of Kaon, the Decepticon capital. The Autobot capital Iacon (despite being wartorn in its appearance, due to being under attack) still looks shiny and impressive, suiting its status as the capital of the Vestigial Empire Cybertron has become. In comparison, Kaon is a dark, gloomy place that has a very "thrown together" look to it, to reflect how the Decepticons (and Megatron in particular) are more interested in tearing down the Autobot government rather than actually building a functioning society.

Web Animation

• Llamas with Hats: Episode 3 starts out with South America completely in shambles, with Carl having been the perpetrator yet again.
  Paul: You toppled the South American government, Carl!
  Carl: The people have spoken. "Viva la resistance!"
  Paul: You pushed the resistance leader into a giant fan!
  Carl: He was a traitor and a scoundrel!
  Paul: He was trying to stop you from pushing other people into a giant fan.

Western Animation

• The Legend of Korra: The Earth Kingdom falls into widespread anarchy after the regicide by the Red Lotus against the Earth Queen in "Long Live the Queen", seeing large-scale looting with the further rise of robbers and bandits. Indeed, the events of the next Book would deal with Kuvira gaining influence after being the only one who successfully fights these bandits.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the past, Griffonstone was a proud and wealthy kingdom led by respected kings. However, after the monster Arimaspi stole the kingdom's precious idol, Griffonstone's national identity collapsed, and it slowly degraded into its present state — a squalid, decaying dump of cluttered streets and decaying houses, its former statues and public buildings ruined and collapsing, and its people reduced to selfish loners scrabbling for personal wealth and uninterested in any kind of rebuilding or cooperation.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: Do the Pakleds even have a government? They would have us believe it, but exactly how or even if it functions is an open question. What they present as their government is more effective at baffling and frustrating foreign dignitaries than it is actually governing Pakled Planet. Their society, for all its instability, doesn't appear to be anarchic, just prone to frequent and pointless revolutions, but they fail at just about everything they set out to achieve. Supposedly they were plotting to launch a terrorist attack against Earth, but in the end they ended up bombing themselves as an attempt at some kind of interstellar insurance fraud.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987): In one episode, the Turtles find themselves in an alternate world where they don't exist and Shredder has taken over the world. The world is in bad shape, though, as Shredder is in no way ready for the difficulties of actually running the world and even begs to go back with them to a world where he isn't in charge.

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