One World Order

According to a good deal of Speculative Fiction set in The Future™, it is the natural order of things that all governments will merge together to create a central authority to govern the entire species. It's not necessarily the human species, however.

Sapient aliens also almost always have a single government to whom every law-abiding sophont in their race answers. Any conflict between members of the same species will be called a civil war. Especially true if The 'Verse of the show contains boatloads of sapient species.

The examples can cover a range of extremes: the government is benevolent, efficient, enlightened and out for your well-being; just downright evil; or plain realistic, or anything in between.

It may be true that in order to expand to the stars, a species would have to pull together as a team and overcome the tremendous challenges involved. Though it can also be seen as corner-cutting on the part of writers, to avoid having to keep track of more than one government per alien.

Every species in the increasingly crowded galaxy will also have a single unified culture. It can be detailed, as for an alien in the main cast, or it can be a one-note quirk if the creature in question hails from this week's Planet of Hats. Either way, it is rare for any species to have more than one language, artistic tradition, religion, or culinary style.

This trope is not necessarily unjustified. There are a number of conceivable differences in the way an alien race's history played out versus our own that could result in their world being more unified than ours. For example, if their starter population and/or landmass was smaller, or if one tribe conquered the others.

If the species in question is humanity, there may be more diversity involved, if only because the writers don't need to invent it all. The aliens may also look the same.

The United Nations was a popular choice for fulfilling this function before the organization gained a reputation for corruption, indecision and inefficiency that persists to this day. Of course, that in itself can be a useful trope.

See Ditto Aliens. See also Planetville and Planetary Nation when this applies to non-human species.

Note: If you happen to be in a Christian "End Times" story, and a single government controls the planet, watch out for the dude with the goatee. Alternately, watch out for the guy standing BEHIND the dude with the goatee. If the "villains" are seeking a One World Order to remove the political divisions that enable international war, they may be Well-Intentioned Extremists. If the villains go even further than that, it could be an Assimilation Plot. Earth examples often overlap with United Nations Is a Superpower, while Alien examples often overlap with Planet of Hats. Contrast Multicultural Alien Planet.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Code Geass has the Holy Britannian Empire become this briefly in the end after the Final Battle, conquering the fledgling United Federation of Nations. After Lelouch dies, Britannia gives up those recently-conquered territories and begins to coexist peacefully with the rest of the world.
• In Dragon Ball, the entire world is ruled by the King of Earth who's briefly usurped by the Great Demon King Piccolo. What's even weirder is that the king is a talking dog, and dogs apparently have a history of ruling over humanity. Weirder still, according to Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot that particular dog Was Once a Man.
• Common in the Gundam franchise:
  • In the Universal Century Gundam shows, the Earth Federation had long established control over the entire planet. On the other hand, it's presented (especially further down the line) as an elitist, bureaucratic mess rife with corruption. Their reach beyond the planet is also shown to be shaky at best, with many of the colonies not exactly eager to be under EF rule. And it's strongly hinted that their grip on Earth itself progressively becomes less stable.
  • In Gundam 00, the three world-dominating blocs which make up most of the world form a World Government to oppose Celestial Being, and call themselves The Federation. At first they are evil, due to the manipulations of the Big Bad , but at the end of the show become a benevolent version (and headed by someone who looks a lot like Hillary Clinton).
  • The latter half of Gundam X focuses on the remnants of the old Earth Federation trying to reclaim their old influence... by forcibly conquering Europe, Asia, and Africa. By the end of the series, though, they're still having a hard time with North America (they really didn't expect the generally lawless and fractured city-states and Vultures to band together against them) and the remaining space colonies are not pleased with the Federation's revival.
  • In Gundam Wing, we get to see this in action as the Romefeller Foundation uses their overwhelming military power to conquer the planet, forming the World Nation. Then they make Relena their figurehead leader and she pulls Reassignment Backfire by turning the World Nation benevolent. At the end of the series, the World Nation surrenders to the colony rebel army White Fang, and between then and The Movie it becomes the Earth Sphere Unified Nation, which despite the name seems to be a more benevolent Federation.
  • It was also the same case in Gundam AGE, except their enemies are Martian colonists with a grudge for the corrupt Earth government.
  • As Gundam: Reconguista in G reveals, the Earth Federation ultimately collapses under its own weight. Centuries later, its successor, the Capital, is ostensibly content overseeing the semi-independent nations that now dot the globe on behalf of its true, Spacenoid masters.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, this is the ultimate goal of Gilbert Durandal. He seeks to implement the Destiny Plan, which would force people to take up jobs according to their genes. Thankfully, our heroes put an end to that... at least until Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom, where an old co-worker of Durandal's tries to expand it from her Kingdom of Foundation.
• Anatoray and Disith in Last Exile eventually merge to form this under the leadership of Empress Sophia.
• Macross: Mankind is united after World War III under a more powerful United Nations. By the end of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the government renames itself the New UN, which develops into a decentralized interstellar federal republic spanning half the galaxy that has incorporated multiple other Protoculture-influenced species, most notably the Zentraedi (with other races including the Zolans and the Ragnans).
• In Martian Successor Nadesico, Earth and several lunar and Martian colonies are governed by United Earth, with a united military force called the "United Earth Allied Forces"
• In Monster, many organizations hope that Johan Liebert will lead them to this. Johan Liebert doesn't care about any of that as he shows all of them that Evil Is Not a Toy.
• In One Piece, the entire world is ruled by the aptly named World Government. In the past, there were other countries (at least 20) but they banded together to defeat the old world power. Nowadays there is a civil war led by the Revolutionary known as Dragon.
  • However, the World Government is, in many senses, more similar to the real-life United Nations than to a single state. It is repeatedly shown that the leaders of countries that are part of the World Government still hold considerable power, and Vivi has numerous flashbacks that show the kings and leaders engaged in debates and politics similar in style to, say, the UN Security Council. The core differences are that the World Government a) seems much more united in its efforts than the often divided and bickering UN and b) has vastly more resources at its direct disposal.
  • There are still many minor governments, but the World Government is working hard to incorporate them (sometimes peacefully sometimes... not), or obliterate them and send their populations to slave works. They are that kind of people.
  • It is noted there are some unaffiliated countries, but in most cases it's because they're poor nations unable to pay the "Heavenly Tribute" tax required by member states of the World Government. These countries usually become lawless wastelands without the protection of the Marines due to constant pirate raids.
  • And within the World Government, there are people everywhere on the moral scale. Compare Spandam, who (used to) run Cipher Pol 9, an assassination network, and has no qualms about shooting anyone, even his own allies, if it meant avoiding trouble; to Magellan and Hannyabal, who run the world's top-security prison and genuinely feel their duty is to keep the world's worst criminals from wreaking havoc on innocent people. As a result, normal people's views on the World Government are a mixed bag, with either dread or relief depending who they find out is involved.
• The civilization setting in One-Punch Man turns out to be this.
• Sara's and Lottie's home planet in Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry, as well as possibly the whole Union, resembles... Victorian England in space with gender equality. Go figure.

Comic Books

• Some Chick Tracts are set in a world ruled by a single (and malevolent) government, as foretold according to some interpretations of Christian end times prophesies.
• In one Justice League of America story, it's explained that the reason so much cosmic weirdness gets drawn to Earth and not other inhabited worlds is that Earth is unique in the universe for having a multitude of different races and cultures. Go figure.
  • Similarly, Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files claims that Earth is "the most diverse and emotionally rich planet in the universe, boasting more differing cultures and languages than most galaxies".
• Earthgov in the Zero Hour version of Legion of Super-Heroes is like this, with a little President Evil (President Thawne) and Secret Police (the Science Police) thrown in for spice. The United Planets in general might qualify, but they're more The Federation.
• Strikeforce: Morituri had the Earth ruled by a one-world government called the Paideia at the time of an alien invasion, although the earlier nations still existed as a lower level of government. The series was notable for the way in which a change of writer rapidly caused the Paideia to shift from benevolent to cartoonishly evil.

Fanfiction

• In HERZ, the UN is developing into a World Government due to the loss of power, prestige and public trust of the nation-states and major governments.
• Thousand Shinji: After the Angel War and Third Impact, the four new Chaos Gods rule the devastated planet.
  "Today there are no more nations, there is only humanity."
• In To the Stars, humanity is united under a single government simply known as Governance. It's a largely benevolent example, with any and all decisions informed by a complex hierarchy of human and (incorruptible) A.I.s that have humanity's best interests at heart.

Film — Animated

• The Star Wreck parody films have the P-Fleet, which controls all of Earth. In the final film, after being stranded in the past, Pirk, Dwarf, and Info convince the personnel of a nuclear power plant to build them a new warship. Pirk then approaches the Russian President and provides his forces with advanced weapons. They conquer Earth fairly quickly, after which Pirk gets rid of the President and becomes the Emperor.

Film — Live-Action

• All the Troubles of the World: Nations appear to have been dissolved; there is only "the government" and regional managers of the government. As part of the Setting Update, the regions are no longer named for the audience.
• One Nation Earth is in control of all the earth throughout all the movies in the Apocalypse film series so far, and has been shown to be rather oppressive to both Christians and those who have not chosen a side.
• Barbarella: According to this film, in the 41st century, the entire planet Earth will have a single president. There's also something about him having authority over the entire Solar System but it's not clarified.
• Bicentennial Man: The government works differently compared to the original story, although specifics aren't given. When Andrew is pleading his case, it is before an organization called the World Congress, but the "head judge" is World President. They have the power to pass bills. So it's all three branches in one, without any need for regional/state legislature?
• The Fifth Element: Tiny Lister plays the President of Earth.
• In the second The Omega Code film, Stone Alexander convinces the leaders of the world to create a united government and name him as its president. He proceeds to endear himself to the world by coming down on terrorism hard. The world is split into various "zones", but a few nations are still holding out and refusing to submit, including the US, China, and a number of Latin American countries. The American President even bristles at his country being offhandedly mentioned as part of the North-American Zone, stating that he's still the President of the "United BLESSED States of America". By the end, Stone even starts wearing a military uniform and a beret, like he's a third world dictator or something. The Chinese appear to submit eventually, and all three hold-out armies send their forces to join Stone's, only to attack suddenly, with Stone's brother David, now the President of the US, leading the charge.
• In Space Truckers, not only is Earth run by a single government, but that government is about to be privatized by a Corrupt Corporate Executive named E.J. Saggs.
• The Starship Troopers universe has one government controlling Earth and all colonies. There was a massive war between China and Russia/Europe/America and, after 90 years, a wave of revolts in Europe overthrew the current governments and formed the United Citizens' Federation, then the Americas did the same. Finally, they decided to go to war with China (and anybody who was left) to create the peaceful loving government we know. Would you like to know more?
• Z.P.G.: The future Earth is run by a dictatorial government called the World Federation, which has outlawed reproduction for thirty years on pain of death.

Literature

By Author:

• Isaac Asimov:
  • "All the Troubles of the World": With Multivac the supercomputer, Earth has merged all governments into a single organization run by the greatest computer ever devised. If Multivac were to be destroyed, it would be The End of the World as We Know It.
  • "The Bicentennial Man": Like many other stories in the Robot Series, America's form of government has expanded to encompass the entire world. Sir is a member of the Regional Legislature, while there also exists a World Legislature, World Court, and World President.
  • "The Dead Past": At this point in the future, there's a single unified government that has taken over not only the national governments, but also the colleges and universities that teach and sponsor scientific research.
  • "Evidence": The different countries of Earth are replaced by nameless Regions, and laws are justified with references to individual Rights under the Regional Articles. It's made more explicit in the collection I, Robot, and Dr Calvin says the Regions of Earth formed a Federation in 2044.
  • "The Evitable Conflict": Stephen Byerley is the chief executive of the world, and given the title Co-ordinator of the Earth. Below him are the four Regional Vice Co-ordinators, one for each of the geopolitical parts of the world; Chin Hso-lin (The Eastern Region), Lincoln Ngoma (The Tropic Region), Madam Szegeczowska (The European Region), and Mr Mackenzie (The Northern Region). Of course, all policy decisions are actually made by the Machines.
  • "The Hazing": Implied Trope based on one of the aliens commenting that the humans from the Solarian System have a "world capital" called Earth.
  • "Homo Sol":
    • It is implied that the humans of Sol have formed a single unified government by the existence of Terrapolis, known as the capital city of Earth.
    • It is stated several times that the only known forms of intelligent life in the galaxy are Humanoid Aliens. Over two hundred species have joined the Galactic Superpower so far.
  • "In a Good Cause—":
    • Altmayer is constantly pushing towards a single human government, but his friend Stock seems to oppose him. Stock actually has a plan to unite the human governments, one that depends on having an idealist calling for unity amoung the various human-colonized worlds.
    • The alien Diaboli have always had a single government, and find it disturbing that humans have almost always been fractious.
  • "The Martian Way": There's not much said about the world government, but it is implied to essentially be the same branches as the USA's. The General Assembly is a legislative branch with committees and Assemblyman Hilder is aiming to become the next Global Co-ordinator. The colonies appear to have their own local governments because they sign trade deals with Earth.
  • "Mother Earth": Earth is the capital of the Terrestrian Empire, but even as this story begins, the empire has shrunk to Earth's system alone. Each of the Outer Worlds, as the colony planets call themselves, has their own planetary government, and they've broken several ties with Earth. The belligerence displayed by the Terrestrial government provokes the Outer Worlds to war against the homeworld. At the end of the story, Ernest Keilin learns about the conspiracy that provoked the war, and how they're arranging for him to be President of Earth under a brand-new constitution. They envision Earth taking the lead again in a century's time.
  • "Not Final!": Earthmen have united under a single government, one that has begun colonizing additional parts of the Solar System, including Ganymede.
  • "The Tercentenary Incident": Despite revolving around the celebration of America's tercentennial, it is no longer the USA, and is instead one political segment of a larger Planetary Council, which is the governing body of a Federation that encompasses all of humanity, including the Colonized Solar System.
    It was no longer a nation in the old sense; it was rather a geographic expression; part of a greater whole that made up the Federation of all of humanity on Earth, together with its offshoots on the Moon and in the space colonies. By culture and heritage, however, the name and the idea lived on, and that portion of the planet signified by the old name was still the most prosperous and advanced region of the world...And the President of the United States was still the most powerful single figure in the Planetary Council.
  • "The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use": The Terrestrial Government runs all of Earth's affairs, with a President of Earth. Until the native Venusians revolted, there was a provincial Venusian Government as well, which reported to the Terrestrial one.

By Title:

• The nation of Alar in Adam R. Brown's Alterien. This nation is comprised of the Alteriens who have learned to live together in harmony.
• Arrivals from the Dark: Averted in the first novel Invasion, with the old nation-states still around (although some have merged, such as US and Canada for one and Europe for another). In fact, until the arrival of aliens, the Space Navy's primary concern is fighting a number of rogue terrorist nations that have sprung up over the past several decades. After the failed invasion, however, the UN is fairly quickly upgraded to the World Government. A few novels later, it's further transformed into the Earth Federation that includes the Solar System and all human extrasolar colonies. Averted in the case of the Kni'lina, whose homeworld is split into a number of clans/subspecies, dominated by the Ni and the Poharas clans, who even have different cultures and governments (the Ni are technocratic and secular, while the Poharas are deeply religious and have an empire). Most Kni'lina colonies tend to belong to a particular clan, but at least one is evenly split between the Ni and the Poharas, with plenty of tension on that planet. In fact, during the Human-Kni'lina War, only the Ni and their affiliated clans were involved in open hostilities with humans, the Poharas maintained their neutrality.
• Carrera's Legions: The UN became this several centuries prior to current events in the series, and was renamed United Earth after the concept of nations was eliminated through legislative and bureaucratic methods.
• In the Childe Cycle, the worlds of Newton, Cassida, the Friendlies, and Exotics are governed by strong planetary governments. Newton and Cassida are ruled by technocrats, the Friendlies are a theocratic republic, and the Exotics are... unique. Though there are constant sectarian violence with the Friendlies, their leadership is powerful enough to keep things in order.
• In David Wingrove's Chung Kuo, the entire world is ruled by the Seven and simply called the City, or Chung Kuo.
• The UHU (United Human Universe) in Maurice Dantec's Cosmos Incorporated although it's vague on how much actual power it has as national governments still exist under it's umbrella.
• German philosopher Oswald Spengler wrote in his non-fiction book The Decline of the West that he thought the western civilization might create this at the end.
• Most alien societies follow this in the EarthCent Ambassador ebooks, but EarthCent itself doesn't have much actual power over humans in general or Earth's nations in particular: it's initially little more than a formality imposed by the Stryx in exchange for FTL drive. Kelly's diplomatic exploits start to expand its influence over the course of the series.
• The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson makes reference to the U.N. Army fighting the Alien Invasion.
• It is strongly implied that The Church of His Dark Materials wields de facto (if not de jure) power over the whole Earth. At least in Lyra's universe.
• In The History of the Galaxy books, Earth is initially dominated by four superpowers, but they are eventually absorbed into the World Government, although a number of MegaCorp have considerable influence. After the Great Exodus, with thousands of FTL-capable colony ships have left the Solar System never to returns, the various mining colonies across the system lord over the overpopulated and resource-starved Earth. Eventually, John Winston Hammer is elected President of Earth, and he proceeds to conquer the entire Solar System, establishing the Terran Alliance. Most colonies are also run by a single government.
• In Dan Simmon's Hyperion Cantos books, the Hegemony of Man is a Multiple-World Order, with almost 250 planets under one government, all connected by millions of Farcaster portals.
• Last and First Men: World governments arise several times over humanity's history.
  • The Americanized First World State lasts for four millennia; yet its downfall rapidly leads to a new dark age.
  • The Second Men create three global civilizations over their history, each lasting for millennia.
  • The Third Men likewise form three global governments, whose lifespans measure between fifty thousand years for the least-enduring to a quarter million years for the most.
• In the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, The Antichrist becomes leader of the UN and creates the Global Community, declaring a single world government, currency, and religion. No one objects, and it's not clear if this is supposed to be because of his Mind Control abilities. Its successor, the universal state created by God after the Second Coming, also qualifies as a (supposedly) more benign example.
• Played with in The Lost Fleet:
  • Humanity most definitely isn't one of these, but individual solar systems within The Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds are invariably highly centralised; mention is made of Syndic "Planetary CEOs", and it seems that the Alliance Senate has no more than one senator from each system, which works because individual worlds are very sparsely populated by our standards; one hundred million in a system that boasts a comfortably Earthlike world is considered quite substantial. Old Earth is still around, but its large number of still-extant national governments is something of a historical oddity, and a cautionary tale.
  • The "Beyond the Frontier" sequel series lampshades and deconstructs this trope when the Alliance finally meets the alien race whose existence was foreshadowed with steadily decreasing subtlety from the first book onwards. It takes them a while to figure out that the aliens are also politically divided, and apparently dislike each other intensely enough to keep Star Killing weapons emplaced in their border regions. Unfortunately for the Alliance fleet, Species Loyalty and their intense dislike and mistrust of humanity trump whatever differences they may have.
  • This is explored more in The Genesis Fleet prequels, set during the formation of The Alliance. Old Earth is actually getting less like this trope by doing away with its single Space Navy, selling off ships and crews to new colonies in need of protection. The Alliance gets founded specifically as a way for new colonies to protect themselves from hostile colonies, who try to take advantage of the power vacuum. On the other hand, interstellar law only permits a single group colonial rights to a world. This is why it's such a shock when the expansionist colonists from Scatha establish a second colony (and a powerful military base) on Glenlyon, with the people of Glenlyon being initially unable to do anything about it. Additionally, there is tension on Kosatka, as the colony's second city demands independence from the planetary government. The government eventually agrees to allow the other city limited autonomy, but it's not enough, and a full-blown civil war breaks out, although it becomes clear that Scathans are secretly supplying the rebels and inflaming the situation.
• In The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 21st-century Earth is united under "the Anglo-Saxon race," and governed jointly by the United States and the United Kingdom. This is broken in The Moon Men, when the Earth is invaded by the lunar people.
• In Peter F Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy, Earth deliberately creates colonies of this sort by a process of "ethnic streaming", to avoid giving people obvious differences to fight over. This is realised after the first, multi-ethnic extra-solar colonies descend into anarchy. Earth itself has a unified government, GovCentral.
• Isaac Asimov and Janet Asimov's The Norby Chronicles: A Downplayed example because while the Solar Federation is a government for the entire Colonized Solar System, it doesn't have absolute command. Even places like Manhattan International Territory are considered part of the Solar Federation. The organization is probably intended to be similar to the different jurisdictions of Federal, State, and Municipality governments in America.
• The first arc of Perry Rhodan, "The Third Power", features the unification of Earth under ultimately one of these as part of the plot. Here it's presented as a positive development — the 1971 Earth of this universe is caught up in a three-way Cold War (loosely, in addition to the standard split China and the Soviets don't exactly see eye to eye either) and needs to get its act together because the first aliens have already arrived in their crashed starship on the Moon and more are sure to eventually follow.
• The Polity: This is pretty much what the Polity is — it's autocratic but fairly benevolent.
• In Rocketship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein, peace is enforced by the guided rockets of the U.N. World Patrol.
• Emperor Dayless tried to create one of these in the backstory of Shadow of the Conqueror so as to gain the resources needed to wipe the Shade out once and for all. The problem was that he tried to do so via militaristic expansion, hence his title, "the Conqueror."
• The Sister Verse and the Talons of Ruin has this in just about every dystopic government introduced, the Crest being of particular note, who attempted to merge every universe into one for the purpose of social unification.
• In Star Wars Legends, most species on the galactic scene are very much from a Planet of Hats.
  • But... at the same time the trope is somewhat averted. Several alien species hail from a number of planets - Duros, Twi'leks, Zabraks, and, yes, humans, all come from any number of worlds rather than just One World Order. Even the Mandalorians (more of a loose cultural affiliation rather than a species) now come in more than one variety, each wildly different than the other, thanks to Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It's also worth noting that the galaxy is, itself, often depicted as a multispecies coalition rather than as single-race empires.
  • Starfighters of Adumar is about, among other things, a planet that had been human-colonized and left isolated being discovered by the New Republic and the Empire. The planet, Adumar, was a nonunified mass of countries, many at war with each other, making trying to get the world to affiliate with one or the other complicated. Negotiations were with the leader of the largest country with the greatest number of allies. He was trying to unite the planet under him; other countries weren't having that, and there was a battle. The bottom line has a world government formed from representatives of each country, rather than that one guy.
• In the contemporary Takeshi Kovacs novels by Richard Morgan, a U.N. Protectorate maintains its rule over the Earth colonies by propaganda, military force and subtle corruption.
  • A particularly cynical version appears in Larry Niven's stories of Svetz the time traveler. The "SecGen" is apparently the absolute monarch of humanity, but the current SecGen (the product of centuries of inbreeding) is a grown man with the mind of a small child. The actual control of the government rests with those who are most successful at bureaucratic infighting and at cajoling the SecGen into approving their decisions.
• Ira Levin's This Perfect Day has the entire world unified under the control of one gigantic supercomputer, although the backstory shows that political and cultural unification predates the building of UNICOMP by a generation or two, while each continent had its own computer before that (EUROCOMP, USACOMP, et cetera). This political unification is one of the few things about his society that doesn't annoy the hero so much that he decides to blow up the computer.
• Develops through a layer of international institutions during the To Ride Pegasus trilogy. Individual nations still exist, and the United World functions as a federal government.
• The Tower and the Hive series has humanity united under the Star League. In the Pegasus trilogy, we get to witness the evolution of the United World; while the world is united under one government, that government is composed of layers of international institutions, and the various nation-states still exist and retain sovereignty.
• In A World Out of Time by Larry Niven, the Human Popsicle protagonist is revived into a world ruled by the State, a totalitarian government that controls all of Earth and its offworld colonies (although the colonies have something to say about that later in the novel).
• All of the Houses in The Zodiac Series answer to their respective governments, and most of these Houses encompass two or more planets.

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5
  • EarthGov is more of a national alliance than the traditional One World Order, but it's the only representative of the entire human race to the other races. Although a large part of the story arc is that it becomes this trope when President Morgan Clark seizes dictatorial powers and uses the Psi-Corps and Earthforce to impose his authority on Earth and its colonies.
  • The Centauri and the Minbari are of the more traditional interpretation of a One World Order, each as the sole government of their respective races.
• Despite the fact that the humans in Battlestar Galactica come from twelve different planets, there is only a single primary religion among them (although some groups are more extreme or dogmatic in their beliefs than others, and atheism definitely exists in their culture as well). However, in the original series, at least, there are different sects referred to, and a guarantee of religious freedom is part of Colonial law, or at least culture. It's also arguably justified by the fact that their gods seem to exist physically in some form.
  • At least in the new series, the Twelve Colonies are implied to have been in contact since their founding, making it fairly reasonable that they would have a fairly unified culture. The really surprising thing is that different skin colors and British accents still exist, and yet don't seem to map at all to colony of origin.
    • Not entirely true; apparently Baltar overcame an Aerilon (Yorkshire) accent so that people wouldn't know where he was from. Still doesn't explain why he has a British accent and everyone else pretty much speaks with a generic American accent.
    • Also, there are certainly other cultural differences; the people of Gemenon take their faith much more seriously than those of the other colonies, and the people of Sagittaron (mostly) don't believe in modern medicine.
    • The Colonies may be united but they haven't been so for many years and they only did it because of the common threat presented by the Cylons. Before unification, it is mentioned the Colonies were very much at each others' throats. Which is why they built Cylon Centurion model robots in the first place. And old hatreds still run deep in what's left of the Fleet. It is occasionally mentioned the ships with mixed populations tend to be the most unruly.
    • All of that is depicted in the Prequel series Caprica; the Colonies are all independent states, with different forms of government (although since each colony is an entire planet, it still semi-fits this trope). For instance, given talk of a "Prime Minister" and "Commerce Minister", it appears that Caprica itself (later capital of the Twelve Colonies) is a parliamentary republic. Also, it turns out that there wasn't just the one religion. The Ancient Grome themed polytheistic religion is not interpreted the same way by everyone (as was the case in real life). For example, Taurons use the Roman names of the gods, whereas Capricans and some others use the Greek names, and the Tauron view of Mars is definitely not the same as the Greek Ares. There were also a few people who were monotheists, even before the Cylons.
    • Other sources such as The Caprican online newsletter explain a bit more of the differences between the Colonies. Leonis was an empire (albeit one in decline) and Virgon is a parliamentary monarchy and both had colonised Tauron for some time. Tauron was a democracy before the civil war but is now an oppressive dictatorship. Aquaria/Aquarion, owing to its tiny population, could afford to have a direct democracy. What is consistent is that almost every Colony, even the ones that share friendly relations, suffer from prejudice and dislike towards one another. It's explained that if it wasn't for the threat of the Cylons, the Colonies would not have united.
• Doctor Who: In "Last of the Time Lords", the Master is the sole ruler of Earth after the attack of his minions, the Toclafane.
• In Firefly, the Alliance more or less rules all planets inhabited by humans, and has thoroughly put down the secessionist rebellion of the Independent Faction (in which Mal Reynolds served as a Browncoat).
• Intergalactic: In 2143, Earth's united under the global state of Commonworld.
• The Orville: Earth apparently has one in the future, not surprisingly.
• The Outer Limits (1995): In "Lithia", the society of the future is ruled by a body named the World Council. It's justified by the fact that most of humanity died as a result of war and then a plague, so the survivors banded together presumably for their mutual benefit.
• In SeaQuest DSV, United Earth Oceans appears to be this for all intents and purposes, at least until the third season, when the show was renamed to seaQuest 2032. In the ten years between the second and the third seasons, another major power arises, the Macronesian Alliance, starting a Space Cold War with UEO. This is in an attempt to make the show Darker and Edgier. There is also a small but powerful aquatic Asian nation called Chaodai. Had the show not been cancelled, the Chaodai would've become a third power, able to rival the UEO and the Macronesian Alliance.
• Star Trek is the number one utilizer. The Federation is in fact a government for several species, and it's rare for there to be any diversity in alien culture except in service to the plot. (Benzites do not report a situation to their commanding officer until they have fully analyzed it, for example, preventing a Benzite crewmember from heading off a situation before it can escalate to a dramatic level.) In one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard and Beverly even discuss whether or not having this is a prerequisite for Federation membership. (It isn't, technically, but apparently the question has never come up before^note the conclusion at the end of the episode implies the reason is that not having a single world government is very likely to come with not fulfilling other requirements that in any potential case before the episode would have come up before the actual "not a single world government" issue.)
  • Deep Space Nine was a little less blatant about this, partly because they stayed in one place so could get a bit more involved with the politics of alien races (particularly the Bajorans, who were shown to have different "provinces" on their planet, as well as at least one terrorist splinter group) and partly because it was Darker and Edgier anyway.
  • The Federation seems to be unable to truly coexist with any culture without absorbing it, and its rivals - empires of similar size - are shown to be not only culturally but racially homogenous^note The Expanded Universe suggests the Klingons and Romulans have plenty of "client" races; they just aren't represented in the space navy or government, so we never see them.
    • The former point is made on Deep Space Nine by Michael Eddington: "You know in some ways you're even worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious. You assimilate people and they don't even know it."
    • Quark also lampshades the issue in "The Way of the Warrior"... by comparing it to root beer.
      Garak: It's vile!
      Quark: I know. It's so bubbly and cloying and happy. But you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it.
    • A few seasons later there's a call back to that statement. When the Dominion invades the station, Quark is all too happy to throw out all the root beer and human food and stock for his new Cardassian customers. However, after a few months, Quark admits that he wants the Federation back on DS9 and that he wants to sell root beer again.
    • There is also a different explanation; maybe it's not insidious assimilation. Perhaps you just begin to like root beer because it's an acquired taste... just like The Federation. They're the most benevolent guys around, abounding with reasonable authority figures (Section 31 notwithstanding) and all sorts of benefits for their citizens, tangible and intangible, while pretty much anywhere else such niceties are very hard to find. There's nothing wrong with choosing root beer when the alternatives are unpalatable and you don't want to go thirsty.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise takes place prior to the foundation of the Federation, but after the establishment of the United Earth. There does still appear to be some cultural and institutional variation on Earth (there are references to the Royal Navy in the near past, as an example), but politically Earth seems to have left the Post-Atomic Horror in a spirit of unity.
  • This is actually T'Kuvma's point in Star Trek: Discovery. He fears that the Federation is slowly stripping Klingons of their racial identity, while disguising it with their phrase "We come in peace". He absolutely hates that phrase and uses it to rally the Klingon Houses under his banner against the Federation.

Music

• I.C.O.N. (International Confederation of Nations), which has wiped out all religions except for Judaism in Hero.

Mythology and Religion

• While there is much debate as to its interpretation, meaning, and indeed relevance, the Book of Revelation has been interpreted in Christianity as setting out a timetable for the Last Days of Humanity prior to God's calling a halt to things. One common theme is that the world will be seemingly united under a One World Order: unfortunately for True Believers, it will be a dictatorship run by the Antichrist and his acolytes. Many conservative evangelical Christians, especially in Eagleland, maintain a vigilant watch for signs this is happening already.

Tabletop Games

• Played With in BattleTech, where One World Orders were brought about twice, only to collapse within a century or two. First there was the Terran Alliance (Earth and the initial human colonies), which fell apart when first the colonies rebelled and then Terrans themselves overthrew the Alliance. Later practically all of humanity - the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery states - were united under the First Star League. This fell apart again after two hundred years, leading to a Forever War that has raged on and off (mostly 'on') for nearly four centuries now (2786 to the 'present day' of 3151), with the driving impetus being reestablishing the Star League in one form or another.
• In Crimestrikers, Creaturia has a (mostly) benevolent world government, led by a parliamentary body-cum-Fictional United Nations called the Creaturian Council.
• The "New World Order" conspiracy theory is played both ways in the Dark•Matter (1999) campaign setting for d20 Modern (well, unless your GM modifies things) — the conspiracy theorists are right in that the UN intends to unite humanity, and they are right in that black helicopters are used by the UN elite forces. It's the other bits that are mistaken: It is suggested that the UN's leadership would prefer this to be a democratic state, which is one reason why it has taken so long, the UN have solid, sensible reasons for thinking a human unification to be a Good, or at least Necessary, Thing, and they have Christians amongst the top ranks.
• The Architects of the Flesh from Feng Shui have set up one of these in 2056, run by the Bureau of Tactical Management (or the Buro in short). The population is kept in line through powerful feng shui, though there are still pockets of resistance around the world. There's also one major area that is immune to the influence of Chi and where technology more advanced than ancient weapons just doesn't work, watched over by the Vikings.
• The Technocracy in the Mage: The Ascension game from the Old World of Darkness. Literally committed to and highly successful at shaping the beliefs of the entire human race. Due to the consensual nature of reality in the setting, this collective perception of how the world works literally defines even the rules of magic and science. In fact, the only reason science and technology work at all is because the Technocracy has convinced the masses that it is supposed to. New technological innovations are introduced into the consensus at the Technocracy's discretion and they ruthlessly try to stamp out "reality deviants" that threaten their hold over humankind. Obviously, all of this requires them to manipulate everything from the media to governments. Their leading sub-faction is even called "The New World Order". They do cheat and break their own rules of course, employing technology far beyond what they have allowed the general public to believe is possible. Up to and including interstellar space travel.
• The Tau Empire in Warhammer 40,000, though as their fluff is expanded, differences between Tau Septs are starting to appear.
  • This actually makes a measure of sense. The Tau homeworld was contentious and wartorn until the coming of the Ethereals and the firm establishment of the Caste system united them for the Greater Good. Then came a period of glorious victory and expansion. Now, they're butting up against the big boys (the entire Empire is barely a fraction of the size of the Imperium) and having to face against the horrors of alien races. This is the cause of most of their divisions.

Video Games

• The Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series has the multinational Global Defense Initiative gradually transition from the UN's military task force in Tiberian Dawn to a de facto global government by the time of Tiberium Wars, due to the ensuring breakdown of global order leaving GDI-controlled sectors more often than not the only functional authority left. Member states and national governments still exist, but in practice have all been subsumed into GDI.
• In the setting of Crusader, the world (indeed, the solar system) is ruled by a single government, the WEC. Simply put, the WEC is every corporation in the world, merged into a hypercorporation, ruling the stead of a government.
  • The truth is naturally more complex than that, but this is a very useful lie.
• In Deadalus aka. Robotica, the Earth is united under the World Silent Security Systems, based on the space station Deadalus.
• Played straight in the Dead Space series with EarthGov. It's mentioned in background sources that this was the result of several wars, political upheavals and the depletion of natural resources planetside. It's also mentioned, however, that special preference was made to the United States.
• This is the goal of Deus Ex's Corrupt Corporate Executive and Big Bad, Bob Page. By buying influence with money or blackmailing with a critical vaccine, he can have his choice of appointees in any government agency in the world, and have the legislation drafted to give them authority to declare and maintain martial law. He gradually stages legal coups to make the transfer of authority to a U.N. enforcement agency permanent, consolidating control of all governments.
  • This is deconstructed; since his influence outgrew its natural boundaries, he effectively sabotaged every contingency plan the Illuminati used to defend themselves against failure, which meant that his giant conspiracy was still a house of cards. Then, as the one person in charge, he pooled all his resources into an AI so he could merge with it and develop super-intelligence to run the whole thing. The AI promptly went rogue from lack of confidence in a deluded megalomaniac, and concluded the only way to truly implement a one-world order is if everyone was involved in ruling it - whether they want to or not.
  • The flaws in such a system are even discussed in-universe by J.C.'s brother Paul, who points out that "a few bureaucrats in New York can't make good decisions for New Jersey let alone Paris, or a village in China" and ultimately only the wealthy would benefit from such a convoluted system while average people suffer.
• The EDEN empire in the Galaxy Angel games encompasses a lot of diverse planets, but yup, each one has one culture to its name. Parodied (as with all things) in the Galaxy Angel anime, where there are such things as industrial planets, resort planets, etc. owned by one person.
• Earth finally uniting as this is the reason why the Cyrollans extend an invitation for humankind to join the Symbiotry of Peaceful Beings in The Journeyman Project and why a key element in Dr. Elliot Sinclair's plan to prevent the Cyrollans, who he sees as a threat - legitimately so, as the third game reveals - from having an interest in Earth involves disrupting the peace talks that resulted in Earth's unification.
• Mass Effect plays with this a bit — the codex notes that Earth is still controlled by several sovereign nations; however, anything outside the solar system is controlled by the Systems Alliance, a supranational body that controls human space business independent of any individual nation's interest, by necessity: the bickering nations couldn't effectively run an empire of that size.
  • Mass Effect both uses and subverts this trope. On the one hand, there is a galactic council that oversees issues relating to the greater galaxy, but they only actually control about half the galaxy, with the other half being known as the Terminus Systems, which are highly fractured and largely ignore anything the Citadel Council has to say. The in-game literature also talks about how separate, smaller governments still exist. Also, they mention how each other species has as many varied languages, cultures, and religions as humans do.
  • Even at a species level, truly unified government seems rare: the Turian Hierarchy is fairly centralized, but the Systems Alliance is a multinational organization that provides interstellar defense and diplomatic representation to Earth's actual nation states, the Salarian Union is a semi-feudal collection of independent matrilinear clans, and the Asari Republics barely qualify as a government at all (their council member is the only permanent asari political office).
  • Technically, the Reapers qualify, being the apex predator of the entire galaxy which has won every battle for the past 3.2 million years, all without squabbling. However, it's implied that they only stay unified because they refuse to rule; they commit mass genocide over centuries, then sleep for about 49,500 years.
• The Terran Republic in PlanetSide controls effectively the entirety of human civilization. In the first game, the Republic is a republic in name only that monitors everyone, but has created a thousand years of peace. In the second game, the Republic was founded after a century of war devastated Earth and was putting humanity on the road to extinction, and is a benevolent socialist government, though The Remnant we see was forced into drastic measures to try and curb insurrection on the crippled and lost colonization fleet heading to Auraxis. Subverted in both games where the miners, libertarians, and corporations break away to form the New Conglomerate, while the scientists and tech worshippers split off to form the Vanu Sovereignty while isolated on Auraxis.
• Project Sylpheed gives us the Terran Central Government (TCG), which apparently rules the entire Earth and its colonies. It has the Terran Central Armed Forces (TCAF) as its military.
• Rise of Nations:
  • One method of winning Campaign Mode in is to have your faction take over the world, creating one.
  • Skirmish mode can be won by advancing so far beyond your enemies technologically that your nation can research "World Government", which instantly merges all other factions into your own.
• In Spore uniting the whole planet is the last step to unlock space travel.
  • Once you control 8-9 of the 10 cities, the others will hail you and explain that they "see the writing on the wall" and just join your empire on the spot.
  • Alternatively, if the last empire left is allied with you, they'll agree to join you peacefully "so the world may live as one!"
• In Stellaris there is a human faction where Earth is now this thanks to the United Nations Is a Superpower trope. Moreover, "Peaceful unification" is one of the default origins for a species reaching for the stars.
• In Team Fortress 2, the Administrator is the CEO of two NGO Superpowers, RED and BLU, and a weapon supply company, TFIndustries; all together, they give her complete control of the entire world.
  • In many ways, this has become Early-Installment Weirdness though. RED and BLU are now depicted as a pair of obsolete companies fighting over a resource that stopped being viable decades ago. The weapon and supply company was renamed to Mann Co. While owning it is considered to be a highly desired, and the Administrator is still a class A manipulator, the world is clearly not under her control.
• The ultimate objective of most Total War games is to make one of these with your faction of choice. A lot harder than it sounds.

Visual Novels

• The Science Adventure series, which includes Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes involves the Committee of 300 who seek to unite the world through a one world government.

Webcomics

• Lovely People: The government is simply referred to as the World Council, implying that the entire world is ruled by a single entity.
• In the 31st century of Schlock Mercenary the entire Solar System is unified under the super-government of the United Nations of Sol, though there were independent exosolar human colonies like Celeschul until they accepted UNS protection during the Teraport Wars.

Web Original

• In the Alternate Universe of Within the Wires, various asides gradually reveal that after a massive war called the Great Reckoning, all national boundaries were erased, flags and soldiers were "done away with," (to what extent is left deliberately vague) and replaced with the Society. It further ensures the nonviolence of its citizens through divorcing children from the concept of family, separating them from parents, and eliminating/repressing memories of siblings and childhood relationships at the age of ten.

Western Animation

• In Ben 10: Omniverse, in the Ben 10,000 timeline it's shown that Con Man Argit, of all people, was elected "President of Earth".
• In Danny Phantom, this is what used to be for the Ghost Zone when the evil dictator Pariah Dark ruled it with an iron fist. Naturally, the citizens weren't happy and rebelled. He tried to get his kingdom back AND take over Earth, but he had Big Damn Heroes on the opposite end.
• In Futurama, Earth is under one government based in Washington D.C., implying that the U.S. has taken over everything. Its flag, "Old Freebie" is just the Stars and Stripes with a globe in place of the stars. Earth, in turn, is part of the Democratic Order of Planets (DOOP), analogous to the United Nations (or to The Federation, which is how the Star Trek-obsessed Fry understands it).
  • Moreover, all bureaucrats — apparently all of them, in all organizations (commercial, governmental, or otherwise), large enough to require any bureaucrats — are members of a single Central Bureaucracy.
  • Although a lot of 21st-century countries (America, Mexico, Jamaica, China, etc.) somehow still exist as culturally distinct regions.
• Jimmy Two-Shoes: "Rocket Jimmy" seems to imply that Miseryville is its own planet, ruled by the Heinous Family for centuries. Since the setting is implied to be Hell, it's not surprising.
• Teen Titans: Starfire's family are the rulers of all of Tamaran.
• In Time Squad, Larry and Buck explain to Otto that by the year One Million, Earth had eventually merged all its countries into one big "super-nation."

Real Life

• Certain theories for Globalization have this serving as the logical conclusion, politically and culturally, while others either subvert or avert this trope altogether.

Subversions and Aversions

Anime and Manga

• Zig-Zagged in the Humongous Mecha manga series The Five Star Stories, where out of the half-dozen or so habitable planets orbiting the titular stars, only one is unified under a single government and wars between the various countries on the other planets are extremely common. As national identity is a major theme in the series, the aforementioned planetary empires attempts to unite the others through military conquest later in the series... doesn't turn out so well. On the other hand, in the series' backstory, we find that the entire galaxy and then some was united in a mystical "Super Empire" in the distant past.
• The Gundam series in general are a subversion of this trope; when colonies are established in space, they inevitably try to become independent from Earth resulting in Space Wars.
  • The Universal Century timeline comes close, in that the Earth Federation rules over all of Earth and generally claims sovereignty over the colonies, but some colonies are not overly happy about this. Even the UC colonies aren't a unified bunch. Side 3 makes up the heart of Zeon (considered semi-autonomous after the One Year War, albeit with a puppet government controlled by the Federation in reality), while Side 6 declares political neutrality in the One Year War, Side 4 briefly becomes the Cosmo Babylonia aristocracy, while Side 2 eventually becomes the Zanscare Empire. Then there's the Jupiter Sphere, which is technically considered part of the Earth Federation (by the EF, anyway), but they're so far away that Earth can't really enforce anything on them, so they consider themselves independent. That's not even mentioning the whole situation with Axis. Needless to say, the UC timeline totally destroys this trope.
• Gundam SEED frequently refers to the Earth as though it were one political entity, but this isn't the case. It is in fact divided into seven or eight supranational blocs, as well as the Orb Union, a small but powerful south Pacific island country. Most of them are united under the banner of the Earth Alliance, which is effectively led by the Atlantic Federation and is hostile to the space nation of ZAFT. However, a couple of nations on Earth support ZAFT, most notably the Oceania Union (Australia + New Zealand), which lends ZAFT the use of a large naval base at Carpenteria, and a few others remain stubbornly neutral in the whole affair, including Orb.
  • Gundam Seed Delta Astray establishes the existence of the Mars colonies as well, a recently-established group of space colonies (Mars itself not being terraformed). They're considered a separate nation. There was also another colony that converted itself into a giant spaceship and headed for Jupiter (notably without the consent of whichever nation owned it), because its citizens saw the constant conflict the Earth Sphere was getting into and basically said "Screw This, I'm Outta Here!"
  • Averted in G Gundam, the United Colonies Federation is merely more like the present United Nations, and the nations themselves are independent on each other. It is just that the country which wins the Gundam fight will be for four years the leading nation in the Earth Sphere.

Fanfiction

• Inversion of Enforced Trope in An Entry with a Bang!!: The writers have mostly agreed that, despite Clancy-Earth presenting a united front in their relations with the BattleTech entities, the countries on C-Earth proper will not unite into a super-entity in its purest state of a truly singular government, but exactly what the CSN's political structure is to be instead is a discussion that has gotten inflammatory at times.

Films — Live-Action

• Star Trek Into Darkness subverts this. While the Earth is united, there remains cultural and national diversity, with at least some present-day countries apparently surviving into the 2250s in some form. The Union Jack is still shown flying in London, suggesting that the UK made it as well, while in a bar scene involving Kirk, what looks like an American flag appears to be in the background. However, this may be in line with some TNG material which references a starship being built in the Soviet Union; old Earth countries still exist, but are subsumed into a federal United Earth government.

Franchises

• In Star Wars Legends, species that don't have much to do with the greater galaxy are quite capable of maintaining several different cultures, factions, sects, teams, and fan clubs.
  • A good aversion of Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale. Since a vast majority of star systems in the galaxy can (and do) support sentient life, there are simply far too many races and planets for all of them to be homogenized under one banner. Even The Empire at its height controlled maybe 60-65% of the galaxy and had nowhere near enough soldiers or starships to make their presence known outside of space-faring systems, with many "mini-Empires" and planets that enjoyed de facto autonomy. Chances are good that hundreds, maybe thousands, of star systems within the Empire's borders watched it come and go without ever having known it was there.

Literature

By Author:

• In the Strugatsky Brothers novels, this appears to be the natural consequence of achieving a certain degree of technological/social advancement. Earth and all the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens Earthlings encounter have a One World Order, but the various Crapsack Worlds inhabited by humanoids have warring nations messing things up even further.
• Ursula K. Le Guin:
  • The Left Hand of Darkness, in which Gethen has several different countries. The protagonist eventually visits the country of Orgota, to find that its government and customs are vastly different from Karhide, and even mentions that he's not as familiar with the native language.
  • Similarly, in The Dispossessed, Urras is divided into several countries, including (at minimum) the liberal democratic capitalist A-Io and the "socialist" totalitarian state Thu, which are fighting a proxy war in unstable Benbilli. If this sounds like the Cold War... well... it should. Urras, it should be noted, is a double planet, with its (relatively) barren partner Anarres having been settled by "Odonian" anarcho-syndicalists who, as such, have no state. Although LeGuin is herself a noted anarcho-syndicalist, Anarres has a legion of problems, including the development of entrenched bureaucracy among the "syndics."

By Title:

• Subverted with the Dorsai in the Childe Cycle. Though officially they have a planetary government, the Dorsai are fiercely independent folks. As a result, the world government has no real power in comparison to the other worlds.
  • Played with Ceta - the planet has several nation-states. However, thanks to economic and social engineering, they're all under the de facto rule of William of Ceta.
• In the CoDominium, the eponymous organization controlled all of Earth and its fledgling extrasolar colonies. Unfortunately, the two controlling factions - the USA and the USSR - still hated each others guts, and after a few decades of iron-fisted peace and massed off-planet deportation, the CoDom collapsed overnight in a global thermonuclear war. Two Empires of Man followed, the first of which collapsed due to internal revolt, leading the second to be far more... assertive with its territories.
• Legend of the Galactic Heroes subverts this in the long run. Planets by and large are run by only a single government, usually under either Empire or Alliance. But the sheer expanse of space (and not to mention human nature) means that humanity doesn't stay united for long.
• In Out of the Dark, the Shongairi are confused that humanity managed to get to our current level of advancement without becoming this.

Live-Action TV

• Subverted on Defiance: the Earth Republic presents itself as this, viewing itself as the rightful successor to all pre-Pale Wars human governments. However, there's plenty of the planet that's independent of E-Rep control, not least of all being the Votanis Collective-controlled territory in South and Central America.
• Doctor Who has an interesting use: By the Twelfth Doctor, Earth has had enough planetary crises (even though they cover most of them up) that they've decided that in the event of a global emergency, they can elect a President of Earth who has full authority over the entire human race.
  The Doctor: Oh for crying out loud, that's your answer to everything, isn't it? Elect an idiot!
  Kate: If you say so, Mister President.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • The Goa'uld are ruled by a group called the System Lords; true to their name, their government is generally very feudal, with Goa'uld serving different leaders, trying to empower themselves, and at war most of the time (using expendable human slaves).
  • Also, the Tok'ra reject the Goa'uld practice of taking over unwilling hosts, and live as symbionts with partners who voluntarily host them.
  • Some human planets are also divided, including the unnamed planet in "New Ground", Euronda in "The Other Side", and Jonas Quinn's homeworld. And Earth, of course. When Anubis sends a message to the President of the United States (by projecting himself right into the Oval Office) to "surrender Earth", the President acknowledges that the U.S. is only one of many countries.
  • Even the Asgard (who are all clones) mention having political strife (although we never actually see much of it).
  • This trope is justified in a few cases where we see a free (but undeveloped) planet; the entire civilization is generally within a few days' walk of the stargate so is much smaller than a lot of countries on Earth.
  • Also averted in Stargate Universe with the planet Novus (colonized by a version of the crew of the Destiny, who have been thrown 2000 years into the past) being divided between the nations of Tenara and Futura. They come together when Novus becomes unstable and build evacuation ships.
• Interestingly, while later incarnations of Star Trek are definitely associated with this trope, the Original Series frequently averted it. Many worlds had two conflicting cultures, which were always metaphors for an Aesop on either racism, classism, or the Cold War.
  • Also, the Vulcans, in a way: they tried to unify their race politically and culturally, but in the end that simply resulted in creating the Romulan Star Empire in contrast with Vulcan proper.

Tabletop Games

• The backstory universe of BattleTech has the One World Order forming and collapsing no less than 4 times! First Earth became a one-world order who sent out space colonies. Eventually the colonies rebelled into several bickering nations. Finally a force of personality united the bickering 5 major nations into a united One-Galaxy Empire. This collapsed after a Usurper killed the leader and his family and the five nations each claimed the throne. The Army of the now gone One-World Government fled and set up a new one world government of its own (the Clans). After 300 year of fighting, these clans returned. After an initial thwarting, the One-world-Order leader of the Clans was dissolved. In eventual response to the invasion, the 5 governments recreated the original one-world government again as a united force to stop the invaders. After the invaders stopped, the government, its mission accomplished, was dissolved. At which point an army of religious fanatics attempted to take on the whole galaxy to recreate another one-world government in their own image. The point seems to be that One World Orders aren't viable... up until you realize that if a sustainable version were to be created, the game would end.
  • ... or just tear themselves apart anyway, 'cause that's how we roll. After all, Real Life governments of all sizes have a habit of doing this once there's nobody left to fight, too. BattleTech always was one of the more intensely political fantasy/sci-fi universes.
• Traveller: Played with. The Third Imperium is the dominant power. However the Imperium has thousands of subsidiary governments, sometimes several on the same world, as well as governments outside the Imperium. Planet Terra itself is usually under one government.
• In Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium itself is supposedly a One Galaxy Order. But the galaxy is so utterly massive that each world within it is run by a vassal government with a planetary governor at its head (or an analogous setup for those worlds under Mechanicus or Space Marine control).

Video Games

• The final villains in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War seek to bring about peace and correct the non-OWOness of humanity by eliminating the political entities, ergo governments and borders, that lead to war.
• More or less the goal in Civilization games. The conquest victory would be an evil example, the diplomatic victory a benign case (although the U.N. does appoint you ruler over everything, including anyone still voting against you, so it can still overlap with the sinister examples). The cultural victory doesn't really imply an abolishment of nations, but more turning earth into a Planet of Hats where the entire culture is like that of your country, so it comes close. The science victory might imply the formation of The Federation when you travel to another star, but it seems more like telling the world "Screw you guys, I'm going to Alpha Centauri".
• No one ever refers to the three-sided Strand War in Escape Velocity Override as a civil war, despite the fact all three Strands belong to the same species. On the other side of the coin, the United Earth (which only came to be through Alien Invasion in the first place, so nothing natural about it) doesn't make any real claims to represent humanity as a whole, and is still working on establishing the institutions of a united government of Earth (for example, although there is a common parliament and cabinet, currencies are still separate and a subject of ongoing negotiation and planning).
• Galactic Civilizations II appears to follow this trope at first, with civilizations named after their race and all the usual trappings. But in many situations it's highlighted that none of these space-faring civilizations speak for ALL their species, just the ones that got into a big ol' pile and started starfaring together. For example: If any one planet has a monumental population boom, the news will go out of its way to state that the 2 billion new faces couldn't possibly have been born in less than a year, and that much of it is from same-race foreign immigrants applying for citizenship.
  • There are also various political parties in the game. You choose a specific political party at the beginning of the game that grants bonuses to certain statistics. If you decide to change your government from an empire (the default) to a democracy then you must keep up your popularity or have a new party take control and make you lose your party bonuses.
• Halo:
  • The Unified Earth Government (and its main arm, the United Nations Space Command) is a mix of the United Nations and the American federal system. While individual countries, organizations, and cultures are still very much alive, the UEG/UNSC will not hesitate to use force to prevent its colonies from becoming independent, with several of its factions, like the Office of Naval Intelligence, tending to favor outright authoritarian methods of rule. That said, several human worlds do enjoy a good amount of autonomy (particularly in the aftermath of the chaos caused by the Covenant war), and that's not even counting the Insurrectionist-aligned ones who've managed to sever all ties to Earth's government.
  • The member species of the former Covenant also tend to be aversions; the Elites and Brutes are each divided into a number of opposing factions and clans (several of which employ a wide variety of other species), and the Jackals are such anarchists that even Word of God refers to their central authorities as being merely "pseudo-governments". In fact, these decentralizing tendencies were already present even before the Covenant collapsed in the aftermath of the Great Schism.
• Subverted in Homeworld, at least with the Kharaki/Hiigarans. While the species itself is unified, it's mentioned there are various, distinct clans and houses that serve as countries onto themselves.
  • Further addressed in the Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak prequel, where the Northern Coalition is, more or less, The Alliance of the kiithid to the north of the Great Banded Desert, which takes up the majority of the surface of the planet. Not much is stated about the Southern kiithid, though. The primary conflict in the game is between the Coalition and the Gaalsien religious fanatics. Later on, you also have to fight Kiith Siidim, who betray the Coalition.
• Most of the alien races from the Star Control games are examples of the trope, but there are a few exceptions:
  • The Yehat empire consists of several warrior clans that often fight for supremacy. In The Ur-Quan Masters, one can convince a group of Yehat dissidents who despise being Battle Thralls to start a new civil war.
  • The history of the Thraddash consists of several civil wars waged between factions of their Proud Warrior Race Guy culture that popped up every few hundred years. By the time of Star Control II, the Thraddash were up to Culture 19, and the player can end up inspiring Culture 20 if they beat enough Thraddash ships.
  • In fact, the plot of The Ur-Quan Masters involves a conflict between two factions of the Ur-Quan race: The Kzer-Za (who want to subjugate all other sentient races in the galaxy) and the Kohr-Ah (who want to kill all other sentient races in the galaxy).
• Zig-zagged in Stellaris. While your planet was unified enough to launch a space colonization effort at game's start, an interstellar empire is quite another thing. As your empire grows, various leaders will become heads of political factions, and pops derive their happiness from how pleased their faction leader is with your actions and policies. Additionally, it's simply impossible to directly govern more than a handful of worlds effectively, and you'll incurs steep penalties if you try. Assigning colonies to semi-autonomous sectors with their own governs lessens the bureaucratic burden, but causes cultural drift that widens the divide between various factions.
  • Most of this is averted by Hive Mind empires, be they organic or robotic. There's no political division between the physical extensions of a single massive mind, so these empires are truly united and immune to rebellions or civil war. They do, however, have to split up their territory into sectors and assign local governors to exercise efficient control just like individualist empires do, although in their case it's probably more akin to sharing network load between several servers or computers instead of forming semi-independent fiefdoms.
• In the X-Universe series, most of the aliens are united under their own racial banner, but on the other hand, the Split Dynasty is split up into dozens of bickering clans who fight for the right to rule, with military coups being fairly common. Humanity is the most fractured, with two powerful factions that hate each others guts - the Argon Federation, a former Lost Colony which controls almost all human territory in the X-Universe gate system, and the highly advanced Earth State, who control the entirety of the Sol system and have fingers reaching into their other Lost Colony, the Free State Of Solara. Minor factions like the Hatikvah Free League are also predominately human.

Web Original

• In the Chaos Timeline, the Logos (hackers) succeed doing this.
• In Look to the West, the equivalent of the Cold War appears to be being fought between the ideologies of Societism, which will do anything to achieve this, and Diversitarianism, which will do anything to stop it.

Western Animation

• Parodied in South Park, where it is revealed that in the rest of the Universe, each species has its own planet; Earth was created to be a bizarre mix of all different kinds of things (gazelles, lions, Jews, Arabs, etc.) to form the basis of a TV show.
• The entire premise of Transformers is that there are two distinct and warring factions of the same alien race. The overall culture within each faction is largely monolithic, however (Autobots bland and friendly, Decepticons backstabby), and very few characters are presented as neutral or independent. Occasionally, we had characters with unusual or seemingly inappropriate personalities who were nonetheless distinguished by their alliance. Later examples present more complex cultures, especially Beast Wars.
  • There was also Sideways in Transformers: Armada, who played first as an Autobot, then a Decepticon. It turned out he was actually an agent of Unicron.

Real Life

• An old idea going as far back as the ancient Greeks and Chinese, this could be considered a subversion on Earth. A world government would on paper be interested in very different, more global issues from the countries contributing to it and would likely look much more like the UN than a traditional country covering the whole world. Whether such efforts will, or should, ultimately result in a universally recognized world order, let alone what kind it would take remains a matter of much debate.

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