Truce Trickery

"They were on the verge of declaring war when we lifted from Harbor Three, Leary. Speaker Leary was blaggarding Legislator Jarre up one side and down the other in front of the whole Senate. We signed the armistice on the basis of status quo ante, and here the Alliance was shifting a squadron to Radiance where they bloody well hadn't been at the beginning of the last war."

— Lieutenant Feininger, RCN: The Far Side of the Stars

The Hero and the villain are at odds. They have been battling nonstop with no sign of stopping. Eventually the two sides decide to declare a ceasefire or truce to get their bearings. They agree not to do harm to each other while the truce is in effect, possibly even establishing a time in which to continue their battle.

However, while one side may honor this ceasefire, the other side either secretly or even blatantly violates it and harms their opponent behind their back.

One common historical method of accomplishing this trope is through the Proxy War, where one side attacks another's allies and foreign interests rather than striking their enemy directly, thereby maintaining Plausible Deniability. They may also be violating or perverting The Neutral Zone or a Truce Zone, either of which stipulates an area in which no fighting between the opposing sides is permitted.

Much like a fake surrender, a fake ceasefire in Real Life is considered "perfidy", a serious offense under The Laws and Customs of War. It's also often a good way to grab the Villain Ball by Crying Wolf: if you can't keep your word not to attack during a truce, your opponent will have less reason to trust you in the future and therefore may not accept a genuine truce when you actually want one.

A subtrope of Screw the Rules, They're Not Real!: like any other rule, truces and treaties are only any good if they're enforced. Sister Trope to I Surrender, Suckers and Trojan Prisoner, where one side in a conflict pretends to surrender to provide cover for a surprise attack or as a means of inserting one of their own, and Rash Equilibrium, where both sides simultaneously try to betray the other. May exploit the trope Screw the War, We're Partying. Contrast Enemy Mine where two opposing sides form an actual truce against a bigger threat.

A No Recent Examples rule applies to Real Life examples of this trope. Real life examples shouldn't be added until 50 years after the event.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: Demon general Aura sends three demons to negotiate a peace treaty with the northern city of Granat. These demons quickly reveal (as Frieren, visiting the city, suspects strongly enough to attempt to murder the first two on sight) that they're a Trojan Horse with the actual goal of bringing down the magical barrier protecting the city so that Aura can invade.

Comic Books

• Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines: "Truce or Consequences" (Hanna-Barbera Fun-In #10, Jan. 1972) has Dick and Muttley agreeing to a truce with Yankee Doodle Pigeon's side, but they use it in a ploy to lure him over and set him up as a traitor. Finding himself AWOL with the truce ending, Yankee Doodle consigns himself to the ultimate journey, only thanks to some judicious syntax as his last words, it backfires on Dastardly.
• One of Doctor Doom's most notable traits is his sense of honour, where if he gives his word he'll honour it. In "Doom Service", Spider-Man gets on Doom's bad side and is subjected to a Curb-Stomp Battle, managing to get his life spared by swearing to help recover an heirloom Doom was tracking. While engaged in combat with the doomsday cult that had taken the gem, Spidey is surprised when Doom arrives. While Spidey is initially concerned Doom is going back on his word, Doom clarifies that the promised time limit has passed. Fortunately, Doom's presence so unnerves the cult that they flee, allowing Spider-Man to recover the gem and fulfill his agreement with Doom.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): When the Xorda return to attack Mobius, Eggman offers up a temporary truce with the Kingdom of Knothole. He claims to have a machine capable of fighting back against the Xorda's doomsday weapon, but it requires Sonic's superspeed to work. King Acorn agrees (after first forcing Eggman into ceding Territory to them) and Sonic is sent out. Unfortunately it turns out that while Eggman had been telling the truth about the machine stopping the Xorda weapon, it was also meant to kill Sonic once its task was done.

Film — Live-Action

• John Wick: Chapter 2: One of the known rules of the criminal underworld is that the Continental hotel chain is a Truce Zone: "no business may be conducted on Continental grounds." At the climax, mafia boss Santino d'Antonio takes refuge in the Continental after an Assassination Attempt by John, who pursues him to the restaurant. D'Antonio smugly promises to abuse the Continental's rules and continue sending assassins after John... who evidently decides to take d'Antonio with him and shoots him squarely in the forehead, to the shock of the entire establishment.
• A Running Gag in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The pirates all adhere rigidly to the letter of "parley", being part of the Pirates' Code, but Captain Barbossa has zero qualms about first kidnapping, then marooning Elizabeth Swann after parley is completed on grounds that respectively she and Will Turner did not specifically negotiate not to be dealt with in such manner.

Literature

• Captive Prince: The armies of Vere are notorious for staging surprise attacks during parley. It's deconstructed: while Veretians treat it as simple Combat Pragmatism, their Proud Warrior Race neighbours despise underhanded tactics and now assume that any Veretian truce is being offered in bad faith.
• Ciaphas Cain: Downplayed in The Greater Good. The Tau Empire signs a truce with the Imperium of Man amidst a border conflict over a minor planet because they detected Hive Fleet Kraken entering the region. On the surface the t'au and humans try to collaborate on a joint defense against the tyranids; however, in reality, both sides covertly try to make the other bear the brunt of the 'nid invasion in hopes of taking advantage once the hive fleet is defeated.
• The Godfather: The novelization explains why Luca Brasi (the Corleones' best hitman) never saw the attack that got him slain and sleeping with the fishes: he was ambushed in a bar that was a well-established Truce Zone among Mob families. With this proof that the rival families wish to get rid of the Corleones at any cost, Michael goes to full scorched-Earth war with them.
• The Grace of Kings: The friends-turned-warring-kings Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu ultimately sign a peace treaty, only for Kuni to break it that same day and launch an offensive that kills Zyndu and conquers his lands. Kuni genuinely believes his actions are dishonorable and terrible, yet necessary, as Zyndu's brutal nature would have made a lasting peace impossible.
• Queen of Zazzau: Amina's Start of Darkness is when her fiance Suleyman is murdered while conducting a parley with warriors of Nupeland who have been clashing with Zazzau. This leads to Amina making a Deal with the Devil with the War God Dafaru to seek revenge against the King of Nupe.
• RCN: At the start of The Far Side of the Stars, the Republic of Cinnabar has signed a truce with the Alliance of Free Stars. Over the course of the novel, Captain Leary discovers that the Alliance is using the truce as cover to advance its aims in far-flung areas of the galaxy and is preparing for a surprise attack, but his discovery of their machinations allows Cinnabar to resume hostilities before the Alliance can make any decisive gains.
• Siobhan Dunmoore: Downplayed in A Dark and Dirty War. Siobhan is selected to lead a flotilla into The Neutral Zone after Space Pirates hijack a passenger liner and hide out there. While this violates the letter of the treaty with the Shrehari Empire, neither she nor the Commonwealth actually wants to restart the war (which she helped end in book 6), and since she's on the outs with the Commonwealth military bureaucracy, it's expected they'll offer her up as a sacrifice if the Shrehari make an issue of it. The Shrehari turn out to be fine with making an exception for the incursion and nothing comes of it.
• Warrior Cats: In one Code of the Clans story, the Clans met up for their monthly gathering, a time which was traditionally meant to be a time for truce. This time, however, ShadowClan decided to attack the other three Clans, knowing they wouldn't be prepared and that they'd have elders and queens among them who couldn't fight back. The bloodshed ended when StarClan summoned a lightning bolt to kill ShadowClan's leader, and from then on the truce was made a part of the code to prevent this from happening again.
• The Way of Kings (2010) opens with King Gavilar of Alethkar being murdered by a Parshendi assassin during a feast to celebrate his kingdom signing a peace treaty with the Parshendi, sparking a brutal war of vengeance. The Parshendi did it out of desperation to prevent Gavilar from unleashing Odium, but Rhythm of War reveals that one of Odium's agents orchestrated the whole thing to cause the war.

Live-Action TV

• Battlestar Galactica:
  • Battlestar Galactica (1978) opens with the Twelve Colonies celebrating a peace agreement between themselves and the Cylons, only for the Cylons to suddenly attack amidst the celebrations, killing most of humanity.
  • Battlestar Galactica (2003): The Cylons have had a peace treaty with the Twelve Colonies for forty years, but without warning they launch a massive attack that kills all but a few tens of thousands of humans who escape on ships.
• Doctor Who: In "Logopolis", the Doctor and Master call a truce when the latter accidentally triggers a massive entropy cascade that threatens to destroy the entire universe (and has already swallowed up a quarter of it), forcing the pair to rush to Earth and use the Pharos Project's radio telescope to stop it. As soon as they do so, however, the Master backstabs the Doctor and attempts to hold the surviving 75% of the universe for ransom in a bid for total domination.
• Luke Cage: The entire series happens because Tone - one of the triggermen of Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes - decides to shoot up Pops' Barber Shop, which was considered a Truce Zone by the Harlem underworld, once he noticed that a kid who stole from Stokes was in there. Noticeably, Stokes abided by the rules of the truce and kills Tone when he finds out what he did, but Tone is an Overzealous Underling who thinks it makes his boss look weak.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series:
    • The Federation has a peace treaty with the Romulan Star Empire that established a demilitarized zone along their mutual border, the Romulan Neutral Zone. "Balance of Terror" revolves around a string of Romulan raids on Federation listening posts along the Neutral Zone, meant to test the Federation's willingness to retaliate for breaches in the treaty.
    • "The Savage Curtain": Kirk points out to Colonel Green that he was notorious for striking his enemies while in the midst of negotiating with them.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • "The Wounded" revolves around the captain of the USS Phoenix going rogue after accusing the Cardassians of trying to subvert the recent ceasefire in the border dispute between them and the Federation by shipping additional weapons to the front lines. Though he's stopped and arrested by the Enterprise, Captain Picard tells his counterpart Gul Macet that he thinks the accusations are valid and warns him to get his government to knock it off. "We will be watching."
    • The Romulan Star Empire is established to have signed an additional treaty with the Federation since TOS, the Treaty of Algeron—which keeps the peace in exchange for the Federation banning its own use of cloaking devices—but repeatedly pushes the limits of it during the series up to and including trying to launch an invasion of Vulcan in "Unification, Part 2". Conversely, in "The Pegasus", we find out that the eponymous ship was experimenting with cloaking technology, likewise violating the treaty (which the captain in question opposed).
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • The series begins shortly after the Cardassians were forced to concede defeat in their occupation of the planet Bajor and withdrew, and the Bajorans invited the Federation to establish an embassy and military presence. In the three-part season two premiere, a Civil War breaks out on Bajor between the interim government and ultranationalist extremists called the Circle, but it's revealed in "The Siege" that the rebels were being covertly supplied by the Cardassians, who hoped to reoccupy Bajor once the Federation had been kicked out and the Bajorans had exhausted themselves.
    • "The Maquis": A guerrilla war breaks out in the Federation-Cardassian Demilitarized Zone between Federation and Cardassian settlers, with the Cardassian Empire eventually proven to be arming its own settlers to prosecute a deniable Proxy War against the Federation despite the peace treaty they signed late in The Next Generation. This ultimately leads to the formation of the Maquis, a militia raised from among the Federation colonies that then also turns its guns on Starfleet when the Federation refuses to resume hostilities despite the Cardassians' repeated blatant disregard for the treaty.
  • Star Trek: Discovery: In "Battle at the Binary Stars", Klingon leader T'Kuvma verbally agrees to a ceasefire with Starfleet Admiral Anderson, and then promptly sends a ship on a ramming attack against Anderson's flagship just to show what he thinks of the Federation's preference for peaceful dialogue (as well as decapitating the Starfleet response force).
  • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds:
    • "A Quality of Mercy" revisits the Romulan raids on Federation border outposts from "Balance of Terror" in defiance of the treaty, this time with Captain Pike in the Enterprise's command chair. He misjudges the Romulans' intentions and a full scale war breaks out.
    • Feigned in "The Broken Circle". A group of renegade ex-Klingon and -Federation soldiers fly a salvaged Federation starship in a false flag attack on a Klingon D7 battlecruiser. This is supposed to look like a breach of the ceasefire between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, meant to restart the war and increase profits from the dilithium mine the renegades are guarding. The Enterprise destroys the ship before it can do any damage and Spock is able to convince the Klingon captain that the Federation wasn't involved.

Video Games

• Crusader Kings II: Once a war ends, the game imposes a ten-year truce between the two rulers in order to keep the winner from immediately declaring war again on an already defeated foe if they still have a valid casus belli. Breaking the truce imposes a hefty opinion malus on the offender, though there are a few loopholes: the malus is only applied to rulers of the same religion group as the defender (meaning truce breaking against infidels has little meaningful consequence), and it doesn't prevent participants from warring with each other's allies. Also, it only applies to the specific rulers involved, not their realms: the truce expires early if one of the participants should happen to die in the meantime, and it's meaningless if a participant is unlanded either as a result of the war or by other events afterward, or is absorbed under another ruler (because wars must be declared against the highest-ranked ruler of the target realm).
• Following the end of the Sin War in the Diablo universe, there was a pact made between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells that they would not interfere in the affairs of Sanctuary. To absolutely no one's surprise, the demons break the pact by means of the Dark Exile of Diablo, Mephisto and Baal to the mortal realm, resulting in all Hell breaking loose in Sanctuary. Tyrael is limited in what he can do as an angel because if word of what's up reaches the rest of the angels, they may well decide to destroy humanity along with the demons because of the origin of humans in this universe, which many angels do not take kindly to.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: In the run-up to the game proper, the Empire are a few years removed from a brutal war against the Aldmeri Dominion from the Summerset Islands, with the Aldmeri Dominion being the victor by virtue of forcing Emperor Titus Mede II to sign a crippling peace agreement called the "White-Gold Concordat", which every party knows is just a temporary ceasefire. The Empire were unprepared for this war and believed that the ceasefire would give them enough time to gather resources and properly strike back. The Thalmor are in the midst of enacting a plan to sacrifice every non-Mer on Tamriel to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, so they're trying to hold off the Empire as long as they can to go through with this. To this end, to buy themselves more time and to cripple the Empire's attempts to gather power and resources, they bankroll a brutal and costly Civil War in the province of Skyrim to keep the Empire tied up as long as possible in putting it down, and to try and make it as painful a civil war as possible, they go out of their way to antagonize the local Nords, preventing them from worshipping their god and generally being dicks to them in order to encourage more of them to come to view the Empire as being full of opportunistic traitors and rise up in opposition.
• Final Fantasy XV: The main plot of the game is kicked off by these. After decades of war, the Kingdom of Lucis is approached by the Niflheim Empire with talks of a peace treaty. Not really having any other options due to Niflheim's growing technological threat, King Regis reluctantly agrees to the truce. On the night that the treaty was to be signed, however, Niflheim launches an assault on the Crown City of Insomnia and the treaty signing turns violent, resulting in the death of King Regis and Niflheim's takeover of the entire kingdom. It's then up to Regis' son Prince Noctis, who was sent away with his friends the day before for a pre-wedding road trip, to take his place as the Chosen King of Light and take both Lucis and the entire world back from Niflheim's grip.
• Galactic Civilizations: You can re-declare war on a civilization you've just negotiated peace with. Expect any future peace treaties to be Off the Table, as civs will accuse you of "making peace only to reload and try again".
• Mass Effect: In the backstory of Mass Effect, following the Krogan Rebellions, Urdnot Wrex went around Tuchunka uniting the various clans across the planet in the hopes that he could change the krogans' ways, but his father disagreed with Wrex's progressive beliefs and arranged for a meeting between him and his son. Mass Effect 3 would reveal that the meeting took place in an area that, by krogan law, was meant to be a place where no violence was to occur, but Wrex's father broke that law when he tried to kill him, forcing Wrex to kill his own father. This event caused Wrex to give up on the krogan, as it led him to believe that they were beyond hope of salvation.
• Mega Man 10: When the Roboenza virus starts spreading across the city with Roll being infected, Dr. Wily arrives to help due to the robots attacking him. It later turns out that he was the one who invented the virus having used Dr. Light to help make a cure to blackmail the robots into working for him and has infected Mega Man to get him out of the way.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic:
  • In the backstory, the Sith Empire mounted a massive raid on the Galactic Republic's capital of Coruscant in the midst of peace negotiations between the warring sides in order to improve their hand at the negotiating table.
  • At the start of the game proper, the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire are eleven years into a Space Cold War after signing the Treaty of Coruscant, but in fact are fighting intelligence and Proxy Wars all over the galaxy. Several class storylines explain that the Empire is trying to poke the Republic just enough that the Republic declares war on them, so that they can paint the Republic as the aggressors to neutral states. It works a little TOO well: the Empire neglected to consider that the Republic was larger, wealthier, more developed, and had spent the last eleven years nursing a massive grudge over the Sack of Coruscant, whereas the Sith had spent that time, well, being Sith, meaning they were far less ready for the war than they thought.
• Undertale: The True Final Boss of the Genocide Route tries to offer mercy to the Player Character partway through their fight. If you agree to spare him, he kills them with an inescapable Cycle of Hurting and asks you not to try again.
  Game Over screen: geeettttttt dunked on!!!

Western Animation

• Danny Phantom: Invoked by the Ghost Writer in "The Fright Before Christmas". Upon remembering that the ghosts have a truce during the holidays and that they have found out he broke said truce, he writes that the ghosts violate their truce in order to attack Danny and each other. Danny manages to get them back to their senses by stumping the Ghost Writer using an orange, allowing them to apprehend the Ghost Writer.
• Donkey Kong Country: In "Kong for a Day", the Kongs and Kremlings have an annual ceasefire. However, King K. Rool opts to take advantage of this to ruin Donkey Kong's reputation and even banished so that stealing the crystal coconut will be easier.
• The Fairly OddParents!: In "Operation F.U.N.", Remy Buxaplenty visits Timmy's school to offer him, Chester, and AJ a place at the "FUN Academy", under the pretense that the truce he and Timmy agreed upon during "The Big Bash" is still in effect. However, this turned out to all be a trick on Remy's end, as the FUN Academy is actually a military boot camp and it was all a scheme to get Cosmo and Wanda.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Employee of the Month", SpongeBob and Squidward fiercely compete for the titular award, repeatedly trying to sabotage each other's attempts to get to the Krusty Krab before it opens. After these tricks escalate to them dragging a shipwreck and an anchor tied to their backs, the pair decide to call a truce. However, each of them knows that the other is lying, and they both quickly rush to the Krusty Krab as soon as they stop shaking hands.
• Transformers:
  • Beast Wars: Attempted by the heroes in this case. In "Before The Storm", Megatron calls a ceasefire with the Maximals halting all acts of aggression between the two sides, something Optimus Primal is suspicious of but can't refuse due to Maximal codes. Optimus sends an obvious scouting mission into Predacon territory with the intent of distracting Megatron enough he doesn't notice Rattrap also sneaking in. Unfortunately after graciously getting his automatic defenses to stand down from plastering the Maximals, Megatron proves too canny when he asks the heroes to leave and "take their rat with them."
  • Transformers: Cyberverse: Discussed and invoked when Megatron and Optimus Prime agree to meet and discuss the threat of an All Spark-empowered Starscream. Neither faction expects much, and some Autobots and Decepticons note that this isn't even the first time Optimus and Megatron have met to try to talk things out. The more cynical among them even note the only point of a truce is "to give ourselves time to rearm". Tragically, the meeting actually goes astonishingly well, with both Optimus and Megatron on the verge of an agreement, but Slipstream arrives to try to warn them about Starscream's plans. Soundwave, thinking her a traitor alongside all the other Seekers who joined Starscream, attacks her and she's stabbed in the back by Bludgeon. Windblade in turn attacks Bludgeon to avenge Slipstream's senseless murder, but all the other Autobots and Decepticons see is an Autobot assaulting a Decepticon while peace talks are ongoing, and so a battle erupts. Windblade is later shown to be painfully aware that her rashness left everyone worse off.

Real Life

No Recent Examples, Please! Due to Real Life instances being potential Flame Bait, no Real Life examples more recent than 50 years ago are allowed.

• The Crusades: Raynald of Châtillon, Lord of Oultrejourdain, is accused by some historians of violating the truce between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Arab leader Saladin, claiming it did not bind him and attacking Muslim caravans and pilgrims by land and sea. This is said to have eventually provoked Saladin to resume hostilities with the Christians, and after defeating and capturing most of the Crusader army after the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Saladin ordered Reynald beheaded on the spot (some accounts say he swung the sword himself). Most of the other noble prisoners including King Guy were ransomed.
• A favorite ploy of the Warsaw Pact intervention forces in the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 was to invite rebel leaders to a parley. The rebels would turn up in good faith, only to be arrested and sent to concentration camps, or else shot on the spot. Several prominent leaders of the uprising died this way.
• During The Vietnam War, the North and South Vietnamese governments negotiated a 36-hour ceasefire in late January 1968 to celebrate the Tet Nguyên Dán, the Lunar New Year and one of Vietnam's most important holidays. U.S. General William Westmoreland, believing the truce to be a ruse preceding an attack on Khe Sanh, ordered soldiers under his command to ignore the ceasefire. The rest of the American and South Vietnamese command, however, did not share his beliefs, and roughly half of the South Vietnamese army were allowed to go on leave. Westmoreland was right about the attack but wrong about the targets—on the night of January 30-31, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong launched surprise attacks on major South Vietnamese cities like Da Nang, Hue, and Saigon.

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