Basic Trope: Humanity is at war with giant insects.
- Straight: The Chitin are invading Earth. We're not gonna let them have it.
- Exaggerated:
- When the Chitin invade, the entire planet is literally crawling with them.
- Alternately, EARTH bugs are the bugs we're fighting. No, not giant, radioactive bugs, regular bugs you would find in your backyard.
- Downplayed:
- It's not really a war so much as a skirmish.
- The shooting hasn't started yet, but relations are very tense in this Space Cold War.
- The threat of war is unlikely, but the story role of the Chitin is to be The Rival to humanity.
- The Chitin are merely the insectoid apex predators on a planet the main characters find themselves on, providing danger without ill intent.
- Justified:
- The Chitin are incredibly alien and their goals incomprehensible or are an aggressive animal plague released by more sophisticated aliens.
- The Chitin have a parasitic larval stage, and require intelligent hosts.
- Inverted:
- We're the ones who are invading, and the bugs are fighting for their lives.
- Alternatively, the insect invaders want nothing more than peace, or are just passing through.
- Many of the alien species in the galaxy are at odds with humanity; the Chitin, however, are among the exceptions.
- Subverted:
- The invaders aren't bugs, they wear insectoid exoskeletons...
- Alternatively, the humans and bugs are at war, but not with each other, rather working together against a greater threat.
- The story begins with the human protagonists enlisting for the Second Chitin War - but as they arrive to the battlezone, it's revealed to the viewers they are coming in to assist the Chitin in their war against The Empire of Planet Looters.
- Double Subverted:
- ...Until the Chitin show up in a later season.
- ...But then they turn against each other after the greater threat is defeated.
- ...The First Chitin War, however, was fought between humans and Chitin after decades of political tension, and they owe their peace and friendship to a strong anti-war movement on both sides and the cooler heads that prevailed in their leaderships.
- Parodied
- Rather than advanced weapon systems, we have to use oversized flyswatters and cans of insecticide to fight the invaders.
- People use absurdly advanced weaponry and tech to hunt and kill regular household insects.
- Zig Zagged:
- The Chitin are invading Earth because their planet was invaded by the Xenometals and they need to colonize a new planet, but the United Terran Defense Force repels the Chitin and decides to invade their planet to deal with the Xenometals, but The UTDF, Chitin, and Xenometals all end up fighting each other with the Terrans emerging victoriously. General Starblade is hailed as a hero on Earth and elected President of the Terran Nations, but we find out that he has been infested by a Chitin control parasite...
- The War is between two different factions of Chitin in a conflict analogous to Earth's Second World War, with the arrival of humanity being what tips the balance in favor of the good bugs.
- Averted: The Chitin are actually sentient trading-partners.
- Enforced: Hey! We gotta make our heroes kill dozen of aliens without the audience feeling sorry for any of them. I know! Lets make them giant bugs, because bugs are icky, right?
- Lampshaded: "Why is it that every single insect in this galaxy wants to kill us?"
- Invoked: The Big Bad lets loose the bugs to help him conquer the planet.
- Exploited: Starfish Aliens tricked the Chitin into invading Earth to weaken both sides before they themselves invade. The brutality of the Chitin-Human war means even if the two are able to call a truce and team up against the Starfish Aliens, cooperation is difficult because of harsh memories.
- Defied:
- The UTDF develops specialized Anti-Hive bombs and viral weapons to ensure that the Chitin never establish a foothold on Earth.
- The Chitin are specifically stated as being humanity's greatest ally and friend.
- The Chitin are quite docile, even friendly, and produce byproducts humans find useful, and allow humans to harvest these substances on the condition that they help protect the hive if needed and don't cause harm to or interfere with the residents, a la beekeepers.
- Chitin require mammalian hosts for their larvae, but realize that cows make much better hosts than humans (more biomass, for one thing) before the two species come to blows.
- Discussed: "Yeesh... of all the possible enemies, why did it have to be bugs?" "Would you prefer Robots or all-devouring Blob Monsters?"
- Conversed: "Uh oh, looks like the humans need to call pest control. You'd think they would have learned by now!"
- Implied: The home of the biggest, baddest, most decorated Space Marine in the story is strewn with war trophies clearly taken from an insectoid species.
- Deconstructed:
- Turns out, the Chitin can't sustain themselves in this environment...
- The story looks like your ordinary Bug War, but at the end, it's revealed that the human leaders are fascist warmongers who have attacked first on a flimsy pretext...
- Reconstructed:
- ...Or can they? The writers decided that Our Bugs Are Different. It makes sense, seeing as how they haven't evolved on this planet.
- ...except the Chitin leadership is just as bad, filled to the brim with callous General Rippers - and it's up to ordinary people who know the truth to somehow set things right.
- Played For Drama: The story is set up like a standard Bug War plot, but as soon as five minutes in, it becomes clear that War Is Hell and What Measure Is a Mook? are in full effect, and the war will either be resolved peacefully - or destroy one (or both) of the warring sides.
There's too many of them! Retreat to Bug War!
