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The Remnant
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The Remnant (trope)
Golly!
"Although the Clone Wars were over, some people never seemed to get the message."
— 501st stormtrooper, Star Wars: Battlefront II

The Remnant can be best described as a more militaristic version of Last of His Kind, being members of a faction who are continuing to fight a war that their side has already lost. Basically a (usually villainous) version of La Résistance that formed from the remains of The Empire or some other faction. They may be using irregular military tactics, but they will probably still be dressed in their old uniforms (or the remnants thereof). Unlike a General Ripper, The Remnant no longer hold an official position in the armed forces, often because their government has ceased to exist or has been replaced. In a number of cases, this happens because nobody on either side has yet been informed that the war is over. The losing side then becomes The Remnant by default after the fact.

This happens pretty often in real life, especially for defeated factions where surrender's not an option — or ones that aren't prepared to admit defeat just yet. In particularly nasty cases, two strong-but-not-overpowering factions can alternate between being really weak central governments and really strong Remnants, sometimes for a generation or more (and restoring peace to a population accustomed to war and violence is going to be tricky, too).

A Remnant using guerilla warfare can be much more dangerous than they were as an established government; guerillas are constantly on the move, and have the luxury of always getting to choose which target they'll attack next. The standard advice is that you need ten soldiers for every guerilla to defeat an insurgency, which means a lot of money and sustained effort, which means that an occupying army will sometimes just give up.

For a short-term 'bigger brother' counterpart to this, see Dragon Their Feet; in fact, a Dragon who missed the last battle is likely to end up leading these guys. They may also be a Vestigial Empire, and the government they're trying to overthrow is likely The Federation (or The Good King in fantasy, where this trope's rarer but not unknown).

This trope tends to involve a bit of Protagonist-Centered Morality. Good guys who do this are Determinators and La Résistance and extra heroic for fighting in the face of near-impossible odds. Bad guys are just exasperating for refusing to go away. See also Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters and Villainous Legacy. To characterize a faction more or less accurately, look at its history, the level of legitimacy it can claim, what it stands for, and — above all — the methods it uses.

One man's Resistance is another man's Remnant. Government in Exile is the civilian equivalent while The Remnant is military. Still Fighting the Civil War is when both the military and government have ceased to exist but sympathizers still remain. When the remnants are from Those Wacky Nazis, they will likely try to establish the Fourth Reich. Automation Outlasts Civilization covers situations where machines or other automated systems continue to function long after the culture that created them died off.

Heroic examples of this trope are more likely to appear in The End of the World as We Know It speculative fiction (although they can be villainous as well) than stories following the aftermath of real-life conflicts.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Attack on Titan:
    • The Walled City is pretty much all that's left of human civilization (at least as far as it's known) after the Titans ate everyone else.
    • The big reveal in the basement is that the Walled City is not the last bastion of humanity; every other human civilization is doing just fine and is (at least mostly) free of Titans. However, the city is the last "free" remnant of what was once the Eldian Empire; in the rest of the world, the Eldians are second-class citizens who live in segregated ghettos, due to their connection to the Titans.
    • Half of the survey corps are turned into this following Eren's insurrection, with the Titans destroying the countries of the world and enslaving what's left of Paradis.
  • Code Geass:
    • The last prime minister of Japan is treated somewhat like this trope... But he never got to go through with it because his son Suzaku killed him. It's heavily implied that Britannia would have eradicated Japan utterly if he had.
    • The Japanese Liberation Front was the remnant of the old Japanese army until the Black Knights absorbed them.
    • What is left of the old Japanese military is killed off by Britannia and the Black Knights, as they crossed the Moral Event Horizon by throwing hostages off a building in the name of the 'glory of Japan'.
  • The character Grenadier in the Leiji Matsumoto series Cosmo Warrior Zero (an Alternate Universe spinoff of Captain Harlock) starts off as one of these, despite being a mercenary soldier hired by La Résistance; blame Honor Before Reason, a group of refugee children to protect, and a very open-ended contract.
  • Dragon Ball:
  • The Kiheitai in Gintama is a revolutionary army that seeks to violently drive the Amanto aliens out of Japan, even if it means that Japan will be destroyed in the process. In fact, the complete and total destruction of Japanese society under Amanto influence seems to be the desired goal of this group's leader, Takasugi, who has shown both a willingness and a creepy enthusiasm to do the destroying himself. Then again, Takasugi is also a Nietzsche Wannabe and seems solely interested in destruction and avenging his teacher's death.
  • Gundam:
    • The Principality of Zeon in Mobile Suit Gundam. These are Zeonic fighters who refuse to listen to the cease fire and return to the restored Republic of Zeon. Many escaped towards the asteroid belt and other debris fields to regroup and rebuild while others hid on Earth to continue their actions as guerilla fighters. The most iconic of these groups is the Axis Zeon/Neo Zeon of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, lead by Haman Karn as the regent to the Sole Survivor of the Zabi family, Mineva Lao Zabi. The specter of Zeon lasts all the way into the UC 0120s in the form of Mars Zeon/Oldsmobile Army.
    • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: After the defeat of the Titans at the climax of the show, their remnants occasionally pop up in Gundam canon, though not nearly as often as Zeon. In-Universe it's established that many Titans either rejoined the Federation or defected to Zeon remnants. Though Zeta's sequel Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ notes that several Titans still hold political seats in government, the faction itself is too beaten down to be of any real threat to the protagonists and they only return in expanded material. Mobile Suit Moon Gundam featured a remnant fielding the Psycho Gundam Mk. IV while Gundam Sentinel featured a group called The New Desides and their attempts to rebel and fight the Federation. Later material, however, such as G-Saviour, shows the Federation slowly becoming little different from the Titans. Factions introduced after Zeta, such as Cosmo Babylonia or the Zanscare Empire, rarely get remnants.
    • After War Gundam X has the New Earth Federation start to make trouble about a third of the way through as they campaign to "unify" (read: conquer) the emerging new nations. They're surprisingly effective and achieve their goal quickly. Meanwhile, around the Moon, the Space Revolutionary Army is doing the same thing. Both sides are enemies and both lost because of the mass Colony Drop that wiped out Earth and Spacenoids alike... and both of them still want to kill each other.
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, a group of rogue ZAFT Soldiers still loyal to former PLANT Chairman Patrick Zala initiate a Colony Drop of the remains of Junius Seven onto Earth to kickstart the Second Bloody Valentine War.
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom, Blue Cosmos has been reduced to this. With LOGOS eradicated, Muruta Azrael and Lord Djibril dead and the Atlantic Federation finally expunging them, they’re left with no political power and a fraction of their military might. One group we see is left with a bunch of old 105 Daggers from the first war.
  • The Millennium Group from Hellsing is a single battalion of Nazi soldiers who have voluntarily undergone artificial vampirification in their mission to give World War II another go. They're a variation on the usual type, since they're not fighting for Nazism, but because they really like war. Especially the Major, their mad leader. There used to be some actual Nazi die-hards in charge of the organization, but the Major had them all killed.
  • Diana in Jewelpet (2009) turns out to be this after her big brother Dian's backstory is revealed (he was a Malcolm Xerox-flavored rebel). She managed to escape Dian's fate and many years later saw an opportunity to unseal him using the power of the Jewelpets who got lost on Earth; this is what the heroes try to stop during the first half of the show.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: After DIO's initial defeat at the end of Phantom Blood, one of his vampire minions is revealed to have survived prior to the events of Battle Tendency, eventually masquerading as a commander in the air corps and murdering Joseph's father, before eventually being taken down by Lisa-Lisa.
  • Hegemon Heidi Einhard Stratos Ingvalt of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid is a subversion. Nove assumes her reasons for wanting to fight Vivio and Ixpellia is because to her the wars of Ancient Belka never ended, but Einhard denies this saying she only wants to prove the superiority of her Kaiser Arts. Once she actually meets Vivio, she quickly becomes The Rival and doesn't hold any grudges against her (quite the opposite actually).
  • My Hero Academia: The Shie Hassaikai is one of the last remaining Yakuza organizations in the setting. As explained, after the rise of All Might and the era of heroes, the yakuza were labelled as villains and were thoroughly eradicated to the point that most of society has completely forgotten about them: when the Shie Hassaikai led by Kai Chisaki AKA Overhaul faced the League of Villains, not only had Magne never even seen one before Overhaul, but Toga didn't even know what a Yakuza was and Mr. Compress derided Overhaul as "an endangered species left over from old times". Overhaul eventually revealed the objective of the organization is to revert society to pre-quirk times and to bring the Yakuza back to its former glory for the man who brought him into the group.
  • Fate Averruncus of Negima! Magister Negi Magi. Manga only though, the anime renders this impossible for plot altering reasons. Fate was second in command of a group called Cosmo Entelecheia, a group that was trying to bring about the end of the world A.K.A. "The Ritual To Return The World To Nothing". The group was lead by someone who was only known as "The Life Maker" and "The Mage of the Beginning". They fueled a war in order to accomplish this. It was the war and the defeat of The Mage Of The Beginning that made Nagi Springfield (protagonist's father) a legend. After that he was known as "The Invincible Thousand Master" or just The Thousand Master for short. Fate hasn't given up. Or he might be the newest version of the second in command of Cosmo Entelecheia.
  • Rebuild World:
  • In SOS! Tokyo Metro Explorers: The Next, taking place roughly in our time, an old man living under Tokyo still believes WWII continues, and is obsessed about the mission given to him. Other underground dwellers consider him dangerously crazy, but he is quite likeable.
  • Symphogear XV: The trio known as Noble Red is a remnant of the Bavarian Illuminati from the previous season, AXZ.
  • Viral in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann fits this role early on after the Time Skip, although subverted in that while being classified as a terrorist and gets told several times that his fight is pointless, he still insists that he does it for a noble goal. It is later revealed that he did, in fact, fight for a good cause; he was fighting not out of revenge, but on behalf of humans who actually wanted to live underground in defiance of Rossiu's commands to come up to the surface. He does grow out of this role when he joins up with the heroes, and eventually ends up as the supreme commander of the galactic federation fleet.
  • Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: Most life traces back to one of two sides to a genocidal Great Offscreen War between Transhuman New Mankind and Old Mankind, ancestry of the former being how humans can use magic. Monsters and Artificial Intelligence of a robotic nature, are from Old Mankind, while Organic Technology ones are from the New Mankind Abusive Precursors.

    Comic Books 
  • Airboy: Deadeye: The "Peekaboo Bandit" is a Japanese aviator who kept fighting a one-man war against the Allies in the Pacific after the surrender of Japan until capture by Airboy.
  • Asterix:
    • Gaul has surrendered to the Romans, but one Undefeatable Little Village still lives like it's the Iron Age and holds out against the invaders! ...or not, as they never engage in La Résistance-type action, preferring mostly to get on with their own, usually quite petty lives, and beat up any Romans trying to tell them what to do rather than attempting to liberate Gaul. The story clearly establishes that legally, the village is Roman, and the characters even exploit this when being part of the Roman Empire would be helpful to them. They also adopt Roman technology, such as the use of sestertii as currency, wax tablets, Roman numerals and writing, and so on, and everyone's bilingual Gaulish and Latin, though some are better at Latin than others. Caesar even says that the Roman government pays a peace settlement to their chief, as agreed upon in the terms of surrender, and the chief's wife is angry that the Romans haven't made him a senator. And yet, they proudly refuse all Roman identity, did something to the Roman taxman so he would never come back there again, and any Romans approaching the village get beaten to a paste. They have no interest in being seriously liberated and are well aware the war is over, but continue fighting it because it's fun, they hate the Romans on principle, and they just don't care.
    • Asterix and Obelix All at Sea and The Secret Weapon suggest Asterix's goal is for the Romans to grant them peace with honours, but if they tried to negotiate surrender as it is all the warriors would end up in prison, so fighting until the Romans get the message is the only option. Obelix is horrified by any suggestion of compromise and considers it trampling on the memory of Vercingetorix, with the implication that most of the other villagers agree with this. Of course, this is all Played for Laughs.
    • Asterix and the Chieftain's Daughter: The actual remnant shows up: Vercingetorix' most trusted lieutenants, who, on his orders, had left Alesia with his daughter before the surrender, hoping that one day they would launch a rebellion capable of expelling the Romans. They eventually abandon the plan in the face of the sheer impossibility when Vercingetorix' daughter herself just wants to stop the insanity and live like a normal girl.
  • Atomic Robo: The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific has CHOKAITEN; a rogue Japanese military unit that has been waiting six years since the end of the war to unleash a devastating super weapon that will sink the North American continent.
  • Crossed: Various surviving military units appear from time to time. Most are just holed up behind their forts, or on patrol ships, hiding and vainly hoping to ride things out, but the San Diego Naval Base puts a real effort into evacuating survivors from infected zones and getting them onto ships heading for somewhere safer, although they're gone by the first month of the apocalypse.
  • The DCU:
    • Batman:
      • Detective Comics (2016): Played with in a story arc. Crash-landed on an isolated Pacific island, Batman encounters a pair of elderly World War II fighter pilots – one American, one Japanese – who shot each other down over the island in 1945. Rather than keeping on fighting the war, they've helped each other survive ever since.
      • In early 1995, when Bruce Wayne finally returned to Gotham City to officially be Batman again after a two-year absence (it's a long story), the first enemies he found himself and Robin having to combat were the Troika, a faction of three (technically four, but one of them defected to the West) ex-Soviet terrorists unwilling to admit that the Cold War was over.
    • Green Arrow: In "The War That Never Ended!" in Adventure Comics #255, Green Arrow and Speedy are stranded on a Pacific island that is still inhabited by Japanese soldiers who do not know that WWII is over.
    • Superman:
      • In Prisoners of Time! (1986 A.D. to CCLIII A.D.), an Asterix homage, the druid Picturx cast a magic, time-freezing barrier around the Gaul village and the four Roman garrisons besieging it so that his beloved village remains independent from Rome. Both sides have been theoretically in war during three centuries (in practice, the Roman soldiers endeavor to keep themselves away from their feared enemies, who just let them be), and assume that the situation in the outside world hasn't changed. When Superman and Jimmy make it known that Rome has fallen and Gaul is being ruled by a Gallo-Roman coalition nowadays, Gauls and Romans agree that continue fighting is pointless, peace is reached, and Picturix lifts his spell.
      • Superman Smashes the Klan: Atom Man is a Nazi Super-Soldier who in 1946 tries to destroy the Metropolis dam and flood the city to avenge Germany's loss in World War II.
    • Teen Titans: Most of those recruited by the original Wildebeest leader were former H.I.V.E. agents who believed their main goal was to take vengeance for H.I.V.E.
  • G.I. Joe (2016): Splinters of Cobra that survived their collapse at the end of G.I. Joe vol. 4 pose a constant threat.
  • G.I. Combat #235: In the cover story, The Haunted Tank is ambushed by a German tank crew from World War I who cravenly hid out in a forest and seemingly never came out for 30 years. Their weathered faces and tattered uniforms starkly contrast their spotless tank that never saw combat. For their capture of a “fancy, new-model” American tank, the TC is sure the Kaiser will pin their medals on himself.
  • Jonah Hex: The Fort Charlotte Brigade are Confederate veterans who refuse to accept the authority of the North (although they're more deeply defined by the personal axe they have to grind with Jonah).
  • Lands of Arran: The kingdom of Eysine has been invaded by an alliance of rival kingdoms and all that remains of it are a handful of citizens and soldiers led by their aging king.
  • Lucky Luke: Joss Jamon's Gang has Luke dealing with the eponymous gang which consists of six ex-Confederates turned outlaws after The American Civil War ended.
  • Marvel Universe:
    • The Avengers:
      • The first Baron Zemo sought to kill Captain America and anyone who stood with him to avenge Germany's loss in World War 2. Unlike fellow Nazi villain the Red Skull, whose genuine loyalty to the "third Reich" varies from writer to writer, Zemo was totally sincere. While Zemo died, he unfortunately managed to imprint some of this insanity onto his son...
      • The Supreme Intelligence of the Kree destroyed his own Empire with a Nega-Bomb, and the Avengers executed him for that. Still, a small group of Krees, called the "Lunar Legion" (because they set their base on the blue area of the moon) blame the Avengers for the destruction of their Empire and their beloved Supreme Intelligence, and try to kill them. Of course, the SI turns out to be less dead than they thought.
      • U.S.Avengers: Sunspot had bought out AIM to turn them from science terrorists to a scientific force of good. However, to enforce Status Quo Is God, it's noted there are pockets of the old group still around and they can balloon back into the old group.
    • Ultimate X-Men (2001): Magneto seems to die at the end of the first arc, and in Ultimatum. Still, the Brotherhood remains a threat.
  • The Order (2007): One of their first battles is against a nuclear-armed team of Russian supervillains who are completely unaware that the Cold War has been over for two decades.
  • Scarlet Traces: The "Martians" are on the verge of extinction after the events of The Great Game have rendered all life on Mars eradicated, and all that is left of them are those living on Venus. By 1968, the aliens are starting to die out and they have become desperate to finish off their human enemies by planning to destroy the entire Solar System.
  • Serenity: Better Days: The Dust Devils are extremist former Browncoats continuing to wage a terrorist war against the Alliance, and reveals that technically, Zoe was once one of their number — she participated in a battle where neither the Alliance nor the Independents had been informed that the Alliance had won. From the point of view of the Alliance, Mal Reynolds could be seen as The Remnant, though he mostly resorts to brigandry like his 19th Century counterpart Jesse James.
  • Sgt. Rock: In Our Army at War #170, Easy Company is held hostage by a 2nd Lieutenant from WWI who lost all his men trying to take a hill and snapped from the grief. He’s been hiding out in a farm on the French countryside this whole time waiting for “reinforcements” to give it another go, and now that fighting has actually kicked up again in the area and a bunch of G.I.s fell into his lap, he finally has his chance. He’s mortally wounded in the firefight and buried on the hill.
  • Shifter (2013): Casya came from a band of ancient Celts who escaped the Battle of Telamon — which essentially put an end to Celtic influence in Italy — and hid themselves in a remote valley in Northern Italy. They managed to survive for so long because they were uncommonly hardy and egalitarian.
  • Snake & Bacon's Cartoon Cavalcade: Parodied in one of the "Tales of Irony''. A Japanese soldier on a Pacific island is discovered to still be fighting World War 2 — by a Confederate soldier that still thinks the Civil War's on!
  • Star Wars:
    • Star Wars (Marvel 2015): Issue #5 of the 2025 run sees Luke, Han, and Valance encounter a crashed Separatist ship full of still active battle droids which refuse to acknowledge the end of the Clone Wars.
    • Star Wars: Purge: Roblio Darte, a Jedi fugitive, asserts that they still serve The Republic and should try to restore it, although the others point out the Republic became The Empire by choice.
    • X-Wing Rogue Squadron: In the first issue, Luke and Tycho discuss how, even though the Emperor and most of the High Command are dead, splinters of Imperial forces and warlords are still active and fighting.
      Tycho: Wait, slow down. A week ago, Wedge vaporized the Emperor and half the Imperial High Command — I know that Imperials tried to stab us in the back after The Truce at Bakura, but isn't the war basically over? Why won't the Imperials just surrender?
      Luke: Would you stop fighting if Wedge was killed? Or me? Or Senator Organa? The Battle of Endor will always be a turning point in this war, but there are millions of Imperials scattered across the galaxy, and we can only assume that they will fight to the end. And they probably have orders to do just that.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin centers around the titular last ronin, Sole Survivor of the Hamato Clan after his turtle brothers were slain by Oroku Hiroto, so he takes on the Foot Clan by himself to avenge them.
  • Tex Willer: Tex encountering the survivors of a number of native civilizations is a recurring trope. In one particular occasion the US Army called him and Carson in to find if what they suspected was a Confederate remnant was indeed this or just a group of bandits that happened Confederate soldiers and presented itself as this to be helped by the locals, as they operate in Virginia, the Army turning to Tex because moving with enough strength to comb the area they believed the bandits hid into would likely cause rebellions. The "bandits" turned out to be the scouts of a fully equipped regiment of Confederate veterans and new recruits led by Stonewall Jackson (who in this universe survived the war), with their attacks on banks and arsenals being aimed to procure weapons to eventually resume the Civil War - and Tex and Carson have to find a way to stop him without causing a full-scale rebellion.
  • Transformers:
    • The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: With the disbanding of the Decepticons by their leader, their forces are thoroughly shattered. Several just shrugged and moved on with their lives, while others tried for a resurgence of their once mighty empire. Tarn and the Justice Division seek out what might be the largest remnant, a band of Mercurial Decepticons 500 strong, and ally with them to bring forth a new order of Decepticons with their first act of business to hunt down the very one who disbanded the original regime, Megatron.
    • The Transformers: Robots in Disguise presents a more conventional example with Soundwave gathering up many of the A-lister cons, including the remaining members of the Earth Infiltration team, throwing their lot in with Galvatron, and heading to earth to ally with the humans and get in the Autobots' way. They claim to be the Decepticons, following their principles in the absence of their founder, even if their ranks only have a few dozen members.
  • WildC.A.T.s (WildStorm): In the Alan Moore run, this happened to both sides. The Khreubim/Daemonite war has been over for a long time, with the Daemonites falling to the Kherubim and effectively being subjugated. Unfortunately, neither side bothered to send an envoy to Earth, so the war continued to rage here for centuries.

    Comic Strips 
  • Doctor Who Magazine: Subverted in the comic strip "Lunar Lagoon". The Doctor arrives on a Pacific island in 1963, and is attacked by a Japanese soldier. The Doctor tries to explain that the war is over ... and then learns he's in a parallel universe where it isn't.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Lion King II: Simba's Pride: The hostile lion pride living in the Outlands were banished by Simba because they refused to swear off their allegiance to Scar. Their leader Zira was Scar's lover and is still actively seeking to avenge him. Of course, they were nowhere to be seen in the first film, and the fact that Scar didn't have a mate was actually a minor plot point (Scar convinced himself that the reason the pride was unhappy was because he hadn't secured the succession, rather than because he was running Pride Rock into the ground). Things get more complicated because Zira's son Kovu, while being raised as Tyke-Bomb by her to kill Simba, genuinely falls in love with Simba's daughter Kiara.
  • My Little Pony: The Movie (1986): The six Grundles are all that's left of their people after the witches succeeded in destroying the kingdom they once lived in.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • April 9th: The main cast keep trying to Hold the Line against the invading Nazi's for several hours after their government has actually surrendered. Truth in Television.
  • Air Force One: Big Bad Ivan Korushnov and his henchmen are former soldiers of a deposed dictator who refuse to accept the collapse of his regime and try to force his release by hijacking Air Force One.
  • In Apache, Massai refuses to surrender when Geronimo does, and escapes to wage a one-man war against the US Army. He regards himself as the last Apache warrior, and even refers to himself as "the last true Apache" at one point.
  • At Home Among Strangers involves a White Russian bandit gang, some time after the Whites have been decisively defeated by the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War, still roaming the Russian interior, robbing trains. There are still some true believers, but bandit leader Brylov recognizes that the war has been lost, the Bolsheviks are victorious, and there's no point fighting them anymore.
  • In The Burmese Harp, a Japanese POW is tasked by his British captors with getting a Japanese unit holed up in a cave to surrender, since Japan has surrendered and the war is over. The POW fails, the Japanese in the cave refuse to give up, and they are annihilated. The POW eventually stays in Burma as a monk, helping locate and bury all Japanese dead, vowing to only return to Japan once he's finished.
  • Bane's army in The Dark Knight Rises represents the remnants of the League of Shadows, a sinister organization decimated by Batman in the first movie of the series.
  • The Day of the Triffids: The crews of several navy submarines avoid being blinded because they are submerged when everyone else loses their sight and broadcast radio messages to alert survivors that they're willing to ferry people to safety.
  • DC Extended Universe:
    • In Man of Steel, Zod and his followers position themselves as the sole remnant of the Kryptonian civilization and seek to restore it. They're also the only ones left of Zod's Civil War army, the Sword of Rao.
    • In the Bad Future seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder's Justice League, Batman, Cyborg and Flash are the only Justice League members who are still alive (Darkseid and/or evil Superman wiped out the rest). They are joined by Mera, and even by two members of Batman's Rogues Gallery, Deathstroke and the Joker. It is safe to assume everyone else that they knew has perished.
  • The villains in Dead Again in Tombstone are Col. Jackson Boomer and his gang of Confederate renegades who are seeking the horn of Lucifer in order to raise an undead Confederate army.
  • Die Hard:
    • Col. Stuart and his team of mercenaries from Die Hard 2 who think their government backed the wrong side.
    • Another example would be Simon Gruber's unit of East German Special Forces from Die Hard with a Vengeance, who were trained to speak fluent English for infiltration operations and were disbanded after the Soviet Union fell.
  • In Gladiator, the Germanic tribes who refused to bow before the might of the Roman empire's legions. Unusually for such a trope, though they are clearly the antagonists to Maximus' protagonist, Maximus shows respect for their capabilities, sympathy for them, and seems to hope that Rome wouldn't give up even against such hopeless odds. Also is Truth in Television.
  • In Gun Fury, Frank Slayton's gang is made up of former members of the Army of Northern Virginia. Slayton tells Jennifer that, unlike for her fiance Ben Warren, for him the war never ended.
  • In Gunsmoke: The Last Apache, Wolf refuses to surrender alongside Geronimo and the rest of the Apache, and vows that he will die as an Apache warrior.
  • In Hangman's Knot, a Confederate Major and his troops are falsely led to believe the Civil War is not over, and become wanted men after they attack a Union Army wagon train in Nevada.
  • The Horde: There’s mention of a French military base holding out and taking in survivors in the countryside that the character talk about reaching during the Zombie Apocalypse, although they spend all of the plot busy trying to break out of the apartment building they’re trapped in, so the audience never actually see it.
  • Indiana Jones:
  • Iron Sky: The antagonists comes from a Nazi moon base that emerges to attack Earth during the 21st century.
  • The Last Flight of Noah's Ark has two Japanese soldiers on a lost island decades after World War II. Once they are convinced the war is over, they turn out to be pretty nice guys.
  • Last of the Dogmen: The Cheyenne Dog Soldiers have been living in the unexplored Montana wilderness for 128 years since they fled the Sand Creek Massacre, and have had no contact with the modern world beyond a few violent encounters with intruders.
  • In The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice, the bad guys are ex-KGB, who are pissed at the fall of the USSR and seek to revive the old superpower by raising a vampire army. Little do they know that the old decrepit professor they're dragging along is Dracula himself.
  • The Living Dead Series:
    • Dawn of the Dead (1978). A National Guard unit is briefly seen intact in the countryside, effectively fighting the zombies alongside of the local farmer. There also appears to be some form of central authority (represented by Dr. Rausch) giving emergency broadcasts to anyone still listening for several weeks after the initial outbreak overruns the cities.
    • Dawn of the Dead (2004). Local military base Fort Pastor holds out for a while, providing a Safe Zone Hope Spot.
    • Day of the Dead (1985) features a handful of soldiers still guarding the Sole Surviving Scientist team, but by the movie's beginning, their are fed up by the lack of progress, and almost all of them turn on their civilian charges by the end.
    • Diary of the Dead. All of the military officials who the main characters encounter in the film have deserted by that point, with one group being holed up inside a warehouse of food. Another group is driving through the countryside and robbing the main characters, possibly due to believing that they've been looting themselves. A more traditional group, containing four men wearing Hazmat suits and plexiglass masks posts a video online of themselves searching houses for survivors, and gunning down some Zombie Advocates they encounter.
  • Long John Silver: When Silver and Jim arrive return Treasure Island, they find Israel Hands and a handful of pirates who survived the events of Treasure Island (1950) are still stranded on the island, and out for revenge.
  • In Missing in Action, Braddock rescues former ARVN soldiers still held as POW's. Despite their years of captivity, they vow to continue fighting the Communist regime.
  • One Battle After Another: Most of the French 75 leftist militia are killed or arrested at the end of the prologue, with most of the few survivors who remain active in large groups going from raiding detention facilities, robbing banks, and terrorizing Strawman senators with bomb threats to making pirate radio broadcasts, growing weed, running a call center, and providing other logistical aid for the illegal immigrant Underground Railroad.
  • In Outpost, a team of mercenaries are hired to scope out an old World War II bunker in war-torn Eastern Europe at the behest of a mysterious scientist. It soon becomes apparent that the bunker was a secret research facility into reality-bending experiments done by the Nazis... and that the bunker's last garrison might not be as dead as they should be.
  • In Rio Conchos, Colonel Pardee, an embittered former high-ranking Confederate army officer, has set up a stronghold camp and wants to revive the war against the Union Army. Pardee's plan is to sell arms and ammunition to the Apaches and have them do the fighting.
  • In The Scavengers, a gang of Confederate renegades takes over a frontier town two months after the war has ended, intending to rob a Yankee gold shipment. It seems most of the men are not aware the war has ended, but their commander Captain Harris certainly is.
  • The First Order in Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a successor of the original Galactic Empire; note that the Legends continuity already had done something similar, as shown in the Literature page. Thanks to some drastic actions on their part, the First Order manages to step out of this shadow by the sequel. It's strongly implied that they were deliberately playing this up so the New Republic wouldn't realize they were a genuine threat until they'd already finished their build up and attacked their now-demilitarized conquerors. In a twist to this, the First Order wasn't simply a remnant, but rather, a shadow of an even greater threat—Darth Sidious' Final Order, a new Empire under Sith rule. Confirmed in the Before the Awakening novel that says the New Republic know that the First Order are villainous but can't legally attack them without proof so they secretly funnel resources to Leia's Resistance group.
  • The Damned (1947) is about a group of Nazis and Nazi collaborators who flee to South America in a U-boat in April 1945, hoping to set up The Remnant as German defeat looms in Europe. When a German cargo ship encounters the sub and tells them that Germany has surrendered and the war is over, the Nazi Party functionary in charge of the submarine promptly torpedoes the cargo ship.
  • The Dead (2010): Several African army units continue operating, trying to gather survivors to take to various citadels, or protect their home villages, well after central authority has collapsed.
  • The Matrix Reloaded: The film reveals that Zion has repeatedly been wiped out, save for a few dozen survivors who are allowed to become this, rebuild and go to war with the machines all over again.
  • The aptly titled The Undefeated starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson dealt with a group of Confederate soldiers who chose to move to Mexico and offer their support to Emperor Maximillian.
  • Wag the Dog: The protagonists attempt to invoke this by creating a soldier character, who is not aware the fictional war has ended. Things go further off the rails, when they pick the wrong person to portray him.
  • Captain Jim West fights ex-Confederate terrorists at the start of Wild Wild West.
  • Willow: Airk is introduced leading the remaining soldiers of a kingdom (which has been conquered by Bavmorda) in a last ditch battle. Many scenes later, it's revealed that he lost that battle and has gone into hiding with his last few dozen soldiers before Willow recruits them to help fight Bavmorda in the climax.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Before Rikidozan founded the JWA, it was hard to find any pro wrestling in Japan outside of a few, small, dedicated clubs. Since JWA was a men company, The All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling Club was the cornerstone of an association set up to oversee multiple women's pro wrestling companies after the WWWA stopped by on their world tour and proved women wrestlers could draw. The association's board couldn't make anyone do what it wanted however, and every company associated with it died, save one mostly kept alive by continuing to host WWWA and the wrestlers of couple other foreign companies. The remnant "Zenjo" grew to become Japan's first mainstream women's pro wrestling company as The Beauty Pair got over, then became the one of the most successful pro wrestling companies ever with The Crush Gals. Still, when the WWWA shutdown Zenjo made the WWWA titles its top ranking championship belts as a nod to Zenjo's origins.
  • The National Wrestling Alliance lost the ability to compete with any of the national promotions that arose from the territorial system in 1994. It was, in fact almost completely forgotten in its own home country by 1996. The company had been around since 1948 and by 94 there wasn't a member that had been extant in 1989. But even as a shadow of its formers self, the NWA never stopped operating and finally succeeded in establishing itself in Europe, as well as finding viewers in Africa and Asia to be surprisingly loyal. In 2010, it even made an ever so slight resurgence, reminding people it was still around through internet streaming. Even after a leadership shakeup caused more members to leave in 2012, it undauntedly launched an invasion of one of it's largest and most successful former members, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, the next year.
  • Carolina Wrestling Federation Mid-Atlantic is the last remnant of Wrestling Superstars Live, which itself was the last remnant of the American Wrestling Association. There are other pieces of the AWA floating around in Australia and Japan, most notably in Pro Wrestling ZERO1, but those are cases of foreign companies snatching up material as AWA and then WSL collapsed with noisy thuds while CWF M-A was active when the latter fell and CWF M-A survived said fall.
  • Wrestling Association R was the last surviving remnant of Super World Of Sports, a Japanese promotion so powerful it threatened New Japan Pro-Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling by itself but was propped up by eyeglass company Megane Super and had all the problems that implied. However, when All Japan was nearly killed off by the NOAH exodus, Genichiro Tenryu begrudgingly merged WAR back into the now Mokoto Baba ran All Japan.
  • The Heartland Wrestling Association was the last remaining remnant of what was once the largest pro wrestling promotion in the world, WCW, sending trainees that would have gone straight to WCW out to the wider world. When the HWA folded in 2015, some declared WCW "officially dead".
  • After the CZW conflict was officially settled by Homicide, CZW's Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli and Necro Butcher continued to cause problems at Ring of Honor shows.
  • The Apache Army were the last of several FMW remnants, spending most of their time invading other promotions before FMW's official revival.
  • Kinya Oyanagi of Toryumon's first gimmick was that of a Japanese holdout soldier. You'd be amazed how many ways a salute can be used offensively.

    Radio 
  • Used as the punchline for the version of Douglas Adams 'Kamikaze' sketch that was broadcast on BBC comedy show The Burkiss Way in 1977:
    Pilot: I stand by what I said! We shouldn't be doing this at all, Sir! All this flying out and crashing into British and American ships — It's all wrong, sir!
    Commanding Officer: Wrong, Simpkins? Give me one good reason why it's wrong!
    Pilot: Well — The war ended thirty-two years ago, Sir!
  • Hilariously inverted in the The Men from the Ministry episode "Something About a Soldier": General Assistance Department finds out that the demobilization order of Burgenhead Light Infantry was accidentally lost under the file cabinet in 1945, and that 20+ years later the troops, located deep in Welsh wilderness and having their communications cut off, are still under the belief that the Second World War is going on and that a German invasion might be imminent. When the Bavarian Birdwatching Society arrives from the east at their stations the Major of the unit immediately assumes that rest of Britain has been overrun and tries to assault the German tourists.
  • The Navy Lark:
    • In "Going Dutch", Troutbridge ends up in Holland, where the crew discovers a U-boat full of Nazis who are unaware that they had lost World War II. As the episode aired in 1959, fourteen years after the war had ended, the question was raised of how they managed to get supplies for that long, which was revealed to be Ingeborg Pertwee, yet another member of the Pertwee family.
    • On the other side of the war is Charlie and Martha Granthemum from "The Cornish Exercise", a Cornish couple who refuse to believe the war is over until told by Neville Chamberlain. During a Naval exercise, they mistake Sub-Lieutenant Phillips and the rest of the Troutbridge crew for Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis, so they imprison the lot of them in their larder.

    Roleplay 
  • For The Tyrants Fear Your Might: The Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade (VdCB) is a stay-behind unit of the Democratic Federation which continues to fight the Compact after the fall of the DemFed and the elimination of the vast majority of its other remnants long ago. After the restoration of the Democratic Federation they become part of their armed forces once again as special forces.

    Tabletop Games 
  • 50 Fathoms: The Kraken Fleet's only city has been destroyed, their once proud navy is down to one Great Ship, and their leader, Grand Admiral Caspian, was crippled in the last fight against the Big Bad. It hasn't stopped the remaining Kraken from trying to find ways to fight the Big Bad, and win this time.
  • BattleTech: Even after their annihilation there are still small elements of Clan Smoke Jaguar who pop in and out occasionally.
    • The Spirit Cats are the remains of Clan Nova Cat, who were destroyed by the Draconis Combine.
    • Despite Republic of the Sphere propaganda, the Word of Blake was never entirely annihilated. The survivors are assumed to have made a suicidal bid to attack the Clan Homeworlds, are enjoying retirement on the remaining Hidden Five, or masterminding round two for the Jihad. They are something of a bogeyman for the Inner Sphere: still possessing their most elite troops, a self-sufficient industrial infrastructure, and the setting's planet killing weapon.
    • The survivors of the Wolverine Annihilation fled the Clan homeworlds and are confirmed out-of-universe to have been the mysterious Minnesota Tribe, responsible for a number of sudden attacks in the Inner Sphere not long after the Clan's supposed eradication. Where the survivors went after that, what their descendants have been doing in subsequent eras, and where they are now is unknown both in- and out-of-universe.
  • Deadlands: The supplement South o' the Border includes the San Patrico Battalion: a group of Americans who fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War and who now roam the badlands of the Confederacy and northern Mexico.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Eberron:
      • Some warforged (sentient soldier-golems) act like this after the end of The Last War has left them without a place in the world. All the sides are technically at peace, but one of the main aspects of the setting is that the peace is so fragile that any kind of major incident (which the player characters will no doubt get involved in) could start another war. The biggest Remnant among warforged is led by the charismatic Lord of Blades.
      • The Order of the Emerald Claw are Karrnathi zealots that were once the pride of Karrn's military but have now been branded outlaws and terrorist. This is also a Subversion, as the Order is actually the military arm of the Blood of Vol and are used as spies, saboteurs, and agents provocateur throughout Khorvaire. And then Double Subverted, as some supplements point out that much of the Order's rank-and-file don't realize just how strong the ties to the Blood of Vol really are, and genuinely believe they are Karrnathi patriots continuing to fight the war on Karrnath's behalf even if the Karrnathi state refuses to (or in some cases believes that the Karrnathi state's public opposition to the Order is all a case of Plausible Deniability to allow the Order to strengthen Karrnath's position without inviting reprisals against Karrnath).
    • Forgotten Realms: The Shade Enclave of Thultanthar is an interesting example. The Netheril Empire pretty much collapsed entirely in the event known as Karsus' Folly, which destroyed all their major cities. Thultanthar survived by being thrown into the Shadowfell, where it remained for millennia, until events preceding the cataclysmic Spellplague shifted it back. Being an Empire, they went to work rebuilding in the most imperialist fashion. The enclave was destroyed permanently by Elminister during the Second Sundering.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The Chaos Space Marines, who after losing the Horus Heresy continue to wage war against the forces of the "False Emperor" ten thousand years later. And because many of them took refuge in the Eye of Terror after losing the civil war, some of the veterans of the Siege of Terra literally have been fighting the Long War for millennia on end.
    • Roboute Guilliman, who had been cut off from the rest of the Imperium during the Heresy, set up the "Imperium Secundus" centered on Ultramar in an effort to carry out the Emperor's ideals. When they regained contact and learned the Emperor was still alive and leading the defense from Terra, Guilliman ditched the idea and made all haste towards the other Loyalists.
    • The militaristic Craftworld Biel-Tan still tries to reconquer the galaxy for the Eldar race. The Dark Eldar sees itself as the remnant of the original Eldar empire.
    • As of 7th Edition's "Gathering Storm: Fall of Cadia", Abaddon's Thirteen Black Crusade resulted in a victory for the forces of Chaos and the complete destruction of Cadia. The Cadian Regiments still exist as a fighting force due to evacuated civilians and other deployments across the galaxy but Cadian recruits will be a bit hard to come by now...
    • Necromunda: The Ash Waste nomads are believed to be the last remnants of the human civilization that inhabited the system before the coming of the Imperium and were driven into marginal wastelands when their capital world fell, although accounts differ over whether they descend from the ruling classes or the underclasses. Either way they've evidently got a lot of old grudges with the people that rule their planet now, and are deeply hostile to anyone crossing the planet's desert basins.
  • Warhammer Fantasy Battle:
    • As revealed in the "Storm of Magic" book, the Fimir were once the primary servants of Chaos, only for the Dark Gods to switch their attention to the humans and leave the Fimir hanging. As a result, the most Fimir you are ever likely to see in an army is two, and that's only in Storm of Magic games.
    • When the Old Ones first came to the world, the planet was a glacial wilderness home to a number of preexisting species and civilizations, and a major part of the Old Ones' plans were thus dedicated to wiping them out in order to essentially clean the board for their own projects. The majority of these species were obliterated by the Old Ones' arcane might and armies of Saurus warriors, but a few fragments and relic populations managed to endure into the present. The main ones in this group are the dragons, who endure in scattered holdouts across the world, and the dragon ogres, who survived by pledging themselves to Chaos but became sterile in the process.

    Theater 
  • A Very Potter Musical: Voldemort is defeated at the end of the first play. The sequels reveal that the Death Eaters are carrying on their evil schemes without him, though the final installment has Voldemort resume leadership... sort of.

    Webcomics 
  • The B-Movie Comic features an old Nazi garrison on the island of Toblerone.
  • The Order of the Stick: After the fall of Azure City, Haley and some paladins from the Sapphire Guard form the Resistance/Azure City Underground/whatever. Most of it is destroyed by Redcloak later on.

    Web Original 
  • Ad Astra Per Aspera: Common, but usually not very important. The Batavian Soviet Republic is the main remnant of the USSR, and the Platte system is home to various German successor states.
  • Kentucky Fried Politics: After the 1975 Chinese Civil War ends with a victory for Deng Xiaoping, a pair of Generals loyal to the defeated Lin Biao retreat to Manchuria with their forces. A few months after the war's end, they steal a couple of nukes, and threaten to use them on Beijing if Xiaoping doesn't surrender the country to them. Xiaoping's forces manage to disarm the nukes, then storm the rebel Generals' base and kill most of their faction.
  • Magic, Metahumans, Martians and Mushroom Clouds: An Alternate Cold War: After the Spanish Civil War that breaks out in response to Francisco Franco digitizing his mind in order to stay in power forever, Franco and his loyalists are reduced to a single fortified compound in the Pyrenees — too secure for enemy forces to take, but leaving them without the resources to attempt to retake the country.
  • Marble Kingdoms 10: The Green kingdom is the second to fall, leaving behind only one survivor of the siege on its castle. That survivor is Agobard the Knight, who spends a considerable amount of time afterwards cutting down enemy armies by himself before he finally meets his own end.
  • Reds!: A Revolutionary Timeline: After the end of the Second American Civil War and the victory of the Communists led to the establishment of the Union of American Socialist Republics, a reactionary and quasi-fascist insurgency called the Sons of Liberty continues to fight them, with some support from the government in exile in American Cuba, until they're completely suppressed by the UASR during WWII.
  • The Ruins of an American Party System: Following the Soviet Union's sweeping victory in the Second Great European War, Germany is reduced to just the Rhineland.

    Western Animation 
  • The Archer Season 6 opener, appropriately enough titled "The Holdout", has Archer encounter Kentaro Sato, a Japanese officer defending an isolated island in the South Pacific decades after the Second World War ended. He only finds out the war has ended by stealing Archer's smartphone and looking up old newsreels which displayed the dropping of the bombs on Japan, although Archer reunites Kentaro with his still-alive family. When trying to convince him, Archer shows him, among other things, an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man dealing with the exact same situation, even saying that it's "this exact thing we're doing right now."
  • Ben 10:
    • A variation in Ben 10: Alien Force, in the episode "If All Else Fails": a Highbreed commander had been chosen when the war still raged to stay in a hibernation-like state on Earth, to awake only should his kind lose the war. An earthquake awoke him however, and thinking he was woken up due to the Highbreed losing the fight (which was actually resolved peacefully), the commander unleashed a fail-safe doomsday weapon on all of humankind. It wasn't until the new Highbreed Supreme briefed him on the situation and ordered him to stop the weapon that he ceased acting as an antagonist to the main cast.
    • The Forever Knights were Ben's oldest enemies, but in the Grand Finale of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien they were wiped out helping Ben save the Earth. Because of Joker Immunity, a small handful of them continue to menace Ben in Ben 10: Omniverse under the command of the new Forever King Dr. Joseph Chadwick, a Mad Scientist who previously worked for Sir Patrick's faction back in Alien Force.
  • Captain Planet and the Planeteers: In "Mission to Save Earth", the Planeteers come to an island and stumble upon Commander Clash. This soldier had been assigned to guard the island and prepare for a possible invasion of America by the Soviets. After they manage to convince him that the Cold War has been over for a while, he goes into a Heroic BSoD when he realizes his superiors had long forgotten about him and he had been fighting for nothing. Clash eventually finds a new purpose in helping the Planeteers protect the Earth from pollution and such.
  • The Deputy Dawg Show: In one short, the gang encounter an old Confederate soldier causing trouble who thinks the war is still going on.
  • In Exo Squad, after Terran retake Venus, some of the Neosapien garrisons become guerrillas, hoping that Phaeton would send more reinforcements to rescue them. The reinforcements never reach the Venusian surface. More directly, the Exo Fleet itself, having been deployed to the Outer Planets when the Neosapiens launched their conquest of the Homeworlds, continues to carry the fight for several years after the government they were loyal to had been disbanded, despite suffering several major defeats in their early attempts to liberate Earth.
  • Final Space: In "The Hidden Light", it's revealed that the Arachnitects (the benevolent engineers of the universe's creation) send hundreds of their own kind into Final Space to act as sentries against Invictus and the Titans' efforts to get out. But the Titans broke through their defences and slaughtered them, leaving only three Arachnitects alive in hiding, and the Lord Commander kills them too when he finds them.
  • Gargoyles: In "Sentinel", during the "World Tour" story arc, Goliath, Angela, Bronx, and Elisa Maza reach Easter Island (Rapa Nui) during the present and are opposed by an extraterrestrial "sentry" named Nokkar who was stationed there to watch for signs of an invasion by a hostile alien force. He has continued to do so for several centuries, and it has been that long since he received word from home. Elisa notes that for all he knows, his people's war ended eons ago and he is the Last of His Kind.
  • G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero:
    • "The Great Alaskan Land Rush" features a Hidden Elf Village of Alaskan cossacks, descended from the crew of a ship that got lost when Russia owned Alaska and later decided to remain separate from the outside world. They initially take the Joes prisoner in the name of the long-dead Tsar Alexander II, but ultimately work with them to thwart Cobra.
    • In "Raise the Flagg", a Cobra cook has spent months trapped in the eponymous sunken ship, managing to recycle air and grow food with the help of several robotic soldiers. He believes that he is the last survivor of Cobra and is determined to keep the organization alive. This goes out the window when he learns that 1) Cobra still exists at the same strength as before and 2) they never sent any rescue parties to see if there was anyone left alive on the Flagg (only diving down to the wreck for an unrelated salvage job). His dedication to preserving and following Cobra rapidly vanishes.
  • The Godzilla Power Hour: The Calico discovers a perfectly preserved WW1 era U-Boat trapped in Arctic ice. The crew, upon exiting suspended animation sometime after the ship is freed, still think the Great War is still happening and fire upon the marked American vessel. The usually villainous aspect of the trope is averted soon after however, after the U-Boat captain and first-mate board the surrendering Calico and are shown future technology. While shocked, they realize the Calico crew is telling the truth, immediately call off hostilities and apologize for the misunderstanding. The ending of the episode has them looking forward to returning to a new peaceful Germany.
  • Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures: In "The Spectre of the Pine Barrens", it is revealed that during The American Revolution, a Redcoat named Rodney stole the original Declaration of Independence and demanded a ransom of 12,000 pounds from General George Washington. The Founding Fathers didn't tell Washington about this, but sent a Minuteman named Williams to steal the document back (not knowing that he was sent on a suicide mission by his superiors to keep him from revealing the truth while they copied the Declaration). Williams and Rodney began a feud in the Pine Barrens, cut off from civilization and unaware that the war ended. To keep their family lines and feud going, they would dress up as The Jersey Devil and kidnap children once in a while. In the present, Team Quest gets involved and attempts to convince both sides that the war is over and their feud is pointless. In the end, the Minuteman Josiah's wife, Sarah, who was weary of the neverending war, ends up Taking the Bullet for a Redcoat. She survives, and the act causes both groups to reconcile.
  • The Legend of Calamity Jane: In, "I'd Rather be in Philadelphia," a group of Confederate soldiers still fighting the Civil War plan to assassinate President Grant and re-start the conflict.
  • In the Looney Tunes cartoon "Southern Fried Rabbit", Yosemite Sam was told to guard the Mason-Dixon Line and is still doing so... in 1953. On being told by Bugs Bunny that the War Between the States has been over for nearly 90 years, he responds "I'm no clockwatcher!" and that he will never stop unless he gets new orders from General Robert E. Lee (which is of course impossible, as Lee is long dead) before trying to blast the rascally rabbit.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Queen Solaria's army was enchanted with a spell to make them stronger in order to fulfill her goal to destroy all monsters. However, this enchantment also suppressed any fear, foresight or conscience, which led to these super-soldiers recklessly throwing themselves into deadly situations. Mina Loveberry is the last surviving member of the Solarian army, and she's determined to complete their mission.
  • Star Wars:
    • Star Wars: The Bad Batch: During "The Solitary Clone", a Battle Droid battalion led by Governor Ames of Desix, a former Separatist planet, take Grotton, the newly appointed Imperial governor, hostage until the Empire leaves Desix alone. Fortunately for Grotton, help arrives in the form of Crosshair, Commander Cody, and a squad of Clones, who defeat the droids and secure the planet for their Stormtrooper successors after Crosshair shoots Ames to save Cody the effort of having to do so in order to appease Grotton.
    • Star Wars Rebels: The third season episode "The Last Battle" centers on the Rebels of Phoenix Squadron going to the abandoned planet Agamar, which had been a base during the Clone Wars, in search of munitions they could use to help the Rebellion. After arriving, they find an army of still-operational battle droids led by super tactical droid General Kalani, who refused the shut-down order issued to the droid armies at the end of the war and is still fighting for the Separatist Alliance. He forces Ezra, Kanan, and Rex to fight him in a staged battle to finally decide the true victor of the Clone Wars, but they join forces when the Empire shows up.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): The Foot Clan are seemingly reduced to this during the 7th season, as they display none of the massive resources they had in earlier seasons. During Seasons 1-5, the Foot frequently used vehicles, mecha and scientifically created mutants. In Back to the Sewer, all that remains are Khan, a bunch of Foot Ninja and a digital clone of the Shredder. To add insult to injury, even Karai and Chaplin turned their backs to the organization.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): 16 years before the start of the series, the Shredder rebuilt the Foot Clan by convincing most of the Hamato Clan members, sans Splinter and their father, to join the Foot. By present day, the Hamato Clan now consists of Splinter and the Turtles, with April and Casey becoming allies and honorary members. With Splinter's death, Leo heads the clan now.
    • Interestingly enough, it was heavily implied the Hamato Clan was this regarding shinobi in general, especially with their victory over the Foot Clan. Tang Shen even notes the end of the age of ninja clans. This certainly casts a new light on why many likely sided with the Shredder.
    • Ironically, the Foot Clan themselves are mostly reduced to this by the end of the series. More specifically, it's been divided into two factions, with Tiger Claw trying to take over Shredder's forces after the latter's death, while Karai established her own faction with Shinigami and hired several mercenaries, intending to regain the Foot Clan's honor (although Tatsu briefly tried to take them from her). For his part, Tiger Claw decided to make a truce with the Hamato Clan once the other remaining lieutenants bail out.
  • In an odd twist on the usual show theme, the Decepticons are the outnumbered La Résistance in Transformers: Animated, fighting to retake their homeland after losing the war the first time around. However, it is All There in the Manual that they technically left by choice, because doing that gave them amnesty for the war-crimes they committed during said war.

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