Bringing people together, one ass-kicking at a time.
"If we join, we can win. If we win, we'll have what we none of us have ever had before: a country of our own. You're the rightful leader, and there is strength in you, I see it. Unite us. Unite us. Unite the clans!"
— William Wallace to Robert the Bruce, Braveheart
In fiction, The Unifier is any character who seeks to unify traditionally feuding factions who share a common identity, sometimes doing so by employing a Genghis Gambit. A Unifier is not necessarily a good or bad character and may employ violence, diplomacy, or both. They are always ambitious, though they are not always selfish, and maybe genuinely concerned for the greater good of their people.
If the unifier is from the setting's past, they are frequently the Founder of the Kingdom, and usually considered The Good King, unlike The Conqueror, whose empire is likely to have collapsed after their death, and is unlikely to be remembered fondly.
If enough smaller powers are unified it may result in an N.G.O. Superpower. May or may not create some Lingering Social Tensions.
Compare Enemy Mine, when two or more sides are united by a common enemy. Even if this character is successful, there may still be some Lingering Social Tensions
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Asteroid in Love: Part of the premise involves two Japanese School Clubs—the Astronomy and Geology clubs—being forcibly merged by the administration for being both Club Stubs. In the beginning, the new Earth Sciences Club looks more like two clubs in the same room, rather than a single entity. It is Mai's effort for being The Heart that make the merged club more like one, other than two clubs. Unlike most examples of this trope, Mai is characterized by her lack of confidence.
- Berserk: Supreme King Gaiseric unified various warring tribes into a single empire that spanned much of the known world (including Midland).
- Kingdom: Ying Zheng is the man who would become known as Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a united China, at the end of the Warring States period. He plans to do so by crushing the other states in military campaigns for the sake of ending war once and for all as a unified nation.
- One Piece: Fishmen have always had a rough history with humans, with there being a lot of Fantastic Racism between them, with humans having constantly bullied and segregated the Fishmen for decades. The Fishmen haven't been too kind either, such as Arlong and his crew enslaving Nami's village, or Hody Jones trying to eliminate every human in existence. That is why Fisher Tiger was hoping to put an end to all of it, and wanted humans and Fishmen to live alongside each other. Unfortunately, he passed away before his dream could be realized. His successor, Jinbe, hopes to carry on Tiger's legacy by continuing what he started in the unification of human and Fishmen. Part of the reason why Jinbe joined the Straw Hats, a crew mostly consisting of humans, was not only to help fulfill his dream, but to prove to the world that Fishmen can live alongside humans.
- Transformers: Cybertron: This is Scourge's backstory. The Jungle Planet spent an unknown timespan consumed with civil strife until Scourge unified it by force of conquest.
Comic Books
- Absolute Universe: Both Absolute Wonder Woman and her Arch-Enemy, Veronica Cale, serve as this in this setting, with Diana serving as the Big Good of the hero community and seeking to gather an assembling of heroes and Cale uniting Ra's al Ghul, the Joker, Hector Hammond and Elenore Thawne into the Absolute Legion of Doom (or rather, the Justice League, as they embody Order Is Not Good), precisely to terminate the so-far separate Absolute superheroes before they also gather into a team.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender - Smoke and Shadow: The Gaang finds the grave of the First Firelord, who united the feuding states of the fledgling Fire Nation under a single banner.
- Black Moon Chronicles: During the war against the Empire, Gredinald (a Tin Tyrant in red armor whose species remains unknown) unites the different orc clans under Haazheel's banner. Due to the circumstances of his birth, he's part orc and was raised by them, so he knows how to beat them into submission.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: The grandfather of a crime lord named Hang Tung united the feuding tongs (secretive organization often criminal in nature) in China by making all their leaders swear fealty to a MacGuffin owned by his family. The plot kicks off when this macguffin is stolen, causing the tongs to descend into gang war.
- Green Lantern: Sinestro successfully assembled an army of criminals under his name to provide a rival force to the Green Lantern Corps.
- Tales of the Jedi: Empress Teta unified the formerly-divided worlds of the Koros system under her rule in a series of wars, with the prequel arc starting as her armies besiege the last remaining pirate fortress in an outlying planet.
- House and Powers of X (2019): in the third act of the mini-series Professor X, helped by Magneto and Moira MacTaggert (retconned to be a mutant), sends a telepathic signal to all mutants, informing them they founded an island-nation for themselves, Krakoa. As shown on panel, the many enemy mutant factions (Hellfire Club, Mutant Liberation Front, Morlocks, Acolytes, etc.) and individual villains pass through a Krakoan gate to arrive on the island. Among them is Apocalypse, one of the X-Men's major BigBads, who shakes hands with Professor X on-panel and congratulates him on this feat.
Comic Strips
- Flash Gordon discovers that the wicked Ming the Merciless keeps a number of satellite worlds under his thumb by having them feud with each other to curry his favor. Flash convinces these satellites, one by one, to set aside their squabbles, and concentrate on forming a mass insurrection against Ming.
Fan Works
- The Dark Below:
- After society collapsed due to the emergence of Quirks, those who had greater power than others started reforming society just by existing. The greatest and most often referenced example is Stormwind. In Japan, where the fic takes place, she was considered an extremely powerful villain. But in Europe, she is called The Great Tyrant who unified the war-torn continent and saved them from themselves, and 200 years later she is celebrated as a hero even though thousands, if not millions, died in her quest for unity. The question "Was Stormwind a Villain" becomes the Arc Words of the fic, because despite her atrocities without her Europe would not exist.
- Izuku becomes this towards the end of the fic, causing a second societal collapse and a war. His exact orders are to unify Japan "no matter the cost", and once again, millions died during it. By the end of the fic the world is better for it, but that end takes place a few centuries after this war.
- The Mountain and the Wolf:
- Mentioned occasionally with regard to Daenerys:
- After Daenerys comes to her senses while setting King's Landing on fire due to a Chaos spell, she flees and doesn't come back until she realizes that without her there, the city will likely fall to anarchy: the Westeros armies will go home, the Dothraki will Rape, Pillage, and Burn everything in sight, and the Unsullied will sail back to Essos.
- The Wolf is certain Daenerys has the potential to conquer the world, having convinced three different armies to follow her (the Unsullied, the Dothraki, and the armies of Westeros that aren't loyal to Cersei). Tyrion disagrees and says she doesn't intend to rule as a tyrant. The argument escalates until the Wolf abruptly leaves so he doesn't reveal he was behind Daenerys torching King's Landing.
- The Wolf himself gets along quite well with the Wildlings, Iron Islanders and the Dothraki (it helps that Warhammer's Norscans and Hung are based off the Vikings and Mongols, like the Wildings and Dothraki), even converting several Ironborn to the worship of Chaos. Once his treachery and ability to teleport is revealed, Jon and Tyrion read a report concerning the inexplicable disappearance of Wildling tribes (combined with the desertion of several Dothraki) and suspect he's managed to recruit them as well.
- Mentioned occasionally with regard to Daenerys:
Films — Live-Action
- Avatar: Jake Sully unites all the Na'vi tribes of Pandora to fight the humans at the end of the film.
- Black Panther (2018): According to Wakanda's origin myth, the first Black Panther was gifted the Heart-Shaped Herb by the goddess Bast, and used its power to unite the tribes of what is now Wakanda, save for the Jabari, who chose to move to the mountains due to disagreements over the use of vibranium.
- Hero (2002) is famous for two things: impressive Wire Fu and reconstruction of Qin Shi Huangdi as the great unifier of China, rather than giving him a standard portrayal as a blood-thirsty tyrant trying to eradicate cultural and legal differences For the Evulz.
- Lawrence of Arabia: Deconstructed. Lawrence succeeds in uniting the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire, but after the Ottomans have been defeated, the Arabs just fall back on their usual infighting, and Lawrence is unable to prevent the European powers from coming in to take control. In the end, the Arabs have merely traded one boss for another, just as Lawrence's superiors intended.
- March or Die: Archeologist Francois Marneau has found the long-lost tomb of "The Angel of the Desert," and insists upon unearthing it. This desecration allows chieftain El Krim to amass the many scattered tribes and clans under his leadership to expel the French from Morocco.
El Krim: And now our tribes are together: Bedouin, Berber, Rif. We will resist all foreigners, until we prevail.
- Ocean's Eleven: Daniel "Danny" Ocean gathers a team of individual gangsters to team up for what is effectively his caper.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Elizabeth Swan becomes this to the pirates when she becomes the Pirate Queen. The setup is temporary but necessary to combat the greater foe of the East Indian Company.
- The Usual Suspects: Dean Keaton assembles a group of generally separate criminals. Or at least, that is what the movie implies at first?
- The Warriors: Cyrus succeeds in becoming a Unifier of the New York underworld...for about a minute.
Literature
- The Beyonders: This is main character Jason's whole function. While only a middling physical combatant, there's something about Jason that draws powerful warriors together and makes them believe they can free the world of Lyrium from the evil Emperor Maldor. He even managed to turn Ferren the Displacer from Maldor's service to his side, much to Ferren's own shock.
- The Callista Trilogy. In Darksaber, Admiral Natasi Daala grew so disgusted with the internecine warfare of the Imperial Remnant that she assassinated all the warlords at once and took over leadership of the Empire.
- Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia acts as the leader for various animals and mythical creatures and gets them to fight for and maintain his ideal Narnia. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he unifies the various "peoples" of Narnia against the White Witch.
- Claudius the God: Claudius believes that Herod Agrippa is one of the few people who, given the chance, could have pulled the disparate nations of the Middle East together into an empire rivalling Rome.
- Drenai, by David Gemmell: Ulric the Uniter has united the various nomad tribes of the Nadir into a massive army that has conquered most of the neighboring states. In The King Beyond the Gate, after Ulric's death, the Nadir have split into tribes once again and Ulric's grandson Tanaka Khan re-unites them into a single nation and becomes the Second Uniter.
- Dune: Paul Atreides uses his status as the Lisan al Gaib (Voice of the Outer World) to unify the Fremen tribes in opposition to the Harkonnens.
- The Grace of Kings: The archipelago of Dara was initially comprised of seven independent states. A few decades prior to the story, Emperor Mapidere annexed all of them into the Empire of Xana in a brutal war of unification. His reign involved standardizing writing systems and units of measurement, as well as employing plenty of involuntary servitude to accomplish his grand ideas. Residents of the other states predictably resent this, and after Mapidere's death the imperial regime quickly begins to crumble. Mapidere is an analog to Qin Shi Huangdi, who united China following the Warring States period.
- Jingo: Prince Cadram is attempting to be this, exploiting the dispute with Ankh-Morpork over the recently emerged island of Leshp and trying to have his brother murdered in a False Flag Operation to persuade all the disparate tribes and local rulers within Klatch to unite against the common foe. His plan completely unravels due to his being outmanoeuvred by Lord Vetinari. The war ends before it's really had a chance to start, taking the alliance he has built up with it, and Cadram is deposed and has to flee the country; it's heavily implied he will be found and executed by 71-hour Ahmed for aforesaid attempted fratricide. Oh, and Leshp sinks again.
- Perry Rhodan: Acting as this for his Cold War Earth is how the eponymous protagonist ends up as head of first its world government and later its interstellar empire. It's something of a rush job involving demonstrations of the power of alien technology (including weathering both conventional and nuclear attacks), finding allies on the sly, and of course eventually "proper" diplomacy once his newly-founded Third Power is finally acknowledged as a thing that now officially exists, but with the goal of getting the world to get its act together while a first contact has already happened on the Moon (and a first proper invasion attempt by unrelated aliens follows soon after), time is understandably at a premium.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Queen Nymeria, the legendary warrior queen who united the Rhoynar people during the Valyrian conquests and led them across the sea to Dorne. Upon arriving, she married Mors Martell and they conquered the rest of Dorne, unifying it as one of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
- Aegon I Targaryen, known as Aegon the Conqueror, was this for the Seven Kingdoms. While the current administration has attempted to downplay his accomplishment a bit, he is still commonly held by the people of Westeros to have unified the kingdoms on the back of his dragon. Despite conventional wisdom, however, he never actually conquered all seven kingdoms; Dorne remained independent for generations after his death, and the North and the Vale both submitted to his rule willingly.
- Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall, has managed to unify the many different tribes of the Free Folk in the Land of Always Winter, and this has the Night's Watch terrified, due to being their enemy for hundreds of years. After a ranging party north goes awry, Jon Snow finds himself with an opportunity to infiltrate and find out exactly why the Free Folk all decided to follow Mance, and when Jon eventually meets Mance, he discovers that the answer is quite simple: Winter is coming, and with it, the Others. Mance united the Free Folk entirely with diplomacy, because he wanted to get them all south of the wall so they could survive, and they proclaimed him the King Beyond the Wall.
- Following Mance's apparent death, Jon Snow fills this role, having been elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and having seen the threat posed by the Others. While there is some initial distrust, the Free Folk are more than willing to serve faithfully if it means fighting the Others and saving themselves, and Jon sends emissaries to Free Folk faction leaders such as Tormund Giantsbane offering safe passage south of the Wall. The Night's Watch, however, do not take kindly to this and there are several small clashes between the former enemies.
- Among the Dothraki, it is said that a prophesied figure known as the Stallion Who Mounts the World will someday unite all the Dothraki into a single khalasar and make the whole world his herd. Daenerys' unborn son Rhaego is believed to be this person, but he is stillborn as part of a magic Equivalent Exchange attempted to save the life of his father, Khal Drogo.
- The Stormlight Archive: The series starts with Dalinar receiving mysterious visions that tell him "Unite them." He is confused and worried about this in equal measure; if this is truly a message from the Almighty, aren't his people already united? On the other hand, the last time his people claimed a divine mission of unification, it started a massive war and was later revealed to be nothing but a lie perpetuated by the priests. Eventually, he decides that not only are his people far from united, but they need to unite with everyone else, including their historical enemies, to face what is coming.
- Manuel Argos in Poul Anderson's Technic History series, who rises after the fall of the Polesotechnic League. After escaping from slavers in the story "The Star Plunderers", he goes on to unite the human worlds, by force when necessary, into the Terran Empire.
- To Reign in Hell: Satan basically gets pushed into this role by the various factions that are uncertain about Yahweh's grand plan and fearful of his calls for sacrifice.
- Warrior Cats:
- During the first series, Firestar unites the four forest Clans and leads them into battle against BloodClan, in Firestar's Quest he re-forms SkyClan by assembling local rogues and kittypets and teaching them about Clan life, he's the one that convinces the four Clans to all work together during the drought, and there's a short play by the authors (written to tie into the 2008 US Presidential Election) where the Clans vote on one cat to temporarily lead and make decisions for all four them during a tough winter and they choose Firestar.
- The Darkest Hour: After installing himself as leader of ShadowClan, Tigerstar unites both ShadowClan and RiverClan as one Clan, calling it TigerClan. He tries to force the two remaining Clans, ThunderClan and WindClan to join him, but they refuse. After Tigerstar is unceremoniously killed by Scourge, TigerClan splits back into its component Clans once again.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: Sherridan and the Rangers have to get various aliens to work against the Shadows.
- The Mandalorian: Both Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze become this during Season 3 as they gather various tribes of scattered Mandalorians for the goal of reclaiming their ruined homeworld of Mandalore from an Imperial Remnant.
- Power Rangers in Space: The series starts with the formation of the United Alliance of Evil, in which Dark Specter has united all villains from the previous seasons, as well as new villain Astronema, under his command with the plan to have them collectively attack and conquer the whole universe.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: The Original Series introduced the historical figure of Surak ("The Savage Curtain"), who got all of Vulcan united under the philosophy of logic and emotional control.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Sisko has to get the Klingons and the Romulans (both who hate each other) to fight against the Dominion. The Founders (leaders of said Dominion) get the Cardassians and Breen working for them.
- Star Trek: Discovery
- In season one, the Federation-Klingon War deals heavily with Klingons trying to unite the Great Houses into one cohesive Empire. T’Kuuvma starts the war and gets the unification, but it’s his sister L'Rell who becomes the true unifier.
- In season three, Burnham learns that Spock’s work to unify the Vulcans and the Romulans was ultimately successful.
- Star Trek: Enterprise: Captain Jonathan Archer of the United Earth Starfleet has to serve as a de facto ambassador to squash petty beefs between the Andorians, Tellarites, and Vulcans, who are extremely distrusting of and antagonistic towards each other, and convince them to come together with humans to thwart the Romulans who have been stealth attacking all four fleets. Archer is later considered a hero and visionary for his role in uniting the four races that would go on to form the United Federation of Planets.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: "The Dauphin": A planet has two warring factions. When a member from each side marry each other and have a daughter, both sides agree to put her on the proverbial throne. Everyone on the ship (and the daughter herself) thinks this idea that she can unite the factions just because of her parentage is absurd.
Tabletop Games
- BattleTech: Ian Cameron is known as the greatest unifier who ever lived in the setting thanks to uniting all six of the states of the Inner Sphere (the Terran Hegemony, the Federated Suns, the Capellan Confederation, the Free Worlds League, the Lyran Commonwealth, and the Draconis Combine) into the Star League. He then tried to unite the four major Periphery powers, the Magestry of Canopus, the Taurian Concordat, the Rim Worlds Republic, and the Outworlds Alliance into the Star League but none of them were interested in joining (as the majority of their citizens were people or the descendants of people who'd moved to the Periphery to get away from the Inner Sphere's governance). This resulted in Ian launching the Reunification Wars, which militarily destroyed the Periphery nations and brought them more or less to heel under the Star League.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Basic Dungeons & Dragons supplement GAZ10 The Golden Khan of Ethengar: The Golden Khan uses diplomacy and alliances to gather the tribes of Ethengar together into a single horde with the intent of conquering the Known World.
- Forgotten Realms
- The orcs in the Spine of the World have a tendency to periodically form into vast hordes when a strong warchief unites them. Though since orcs are Always Chaotic Evil, they usually only stay unified as long as it takes for an adventuring party or even another orc to assassinate the warchief. The Kingdom of Many-Arrows seems to be an exception to the latter rule, though: it was founded in 3rd Edition and remains well into 4th Edition, 100-plus years later.
- Vhaeraun, one of the drow deities, desires to become this; unlike his mother Lolth, who teaches that infighting makes a society stronger by weeding out the weak, Vhaeraun realizes that internal conflict only the drow weaker, and seeks to unify them in order to make drow the dominant race on Faerun.
- Grim Hollow has several; The Valikan Clans were united under the half-orc hero Thorgard who claimed to be the reincarnation of a legendary hero, the Charneault Kingdom was united by the first king Aymeric Noblecoeur after an elven lord made a Heroic Sacrifice to give him the chance, and the three Castinellan provinces were united by Montego Valieda on a mission from an archangel, earning them the title Unifier.
- Magic: The Gathering: Harald, King of Skemfar united the dark and light elves of Kaldheim under his rule, as depicted in the card Harald Unites The Elves
.
- Pathfinder:
- Iapholi is a hero-god of half-fiend origin who encourages unity between the various monstrous races. She's often targeted by assassins who either want to prevent her from uniting the monsters, or desire to make her a martyr for creating an army.
- The evil child-god Walkena is both this and an Absolute Xenophobe; he preaches that all of the peoples of the Mwangi Expanse are brothers and also sees all non-Mwangi peoples as enemies, to the point where he considers trading with or contacting non-Mwangi an act of treason.
- Shadowrun: Daniel Howling Coyote led his tribe of Amerindians out of a concentration camp set up by the U.S. government, then proceeded to reclaim large parts of the nation for the natives of all tribes by performing the "Great Ghost Dance" which was a massive shamanistic ritual that destroyed the armies trying to interfere and brought multiple volcanoes to spit lava as a way of demonstrating the Amerindians' power. In the end, he accomplished his goal of uniting the tribes and founding the NAN (Native American Nation).
- Warhammer:
- Warhammer 40,000:
- The God-Emperor of Mankind fulfilled this role in the background lore. Following the Dark Age of Technology came the Age of Strife, a chaotic period where humanity's worlds, Terra itself included, were cut off and isolated from each other and gradually fell into barbarism. Then, at the end of the 29th millennium, the God Emperor of Mankind finally revealed Himself to the world, leading forth armies of Thunder Warriors (the predecessor to the iconic Space Marines) from His secret base hidden beneath the Himalayas, uniting and subjugating the various techno-barbarian tribes of Terra. He then forged an alliance with the Adeptus Mechanicus of Mars and established the Imperium of Man. Hence began the Great Crusade, as the God Emperor led a great centuries-long campaign to reunify the scattered remnants of humanity across the galaxy and begin a new golden age. It might even have lasted, if the Emperor's own tremendous ego and inability to treat his sons with respect didn't get in the way.
- When the Orks invaded Pech, the tribal leader Anghkor Prok gathered the disparate tribes and kindreds into a unified force to oppose the invaders, and later brokered the Kroot's alliance with the T'au.
- Warhammer Fantasy Battle:
- The Unberogen chieftain Sigmar Heldenhammer defeated eleven other tribes to create the Empire, one of the greatest Human nations in existence. His legendary feats would grant him godhood among Imperial citizens.
- Giles de Breton unified the disparate tribes of the Bretonni to form the kingdom of Bretonnia. Thanks to his sister Rosalind's marriage to Thierulf of Lyonesse and the formation of the Grail Companions, Gilles would crush the invading Greenskin, Beastmen, Undead and Skaven hordes in the Twelve Great Battles, which led to the formation of the Kingdom of Bretonnia.
- Centuries after Sigmar's death, a major plague, a Skaven invasion, and the death of the childless Emperor Mandred Skavenslayer led to the Empire falling into a civil war that led to its complete fragmentation; for a millennium afterwards there was no Empire, but merely a number of squabbling provinces, city-states, and petty empires whose rulers eventually ceased to even claim the full Imperial authority. This lasted until the Great War Against Chaos when, as civilization threatened to collapse entirely under the onslaught of the northern barbarians, a minor noble named Magnus von Bildhofen managed to unite the fragmented lands for the first time in over a thousand years and lead them to victory over Chaos. After the war, the newly-crowned Emperor spent his reign reforming the Empire, creating a newly united state that endured for the rest of the Empire's lifetime.
- Warhammer 40,000:
Video Games
- Age of Empires II: The Genghis Khan campaign, about the Mongol expansion, starts with "Crucible", a mission where the titular character's subordinate unites the Mongol tribes under Khan's rule by accomplishing a bunch of missions ranging from bringing a relic to a tribe's monastery to killing a wolf and telling the tale to another to bringing a herd of 20 sheep to another. In the end, save for the Kara-Khitai and the unfavored tribe in the Nalman-Tayichi'uds conflict, all of the tribes are united under the Khan banner, while (according to the outro) those reluctant to join were boiled alive.
- Dawn of War Winter Assault has the first chapter of the Disorder campaign, where Ork warboss Gorgutz kills every other warboss, thus uniting all of the Orks under his own WAAAGH! out of intimidation. He then pulls these forces tighter by sending them against the forces of Chaos.
- Dragalia Lost: Chapter 11 of the Main Campaign has Luca meeting and befriending Mascula, a pacifist who hates fighting and wants everyone to live to live in peace. When Mascula performs a Heroic Sacrifice by giving Laxi his heart, Luca promises to try to fulfill his wish of uniting everyone regardless of race. As a Sylvan, Luca hopes to unite humans, Sylvans, and other races.This makes Luca a Foil to Agito member Kai Yan, who despises the weak and wants them to be destroyed. In the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, it is shown that Luca is now traveling around the world alongside Sarisse, Laxi, and Mascula (who has since had his body restored). They hope to unite opposing factions around the world so that it may one day know true peace.note
- Dragon Age:
- The Warden in Dragon Age: Origins spends most of the game trying to unite the inhabitants of Ferelden, human, elf, and dwarf, against the darkspawn.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: The Inquisitor brings together disparate groups — mages or Templars, a warrior cult called the Blades of Hessarian, refugees, rescued slaves, and soldiers from various countries throughout Thedas — to combat the work of the Elder One and make one final push against his forces.
- Eternal Darkness: Pius Augustus identifies Charlemagne as a threat to his Ancient’s ambitions, should Charlemagne gain further in power and unite Europe under his banner. Hence the need to ensure his assassination. The episode in question takes place in A.D. 814, the real year of Charlemagne’s death, by which time he had already established the Carolingian Empire and consolidated its power in Central Europe.
- Escape Velocity. In the Auroran storyline in EV Nova, the Player Character eventually unites the forever-feuding Auroran Houses against the Bureau who have been secretly controlling both The Federation and House Moash.
- Fallout: New Vegas: Caesar leads a legion formed from 87 tribes united under his banner.
- Final Fantasy XIV:
- The heroes compete in the Naadam, a yearly ritual of combat that determines which clan leads the Azim Steppe until the next Naadam, for the sake of temporarily uniting the Xaela warrior tribes as a liberation army against the Garlean forces occupying Doma. After defeating the steppe's greatest warriors, the Warrior of Light claims the ovoo and becomes the khagan of the Azim Steppe on behalf of the Mol, giving them a platform to convince the Xaela to fight against Garlemald.
- Eighty years ago, the blessed siblings Gulool Ja Ja unified the divided tribes of Tural, ending conflicts and kidnappings in the wake of the Yok Huy abandoning their imperialistic ways. Gulool Ja Ja has since ruled over the nation of Tuliyollal as the beloved Dawnservant.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Regardless of ending, the war is referred to as the reunification of Fodlan. This makes all of the potential protagonists examples, despite the fact that they're philosophically all opposed to each other to varying degrees. Also, by virtue of the war being a REunification, Great Emperor Wilhelm I and Saint Seiros were both examples in the backstory.
- Genshin Impact: In the backstory, the Raiden Shogun, Archon of Electro, is said to have unified the islands in Inazuma under one rule, by warring against the other local gods as part of the Archon War. It is one of her many references to Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the unifiers of real life Japan.
- Horizon Forbidden West: Chief Hekarro of the Tenakh. Originally the commander of one of the three clans of the Tenakh tribe—the Lowland Clan—he defeated the other two clans originally through force of arms in the culmination of centuries of intercine warfare. However in his moment of triumph he recieved a vision of unity from The Ten at the Tenakh's Sacred Grove (actually a recording of a pre-apocalypse speech from a peace conference following a civil war on display at a museum dedicated to that war, around which the Tenakh built their society). He shifted his approach at that point from imposing his will to building trust and cooperation among the tribes, which served him in good stead fighing off the subsequent Carja Red Raids and the machine Derangement, and led him to end the war with the Carja with diplomacy instead of conquest.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The unnamed King of Hyrule unified the kingdom a short time before the start of the game. It involved a violent war — one in which Link was orphaned and which put him in the care of the Kokiri — but things became much more stable afterward. We get to see Ganondorf swearing fealty to the King early on, but Princess Zelda is rightfully skeptical that the Gerudo leader will truly join this unity.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: King Rauru and Queen Sonia united the various people of Hyrule in the distant past. Rauru was also able to gather the Sages to fight the Imprisoning War against the Gerudo chief Ganondorf, which notably included the Gerudo Sage Ardi and her faction of Gerudo who stood against Ganondorf (the latter of which is shown in more detail in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment).
- Mass Effect
- Commander Shepard spends the better part of Mass Effect 3 gathering practically every military in known space into a unified force to battle the Reapers.
- Aria T'Loak is this trope to a T. By the end she unites three rival factions into the third-largest military body in the galaxy.
- Urdnot Wrex becomes this if he survives the first game. In Mass Effect 2, you find that he's headed back to his homeworld, become leader of Clan Urdnot, and through a mixture of diplomacy and Asskicking Leads to Leadership he's slowly convincing the other krogan clans to join up with him and be something more than just thugs for hire. By the time of the third game, he's got all the clans following his orders.
- Railroad Tycoon II: The scenario "Knitting With Iron" has the player assume the role of Otto Von Bismarck and build up a rail network to help join the various German-speaking states into a single unified nation.
- Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem: Princess Katyia was a legendarily charismatic figure who had ended an era of Forever War between the eponymous seven kingdoms by organizing the first Summit and ushered in the Great Peace a hundred years ago. While each kingdom remains a sovereign entity, the fact that their elites mingle with each other since young age has gradually turned them into a loose confederation — i.e. the unification that Katyia had started is still ongoing and it's up to the player to continue her work.
- StarCraft II is all about the different leaders of every race trying to unite their races for a bigger showdown:
- StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty has Raynor gathering other Terran forces in order to bring down the Dominion though in the end is about saving everyone from the Amon-controlled Kerrigan.
- StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm has the newly-de-infested Kerrigan gathering the scattered Zerg forces after the events of WOL in order to form a strong front with the objective to kill Arcturus Mengsk once and for all.
- StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void has two examples: the first is Artanis taking Zeratul's mission to unite the different Protoss factions in order to reclaim Aiur for the Protoss; the second takes place in the epilogue of the main campaign and is about Kerrigan gathering the Terran, Zerg and Protoss armies in order to put a definitive end to the renegade Xel'Naga Amon and his hybrid armies.
- Stellaris: Marauders, added in the Apocalypse expansion, are enclaves of Space People who never expand beyond their starter systems, but instead mostly raid neighboring systems or accept payment to raid other people. They're more than a match for any early-game fleets, but become irrelevant by the midgame... unless a Great Khan emerges to unify them into a massive horde that will then aggressively expand as far as it can. The Khan is a Visionary Villain who wants their people to become more than disorganized barbarians and, if the Horde is successful enough and weathers the inevitable Succession Crisis after the Khan's death, it may indeed become a stable star nation or federation of nations, exactly as the Khan envisioned.
- Suikoden: The protagonist of any game has the task of uniting dozens of people into an army to take on that game's threat. Many of the characters he recruits would not likely have met under other circumstances.
- Warcraft:
- Warcraft II and its novelization Tides of Darkness: Zul'jin united the forest troll tribes by challenging their leaders in contests or in duels.
- World of Warcraft: The Mogu emperor Lei Shen united all of the warring Mogu factions by eliminating his rivals one by one.
Web Animation
- RWBY: The Great War between the Kingdoms of Mantle, Vacuo, Vale, and Mistral reached its conclusion when the King of Vale led his soldiers while allied with the soldiers of Vacuo, slaughtered countless men and effectively ended the wars between the kingdoms. The rulers of the other kingdoms bowed to the king of Vale by the time the war ended, but the King of Vale refused to rule and instead chose to make a peace treaty to eventually create the Huntsman Academy. It's strongly implied the King of Vale was actually one of Ozpin's past lives.
Webcomics
- Girl Genius:
- Historical example in the Storm King, Andronicus Valois, one of the few people to unite the constantly fighting Sparks and mundane nobles of Europa 200 years ago. His empire collapsed with his death, but the Knights of Jove have been scheming to enthrone a new Storm King, if only his heirs could be stopped from killing each other.
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach is a "modern" example, having seized control of most of Europa less than two decades before the comic starts thanks to the Other killing off so many Sparks at once and leaving massive power vacuums. He's largely benevolent, but ruthless and a big believer in Realpolitik. Even so, after he disappears at the start of the two year Time Skip people start looking back to his reign as a lost golden age.
Western Animation
- The Legend of Korra:
- The series had this principle behind the founding of Republic City by Avatar Aang. The city is a sort of neutral zone where the Earth Kingdom, Water Tribe, Fire Nation and the surviving Air Nomads and Air Acolytes could all co-exist under a government run by members of the four nations, plus a fifth neutral representative of the city itself.
- The main antagonist of the fourth season, Kuvira, works to reunite the feuding states of the Earth Kingdom after the Earth Queen was assassinated in the previous season. While she succeeds, she quickly drops the pretense and declares the newly reunited kingdom the new Earth Empire, shifting from this trope to become The Conqueror. Bonus points for Kuvira being named "The Great Uniter" by her loyalists and followers.
- Miraculous Ladybug: As revealed in "Zombizou", Caline Bustier managed to take her fragmented and factionalized class (jocks, nerds, rich kids, art kids, goths, etc.) and mold it into one of the most cohesive classes at College Dupont, largely through exercises designed to increase bonding and decrease interpersonal conflict. She later manages to parlay these skills into a successful mayoral campaign.
- My Little Pony:
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: As the series progresses, Twilight Sparkle and the Mane Six become this to the rest of Equestria, befriending and forming allyships with non-Pony species until the end of the series, which shows Equestria has become a massive unified land where every creature lives together in harmony.
- My Little Pony (Generation 5): Centuries after the Mane Six's time, Equestria had become divided once more, with the three Pony tribes of Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies isolating themselves in separate locations. By the present day, an Earth Pony named Sunny Starscout had become inspired by the Mane Six's adventures and set out to reunite Equestria once more. By the end of A New Generation, Sunny and her friends successfully convinced the three Tribes to come together and live in harmony again. The subsequent return of magic also turns Sunny into an Alicorn, so she can continue protecting the newfound unity in future installments.
- The Owl House: Emperor Belos has united the Boiling Isles under his rule, and done away with "wild magic" by forcing the population into the coven system, where everyone can only use one sort of magic...except for those he hand-picks to be in his own personal coven, of course. Thanks to a steady stream of propaganda and a lot of fearmongering about wild magic, most of the population thinks of Belos as a firm, steady hand guiding them into unity in a harsh and unpredictable Crapsack World. It's later to all be a fabrication on his part, as he's secretly a witch hunter from the 1600s who's determined to exterminate all of them.
- The Simpsons: "The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed" has Homer Simpson come down with Jerusalem Syndrome, which has him believing that he is a messiah to the peoples. His efforts to unify the quarreling citizens is to put aside their religious differences and unify together towards the shared allowance and love of eating chicken.
Real Life
- In general, most Founders of the Kingdom did this rather than actually found a nation-state from scratch for the simple reasoning that uniting various groups with similar cultures is way easier.
- Qin Shi Huangdi is an interesting case for China. He was absolutely hated for being The Conqueror who ruled with an iron fist over the conquered kingdoms, building The Empire — a legacy that lasted centuries. And yet even his biggest detractors had to admit he managed to unify the country from a bunch of squabbling petty kingdoms.
- Genghis Khan, naturally. The Khan united the feuding Mongol tribes into a single horde and conquering his way from Manchuria to the Caspian Sea.
- The Prophet Muhammad organized the scattered clans of Arabia into an Islamic caliphate that served as the political and religious rival to the Christian West.
- Otto von Bismarck successfully unified German states into the German Empire.
- Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, united Ancient Greece city-states (with his own Kingdom of Macedonia as the leader) into the League of Corinth to wage war against the Achaemenid Persia. Although Philip was assassinated soon thereafter, his son had mostly his old man to thank for passing down the united Greek armies to him and making his famous conquests possible.
- Japan has what is known as the Three Great Unifiers: Tokugawa Ieyasu, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Oda Nobunaga. They are the three leading figures of the Sengoku Period whose efforts end up unifying the warring clans of Japan.
- King Harald I Fairhair of Norway. According to the Kingsaga, he swore to not cut his hair until Norway was under his rule. Modern historians have doubted his existence somewhat, however. If he did exist, he likely didn't rule much of what constitutes modern Norway, but since he held all the major port towns, he didn't have to.
- The Founding Fathers of the United States can be considered this, as they united various colonies with similar cultures to combat a common enemy, the British Empire.
